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Arthur Lowell	Arthur Lowell has asked people to join him at an unremarkable location in a desert in the middle of the Layered Deeps -- somewhere that Earth-413 was re-located to following the multiversal reorganization. This would be somewhere around the old American Midwest, in what used to be an isolated forest. Here, a number of Arthur's small weird bipedal iguanas have excavated a large, highly secure hatch, though it appears to be quite battered. Among the excavated sand and simple excavation equipment, chunks of buried civilization -- bits of above-ground structures obliterated by unknown means -- have sat decaying for nearly eight years. A piece of wall can be found, still bearing worn graffiti, simply declaring in stylized typography: "SKY IS FALLING". A colorful three-prong trident stabs through the text, with sharp, bright crimson lines.     The desert heat is cooled, recently having reached the early evening due to the winter season -- or is that an unnerving chill in the spine? There's not much in this world right now besides scattered settlements, the closest of which is hundreds of miles away, but the warpgate nearby, where a train station stood eight years ago, still works perfectly.     Look close: A piece of the train can be seen, buried in the sand.     Arthur greets each person at the hatch in his traditional manner: A cool-kid handshake, designed for their hands and for their apparent nature. Daps, pounds, bumps, low-fives, weird elbow hooks, finger-wiggly-things, all kinds of stuff. And then he leads them inside. We don't wanna shit around waiting for the doors to open or for everyone to follow along a linear path after all.     SECURITY LOBBY C is large, sweeping, and tall. Its geometries are high and vaulted, and its overall silhouettes are influenced strongly by Beaux Arts era architecture through a Modernist perspective. Vending machines line one of the walls, displaying the colorful brands "JACK NOIR'S STASH", "SOFTMESH!", "LUDORIUM", and "INTERFACES 4 U". There are a multitude of "windows", seemingly displaying some sort of pseudo-holographic vista of an above-ground daylit city outside and behind the window, despite everything being underground. Seating can be found here, clearly meant for people to wait for some appointment or another with the various magazines on the desk. It's near an unlit elevator that is marked "INOPERABLE GEOMETRY", presumably meant to lead up to whatever structure was once above.     A pumpkin-sized meteor sits in the lobby at rest in a pile of water and sand, looking for all the world like it just belongs there, despite the fact it punched through the ceiling. One of the windows has been blown up and removed from the wall, revealing weird crawlspaces behind. There are a few battered, small bits of robotics about. A lot of fighting went on in here. Two corpses that appear to be near-identical duplicates of Big Boss are sitting behind the security desk, not decaying a bit, while a third stands there, waiting. He has stood there for days and days. One can see him struggling to stay upright. The back of his head, from the top of his forehead to the base of his neck, is exposed, leaving his skull visible, protected only by a thin wireframe.     He stares at visitors. He does not act unless approached. Someone placed brass poles and velvet rope around the corpses and chunked robotics though, and left up an apologetic sign: "/!\ PARDON OUR MEMORY LEAK /!\".
Arthur Lowell	The main walls, floors, and ceilings are concrete, composed of a grid of blocks or perhaps panels like tile, with every third block featuring a simple square buzzing lamp. Each cell of the grid is marked "1X1M SOLID GEOMETRY FLOOR TEXTURE" or "1X1M SOLID GEOMETRY WALL TEXTURE", repeated constantly. All the main architecture surfaces are a flat, dull gray. At the top of one of the walls, strict, blocky text has been painted on in large fonts declares the room's various aspects: "-9.8M/S^2 'SAFE' GRAVITY ZONE", "DATA NON-DUMP INSTANCE, MEMORY RECYCLING", and "UNSUPERVISED LUDOGENICS PROHIBITED".     Arthur invites the visitors, old and new, to join him in one of the elevators in the elevator-hall, the only one that works right now. The buttons therein say: LUDOGENESIS DEVELOPMENT, ECTOBIOLOGY, APPEARIFICATION, and BETA LUDOGENICS. But instead of pressing LUDOGENICS, Arthur invites the others to join him in LUDOGENESIS. When the button is pressed, the lights of the elevator go dark -- and those within are in a new Instance!     Once he's there though, the nature of this floor becomes more concerning. Dozens, no, maybe hundreds of offices can be found here. Huge skyscraper-like constructions ringed with row upon row of balconies overlook wide streets. More of those holographic pseudo-windows line sections of the ceiling, making it look like this place has a sky. An entire underground city? It might be, but it looks more like an office-space became cancerous, and began to grow, more and more and more, into a spatial tumor that now expands almost as far as the eye can see. Every building is used to store more workspace, but every workstation seems to have once been used. There are even vehicles down here, old Skaianet-marked smart-cars clearly meant for navigating long, long underground stretches of concrete.     A large, rather scrappy craft, something maybe the size of a small warship, made out of deep, purple-tinged obsidian-like substance, is lodged partway through one of the walls. It looks like an airship, or maybe a spacecraft, but it has been hastily fitted with dozens, maybe hundreds of drilling modules, explaining why it has gotten down here, so far underground. A chunk of this underground space has been knocked apart by it shoving its bow through a wall. Absolutely massive, thick wiring has been threaded up to its body.     NULLBODIES, odd humanoid shapes of varying RED, GREEN, or BLUE colors with full-body wireframe where skin ought to be -- that is, not SKULLBODIES seen before -- are found around the streets. Most are at the desks, working away at something with a palpable sense of nervousness. Areas have been redesigned into ad-hoc field hospitals where wounded Nullbodies can be seen receiving care from other unspeaking Nullbodies. Some Nullbodies are hard at work repairing sections of the structure that have been broken. And Nullbodies with odd black or white geometric heavy armor, with strange crystaline weapons of all sorts, both modern melee and modern ranged sorts, are nervously eyeing the ship on patrols. Their formations make it clear that they're there to guard from something that comes from that vessel.     The Nullbodies don't respond to the new visitors except in the most bland, silent ways like briefly waving, unlike the Skullbodies. The ship is either a long walk or a shortish drive or fly away, and the cars seem unused. How might the gang approach, should they choose to?
Roxas	Roxas arrives with a more nonverbally eloquent handshake than before, which involves the use of unfortunately (but innocently) grotesque items, beginning with a BOMB ARM, which contrary to what you might expect of an RPG item is absolutely the severed arm of a small, spherical little bastard whose gimmick is to self-destruct. The entire handshake is a complicated sequence of handshakes, fistbumps, and on one occasion more like a fist-wrap with a malboro tentacle, which is immediately followed up by the usage of either a restorative item or a restorative piece of magic. By the end of it, the cultist-looking young man has expended thousands of munny worth of uncommon to rare items and a not-inconsiderable amount of MP for the sole purpose of sequentially inflicting every status effect known to man on Arthur as a part of a handshake and immediately making it go away with the next move. Somebody somewhere is screaming in agony at the usage of an Elixir for this purpose. In response to Majima's 'complaint', he asides, "It's okay. If you think about it, every day of your life is that thing exactly! You're walking from episode to episode, and other people happen to be walking into your episode too. They have no idea what's going on or what might be coming, and neither do you." Once they're back down at Ludogenics, Roxas positively gapes at it all. "U-um... did this... did this /look/ like this before?" He asks, uncertainly.
Majima Goro	"...This is somethin'." Majima's got nothing else, really. This is a desert with a bunch of weird iguana dudes, as a starters. He ends up sort of awkwardly bowing when Arthur tries to shake his hand. Possibly then trying to shake Arthur's hand when he bows. Limitless comedy potential. "...ya know, I once tried ta watch a soap opera, right? Came right into the middle of it," He looks around the lobby, dusting off his jacket. "...And there's this real feelin' ya missed somethin' important, right? Yeah." He closes his eye. "..Yeah, this is definitely that feelin'." And so he's lead to an elevator. The elevator buttons are all, in fact, nonsensical bullshit. He's pretty sure there are only two words on that list that are real words, and they aren't both on the same line. "..Kid, whatever that meant, I'm /sure/ you're completely wrong." To demonstrate, he waves his arm towards the people that are actually wireframes. To the sky that is inside the building, because /sir pardon me/. His initial violent impulses are tempered only by everyone else not immediately rushing to start beating the weird office goons to a pulp. "...Wait. Didn't we already deal with the weird, unassumin' creepy office guys? Wasn't that that whole thing ol' George and Doctor Strange were big on?"
Big Boss	As the group approach, Big Boss, the real one, heads straight for the elevator. He doesn't need to screw around in this upper floor. He's armed with a rifle, and instead of the suitcase, he's got a more proper case full of even more missiles to fire out of his missile launcher, strapped to his back. Once at Ludogenics, he walks. It's a long walk, but it's good exercise, and he can keep a good pace. It also prevents them from getting ambushed by anything inside corridors or cubicles by going too fast. Once he reaches the ship, Big Boss will look for a hatch or something similar so he can investigate further. As the others do their handshakes and speeches, Big Boss speaks into his comm during the walk. <"Be careful. This place is dangerous.">
Sumiko	Mikoto shows up, and when prompted to skip the Cool Kid Minigame, she opts to NOT skip it and gets into a rhythm-based game featuring all of the cool kid hand jives, as well as the combination jives.  Needless to say, Mikoto does better this time around!   She does the normal following, walking beside the groups. Then when they get to the vending machine, she picks up a LUDORIUM soft drink this time around, because she's going to try each and every one of them, and then rate them on a Tier list on the Internet.  It's a new rage, apparently! As they spread out into the new area, Mikoto looks around.  It reminds her of Tokyo in the way that any large city would.  Looking around, she spots the Nullbodies.  "Ok, so where is this factory so we can crime it."
Alexis	A handshake and fist pump is plenty of greeting for Alexis' rugged nature, rapping knuckles against Arthur's as she's passing through the hatch. The Trainer takes a few steps in and stops to look around, whistling softly. "So.. is the place suppose to look like The End Of The World As We Know It or is this an effect of the data pirating?" Eyes the chunk of space rock lying in middle of the lobby a moment. Huh. Reminds her of Meteor Falls. And a sign.. Well, someone's polite to give a warning at least. Eventually one of her pokeballs cracks itself open and a burst of light deposits her Meowstic at her side. The psionic cat-like creature turns her own head to look around, and then throws her arms in the air in a slightly more excited manner than her usual morbid amusement. ~"Finally! You have found a properly delightfully delapitated disaster zone for a vacation spot!"~ Alexis sighs, and grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck to drag her along to the elevator with everyone else. "Don't make this more morbid than it already is, Catalyst." The new 'level' does that well enough on its own, with the cavernous office space and the massive ship wedged partway into the wall/stage boundries. The later which gets Alexis' attention. "I take it that's not suppose to be there." She grabs a different pokeball and gives it a flick, releasing a avian with flame-like details in her plumage, and points towards the ship wreckage. "Go take a look for us, Windburn." The Talonflame mimics a saluting gesture with one wing, and then takes off, making haste towards the wreckage. Hopefully nothing will want to mess with a flame-powered peregrine falcon and she can scope out the site while the others are approaching.
Deelel	If Arthur called? Deelel would answer without pause of hesitation she would drop what she was doing and go. Such as now the moment he had put the call out over the radio? She had dropped her current art project. So here she was arriving via a small light jet and she'll end up coming to set down near Arthur. Her craft dissolves into wireframes save for a rod. Deelel grabs the rod and slaps to her leg. "Greetings Arthur." She tilts her head and high fives Arthur when he does so and with that out of the way she looks ready to move out. She follows Arthur as he leads them deeper in she'll pile into the lifts and she makes note of any notable thing they pass. She pauses for a moment at the ship. "A Derse craft? I shouldn't be shocked at this point." She notes she will move to help Big Boss look for a way into it. "Lets what we can find."
Staren	"It's alright, Majima." Staren explains. "We're here to get the Multiverse a present. A cool new game to play or something. Just go in the direction Arthur points you and break anything that gets in your way."     They ride to LUDOGENESIS. "The floor is an /entire city/?" Staren walks out to a balcony, or at least a good window, to take a look around.     And then they find the ~~FIGHTING POLYGON TEAM~~ nullbodies about their business. "How long ago did this happen?" Staren asks the nullbody, but recieves only a null response.     Staren looks to Arthur. "So what's the next step in getting the game working? I'm... a bit at a loss as to how this floor full of office workers is connected to it."
Xion	It's daunting to approach Arthur again, what with his SALUTATION METER. Doing it all over again -- that's too much! But she can't just leave him hanging! But this time Roxas goes all out, leaving Xion with a wave and a black-gloved high five. "Hiya!" On into the foyer they go. The roped-off reception area gets a curious look, and she gives another wave towards the 'Big Boss' at the table, what with his skull opened up. She does not, however, cast any curative magic at him. She remembers that being Bad for previous weird zombie people, and not causing harm to passive existances is a net good in her book. Being zipped down to another instance is pretty jarring, though, and Xion stumbles out with an oddly woozy look into-- "Wooooooooooow! It's so huge! And drill-y! And look at all the people! What are they working on?" Xion immediately goes on to inspect what the hard-at-work bodies are slaving away on. "Is it a new map?"
Lezard Valeth	Lezard once more returns to the scene of the crime. It's not his crime, for once, which is a novel situation. He provides the customary attempt at a greeting with Arthur, but as Lezard has not invested any points into the COOLKID sub-specialization, so his response is mediocre as always.     Greetings aside, they are brought to this new space, and Lezard looks things over with a certain disapproval in general. "What kind of ridiculous construction is this?" He asks no one in particular. Without a whole lot to go on, Lezard simply interprets the obvious situation in the most direct manner possible. With a hissing of light, a teleportation circle forms below him...     And he appears beside the obsidian ship. He produces the Manus Catalyst, raising it high and simply ramming it into the side of the ship several times. "Stand forth at once, interloper, and explain your intrusion." He ignores the NULLBODIES unless they cause him trouble.
Tohru Adachi	Adachi surprisingly plays along with Arthur's Cool Kid Handshake as he's greeted, coming off strongly as some sort of clumsy goof as he fails spectacularly at it and apologizes before getting to the meat of the matter. This whole Skaianet thing, to be precise. Not because he has any real vested interest in solving the problem, but because it seemed vaguely interesting, and he's already tired of his cheap apartment room.      There's a whole bunch of WORDS and THINGS that mean very little to Adachi, before and after entering the elevator. He does to memorize them to the best of his ability, though they all seem pretty boring and maybe not important as far as he can tell.      The weird cancer office space amalgamation thing is actively more interesting though, actually getting Adachi to joke out loud.      "Huh. You know, people like to complain online about big corporations and how they consume everything, but I didn't think they meant it literally!"      He also notices the Nullbodies, which after a bit of nervous chin rubbing, he finally works up the courage to approach one of the less armed ones in an attempt to offer a handshake. Not because he thinks it'll work, but because he wants to see its reaction.      "Hey bud, Tohru Adachi, former police detective. How can we help ya?"
Mauve Gauntlet	Mauve fistbumps Arthur again, this time less tenatvely, and with a bit more force to it. "H-hello!" she says, before heading into the building with the others. This place looks...unfinished, what with the 'placeholdery' textures everywhere, and the wireframe people working away at their desks. Oh, and the basically copy pasted city. Well, at least they're a little less freaky than the Skullbodies. Mauve grapple gauntelts her way to the ship, landing on top of it. She looks around, and then moves to look for a door to its interior, if there's any.
Linehart	The ominous boss music of the Mirror Knight is the first and only sign that he's here before he arrives. He just sort of emerges out of one of the reflective windows, appearing in all his seven-foot-tall, smoke-trail cape, black-armored glory, the red-cross scar visor glowing an eerie red. He pauses at Arthur, and the ominous boss music turns vaguely comedic and confused, with organ grinding and whimsical circus-y beats and tones.      The Knight says nothing as he attempts to reciprocate this, and fails. He continues to say nothing as his music reasserts itself; the huge knight simply follows, silent, even in his footsteps. It's more than a little weird how he doesn't really clang or clank as he goes! Then again, the music appears to be permanently on, so it's not like he's *stealthy*, either.      He just follows the party for the moment, silent and disinterested.      Linehart stops next to one of the Nullbodies. He can't tell what they're doing, but there's a moment as his music turns contemplative and he watches them work, a great black shadow looming over them. Then the music returns to its normal ominousness, and he passes them by, cloak trailing behind him.      Linehart diverts from the path when he notices the various structures. It's not that he's not going to come help - it's that he knows that dead ends often hold treasure, and it's best if he investigates them, because it's also the best way to avoid further conflict with Lezard Valeth at the moment. Besides, if there's an emergency, he can just...come out of any reflective surface near the party.
Arthur Lowell	Roxas has done an absolutely fucking AMAZING handshake, which immediately multiplies every social gain he'll have with Arthur tonight, and means Xion isn't leaving him hanging! Majima's clumsiness is something Arthur's used to, in that almost nobody bothers to keep up with his bullshit generally. Mikoto does actually get a rhythm game interface; Arthur cannot share much of his gamey nature, but the interface for at least this? Certainly. Really, Lezard? Power to rival the gods and that's the best cool handshake you can make? Gotta work on the /real/ kind of power. Adachi tries his /apparent/ best, which is good enough for Arthur! Mauve's minor improvements get a bright and wide grin from Arthur! He seems quite happy about that. And Linehart... Linehart, he'll have to work on. You know, later, sometime when he can guide him through the little minigame.     "Never checked. But I heard enough rumbling to pin down where it was comin' from when I was looking for the map. It's gotta been recent. Might'a been things settling into place or something." Arthur says to Roxas and Staren, pressing most of the features of his face into a frustrated frown. "The Nullbodies ain't our problem." He assures Majima. "Think so, anyway. Try not to get too close. It's the Skullbodies that were the issue, like corpsey upstairs." Deelel points out the nature of the craft. "Well shit." Arthur mutters. "Haven't seen one of those Derse ships in... fuckin' forever, really. They were supposed to all have got taken apart after the war, but a lot got marked MIA after the Reckoning."     He jabs his broom towards the ship. "THAT," He says. "Is fuckin' with my CONNECTIONS. The NULLBODIES down here, I'm pretty sure they're tryin' to get that MAP goin'. But THESE FUCKS are POACHING MY DATA." Arthur practically spits with contempt. "We gotta KICK THE BASTARDS OUT." Xion's hunch was right, as she and Linehart observe their work. Many of them are hard at work on pieces of something, parsing through seemingly infinite data to try to find key pieces to amass into some kind of larger thing. Bits she can see have odd names. "PASTORAL PASTURES", for example. "SKYLAND" can be seen. "STELLAR SEA". "BLASTED BADLANDS", "CEDAR COPSE", "URBAN JUNGLE", "DEATHWORLD MEADOWS"... Names like this go on and on, at least until the machine crashes due to having its entire hard-drive spun apart by a rapid data-rip.
Arthur Lowell	Lezard teleports right to the side and knocks on its surface. One of the massive turrets on the side spins towards him with unnerving speed, and blasts a spray of energy meant to kill small ships. Big Boss searches in a more paced way, and looks for a hatch inside. There is one, it looks like, though he'll have to ascend one of the smaller buildings to get at it. He finds it's guarded, though. Several strange insectoid humanoids surround it, mostly black and a few white, using a variety of old, somewhat busted-looking futuristic weapons, and hand-crafted muzzle-loaded firearms. Others hold old, regal-looking swords in black or white. They have rags for clothes, but a few pieces of thick, heavy black and white armor mark their bodies. They have the look of chess pieces. Terribly similar to the one Mauve Gauntlet finds, nearer the top. Does she approach in cover, or not?     Adachi pokes at one of the Nullbodies. His response: "Hello world!" Not much else from these guys. They're not all there. The longer one spends in their near vicinity, the worse it feels. Something odd is off about them. They're right, here, but they're not right to have others near them.     Moving around the structures interacts strangely. There are no... chests, per se, for Linehart to open. Certain computers are left un-worked-on and un-guarded, and he can walk up to them. And if his game is just exactly right for the interaction, for some reason he receives... something from them. They are marked "UNITS", but the active sabotage occasionally yanks them back out of his inventory. UNITS such as "Danger-Fraught Factory", or "Agitated Agent", "Archaic Archbehemoth" enter the inventory and can be briefly seen before the ongoing sabotage sends them away.     Arthur blasts off towards the ship on his ROCKET BROOM, opening fire with energy blasts immediately, shouting something to the effect that they should fuck off, except with much, much more rude wording.
Staren	Staren wants to get into the ship, but the carapacians(???) are just too tempting a target. Staren considers an approach...     A grenade sails over the cube farm and lands in the midst of the carapacians, and then explodes into... smoke! Staren charges into said smoke and lobs more grenades OUT of it at their attackers. These explode into plasma!     Rather than sticking around to see how they solve the smoke, though, Staren tries to move on further and team up with Big Boss.
Arthur Lowell	As for Alexis' scouting? There's lots of openings, plenty of connection points, but it's all guarded. Humanoids, many black and some white, all draped in rags years old or more, are guarding entrances to the thing with arms and armor. Their work is determined and militaristic in nature, organized and having the look of an old platoon in action. Nullbody corpses can be found throughout the areas nearest the ship. Areas further on have been ababdoned by the workers.
Majima Goro	Good News: While every part of this adventure is inscrutable and no doubt would require him to understand a reproductive system/culture of an alien species that probably involves tarot cards or something, this particular part of it does not. It just requires punching. Bad News: He's got to break onto a spaceship. Pardon? Majima is not particularly stealthy. He also doesn't have to find a hatch, though, on account of Big Boss finding the way in, and Staren providing cover. So what assumes are a sea of black Carapacians are going to find a man removing his jacket in one smooth fling, knife between his teeth. "NEEEEEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHA!" He calls out. He may even draw aggro off of Big Boss, taking a widened stance with knees bent low, back arched and arms spread. Yeah, he's probably tanking this encounter. This may or may not be a good idea.
Sumiko	Things almost immediately explode!  What is she going to do?  Well obviously, jump right into the thick of things!  First thing's first, a turret is opening right up on Lezard.  While he could probably take care of it, it's best that he uses his magic on full offense.  A portal opens up behind her and then opens up in front of Lezard.  Appearing right there... The blade dances as the shots come for him, aiming to deflect bullets by cutting through them with the force of her jade sword as they come through, splitting them in just a way that they'll split in half and completely avoid Lezard.   She ducks and thrusts her blade down so that a large jade spike attempts to tear up underneath the weapon, and try and tear it off the ship. "Hey Lezard, got a plan?"
Roxas	Roxas spends a little while listening to what's being said about the ship and the people guarding it before he takes action. He pulls his hood down and meanders along the border of it, raising both hands in the universal gesture of -- if not surrender -- at least 'I'm not here to cause trouble'. He approaches one of the numerous guarded entrances of the ship, looking deeply confused. He doesn't really know carapaces, or the circumstances behind the politics surrounding them. But they're people enough that he's uncomfortable approaching it like a bunch of Heartless. "Um, excuse me!" He calls as he approaches, "What is it that you want here? We've been working on this place for a little while, so maybe what we want to do is compatible?" Always try to build bridges instead of burning them down. That's why the Organization dispersed people into /all/ of the major factions of this Sector.
Linehart	Intriguing. Especially that something can mess with his inventory. Linehart watches the items enter it, then leave it, then enter it, then leave it, the strange cycle of events keeping his attention occupied. He listens to the radio and makes a decision.      Linehart sticks his hand into the reflective screen.      A second Linehart pulls itself free. The first Linehart, the original, disappears into the screen, reappearing amidst the chaos of the Carapacian boss battle.      The second Linehart sits down at one of the computer screens and opens his inventory.                                  YESTERDAY                                        A woman is crying in the foyer of an old wooden house. It looks more like the reception area for an office than a foyer, now, despite the sweeping stairs and the chandelier; there's a desk, some chairs, a pair of waiting couches, and two big doors with OFFICE written on them.      The woman is embracing her son, tightly, and smiling. Her tears are tears of joy.      Sitting at the desk is the ghost of a cute, maybe-early-twenties girl. She's transparent, though apparently not immaterial, as she handles a book with a bloodstain on it. "So how'd you know who the kidnapper was?" she asks.      The tall black figure in armor simply points at the book. The ghost opens the book, looks down, and sighs. "Seriously? He wrote his name in it? What an idiot."      The black figure nods. The ghost shrugs and hands him the book. "I guess he doesn't need this anymore, does he? That'll teach him to trick kids over the internet."      The black figure turns and disappears into the black room.                                  RIGHT NOW                                        The second Linehart sets a blood-splattered book on the table, opens it, and begins to type furiously.      The book reads HACKING FOR DUMMIES.      Meanwhile, the original Linehart emerges from Lezard Valeth's glasses, moving to stand at the forefront and be a big menacing target with big menacing music for the monsters to attack. A textbox pops up. I am Linehart, the Mirror Knight. My Sphere is Evil Knight. Cease your attack and we may yet find peaceful solution; continue, and know that this dark spear shall be your doom.
Alexis	Welp, Arthur confirming it doesn't belong here is enough for Alexis. She reachs into her Trainer Bag of Holding to pull out a pair of binoculars and use them to look towards the ship. She watchs her Talonflame make a pass, then flap her wings to stop and hover, pointing with one of her talons. Alexis shifts her view down in that direction, spotting the forms working about the connection points. Are those connecting to the rest of the level? Part of how they're stealing the data? Good enough of an assumption for her. Then she mutters about Meowstic not being the sort of Psychic that can teleport, and hoists the feline onto her shoulder. "Keep a psionic eye out for more danger." Then grabs a different pokeball and tosses it to bring out her Charizard. Immeadiately jumps on his back and grabs the bases of his wings for brace herself. "We need to get up there, and fast. Use Dragon Dance and book it." "Charrr!" A beat of wings and thrust of legs is enough to propel the dragonesque beast into the air, increasing both his speed to get there, and charging up his offensive strength for their eventual arrival in the fray. Even flying it's going to take them a few minutes to catch to the ship's location, so Alexis holds up a finger and makes a commanding gesture with it, knowing that the exceptional avian eyesight of her pokemon will be able to see it. Indeed she does, and Windburn flaps out of her hover to loop over and lunge back towards one of the connection worksites on the exterior of the ship. As she does so the Talonflame spreads her wings, her entire body glowing with intense heat. To the point as she divebombs over the site Windburn lives up to her name, releasing the building thermal energy as a blistering Heat Wave in her wake cross the connection site and it's workers.
Deelel	Deelel humms to Arthur about the fate of the army of Derse post-war. "Likely it must have got thrown somewhere and I bet more than a few crews went screw this and set out for the multiverse at large." She'll keep working to find a way in for the moment even as memories of the Reckoning come back to her. She shrugs that off as things are demanding her attention as they come up to what appears to be Capricans from the looks of it. Vets of the old war she'd wager and she'll take a deep breath as she's going to try to talk here. Well that was the plan before Arthur bump rushes them and Deelel thinks if that's the cause they may be holdout remnants who didn't want to stand down. Then she pauses wait white and black ones working together. "ARTHUR! THEY FROM BOTH FACTIONS! WHAT'S GOING ON?!" She doesn't engage just yet trying one last desperate attempt to find out what the hell is going on with this. There are high odds though that Arthur knows something she does not.
Tohru Adachi	Adachi rolls his eyes in annoyance, his friendly demeanor disappearing as he lightly shoves the Nullbody out of the way as he makes his way towards the ship. There's an odd sort of calm as he casually pulls out a revolver, spinning the cylinder for dramatic effect.      "Alright kiddos. Cover your ears, cause ol' Adachi is gonna make some noise."      There's an odd aura that engulfs the ex-police officer as he grabs part of his face with his free hand, his face twisting in what appears to be discomfort before calling out.      "MANGLE THEM, MAGATSU-IZANAGI!"      Something 'breaks' behind them like broken glass, as a red figure emerges. It feels wrong. It is a warrior dyed deep in crimson, wielding a massive spear. Weird swirls and veins cover the persona all over, ruining what would otherwise appear to be a somewhat noble looking figure.      Magatsu-Izanagi leans back, its arms outstretched as it lets out a scream. It's a very unpleasant scream, a scream that pierces the mind, that forces terror. Luckily for everyone here, it seems more directed at the weird bug-like men than Arthur and his cohorts.
Big Boss	As Big Boss reaches and finds the hatch, he finds he'll have to ascend a building. He can do that. But the problem is, once he climbs to the top, he finds guards. Carapacians. And they're armed. The rifle is immediately grabbed. The fact that the turret fires on Lezard means he must be cautious and ready, but... Linehart needs diplomacy in order to get to work. Big Boss grunts, and moves forward, slowly. He moves the rifle away from hostile position, and approaches. He speaks first. "Hello. I am Big Boss. I come in peace." If this starts negotiations, great! If not, he's probably going to get shot before he can shoot first.
Lezard Valeth	Lezard takes the direct approach and gets a direct answer. I mean, how much more direct of a 'screw off' can you get than a turrent turning and attempting to literally paste him with ship-caliber weaponry?     Lezard prepares to defend himself, but Mikoto immediately moves to take the shot for him instead. He'll have to remember that. Assistance deserves repayment, after all. The Evil Knight appearing out of his glasses is becoming a disturbingly common issue. He scowls at the back of Linehart, but the Mirror Knight seems to not only have survived but is taking the wise course of not directing his aggression at Lezard again. Acceptable.     In the meantime, however, there is the matter of the turret. "LIGHTNING BOLT!" Lezard announces, a flash of thunder cracking the sky as a massive blast of electricity strikes downwards onto the offending emplacement. Who knows how useful it will be, but Lezard is if nothing else a giant well of brute force sorcerous might.     Besides, everything here seems to be allergic to meteors, and he has /that/ option if all else fails.
Xion	A map of places. Of things! Of MYSTERIES! But as they produce, the strange purple ship TAKES. It's odd in the way that many things are odd to Xion - she just doesn't understand the context of the action - the need. She understands the desire just fine, but -- "It's wrong, isn't it? It's fine to want something, to copy something - but if you just take it as it's being made, then nobody gets it! They're making it for everyone!" Xion looks up at the ship being pelted by lightning bolts and mirror knights and Mangetsu-Izanagi. She looks up at Roxas, trying to understand. "It's Christmas, though -- you can't look at your presents early!" Reaching out with both hands from the deck below, Xion hops, skips, jumps, and double-flips up to one of the drills, pressing gloved fingers against the bit. "Why do you... want all this stuff?" She asks, and extends her desirous consciousness out and into the ship.
Arthur Lowell	Majima and Linehart engage with this in a tanking sense, drawing the attention to themselves. As guards move into action, Majima is engaged primarily by the ones wielding the strange old REGISWORDS. Hungry, angry, aggressive insect men and women trying to stab him with those big blades! Linehart is the one who has to deal with most of the rush-down aggressive blasts from flintlock and robo-future weapons alike, blasting towards him with hefty bullets and energy. Mikoto goes to take on the heavier weapons, averting their damage, and winds up ripping that turret clean off after Lezard's lightning disables all its assorted active defenses.     Big Boss manages a clean disarm, though the one disarmed immediately goes for a little hand-crafted shiv made out of busted plate metal. He shivers and steps back, anxiously, as terror from Adachi's Persona pierces his heart, his hands shaking around the shiv -- many of the others are thus affected. There are only four Carapacian fighters who are not badly debuffed.     As the ship rumbles while emplacements move, the HACKING FOR DUMMIES effort does get Linehart what he was after. Specifically, while it can't stop the theft, it can find the connections that need to be severed specifically, which is information he might be able to use to help out Alexis in her own efforts. She's heading towards the links, and working to undo them in a divebombing way. Though she'll have to deal with the dangerous small arms and large ship fire blasted in her direction.     Four insect-like men stride to the fore of the ship, wrapped in rags. A tall, thin, agile-looking DANGEROUS DRIFTER, a massive tower of a HATEFUL BUTCHER, and a sneaky, stout COOPERATIVE DEPUTY flank all sides of a SCURRILOUS STRAGGLER -- a man named JACK NOIR. The HATEFUL BUTCHER seems particularly scarred; old robotics mark his body, and old signs of a pitched spear battle puncture his form. Jack Noir speaks up, responding to those attempting diplomacy.
Arthur Lowell	Xion examines things in a pseudo-psychometric sense. What she finds as the intention of this expedition is... strange. A city -- deep and black as night -- stretches for miles, as far as the eye can see. It bleeds pain along its alleyways. A Queen is dead, somewhere. It took work, unthinkable volumes of work to kill her, but it has been done. The city is build on the bones of a new frontier, pierced to kill her at the heart of her power.
Majima Goro	The knife is in Majima's hand the moment his opponents make their opinions known. First, an overhead swing. Majima's knife goes up, barely parrying it. Then, a second one swings horizontally, and Majima slides away, knife letting the overhead swing from one smash into the horizontal from another. The knife is thrown up into the air, and Majima now uses his free hands to grab another Carapacian by the head, pull him forward, and headbutt. He drops down beneath another sword swing, leg kicking out to sweep, and then finally flips up to kick... His own knife. Directly into the chest of another one. Majima leaaaans in to rip it out. "..So pathetic. Nehehe!" Somehow, none of these guys are dead. Majima looks to the rest of them. They're cowering in fear. Maybe, /maybe/ this has something to do with Adachi, but Majima doesn't care. He is the adrenaline now. It's him. "COME ON! YA BOSS IS HARDCORE, RIGHT? YA GONNA LET HIM DOWN? GET OVER HERE!" He idly cuts a small line on his arm, letting the blood trickle as he raises it. "Come on, I bleed just fine! Get up over here! I hear those swords are pretty rad!"
Staren	Staren catches up with Big Boss in time to see a particularly determined carapacian get disarmed and brandish a shiv.     You know what has a range advantage over a shiv? Particle beams.                                    *PEW PEW!*                                       Then Jack Noir and his gang show up for a fight. Staren glances over them as his allies call out interest, and he selects the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY to pick a fight with.     The IMMORTAL LABCAT makes his intentions known to the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY by means of a pair of MICRO-SIZED ANTI-TANK MISSILES.     "Hey you!"
Mauve Gauntlet	Mauve quietly sneaks up to the hatch as well as she can, looking at the chess people. Whatever Adachi is doing gives her an opening to shoot out a fist and yoink a weapon out of someone's hand, and then if she makes it, toss it to whoever looks like they need a better sword or gun or something.
Sumiko	Mikoto looks down at the new comers!  Apparently, there are some disagreements they are having with them.  Majima's starting to rub off on her, because when one of them says they want to show them what scarry is, she gets a grin.  She looks over towards Linehart for a moment, her eyes turn green and she gives him a grin. So scarry is what they want!   Behind her, the Eidolon appears.  Unlike Riku's Eidolon, it takes on a...distinct appearance.  It is large, with a face made out of Stained glass.  The rest of the body is made out of jade, and gems that glitter, but at the same time they seem to have...a two-dimensional tone to them like they are paper in a world of solid objects.  Looking at it hurts because every angle it is visible.   The arms of the creature are held together by strings to the main body.  The faces of people Mikoto knows are frozen in various positions on their faces, mixed in with shifting animals on the very tip of the arms where the hand would be.  Connected to Mikoto by strings, she vanishes by stepping into Lezard's glasses and then out through the shine on the metal below.   "So, let's talk scary!" she says, in a positively friendly tone.  The 'Witch' behind her hovering there staring at them.
Big Boss	There's a lot of guys. Big Boss's negotiations don't work. So he raises the rifle, and fires to execute the one with the shiv. And then, he moves into the fray. There's more that are debuffed. Big Boss will claer those. His rifle moves forward as a melee weapon, moving to bash into the first Carapacian he sees and block blades, before it's swiveled onto a shoulder, his other hand moving for a neck chop on one of the strange men. If he gets a chance to grab one of those shivs, he proceeds to use it as an enhancer to slice a throat and then hold it up. Let's see how many come at him.
Deelel	Had it been any other person from the old session there might have been a chance. To talk this out, there is no chance as its Jack Noir. She'd not known him well but knew enough of his reputation that he was no joke to deal with and she's heard little of him since Afterus had been created. Now she knows what happened and she'll move to get into the mix shell vault after Big Boss and will go right for jack she has an idea she runs a serious of internal command and there's a glow she will create a form a member of Jack's species a towering black Capcrian massively built, and there is a crown on his head. She's created an illusion of the long-dead Black King who then spears as Deelel pieces together old sound bytes to have it speak. "JACK NOIR WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" Hopefully that gets Jack's attention long enough for her allies to do something. Also, it could mean Deelel pulling Jack's attention for this stunt.
Tohru Adachi	Magatsu-Izanagi stops its screaming, returning to a neutral position as Adachi smiles at his handiwork. The panicked carapacians really remind them of ants scurrying about, and everyone knows what you're suppose to do with ants.      You squash them.      Adachi raises his revolver, aiming the barrel at the back of one of the fleeing bug people as he pulls the trigger. There's a loud bang as the bullet is dispensed, and whether or not they drop dead, Adachi simply changes targets to the next fleeing carapacian in sight.
Alexis	After her blazing divebomb Windburn banks to the side and starts flying away from the ship's vicinity to reunite with her Trainer. Other than she's quickly putting distance behind her this does nothing to stop the workers to fire at the fiery bird, and neither are going to mean much to the larger defense placements opening fire. Several blasts look to be dead on her tailfeathers, but just as they're about to strike the Talonflame there is a faint flickering of energy and the shots that do hit do so with less intensity than they were fired with. Because Alexis and the rest of her crew have gotten close enough for Catalyst to project a Light Screen ahead of them, dampening the ranged fire. Though a few shots, even weakened, is enough for the bird to not want to be too close to them. She did her job, and is content in that to be recalled into her pokeball until she's needed again later. Alexis clips the sphere on her strap, and considers. "I think we're gonna need something bigger and meaner for this." Redline let out a rumble and bobbed his head in agreement. "Then let's do it!" Alexis directs him down towards another connection point, then sits up on his back as he flies down. She rolls up her left sleeve to reveal her Mega Bracer and the glowing gemstone set within. Wraps her hand around it, and grins as the energy of united spirits flows through it. "Hehe. Let there be Dragons!" The energy spills out to enfulf the speeding Charizard in prismatic light. A symbol resembling a flaming helix briefly appears, and then the energy washes away from the speed. "CHAAARRRRR!" The Charizad that bombards the connection site is now charcoal black in color, with wicked scalloped edged wings and the flames tipping his tail and trailing from the corners of his mouth burning so hot they're a vibrant blue instead of red. That last part is important, as it is with the jaws ablaze that he attempts to tear into the connector with Fire Fang! On his back Alexis lets out a whoop to encourage him on, it's not often she gets to bring out Mega Charizard X like this. While sitting on her shoulder Catalyst's eyes light up faintly. ~Ah, such delinquence. Let us remove them from their wretched existance.~ The psy-kitty uses her powers to pick up various debris around the site and fling them at the workers (via Psyshock) to interfer with them interfering with Mega Charizard tring to rip up the connector.
Xion	It's a fight on deck, a fight with names and people and places she doesn't understand. Some people do, just as much as others don't. Xion sits on a drill bit, with her eyes closed, pressing her fingers against the greedy grain of the grinding gear. A dark city with streets of blood. A dead regent, and needs - regrets - pains. "But why do... they need what they're taking?" Xion hops up on the bit, black coat trailing beneath her as she runs along the short path of the bit, and then, initially at a weird angle, just starts running straight up the hull of the ship, keeping up with her clip in the perilous journey up the structure of the ship to the deck-rail and--hanging there. To stare at the fight, hooded and curious, at Jack Noir. He seems Ringleader-y. "Why do you do what you do...?" She wonders, and reaches out again, this time trying to get a read at range on the EXTRA KNIFEY BOI. What does Jack Noir hope to gain out of this? Surely mindreading Jack Noir's desires is definitely the best idea.
Roxas	Roxas, who has TEMPORARILY BEEN RELEGATED to PARTY MEMBER instead of PARTY LEAD of his own single-person party, trails behind Xion up on the deck. Things kind of deteriorated from diplomacy immediately, so he simply readies himself to cast spells and waits at her flank Just In Case. He will, assuredly, cast Cura just in time for him to maybe not eat the floor when some of the flying hostilities come his way.
Arthur Lowell	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8sBtl3WYZo     The Midnighters move hard and fast. Majima is KOing several of the men menacing the crew, who go down hard while trying to take him. As part of this, he gets targeted by HATEFUL BUTCHER, who leaps down off the bow. He has a massive mace in one hand, and his cybernetics spark aggressively as they enhance a brutal downward smash and a series of infrequent, brutal crushing grab-and-toss efforts amid his other work. Might benefit from a REGISWORD that Mauve Gauntlet just managed to yank and toss out into the field of battle! She might have too, considering they're firing at her -- and so is the DANGEROUS DRIFTER, with his offhand heavy pistol, as he mans the bow of the ship.     Staren's after the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY, who is blasted into the air by the anti-tank missiles, trailing a bit of blood as he slams down off the ship in a puff of impact dust -- and then it's hard to find him! Carapacian biology is tough to track, and amid the shifting, anxious mooks, it's hard to identify where the small foe went. At least, until he tries to reach out from behind Staren. He has several hefty bombs strapped to his body, the kind that might take out this entire structure if they go off all at once! If Staren doesn't align his shots perfectly, or if he activates armor-shock, he might hit the bombs! And speaking of bombs, the mildly bloodied Deputy is trying to plant and then detonate one on Staren's armor in a hit-and-run style attack, trying to bypass shieldry through the action being not clearly hostile -- though the surface of a shield is sometimes an okay spot to plant too!     Mikoto and her Eidolon scatter more of the subordinates, but draw more of the attention of clearly dangerous foes. The HATEFUL BUTCHER physically picks up one of the 1x1M CUBES and lobs it at her at high speed, clearly offended by the effort and intent on showing his subordinates what to /truly/ be afraid of! Mikoto had better keep that up if she wants to create more of that effect.
Arthur Lowell	Deelel's illusion gets a grimace from Jack Noir -- more than his usual one. The Straggler of Derse steps forward without fear and gestures ahead, and several of the ship turrets move to try to blast the thing fearlessly. It stops only when the Dangerous Drifter alerts Jack to the nature of things, and the turrets begin to sweep, looking for the source of the illusion to barrage with fire!     Speaking of the Dangerous Drifter, he gets out a hefty, modern rifle, fitted with a powerful scope, and identifies actors on the field. Adachi is the one he starts taking brutally precise potshots at, trying to down the man from aboard the bow of the ship. These shots are placed impassively and ruthlessly, with neither fear nor hatred, but a kind of mood of contempt for all things, Adachi included.     Alexis diiiives in! Big Boss is filtering out Linehart's special information, giving her the knowledge of just the right targets. And she has, now, more than enough power necessary to blast the thing apart with fire fang strength! One connection goes down. Then another. A third, soon. It's only on the fourth when she might see, moments ahead of time, that COOPERATIVE DEPUTY has planted a small but powerful bomb on one, willing to blow it up to take out Alexis with it in a huge explosion! Some others may be rigged as well -- she might need to find that bomber during his sneaky efforts!     Staren's plasma bombs blast apart some of the other subordinates. The plasma pistol and rifle take down the shivman too! Adachi, Linehart, and Boss work on the others, thinning the crowd. The MIDNIGHTERS need full attention, and they're /demanding/ it with the force of their efforts. Can they be taken down? DANGEROUS DRIFTER is already sending several potshots in Big Boss's direction, impassive and stoic bursts of rifle fire that try to manipulate his reaction as much as pierce his body.     Xion sneaks about to dig into Jack Noir's brain as Arthur leaps onto the deck and engages him in melee. While he knife-fights a god, Xion can see into his mind. He intends to activate and breach Secundus -- whatever that means, it's either secretive or something a bit beyond his knowledge -- to kill the Black Queen. His mind is almost entirely consumed with the urge to create the world he dreams of as a spiteful, hateful monument to her death, with foundations poured over her bones.
Sumiko	Mikoto stands ready, smiling as minions scatter.  Others hold their ground, but none of them attack her.  Instead, a tree large box goes flying at her head, forcing her to bring her sword back.  The force is enough to cause her to move back, and a second box strikes her in the chest.   For a moment, it might cause the minions to think that the Hateful Butcher can do it.  Until the third box is thrown, and she moves in a fluid motion, swinging through the box and moving through it like a ghost.  This is because the box is in two separate pieces and falls apart.  Mikoto starts walking towards HB, moving just slightly to use her sword to cut through thrown objects.   The creature behind her disappears.  Where did it go?  Right behind HB, attempting to grab him as Mikoto bursts into a run, attempting to cut through HB while the creature was attempting to command grab him from behind.  However, if stabbed before he could grab, it would disappear behind Mikoto again.   "Hi," she says, perfectly happy, "I am Mikoto Shimizu.  You just threatened my male authority figure.  Prepare to die."
Deelel	Deelel has got Jack's attention better than she'd hoped she calls out a head up on the radio about this. Then comes the weapon systems on the ship locking on to her she's going to have to get moving and move fast. Even with how fast Deelel can be? Even if the shots don't directly connect she is not getting out on harm the old weapons are too powerful and there's a lot of shrapnel going around which will pepper her body leaving glowing blue rents in it and in some o the worst ones one can see cubes inside moving and glowing. The blasts keep coming and Deelel keeps running in such a fashion as to draw fire away from as many allies of her's as she can. Which means everyone who came to help Arthur.
Big Boss	As he filters information from Linehart to Alexis, Big Boss is getting potshotted by the DANGEROUS DRIFTER. As they shoot at him, he is actually fully in control of his reaction. His bodysuit takes several shots, as he pushes forward, pulling the rifle back to his hands and moving to let out a full burst at the DRIFTER. He's bleeding a little from the shots, but he'll be fine. Big Boss's primary goal is to get into CQC range of the Drifter, firing as he pushes forward, moving quickly and agilely. If he can get to them, he's going to start striking them in (human) pressure points and see if it has any effect!
Majima Goro	Majima's eye just lights up as the HATEFUL BUTCHER lands on the deck. Yeah. That's exactly what he wanted. That's what he was hoping for. The club comes down, and Majima's knife comes up... ping It's knocked out of his hand. Well. Alright. That's a problem. "...ya got a nice stick ther--" He's lifted up on the next attempt, flung away like a rag doll. He's agile, though, and he lands on his feet, rushing up to slide towards the man. Purple fire flares up as he drops to the ground, spinning around to kick his foe repeatedly. This does not work. Majima is grabbed again, this time, flung onto his side. He rolls away, slowly getting up again. Luckily for him, Mikoto's there to pick up the slack for a moment. Someone calls to him. A black sword falls. He catches it in midair, looking the strange material over. It's waved around a little, and he realizes something. Something strange. Specifically, that a kettle he'd been holding onto before just flew out into space. The hell? And that's when he realizes something. "...Holy shit." He grabs the sword, putting it away. And then he bashes into another of the lesser mooks. He grabs their weapon, while being very careful to aim towards the HATEFUL BUTCHER this time. An electric sparking police baton flies out from him, ejected with great force. Sure, it just bounces off of him, but he rushes forward, leaping up to grab it again...causing a long iron pole to shoot out instead. Yeah. He thinks he's just figured something out. He flares a green flame. CAPTCHA Style..unlocked?
Staren	Hetaren looks around in confusion. Dammit, where did the guy he picked a fight with go? His targeting software isn't used to how similar the carapacians all look to eachother (although Staren's happy to fire particle beams into the horde while he's looking.)     The DEPUTY's plan works perfectly; Staren has to toggle the shield himself, it doesn't automatically intercept attacks. Staren's knocked to the ground with a hole blown through the primary layer of armor plating, a WEAK POINT exposing the underlayer of strength-enhancing machinery. He realizes what happened, though, and endeavors to make sure the same trick won't work twice!     He does this by throwing around grenades and then trying to mop up the survivors with a pair of assault rifles; one fires hypervelocity slugs, the other smart-material rounds. If he succeeds in clearing an area around him, then should the DEPUTY enter the circle of death he's greeted with bursts of smart-material rounds -- hopefully if they go soft they won't set off the bombs, but Staren still can't afford to fire wildly, he'll run out of ammo!
Mauve Gauntlet	Bullets ping off of Mauve's armor, some lightly dinging it. She hisses a bit, then swings her gauntlets around to basically bitch slap the people firing at her. She then fires a gauntlet shot at the Drifter, trying to hookshot herself to him and aim a flurry of punches in his face.
Alexis	One connector, two connectors, three down! There's the fourth up ahead, thanks to the data provided by others. (One of the benefits of being in no faction is not having to question who decides to help her too much) More accurately it's the psychic sitting on Alexis' shoulder that realizes the eminant danger. ~"Stop! It's trapped!"~ Alexis grabs Redline's horns in lieu of reigns and yanks back hard to pull the Charizard up into a hover before he flies right into the bomb. "Thanks, Catalyst." ~"As much as I enjoy ludacrist gibs, I prefer it to not be my source of food and entertainment."~ ".. Don't ruin the sentiment." Alexis leans forward over the fire-dragon's shoulder. "Hit that one from a distance." "Chrr." Redline gathers up his dragonic energy, the flames trailing from his maw turning a shimmering indigo iridescense. As does the Dragon Pulse that erupts out of his mouth like a cannon, hurtling towards the bomb to blow it and the connector it's fastened to! Maybe turning his tricky trap against them will help draw the Deputy out. But they can't really wait to see. Going after more connectors is a risk as long as he's skulking about to rig them dangerously. But how can they flush him without putting themselves at a larger risk? What if there's more bombs hidden away? There has to be... Alexis snaps her fingers. "Redline, land on the hull." He gives her an odd look, but Alexis usually knows what she's doing so he does so, keeping his fire ready. It's mainly because Alexis doesn't want him in the air with what she's going to do next. "Catalyst." ~"Yes?"~ "Dark Pulse." The main reason she wanted to be on the surface of the ship is so they have a proper epicenter to coordinate from. The Meowstic practically purrs with slightly morbid delight, her eyes turning into inky pools of shadows. ~"Hello Darkness my Old Friend"~, she singongs as her ears unfold. Not entirely, thank the heavens, but far enough to draw on the powerful supernatural organs concealed within them. This results in a fairly potent shockwave of dark energy radiating out from their position, covering a fair amount of distance to set off any more bombs in the vicinity, and hopefully hit whoever else is sneaking around trying to trick them into a Bad Time.
Tohru Adachi	Oh no! Someone is mad at Adachi, he totally didn't see this coming and is going to get shot! That's what some people probably think, but contrary to popular believe, Adachi isn't an idiot, he just acts like one.      The dormant persona springs to life once more, appearing in front of its user in a blur of crimson red, naginata in hand as it swipes the weapon with what at first appears to be reckless abandon. Except it's anything but that, as the few bullets that were set to hit Adachi in his fleshy human meat are swatted away with something that could vaguely be considered precision.      "Hey, hey. I know I'm using a gun, but I prefer my fights a bit more personal!"      There's a brief moment where Adachi repositions himself behind some rubble, Magatsu-Izanagi following close behind before it lets out another roar, though this time it seems it's purely for theatrics, as it instead points a clawed hand at Dangerous Drifter, a bolt of red lightning shooting forth from its hand as it aims to deliver a very painful amount of electricity through the alien bug guy's body.
Arthur Lowell	Mikoto grabs the massive man. A success! Even at his size, a grapple is possible with a sufficiently large monster. Then she tries to slice through him. Less of a success; the blade halts partway through his flesh, crunching against reinforced metals. He reaches out to snatch her wrist and whip her over his head and slam her into the ground. But her blade is good and deep in there, and nothing can stop the streams of red down his side. He tries to hoist another heavy concrete block and crush her under it.     She gets a brief delay as the police baton from Majima slams into his back, seizing up his muscles and his assorted electronics. Then a heavy pole crashes into him! CRUNCH. He grabs it, slams it into the ground end-first, and skewers one of the heavy concrete blocks that makes up the environment. Then he lifts and slams it at Majima like it's a giant hammer!
Arthur Lowell	Deelel draws the ship fire away, which is good, because this means people can afford to move at a distance! Otherwise the big turrets above might go after them the moment they get too far from one of these four Exiles. But it also means that Jack can direct the blasts to chase Deelel, first up one of the buildings, and then trying to overtly demolish one of them while Deelel's inside to bring it down on top of her!
Majima Goro	Majima has lost one of his weapons. The trick doesn't really work unless his inventory is /completely/ full. Still, he's flared up. There has to be /something/ he can still do. The first thing to do is to avoid the giant hammer. He just rolls out of the way, and then, as the hammer is presumably lifted again, he grips along with it. And then, from above the HATEFUL BUTCHER, he descends, a REGISWORD firmly in each hand. HEAT ACTION: ESSENCE OF REGICIDE One sword is stabbed straight downwards, hopefully embedding itself in his well-suited opponent. Majima then twists his body around the sword, yanking himself down to land on both feet, knees bending.. And then he extends, turning around to thrust that one remaining sword firmly into the Butcher's back. ...sure, hopefully that works.
Sumiko	Mikoto hits the ground as she is manhandled by the larger bug-thing and slammed into the ground.  There is a moment where she is stunned, but before HB can take the finishing move... In sprite town, HB is standing over a flattened Mikoto.  Then a brick and a pole stick into him as he turns around to deal with the thrower, it is Majima.   Back to the real view, Mikoto takes a moment to realize he turned his back on her.  Slowly standing she reaches for her sword with the creature to yank it back to her.  With Majima flashing behind the man, she is free to move.  She jumps up and over Majima, using his shoulder as a kick-off point, aiming to soar over HB. Then she brings her sword down, aiming to try and slash him from head to toe with both momentum and her own strength.  Another Mikoto appears, starting to just shove things into Majima's inventory.  Whatever she can find.
Arthur Lowell	Boss manages to force the DANGEROUS DRIFTER to take a few rounds square to the carapaces, though his body is reinforced enough to not go down. He's pushed into cover as Adachi's lightning splits wide openings on his armor, and makes a painful smell of sizzled bugflesh, and works on reloading as things. Uh oh: Mauve Gauntlet and Big Boss have both charged straight for him, intent on engaging him in melee combat! He slides a hand under the ridge of the bow of the ship and brings out something that looks like a decade-old REGISPEAR! The rare red-diamond-tip weapon is immediately in action!     Pressure points aren't exactly lining up, but if Boss can identify where the plates split, he might find something similar. It may take a moment, and whether Boss has that moment depends on how well he can deal with a short-grip spear assault in close quarters from an expert spearman while the Drifter tries to press his brief advantage! Flurries of blunt strikes from Mauve Gauntlet are a little more effective, since she's likely already used to fighting armored, semi-inhuman opponents. But ones that are both this tall and this fast with their reflexes? It's tough to avoid him trying to get a spear through her, even though she knocks him several real solid thumps in the face.     He's fast and agile enough that, at one point, he tries to wrap the spear around Mauve Gauntlet, then swing-kick around her to kick Boss over the bow of the ship -- with all three going overboard if the maneuver works! This means Adachi's going to wind up being a little closer, if it works out, when the trio lands near him and Drifter scrambles onto his feet with the offhand pistol already blazing away at him!
Big Boss	Big Boss has an advantage to his melee combat - he has a gun, too. As the spear comes for him, he focuses intently on the pressure points, bringing up the rifle as a block - at the cost of it getting damaged to the point it won't work easily. Discarding the rifle after the block, he calls out to Mauve Gauntlet to distract for him. If he gets the chance to identify where the plates split, he strikes there, strong impact with a skilled fighter's reflexes and knowledge. And then, DANGEROUS DRIFTER comes in to kick him over the bow. Big Boss is sent swinging back, and while he nearly negates the kick's damage with his own block, it's not enough to stop him from going overboard. Once on the ground, Big Boss groans, and then dives for the spearman as he grabs his pistol. If it works out, Big Boss is going to try and pin him to the ground and start hittimg him really hard, shifting to allow allies to get their hits in.
Deelel	Deelel is not having a good time of this, still, she was asking for it with her most recent stunt. She keeps running moving and using the buildings as cover was a good idea until Jack's gunners got the idea to drop it on her. She's flushed out of her cover getting more wreckage and shrapnel for her efforts as she goes. She's outside now and she'll summon her key blade firing lighting spells back at the turrets as she goes. She's not sure how long she can keep this up, yet? She's going to push herself as hard as she can. As her allies do not need to deal with this level of fire on them along with everything else on their plates.
Arthur Lowell	Staren clears out the ones who are giving COOPERATIVE DEPUTY his cover. The bomber is in motion among them, but soon it's mostly in motion among himself. EXPLOSIVES are hard to get him with! For some reason, CD seems to have tremendous ability to navigate detonations! But holy shit, watch out! You might hit that C4 with something! He approaches during the hypervelocity burst to avoid getting nailed during a clearer time, and one of the bullets slams into the C4! And CD goes off his feet, limp!     Because C4 doesn't go off when you shoot it.     But he's back to sitting up, and peppering Staren with pistol fire. Quickly, he darts to one side in a feint that disguises it as a strange stumble. None of his body language makes sense, and it's nearly impossible to figure out which direction he's about to move, which is doubly dangerous when he's so /fast/ in trying to get at an angle to exploit that weakpoint in Staren's armor and, presumably, shield emitters! The only thing that could trip him up and give Staren an opportunity to defend or counterattack is that Dark Pulse that washes over the craft, the nearby structures it's crashed into, and CD's feet, which makes him take a tumble and scatters those bombs everywhere!
Alexis	There! Staren removes his meat shields and Deputy stumbles in the pulse of darkness. That's the oppritunity they need to capitalize. Alexis jumps off Mega Charizard's back and lands on the ship surface, Catalyst re-establishing the Light Screens over them as a precaution in case any of those bombs go off. As soon as her feet hit the surface Alexis shouts "Sic 'im!" Wings beat down and legs push off, launching Redline into motion. He doesn't take off instead rocketing along the surface of the ship, taking the fastest and most direct route at the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY before he can regain his footing. That indigo iridescence returns, this time engulfing the entire Mega Charizard X and accentuating his draconian features. It's an a straight up full force assault, aimed to slam into DEPUTY with a full speed, type and buff magnified DRAGON RUSH!
Arthur Lowell	This mountain of a man, HATEFUL BUTCHER, takes an unthinkable number of shots to the back. Carving the back of his torso with three swords, a concerning stream of blood streaks from his body. But it's not enough to bring down a man like HB. With speed and strength, he moves before Majima can even finish planting that second sword into his back. He whips around at such speed while Majima is still holding onto those swords that it's likely as anything Majima is going to be yanked along.     That might be necessary, because this giant fellow hard-charges towards where Mikoto landed, trying to wrap both arms around her in a crushing grapple and then tackle her through several of the walls of the collapsing building that Jack is trying to bring down on Deelel -- and also possibly forcing Majima to ride along with that double grip on the blades in HB's back, though such an effort would make him suffer several of the wall-crashes as well!
Arthur Lowell	Deelel is flushed from cover, and exposed. This is raw turret-to-person battle. This, luckily, is something Deelel has some experience in. The Skaia War years and years ago is likely hard for someone like her to forget, so there's no chance she doesn't recall their firing patterns and profiles. She'll need them, though. The smaller turrets are blasted free of their connections, but one of the larger ones that has a pretty damn sweeping firing cone is determined to keep up a steady flow of tremendous blasts at her. Does she have anything armor-piercing or heavy-duty to bring it down?
Roxas	Roxas is still lingering by Xion, essentially not participating in the battle up until this exact moment. He seems to awaken from a quasi-stupor, following the direction of Deelel fleeing from cannon fire. But his attention also turns to-- all the carapaces in fights, getting beaten to varying degrees by the people he came here with. It doesn't really feel right, he decides. It doesn't feel right, but what should he do about it? There's not much to be done when everybody thinks the fight is necessary, is there? And if he just sits back and heals... That's sort of lazy, he decides. Not just lazy, it's washing one's hands of the issue without /actually/ committing to not being a part of it all. If he's /going/ to do something, he should at least be honest with himself about it. So while Deelel is busily drawing cannon fire, the black coated youth wanders off to the side of the ship and observes-- Big Boss's descent, and his continued fight with DD. He stares, and stares, and stares. Vision telescoping in on the spear. One hand rises, "Thundara!" The air sizzles with a momentary tension, Big Boss's hair more than likely rising comically as the impending event is forecast. Immediately afterwards a lightning bolt flashes towards DD's regispear, guided towards it by its presumed conductivity.
Mauve Gauntlet	Mauve nods, taking a few more swings at DD as part of her distraction for Boss. It's tricky to keep up, since this guy is so huge, and yet so freaking agile. Then the spear stabs through her stomach. Mauve gasps, everything in her vision flashing red as she takes heavy damage. She gets thrown off the ship, landing with a loud thud. The wound is large and angry looking, made of red wireframes and rust, but she's still up to fight. "Ugh..." she murmurs, firing both fists at DD to pin him down and give Boss a chance to pummel him.
Staren	The first bullet hits the weak point; Staren winces, as he can almost feel it now. The rest bounce off the forcefield, but they leave pockmarks in it, the impact wearing down the field. Staren tries turning so that the weak spot isn't facing CD -- this requires him to turn sideways, almost backwards, but he can keep shooting thanks to gun cameras and his HUD. The shield flicks off when he fires, giving a chance for bullets to hit the armor.     When CD feints, Staren's not sure what to make of it -- he keeps the field up, but he can't attack either.     Then the dark wave comes in and scatters the bombs, giving him an opening. Wings of orange light suddenly appear at Staren's back, buzzing like an insect as he flies over CD and fires twin particle beams down at him!
Sumiko	Mikoto is being dragged along, and the other Mikoto copy runs behind shouting as HATEFUL BUTCHER runs away from her.  The bear hugged Mikoto struggles, hurting as she feels things crack inside her.  And then THE WALL.   She looks hurt by that and looks behind her and towards a window they were approaching.  When inevitably HB runs through the wall, she instead fades away, having been sucked into the mirror.  Above she falls out into a room, clutching her chest.   Mikoto two slams her blade into the ground, as from it a large elephant raises and charges right after HB, attempting to trample him.  Hopefully, Majima can hear it and YOUTH ROLL in time.  Elsewhere Mikoto One still continues to clutch her poor ribs as regeneration attempts to repair them so she can function.   "Everything huuuurts.."
Xion	MEANWHILE: Xion remains totally useless, reeling from the layers of hate. The hate, hate hate. The dark hate. The black hate. Her eyes are wholly black, as she blinks back tears. A hand clutches her chest where her heart should be, but she sounds... happy? She cries thin tears, the kind from watering, strained eyes. She hangs from the lip of the railing as Roxas fires Thundaga at the Regispear. "I... I think I get it now." Her eyes clear, first a ring of bright blue as the darkness - the carapace-sheen of black - receeds from her eyes. "I think I get what 'hate' is."
Majima Goro	Yeah. So, there's a downside to Heat Actions. They are just Quick Time Events. They can be countered. And right now, Majima just got countered. "...ya ain't a pushover, I'll give ya that--" He offers, managing--albeit barely, to stab the two swords into the HATEFUL BUTCHER and hold on. Which, wow, okay. This was a bad idea. While he's on the opposite side of the wall, the rubble keeps falling on him. He can't even really block, with his arms busy on the swords, and his legs needed to help hold on as well. He's just gonna have to endure it. Not his strongpoint. "...Come on, ya big lummox..." And then...he has to drop off anyway. A charging elephant arrives, and he jumps away, letting it attack ol' HB instead. Fine. He flashes yellow again, drawing out a bat. "...arright. Ya wanna be the big game? Ya can be the big game. COME ON!" Sure, there's blood trickling down his forehead, and arms, and it's mingling with the sweat and looking awkward. But Majima ain't done yet.
Arthur Lowell	The DANGEROUS DRIFTER keeps that cold contempt in his mannerisms as he's tackled and pinned. He can't get the spear around for a good shot like this, and suffers several heavy blows head-on to the face, as well as shots to the torso at key weakpoints where plates connect for motion. No -- he can see the hair on Boss's neck rising. He tosses the spear to one side, only barely evading a full-body shock and badly suffering a burn to the hand and arm just from the heat of it. Forced to work in close-quarters combat, he pushes his arms up to keep the damage back as bruising accumulates in tender flesh under thick carapace. He's thinking. He's calculating. He's focusing, to let certain key instincts take over.     With a single fast, determined motion, he turns and rolls with the intent to sling Big Boss across the ground straight towards Mauve Gauntlet, then grabs up his pistol and opens fire on the hands she attached to him. Gonna need some ear surgery after that. Discarding the gun with its empty mag, he moves for the most brutal shots he can get to the legs of both combatants. He has such a height advantage that it's hard to predict that he ducks so low and moves like some kind of boxer in heavy hooking shots to both knees. He's trying to make sure they'll have a hard time pursuing when he kicks off and moves at great speed towards the craft. A retreat? It might be likely.
Deelel	Deelels species can't really forget save for having basically what is brain damage inflicted on them. Old memories of how the ships back in the Skaia War fired are pulled up and she reacts as it seems they haven't changed how they work. Jack likely had his mind on other things or just didn't even think about the odds of one of Arthur's crew showing up on his front doorstep was. She also scores a hit on one of the smaller turrets, good that's one less one to worry about. She thinks about her weapon loadout and an idea comes to her, then she grimaces she has an idea she's going to have to get away from it for a moment she falls back summons her light jet and takes off hoping to throw the gunners off guard for a moment if she does she'll take rather crazy flight pay to bank over the turret if she can make that she'll drop her timed light charges down towards the turret blow and prays to her User that this stunt works or she's in for a world of hurt.
Big Boss	Big Boss smashes into the Dangerous Drifter, but the drifter manages to push back, calculates, and with instincts, slings Big Boss. Big Boss slides, reaching for his side-arm pistol to fire off a shot, but it puts Mauve Gauntlet at risk with how he's close to her. Hm... DANGEROUS DRIFTER comes in and strikes big Boss's knees. Old man legs mixed with a strong strike slow Big Boss, and DANGEROUS DRIFTER might start to get away. But Big Boss has a back-up plan. The bag of rockets was discarded for speed, but the rocket launcher is still slung to his back, one rocket inside. Big Boss kneels, takes the rocket launcher, and fires at the Drifter as he moves to speed away. One shot's all he needs.
Tohru Adachi	"Ah ah ah, trying to go somewhere? But we were just warming up to each other. Come on, stay a while, I'm sure you'll have a /BLAST/."      Adachi's voice cracks at the last word, sounding almost unhinged. But he wants to see the bug man hit by the rocket launcher more than anything, so decides to be 'helpful'.      Magatsu-Izanagi grasps firmly onto its polearm as it stares down DANGEROUS DRIFTER, its eyes glowing bright yellow as it thrusts forward, the tip of its spear aiming at the back of the man bug's knee caps in an attempt to hamstring them.      "Take a seat, enjoy the fireworks... Man, you get the joke at this point."      The serial killer makes another quip, before taking a large leap back. He's not willing to risk getting caught in a rocket explosion, no matter how superhuman he is.
Arthur Lowell	There's that drama moment. One from above, one from the side, both dangerously fast and dangerously hot. And the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY demonstrates the first example of concern about danger that he's expressed so far, because there is a very good chance that he'll die if that twin impacts hit him hard enough! Which is why he examines the bombs around him in detail, calculates something complex in his head, and ignites all of them in a highly pecific sequence.     By precisely timing the bombs in a way that specifically mimics the formation of a large tropical storm or a similar massive meteorological incident, he can induce the heat and pressure expansion to build up and move into a circular motion surrounding him, then rise suddenly. The wave of heat and pressure isn't likely to fully stop or badly wound the Charizard, but it's pretty dangerous! And the swirling pattern of bomb detonations -- fortunately self-containing and self-defeating enough to not blast too much of the ship apart -- is designed to throw off Redline's course enough to mostly glance off of CD instead of smearing him across the deck, and he goes tumbling, smoking and burnt and lacerated by particle beams, to the side while the artisanal explosion moves mostly directly upwards towards Staren!     His radio goes off. Looks like someone's reporting in the disconnected links that all got severed. He sits up and calls back that DANGEROUS DRIFTER told him that the data was most important! So, they should probably go! He's got that gun back out, and he's blasting, blasting away at the pair focused on him as he tries to get through a hatch on the ship and retreat! As it sounds like others might be doing as well.
Mauve Gauntlet	Mauve winces, and hands pull back, the chains rattling loudly as they withdraw. She shakes them out for a second- and then DD comes rocketing in, kicking in her kneecaps. Mauve falls face forward, getting a mouth full of whatever the hell the ground is made of here. (probably more placeholder textures) However, all that damage she's taken, especially getting stabbed by the spear filled her Killer Move bar, which means... "HERE GOES NOTHING! ROCKET FIST!" Mauve shouts, and one of her fists detaches from her arm, small jets sprouting from its sides and launching it straight at DD after Boss's rocket.
Arthur Lowell	Trample? Trapling's a good plan, but HATEFUL BUTCHER instead elects to /wrestle/ the incoming elephant, grappling it with both massive hands. Several times, the feet slam into his body, but he just keeps on doing it until he gets a good grip on the leg and tumbles with it. The rolling wrestle slams out of the demolished building, and for a moment it looks like he's going to pick up that axe and try to crush the elephant's brain. Instead he sees... something else. And with superhuman strength, HB grabs at one of the beast's legs and tries to bodily heave the thing towards... another context, one we will see in just a moment.     He's gotten the shit beat out of him though. A walkie talkie goes off, one he raises to one ear, grunts out a terse explanation of what he's been doing, and agrees to something only in a frustrated way, saying that they can make due with what they've got.     Bloodied, beaten, and stomped in the face, he takes an olympic dash competitor's stance and just charges down Majima, trying to slam him out of the way and take a direct line between him and the ship. He'll take the hits from the bat. He may be /retreating/ but he's not /fleeing/, that's for sure.
Staren	Oh hey, Staren's got help! Here comes Charizard! But the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY is up to something... setting off his bombs but not near his enemies? Staren puts his shields up as a precaution, but gets tossed aside by the wind! Once he's flung away, though, he's not IN the cyclone, so it's not too hard to right himself with those wings -- a maneuver Staren's practiced tons of times. The missile racks on his shoulder pop up, and he fires a few hellball minimissiles at the CD's path back to the ship, blanketing the area in intense heat and flame!     He also gives Alexis a heads-up: <"Fire missiles. Charizard's immune, right?">
Sumiko	Mikoto one is finally on her feet, looking out the abandoned building's window.  She observes, trying to figure out what the man is trying to do, and why did her elephant just goes flying?  Well, that's someone else's problem now! Mikoto Two looks at the flying elephant, "Is that my fault?" she asks, and then shrugs.  Mikoto one at this point walks out of one of the broken pieces of glass near Two and looks towards her.  They both nod at each other and turn towards. In unison, they both turn, and slam their swords into the ground.  In front of HB, slabs of jade appear.  He can run through, sure, but they will hurt.  More than that, they will slow his overall speed down.  She aims to give Majima the strike.
Alexis	It's a calculated risk, but it turns out to be coincidental luck for the COOPERATIVE DEPUTY. Mega Charizard X is moving fast, but lacks the precision maneuverability its base or Mega-Y forms would have. So the explosion induced whirlwind is enough force to push his charge aside of a direct impact, and it's mainly the draconic aura of the attack technique that sizzles at the bug-man as he's sucked into his own vortex and tossed aside. Redline pulls up and slams his feet into the hull of the ship, twisted and folding down his wings to catch less of the pressurized wind and brake himself before he's thrown away. The heat isn't bothering him much, but getting launched off the ship would be an unpleasant experience from this height regardless if he could limit how fast he fell. Sudden mass explosions is exactly why Catalyst has the Light Screen up, though even she flinches a little under the abuse it takes. Alexis instinctively holds up an arm to shield her face as the presssurized air whooshes around them, ponytail flapping like a windsock behind her in it. Gunfire also zings through the air and off the shield, farther draining the psychic's endurance, while at the distance Redline just snorts in annoyance as he's peppered a few times. He's more annoyed by the fact that the surging wind is preventing him from launching again and chasing the fool down. Is he retreating?.. Looks like he's retreating, going for a hatch. They've got a better angle less disrupted by the air flow. Probably can't stomp him from leaving, but they can give him a proper goodbye. She picks a Dive Ball from her collection and drops it at her feet, releasing a stout chubby amphibious 'mon with a beady eyed derpy expression. "Quaaaagsahrrre." Alexis points towards the hatch. Specifically the hatch more than the DEPUTY climbing into it. "Slosh, use Muddy Water!" The Quagsire's cheeks bulge out disportionately for a moment, then compress as he opens his big mouth and spews out a torrent of water churning with mud, muck and other assorted filth in it. It might or might not hit COOPERATIVE DEPUTY. Alexis is hoping more on some of that watery gunk getting through the hatch, inside the ship, and making a mess. It's more spiteful than anything else, paying them back for the mess they made of Arthur's project!
Majima Goro	The Dragon of Dojima could have probably stopped this guy cold. Majima's sure of it. That said, Majima is not Kazuma Kiryu. Majima is a fast guy with knives. He's not got a chance of just bracing himself into the ground or something and handling this. ==> Majima: Doublecheck your advantages, just to be sure. Yep, you're sure. The jade walls appear. Majima runs towards them, likely just as HATEFUL BUTCHER moves to render them asunder. The first few steps the carapacian takes will reveal nothing of note. The next second will reveal Majima's boots on either of his shoulders. He's standing up, the bat gone. In one hand, a bundle of firecrackers. In the other hand, a lighter. Flick. Hiss. And then, he whips around, using the momentum to try to shove the bundle of exploding firecrackers right into the Dersite's mouth, and hopefully hang on long enough to hold the mouth shut till they start to pop. This is about all he's got left. This guy hits like a truck!
Arthur Lowell	Xion gets to see a very wonderful experience, which is Jack Noir's surge of high-intensity hatred resulting in three knives being rapidly embedded in Arthur's torso. Jack Noir calls him a coffin stuffer, Arthur calls him something that shouldn't be written because of how tasteless it is. And then Jack Noir stabs him in the neck with the fourth knife. The man seems fueled by hate the way other people are fueled by blood. Arthur goes down, letting off a few blasts of magic to launch Noir to a more reasonable distance.     Xion or Roxas with her might want to grab that limp body of Arthur, given that he's collapsed on the deck of the vessel and it's starting to rumble like it might move soon. Jack, fortunately, has been pushed to another section of the battlefield.
Arthur Lowell	The rocket launches. DANGEROUS DRIFTER moves to evade while he picks up his spear. But here comes Adachi, sadistically slamming that spear into the back of his leg! As a spearman himself goes down on one knee, he can do nothing to evade the incoming rocket...     Which is why it's good that, for no /immediately/ clear reason, an entire large elephant slams into the ground just between DD and the rocket, suffering the massive blast in his stead. The rocket rolls it hard, though, and it's not there to shield him from the incoming rocket punch, which takes him off his feet and sends him tumbling back, tumbling so that he can barely get back onto his feet before the momentum ends, assisted by the spear. DAMN that was a heavy one. He coldly regards the situation, visibly calculates in his head how long it'll take to reload the rocket, and books it fast as he can half-limp around a corner into one of the buildings, intent on getting upstairs and back into the ship. Even rather wounded in one leg, the dude is /fast/.     Yep, that's driven him into full retreat mode for sure.
Roxas	"Oh, uh... I think... I think we need to get Arthur, Xion." Roxas says, as he watches Arthur get stabbed in the neck the fourth time. Fortunately, Jack Noir has the attention span of your average murder hobo, and in the absence of somebody directly in front of him to stab has instead moved on to find other things to stab. He runs down the length of the ship to where the fight took place, shouting a quick, "Cura!" as he goes. Green particles shower Arthur, who Roxas isn't /entirely/ certain isn't a stiff just now. He lifts him onto his shoulder and turns towards Xion, "Let's go, before we end up being permanent guests of this really stabby guy!" And then he leaps off the side, because Kingdom Hearts characters don't take fall damage.
Arthur Lowell	Deelel uses ace flight instead of just plain motion. Taking to the skies is a good strategy, since this is mostly made for dealing with ground forces or large air vehicles and not small air vehicles. She can barely evade the worst of the most lethal anti-air fire to get that charge on the armored main turret, blasting it enough to rattle the whole vessel and making the whole chassis basically flop down like a dead creature. Looks like the Midnight Kingdom's agents can't depend on it to try to finish the job on the others now that the Agents themselves are having to retreat!
Tohru Adachi	Adachi scratches the bottom of his nose in annoyance, getting dangerously close to picking it before flicking his fingers. He makes an audible 'tsk' as he starts straightening his tie, the red apparition behind him dissolving away as he starts walking towards Big Boss.      "Welp, we tried! The bug gut shower will have to wait another time. Let's pack it up and head home."      Apparently, he's not too interested in chasing after DANGEROUS DRIFTER, especially since they've got a pretty sizable lead now on top of knowing the layout of the ship better than anyone here.
Arthur Lowell	Staren fills COOPERATIVE DEPUTY'S path with fire, which the little guy just... wades through, suffering the burns that an experienced demolitionist knows how to suffer. He falls into the hatch practically passing out from the pain, but he makes it! The horrible water dumping onto him is the smallest possible blessing. It puts out the fire, but it's /awful/! He's going to be bedridden for weeks with the infections that come of it, no doubt.
Alexis	Cue the ship they're standing rumbling as it starts to fire up. "I think that's our cue to get out of here." The explosion-driven wind has died down so Redline is able to fly over and grab her and Catalyst, getting them all off the craft before it does whatever it's going to do to hopefully dislodge itself from the scenery.
Arthur Lowell	SLAM. HATEFUL BUTCHER impacts the jade wall shoulder-first and crashes through it like the kool-aid man, but his speed has been cut to a fraction of what he built up. He's shouting at about the right volume for someone crashing through a wall.     Which means the firecrackers slip through the shark-like teeth. The blast disorients him, making him unable to get a solid hit on Majima. He winds up slamming hard into another of the buildings -- the blast has partially blinded him as well as somewhat deafened him. The best he can do is blink as much of the damage out of his eyes that he can manage, and /leap/ out of here. With the strength he has, a fully-charged cyber-enhanced leap takes him up to the top of the nearest building, where he can dash to the ship as it starts to pull out at ever-increasing speeds, cables snapping as it moves.
Majima Goro	There is an upper limit to Majima's ability to absorb 'building'. The last smash through finally manages to pry him off, the man flat on his back on the ground. Arms spread, bleeding from multiple places he shouldn't be bleeding from. Pants torn up from shards of broken jade, drywall, and dreams. He's got sort of a dreamy expression on his face, though. "Yeah. ...Yeah, that's the ticket. That's a real fight. ...Where the hell is that jackass goin', though?" He slowly sits up, one arm propping him in a sitting position. "...Fuck was any of that, actually?"
Big Boss	Big Boss can't reload his rocket in time. As an /elephant/ is in the way, he sighs, standing up, but not fast enough to pursue. He puts it back on his back, and joins Adachi. "Mission failure. We'll have to track them down." Let's see what Arthur can do with the information of who they're facing, hopefully.
Sumiko	Mikoto makes a pumping motion with her fist, indicating that they won.  She walks over to Majima, as the second Mikoto shatters into glass.  She offers him a hand up.   "Uh, I think we were stopping them from identity theafting Arthur?" Mikoto chips in to answer the question.
Arthur Lowell	Arthur is, it seems, a stiff now -- maybe not in the full medical definition of the term, but he's dead in the zero-HP sense. Which makes it /weird/ when the CURA sparks up some odd magical process or another. His dead body flickers with an assortment of shimmering colors at the spots where the magic fell on his body, and that flicker spreads gradually. It doesn't seem to be messing with his body /negatively/?     It's only a little while after Roxas lands that the flicker fully overtakes Arthur's body and causes him to lift, slowly, and begin to move of its own accord. While the ship takes off, the worst of his throat injuries close, ejecting at least that one knife from his body, and he comes down on two feet looking like he has maybe a tenth of his HEALTH VIAL, or so the display says.
Deelel	Deelel gets lucky with her stunt it ends up working she will not look back at the fireball. She gets clear and pulls away leaving on the guns no longer a threat to her allies who are fighting up close. She'll bank over the ship she does not attack further as she sees the ship is starting to run. That's enough for her and she's going to come in for a landing once she's certain the ship is leaving.