2022-04-30: Hell on Rails

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  • Log: Hell on Rails
  • Cast: Monster Mash, Rixia, Lily Keil, Gwen Whitlock, Lydia Seren, Venetia Vuong, Magilou, Ashiya Khaimova, Ethius Hesiod, Avril Vent Fleur
  • Where: Celesti Wastelands
  • Date: April 30, 2022
  • Summary: The railways of Zoara link the remains of Celesti to Guild Galad and St. Heim, allowing a modicum of safe passage through the wastes. But there are things in the wastes--things driven by instinct to consume, assimilate, and grow. One of these things has been spotted on the rails leading to Buckeye Station. It's commandeered an armored train left over from the war, and it's headed towards the biggest concentration of organic life in miles. Can intrepid Drifters head it off at the pass?

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    It's a little before midnight, and a cold wind blows through the Wastelands. The sky is clear, and the moons and stars glimmer in the darkness.

    Fifteen minutes ago, a Galadian railway scout reported back to Buckeye low on fuel, short of breath, and deeply disturbed. She claimed she'd seen something traveling the rails, a great, dark shape that looked like an armored train and smelled like soot and gunpowder. This would be noteworthy in and of itself, but several factors elevate it from 'alarming' to 'urgent'.

    That section of rail leads to a gutted town, one rumored to be host to the unquiet dead.

    That section of rail was disconnected, throughoughly, five years ago.

    The scout swears she heard moaning on the wind, and saw the train shifting onto tracks leading to Buckeye.

    The rail scouts are stretched a little thin tonight. This has become a Drifter problem.

    The hulking shape is more or less where the scout predicted it would be, given fifteen minutes of travel. The initial analysis was correct: it's an armored train, the type used during the Celesti Civil War. Five cars trail behind a battle-scarred locomotive, which is trucking along at twenty-five miles per hour, and slowly picking up steam. A decade's worth of rust and grime and dirt cake its frame, and something vile and organic-smelling drips from the pits in its armored plates. It's impossible to tell who it originally belonged to, thanks to this damage--and thanks to the fact that armored trains can change hands with remarkable ease, thanks to railway sabotage.

    The thing hasn't responded to signals of any sort. It keeps chugging along, inexorably, towards its destination. Is this the legendary ghost train, come to travel different rails?

    Those who have encountered said legendary ghost train can easily confirm: no. For starters, that one didn't smell nearly as bad.

<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    APPROXIMATELY THREE HOURS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

    "Okay, Rixia, come on, you can do this. Trains aren't scary at all. All you need is a little exposure time to them," Rixia whispers to herself. She's decided that 'exposure time' involves sneaking into a trainyard of unused, scrapped carriages at night, since if she can conquer trains at their scariest setting...

    A passenger train won't be a big deal at all!

    This has become an extremely bad idea.

    NOW

    "WAAAAAAAAH," Rixia screams at the top of her lungs, dangling off the railpost of the last of the five cars. She'd just been hanging inside when it suddenly lurched and moved on its own! And what's this awful stench and nasty thing starting to overtake it?! Is it some kind of monster?! This is the most awful, no good, very bad day of all!

    "Trains suuuuuuuck!! Waaaaaah!!"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Tearing off down the rough ground beside the railway, Lily Keil is in the drivers' seat of a military vehicle borrowed from the rail scouts. It's a Drifter problem, but Lily has had her eye on this thing for a bit. Its wheels blaze across the dirt, the cover over its top fluttering in the wind. She does not look the military part so much this time; dressed in black, as usual, she is in a long dress with a gray jacket over, with gloves on the steering wheel. Her boots drive down the accelerator.

And she sees... the train. She smells the train, over the gas. And the guy in her passenger seat says--

"Is that a kid!?"

He's wielding an ARM, a rifle, as Lily drives.

It's a Drifter problem now. "Where?" Lily asks, and then narrows her eyes.

"Well. That's a problem."

She skids around, turning, and is now keeping up with the train, zooming along beside it.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "..... The ghost train *defffinitely* didn't smell like this." Gwen hits her left fist on one of the fans, hitting a switch to obstruct the flow of air into the cockpit. "Phew! Thank Guardians I got my orders done before this, 'cause who knows what it's gonna be like if that smell sticks on things."

    She is talking because she has a passenger, though the passenger cannot benefit from Gwen's control of what air comes in or out, because this passenger... is *outside*.

    However, Gwen *can* talk over the speaker. And, due to the 'house/egg on chicken wheels' feel of the vehicle, there's plenty of places to strap a harness for whoever is intrepid to ride the Halcyone into battle like the world's first Gear Cowboy.

    Gwen's making sure to keep her steering pretty smooth too, which, thankfully, is something Halycone is good with. It's made to get deliveries done and shoot obstacles out of the way, and most of the time, that's all Gwen ever needs.

    Now, she's using to to keep a different type of delivery from happening. "Got a new look too. Hey, anyone else out there?" Gwen flips through the com channels. "Don't tell me we're the only two drifters out here. Ain't takin' on this thing all by my-- oh hey, is that Lily?" She gets on the speakers. "Hey Lily! Great t'see ya. And is that... what's that kid doin' on there?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

MEANWHILE, in the trunk of Lily Keil's military vehicle.

There's a faint thumping noise against the underside of the trunk as if someone was trapped inside and was trying to get out! How did they get inside there? Well, it's a long story.

But there's no time for that! When the car hits a bump in the road there's a louder THUNK and then a familiar voice shuoting, "Ow!"

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

Venetia Vuong suspected something like this might happen, or more accurately she had a reasonable idea that it might be possible in her new role - what role is that? you'll hear it from the horse's mouth soon enough - that she would have to deal with something like THIS. And as of yet she has not achieved quite the transcendeance of spiritual energy needed to prevail adroitly against massive entities (nor the reliable power of FLIGHT).

So:

School of Mineralogy Field Crest Sorcery Macro-Safety Kit
"Ammolites Be Prepared! Spiral Outwards! Beat the Upside!"

* Cushioned leather strap vest, suitable for catching from a crevasse fall!
* Carabiner-latched 3/4" support robe, coated in benzine byproduct distillates for durability and a bright color! Easy to spot!
* Oilcloth leggings, gauntlets and helmet (note: Venetia lost the helmet already)
* A firmly attached lunchbox with drinks! You may be out here for a while!
** Includes a ice-chilled Sol section.

Venetia has built her space on something that's approximately a balcony from what she understands of the concept. She answers Gwen by shouting, like, differently from she usually shouts. "Enough of this unauthorized rail piracy."

Venetia takes a deep breath and pushes it outwards. She does not want to look at the thing too closely. She got a glimpse of it through some field glasses.

"An armored train... and it stinks to high heaven. Whitlock, bring me alongside of it. I'm going to kill it with my magic."

INSERT BGM! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXTREKTaMRY

<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

    MIDNIGHT, ALRIGHT
A cobalt streak bounds across the nighttime wastes, from peaked dune to rocky outcrop and away again. In their wake drifts a fluttering trail of sand and the phantasmal glimmer of symbological power. The fastest Fellpool in the world (at this very moment, anyway) has her eyes glued to her phone while traversing the countryside at racecar speed. You might think this dangerous, but hark! The computer is held before her face, and providing night vision. So we're all fools for assuming this was going to be a zoomer joke.

    "Sleepwalking? No. Maybe she tried to run for it? No. That's not like her. Kidnapped? ... guh!" Ashiya Khaimova reasons to herself, aloud, buoyed along the desert at speeds unreasonable by her idiotic ensorcelled sneakers.

    On the grainy green image, a shining white reticle hovers in the lower corner of the screen. It's tracking something aboard Rixia's person, something that gives off one hell of a signal. Something onboard a train, which is passing beneath a ridge, which she'll be coming up on in just a few moments if she summons another magical burst of speed.

    WOOSH~

    That's the overwrought noise it makes as the blue-hued girl with the cat ears makes an expert high-jump dive over the edge of the cliff she's approaching and sails through the air in a silent arc towards the train. Plummeting towards it like a fleshy missile. <SIGNAL DISTANCE: 25m> A synthetic voice from the computer warbles, mid-flight.

    Her eyes close. A flash of the blade as it leaves its sheath.

    A moment's misjudgement. Rather than stab the train roof with her sword like a grappling hook, Ashiya accidentally performs a perfect cleave of a nearby smokestack and then slides down the rest of the carriage roof flailing her arms before tumbling to a halt next to the lamppost Rixia is hanging from, catching it handily and winding up in the same position.

    "Found ya!"

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Wow! Filgaia has so many ghost traiiiiins...!"

    That's the sound of one Magilou, Lunar native come to harass Filgaia once more, swooping past Lily's car on...

    ... a giant... paper doll?

    She is, for all intents and purposes, surfing through the air. This is legally distinct from those times she surfs over the Earthpulse flow, because her board for that is different. This time, it looks like she's riding one of those shikigami she uses in battle. It's just -- longer. Hers gets as long as she wants it to.

    "I'm gonna go check it out!" Magilou chirps, on another fly-by. "See ya~!" Despite anyone telling her not to fly ahead to The Train Which Cannot Be, off she goes. There's no stopping Magilou.

    This, naturally, means she's in a great place to witness -- WAAAAH!

    "Heyyyy, foxy lady!" A jester in a book skirt cries out, openly flirtatious, as she builds speed to swoop past poor, screaming Rixia. Magilou cants her head, with a loose grin, as she listens to her wail. "Guess she's not driving it," Magilou asides, more thoughtfully, to herself.

    So, coming back around -- surfing isn't really something you can stop in mid-air without looking like an idiot, you understand -- Magilou yells, to Rixia: "Looks like you caught the wrong train! Up we go!"

    And so, arms under her armpits, Magilou just kind of SCOOPS Rixia up. It's extremely undignified.

    It's also something which introduces an immediate dip to her shikigami, who is happy to carry Magilou, and zero (0) other people.

    "Sooo, is it too late to point out we're about to collide with the ground at high speed?" She asks, though even as she does, she's applying forward momentum to go back towards the pack even as they're lowering down. "Anyway, that's why you're not my problem. HEY, LILY! HEAD'S UP!"

    That's about the only warning anyone gets before Magilou does a low dive over Lily's car to dump Rixia unceremoiously in the back seat. Up and away she soars, immediately.

    The day is saved!

    Oh right, the horror train, that's still there.

    It's only once Magilou swoops back over the train that she addresses the much more battle-capable samurai who just jumped on the train of her own volition: "You don't get a ride, you look like you won't immediately get eaten. Feel free to prove me wrong! It'll be great! We'll have a whole revenge arc about it!"

<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

Blue cat samurai flaps in the wind like she's made of paper, holding her sword in her teeth while holding onto the lamppost. "Mmmffggle!"

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    SOME HOURS AGO

     It won't be much longer now, thinks a certain individual as he draws another three lines on a map. This area has been active to a degree that makes the single most important movement - one he only has one chance with - nearly impossible.

     That his current place of 'residence' isn't far from earshot of Galadian railway scouts is both a complication but sometimes useful. There's talk of a mysterious shape like an armored train headed towards Buckeye. It's one of two things, to his reckoning. A coinflip as to whether he should get involved. The descriptors he overhears leads to further possibilities he'd like to not have explored.

     He would have to abandon this saferoom the moment he revealed himself, and so he started to put certain things to the fire.

     NOW

     "This is the Aiguille." Comes a familiar voice among those who are in vehicles and/or the capacity to overhear Gear communications. To call oneself 'the Aiguille' is sort of silly, it's an uncommon but not exactly unique Gear salvage model. (It's a four-star gacha pull.) The rapid movement long-distance attacker model utilizes its heat signature-less short-distance dashjets across the landscape in order to move better into position to get a visual on the strange train.

     The voice is immediately identifiable as that of Ethius' - a man who has more or less dropped off the face of Filgaia, and Lunar, and pretty much every social circle imaginable beyond a handful of strange dreams. The pilot catches a glimpse of an interesting light belonging to a Fellpool but files it under a momentary detail of notice as he catches sight of others moving towards the target.

     The visual the Aiguille gets is good, but the target itself isn't in striking range yet.

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    Without question, it isn't the ghost train. ...Let's just say that the smell carries from there to here, even with the Skadi a good distance away from where the anomaly trundles along the tracks.

    It had been good fortune, in a sense. Normally, when she travels -- unless she feels there could be a need otherwise -- she leaves Skadi behind lest it draw too much attention, even in Aquvy. Most people don't have a billion-Gella price on their heads, and a Gear that just might have started to become a little bit Notorious. A little caution might behoove her from time to time (maybe).

    But, ah, there had been that little semi-conscious niggling at the back of her mind, and so she had come south with it anyway.

    It had been good fortune, indeed, when the call had come out.

    "Gwen, is that you?"

    The call comes in over the comms, on a generally public line. "This is Avril. I am headed in your direction. Have you managed to sight the train? I do not think this is the ghost train. But whatever might it be?"

    Someone seems to be... aboard it? They're screaming loudly.

    "...Rixia? No, that is her! How did she come to--"

    Avril is too far off to do all that much about it, even as Skadi advances steadily. "--Someone, help her!"

    Fortunately, that's already well in hand. "...What a relief."

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    It's exposure therapy. The best way to get over a fear of trains is to go to a deserted military rail depot just outside a town haunted by the speters of the dead, and take a nice, long nap atop an armored train.

    As she is in direct contact with the train itself, Rixia is the likely one of the first to notice its true, horrifying nature. The horrible sounds of groaning metal emanate from just in front of her. Rivets strain and pop. The plating tears itself open, and a low, pained groan echoes from within. Raw flesh erupts from the hole, and hands--clawed, grasping, and all-too-human--reach out, guided by a wide, staring eye further down the mass. Magilou has already snatched Rixia free. The hands reach for Ashiya instead. If they get her, she's going to have a bad time.

    But Magilou isn't out of the woods yet. As she surfs through the sky on her stylish papercraft, a port on the side of the train opens with a sound like ripping meat. One of the train's original armaments pokes out--the business end of a belt-fed machine gun. There must be some sort of fuel inside it, because it immediately roars to life, sending round after round downrange at Magilou and the hapless, adorable teenager she just rescued.

    Gwen gets close, starts to match course and speed. This would give Venetia the ideal platform to do what she said she'd do. There's just one problem: the train starts to pick up speed, and as it does, a door on its side slides open. Something groans and strains and shoves inside it, and approximately half of a Congressional officer's jeep--mangled by fire and acid(?!) to near-unrecognizability--launches from inside. Halcyone's going to get hit dead-center if Gwen doesn't evade!

    And that's not all. Ahead, the track angles sharply left, passes through a switch. The train slows just slightly, and then speeds up the instant Lily's car is within ramming range. It's going to ram from the passenger-side. Think fast, Lily. (And Lydia.)

DC: Monster Mash switches forms to The Hungering Train!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    It's exposure therapy. The best way to get over a fear of trains is to go to a deserted military rail depot just outside a town haunted by the speters of the dead, and take a nice, long nap atop an armored train.

    As she is in direct contact with the train itself, Rixia is the likely one of the first to notice its true, horrifying nature. The horrible sounds of groaning metal emanate from just in front of her. Rivets strain and pop. The plating tears itself open, and a low, pained groan echoes from within. Raw flesh erupts from the hole, and hands--clawed, grasping, and all-too-human--reach out, guided by a wide, staring eye further down the mass. Magilou has already snatched Rixia free. The hands reach for Ashiya instead. If they get her, she's going to have a bad time.

    But Magilou isn't out of the woods yet. As she surfs through the sky on her stylish papercraft, a port on the side of the train opens with a sound like ripping meat. One of the train's original armaments pokes out--the business end of a belt-fed machine gun. There must be some sort of fuel inside it, because it immediately roars to life, sending round after round downrange at the adorable witch who definitely did not just abandon a teenager to her own fate.

    Gwen gets close, starts to match course and speed. This would give Venetia the ideal platform to do what she said she'd do. There's just one problem: the train starts to pick up speed, and as it does, a door on its side slides open. Something groans and strains and shoves inside it, and approximately half of a Congressional officer's jeep--mangled by fire and acid(?!) to near-unrecognizability--launches from inside. Halcyone's going to get hit dead-center if Gwen doesn't evade!

    And that's not all. Ahead, the track angles sharply left, passes through a switch. The train slows just slightly, and then speeds up the instant Lily's car is within ramming range. It's going to ram from the passenger-side. Think fast, Lily. (And Lydia. And Rixia.)

    One of the train car roofs slides open, and something suspiciously blood-like sprays into the air. A howitzer--its base threaded with strands of muscle and bony growths--swivels to take aim at Aiguille and Skadi, one after another. The BOOM--BOOM of the two shots echoes over the plains.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Grasping Hands!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Unexpected Obstacle!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Venetia Vuong with Unexpected Obstacle!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Magilou with 7.7mm Anti-Personnel Machine Gun!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Rixia with No Brakes!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has entered Avenger Stance!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ethius Hesiod with 20mm Anti-Tank Howitzer!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with 20mm Anti-Tank Howitzer!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with No Brakes!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lydia Seren with No Brakes!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash gains 10 FP from them Daredevil!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's 20mm Anti-Tank Howitzer for 282 hit points!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's 20mm Anti-Tank Howitzer for 145 hit points!
GS: Ethius Hesiod activates Countermeasures!
GS: Lydia Seren takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's No Brakes for 141 hit points!
GS: Magilou suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's 7.7mm Anti-Personnel Machine Gun for 117 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's No Brakes for 135 hit points!
GS: Rixia used Mystic on Rixia! Status effect durations increased by 2! Gained 100 Temporary HP!
GS: Rixia has activated a Force Action!
GS: COUNTER! Rixia counterattacks Monster Mash with !
GS: Rixia takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's No Brakes for 152 hit points!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Grasping Hands for 111 hit points!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova activates Power Burst!
GS: CRITICAL! Venetia Vuong suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Unexpected Obstacle for 132 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash solidly guards Rixia's  for 55 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Is there something in the back??? Lily is unsure. She thought there were just arms and armaments and supplies back there, but the thudding is different. There is an...

"Go check on that," Lily directs the man with the gun, right before--

"Magilou?" It doesn't get a ! because Lily is hard to flap, but from anyone else it would definitely be 'Magilou!?' to see her on that shikigami. As it stands, she lifts an eyebrow, and then notices--

"Move the tarp!" She throws up a hand and black blades stretch forth, cutting off the tarp in part so that Rixia can tumble right into the bed of the truck. As she does, Lily peers back at her.

"...Huh."

Dream girl!

And then she hears a woman claim she's going to kill the train with her magic, and Lily's heart fills with warmth.

With a stoic salute to Gwen, Lily keeps driving. She's going to need that focus in a moment; the train picksup speed, and while she doesn't get a jeep thrown at her, the train is moving to--ram??? Lily swerves, but this doesn't actually spare the car the impact; the car goes spinning, whirling in place and then, as Lily's tight driving regains control of the car, speeds forward again beside the train. ...It's a very, very bumpy ride for all of them; the passenger loses his gun.

"Take the wheel, Jim." "My name's not--Uwaaah!" He takes the wheel as Lily jumps up in her seat and into the back, where she might step on Lydia's hiding place (oops.) She kneels down beside Rixia, "Stay down if you can. I've got this."

The trunk might pop open as she rises to her feet, and then starts to glow. Her eyes cloud over all-black, and apulse of Ether might pop ears.

She snaps her fingers, and a gigantic spear of ice erupts between her and the train, some thirteen feet long, right above her head. She launches her arm forward, and the ice crashes for one of the cars.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with The Grief of the Snake!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has entered Hero Stance!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Unexpected Obstacle for 207 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

There's a louder THUNK as the car is rammed. The trunk doesn't pop open! It doesn't even pop open when Lily starts rising up into the sky!

Instead, a thin sheet of metal oozes out of the trunk's seems, forming a flat almost cartoonish looking 'paper' hand that feels around the trunk for a bit until it finds a keyhole. One of the fingers oozes into the form of a key and sticks itself inside, clicking it open. The limb is shorn free in an instant and splooshes down underneath the car while Lydia, missing a limb, pushes back out into a standing position.

"What's going on??? Why is the car moving?! I called it I crawled in first! Lily! Oh my Guardian! It's you! And you're..."

Lydia continues to stand upright while looking up at Lily. "And you're not driving."

Her eyes slant towards Jim. "Jim! Keep driving! Or let me drive!"

She draises her hand into the air and summons greenish rays burstiung out of her hands towards the train!! Can trains be sick to radiation? Can they be poisoned? Let's find out!

"Are you going to suplex the train Lily? Why are we suplexing a train??"

GS: Lydia Seren spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Lydia Seren has attacked Monster Mash with Beautiful Morning!
GS: Lydia Seren has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's The Grief of the Snake for 235 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mute applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash solidly guards Lydia Seren's Beautiful Morning for 67 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Guard bonus and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    A fancy sorceress swoops by on a giant paper doll! Rixia's face and mouth are basically worbling blobs with the velocity the Wels-train is going at this point. "Hello! HELP, PLEASE--"

    She gets scooped up in terribly undignified fashion by Magilou, eyes sparkling with gratitude and relief--

    Soooo, is it too late to point out we're about to collide with the ground at high speed?

    "Eh? Eh? Eeeeeh?"

    YEET! goes one (1) Rixia, onto the back seat of Lily's car. Rixia's eyes are made out of @_@ at this point. "Oogh... that was ruuude, flying lady... but thank you anyway!!" she whine-and-dines Magilou with her flight review.

    She looks back towards the occupants of the car. "Eheheh... I'm Rixia, nice to meet you...?" she says just as the track angles left and, oh, uh, are they about to get rammed wholesale...?

    Lily lands right beside Rixia, and she gawks for a moment to say, "Wait, you're the lady from my dreams! You're real?! Wow!"

    She puffs up and says, "I'm not going to just stay down, I can fight too! Just watch--"

    >> detecting, detecting...
    >> extreme gap detected between user goal and user capability
    >> adjusting...

    Right as the train moves to ram them, Rixia's gunblade manifests in a shower of sparks in her hand. A honest-to-reality Symbology sigil emerges from within the weapon as Rixia draws several powerful orbs of what feels like raw magic from the train itself, forming into a barrier--

    Which then violently expels backwards as contact is made!

    >> acquiring enemy data...
    >> enemy strength far exceeds user capability
    >> adjusting...

    "Ashe! What're you doing up there? Did you take a nap onboard the train too?" Rixia guilelessly says, unaware the cat samurai's the one who tried to save her. Also, unaware her own device is sassing her big-time. "Hold on, I'll help you!"

    The device's magic literally warps on the fly and synthesises into something beneficial and green in colour; it flies off over the night and forms barriers around Ashiya.

GS: Rixia has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Draw - Benefic!
GS: Rixia enters a Counter stance!
GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Rixia heals Ashiya Khaimova! She gains 200 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    "That's a negative on the ghost train." Ethius weighs in uninvited, as is his wont along the vaguely defined communication lines to those in Gears. From the cockpit, Ethius himself takes note of something opening from the train car roofs - the way biomass has integrated itself along the howitzer has him widening his eyes uncharacteristically.

     He engages evasive maneuvers with another application of the heatless dash-jets to flee the anti-tank shot. The projectile(s) graze(s) just off the left flank, exploding into rocky hills behind him and pelting him with heavier chunks of debris that leave more considerable dents into the lightweight frame.

     "The train has incorporated unknown biomass into its structure and functions." The vocabulary is Ethius'. The cadence is Ethius', but in the moment his emotional mask starts to slip - betraying a hint of fear and urgency. "It cannot be allowed to continue along the former territory of Celesti." It's stating the obvious, but that urgency.

     There might be something more to this, but when isn't there? "Returning fire," he communicates as the laser-staff flares to life. That is the Aiguille's Achilles heel in the modern day - its laser weaponry punches above its weight but you can't ask for a finer tracer of where one's been shot. (Or "needled," as was the vernacular of its day, and how the model got its name.)

     Ethius pilots the Gear closer in a sideways movement, opening fire upon the car that first fired back towards his machine and Skadi.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Monster Mash with Strafe!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

    Hanging from the lamppost on the side of the train is a precarious position to be in, which is why Ashiya is very glad that Rixia is no longer in such a position! Now if she can just get out of it, herself, she'll be in good stead. She grabs the sword out of her mouth and waggles it fruitlessly at the departing Magilou. "Hey! Waitaminute, you--" and she promptly mistakes Magilou for someone important she's been chasing/hunting this whole time. "--get back here! I've got questions for you!"

    Catgirl samurai is distracted by the loud barking of kinetic weapons. Just like the movies. She seeks shelter aboard the train, a silver glimmer playing along her arms as she reinforces her strength and then pulls herself onto the last car of the train with unceremonial swiftness. Her ears stand tall, listening for more danger, but more danger arrives a few cars ahead of her as a tremendous lance of ice crashes into the train! Startled!

    That's about when a patch of plating pops a few rivets and flies off. Ashiya ducks that one quickly, but is greeted by the sight of dozens of huge, outstretched hands of raw flesh lunging for her!

    "Okay," she observes as the scene pauses for a second. "This was when I realized this planet might suck."

    Two hands snake around her ankles and pull her off her feet, which sucks, but Ashiya's senses realize this is a combat situation and her sword leaves its sheath almost of its own accord. The blade cuts a broad arc towards the hands grasping her feet--her centre of gravity shifts unnaturally, lending the blow a surprising amount of oomph for someone who can't get their feet on the ground. She can't wait here, after all, she's got the rest of this train to wreck.

    An orb of magic comes flying in from outside the train and splooshes into the beset beastgirl with an emerald ripple. There's now, at least, a thin barrier between skin and evil hands. "I was chasing after you, what the heck do you think I was doing!?!?" she yells back over the edge.

GS: Ashiya Khaimova has attacked Monster Mash with Waxing Moon Strike!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has entered Avenger Stance!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "Yep! The one and only! Well, the only Gwen Whitlock that I know of." The smile on Gwen's face translates well into the tone her voice takes. "I smelled it before I saw it, but yeah, got a visual. I'll give you some rough coordinates in a sec. ... I'm better at this at night when I get some stars on me, but we'll make it work." Specifically, make it work with the Power of Technology.

    Venetia issues her commands, and Gwen already begins smoothly shifting speed, directing the Halcyone so that it will eventually be flying parallel to the flesh train. Because that, unfortunately, is looking like what it is, as Gwen gets closer. "Better tell me how far your aim distance is, because if I can leave a bit of leeway between me n' this thing, I'll nab whatever I can get."

    The train picks up speed, and Gwen shifts the Halcyone to match it, not wanting more than a hair's amount of difference in speed between them for the sake of Venetia's aim. "Okay, oh, looks like we got a welcomin' comm--_what the flyin' fuck is that comin' out_?"

    It's a jeep.

    Jeeps aren't supposed to fly, Gwen thinks, as the jeep lands dead center on the windshield, leaving a nasty crack. A quick turn was supposed to make sure the Jeep didn't make its merry way upwards due to the streamlined angle of of the cockpit's windshield, but Gwen's not sure if she's succeeded. "Venetia?! You okay up there? I'm ampin' up the defense on this thing, so I'm gonna need your firepower t'make up for it! Get ready!"

     please don't be dead Venetia that would be very bad

GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Monster Mash with Neither Rain Nor Sleet!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has entered Stoic Stance!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    The train almost moves as if it were alive, Avril cannot help but think as she closes, drawing free the several-ton blade held against her Gear's back.
    It takes only seconds for that errant thought to prove prescient. Hands lurch from the side of the train, punctuated by a series of groans. What had been an advance towards the rogue train turns into the beginning of an assault as Avril urges Skadi into a near-collision trajectory.

    "Wels! It's Wels!" she calls out, across all ranges that will receive her signal.

    Unfortunately, her advance is hardly unnoticed be the train-Wels fusion: artillery ejects from its side and though she brings up that great sword as if it could stand a shield in her place, it's already too late. With a terrible roar of the cannon, the shell is thrown forth, and nothing at all stands in its path between it and Skadi.

    It is some small grace that it 'merely' takes away a significant segment of plating from Skadi's upper left arm, exposing the wiring below to the world. The Gear springs backwards, mighty blade born before it.

    "Gwen, we cannot assault it separately. We must attack as one! I shall fall back, and await your lead," Avril remarks, having scanned the readouts across a half-dozen screens. Just as she says, the Skadi drops back to align itself with Gwen's position, readying herself for the attack to come, whatever it may be.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 1 Combo on Reload!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Twinflower Maneuver!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has entered Avenger Stance!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock accepts Avril Vent Fleur's Twinflower Maneuver for 0 hit points!
GS: Riposte applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Gwen Whitlock activates Avril Vent Fleur's Reload!!
GS: Monster Mash takes a glancing hit from Ethius Hesiod's Strafe for 102 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Riposte applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: Monster Mash activates Evade bonus, Countermeasures, and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Being fair, Magilou is seen on quite a few wanted posters on Lunar. Some of them are even recent! (Some are, distinctly, not.) "Hmmm... nah!" She calls, to Ashiya, which is possibly the most honest answer to her party asking questions she's ever given.

    "Oh, wow!" Lunar's most outrageous witch exclaims, as she spies those hands from hell reaching for Ashiya. "Zombie train! Okay, ghost train, zombie train..." She counts on her fingers, mid-air. "Do my eyes deceive me?! No! It must be! We're almost due for the SEXY VAMPIRE TRAIN!"

    This is about when the zombie train reveals its most mystical power: gun. It blasts at Magilou, who, completely unaware, only barely avoids being gutted by 7.7mm shells.

    (She wasn't paying any attention, right..?)

    Instead, they rip through one of the books on her belt. Except, rather than pages, fluttering down...

    ... it's flakey, spongey...

    ... LAYER CAKE.

    (Even from here, it's clear it's a little dry.)

    "Awww, come on!" Magilou yelps, and if there's a thread of pain in that sentence, well -- surely not. "I thought I had that recipe perfecto! I need that ready to go -- wa-OOP!" Anyway, the train is still shooting, and Magilou takes this opportunity to weave through the bullets instead of casually revealing the plot.

    She pulls a whole corkscrew spiral through the air, setting new records for aerial manoeuvres which somehow don't make anyone throw up. (Don't count Rixia out just yet, Magilou.) "HEY!" She yells back, to the car. "I heard that! If you want rude, I can always drop you BACK ON THE TRAIN!"

    Swooping back trainwards, Magilou reaches up, to adjust her clever little radio-knob earring. Lily gave her a radio the last time she went cavorting with Gears; Magilou improved it. It's fine. They're magic. Somehow, this means her voice comes through Gear radios, too, because there is no escape. "Heeey, Ethius! Buddy!" The narrative would like to point out here that at no point in existence have Ethius and Magilou ever been described as 'buddies'. "They let you out from under that rock you like to hide under? An~y~way, I got it, I got it!" What she's got, thankfully, is supplied by Avril. Wels! They're like, ULTRA-zombies.

    (Magilou is no longer allowed to name monsters.)

    Anyway, there's something that nosy cat said -- at least, Magilou is pretty sure she said it, it's kind of hard to hear with the wind whistling by, just somehow Magilou always manages to catch the conversation it would be funniest for her to catch -- which makes her do a low pass over the train again, to call out to the enbarrier'd alien.

    "Wels are the kinds of zombies who don't just want to eat your brains," she calls, cheerfully, "so if your head is full of swords, you'd better pull some of those thoughts out to claim your personal space!"

    Loop-de-loop, up she goes -- and Magilou pulls out a second shikigami, thankfully, to channel her magic. "Is it hot, or is it just me?" She asks, as an air-green Seraphic glyph lights up on her skyboard shikigami, which is really a cosmological comment on cooperation between spiritual forces. "Crown Fire!"

    Magilou shortly sets the engine of the train on swirling, whirling fire, all carried on a wind spiralling up.

GS: Magilou has attacked Monster Mash with Crown Fire!
GS: Magilou has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Magilou has entered Avenger Stance!
GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

It's armed! Well, of course it is; why shouldn't it be? The train is even manipulating its own madlong rush. Venetia, who is already irritated she has to look at the damn thing at all, grits her teeth -- but then something slides backwards with an unfortunately enormous blooming of red and draws out--

Ah yes, Venetia thinks sourly, a cannon!

"Aim distance?" Venetia says. "I'm more worried about its. I suppose I can't hit at an extreme range," Venetia says as she ducks behind a piece of decorative wainscotting before the incoming

THOOM!

Venetia misses some of what's going on. "What?!" Venetia sas. "Are you attacked!? I'm slightly shell shocked but I don't see any blood and I didn't feel anything hit my body, and so I assume for now that I am alive." Though even if I were hit, Venetia thinks with something resembling grim smugness.

"I'm hearing something about Wels," Venetia tells Gwen. "That's not good, is it? Fortunately for you all, hm hm, well, it's hardly the dream everyone has, is it? But I've started to think that perhaps this idea is simply a misprint that's gotten out of hand; there's your goat, if you will." What??

Venetia draws out a Crest Graph. "But to hell with that!! I'll do this my own way! Do you see the weakness of this Wels, ladies and gentlemen?" Venetia spots the hands at this point, which evokes a "..." followed by a "Nevertheless!"

Up comes the Crest Graph. There is a sense of the world taking a breath-- which is... considerably less palpable given the ranges involved but nevertheless Gwen and Team Jeep might be able to sense it, especially since Venetia takes an extra-long time to gather her thoughts and her power.

"Behold!"

The camera seems to swoop towards the front of the train -- then further away, down the tracks. What did tracks ever do to anyone, Venetia!? What are you doing!?

"Selenite Sign!" shouts Venetia into the wind. That focused-on patch of ground glimmers...

"Cavern of the Crystals!!"

And the metal of the train rails sparkles for a moment, then seems curiously rugose, before -- JUST as the train reaches that stretch -- surging upwards, erupting into a cavalcade of sparkling friable crystals. On their own they would be perhaps long enough to reach into the engineer's cabin (were there such a thing -- or an engineer) from the ground. Right now, well, it's a bad moment for rail-road safety.

GS: Venetia Vuong has attacked Monster Mash with Selenite Sign ~Cavern of the Crystals~!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
GS: Gamble: Lowest! Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Crown Fire for 69 hit points!
GS: Hyper and Mighty applied to Magilou!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ashiya Khaimova's Waxing Moon Strike for 113 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Mighty applied to Ashiya Khaimova!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Neither Rain Nor Sleet for 168 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cover applied to Gwen Whitlock!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Venetia Vuong's Selenite Sign ~Cavern of the Crystals~ for 96 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    In the instant before the train makes contact with Lily's car, something glimmers wetly in the hole torn in the locomotive's side. It's a pair of eyes, and they're locked on the sorceress; the 'presence' of whatever horrible thing is controlling this vehicle seems localized there, and spread a little thinly through the rest of the train. Is it a single entity, or an amalgamation of multiple distinct minds? It might be possible to tell, but that would involve voluntarily exposing one's mind to a force of elemental pain and insatiable, endless hunger.

    Lily's spear of ice crashes down into the train, right atop the car bearing the howitzer. The impact shears the barrel off about halfway down, and crushes some of the supports--the stink of fresh blood joins the scents of oil-smoke, rust, and general organic rot. Ethius' shot punches through the car a moment later, lancing clean through and charring a patch of turf on the other side. It doesn't have the raw, crushing power of Lily's attack, but he hit something.

    Will radiation affect a train? Normally no, but this is no ordinary train. Lydia's bolts converge on the locomotive's crew compartment, and there's an odd, hissing pop, followed immediately by a hideous scream. A shudder ripples through the train's chassis, one that can only be described as 'pained'. A moment later, Magilou's flames wash over that same compartment. This should, in theory, be a good idea. There's almost certainly a boiler of some sort in there, and those can be volatile; take out the coal or oil, and the whole locomotive might go up. Unfortunately...

    Age-corroded steel flakes and runs beneath the witch's sorcerous flame. Beneath is...

    Beneath is a layer of hardened, bony carapace, surrounding what's left of the train's original controls. Inside is a vaguely-humanoid silhouette, protruding from a mass that shifts and sways uneasily. It's threaded into the train's controls, like a grotesque parody of the crew that would normally operate it. 'Wels', says Avril, and she is unquestionably correct. But what are they doing piloting a vehicle?

    Ashiya has gone a good minute or so without being consumed. In this, she's doing very good compared to most first Reaper encounters. Her blade cleaves through the grasping hands, sending them tumbling to the ground beside the train. It speeds up again, and Gwen's return fire hammers its sides. The monstrosity shudders under each impact, but the armor's holding firm for now.

    Venetia seizes the moment. The ground beneath the train--including the tracks, which are absolutely necessary for its operation--lances upwards in the form of crystalline spines. Blood slicks the ground as flesh is sliced to ribbons. The train buckles and jumps free, and starts to skid--

    "no," gurgles a sickly voice from within the locomotive, unfortunately transmitted via the machine's still-functional loudspeaker. Flesh oozes out of the bottom of the train, extruding bone spikes and adhering to bits of the shredded track. It's forming... treads?

    It's twisting the metal into treads, and extruding more treads from the remains of some broken vehicle inside it. "forward," the voice gurgles. "forward."

    The howitzer car tries to fire again. Unfortunately, that gun is out of commission, but the train tries; blooms of metal and flame erupt from its sides, threatening to catch Venetia and Gwen thanks to proximity. The second car's sides fall off, revealing bladed tentacles that lash out with terrible force, targeting Lily's vehicle as well as Skadi. One of the guns on the rearmost car targets Magilou and Aguille, letting out a sickly ghhk as it launches... camouflage nets, covered in what can generously be described as 'mucous', and connected to long, fleshy tendrils. Ashiya comes under the most direct attack as more Reapers--these ones connected to the train via umbilicus, but still horrid in shape--lunge at her, threatening to rip her limb from limb.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Ammo Cookoff!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Venetia Vuong with Ammo Cookoff!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Lashing Limbs!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lydia Seren with Lashing Limbs!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Rixia with Lashing Limbs!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Magilou with Engulfing Extrusion!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Engulfing Extrusion!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Ravenous!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 4 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Lashing Limbs!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash gains 10 FP from them Daredevil!
GS: Monster Mash takes 33 damage from Poison!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: Lily Keil solidly guards Monster Mash's Lashing Limbs for 59 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Lily Keil activates Guard bonus!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Lashing Limbs for 120 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur activates Evade bonus!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Engulfing Extrusion for 0 hit points!
GS: Entangle applied to Ethius Hesiod!
GS: CRITICAL! Magilou fully evades Monster Mash's Engulfing Extrusion for 0 hit points!
GS: Magilou activates Evade bonus and Gleam!
GS: Gwen Whitlock partially guards Monster Mash's Ammo Cookoff for 256 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Gwen Whitlock gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock activates Guard bonus and Countermeasures!
GS: Strain! Monster Mash takes 100 damage!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Ashiya Khaimova takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Ravenous for 164 hit points!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova activates Power Burst and Gleam!
GS: COUNTER! Rixia counterattacks Monster Mash with Draw - Counter Magic!
GS: Rixia partially guards Monster Mash's Lashing Limbs for 111 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Lydia?" Lily peers down. That explains a few things, like the silvery gunk. And the shouting. "Put your arm back on!" she advises immediately. "No, I'm not driving. I was driving, but I needed both hands free to start blasting. Jim's got it."

"My name's not Jim!" Pause. "But I got it!"

"Rixia, is it?" Lily says peering down at her as shesays she can do something, and then she... does something. Lily slowly tilts her head. "Huh."

"...Keep doing that," she suggests. "You--" Pause. "Oh, is there someone still on there?" Lily wonders as she sees signs of Ashiya. That's problematic. "Come over this way!" she calls. "We've got room!"

Lily has nothing to say against naps on trains. ...But she does appreciate Ashiya. On the other hand... Ethius. Ethius is there; that's not strange. He's often there when things go south. But he sounds... almost emotional.

"Hesiod, right. ...What's your condition?"

Wels! Well--Lily doesn't have radio in this form. that's the other form. So she doesn't actually hear Avril's warning like she did Ethius's words, because the radio on the truck has stopped working in the wake of all these nanomachines in the air after Ethius's statements.

Radio's back! And Venetia is shouting about Wels. And weaknesses. And...

And delivering some nice magic. Lily looks on with interest. ...What she sees in a moment though is not just cool magic, but the tracks... building. Flesh oozing and forming and... Treads.

Lily 'feels' the presence, and does not reach out harder. Not with what she sense already. But the bladed tentacles lash out, and this time Lily projects a barrier of ice, one that prevents the car skidding away, though it shatters beneath those blades. "...All right," she says to Rixia. "I'm gonna go get your friend. Lydia! Protect Jim!"

"I'm not--"

Lily jumps off of the truck, and fails to hit the ground. Instead, she flies, trailing dark sparkling specks of shadow, over to Ashiya on the train, past Magilou, and down.

And then... she lunges down, to grab hold of Ashiya by the waist, pull her up. "I've got you!" she says, "Just don't drop your weapon!"

She banks down, to the edge, to get Ashiya closer to something more vulnerable. And then... Well.

And then she lets her eyes blaze and, without having to use her hands, directs flame to erupt down her arms, where it travels as fireballs to start wreathing Ashiya's blade.

"NOW!"

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Blaze Dance!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Venetia Vuong partially guards Monster Mash's Ammo Cookoff for 140 hit points!
GS: Venetia Vuong activates Guard bonus!
GS: Strain! Monster Mash takes 100 damage!
GS: Lily Keil has canceled their attack on Monster Mash.
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Dance of Flame!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Ashiya Khaimova accepts Lily Keil's Dance of Flame for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper applied to Ashiya Khaimova!
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    The foxgirl sulks back at Magilou to say, "I said thank you, okay?! Geez, some people."

    "Miss Avril, how could you say it's going well?! Nothing's going well right now!" Rixia whines, somehow able to answer on the radio despite not knowing what a radio is. (Hint: It's the device. Again.) She huffs as Magilou further explains what a Wels is. "What, so they're more creative? Geez."

    She blinks as Ashe tells her she's been trying to find her. "Ohhh. Ummm, well, you know, one thing led to another, and I thought I'd try wandering around a spooky train yard to get used to trains, ahahaha.... come on, get onboard this car, Ashe!"

    Rixia spots the eyes before she says anything else, though, and starts yelping and backing up. "Oh geez, it's even scarier than I thought! I was onboard that? Ashe, definitely get away from that thing!!"

    It gets even worse, since there's BONE underneath the train, geez! Was it planning on taking her to the BONE ZONE? "I'm not good with horror...!!" Rixia whines, flailing again. "It's too scary, too scary!"

    Venetia takes out the tracks! Awesome, that should be over, right--

    It forms treads. "That's just CHEATING!" she sulks to the speaking pilot.

    Rixia kind of cowers underneath the car, the frame crumpling and crunching in the wake of the bladed tentacles; fortunately, her arm's basically moving on its own, deflecting the tendrils in a parry.

    >> calculating battle plan...
    >> determining risk of abnormality to datamined technology
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> established: high levels of battle power detected in allied individuals
    >> synthesising data, enhancing capabilities

    LIMIT BREAK [============][============][============]
    MASH (/_\)!!

    "Eh?" Rixia's gunblade starts to rattle, shining with an indefatigable light. Her eyes widen as the light blossoms, and ERUPTS into an enormous wide-scale Symbological mandala on the ground, creating a starry blue hue that eradicates the foul night for one moment...

    Criss-crossing lines of bright white form constellations and asterisms upon the infinite night sky! And from those stars come... power, enhancing those it touches as their very reaction speed accelerates as everything seems to come to a...

<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    The foxgirl sulks back at Magilou to say, "I said thank you, okay?! Geez, some people."

    "Miss Avril, how could you say it's going well?! Nothing's going well right now!" Rixia whines, somehow able to answer on the radio despite not knowing what a radio is. (Hint: It's the device. Again.) She huffs as Magilou further explains what a Wels is. "What, so they're more creative? Geez."

    She blinks as Ashe tells her she's been trying to find her. "Ohhh. Ummm, well, you know, one thing led to another, and I thought I'd try wandering around a spooky train yard to get used to trains, ahahaha.... come on, get onboard this car, Ashe!"

    Rixia spots the eyes before she says anything else, though, and starts yelping and backing up. "Oh geez, it's even scarier than I thought! I was onboard that? Ashe, definitely get away from that thing!!"

    It gets even worse, since there's BONE underneath the train, geez! Was it planning on taking her to the BONE ZONE? "I'm not good with horror...!!" Rixia whines, flailing again. "It's too scary, too scary!"

    Venetia takes out the tracks! Awesome, that should be over, right--

    It forms treads. "That's just CHEATING!" she sulks to the speaking pilot.

    Rixia kind of cowers underneath the car, the frame crumpling and crunching in the wake of the bladed tentacles; fortunately, her arm's basically moving on its own, deflecting the tendrils in a parry.

    >> calculating battle plan...
    >> determining risk of abnormality to datamined technology
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> ERROR: up3 lock disabled
    >> established: high levels of battle power detected in allied individuals
    >> synthesising data, enhancing capabilities

    LIMIT BREAK [============][============][============]
            MASH (/_\)!!

    "Eh?" Rixia's gunblade starts to rattle, shining with an indefatigable light. Her eyes widen as the light blossoms, and ERUPTS into an enormous wide-scale Symbological mandala on the ground, creating a starry blue hue that eradicates the foul night for one moment...

    Criss-crossing lines of bright white form constellations and asterisms upon the infinite night sky! And from those stars come... power, enhancing those it touches as their very reaction speed accelerates as everything seems to come to a...

GS: Rixia has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has attacked Lydia Seren with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has attacked Lily Keil with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has attacked Magilou with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has attacked Venetia Vuong with Celestial Stasis!
GS: Rixia has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Rixia heals Lily Keil! She gains 175 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Rixia heals Lydia Seren! She gains 175 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Lydia Seren!
GS: Rixia heals Magilou! She gains 175 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: CRITICAL! Lydia Seren partially evades Monster Mash's Lashing Limbs for 126 hit points!
GS: Lydia Seren activates Evade bonus and Power Burst!
GS: Rixia heals Ashiya Khaimova! She gains 175 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Ashiya Khaimova!
GS: Rixia heals Venetia Vuong! She gains 175 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Venetia Vuong!
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

Lydia says, "Give me a minute! Arms are hard! Well, okay, actually arms are easy. HANDS ARE HARD." She shakes out her stump and it grows to about halfway there. "I'm working on it okay!! Maybe you could give me a HAND too, I don't know!"

There is a long pause. "UHHHH THE TRAIN IS SCREAMING LILY! THE TRAIN IS SCREAMIN! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I'M SORRY FOR MAKIN YOU SCREAM!!!"

Lydia is clobbered by a Trainticle and goes flying off the car, only to summon a scythe out of her damaged arm and swing it into the back hood of the car. "Ahhhh!!" She bumps and rolls back into the shotgun seat.

"Bwuh bwuh bwuh..." She looks to Jim. "Hi." She brushes hair out of her eyes. "I'm pretty cute right?"

OH RIHGT THE FIGHT.

Rixia does...something that seems to help Lydia feel better. She seems pretty happy about that cool gunblade even if it's SKETCH.

She raises her hand into the air and sends giant cartoon stars flying down for the train! Pew pew pew!!

"JIM ARE YOU OKAY?"

GS: Lydia Seren enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Blitz! Lydia Seren has attacked Monster Mash with Shooting Stars!
GS: Lydia Seren has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lydia Seren enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "Ooooh boy, he's chatty." Magilou taps her earring. "Hey, Frigid!" Avril. She means Avril. "It's chatty! What do you think about that?!" Much as Magilou is loathe to admit it, she doesn't have a series of doctorates on Filgaian lore, and Avril recognised the Wels on sight.

    She doesn't ask Ethius what he thinks because Ethius will say exactly as much as he means to say and then probably scowl in his cockpit about the rest of it, judging from all the other times Magilou's met Ethius. Nice guy, she thinks. Wonder if he's gonna destroy the world?

    "It's really going off the rails, now...!" Figuratively and literally! Magilou remains much less alarmed by this as she really ought to be. She even rolls her eyes, as Lily flies up. "Oh, sure, upstage me, why don't you. If you think --"

    Here, a net flies out, and Magilou goes 'woop!', and shoots STRAIGHT UP. Her hair and her books fan out behind her, as she travels in a long, carnivalesque arc through the air which carries her out of the path of those nets with an alacrity which might suggest she knows just how bad getting caught in them would be.

    From that straight-up point, Magilou barrels down -- right through the asterisms formed by Rixia's mysterious ARM, sparking light through each sigil as she passes through the mathemagical Arte. It might seem as if she's about to collide with the ground, except -- at that last minute -- she pulls up, coasting near to the ground. "Ha HA, I'm still alive...!"

    Speeding up, Magilou pulls ahead of the train on its treads, and swoops around, channeling darkness, this time, though the Seraphic glyph on her skyboard. "Looks like someone needs a speed bump, so... you're all about to get a lot closer! Gravity Mine!" In front of the Wels-integrated train, an innocuous dark node appears. It's only if the train keeps charging forward that the trap will be tripped -- sucking the train into itself, in the crushing darkness of black-hole gravity.

    Swooping away, she adds, calling out to the car: "You're super cute, kid! Work it!" How did she hear Lydia say that? Well, apparently Magilou isn't taking questions.

GS: Blitz! Magilou has attacked Monster Mash with Gravity Mine!
GS: Magilou has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash solidly guards Rixia's Draw - Counter Magic for 67 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash solidly guards Lydia Seren's Shooting Stars for 62 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Magilou's Gravity Mine for 200 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cripple and Entangle applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

As her Crest Graph's gathered force discharges itself, Venetia catches sight, from behind her protective eye-wear model of face mask, of Magilou doing a magilou-de-loop in the air. Her brow furrows. Venetia is seized with envy in this moment. This is normal, for Venetias, and will affect the direction of her research.

The train begins derailing. "You see? That's how you do it," Venetia says, along with "Disgusting" as the thing hits the ground and begins to -- bleed. More. "How much blood can it take to fill this blood train? My goodness," Venetia continues.

'No'.

Venetia stares for a moment. "Did it just talk to me?"

"Dinoginos's lovely eyelashes," Venetia says, although she didn't actually say lovely eyelashes, if you understand us, dear reader - that's what we call a euphemism - "How much of that thing is still a train!? They said it was stolen? Or did it get overwhelmed? Ugh!!"

And then something erupts.

A shining realm of the stars. Venetia blinks, the beauty of constellations an abstract thing to her - but not to the star-borne metal within her Crest Graphs! The meta-thallium within them, being a metal unknown to Filgaia, resonates; perhaps on the distant realm of Planet Minora, such matters would be reversed.

"See if you can get it to double back on itself," Venetia calls towards Gwen (and through Gwen, everyone) even as a bursting shell makes her duck again, the noise and shock and the fact that THIS time a shell fragment DID just graze against her leg making her grit her teeth.

"I have an idea, but if it's spread out like this, it can't strike the entire thing, and I'm going to take a supposition that blowing a singular hole won't do it a bit," Venetia continues. Up she comes - grasping onto the wainscotting with one hand and drawing forth a different graph. A familiar one. A glittering orbital array of crystals comes around her, shining purple before snap-snap-snapping off, with an enormous one saved particularly for -- for the FRONT, where the damn thing SPOKE.

GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Blitz! Venetia Vuong has attacked Monster Mash with Amethyst Sign ~Second Month's Decision~!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    "I'll see what I can do," Gwen says, as Avril recommends them attacking as one. "But... Wels? Guardians.... where's the Etones when y'need 'em..." Gwen winces a second later at the quip, realizing that it might be a little insensitive. "Venetia," she says on the loudspeakers, "that ain't no ghost train! It's a damn _Wel train_! Y'sure you're gonna be okay up there?"

    Nah, Gwen can tell from the tone in Venetia's voice (because she can't see her due to being basically directly underneath her) that Venetia's got everything under control.

    "Ahhhhhh." Gwen whistles as the boring, ugly, and extremely useful train tracks form

    ".... They're... talking? I mean, that could mean some element of humanity, but... it ain't like we're in a good space to negotiate a nice little truce of 'please don't crash into that nice town over there'...."

    Also, another point: metal and fire. "Shit! Incoming!!"

    The shield Halcyone manages to project (which mimicks the same that Gwen's ARM sometimes produces) cuts away a rough chunk of the damage, but it's not looking so great afterwards. "Venetia! Avril!" Last she checked, Avril was close by, so she may have been hit, and Venetia was right there. "You guys doin' okay?"

    Venetia asks Gwen to 'to double back on itself', which Gwen decides means only one thing, and that thing involves both arms revolving their three-digit hands to show two holes, which are perfect for...

    ... launching a pile of garbage and misplaced items straight at the train. "Ahahahhahaa, take that, spring cleaning!!"

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Monster Mash with Dead Mail!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

    Ashiya rolls backwards the moment her sword cleaves through malformed flesh and bone, coming back to her feet in one smooth motion. Her eyes flit left and right. Well, nobody's around to see her space magic, so whatever. "CODE: HASTE." she intones, firing off a Symbology rune beneath her glove. The world seems to slow a little, for her. She watches, in slow-mo, as Magilou sails away with taunts about her brain full of swords, and elects to respond with deed and not word. Also because talking while hasted is hard.

    Thick, muscular tentacles of misshapen biomass burst from the undercarriage and the windows alike and charge the lone swordsgirl. She rolls her sword around her wrist and steps in to the first blow! There's a clash of sparks as the blade meets one honed bone-edge scythe, and she twists to avoid the next incoming blow from another angle. It splashes off of Rixia's loaned shields. One cut. Two cuts. Three. Each stroke leaves a crescent of light trailing in the air, but there's too damn many oncoming Reapers and not enough Sword! Ashiya is forced backwards after another blow strikes her in the chest, the flickering emerald field cracking.

    Luckily, Filgaia's inhabitants have ideas about how to help.

    "Eh? Hup!" Ashiya exclaims suddenly as an arm wraps around her waist and hauls her into the air. She has precious little time to appreciate, let alone recognize, the ethereal flames burning along her sword's edge. "Thanksforthesave, it'sarealmessdownthere." the blue-hued gal thanks Lily profusely. And, uh, quickly. She's speaking unnaturally fast, like someone fast-forwarding through a tape deck. "HangonI'llhelpouttoo--THANKSRIXIA"

    Ashiya waves energetically to Rixia as a Symbological wave of protective power washes over her anew, and then dangles from Lily's grasp to quickly sheathe her flaming katana... and then explosively unsheathe it once more as the two sail past a big, gross, beating heart where there ought to be a car train full of coal. The sword's blade is not five to six metres long, so how is it that the resultant flaming arc of force that follows her swing is? Take that, monster train!

    "HISSATSUOUGI--" she can't finish her sentence because she bites her tongue by accident while trying to talk at 5x speed.

GS: Ashiya Khaimova has activated a Force Action!
GS: Blitz! Ashiya Khaimova has attacked Monster Mash with Blazing Sun - Searing Heat!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    '...What's your condition?'

     "...Structural integrity at ninety percent," is his response and not what Lily means when she asks that. The Aiguille keeps closing in with the train, which is a decision that may not be one the pilot will be happy with in short order as a hideous scream leads to immense sensory abuse by audio feedback and the way the train's chassis rattles in that shuddering. Somehow, the sight of this alone is the least disturbing facet of the whole image to him as Lily starts peeling back the layers of armor.

     Ethius starts training the rifle staff towards the bladed tentacles that emerge, looking to line up a shot that might give Lily's vehicle or Skadi the ability to escape being grasped... but the rearmost car threatens to blindside (and makes good on the threat, in fact) with the mucous-coated camouflage nets that envelop around the weapon and pull down, dragging the Aiguille along in a crouch as plating shears and bends about the legs.

     "Ensnared," Ethius calls, as Symbological mandala appears of an uncertain source by his measure. Is there another Symbology adept present? No, he hasn't seen Josie belt out spells of that potency, and that's not Arleph's work.

     Ethius fights with the controls to get the staff raised while entangled, allowing the tip of the staff to overcharge and build heat in a desperate bid to set the net aflame over a period of time that's 'not this round of attacks' before having to discharge the current laser as to not completely overheat the mechanism.

     For lack of the ability to aim further ahead due to being ensnared, it's a shot going for the rear car.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Monster Mash with Shoot!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "They can speak," is what Avril says, quite serious in the moment, to Magilou's remark. "My name is Avril," she adds, as if to somewhat bluntly but also politely request a particular mode of address. "I have heard Wels speak before, but..."

    Never has she heard of them being able to operate a machine. Unless... is it possible they're not piloting it as much as they're--

    If Rixia had needed any confirmation that Avril did indeed have a Gear, this is it! "Wels," Avril repeats, voice echoing from the external speakers, without so much as missing a beat. "They are called 'Wels', Rixia, or 'Reapers'. They are a being native to Filgaia, and they must be destroyed." There is at least a pause. "...Are you alright, Rixia? How did you come to be aboard that train?"

    It... really is going off the rails now. Avril's mind can't help but echo the merry witch Magilou. "...It has no need to obey the rails," Avril speaks, as if quoting something she had read or heard once before. "Have they... fused with the train?"

    Bladed appendages erupt from the side of the train just then, and perhaps Avril had expected it to make a try for something akin to that (if not the cannons again) for Skadi steps backwards sharply and tilts that enormous blade just in time to parry away some of the bladed tendrils. Others yet scratch across the Gear's legs with a squeal as metal meets metal, but for now, Avril's Gear remains more or less unscathed.

    "I am doing well, thank you! And yourself?"

    Perhaps now is not the time for such pleasantries.

    Avril, for her part, breaks away from Gwen's Gear as Halcyone opens hostilities. "Starting my attack!" Now, with Gwen leading the assault, is the best time for her to make good on her own part of the bargain. Falling into an all-out dash, Avril leaps towards the train to bring her blade down with a single mighty swing. Perhaps, if she's very lucky, she might even be able to carve some of the train off from the rest of it.

GS: Rixia heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 350 temporary hit points!
GS: Blitz and Hyper applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
GS: Blitz! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Monster Mash with Wild Rose Approach!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash partially guards Venetia Vuong's Amethyst Sign ~Second Month's Decision~ for 167 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Dead Mail for 201 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Disrupt applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Ashiya Khaimova's Blazing Sun - Searing Heat for 175 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Cripple applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Ethius Hesiod's Shoot for 307 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: Gamble: Moderate! Monster Mash solidly guards Avril Vent Fleur's Wild Rose Approach for 122 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    The Reaper(s) cannot appreciate the sublime beauty channeled by Rixia and her ARM of questionable origin. A blazing tapestry of stars lights up the night, and it keeps on rolling ahead, its wheels settling into their new configuration as tank treads. Rixia's celestial stardust burns into the bony 'canopy' around the locomotive, and the 'pilot' lets out another gurgling scream. One of Lydia's stars slams directly into the canopy, cracking bone with a horrible noise.

    "forward," the thing says. "can't--fail."

    The third car's stop hitches, whines, starts to slide open. Glass and metal gleam in the light of Rixia's grand display.

    SLAM

    The train skirts the edge of Magilou's gravity mine, but that's all it takes for the tidal forces to rip into it. Steel screams. Bone cracks. The thing loses about ten square meters of plating and a few wheels in the process; the latter it cannot replace biologically or technologically. It lists to one side, then turns it into a sharp, evasive turn...

    It doubles back on itself, maneuvering in an arc to avoid slamming into its own cars. Joints strain. Muscle extrudes to support them. The whole, onrushing mass heads right towards the prone Aiguille, at ramming speed.

    Hit or miss, it keeps right on going.

    The lights of Buckeye Station are just barely visible on the horizon. A massive humanoid silhouette kneels before them--reinforcements?--but whatever it is, the Reaper is not going down without a fight.

    "almost," the 'pilot' wheezes. "please. can't fail. please."

    Lily carries Ashiya right up to that beating heart, and ignites her blade. Ashiya's skill drives that blade home, cutting through the vulnerable tissue. A mixture of blood and oil spills onto the tracks, and the flame leaps from the swordswoman's blade to the organ. Something explodes. The pilot screams. Gwen's trash bombardment adds insult to injury, embedding bits of junk into the the thing's circulatory system(?). Ethius' shot passes straight through the final car, lengthwise, melting through the connection. It detaches in its entirety with a sick snapping noise, and starts to skid, treads churning arrhythmically.

    The train is badly wounded. Its circulatory organs bleed flaming oil into the dirt. Its plating is in ruins. Venetia's gemstones slam into the cockpit, shredding the exoskeleton and ripping into the flesh beneath. "no," says the pilot. "please. forward. can't fail." The thing's flesh starts to bubble and harden. Scar-like carapace extrudes from raw, exposed biomass. The 'heart' begins to seal. It's moving faster.

    Avril peels the top of the second car off like she's opening a can of tuna. It detaches in two pieces, which slam into the ground off to one side. A massive metal hand rises from within, and grips the top of the train car.

    Two-thirds of the upper body of a Gear--likely Metal Demon War-era salvage--rise from within. The whole thing is covered in a webwork of tissue. It reaches down, and picks up a one-handed axe; the filament on its blade starts to glow red, then white with heat. It swings at Skadi, demonstrating terrifying strength despite its sloppy, desperate technique. Missile ports on the Gear's remaining torso open up and start to bombard the area with micromissiles; one of them hits a large, corroded canister lying on the bed of one of the burst-open cargo cars. Green-yellow gas starts spraying from within: chlorine kept in a Symbologically-sealed container, a chemical weapon that had laid dormant until now.

    But that's not all. More missiles race from the Gear, streaking at Halcyone--they should be chaff flares, but the thing's using them like weapons. They erupt into blooms of drifting metal filaments, adding EM interference to the growing list of problems.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Indiscriminate Bombardment!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Rixia with Indiscriminate Bombardment!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lydia Seren with Indiscriminate Bombardment!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Magilou with Corrosive Cloud!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ashiya Khaimova with Corrosive Cloud!
GS: Monster Mash spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Salvaged Heat Axe!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Ramming Speed!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Monster Mash with Desperate Vigor!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash gains 10 FP from them Daredevil!
GS: Monster Mash takes 33 damage from Poison!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: Monster Mash has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Monster Mash heals Monster Mash! They gains 600 temporary hit points!
GS: Burst applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Cover and Mighty applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Chaff Missile Salvo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Venetia Vuong with Chaff Missile Salvo!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash gains 10 FP from them Daredevil!
GS: Monster Mash takes 30 damage from Poison!
GS: Mute and Poison expired!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: Lily Keil suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Indiscriminate Bombardment for 168 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Lily Keil gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: CRITICAL! Magilou suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Corrosive Cloud for 284 hit points!
GS: Magilou enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Salvaged Heat Axe for 831 hit points!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Corrosive Cloud for 287 hit points!
GS: Venetia Vuong suffers a terrible blow from Monster Mash's Chaff Missile Salvo for 142 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Venetia Vuong!
GS: Rixia takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Indiscriminate Bombardment for 147 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Rixia gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Rixia activates Guard bonus!
GS: Lydia Seren takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Indiscriminate Bombardment for 166 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock partially guards Monster Mash's Chaff Missile Salvo for 161 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Gwen Whitlock!
GS: Gwen Whitlock activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Ramming Speed for 578 hit points!
GS: Strain! Monster Mash takes 100 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Mine take a lot longer to grow back!" Lily calls back to Lydia about giving her a hand. and then--well. The train is screaming.

"That's a problem," the sorceress admits calmly.

But up in the air...Brilliant, starry light... Lily will accept that. "You weren't kidding, Rixia!" she calls over to the younger combatant, as she feels the power surging through her. power she can use. Whereas on the truck--

"Uh. Very--uh." 'Jim' stammers a little because Lydia is growing her arm back, but Magilou chimes in and makes it easier by being Magilou, which is not a sentence one would usually write. "Yeah!" he says. "Super cute. Keep doing that meteor thing though!" He still doesn't have his gun.

And Ashiya... talks very fast. Good to know. Lily can't see the Symbols hidden, but she can sense a magical effect; it makes sense, anyway. "You're welcome," she says first. And then... "Nice. Picking you up was the right call after all."

Get it to double back on itself... Hmmm. Magilou might've had the right idea, with the gravity magic.

But the thing.. it screams. it is in pain. it asks them, 'please'. And Lily hears, on more levels than one. She shakes her head. "...Can't let you do it."

Will their 'reinforcements' care that they're aleady engaged with it? LIly doubts it.

Blood and oil. Blood, and oil. A mechanical monstrosity; an organic machine. Lily understands it, on one level. She knows what it is, to have an objective she must complete...

But it's a distraction. The heart is sealing, and the 'Gear' within comes out. Missiles pour outward, and Lily is hit full-on, despite her attempt to dodge, sending Ashiya out of her arms and sending the sorceress sprawling as a result. She hits the ground at speed, slamming into the cracked earth and rolling, shattering stone and probably breaking bones with impact. She is silent for a few moments, despite the radio.

...and then she melts into the shadows, in a pulse of Ether, and is left behind.

-=-=-

A humanoid silhouette rises from the broken ground, completely featureless. It is feminine in shape, with prismatic patterns beginning to appear in circuitry on its form. Lily is far too behind to catch up easily at this point, as the train keeps going. But...

Ether pulses around her. The ground begins to shake, and the midnight air darkens. A light shines from the heavens... And then the first stone falls, flaming through the air, to crash next to the train. A second. A third. Burning rocks shatter through the sky, until they become boulders, and start hitting towards the train itself, leaving great pockmarks in the earth with every impact.

The silhouette begins to come closer.

GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Synthesis!
GS: Lily Keil spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Blitz! Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Meteor Call!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    Lily jumps off the truck to go grab Ashiya, and Rixia calls, "Okay, be careful!" She looks towards the driver. "You're doing great, Jim!" Is no one going to call him by his name? Precious Unnamed Driver A... you're always going to be known as Jim from now on...

    She makes a little face as she says, "Wait, Lydia? What're you doing-- gaah, what's up with your Arm?!" She puffs up a bit. "Oh, I get it, sometimes you just lose an arm, it's just Filgaia things, right...?"

    Avril asks her how she came to be onboard the train. "W-well, after facing a train and having it scare me that much, I figured the best way to solve that is to face my fears! So I snuck into a junkyard with some trains they're not using anymore and told myself, if I can nap in a creepy train for a whole night, I'll be cured!"

    She slumps.

    "It didn't work... my train phobia's just doubled now..."

    Ethius might be a bit busy, but he or the Aiguille's systems may be able to detect the Symbological mandala has a synthetic, artificial nature... rather than that being discharged by a natural user.

    Still, she gets a moment to admire Ashiya's swordwork. "Haa... she's so cool," she fondly gawks for a moment. Fortunately, Lily's got her, so she doesn't have to worry about her.

    She puffs up and says, "Buddy, if you've got something you can't fail, you should tell people about what it is you want to do! Instead of giving me the scare of my life!"

    The bleeding train instead responds by exposing the upper body of a Gear-- "A-aww geez, what now?!" --and micromissiles erupt and start bombing the area! Rixia whines and cowers under the car again, since that's basically all she can do. "Geez, this is too much! Why is it a Gear now?!"

    >> detecting, detecting
    >> rapid reconstruction detected in enemy profile
    >> switching modes... assuming direct control

    The gunblade rattles again, and suddenly Rixia's just about jolted forward as an enormous sphere of gravitic prowess forms in front of her. "W-what now? Wow, this thing's thinking of everything...!!"

    A rapid whirr and rattle rises from the device as the sphere grows, and grows; its magnetic influence can be further and further felt as it builds power.

    "Come on... work!"

    Rixia's just about knocked back on her butt as she fires the Gravity orb, which flies straight into the centre-mass. Its objective is to play havoc with the Wels' capability to regenerate, less through poison and other means, and not letting it reconfigure itself as it pleases.

    Just as she does so, she gawks further as Lily just straight-up melts into shadow and is replaced by a female shape with circuitry. "Is this just an ordinary day for Drifters??" she whines.

GS: Rixia has attacked Monster Mash with Revolver Gravija!
GS: Rixia gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Rixia has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash solidly guards Rixia's Revolver Gravija for 62 hit points!
GS: Disease applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash loses 150 THP from Disease!
GS: Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Lily Keil's Meteor Call for 553 hit points!
GS: Jam and Mute applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    "I know your name, Oeuvre Bent Myrrh! I'm saying you're a real cold lady! Geez, you're lucky I'm nice enough to explain things like this." This takes Magilou more effort than just referring to Avril by her name, and it's unclear what point she's even making. Magilou doesn't make much clear, though.

    Anyway, the Wels can speak. And drive trains, apparently. Or maybe fuse with them. Six of one, half a dozen of the other!

    As for what they're saying...

    "Sorry," Magilou asides, to the derailed train, eyelids lidding over darkly amused eyes. "But you really picked the wrong crowd for pleading." Well, maybe Gwen's enough of a bleeding heart for it, Magilou thinks... but she's easily swayed by the crowd, so that's hardly enough. Oh, and apparently this new kid, too? It turns out Magilou was entirely right on the mark tossing Rixia anywhere else.

    Even if she can cut its wheels down, though, it's not about to stop. Seems it's absorbed a Gear, too -- "Just my luck," Magilou says, into the rushing air -- right as those attacks open up some long-forgotten chemical warfare.

    And Magilou, opening her big mouth, gets entirely surrounded by it. "-- GUAH! Gak! Kwerfgh!" And so on, she coughs, flying out the other side of the corrosive cloud. "This is... THE WORST...!" She struggles out, between coughing. Anyone could guess that's not going well for her, even if she doesn't crash, given she's just steering.

    This might have done the miracle of shutting her up, except Magilou fumbles with the latch of another of those books at her waist, and grabs a bottle of something and downs it quick. She tosses the rest of it over her face, which presumably takes care of her eyes. "Haah!" She sighs, tossing the elixir bottle over her shoulder. "Chemical warfare is dirty pool!"

    And Magilou... is just prepared to deal with it...?

    Anyway, while she was distracted, Lily died. She looks back at the vague blur of someone going down, just in time to see her melt into the shadows. "Tragic," Magilou says, not sounding terribly ruffled. "Oh, well. Hey, everyone! Head's up!"

    She calls out that warning after the Wels attacks, which is weird, except that Magilou has fought Lily before, so maybe it's not that weird.

    Because it's not too long before the night darkens, deeper yet deeper, and meteors begin to fall. That's all well and good for the train -- but Magilou's thinking about all the targets in this target-rich environment who aren't.

    She swoops over towards the car with Lydia and Rixia, and hopefully not too far from Ashiya -- there are the Gear-drivers, but they'll be fine, they're in Gears. "Spell Absorber," Magilou incants, a flash of light and violet butterflies fanning out from her, as she proceeds to absorb the magical attacks around her --

    Which might catch the Wels' assault, particularly given how it's physically the closest opponent to Magilou, but... actually, she's aiming to eat those excess meteors before they can slam into Rixia's innocent little skull.

GS:  Blitz! Magilou has attacked Monster Mash with Spell Absorber!
GS: Magilou enters a Counter stance!
GS: Magilou gains 10 FP from her Daredevil!
GS: Magilou has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The Aiguille is not modeled after a deer. It is not piloted by a deer. There may not be proper headlights. His read of the source of the Symbological phenomena - which may be a fortunate thing! - takes a hard backseat to the combination of being gummed up in a mucous-lined net that can't burn away quickly enough, to being entangled while the train makes a hard pivot in his direction.

     There is a colorful CRASH. It is...

     * ** *** C R A S H ! ! ! 1 ! *** ** *

     It would be merciful had the Aiguille been bisected by the impact, but the whole thing stays together as fire and smoke rises from something exploding. The wreck(?) tumbles across the landscape and over a rocky outcropping that further salts the wound. Sugars the engine? (don't put sugar in the engine)

     In the cockpit, Ethius sees blood staining his gloved hand when he touches his forehead. He can feel his legs, his limbs, he's alive. He has to pull the masking off his face to breathe. A damage readout gives an improbably rosy picture of the Aiguille's diagnostics. The limbs are functional (enough). The staff still has power, a few segments will need to be scuttled and... he's not sure why he's thinking far ahead into replacements given the situation (of bleeding and coughing) and a particular timeline he is operating on.

     A hand reaches for the communications. It's filled with static when he does speak, from damage.

     "This is the Aiguille." The voice is measured, but at a much slower tempo than usual as though the shock were enough to bring him out of the normal cadence - again. A breath leaves him, with a thought of revelation that he thinks will be advantageous and buy time. (buy time for what?)

     With some maneuvering, he gets the Aiguille to prop itself up to a functional kneel, then lean back into a sitting position against the topography. This will hold the posture stable.

     "Make the best attempt you can to sever the structures into distinct parts." The detached third car is a good start. The way it's moving, it could all fall apart into a wider area - and necessitate a greater amount of ground for local forces to cover and deal with. To require a greater commitment in containing the situation.

     This is ideal.

     "I will be opening fire upon the assimilated Gear." Ethius conveys that much to the Skadi and whomever else may be moving to intercept or target, as the laser-staff is shouldered, heating up... and lets loose with multiple shots of hot, intermittent laser fire to try and sever it at the waistline.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Monster Mash with Neutralize!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"Don't make me feel bad for shooting at you!" Lydia shouts. "You hit me with a train! ... Yourself! You hit me with a trainself!"

Magilou calls her super cute and she beams happily. "You're super cute too! I don't really know you, but it takes a lot of cuteness to pull off a skirt made out of books! I don't know how it works and am very curious about what's written on them!!"

She nods once to Jim. "Of course! Though I'm pretty cute even if I'm not channeling the meteoric pow--GWOOOHH!" That's the sound of Lydia getting clobbered again in the gut. Hopefully that ptrotects her from the GAS though--regardless...

She extends her hand again and summons a miniaturized black hole by the train, trying to suck... parts... into ... other places.

Before she grips her hand and the whole thing explodes in a dynamic explosion!!

"Bwaaaahck Hole! Bwweeeeeehg Bang!!"

GS: Lydia Seren spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Lydia Seren enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Blitz! Lydia Seren has attacked Monster Mash with Black Hole!
GS: Lydia Seren has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lydia Seren has launched an attack Link!
GS: Lydia Seren spends 2 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Blitz! Lydia Seren has attacked Monster Mash with Big Bang!
GS: Lydia Seren has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lydia Seren has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash suffers a terrible blow from Lydia Seren's Black Hole for 0 hit points!
GS: Break and Entangle applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash partially evades Lydia Seren's Big Bang for 149 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Poison applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Evade bonus and Sufferer!
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Neutralize for 408 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Magilou's Spell Absorber for 54 hit points!
GS: Mute applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Hyper applied to Magilou!
GS: Monster Mash activates Guard bonus and Sufferer!
GS: Monster Mash enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Disrupt expired!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    .... Speaking of Magilou's suspicions...

    "... Man, the way this guy is talkin', I feel a little bad?" Gwen, for once, isn't cracking a joke. She seems thoughtful about it, but not in the way that deters her from letting up on stopping it. "... What is that smoke...? Some kinda nasty weapon?" Auntie Frea had books about old weapons that were used, in the times and places when ARMS couldn't or wouldn't be used. The kind that blighted the landscape, and provided a ready stash of horrors to go alongside the ones that could be accomplished with ARMS.

    They're not common for a reason, and Gwen is drifting away by reflex, conscious of how Venetia is open to the air instead of safe inside what is now a very hot cockpit, thanks to that last attack.

    Unbuttoning her blouse and letting it hang to her sides like a rejected white cape, Gwen, now in her undershirt, tugs on her neckerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow. "... You think this guy is a former soldier? Celestia had some serious warfare go down, right? If they're this deadset on their mission... "

    Rixia's doing the thing Gwen was almost tempted to do, if she didn't have a Gear and a Venetia. Or a giant spiderweb of a crack, staring at her in the face as a constant reminder of where she stands in this conversation.

    Or, just now, a bunch of chaff flares. At least, that's what Gwen thinks they are. "Venetia, hold on! Gonna project a shield!"

    It takes off a bit of the damage, once more, but this Gear wasn't exactly meant to maintain a crazy train chase like this. Or well, it is, to a degree, but it's dependent on it being a train that has supplies she needs to deliver, not a giant enemy train that she needs to attack for massive damage.

    Plugging down a flap to reveal a hidden compartment on the dash, Gwen places her ARM inside, her right hand's fingers curling around a ring that begins relaying the steadily accumulating charge from the Mockingbird. "Okay, gonna try somethin' real dumb, gonna have only one shot at it. Get ready, guys!"

    As the Halcyon's top rotates, the open cannons that form its arms begin to glow. Then, with a bright flash, dual beams of yellow straight at the side of the Wel train, trying to plaster a good chunk of it with plasma before Gwen is forced to let go of the conducting ring.

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Gwen Whitlock has attacked Monster Mash with Super Special Delivery!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Cover expired!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

    The ensorcelled haste starts to wear off, because keeping that enchantment going takes a helluva lot more concentration than Ashiya can spare. Especially as she split her levels between fighting and casting. 'Picking you up was the right call after all.' says Lily, and the dangling swordswoman can only give her a dumb grin in return at first. "Eheheh, well, I'm glad you think so~ooOOO--" and the two are interrupted as a horrific beast of machine and metal wrenches itself free of its tomb. Or perhaps its womb, depending how deep the body-horror theme goes.

    "Down! Down down down!" she yells, not having the combat werewithal to give good suggestions. The fetid horror from another era belches a salvo of missiles at them. A blurble (that's a word) of a voice comes from Ashiya's jacket pocket: <WARNING: INCOMING MISSILE> <WARNING: HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCE DETECTED>

    At least she and Lily act in the same moment. Her blade sings, cutting another flaming arc before them which catches the oncoming plume of lethal war-crimes gas before it can kill anyone. That's good. The gas is also highly aerosolized and flammable, which means it creates a runaway combustion reaction. That's bad.

    And so the girl with the ~*katana*~ is flung head over heels towards the truck carrying her pal Rixia. Carried on the winds of a vacuum explosion, the shields around her crumbling to dust. But she's not deafened or killed so that's REALLY not a bad outcome. She watches as a dense orb of distorted spacetime sails past below her. (Whoops. That's another violation.) she observes, in the same way you might observe a fishtank or the weather report.

    (Oh well!)

    "Rixia! Nice shot!" Ashiya cheers wholeheartedly, unfazed by the unrelenting horror of the night. The flames, the blood, the warcrimes gas--what good is wilting before any of that? She's never felt so... whole as she does here: doin' things, fightin', maybe savin' lives. One gloved hand hovers over the hilt of her sword, and she closes her eyes. The sword's blade--nothing but iron, mind you--glimmers a soft blue and then, there are... there are four more swords? Four phantasmal blades form from nothing, flanking the beastgirl even as she sails through the air in a loosely-controlled manner.

    "Let me get in on that!"

"Khaimova-ryuu Technique 108:"

    Mid-twirl, still trailing smoke from the explosion, Ashiya levels her sword at the departing Gravija orb (now headed for: Messed Up Zombie Train Station) and each of the ghostly blades twirls, points level at the orb, and then--

" P A N D O R A M O O N ! "

    --fly into it at incredible speed. Catching Rixia's powerful conjuration and propelling it into the train faster, harder, more gravibluh.

    Also, Ashiya bangs into the truck next to Rixia in a heap because momentum doesn't stop for cutscenes, landing in a dumb heap. "HELL yeah!" she crows excitedly, despite having put her head through a bag of MREs with her landing. "We rock!"

GS: Ashiya Khaimova spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Blitz! Ashiya Khaimova has attacked Monster Mash with Khaimova-ryuu Secret Technique! -
Whimsical Petals Of The Blooming Lilies Caught On The Evening Winds Beneath That Fated Place Strike!!
GS: Mighty expired!
GS: Ashiya Khaimova has completed her action.
GS: Gamble: High! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Super Special Delivery for 352 hit points!
GS: Jam applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash activates Countermeasures and Sufferer!
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash partially evades Ashiya Khaimova's Khaimova-ryuu Secret Technique! - Whimsical Petals Of The
Blooming Lilies Caught On The Evening Winds Beneath That Fated Place Strike! for 245 hit points!
GS: Reaction switch bonus! Monster Mash gains 1 additional Combo!
GS: Hyper applied to Ashiya Khaimova!
GS: Monster Mash activates Sufferer!
GS: Strain! Ashiya Khaimova takes 68 damage!
GS: Monster Mash has Fallen! They are no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    "Oeuvre...?" Avril cannot help but echo for a moment. Silence lingers a moment or two more. "...So I see," is, ultimately, her response on the matter, as she reflects both on their encounter in this moment and the one they had prior. "Is your friend alright?"

    Meaning Bienfu, that is.

    "I see," Avril replies simply to Rixia's explanation. "I am sorry that you must experience this," is her succinct response, as if this were a tragic turn of events in and of themselves springing from a completely rational state of affairs.

    It takes one swing once she lands. One swing, to peel the roof back from the train cars.

    Avril has but a moment to register the form of what lies beneath, what rises up, what still retains terribly potency despite its great age. "It's a--"

    She brings up the great blade before her as if to block the missile that comes screaming in. There is a terrible explosion that follows.

    Skadi has seen better days. If a Gear can be described as 'skeletonized', this might be it: the panels and armor plating have been utterly annihilated in several locations, leaving a sparking mess where the inner workings can be easily seen. Yet, the Gear still stands. And more importantly, the space just behind where the now dented and half-melted great sword had stood as a barrier remains untouched. The cockpit is intact.

    "I am alive," Avril announces through crackling externals. "But we have not much time. We must not permit it reach its destination!"

    Skadi takes several unsteady steps forward, and one may yet wonder if the whole Gear is about to fall apart. But there is a particular glint around its legs and feet, one that grows and smoothes itself out over the damaged sections as if it belonged there. Avril has summoned ice to serve as her Gear's shield, intent on holding it together just long enough to deal one more...

    "Gwen. Do it," Avril says.

    Before she then surges forward, verniers flaring too bright as she flies for just that short moment, twisted blade held aloft. It's just like the last time, following up on Gwen's attack, using one side of the battlefield as a pivot for her own.

    Even taking into account its scale, this is no neat fencing weapon like the one Avril favors on foot. This is little more than a slab of metal, but even that, as she strikes once, twice, thrice... even that might for an instant seem but the weight of a feather.
    Or the petals of a flower, each strike another unfolding.

    When her Gear finally does touch ground once again, it does so with a mighty shattering of ice, the shielding she had spun about her machine erupting off of it in a hail of shrapnel. Here, blade flung out to one side, Skadi rests with one broken knee bent and does not again move, steam and smoke erupting from its damaged chassis.

GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated a Force Action!
GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS:  Blitz! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Monster Mash with One Hundred Petals!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur enters a Counter stance!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Riposte expired!
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

It's wheezing, gasping, panting for something. Venetia watches behind her wainscotting-cover as the great avioid Gear maneuvers. It keeps mutating with a disgusting steadiness which only a mixture of Venetia's own stoic nature and the fact that she's relatively isolated from it keeps from making her nauseated.

"It seems to be a little less than chatty," Venetia observes, at the distant-enormous words. And then something comes towards the back and for a moment Venetia thinks -- "The weapon!?"

But whatever it is is bad enough but is NOT that weapon; instead there is that enormous release of jagged metal snow, which is bad enough for Venetia, but at least will not impair her action! At least directly. If she gets an artery cut or something, yeah, sure, but not like, camera damage.

And this is when she is warned to hold on. The abrupt maneuvering throws Venetia away from her relative cover, and she grabs for a handhold and does not find it - going sailing over the edge she gazes back at the Gear's immense ovoid side with a certain dull horror before she falls and - dangles on the end of that harness!

Which hurts! Tremendously! Venetia has like four layers of soft tissue in her body beneath the clothing and the harness and all of them are now bruised! But a bruise is a lot better than some of the alternatives, and perhaps importantly she still has her Crests.

Meteors fall. Gravity is carved and cut. And the world itself - the great planet called FILGAIA -

"Nightmare of the past, if you will not stay buried, we will bury you deeper!"

Also has something to say, coaxed by an exterior helping hand and the will of Venetia Vuong -

"Pyroclasmic sign!"

Much as the ground before the train had glowed before, it glows again; but what is coming is making a rumble, and the ground itself is shifting faintly, almost uneasily, as what is coming is something more than the battering of meteors. And abruptly --

Stone parts outwards with the shocking vigor of a stage play's twist ending! There is bursting lava but perhaps more important is the *opening* -- how deep will it go? How far will it descend, before this retracted incision into Filgaia's surface reasserts its normal posture? That is what we will discover together; as will Venetia Vuong, dangling on the end of a rope.

GS: Venetia Vuong has activated a Force Action!
GS: Blitz! Venetia Vuong has attacked Monster Mash with Pyroclasmic Sign ~The Bursting Fury of the Land~!
GS: Venetia Vuong has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Venetia Vuong has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    For the second time tonight, the sky opens. The first meteor slams into the earth less than ten feet away from the train, jolting it to the side. The second and third impact the fourth train car, staving in its roof and pulping whatever's inside. Blood splatters the earth. After that hit, the train starts evasive maneuvers, dragging its useless fourth car like a broken limb. A few meteors do stray from Lily's pattern, but Magilou's spell absorber makes quick work of them. And it's done something to unsettle the train, as bizarre as it may seem.

    "please," the 'pilot' gasps. 'doctor. doctor. stop.'

    Spacetime bends and warps. Lydia's singularity simply erases--absorbs?--almost a hundred kilos of flesh and metal from the second car, including parts of the linkage to the third car. Fresh tissue extrudes from the mass with unnatural speed, reconnecting the part before it's severed, and lost. (Some distance away, the severed final car has already fallen over, its treads churning like the flailing legs of an upended tortoise.) Then Rixia's sorcery starts ripping at the Reaper's body, using its own mass against it; it's anyone's guess how big it was when it was first created, but it needed a lot of flesh to control a machine of this size.

    Was this all an accident? Or--knowing what so many Drifters know about the Reapers--was it designed? Or was it both?

    Ethius has a lot on his plate right now. That he manages to stabilize his Gear despite his own mounting injuries is a feat in and of itself. But his aim is true, and Aiguille's shotstaff blows a hole clean through the Gear's torso. It's big enough for a grown person to walk through, if they squeeze a little. Gwen's plasma hammers the machine, twisting it back--already precariously-balanced and anchored in place by flesh that's been thoroughly damaged by Venetia's spikes, it falls. The last two train cars go with it, toppling over.

    A familiar voice crackles over the open comm, and a distant loudspeaker.

    "Allied forces, this is Dust Dragoon! I have you on se--good God!" That, to the uninitiated, would be the sound of Ida Everstead-Rey's 3C suite reporting the presence of Reaper biosignatures.

    Ashiya descends in a swirl of Symbology and elegant swordwork. Her blades meet with the junction of the second car and the first, and cut clean through flesh and steel alike. She looks awesome doing it, even as she lands face-down in MREs--the act of a true champion. The train, now devoid of most of its mass, keeps going.

    Venetia strikes the earth. The chasm yawns deep, threatening to swallow the train in its entirety. "no," the 'pilot' says. It swerves to the right, but can't keep the earth from upending and half-swallowing its last remaining car. "no."

    CRACK

    A rail slug breaks the sound barrier, and punches through the train's wheels. It rocks up and forwards; Ida lines up a second shot.

    Avril gets there first. Skadi is in terrible shape, but she is nothing if not good at making machines do exactly what she wants. The blade rises. It falls.

    "doctor, no," says the 'pilot.'

    Blood and bile and ichor spill across the sands. As the chasm in the earth slowly closes, what's left of the Reaper train falls silent and still.

    For a moment, there's nothing but the whistle of the wind, the distant sounds of alarms in Buckeye, and the fires crackling in the train's carcass. Then:

    "Gwen! Lily! Avril! Is everyone all right? I'm sorry I'm late, I..."

    Pause. Breathe. "...I'm glad you had it in hand. I'm so glad. Who needs medical aid?"

<Pose Tracker> Lydia Seren has posed.

"Bwaaagh." Lydia says.

<Pose Tracker> Rixia has posed.

    "We rock!" Rixia exclaims in turn as she high fives Ashiya coming on down right next to her in a pile of MREs. Doctor, though...? What's it talking about? Also, Rixia doesn't necessarily know what a doctor is. I mean, in her backwater part of the woods, it's either a healer or maybe a sawbones...

    Ida asks if everyone's all right over the radio.

    "No! I'm not okay! I don't need medical aid, I need cookies and cream and danishes and a blanket," Rixia whines aloud. She rips an MRE lid open and stuffs a granola bar into her mouth. "Euugh."

<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.

    It's finished. Avril gazes at the scene before her, and finally lets herself exhale deeply.

    "I am alright, though Skadi is not. I suspect I will need assistance," she reports, over crackling externals. "Oh, I wonder if this might be expensive to fix?"

    Yes. Yes, it will be.

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily's voice crackles over the radio, "I'll be fine."

Pause. "But I'm not paying for the repairs to that truck."

She ooooozes her way through the air closer. And she is troubled. 'Doctor'... It didn't only say it to her, but all the same...

"We need to get some analysis going on whatever this was, though."

<Pose Tracker> Ashiya Khaimova has posed.

Ashiya groans as the enormous keg of adrenaline being dumped into her system slowly gets tipped back upright and the world catches up with her. She sits up, a packet of lemon beverage powder sliding off of her head. She swats at a walkie-talkie someone has affixed to the truck. Wow, real old-Earth style plastic!

"You're okay, right? Not hurt? Saw you were missing and came running fast as I could..." she asks Rixia hoarsely, but with a smile.

Ashiya also peeks over the edge and looks at the wreckage wrought by meteors, gears, and unknowable eldritch sorceries (not naming any names, LILY, MAGILOU, PEOPLE,). "Good grief. Check it out, it's totally wasted..."

"... hey, what was up with that lady who saved you earlier? She was rude as hell!" blue catte puffs her cheeks out. But also grins. "She's awesome!"

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    The Halcyone slows to a gradual stop, allowing Venetia time to not get straight catapulted off.

    "..... That was..." There's panting over the intercom. "A straight up rush... Y'all doin' okay-ish...?"

    Okayish. Because Gwen's probably going to go for that herself, as opposed to 'just fine'.

    The glass shield of the cockpit hinges open, and Gwen carefully pushes it up, not wanting to shatter it the rest of the way with a rough shove. "... It feels worse when they talk like that. Like, how do we seem to them? Even if it ain't like they can be magically cured, it's just... guh... It just... feels hollow, since we don't know the all the story."

    Like this 'doctor', who are they? What was the Wel trying to do?

    Ida arrives, and Gwen slouches back in her seat.

    "........ The only first aid I'll need is when I collapse after seein' the bill for the damage..."

<Pose Tracker> Magilou has posed.

    Stray meteors: nullified. On-foot combatants...

    "We have got to get you back to the nursery," Magilou asides, to Rixia, hearing her wail about danishes. "But you're right," she adds, to Ashiya, "I'm very awesome."

    Tapping her radio-knob-earring, she proceeds to yell at Ida: "That thing GASSED ME! Obviously I need all your finest potions! Geez!" While she's transmitting, she adds, to Avril: "Oh, the scaredy-cat's fine. He's way too cowardly to come out around Wels, though. I'll tell him you said hi!" Bienfu can probably already hear her, given he's hiding inside Magilou, but it's the spirit of the matter.

    And before she leaves the car, she unclasps a couple of belts, and frees another of the books from her book skirt. "Since you're such a curious young soul, I'll reveal unto you my secrets," she asides to Lydia, as she tosses down...

    ... a recipe book..?

    ... some of these recipes are really old...

    ... and some of the pages have been used for an ink blot?

    "Ta-ta!" She crows, as she sky-surfs away, to go find the inky blob of shadows. Once she finds that ooze, she hops off of her shikigami, which shrinks back to paper-doll size just in time for Magilou to tuck it back into her sleeve.

    Hands lacing loosely behind her head, she strolls along as if she's not right beside a horror upon horrors.

    "Sooo..." She starts, entirely casually.

    "... that's another one you owe me. As always, I don't take credit."

    It seems Lily Keil is running up a excess magic absorption bill.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The shot hits true... and that's the extent of Ethius' contributions to the situation as he sucks in another breath and finds with his fading adrenaline that the impact might have been more injurious than he first estimated. Nothing is broken outright, but when he flexes his left leg there's a twinge of pain going across his thigh and up to the hip. The hiss of pain is caught on communications before he has the mind or capacity to flip the thing off.

     Much of the Reaper train is simply... removed, between the light show of Lydia's summoned singularity to the very earth itself by Venetia swallowing it, which... takes some time off of his estimates as to how much local attention is going to be fixated on this. (There are other examples of incredible power at play here, at a scale just as terrifying as the actual creature.)

     It's a game of cautious movements to chance a few extra movements with the Aiguille to get it to rise as a familiar voice (Ida's) calling attention to the other Gears and known/trusted operatives on the ground. His name is not called. Attention's not brought to him. This may change if the Aiguille is too noisy in its state of disrepair. The back-up redundant power he had installed in place of other quality of life accessories is paying off.

     It didn't reach Alcidamas. Ethius thinks to himself as he gets a bloodied gloved hand on the communications and powers that much off. This situation may provide the opening needed. There were too many parties coming and going along this route.

     He can't afford to sit around, be hurt, and wait for aid, he wills himself as he guides the Aiguille away to some other location he marked as a potential safehouse - though he may have to write the Gear off.

     I have one chance to deal with this without their notice.

<Pose Tracker> Venetia Vuong has posed.

"My entire midsection is one enormous bruise," says Venetia, dangling from a rope, "but it seems as though we accomplished the goal. Are any of the others hurt?"

Quietly, Venetia is proud of herself (which is not uncommon, but this time, with cause). And sore, of course. Mostly sore.