Scene #6777: Into the Wound

Owner	Pose
The Janitor	At the core of the Wound is a spiked asterisk; a heart with two dozen stakes driven into it. The naval station at its center has been pincushioned with Imperial ships rammed into it from every direction. They stand out as a black silhouette against the howling yellow maelstrom around them- a polydimensional whirlpool that leeches energy from their crews' collective anguish and the dreadful Immaterium. At times the flaxen aura seems to form enormous claws, or tendrils, or teeth that caress the derelicts before submerging into the seething energy again. Explosions blossom across the structure, frozen in time as permanent bubbles of white-hot devastation. It's hard to remember, looking at it, that two hands did this in a day. There are very few reasons that could compel reasonable people to visit a place like this. Unfortunately for everyone, such a reason has presented itself. The Rogue Trader vessel "Damascene" was rumored even before this atrocity to be carrying a Standard Template Construct blueprint for the Panacea, an easily-manufactured cure for hundreds of the galaxy's most common diseases. Their final distress call, drawn out into a days-long shriek by the temporal distortion of the Warp, outright confirmed it. Such an artifact could alleviate untold human suffering in the Imperium- or give the Concord a powerful bargaining chip against them. The Damascene stands out even in a graveyard like this. It's among the largest ships ruined there: a fully-fledged Imperial Cruiser with a shovel-like prow, a midsection ringed with guns, and a hull painted in rippling shades of metallic silver. Ropes of diseased flesh and unearthly fire snake out of the central station to wrap along its hull like bulging veins; their irregular pulsating is the only visible movement in the seemingly time-frozen wreck. Navigating this place is perilous. Those coming in from space have to navigate around pieces of jagged shrapnel 'stuck' like immovable rods by the Warp stasis, the scratching claws and snaring tendrils of the seething Immaterium, and blossoming explosions along the hulls frozen into area hazards. Those without such means will find a working teleporter- on a neighboring ship, necessitating that they make a perilous journey leaping between ship fragments in the shrieking void to reach the Damascene. Mysteriously, there is breathable air here. One almost wishes there weren't. It tastes like blood and rot and strange metals. The crews' claustrophobic terror and helpless anguish and objectless rage is manifest here, too- not in the sense that it inspires those things, as the strong-of-heart may resist that cloying influence, but rather in the sense that they are somehow metaphysically woven into the atmosphere in a way as real and tangible as the otherworldly maelstrom itself. When visitors of either stripe approach, the veins of horrid fire squirm and disgorge a small swarm of pink-and-blue creatures like blobby octopi with scrabbling claws and gap-toothed mouths. They cartwheel and cavort around the hull like a barrel of monkeys, only hurling fist-sized blasts of flesh-melting warpfire at the intruders when someone manages to catch their manic attention. The most obvious point of entry is the open docking bay on the near flank of the cruiser, its illuminating lights still frozen on in preparation for launching "lifeboat" craft that never made it out. Those with the mechanical know-how to make other entries, or the fortitude to withstand diving straight through the frozen hull-explosions, are hardly so restricted.
Zenos yae Galvus	The teleporter flash signaled the arrival of Zenos yae Galvus, while the Garlean Fleet was mighty, it did not have space fairing ships at the current moment. So he was here, without much in the way of support because he simply believed such would only slow him down in this approach. Zenos leaps, from space debris to space debris, moving with the utmost pace towards the crashed ship. The warped air smelling of blood, rot, and rust does not deter him, he was often familiar with such smells, with being no stranger to battlefields. The mask of the Garlean General simply stares ahead as he makes the final jump, landing behind the strange Deamons. "Hm, Voidsent? Well, let us see what kind of sport they give.." he says, walking at a casual pace towards the demons. The sword revolver spinning once, until it settles on a blade. The Squall is drawn, as he swings the blade in a massive cone in front of him, aiming to try and blow the nearest of the demons out of his way. "Begone, weaklings!" He demands, before considering his way in. Unfortunately, time being of the matter, he moves towards pushing his way through the more dangerous of options, once his path is clear.
Priscilla	Priscilla isn't usually at places like this, but Priscilla is here because she paid the Janitor, hearing she is the best of the best at things like this, to take out the Imperium's scattered naval resources in the area, and also keep out further intrusions. She had known her penchant for destructive space antics already, but hadn't imagined she'd go as far as to go this level of ham with it. Apparently, not being satisfied by intimidating casual snooping out of the system with a Bermuda Triangle, the help had gone as far as constructing the equivalent of a field of impaled corpses, by mashing together an impromptu terror beacon of transcendental suffering frozen in amber, displayed like like a hanged pirate at port. Truly, she really had paid for the best. Priscilla is also one of those rare people that can Just Go Anywhere for the most part. Sure, she has to use the teleportation beacon to get there at first, but then bridging the gap with her own inexplicable fadey blinky bullshit isn't nearly as difficult as trying to play space shrapnel QTEs, and she remains unharassed by random encounters and ambient mobs by being invisible. The atmosphere is unpleasantly foul, but tolerable. She is long used to the scent of blood and rot permeating the air, for decades at a time, but the taste of filthy iron and tangible claustrophobia sits ill with her. She bears Moonlight, the Sword of Revelation, with her the whole way. Best that the little things of light clear her mind and provide mental guidance here. Hitting the docking bay, she experimentally tries pulling what looks like the airlock release, just to see if any of the systems work, or if it's all so frozen that she'll have to apply force to get anywhere.
Laina Reliah	The teleporter flashes once more as a masked and hooded figure steps through. She was often a follower or a stowaway to arrive at such strange and unusual places and today was no different. She watches the Garlean that arrived before her quite literally cut a path through the space between the two ships. How nice of him. Laina jumped, then kicked off the wall, launching herself into space. She threw a hook and rope as she floated through, latching it to a hunk of space debris and pulling herself towards it. She lands, detatching her hook as she waits for the hunk of rock and metal to rotate, then leaps off of it again, throwing her hook at the next floating mass of refuse. She followed a small distance behind the mighty Prince, letting him draw the attention of the monsters to himself and deal with them accordingly, making her own journey far less hazardous. Her gas mask was the best-made in all of Eorzea, able to filter out even the most insideous of clouds. But even then, as if just from the sight of the chaotic rip in reality around her, she swore she could taste the rot and guts. As used as she is to horrible smells and oppressive air, something about this place just made even her sick to her stomach. She floats - or flies, she's really not sure - past a jagged piece of metal, finally aiming her hook at the hull of her destination. As much as she would like to fiddle with whatever piece of machinery she could find on the outside of the ship, she would rather take the most obvious way in this time. Laina swings wide around the edge of the docking bay, landing on her feet as the hook detaches and zips back to her belt. The catgirl joins Priscilla at the apparent airlock release, humming a note of thought as she searches elsewhere for any similar button that might open a door.
Staren	Staren's ship drops out of FTL near-ish by, just in case it's needed, or he needs to send the mech or something. However... He'd rather not leave the Star Hawk unattended in this area, so... he and Kirito and anyone else with him can beam over to the teleporter. Staren's provided Kirito with a custom-made smart spacesuit that integrates with his armor. Staren himself is in robot mode. So... the first step is navigating across. Space movement isn't second-nature, but he's had plenty of practice, and is equipped with magi-tech and tech thrusters, and weapons and the matter manipulator to blast and dismantle troublesome debris. Just have to take it slow and careful...
Starbound Flotilla	The Flotilla are here. Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a divine-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow runes and inscriptions lighting up on stylishly gleaming golden armor and robes. Albert the monkey-man is wearing what looks like lab technician gear with extensive sets of tools and chemical protection, which integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator. "Breach and clear. Stick and move." "Focused. Clearing, shield cover!" "Floran will ssstab with arrow!" "Hmph. Disgusting. I can hardly wait for this place to collapse." "I'd be a fan of making this place the kind of hell I could send the damned to." "I dunno, they might be full up. Looking like no vacancies, if you ask me." The gang are well armed and armored, and are sticking close around Priscilla like a SWAT team might move around a VIP, weapons drawn and ready. It's not like she NEEDS the bodyguards, but she IS the Big Boss, and they are the Miniboss Team. If Priscilla can't get the door, George and Pavo will, quickly using their own expertise on the matter. Biteblade and Seft are paired up to guard against any sudden movements coming out the other side, and are already trying to scan the interior with Seft's scanning equipment to chart a fast path to move as quickly as possible to their objective, if they can find centers of high digital activity. Albert and Moonfin are the ones focused on making sure space is clear of daemonic hostiles, with their own heavy blades and explosive launchers.
Riku	This place is worse than Detroit. Way, way worse. At least Detroit is a somewhat passive malevolemce metaphysically in most cases. This place? It absolutely seems to want to break free and consume you at any time. Which means that of course Riku is present. He seems to have a bad habit of getting drawn into all the most horrible places in any given universe, because to some degree it's his job to deal with such things. Space warps, revealing Riku's form as he pops out, gripping there onto one of the hulls of the doomed ships as he looks out upon the horrifying affair. Whatever expression he might have is inscrutable behind the thick reinforced polarized glass of the facemask he's wearing. After several moments of observation, noting the others present... And not seeming to be turned away by this as he launches off the hull, rapidly bouncing through the deadly physics puzzle that is the intervening space between the two craft in an array of complex jumps, air-dashes, and wall-grab tech. He doesn't settle for passing through the docking bay, instead altering his path to try to get line of sight into the ship through the rent hull or a fortunate gap in explosions. Too small for a person doesn't matter, all he needs is to see the other side to properly plot a path through the darkness. The moment he has an entrance, he is swallowed up by another hole, and he is gone, inside. Time is of the essence.
Kirito	Kirito's feelings on the Concord efforts against Imperium space are mixed, to say the least, but earlier he did offer to help with causes he can get behind... and retrieving a miracle medical device from the jaws of the Immaterium? Well, that sounds pretty heroic and useful! So he's wearing a light vacsuit over his armor, and added Staren to his Party (which, oddly, provides the HUD display straight to Staren's senses, showing Kirito's name, the Spriggan symbol, HP in green and MP in blue. "I've seen some weird spots in the Multiverse... but nothing comes close to THIS in recent memory." The Spriggan exclaims, acknowledging just how screwed the poor ship they've come to salvage is. This is stuff right out of NIGHTMARES, and it makes his whole body twitch and tremble uneasily. Only years upon years of hard, life or death adventuring are keeping him from bolting from the horror factor. As it is, he swallows harshly on the approach. He's no stranger to obstacle courses, but doing it in microgravity and the weird, corrupted gravity of this place as he hops from fragment to fragment and uses his fairy wings to brake and adjust his course... well, that's a hell of its own. "At least there's no instant death spikes." He murmurs to himself. The pins and needles roiling through his gut at the moment are more than enough of those. The Spriggan Swordsman's blades are sheathed as he awkwardly makes his way towards the teleporter.
The Janitor	The chittering, squealing, nauseatingly-pink monkey-octopi skitter and cartwheel down the hull to greet Zenos as he approaches- only to be flung aside by the gust of magical wind he projects. Several of them are just hurled into the void; others form chains, linking arms and tendrils to lash themselves together into living ladders and ropes, reeling themselves back in from the perilous abyss. They rush after him, trying to pelt him with armor-slagging flames like children playing with snowballs, but the few that dare to pursue him through an active explosion are promptly incinerated by it for their daring. They won't be following him anymore. Unfortunately for Staren and Kirito, the 'slow and steady' pace means that they're still out in the open when they refocus off of Zenos. A cluster of pink daemons break apart and approach them from all sides, hurling little tongues of searingly iridescent fire at the mecha and the swordsman! They 'melt' almost any material on contact, warping and twisting armor until it's useless and dripping like a Salvador Dali painting. Best not to think about what it'd do to flesh. They're not very tough, but the veins are spewing more of them with every luminescent throb- the best defense appears to be to simply get inside. The docking bay contains a half-dozen much smaller craft of varying designs. People are temporally frozen like statues inside, running for the lifeboats, tending to the wounded, curled up in fetal position in the floor. It's reminiscent of the ash-preserved bodies at Pompeii. One of those 'bodies' takes a sip from a water bottle. The plastic crackles in her hand, deafening in the uncanny near-silence. "Good luck," the distinctively nondescript figure says. How long has she just been waiting here? Priscilla and the Flotilla will quickly find that merely interacting with things here doesn't make them start playing by your temporal rules. The world isn't stopped completely- only painfully, glacially slow. Pulling the airlock release takes a surprising amount of strength, enough to bend the metal in Priscilla's hand: things move in glacial slow motion even after you push them with their temporal inertia, and making them move at "normal" speeds requires commensurately huge force. The lever even makes a quiet sonic boom before simply snapping off as it hits the opposite end of its range. The airlock's bolts unlock swiftly, but they'd be here for ages if they waited for the door to open more than a hair- it'll have to be pried open, obeying hypersonic liquid-y physics the whole time. The Flotilla's analysis reveals that the whole ship is lit up with digital activity- except for a cubical sanctum at the vessel's heart, directly forwards and down, which is conspicuously dark. Riku and Zenos have already gotten a head-start on the maze of dark metal tunnels inside. In places the hallways reach dead-ends, either literal architectural ones, or places where the path has been cut off by a white-hot frozen fireball or throbbing vein of inchoate Warp energy.
The Janitor	The group leaving the docking bay will find two glowing cylindrical glass-walled cells being carried through the halls by frozen crewmen- one shattered, one intact. The shattered one contains a dead grotesque creature, easily the size of a man, flesh-and-blood rather than coalesced warp energy. It has four apelike arms, chitinous armor over worm-like skin, and bears a five-eyed head and a leeching sucker-disk mouth. The intact one has the same creature inside- but this one is moving, unlike anything else here, scrabbling and scratching at the glass in flickery and bewilderingly high-speed movements. It even seems aware of the Elites outside, tracking them with its alien beady eyes. Similarly, Riku and Zenos will independently find frozen crewmen with inexplicable injuries- decapitated mid-stride with their blood droplets still scattering, or their organs sucked out through holes in their backs, or peeled open like an orange by claws in the middle of evacuation preparation. These injuries can't have happened before they were frozen, but the Warp-creatures seem peculiarly reticent to enter the craft... Just as they put two and two together, man-sized aliens burst through the walls to ambush all of the disparate groups amid sprays of slow-motion shrapnel, breaking the silence with their rasping-keening wails- which, to the keen-eared, might just pinpoint the other intruders' respective locations. They move in whickering temporally-distorted blurs, trying to gouge flesh with their claws or rasp with their sucker-disk teeth, and their flesh flows in metamorphosing patterns just as quickly to heal wounds or repurpose limbs! Outrunning the horrid creatures might just be possible, for the swift- but surely that'd mean abandoning the helplessly frozen crewmembers to their hunger, instead.
Staren	Staren's care means he's not too distracted to notice the attacking daemons. Forcefield up, it keeps the fire from hitting his armor, but he can't just tank it forever. He returns fire with particle beams and a missile. <"Alright, we need to speed this up. Kirito, lead the way."> Encountering the airlock, Staren looks at the problem, then offers a solution. Unless someone has a better idea, he'll set up shaped charges to cut through the door just before the hinge -- if that works even remotely how he expects, afterwards they can just push the now-detached door out of the way.
Zenos yae Galvus	Scorched, but not burned too heavily, Zenos manages to make it through the explosions with minimum injury. The demons on the outside too weak to follow, and he continues to move inside. Coming across the frozen crew, he notices the injuries, and makes a discovery. Only to be engaged in melee combat a moment later. The beast slashing at him with its claws, tearing into the armor. However, Zenos was somewhat prepared after seeing the frozen crew, and a blade swung towards the claw, deflecting it just enough to avoid major injury. He had a goal, and these beasts were in his way. Nor did Zenos care about the crew...they were not important to his goals, nor worth saving. Raising the Katana up, and thrusting it into the ground, a wave of force aims to blow everything not him away. The energy has a secondary effect, aiming to completely incapacitate the creatures. Walking ahead, he moves past the creatures, should they fall susceptible to his blade technique, and move towards his goal. If they succeeded, well...then things would be interesting!
Kirito	Kirito's beset upon by the strange daemons! ANd the weird acid-projectiles catch him by surprise. He TWISTS out of the way with a burst of wing-acrobatics, but not quickly enough. He's struck by a few and his suit's compromised. With a battle roar sourced from deep in his gut though, he draws a black blade from his back and WHIPS about in the air, zipping this way and that and slash slash-slashing the things from weird angles, to give Staren some cover and then SNAP-WHOOOOSH push his wings for all they're worth, rocketing towards the airlock with ABSOLUTELY reckless speed. This ridiculous speed burst kicks up hellish turbulence, so following directly might be difficult for a good ten seconds... But Kirito slams into the docking bay's floor hard, dragging his sword to slow himself down quicker before he almost slams into the far wall. "Great. Warp monsters. What's that fire made of...?!"
Riku	The sight of the frozen, gruesomely mauled crewmembers would give Riku pause if he wasn't already primed for such... and worse. The fact that the wounds don't match up with the observed attack methods of the creatures also help point out that they're far fom alone here. Thus it is that he's not entirely surprised when the walls burst open. "You have to be kidding." Riku comments flatly to no one in particular. He deals with the problem by taking a third option: He hurls himself forward, crossing the room by thinking with portals- I mean, Corridors of Darkness, and simply allowing the beasts to give chase as he hustles along. As he moves, his shadow lashes out, gripping onto objects and giving them the needed impetus to become potentially inconvenient and deadly obstacles, dangling himself before them as bait to keep them interested as he tries to pick them off while on the move, suspending shrapnel in the air like hanging spike traps, rebounding off walls to kick-launch off a lunging alien, or using his shadowy manipulation to grab objects and the aliens and hurl them into stationary detonations. They likely burn as well as anything else. He has to keep moving if he is to get to the goal in time.
Starbound Flotilla	"Alert. There's a gap in the digital activities." "Inverted?" "It is the best clue we have to the location of interest." "Alright! First Priscilla, what's your plan here?" "Floran will ssstab in any direction, jussst sssay!" "Christ, Jay, what did you do to this place..." They move to coordinate with Staren, using their own shaped charges to triple the planting speed, and then Seft and Biteblade help kick the thing in with much more speed than its slow-motion time-warp would normally allow. They intend to break through /fast/ and find the quickest solution to getting to whichever particular direction Priscilla orders, clearing a path and providing cover.
Priscilla	Slowly tearing apart the ship with massively displaced force, as all of the energy Priscilla puts into pulling the airlock lever happens near-instantaneously by its own subjective timeframe, seems like it'll take an age and a half. She watches the switch crack to pieces on the bottom of its traverse, and then declares "I hath too unsettled a feeling about this place to wait for such dalliances forever. Not simply those sprung from its ambiance, as well." Given a crack to peek through the door, she fades again in that way that's basically impossible to distinguish from invisibility, and ends up on the other side. Developing that has been paying out enormously ever since that return to the Painted World. She takes one look at the two cells, and two identical creatures. One is frozen still like the crew, presumably having broken out from its cell before the ship collided with the Warp spasm, and the second one is still trapped inside, yet freaking out at maximum speed. Priscilla takes a wild guess after peering at the two for several moments, and then says aloud "Wouldst it happen such that those within the cells, I assumeth previously frozen for the crew to be capable of carrying them about, were those spared this anomaly of time? Even released from it, perhaps, by such perverse inversion of it." She can't imagine the crew hauling these things around while they were awake, and mere chemical sedatives wouldn't account for the frozen one. When she and her Concord entourage are immediately beset by the creatures, she doesn't glance for any available exits. Though the surprise, for the split second there is to have it, briefly plays an evident spark through the contraction of her slit pupils and the halting of her breath, her reflex doesn't appear to be to disappear and bail, like she can, and has, done. Rather, surrounded by the Flotilla and Staren, her borderline spinal reflex appears to be stepping out in front of them rather than relocating to the middle, getting the role of protectors and protectee backwards in the heat of the moment. She's not quite fast enough to outrun these anyways. Not physically. She catches one lunging at her on the inside edge of the Scythe she just Has, defending herself with the most minimal movements available. If it doesn't simply tear itself in half on the edge, she turns aside from its vector and hurls it bleeding from the tip into the next directly across from the group, aiming to defend both sides at the same time. A third she catches at the last possible instant by angling up Moonlight, still in her offhand, to clash against its swinging claws, pitting secretly-twenty-feet-tall strength against it, until she slides her hand up the haft of the scythe, hooks it behind the neck, and wrenches both weapons in opposite directions to send a decapitated corpse spinning through the air. Having exhausted her initial hand of defensive options she's fast enough to accomplish right then, she looks around to confirm just how many there are still on the attack, and how many more might be in reserve waves behind them. Now that they've blatantly made themselves known, she should be able to sense the spiritual prickle of the ones out in the open in the vicinity. "Thou may be entirely correct." she breathes to Albert. "The sounds of battle elsewhere . . . Sir Staren. Lady Seft. Their location and proximity to that . . . room."
Laina Reliah	Laina hisses a curse as monsters that she had no concept of burst through the walls, rushing at the people with ravenous hunger. Luckily, protecting random crew members isn't a part of her job description. Laina backpedals the hell away from the creatures, pulling the pin on a liquid-filled glass orb. As the liquid inside starts to bubble and react, she flings the orb at the ground, turning and fleeing from the horrifying creatures. Laina's bomb fills the space behind her with a thick, yellow-green cloud that would cling to fur and skin, peeling and melting flesh painfully and filling lungs with blood. She has no idea if it'll even help against the monsters, but it is at least worth a shot to drop behind her while she runs.
Kirito	Zipping by so fast meant that Kirito didn't quite get a chance to take in what he just passed. But now that he' stopped, had a moment to catch a breath and think... he stands up straight and... Instantly suppresses the urge to puke all over the docking bay floor. A shudder passes through him though, from head to toe. No matter how much time he spends in the Multiverse, corpses always give him the jitters. They probably always will. But no sooner has he turned around to keep up with the group that's going past the airlock then... Awwwwww, CRAP. The other sword - a golden blade that almost seems to glow in this eerie light - is freed from its scabbard and in his left hand all but instantly. Kirito lowers into a combat stance instantly parrying the first barrage of monsters by catching their claws on his blades and REPELLING them with a show of surprising strength for his size. On the rebound, he roars out his battle fury and dashes in, slash-slash-slashing and ducking this way and that under slashes. Periodically, when the opportunity presents itself, he transitiions from slashes to kicks of opportunity and driving elbow strikes or pommel slams, ALWAYS on the move and trying to find a natural bottleneck hallfway to chokepoint these things in!
The Janitor	Riku and Zenos independently arrive at more or less the same ruthless conclusion- Riku when he sets off on his boobytrapped portal pursuit, Zenos when he leaves the dazed and scattered monsters behind without bothering to finish them off. Leaving the frozen crew-members to their fate instead of standing and fighting is the best way to ensure that they extend their respective head-starts and reach the goal first- especially with the baying and shrieking giving away their locations, remarkably close to one another, and both much closer to the 'blank' room than the Bay Bunch. The group near Priscilla shreds through their opposition with only moderate difficulty- not only do they have strength in numbers, but the wall-skulking aliens clearly aren't accustomed to resistance like this. They try to blitz the group with their raw chrono-distorted speed and armor-piercing claws, and are largely mulched for the audacity of the attempt. By the end of the lightning skirmish, about a dozen of them lie dead-or-close-enough on the floor as the rest scatter and back off, their remaining tissues of the fallen squirming and trying to reassemble on a timescale that doesn't really need to be worried about. Priscilla's senses can pick up at least three times that number in the general vicinity, some of them already being attracted by the screams of their packmates- they'll need to keep moving to avoid being surrounded and bogged down. Continuing on their respective paths, Riku and Zenos are soon to meet right outside of the digital 'dark spot'- a heavy vault door behind several airlocks, reinforced with what looks like brass and gold; the walls here give less of an impression of dark-metal brutalism and more of a bank mixed with a religious tabernacle. If they can get in through the airlocks without completely destroying them, they could serve as a barricade against the still-pursuing genestealers! Regardless, the vault itself is a problem: something that heavy is going to be difficult to crack open through any means, all the moreso when bolstered with sluggish temporal inertia like this. Just opening the door would take herculean strength and the better part of a minute. If that weren't ominous enough, the vault's door starts to dimly glow with a crackling yellowish Warpfire at the intruders' approach, radiating an aura of pins-and-needles from the other side. There are excellent odds the Panacea blueprint is inside, but... ... Even more worrying, the luminous veins on the outside of the ship convulse and shudder at the intrusion, as if instinctively responding to their presence. All across the vessel, the horrid roots start to dig into the hull, boring through whatever force previously repelled them to fill hallways with their blasphemous fire. Anyone pursuing Riku and Zenos to the vault will have to dodge snakes and whips of the Immaterium's energy, and find some way around corridors ruptured wholesale by coursing channels of profane light.
Zenos yae Galvus	"Hm...it appears that time is running out," Zenos says, to nobody at first, only to come face to face with Riku, who seems to have the same idea that he does. However, with time being of the essence, he decides that trying to OPEN the door was a waste of time. Once more the sword revolver spins after he replaces his current blade, and the Storm comes to his hand. Zenos swings the blade, but not at Riku instead at the door itself, attempting to split the lock, or the door entirely open. While it would not serve as protection against the Genestealers, it would make sure they get inside without getting jumped by another group. However, Zenos has another trick up his sleeve. As Zenos turns to step inside, many illusions of Zenos spread out across the halls of the ship, aiming to release bolts of electricity. They may stun individual Genestealers, but the REAL goal is to distract them long enough to acquire the item and abscond. This does, however, leave the matter of Riku unresolved. Zenos was more interested to see what the young man did first. Would he heroically make a stand, would he try and strike a deal...or would he try and fight him for the sake of it? Zenos was truely curious!
Riku	It wasn't much of a choice for Riku. The crew members were already dead, most of them. Those who hadn't been mauled were going to get caught in whatever cataclysmic event is about to obliterate the area, and retrieving Panacea will save more lives than spending what little time he has available trying to extricate everyone stuck here in a temporal death trap. But none of that matters as he and Zenos face off against each other before the vault door. EVen with his clothing obsucuring his exact identity, the Soul Eater in his hand would be instantly identifiable to the battle-tested and sword conniseur of a Prince. The blade comes up in a guarded motion as Storm is released from its scabbard, but Riku is not the target. This is optimal. The moment Zenos breaches the Vault door, Riku looks beyond and opens another of those short-range portals to leap forward and seek out the goal while Zenos engages in his implacable gait. Whatever is inside, he needs to be fast enough to bypass the danger with a single-minded intent. If anything is going to be resolved in his favor, he needs to be the one holding the Panacea first. He doesn't have the power to force things and Zenos (and the others) know it. Fighting is clearly the last thing on his mind.
Staren	Genestealers are fought off -- Staren's not sure he can save the crewmen solo, but killing aliens, he can turn ample firepower on the problem. They regenerate, but not fast enough to keep up with him. The snakes of warpfire are a different problem, though. He can't blow them up (Actually, can he? He'll try that first.) So, he'll have to... cut through the ship? He has energy blades, particle beams, and a fair arsenal of explosives, plus the matter manipulator for less resistant materials. He doesn't think beating the others to the prize is on the table, but... who knows? Maybe it'll turn out to be trapped in a puzzle that will delay the forst group or something. It's not time to give up yet!
Kirito	It's a HELL of an obstacle course left for Kirito after he finishes slashing up overly aggressive Genestealers. The beasts did land a number of hits on him, but unless WORSE comes out anytime soon... it'll all regenerate before he ne3eds to worry too much. Still, with everything getting WEIRD in the hallways, Kirito hisses from pure uncertainty and grips his blades tighter. Unfortunately he has NO idea where the Panacea blueprint is on the ship and the ship seems to be giving them all a time limit... But he decides to jmourney after the others, treating the crazy, infested hallways like an obstacle course. He can't FLY indoors, but Kirito displays surprising agility, dashing ALONG THE WALLS, leaping over hazards and nimbly dive-rolling poast others in a herky-jerky half-planned half-skin-of-his-teeth mad dashing! .... all the way towards the vault chamber, that's his goal!
Laina Reliah	Laina drops yet another gass bomb behind her, following it up by leaving an already-primed bear trap in her wake. She speeds through the ship, weaving through the ship, quite literally bouncing off walls and sliding through tight spaces. The speedy cat sprints as directly towards the vault chamber as she can, keeping an eye open for anyone that could be described as an ally. Which, at this point, is anything not trying to eat her. Even then, the things not trying to eat her might try their best to kill her without eating her instead.
Priscilla	"Thrice as more closeby." Priscilla states, shaking blood from her blades where it hasn't sizzled away already. "Briefly repulsed, but they shalt regather in number and confidence soon. I trust the lot of thee art able to moveth safely ahead. We art well behind some other band of fools hoping to rob our due." she says. Though her heat of the moment reflex was, oddly, to defend her allies as if it were an escort mission and not half a dozen armed and dangerous Elites, Priscilla's look grows agitated and her speech gradually hurried as the distance between them and Someone Else widens. Looking back and forth a few too many times, torn between sticking with the group and dropping the hammer on whoever is up ahead, her tail twitching like a tiger waiting in the grass, Priscilla eventually decides on the latter, and disappears again. Whatever other place she strides through on the way there, she finds the course shorter and straighter than the labyrinthine halls of the Rogue Trader's innards, with fewer crawling warp tendrils marring her path and slowing her down. Going blind through a bunch of walls isn't tremendously accurate, but she has the noise of the other group to aim for, stopping a couple of times in realspace to check her location (and splatter a couple of genestealers just before they catch on that she's there). The vault doors look absolutely massive though. Laying eyes on them from the distance of the open mouth of the access chamber, several glances up and down confirm that there doesn't seem to be any accessible weak points, and she'd rather not walk blindly through them given what could be on the other side. If there were a little more time, she'd have them demolished, but there are people already there. There's one best thing to do. "Hail, reckless fools, who hath so thought to slip into this den of suffering for whatever profit thou hope to find." Priscilla's voice echoes from nowhere, carrying perfectly well in the Gothic acoustic design of the ship. "Were thou a day earlier, perhaps thou wouldst hath done so, but such a warning left against the rulers of humanity is not a place of thine to delve and pillage. By rights, this ship belongeth to me, and its demise ordered by mine hand. Cast aside whatever notions thou hast of profiting from its crew's ill fortune, and be content in leaving with thine lives."
Starbound Flotilla	The Flotilla have suffered just about the amount you'd expect a trained team of combat minibosses to suffer in a biohazard zone, which is, a fair bit, but not horribly. The most important part is stick-and-move, which they do in spades. George's tactics, perhaps, are the most effective here. Outrun the heat, use the chaos, don't stealth so much as make it tougher to keep track of the known thing. "Gotcha-gotcha, boss." "George, keep us in motion." "Yeahyeah! Ussse explody flashbang thing!" "Affirming. Use those, and I'll charge properly!" "Secure the vault entrance!" "Aye, claim anything that heresy would take from us!" George makes use of heavy flashbang bundles to redirect the incoming monsters. They likely won't be able to take the whole of their number, but by slinging disorientation around every corner and using the noise to draw the response away, it's likely they can reach the door! Just in time to dramatically all amass, drawing their ranged weapons -- George's shotgun, Seft's pistol, Albert's grenade launcher, Pavo's swirly mag-orbs, and Biteblade's bow are all trained down the hall on the ones who might dare get to the door, each dramatically making a terribly substantial bunch of noise to punctuate Priscilla's words.
The Janitor	As Zenos tears open the Vault and the metal gives way in slow motion, horrid yellow light pours out of the cracks. Riku's assaulted by the sight as soon as he zips inside; Zenos and Priscilla will be too a moment later when the sluggish debris clears. The high-ceiling cubical chamber is lined with active stasis pods- some full, others empty and open- and decorated with the results of some grotesque ritual. The shapeshifting genestealers have drawn shimmering sigils and designs on the floor and walls in the crew's blood; several appear to have "sacrificed" themselves, tearing their bodies open with their own claws while kneeling in front of the symbols. There is an enormous crackling mound of flesh in the center of the room. As Riku enters, it uncoils itself like a snake and stands up on spindly legs, easily fifteen feet tall. It looks vaguely like the fleshy monsters seen elsewhere, but gorged on Warp energies, mutated in knobbly arthritic ridges even beyond the pale of their morphic anatomy, and adorned with three hypnotically shimmering yellow-blue wings. Its raspy voice whispers something unintelligible, its whickering tail knocks stasis pods off the walls, and it steps forwards to reveal the podium it was curled around- a delicate marble lectern, on which a mechanical tablet projecting holograms of molecular structures rests. Before anyone can think of grabbing the Panacea STC, however, the monster snatches it up in its tail, rears its head back and breathes a clinging spray of incandescent Warpfire across the floor, creating a wall of flames in front of the entrance! Whatever the creature is, it isn't one to suffer intrusion lightly. This coincides with the warp-tendrils constricting further around the cruiser, digging through rooms like a python crushing a pig's ribcage. The rapidly-accumulating swarm of genestealers nipping at the larger group's heels as they head towards the Vault aren't inconvenienced by the fell energies in the least- either they twist around the coils and snakes with prescient alacrity, or the tendrils conspiratorially avoid them. Though Staren can't cut through the warp tendrils- it's like trying to cut a stream of water- the high-energy physics are good enough at slicing the temporally-laggy hull to make shortcuts. Kirito's heroic acrobatics, and Laina's mad mustard-gas dash, end up carrying them where they need to be too. Zenos's destroying the protective airlocks with his sword has left them all in a sticky situation, however: the Warp-tainted creature's crackling fire spewing out from inside the ship's vault on one side, and a wave of two or three dozen genestealers on the other. Zenos's duplicates distract them for a few moments, aided by the visual confusion of the Flotilla's flashbangs, but that's only buying time: the wave of claws and teeth is still going to break over them any second now, and when it does, anybody might make off with the prize in the confusion.
Riku	Riku perhaps does the most annoying thing he can as Priscilla calls out and pronounces her claim: He ignores her. To be fair, it's for a good reason: The contents of the vault are very, very distracting, and unfortunately for Priscilla he's either too foolish or too brave (same thing, perhaps) to bail immediately on seeing what he has to deal with. He stares at the horrific ritual and the creature that it had summoned, his eyes widening behind the polarized glass. If this was a horror movie, this is where it would do that close up on his expression before he gets summarily murdered by the creature. Thankfully, he's not an extra. The huge creature opens its maw to blast warpfire. It scorches at Riku as he hurls himself to one side, his shadow expanding, surging into a horror of its own as the black-fleshed, golden-eyed, hollow-chested Eidolon manifests, walling off the brunt of it that would otherwise consume Riku as the flames roar and dance over the projection itself. The Heartbrand tumbles to the floor, sliding past as he... /doesn't/ immediately attack the creature. The thing is a summoned creature, being manifested by the forces of the Warp. The ritualistic markings all over the room likely have something to do with it, and so Riku attempts what might be a foolish gambit... If it doesn't work, at least. Summoning up fire of his own, the dark flames rush around him as he lashes out at the ritual markings along the floor to try to consume and destroy the markings, hoping that the creature is depending on those markings to continue to maintain a focus for the creature to remain manifested.
Laina Reliah	Laina hisses at the draconic half-breed's threat, as if ready to fight her on principle. But the beast in the vault took priority. She throws her hook at the top of the vault's doorway, flying off of the floor and planting her feet on the wall above the entrance - and more importantly, above the flames spewing from the creature's mouth. She wasn't exactly the warrior of light, but Primals were common knowledge enough for her to realize that this gigantic monster was similar in theory. The worship of the things around it had brought it into being, so destroying the ritualistic things around it should weaken it. Perhaps it would even destroy it. Laina produces another glass orb, this one filled with a green liquid, and throws it throught the billowing flames and into the vault in the direction of one of the horrid symbols and self-sacrificed genestealers she had seen in the flash just before the flames. The grenade explodes as it lands, hopefully covering the wall, floor, and sacrifices within in acid that ruins them and melts them away. If it helps Riku's idea along and the flames stop, she prepares herself to swing into the vault, her eyes locked on the STC.
Zenos yae Galvus	"Well, Lady Priscilla, threatening me with a good time?" Zenos says, with a small amount of amusement. However, he was not moved by her threat, but instead incensed by the challenge she would provide him. However, his goals are his own, until Riku strikes to make a deal with him. For a moment, he considered showing Riku his disappointment in simply avoiding a fight, but at the moment to achieve anything out of this, he would have to place his feelings on hold. The stoic, and bored expression coming over the Garlean once more as he sized up the situation. Riku was handling the ritual, so he would handle the delay action. The swords spin again, as the Ash is drawn. On either side of the hallway, he releases a torrent of flames that burn, aiming to try and either scare or incinerate those who would try and cross them. Hopefully, this delaying action would buy them time.
Starbound Flotilla	The Flotilla flick back all at once, evading the warpfire and singeing their armor as they do. Seft's the one who gives the most cover with a heavy tower shield, but that thing is quickly lit on fire and becomes, like, /super/ cursed because she didn't bless it enough or some dumb shit, so she tosses it aside, clutching a superheated arm. But here comes Zenos with a second gush of fire. The Flotilla splits and gets into cover. "By the will of the Fearless of the Concord, you shall be felled for your defiance." Moonfin says, striding out of cover and into the fire. He calmly takes the damage, heating and becoming Cooked Fish a little in order to target his blink-teleporter over Zenos' head. He intends to come slamming down katana-first and distract him, giving Priscilla and the others a moment to rush in and mix it up!!
Staren	Others are here to take the Concord's stuff! Well. Staren's not sure the Concord has legal or moral claim to the STC -- certainly, they'd happily steal it from someone else if the positions were reversed. So he's not particularly outraged at the situation. It's about money, isn't it? Riku's said the Watch will sell the medicine if they get away with it -- and the Concord has plenty of that. Better not to have to use it, but this lacks the moral imperative it otherwise might. In any case. There's a giant monster here. And plenty of others to fight it. It's not even as big as Priscilla! So Staren turns himself to the other matter: The approaching genestealers. He starts locking his targeting software onto them, choosing the best time to fire a wave of fireball missiles around the edges of the room, hopefully burning most of the monsters to a crisp! He also rolls his eyes at Moonfin's overdramatic declaration.
Kirito	Well this situation totally sucks. The Concord is falling behind... even with Priscilla herself lambasting the other intruders with threats, given the radio chatter... Kirito doubts there's a moment to waste here. Just after maneuvering his way through the hallway, Kirito skids to a halt... right upon laying eyes on the BOSS MONSTER that has seemingly grabbed their prize. Vox Unitas and Holy Sword Excaliber are brandished in unison as he plays a few dozen scenarios through his head of the outcomes of this... Most of them just aren't great. He doesn't recognize Zenos OR Riku, but one glance at either is all he needs to know they're not to be taken lightly. Riku, in fact, worries him much more. The man's build, choice of clothes, and oddly shaped gear doesn't jive well with any sort of iconic arrangement... meaning, there's no telling WHAT he's likely to pull out. This deep inside the ship, his wings don't function. This leaves him entirely bound to the floor.... but this doesn't phase the swordsman. INstead... Kirito leaps into action, DASHING STRAIGHT UP ONE OF THE WALLS and using that to gain altitude and SPRING OFF, aiming to slash the grand creature along its whole body on his way back to the ground!
Priscilla	In general, making big dramatic declarations is one of the best of very few stalling tactics there are when you arrive that late. Usually the impulse of people there for the greater good is to plead a moral or rational response to it, not hold the E button through it until the cutscene triggers and the boss music starts. It might be because there are perplexingly less of them than usual. Mostly just sort of a disconnected rabble of people in it for their own gain, and ostensibly two people arguing about who it'll help most. So, unfortunately, it doesn't really buy her any extra time. The natural thing to do instead is the opposite of a dramatic reveal to try and grab more attention, and instead just staying invisible to let the genestealers and their pet chaos monster drop all their aggro on the three embattling the horde to grab the STC. She bids Staren and the Flotilla to stay at range, ideally outside the vault doors, with a silently flashed radio signal, and then wipes out a wall of chaos flame with a wave of surreal painted frost, overwriting the area hazard with a big region of glittering glowing floorbad that causes super Frostbite status and stacking magic damage ticks. It'll probably get melted again if they care to flamethrower it a second time, but she uses the opportunity to insinuate herself into the room, lingering in the boss monster's rear arc, waiting for an opportune moment to accomplish multiple goals rather than starting a chain of getting punked.
The Janitor	The Warp-twisted abomination of a genestealer tries to shield the runes and sigils surrounding it, even painfully tanking Riku's flames with its body- but it's not enough to prevent them from being wiped out, especially in conjunction with Laina's bombs. The warp-fire choking the entryway to the room sputters out, and its wings abruptly wither and fall to fine black ash, leaving behind gaping holes in its body where the Immaterium-tainted matter was attached. Its whole body shudders and squirms as it gushes multicolored blood from the socket-holes- but it isn't done quite yet, stagger-lunging towards the offending heroes and lashing out with its quartet of floor-gouging claws. Staren's assault meets with quite respectable success- the lesser critters seem perfectly susceptible to incendiary weapons, though many of them manage to dodge the missiles and their payloads through a combination of luck and unearthly agility. Many more fail to brave Zenos's flame-walls and Priscilla's ICe Hazard Zone, but those that get through try to dogpile Staren and saw through his armor with their claws, with a smaller remainder spilling out to claw and bite at anyone else within reach! Even as they get closer to the vault, the larger Warp-beast shows no aggression towards them- perhaps they're beneath its notice, perhaps they have an understanding. It doesn't take notice of Priscilla when she slips into the room, either, whether because she's still invisible or because it has more immediately threatening things to worry about. Kirito filets the critically weakened beast like a fish, muddying the remaining rituals with its iridescent fluids. He ought to have cut its spinal cord straight down the middle, but its organs writhe like a living thing; it coils into an S shape at the last moment, ensuring he "only" bisects it. The Warp-tainted beast collapses onto the floor, its lower half spasming aimlessly and threatening to crush the STC tablet in its coils, its upper half still swaying and lashing out with the last of its strength like a furious snake! All around the Elites, the ship shudders and groans as the glowing rotting veins of blasphemous matter and energy around it convulse sympathetically, crushing the metal like a soda can and threatening to rip the entire craft in half. Enormous tears and holes pull themselves open in agonizing slow motion, letting the sickly yellow light of the Wound pour in. The Rogue Trader craft isn't long for this world, at this rate.
Laina Reliah	Yes! The moment the flames stop, Laina kicks off the wall and swings through the entrance. At the apex of her swing, the hook detaches and returns to her hand. She flings the hook out again. Over the Warp-touched abomination, past the STC, and into the wall on the other end of the vault. A pair of magitech devices on her belt whirr to life as she attaches the rope to her belt, rapidly winding the rope into a spool to propel her across the vault. The two devices let out a burst of flame, boosting her upward in midair just enough to pass over the dying monster and, hopefully, just in range of the STC. She reaches down as she passes over the very valuable blueprint, hoping to use her velocity to tear it from the thing's spasming tendrils as she passes by and keep going, using magitech magnets to land on the wall and keep her there.
Zenos yae Galvus	Zenos turns back only to watch the thing collapse. Hmph, so there is something of worth in this Riku after all, he thinks. If not physically strong, he has some mental flexibility. He can work with this...but not now, right now he must needs make sure his acquisition of the item is completed. His eyes trace multiple people are angling for the device, and the Flotilla are coming. The First of the Concord is also here... He has a plan. The Ash returns to the Sword Revolver once more, as it rotates. The Storm in his hand brings it upwards and swings a massive cutting gale towards the tail of the creature holding the STC, aiming to cut it clean off. A second gust of wind runs through the area, aiming to knock the STC straight up, right into (hopefully) Riku's awaiting hands.
Priscilla	The warp beast ignores Priscilla because she didn't engage aggro and sat around stealthed in the room waiting for an opportunity to deal with multiple threats, instead of being the one to start the three stooges chain, and hanging around its rear arc in proximity of the tail. This immediately pays off, because as soon as it starts dying, Laina, the random mercenary that Priscilla doesn't entirely know why she's here, makes a break for the STC the second it's within reach --kind of the exact specific trigger for her delayed Action. Like she had with the first ambush from the hideous, ridiculously fast genestealers, Priscilla readies herself in position for Laina's telegraphed swoop, already knowing exactly where she's going to pass over (the STC, duh), and takes a huge, arcing swing aimed directly at that point of intersection, sweeping out to nail her in the midsection with her scythe, putting a disgusting amount of force on the blade section, and then turning and using the curve to hurl her into Riku like a ball from that shitty French sport nobody plays. If necessary, Moonlight flashes out to sever a cable in the process. She then flashes the confirm light to get the Flotilla and/or Staren and/or Kirito to jump into action, because she doesn't have hands to simultaneously deflect three people and accomplish the objective, and doesn't have a guarantee of everything going exactly as she plans.
Starbound Flotilla	Confirmed. "You are relieved of the fire! STRIKE!" "Move in! Short-flank, go melee!" "Floran isss gonna SSSTAAAAAAB!" "It's time to get back at that blasphemous bastard!" "Outta the way, place is comin' apart! We gotta get this thing outta here!" "Urgent. Get moving, get moving!" Moonfin is engaging Zenos close-range with his blade. Seft surges forward on a rocket-ride, shield first, attempting to cram him between a rock and a sharp place. Pavo, who has a particular vengeful bent since the last encounter, rushes rushes in an aerial charge along the ceiling of the corridor to stab as well! Biteblade launches several massively impactful tungsten arrows before rushing in daggers-first! Albert and George... well, they're sticking back, trying to get some kind of grapple-cover and otherwise interfere with any ambushing from the other two assailants, but mostly trying to be ready to catch the doodad if it gets into Priscilla's hands and she decides to lob it at them. Either way, though, hopefully Zenos won't be snatching that thing himself, or helping the others further after that strike he just did.
Staren	Staren's plan MOSTLY works. But then he has genestealers trying to melee him. That's bad! He can blast one or two before they close with his beam cannons, but then he has to put up the forcefield. They rapidly chew through it, though, so he makes a split-second decision -- pulling a couple grenades (same type of fireball as the missiles, focused on heat rather than explosive force) out of his bag and dropping them at his feet, then dropping the field and setting them off at the same time! Hopefully that deals with the genestealers, although it leaves Staren's armor scorched all over and very hot, which could make handling the STC troublesome.
Riku	Ruining the circle works just as he'd hoped. The actions of the other mercenary in the room are nice. He might have to remember that one for the future. In the meantime, however, he has other problems to deal with. The Warp-Beast isn't entirely down, and the thing tries to claw him apart while it's still in this reality. Riku's blade flashes up, trying to deflect the attack by knocking the claw off course while he bends in an absurd way to move most of his mass out of the way. He's partially successful, the claws ripping along his flesh and opening some painful-looking surface wounds before he tumbles away. The creature, at that point, gets the focused attention of those present, and dies. Riku immediately holds out a hand, shadows stirring around him to grab the STC as it flies through the air, but before he knows it not only does he not have it, the one who does is promptly getting hella smashed and sent crashing straight into him, sending him sprawling rather ungracefully for a change with a mercenary on top of him. This brings up an important point. He assumed she was with the Concord. The fact that she was attacked means she isn't, Priscilla wouldn't have done so if she was working under Priscilla's orders. There is a quick proposal over the radio. Not enough time for anything fancier. She accepts. Riku twists, sliding out from beneath her and kipping up to his feet before pulling Laina against him without so much a a by your leave. "Let's go." He says, looking up through one of the slowly opening rents in the ship and holding up a free hand in that direction... and he pulls her backwards into a black portal that opens behind her, the pair falling into the darkness. If anyone looks at where he pointed, they might see the other side open up there, spitting the pair back out outside the ship after a second. The good news: They're outside the ship. The bad news: They're outside the ship and they're being chased by a large number of angry Concord, including several who are fully space operable. But it's an improvement from being inside, at least, right? Riku slams down towards a non-burning section of the hull and begins running along with Laina, trying to get far enough away to make an exit. "MOVE MOVE MOVE!"
The Janitor	Staren's quick thinking bears fruit- the genestealers are so focused on bringing him down that they don't even seem to notice when he drops the grenades. Most of them are more or less crisped instantly, crumpling up like dead insects, while a couple roll around on the floor for a few moments before expiring! The remaining blips on the ship are far enough away now to not be an immediate concern. What is an immediate concern is the ship's entire structure beginning to give way under the constricting ligatures of hellish energy and rotting flesh. Under all the abuse, it finally cracks with a deafening shriek, tearing cleanly in half as the small rifts around the vault-room open into gaping chasms. The profane flaxen light of the Wound spills into the chamber, bringing with it creeping malice and elemental unwellness- and an open pursuit route. But at this point, chasing Riku is a daunting task- even if it weren't for the still-hostile beast in its death throes, lashing out at anyone nearby even after being bisected by Zenos's formidable blow. It'd be easy enough to euthanize the Warp-beast or simply leave it to die, but for the next few moments, it's still an immediate roadblock. Up in the 'sky' above, the back half of the Rogue Trader "Damascene" breaks off and is lifted high into space by the enormous veins of whatever heart lurks within the naval station, slowly crushed into pieces as it spills time-frozen crewmembers, vile monsters, and foreign trinkets into the void. The gibbering pink daemons swarm into the two open halves, getting into intermittent skirmishes with the genestealers that threaten to break out into open war at any moment. One way or another, now is likely a good time to take one's leave.
Kirito	Kirito's blades are great at slaying monsters! It's his specialty. This isn't the first time they've been carving through some strange supernatural horror he's never heard of... but it's never a fun time, those things. He hits the ground skidding, spinning about to slow himself through sheer drag and reverse course as chunks of the beast smack into the floor and-- And the STC becomes hotly contested in an instant. Kirito's thoughts accelerate as he spots Riku and Laina. Some desperation strikes and urges him onwards. With a ferocious roar he flares out his wings - despite being INDOORS - and uses one of his three seconds to pull off a SPECTACULAR act of chicanery. He goes from zero to WOAHCRAP in an INSTANT, wings flattening to his back and a thunderous SHOCKWAVE rippling through the air in his wake. He's hoping to tackle the pair away from that portal but-- It would've worked if, perhaps, he had one more second warning. Instead, he crosses through the dregs of Riku's closing portal and --- "---UWAAAGH!!!" It's... not pretty. Kirito SLAMS hard into the chamber walls with a resounding CRASH-WHUMPF, and slides down to the ground woozily rubbing his everything. Then, though, with the ENTIRE ship tearing itself apart... Kirito is once again exposed to the light of the outdoors, and his wings glitter with renewed vibrance. "Khhhhhh... fine then. The chase is ON!" The Black Swordsman's eager to get the HELL out of here, and with the ship breaking up he flares up his wings to maximum vibration and SWOOPS with the kind of agility and turn-on-a-dime maneuvering iconic of the dragonfly that his wings most resemble. As soon as he has AT ALL any kind of straightaway, he once again SNAP-whooshes those wings for all they've got, taking off with enough force that it requires a dramatic FWOOOOOOOOOSH to mark the feat.