2020-03-28: The Progenitor

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<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Deep within the Hyadean facility, Odessa is hard at work.

    A squad of Gears stand vigil within the massive, silent hangar bay. Most of them are conventional, by the standards of Filgaian militaries, but one sticks out. Those who were present during a certain fossil heist in Ignas might recognize Graverobber--the gear responsible for the theft. It's been repaired and overhauled, but there's no mistaking the general profile. Odessa troopers are loading something into smugglers' compartments on its back and thighs: metallic spheres the size of wagon wheels, identical to the one stolen from the Meria Museum.

    JOTUNN cores.

    Two women stand at Graverobber's feet. Polynya wears the same outfit she wore during the attack on the Museum; her mask is still damaged, broken off just below the nose. The other figure is a tall, shapely woman in a leather piloting suit. Is that Madame Butterfly?

    Fortunately for the Drifters, the hangar is far from empty. Berthing stalls provide cover, and the ambient noise of the base is just enough to help cover a Gear's approach, if one is being silent.

    The Dust Dragoon is one such Gear--Ida creeps her machine forward, using as much stealth as she can while piloting a forty-ton machine that was very much not designed for it. Conversation filters through the darkness as she gets closer.

    "Granas," an Odessan trooper grunts. "The hell are these things made of?"

    "Oh, stop whining," another retorts, "and help me pull."

    Polynya, meanwhile, looks oddly distant. It's visible in her body language, even though her face is hidden. That awful presence isn't clinging to her, at least.

DC: Gwen Whitlock switches forms to Halcyone!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Much like its pilot, the VALS-4 Corsair is not much one for stealth. It's a big, heavy Gear, originally meant to endure harsh environments deep within mines - not to mention its bright red and gold color scheme. But even still, Layna recognises the value of stealth.

She can see that there are others here, too - allies she recognises. And so, she sends a quick ping over to them to let them know she's here, but otherwise doesn't give out any signals that might give away their position.

It would probably be best to coordinate this as much as possible - there's no telling what those Odessa agents are capable of, so getting the drop on them would be ideal.

So for now... nothing to do but sit back and wait. And that Layna does, sitting back and tapping her fingers against the arms of her pilot seat, waiting for a good opportunity to present itself.

DC: Monster Mash switches forms to !
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    The Graverobber, as it were, is a painful reminder of a failure a long while back in Port Solde -- when Josephine, Riesenlied and the other members of the Wolves worked together under an uneasy alliance to ferret out those that were shipping weapons to Ignas.

    In the end, they lost a precious Dragon Fossil, but...

    It feels doubly odd, perhaps, to come upon the Gear again -- limping with the leg braces as the only way she's walking at the moment. She has come here after being told by others of the Hyadean nature of the place, but to hear all the recordings and speak of what Eitri and the others intended back then...

    "Please. Stop this, Polynya! Those cores must not be used for harm!" Riesenlied expresses. Nope, not going for the stealthy approach at all.

    She looks like she's barely able to stand up right now, roughed up from the approach through the facility... but she has to do something.

    The spirits of the past would not forgive her if she did not.

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Heritor of Wayside!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

Weglaff Custom stalks forward.

The blue Gear looks different than it did during the fall of the Photosphere; the single-eyed Gear is slimmer, much of the bulk removed after a remodeling in the wake of fighting the Ley Dragon. The once arm-mounted heat saber is now carried, held in one hand. It isn't glowing red anymore; it turns black, as it cools quickly.

Inside of the cockpit, Leon leans backward, and his eyes look at the foreward monitor. They can approach quietly, which is for the best.

He scowls, as he gets a look at Graverobber. Familiar, that one; so are the artifacts being stolen.

"Well," he says -- to everyone, but particularly the other Black Wolves present. "I'll get the Lawnmower ready."

The 'Lawnmower,' it seems, is a massive gatling cannon. Weglaff draws it off the Gear's back, then hefts it up -- and then sees Riesenlied call out. The Gear steps out, hefts the gatling cannon up, and then Leon barks out:

"Drop the cores! Now!"

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    She's six feet tall in metal plate, and the Seraph Boudicca is still one of the stealthiest beings in this room. At the moment, that even leaves aside her natural bonuses to nondetection, because there are a lot of giant robots in attendance.

    It also means that for once she's one of the smallest people in attendance. Well, to the giants...

    She uses her relative alacrity to sneak around the sides of the grand facility. She's not quite sure what she's searching for, but, somehow... she can't imagine the Graverobber being bothered by a stiff breeze.

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Coordinated strikes? A measured ambush? No, there's no need for that.

The Graverobber's name is an apt descriptor. It was responsible for stealing away artifacts that rightfully belonged to the surviving children of Hyades. And for one particular member of that much benighted demographic, there're few sins more unforgivable than graverobbing.

"You've plundered your last relic, Odessa!" A voice roars, blazing with righteous indignation and barely restrained fury. A colossus of red and white and orange charges out from the ruins, a gem inset into its chest burning with the colors of molten sunfire. With a crackle of flame, it unleashes a gout of blinding, orange light and roiling, catastrophic heat...!

It's... Zed.

Zed, who has apparently had enough with terrorists abusing his people's heritage for power.

Zed, who was personally entrusted one of those JOTUNN cores himself.

Zed... Who can't help but feel responsible for losing them.

He is angry, and so violence comes quickly.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    It's one of the reasons why Josie is even here -- normally, she has her own proverbial fish to fry (vis a vis the mysterious Eos Base location she has been searching for as diligently as a Josie can) but she also still possesses a vengeful streak, one that particularly emerges at times such as these.

    She won't admit it, of course, but it bothers her that she was never able to return the core.

    Spotting the other Black Wolves -- she had come in here with Elly and a few others, navigating the fortress on foot -- she quickly flags them down and hurries on over.
    Or about as well as she can, carrying the cannon and all.

    "Hey. Looks like the rumors were right," she says to Leon and the rest. "It's those bastards from Port Solde. What say we blow their heads off?"

    Though the cannon will need a little prep time first. "I think I see an opportunity to get the drop on 'em. Right! Lion, you do the distracting, I'll take things from here."

    She slinks off (as best as she can, see also: carrying cannon) towards where a certain mechanism and certain angle suit her plan of attack best.

DC: Heal Berry switches forms to Facility Controls!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Vierge has braved this dungeon, and if it should be battered by the tides of history, let it be so. The core electronics of the Gear ping and converse silently with those nearby, and Elly breathes in and out as they movve forwards. Vierge steps quietly...

Carefully...

and...

"Leon," Elly transmits, her voice quietly despite it being inter-Gear communications. "They're out in the open. In this space..."

"..."

"Well," Elly continues as her eyes flick towards the monitor that read AERODS - OK / OK / OK / RECHRG / OK / OK - "Should we be sporting?" Her eyes then flick up towards Riesenlied, and she sucks in a deep breath through her teeth.

Something seems to resonate in her head; a gentle noise, like a gong struck lightly. No, Elly thinks. There's no reason I can't cover them, too. The potential of this device...

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Lily Keil is on foot, for now--but before she approaches, she pulls something from a bag; it's a few mechanical components of some kind, which she puts about her waist and about her arms. From there, it's far easier for her to move in stealth than for a Gear, despite the fact that she tends to prefer the direct approach--so she does.

She is not yet beside Riesenlied, which may be for the best or very much not for the best as she foregoes the stealthy approach completely. For her part, Hellerune is still in need of repairs after the last battle it was in. But now...

"Ready the lawnmower all right," Lily agrees over the radio, and starts to veer for Riesenlied. She is, to all accounts, just a woman on foot, but...

She's focused on Riesenlied, prepared to throw up a shield around her the instant anything hostile makes a move. She does not step out of the shadows to introduce herself... yet.

GS: Monster Mash has adjusted their boss level for 11 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel doesn't have a gear with her. Indeed, she's s till shrouded up for the moment, wrapped up in a heavy jacket and heavy clothes. She comes up from behind Lily. She doesn't say anything or prepare any spells, instead patiently holding her position for the moment. She does not have any personal investment in the cores but she would prefer them to remain out of Odessa's hands.

She would comment that using the Hyadean's heritage for terrorism is probably the best way to honor the legacy of the majority of Metal Demons but she likes Riesenlied and though the thought occurs to her, she dismisses it upon reflecting that a new heritage is being formed today, here and now.

She says, "Well, it seems a quiet approach is ou t."

She walks forward.

"Polynya. Odessa troops. Surrender and I am authorized to promise leniency." She doesn't scream it our anything, but there's the sort of echoey quality as if a mic were being used to amplify her voice.She really wishes she didn't have to play this role but that's unlife for you.

<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Sneaking isn't exactly Gwen's best skill, but it's definitely not her worst. Like a true ranger, she's good for scouting in, setting her position, and shooting.

    Also she can punch things. That is also a skill she has.

    Leaving behind a perfectly decent Gear may seem like madness, but Gwen needs that Gear for work! After Ashley had stuck his bayonet so rudely into her gear's back (because he was about to fall off, let's be clear), Gwen's head was full of numbers and possible repair costs.

    So she's going to scout ahead ON FOOT and see if she can figure out the situation of this JOTUNN thing and maybe, say, scurry back and then grab her Gear. Or maybe, she might just try to take it on as her fragile squishy self.

    After all, a part of her says, she might be able to finish things from afar.

    Climbing up into an overhang in the shadows, the courier, pale blue-grey eyes survey the scene in front of her calmly, as she begins to quietly slip bullets into the chamber of her ARM, located in the crook of her right arm.

    A few bullets can do the trick.

    The thought occurs so naturally, as does her actions leading to it, that Gwen doesn't even think about how unusual it is, for her to think this way.

    For her to just watch from afar, locate what might be the vital points of Polynya and the tall woman accompanying her, and stretch her ARM, aim, and wait for the critical moment.

    After all, it's to protect Riesenlied, and Lily and Marivel just beyond.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Boudicca's Seraphic nature allows her to take risks that the others cannot. She passes right by some patrolling soldiers, and up the stairwell that they were guarding--which, if it has guards, is probably important, right? As she soon discovers, it leads to a level above the hangar floor. Alien machinery hangs from the ceiling, silent and still. There are more of those strange claw-like fixtures used to transport large objects, as well as other, stranger devices.

    The Odessans work with equal parts military efficiency and nervous energy. They're behind enemy lines in a facility that has done its best to try and kill them. Why not expect the worst to continue happening? The sole exception, it seems, is 'Mme. Butterfly'. She speaks into a slim Empathite radio mounted on her collar. "We've got three more of the large ones," she says. "And then the big bin. How's it looking on your end, Beth?" A moment's worth of silence. One of the troopers manning the winch starts to roll another core towards the loading area. "Aces," Mme. Butterfly says. "We'll clean out the bins, and then proceed to Poly's next--"

    Zed charges into the fray. Polynya's head snaps up. She whips her Hyadean-forged lance free, and plants a foot on the ground. "CONTACTS!" she bellows. Her other hand pulls a Crest Graph from her bracer. The air begins to chill, rapidly. Around her, the Odessan troops drop the winch and take cover--behind Graverobber's feet, behind some of the larger JOTUNN cores, behind the walls of the old stalls that once held war machines. Even Mme. Butterfly takes cover, leaping behind her Gear and grabbing a boarding line dangling right beside the winch. As she reels herself in, she catches sight of Riesenlied.

    "Oh, dearheart!" she shoots back, in response to Riesenlied's entirely reasonable statement. "You shouldn't be here! Please, step back before you hurt yourself."

    "She isn't the one who should be worried," growls Ida. The Dust Dragoon steps out from behind its berth, the Three-Dragon Cannon braced in both hands. It stomps forwards, forming a line with Surtr and Wieglaff. "Listen to them."

    Mme. Butterfly has vanished behind Graverobber's torso, but she's still transmitting. "And look who it is! The audacious gentlewoman adventurer deigns to grace us with her presence! Tell me, dear, how has your family been faring? It would be so unfortunate if this awful business spilled over..."

    "You..." Ida growls.

    Polynya has been staring at Riesenlied this entire time--studying her, even as Mme. Butterfly lands verbal blows on Ida. The woman steps forwards, seemingly fearless in the presence of overwhelming enemy force. "I told you, Riesenlied," she says. "If there was any love at all in this world, it perished long ago. Those in power must recognize the path by which we will be--" Her voice hitches. "Does it matter...?" Polynya looks over at Marivel. "Does any of it matter, anymore?" She stops abruptly, cranes her head, and snarls--as if she just got a singularly unpleasant transmission. "Very well, then." She whispers something that is lost in the din around her. And...

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    Alarm klaxons fill the space.

     GOLEM SIGHTING CONFIRMED - ENGAGEMENT IMMINENT - RELEASE AUTHORIZED, it comes on any Gears with sufficient equipment for picking up signals and decoding them. An emergency for a situation that did not come to bear - the Golems did not aggress upon this space. Whatever Odessa did, they figured out how to trigger it, and it awakens.

     Liquid Metal of a less opaque character pours in from below, like a fountain, flooding upwards into a bulbous shape. It is less 'awakens' and seems more like 'lurching groggily to face the oncoming Monday.' Bubbles... no, spheres... cores! Cores fill the space within it, as though it were in the process of fabricating a coin-operated gumball dispenser. It continues to fill space within the center, swelling until it attains a mass on par with any of Filgaia's legendary Golems.

     iNiTiAaaalIzziiIiiiNg---, it croons in radio waves in something that may well be imagined to be anything more than static with a passing resemblance to the word.

     Lengths of the material shoot out from the sphere, slime-like appendages that form to a number no less than seventeen but no more than twenty-three, slapping down about the facility as the numerous cores within start to stir. Some of them glimmer. The ones that glimmer are either closer to its surface, or are rolling towards that point.

     cOnfIiirRRrmmmmIiiiNnnnGggG taRrRgeEeeeT--- The noise pretends it is trying to say this as it slaps these pseudopods everywhere, indistinctly, as if it were searching around for a screaming alarm clock to hit snooze on rather than mount a serious offensive.

     ...

     The passing of time... could it be on their side, just this once? Could the only risk it represents to the mission being the loss of a few minutes in which to halt Odessa's latest plans?

     They'd better strike now while the going's good.

GS: Monster Mash has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Leon Albus with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Zed with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Riesenlied with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Marivel Armitage with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 292 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 70 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 170 hit points!
GS: Leon Albus takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 140 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Seraph Boudicca completely evades a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike!
GS: FP up!
GS: CRITICAL! Zed guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 223 hit points!
GS: Lily Keil guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 86 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.


    Since this is a special fight, there will be some special rules!

    *Gear-scale characters start the fight at 50 FP, instead of their normal starting total.

    *Drifter-scale characters instead gain access to a secondary character object, called the Facility Controls. Each round, they may tell Heal Berry to use an attack from the Facility Controls bit.

    *The boss will attack all players, Gear-based or otherwise, except the Facility Controls. Drifter-scale characters can of represent damage as frightening close calls, damage to surrounding equipment, and reduced ability to act overall.

GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 157 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 27 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.

"Bloody hell!" Leon shouts, as the liquid metal starts to grow into something at Polyna's command. He looks between each core, and then sees the glimmering quicksilver pseudopod descending for him. He fires the thrusters on the Weglaff and leaps, and just gets out of the way as it slams into the ground. That ground cracks, viciously, behind him.

"Take it down!" Leon shouts. "I don't think they're partial to our efforts to negotiate!"

He pulls the trigger; less than a second later, the gatling cannon opens fire. It makes a tremendous racket, as the barrels begin to rotate, and then rounds begin shredding towards the liquid metal body and the cores. "Lily, Elly, if your Ether can do something about this thing, now's the time!"

GS: Leon Albus has attacked Monster Mash with Gatling Burst!
GS: Leon Albus has completed his action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 84 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock's Force Guard activates!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    Riesenlied rather understands that she has come on foot to a battle of Gears -- it isn't as if there's no terror in her heart, but... she believed in the same people who saved her all those months ago. Ida in the Dust Dragoon, Elly in Vierge, Leon in Weglaff, and Lily too... and Josephine as well, as well as the others -- Zed, Gwen, the Corsair, and-- she hasn't detected Boudicca cause she's so nyoomy right now. Her Perception score is also not great, okay.

    Marivel speaks up as well, and she turns quietly to the Crimson Noble, looking a little relieved. Together, perhaps, they can avert the course of disaster for so many who have rightfully earned their rest...

    She cups her mouth when a very familiar person speaks--

    "You-- were the one from the auction... Madame Butterfly! Please, return the fossil to us!" Riesenlied empathically requests, even if she knows it will be for naught.

    She taunts Ida and questions how the Everstead-Rey family has been doing. But her attention is fixed on Polynya in turn, sensing that gaze upon her.

    "Polynya... I ... cannot be so presumptuous to know what you feel inside. But I have been there."

    Liquid Metal pours in, however, and rises as it absorbs the cores-- and she gasps as she exclaims, "No...! You must not..."

    There's a yelp as the appendages emerge out and one of them clips close to her, and she's forced to one knee as she winces.

    "When the Photosphere fell... when I saw my father struggle so hard to find that light in his eyes -- only to have it be robbed before my very own..."

    Riesenlied shakes her head.

    "My heart, too, befell emptiness and despair, yet... I know that love and healing can still be found. And I will work with you to make that happen! Polynya!"

    There is a surge -- and the Ley can be strongly felt as Riesenlied gathers her thoughts and emotions; she directs it to the Crimson Noble standing beside her, channeling healing to her. "I am with you, Marivel..."

GS: Riesenlied has attacked Marivel Armitage with Ley Channeling - Border of Life!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Leon Albus's Gatling Burst for 66 hit points!
GS: FP up!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Madame Butterfly speaks -

- and Elly finds herself replying: "Your pain isn't wrong... or invalid... but if you are gathering these relics in order to just, fight other people, you're not going to do anything but make everyone else miserable as well. And that won't ease your heart in the slightest!"

Something about this feels obscurely familiar.

This feeling of deja vu is faded out significantly when the Golem begins to BUBBLE UP. A mimetic polyalloy controlled by some central core - a horrid congeries of unlife, a Hyadean nightmare. Perhaps it was bred once for labor but now it rises to smite its masters! A huge tendril smashes against Vierge, sending the 14-sharl machine reeling despite its mass;

"Tch!!" Elly says. Leon speaks, and as Vierge nearly topples over, Elly sweeps out the heavy combat rod in a long arc towards the creature - Pointing forwards - holding it ready, perhaps to parry another sally - but her dreams of instant decisive conflict are scotched in a moment.

Her eyes narrow. The Ether amplifier, deep in Vierge's abdomen sector, hums...

And the temperature of the air shrinks notably, although a thermal graph would reveal that the real concentration of temperature plunging is a teardrop shape in the middle of the air, the main body of which is structured to intersect the central mass of the horrid gurgling THING!

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Monster Mash with Aqua Ice!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Elhaym van Houten's Aqua Ice for 140 hit points!
GS: Disease! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Josephine Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 28 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    This is a sneaking mission, and Boudicca... well, she doesn't particularly sneak past the guards. She just kind of walks by, really. It's blatantly unfair for her to just get away with this the way she does.

    "Those are quite large," she reflects, quietly, to herself, as she beholds the claws. "How does this work..?"

    Thus stood Boudicca: leaning over a control panel, fiddling with buttons and knobs she is leagues away from ever being able to understand. None of them seem to do much for her, because this is delicate heavy machinery, and just hitting buttons blindly is not actually a solution, unless one's problem is 'how to mess with the machinery'.

    (To be fair, in that particular case, just randomly hitting buttons is a great solution.)

    This is about the time a great flailing tentacle of living metal lashes out from below. "Oh!" Boudicca exclaims, as she springs up, air beneath her feet, grasping onto the chains of one of those great claws. She is very fast: the whip doesn't even brush against her.

    What it does do is destroy the auxiliary control panel, quite soundly.

    "Oh," Boudicca says, as she blinks down at the sparking metal. "Now how am I to manipulate this mechanism..?"

    Thinking...

    THINKING...

    "Oh," Boudicca exclaims, for the third time, "obviously!"

    She just remembered that she is a Seraph and she cheats, and she is standing right on top of the thing she wanted to use in the first place.

    A flurry of a breeze, and a long, long green ribbon wraps around the chains of the claw, the only physical remainder - because Boudicca has moved to inhabiting the mechanism itself.

    She settles in. It is larger than any home she has made for herself before, but metal is not so strange, after all.

    There's a little misfire as she figures out which gear and crank moves what part of the claw - it lurches, to the side. Down, and up. "Ah, it is... like this?" There's no real indication where that voice is coming from, any more. It's just sort of around the claw, eminating.

    "All right!" The machine enthuses, brightly, as it lurches down with more purpose, now. Swinging down, down, down, to graaasp at that living metal, snicker-snack.

<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Gears burst forth from cover to challenge Odessa. A grin spreads out over Layna's face and she pushes the Corsair forward.

"Looks like it's time to get this thing started. I don't think they're gonna stop just 'cause you ask - nothin' to do but do this the hard way." Layna says. The Corsair draws its main weapon from its back - the massive anchor with a chain attached on one end. They'd had plenty of chances. She listens to Mme. Butterfly's threats, and Polynya's words to Riesenlied. A slight frown crosses over Layna's face and she shakes her head. She doesn't say anything - it's probably for the best. What she has to say would probably only make things worse.

It's just as well - it isn't long before the sound of alarms ring out.

"...What the hell? Golem sighting?" Layna puzzles. "...Does it mean us, or... and what's being released?"

The answer to this comes not long after, as a bulbous thing of liquid metal pours in, filled with some manner of...machine? Layna has no idea, but it's probably not friendly with the way it sends those tendrils everywhere. The Corsair recoils back as one of them strikes it.

"...I can't tell if this thing wants to hurt us or if it's just kinda... doin' its own thing." Layna comments. "But we're not gonna get anywhere with those jerks with it in the way."

Layna raises her anchor.

"So, for the time bein', I'm gonna have to ask ya..." The Corsair rushes toward the central mass of the creature and brings the anchor down, looking to slash right through it. "...To go back to sleep!!"

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Weigh Anchor!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Weigh Anchor for 477 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied heals Marivel Armitage! She gains 250 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    As long as they (the targets -- the ones with the big old Gear down below) are focusing on the rest of them and not her, she's got a pretty good chance of getting the drop on them. The walkways rattle as she ascends; even if she were going slow it's a pretty good bet she'd cause some sort of disruption given her total combined weight. But against the bombast below, perhaps...

    Josie halts a moment as that thing is unleashed. Her lips part at the sight of it, her eyes widen.

    And then she bolts for it, ducking behind a support pillar as one of those lashing tendrils comes in. Not fast enough to not get hurt: her right upper arm oozes blood through a rent in her sleeve. But the cannon is undamaged, and that's what's important.

    She reaches the controls shortly after Boudicca. "Hey, you on our side?" she starts.

    Moments before Boudicca seeingly vanishes, leaving behind a single green ribbon. "...Well, don't that beat all," murmurs the archaeologist, before she sets down the cannon cattycorner to the control unit. She'll figure out the business with the mysterious lady after she gets the cannon drawing power--

    The Nostos Cannon starts to glow, its external lights shining a red-orange.

    --because it's going to take a while for it to do that thing. She did just use it a few minutes ago, and she used her spare energy core on the way in.

    With the cannon in place, she approaches the sparking controls and draws again out her radio.

    To the other Black Wolves, she transmits, "Josie here. In position. Some lady was just here at the crane controls then up 'n vanished. Any idea about that? Gonna see what I can do with the junk here while the cannon's heating up. Try and keep all that business down there, eh? Over."

    Then she reaches out and gently plucks at the green ribbon, once. "Right then. Ghost girl, I hope you're on our side."

    She pauses, then her mouth widens in a smile. "C'mon, let's see if we can cause some trouble."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Polynya's lips twist in a mirthless smile as Living Metal floods into the chamber. "Your... 'father'?" she says, to Riesenlied. Pain creeps into her voice. "Demons have 'fathers', now?" Elly responds, too. Polynya realizes that she's clenching her jaw. "No," she says. "It will not. But it is what is necessary." She raises her Crest Graph high, and whispers something beneath her breath; the air around her trembles and shudders beneath the flow of sorcerous might. "Grab what you can and fall back!" the sorceress cries. Ice crystallizes before her with a sound like a thousand candeliers shattering. In a heartbeat, half the hangar is sealed off by an ice wall, leaving the Drifters to face the Hyadean machine.

    "Get back here!" Ida roars. The Dust Dragoon pulls the trigger, and sends a gout of Dragonfire roaring across the room at the ice barrier. Tongues of plasma-flame lick across the wall, but whatever magic created it is damnably powerful. To those sensitive, the faintest touch of a Primarch's taint lingers in the air.

    The ancient thing soon proves it's no paper tiger, either. Three metal pseudopods whip out at the Dust Dragoon; Ida sees them coming, and steps her machine back. The Dragoon whips up its primary armament, gripping the cannon with both hands like a quarterstaff raised in defense. The Impact rocks the Gear back on its heels--the solid CLANG echoes off the hangar walls. "What the hell is that?!" Whatever it is, it's clearly something Odessa felt could cover its escape.

    Ida sucks in a breath, steadying herself. The Dragoon shifts the Three-Dragon Cannon into both hands. "Lily, Riesenlied, Gwen, stay clear!" Ida shouts. Moments later, the cannon erupts again, sending another burst of Dragonfire racing at the blobby-machine-thing's center of mass.

GS: Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Transport Claw Ram!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel takes in a deep breath and exhales. She doesn't need to breathe but it feels good. It calms her mind.

"If nothing matters, then why are you doing this? Why are you doing anything? What purpose does revenge serve? You are far too young to be saying such things. Tell it to me again when you are old and grey. If there are crimes being committed, even the crimes that are unnamed, you are welcome to report it to the authorities--that's ARMS--so they can deal with it appropriately. It is, at least, worth a try. Instead we are expected to deal with these things without even being told, even though they are before our forma--"

A lance of living metal has speared through her chest--not quite hitting where the heart should be, but it's still a full on impale.

Marivel lets out a long sigh.

And then poufs into a swarm of bats, landing and reforming back near one of those lovely anti-gear turrets in the room.

She slowly raises an Elec Tool and jams it into the control panel. It circuits once and the turret turns and aims towards the machine that just SPEARED her.

"I can't resist with all this technological gadgets here." She admits even as Riesenlied heals her wounds, sealing up the hole in her gut.

She smiles at Riesenlied. "And I am with you, Riesenlied. Metaphorically. I am not standing right next to you but--well, you get the idea. I trust you to do what you do best."

She looks back to Polynya. "You do not have to live the life they expect out of you. You can change the narrative, right here, and now. You can make the change."

<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Words come out of the Odessans' mouths, and somehow Zed finds them less compelling than they perhaps intended. Maybe it's the whole 'literally beating the dead horse of his civilization for military benefit' thing. That's the sort of stuff that would test the kindness of even the most patient saint.

Zed is not a saint. He is a warrior, and these are warcrimes.

The living metal creature manifests, forming into a quicksilver colossus that easily dwarfs any of the gears standing against it. But Zed-- Zed is not concerned about its size. Zed is concerned about the things swimming within its form. Orbs... No, cores...!

"It's... A Jotunn!?" Zed snarls, the cacophony of sound reverberating out of the colossus is only approximately some kind of language, but what it's saying, how it's saying it, it's not well. Not well at all. It's as if the thing's mind has been scrambled-- from age? From Odessa's meddling? Zed immediately assumes the worst.

"You... What have you done to it!?" The Hyadean roars, and attempts to guard against the giant's assault. Metal pseudopods slam craters and fractures into Surtr's arms. It's an indistinct, random attack-- but is it really? All those cores swimming in the Jotunn's form, is it only of one mind? Or is this the action of several dozen minds acting roughly in tandem.

"Surtr!" Zed calls. The fire giant's eyes flash. A flood of fiery energy cascades out of its chest, blasting into the quicksilver monster's liquid form. "What's going on!? This thing thinks we're golems-- is there anything we can do to convince it to stand down!?"

Is there!? Maybe... If they counter-hack whatever it is that Odessa did to this poor thing...?

GS: Zed has attacked Monster Mash with Muspell Blazer!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash critically Guards a hit from Heal Berry's Transport Claw Ram for 57 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Monster Mash with Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Flame Breath for 176 hit points!
GS: Corrode! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash's Force Guard activates!
Heal Berry (HB) pages Josephine Lovelace and Seraph Boudicca: Well you can pose fixing/powering things up, which would
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

It all happens somewhat quickly here, as battle does. Lily Keil watches Odessa whirl into action, particularly Polynya bellowing there. As the air chills, Lily narrows her eyes, keeps watching--and she doesn't react to the first comment about Riesenlied. Instead...

Instead she focuses on Polynya first. "I sympathize. I do. But this approach--"

She stops sharply as she hears the alarms, looking around quickly, settling her gaze on Marivel a moment. "Quiet is very out."

As the thing starts to spin up, numerous cores glimmering, pseudopods swirling--

Lily throws up that barrier after all, and one for herself; the shadow that erupts before her blunts the impact of the pseudopod, slowing it enough that she can get out of the way, but the shockwave of its impact on the ground throws her from her feet nevertheless. "Gh--"

"Right!" Lily calls to Leon, and scowls. "Enough Ether is always a good solution," the witch says.

Lily extends her arms, channeling power; she starts to rise into the air, golden light crackling around her. A yard up, she focuses, placing hands together. A pulsing ball of golden fire-like light bursts into being, nuclear power growing to her size. She extends both her hands, and the magic twists, forming into long bolts of energetic force, each one taller than Lily herself.

"Is it what's necessary? Think about the kind of world that will be left when you're done with this. Is it one worth fighting for?"

Her eyes are already starting to cloud over golden, the amount of force she's channeling causing that same power to diffuse around her. "Can I do this without...?" she wonders to herself, and doesn't realize the radio is still on.

GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with The Hail of Wounds - Arrows!
GS: Lily Keil has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Lily Keil's The Hail of Wounds - Arrows for 142 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Anti-Gear Turret!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
GS: CRITICAL! Monster Mash guards a hit from Heal Berry's Anti-Gear Turret for 229 hit points!
GS: Josephine Lovelace spends 1 Combo on Inspire!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Heal Berry with Teaming Up With A Ghost!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    Just pull the trigger.

    Just pull it.

    It would be a mercy to kill them, these soldiers, so sick of the world, so willing to spread misery through whatever means possible.

    If the first shot misses, shoot again. Make sure the second bullet counts.

    Gwen takes a breath.

    --A memory of a familiar face, a sad smile, spiked hair, talk of butterflies and spiders. A question.--
    --A dark-haired child in an impossible throne in oceanic depths, alone, sad for the girl who had to live in a world of butterflies and spiders.--

    Gwen seizes backwards, as if the metal grating below her was fire red. "...?" Why did she think this? To come up here, aim her gun, and plot to assassinate someone from far away in cold blood? She's Gwen, she doesn't do that.

    ... Does she?

    The fabric of her being that would have insisted on that is... not there. Did she ever have it, or was it just a facade? A character she played?

    She focuses her attention on the silvery metal, somehow more able to grasp the concept of attempting to shoot it than the human beings she was aiming at, moments before.

    Again, Zed's words delay her, long enough for her to be knocked physically backwards, nearly off the platform she climbed up on. "Gh!" Climbing stubbornly back up, Gwen notices something she hadn't before, when her focus had been narrowed: a Transport Claw Ram.

    Surely, it shouldn't be that much different from piloting a Gear, right?

    Right?

GS: Heal Berry takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's Teaming Up With A Ghost for 0 hit points!
GS: Heal Berry gains a Combo from Inspire!
GS: Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Transport Claw Ram!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Heal Berry's Transport Claw Ram for 286 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Zed's Muspell Blazer for 136 hit points!
GS: Mighty! applied to Zed!
GS: Monster Mash's Force Guard activates!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    This moment of weakness could be the only moment they have. The gathered have already seen what this facility could do with Living Metal as a means of rapidly reconfiguring entire battlefields. If this is all this was meant for...

     No time is wasted. Leon opens with weapons fire that does not seem to pierce the membrane. Teardrop-shaped projectiles of Ether-conjured ice strikes into the thing, and it shudders ominously as its somewhat translucent metallic flesh hardens and produces some manner of angular spider cracks as the pulse of Ley empowers another nearby.

     eeeNgaggGing-- CoMbattaNtts-- More unpleasant imagined words from this worthless static it is emitting. It looks more like it is being engaged than the other way around, after all.

     One of the odd number of pseudopods gets stabbed through the heavy anchor - severed outright to a splatter of quicksilver. The shimmering cores bubble and shift about, a few distinct colors flashing (mostly magentas) as they lower to the origin point of the pseudopod. A crane arm gets aroudn one of the pseudopods, and there is something of a stalemate. It doesn't wriggle violently, but the crane arm isn't getting much leverage either - but Boudicca, who now embodies the crane, can feel that there's less give in the material than it looks. The Dust Dragoon moves to boil it from the side opposite of the Ether Amplifier's freezing projectile, and the Living Metal drips. It should seem like cores should spill out of the thinning, melting layer... but it doesn't. They also flash magenta.

     hooSssStIllles cOnnFirrRMMMed--- Is what it says - something approaching believable as words being said - as Surtr pumps flame into it. The mass lurches slightly in its direction. Lily's Ether projectiles and Marivel's tinkering with the controls, together, produce a rain of pain, sorcerous and not. More cores start to light up... and dim, almost all at once. With Gwen's assistance, Boudicca may get a better hold of the great(?) weapon and start to lift it up. It doesn't - or is helpless to - resist.

     ---Hostiles Analyzed. It speaks coherently.

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

     All of the pseudopods retract at once. Where their emergence was lazy, chaotic, unfocused, and merely brute force, there is a precision and purpose to the way all of them (sans the one splattered and severed) retract into the mass. It allows the claw to keep hold of itself as its bulbous form makes for a perfect sphere aside from any thermally induced imperfections on the surface. The only remaining cores that are lit are hard for the unaided eye to pick out due to their small size versus the volume within them... but there are exactly eleven.

     One for each one of the gathered.

     In the span of four blinks of an eye, the pseudopods emerge again straight down to push itself up higher and give stress to the crane arm, retract again, and emerge above and around it like helicopter blades that start spinning so fast that they create a mirror-like sheen. Its body sheds the soft, blobby, spherical exterior and starts fanning out into harsher, more angular shapes. Innumerable weapons (at least eleven) appear, grasped by sturdy limbs. Each elbow-like joint has a magenta hue to it, each one containing a sphere.

     ---Material Grades Logged. Irregular Number of Golems. Supplied Analysis of Targets: Error Rate of 94 Percent. Its actions do not speak of a machine being confused. It moves upon the lot of them as if absolutely certain of their approach. ---JOTUN Ymir Commencing Operations. Data Transmitting.

     JOTUNN-01 Ymir

          JOTUNN Progenitor

     Ida will recognize the sheen the blades take in roughly half the arms as being similar in hue to what chemical treatments for heat resistance does to a Hyadean weapon's coloration as it sweeps with the flat of its blade towards the Dust Dragoon. The blade going for Leon's spins as if preparing to deflect more fire. The blade coming for Vierge is producing enough raw heat to try and counteract the attempt to bring forth more cryogenic sorcery. Surtr will find itself impaled with extreme prejudice, as close and precisely to its very core as possible.

     ---Captured Materials Confirmed. It says. It has already processed the possibility of what it is looking at. It is crystal clear on its intentions for them.

     Meanwhile, helicopter blades are looking to do terrible things to the crane, the trauma threatening to send power surging through the crane to shock its operator and its present self. The other arms that are not presently bearing blades are all bearing exotic ARMs that can be summed up with one likeness: they glow a bright color, they're all pointing towards various way smaller targets of interest, and this seems like overkill - but most of them are pointed towards the working control panels...!

     "Quantum Repulsor!" Shouts a certain white-haired Symbologist as he adopts a defensive stance before the control station as the beam sweeps his way. It diffuses as it goes against a highly visible Symbological shield, but not painlessly - it's a lot of heat, a lot of disruption for those around it. It forces him down to his knees as it passes. That may be the only assistance he can render.

     The objective at hand being what it is, this can't leave the fortress intact.

GS: Monster Mash has attacked Monster Mash with Learning Core - Tactical !
GS: Monster Mash has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Learning Core - Tactical  for 0 hit points!
GS: Amplify, Hyper, and Lock State! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Zed with Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Living Metal Strike!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Blade for 183 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Anti-Gear Cannon!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Anti-Gear Cannon!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Riesenlied with Anti-Gear Cannon!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Marivel Armitage with Anti-Gear Cannon!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash takes 56 damage from Corrode!
GS: Monster Mash has completed their action.
GS: Josephine Lovelace completely evades a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Cannon!
GS: Lily Keil critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Cannon for 30 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Cannon for 27 hit points!
GS: Seraph Boudicca critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 28 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten completely evades a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Blade!
GS: Elhaym van Houten's Force Evade activates!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Blade for 65 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: CRITICAL! Zed guards a hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Blade for 239 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock guards a hit from Monster Mash's Living Metal Strike for 80 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    "My father. ... Siegfried," Riesenlied answers. "Many have scorned at such an idea, yes... through the decades, and centuries I have lived with him. Yet I know how strong and important that bond was for the both of us-- even after we had strayed apart from each other!"

    She clutches at her heart gently and says, "As Marivel said... you can change this--"

    She pauses, though, because her eyes distractedly glaze for a moment towards the presence of a certain primordial taint...

    "T-this presence. It is like the one under Wayside..." Riesenlied murmurs. "Polynya... you can resist it. I can help... we can help! It does not have to be this way!"

    The Living Metal is starting to speak more coherently -- and its mass emerges... eleven eyes, one for each of them, the body fanning out to harsher and angular shapes.

    "Ymir..." Riesenlied whispers.

    Her eyes are wider still as she looks, and exclaims, "E-Ethius!" She struggles a little closer to the Symbologist to defend him, slow as she may be going.

    "Josephine, Lily, Elly! I shall... I will... I will provide strength for you! Leyline, please, answer my call..."

    Riesenlied's knees buckle further as she focuses a large surge of the Ley upon the very metallic ground she's standing on -- raising both of her arms, the cascading lifeblood of the world swirls around Vierge and Josephine high up where she's collaborating with Boudicca-as-Crane, and Lily.

    "This opponent is too much on foot... must I use 'that'?"

GS: Riesenlied has activated a Force Action!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Ley Channeling - Spirit's Cover!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Ley Channeling - Spirit's Cover!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Lily Keil with Ley Channeling - Spirit's Cover!
GS: Riesenlied has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Anti-Gear Cannon for 168 hit points!
GS: Riesenlied heals Elhaym van Houten! She gains 375 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Riesenlied heals Josephine Lovelace! She gains 188 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Josephine Lovelace!
GS: Riesenlied heals Lily Keil! She gains 188 temporary hit points!
GS: Shield! applied to Lily Keil!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

Layna grins as she manages to sever one of the pseudopods but pauses, as Zed says the magic word.

"...Wait, you're tellin' me this is a Jotunn too!?" She asks incredulously. "...Is it s'pposed to be this...y'know, goopy?"

The Jotunn takes their attacks... and then, it speaks again - this time in a worryingly coherent voice.

"...JOTUNN-01, Ymir." Layna repeats, shaking her head. "The Progenitor... so this is the big one then, aye...? Odessa sure picked a real winner to sic on us."

She shakes her head - and then, the Jotunn comes in with a heated blade. Layna raises the Corsair's arm to defend and it leaves a glow score across its surface.

"Damn - I think it's really startin' to get serious now! If you have a way to stop it, ya better hurry up, aye!?" Layna says. "I'm gonna try to open a weak point!"

She retaliates with a swing of the anchor - but rather than going for a downward chop, she instead tries to catch it with one of the hooks at the end, aiming instead to tear open a vulnerability for the others to exploit - and to compromise its ability to defend itself.

GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Black Spot!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Black Spot for 182 hit points!
GS: Shieldbreak! applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    Boudicca would have answered Josephine, but she was a little busy not getting lashed.

    And then she was busy figuring out the claw..!

    But soon enough she becomes aware of the woman poking at her ribbon, even though, once again: touch is not particularly a sense enabled by metal. Touch is blood and skin and nerves; mechanisms tell a different story entirely. She has to mix her metaphors. She's done it before.

    "Of course I am on your side! Gracious, I should not like to think what might possess me to assist Odessa!" The claw eminates, emphatically, with a little wobble for emphasis. "... please do not unseat my vessel," it adds, with less offence. "I will need it when I get changed."

    (That's not, strictly speaking, what's happening here, but Boudicca has long since given up trying to figure out how to communicate the nuances of ghost girl hacks to humanity.)

    Down grinds the claw, and it starts to grasp, but there's a moment's unexplained pause. Claws do not express emotion; it's up to the voice coming from - around - associated with? - that machine to communicate its uncertainty. "Ah... it is proving quite difficult to grasp this... creature?"

    Zed would know what it is! Zed is occupied. Boudicca is not going to disturb him right now. Neither is she going to disturb Marivel, or Lily, even if the two of them are being plenty disturbing on their own. A crane has no eyes to see; don't think she missed that impalement, regardless.

    Luckily, Josephine is here to help. "Let us... hmm, if I... there!" The machine enthuses. (Or is it the ghost in the machine..?) Ka-CLAMP the claw grasps that living metal, and griiiinds its way upwards.

    Boudicca doesn't particularly know what she's going to do with it once she pulls it up, but it's making a terrible mess of things for everyone down there. She's particularly worried about Riesenlied, that ley energy...

    So she's making a plan up as she goes along. It's fine. She's got this.

    She's got...

    ... a round sphere.

    It's almost easier to hold onto, now, but it's also terribly alarming, as the claw states: "This is terribly alarming."

    It's important to explain how one feels when one does not have a face.

    "It is moving with purpose now --" but before Boudicca can posit why, suddenly it's not a sphere, any more. And suddenly, the ghost in the machine isn't the only thing dictating the claw's movement. "Hold fast!" Eminates that claw, and it is not entirely clear whether it addresses the people around it, or the living metal it is attempting to wrangle. Perhaps both?

    "Look out!" Swing, swing, swing - the claw brings itself in towards one of the steel walkways, hopefully one without any hapless guards or well-meaning Drifters upon it. That will hopefully be enough to get between the helicopter-blades and the mechanism of the crane. It's a strange sort of shield, but...

    Well, Boudicca's usual shields might be a little small for this situation.

    She's improvising!

    Her temporary vessel is sparking something terrible from the cuts it's sustained, but it is not lost to Boudicca that the sphere is menacing everything. If she can use her grip on it to trouble it, she thinks...

    But she can feel - no, don't think of feeling, there is no sensation, not as such - the way one gear has slipped from the other, the chop-chop-chop of a fan belt which is frayed at the edges, the wild spin of a lever which has been severed from what it levied.

    But Boudicca is not the only one possessed of the urge to use the local machinery. Gwen might not be possessing a claw, but she's got the right spirit.

    "Gwen!" That claw cries - that's a normal sound to come from heavy machinery - as it swings in towards the other crane. "With care, let us take this thing apart together!"

<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.

Marivel Armitage looks to Lily and shrugs a bit. Marivel has lived through many 'BUT WE WERE SUPPSOED TO BE SNEAKY' moments in her life and honestly she's just come to expect them. This isn't a organized squad, it isn't even a ragtag group of drifters, it's a practically random assortment of drifters whose interests vaguely sort of coincide with one another.

Her left arm explodes into a spray of blood and smoke as an anti gear round punches through it--refracting off Marivel just enough thanks to Riesenlied's earlier support that it doesn't just slam through her dead center. Marivel clucks her tongue in annoyance, tapping rapidly at the controls with one hand. It slows things down a bit but not too badly. She's an excellent typist.

She glances to Boudicca for a moment and says, "You know," to her. "It is absolutely lovely to see you expanding your horizons. There is no reason to not be a mechanist if you are an immortal being, no?"

And then she taps a button.

And the turret she's on sprays a huge swath of anti-gear firepower towards the mech.

"Honestly, I much prefer this method of fighting than getting down and dirty with my hands. This is my specialty, honestly, machines but I don't get to play around with them as much as I'd like." She flicks on her microphone and says, "THANKS POLY-NYAAA FOR LETTING ME TOUCH ALL THE GADGETS!"

GS: Formation! Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Transport Claw Dogpile!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash guards a hit from Heal Berry's Transport Claw Dogpile for 235 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Heal Berry spends 5 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling!
GS: Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Defense Turret Salvo!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Heal Berry's Defense Turret Salvo for 400 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Their initial barrage does not fell the creature as it ripples, as it transmits outwards with its aggressive deliquescence, with its rhetorical flourishes. Elly breathes out as she stares ahead, bringing Vierge upwards as the entire world seems to become subtly more bright, clearer through the cameras.

Am I having a Drive flashback? Elly wonders, even as the tendril before her flares with heat. Even as the Thing, more object than individual, flares up with sudden streaking heat. It is communicating with them somehow, but what is it saying? Not known. A blade is coming towards her --

'I will provide strength for you!'

Things become weird for Elly van Houten very quickly as she feels some sort of force, one that only briefly interfaces with the subtle interior sensors built by the science-factoriums of Solaris. It rises up and into her spine and it pours there, like silver in a mold.

There is a surreal sense there. A sense that this energy is not hers, that it is not something "of" her. The force of the Ley, though real and authentic, is not in perfect unison with whatever could be termed the 'soul' of Elly van Houten. She interprets it in a fleeting polysynthetic way as something about - Vierge, or her -

Born in the sky - of course, she thinks, if incompletely - that makes sense:

- But it does nothing about what is coming towards her.

Something is calling to her. Riesenlied is calling to her. The WORLD is calling to her and what is it that she can do? There is a moment of bleak panic, a sense of imminent failure, as her grip tightens and the pseudopod of superheated living metal crosses through her zone of cryonic induction, breaking it into swirling patterns of temporary and anomalous snow.

It's all happening again.

Unless, Elly thinks, something is different, and -

Elly closes her eyes, helplessly. Can there be anything different? Will the loop turn away from a decaying inward spiral?

-=-=-=-

There is an enormous trefoil twinkle immediately in front of Vierge as the superheated blade carves its way forwards.

                    * Ley Boost!
                    * A-FIELD

The blade vaporizes mid-swing. Only a brief tickle of neutralized atomically-purified vapor brushes against Vierge.

-=-=-=-

Elly opens her eyes.

MUSIC INSERT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3HNSZZHHGQ

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Is there any kind of operational core or a pilot inside of this thing?" Elly asks, with a steady determination. As she does, Vierge leans forwards, bringing back its combat rod.

It is not the first thing to get to Ymir, of course, because that trefoil light came from the AERODs. Like glittering needles, flying dreams in the air, the twisting spiral of the things scatter round, moving like faeries in the air and lancing in with blue-green bolts of something that isn't any sort of an element at all. Pure disruption - energetic discharge - aiming to test, to prod the thing, to make it reveal itself and its weakness.

And if there is no weakness, to simply slice off long ribbons and steaks from the central mass.

"If it's drawing on the energy flows of Filgaia, I don't know if there's an easy solution," Elly continues talking, thinking of a moment when she faced a devil while laying on her side with her hand splayed before her. A memory then of a red line keeps her going as Vierge smashes aside a sallying tendril, perhaps already severed.

Close the distance and then THRUST and TWIST and SMASH and VAULT and LEAP backwards, smashing into the side of one of the Gear stable's walls. The metal, not meant to actually bear a Gear's weight so much as to keep it from smashing round while parking or coming out, screams in agony.

The AERODs twist downwards, pouring past Elly. Two of them snap in to dock again, their charges largely spent; the other slide outwards, a quartet of light that twist round. For a moment there are hovering angels over the people of the battlefield; a silver torpedo larger than Marivel flits over her, as if in protection. They pair off, and at times here and there, they fire -- not at the creature, but into a vertex between them. When the rays intersect, there is a shining place -

                    A-FIELD

- where, at least, something is different. It might not last, but does it need to?

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Monster Mash with AERODS!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Josie's immediate response is to smile tiredly. "Not a fan of those lot, are we? Well, no matter-- ah, right. You're one of 'em..." Josie gestures, vaguely. "Those Seraphs, yeah? ...Didn't know you guys could mess around with machines like this. Heh heh, nice trick..."

    A pause trails out. "Yeah. It's gonna be hard to grasp and all. Let's see what I can do here--"

    She abandons the aux controls and heads right to the other end of things, flipping a few switches to help improve the crane's grip (..maybe; she's just making her best guess based on what she can work out here). "Wonder if I can do something with the wiring," she mutters, drawing out a screwdriver and trying to pry open the plating.

    A sudden fresh wave of sparks makes her reconsider that plan. Josie draws back before she can take a nasty shock. "Ah, maybe not, eh? Try and hold this junk together if you can. It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

    That thing's moving with more purpose than before.
    And a lot of that purpose seems to involve a display of outright violence. "Shit--" Josie bites out, dropping down and flinging herself to one side as one of the tendril-held cannons discharges in her direction. The bolt misses her and the cannon, but it chews a hole right through the flooring up here, making her quite grateful that it hadn't hit. "Doin' fine, ghost girl," she murmurs, levering herself up with her only good hand on the sparking auxilary controls. "Hope you're hanging in there, too. Fengalon's teeth, that was too damn close... Watch the floor when you come out of this mess. There's a hole now."

    The core Josie had loaded before had been fresh.

    Which means that, even after having spat out a few shots earlier, it's getting back up and running to operational more quickly than it might have otherwise. Leaving the controls behind, the archaeologist slips back to the big gun, her gloved left hand running across the surface in several key locations.

    "Gonna just..."

    It's reaching a brilliant green by now, the light. It washes across the cannon in waves.
    Just as the lifeblood of the planet washes across Josie, courtesy of Riesenlied.

    "...let it build up..."

    Calibrations finished, Josie, crouching alongside the cannon, reaches for the radio.

    "This is Josie. Power's up; prepping for a big ol' shot. Keep me covered. Red, Lion, I'm about on your four, keep outta there. Sunshine, Tiger, keep clear of the crane and that bad business in the middle. Gonna try not to hit you, but no promises!"

    Comforting.

    "Got a better look of what's up in that thing? Looks like cores from here. See if you can mess it up. Over."

    She turns to the crane controls. "Same goes for you, ghost girl. See if you can do somethin' about those cores!"

DC: You switch forms to Repurposed Ancient Cannon Nostos!
DC: Josephine Lovelace switches forms to Repurposed Ancient Cannon Nostos!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Josephine Lovelace with The Gift Of Courage!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
GS: Josephine Lovelace takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's The Gift Of Courage for 0 hit points!
GS: Amplify and Hyper! applied to Josephine Lovelace!
GS: Josephine Lovelace assumes the Avenger stance!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's AERODS for 400 hit points!
GS: Disrupt! applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    The power surging through the control panel leaps up against the naturally hungry Mockingbird ARM, the weapon attempting to convert the painful energy even as its owner stumbles backwards. "Ngh!!"

    Breathing in, steadying herself through the pain, clambering right back to that panel as she hears Riesenlied's words, Gwen latches onto the levers, and continues.

    Breathe. You can do this.

    Ethius is there- she sees that much, before he deploys that shield.

    As Gwen manipulates the claw, a sequence of thoughts go through her head:

    this really isn't like piloting a gear at all
    at least it's going in the direction she wants it to
    wait, is the claw talking
    the claw was talking
    is the claw... boudicca?
    The claw is Boudicca.
    Well, Boudicca *is* a Seraph, and that's a very Seraph thing to do.

    "I don't exactly got this thing down, but you seem t'be havin' some trouble too, but if we work together..." Gwen's lips turn up in a smile.

    Hutched ober the controls, her ARM still sparking as it converts the last bit of energy it snatched from that last contact, Gwen whispers another, more private bit of gratitude to the Seraph, though likely not in a way she can hear.

    "I don't quite trust my judgment right now, so, thank you, Boudicca."

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    There is no response to Marivel, Riesenlied, or Lily from behind the wall--merely muffled shouts, and the sounds of Gears moving about. The ice is cloudy enough to hide what exactly is happening, but there's a small silhouette near the very foot of the barrier. Polynya raises both hands, and channels all her focus towards keeping her spell intact. Behind her mask, tears of frustration slide down her cheeks.

    Familiar coils tighten around her heart.

    Meanwhile...

    For a moment, Ida allows herself to hope. The thing dangling in Boudicca's crane resembles a blob of soft, metallic dough more than it does a weapon. Did they luck out, just this once? Did they catch the ancient weapon before it was unleashed? "Elly," Ida says, "I'm seeing stress fractures. If we keep up the temperature differential, then thermal expansion should--"

    It starts to change. The gout of Dragonfire cuts off; in the cockpit, Ida keeps one eye on her sensors as her AWACS suite analyzes the enemy. Its mass is still shifting around, but there are telltale chemical and physical changes in its outer layers...

    "Bollocks!" Ida spits. Vulgar language takes the edge off the rapidly-deteriorating situation. "Watch out, it's waking up!" Blades and beams sweep through the facility from every angle. Unlike Vierge or Weltall, the Dust Dragoon isn't made for speed and agility. There's no way Ida can dodge incoming fire of this volume. The Dragoon drops to a knee, and twists its torso slightly to present a narrower target As the tempest of blades races at her machine, Ida slams her fist into a brand-new button, one freshly-installed at her father's request.

    Hexagons of brilliant blue-white light surge up around the Gear, forming a spherical barrier--a Hyadean shield generator. Was it scavenged from a Dragon, or from some other war machine? Ida doesn't know.

    Ymir's assault slams into the Dragoon's shield. Its bladed limbs skitter back and forth as they slash at the energy shell, trying to crack it like an egg. In the corner of Ida's HUD, the shield's capacitor reserves drop perilously low. If she'd been a second slower on the button, they would've embedded themselves in the Dragoon's joints. The shield drops a scant half-second before the assault ends; one of Ymir's blade-tendrils sweeps across the Dragoon's chest, carving a gleaming gash in its armor. It could've been so much worse, but still. She underestimated it.

    Elly deploys her AERODS. Ida stares for a moment as the sub-units rush the JOTUNN, moving with perfect coordination. "It's adapting to whatever we throw at it!" Ida says, her voice transmitting over the open channel. "But let's see it adapt to sorcery." As far as Ida knows, that's been always been a crucial Hyadean weakness.

    A data link opens to Elly's Gear as Ida activates her machine's command computer. Sensors gather targeting data, and wire it to Vierge at lightning speed. Modeling the JOTUNN's movements is difficult, but Ida keeps the Dragoon's sensors pinned on the thing, the better to help Elly get off a decisive shot.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Firing Solution!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Formation! Heal Berry has attacked Monster Mash with Transport Claw Dogpile!
GS: Heal Berry has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Heal Berry has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Heal Berry's Transport Claw Dogpile for 380 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

As the chaos continues, Lily hovers in place, breathing heavily for a moment after extending her magic. But she stops short as she hears the voice turn coherent. Being here near the ground makes her a small target, but a target nonetheless, and she has to ready her defense. She watches the Jotunn change its form.

"Ymir," Lily repeats, eyes widening. She looks it over, taking in the details; the angles, the weapons, the joints. And of course... "Zed, Ida--be careful."

One of the ARMs on an arm points at her, though; it would absolutely seem like overkill, as a Gear-scale blast barrels right for Lily. She brings her hands together and creates a sphere of darkness about herself, opposite Ethius's shield in many ways--and there is a great explosion as the beam hits it.

From that explosion, Lily rockets backwards, crumpling what was once a set of terminals at the wall before her shield dissipates and she breathes heavily against it. ....Despite her magic, it's clear; her armored jacket is a ruined mess; there's something slick and red at her cheek. Lily reaches up and discards the ruined remnants of the plated jacket, bare arms aglow with darkly prismatic light in patterns. It's then that she feels the power rising up from the Ley itself, thanks to Riesenlied--and then that she registers what she feels distant, that presence...

"Riesenlied!" Lily calls. "...Not alone, you don't." Straightening her back, the medic looks up--and sees Elly's display of Ether, marvels for a moment at the precision involved. "...No," she agrees with Elly over the radio. "No easy solution. But when do we ever find it easy?"

Lily lowers her arms and opens the channel to the world around her.

Ether pulses once; twice; three times, and to magical senses there is a sensation of motion, power drawn towards a single vortex point. Lily's feet rise from the ground; she hovers a short distance into the air as her eyes begin to fill with black. The circuit markings on her body extend, down to her fingers, up lines across both cheeks and eyes, and a prismatic effect of gold, violet, red, blue, and orange fills in for pupils and iris both. Wings of the same colors begin to extend in flat light circuitry from her shoulderblades.

"<Limiters released. Ether output-->"

<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

Static drowns out whatever's said next in the ancient language, and Lily looks across at her foe. "...All right," she says in modern speech, with a look that isn't quite a smile. "Let's see what I can do with this." Her entire form pulses, and clouds over, her form wrapping in shadow as if backlit by the sun.

Lily presses a key on the device at her wrist. There is a clatter clack as the strange things strapped to Lily's arms and at her belt starts to extend, unfolding in plates a segment at a time both forward and back, becoming something of an armored exoskeleton; dark metal encircles her hands, moves to extend over her legs, and creates greater structure. Five great claws end each of her limbs, longer than they were before with what look like cannon openings at both 'palms'; armoring covers some of her body over her darkened form. Clattering above her shoulders is an extending length like neck that serves as a helm. It terminates in a draconic head, machinery inlaid with gleaming red eyes. Those spectral wings stretch, metal spreading across them as a spike-plated tail extends for balance, and the new form rises higher into the air.

OST: Mechanical Rhythm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqzJQnef5w

Each new 'limb' stretching outward at once, a wave of magical power erupts outward from Lily's new form, the vortex spilling back out as sparkling red light. She turns her eyes, to where the light gathers in a cannon... "I'll cover you," Lily radios back to Josie.

"Ymir!" Lily calls, her voice amplified with an electric growl. "You're not the only one who can make things." She shoots upward, and once she has an angle, stares--before brilliant blue-green light shoots from her eyes straight for the Jotunn's center mass, crossing the divide in an instant.

DC: Lily Keil switches forms to Omega - Causation!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with Ocular Beam!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

Jotunn... Ymir...?

No, its name alone is insufficient. Its designation, Jotunn-01, that is the worrying part. The part that is, far and beyond, what causes Zed's blood to run cold. "It's... The original?" Zed hears himself whisper, as the primordial war giant awakens fully, shaking off the grogginess of an aeons-long nap to rise in full and terrible glory. How many years has it been sleeping here? How many simulations have its myriad AI-cores run through before today? "Surtr!" Zed calls, moments too late, "Incoming!"

It's a terrible sound. Metal being carved to shreds. The fire giant's eyes flash chaotically as Ymir's quicksilver limb rams deep into the hollow of its chest. Warning, intrusion detected-- Int--t-t-tru-- The Gear's limbs spasm and writhe, a mess of quicksilver mycellum taking root around its gaping gash, creeping across its body like an infestation of living metal. This thing-- this progenitor-- is it... trying to consume the 'stolen' core...?

Surtr cannot stop it. Eleven cores against one is far too much. Its logic barriers fall in an instant. A split second later, it faces an elevenfold onslaught against its core precepts. In another few seconds, it is subverted completely--

Except... That never happens.

Surtr's cockpit bursts open. A figure leaps out from the depths of the machine. Its pilot-- Zed! "You!" The Hyadean screams, his voice cracking with rage. Dozens of feet of cloth flutter and unwind as he pulls his blade clean of its sheath--

And with it, something else.

Doom Bringer emerges, and it is very clearly not well. Its edge is swathed in a curse made painfully tangible, as if the very stuff of hate and misfortune were somehow rendered into physical form. Its blade is surrounded a black, burning mass that stings the eye that dares to behold it and scorches the mind that tries to comprehend it. Zed roars as it eats away at his arm, and brings it straight down through the invading limb. "--Take your filthy hands off my friend!" He screams, dark energy surging as he leaps-- only to drive the sword into Ymir's bulbous form. "Progenitor or original or prototype or whatever you are! You're not taking Surtr from me! I'll rip out your heart myself if I have to!"

P-pilot-- Surtr staggers back, clutching at the wound in its gut. Severed from its controlling cores, Ymir's liquid metal floods out from the gash in a rushing cascade... But not completely. The glow of its eyes stabilize, and the living metal reverses course, sealing around the wound as Surtr takes control of the wayward material. It can't fight back properly-- not yet-- but it can do something else while its pilot is risking life and limb.

Enemy unit is designated JOTUNN-01, Progenitor unit Ymir, Surtr answers Elly, There are a total of eleven JOTUNN-cores within its body, elimination of which will severely reduce its combat capabilities. Marking targets now! Targeting data marking the approximate theoretical locations of the Jotunn's cores streams to nearby friendly gears. It may not be the best targeting solution in the world-- but in the instant that Ymir attempted to 'retrieve' Surtr's core, it may have overplayed its hand.

And if it is drawing on Filgaia's energy to sustain itself... Then perhaps Zed's blade, the sword of a Hyadean, might just be what's needed to sever that link...!

GS: Zed has attacked Monster Mash with Calamity Blade!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Firing Solution for 0 hit points!
GS: Hyper! applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Mighty! applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's Ocular Beam for 259 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Zed's Calamity Blade for 356 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    As Riesenlied calls to Ethius, he looks about as good as a mortal man can in his circumstances. Eyes are shut, forearms are bare, and his breathing is shallow. He's alive and conscious. He sweeps an arm outward with uncharacteristic flailing as if to try and pantomime she shouldn't come too close - but that may be more a pragmatic decision to make sure targets don't clump up together.

     It is Layna who arguably struck the most decisive blow in the early going, and the way Ymir swings into Corsair now is in respect of this fact. From the outside in, Ymir seems more than poised to catch the anchor. For a hot moment, Layna might think herself at the losing end... but then she wrenches it just right, jerking the entire airborne construct to the side and loosening the joint holding the blade. An exposed magenta-glowing core peeks out... and switches hues, gradually, to cyan.

     A cyan that represents a time and set of motions gone from long ago. From where a limb splits and fractures, Living Metal pumps out to produce another bare arm as it tries to slam an arm down on the shoulder of Corsair, and twist and contort itself further using Corsair as a balance for further defensive posturing. ---Applying Previous Opponent Experience: Astrid It announces.

     Between Gwen and Boudicca working together, Boudicca reasserts the crane's grip and continues to wrangle it about while it's airborne, further tilting it in ways disadvantageous. Disadvantageous like Marivel getting to TOUCH ALL THE THINGS, but most importantly THE THINGS THAT MAKE OTHER THINGS SHOOT, and taking advantage of a temporary opening to lay shots in there. By the time it lowers a gun-arm to flare out a shimmering energy shield from its barrel, the damage is done. It is held ajar.

     Ajar enough that it can now be pointed towards the Dust Dragoon, twisted and turned as such that it now produces limbs analogous to stout legs to center itself as Ymir tracks the sensory devices being used. It lifts one of these legs and slams it down on the ground near Dust Dragoon to try and disorient it (if it is ground-bound) and imbalance it. --Applying Previous Opponent Experience: It announces as it hefts this same leg up and thrusts it forward at Dust Dragoon like a battering ram, thrusts forward to try and press them against the wall, and drift that leg upwards as if to strike at whatever apparatus is helping tramsit. #-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: #C9000 --Fafnir.

     ...But that is not the only help it is getting.

     The Ley flares up through a medium unthinkable through all of this. Between the eleven most active cores within Ymir, not one among them has immediate answers for defining what it is seeing as the Ley sweeps forth to further empower Riese's friends, with disastrous...

     No, miraculous results.

     The arm going for Vierge disintegrates entirely, its damaged core descending and cracking noisily on the ground. The remaining matter retreats back within itself as energy strikes at it from multiple angles. The probes find that if there is a weak spot, it can quickly reconfigure them - so brute forcing for the most general damage possible seems to work as it carves into the center mass with energy dissipations. It tucks into itself...
     ...and through the vertex of energy that probes at it, Lily emerges in an exoskeleton-like suit that comes at her with emergies that further claw into the Living Metal. It has always been the Achilles' Heel of the Metal Demons that they had very little they could do with - or against - the sorceries of those who lived here. Some unfathomable force...

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

     ---Capabilities Resemble Theoretical Means On Record. Ymir announces, voice static-ing as the draconic exoskeleton rips open a gash like it were plastic. It can see one core going from magenta... to green.

     ---Applying Previous Opponent Experience: Etiri. ...A name some of them would know from caught transmissions here. It flips to show off what was its domed top, now a turtle shell-like shield as if it were caught in a game of Twister. It starts to rev up and spin, a high-pitched squealing grind harshly unpleasant to human ears (or anyone's for that matter). A disruptive measure that found some historical success in suppressing sorcerer concentration - a means the head creator deemed the most effective way of countering heavy sorcery usage.

     Allowing it to 'face' Surtr, in so much that the less-armored side doesn't resemble a face - there's just more exposed cores looking at it as the numbers are counted. It is fixated upon Surtr as it rears back one free blade-arm to try and stab it anew. Zed decides to come on out and stab it instead, and the wound goes deep. Deeper. It pierces a core.

     The core turns black, into some non-color as another core drags in another's resources. ---Unknown Scenario Encountered. Ymir announces, as three(!) cores hoist a newly-opened, huge-looking cannon... pointing at Zed. ---Opponent Confirmed Metal Demon. Opponent Confirmed Acting In Tandem With Golems. Executing. An ancient prototype - the Siegebreaker - being brought not against a Golem... but against one of the people it was to serve, and against one of its successor models. To be struck down with extreme prejudice.

     On the ground, as everyone prepares to master their great counter-offensive with the environs, Josephine will be the first to notice that several of the cores detach from the body prior, dragging out several exoskeletons that rapidly gain definition and structure as they fabricate drones. Drones that are now being sent out towards the control rooms - and they are not picky about who they take down with weapons fire, bodily contact, or both.

     Surtr gave them the data. The Ether-using sorcerers have them on the defensive by having taken out a few cores. A few more have been released in which to release a wave of support units.

     This is going nowhere good.

GS: Monster Mash has activated a Boss Action!
GS: Monster Mash has activated a Force Action!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Layna Manydays with Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Astrid!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Fafnir!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Etiri!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Lily Keil with Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Etiri!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Zed with Prototype Siegebreaker Cannon!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Riesenlied with Prototype Seeker Drones!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Marivel Armitage with Prototype Seeker Drones!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Gwen Whitlock with Prototype Seeker Drones!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Seraph Boudicca with Prototype Seeker Drones!
GS: Monster Mash has attacked Josephine Lovelace with Prototype Seeker Drones!
GS: Monster Mash has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Seeker Drones for 172 hit points!
GS: Layna Manydays guards a hit from Monster Mash's Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Astrid for 160 hit points!
GS: Cripple! applied to Layna Manydays!
GS: Layna Manydays's Force Guard activates!
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Etiri for 0 hit points!
GS: Disrupt and Mute! applied to Elhaym van Houten!
GS: Monster Mash assumes the Stoic stance!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Etiri for 0 hit points!
GS: Disrupt and Mute! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Lily Keil enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Josephine Lovelace critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Seeker Drones for 38 hit points!
GS: FP up!
GS: Seraph Boudicca takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Seeker Drones for 186 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    For a moment, Riesenlied can sense the thoughts of those she links with. Even for a scant moment... she can sense Josephine's approach, as she powers up the Nostos Cannon, the remnant of that horrible machine they all fought against.

    She feels Elly's own thoughts, even at a distance -- perhaps something that does not quite mesh normally, with how earthly and worldly the Ley is... it is not something she has thought of before. And those of her impressive remote weapons, the AERODs too...

    Would she be so cut off from the world, if she went to the sky?

    Ida's barrier pings against her mind for a moment, but she knows enough to trust in what the martial artist in the Dragoon is doing now. She hears her words, that it's adapting... but sorcery?

    Zed is utilising a familiar technique from their time in Wayside too; she can feel his frustration, his desire to bring his friend back...

    She senses Gwen and Boudicca up at the crane, and Marivel as she joins them too;

    And... the Omega Protocol. The Ether pulsating on through and causing her to sense some of it, as the circuits flow over Lily and the wings spread-- and her form starts to manifest, as she becomes something akin... to a dragon. Truly... mirror, mirror.

    "Lily..."

    Those on the ground, however, are being beset by Drones -- even as she hears some names that are familiar to her, from, once more, that time underneath Wayside when they found the now-Fereshte. 'Astrid'. 'Fafnir'... 'Eitri'.

    "Ethius! Josie! Gwen! Marivel! I will... I will defend you!"

    In one smooth motion, she casts aside the Heritor's sword, which winks away as Riesenlied draws her arms inwards, clenched into fists. Lines of the Ley coursing through her body, as the very earth begins to tremble under her manifestation.

    She must speak the awful, black word Alhazred imposed upon her. That is the way she'll gain the mass to shelter everyone from further attack.

    She must...

<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.

    An enormous surge of the Ley crests in the shape of a black-purple bolt of lightning, wicking its way past the reflective metallic surfaces of the facility and causing various instruments and gauges to go ballistic for but a mere moment--

    "Accession."

    --and it slams STRAIGHT into Riesenlied's form, in a seeming act of self-sabotage; the lightning domes around her as pitch-black darkness, exhibiting that the Progenitor Ymir is not the only one capable at the moment of reshaping themselves.

    There is a Draconic snarl.

    A singular, large foot STOMPS out of the darkness; then, a sprawl of blue and white gossamer wings distressingly familiar to those who went to the Gutter in the midst of the Photosphere. A Metal Dragon.

    The Ley Dragon.

    Smaller than she was at her peak as Mother's battery and weapon; roughly twelve and a half foot in height, even hunched over with its tail lashing to one side, but no less brimming with the lines of the Ley shimmering through her scales.

    The Dragon rises to defend, gathering itself in front of the crane to try to body-block; shimmering spheres of concentrated Ley gathering at the tip of her mouth; yet just as she seems poised to make an attack--

    O-oh... wait! I must observe Dragon protocol!

    ...eh?!

    The Dragon rises on her hind legs, those spheres continuing to charge and gather energy deep within her mouth. At the very least, she will defend those on foot, gathered by the crane, and Ethius as well.

                                    ...5...

                                    ...4...

                              ...3 and a half...

    ...... rieeeeeeese!! dragons absolutely do NOT have to count down from 5!!!! where did you even get that idea?!

                          ...ummm... where was I?? 4?

    ...you have time to get a baja blast before this baha-blast comes out...

DC: Riesenlied switches forms to -Accession- Ring-Promised Dragon!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Riesenlied with HELP! It's Hard to Count from 5!!!!!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's HELP! It's Hard to Count from 5!!!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Zed critically Guards a hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Siegebreaker Cannon for 79 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Seeker Drones for 185 hit points!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Monster Mash's Optimized Tactics - Lessons From Fafnir for 132 hit points!
GS: Cover! applied to Monster Mash!
<Pose Tracker> Layna Manydays has posed.

The core changes color and an arm emerges. It slams down on her machine, and moreover uses it as a balance!

"What the hell? Get off!" Layna hisses, trying to shake the thing loose. "If you're gonna get up close and personal... then I hope you're ready for an electrifying experience!"

The Corsair returns the anchor to its position on its back, and draws out another weapon - an electrified harpoon, of the kind discovered in Shae Ving.

She takes it up in both hands as the weapon begins to crackle with electricity... and she thrusts it into the main body of the Jotunn. The electricity seeks to course through anything it can.

But, that's not all - before it can recover the Corsair launches into a devastating combination of punches. There's no real form or finesse there - just a brutal beatdown aimed for the exposed core, looking to smash it for pieces... while also keeping the main body occupied for follow-up attacks.

Once she's done, she'll rip the harpoon right back out.

GS: Layna Manydays spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Lightning Impale!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has launched an attack Link!
GS: Layna Manydays spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Formation! Layna Manydays has attacked Monster Mash with Manydays Marauder!
GS: Layna Manydays has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Layna Manydays has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Lightning Impale for 392 hit points!
GS: Cripple! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Layna Manydays's Manydays Marauder for 574 hit points!
GS: Marivel Armitage takes a glancing hit from Monster Mash's Prototype Seeker Drones for 99 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.

    "I will do what I can!" The crane affirms, to Josephine. "Thank you for your assistance!"

    Her help stabilising - well - her, right now, this claw is Boudicca as much as any body she could possess - is invaluable in working together with Gwen against the spheres. "Yes," the claw replies. "Let us work together! We are well-positioned to help them!"

    She doesn't quite realise that a helpful framework might help Gwen, too.

    Together, they manage to manhandle the Living Metal, to make it easier for those around them. But...

    Too late does Boudicca realise it has launched a counteroffensive. The claw is sparking, it's damaged...

    "I stab at thee!" This is perhaps the most unlikely thing for a claw to eminate before it swings about to ram itself directly into the closest offending drone. An explosion rattles the machinery; a ribbon flutters from a well-worn chain, fluttering to the ground.

    THUD is the approximate sound of something like plate metal hitting the floor, and there's six feet of an unfairly stealthy Seraph lying flat on her back, staring up at the crane, now still, but still grasping. "... bother," she remarks, to herself.

    (A most grievous invocation.)

    It was kind of nice to be in something vast and metal again - a sentiment shared, it seems, as Boudicca picks herself up, by -- "Lily! Are you all right?! Oh, no, of course..." She's fine. Probably.

    Riesenlied: fine, probably.

    Zed... maybe not fine. That's concerning.

    But they'll be fine, so long as they can avoid annihilation.

    "I have no intention of giving up here," Boudicca insists, as she draws the breeze about herself. "We have not yet begun to fight! Come! Air Ascending!" A Seraphic glyph, green about her feet, and the breeze flows out --

    ... to coil around Lily, who has dressed herself in familiar raiments.

    ... to find the many moving parts of Vierge, Elhaym within.

    ... to calm the boiling blood of Zed, and offer him a wellspring.

    ... to bolster the terrifying form of a Ley Dragon, because a fearsome visage does not always hide terror.

    This is the secret of magic.

    It does not always have to assault others.

GS: Seraph Boudicca has activated a Force Action!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Lily Keil with Air Ascending!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Elhaym van Houten with Air Ascending!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Zed with Air Ascending!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Riesenlied with Air Ascending!
GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action.
GS: Elhaym van Houten takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Air Ascending for 0 hit points!
GS: Elhaym van Houten enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Reload! Elhaym van Houten gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Zed takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Air Ascending for 0 hit points!
GS: Zed enters CONDITION GREEN!!
GS: Reload! Zed gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Lily Keil takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Air Ascending for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Lily Keil gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "We make a great team," Josie quips, going so far as to give the console a pat. "...Hey, is that Gwen?"

    It is. Josie leans forward then.

    She can see Lily from here.
    She can also see Lily when she starts to change.

    "Lily?" she says, over the radio, using the woman's proper name. "That's... new." Pause. "Guess we should save the chatter for later. --Right. I'm a sitting duck up here, so I'll be counting on you to cover my ass!"

    Something weird is going on below. She squints, trying to get a better look at it through the cannon's sights. "...Shit." Grabbing the radio, she says, "This is Josie. Looks like it's making drones or somesuch. Get lively, we're about to have-- shit."

    They've gone under constructiong faster than she'd immediately thought possible. Josie drops the radio, drops herself flat against the walkway and shields both herself and the cannon (mostly the cannon) with a gently sparking dome of alternately-applied Symbology. It mostly helps deflect the strafing, but not entirely: there are a few dings to the cannon and Josie; she oozes blood from a few new areas across her back. Josie doesn't move a muscle for a long series of moments, listening for the drones' departure before rising and taking stock of the scene. And her cannon.

    A shout rings from below. Riesenlied, Josie realizes, as the Hyadean woman declares she'll protect them.
    As her form, her body, her everything undergoes that dramatic transformation. "Sunshine.. --I'm counting on you, too!"

    She realizes in the next moment that the ribbon's no longer there. Her gaze tracks about before spotting the form of someone who wasn't there before. "Ghost girl! You okay down there?"

    She's going to have to assume a yes. Time's running short. She glances over at the cannon. ...Right on time, it seems.

    "This is Josie. Firing shortly. Stay out of the way. Over."

    She sets down the radio and eases her way over to the cannon.

    The extra -- and amplified -- charge time afforded the cannon suits it well. The exterior lights have shot past green and even blue to a brilliant violet.

    BGM: Decisive Battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FANWAiH7OQ4

    This is going to completely drain the core. This is acceptable for the shot that Josie now attempts. So long as it hits, that is...
    "C'mon... sit still," she mutters, sighting the target through the crystal sights atop the cannon. "Just need one good... there."

    She doesn't shout. "Firing," she says rather than shouts, a single word that perhaps no one else will hear but her.

    Sometimes, you just have to say it, even if it's pointless.

    The shot breaks off like a roar of some fiend from the depths, the bolt hurled with enough force that Josie loses her grip on the cannon, that the walkway is set to rattle violently.

    The electromagnetically hurled bolt reaches frightful speeds as it flies through the air for the center mass of the liquid metal entity below.

GS: Josephine Lovelace spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has attacked Monster Mash with The Tenth Black Night!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Josephine Lovelace has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    More data is coming in than Ida can process in her current state. The JOTUNN strikes a decisive blow against Surtr, and Zed leaps from his machine to stop it. Doom Bringer's radiance blights everything that looks upon it--and that includes the Dust Dragoon's sensors. ERROR: PACKET LOST flashes repeatedly on her screen, in between lines of gibberish. Ida whips an arm forwards, pops open a panel, and presses the manual reset. Seconds tick by, anxiously, as the system reboots. No sooner has it done so than a second Etheric anomaly ignites within the room. Lily, Ida realizes. What has she...

    Lily, in all her terrible draconic glory, slips into Ida's view. The Galadian heiress loses a crucial half-second gawping. Ymir seizes on this perfect opportunity. The Dragoon's gait compensators kick in as the ground rumbles and rattles beneath it--it stumbles back, rebalancing its weight. The JOTUNN's leg slams into it in mid-stride, forcing the machine to drop to a knee before it topples over. Riesenlied steps forwards. Ida realizes she lost track of her during the fight--realizes just how vulnerable she is.

    "Riesenlied get back!" Ida shouts, the words tumbling over each other in panic. The automaton's words stick in her mind. Fafnir. Previous opponent experience. Fafnir. Astrid. Etiri. Dead and gone, all of them, except...

    Something pulses down Ida's right arm--like a shuddering cramp, muscles tensing and spasming. "No," she says. The Dragoon rises to its feet around her. "No, not like--" Not like Xiumei--as if she could somehow write the possibility out of existence by denying it hard enough. "This is my hand!"

    A Ley anomaly ignites to match the two Etheric anomalies darting about the battlefield. This one is a signature Ida put in the Dragoon's sensors as an emergency contingency--just in case they couldn't free Riesenlied from Alhazred's control. Ida loses another precious second staring, but as Riesenlied's aura washes across the hangar, the painful twitching in her muscles dies down. Whether she realizes it or not, Riesenlied is a light in an inexplicable storm of panic. Ida will have time to reflect on the irony once this is over.

    "All right," Ida says. The Dragoon's computer finishes its models. Targeting reticles trace their way across Ymir's gelatinous form--reticles that also show up in Vierge's cockpit. "Time to shut this thing down! Everyone stand well clear, I'm initiating an electromagnetic pulse!" The Dragoon braces its cannon. Deep within the barrel, electricity crackles across Dragon-breath filaments. An electromagnetic waveform takes shape. Damage-control sensors report minor anomalies in the Dragoon's extremeties. "Lily, Elly, hit it as hard as you can once this takes effect!"

    There is tremendous snap, like a bolt of electricity crackling between massive coils. Blue light emanates from the Three-Dragon Cannon's barrel, then a wavefront of electrical force. It's like being right next to an EMP bomb as it detonates, except the explosion is channeled in a single direction: through Ymir's body, and through the most crucial of its logic cores.

GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 1 Combo on Interrupt!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Monster Mash with Three Dragon Cannon - Directed Pulse!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Josephine Lovelace's The Tenth Black Night for 454 hit points!
GS: Break! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash enters Critical health and gains 25 FP!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Three Dragon Cannon - Directed Pulse for 416 hit points!
GS: Disease! applied to Monster Mash!
GS: Monster Mash has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

In the face of this entity, bonds deeper than distrust rise to the fore. As Elly draws back, the quartet of AERODs complete their guardian loop. Elly's eyes flick towards Ida and she says "Right!" as Vierge begins to take in that data. A moment later, Surtr speaks to her -

Eleven cores... elimination... Target markings light up.

Wonder passes through Elly's mind even as the AERODs fly into their concealed docks in the armored module in Vierge's back. Is this their unity?

And yet it is necessary - and perhaps not even sufficient for what is before them. Ymir speaks and begins to develop itself - new mechanisms - a high pitched scream, spiralling around. Elly winces, as she says, "It's improving its tactics, isn't it... We can't try to take it out piecemeal..."

I have only six AERODs, Elly thinks: and it now has that many drones. In a minute it will have something else. In two minutes, she thinks, it will have probably thrown enough energy around to kill everyone out there save Marivel - perhaps her too - in three minutes, it will have destroyed their Gears...

It is a matter of brutal mathematics.

Can anything change it? Elly thinks. She takes in a breath as Layna stretches that projection out further.

"I'm going to try to hit the entire thing at once," Elly says - before Vierge strides forwards and she slams the Gear's rod down, not far from Riesenlied. While the puncturing tip sinks into the ground, the blow is not violent - it is a provision of an additional ton or so of metal. Perhaps it will help. And it frees Vierge's hands to -

Make a little gesture in front of its face as the Gear crouches slightly.

And doesn't move.

This may be worrisome.

Elly, at least, explains herself. "I'm going to try to build something up here," she says, rather than attempting to explain the theory of the

DI.verted
R.ecombination
AC.cumulation

space which she has intimate cause to be familiar with, TABITHA DEVRIESE. It is a reach for her, and the gathering of this force does not come entirely from her. The Ether Amplifier in Vierge immediately whips to a full screaming pitch, and there is a momentary lurch as Elly feels the Amplifier reach for something...

For as powerful as Vierge may be - a manufactured product of what is, perhaps, the highest level of technology upon this world, new and shining and kept lovingly intact - it is just a machine. And yet the prayers and the devotion of the woman out there, though latterly now changed into a far more... reptilian form - have provided something.

If only the technology can grasp at the flow of the Ley. If only - if ONLY -

And then a breath of wind, from another world, slides forwards. Boudicca bridges a gap.

Elly feels - metaphorically, of course, for the sensation is an analogy (but what sensation isn't?) - the gears mesh.

Her eyes widen.

INSERT MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H86pU-aTMg

GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

In front of Vierge's peculiar little hand flare, a little round sphere appears. It is black, like a dot, but it is no larger than a blitzball.

Elly stares into this dark void with intense attention. The feeling is like pitching forwards but somehow, she thinks, there are how many kilosharls of Filgaia beneath her? Layers upon layers. The ley itself is holding her. She won't fall. Adopted, accepted, blessed, aided, whatever it is. She does not think that she is drinking from the flow, but it is nonetheless there for her.

Inside of the DiRAc space, things get incredibly strange fast. If this were a physics lab, it would be revolutionary, but you can't always have the chance to analyze everything closely. Externally, the little black dot deforms slightly and begins to rotate with a leisurely determination. There are faint reflections on its glossy surface(?) as Elly says, voice amplified through Vierge, "EVERYONE, even if you're Odessa, uh - ah - get, behind something... Big..."

The rotating sphere flattens a little more. Now it does kinda look like a blitzball!

In the cockpit, Elly leans her head forwards slightly. She could swear she can feel her pupils dilate. Her eyes want to roll back in her head. Vierge's autonomic next-generation Ether-configuration software starts to flash projected graphs towards the other Gears, in lieu of a warning. They shift a little between 1-second pulses.

Elly can taste a little bile in the back of her mouth.

Am I going to hurt myself again? Elly thinks.

Well, she thinks: if I am, so be it, and it is a relief of tension.

The DiRaC space flattens a little further. Now it's like a metallic top. It's starting to wobble slightly. Elly's heart beats as she answers Ida with distraction, "Yeah," and then she waits for that gun to fire - smiling for a moment as she thinks of Lily. Then comes the flash and -

The black spinning top breaks apart. There is a halation-flash --

-- what erupts out of the violated space is something like raw elemental fire. It converts the air before it into plasma in an expanding waveform, the sheer eruption of nigh-philosophical HEAT unable to tolerate the existence of anything in its sheer throbbing energy. Refulgent, indisputable, Ymir's best hope is the mere fact that *this is happening in an atmosphere*: and even so, nearly ninety-seven percent of the accumulated hyperthermal energy travels outwards, elongating into a cone that aims to engulf all of Ymir's cores with some room to spare.

What does "room to spare" look like? It looks like the autonomous creature Odessa has unleashed has briefly been invited to have a beer on the Sun. Partway through its space, the insistence of this hyper-Etheric distillation of the principle of HEAT sheds enough energy that atoms can be tolerated to exist, even some simple molecules.

Elly tilts the thing upwards - at the last moment - to aim it, in so far as she can manage it, at a slightly upwards-facing inclination, rather than DOWN - at Filgaia itself.

GS: Elhaym van Houten has attacked Monster Mash with Thermo Cube!
GS: Elhaym van Houten has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Elhaym van Houten's Thermo Cube for 426 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.

"I'll explain later--for now, consider yourself covered!" Lily calls back to Josie.

Theoretical means. Lily can guess what that means, given Ymir's reports so far. The core turns green. What does it mean?

Lily recognizes the name, and the sudden spinning makes her shut her eyes as it goes through her head. She opens them after a moment,k but her teeth remain gritted at first. "That's... an approach," she allows, banking to end up to the side--as she sees Zed advance and the Jotunn starting to oppose one of its own people. Not such a strange sight to her, considering... But she can't help but see the signifigance, any more than she can she can fail to note the marked targets. "Right!" Lily calls, voice still amplified. "I'll try to keep it pinned down!" She's rather smaller even with this new exoskeleton than the Gears in play, but that doesn't seem to bother her much.

Lily looks to Riesenlied as she hears her voice, though. "Riesenlied..." She watches her transform, and Lily hovers in place. Though it's hard to see, Lily actually smiles at Riesenlied's form, or rather perhaps at the counting.

"I'm fine!" Lily calls finally to Boudicca, since--it took a bit before she really had the chance. "Better than fine!" She switches to radio for Josie, "Can't cover for all those drones--Hope you're ready!"

Lily stops in place, and stretches her limbs again from a high vantage point, pointing both cannon-arms forward, the 'head' of the dragon tilting towards Ymir. "Steady, Ida!" she calls with some obvious concern. She absolutely will hit it as hard as she can. But she'll have to do it quickly.

She is observing through a vision that doesn't require sight that sheer power of Ether Elly brings to bear, and smiles, too. "...Amazing."

Then, more power thrums through the air, visibly gathering towards the lights of her main guns. "You can interrupt magic, but..." She closes her eyes, and channels more energy towards them from what seems to her like an endless font. The lights stop after about five seconds, before the 'head' opens, and a dozen white-hot beams race towards Ymir, streaking towards it from all different angles. Lily's eyes glaze over, data streaming across the machine-armor's optics as she takes in every aspect of the Jotunn's response.

"Calibrated," she intones, and then there's a high-pitched whine as her systems spin up faster, more intently. Discs of light begin to gather at each gun aperture, rotating slowly, before there is silence and stillness from her:

"Directive: Purge."

Then, great beams of blue-green energy crash forward, a giant one from the draconic head of Lily's armor with two more pillars from her 'hands', every weapon opening on her sides pouring forth more weightless blasts.

GS: Lily Keil has activated a Force Action!
GS: Lily Keil spends 1 Combo on Link!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with DIRECTIVE - A D A P T -!
GS: Lily Keil has launched an attack Link!
GS: Lily Keil has attacked Monster Mash with DIRECTIVE - P U R G E -!
GS: Lily Keil has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - A D A P T - for 422 hit points!
GS: Mighty! applied to Lily Keil!
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Lily Keil's DIRECTIVE - P U R G E - for 458 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.

    ".... Lily...? Elly...?" Each a display of wondrous power, calling from sources that seem beyond Gwen's understanding. Others, too, join in. And-

    And Gwen has the power of friendship, it seems. "Heya, stranger," Gwen says, shooting a grin towards Josie. "Fancy seein' you here!"

    Drones fire on the courier, giving Gwen barely enough time to throw up her precious Mockingbird as her shield. Darker lines that note the material underneath the metal plates begin to pulse with dim power, the ARM having taken on the full brunt of the blast and consuming it, each second feeling more and more like the courier's arm is consumed in fire.

    Zed's yell redirects Gwen's attention to their corner, the courier suddenly feeling helpless up near the claw's control panel. "Gh... Zed! Surtr! Hold on!" Zed's desperation over the state of Surtr is mirrored in Gwen's own cry of alarm.

    To witness your friend be invaded on such a level seems impossible to comprehend.

     As it is, to see Riesenlied, driven by her concern for her friends to assume a form Gwen hadn't seen in well over a year. "Riesenlied..."

    Riesenlied and Lily aren't the only ones with the power of a metal dragon.

    There is, for example, Ida. "Wait, what do you mean, 'your hand'?!" Gwen tries to tie the threads together, but the jerking and burning pain from her hand proves to be too hard to ignore. "...." That strange awe rises in Gwen's chest, a recognition and feeling of wonder, things not entirely alien for a person to feel upon seeing such a display.

    .... there's Gwen too, of course. Gwen, with her burning ARM, now glowing brightly, with the power of the potential dragon wrapped inside.

    - Let's try to fly, even if I have no wings. -

    "They ain't the only ones with an ace up their sleeve, Ida!"

    INSERT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfF2FOtpvo

    Gwen stretches her ARM, static extending the light red curls from her head. "Fire!"

    The bright pyrite yellow blast would have thrown the poor squishy courier back if she hadn't put her back against the control panel, the recoil instead wedging her firmly against the metal surface.

    "HAAAHHHHHH--!"

GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Seraph Boudicca's Air Ascending for 0 hit points!
GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Seraph Boudicca!
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Gwen Whitlock with There We Go I Counted to Three!!!
GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
GS: Gwen Whitlock has activated a Force Action!
GS: Gwen Whitlock takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's There We Go I Counted to Three!! for 0 hit points!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has attacked Monster Mash with Corona Discharge!
GS: Gwen Whitlock has completed her action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Gwen Whitlock's Corona Discharge for 216 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.

    It's a little more than the technique that Zed used to sever the Primarch's link to the ley, a bit more than what he used to cut off Riese's connection when she was serving as Mother's living life-conduit. Then, Zed had channeled his own energies into his blade, which served well enough at the time. But now-- there's something else there. Something unbidden.

Not that it particularly matters in the face of the firepower that Ymir brings to bear. Zed's eyes go saucerplate-wide as the primordian Jotunn forges a cannon whose barrel is as wide as the metal demon is tall. "You-- you useless bucket of bolts! I can't believe Surtr came from something as stupid as you, dummy! Moron! Idiot!"

The irony is utterly lost on Zed.

But-- his sword is hilt-deep in Ymir's quicksilver hide. As monstrous and benighted as his blade might be, he can't cut a weapon as large as the Siegebreaker cannon in two. Not quickly enough. His eyes squeeze shut, muscles straining to draw his sword from the monster's side. Faster-- he has to move faster, or this might just be the end--!

And then a sword several hundred times larger than his own is plunged deep into the cannon's barrel.

"Surtr!" Zed gawks. The colossal sword rips into something important, disrupting a critical energy coil or piercing a freshly-assembled artillery shell. A blastwave ripples out from the ensuing explosion. Zed is hurled wide--!

Only to find himself tumbling right back into Surtr's cockpit. Pilot retrieval complete. Are you alright? The cockpit hatch hinges shut with a quiet hiss. "Thanks to you," Zed tells his gigantic friend, "But we aren't done yet. That thing is--"

Being... Kind of blown to shreds by enough firepower to destroy a small army.

Hm.

A soothing wind rustles in from somewhere Zed can't properly identify. Magic, he knows, but from where...? It smells... Seraphic, somehow. "Boudicca, is this you?" He asks as he forces his burning blade back into its sheath. "Don't worry, I'm fine now. It's all good--"

Riese transforms and Zed's heart skips a beat. Immediately, a swarm of dumbfire rockets erupt from Surtr's hidden missile launchers and go streaking toward the dark corners of the enormous chamber. That's where someone like Alhazred would most likely be hiding, after all. But-- this time... She's in control. Properly in control. "Heh," Zed smiles, "Riese-- if Odjn could see you now..."

"...She'd probably get really jealous."

Beat.

More explosions rock the primordial giant. Will it be enough? Would anything be enough? This thing was made to fight Golems... There's only one way to be sure. Only one way to soothe his worries. Only one way to properly reap terrible vengeance for what almost happened to Surtr. Zed grips his controls tight. "Surtr," The fire giant raises its sword as if in salute. Flame surges up the blade, superheated currents of air and fuel igniting across its great length. "That thing's not the only Jotunn that can copy battle patterns. Let's show your ancestor just how far its progeny have come!"

Roger, Surtr intones, speaking words that would surely strike fear in the hearts of anyone with a modicum of good sense. ---Applying Combat Maneuver Template: ZED.

The garishly colored colossus' eyes flash. It charges, scarf billowing heroically in its wake. It charges, leaping through arcane explosions and waves of ether and ley alike. It charges, recklessly, courageously, with no concern for self-preservation and every consideration given toward applying pure power and appearing as flashy as possible. Rockets launch enmasse, as much to mask its movements and waylay its opponent as it is simply to provide exciting pyrotechnic and acoustic accompaniment. Surtr lunges into the chaos and cuts once-- Horizontally!

Again-- diagonally!

Once more, to complete the shape!

And one last time, to cut through it and pose dramatically in the space beyond Ymir's grotesque, amorphous form. "Split Ladle!" Two voices call as one, as a glowing letter erupts in brilliant emerald light at their back, ULTIMATE ZED!

The letter flashes--

                                 --==Z==--

...And then explodes catastrophically.

Surtr and Zed don't even bother to look back. Cool guys... Never look at explosions...

GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zed has activated a Force Action!
GS: Zed spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling!
GS: Zed has attacked Monster Mash with Zettou Shinai - Zettai Zettou!
GS: Zed has gained 1 Combo!
GS: Zed has completed his action.
GS: Monster Mash takes a solid hit from Zed's Zettou Shinai - Zettai Zettou for 448 hit points!
GS: Monster Mash has Fallen! They is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.

    The drones swarm, but there is something far more attention-grabbing as the Ley energies pulse anew. The pressure builds and aggravates, as an increasingly contorting set of shapes that is Ymir must - and is designed to - acknowledge and process newer ideas in battle. Observe. Learn. Adapt. Overcome.

     ---Metal Dragon Observed. Metal Dragon Observed Utilization Of Theroetical Means. It states. 'Theoretical means' must have been the ancient working term for 'sorcery,' deemed theoretical only out of respect of the idea that it was something that could be grasped and eventually conquered. (It was not, as the history-makers here can state.) The Ley Dragon begins to count down, and one of the drones shudders as the core governing it has no idea how to deal with a poor grasp of basic arithmetic - but she stands to protect them, and protect them she does. The drones can't get past her.

     This is the cover Josephine needs in order to safely provide cover fireas she works under immense pressure and present injury in order to get that cannon to the right place. (It also allows Marivel way more freedom to keep pressing buttons for fun, or for any reason at all, because she's a Crimson Noble and she can decide as to whether she needs a reason to push buttons. It is her right.) It was her cannon before that got her expedition team through that battlezone simulation, and it could be her cannon that opens the way to disabling Ymir. The proper respects are given in communication, but the way isn't yet clear.
          Enter Layna, whose Gear has been given an impressively growing loadout of odds and ends bolted onto it. Both the Jotunn and Layna have been in something of an aggressive dance between one another after she elevated her threat level right from the jump. She lacks in the flexibility the Jotunn offers. She makes up for it in grit - and also an electrified harpoon - and gets punching, as she dislodges one shield-like appendage so Josephine can get that shot.

     That shot, she gets. The damage, outwardly, looks invisible - but someone can confirm on the other side that the shot spears a core all the way through out the back before it knows what hits it. It turns dark as it crashes against the wall.

     Ida struggles with another part of herself and comes to find contingencies to be applied in novel ways. Ymir tries to bring its equal-parts stabailizing and striking leg to press down against Ida's weapon, drawing back only moments too late as Ida takes the shot. An EMP pulses through the entire body.

     Electromagnetic Pulse DeetEEecteeEDD--- What was once a mass of plated limbs reconfiguring themselves endlessly to deal with any newfound weaknesses starts returning to soupiness - but it turns out Ymir had some modicum of countermeasure.

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.


     A cyan-hued core starts to drip out. Gwen, finding confidence in herself to try to fly, even without wings - figuratively - takes her shot as she catches the escaping core trying to dunk itself lower on the mass and start to rebuild a foundation it doesn't get to, for the bright pyrite yellow blast gives it what for. There is a green sphere, and then there is a dark, smoldering sphere rolling about.

     This ensures no escape from what comes next, the breeze of a Wind Seraph tinged with the heat of the flames that sustain the world of Filgaia - an unspoken rallying war cry and refreshment. A precursor to what incredible heat will soon come as Vierge slams its rods down. Its pilot brings their focus and inspirations to bear, and a little black sphere is a focus point for physics-warping heat - and the very ceiling and wall above and behind it gives way to lingering light. Disoriented from the pulse, tehre is no defense.

     It intersects with blue-green energies, and they interact in ways that appear far too subdued for the extremes they exist in, as Vierge and Dragon exoskeleton combine sorcerous might in a way such displays rarely ever intersect. There is no way to top this--

     Until Zed just gets himself and Surtr in on it. It is pure insanity by any stretch as they just get in there. The legacy of the Ash Legion finds itself laid bare as Zed can look into its innards for a closer look as he goes to town.

     So many cores waiting for an imprint - but their innocence is put to the test as Ymir rapidly imprints battle data from the experiences with increasing inaccuracies and inconsistencies due to interference from conditions not... supportive of the practice.

     This is the one way its kind can express fear. Each core, already stained from an ancient history, struggling to accept the inconsistencies it is seeing. These aren't the Golems they were made to fight. These are Metal Demons who have turned against Mother. These are humans who stand alongside them in harmony. These are masters of means theoretical. These are opponents they were never intended, nor expected, to fight all together at once, because it was impossible to set up such a scenario.

     For all the learning it is made to do - it cannot fathom what Surtr is doing, as it is being utterly shredded. Surtr and Zed somehow come out of all of that sorcerous mess with a shining 'Z' that explodes into a rime of something like frost, of matter that shouldn't be before it fades into a halo of memories.

<Pose Tracker> Monster Mash has posed.


     ---Transmitting---

     Its final words, delivering data to a point and place that no longer exists. Waves of information scatter, to lose cohesion and context the further out it spreads. In its own way, asking a question to one who is no longer there to give it an answer, as what is left of the pile of Living Metal that once housed it. It quivers, burbles, as if still existing on some impetus or instruction that has yet to terminate.

     Until that white-haired guy, nonchalantly, Symbologically casts a lower-yield electrical pulse a few times until it settles into proper puddle behavior.

<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.

    Ymir is no more. The gathered Drifters are free to catch their breath, and to survey the hangar. It's taken no small amount of damage during the fight--Elly alone incinerated huge sections of wall, which are only now starting to regenerate. The Living Metal infused into the remains is extruding fractal-like tendrils into open space, returning to the form impressed upon it by its makers. Is this whole place capable of self-repair?

    Also gone is the ice wall, which Polynya erected as a secondary delaying measure. All that's left is rime on the walls, and a pool of chilled, brackish water on the floor. With it gone, it's clear Odessa didn't make off with everything. There is still a half-full bin of Secondary Learning Cores, as well as two of the larger Primary ones. It's not a loss, not technically.

    In the cockpit of the Dust Dragoon, Ida allows herself to relax a hair. "We're going to need to secure what's left," Ida says. "I'm... sorry I grew lax, there. Arm was giving me difficulty." The tension in her voice makes it clear just what sort of difficulty it was. "This place... it's full of ghosts."

    Is it possible, Ida thinks, that something more of Fafnir has survived? Her mind flashes back, again, to Xiumei. That's a question she cannot answer. She's not sure if she wants to.