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Strawberry Princess      LAS VEGAS MOUNTAINS, NEVADA, 3:58 PM

     The mountains that overlook the Neon City are unfriendly on most Earths, but here they seem positively alien. The sand and rocks are covered in a fine layer of dark green glass for miles and miles around, with only scraggly plants growing up through the cracks. Radiation detectors light up with elevated, though not immediately harmful, readings. You ought to be able to see the lights of the city below, but you can't- it's empty, a ghost town for decades. The sun is starting to set upon an apocalyptic landscape.

     In addition to some government spooks setting up logistics and complicated-looking equipment, there are a few kids in colorful outfits standing by and gawking at the odder-looking Elites- presumably backup, in case something terrible happens. Standing literally head and shoulders above the rest is Strawberry Princess, arrayed in her pink-and-yellow. She's sitting atop a boulder, her wand powered down, eating what appears to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of a brown paper bag.

     In the air behind her there's a subtle rift, as if someone ripped the sky like kleenex and then glued it back together. Judging by the number of instruments pointed at it, that would be the Chrysalis.

     She gives a friendly wave as the first elites arrive, whether by complementary government alphabet-soup-agency van or by their own conveyance. Now's not a bad time to strike up a conversation with somebody while you still can- the taut schedule and anxious tension both indicate that things are about to kick off once everyone's assembled.
Silica     Flight is always a liberating experience. Feeling the wind in your face is refreshing, especially after a long week of studying.

    In the gathering dark as the sun sets, a streak of ygolden yellow light passes the horizon, coming from the direction of the closest warpgate. The streak angles when it nears, and then starts to spiral downwards, gradually slowing down and losing intensity until a young looking girl lands near the group.

    She does /not/ do a Super Hero landing. That's hard on the knees.

    Silica skips a few steps as she lands, armoured boots cracking the glass-like substance from the force of the impact. Cat-ears twitch a little, and her tail flicks behind her. "This is terrible..." she muses to herself, ears pinning down as she takes in the sight of the place.

    A small white dragonling lifts its head from around her neck, and nuzzles her cheek, before turning beady little red eyes over the gathered spooks, magical girls, Strawberry Princess herself, and finally the other Elites. "My name is Silica. I'm a Beast Tamer and can provide some healing and magical support. Please, leave the backline to me."
N'Raha     N'raha's 'conveyance' is a smart looking motorcycle, that rumbles and plays vaguely early 90s JRPG music if you listen REALLY carefully. The catman is still wearing his green Adventurer's Suit as he arrives, though at some point after he'd seen the fog and the dust and everything, he's put on a breathing mask.

    He pulls up short at the Place of Gathering, and grumbles a bit looking at the carnage of the place they're about to fight in. He sniffs, his good ear flicking a bit as he approaches the Magical Girl Squad. "Bloody hell, we've got a wasteland like this back home. I wasn't there for that fight but.... Gods." His tail sishes in the irradiated air. He can feel the tingles of the nuked aether in the place, makes his teeth feel itchy. Not a good feeling.

    He lifts up a taped up hand and pulls the mask down from his face. His other hand, similarly taped, lifts up to Strawberry. "N'raha, Warrior of Light. You're going to having some... well. Similar stories to yourself showing up, I"ll bet."

    The catman notably doesn't seem to be wearing armor at this point. Hmmm.
Arthur Lowell     "DAAAAAAAMN. Your world got FUCKED UP." Arthur says as he drifts weightlessly out of a Gate in a swaggering way towards Strawberry Princess. "And I've seen some BOMBED-ASS WORLDS." He ignores the suits the way one would ignore stray furniture, and moves mostly to match her wave with his own greeting: A barrage of intense pounds, daps, bumps, slides, fives both low and high, little finger wiggles, elbow-bending maneuvers, and other suchlike. It's hard to keep up with. "Name's ARTHUR LOWELL! ROCKET-POWERED JERK, HUGE FUCKIN' NUISANCE, and professional NUCLEAR BASTARD." He turns to the rift-to-be.

    "Want some HELP? I'm a MAGE OF SPACE." He assures, flexing mostly to flex and limbering up as if he were about to exercise, cracking his knuckles obnoxiously. He seems quite eager to take on the foe, though he has an edge of readiness about him that shows an intent to bring heat to match the situation.
Staren     Hostile extradimensional entity of a type Staren's never had to deal with before? Sounds pretty dangerous. Staren would like to bring his mecha, but apparently there's a size limitation on the portal. Understandable. He'll have to do the next best thing: Transfer his consciousness into a man-sized combat robot!

    He flies in from the gate on thrusters. A red metallic humanoid, although once he gets close there's a transparent visor with a face behind it and also... cat ear-shaped protrusions on the helmet and a segmented robotic tail on the back of the armor; those unfamiliar with Staren might or might not take it to just be a strange choice in costume.

    He lands before the assembled group and looks over the backup, the spooks, and Strawberry Princess. At least he doesn't seem to find the idea of magical girls /odd/. He nods at the Princess's wave and waves back.

    Staren's never been to Las Vegas. The way it is here wouldn't look out of place in his own world. He doesn't seem the least bit put out at the idea of using nukes to fight monsters. "I'm Staren Wiremu. It's nice to meet you." He approaches Strawberry Princess and holds out a hand.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur glances back briefly, then turns to Strawberry Princess. He feels the need to clarify something. "No, don't worry." He assures. "It's not all cat-people. Promise."
Tony Stark EARLIER, Upstate New York
Stark Unlimited Compound

Tony Stark had been given whole hours of prep time. He put them to good use.
"Children, daddy's home." Stark calls, sitting at his U-shaped workdesk, clapping his hands and raising them like a conductor as holographic displays came alive around him, hovering in the air as lights blinked on.
"Good afternoon sir."
"What's the plan today, boss?"
"Awaiting mission profile."

"We've been tackling a lot of exoenergetical issues, a lot of stuff that won't sit down and play nice. So, I want the three of you to start putting your heads together on project file 'Mark 45'." Stark answers the disembodied and color-coded voices, as clips play of various encounters that spin around the man's head.

"Skipping numbers, sir?" Jarvis quips. Tony rolls his eyes. "Thinking ahead. I've thumbed forty-three and forty-four for mission packages. We've got about an hour, so pull parts from forty and forty-two for the prebuild."
"Do we know anything about the mission?"
Stark blanches. "Magical radiation girl?"
"Parameters unhelpful. Operation level suits are already rated against radiological events."
Rubbing his temple, Stark absently brings up a handful of digital files, expanding them to show internal pop-out designs for dozens of bespoke systems. "BASTION, I want you on point for the weapons overhaul, codename 'Prime'. The kitchen sink works, so cut down on re-arming time."
"Understood. Parameters within operatonal ability."

"Then let's get to work."

NOW:
Nevada, Where The Lights On The Horizon Are Probably Radioactive

Vectoring in like a missile, the red-and-gold of Iron man levels with palmjets as the gold mask flares with two points of cold blue. "Excuse me, ma'am, are you... Strawberry Princess?" Comes Tony's voice, lightly synthesized. Inside his helmet, he boggles at the geiger reading before dismissing it. "Hope nobody here's at their LD50 for spicy air today. You said it was... pupating... extradimensionally? How does that all work, exactly?"
Arthur Lowell     "For example, that guy is just a normal robot, not a cat robot." Arthur says, jerking a thumb at the new arrival as a demonstration of his point. He has not actually been paying attention enough about Tony Stark to get his thing right now.
Tony Stark "It's a powered exosuit with flight capabilities." Tony replies. "I've made remote-operated unmanned versions, but this isn't one. Seeing as my 'aether' doesn't protect me from radiation like the guy with an axe here, I'm not popping the helmet to show." Iron Man shoots back at Arthur.

"So, no, not 'just a robot'."

"Didn't you die, like, a week ago?"
Arthur Lowell     Arthur squints at Tony, as if trying to solve a puzzle that he's been given. The puzzle is "what is the most obnoxious thing he can say right now". He eventually settles on, "Okay, so that guy might be a cat too." He says. As for the Death Banter: "Didn't you try to PULL ME OVER for REALITY-SPEEDING just 'cause STAREN knows I KNOW SOME GOOD SHIT? 'Cause I know for sure I DIED about NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS AGO, you got a WARRANT?"
Staren     "'Cat robot' is kind of misleading. My natural form is not unlike N'raha's, I usually wear a powered exoskeleton like Iron Man on these missions, but for dealing with an unknown extradimensional threat I figured I'd better bring something more resiliant, so this is a robot body I've temporarily transferred my consciousness into." Staren explains. He takes an armor plate off the arm to show metal skin underneath and raps on it a couple of times before replacing the plate. "It can take more of a beating with no pain... but, better if it doesn't have to, obviously..."

    "This level of radiation SHOULD be safe, but it's probably best if everyone tries not to breathe in any dust all the same."
Lilian Rook     Lilian arrives in the exact 'standard issue' she'd backhandedly worried about when Strawberry Princess had started talking about costumes and action figures. She hadn't any problems with it previously, being functional in the way that only something developed post-war from reams of data can be, but now the niggling issue on her mind is on how underdressed she probably is.

    Wearing a charcoal grey polymer bodysuit with semi-matte metallic inserts, visibly attached to the vital areas, and in smaller pieces at other places people would rather not get hit, like base and apex of the spine, and the back of the hands and ankles, she has more armour attached to the modular points than usual, but less conventional firepower. Being told that the Endlings don't much care for it, and given that it's usually just a form of conserving magic anyways, she has the absolute bare minimum in the way of cases, straps, and devices locked to magnetic hardpoints.

    There is also no helmet, because helmets are for *mooks*. She just has her hair pulled up and elaborately pinned back by some baroque iron ornament with a really long pin that seems vaguely sinister, and sort of matches the cruciform black and pendant around her neck, which is somehow *extremely* sinister. Overwhelmingly so.

    Two seconds with reinforced soles on the crackly glass, and she wonders aloud "I wonder if it looks like this in 'that' Nevada.", intentionally tapping and scuffing her heels on the ravaged ground, as if getting a sense of character from the earth.

    Flagging down Strawberry Princess immediately, Lilian puts on her absolute best brave face to not worry about the stark difference in costume, and says "I'm happy to finally meet you in person. It looks like you're prepared well in advance already. That's good! Though, are all these . . . people really safe here?" She doesn't even have to glance at the government employees to give off the impression she's referring to them. "I'm a little disappointed I missed seeing you open that thing up." she says, gesturing towards the tear in a loose, airy sort of way, then just sort of stares sadly at the PB&J. ". . . if that's all they gave you, I can find something else. Really. It's no trouble."
N'Raha     N'raha, is, for his part, fiddling with his inventory.

    Several pots of Purple Dye appear in his hands, and then one by one, they vanish into blue aetheric mist, the energy sliding into his suit.

    Lilian's statements about Catering Choices get his tail and good ear to perk as well. Something else he can help with, but there's a lot going on, and he's trying to Conform To Ritual.
Strawberry Princess      A trio of magical boys- clad in white, black, and silver princely suits respectively, with elegant eyeless birdmasks- lean in towards each other and mutter at Silica's arrival. "Back line? There's a 'back line' now?" "Shhh. Dude, she'll hear you." "The back line's only for if you've got cute ears. Obviously." "My ears are cute as hell and you know it." "You have normal ears. Don't be weird." N'raha spurs a similar bout of fresh chatter from the triplets, once he shows up with his own cat ears on display- and then Staren kicks off yet another. They can barely contain their gossip.

     "And I look forward to working with them," Strawberry says, shaking N'raha's hand. Only the lower half of her expression is readable behind her visor, but she's smiling all friendly-like. "I assure you all that the rest of my world is much more... presentable? Looks less like it's gone through the microwave."

     And then The Handshake. Strawberrry reciprocates it as best she's able, but there's only so much she can do even as a Fellow Savvy Youth- it loses her about halfway through, leaving her as a passive recipient to the rest of the gestures. "Nuclear bast- y, yeah. I guess I might be one of those now too," she says, looking distinctly flummoxed by the frankly bizarre greeting. "Go ahead and give it your best shot at opening it! I'll help, just in case, but it's all useful information."

     As Staren approaches, she hops off the boulder and stands up- though not particularly built, she's about a foot taller than Arthur and doesn't have to look up to make eye contact with the combat robot. "Pleased to meet you too, Mr. Wiremu." Her grip's pretty firm, if he has the sensors for that right now. "And... Mr. Stark, from the radio. Yeah, I'm Strawberry." She looks a tad overwhelmed by the large number of strangers suddenly crowding here, but keeps smiling anyway. Lilian acts as a bit of relief!
Strawberry Princess      She shakes the gray-clad Extinguisher's hand emphatically, not noticing- or pretending not to notice- the aesthetic costume difference at all. "It's great to meet you too, Lilian! And you didn't miss anything- it's not open yet! You'll still get to see that. The folks out here, they're perfectly safe- it's not coming out, we're going in."

     She adds, as an aside: "I like PB&J. It's okay. Really."

     "We're still not totally sure how it works," she says to Tony, turning her back on the Elites to point up at the rippling fracture in the air. "They appear inside these Chrysalises first, and nothing we have can breach them except a magical girl. They grow and weave themselves together inside, and then when they're ready, they breach out. By the time they hatch, it's already really bad. So we have to... you know, go inside and kill it while it's still weaker. If we miss even one, it could kill thousands of people, or worse. So every hunt is important, even the 'easy' ones."

     Lifting her wand towards the Chrysalis, she flips a few switches on the handle. "Ready to assist, Arthur? Three... two..." The reactor bolted to the wand makes an unholy, awful noise as it spins up. For a moment, the air tastes like metal, pins-and-needles prick against skin, and there's a keening noise like an ungreased flywheel mixed with the blare of an electronic klaxon. Fuel rods clunk heavily into position. The red timer on the wand starts to tick down. "One!"

         04:59

     A new sun is born in the afternoon desert.

     A beam of raw white light, fading to pink at the edges, burns away every shadow as it pours into the spatial fracture. The sky caves, opening up into a hole- with Arthur's help, it may only take a few seconds. As the beam flickers out and fades, the hole remains: a portal into a world beyond, where the dark sky is laced with colorful strands like unspooling yarn and the ground is a jumble of opalescent crystals.

     Strawberry Princess takes a deep breath and steps through to the other side. The crystals crunch under her feet. Looking back, she gestures for the others to follow...
N'Raha     N'raha can't help but hear the chatter from the trio of Magical Boys, and he sniffs, smiling at them as he reaches up and undoes the knot on his tie.

    And as he does so, piece after piece of his 'suit' loses it's glamour. And each time it does, another secton of his armor is revealed. Gleaming purple metal, glints in the newly born nuclear light, until finally a helmet snaps into place, and a rounded vidor completes the set.

    A massive, glowing ax drops into place in his hands, and with a salute to the crowd, the Purple Go Go Ranger hops through the portal and follows their Fearless Leader.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur nods. "Alright. I'mma POP THE CAP on this ASSHOLE." He cracks his knuckles one last time, summons his metal battle-broom, them slams it bristle-first into the rift, cranking it to the side like it's some giant key. Magic interlaces with magic; power is fed through unknown geometries. Arthur twists hard, his entire body blasting with a sudden rush of black and white fire for only a fraction of a second to throw the doors wide open.

    And there it goes. Time to go through. "ALRIGHT!" He shouts. "Let's HUNT, BITCHES!" He moves through fast, intending to reach a high-speed pace. "How we MANEUVERING, BERRY? Call those FORMATIONS!"
Staren     Despite being a 'combat robot', Staren's current body is also clearly designed to look human (well, catman) aside from the extra armor. It's close to his normal size, not even six feet tall! He has to look up at Strawberry.

    He listens attentively to the explanation, then his attention turns to the reactor. "Oooh, THAT's an interesting design..." And then she uses it to POWER MAGIC. "Wait, you're--?! Oooh, now THAT is an interesting trick!"

    It's at least a few seconds before his attention is drawn from the magitech to the fracture in reality. When she gestures for them to follow, he flies through on thrusters.
Tony Stark Arthur's play works, of course, because he is an immortal yes-old teenage troll who has sharpened his blade on xbox live for ten billion years.

"My 'heroic persona' is Iron Man, my name is Anthony Stark, and if you don't square up about that, space cadet, I'll bring back Bawls Guarana out of spite just to ask you how my Stark Bawls taste in your mouth, gamer fuel boy."

Lilian arrives, and that ends that, as N'raha gets PAINTED UP.

"You know, it really is something that's impressive every time." Tony observes, getting readings from the reactor pile on Strawberry Princess' wand as it spools up. An overlay starts tracking the throw-off from the wand, little green bars climbing into orange zones.

"Five minute operational time? Then I guess we're here to get paid for a living."

As the HUD over Tony's face rotates from a cool blue to a tactical orange, the portal is torn open and as the 'new sun' blooms over Nevada. Regardless of anything else, Tony becomes once more very glad for his photon-dampening eye protection.

He follows with a few boot-tromping steps, staying close to Strawberry Princess as they enter the Spicy Air Exclusion Zone.

"So what's there to expect? Giant monsters? I'm not seeing any giant monsters."
Lilian Rook     "Well, if you say so." Lilian replies, politely defeated at Strawberry's insistence on PB&J. She does, in fact, pronounce Strawberry as two syllables. She has exactly that type of dialect called Received Pronunciation that doesn't actually exist in the wild; a culturally engineered accent that sounds good on BBC, which parents send their kids to private schools so they won't pick up the local one.

    When the nuclear fuel rods start up, Lilian's expression concentrates into one of mild displeasure, lips twisting, reflexively licking the inside of her teeth. The energy is unpleasant in a way she hasn't ever sampled before. Not supernaturally unwholesome, but . . . perversely industrial. She claps her hands over her ears, closes her eyes, and opens her mouth a little the moment she realizes where it's going; quite literally standard procedure for being near a firing artillery piece or inbound airstrike.

    "A little inelegant." she says when the second sun dies down, repeatedly popping her ears and wincing a little at the residual pressure. "That method." A moment of mulling it around in her head, and she continues with a rather strangely specific judgement, enunciating it like a displeased wine taster, except magic. "There is, or was, magic there. But it's . . . crude, and impersonal. Like a lich of cast iron bones and gasoline motors."

    Giving a royal little finger-wiggling wave to the trio of boys on the sidelines (which surprises her just slightly), she taps her toes against the ground, and little flickers of black static ripple off her contact points with the earth, severing her agreement with gravity. She drifts upwards, almost ghostlike, and then flits through the rift without hesitation. "Let's not waste the woman's time." she says on the way in.

    Once inside, she tries to get the exact same sort of feeling, the 'aesthetic sense', of the inside of the chrysalis, in all its swirling supernatural weirdness. Part of it is a sensory experience, but after a minute, she does flick down a little holographic eyepiece to take readings, sweeping the area as well.
Silica     Silica's ears twitch, and she rather obviously turns to the trio and approaches. "You three don't know anything about support work, do you?" she asks pointedly, Pina peering at them with her beady little eyes. "Backline work is making sure the rest of the group don't die." She leaves it at that, and turns to watch the fireworks, eyes going wide as she summons a second pet with a few flicks of her wrist. The serpentine Winged Serpent coils around the opposite shoulder to the dragonling, and Silica pulls a dagger from its sheath at the small of her back, following the others into the other world.

    Even now, she begins to chant in a false Norse language, words of power cycling around her and locking in as they're spoken. As she speaks the final word, a cascade of water seems to fall over her, and those nearby, applying a 'regeneration' buff that helps to stem pain and close small wounds.
Strawberry Princess      "Yeah, supposed to be a giant monster. I don't know where it is," Strawberry mutters to herself as she takes a gander around. Both hands rest, pensively, on her wand. The Chrysalis looks almost like a mirror of the world outside, save for the bowling-ball-sized shiny rocks, yarn-skein sky, and peaked mountains that fuse into the starry horizon at the edges "A Chrysalis isn't that big on the inside; it can't really be hiding anywhere. Alert for possible stealth--"

     She catches sight of the Endling the instant that it lets go of the sky-ceiling and plummets down. Ethereal wings of pink-white sparkles erupt from her spine and propel her into a panic backflip as she creates a pink forcefield dome overhead. An instant later, the dome-forcefield cracks and ruptures under the thing's weight, and it crashes down to crush the ground where she was standing an eyeblink earlier.

     The Endling is a twenty-foot-tall crab-shaped monstrosity of multicolored threads and shimmering rocks, tied together into a vaguely organic shape like an arts-and-crafts project. It is constantly, meticulously building itself, sucking down more thread from the sky like an umbilical cord and scooping up more rocks from the ground with its smaller grasping limbs. At its center, where a crab's mouthparts would be, is a refrigerator-sized chunk of green-blue bipyramidal crystal which all the threads connect to like an inorganic heart.

     It slams one oversized hammer-claw into the ground, and the sparkling rocks underfoot erupt into vicious spikes that threaten to impale anyone on the ground. It immediately follows up with a keening shriek and a horizontal sweeping laser-beam projected from its crystal core, aimed high to catch anyone jumping over the spikefield.

     Strawberry Princess herself swoops into the air after recovering from nearly being squished, swapping fire modes on her wand with a grinding click-clack of heavy parts and fuel rods. "This whole world is its body. Aim for the core! That's the only thing it can't replace!"

         04:50
N'Raha     Well. That's a thing. N'raha's used to Extraplanar Bullshit, at least, and when the GIANT PINTREST MURDER CRAB summons itself, he's already exploding into action.

    He doesn't have fancy wings or flight mode, but he does have Mad and he flicks the switch, at least a little bit. No need to go Full Mad for this. Just yet. A swealtering haze of red Aether cloaks the Warrior of Light as he grips his ax, the glowing edge exploding into a different sort of light, and he charges in. Before the rest of the party can get too invested in doing heavy damage, the Tank Catte lashes out with several blasts of wayward magic, designed to be as irritating as possible to Draw Enmity. "Come on, you big bastard! I'm right here! Come and get me!"

    He backs that up with a massive overhand chop of his ax, looking to lop off bits of the claws as he can. "I'LL KEEP IT BUSY, GO FOR THE CORE."
Staren     Staren puts one of the shiny rocks into a sample bag for later analysis.

    And then it comes down from the 'ceiling' they thought was the sky. Staren fires up at it, twin particle beams lancing through the sky, as it crashes down on that field, then fires a couple of micro-missiles to follow up.

    Like Strawberry, as Staren decides to put more distance between himself and the creature, wings (translucent orange and stylized, buzzing like an insect's -- identical to Silica's) appear at his back as he hovers backwards... then fumbles as spikes come up. a glancing hit sending him tumbling so the laser can lance across him as he tries to recover. He just drops to the ground to avoid followup lasers and scrambles back to his feet.

    Not a good initial showing.

    Once he's back on his feet he fires abnother dual-beam blast straight for that core, though!
Silica     And now, even though she wasn't there to witness it personally, she's getting flashbacks of the Skull Reaper.

    Silica's wings emerge and she leaps back and away, pointing at the Prism Crab and emitting a clicking sound with her tongue. Pina and Hibiki open their mouths, and emit a stream of bubbles, and needle-like energy bullets respectively. These combine into 'Needle Bubbles', that strafe across the crab's body, and around the central core. They're meant to have a 'stun' debuff, but whether that works or not is to be seen.

    The Cait Sith herself ducks and weaves through the air, trying to stay mobile, but not get thrown too far away from the others. "Remember, if you get hurt, shout. I can heal you!"
Arthur Lowell     "Nah, naw, dog! You got enough SQUARE for both us! I don't wanna HARSH THAT." Arthur says, sneering at Tony like an absolute asshole. He's about to follow up with some abolutely prime Xbox Live banter about Stark Bawls, but he's cut off right in the middle.

    He was keeping relatively close to Strawberry, which means he keeps close to the forcefield. CRASH! "SHIT!!" Arthur's in motion before it finishes crushing. He's mounted his battle-broom and is blasting high up into the air! He circles fast, holding his body tight to the broomstick; he makes sure to keep an even spread with the other flying allies like, presumably, Iron Man. The spikes scrape his feet, but the laser certainly doesn't. It lashes over his body before he gets a good flight path, leaving a brutal gash along his side and a spray of bruising and burning around it, but his HEALTH VIAL only had a modest chunk knocked out, and he can afford to do some REGEN right in the start, courtesy of Silica's pre-fight stuff.

    He moves fast. N'Raha is going for tanking, which Arthur must admit he's a superior combatant in. He circles around to the opposite end, just to make sure everything's clear! Staren's double-beams for the core give Arthur an advantage in not having to bother to ID trajectories; a half-second shaved off of things means he can whip his own heavy starlight blast around towards the core and barrage it with hot white solar fire. Time to gauge how much pain this thing is going to need to get anywhere, now that there's some indication of how much it can dish out.
Tony Stark "I'm being sassed by a real life twitter shitpost bot. This is a new experience." Stark grumbles. If the pair had gone on like that for a few more rounds Tony would be being consoled by his armor suit as he pointed across the table at a shit-eating grin wearing Arthur sunk into his chair. It would get Bad.

But, the mission comes up: They go in expecting a monster.

One certainly arrives, smashing into the ground with leading umbilicus from the air.

"This whoe place is 'it'?!" Iron Man calls, readying a see-through shield of visible repulsor energy across the forearm of his suit as the spikes rise up from the ground. Bidding for height just gets his red, rocketing boots caught on dense spike material, easily lining up one hell of a blast right across his shield - Endling plasma roiling across the surface of his bracer shield and tearing around it.

Coming out the other end as he kicks his way free, Iron Man hovers and strafes around, searching for an opening as his shield winks out of existance with a fizzle and a cooldown popup takes a spot in the corner of his right eye. "Shoot the core, right?"

<"JARVIS, I'd really like to poke the biggest energy source on that thing."> Stark comments internally as he fires a few ranging repulsor blasts at the hanging umbilicals.

<"Calculating. Miss Princess' radiation field is making narrowing down the precise angle hard.">
<"Best guess, please!">

A powerful missile rears off from a wrist launcher, looping around one of the Endling's legs to smash it square in the teeth with a high explosive payload.
Lilian Rook     "Mmmm . . ." hums Lilian, in a contemplative tone of paying token attention. She's absorbed in taking initial metrics of the extra-dimensional space. It resembles something she's used to, but only passingly, which has more of her attention rather than less. Her focus slowly drifts from the barren, crystalline ground, up the threads of winding dreamstuff, to--

    She catches sight of it just before Strawberry Princess, but not meaningfully faster, only able to call out "Above!" in a trained-abbreviated manner. She flicks back the eyepiece immediately, and in exactly the order she intended to test, she reaches for one of the two handguns --the one magnetized to her left hip. Officially, this is a data gathering excursion. The task force wants readings. Useful information. Lilian intends to see to this professionally all the way through, unless one of a small number of people are in critical danger.

    The extradimensional space rattles --shudders-- against her, as if the air were glass beads being bounced from some brief vibration from her body. Translucent, glassy lines in the suit briefly flash with white light.

    She pulls the first handgun in a smooth draw, flicking a manual safety in and aiming at arm's length in one motion. It barks over a dozen times in rapid succession, the slide jackhammering back and forth, spitting gouts of hot chemical smoke instead of brass. A spray of tungsten bullets are snapshot straight into the Endling's core with the speed and physical intensity of snatching a ball out of the air not meant for her. She tosses it when the chamber is empty, letting it bounce off the ground; she didn't bring a second magazine for it.

    The spikes race through the ground and stab out from underneath her. Lilian leaps high into the air without using more than her ankles for force. She snatches a matte canister off her belt, primes it with a thumb press --then suddenly has to brake for the following laser, aimed exactly for where she dodged. A clear one-two punch meant to mulch anyone who can't fly, and maneuver quickly; more than she'd expected from an alien crab monster.

    There's a flash of black, smoky energy, and Lilian flips herself head over heels to gain another level up and escape it, fastball pitching the grenade upside down, with a short boom as it exceeds the sound barrier, exploding into an intense fireball and teeth-rattling wave of force on impact. The smoke hasn't cleared before she's chucked another one right side up, this one letting off a sharp bang and turning into a hundred pieces of serrated alloy and uranium needles.

    Landing hard enough to bounce weightless off her heels a foot airborne again, Lilian reaches behind herself and unsheaths a trio of double-edged combat knives from the small of her back, hurling them towards the core next, in a narrow fan, hitting much faster, with blades vastly denser and harder than steel. Not even pausing to check what effect she's having with each, she rockets straight upwards from there, and drops her second to last explosive, this one obviously being some form of jellied white phosphorous substitute. She's not even checking what any of it does; she brought One Of Everything for testing.
Note     Someone was late. Startlingly late. There's probably a good reason for it, but... at a time like this, who has the wherewithal to inquire? ... And who is this latecomer...?

    A FEW STRETCHED OUT MOMENTS AGO...

    "AAAAAAAH, it's gonna shut!" Note, late to the party, swoops towards the irradiated wasteland and the goings on below. The freaky portal stretches out in front of her, open for such a brief time... people head through it and...

    And just before the rupture in space and time closes, the little martial artist zips through, yoinking her tail forward and around her waist lest it get snipped by the shifting spacetime. "Whew...."

    This, of course, leaves her precariously placed floating a good thirty feet in the air or so above ground-bounders, tail swishing freely and quite agitatedly as she gets a GOOOOD look at the THING that help is needed to deal with...

    "THAT... .. that THING.. is the UGLIEST monster I've EVER seen! Several times over! Even the freaky things where Lilian's from aren't THAT ugly..." Or at least, the ones she's seen so far. Which isn't many.

    "... Hope it's more interesting than the Grimm. Should be a good opponent..."

    But instead of instantly engaging, she takes a few moments to glance over who else is here. Many she just plain doesn't recognize. But over yonder is...

    "ARTHUR!!" While calling his name, Note brings both hands up and then out in front of her, palms aimed straight at the monster... and a huge bluish-white BEAM of pure Ki crosses the distance, burning its way through the air on a collision course with the Endling's side!

    "Now's not a bad time to show off some progress, right? ... what sorta group did you end up with here? Don't recognize half of these people!"
Strawberry Princess      N'raha's provocations don't do much by way of actually injuring it, but they do successfully draw the Endling's attention. Its larger arm extends like a slinky-snake to encircle him multiple times in a loose loop, with the enormous pincer hanging directly overhead like a claw machine's grabber. The pincer darts down and tries to nip him with its huge scissorlike blades; each time it misses, the arm-spiral constricts a little more, giving him less and less room to dodge. Fortunately, that means the most dangerous limb isn't focused on anyone else.

     Staren's initial shots to the Endling's body, true to Strawberry's warning, had little lasting effect- the creature just shucks off the damaged rocks and attaches fresh ones, effectively recycling its injuries away. His attacks on the core are more effective: they blast away chunks of the crystal, sending spiderwebbing cracks across the heart as the Endling keens in apparent pain. Arthur's starlight blasts and Iron Man's rockets are equally effective, sending it visibly flinching as the cracks deepen. The deeper, angrier portions of the crystal glow all the more brightly.

     In response to its new injuries, it morphs two new limbs, flattened and plate-like, to run point defense in front of its core in an apparent display of intelligence. They stagger and lag when hit by Silica's stunning projectiles, but otherwise rapidly turn to ward off attacks like ping-pong paddles. Getting further attacks through is going to be trickier!

     Lilian's conventional weaponry yields interesting effects, though it might be hard for her to see them through the chaotic melee. It doesn't seem as though the Endling is meaningfully impaired by smoke grenades or the like. Her handgun seems to have roughly handgun-on-crystal-appropriate effects initially, but near the end of the clip the impacts become less and less noticeable. One of the knives sticks in the crystal, but the others are intercepted by its paddle-claws. The incendiary grenade finds the thread-stuff to be remarkably flammable, but the rest of its composition less thermally susceptible. All in all, it's a real grab-bag, and seems to be susceptible to reactive adaptation.

     Strawberry swoops down low to the ground and levels her wand- not at the Endling, but at the movement-clogging forest of five-foot-tall spikes. "Don't flinch!" Her wand fires a somewhat more modest version of the luminescent beam that breached the Chrysalis, but even as she sweeps it from left to right across the entire field to instantly reduce the obstacles to fine gray dust, it doesn't touch any of the elites- she feathers the trigger so it toggles off just as it would've swept in front of one of them, and then toggles back on as soon as it's safely behind. The astute might infer that she's avoiding directly attacking it because this is a test of your abilities, not hers.

         04:32

     With its other limbs, the Endling starts rapidly cobbling together a monolith of shiny rocks bound together with the colored threads. Even as it's building, it fires its core-laser into the monolith, which diffracts the attack into a dozen rapidly-twisting smaller lasers in all directions like a lethal disco ball.

     Note's ki blast blows a hole in its flank... which it promptly begins recycle-regenerating, just like all the other non-core injuries. The chunks of shrapnel that were blown off of it reorganize themselves into flying bird-sized gribblies made of sharp gemstone shrapnel and tangled knots of thread that swoop and harry, trying to skewer the Elites or drive them into the spinning disco-lasers!
N'Raha     Snap snip clack go the claws, and N'raha grimly notes for his own satisfaction that he has, in fact, drawn aggro. Good. But, as the constriction continues, as his movement is hampered, as the crab gets closer and closer to getting a death snip...

    N'raha leans into one. Like, he bodily cranks himself forward into the joint, letting the giant crystal claws get a hold of him. Unfortunately for the crab and fortunately for him. He is a very tough nut to crack, as it were. Even more so as he howls, a lion's-roar of energy washing over the field, and the catman starts to hammer his axe down on that joint. Blow after blow, powered by aether and mad, starts to beat at the functional part of the snippy snip, looking to literally disarm the Endling.

    That said, he IS getting clipped on and he IS getting shot by lasers.

    This hurts. Plenty. But it's keeping the damn thing busy while the others do their jobs.
Silica     While the others are getting stuck in, Silica's hanging back, studying the movements. Those two armour plates will be trouble if they're not handled... so Silica decides to do just that. "I'll try and slow those plate-arms down, time your shots with mine." she radios, then begins to chant. Hands held forward towards the monster. Words of power lock in, and a trio of large ice javelins appears around her. She then aims these, not at the Core, but at the Arms. A click of her tongue has her pets performing that 'stun needle' combo again, followed up by the ice javelins, trying to knock those arms aside for someone to follow up.
Staren     It makes point-defense plates to block attacks! "Pfft." Staren's pretty sure he can deal with THAT.

    The lasers + rock-thread attack is more troublesome.

    Staren chooses the lasers. For a split-second, they etch into his armor, the marks joining the slowly-regenerating gouge swept across him by the last laser, as he fires ALL THE MISSILES. A couple dozen, mostly about the size of magic markers, a few even smaller. They split off in all different directions, weaving around the plates such that some, but not all, can be intercepted, and then go right for that core!

    The smaller missiles are anti-tank, shaped charges that try to skewer the crystal with lances of high-energy physics; most of the missiles are less discriminatory, designed to discharge absurd amounts of heat into their immediate surroundings, enough to turn air and most materials into a plasma fireball.

    Staren, meanwhile, flies in place in the lasers, trying to tank it -- he's put a forcefield up which seems to be taking them much better than his armor does, like it's designed to take energy attacks -- it still won't last indefinitely, though, and it looks like he can't fire and project the forcefield at the same time.
Note     This is one of the weirdest foes that Note's ever laid eyes upon. A shambling monster that cobbles itself together out of... whatever's laying around?

    Seeing it do that means Note's a bit too preoccupied watching to react in time. When the creature lashes out with a DISCO LASER SHOW she yelps in a half-panic and throws her arms out protectively in front of her. The beams scorch a nasty pattern on her arms and drive her back, forcing a pained hiss from the girl and making a mess of bits of her outfit. And yet...

    "Yeah. Time for you to see what -I- can do, now!" With a sudden sharp inhale, Note raises her crossed arms up above her head... and brings them down with a swift motion, planting her fists at her sides, palms up... "HaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Raw power tingles at the air in a fashion not unlike what happened when Strawberry Princess activated her gear. in This case though, it's a strange sort of tingly heat and a warm wind that flows from Note as her power ignites into a sparking golden aura that rushes about her body like a raging bonfire. Up goes her previouisly smooth black hair, every graspable fistful of it parting into gatherings of spikes as every strand takes on the same lit-from-within golden hue. Black eyes smoothly shift to a light green.

    Something else about the girl's changed, too. There's a fierceness about her. Her gaze has turned fierce and unforgiving.

    And it is with that ferocious look on her face that she simply VANISHES from plain sight, turning into a barely-followable blur as she zips around all over the Endling and attempts to deliver dozens of harsh, punishing blows from kicks and punches... each blow that lands sounding off a thunderous *BOOM* and loosing a rippling shockwave!
Tony Stark With Strawberry Princess' columns of light sweeping away the periphery obstacles to flight but not, specifically, blasting the Endling down, there's a lot of actors on the field - and a lot of things to juggle in the mind. Thankfully this isn't Stark's first rodeo.

"The target is formulating countermeasures."
"Yes, I can see that, thanks!" Stark quips back at his onboard AI, bidding for more distance to hover as the monolith begins building itself. "Update mission profile, scratch off everything we've tried."

A list of weapons displays itself, and then three entries get a line through them and darken. As the laser scatter begins, Stark's armor yellows and blackens as he just eats directed energy blasts for hovering still, areas turning yellow on his HUD and some red flashing zones mark damaged components.

"If space cadet thinks we should hit the monolith... Compositional analysis?"
"Running now. Stand by, sir."

Unhelpful blasts of opportunity at regenerating sectors of the body to keep the processes in repair-upkeep and not fully formed countermeasures pepper the beast as a little spinny progress bar fills up.

"Any time now!" He impatiently calls.
"Frequency discovered. Modulating output to match." Jarvis tones.
"About time!" Stark half-whoops, half-grouses as he closes in on the monolith, soaking damage to place both hands on the pillar as suit-shields ablate away lethal energy rays for him to press two pulsing hands on the pillar --

-- and fill it with a cascading burst of precisely-machined energetic frequencies to counteract and destabilize the forces at work, ideally just turning the obelisk to a liquid goo and not a solid at all due to rampantly energetic reactions with the repulsor power Iron Man floods it with.
Lilian Rook     "Basic one-step-ahead strategic planning. Improvisation. Understanding hows its abilities react with each other. Reactive defenses." Lilian lists off when she ditches the last of her conventionals. "'Building itself' is certainly right. This thing isn't a fetus growing in the womb; it's poring overs its design and assembling a finished state it thinks will inflict the most possible damage to the world outside. I'm not sure how intelligent it is, but it has a decision tree."

    The experienced monster hunters and alien fighters between the group exchange tactical requests. Lilian immediately claims the big ball of laser spitting death the Endling has created. She'd planned to escalate her level of firepower in stages, and since she has data on the fairly normal (if very overtuned) weaponry, she steps up to what she'd planned next; G.D.F issue weaponry, and Arx Zenith taught 'standard magic combatives'.

    The storm of beams and shrapnel are much more pressing to deal with this time than the spikes-and-sweep. She recognized straight away that her opportunities are more limited. The air vibrates against her a second time. Another whine maxes out past the human range of hearing. She takes the second handgun off her opposite hip, with flat, angular, heavy metal construction, holographic displays and a straight split down half its bulk.

    When the barrage reaches her, Lilian speeds up by a flat out cubic multiplier. She becomes a phantom on the battlefield; a flickering image that appears multiple times in the less developed parts of the eye, barely touching the ground long enough to sharply reverse and change direction when she needs the extra traction, and even then it's just the ball or heel of her foot, sharply pivoting and cracking the ground before she blurs off again. The air whips and sizzles around her, but the lack of explosive noises and shockwaves is uncanny. She darts through the mess like a mirage.

    It isn't just purely speedy reactive dodging either. It's as if she knows exactly where the attacks are going to go once they enter a certain space around her, being simultaneously aware of everything in her domain. There are parts where the volleying fire is simply too thick, and there isn't a space large enough for a human to fully squeeze through it, as the Endling tries out its powers and figures out ways to walk its fire into more difficult patterns. There are sparks and cracks of shrapnel on metal and brief diffusions of beams into splattering fragments, but the inserts are designed to take that kind of damage, absorbing the force and breaking without harming the operator. They're calculated places where Lilian sees she can force through undodgeable parts of the screen.

    Weaving through it, she finds small clearings and blind spots in the bullet hell, and returns fire herself. The new handgun blasts away with a uniquely metallic and incendiary tone, leaving whining, magnetic echoes between bursts of fire. The muzzle flashes with blue-white fire, and pitch black casings spit out into the air, paint spinning trails of smoke where they fall to earth, long after Lilian is already gone. Thin bolts of light spit through the air and collide with the monolith with enough force to cause the air to visibly compress and ripple away from them, pinpoint explosions erupting at the center.

    They're followed up by one last grenade, flung with force into the grouping left by the handgun, which detonates as a searing, intensely localized fireball of roiling energy, designed to scoop out a spherical crater and dump massive amounts of thermal conductive shock into everything else. Those devices spent, they're followed with a sustained barrage of red-black crackling energy bolts, strobing up the current of the Endling's fire, as Lilian relentlessly strafes the enemy in closing spirals. Her metaphorical fire button taped down, she ruthlessly dumps high volumes of roughly fire-dark approximate elemental energy into it in the form of focused, piercing bolts.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur knows this. Lasers in motion, a disco nightmare of lights and blasts. He knows how to dodge, though, weaving around in rocket-blasts and summoning brief barrel-roll-powered barriers to dodge through some of the heavier thickets of lasers. Left. Right. Down. Down. Focus. Up. Don't get pincered. Don't slow down. Don't let death catch you.

    Arthur slams hard into the ground, using some of the cut-up spikes as cover, and he has to limbo dramatically under some incoming lasers. He slides in behind the arm encircling N'Raha, using the edge of the danger zone as cover to reload the spent magazine in his broom. He blasts off hard! The most dangerous arm is occupied... and now the less dangerous ones are open, courtesy of Silica! Arthur resolves to exploit that. He can't afford to attack them, but there's still something he can do. With heavy flight-bursts, Arthur moves in and lands, slamming his feet down into the joints of one, bracing againts it, lining up his broom like a rifle, and then unleashing a massive blast! Then, before counterattack, he leaps to the other joint! And another blast there! He's focusing on the core, but trying to get in close and make full use of the opening he's been given.

    Can't afford to stay in close, especially with the heavy incoming missiles joining him at the core! He blasts backwards, turns in the air like a weirdly strong magnet, and latches onto the back of Staren's armor in a three-point landing. He guns some extra-strength RAW ENERGY into his systems, making sure he can take cover behind him by enhancing his defenses. "We ain't outlasting this bitch! Can ya dump some more on 'im!?" Arthur calls out, before he recovers enough to get into motion FAST.

    His one-two punch wasn't enough. Arthur moves in towards the monolith. His hope is that Tony Stark and Lilian Rook's combined efforts have shattered or damaged it -- because he intends to RAM it, dead-on, with a heavy gravity field! Whatever's left of it, he hopes he can use its refraction to shield himself from the worst of the laser-fire as he takes it straight into the laser-emitting 'mouth' of the core and tries to embed it in there with high-level force, enough to provoke a titanic shockwave if it hits just right.
Strawberry Princess      The Endling seems almost surprised to get a hold on N'raha so easily- but surprise swiftly changes to irritation as he starts to fight back against its grasp, splintering the crystal and damaging the limb. Instead of futilely trying to overcome his berserker durability with its grip strength, it picks him up and moves him- perilously close to the giant main beam that it's feeding into the refractor monolith! Only when it's perilously close to dunking his head into a torrent of raw energy does the arm finally give out under his assault, crumbling away and dropping him back onto the floor.

     Silica's assault effectively leaves the core defenseless once more. Paralyzed, and then pinned back by the impaling ice spikes, its point-defense limbs are rendered useless- and under the overall withering assault, it's struggling to prioritize materials to regenerate them. That also means it can go full-bore on the energy torrent from its core again, briefly intensifying the disco-lasers until Lilian and Iron Man collectively annihilate the monolith anyway in a final climax of oscillating lasers and red-hot shrapnel, rendering that form of offense a moot point.

     Note's assault helps keep its regeneration under check, but- given her stubborn refusal to target its weakpoint- otherwise only serves to draw her aggro. Having figured out some form of rapid shapeshifting, the Endling begins erupting in five-foot-long jagged spikes wherever it's struck, rapidly making it a lethally inconvenient target to attack with one's bare fists. Her strength is able to crack the shiny rocks no problem, but even their shards become a hazard, recycled into weapons as new rocks take their place as armor.

     Battered and pinned down, the Endling can't do much to defend itself against Staren's missile barrage. It tries to use its core-laser to shoot them down, but only manages to snipe a couple- the rest slam into its heart at full force, detonating in the fractures and crevices and sending it wailing and convulsing in pain. White light shines out of the core of its crystal as the dust clears, the heart nearly splitting in half under the damage already- but it wraps its yarnlike strands around the crystal and cinches them, splinting its own core back together instead of collapsing.

     It has a will to live, or at the bare minimum, a will to keep destroying just a little longer.
Strawberry Princess      And then Arthur happens to it, at the precise moment when it really needs an Arthur not to happen. The biggest surviving shard of the monolith gets dramatically jammed right into the fissure that's been chiseled into its heart, splitting it wider open. For a moment it rears up. For a moment it seethes, boiling and roiling, grasping wildly for some kind of shape or configuration it can adopt to overcome this. But it can't. The damage is already in the heart itself.

     Another blast of energy escapes its crystalline core. This one is refracted by the shard of the monolith lodged inside. It's refracted through every yarnlike vessel, every crystalline plate. For a moment it glows, and it howls- and then it explodes into a thousand pieces with a shriek like glass, not one chunk larger than a fist.

     Strawberry Princess lands, cuts out her wings, and re-opens the Chrysalis portal with a blast from her wand. Then, looking back over her shoulder, she gives the elites a big, dumb smile as her wand powers down. "That's it. That's your first hunt. I think it went pretty well- less than one minute. Nobody's too badly hurt?"

     She returns, soon enough, to her boulder, and her half-eaten PB&J. Just resting long enough to get the shakes out.
N'Raha     N'raha is nearly a fried kitty, that Claw Machine yanking towards the TERRIBLE DEATH LAZER. But thankfully, it all gives out with one final mighty swing of his axe. The catman howls in triumph, only to realize he's getting dropped...

    Right onto the Horrible Jagged Spiky Ground. The spikes wrench at his armor and lump him something good in the back... and he rolls over to get back to his feet, just in time to hear the explosions and lasers and Athurs happening behind him. And then it's over, and the portal's back open... and with a huff, he picks up Bravura and shuffles back outside. Now that the battle haze is wearing off, his ribs start to ache, and it hurts to breathe. "HAH! I am tougher than this crab!"

    Yeah no, tha'ts bruised ribs. "...ow."

    He shuffles over towards the rock, sits down, and then reaches up to his neck again. A moment, and then the armor starts to flitter away into magical dust, replaced once more with his smart looking suit. Though, there's some obvious wear and tear on it there. Glamours can't fix everything, it seems. Laws of magical conservation or something? Who knows.

    He also reaches into his inventory, and pulls out a little container which he hands up to Strawberry. Inside? It appears to be a puff pastry of some sort. Pink frosting. Hmmm.
Staren     They hit it one way after another until it explodes. Staren turns off his forcefield, lands, and lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding (Yes, the body is that lifelike. He could probably combat-optimize it some more...)

    He collects one of the pieces of glass for a sample too. "I'm fine. Glad to help." There are clearly laser gouges on his armor, but that's fine because it's just armor, right?

    He doesn't have to hand out nanobandages this time because Silica's got it covered.
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry Princess takes the puff pastry in both hands, like it's a religious relic. Her lips purse in a silent 'oooh', but she doesn't open it just yet. "Aww, thank you! I'm sorry, I don't- wait, no. Let me see here. I've got..." She rummages around in her brown paper lunchbag and pulls out a fun-sized package of Ranch Doritos. "Here you go! This is a treat from my culture. An exchange, right?"
Tony Stark Everything turning into a hot mess and exploding after being interacted with by 'some form of Repulsor' by an Iron Man armor is...

... basically Anthony Stark's standard flowchart, even in a new model of budget-destroying highly articulated technological marvel.

Flying through the portal as small visible sparks begin to color back in the carbon scoring on the armored chestpiece, Iron Man lands, looks to Strawberry Princess and...

...Raises a hand. "No thanks. I'm still not popping my helmet until I'm not getting spicy air warnings, thanks. Appreciate the effort. Speaking of people who did good, that beam feathering you did was pretty professional. I guess the friendly fire thing wasn't you, after all."

The whirr of actuators punctuates a heavy shrug from the red armored man. "But you're right. Everyone got out. That's a pretty good rate for a mission."
Arthur Lowell     Arthur comes to a hard stop, landing heavily and skidding hard until he settles to motionless. Heavy breathing, some exhaustion from overexertion, but... "HOOOOHHH YEAH! Choke on THAT, you SHELLFISH SHIT! YEAH!" He makes rude gestures at the beast, and kind of rests with his hands on his knees, laughing a bit. He heads for the entrance, drifting in order to not stumble, so he looks a bit like he's falling slowly towards it.

    Time to stop by the healcat, then rest near Strawberry Princess. "Naw, think it was supposed to be a GIFT, homie. Like a... kinda SEAL THE DEAL on the GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION. I ain't gonna do that," He gestures to himself with a few elegant fingers tapped against his chest. "'Cause I'm OBNOXIOUS and RUDE."
Silica     Silica lands once the thing goes down... that's when she notices the laser hole burned through her leg, and another through her midriff when the pain feedback kicks in. She winces, and refocusses to cast a healing spell on herself, before beginning to cast the spell again, shifting a couple of words to spread it across the whole 'party'. When she finishes chanting, a single drop of sparkly green 'water' falls onto each member of the raid group, and helps to close up wounds and dull pain. "It's not a replacement for proper medical care... but this should help." she explains afterwards.
N'Raha     By all means, N'raha happily takes the COOL RANCH DORITIOS. Noms for noms. "Equivilent exchange! I'll take it."
    He gives his most winning smile, at least with one working ear and his face still a bit beefed on by Crab Claws. "I figure a Strawberry Princess deserves at least some cake or bakery or something for a job well done." He sighs and pockets the Tasty Chips and then wilts a bit while he waits for Silicia to get to him.

    A glance over to Iron Man, and he gives Mr. Stark a thumbs up. "Good work out there. From one Armored Fellow to another. Yours is much fancier than mine, though."
Strawberry Princess      Strawb's eyes aren't visible behind her visor, but through her body language, you can almost see them sparkle when Iron Man congratulates her. "Hey, that was some really cool stuff from you, too, Mr. Stark! I loved what you did to the disco obelisk. I'm just... glad I've still got it, you know. But when you're in a situation like that, I guess all the things you really know come back automatic."

     She claps one arm around Arthur's shoulders, confident in the gesture after his excessively-physical handshake earlier. "I don't think you're obnoxious, Mr. Lowell. Disputes with other teammates aside. I think you're very helpful, and it's very brave for you to be out here at your age. So thank you."

     Then, in response to questions on the radio, she holds up her powered-down wand. It's entangled all over with reactor-bits and tubes and complex controls, but at the tip- suspended between two cherry-red prongs- is a crystal. It's bipyramidal, dark blue-green thing, identical to what was at the Endling's heart except for size. She nods over at the trio of magical boys still lurking by one of the military vans- they have the same things on their wands, too, albeit glowing brightly in contrast to Strawberry's dimmed one.

     "Nobody fully understands why. But I figure that's got something to do with why we can open a Chrysalis."
Lilian Rook     With the final combination of attacks being levied through the shattered monolith and straight into the Endling's core, at the apex of the one-two-three(-four) maneuver from herself, Tony, and Arthur, with Strawberry's own surprisingly expert beamwork backing them up, Lilian actually fades to the back row. Resting there a minute, her hand hovers around the pendant at her neck in uneasy anticipation. The sense of dread that seems to surround it like a gravitational field palpably intensifies, the light darkening around her, fingertips twitching at it when Arthur goes in for the kill.

    But that clinches it. The fight is over, and that should be plenty of valuable data (without Lilian giving up any of her own, more valuable, personal data). She finally relaxes, letting her hand fall to her side and straightening up with a deep sigh, her breathing finally falling back on catching up to a brief, moderately heavy exertion. Her suit is cracked and scorched in several places, obviously in need of patchwork replacement, but that appears to be what the modular design is for. It has in fact sustained more damage than her tied back hair, which is very intentionally not even singed.

    Rubbing her neck and findiner herself at an acceptably minimal level of sweaty, Lilian reatreats through the re-opened gap, and paces around outside to wind down, only still holding onto the second, more advanced handgun, with its glowing ammo indicator reading 2/00.

    "That went smoothly enough." she remarks once she's caught her breath. "I'm surprised. It's thanks to you, Lowell, and Stark, no doubt." she directs towards Strawberry herself, offering her an approving half-smile, genuinely positive even at the same time as delivering a calculated snub to the rest of the group. Strawberry is being Included. Exclusively approved of. A verbal invitation to the Cool Kids Table. Lilian is letting her know that she is on the winning side of Alpha Female Politic.

    "I can see why the military would be mostly useless. Still, though, that was your first sortie as part of the Reignition Project. How do you feel about your readiness now?" She then narrows her eyes at N'raha's gift, getting as far as "Why do are you carrying around--" before deciding on "No. Never mind. It's not important."

    "I should hope that succeeded, though. We had a lot more firepower on our side than a commander with limited resources would allocate to a mission like this. This ended up being an alpha strike operation. If it blew past us anyways and inflicted major casualties, it'd either be a titanic screwup, or a uniquely poor matchup. I imagine a 'finished' Endling would have been quite different."
N'Raha     N'raha looks up at Lilian.

    And without a word, he reaches into his Inventory and pulls out another Normal Quality Rolanberry Eclair, and holds it out to her.

    "So you don't feel left out?" An overly cheery smile.
Lilian Rook     It seems like there's a moment where Lilian is going to say something entirely different to N'raha. After several seconds of words grouping up in order, waiting to be fired, however, she metaphorically ejects the cartridge and doesn't bother.

    "No thanks, I ate an hour ago." she says, only *slightly* verbally rolling her eyes. She probably assumes he's too dense.
Silica     After performing a 'party' heal, Silica approaches N'Raha, and 'aims' her hands at him directly. She incants in that false-norse, and a more intense and directed wash of healing water falls around the axe-cat. She's used a lot of her MP by now, so just plunks down on a nearby outcropping, and goes about feeding her pets. A peanut for Pina, a little mealworm-like thing for Hibiki.
N'Raha     N'raha shrugs his shoulders, and then turns to hand the pastry to Silica instead as she wanders over to heal him. "S'fine. I've been doing more baking to help uh. Regain patience again."

    He grunts and then starts doing chest twists to help keep himself limber while the magical healing starts to take effect. Don't want to heal up in an awkward position. Stretching is important for fresh muscles and reknitted bones.
Arthur Lowell     "Aren't you a MAGICAL GIRL?" Arthur says, squinting his tone of voice as hard as he's squinting his eyes. "Ain't you usually CHILD SOLDIERS? You gotta straight EXPECT that shit outta someone old as ME, probs." He isn't bothering to clear up the misunderstanding of his exact, numeric age. "And trust me, NAH, I'm definitely HELLA OBNOXIOUS." He assures that quite confidently. "Can't be a NUCLEAR BASTARD otherwise."

    He then asks, "So, how's this ECOSYSTEM work? You got LINKS between MAGICAL GIRLS and fuckin'... WEIRD CRAB MONSTERS, how's the BALANCE? It TIPPING on the RAPID or what?" Arthur doesn't really grasp the world's gears and wheels enough to ask the question in more detail than he's trying to say it right now.
Tony Stark Issuing a light chuckle, Iron Man taps the side of his head with a finger. "This suit packs more than just some fancy palm blasters and a flight pack. I'm glad that's all it took, though." He simplifies, giving Strawberry Princess a thumbs up (and a rather goofy one at that).

"Like I said. Glad you're back on the horse. The rest of us knuckleheads are just here if you slip out of the saddle."

Surrepticiously, as Silica goes about healing, and Lilian goes about not unleashing Super Heather III on N'Raha, Stark focuses his scanners on the bipyramidal gemstone that resembled the core of the Endling.

<"Mark recorder and run active scans in the background. Cross compare to subjects Larry, Curly, and Moe over in the corner.">
"Yes sir."
Strawberry Princess      "Finished Endlings are always an international effort," Strawberry says, as somberly as one can possibly say anything with a mouth full of sweet pastry. She's an expert at eating in costume without looking like an idiot, but even she can only take it so far. "That's what, uh... that's what happened. To the British Isles, I mean. Primary hunt failed, secondary hunt failed, from there... damage control, then nuclear option, then indefinite containment." Her voice is just a little hoarser than usual when she says that.

     Arthur provides a welcome distraction. "Yeah, you're not that much older than me when I started. But I... I don't know, you're still out here in other worlds, helping other people. Not just your own, like I was. I still think that's a good thing, Arthur. I still think that has an element of courage in it." She smiles in a way that is very unintentionally very patronizing.

     "I can't blame you for not spilling the whole toolkit, Mr. Stark. I look forward to seeing what else you have, but I hope you're not in a position to need it," she says sagely. In the background, a few seconds after he starts up his scanning, the Three Stooges in the bird masks start chattering. "I swear to god, he just lit up like a Christmas tree." "You say that about everybody, Ashen." "No, but for real this time. Do I say something?" "I vote no paperwork. Charcoal?" "Second the motion. Overruled."
N'Raha     N'raha snorts a bit more, and then shuffles up to his feet, dusting off the suit and looking to the group at large. "Right, well, I got to get home and make a proper dinner." His good ear flicks, and he holds out his bandaged hand to Strawberry again. "Glad we passed the test. If you're ever near Eorzea, let me know."

    A vague salute to Mr. Stark. A wiggle of his ear and a flick of his tail at the Stooges.

    Arthur, he stops considers things and then makes a COOL Check to initiate a Fancy Goodbye Handshake.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur shrugs a big, big shrug. "I mean, fought all my UNDERLINGS and the BLACK KING and all that way back, but like..." He gestures vaguely. "You hit that Expiration otherwise, y'know? I ain't gonna sit around, let my brain Expire. I gotta keep my head in the real shit, the ground truth. I gotta keep doing heroism, otherwise I'mma lose touch with what it means to be out there suffering with the normals and facing down the real shit risks. Can't keep doing much good if you forget that, y'know? So, eh. I mean, I'm super brave and cool and courageous and stuff, but this shit's basically not even a choice, y'know? You go hero or you go Expired."

    He nods confidently, lacing both hands behind his head and kind of relaxing like his antigravity drifting is a hammock. "I'm not expired yet."
Staren     Staren makes a scoffing sound at the comment about Arthur's age. "He's been around longer than he looks. His own world..." Staren's tone becomes somber too. "I'm sure you'll see it sometime."

    "So, you're saying right now Britain's got a kaiju wandering around noone's figured out how to kill?"
Lilian Rook     Lilian regains interest in the goings on long enough to interject, "A ton of copies of one, and they already tried nuking it about a million times, so your brand of problem-solving is distinctly need-not-apply."
Tony Stark "Indefinite Containment sounds like a big old executive 'mission failed successfully' stamp, Strawberry. No offense." Tony comments to the hanging topic of the British Isles. "Throw out a history lesson sometime, and maybe a specialist team can be put together to work the unworked angles and see if there's a way through that mess. I'd say it can't hurt, but..."

Iron Man casts his helmeted gaze towards the area the hole in the air was pupating. "Yeah that'd be a lie."

As Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dumb, and the Mad Hatter start muttering to each other about Tony's active scanning technology, Stark gives a cordial wave to N'raha. "See you around, catman. Try not to leap into the claws right off, next time, yeah?"

There's a whisper of something, as Stark turns back to Strawberry. "As for not showing off everything, Princess - I'm just following the lead of the locals."

With a roar of thrust, Stark rises a few feet off the ground. "I'll catch you next time you need an assist. Nice meeting your world, hated meeting your enormous bugs."

With that, Stark vectors off.
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry very gingerly takes N'raha's hand, like the bandages might be delicate, and shakes it just a little bit. "There's no pass or fail, even though you did kill it. We're here to figure out what works, and what doesn't. Both of those are valuable. Everything else is icing."

     Arthur, she... doesn't respond to, much, uncharacteristically, though she conveys a sort of distant look through her body language. But then, at the end: "Yeah. I fell off the heroism track a while back. It's... I felt like I was asleep, drifting away from everything. Once you lose touch, it's hard to get it back."

     And then Staren. She licks her lips in the sort of uncomfortable way you do when you're looking for an excuse not to talk quite yet. "Yeah. Britain has dozens of them. Nobody's going back there. Ever."

     Stark, she gives a wave as he ascends to the sky. It's impossible to see if she winks or not, but the way she quirks her head to one side hints that she did.