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Asellus     A pirate attack on the Cygnus was thwarted, with the infamous lady pirate captain, Nomad, now in IRPO custody. Now the silver Region Ship is coming in to dock in Koorong, only to be warned away due to some kind of alert issued by a mega-corporation called 'Trinity'. It seems the producer of high-technology, including weapons of war, has lost control of one of their 'products'. A heavily-armed one. And it seems to be headed directly to Koorong.

    "If it's not one thing, then it's another." the captain of the Cygnus says before he issues a notification to the passengers about the situation, and that they'll need to detour to another Region in order to unload everyone.

    "It seems like there's always fighting." Asellus says, upon hearing this. She's sitting in the dining area, prodding at a chocolate sundae, with her companion across the table from her.

    "At least we will not be part of it this time?" White Rose suggests, as a way of putting a positive spin on things, as she works on a slice of strawberry cheesecake.

    Asellus tap-tap-taps her spoon on her icecream dish restlessly, until she suddenly pushes her chair back and stands up. "Come on. There's a lot of civilians in Koorong who don't have a way out like we do. We should stop that runaway machine before it gets any closer." She then sets off, intending to talk to the Cygnus's captain.

    "Lady Asellus, wait!" White Rose protests as she gets up as well, and takes the cheesecake and sundae with her.
Theurgus     Theurgus hears the announcement, and makes her way quickly toward the command bridge. "Captain, let me of here. The Organization cannot be allowed this folly, much less their assault on this craft on the way here." she says, "You have seen my combat prowess. Just close enough to get onto solid ground will be fine. I need a solid place to set down a relay to use my full power."
Leyanne Leyanne hears the call, once again, and stomps back to her cabin, yet again. She puts her armour back on and opens her luggage... several large cases, which it seems carried heavy weapons inside, shielded (or just exempted?) from scans. Today's heavy weapon is... considering it's a rogue machine, she's brought herself a Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher.

When hearing that they're not allowed to dock, the mouse lets out a deep growling sigh, and spends a good ten minutes assembling and fuelling her jet-powered wingsuit. "Bastards never make it easy, do they?" She grumbles, strapping it all in place and making her way to the Bridge, too. "Cap. I can help slow the thing down if civs wanna evacuate. You got an external door or something I can use? Oh, hey Theurgus. Asellus! Awesome to see you.."
Nova Terra     Nova leans against a window looking out into the strange space beyond. She's still wearing her hostile environment suit, as there didn't seem much point to switching back to her disguise. She's not idle though, apparently talking to someone through the comms in her visor, "-back to business. The situation is still a little tense, but I think I can make it work..." Pause. "What do you mean a complication?" Pause. Surprised look, "Well who the hell would go and do something stupid like that!?"

    Sure enough, Nova's head turns quickly as the captain announces the change in plans. She mutters quietly for a moment before saying firmly, "Fine. I'll deal with it. Just be ready." Nova turns and starts to quickly make her way towards the bridge, probably running into Asellus and WHite Rose on the way. Plus Theurgus and Leyanne who seemed to have arrived just ahead. Nova's only contribution to the discussion is, "Yeah, I want out too."
Asellus     Asellus and White Rose arrive on the bridge and indicate the same as the others. "It's better to deal with it now. Not only to protect the people down there, but because we don't know when or if it will stop. Eventually, there might be no Region that's safe." the Half-Mystic says.

    White Rose doesn't voice her thought that Facinaturu and Mosperiburg, at least, would be safe. For a given definition of 'safe'. Because Orlouge and Virgil would destroy anything that threatened their domains.

    The captain says, "I know how strong you all are, and I'm grateful for your aid in stopping those pirates, but I can't put the rest of the passengers at risk. That weapon is heavily-armed! If we get too close, it might fire on us!"

    White Rose responds to that valid point by saying, "Is there any way you could send just the five of us to the enemy ship somehow?"

    One of the technicians at the controls turn and says, "There is a way... Captain, if I modified the escape sleds to home in on that Trinity ship instead of the nearest Region, they might be too small for its big guns to hit."

    The captain, after hearing that plan, turns to the ladies gathered. "Are you willing to risk your lives doing that? I can't guarantee a safe boarding or a pick-up afterwards."

    Asellus turns away to think for a moment.

    "Lady Asellus..." White Rose says quietly.

    Asellus turns to everyone else and says, "I'll go. Try to find a way to get us off the enemy ship while we're over there."
Theurgus     "The Organization will not get away with harming innocents. Not while I am able to hold my Staff." replies Theurgus. "We shall destroy this fell automoton, or at the very least, stop it from harming anyone else."

    Theurgus summons her staff, and clanks it to the deckplates. "I swear upon the Glinting Dawn of Invocation."
Nova Terra     Nova crosses her arms and eyes the technician as they go through their idea. When the captain asks whether they're willing to go through with it, Nova considers for a moment, "Riding a small pod through enemy fire to board their ship." She then smirks, "Sounds like a normal day for me. I'm in. I can always call in for my own extraction."

    Nova waves a hand, "Besides, these criminal types are starting to annoy me with these interuptions. Not to mention they present a threat that needs to be dealt with."
Leyanne Leyanne looks to the Captain. "Dude." She says. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm wearing my own wings... I'm jet-powered and can brush high subsonic with this rig. I have fuel... oh, right, the void." She grimaces, pulling her wing off and setting it down at the back of the bridge. "Yeah... plan pods is probably a better idea, I'm crazy, not completely stupid."

She follows the others to the pods, ready to ride across and shut the thing down. "So, uh... what's this 'product' we're gonna be stopping, anyway?"
Asellus     "We're all counting on you!" the captain replies to Theurgus's pronouncement. And people seem relieved at the news that Nova has a way to call for extraction, so they don't have to feel QUITE as guilty, since these brave heroes won't be stranding themselves over there. The fact Nova didn't indicate anyone other than her would be extracted doesn't quite get caught though.

    The captain nods apologetically to Leyanne. "Yes, unfortunately, Region Space isn't safe to be exposed to. Its behavior can be very unpredictable. It's overall better to go in one of the sleds." He salutes all five of the women who are about to go over and fight some kind of out of control Region Ship weapon and says, "Your bravery will no doubt save many lives this day."

    After that, the technician who proposed the idea goes down to the storage area with them, and works to the escape sleds. They are literally sleds. Large ones, with a covered compartment to protect the riders from exposure to the walls of smokey blue dimensional energies that stream by on all sides, but still a sled. With some kind of flying system, apparently.

    When the preparations are complete, the technician says, "These should carry you across without needing to do anything." He then opens the emergency doors to the same passage they took to get to the bridge before when pirates had taken over. Through it, they can see the answer to Leyanne's question.

    It's a very large vessel of some kind bristling with cannons larger than the entirety of the Cygnus many times over, and currently flying towards them. It looks like someone built a massive fortress, covered it in doomsday guns, and then stuck it on an island equipped with transdimensional flight systems. The technician, rather needlessly, says, "It's that thing over there."

    "...It's probably more vulnerable on the inside than the outside, right?" Asellus asks. She's only 19, and until recently had never been in a fight. But she's about to assault THAT thing, with the lives of hundreds or even thousands of people depending on the success of this impromptu team. It's not that she's not scared. But she's more angry at those who would build such a thing and then let it get loose to threaten people than she is concerned for herself.

    So, after getting into their sleds, one by one, they shoot out through the emergency passage, get sucked into the void, and then their rocket systems kick in, propelling them towards that terrible machine, with its A.I. apparently gone mad.

    The ride is bumpy, to say the least, buffeted by winds and bolts of unidentfiable energy, but eventually they manage to land in some kind of docking area, where a bunch of other identical ships are parked. Fighters or troop transports or something. Maybe the people without their own private escape method can use one of those to get out of here.

    The darkened hangar has a pair of electronic doors that open when a switch next to them is pressed, exposing red-lit hallways with hostile machines patrolling them.
Theurgus     THeurgus gets into one of the sleds, then radios to Charta. "What is the effective range of one of our Relays?" she asks, confirming to herself her viable combat area. She then nods to herself at the answer while the sled lands in the hangar bay and the group disembark. "Once we find combat, I will deploy my Relay. Until then, let us sally forth." she says, twirling her staff and covering her face with her free hand, then throws that arm out to the side as if discarding a mask.

    As the hallway is revealed, she steps brazenly into it, lifting her staff and channeling energy into the marble, causing it to light up a brilliant blue-white to overpower the red emergency/alert lighting and let more be seen in an area around the staff head.
Leyanne Leyanne also settles into one of her sleds. "An island. Rigged as a transdimensional movingfortress. Lovely." She says, settling herself into the pod.

Once everything has stopped moving, she hops out of the pod and sweeps over their surroundings with her sidearm, before spending a moment to ready her grenade launcher for use. She follows up after Theurgus, attempting to hide, somewhat, in the glare of that staff. As soon as she's got a target she looks to the others for confirmation. Assuming nobody interrupts her, the megamouse fires a scattering of grenades past Theurgus to try and take out the first lot of bots.
Nova Terra     Nova looks out into the dimensional space beyond the Cygnus, just as the large flying fortress comes into view. Her eyes widen a little, "It's massive." They could have mentioned this BEFORE she volunteered to assault it.

    No turning back now though, as Nova does have her pride. She slides into one of the sleds. It's actually smaller than she's used to... And she highly doubts its built to handle anti-ship fire like a regular drop pod. Hopefully they're right that they'll be too small to hit.

    Nova rides the pod through the dimensional winds and energy barrages, once more questioning why she's doing this. Until finally her pod drops down to the hangar floor, screeching across it for a moment with a shower of sparks before coming to a stop.

    Making her way up to the obvious exit corridor, Nova presses herself against the wall as she peeks around the corner. The sight of the bots cause her to frown just a little, saying quietly, "Hate fighting robots..." At Leyanne's look, Nova gives an affirmative nod, letting the mouse go first.
Asellus     Theurgus draws the attention of the patrolling mechs. A monster truck-like robot, some kind of robot plane, and a couple of... Robot goblins with bazookas come charging towards her! And right into a barrage of grenades! White Rose summons some kind of phantasmal creature, a ghostly monster with a mane of dark blue mist that assaults one of the goblins in back, but the other manages to get off a barrage of rockets fired randomly at everyone. The lack of accuracy means many of them may miss, but there's always the possibility that evasion of some kind may be necessary.

    Asellus draws the red blade she carries with her, Asura, and hurls a pair of air pressure waves from her blade at the rearmost Mec Dobby to keep it from firing anymore rockets, but if any of the others are still functional, it's up to the other heroines to dispose of them. There appears to be a computer terminal further up the hallwa, at an intersection. Maybe a map or schematic or something can be gotten from it, showing them where to go to do the most damage or even to take control of this thing.

    No doubt, Trinity would like their property returned to them and might pay well for it.
Theurgus     Theurgus tchs. "Enemies already... fine then!" she kills the light, but not before taking a few shots to the midriff, staggering back as large damaged code swaths open up on her body, showing broken code beneath. Her free hand conjures up a small silvery 'spike' that she hurls into a nearby surface. It opens a flower-like antenna, then begins to 'draw in' a line of chromatic energy. "You shall know me as The Mad Magician. Those who face me, face their own destruction! ACCESS!"

    The Drive Core Controller transforms. Her body swathed in a pillar of light and code fragments, before resolving into the Processor and bodysuit-clad form of Diamond Soul. "Someone access the ship's terminal. Find us information whilst I deal with these wastrels." she commands, floating forwards, then unleashing a barrage of much more accurate shots at the various mechanical monstrosities.
Leyanne Leyanne smirks at Nova "Just like fighting anything else." She admits. "But less likely to use EMP weaponry." She yelps, diving into cover just a little bit too late, as one of the rockets detonates near her, showering her in shrapnel. "Bastard." She mutters, nodding to Theurgus. "Cover me."

She dives through into the gap the others have opened up for her. She pulls a cable from her backpack and connects it into the terminal, plugging the other end into her neck.

Her body goes limp. The mouse isn't here anymore; she's working on breaking the encryption on the system.
Nova Terra     The battle starts rather impressively as the grenades explode amidst the robot patrol. Some appear to fall to the initial assault, but others remain active. Nova notices one fire a barrage of rockets at the group, ducking behind her cover again. The explosions leave scorch marks across the walls and deck, as well as some charring of the surface of Nova's suit.

    Stepping out from cover, Nova reaches a hand in the direction of the robot that fired the rockets. Hoping to use its own volatile weapons against it, she attempts to use her telekinesis to throw said robot into its friend beside it, potentially crushing both from their respective chassis and causing secondary explosions amongst their ammo.

    As Leyanne makes her way to hack into the ship, Nova moves up to join her and help cover her from the assaults, "Hurry up. I doubt this is the only thing this ship has to throw at us."
Asellus     The barrage of shots from Theurgus deals some good area damage on top of the grenades from earlier. When Nova takes out the two Mecs capable of causing full-party wipes, using one against the other, that leaves the corridor clear of enemies, the last of them disintegrating into prismatic energy patterns and vanishing.

    White Rose takes the time to heal those who were injured, one at a time, calling down a large golden star made of restorative energy to mend all damage. "I will provide all the support that I can, but my magic reserves are limited."

    Asellus just looks around alertly, wired on adrenaline. Combat still isn't something she's used to even after everything so far, and Ildon's training in a magical virtual reality room. Thankfully, Leyanne doesn't have to hack for very long before coming up with a map, showing where to find all kinds of destructible machinery. However, the place is so big, and there's so much vital machinery to break, and there's so many internal defenders to fight through, it might be more efficient to take control of it at its command center, and shut it down the 'normal' way.

    The alternative is splitting up, and splitting the party is usually bad. Case in point, more Mecs are on their way up the southern corridor. Getting swarmed like that when alone could mean the end of that party member's infiltration.
Leyanne Leyanne blinkblinks and returns her attention to the party, lookin at them. "Okay... wow... that was a ride. Um. Okay." She relays the options - smash the vital machinery, or go to the bridge. If we go for the bridge... we've got that way, which is pretty direct but the Mecs know that, so they've laid heavy defenses there. On the other hand, if we head west, north, then west again, we can take a longer route with a lot fewer defenders. As a cavalrywoman... I'm always up for the unexpected route."
Nova Terra     Nova half listens to Leyanne's information, more concerned by the sounds she's hearing of approaching robots. Choosing a path is difficult, made more so by the fact that Nova can't read any of the machines in order to determine placement and numbers. But if the longer path is ultimately going to end up being easier to get through, then Nova is all for it, "Longer route it is."

    Nova begins to head in the direction described by Leyanne, though waits for the others to take point, particularly the large mouse.
Theurgus     "You know the layout Lady Mace. I shall follow your lead." replies Diamond Soul, dismissing her transformation and retrieving the Relay. "But if we move too far from my Relay," her voice rising a half-octave from the transformed deeper tone, "My magics will become very limited. For now, I will resume my non-Divine form and save it for when we need it."

    Theurgus falls into step with the others, hanging back a little with Asellus and White Rose.
Asellus     Heading west allows the quintet to avoid the incoming robot swarm, and then by quickly navigating additional passage ways, they bypasss the lot of them. There's still occasional encounters, but not in anywhere near the numbers they would be facing on a more direct route. There are clearly internal sensors tracking their progress since things keeping trying to move to intercept them, but they mostly manage to stay one step ahead.

    Eventually, they make it to the command center, where all the controls lie. It's dimly lit, with only the glow of various control panels and holographic monitors providing any illumination. It's also, seemingly abandoned.

    "I'm not good with machines." Asellus says, choosing to hang back by the big open doorway they passed through to get here.

    "I would not know where to begin." White Rose admits as well. Coming from a Region of magic that eschews machines, it's no surprise she wouldn't be in her element here. "However, I believe we should hurry, before the patrols catch up with us."

    Also, because they can now clearly see the floating Region of Koorong emerging from the dimensional cloud layer as the huge fortress sinks through it. There's a city that comprises a whole world down there. Already, messages are beginning to stream across the projected screens about arming weapons for a full assault. However, there's some strangeness about its target. It doesn't appear to be aiming for Koorong itself, but rather the fleet of Trinity Region Ships that have come out to meet and stop it.

    If they don't stop this thing soon... They might still be onboard when the fighting begins between a well-armed armada and this one fortress. Even if the flying fortress wins, that's a lot of lives lost, and then Koorong would be completely exposed. And if it loses... They might become casualties for the sake of saving the Region they got aboard to protect!
Theurgus     "My speciality is with magicks also. I will hold the corridor, please be swift." says Theurgus, turning back the way they came. She jabs the Relay back into a nearby wall, and transforms once again, brandishing her staff and preemptively erecting a wall of divine light to block the hallway. It won't last long against a concentrated effort, but it should buy some time. "Sprinkled on the code of the virus! Circuit Board, crystal matrix, interface mask. Move and become the one, stop and become the zero. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle! Divine Aegis!"
Leyanne Leyanne leads the way to the command centre with her Mark-19. She looks over the console, thoughtfully. "I can plug in and try to hack it, but I imagine the security's a lot better here than was back on that console." Leyanne says. "It will probably take me a while and I will be essentially nonresponsive while I'm trying it. I'm going to have to brute-force my way through and hope they don't have lockouts or black ICE."

She slides to a halt by the console, setting up her Mark-19 on a tripod overlooking the door, should anyone want to use it. Then she pulls out the wire and plugs it into her neck, looking to the others to see if they have a better plan...
Nova Terra     Nova casually walks onto the command centre, looking a lot like she's done this sort of thing before. The mention of lack of ability with machines prompts Nova to says, "I know enough to use them. Overriding the controls though, bit out of my league. Destroying them on the other hand..." But that doesn't help them. Glancing over the screens, Nova does report, "Current target is the defense fleet... Wonder if that was the primary objective all along or simply the system recognizing an obstacle to be cleared away."

    Regardless, it's clear that Leyanne is the best one to attempt taking control. But Nova does take her up on the use of the Mark-19, moving to grip the weapon and aim towards the entrance.
Asellus     The entrance (and exit) is sealed off, at least for now. Asellus and White Rose seem prepared to trust Nova's assessment over their own, in regard to all this, though Asellus seems to notice something as Leyanne plugs in. There's something moving in the shadows near the ceiling. Green eyes widen and she rushes forwards to try to tackle Leyanne out of the way. "LOOK OUT!" she yells as a huge mechanical monster drops down on them.

    PSYCHEDELIC BOSS ENCOUNTER TRANSITION COLORS.

    The five of them now find themselves facing... MecSpider, flanked by a pair of weird flying Mecs with big glass or crystalline orbs on either side, like cameras or something. SkyLabs.

    Seems that before they can put a stop to this thing, they need to fight their way through a boss battle. Splendid. The MecSpider opens up with with HeavyVulcan, firing two huge rapid-fire guns from its front knee joints that start at the corners of the room and gradually converge towards the middle.

    The barrages of high-caliber bullets hurt if they hit.
Theurgus     Theurgus glances over her shoulder as Asellus cries out. She turns just in time to see the spider robot drop from the ceiling, and wastes no time launching a barrage of multi element bolts at it, twirling her staff rapidly to fling flame, ice, lightning, wind, light and dark in rapid succession, aiming to strike all three units before having to duck behind something to evade the bullet storm, though some do strike true, causing one of her Processors to sputter and fizzle out, the gemstone fractured, and leaving streaks of broken code, glaring red on her body from the shrapnel. "Destroy the support units. They will likely provide defensive or offensive boosts to the main unit. Our Securotrons have similar support drones."
Leyanne Leyanne gets tackled just as she's about to plug in by Asellus. She yelps as the wire is yanked out of her neck, shivering and looking up at the spider. "I don't like bugs!" She says, giving the woman a nod of thanks as she picks herself up off the floor, retrieving her grenade launcher during the fancy boss transition. "You guys do that I'll get the big bastard's attention."

She suits her actions to her words, watching the pattern of the rounds. It's an AI, right? She opens fire, watching the pattern of the vulcans, carefully moving to avoid their pattern, the big mouse continues to lay on the grenades. Of course, she's big and heavy so she still takes a few hits... but she's lived in the Multiverse to know a Bullet Hell when she sees one. "Watch the patterns, try to avoid them!"
Nova Terra     The cry of warning is also Nova's only notice of the sudden appearance of the machines. Once again swearing at the issue of fighting against robots, Nova manages to get off a few grenades from Leyanne's Mark 19 before she is forced to abandon that position, thereby letting Leyanne retrieve it.

    Diving to the side to try and avoid the hail of gunfire, Nova goes into a roll and comes up behind one of the consoles. However she quickly winces and looks down to see her leg has been grazed. Her suit is torn and a bit of blood leaks from the wound.

    Taking out the drones is all well and good, but they don't really have the time to wear down the giant spider machine via random attacks. Nova lowers her visor over her eyes and pops her head out from behind the console to look at the MecSpider, scanners within the high-tech headgear beginning to gathering information on it. Through the comms in said headgear, Nova orders to her advisor, "Reigel, see if you can find a weakness in this thing!"
Asellus     Theurgus's elemental barrage deals damage to the sturdy Mec units. The two SkyLabs act immediately after, one releasing a blinding Flash from those camera-like orbs that fills the entire room, leaving the possibility of lingering temporary blindness. The other SkyLab releases a barrage of homing lasers that emit from behind it and then curve to try to strike its intended target for heavy damage. That target is White Rose, unfortunately. And the laser strike far exceeds her current HP. She is taken out by the hit, removing their primary healer as well!

    Nova's grenades manage to deal more splash damage, harming the MecSpider but clearly not bringing to close to destruction yet. It's a tanky one. The SkyLab on the right seems to be nearing its threshold as it begins to teeter in mid-air, its hover engines struggling to keep it flying. There don't appear to be any specific weak points on the MecSpider, the whole thing is an armored monster. That also means that striking anywhere is just as good as striking anywhere else. Unload on it and it will eventually fall!

    Though maybe the main body might be better than the legs.

    Asellus cries out, "White Rose!" and then, in a rage, charges forward to finish off the SkyLab that lasered the Mystic with a series of slashes from that glowing red sword of hers, causing it to explode and then disintegrate before it even hits the ground.

    1 out of 3 down.

    Leyanne's grenades likewise damage the MecSpider, and splash damage onto the remaining SkyLab, leaving it in similar straits to its now-destroyed counterpart, wavering in the air and low on health.
Theurgus     Theurgus recognizes the incoming flash. She ducks back, closing her eyes until it passes, but the sheer brightness is still enough to leave stars in her vision. Not enough time to warn the others though... so, she floats back out, and levels her staff at the remaining SkyLab as Asellus takes out the homing laser one. "You very source code shall freeze. COCYTUS!" she intonse the last word, giving it a ring of Power.

    A lance of Ice magic spears out toward the SkyLab, attempting to both pierce, and encase it with a cold so intense it drops the room temperature a good four degrees c in the few seconds it's active.
Nova Terra     "Negative. Target is heavily protected by its armour. I'm afraid you're just going to have to beat it into submission."

    Nova frowns a little. That's the direct approach. She's not a huge fan of the direct approach. Well, if it's the only method at her disposal, then clearly she has no choice.

    Raising her risor once more to rest on the top of her head, Nova quickly stands from behind the console she was using as cover. She reaches a hand out towards the MecSpider, bringing forth the power of her psi abilities as she begins to crush the machine's main body with continually growing force. The heavy armor will probably protect it... For the moment.
Leyanne Leyanne growls quietly, keeping her aim on the monster - although, when the flash goes off, she cusses, getting a real nasty blind spot where that Skylab. was; the flare compensation in her helmet just can't activate fast enough.

Thankfully, however, it doesn't stop the mouse from seeing the giant spider. Or, More accurately, its face. She's attempting to take its cameras out, blind it, and hopefully even blow its head open to give the others a weakness to shoot into. Of course, should any cracks form from Nova's PSI. She snarls as White Rose goes down, dialling up the firing rate of her grenade launcher - hoping to take advantage of the brittleness Theurgus' cold strike might bring to bear.
Asellus     The MecSpider fires rockets from its everywhere, bombarding the entire control room with explosions that rain down in erratic patterns. Asellus is taken out by the attack right as she was preparing to pour a healing potion on White Rose to get their healer back up on her feet.

    Theurgus's powerful ice magic easily finishes off the weakened SkyLab, and causes some more splash damage to the MecSpider, so the second-fastest actor (the MecSpider is a cheater and always goes first) is now out of the fight. The pressure from Nova's attack continues to build, gradually crumpling armor, and Leyanne's grenades are concentrate on the same target now, greatly increasing the effects of the damage.

    The machine is sturdy, but is probably down to about 33% health at this point. Let's hope it doesn't pull out some stupid gimmicky boss weapon that only triggers at a certain HP threshold.

    On the screen, the text DEATH TO TRINITY and FOR WAKATU keep flashing, and the edges of the holographic display look like they're being nibbled away at by unseen mouths. Was some sort of virus responsible for this? The ground shakes, and not just from the tromping of the MecSpider as it tries to retain its balance. Those huge cannons have begun to fire.
Nova Terra     Nova keeps her hand outstretched, aware of the incoming rocket barrage but choosing to weather it. She stumbles for a moment as one lands nearby, lighting up her immediate vicinity with an explosion, the flames of which scorch parts of her suit black. But Nova rights herself once more as she focuses on the large robot spider.

    Even as she continues applying crushing pressure to the MecSpider, Nova taps into more power as she reaches back with her other hand. Finally Nova releases her forceful grip on the hostile machine, but at the same moment launches her hand forward, unleashing the gather power as a blast of telekinetic energy to send the spider smashing into a wall.
Theurgus     Theurgus erects a force field as explosions begin raining down in the area. The interlocked blue hexagons don't last very long, they're not very durable, but she steps out of the smoke with her Processors broken, her bodysuit torn in modest places and red damage 'decals' all over her body.

    "Great Source! Mask of bits and code, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Program! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens. Conflagration Dust!" she intones, raising the staff and causing flames to erupt from under the spider mech, engulfing it in superheated flame.
Leyanne Leyanne yelps as the rockets slam home... she's actually blown clear across the control room by one of them, the mouse bouncing off the wall and slamming to the floor. She spits a little bit of blood, looking at the two downed Elites, and then at the MecSpider. Angry mouse is angry now, although it's a controlled anger. She adjusts her grenade launcher's fuse-setter a moment, putting the rounds on timed detonation now. She keeps moving around the room, stopping when she gets a chance to let off a string of grenade; now Nova's put some cracks in the armour... and slammed it into a wall, she can make use of the timer. Most of the rounds she's firing bounce off before detonating a short distance away, doing nothing but rattling it around. But at least one from every string glances off the rim of a crack - and into the fragile interior of the spider before they can detonate.

"We don't have much time here!" she warns, sparing another worried glance at White Rose and Asellus.
Asellus     The MecSpider is very large and has a lot of legs. Even after Nova knocks it backwards to ram into a wall, destroying all the machinery thereupon (hope none of that was important, but it's been firing huge vulcans and rockets so it's NOT LIKE IT'S THE FIRST THING TO GET BROKEN IN HERE), it quickly scurries forwards, its metallic legs thundering with every step, but the footfalls come awkwardly, off-target, making the huge machine look practically drunk due to its inability to put one leg in front of the other. Something important in its balancing systems was broken.

    Theurgus's flames erupt from beneath the boss robot, scorching its underbelly and melting some of its armor. Cracks form, fissures in the metal, as plates peel back thanks to the combination of extreme cold and extreme heat. It's definitely weakened, and seems to be sparking and moving unsteadily, even as it tries to bring some huge energy cannon to bear. The cannon sparks, misfires, and ingites something internally, further damaging itself, as the massive lens on the front of the cannon cracks under the pressure of its focusing rings collapsing on it.

    Leyanne's grenades explodes just fine against the exterior, as well as inside. It's so broken up now that there's plenty of places for a grenade to land in both places, lots of small 'ledges' formed by peeling armor. All of the damage accumulates, the legs wrenched in their sockets by Nova's telekinetic slam, the heat from Thuergus's flames melting the support structure and causing it to bend more gradually towards the floor, and then all those accumulating explosions finally rupturing something internally and causing it to release some non-damaging energy wave as it starts to disintegrate into the floor plates from its feet upwards.

    Yay! Boss defeated! With an end to the fighting, Asellus and White Rose seem to be regenerating from their injuries, getting back up groggily and achingly, but still alive at least. Benefits of being not!Vampires, I guess! Now for the computer! If it can just be shut down, they can run back to the shuttle bay, hop aboard, and get out of there before the now-defenseless fortress gets taken out by all the incoming fire that is now slamming into its force fields, some of it breaking through to strike structures and weaponry all along its exterior.

    Lots of flashing messages on-screen still, but they probably don't mean anything to anyone here.
Theurgus     "Lady Mace, can you shut this vessel down? We should evacuate as soon as possible, due to the fact the defense fleet is beginning their assault." says Diamond Soul, floating a foot off the ground toward Asellus and White Rose. "We must go. Now." She's pretty beaten up, her Processors sparking, or hanging lifeless from their mounting points, and large swaths of damaged code marring her body, but her 'HP' is still pretty decent by comparison.

    "My magicks are beginning to wane, the defensive barrier will fail soon. Let us hope no more of The Organization's corrupted automata are waiting on the other side."
Nova Terra     Nova finally releases the focus she had been holding for what felt like an eternity. The sight of the MecSpider disintegrating quite a relief. Though the Ghost does look a little unsteady as she stumbles for a moment, quickly moving a hand to steady herself against a console. The other goes up to rub the side of her head.

    Nova's recovery is interupted by the sounds of ship fire getting through the defense forcefields and impacting the hull. Quickly realizing, from all the alerts on the screens and the sight out the windows, that they don't have much time, Nova begins to run out of the bridge. On the way she calls back to the others, "Back to the hangar! We'll see if we can borrow one or more of the ships."
Leyanne Leyanne nods to Theurgus "We arre on the same page!" She agrees. "I'm gonna do what I can... if shot goes really south, unplug me and run." she says, running to the console and plugging in. She attempts to shut the thing down from here, using all of her best brute-force attacks to try and force her way into the control system quickly. If she gets in, she starts shutting things down until it stops shooting.

She twitches... and the /really/ creepy part? While her mind is elsewhere, hacking through the system, her body begins to speak. Quite clearly in not her voice, at that. "Trinity must die." is one comment that 'she' makes - with a very masculine voice. 'We must have revenge' says another...

She's dumped, quite violently, from the system when whatever it is that's borrowing her voice realises what she's doing. Of course, by then, it's too late and the machine is shutting down. Or, barring that, beginning a self-destruct sequence, if she can't shut it off. She spasms and arches her back, flailing for support as the lights flick back on in her eyes. She looks around, disoriented... she's going to need help getting out of here. "I hate... that feeling..." she mutters. But it's clearly her.
Asellus     All the systems power down, including defenses. Attacks that were just slipping through before while its guns blasted away, destroying huge numbers of Trinity ships, now hit with no mitigation at all, causing earthquake-like tremors throughout. Asellus feeds White Rose a potion and swallows one herself while the Mystic provides healing for everyone, while they run.

    "Maybe we should talk about whatever that was later, Leyanne!" Asellus calls out, kind of weirded out a lot. She wants to make sure the mouse woman is okay. She has a Thing now about people messing with other people's minds.

    "Yes!" White Rose gets out while she runs alongside everyone else back towards the hangar. "Later!"

    They pass by lots and lots of robots that has amassed in the hallway outside, possibly being slowed down by the walls of now unpowered Mecs at times, if they don't help each other over them or use time-consuming violence that risks creating additional hazards like walls of fire.

    But eventually, with the whole fortress caving in around them, they make it back to the hangar just in time to get into one of the vessels, operate the relatively easy to use and clearly labelled controls, and get the heck out of there! Some dodging of fire from Trinity's ships, as well as massive cannons falling towards them like huge spiralling barrels of death, is necessary, but they make it back to the Cygnus, which has remained out of the way at a safe distance but moves to pick them up when it's clear the quintet has survived and escaped.

    They're going to be getting a lot of thanks (and reasonable hazard pay, even though they volunteered) for this!
Leyanne Leyanne clearly has no idea what Asellus is talking about as she runs along side the stragglers of the group, relying on them to guide her - at some points, she has to lean on the wall as she recovers. She has no idea that some/thing/ talked with her while she was out, "Talk about what?" She asks, adding. "...Tell me later." She agrees with White Rose especially. She recovers as they run, helping the shorter members of the team over the obstacles where needed. She lets someone else fly; even with simple controls, she's just in no fit state to fly, even with a lisence.

She doesn't know it yet, but she's going to have some really fucky dreams tonight...