2020-03-10: Kicking The Beehive

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  • Log: Kicking The Beehive
  • Cast: The Honest Businessmen, Yue Rohay, Jacqueline Barber, Cyre H. Lorentz, Lily Keil, Ethius Hesiod
  • Where: Honeysday
  • Date: March 10, 2020
  • Summary: Honeysday is but a peaceful town in the Control Zone, barely troubled by its Veruni Masters. Until recently it only had the recurring predations of local Gobs to concern itself about. And then it finds itself at the mercy of a group of Gear-riding bandits far worse than any Gob, who enter with their machines into the hearty of the town itself to cause what can only be called trouble. Can anyone stop them and save Honeysday? And what, precisely, has prompted bandits to kick the proverbial beehive?

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    Nothing hardly ever happens in Honeysday.
    And frankly, the townspeople like it that way. 'Things happening' usually means 'the Veruni Are Displeased' or 'there are Gobs in the fields!' (the latter has been a problem the last little while, though mitigated fortunately by some helpful Drifters).

    Unfortunately for them--

    *KTHOOOOOM*

    "Maw! There's a big 'ol machine in the orchard!"

    --this is not a day where nothing happens. Three Gears alight in the fields outside of town, the lot of them ramshackle pieces of custom work, mismatched arms and legs and other parts beside.
    The paint jobs also leave something to be desired. It's a lucky thing if the paint on one arm matches that anywhere else on the body -- to say nothing of the dents and bullet holes and other signs of battle damage.
    If the name painted on more than a few of these Gears can be trusted, these lot go by the moniker 'The Honest Businessmen.'
    But we digress -- this is a story of Honeysday, and how a peaceful-enough day soon turned into a very unpeaceful day.

    One last machine touches down in the center of town, crushing an applecart underfoot. Townsfolk scatter, which turns out to be a smart move when the Gear levels an enormous machine gun right down mainstreet.

    "GA HA HA HA! Yeah, you'd better run! Why don'tcha bring out that sheriff of yours while I'm still feeling friendly-like, yeah?! Let's see how well he dances!"

    Someone, in close proximity to a Memory Cube, had put out an urgent request for help.
    From someone. Anyone.

    It's a dire scene by the time said help arrives. Bullet holes -- each the size of a full-grown human -- fill the front of what had been the general store and what is now a building this close to total collapse. Sheriff Rhodes is (mercifully) still alive, if quite literally in the clutches of the Gear of the machine gun.

    "You call that dancin'?!" the apparent leader of the bandits asks of the sheriff, shaking the man caught in his Gear's grasp. If something isn't done, though, it's a fair bet that this will end badly for the man.

    And there is smoke. The fields are burning, courtesy of the rest of the bandit crew -- a fact that is met with screams from the villagers who haven't taken to their basements or barns and are witness to the destruction being wrought. If the flames -- and the rest of those Gears -- aren't dealt with, the town itself could be burned to the ground.
    To say nothing of the villagers themselves, still stuck within the town limits and unable to flee for fear of being targetted.

    MISSION OBJECTIVES:

    *Rescue Sheriff Byron H. Rhodes!
    *Put the fires out!
    *Defeat or run off all the enemy Gears!

DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Hellerune Custom!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    VARIOUS UNITS OF TIME AGO

    Some amount of time ago, Yue Rohay nearly incinerated herself in her own Gear when it went out of control due to a certain system still existing deep within the recesses of its black box (so to speak).

    A less amount of time ago, Yue Rohay leapt out of her Gear mid-flight to crash into a barn in Sunset Bluffs Ranch to help Marivel and ARMS fend off a Vampire Supersoldier.

    This amount of time ago, Yue Rohay is bedridden from increasing amounts of injuries in Honeysday, the closest thing to a 'default' location that isn't associated with ARMS when--

    *KTHOOOOM*

    "...mgg."

    NOW

    Something incredibly curious happens within the vicinity of Honeysday, where the three ramshackle Gears of the Honest Businessmen currently occupy.

    First, a barn's rooftop gently liiiifts up, propped up by what vaguely looks like a pair of metallic humanoid hands. Then, it's gently set aside on the occupying pasture fields as several sheep and cows scurry out of the way.

    What emerges on out of the now-roofless barn is... a Gear.

    A blue and white Gear, with accents of yellow and red, a gleaming green sphere shimmering at the centre of its mangled and missing armor plating. It's perhaps more accurate to call it half a Gear, with how stripped-down and to its skeletal chassis it gets in several parts.

    A pair of yellow and white wings arch out from its back and slowly *SCREE* and *THOOMP THOOM THOOMP* and stop functioning as it starts smoking.

    "... Bird Mode transformation compromised ... I suppose I am earthbound, then."

    Yue Rohay should probably not be here in the cockpit of the Aura, still un-insulated to outside hazards. She can seriously fall through the cockpit if she's not careful, and the seatbelts haven't been replaced from where they got charred to a crisp last time.

    Also, the internal bleeding going on.

    But the fields are burning, the sherriff is in danger...

    "Mission accepted."

    The Aura slowly ambles out of the barn and struts forward awkwardly, hip actuators screaming as it moves; it raises its arm and fires a talon-like wire claw to try to entrap the gear grappling the Sherriff.

    If it hits, the talon goes *DINK* and impotently fails to deal any damage nor improve the situation, yet... a small electrical current flows--

    *type type type dvoraktype*

    "Reroute power to a dummy core...
     Checking for kernel version... outdated.
     Escalating privileges to administrator..."

    >> Uploading green_pastures screen saver...
    >> Overriding comms to relaxing_noises_pastoral_farmlands...

    And if her jamming attack is successful, the sheriff-holding bandit's Gear will be treated to... a relaxing view of rolling green fields gently swayed by a pleasant spring breeze, with birds chirping and farm animals going about their day.

    ... while she goes to actually help wrest the man out of his captivity.

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Homebrew Jammer!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Homebrew Jammer for 142 hit points!
GS: Weaken! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

Honeysday has been a frequent stop for Jacqueline and the Caravan Kinship. They were a town that seemed to constantly face trouble from the nearby Gobs, so they did what they could to help - reclaiming stolen goods, and helping to replace anything that couldn't be salvaged. It was honest work.

So, Jacqueline is a little...incensed, to put it lightly, when a trio of Gears by a group claiming to be 'Honest Businessmen' appears in town and raises trouble.

"...We're going to do something about this." She said, before marching out.

And so it is, that the Jaeger arrives in Honeysday, Jacqueline in control.

"'Honest Businessmen'? Is that supposed to be a joke?" Jacqueline questions over open communications. "Stand down and quit harrassing these people. They're innocent - they've done nothing wrong."

It might attract attention from them, but she's fine with that - better their focus be on her than on the surrounding town.

With that said, she flips over to a more private line.

"Someone rescue the Sheriff, I'm going to do something about these fires." She says... at about the same time Yue moves to do just that, which Jacqueline notes with some surprise.

Within the cockpit, Jacqueline sets a Crest Graph into a slot on the dashboard. On the console, two symbols of Muse light up in succession as the Spell Converter registers the Crest Graph. The Jaeger draws its combat rod, blue lights beginning to run up and down its side, before carving a symbol into the air before her and raising it to the sky.

Above them, a sphere of water forms before detonating, raining cleansing waters over the town as Jacqueline attempts to put out the flames threatening it.

...And, more heavily on the Gears of the Honest Businessmen, bogging down their Gears.

GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Merciful Waters!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

An emergency beacon broadcasts a desperate call for help into the airwaves. Someone, anyone, please come help...! Who else, then, would respond but...

Zedder Robo!?

No! Zed is currently busy up with the Guild Galad crew, making sure that certain people do not die of ninjas. Instead, there is a green-blue blur that arrives from the edge of town, encircled by a halo of white flame. Faster than is at all reasonable, the gear descends onto the center of town...

And swings a broad, white blade into the sheriff-napper's gear's arm...!

Before immediately turning to slap said gear upside the head with the (now thoroughly electrified) flat of that same blade!

<Veruni Control Zone or not> A voice that sounds very much like CYRE H. LORENTZ, notorious member of the Caravan Kinship, crackles across the radio broadband. <Bandits are bad for everyone's business. Stop causing trouble for all these good folk and scurry back into the wasteland where you bastards belong!>

Apparently Cyre has no love for bandits.

Of course, someone else is going to have to catch the sheriff if this works. Yue seems to have it covered though!!

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked The Honest Businessmen with TMJN-XIV High Voltage Blade!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
GS: CRITICAL! The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Merciful Waters for 0 hit points!
GS: Slow! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: The Honest Businessmen critically Guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's TMJN-XIV High Voltage Blade for 46 hit points!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius casts a nefarious-looking figure, surrounded by smoke, dust, and flame. If no one knew better he'd be an instant prime suspect. (Even those who know better might still harbor some suspicion.)
     He's not far off from Honeysday to start when the distress call is picked up and shared among the CaraKin contingent. The quality of produce here is said to be way better than just about anywhere. Of all things, this gets him curious. This is curious because this man kind of burns any and all greens to a crisp regardless of their original qualities. But enough of that.
     "Nourishing food is at a premium," Ethius remarks among gathered company (defined as thus: tumbling debris, flame, and a smoke cloud coincidentally making the appearance of a sideways :/ face), "and yet this region appears to lack much in the way of deterrence." His gathered company offer no commentary to this, because they are tumbling debris, flame, and a smoke cloud that now looks a lot more like an agitated cobra.
     He overhears the Jaeger's arrival, and Jay's loud anger. 'Honest Businessmen.' The make of Gears are busted-up and have seen plenty of action. Jay moves to put out fires. Cyre goes to make a bold proclomation. He can see there's that very Gear he saw at the Thames - the Aura. All his questions are more or less answered at that point.
     Ethius strides forward at a measured pace, as if being surrounded by this sort of ruin were of an acceptable level of comfort. Sorcerously flexing his hand as he chants together syllables, at its completion... "Ashen Veil."
     A billowing cloud of dust and smoke spray forth, blinding, as if trying to blindside one of the errant Honest Businessman Gears in a dust storm to better obscure Ethius' presence as he moves to reposition. A cloud of dust and smoke that seems, of all things, blinding for any number of technological sensory instruments.
     And is also a cloud of dust and smoke that just excaberates problems just by being, because who likes clouds of dust and smoke?

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Ashen Veil!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Sailing down from the sky to land heavily in the fields is a large black Gear, landing abrubtly in a crouch. The heavy plating on the limbs of the Gear is not original, and is blockier than the rounded features of the original. It retains the great lance of its form, the finned head of the stealth design it once used--

And as it rises, it crackles with magical energy.

The call for help had reached Lily Keil well off the coast. She wasn't in Veruni territory in the least. ...But with Gears approaching a town, even if they weren't likely to get paid for it...

Well, the witch isn't going to pretend it's just an excuse to test the modifications to her Gear since Shae Ving.

The Gear turns towards the town proper, and Lily examines the damage to the town through the monitors on her machine. Hellerune Custom steps forward towardss the general store.

"If you want to dance," Lily's voice crackles out over the radio, "Find a partner closer to your size."

Coming in after all the others, Lily's Gear is still in motion as the witch notices everyone present. Particularly... the Aura.

"Moving in," Lily says, surges forward extending a great hand palm-up under the Sheriff's general location.

"But apparently the town already has a defender. Damaged Gear are you going to explode?" The Ether Booster fires up, in the moment, a terrible whirring noise as dark power gathers all around the Gear, and from Hellerune Custom's other hand erupts a blast of shadow that lingers as a shield before it.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Gloom Strike!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen critically Guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Ashen Veil for 32 hit points!
GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!!
GS: Ethius Hesiod assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Lily Keil's Gloom Strike for 156 hit points!
GS: Cover! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> The Honest Businessmen has posed.

    BOSS FIGHT BGM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHyf8fHloow

    "That's our name, awrite, honey!" declares one of the men in the machines to Jay, out in public and everything. "And maybe that depends, eh? How much you wanna trade for their lives and the whole lot!?" The machine turns a Gearsized flamethrower onto a nearby field, sending a herd of sheep scattering in the wake of the flames as they make their escape.

    The apparent leader, Sheriff still in his Gear's grasp, continues to focus on the man he's tormenting and him alone.
    Said Sheriff flops, a little like an abused ragdoll, in the machine's grasp -- but at these scales, in this situation, what else can one do? His fate in that instant seems a grim one--

    *DINK* goes the tethered claw, nicking a small gouge in the ramshackle Gear's exterior armoring.

    What had been for the pilot moments ago a view of the streets of Honeysday is suddenly overwritten. "What the hell? What's going on with this piece o' junk!?
    Some banging resounds from within the cockpit, perhaps audible from the outside. Perhaps the leader of the Honest Gentlemen is attempting some 'percussive maintenance' on the hijacked visuals.

    "Hey, boss! What are you doin'? One of 'em's right up in yer--"

    The warning isn't quick enough. In this state the leader is the proverbial sitting duck, when Cyre's machine approaches with all haste to slam into the compromised and effectively blinded Gear with the flat of his machine's blade! The machine staggers, releasing its grasp on the Sheriff as the pilot apparently struggles to keep the machine from rolling over like a tipped cart from the momentum of the strike. It recovers, yes, sparks still rolling across its frame, but its captive drops for the ground--

    Where he can be caught by the Aura.

    But suffice to say, the Aura's slow approach to the town and subsequent rescue of their prisoner/plaything has not gone unnoticed:

    "That's two of 'em now! I got it, boss!"

    The announcement across public channels (do they not have private lines, these four?) is punctuated by the loud report of a Gear-sized ARM shot from a distance, an attack on Yue's Gear as she frees the Sheriff!

    The fires continue to spread across the field. The only grace is that it's still planting season and it isn't what it'll be like come harvesttime -- there's not enough fuel to make this completely catastrophic.

    Or make that one of the only graces: Drawn forth through the the Spell Converter, Jacqueline brings about a much-needed early spring rain, which does much to quiet down the fires in the fields around here. Embers soon smolder and smoke fills the air -- but it is at least too sodden for the fires to spread or new potential tinder to be set aflame.
    Here, at least. There are still two more of them menacing the fields and orchards around the town, and the one who had been burning the fields here--

    "What's all this about?!"

    --just turns his fiery weapon upon Jacqueline's Gear.

    With all the smoke, dust and flame about the fields the presence of one single person -- particularly one not currently seated in one of the Gears that have alighted in and around the town to stand against the would-be raiders and tormentors -- goes completely unnoticed. Perhaps there's something strange about the way that this particular dustcloud arises just so, just in time to cause serious inteference for one of the bandit raiders' machine, but:

    "The hell's with all the smoke? I thought this land wasn't shit!" complains the pilot. "Whatever -- I'm gonna burn it all!"

    This may or may not bode well for Ethius, in his current position.

    Back in the town proper, the still visually-impaired Gear struggles to keep its footing. "Hey! The hell are you?" the leader and pilot of this particular machine demands, his visuals still reporting a soothing country landscape, with sheep.
    And tweeting birds. Can't forget those.

    He is pretty sure that voice is the same voice as the one his underling reported as being 'right up in his face'. Well, one of them, anyway.

    Something rocks the Gear. Some impact he can't see, which makes his machines go wild and his hands -- on the controls -- feel fleetingly numb and icy cold. "Hey! What's goin' on out there?!" he demands, raising his machine gun--

    "Three of em, boss!"

    "Then I guess I'll just have to go wild, eh?!"

    He opens up with the Gear-sized ARM, spraying bullets wildly.

GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Yue Rohay with Stick to Your Guns!
GS: Yue Rohay takes a glancing hit from The Honest Businessmen's Stick to Your Guns for 132 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Lily Keil with Blood Money!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Blood Money!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has gained 2 Combo!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Flame of the West!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has gained 1 Combo!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Blue Steel!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has gained 1 Combo!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has completed their action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Flame of the West for 25 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber's Force Guard activates!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blood Money for 241 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: CRITICAL! Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blood Money for 295 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Cyre H. Lorentz!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blue Steel for 52 hit points!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    *beep beep*

    Yue's IFF signals catch the presence of other Gears.  That's quite fast.  One of them she's already acquainted with too.  "Jay," she speaks over the comms.  "That other one is a friend of yours too, I assume?" she refers to Cyre's gear operating alongside hers.

    A black Gear lands, and Yue tenses for a moment-- but a similarly familiar voice comes in through the comms, asking if she's going to explode.

    "... Lily?" Yue asks.  "It is Yue.  The Gear will hold... for now.  Rest assured I will pull back if critical failure ensues."

    It's kind of a lie, she thinks and knows, because she's too stubborn and too reckless.  Still, the amount of sorcery gathered around here is impressive -- both Jay's crest sorcery converted to Gear-form, and the Ether Booster... she wonders for a moment why she never installed such a device.

    It just isn't her style, perhaps.  Ether is for a Yue in the past, trying to play two roles at once.  It feels as much a lie.

    There is also a building dust storm; she hasn't quite seen Ethius yet, but it seems like it's in their favour for now.

    Cyre's manuever is successful, though, and as the machine staggers, the grip slacks and releases the Sheriff--

    Where she thrusts her hand out carefully, the Aura's manipulator extending in tandem as she catches the man before he hits the ground.

    It costs her.

    There is a grimace from Yue as the bandits open fire, and several rounds start shredding what's left of its armour -- and the Aura subsequently lifts its red-bodied, kite-shaped shield to weather the blast.

    "Stability down seventeen percent..."

    She pauses, and looks down towards Sheriff Byron. She lowers him to the ground. "Pray make haste and assist the villagers!"

    Hey! The hell are you!

    "... just a disappointing adult."

    Job Title Change!

    Responsible Adult -> Disappointing Adult

    The Aura turns towards the leader of the bandits again, as the wire talon fires once more and she steps up the electronic warfare--

    >> Analysing local Memory Cube banks
    >> Upload social_engineering_routine...

    The pleasant chirping birds and green fields disappear, as if timed to one of hs percussive bonks. Instead, a mocking figure of THE HUMANOID TYPHOON (as seen on one of the many wanted posters of Mister Hamandspam) appears on screen:

    "HEY YOU! WANT TO BE A WINNER IS YOU?!" he exclaims in a churlish accent, thumb printed up where you can see the swirly thumbprint.

    "JUST CLICK 'YES' TO WIN $$SIXTY MILLION DOUBLE DOLLARS$$!"

    A tantalisingly big button that reads 'YES' appears on screen. And if the leader clicks yes...

GS: Yue Rohay spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Ad-Libbed Virus!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"That's right. I'm glad you're here, Miss Rohay." Jacqueline replies to Yue, over a pirvate line. And then, the bandits speak - and it's enough to get her to turn the external communications back on.

"Despicable." Jacqueline replies, disgust in her tone. "Have you no shame? Did you pick the name because you thought it would make people respect you?"

Within her Gear, she shakes her head.

"You're not honest, and you're certainly not businessmen. Why are you doing this? How do you possibly get anything out of this?" She asks.

Her spell helps, but she can only reach so far - there are still more fires going.

"I've put some of them out, but there are still more Gears out there setting fire. I might need some help with that." She says, switching back over to a private line.

One of the bandits turns their Gears fiery weapon on hers... and Jacqueline retaliates quickly. In one fluid motion the Jaeger spins, flicking its combat rod out. Another burst of water emerges, quenching much of the flame before it can reach her. And then, in the same fluid motion the Jaeger draws its side-arm, sending off a quick, well-aimed shot at the Gear's fuel tank. If it hits, the bandit Gear will find its reserves of fuel rapidly dropping, at the risk of immobilising it completely.

GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 1 Combo on Poison!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Fuel Snipe!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    There is so much noise here. Visually, bright colors from exotic weapons, the haze of heat from the fire. Aurally, gatling fire, clashing metal, the gentle splash of Crest Sorcery-granted rainwater. Emotionally... no, the amount of fear cannot be put into words for those who live here.
     For Ethius, dressed like a common high seas brigand, the situation parses together in a fashion familiar again for the umpteenth time. He has never encountered these specific models of Gear, or these people, but he can already mentally inventory the range of movement available to their limbs. Even through the obscuring field of dusty cover that even his human eyes cannot fully pierce, some sort of rote, deep-seated reflex tells him all he needs to. This blob of shadow is lifting an arm this way, a split-second's peek at the enemy's armaments already tells him it wields a flamethrower. The very moment he sees the faintest change in lighting beyond the dusty veil...
     Ethius gets down on the ground before he gets incinerated on the spot. He doesn't stop there, having to shift his weight to the left to account for the eccentricity of the wild gunfire from the machine gun. Even accounting for its state of disrepair for its range, instinctually processing the angles the danger can come from.
     He holds his calm through the searing feeling on his upper back, embers grazing him. He doesn't look straight up (mostly because looking right into that bright fire is just a bad idea), already having the specific targeting range in mind and translated into sorcerous syllables as he calmly flexes his fingers. He halts the tempo of the chanting aspect as if waiting for the arm spraying the flamethrower to be at a specific angle before finishing the spellcasting ritual.
     "...Fine Dust!" Ethius finishes with a spread-out arm, conjuring a jet of granular matter to try and go wedge itself inside of that flamethrower.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Fine Dust!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Yue Rohay's Ad-Libbed Virus for 117 hit points!
GS: Corrode! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

The Sheriff goes free. Good, that's one problem taken care of.

Of course, that doesn't really help particularly much when the bandito is more of a crack shot than he had been expecting. Cyre has no idea what kind of chaos is playing havoc with the bandit leader's operating system right now, but it sure as hell hasn't done anything to diminish his aim... Or maybe it's luck, more than skill, that sees a stray machinecannon round lodge itself right into the Huracan's thruster column. The booster sputters and crackles as Cyre whispers a curse and abruptly cuts the engine.

"Damnit, lucky shot. But somehow I don't think I'll need the overbooster to deal with you lot--" One of the other pilots speaks. It's an unfamiliar voice, one that apparently knows who Jacqueline Barber is. Cyre shouldn't be surprised, honestly. "--You know this one? Oh Jay, a lady in every marketplace? What would Lunata think?"

Perhaps now is not the best time for joking around.

After all, some kind of actual monster is taking a flamethrower to farm animals. Cyre can tolerate a lot of nonsense, but as a frontier boy- and as a shaman- there are certain things he just cannot abide. Literally turning hard-tilled farmland to ash is way at the top of that list.

Cyre lifts his gear's shield to absorb the bandit leader's continued barrage of gunfire. The Huracan's left arm shakes and trembles at the leader's assault, but Cyre has turned its cameras-- and targeting system-- elsewhere for the moment. "Lining up a shot--" The wind priest murmurs as a pair of targeting reticles hone in on his would-be prey. He levels the Huracan's sword-- the weapon parts along the center-line, exposing a barrel hidden within the blade. Electricity crackles and arcs ominously between the two prongs...

The reticle turns red, the console produces a cheerfully optimistic *beep!* Cyre pulls the trigger--

And sends a single slug of high-velocity metal shrieking downrange at the flamethrower-gear's center of mass.

'Actively being a total monster' is evidently grounds for the Nahual of Fengalon to decide that he doesn't mind if you live or die.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked The Honest Businessmen with KRSW-XIV Rail Cannon!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Machine gun fire rips into Hellerune Custom, and pieces of plate armor shear off under the force of the wild spray with a groan of tearing metal. Underneath the plating reveals the scars and bolts and metal plating that suggest this Gear has seen significant damage in the past.

...The fact that it crackles with sorcerous energy is a different kind of worrying.

"Yue!" Lily repeats, realizing. "Yes, this is Lily Keil, in Gear Hellerune Custom. I'll keep an eye on your energy readings." Does she believe Yue really will bail out? Maybe! On the other hand, Lily has demonstrated that she might not either...

"How about this," Lily's voice crackles over the radio. "I'll trade... your lives for theirs. How confident are you that those machines of yours can hold up to what we're dishing out?"

She says this despite the fact that her Gear isn't holding up completely the best either, but is already in motion anyway. There's a pulse of energy--and then dust and debris begin to shift away from a given point on one of the enemy Gears--and then stops, abrubtly.

Lily looks at the monitor with parts of the town that aren't destroyed yet, and decides against that particular maneuver.

Instead, her Gear's weapon returns to ready stance, and she focuses, channeling energy. A different space collapses in on itself, suddenly bursting forth with horrific black tendrils of energy that numb and deaden whatever they find--including systems it touches if temporarily.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Blight Drive!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen critically Guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Fuel Snipe for 38 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Fine Dust for 125 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: FP up!
GS: The Honest Businessmen critically Guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's KRSW-XIV Rail Cannon for 46 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen's Force Guard activates!
GS: FP up!
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Blight Drive for 184 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
<Pose Tracker> The Honest Businessmen has posed.

    Within the town square, Lily lays down her terms. "Our lives? Gahahaha! Now that's more like it!" retorts the leader, in spite of his currently crippled Gear. "That's the kind of talk I wanna hear! How 'bout you just give up now before you get hurt, and give me whatever pretty little Gear you're piloting, sweetheart?!"
    He might not be able to see her or her machine, but...

    Elsewhere, Jacqueline takes the bandits to task. "Respect?" the man that Jacqueline faces off again hoots, before breaking into a patch of laughter. "Respect! You're a funny one, girly, I'll give you that much! Naw, we're's the Honest Gentlemen 'cause we're gentlemen if you knows us," the flamethrower is direct her way, "and we're's honest about what we do!"

    And what they do is, perhaps, self-evident.

    If he was expecting to set her machine alight, he's going to be sorely mistaken, all the moreso when that spray of water cuts short before it can so much as singe her armor. Unfortunately, her second shot -- to take a crack at the machine's tanks -- doesn't work as well; there's a dent sure enough, but the bullet pings off without puncturing it.

    "That it, darling? Don't make me sad now! Maybe I'll add a piece of your machine to mine!"

    The machine's flame rolls forth again in a gout for Jacqueline's Gear.

    Only Cyre's shot -- deflected from what should have been a point-perfect shot by some conjunction of chance and the altered air currents vented by the flame-wielding Gear -- sets the attack on Jacqueline's machine wider than it might have otherwise gone.

    But, will that be enough to help her in stopping it?

    Or, for that matter, handle the ranged shot the Gear returns in kind for Cyre's machine?

    Elsewhere on the outskirts, Ethius narrowly manages an escape from a sweep of the machine's flamethrower ARM, still altogether unseen in the dust and smoke and raging heat. The pilot of that Gear pauses a moment, in this instant hesitating on another purging blast from the ARM.
    When Ethius stands amidst the smoke and fire and casts a spell. Briefly the fires out here flare up--
    And as the spell is worked, those same flames begin to choke out for a moment, perhaps smothered briefly by the force of that working.
    Something happens, too, inside that ARM. Something that may be seen when next that pilot chooses to discharge that weapon.
    Which, a moment later, he does. This may be to Ethius' immediate discomfort--

    When it explodes.

    "SHIT!" is the last thing that pilot says, before the machine slumps to a heap in the still-burning fields.

    Back in the town proper, the underling's Gear unloads upon Yue's damaged machine but the Aura yet stands firm against the barrage. When the smoke clears, she's able to release the Sheriff, who gives her machine a parting salute before making tracks, away from the firefight. A proper 'thank you' might have to wait for when he's not in the middle of a Gear battlezone.

    >OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: RESCUED SHERIFF RHODES!

    "B-boss! Ain't that... ain't that a Veruni Gear?! They said they weren't gonna--"

    "--How the hell should I know what's out there?!" retorts the leader, commanding a crippled machine at an inopportune time. "I can't see for shit!"

    Even when the display begins to clear -- static crosses the screen, fleetingly -- it's only to swap one image for another. "What's this crap?" says a man who has just hiked up the proverbial hill to see a whole mountain before him. "Something kinda message? --Sixty million double dollars?"

    Some things are all too tantalizing for the greedy, unwary, and unseasoned.

    The man in the pilot's seat clicks 'YES'.

    Something begins to spread -- at speed -- through the Gear's system. A half-dozen alerts go off at once. "What the-- shit, what's happened to my ARM?"
    Including, it seems, the system managing that oversized machine gun.

    >SYSTEM MESSAGE: QUICK! TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SITUATION AND STRIKE WHILE THE BANDIT LEADER'S GUN IS DISABLED!

    Elsewhere in the town square, Lily's machine crackles with a fell power. Both of the bandit Gear pilots there find themselves briefly overtaken by a numbing sensation, followed by a readout that bodes ill on their displays.
    ...Along with everything else that's going wrong for the leader's machine, there.

    His compatriot/underlng comes to the rescue, Gear-mounted ARM readied. It cracks out one, two shots: one for Yue's machine, one for Lily's. Even in close quarters like these, the bandits simply don't /care/ how much damage they might inflict with these weapons upon Honeysday...!

    Which may make the need for resolution all the more pressing. Outside, nearer to the city gates, unattended flames gain ground...

GS: The Honest Businessmen spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Both Barrels Blazing!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Fight It Out!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has gained 2 Combo!
GS: The Honest Businessmen spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Yue Rohay with Shooting High!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Lily Keil with Hell Bent!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Pardon My Gun!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has completed their action.
GS: Yue Rohay completely evades a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Shooting High!
GS: FP up!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Both Barrels Blazing for 261 hit points!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from The Honest Businessmen's Fight It Out for 143 hit points!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    *BOOM*

    The bandit leader's screen turns thunderously red when the button is clicked, and the 8-bit representation of THE HUMANOID TYPHOON gains x_x eyes as it twirls around and then flops to the ground. "OH NO! YOU LOST!" exclaims the tinny, synthetic voice.

                                -= GAME OVER =-
                                RETURN OF CANON

GS: Ethius Hesiod guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Pardon My Gun for 109 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Hell Bent for 208 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"I-It isn't like that! She's a friend!" Jacqueline protests at Cyre's teasing. She probably would've been oblivious before... but now that she's been opened up to the idea of Romance, it's a lot easier to detect these things.

She turns her attention back to the bandits, however.

"Gentlemen don't attack settlements that can't fight back. Don't delude yourselves." Jacqueline replies. "You're nothing but criminals - criminals who target people weaker than themselves."

The bandit retaliates with another burst of flame. This one is stronger, and more dangerous. It's too much for an ordinary water spell to divert - Jacqueline tries, but even still flames begin to wash over her Gear. The metal heats visibly from the outside. Gritting her teeth Jacqueline flips a few switches, activating emergency cooling systems.

They might be low-lives, but they're still dangerous no matter how beaten and ramshackle their machines work.

"...Wait, did they just mention the Veruni? They said they weren't going to...what?" Jacqueline questions with a frown, flipping back to a private line. "Miss Rohay, do you know if the Veruni have anything to do with this?"

It's not an accusatory tone - she doesn't expect Yue to have had anything personally to do with it.

She can worry about that later, however. She circles around her opponent. It might look like she's looking for an opening... but, in actuality, she's trying to line up a shot on some of those untended flames.

And with that, she lunges forward. Blue lights begin to surge up her combat rod once more as she swings it out in a rapid flurry, several powerful geysers of water shooting out for key points on the bandit's machine - while still others aim past it, for the flames beyond.

GS: Jacqueline Barber spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Dynamic Sorcery!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    "Appreciated," Yue answers to both Jacqueline and Lily, kind of at the same time. Her energy readings... it's genuinely difficult to tell what might happen at any point with the Aura. The AI within could wake up once more at any time, much like it did at Valeria Chateau, after all.

    Still, she feels a quiet kind of kindred with Lily at being fellow people who won't bail out of an exploding Gear.

    "So that is the Hellerune...?" Yue grimaces for a moment, in a rare lull between the combat. "Even from here... the hairs on my skin are standing from the Ether. Not to mention Miss Jacqueline's -- and then another..." There is more magic being deployed here, though not from a Gear. More assistance?

    Yue narrows her eyes as she catches some of the chatter, though, looking with relief as the Sheriff escapes successfully. 'They'? Are there Radical orders in the mix here? There's not enough information. She'll need to discover more.

    "I will warn you to not attempt to fire," Yue announces to the leader. "A virus has been injected into your machine. There is a high chance it may overload and explode in your hand."

    There is a grimace, however, as she senses the underling's Gear acting before the radar reacts -- and she instinctively tugs against her flightstick. Her eyes widen as a loud *POP* sound erupts outside--

    "Tsk!"

    --and the Aura's hydraulic pipe bursts loose as it starts to snake and wiggle, releasing a burst of heated steam. Her evasion failing, she's left with nothing but to brace and take the shot direct against her shield. The shot pillows against metal, followed by an eruption of shredded red debris.

    "The shield will not hold another shot... the actuators are at their limit. Expected runtime has been cut in half..."

    At the very least, the virus has disabled the machine-gun of the leader's unit -- which she's confident she wouldn't be able to withstand at this distance.

    "... I doubt it, Miss Jacqueline. They have nothing to gain from attacking this territory. The flames are spreading. Are you able to deal with those as well? I will do what I can with the active threat."

    And what comes next, as her bandaged fingers not so much type as glide over the worn, faded Dvorak keys of her keyboard--

    "Allow me to put you at ease."

    --is Light.

    Light, as the green gem emanates with a soft dulcet tone and the surrounding area seems to gain an almost divine, otherworldly aura, gossamer feathers molting and descending from the wings of the Aura;

    Light, as what seems to reverb from every metallic surface is an airy and slow melody, a harmonious rhapsody of eletronic tones and mechanical confirms;

    Light, as for but a moment, it seems as if the deep tension of combat has broken way to their machines joining in chorus.

    Light, as underneath the heavenly theatrics, the enemy machines are all facing an assault to their systems, through reflected tones that double as a shut-down command, a rhythmical method of disrupting processes. Yes, this is...

GS: Yue Rohay has activated a Force Action!
GS: Yue Rohay has attacked The Honest Businessmen with a freestyled Mec Sonata!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dynamic Sorcery for 340 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's a freestyled Mec Sonata for 362 hit points!
GS: Yue Rohay drains The Honest Businessmen! Yue Rohay gains 362 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius' back continues to sting, but the moment that flamethrower ARM lets up is the moment he gets up and starts to walk away. A given arrogance, a specific confidence in how it will play out next. With the smoke cover masking his presence, he starts away. When he hears a specific hard clicking noise, he throws his forearm inward to quickly-slurred syllables as an explosion rings out behind him. Thunderous, blinding.... the displaced air is immense, and the odd Symbologist stands firm for a moment as hot air washes around him. Tiny debris are met with loud, bright electrical flashes upon contact with his body. Unaided, they should have scythed right through him. Crushed him. The Symbological shield, invisible to the unaided eye, tamps down the impact from 'bone-breaking g-forces' to 'a series of hard shoves and a rabbit punch here and there.'
     Disorienting, and painful - but nowhere near enough to convince him to stop. His gaze travels towards the gates - the gates where fire continues to spread. He watches the cross-fire between other Gears. Some familiar, some resembling the one he just dealt with.
     As Jay more directly takes on the question of this place in her radio line conversations with the others, Ethius takes his own way towards the ultimate conclusion of the whole situation. A flash of Light ahead, past the flames.
     Factoring in the ruin - the displaced free-floating particles from all the weapons fire and the like, and his own smoky cover - he risks visually exposing himself but sees little alternative as he stares down the ever-hungry flames.
     His quarterstaff planted upright for balance in case of another concussive backwash of nearby weaponry, he once more starts a Symbological spellcast as he mouths the syllables necessary to construct the spell and ensure it captures the specific area needed - to try and catch the clouds of the thickest volume beyond one of the enemy Gears.
     "Dust Compress." Ethius caps off the spell with its name, guiding all loose particle matter in reach to converge on the wildfire to try and help choke it out.
     Said enemy Gear might be clipped by the sudden onrush of migrating fast-moving earthen matter.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Dust Compress!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Dust Compress for 236 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Heh heh. Now you're putting me in mind of the old training missions back in Nortune's Academy..." Badnits, after all. But with Jay talking about respect--maybe Lily should show more indignation about all of this. But the truth is, she doesn't operate quite the same way.

She senses more magic along the ground, but she might not have to for the explosion that comes. Lily watches on her monitors for a moment to pick out Ethius. "I'm not sure what they're after," Lily admits, "Other than trying to draw out other Gears and steal them, which is a risky strategy at best."

Light comes. But Yue gets an answer. "It's been through some changes since I mentioned it to you, but that's this machine, all right. I tend to put the Ether Booster to the test."

"I hear mention of the Veruni, too..." Lily frowns, at that, but continues to maneuver her Gear. "I can help with the fire, anyway. This way--"

Hellerune Custom settles into place, and then stands unmoving for a moment-before the temperature drops. From all around it bursts a chill mist that hardens in places into jagged protrusions of ice crashing towards her opponents.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Mist Burst!
GS: Cover expired!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Clearly, the targeting software needs some firmware updates. Cyre was sure that shot was good! Unfortunately, it was not, and that flamethrower-wielding jerk is stlll doing the thing with the fire and the associated badness.

That's just not kind. Not kind at all. Especially not when one of their best fire-fighting assets is being tied up in close-quarters combat with the unkindness.

But the good news is that Lily Keil's Hellerune and the strange-- Veruni?-- woman seem to have the leadership well in hand. "Lily," Cyre says as he lifts his shield to absorb what would otherwise have been a lethal shot. The bulwark buckles and craters, but an unusual electric pulse crackles across its surface as the heavy slug clatters to the ground. "And you... eh-- whoever you are! We can get introduced later! I'm headed over to give Jay a bit of breathing room. You two have fun with their leader!"

"So, what," Cyre transmits-- on the broadband, this time-- "How much are the Veruni payin' you to ruin the lives of a bunch of innocent civilians? Wait, no." The Huracan's thrusters sputter and surge. The primary coolant line might have ruptured, but a short, rushing charge probably isn't going to kill him. Cyre sweeps forward, hewing a wide arc with his railgun-bayonet... "Knowing scumbags like you, you probably paid them for the opportunity!"

...Only to follow up by slamming the rim of his shield at the gear's abdomen.

There's a crack of an electromagnetic rail engaging. A spike erupts from a concealed chamber hidden within the Huracan's shield-- a pile bunker, aimed at point blank range into the flamethrower-gear's midsection. "Probably played right into their hands too, huh? Why don't you tell me exactly what kind of 'agreement' you've got going, and we might go easy on you!"

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked The Honest Businessmen with EISN-XIV Bunker Spike!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Mist Burst for 256 hit points!
GS: Riposte! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's EISN-XIV Bunker Spike for 193 hit points!
GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!!
<Pose Tracker> The Honest Businessmen has posed.

    In town, the events in the fields are not entirely out of sight. "Hey boss! I think Sid's been hit! I ain't getting a signal!"

    "Whaddya mean you ain't getting a signal?! Try pinging 'im direct-like! --No, I can't do it, look at this piece of shit!"

    Perhaps his underling can't literally look at the image that has burned its way seemingly permanently as an overlay across his visuals, but the frustration of dealing with this may be yet understood all the same. Even as their surroundings begin to retun to the leader's visuals, there, mockingly, forever:

    The pixelated form of the 'dead' Humanoid Typhoon, along with those fateful words.

    "And what the hell's a canon!?"

    "Ain't that what you shoots people with, boss?"

    "Oh, shut up!"

    ...Perhaps if it weren't for the fact that they're both fully equipped to rip this town to shreds, it might even be a little comical.

    This is when Cyre accuses them of taking work from the Veruni.

    "The VERUNI?" howls the leader. "You think we took this job from the VERUNI?! I ain't fuckin' stupid, kid! I ain't getting messed up in that shit! Look at that, that's one of 'em right there!"

    Right on cue, the leader's Gear's lights begin to fade. Its knees buckle, all because of that light emanating from the Aura. "Shit! Just-- do something!" he barks to his underling.

    Said underling's response is to take a shot at Yue--
    Only to have his Gear become similarly affected by the Veruni machine's light and begin to crumple at the wrong moment. The shot goes wide; it goes for Lily's Hellerune instead.

    Back out in the fields, Jay continues to argue with one of the flamethrower wielding goons. "Ooooh," taunts the one fighting Jacqueline, "Look who done swallowed a dictionary! We calls it as we sees it, princess!"

    He cackles, unkindly, when the flames wash over Jacqueline. "Got your goose cooked yet? You can always give up, girly! Maybe I'll even let ya live!" Which is a statement punctuated by even more unkind laughter.

    But this just means that he's overconfident as she works on her recovery, and therefore also
    open.

    The torrent opens, unloading the fury of water upon the bandit's gear as Jay lays in with the combat baton; flames further afield (closer to where the city gates are) are partially thus attended.

    One strike -- punctuated with a geyser of water in just about the same place, close to where the cockpit rests -- rewards Jay with an audible crack and a spray of loose electrical parts. "What the -- what did you do?! I can't--"
    The Gear's left arm, weapon and all, hands limp at its side.

    This is where Cyre intrudes, closing to melee to deliver a wicked strike for that machine's abdomen. Machine crippled, weapon useless, the Gear backs away from the furious Shaman's Gear, nearly stumbling in the ashy fields. "Screw you!" is his rejoinder to Cyre's request; he moves next to make evasive actions, apparently rerouting something in the junk Gear to move at double speed.

    "--Up to you guys! I'm outta here!" reports the bandit to his fellows, turning tail and running, his machine trailing smoke from some dire internal fault as he flees.

    Elsewhere in the fields, near to the downed Gear and pilot, Ethius faces down the flames-- and the matter of the remaining machines, visible in town.

    If there is one problem with Gears, is is their size. Even at this distance -- though hardly far away at all, comparatively (Honeysday is not a big town at all) -- it is a simple matter for a master sorceror to target one of the things with a spell.

    Particularly a spell of this size, one that carries with it enough force to smother all the remaining flames on this part of the field. Only a smattering of fires remain and they--

    Shouts ring out from that part of the field. The townsfolk! They've brought with them buckets -- earth and sand, by the looks of it -- to help tamp out the few remaining flames not yet quelled by Jay and Ethius' actions and try to save their town. But they'll need protection most likely -- if the remaining bandits see them at work.

    In the city square, Ethius' working becomes known.

    "Is that smoke? Wait--" starts the underling, as he's soon peppered with earthen matter.

    Which is not much helped with Lily's machine -- the leader can see it now and it's hard to tell if this is a case of 'wants it' or 'fears it' at an omniscient scale -- once she uses it to similarly lay into the group of them, adding shards of ice to the underling's woes and spreading it around evenly towards the leader to boot. Only two remain, but they're both in the heart of the town itself--

    Where the Gears struggle against the Aura's light.
    Desperation can make for similarly desperate choices. The leader drops the entire machine gun ARM onto the ground; there is a heavy 'thud'; the ground shakes and nearby buildings rattle violently and manages to make his Gear rise to its feet.

    "Well, I'll tell you what -- you ain't gettin' back to your masters alive, Veruni!" Panels in the ramshackle mess of a Gear's chest section unfold, revealing...

    Revealing an entire array of missiles and rockets.

    "EAT THIS!" hoots the leader, as said barrage lets fly for Yue's machine.

    Or, well, not all of it. Just most of it.

    Some of it goes a good distance further, landing in the fields where it soon causes a bit of a problem for anyone in the fields.
    Which is to say, it causes a problem for Jay, Cyre, and also Ethius.

GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked The Honest Businessmen with The Honor of an Outlaw!
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from The Honest Businessmen's The Honor of an Outlaw for 0 hit points!
GS: Restore! Shieldbreak removed!
GS: Amplify! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: Mighty! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Lily Keil with Sweet Revenge!
GS: The Honest Businessmen enters a Counter stance!
GS: The Honest Businessmen spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Yue Rohay with Sky High!
GS: Pierce!! The Honest Businessmen's attack breaks through 100 temporary hit points! 262 remain!
GS: Yue Rohay takes a solid hit from The Honest Businessmen's Sky High for 492 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Cyre H. Lorentz with Blood Money!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Blood Money!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Blood Money!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has gained 1 Combo!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has completed their action.
GS: Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blood Money for 230 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Jacqueline Barber!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz takes a glancing hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blood Money for 188 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Cyre H. Lorentz!
GS: FP up!
GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Sweet Revenge for 73 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a solid hit from The Honest Businessmen's Blood Money for 178 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

So, not the Veruni. Yue was right - but if not the Veruni, then who?

"I don't think you're in any position to be saying things like that." Jacqueline replies to the fellow in the Gear taunting her. "I'll turn it back around on you - surrender now, and you may yet get out of this alive. I prefer to avoid violence and bloodshed, but you'll find my friends don't quite share the sentiment."

Once again, she starts to reorient her Gear - this time, to provide cover to the townsfolk who are moving to start work on seeing to the flames. Unfortunately, she was already in trouble before, but now she finds herself eating a rather dangerous barrage of missiles and rockets. Thinking quickly, Jacqueline slots another Crest Graph into her machine - the symbols that appear on this console are two Geos in succession. At a gesture of her baton, pillars of earth rise up. This mainly prevents them from going elsewhere - they still impact her machine, sending it recoiling backward. But, not enough to put it down. Jacqueline exhales, psyching herself up for the next bit.

"We're turning you over to the authorities either way - but you might get off more easily if you tell us who put you up to this job and, if you know, why they did. But this offer won't last long." She says.

She returns her weapon to its holster once more, changing out the ammunition... and then, she fires a quick flurry of rounds at every bandit Gear in her field of view.

It might seem like she missed... but, any that made contact release a potent electrical charge, strong enough to knock out or at least severely hamper defense and mobility systems. In others words - leaving their Gears sitting ducks for everyone else.

"Everyone - go to town! But try not to hurt the pilots. We need to get to the bottom of this." She says.

GS: Formation! Jacqueline Barber has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Lockdown Shell!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Cyre H. Lorentz has posed.

Cyre Lorentz is a lot of things. 'Angry shaman man' is definitely way at the top of the list of things that he is, but above even that is something a little more relevant to the current situation. That something is 'Crafty emotion-manipulating jerkface.' That is to say, his genome somehow and inexplicably contains a not insignificant amount of feline genetic information-- and as everyone knows, manipulating emotions is something cats do exceedingly well.

And it just so happens that poking and prodding at pride and anger have resulted in some very useful information tumbling out of the bandits like spilled spaghetti onto a freshly steamed carpet.

"N'eheh, ss'at so?" Cyre asks, his expression becoming something that can only be described as 'catfais.' He doesn't even seem bothered by this one junk gear getting up and sprinting the hell away like its pilot's life depends on it. (In all honesty, it probably does.) "I'm real interested now. If they're not paying you, then I wonder who is? The plot thickens--"

Alas, Cyre's reverie is shattered by an unmistakable noise. His face falls as the sky fills with explosive munitions, a veritable cascade of missiles swirling through the air. The bandit boss has finally snapped, desperation has turned simple violence into... hyperviolence. "You damn fool-- how petulent can someone be!?"

But what can be done? The missiles are already in the air. The onslaught has begun, and what has been set in motion cannot so easily be stopped.

"Everyone," Cyre broadcasts to his ~friendly~ Gears, "Shut down all radio transmission for approximately three seconds on my mark." The Huracan hoists its damaged shield, as if preparing to absorb the missiles on approach. "Three," the shield... Opens. Its segmented structure unfolds, revealing four glowing phials hidden within, each containing tightly-bound, coruscating energies. "Two," series of levers trip, springing open with a *pop.* "One--" There's a *crack* of sound, like lightning summoning a roar of thunder! "MARK!"

The Huracan's shield flashes. A wave of pure electromagnetic chaos blasts through the airwaves. If the Aura's pulse was a soothing lullaby, the Huracan's is a deafening roar-- the equivalent to putting your ear next to speakers at a heavy metal concert. It tears through the missiles, suddenly causing each to cook off in mid-air or otherwise drop uselessly to the ground, their capacity to explode obliterated by the utter annihilation of the delicate electronics powering their detonators.

It's definitely not the most elegant use of the power the Huracan had been storing, but... Sometimes, a messy solution is just the thing that's needed.

GS: Cyre H. Lorentz spends 2 Combo on Poison and Interrupt!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Capacitor Discharge - Noise Blaster!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Cyre H. Lorentz has completed his action.
GS: COUNTER! The Honest Businessmen counterattacks Jacqueline Barberwith Counter Attack!
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Lockdown Shell for 0 hit points!
GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    "We should talk Gears when this is over, Lily," Yue chuckles faintly towards Lily. She has to admit, the Ether Booster has her curious, after how much coaching she has given Acacia on the instructions to the Nephele's own Ether instruments. And in a way, a certain sealed box does have its own...

    As it has shown itself in the battle in the Chateau, ever so briefly.

    "Tell us who you work for, and we may just spare you," Yue announces as her song starts to die down. In an ideal situation, she'd keep it going, but the energy reserves of the Aura are running dry...

    One of the bandits flees -- though not terribly quickly, with how slow their Gears are moving. Good, but perhaps not good -- the machine could be very well as much a hazard to the town.

    Yue's eyes narrow as she looks to the gate and finally spots the Symbologist. "That was the man on the Thames... Ethius, was it," she murmurs. "Hmm. A handy individual, to be certain."

    Desperation brings the bandits against her, however -- as the leader yells and unleashes hell upon her, a barrage of missiles and rockets firing onto the vicinity.

    "... even if I evade here... the damage to the surrounding buildings would be significant," Yue makes a spot assessment with narrowed eyes. "Fine. I swore to never use a weapon on this machine, and yet..."

    The Aura's wings fold upwards and generate enough lift to snap the machine into the air as it moves--

    moves-- not away--
     --not in a strafe to the sides--
     --but right towards the missiles!

    The first explosive rocks the Aura's shoulder plate and warps it into little more than chunks of debris; the machine disappears into the black smoke, and the horrible noise of machinery crunching and rending apart is heard. Several more pound directly into where the machine must be, and a LOUD shattering noise is heard--

    --and the breached red shield of the Aura, along with most of its torn-off arm, flies out of the cloud as it stabs sharply against a nearby playground, seemingly calculated to defend against a house it now shelters. The shield's hidden storage compartment rests open, its contents... missing.

    The battle is over, it seems.

    The Aura's arm is shorn off. The Gear, Veruni or not, must be scrap by now, and its pilot in an even worse position. And yet...

    "Unfortunately for you..."

    The bright emerald gleam is seen underneath the smokescreen.

    "You picked a day when this truly disappointing adult was in town. This most disloyal dog."

    The remnants of the Aura -- down to one arm -- emerges clear of the smoke, its one remaining arm revealing the source of that green light--

    A Beam Saber!

    "This is the end."

    She slashes in a broken flurry, aiming for each of the leader's joints to reduce it to component parts. And when one slashes more than once, we can truly call it a...

GS: Yue Rohay has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Plural Slash!
GS: Yue Rohay has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Yue Rohay has completed her action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Cyre H. Lorentz's Capacitor Discharge - Noise Blaster for 0 hit points!
GS: Dispel! Amplify and Mighty removed!
GS: Hex and Poison! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: FP up!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
GS: The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Yue Rohay's Plural Slash for 312 hit points!
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action!
GS: Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from The Honest Businessmen's Counter Attack for 50 hit points!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"Sounds good to me," Lily answers Yue. "Yours is definitely full of some interesting features, too."

And then, "Right. We'll cover things here," Lily answers Cyre over the radio, her Gear in... middling shape, apparently. It's going to need more repairs again. But the information they give is interesting anyway. So as Lily notes it, she prepares her defensive options--

The shot that's for Hellerune explodes a few yards away from the Gear in a conflagration of orange-red light, Ether pulsing through the air with a shuddering wave. The explosion still damages the Gear some, but much less than would've been from a direct hit.

"I'm the one who doesn't share the sentiment," Lily points out helpfully. She says nothing else for the moment, working on her spell's followup and chekcing of the mist as she organizes the controls to fully face the leader's Gear. ...She notices Jay's maneuver at about the same time.

"I'll see what I can do," Lily says, and will in fact shut down her radio on cue. She's content to move in slowly, aftr the sudden pulse--which rocks her Gear, too. But then she sees the brilliant green saber... and sees her opportunity.

"<Assuming manual control. Initiating...>" Lily doesn't entirely seem to notice that she's speaking the words she does, in a strange language as they are, but in moments her Gear shifts--and shimmers.

It's two Gears to all accounts, one on either side of where it was, and each whirl forward towards the leader's Gear, swinging towards the center mass as it's cut down, slashes appearing through the air--

At which point Hellerune Custom's spear emerges from behind the other Gear completely, the black Gear materializing beside it holding its weapon in a backward grip out to the side and below, revealing its true location after whatever damage is to be done is finished and over.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Mirror Step!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has launched an attack Link!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Witchrazor!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    The fields are alight in so much extra ammunition. Ethius watches the chaos of the free-flying missiles - there's a lot of them coming down into the field around them. He can see how the flame trails sputter - they don't have much fuel. He can't redirect them - these are dumb-fire clusters.
     He only has time to intercept one - a mid-yeid electrical spell whose name is lost in some of the chaos as he zaps one of them mid-flight. There is an explosion whose force carries through and still knocks him back. It's enough to propel him from being in, say, less survivable range - even with the Symbological shield.
     That Ethius lands skillfully enough on his feet - and then down to his knees - on soft soil at least ensures he still has legs. He stands up with help from his quarterstaff and discovers that his legs are not broken. There may be fires and smoke anew. He sees where everyone converges upon the leader, so he goes towards it his own way.
     Which is to say, through the flaming wreckage of the exploded missiles. The flames burn. The smoke chokes. He is but a mortal man, but that he walks alongside these elements remains something that feels right. Something that feels necessary.
     It's to help mask his approach. He can see how the Hellerune appears from behind, and how the Aura moves to slash apart at the joints. The man's grip on his weapon tightens as he walks out the other end of it and... keeps walking.
     Nonchalantly, as if moving with a calculated comfort in knowing the various foot movements and/or hovering capabilities of the other Gears. He looks up to the damaged, battered, kit-bashed machine. Accounting for its balance, its weaknesses...
     It seems understated, even comical. He just takes the staff in both hands. He's bloodied, and his top is mostly burnt - revealing in brief a torso filled to the brim with Symbological tattoos. He does not call upon that.
     "Far Point!" He calls the technique name as he just stabs the staff up to the highest point on the machine he can reach, looking to wedge it into where plating has been weakend - as if stabbing into the first domino to try and start a reaction.
     It's ludicrous, as a visual.

GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action!
GS: Ethius Hesiod spends 2 Combo on Headshot!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked The Honest Businessmen with Far Point!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Far Point for 111 hit points!
GS: Jam! applied to The Honest Businessmen!
GS: CRITICAL! The Honest Businessmen takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Mirror Step for 318 hit points!
GS: The Honest Businessmen guards a hit from Lily Keil's Witchrazor for 235 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Infect!! All debuffs' duration extended by 2 rounds!!
GS: The Honest Businessmen has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> The Honest Businessmen has posed.

     "I'll die a'fore I surrender!" comes the reponse from Jacqueline's opponent.

    Or run away, as the case may be.

    Things get a little more heated in the square proper.

    "That's employer con-fee-dent-ee-al-itee, kid!" comes the rejoinder to Cyre's question.

    And as if to underscore that sentiment, missiles are launched! Right in the middle of the village!

    The villagers in the field, having suffocated the last of the flames to the point where they are but glowing coals look to the sky in time to see an array of missiles raining down all around their down. A great shout comes up, even as Cyre puts into motion a most desperate counter:

    There is a Sound.
    That is the best description for it. It is a Sound, and it is all-consuming. Several missiles give up the ghost in mid-air and crash harmlessly; others zing off into the distance. Only a few hit anything close to a target at all -- and only strike the combatant Gears.
    Most of which are intercepted by Yue herself, the Aura taking the brunt of the damage in the ensuing fight.
    One plummeting missile comes close to Ethius, but he handles it on his own terms; when he is finished with it, there is little left of it to remain as a threat.

    Perhaps as one, the townsfolk breathe a sigh of relief. Afterall, in spite of what just happened the town and its residents have gone completely unscathed.

    >OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: HELPED STOP THE FIRES!

    >SECRET OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: PROTECTED THE VILLAGERS!

    Jay, again, asks that they surrender. That it'll be easier that way. "Nothin' doin', lady! You ain't turning us over to the Veruni!" shouts back the leader from his compromised Gear. Even now, a simple action like walking or moving comes only at the apparent cost of significant effort; whatever Yue's machine has done to his and his fellow's machine, it's significant.

    "Boss, we're surrounded!" the other one reports.

    "I know that, you idiot! Break through and--"

    Attempts to make a retreat are interrupted as a furry of shots ring out about them, apparently missing, until it becomes all too clear they did anything but miss. "Boss, readings in the red ain't good, right?"

    "Of course not! Just shoot them all!"

    The song is fading. It may not matter with the devastation Jay's attack has wrought -- they're just as stuck now as they were moments ago.

    The underling's Gear lifts its ARM. "I-- I'll hold 'em off, boss! Try 'n push through!"

    To that, the leader's machine twists the wrist of its right hand; a large jagged blade emerges. Even in the state it's in, could it be that it could do serious damage if it rushed the Gears converging upon it...!?

    There is a glint of green from the apparent wreck of the Aura. The only thing in the leader's path to an escape, as his underling opens fire on Lily's own and anyone else who gets too close to his boss.

    "Ain't you dead?!" barks the leader, as the Aura arises even in its state. He urges his machine for Yue's own, blade raised.
    As it draws forth a beam saber.
    And handily parries his strike. The sliced-off tip of the blade dances end over end in the air, before landing with a solid thud next to a sign advertising a sale on last year's potatoes.

    "Sh-shit!"

    Into this, Lily intrudes.
    Two Lilies intrude. The leader's Gear swipes for one of the visions with the broken blade, but--
    Nothing's there.
    Not really.

    Until she strikes from behind, the spear running that Gear through. There is, briefly, the sound of a scream.
    Then nothing.

    "Boss!!"

    The underling, lowering his ARM, never even sees Ethius approach as he stares at his impaled leader's machine.

    Instead, there are just two words.
    Followed by a tap of the staff, just up behind a heel.
    And followed by a buckling and breaking down. The Gear gives.

    So does the man within -- the underling. "I SURRENDER!"

    >OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: DEFEATED OR DROVE OFF THE BANDITS!

<Pose Tracker> Yue Rohay has posed.

    Well. There hasn't been anyone that Yue knows that could walk out of something like what Lily performed; and with what Ethius just did, it's not long before the underling surrenders, given what Jacqueline's electric charge and Cyre's noise blaster did on those machines.

    The Aura's eyes die down in tandem with its saber, as it suddenly releases an enormous gush of heated air from the vents now opening up on its body.

    It's mildly on fire at the moment. And that freshly repaired arm has fallen off once more where it did its job protecting the house it covered.

    "Mission complete..." Yue mutters to herself, before staring down towards her abdomen.

    Her bandages are pretty darn red now.

    "...need... a bit of rest..." she murmurs further, before slumping her head back on the head cushion of her seat.

<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.

"That was never the plan. I'm not that heartless." Jacqueline says, at the assertion that they won't let them be turned into the Veruni. "I think the people of Honeysday might have a few choice words for you, though."

It isn't much longer before the fight ends - quickly and brutally. Jacqueline heaves a sigh, sitting back in her seat as the last remaining bandit surrenders. She presses a button on the console, ejecting her Crest Graph before flipping on communications.

"Good work, everyone - we were able to keep the damage to a minimum, everything considered. If we weren't here, this could've been a lot worse. Is everyone alright?" Jacqueline asks.

Of course, there's still one important matter left in the air - why did this need to happen in the first place? ...Well, there's still one of them left - maybe in the coming days they'd be able to extract some answers from him.

<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.

    Ethius, for his part, steps back at the exact measured pace he needs to not be crushed by a collapsing Gear. This is always the risk when you are a crazy person who seems to be willing to engage big metal death machines on foot like it were nothing. He disengages without much fanfare, calling no immediate attention to his level of wounding because - doubtless - the people of Honeysday are going to come gawking and he feels exposed.
     He does not like feeling exposed.
     He knows there is a survivor among the bandits, but finding answers to questions can wait.
     It can wait for a new shirt.