2017-12-22: Poisoning the Wels

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<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

Out in the wastes, life is harsh. The planet is slowly succumbing and nowhere on Filgaia is it more evident then here. Most of western Ignas is a scar of a landscape.
And yet, as it so often does, life finds a way. Whether it's a straggly plant holding on to the few bits of moisture present in the air, small mouse-like creatures that burrow deep enough into the earth to find a spot they can eke out an existence, life manages.
In some rare spots, it more than manages: it flourishes. Oases, reservoirs, pockets of water -- whatever one wants to call them. For the lucky, they can be found and they exist.

Even if in time they too will deplete and join the slow march of the planet to oblivion's edge.

So it's not that unusual when towns disappear off the map. Typically, the death of a town is a slow process: every year, a little less water, a little less food. Less to offer to those who do come by. A little less money. A little less people, as the younger generation packs up and leaves. A little less everything in time, except abandoned buildings, which the desert soon swallows as it swallows all things.

Sometimes, though, a town dies suddenly. Bandits. Natural disasters. Casualties of war. Lots of things can suddenly end a town.

But hasn't it been strange, lately, that towns have been dropping contact and vanishing all across the desert? For months now, in fact, this has been a demonstrated fact. Some disappearances are unexpected and noted -- larger settlements across a trading route, for instance. Others are so small that they slip beneath the radar: little settlements, barely afloat to start so of course no one noticed. Just background noise, as such endings usually are.

Things, though, are not normal this time.

There have been rumors of monsters capable of devouring settlements. Purported sightings of creatures in the desert. And for those who have explored the ruins, the sightings are truth. There is an infestation in the desert -- 'Reapers' to those familiar with the monsters more typically encountered in Aquvy. Mindless humanoid things that seek only to destroy and devour.

Wels.

This had been a town of moderate size at some point. A mining boom town, Ferrier had enjoyed more substantial success than most new establishments might, particularly with a sizable aquifer located well away from the mines proper.
Ferrier had fallen out of contact with trading routes weeks ago. No one has heard or seen from a single resident of the town since.
Even from the outset, this place looks abandoned. Doors creak limply on their hinges. Dust cakes the sides of the buildings. Here in town, it's quiet.

Just like all the others. Once again, the pattern continues.

And out in the depths of the mines, Something is happening.

There's a thing about Reapers -- Wels -- and that thing is this: they can become as one. Gather enough of them in one place, apply the proper stressors -- food, threats, resource issues, all of which now exist in this abandoned mining town -- and you don't just have a large group of Wels.
You have one giant Wels.

The ground shudders as if tunnels deep in the mines just collapsed, and indeed they have, the earth giving as what has coalesced in the depths claws its way free into the sunlight. Rock rains down in a shower and it flings wide both of its largest mouths and SCREAMS.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdcUjRtCJJw

This is a horror, no doubt about it. And yet this is a horror because it's all-too-human. Hands and feet. Heads. Teeth, eyes. Roughly, its form is humanoid -- see how it crawls free, see how it stands. But it's not right. Parts are joined wrong, joined together wrong.

Once again it bawls, wordlessly.

DC: You switch forms to Skyfallen Gear Skadi!
DC: Avril Vent Fleur switches forms to Skyfallen Gear Skadi!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

It was not too long ago that Layna had thrown herself up against a horde of Reapers along with a pair of other brave combatants. She knew what they could do, and what they were capable of. It had been a difficult battle, but she enjoyed every second of it.

She'd been following news over their movements, and recently, a name had come up - Ferrier. Layna instantly moved to investigate.

And now, on the edge of the town, two Gears stand. Layna's Gear had a tendency to stand out in a crowd. It was a fairly bulky machine, owing to its origins as a mining Gear before she found it and put it through some modifications, and painted primarily a bright red with golden trim.

It earned its name of 'Crimson Corsair' for a reason.

The most notable thing, however, was the giant anchor and chain on its back that served as one of its primary methods of attack. The rest were contained in its other arm...and there were a number of them.

The two Gears arrive on the scene in just enough time to see the giant Reaper burst from the ground, with a loud, terrible scream.

Layna is glad her external speakers weren't active. She could hear it even from within her machine.

"There it is, Captain...looks like our information was accurate. What're your orders?" The other Gear comes in over intercom.

"...I'm goin' in. Victoria, detach and monitor the exterior areas. There might be more of the smaller blaggards out there, and we don't want any more getting in and making this worse. Burn the place to the ground if you have to...and if you see any travelers coming this way, turn them back." Layna orders.

"Aye aye, Captain." With that said the other Gear departs, and Layna advances. It isn't long before she's in firing range, and she points her Gear's left arm - which opens up to reveal a pair of guns on its wrist - at the Reaper.

"Heh...there's so much of you. It'll be embarrassing if this misses..." Layna mutters to herself with a grin before firing off a single shot to get its attention.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with One Across the Bow!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's One Across the Bow for 205 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

"Oh man! It's no Golem, but riding a Gear still sure is neat!" Dean declares, beaming, as he pilots his newly-repaired Gear, which he dubbed the STONERIVEN GEAR NIMROD (so named because he thought it sounded cool), across the desert. It's his first time, so he's still getting used to it, but fortunately Avril's here to help out. Her Gear's been repaired and ride-worthy for longer than his has, and more to the point, she seems to have a better knack for piloting Gears than he does. This doesn't bother Dean; Avril's amazing at a lot of things, and anyway, his true passion is Golems... even if he *is* gaining more appreciation for Gears the longer he works with them. "How's yours handling, Avril? Still good?"

Whatever answer Avril might give, it's cut off by a hideous, ululating SHRIEK that cuts across the desert. Dean jumps in his cockpit, and would probably have banged his head if he weren't a) buckled in b) short. Nimrod turns at his direction, and some hundred yards away, he spies...

"Is that a giant Reaper?!" he shouts. "I think it is! Avril, we've gotta do something about it!" With or without Avril's agreement, Dean sets his Gear to charge. Other Gears have joined in on the fight by the time he manages to cross the distance, opening fire on it with an arrow. Dean naturally assumes whoever it is is an ally, a friend. They're all fighting the enemy; why wouldn't they be?

"HEY YOU REAPER!" he roars across the intercom, having forgotten that loudness and Reapers is a bad mix. "I'm here to take you out!" And not, apparently, to test-drive his new Gear. No, this is what Dean was here to do all along. ...Just go with it. "Get ready! THIS-IS-GONNA-HURT-YOU PUUUUUUUUNCH!!"

GS: Dean Stark has attacked Monster Mash with Lapis Lapunchi!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash guards a hit from Dean Stark's Lapis Lapunchi for 171 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"Everything appears fine. I have not encountered any issues when traveling with this machine. ...Dean, I wonder if this is the right place--"

The scream reverberates through the air, echoing off the rocks. In the cockpit of Skadi, Avril rolls back in a faint wince for a moment before, her expression set grim, she urges the machine to a slow skid of a stop.

"Dean. Did you hear that?"

Acting on little more than rumor -- and a sense of urgency that once again pushed her forward -- Avril had asked they head towards the south. Something wasn't right, she had felt, a sensation that had only grown stronger the further south they went... and the more stories they heard.

It was repeating again, wasn't it. Those creatures from before. Reapers, they had called them.
Wels.

She can see it before them. Hefting the enormous Gear-sized blade, the refurbished Aveh Gear strides forward slowly. As she had said, she hasn't encountered issues with it while traveling, but combat. For combat, this would be the first time.

...Isn't it?

Dean and his Gear rocket forward. Avril doesn't linger long behind. Engaging thrusters, she launches forward right behind him, blade at the ready.

"I am right here behind you, Dean!" she shouts, sweeping into a lunge as she closes on the giant Reaper. "Now, prepare yourself!"

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Monster Mash with Gear Blade - Gambanteinn!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Gear Blade - Gambanteinn for 40 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei recently figured out an idea for how to deal with the Wels but it requires a bit more fenagling than he has the capacity for. For instance, it requires some sort of ... submersable sand vehicle. And that means getting ahold of Bart and actually pinning him down for a conversation. He's a busy guy! So this is about as difficult sometimes as, for example, fighting a giant monster hybrid Wels of doom.

By the by, hearing that Ferrier had gone quiet, well, it made Fei pretty darn nervous...so he invited Lily along to go Wels Busting. And just to be extra safe, they brought the killer robots. If Weltall goes out of control and murders all the Wels, that's like planning your psychotic breaks INTELLIGENTLY. Yeah, man, Fei's got a lid on this.

(He doesn't got a lid on this)

He opens his mouth to send something over the comms to Lily when--

THIS IS GONNA HURT YOU PUUUUUUUUUNCH!

"I guess we're just in time.... and that sounds like Dean." It was loud enough okay?? "Wait is that Aveh?"

Avril doesn't have Dean volume okay???

"Well, we still gotta deal with this so--" He charges in with his own GONNA HURT YOU PUUUUUUUUUNCH!

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Monster Mash with Oh Shit It's Weltall!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Oh Shit It's Weltall for 21 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida's last encounter with Wels went about as poorly as it could without anyone dying. It left a long shadow over her psyche, one that eclipsed her previous successes against them--and it's compounded by the fact that she still has no idea where they're coming from. Nevertheless, when Layna put out the call, Ida answered. It helps that she uses Layna's Gear-staging ground to store her own machine.

The Dust Dragoon is a stocky, well-armored Gear, all hard angles and earthtone camouflage. It was clearly a Trooper-class at one point, though the profile is a little different thanks to some alterations to the armor, and the collapsible mortar tube mounted on its back next to the rifle rack. Ida hasn't sent any transmissions that weren't secure tightband, but she's wearing a bandana over her nose and mouth in addition to the usual Gear-piloting helmet and goggles. This machine assisted in a terrorist attack in Aveh. It would not do for her to become associated with it.

That horrible scream echoes through the Dragoon's cockpit, rattling Ida's nerves. She reaches over to the AWACS, which is still not deigning to cooperate ninety percent of the time, and flicks several switches. The 'Radar' actually decides to work with her, even as 'Infrared' refuses to, illuminating several large moving objects in the area. Most of them are Gears of various makes, but the remaining one...

"Damnation," Ida whispers, under her breath. "It's huge." This is the sort of thing they would send the Ethos after, back home--or the Firedrakes, if Aunt Anna had her way. She flips the encrypter on, clears her throat, and says: "Dust Dragoon to friendlies, I don't see any other Reapers in the area, stop." What are you doing? Do you think this is a telegraph? "Radar is active, I'll do my best to keep you appraised, over." The Dragoon raises an arm, and the deployment mechanisms on its back hiss and whirr. Its rifle rolls up and over its shoulder, landing in its grip flawlessly. Ida takes a moment to sight down the crosshairs that oh-so-cleverly appear in her screen, holding her lip between her teeth as Dean and Avril rush in. "Be advised, opening fire." She fires a single shot, which screams downrange.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Monster Mash with Steady Shot!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Steady Shot for 215 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Towns going silent over night. It's not uncommon. In fact, the investigation and solution of these problems is one of the many ways an aspiring, part-time mercenary can mete out a comfortable living, depending on the danger of the situation. -If- they managed to live. There's no shortage to postings of job offerings of similar situations at the Adventurer's Guild in November City, a fact that some might view as disheartening at best.

And one some others might just see as opportunity.

There is one such posting, of a small mining town gone dark. Rumors of possible, dangerous elements. Reapers, a term most in Ignas seem blissfully unfamiliar with.

Jude Moshe, staring at the job offer with scrunched brows, is not one of those many.

He just happens to be the one only -really- paying attention to the large payment.

"That's a number that says danger if I ever saw one," observes Jude Moshe, astutely. He glances to the metal-wrought bird perched at his shoulder with a hapless smile. "Well. Let's go see if it's as bad as I think it is, huh?"

N o w

"Yep," begins Jude Moshe, staring at the impressive sight of an amalgamated beast built upon a stack of monstrosities that represents his big pay day.

"This is about as bad as I thought it was."

And here, he whistles.

For his impressive foresight.

He's there, towards the back, trailing behind many of the others who have come investigating; the Gear he rides looks like it might have, at one point, been of Kislevi make. But it has been so heavily customized and altered and built upon that it's harrd to say just whether or not anything Kislev even remains in the thing. The Gear, heavily fortified in layers of light gray and tan armor, looks almost more like a tank than anything else, large, cumbersome black plates loaded upon its back like a tortoise shell. The bulky thing skims the surface of the desert, treaded feet churning gouts of sand in its wake as its optics trace upward towards the massive sight beyond. Wailing in that familiar, all-too-human way.

"Of course," Jude begins in a casual lament as he flicks open his machine's weapons systems. All endlessly convoluted, all endlessly familiar to the man who put them together. "Of course the desert wasn't bad enough. Of course. And here I was, just thinking, 'at least it's not as bad as it could be.' Praise be to you, God Above."

Targeting systems lock on. The Gear lifts one heavy hand, and a cannonade explodes from its wrist, a payload of shrapnel bursting forward like shotgun slugs to skewer and debilitate that Wel. Keeping its distance. For now.

"You really know just the right ways to make a man question your existence."

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Monster Mash with Our Cross!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Our Cross for 193 hit points!
GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Out in the wastes, things happen. ...Lily can imagine that things have happened to Ferrier; she doesn't imagine they're good things. On the other hand... Cold logic suggests that if something is wrong out there, it's an opportunity. Maybe Weltall will go out of control again. Maybe not.

But there's a black Gear walking beside it, slim in profile and graceful, for a fifty foot tall robot. Lily herself remains secure in its cockpit, organized, screens ahead of her and lights blinking in the display, her radio working just fine. ....Even if she hasn't had a lot to say yet.

"Probably not Aveh," she answers. "We aren't the only ones who stole from them, I'm sure."

She brings her Gear forward at that, hefting the great glaive in its hand as she goes towards the area of the scream--towards the disgusting, misshapen creature ahead. "...Kind of a problem, this. It was already too quiet. Not good odds on survivors."

Lily doesn't bother with an encrypter. She flicks the radio on and adds, "Hellerune, moving in."

She takes in a deep breath--and a pulse within the cockpit resonates with a glow about her hand, taking hold of the weaponry controls. Hellerune's great weapon shimmers with red light--

And faster than something this huge has a right to move, Hellerune is there, sweeping down in a broad downward arc with its polearm blade, flames erupting all around it. Ether hums in its passing.

The armor plating on this Gear absorbs light; it's easy to lose track of its individual motions, little bits of green showing through here and there beneath the blacks and grays. It's... not of familiar make to most. But Gebler might recognize its style, as might certain workers in Aveh.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Blaze Arc!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash guards a hit from Lily Keil's Blaze Arc for 121 hit points!
GS: Disrupt and Cripple! Statuses applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

Aside from the seeming preference for the flesh of the living, Wels are indiscriminate creatures of consumption and destruction - there is no bottom to their appetite for this. Parts of itself still struggle and shamble free of its former underground prison. If anyone is going to get the jump on this, now is the time.
  The Crimson Corsair sets the stage by firing off rounds from its wrist-mounted ARMs. The amalgamation's attention is grabbed as its shots pierce through the equivalent of its left shoulder and abdomen - at least, the biomass that roughly corresponds to these anatomical concepts. Shots there would disable or debilitate a man.
  This abomination is not 'a' man. What bleeds from the wounds may not be blood. It might be another, smaller Wels body. With the debris and smoke rising around it, it's hard to tell. What is not hard to tell is where it is going - towards the source of the gunfire, ambling and shrieking all the way as it flails its arms.
  To say it 'guards' against the Nimrod's opening fire is a misnomer. The arrow just pierces through the right arm, seemingly unflinching. Another arm flails against the oncoming punch, to a very squishy, wet 'squelch' of steel against Wels flesh. The entire arm deforms, the whole amalgamated body shuddering in shock as it flails its arms back at the Nimrod indistinctly.
  Somewhere in that flurry of flailing, it slaps down the lunging blade from Skadi as it moves in on Nimrod's flank. It is a parry made less of skill and more of an incient of it trying to claw forth with a frightening mix of hand-parts, so many small ones reformed together into one big one, as the length of the arm seems to stretch out longer to claw down against it.
  The feared Weltall, the black Gear recently so attached to ruin and despair, fares little better on the opening forward volley. A raised arm that might be trying for another shot at the Nimrod's top half eats the punch. Weltall's punch puts a little hole through the biomass - a tight one for it to get stuck in, leading to a prospective tug-of-war match as the arm continues to swing and sway towards anything else that gets too close. It's one that Weltall will eventually win, but probably not without being put out of position.
  The Dust Dragoon has a clear shot on the creature while it rages with those moving in to engage it in close range. The shot doesn't get all the way through the bulk, instead poking out some more biomass that seems to be in possession of numerous small heads, and a few waving hands that want to grab hold of something that isn't just 'themselves/itself.'
  The cannonade's skewer makes good from the angle available to its pilot from where it hangs back, stabbing more projectile matter into the shambling beast-made-of-smaller-beasts. For the moment, it seems that keeping it pinned with projectile fire as hand-to-hand combatants engage is as 'safe' a method as can be for this sort of creature.
  The flaming blade of Hellerune sweeps in, washing fire about itself. The fire spreads quickly, and the SCREAMS make the nearby Gear chassis shudder. A much smaller arm formed from looser biomass continues to sweep about recklessly nearby, potentially striking about chest-level for the nearbly Hellerune.
  A new complication quickly arises as the flames spread, wearing away whatever fell force binds all the Wels biomass together. The way it squirms as parts come loose, what does come loose comes at a dangerous velocity.
  And what comes loose... is possessed of hands and mouths themselves, looking to latch on and chew, claw, and crush wherever it can get a grip upon the Crimson Corsair, the Dust Dragoon, and the cannonade-equipped back line shooter.
  They may have the creature pinned and engaged.
  But they do not have them at a disadvantage.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Dean Stark with Flailing!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Flailing!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Flailing!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Flailing!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Flung Wels!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Jude Moshe with Flung Wels!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Flung Wels!
GS: Monster Mash has completed its action.
GS: Jude Moshe guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flung Wels for 195 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flung Wels for 67 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Flailing for 76 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Flailing for 150 hit points!
GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flailing for 91 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flung Wels for 199 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

She had friends here. Good. Layna wouldn't object to taking this thing down alone, but things would go a lot more smoothly if she had some help. She takes a moment to mess with her communications systems. She had them set up for communicating with Gears she was already familiar, but to broadcast to a broader range.

"Aye, Dust Dragon. I read you." Layna replies. She knew the identity of the Gear's pilot, but also knew that Ida would prefer not to be connected to it. Better safe than sorry.

"This is the Crimson Corsair. I've got eyes underground, too." She says, broadcasting to everyone in the vicinity. The Corsair used to be a mining Gear, after all. The system could detect things up to a certain distance underground...even moving things.

The initial volley goes well, but the conglomeration of Reapers doesn't just sit there and take it...and parts come off, attempting to attack whatever remained it.

Layna just grins. The Crimson Corsair reaches for the massive anchor on its back, and with a sweep knocks away the detached Reapers. Some of them make their way through, but it's negligible. The Corsair is a durable machine, after all.

"Moving in to melee range!" Layna calls outs, wading in.

The anchor is swung around, attempting to catch the massive Reaper with the side. And then the Corsair pulls hard, attempting to rip a section of it open. The goal here was not necessarily to inflict damage, but create an opening the others could use to attack the mass more thoroughly.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Black Spot!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

"It was exactly the *right* spot, Avril!" Dean calls back to his best friend. "Man, your intuition's always right on the money! I was wondering why we hadn't heard about any Reapers in a while...!" He's no expert on Welses, but he's had enough experience with them to know that enough of them will combine together into one. Then had a big crowd of them starting... all coming together like this?

It seems plausible enough to Dean, anyway.

More Gears show up. He perks at the sight of Weltall. "Oh hey, Fei! Nice seeing you again! Is that a friend of yours?" He means Lily. He might not have much time for the answer, though, considering Nimrod's punch *squishes* into the Wels, and it's an incredibly gross feeling even though it's a robot arm and Dean's safely inside. He grimaces and attempts to pull his fist back, but the flesh *sticks*, it *clings*, and it leaves him open for its flailing horror-limbs. He at least has a second arm with which to defend himself, but until he manages to get himself out of there, it's super not great.

When another voice suggests he and Avril stand clear, he shoves himself back from the Wels, allowing Ida her shot. "Thanks for the head's up!" he calls to her. "Maybe bullets are the way to go after all. Avril, Fei! Let's do this! RAAAARGH!!" With that roar, he lifts Nimrod's arm, or more specifically the arm-mounted gun it possesses, and opens fire on the disgusting creature as it disassembles itself in its quest to devour anything it can land on, also leaving space for Layna and her Gear's giant anchor.

GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flailing for 90 hit points!
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Monster Mash with Beryl Bullet!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Layna Manydays's Black Spot for 76 hit points!
GS: Break! Statuses applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Dean Stark's Beryl Bullet for 28 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"Mmm..." Avril muses, frowning to herself. "Was it that unusual? We had heard some rumors, but I admit that I did have a strange feeling regarding this one."

Any further thoughts on her guesswork being right again is interrupted. "Ida, is that you? Fei?" With just a few turns of a knob, Avril joins a localized communication frequency. "I am here with Dean. I see we that were not the only ones feeling that something was amiss. Please, take care. This one seems unusual."

Untargeted as it may be, the conglomerate arm still slaps her blade -- and her Gear -- aside. Though a standard-issue Aveh Gear in most respects (where Shalune hasn't done her magic) it's still more than sufficient to send Skadi skidding backwards, a tight turn and realignment still necessary to reorient herself in regards to their opponent.

It feels like the Gear handles too slowly to her, somehow.
And yet, it also feels like it handles exactly as it should.
...As it usually has?

It's a strange thought, and one that Avril shunts to the side as she refocuses on the looming mass before her. Lifting the Gear's blade to angle diagonally across Skadi's chest, she settles the machine back into a guarded stance, waiting and watching.

"Dean," she announces across communications, "Everyone. Be careful. I feel as if something is not right."

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Iris Guard!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: You do not have any attacks from that person in queue.
GS: Shield! Statuses applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

"Great," Jude Moshe declares again as he sees -parts- of the Wel come loose. Whole parts. Whole entire Wels of parts. The look in those amber eyes are one of familiarity and experience that contrasts the lopsidedly exasperated smile that decorates the erstwhile reporter's lips, gloved hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Well... guess this makes things simpler, in a hellish kinda way." An entire Wel looses itself from the writhing, gibbering thing's limbs, flung like a cannonball. Jude grips upon the controls of the Elymas, amber eyes narrowing.

"Always look on the bright side, right--"

KROOM

This is the sound of a screaming Wel colliding face-first with the guarded forearms of the Elymas. The impact alone is enough to drive the bulky Gear backwards in spite of its mass; the Wel's head literally explodes across the reinforced braces of those metal limbs, sheering off tan plating. But even that is not enough to end the piece of the gestalted beast, and its flailing limbs carve and tear through armor with reckless, fearful abandon like a mindless engine of violence. Within the cockpit of his Gear, Jude heaves a sigh. He pulls back on those controls...

... and the Elymas rears backwards before pounding sand with its fists, aiming to swat the remains of that voracious Wel into the grit beneath them until it is just a smear of... something on grains of sand.

"Off to a good start," he decides, before opening lines of communication. Others are here, after all -- the more in the know they are, the more likely he is to complete his job and -not- die. Simple logic.

"Hey -- this thing is merged! The Reapers that make it up are like a hive -- they're acting as one, but they're not really one, not exactly! Be careful of any pieces you tear off -- odds are pretty good anything that sloughs off of that thing is still gonna try its damnedest to kill you. Make sure the pieces are as dead as whatever qualifies for dead with these things, or you'll have an entire other mess on your hands!"

As he speaks, he shunts the Elymas backwards; sand spits in front of the cumbersome gear like a convenient cover as pieces of the hodgepodge machine shift and groan, splitting open at its midsection. A barrel splits free, whining with a surprisingly silent buildup of force... before a shell releases with the faintest of sounds, flying at high velocities with intent to lodge into the beast's midsection... and then -explode- in a blinding electromagnetic pulse, to diffuse a few precious seconds of electromagnetic radiation through the beast to hopefully help disrupt or distract it, even slightly.

Something's not right, says Avril, as the Elymas pedals backwards, electrical arcs crackling at its midsection. And Jude's lips press together in a line of thought, amber stare taking the beast into consideration. Something's not right...?

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Monster Mash with Sound of Silence!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Jude Moshe's Sound of Silence for 63 hit points!
GS: Disrupt and Weaken! Statuses applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong says, "Yeah, good point," to Lily. He isn't exactly keen on starting a fight with Aveh with this thing around. He's not even sure they can do much damage to it, quite frankly.

Still, he can't help but whistle as Lily gets to work. THAT is what they found in the hangar? Maybe they upgraded it back at the Yggdrasil. Mysteriously, MYSTERIOUSLY, Fei doesn't tend to go hang out at the hangar bay too often and when he does, it's usually to stare at one particular gear not a whole slew of them or to admire their work.

Fei is having a hard time fighting this thing, though. It's too...biological. He can't help but imagine people in there, even though he knows this is anything but a person. He imagines arms clawing and grasping at him, praying for help, begging him to save them, and the only thing he can do--

--is to destroy them.

He gets clobbered hard but Weltall is more durable than Fei's psyche. Fei stalls for a moment as he hears Avril's voice. It snaps him out of it. "Hahh...? Avril? How were you able to..." Pause. "Right right."

He darts in again, this time leaping into the air and trying to slam the monster into the ground by tap dancing on top of it.

With his gear, of course. It's a lightfooted thing.

===========================<* Winter Wonderland *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - Turn the Tables *>=======================
|Type: Climax      |Dungeon Ability: Wits      |Challenge Rating: 2          |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 In this building you see workbenches and tables with elves scurrying about,
 manufacturing toys and making deliveries. It seems very, very busy. Wait,
 those aren't elves -- they're ratmonkeys!

 Santa Claus -- or perhaps an actor portraying him -- glances up from
 supervising to greet you. "Merrrrry Christmas," he intones. "Ho ho ho!" Then
 he pauses. "I wish someone would figure out what *I* want for Christmas.
 I'll show you a secret if you can do it."

 OOC: PG-13 or milder, peeps!
=Dungeon Conditions: Stupify==================================================
======================<* Winter Wonderland - Round 7 *>=======================
========================< Results - Turn the Tables >=========================
Player                               Exhaustion                      Pass/Fail
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elhaym van Houten                   113 --(5)--> 118
Investigate                         0   Wits    Effects: BASIC
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fei Fong Wong                       111 --(5)--> 116
Artist's Toolkit                    2   Wits    Effects: Enlighten
----------------------------------< Party >-----------------------------------
Leader: Elhaym van Houten           118 --(X)--> X                 Pass
Conditions: Stupify(2)
Effects:
==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Elhaym van Houten has been fully Exhausted by Winter Wonderland!
DG: The party will now draw a conclusion.
===========================<* Winter Wonderland *>============================
======================<* CHALLENGE - North Pole Sign *>=======================
|Type: Landmark    |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1          |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
 This gazebo is behind a road sign in traditional Filgaian style that says
 "North Pole." You're not sure if that's really where you are: after all, you
 got here the easy way. You might be able to steal it for a souvenir if you
 really, really want to.
=Dungeon Conditions: Treasure=================================================
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Monster Mash with Hazen!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazen for 176 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida knows better than to assume she's safe, even though she's several hundred yards away. She's proven right when the massive Reaper answers her with a volley of flesh. Ida's eyes widen in terror behind her goggles, but her body is already doing what it needs to in response. She presses down on the floor pedal, and pulls back on the right joystick--the Dragoon takes a step backwards, twisting to narrow its profile as it sinks into a defensive stance. Lances of bone stab through the Gear's armor, punching through its right shoulder and left calf. Gnawing mouths start tearing into the plating on the torso. Ida's teeth jump on edge; she activates the jumpjets, a booming roar echoing across the sands. If there's one thing Aveh's Gears are good at, it's those--and the sudden, forceful change in velocity knocks the creatures loose. Ida swivels the Dragoon back, angling its torso and popping off several shots at the remaining Wels. She almost doesn't recognize the familiar voice.

"Mr. Moshe?" Ida says. She sounds legitimately surprised, which--or so she thinks, distantly--is a terrible thing to be when there's a giant Wel trying to eat you. "Yes. Fire, if you have it!" Lily definitely has that, right? "Try to keep it corralled, we can't allow any of it to escape." To emphasize her point, Ida reverses the direction of her sudden leap back, the Dragoon's jets shuddering but performing admirably.

It falls out of the sky onto the largest of the Wel pieces, and then ends the rest with a satisfying series of stomps.

The Dragoon hunches down, bending forward at the waist and tilting. The mortar tube on its back rises, and the collapsible barrel telescopes outwards. Ida moves a hand towards the manual toggle she rigged up with Kalve's assistance, toggling it to 'I'. Several intricate locks open, one by one, releasing an incendiary shell into the weapon's barrel. "Incendiary mortar out! Everyone clear!" This must be one of those rare good days, Ida thinks. How odd. The mortar fires with a thunderous roar, sending the shell arcing downrange. Once it hits, it catches fire, vigorously, hopefully engulfing the Wel in a towering inferno. Whatever's in it is damnably sticky.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Monster Mash with Type-I Mortar!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Type-I Mortar for 287 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

The cockpit has some insulation from the smell of burning Wels, at least. Lily, for her part, hasn't piloted a Gear in real combat for some time now, even if she remembers the dance; keeping track of the positions of the others, ignoring the screams--that part is normal for battle anyway--watching it start to shift apart...

It seems the fire is more or less effective. The arm formed from smaller mass swings out at the Gear's chest, and Lily punches backwards--but still takes a nasty scrape to the front of her Gear's chassis in the process, already shifting around to position for her next maneuver.

She has a lot less trouble fighting biologicals, though. What surprises her however is not the creature, even if it is both surprising and horrifying, but--"Moshe?" she asks, over the radio. "...Noted."

Wels aren't exactly her area, though of course she's dealt with them. As she maneuvers, she adds for Avril's sake, "I'm on Fei's side."

The encrypted type mentions fire if they have it, and Lily considers it. "If you want it burned, I can do better than fire." She flips a couple more switches, and Ether hums to life again, this time a golden glow in the Gear's hands starting to pulse. Holding the spear before it, Hellerune places both hands on it--and energy gathers forward. Gold blasts around it in an instant's aura, and then nuclear fire erupts about the Wels in impossible heat. ...Anybody's Gear with radiation detectors definitely goes off. Lily is already rushing forward in her Gear, spear outstretched, to follow up.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Alpha Pulse!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Lily Keil's Alpha Pulse for 171 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

The Crimson Corsair moves to initiate in melee range, and begin tugging at the damaged mass. It is a very dangerous prospect to try and stick any part of itself in there - it isn't a matter of just trying to pull the biomass out. There is also a matter of it trying to pull the Corsair's mass inside itself, as the flames spread. It's a high-risk maneuver that leaves both of them vulnerable...
  Sent off-balance by being pulled at, some of the biomass 'splashes' against Nimrod's arm-mounted gun, giving Dean a scary up-close visual and a technically clean shot that gets muffled by damned near clogging the thing as it is. This might worsen before the Nimrod can disengage, also owing to the spreading flames.
  The creature has no concept of rest, patience, or delays. It simply wishes to feed. It leans forward to the left, a bit too far for what passes for a leg to maintain balance. It falls to a knee, in time for a new leg to jut out from the wrong angle to get itself to lunge forward as the loose, long strand of Wels biomass seems intent to hurl itself into Skadi and the raised blade, to literally chew through her prepared defense.
  The whole chaos from it flopping forward on its new horribly incorrect leg sees masses of stone and rock lift from the point of impact. The shell strikes into one such debris and buries it within the mass, though the electromagnetic discharge appears somewhat muted. The overall effect appears as-intended, forcing the forward-leaning bio-mass to shudder as it loosens a number of smaller, more intact Wels that are not concerned with rejoining the great mass so much as clearing the distance far faster than their legs should against the retreating Elymas... or maybe some of the removed Wels bits aren't quite stomped to proper paste just yet.
  Fei gets in on that, deciding to leap upon the terrible thing that should not be, stomping it down into paste on its back... is that its back? The way a large eye-like mass peeks upwards, this may now be a third mouth of a size threatening enough to be a worry about it actually biting Gear-sized chunks off, as it starts to gnaw at the Weltall's foot. The cracking and warping of jaw lines do not deter it from chewing something it probably cannot.
  There is just enough exposed flesh trying to gnaw on a Weltall leg that there is plenty of it in which to catch the Dust Dragoon's incendiary mortar round. The results are catastrophic and visceral. No one will want to imagine smelling the charred flesh of something already burning before - now there seems to be more 'fire' than 'amalgamated Wels,' and it might be a good idea to get some space soon.
  The heat intensifies. The SCREAMING that follows cannot be muffled by whatever mechanisms shield a pilot from outside sensory stimuli. One's chassis shudders a bit more violently, as the mass finds itself with more and more weak links in its composition in which to release more and more of the blighted creatures. It is no mere splatter - the ejected mass can still grasp, it can still devour, as Lily and Ida will soon find.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Pulling Each Other Apart!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Dean Stark with Unlimited Wel Works!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Penetrating Proboscis!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Jude Moshe with Backdashing Has Its Limits!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Get It Off Get It Off!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Flung Wels!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Flung Wels!
GS: Monster Mash has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 hit points of damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
GS: Monster Mash takes 16 damage from Corrode!
GS: Monster Mash has completed its action.
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Monster Mash's Pulling Each Other Apart for 92 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur guards a hit from Monster Mash's Penetrating Proboscis for 253 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Monster Mash's Unlimited Wel Works for 216 hit points!
GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
GS: CRITICAL! Jude Moshe guards a hit from Monster Mash's Backdashing Has Its Limits for 127 hit points!
GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Jude Moshe!
GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Flung Wels for 102 hit points!
GS: ! Statuses applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Flung Wels for 170 hit points!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Monster Mash's Get It Off Get It Off for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Fire? ...Unfortunately, she doesn't have fire. It might prove useful in this situation, as the Reapers try to pull on the Corsair's anchor as she's pulling at them...

It's an attack from all direction, and it requires putting all of the Gear's energy into a retreat to pull herself out of it. She doesn't emerge unscathed, with signs of damage(and not to mention fire) visible on the arm.

Fortunately, however, she manages to escape it before the next bombardment comes in. One of them attacks with a golden flame that causes one of the Crimson Corsair's mechanisms to erupt in a series of strange clicks. This was one of the devices that had already been previously installed in the Gear, but she hadn't quite yet been able to figure out what it did...

Not that she still has any idea what it does. Bizarre.

"Aye. Noted. Ranged it is..." Layna mutters, aiming the Corsair's wrist-mounted ARMs and firing as she backpedals. This time, rather than a single shot, she unleases a hail of ammunition against it.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Buccaneer Broadside!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Layna Manydays's Buccaneer Broadside for 57 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

Dean shoots the Big W, and its flesh 'splashes' against his gun. "Waugh!!" he yelps, ramming the Gear controls to make the arm shake and try to get that stuff off. It doesn't work, though, not at first, and the flames spreading on the creature start to scorch and in some places melt Nimrod's armor before Dean's *finally* able to shove himself away from the Wels thing. He's a brave kid, but... that really is super creepy...!!

Avril warns him and the others. He shakes his head vigorously to pull himself together, then looks over towards her. "Something not right?" he echoes. "Like what?" Besides, you know, the fact that they're fighting a gigantic multi-limbed, multi-mouthed monstrosity that keeps shedding bits of itself as it burns. That's not exactly normal, either.

Then one of the other Gears opens communications, and Jude--not that Dean knows any Judes, no sir, not him--warns them that killing the Wels *bits* that slough off is just as important as killing the big Wells main body. Ida chimes in, emphasizing that it's important to exterminate *all* of it. Dean nods, even though neither of them have any way of seeing him. "Got it! I'll start stomping on the little guys!" He doesn't have any fire weapons, so he'll have to leave that to Ida and the others.

Speaking of heat, Fei doesn't respond to Dean, but Lily confirms that she's with Fei, and that's good enough for Dean, who historically takes people at their word. As Lily utilites radiation against the monstrosity, Dean starts to back up, looking for Wels bits to stomp on before they can multiply and get out of hand. And if he spots any, he'll go right ahead and STOMP on them. ...Otherwise, he'll direct that kick towards the major mass itself, THEN stomp any Wels bits that fall off.

GS: Dean Stark has attacked Monster Mash with Carnelian Crusher!
GS: Dean Stark takes 14 damage from Corrode!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Dean Stark's Carnelian Crusher for 47 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"It appears I am also able to pilot a Gear," Avril explains to Fei simply. "I must have done this before as well." A pause follows. "It is good to meet you," she says, to Lily. "The other one then is...?"
Meaning Jude, the only other one here she has not met previously.

She holds her ground, watching and waiting for the next strike. She can count every single beat of her pulse. What is it doing?

Jude provides some unexpected but not unappreciated input into the situation.

"Merged," Avril repeats, calm reigning in spite of the monstrosity looming above them. There. And there. Now that she looks, she can see. Here had been a one. Here another. And there, where they joined to become as one. "I see. I am able to distinguish separate parts, as you say. Then those were the individual Reapers..."

She remembers what Dean said. Ida had told him about it -- these Reapers, Wels, they were once people.
Her shoulders hunch for a moment.

"Thank you. ...We shall need to proceed decisively but with prudence. We must end this here," she states ultimately.

"...I do not know," she answers Dean. "Nevertheless... be careful."

It moves erratically. It makes it hard to read, compared to other opponents. But here, further back -- out of range of the incoming mortar, away from the flames licking the field -- Avril has the advantage of viewpoint.

And of preparation. An attack, she's certain, is about to be delivered unto her.

Delivered it is, at an angle and a speed even she was not completely ready for. Pivoting to better 'catch' the incoming pouring rope of Wels as the thing lashes out at her, she's still struck by stray tendrils and little grasping hands as she deflects the bulk of the attack. Human they might have once been, but they leave scratches into the Gear's plating.

She urges the machine back, rolls it to the left.
There, she thinks, briefly, spotting what may be an opening.
And then, bringing the great blade down, she reorients her grip and swings the sword up towards the heavens, her only goal to hew that piece of it off.
Into the fire, if she can.

The scent, already is awful.
And it's continued to scream.

"Do not hold back," she says, perhaps for Dean's benefit.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Monster Mash with Shearing Blossom!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Shearing Blossom for 147 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

And the other is...?

"Jude Moshe, at your service. Finding myself forever cursed with terrible luck in work opportunities."

As if he didn't choose this for himself.

Some voices he recognizes. Lily, Fei. Others vaguely familiar, others strangers. And one other still...

Mr. Moshe?

... is clearly familiar with -him-.

An encrypted voice speaks, tone laced with unintentional surprise of someone who wasn't expecting him to be here. Dark red brows lift as he jettisons compromised pieces of exoskeletal armor from his Gear, chunks of corroded plating hitting ground in bursts of spraying sand as he tries to maintain his distance.

"Speaking," comes his first, effortless response, even in the midst of all this hectic chaos. His attention is split now, focused on scrutinizing the Wel -- and the Dragoon in the distance. "But not really sure who I'm speaking to. Guess my reputation precedes me, huh?" And he even sounds convincingly like he actually believes that to be true, too. Someone who recognizes him as 'Mr. Moshe' but doesn't want to divulge who they are...

"Sorry, not that I'm not flattered," continues Jude amiably, engaging in completely superfluous and possibly unwanted casual conversation in the middle of a life-or-death fight against a giant mass of body horror nightmares made manifest,

"... but I'm not -really- big on the whole 'secret admirer' thing."

A sentiment that prefaces a screaming horde of detached Wels, all bumrushing the Elymas en masse at speeds that far bely their strange bodies. Jude's response is an aggressive defense, -slamming- tread-covered feet into the sand to start churning through the creatures by sheer, weighted friction. It gets many -- but many more get past, flinging themselves upon the Elymas to chew and spit and claw in a corrosive frenzy. More armored plating is ejected, sending the Wels careening into the ground with tremendous FWOOSHes of impact with sand -- but the damage is already done, acidic scars rent deep into layers of armor that starts to eat away at internal systems, slowly but surely.

Within, Jude Moshe frowns. He looks at his sensors, getting damage readings -- and then looks at the Wel, clearly flailing and on fire and absolutely dangerous.

"... Well, good a time as any," he decides. He takes a look behind him, brows scrunching. "Yep. Got enough distance now... Hey! Ms. Keil! Looks like you found a Gear to fit your personality, huh?" -He- thinks it's complimentary. "Mind giving me some covering fire?"

And then he just -punches- on the acceleration.

For something so large, it takes time to reach proper, dangerous velocities. Just like a train, or anything else of sufficient mass. Time... and distance.

Distance enough to send the slowly accelerating Elymas on a ramping collision course with the flaming Wel, one arm drawn back--

--so that it can just -piston- that steel-wrought limb directly into the creature's face to get an up close look at the thing and what might be remiss.

If he tears off a decent, sample-sized chunk of (hopefully) non-living biological matter in the process, well, that'll just be remarkable coincidence.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Monster Mash with Desolation Row!
GS: Jude Moshe takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Jude Moshe's Desolation Row for 153 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong reddens faintly when Lily says she's on his side. It still takes some getting used to, to be honest. He says, "Well, in this kind of situation, I think we're all on the same side. Hard not to be considering the situation." He figures Lily can speak for Jude.

Because he figures saving someone's life after you kidnapped them means they know how to talk about you since you've seen kind of both sides of the person. Makes sense to him. He seems to be recovering from his minor ffreak out at least.

"Oh shit..." He says to himself as the monster starts biting Weltall's foot. Luckily, Fei is not the kind of robot pilot that feels the pain his killer robot is going through and ALSO thankfully he upgraded the frame on Weltall not too long ago. And Fei kicks robots with his robot a lot so the foot is more durable than most robot feet BUT UNFORTUNATELY, it's still, you know, a giant robot foot. Fei freaks out AGAIN.

...and shoots a giant blue energy blast right down and into the thing to discourage it and also give Weltall's foot a nice cleansing operation.

"Why do these things have to be so...so..." He hisses to himself.

Avril says something that definitely draws his attention.

"You...just knew how? It's ... something you knew before?" Of course it is

Fei's palms start sweating. If Avril already knows how to pilot a robot despite amnesia, despite not being a pilot...and she's that good at it? Maybe... she's like him?

It's a horrifying thought and a cruel thing to think about someone, Fei thinks, so...worry about it later. "Did you get a memory back or something?" WORRY ABOUT IT LATER FEI!! "Wait, Dean... did YOU just know how to pilot it too?"

Is this just a skill people spontaneously pick up???

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Monster Mash with Guided Shot!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Guided Shot for 208 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida can't exactly smell the scent of burning flesh at the moment, but she's smelled it before. She can fill in the detila. The screaming, though, that's worse. Ida grits her teeth and tries her best to block it out, but there's nothing she can do about it. It echoes in her ears--as feral as it sounds, there is something terrifyingly human about it, something that makes Ida's brain stand up and pay attention even when she doesn't want it to. It sounds like a cacophony of voices, all of them in agony. Ida bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, and toggles the mortar control over to 'E'.

Something erupts from Lily's gear, and one of the sensors in the AWACS--one that Ida hadn't paid much attention to, prior--starts emitting a series of strange clicks and chirps. An odd symbol appears in the corner of the radar screen, next to a graph measuring something called 'rads'. The odd graph starts to level out after the initial burst. What the hell was that?, Ida thinks. She doesn't have time to do anything else. More of the creature's mass splits off, flying through the air and slamming into the Dust Dragoon. This time, Ida is a bit more well-prepared. She sees it arcing towards her, retracts the mortar, and raises the machine to an upright position. The mass slams into the Dragoon's raised right arm, and immediately starts trying to crush through the plate with massive, bony, rib-like claws. It does get its share of crushing in before the Dragoon's other hand closes around part of its mass with a sound like someone hitting a giant melon with a giant sledgehammer. Acidic goo starts dripping into the Dragoon's already-weakened elbow joint. That's not good.

Ida blinks at the comm display, even as she reaches for a little translucent box with a red button beneath it. She flicks the box open, and then hits the button. It's labelled 'Fire Suppressant'.

A mixture of carbon dioxide and pearl ash shoots out of several pressurized canisters in the Dragoon's frame, coating the offending Wels, and their acids, in a lovely acid-neutralizing base. The pressure dislodges one of the bigger Wel chunks, and the smaller ones just sort of drop off one by one after that. Ida reaches to toggle off the encrypter. Fei is freaking out. It may feel like the blind leading the blind, but Ida feels like he needs to hear her voice. "Fei," Ida says, "you're here. You're here, now." And then, to Jude: "Ida Everstead-Rey. Apologies for the subterfuge, it just happened to come with the Gear, and I would be remiss to take advantage of it." As she talks, she's already initiating the backup stabilizers to compensate for damage.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Make Do and Mend!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 10 damage from Corrode!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Make Do and Mend for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Ida Everstead-Rey clears debuffs from Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Blighted creatures--Wels--pour out of the monster and grasps onto the arm of Lily's Gear, to the shoulder, to the chest, and they start to try to bite through the metal, to claw, and do a damned good job of it, starting to cut through armor towards something more vulnerable, leaving deep gouges--before the sparks of the system and the lingering heat of her Ether slag them off.

"I'll save the introductions for later," she offers Avril, her voice dry, crackling over the radio. Her voice remains on her opponent, on pulling levers and flicking switches as Hellerune reorients itself. Ending here... This, this she can agree with. They've merged; this could spread. This kind of suffering...

Well, maybe she has a bit more pity for these strange creatures than she voices, quietly, in the cockpit of her Gear. Maybe.

"You'd think that," she responds to Fei, "But people can always find a reason to keep fighting instead of working together." A beat before she voices for Jude's sake, "Bad luck is right. But so I did." She takes it as a compliment, her Gear. Jude asks for covering fire, as he charges forward in his Gear. "On it," she announces to him, and gets to work right then.

But she does not move to charge inward again as the Elymas accelerates--instead she closes her eyes briefly, takes a breath, as her Gear begins to hum. Once again she uses its deep power reserves, but this time the violet about her hands, invisible to those outside the cockpit, accompanies a hiss of steam from her Gear's wrist, vented--as the shadows about the Elymas sharpen, twist, shape around the Gear, becoming something living to devour incoming damage outright with the power of a hungry void.

"Keep at it. Target contained." Fei's talking memory...

"I'm not big on anonymity either."

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Jude Moshe with Gloomshroud!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Lily Keil heals Jude Moshe! He gains 400 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

Can they put this down? The whole mass is on fire and deeply irradiated. This former mining town will have to remain a 'former' forever more after the fact, for the safety of those who would have the misguided idea to move back in. The mass convulses, shudders, and struggles to maintain coherent form as it burns away.
  Then it SCREAMS. Glass might crack, as the abomination re-stacks itself into an upright anthropomorphic shape - like its contents were all scrambling to climb over itself to simply rise up as far away as it can from the fire and the irradiation.
  It does not buckle when the Crimson Corsair dumps a lot of ammunition into it. The way it twists and contorts, it is as though it were trying to consume the ammunition itself.
  Dean elects to hunt down stragglers. It must be done, though it comes with the cost of lowering the amount of available man- and firepower that can be raised against the roaring beast as he hunts down a number of regular-size Wels that mindlessly try to affix themselves underneath the crushing foot of the Nimrod.
  Skadi finds the blade will have some damages from the grasping many-hands of the clawed aberrations that want to grab hold, as it is flung into the rising pile of burning flesh. It appears to overly compensate for the new load, chaotically swaying.
  Elymas comes in with a wicked punch that goes in deep to the... face... of the thing? As Jude takes a closer look, what he may find is that there are far, far more many eyes taking a look back. Eyes that do not care for the details, and have no reason to dwell upon or consider anything beyond the simple act and unquenchable desire to reach out and flay everything off the metal giant. There is no 'a' thing that is remiss. This entire thing is remiss, as its mass attempts to swallow itself around the deep impacting fist.
  Fei disengages to blast a laser into the mass, creating a gap that requires biomass to fill it - or at least just has some of it collapse from the thanks of gravity as he pulls himself away from the flaming wreckage, but it cannot be seen as a moment of respite or rest when he is still standing before a mockery of life and its base needs itself.
  Ida and Lily, in their own ways, inject solutions to the matter at hand - spraying them off and chemically neutralizing the acidic quality of the Wels' fluids, or otherwise using the shadows as a barrier to ward off further intrusion and allow Jude a reasonable chance to disengage as the mass burns, writhes, and...
  SCREAMS. It raises two... three... four distinct appendages up high, in vague simulation of fists, or perhaps the creatures within are compelled to rise as high as they can, climbing over the rest, to escape the burning mass...
  And then the misshapen appendes slam downward with seismic force, splattering and spraying itself in virtually every direction. It's everywhere. They're everywhere. Dean's earlier work in hunting down stragglers gives them a clearer canvas to work from, but this does not change the fundamental issue they all now face -
  They're being swarmed. The mass shrinks, but it does not disappear, as much of itself disperses violently like ants to an abandoned piece of cake, re-split into seven small piles for them to climb, to intrude, to devour.
  Anyone with the proper measuring equipment will have this much to say: there is more movement yet underground beneath them. If they can be heard above the wails and moans of those pitiful creatures that hunger for something they never quite digest.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Dean Stark with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Jude Moshe with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Unleash The Swarm!
GS: Monster Mash takes 18 damage from Corrode!
GS: Monster Mash has completed its action.
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 228 hit points!
GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 74 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 185 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 231 hit points!
GS: CRITICAL! Lily Keil takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 288 hit points!
GS: ! Statuses applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 259 hit points!
GS: Jude Moshe takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Unleash The Swarm for 364 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna listens to the chatter over the intercom, but for the most part, she's focused on the fight. Still, since introductions are going on, she decides she might as well join in since there are some unfamiliar voices. Ida's introduced herself, at least, so she doesn't have to worry about giving that away.

"Layna Manydays. Pleasure fighting with you all, aye? I've got a friend out there, Victoria, sweeping up some of the smaller blaggards in the surrounding areas. So if you see another Gear around, it's probably her." Layna says, then focuses on the task at hand.

And then, another horrible scream as the abomination slams downward, sending a wave of Reapers everywhere. She can try defend herself from them as much as she likes, but no matter how many she gets rid of, no matter how many are crushed underfoot as she moves, it seems as if there are always more and more, gnashing and biting and clawing and wailing. And what's worse...

"They're under us, me hearties! Be careful!" Layna warns. And so many of them, too...

It was time to get serious.

"Watch out. I'm gonna get a little crazy here." Layna says, and with a grin, drops the anchor to the ground and grips the chain attached to it. And then she lifts it and begins spinning. The thing moves faster and faster...she modifies its spin as she moves, the massive anchor tearing through Reapers in its way before finally she lets it go, hurling it into the mass with force that crushes through everything in its path.

GS: Layna Manydays has activated a Force Action!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Weigh Anchor!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Weigh Anchor for 273 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

It's horrible to think that these Wels were once people... so Dean doesn't. He hasn't forgotten, exactly, but--there's no way to turn them back *into* humans, and if they roam free, they'll hurt more people. They've got to take them out. He's had ample opportunity to think over this concept recently, after his most recent foray into the Eerie Farmhouse, which he learned from Jay used to be Matilda's home... But that's neither here nor there. What's here right now is a giant, burning, screaming horror. Avril tells him not to hold back. He nods fiercely. "I won't! I'm gonna give this thing everything I've got!!"

When that morbid flesh stops bubbling at the gun. And when he manages to get Nimrod's foot clear. This *is* Dean's first foray with a Gear; there's a lot of things he's still not used to. So when Fei asks him about it, he blinks. "Huh? Oh, no--me and Avril originally came out here so I could test out the Gear, get used to piloting it. But then she had a bad feeling, and I happened to hear the thing screaming, so we rushed over here. I'm still learning how to pilot. Avril's another story!" But... Fei already figured that out.

As the others either introduce themselves, or don't, and either way lay down more and more fire on the giant Wels, Dean continues to stomp. However, then the main Wels SCREAMS, and lashes out four appendages high up and then *down*, splattering itself so hard it literally falls apart. "WAUGH!" he yelps in abject horror, yanking back on the controls to move Nimrod into a defensive position before the Wels bits splat disgustingly into Nimrod. Just in time, too, because now they've got a swarm to deal with. And the Wels are climbing up his machine, tearing at armor, trying to rip their way inside...

So Dean, who is not a very good pilot, who is still learning, who has no idea what kind of special maneuver he could make a Gear properly do against such a morbid, horrifying assault, does the only reasonable thing anyone in this situation could do:

He stops.
He drops.
And he rolls. Earnestly, at speed (especially for such a heavily-armored Gear), over and over, all over the Wels, until they're nothing more than paste. Until they're *less* than paste. Until they're a series of smears, and possibly Wels bits lodged in the creases of Nimrod's armor. That'll need a lot of cleaning later...

GS: Dean Stark has attacked Monster Mash with Opal Overload!
GS: Dean Stark takes 16 damage from Corrode!
GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

"Yes, it appears so. ...But no, I do not recall anything else," she answers Fei.

"Layna. I remember. It is good to see you once again," Avril says, splitting her attention briefly away from the monstrosity. "Your Gear appears to be handling well."
Whatever her chatter may suggest, Avril is focused on the monstrous Wels before them, making minute readjustments to the guarded stance she holds, in those seconds before all goes wild.

Before she swings her blade and attempts to cleave this segment of the Reaper clean off.

Her sword slows for an instant, as if she had just swung it through tar. Not stopped -- the edge continues to cut. But without a doubt, she struggles in her endeavor, her Gear's arms shaking.

And worse, it doesn't seem to want to let go, even after she cleaves it free and the monster goes staggering back. It clings, still alive and dangerous. Fingers drag along the edge of the sword and she can see that sections of it are pitting where it touches.
With a grunt and a wordless shout, she yet flings that appendage to the flames and watches as it burns.

...Something's not right.

The Reaper screams once again

and appendages surge clear over the flames to pour down in a horrible rain towards her and everyone else on the field.

"No! Look out--"

She hits boost, weaving in and banking a hard right then left as the field is absolutely overrun, an attempt to outpace the creature.
Even that doesn't spare Skadi. It takes a hard hit to the right thigh, another lashing sharply across the midsection. Not crippling -- she can still make this thing move, but she can already see -- feel -- that it's not responding the way it should.

More like this, and she will be in a dire situation.

And as she touches down -- having made a short leap -- she can sense it. The earth is trembling, pitching right up her Gear's damaged leg in a way that's impossible to miss.

"Something's underground. --We must end this now!"

Realization made, she pushes onward, all-too-aware of Skadi's now slightly off-kilter pitch as it runs, close behind Dean. Her sword swings out suddenly, sharply, driven bladefirst into the still-burning fire.
Whatever it had coated her blade with, it burns well, it seems.

"Ha---"

With that shout, she carves upwards in an arc, Skadi briefly leaving the earth as she leans the full weight of her Gear into the blow. Flame follows after her.

GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Dean Stark's Opal Overload for 366 hit points!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Monster Mash with Camellia Heat!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Avril Vent Fleur's Camellia Heat for 291 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Another filter flickers to life on the AWACS screen, laying some sort of technicolor map over the battlefield. Is that 'Infrared'?, Ida thinks, staring at it a moment. It does seem to be registering the bonfires everywhere, as well as the Gears, as well as the...

Entirely too many small heat signatures beneath the ground. Most of them are very faint, but the thought chills Ida to the bone. This place must be infested--if they approached on foot, they would've been goners before they even got to the giant. They're having enough trouble as it is.

Ida drops the Dragoon into a crouch again as the monstrosity raises its mass upwards, and then brings it slamming down. The ground buckles, but the Dragoon stays upright, both feet firmly planted. A tidal wave of Wels flows over the Dragoon's lower body, and when it passes, dozens of the things are left clinging to it, crawling over it. "Lily," Ida says. Her voice is tight and tense, but she's not panicking, thank God. "A little help, please?" The Dragoon doesn't have enough articulation to scrape all of them off, and they're clinging to it with hungry determination--as if they know there's living flesh behind all the metal.

Ida holds the Dragoon perfectly still for ten whole seconds, hoping that is enough time for Lily to do her work. She reaches out, her finger positioning itself over the button for the emergency coolant system.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Ida. Huh.

"To be honest," Jude begins conversationally, even as the Elymas' fist rears back. "Part of me kind of figured.

"I can count on my hand the amount of people who actually call me 'Mister Moshe' unironically."

SPLOOSH

It's a gross, fetidly moist sound the beast seems to make as the Elymas' fist pounds like a pile driver into whatever amounts to the creature's head. Viscuous fluids paint the Gear's forearms as it drives in... and lodges there, amongst hundreds of pairs of eyes.

So many, unthinking, unfeeling, panicked and violent. And amber eyes stare into them all with the unreadable detachment of someone who has seen that kind of look, those kinds of eyes, far too many times in their life.

They churn and tear, shredding metal armor across that arm like it was paper mache. Attempting to devour something it can't truly devour. "Dammit--" Jude begins -- but it is the shadows and the concerted efforts of others distracting the beast that gives Jude the chance to break free. Darkness warbles like liquid around the Elymas' frame, obscuring and buffering it with slick protection that allows it to -rip- its limb free with a groaning protest of metal and splatter of biomass. A chunk of the stuff still clenched in hand, Jude shunts the modified Kislevi Gear backwards..

... and then that thing screams.

"Oh. That's always a good sign--"

And just like that, limbs whip the sand-soaked earth, chunks of Wels spraying in every direction as they pelt and tear and scream against the shadowy mass that now protects the Elymas. They sheer off chunks of that dark protection, time after time, in swarming masses. The shadows hold -- but they won't for long. They have a limited amount of time to work here before these things begin to split into amounts that will just become unmanageable in Gears.

"Well... if we're gonna die, might as well do it in style, right?"

The joke comes, grim and yet so casual, over open communications -- but within his cockpit, Jude is nothing but professionalism. He takes stock of the many, split pieces of Wels -- seven, it seems so far -- and he starts to calculate, quickly. Subroutines are engaged, the Elymas' defensive systems activated; the modified Gear lets out a hydraulic hiss as vented heat shunts from the shell-like plates at its back. They shift, groan in hinging joints...

... and then begin to shunt off one by one in expulsions of rocket fuel, walls of metal SLAMMING into the earth one after the other in front of the Elymas in a hexagonal field of impromptu shields. And just like that, the dislodged shells begin to spin, carving through earth, directed by the controls of the Elymas as they attempt to gather up as many of those Wels as possible, herding them, corraling them into one tight, confined space --

--before those defensive shields -slam- together in a decidedly more offensive way, to compress and crush anything and everything in their jet-fueled path.

"Though I'm pretty open to the idea of living in style, too," Jude Moshe notes absently, a fact easily chalked up to his ever-so-uncaring nature -- even as he eyes the measurements on his Gear, the frown etching at his lips a stark contrast to his ambivalent words. Something is still moving beneath them.

"That's promising," mutters Moshe, under his breath.

GS: Jude Moshe has attacked Monster Mash with Masters of War!
GS: Jude Moshe takes 9 damage from Poison!
GS: Jude Moshe has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Don't think about it, Fei thinks, but isn't that thinking about it? Are you thinking about it when you tell yourself to not think about it? And if you keep thinking about it after you told yourself to not think about it then isn't that even worse if you think about it?

Ida speaks up. Fei tightens his eyes closed. All he can remember is the hate! The rage! The way that she talks about them is frightening, so frightening, but he can't blame her. How can anybody blame her! It's terrible! Filgaia is a world in which THINGS like this exist! Is there worse? But she's calm, isn't she? No, even when she's calm she's angry!

Fei sets his comms to listen only for a moment. "Shut up, Shut up...! It's Ida. It's Ida. You're here now." Lily provides her own advice. Is someone aiming for his back? It wouldn't be the first time. Wait it IS the first time. Calm down. Calm down. Keep at it. Contain the target. The Wels send uncomfortable number of apendages across Weltall, bashing it about with brutalizing power, denting its armoring, terrifying sharper-than-bone nails scratching across it.

Fei grimaces and reaches back to his comms, flicking it back on to manage an almost steady. "They're under us. That's what the notebook said. They're using the tunnels. We have to collapse the tunnels..."

He ignite the thrusts on Weltall as it jumpjets into the sky. Sometimes you remember that your giant robot can fly. It hovers in the air for a moment before, with the air of gravity, crashes back down upon the Wels, foot extended--

--then after impact another foot. And another, and another.

He hears Avril's response. No other recollections. It's too similar. But right now--he just has to destroy. Nothing would like to live like this.

GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Monster Mash with Ryuten!
GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Jude Moshe's Masters of War for 155 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ryuten for 363 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"No argument with backup, Manydays."

The screams echo on; too many screams, enough that they seem to rattle into Lily's bones, each breath accompanied by the feeling of it. ...She stays calm, always calm, but they go through her regardless. And now that so many are here... Well. All directions they go, all over, so many places, and Hellerune's feet are abrubtly covered in the things, biting and clawing and rending and tearing. There is more movement beneath, yes, but the mass is climbing again, to intrude, to try to scale her Gear.

Lily narrows her eyes. There is only so much that can be done at once--and less, if not done quickly. There is horror here, and it must be handled. ...But there's also--

"Ida," Lily answers her. That's the introduction. It'll do. "On it. Stand by." She's working her own move--but teamwork is important. Her fire has already ignited others. But now she waves a hand, and the runes within her Gear glow; a shroud of flame erupts about the Dust Dragoon, engulfing it briefly in a searing moment of heat. It is uncomfortable, but it may be effective.

"You and your style," Lily vocalizes to Jude. But Fei gets to work--and Lily, now that she's hear, draws another breath, and focuses.

Her Gear is still touched with Wels, but she steps forward--and stomps down on a crowd of them, bringing the butt of her spear down to start crushing them.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Speed Crush!
GS: Lily Keil takes 16 damage from Corrode!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Lily Keil's attack becomes clear!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Omega Protocol for 369 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

The movement of her feet is ultimately unimportant; it conceals the shadows gathering about her Gear's feet, spreading across its entire body, across the weapon. A black aura spreads about her--and then turns to static, to gray, to ash, and to utter darkness again as everything in the wake of Hellerune begins to be simply erased from existence.

The Gear's systems whine dangerously as the devastation spreads.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

The infrared sensor shuts off as fire engulfs Ida's machine. She doesn't move a muscle--she doesn't so much as blink, even though she knows that it won't make the Gear move. She can feel the sudden heat outside, even through the Dragoon's armor. She can hear the screams of dying Wels, even as sweat drips down her brow. Then it clears, and the cameras show nothing but ash.

"Fei," Ida says. She doesn't know if he's hearing her, or Luisa. "I know. The tunnels--there must be an exit nearby." Ida hits the jets again, and takes a second to observe the field. The AWACS display shudders, flickers...

And then blinks into place over her main viewscreen, like it was supposed to before it decided the main viewscreen did not actually exist in its eyes. Much more convenient than a second screen, Ida decides. Jude's bizarre, jet-propelled shields earn a raised eyebrow; Ida has no idea where the reporter got those from, let alone why he has a Gear, but she doesn't have time for questions. Just firing solutions.

The Dragoon touches down atop a hill, which is the best high ground it can get around here. It stoops down, bracing its legs in the most stable position it can--it bends forward, and the mortar telescopes out again. "I'm collapsing the tunnels," Ida says. She starts weaving the target-painting cursor around the screen like she's actually an artillerist who knows how to use advanced technology instead of a scared young woman who has never actually done this before. Fei's in the line of fire. So are Dean and Avril. A stray mortar could kill any one of them.

Ida takes her lip between her teeth. "Mortars away! Everyone out!"

The Dragoon's mortar fires with a thunderous bang. The first shell is barely on its way before Ida cycles another into the chamber, moving as fast as the locks she built will let her. That one, too, sails downrange. Then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth. Six shells clear the mortar barrel by the time the first one lands.

It's a rain of devastation. High-explosive shells detonate with enough force to powder bone and pulverize flesh from twenty feet away. Incendiary shells coat the earth with blazing chemical gel. The last few shells aren't aimed at the Wels above ground--they're aimed at those heat signatures below ground. In one fell swoop, Ida is trying to kill the Wels and cut off their reinforcements.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Monster Mash with Hell's Coming With Me!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes 16 damage from Corrode!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Hell's Coming With Me for 355 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

They are at risk of being overrun. They can no longer spare any expense. Nothing short of a relentless offensive will put a stop to the massive marauding monster of monsters. They have to destroy it before it can reform - and to clean out the stragglers with all expediency to prevent this phenomena from repeating at this very place.
  The Crimson Corsair whirls an anchor around, a reddish-steel whirlwind of danger that lends itself to a blending effect as it slices apart, impales, and cleans the creatures on the ground with the ear-splitting screech of metal against earth. Flying sparks trail its every rotation until it is sent hurtling into the mass, daring to stab deep and rip apart more and more.
  Dean, overcoming fear and common sense, turns the Nimrod into a one-Gear rolling pin, putting its superior mass to as good a use as it can hope for when it involves squishing Wels into goo - into a fine paste that will not suddenly join with other goo to form more makeshift hands, mouths, or anything that could perpetuate the torment and sorrow that follows the creatures wherever they go, once more giving the ability to focus on the mass that has yet to rebuild.
  Skadi leads a proper charge within, a blade of flame flicking forth with the massive, air-scraping slice upwards to both further cleave apart the mass of Wels and once more keep it aflame. Its temporary leave of the ground underneath ensures those with grasping hands will not yet find their way to hang on, to intrude, to threaten to tear the Gear apart piece by piece...
  The Elymas cages in as much of the mass as its shed shield shells ensnare, grasp, and ultimately turn what was an uncontrollable piece of an uncountable horde into a deeply compressed semi-spherical lump of ichor, leaving behind smooth ground underneath where it pulls the Wels together - a pure level ground that would be soon sullied by another set of monster feet and any passing traffic (like a rolling Nimrod).
  Fei, once again, takes matters into the feet of Weltall. The group has done a great job of controlling the numbers and getting the remainder largely compressed to that one big, writhing mass. It may not be possible with their current numbers and firepower to keep that single mass in place - but the troubled artist seems to have the right of it. Collapsing the mine tunnels is one way to stop reinforcements. With every landing upon the ground or the mass, what support structures remain buckle and crumble ever further.
  With the help of her own sorcery, Lily makes sure anything dislodged from the stomping about... does not escape. The mass takes on a cleaner, almost flat cylindrical character, as the shadows hidden by the movement of the Hellerune's feet ensure that it obscures not only the light - but anything, ever, that would dare cross the threshold as the ground buckles some more.
  Ida, for her part, embarks on a risky gambit that puts life, limb, and unfathomable labor costs on the line as she lets her Gear go still. Lily sets it ablaze as the horde attempts to capitalize on the weakness. They do not know what is coming. They can never know. They only know what is in front of them. A great wave of heat that scalds flesh, bubbling it. The moaning of pain chills to the very soul, as they turn to ash.
  Ida fires off the mortars, and the bang could be heard for miles around as the site of the amalgamation disappears under a storm of fire, explosions, and - moments later - a great cloud of dark smoke that heralds the arrival of more explosions underneath.
  A chain reaction. Everyone must move away, and quick, lest the collapsing earth underneath them suck their Gears into the destruction underneath. The old mining tunnels and their contents combust and burn in unison.
  No more movement is picked up from underneath. Only fire, deadly clouds of gas, and a mining town that will now be forever lost to time. Not a trace of the monstrosity would ever be found, beyond what of their image, of their screams, embed themselves into the living witnesses of the operation.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

She lands again moments thereafter, this Gear not having any configurations for flight at present.

Hands reach up and grab, seeping into the joints and crevices. Skadi jerks free, laying into the Reaper with the blade as Avril once again engages thrusters, this time to jet backwards.

Get clear, Ida had said. Already, a wave of fire is overtaking more of the Wels.

Get clear.

"This is a mine. If there are gases present, an explosion may occur," Avril voices over communications. "Everyone! Retreat as far as you can!"

The mortars strike the screaming thing.

Avril doesn't linger to watch. Skadi banks hard, and with as much speed as the somewhat damaged Gear can manage, moves to put significant distance between herself and the point where the earth is beginning to buckle and crumble.

Underground, the earth is burning. But this may be an acceptable exchange, Avril cannot help but think.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

Ida wastes no time. She knows what she's done--at minimum, the ground is going to become perilously unstable, and at worst, she's triggered still more explosions. Billowing clouds of smoke spew out of rents around the Dragoon as it shifts back into normal movement configuration, rising from its crouch and telescoping the mortar. Ida hits the jets a moment later, and the Gear clears several hundred yards in a single leap. Ida barely gives it time to land before taking off again, executing the usual hopping movement pattern used by Aveh Gears to cross uncertain terrain.

"So it was a coal mine," Ida remarks. It sounds oddly conversational. She's trying to forget the screams.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Explosions, huh? Yeah, Layna could see how that could happen, and she's getting some worrying readings from her mining radar, too.

"Aye!" Layna responds, and starts to quickly move out of the vicinity of the own She doesn't have any jump jets of her own, she just has to run.

"Victoria, the big blaggard's been dealt with, but this place might be able to go up in flames. Start heading back to base, I'll meet up with you later." She says.

All in all, though, Layna would consider this a success. Never mind the fact that the whole place was probably about to explode. Small sacrifices, right?

"Good work, me hearties. I don't think this one, at least, will be causing any more trouble." Layna broadcasts to everyone with a grin...

That they probably can see. If they've seen her before, though, it's easy to imagine.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

A chain reaction. Lily has had her test of the Gear's capabilities--at least of its Ether capabilities--and it hasn't been found wanting. ...The screams still echo in her bones, but her focus now is on each of the others, ensuring they aren't caught in the blast. She checks her Gear's systems for just that, visual and otherwise, and starts shifting backward. ...Her Gear can't fly, and the Ether booster uses up a lot of fuel. Regardless--

"Pulling back," she announces, cool as ever, and adds to Fei, "We'll rendezvous outside the destruction zone."

...But there are others here too. Her eyes linger on Jude's Gear... and then on Ida's.

"Good work everyone," she says to the others, and Hellerune moves.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Tunnels everywhere..." He mutters under his breath but he does remember himself enough to get out of dodge, using the boost jets to throw Weltall out of the way before it gets too crazy. Of course even that's enough as there's a rapid chain reaction. Fei promptly forgets his gear can fly again and starts running around in a fancy fmv sequence as he just barely avoids getting swallowed up by the earth and being forced to undergo yet another underground ruin to escape and without Bart or Elly.

He says, "Yikes." eventually. "Well." Pause. "I guess this is what that mean when they say All's Wels That Ends Wels, right? ahah...hahhh..." He's still kinda stressed out.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily's voice crackles on the radio. "...Really, Fei? Puns?"

<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.

Lily summons destructive darkness, Ida fires missiles that sets the underground ablaze. Dean is rolling; he hears words of warning and, not knowing how to actually bring his Gear upright, he keeps rolling. He manages to do this with enough speed and for enough distance to get well out of the way of those previous strikes, and considering all the destruction he can sort of make out in their wake, he doesn't stop, especially since Avril isn't stopping either...

but he's getting really dizzy in here oh god this is terrible

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"I got nearly eaten by a giant multi-armed thing and nearly both exploded and dropped down into an exploding mine tunnel." Fei begs. "Let me have this."

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"All right, all right. All's Wels that Ends Wels it is." Lily sounds permissive about it, like she's waving a hand in her Gear. Good enough.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

Smeared with so much undisclosed biomatter, the thruster-maneuvered plates reverse directions as the Elymas turns around, back facing them. The shields lodge into proper place along the grooves of its back, and... most of them manage to lock in. Most. Quite a few just sort of smack into the bulky gear and topple over, or slide in at an irregular angle, compromising the positioning of the other shells. This, it seems, is not an exact science.

"Damn, thought I got that fixed. Gonna have to look into that--"

Mortars away! Everyone out!

"--later, later I can do that. Shit--"

And this is the sound of motors and jet propulsion screaming in protest as the overlarge Elymas wheels its way out of mortar rain. Jude knows exactly what is about to happen, screams echoing in his ears as he strains the output of his Gear as much as humanly possible. Joints quake, he feels his teeth rattle --

And the ground beneath him roars as fire drenches everything in explosion after explosion, rumbling everything underneath in fitful starts of coal-fueled fireballs. Whatever was moving underneath is not moving anymore. Jude looks at those readings when he has reached a safe distance, and sighs haplessly to himself, running a hand through his dark red hair.

"Never really heard of a thing called 'overkill' before, have you, Ms. Everstead-Rey?" comes Jude Moshe's question, and it is wholly rhetorical. "Don't worry. I think you got it. And probably everything else in a five mile radius."

He looks at the flames that belch from underground, brows arched. The screams a distant memory now, even as his thoughts dwell on other things. The strangeness of all of this. At least he was right.

"... Well, I think it's safe to say this town is officially uninhabitable now."

This was exactly as much of a headache as the pricetag implied.