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Angela	MOMENTS BEFORE THE EXPULSION FROM THE MINDSCAPE OF AYIN Benjamin smiles at Ayin, in this brief moment of cathartic peace between the two of them, between him and the whole project. There's something soothing about the idea that Carmen could see him with rose colored glasses too. Of course, Carmen had the tendency to see everything through rose colored glasses. He knows that Angela intends to betray the project somehow. He half expects most of the people here are inclined to as well. The other Sephirah, depending on how much they paid attention, are surely starting to get clued in now if they haven't already been. It's hard to say. Sometimes when you are drowning in your own pain and are just seeking for an escape from it, it can be hard to see someone barely hiding a hammer and a nail behind their back. But it doesn't matter. "...We should at least make the attempt now that we are so close." Benjamin says. And then... Maybe it was in the small ways throughout their eternity of suffering with Ayin, but the presence of a horrorscape isn't surprising and nor is there the presence of such megalomania behind a third personality, more hidden away--and dangerous--than the others. There is no way for Ayin to live through his condition except--there is one way, isn't there? He just needs to join with the Abnormalities and then his mind can tear itself apart as much as he likes. Lights. A Star. A Voice. A Twisted Thought. He and the Sephirah are flung out of the space as the facility returns to form where Angela and Petra were left behind--and they are still there, in Architecture--Angela quietly coaching Petra about how to survive with her new power--only coming to a stop when she sees everything return.
Angela	There is some time for everyone to get their bearings, but not long, before one of the Abnormalities on this floor--the once Plague-Doctor now glowing fetal many-winged angel...teleports out of its containment, reappearing in Control. TIME IS FROZEN... BUT YOU CAN STILL HEAR, YOU CAN STILL SEE, BECAUSE I WILL IT. DO NOT FEAR. THOU SHALT NOT LEAVE UNTIL I PERMIT THEE. And the sound of a dire gong enunciates each sentence in the Abnormality's voice, like a god in your minds--gentle in word but oppressive in form. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Hxuk7akdc So I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 'Then tell us what shall these things be? 'Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?' And James and John; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, the sons of Thunder. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. And as he passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Bartholomew: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. But there was a certain man, called Thomas, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people, giving out that himself was some great one. Then said Matthew, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. OHNO answered and saith unto him, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. Baba saith unto him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of Him. He answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? With each line uttered by the Abnormality, an Agent transforms into a horrifying monstrosity--one before your very eyes, many--unsettlingly--where you cannot see from Architecture. The agent's body glows in a vibrant light as his form distends, his body growing a pale white shell, a crimson exoskeleton pushing out as ribbed ashen wings burst out of his back. His lips are pulled back into a glasgow grin as bright red eyes are quickly shrouded by a long-nosed mask. In his hands appears a vicious looking red spear. On Angela's face, even those who do not know her well, can see a horrified expression growing on her features. She recognizes all those names as facility agents and putting two and two together, that means at a minimum nearly ten have become monstrous, automatically, not unlike Melting Love transforming Agents into its own minions...but it doesn't take a knowledge of the facility to just KNOW it's much worse this time. The frozen time fades--But rest assured, my children. Time will only progress forward from here. You cannot arrest its movement.
Angela	__________________________________________________________                      |ARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING W|                      ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|=|ALEPH CLASS THREAT|=|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                                       ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯                                                           WHITENIGHT APOSTLES                                                              You Know The Devil                                          __________________________________________________________                      |ING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARN|                      ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯           The Sephirah--minus Angela--start shutting down again, as if this were a normal Meltdown. Thanks to Petra's sabotage, as directed by Angela, she alone remains standing. "No... we were so close..." Angela whispers. Then she shakes her head, quickly, clearing her mind of despair. Literally no time for that. "The process of bringing the facility to the surface has already been activated. It can only be interrupted by a full reset. I have no information on this Abnormality. We have to get back into Control--the Abnormality went to Control--but the facility will be spinning as it twists itself back into proper position so be mindful of that." Angela says. "There is bound to be fighting along the way. To the elevators." She rushes off for them immediately but... SPECIAL RULES FOR THIS MELTDOWN 1) Once you are in combat with an Apostle, you will not be able to escape the floor you are on, though you can move between departments on the floor. Ie: ATZILUTH between Records, Extraction, and Architecture, BRIAH between Welfare, Disciplinary, and Central, and ASIYAH between Information, Training, and Safety. In other words, there will be an ATZILUTH team, a BRIAH team, and an ASIYAH team. 2) The Skeleton Catch advantage is the sole exception that allows you to 'clear' a fight. Teleportation can be used to escape one as can Bane: Divinity. 3) Using Split Actions allows you to be on two floors 4) Time Manipulation powers do not work as WhiteNight has seized control of the flow of time. ATZILUTH ARCHITECTURE: One of the Apostles, Philip, has remained behind and will surely chase after the group if nobody holds him off! EXTRACTION: Parker is fighting Peter in this department but having some of the most powerful EGO at her disposal means she'll probably be fine. It doesn't seem like she's taking any damage. She probably doesn't need help even from the other Extraction Team members, but... RECORDS: Conversely, with Tennant bouncing right before the end--Records is the least prepared to fight off an Apostle. BongBong is a survivor, Sakura definitely isn't. Andrew (the speech didn't name him but he's still an Apostle!) is a-hunting them and they'll need help. BRIAH CENTRAL: You can move up to Central this turn by taking the elevator or through other methods. All agents but Rose are here today but the Boanerge brothers are both here so they'll need help too. AND FINALLY... The facility twists right to a diagonal right angle, making it difficult to avoid sliding across the floor and difficult to maintain stable footing!
Petra Soroka	Petra wasn't expecting the Meltdown to go *perfectly*-- what in this entire fucking facility literally ever does-- but the instantly apocalyptic tone of the Sephirot and Elites being thrown out of the office is even worse than she imagined. She whips out Fourth Match Flame to point its heat-wavering tip towards the dissolving office, shielding Angela with half her body, but there's nothing for her to immediately attack. Besides the man himself, obviously.     "What's your fucking problem?! You have to ruin everything now, huh?! What kind of mentally deficient emotional cripple of a loser fucking parasite demands a whole personal little brain therapy session and then has a fucking tantrum *anyways*?! Bullshit!"     Petra turns to Angela to tug her to the elevator. "C'mon, Ange. Let's get you out of here. Whatever he's got to say, you don't need to hear it, and you probably shouldn't even be seen awake anyways."     She's got her hand on Angela's shoulder, backing away warily, when Ayin steps out of his office, and everything freezes. Surrounded by the slumped boxbots of the other unconscious Sephirot, the Ayin that walks into the cold monochrome Architecture department chamber can't possibly be X, but isn't quite the Ayin you know from his mindscape either. The white robes have replaced his labcoat, bare arm covered in black tattoos that match the alien design on the walls around you. The only contrasting color to the monochrome are his near-glowing golden eyes, the only ones moving or blinking while White Night seizes control of time.     Bare-footed, angelic robes ending just at his ankles, he steps past the frozen Elites as if they aren't even present, to cup his hand over the soft, curled-up form of White Night nestled between its seven enormous wings. Its wings beat together and the pulses of displaced air swirl around you freely, uninterrupted while this final manifestation of Ayin's megalomania speaks.     "With a single bite of this forbidden apple, humanity will regain the knowledge branded in our hearts and yet long forgotten. Unlimited form, unbounded by flesh or the chains of society, a new era of the world, with me at its head! The Seed of Light is mine to bring into existence, in this world where humanity is shackled to the Wings and Head, where all who do not learn to cling to the yoke are abandoned and killed, in order to raze it all down and begin anew!"     "This world's rot pervades all, even down to the Light within humanity's hearts. It is their imagination, their want itself, that has been broken, and without my hand to guide them, their desires can only drag each other down into darkness according to their ability. So I will take the Seed, and I will draw out their Light, just as Carmen wanted. And you will call me Adam, the first of this new Humanity!"     He vanishes, teleporting to Control along with White Night, just as time resumes. During his speech, Angela could feel the nauseated telepathic impression of Petra's 100x speed mental counting, locked in stopped time for the subjective hours both she and Angela experienced. When everyone is freed, Petra gasps and stumbles, off-kilter from the disjoint between her mind and body, squeezing her eyes shut and mushing her words together until she relearns the pace for moving her mouth to talk.
Petra Soroka	"RighhDoan't-- don't know what abno that is. Don't know if it'll spread, or keep teleporting, or whatever," Petra's 'whatever' trails off like it isn't the end of the sentence, and the automatic telepathic reflex that she transmits accidentally of her usual phrasing of <whatever the fuck> zips through the Elites' heads at an incomprehensible 100x speed. After the end of White Night's frozen time, though, she gets back into the hang of it pretty quickly, just enough to notice that she's acting *slightly* off.     "I've helped with Info Department some, so I have to get up there to check the enkephalin readings coming off this thing. Until then, treat literally anything it does as if it'd be lethal-- and also!" Lapsing out of business mode for a second, Petra furiously waves her arms around and glares at the ceiling where, a dozen floors up, Ayin disappeared to. "Why's the fucking world ending now, huh?! Did we mail order another four magical girls?! Is Ayin so fucking mentally ill that even *Flamel's* bullshit couldn't put a dent in him?! You know, I might've blown up some of your stupid machines with my terrible brain, but I never tried to *bring on the apocalypse* because of it!"
Riku Asakura	Riku arrives just in time to see... Time stops and is controlled by Whitenight.  He can't do anything as agents are transformed into terrible abnormalities.  He asks on the radio if they can be saved, but nobody knows anything.  Worse, another man is saying he is the new humanity appearing, but right now they can't do anything about them because of Whitenight.   "You go!" Riku says, pulling out the Fusion Riser and activating an ultracapsule.  A ghostly figure of Ultra Seven appears.  "I go!" The second capsule is out, and the ghostly image of Ultraman Leo appears.  "Here we go!" and as he says this he drags the Fusion Riser across each capsule in its holder.  "Time for my courage to burn bright!  GEEEEEEEEEED!" he shouts as... He pulls the trigger on the Fusion Riser.  The DNA pattern in the Riser starts to glow a bright red as the two Ultra's are combined.  A burning bright blue fire covers Riku, and from it Ultraman Geed Solid Burning forms.  He is covered in armor-plating, with a blade on top of his head.  He doesn't grow into the size of a giant, but he does grow to be as tall as he can comfortably be in this room.   The building tilts forward, causing Geed to lose his footing for a second, but he rolls forward with the momentum and rushes right at the agent who transformed in front of them.  He aims for a chop for his head, and an attempt to punch them across the gut.  Steam pours out from the fist that collides with the Whitenight Apostle, further empowering it.   "I'll hold this one off, go get the others before it's too late!" Geed calls out to the others, focused on his charge for the moment.  He hates that there may be no way to save the agents.  He hates that destroying them might be the only way, but Flamel does something dangerous.  He gives Riku hope.
Rita Ma	Rita rises after the expulsion, trying to grasp for Kali's hand for stability, and finding Gebura's manipulator instead. Finding it limp, she tugs on it in confusion. "Huh? Ms. Gebura-- What's--"      In a second, she sees the other sephirah limp too. Her blood runs cold just in time for, when time freezes, her to be 'not there'.      Of course, anyone with psychic senses can feel her panic rising in the frozen moment anyway. The moment time resumes, her whole body strobes wildly like a malfunctioning screen, and she lurches halfway into a pounce with her built-up tension before her colors can wobble back into recognizable features.      "Ms. Angela?! Petra?! What happened while we were out?? If it's a Meltdown, shouldn't you be shut down too?" she calls out, when she can take her eyes off the Apostle for a moment. But they're already leaving. Rita murmurs something sharp and desperate under her breath.      Glancing between Riku and Hibiki, Rita grimaces anxiously. She would've volunteered to help fight 'Phillip' too, but she can do the math. They can barely afford to commit one Elite.      Her crouch turns into digging her fingers into the metal flooring to keep from sliding. "Central, right," is murmured too, and she pulls up her respirator hastily before scampering off and up an elevator shaft towards where the fighting is the thickest.      <J-IC-Scene> Rufus Shinra says, "But - uh, if we can, do try to save them? I know some of these people."      They're not like the mermaids, Rita thinks to herself. Don't think about that right now. Just be glad none of them are Nonon or Shajo.
Rufus Shinra	Rufus had some other tasks to see to, and is only now rejoining the team. Right at the beginning of the end of all things, it seems. He glances to Angela - she's moving, when she shouldn't be, when the rest of the Sephirah are shut down. Best to not draw any attention to that. She was moving during the prior meltdown too, but- best to not draw any attention to that fact either. Speaking of meltdowns... > DO NOT FEAR. THOU SHALT NOT LEAVE UNTIL I PERMIT THEE. "Someone - holier than thou... And then the agents, some of whom Rufus has worked with, some of whom he knows, start... transforming. "... Guys?" Can they be saved? Are they still human? Are they still even... people? Why can he see each and every transformation even though they're all down here? Shake it off. Focus on the task at hand. "You all go - try to stop them... but, uh, try to save them. I'll keep the one down here busy." Oh, he's being joined. "Okay, what's your deal?" He looks over towards Riku. > "Time for my courage to burn bright! GEEEEEEEEEED!" "... That's..." Rufus has stars in his eyes. "That's so cooooo-" Lobotomy Corporation starts turning ninety degrees. "-oooooh shit!" He speed-draws his shotgun and fires it downwards from the hip, the propulsion improbably giving him a burst of airspeed that lets him jump from the floor (now the wall) and grab onto a ceiling (now also a wall) fixture for stability. Dangling from the ceiling with one hand, he aims with the other, and fires twice. He's a little too preoccupied to use anything fancier, and at least here he's hopefully flanking with anyone who's remained on what used to be the floor.
Kukuru	After so much strife and heartache, things finally seem to be coming to a close with Ayin. Kukuru lets out a relieved sigh as she sees that smile from Benjamin, and she even allows herself to relax/slump in place as the fatigue from so many ordeals (lowercase) hits her at once. "That's wonderful, everyone... Now. Let's get refreshed, and then we can see what comes... Next?" She blinks, and things start changing again. Didn't they already clear the Meltdown? Why's another one starting now of all times? Who could even be left? She sees the familiar walls of Architecture, and she sees some familiar faces moving around. "Angie! Petra! What's-" Kukuru starts as she rushes over to them, halting in mid-step as the voice speaks directly into her mind. She winces with each sounding of the gong, but most of it just slides right past her general comprehension (and probably still would even if she had time to study any of it). She recognizes some of the names being said, though, and that tells her enough along with the transformations. Looking over at Angela, Kukuru steels her expression as she recognizes the severity of this situation rather quickly, huryying over to join her with her claws already drawn and ready. "No information? Then... We just have to put everything into this. Everyone..." Nanites start to flow again, and a cloud appears in front of Kukuru as she peers over at Ayin when he appears in his newest form. She narrows her eyes at him, then at White Night and all those wings. There's a clear look of irritation on her face that she normally never wears, but everything he says about his plan for the Seed just draws it right out of her. "Ayin, dear... I thought this was supposed to be about Carmen's mission, not your ego. I'm..." She sighs lightly while digging one her claws into the ground for stability against the shifting footing, unable to even muster a look of disappointment. "... Tired. Good bye." She utters plainly, holding her hands out to redirect those nanites to all her companions. "Fight your hardest. I'll make sure we all get through this. Just tell me where you need to go!" She shouts, sending off a pile of regenerative juice to each of the Elites present with a little extra for Geed as he takes the fight right to Atziluth. The nanites linger for quite some time, too, to give everyone a little extra juice to weather the first volley of attacks from whichever battles they choose to engage in. Kukuru doesn't actually know that anyone's going to be locked into those battles, but she knows everyone needs to be at their best and not waste time fighting Abnormalities just to get there. The teleportation cloud she's summoned changes where it's depositing people at a moment's notice, and she even slides it around to help catch anyone that might need to get sent through without having to chase the portal itself down. "If we need to chase it, theeeen... We'll chase it down until it can't run anymore!" She declares, also not knowing which one Petra's speaking of specifically, but keeping her ears good and open for commands on where to send who. Only after everyone else is teleported or otherwise goes does she finally fling herself through the portal to join the battle from RECORDS.
Flamel Parsons	<J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons shouts over the sounds of tumbling, violence, and rapture, "CRAP! My clairvoyance is-- ghhh, total overload! This mental impression of the world ending..." <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "It is entirely plausible that if this Abnormality escapes, the world will end. At least, as it is known. Without the Qlipoth Deterrance field, I cannot estimate it's abilities." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Focus, focus focus-- good. Good idea. Hold the one off here, we need to not get chased! You can do it, I believe in you!" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons affirms to Angela, "This is total and absolute proicination, even more unyielding than the Shattered Mirror incident. Gotta hope, *hope* it's more brittle for that." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "We can't afford to run around trying to save everyone. We have to defuse the runaway mental process that fuels the god-complex, the *conviction*, before it reaches critical mass. This has to be contained." <J-IC-Scene> Rufus Shinra says, "But - uh, if we can, do try to save them? I know some of these people." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons cheerfully, "Good policy! Only other option on the table is dying." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons maintains that godawful positivity. "The consequences of this happening right at the end of the loop, you know it's a lot more than any person. You know a lot of people outside too, so keep all of them in mind!" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons subsequently just flat-out lies through his cheerful smile to the less hard-hearted: "I'm pretty sure the dispersal of the Seed of Light will be at least a *little* retroactive. If they have to die, they have to -- it shouldn't take if we move quick." <J-IC-Scene> Rufus Shinra, who's not planning on betraying anyone, "Yeah, the seed of light. Focus on that." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons will simply deal with consequences later. "Right. The rest of you, we need a high-momentum charge to Information for those readings. I'll amp my Clairvoyance and try to engage on the mentals, and see if I can find out if there's an apostle, or an artifact, or *something* to close the circuit on this thing. From there, any info you can gather, and get it into whatever's left of local data systems." <J-IC-Scene> Angela says, "There's at least one in every department." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "We need the one in Information driven out long enough to take readings, so hit as hard as you can and quick as you can." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Alright! Move, move!"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel calls as much of the play as he can, as he shakes himself out of the frozen time. His clairvoyance is emitting sparks from the overload, his tone is panicked -- he expects Lilian Rook to handle these tactical concerns most times, but somehow something motivates him to think that she's going to be fighting something temporal here instead, and she'll want someone working on the material.     As things tumble sideways, he leaps along the walls and secures a spot in the elevators or among the teleport clouds. If either work, he'll gladly slide or poof his way up/sideways through the facility, heading to Information. He needs those readings too, and he needs somewhere where he can restore his clairvoyance, amplify it, and spread it.     He's invisible, trying to keep out of sight of this horrid mess. Despite the positivity, the kindness, the optimism, he has a far more... painfully bleak understanding of things right now. He's willing to stay invisible when employees are cut down near him. He's willing to lie to the others to motivate them to do the same. And he sends the others -- elite, employee, or otherwise -- to scout out any hotspots of psychic energy he can find once he's in Information, any that look like they aren't unhelpfully ultraviolent apostles.     Fix this mind. Close this circuit. Right now. Or the world ends. That, above almost anything else, weighs on his mind, as a man-made anti-apocalypse system. Project Mystic finds its bloodstained purpose again.
UFO Gang	As time's flow ceases, Shou Toramaru is caught at a moment of taking in a breath. She is held there. Fear mingled with rage tickles at the corner of her mind, a tiny flicker compared to the surges that might happen in a less disciplined mind. There are competing declarations. The Sephirah are shutting down. The systems are already locked in. The Abnormality before them is one for which Angela has no information. They have never gone this far before. Unknown territory. Foreign country. Please think well of me, Lady Hijiri, Shou thinks, and then she opens her eyes and takes a little half step up to render herself aerial. Turning her head, she answers Angela, "Understood. I will meet the others." And the way to the Elevator may become abruptly clearer, because obstacles are defeated by illumination! Illumination in this case meaning lasers. Or at least, rays of light. Yes: Shou fires rays of deadly luminance towards the way to the elevators as she flies with the others, eyes turning searchingly forwards, upwards, hopeful, praying. To whom? Well, perhaps Bishamonten is still with her.
Timespace Riders	Time resumes and the bead of sweat on Woz's temple crawls downward at last. His scarf, wrapped around himself and Sougo in a protective hemisphere, resumes its motion, reversing and thinning out until it's a normal garment again, resting on his shoulders.      "We were so close," Sougo echoes Angela.      "Indeed. To make matters worse, Ayin's control of time exceeds my ability to slip through. However..." Woz turns and places a palm gingerly on Sougo's cheek, turning his glance that they'll make eye contact. "We are not so far that all is lost, sire," the retainer softly counsels.     Sougo takes a steadying breath and nods. "He said that time will only move forwards from here, right? Then... let's get ready to meet it head on." <J-IC-Scene> Hibiki Tachibana says, "...I'll help Ultraman stop the one in here with us. We make a good team. Get to those elevators." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Right. Hibiki and, uh-- um, Geed, can take Atziluth."     One transformation sequence later, the iridescent purple scarf of the Shinobi armor swirls into place in Central, depositing Kamen Riders Woz and Zi-O into the department just as the floor begins to tilt. Woz, in his agility form, is able to stick to a tilted ceiling to halt his descent. He drops down as his scarf straightens out, keeping himself from sliding down the floor with a touchscreen polearm sporting a green sickle blade.     Zi-O's arrival is clumsier, landing on his side and nearly sliding a good ways off mark before he swaps his armor. "I feel like..." he says, quickly procuring a Ridewatch, "I can clear this with no continues!" As Flamel passes invisibly through, Zi-O shifts into another armor--     Ex-Aid! A pink and green pocketwatch is slotted into the left side of the Driver around his waist. The LCD chronometer reads AU24 just before he spins it on his slip-sliding descent.                                    ARMOR TIME!                                         A pink portal opens up as he paws at the floor tiles for purchase, and he overshoots the disembodied suit of armor as it exits the portal. The screech of metal on metal heralds his slow brake as he uses a silver greatsword resembling a pair of watch hands to steady himself, jamming it into a door and flinging it open to give himself a solid surface to stand on.      Zi-O springs off of the door collecting the armor in pieces like powerups; a colorful D-pad breastplate, then swept game-cartridge pauldrons, then A and B button bracers, and finally a helmet with a shock of stylized pink 'hair'. r                          Level UP! o/` Ex-AIIID! o/`                                  "We'll hold Central," says Zi-O to everyone passing through on their way to Information. "Woz, do a little reading if you can! I'll cover you!"
Xion	Knowing there was a crisis on, Xion had known she had to show up for her friends. The people that she had said, at least, could rely on her and she had drawn parallel to had 'come due' for turning words into action. The words she had said to Binah had been hopeful and sweet and ones she had hoped she could have heard when she was at the bottom of a pit and someone else was extending out a hand, but, every sweet syllable was a debt placed upon her account. Even in the middle of other business, leaning sore over a rusty rail and flipping phone out from coat pocket she sees an alert that makes her heart sink. Hunched and gargoyling over her phone's brace of notifications with a flick of fingers over screen, Xion's eyes widen and heart drops. "There's a meltdown? I thought those were done!" Xion asks, trying to stab out a message with frantic thumbs to Binah to receive the expected result: Nothing. Spotting several yellow-eyed and red bandanna'ed and pantsed black bodied minions jumping into the dockyard behind her, Xion's furtive flick of eyes towards the Scuttle Town natives. "Sorry, it's nothing personal, but you're not the yellow-eyed guys I'm looking for, and I've got a *lot* more important things to be doing. Bye!" The noirette announces, and with a flourishing turn leaps from a railing towards open water and instead falls through a swirling-open hole just over the water's edge. --- Starting her search by teleporting directly to Extraction, Xion drops from a mid-air opening Corridor inkblotting in two-dimensional pane into the golden-etched pillars of the dark realm she knew best, touches one of the pillars with the side of gloved hand and booted foot to arrest her slide and get a better view of the area. Then, the facility twists. Then, time snaps to a stop. Confused, gut-twistingly afflicted with strange premonitions, Xion is held in place yet is aware of the terrible eruption of Peter into one of the Apostles and would recoil or react or do any number of things had she the ability to. Instead, the unknown abnormality forces her to be patient and observe the emerging of atrocity. Left to tumble in a tilted and made-worse world, Xion cartwheels through the air and lands in a surfing wall-slide she bounces from pillar to pillar to bleed off momentum. "What's going on?!" Xion asks Parker while slide-leaping over them, then realizes it's a terrible question. She doesn't see one of the Sephirah or the Boxbots around, doesn't feel their presences nearby, and instead is flooded with the terror being afflicted on the facility and the pulsing from the Apostle. Summoning the Kingdom Key to hand with a mid-sweepabout motion and a metallic 'shwink!' sound, Xion fires a few shooting star-blasts from her keyblade tip while dash-circling. "I'm going to try to find Binah! Or, Angela, or..." She has this feeling it's hopeless, but also... She's not alone, too. 'Right. Hibiki and, uh-- um, Geed, can take Atziluth.' Noticing the appearance and flashy fusion power of Ultraman Geed especially, Xion dips her head for a moment and then backleaps away from one of the Apostle's attacks that Parker otherwise seems to have handled. "Parker, I think Hibiki's going to try to be reliable again. Hold on, okay?!" Xion shouts, backstepping immediately on landing through another portal to shift locations. --- Another Corridor appears in Control that swiftly ejects a backstepping Xion. Curls of darkness cling to her while the two dimensional dark gateway disappears, Xion looking to Petra holding Angela and the almost funerary air. Almost? Did she miss almost, already? "Zi-O." Xion turns to the Kindest, Strongest Demon King of Time and shoulders her keyblade. "I'm going to need you to catch me up *really* fast - just, not Officer Tomari fast." She asks quickly. "I can still jump around in here, but I think I *missed* something." The Nobody explains breathlessly.
Hibiki Tachibana	If you're going to use the Light to call yourself a God-- then I'll stop you!     Such words are still echoing, through her own thoughts if nothing else, as the mindscape breaks away to throw them back into the real world. Hibiki hits the ground at a tumble, sparing a glance in Angela and Petra's direction as she struggles up to a stand... but she's already fishing her pendant out from beneath her jacket, even before anything else happens.     And things certainly happen. Those names...     What at first simply sounds like preaching she can't understand, begins clicking when the names OHNO and Baba come up. As if that alone wasn't enough, the one they -do- get to see transform here in Architecture with them is plenty enough for her to have the same look of horror that comes over Angela's features.     ...These things...     In the stopped time, her teeth begin to grit. And when it unfreezes again, when Adam makes his exit along with the Abnormality that created these 'Apostles', the motion completes - and she's in the process of sprinting forward after Angela and the rest. "--I won't let you decide whatever shape /you/ want for people! Especially if it's not like this! Balwisyall nescell--"     There's so many of them. And not enough of them. Even if her first instinct is to help Geed, Angela reminds them of Tennant's absence. The numbers aren't on their side. If it means saving who they can in Atziluth and also clearing the way ahead...     "--Gungnir tron!!" A lot like Rita, she doesn't wait for an elevator. Aslight overtakes her body, dashing past Philip and Ultraman Geed, the streak of motion she's become moves up two floors, up to Records. The still-closed door is pummeled open forcefully by a fist, sending the heavy sheet of the entrance flying across the Department.     Straight towards the Apostle-- Andrew, in the middle of his hunt. If nothing else, the makeshift projectile will get his attention as it nearly smashes him into the wall of Records.     "Haaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh--!!"     And right behind it is one screaming Hibiki, clad in her Symphogear and racing at full speed to take over for the underprepared Agents on this level. Like a bullet, her right gauntlet shifts in form as she moves, expanding in size as oversized thrusters push out past her elbow, and a knuckleguard slides down over her clenched fist.     In her world, where mythology has roots in reality and words have power, legends are often tangled together, especially over thousands of years. The piercing spear that is 'Gungnir' might not have only ever just been that. At another point in time, at another point in history - there's the tale of another lance, used to confirm that a son of God was dead.     A spear capable of piercing the divine. Or at least, believed to be capable of doing such.     So it's only a little ironic that that faith that gives it power, in this world where stories also have strength, is exactly why her attempt to punch through this Apostle of a God is /really/ going to hurt.
Lilian Rook	'TIME IS FROZEN... BUT YOU CAN STILL HEAR, YOU CAN STILL SEE, BECAUSE I WILL IT.'     §I'll show you what 'you exist because I will it' looks like you§     Lilian thinks it, and then it's like the equivalent of biting her own tongue. 'Time' is frozen, but she can still think, so she's not frozen, only held immobile, and the light and sound are moving, so the air isn't stopped, but of course she isn't breathing, so she's thinking in spite of her brain not getting any oxygen? Do human beings even think entirely with their brains anyways? That part isn't even scientifically clear. But if they're each just held immobile, then it has to selectively not be their eardrums, to hear, and all the things between, so how are they getting blood because oh god she can't feel her heart beating, so it has to be purely on psychic substrate then, so why does perceive it as stopped? Is the view of the room just an image being beamed into her mind? Because it can't be. That's not how it works, so--     'So I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'     §Oh god. I used to have nightmares like this.§     ''Then tell us what shall these things be? 'Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?''     §There were a lot of them I suppose, but this one was the worst.§     'And James and John; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, the sons of Thunder.'     'Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'     §I still don't know that it doesn't work that way. What would happen if I died in the middle of it?§     'And as he passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Bartholomew: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.'     'But there was a certain man, called Thomas, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people, giving out that himself was some great one.'     §Would it just . . . go on forever? Because nobody can walk in and turn off the lights? Does that affect anything or everything?§     'Then said Matthew, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.'     'OHNO answered and saith unto him, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.'     §What if that's what happens anyways? Whether I'm doing anything or not. Is that what being the First Bloom means?§     'Baba saith unto him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?'     'From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of Him.'     §The last time I thought about it, I was, what, twelve? What if I ran out. Or what if I forgot how to do it.§     'He answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?'     §What if everything else was stuck forever?§     'But rest assured, my children. Time will only progress forward from here. You cannot arrest its movement.'     §What if I was, and just the only one who would ever know it?§     Lilian is sure she can do it. She is absolutely certain that this doesn't make any sense and so there is no trick to it, but rather she should simply be able to assert her primacy over it. The queasy half-remembered gut fear of trying, roused from so many long-ago night terrors and wormed into every moment in that barren tomb of a house where the weather was still, prevents her from wanting hard enough to make it so.
Lilian Rook	'With a single bite of this forbidden apple, humanity will regain the knowledge branded in our hearts and yet long forgotten. Unlimited form, unbounded by flesh or the chains of society, a new era of the world, with me at its head!'     §<<Hi~>>§     §No. Don't.§     §<<Is that what <You/We> are <obsessed with>? 'Not again'. <You/I/We> heard <You People>. They don't <mind/care> anyways.>>§     'The Seed of Light is mine to bring into existence, in this world where humanity is shackled to the Wings and Head, where all who do not learn to cling to the yoke are abandoned and killed, in order to raze it all down and begin anew!'     §I still have my principles. I <did/do> <then/over there> as well.§     §<<I know what <Our/Yours/Mine> <incontrovertible axiom>s are. <Ayin/Adam/A> is <trespassing/violating> them.>§     §I can take <My Turn> whenever. I have <All the Time in the World>.§     §<<Don't <evade/delude> <your/my/our>selves. I'm just what <the part that says I>'s thinking. <We> are barely <a hair's breath/on knife's edge> apart <now/here>. That <denial of self> is so weak . . .>>§     'This world's rot pervades all, even down to the Light within humanity's hearts. It is their imagination, their want itself, that has been broken, and without my hand to guide them, their desires can only drag each other down into darkness according to their ability.'     §This is my fault. He took it all seriously. He learned from watching me.§     §<<And so <We/I/You> become <one and the same> once more.>>§     §It keeps happening. They only stopped because-- I already said it to Ash, didn't I. A part of me stopped being a person and started being <ideology>. They decided it. Now it's bleeding out wherever I go and infecting everything around me.§     §<<And so the world comes to resemble <our/my>self, through being built of it. Oh it's close if I can <talk/think> like this.>>§     'So I will take the Seed, and I will draw out their Light, just as Carmen wanted. And you will call me Adam, the first of this new Humanity!'     §This isn't going to be a thing.§     §<<Didn't <the part that says I> tell Tamamo that it was like 'photos of yourself'?>>§     §I'm not eager to show myself off trough those.§     §<<What a fascinating monologue we're sharing.>>§     §I hate thinking like this.§     'Why's the fucking world ending now, huh?! Did we mail order another four magical girls?! Is Ayin so fucking mentally ill that even *Flamel's* bullshit couldn't put a dent in him?! You know, I might've blown up some of your stupid machines with my terrible brain, but I never tried to *bring on the apocalypse* because of it!'     "Fuck you it isn't my fault I'll kill you!" Lilian shouts in the first instant she's able to move again. It isn't clear whether it's at Petra. "Do we have the fucking Seed charged or what?! Do we still need him anymore?! Shut the fuck up and tell me something useful!" That was at Petra.     She barely needs to look around to press her hand to her face, both of which are shaking. Her chest and stomach convulse in the leadup to being sick, forcing her to press a palm to the wall to steady herself. "Of course all the fucking Sefirah are out. Every time they'd be helpful; how lame is it that we have to protect them right before they're going to die anyways?"
Timespace Riders	Zi-O I'm going to need you to catch me up *really* fast - just, not Officer Tomari fast.     "Got it," says Zi-O, his helmet bobbing once in affirmation. "Okay," he sharply pushes out.     "This is the last Meltdown before the project is completed. Ayin is stuck between his grief over losing Carmen, his guilt over what he did to her and to Benjamin, and some gross feelings about his role in the project."     "Part of him wants to be a savior, but he doesn't think the people he's saving deserved to be saved. Part of him wants to complete the project for Carmen, but Carmen didn't start the project for Carmen, and he knows that but he can't reconcile it with how he feels about those people. Regular people."     "And so, now, this is another part of him--maybe, hopefully, the last one we need to break through. The one that wants to be a god. He'd rather be anything other than the Ayin who completes the project--because that would mean that Carmen is gone, that Benjamin will be, too, that a lot of people died and were hurt for it, that his daughter hates him, there's no undoing any of it and people might not even know what was given to them. But if he's a god, then it makes sense to him. Because a god can't be imperfect, right? A god can't have any doubts, or be guilty of anything."     His helmet turns slowly away from her. "...this is what that question I asked you was about, a while ago. About the tree, and making the spot where it's planted a place worth being before there's a tree at all. Anyway--"     "What we need to do right now is make sure people have a clear path to Information."
Lilian Rook	Gathering herself again for the real life moments it takes; which seems like an awfully, worryingly long time for Lilian Rook to be leaning against something and controlling her breathing, instead of jumping right back into it and throwing out orders left and right; Lilian queasily says "Okay. It's just a little bit more before the end." and then cooly says, "Half my gear is in Central and most of my preparations are in Disciplinary."     She turns aside, for "Angela. Is there a countdown? A process we have to interrupt? What's Ayin's win condition? I know the White Night is an unknown, but surely you can tell if it's building up to something. Is our deadline the reconfiguration of the facility? If so, please give me a live tracker immediately."     With the facility lurching diagonal, Lilian cuts out the middleman of balance by separating from gravity and hovering in the geometric center of a room, detaching her point of reference for up/down by habit and looking for the moving ceiling instead, then heading to Central her usual way.
Sarracenia	ALSO MOMENTS BEFORE THE EXPLUSION FROM THE MINDSCAPE      Sarra practically growls in annoyance as Lilian says people are hopeless and Ayin agrees. "I happen to agree with Carmen. People - in general - are not so hopeless as to inevitably destroy each other if given power." Sarra says, words broken by hiccups and sniffles thanks to her crying. "Just look at us elites. We have more power than most people, and yet three factions now exist that co-exist without destroying each other! Trideag exists, and the people taken in by us are thriving! I think it is only when people lose hope that they start destroying each other and seeking more power."      Lilian is surprised someone listened to her. Sarra feels like people /always/ listen to Lilian, so she huffs even more as Ayin grabs onto Lilian's terrible words and runs with them. "...of course..." the princess mutters, still crying as they are returned to normal space.      TIME IS FROZEN...      People transform. Sarracenia JUST got done with a time-freezing villain only a few days ago, and now she's facing another. She watches in unexpressed horror as the agent in the room with them transforms. When time finally resumes Sarra whines heavily through a few hiccups. She has to deal with monsters (of the non-Rita variety) being created from people /again/! "Why is this some kind of sick running theme in this world?! Monsters cannot just appear from nothing or be summoned or something! Noooo, they have to be made from people!" The princess pulls her hammer from her purse, tears still flowing a bit but her sniffling is dying down as adrenaline and survival instincts kick in.      She starts to swing her hammer, but Ultraman and Hibiki are on Philip already. As they are directed toward the elevators, Sarra follows quickly. Only then does she realize something. "Wait...Angela? I thought you were...shut down or something during these?" She pauses again. "I suppose that means we have officially met in person now, though."      The unstable footing throws her off for a moment, but the princess displays an agility she seldom shows off by wall kicking her way to the elevators.      'Why's the fucking world ending now, huh?! Did we mail order another four magical girls?! Is Ayin so fucking mentally ill that even *Flamel's* bullshit couldn't put a dent in him?!'      "He simply cannot accept that the Seed of Light could be finished without him! Or that he might not be god's gift to the City after all!" Sarra shouts, then glances sidelong at Lilian. "And also...-someone- basically told him that Carmen's hopeful dream was never going to come true and that people are not worth the time! This is definitely at the very least -somewhat- your fault, Lilian!"      And then...Xion! Sarra is quite happy to see the noirette. Someone super powerful who doesn't hate her! She sticks nearby to Xion as they head to Central.
Angela	Angela can feel Petra counting. She is frozen herself Time frozen times a hundred is awful beyond Angela's ability to describe, even when she is used to it. She can only imagine what it's like for Petra. She doesn't stumble, but instead reaches out her hand to steady Petra as they are released. She seems worried for reasons beyond the Meltdown...though that's definitely a big part of it. She moves up the Elevator, along with everyone else who is heading to Central (and beyond). She hopes the Elites can divvy themselves appropriately but there's many of them. The fact that she herself is in danger hasn't hit her because she's never been in (physical) danger in her life outside of that brief incident with the King of Greed. ATZILUTH In Architecture, Rufus and and Riku decide to hold off the Apostle. He is still holding a spear. Rufus can take a few potshots at him from the ceiling, slowing it down enough for Riku to bust in and get a chop on his forehead and a punch in the gut. This doesn't stun the creature, however, as it rushes at Riku with its spear, stabbing rapidly at him--his movements are nearly as fast as Riku's!--before reaching with a palm and trying to SMASH the Ultraman into Rufus. If he recognizes Rufus, that sure isn't stopping him from trying to murder him. He doesn't talk. These Apostles don't seem to be inclined to talk. Rushing over to Records, A Kukuru appears! BongBong and Sakura are panicked and are trying to kill with their EGO Weapons while the Apostle turns their attention off of them and onto Kukuru, drawing a long sword and slicing it down towards Kukuru--wholly intent on bisecting her! And he'll hit hard. He hits real hard. But that's when Hibiki sees an opportunity and punches through the Apostle--the sudden power slaying the Apostle as it stumbles down and falls down into a lifeless crouch. Meanwhile, Parker, slices through the Apostle she's been fighting in Extraction! It goes down! This is the power of having superboss equipment. She asks Parker what's going on which is the first time in years this has happened. "Manager's gone crazy and released some kind of super Abnormality. They're all over the facility. It went to Control with the Manager who is being very anime right now--" Parker snaps out towards Xion who promptly sequence breaks due to her platformer skill. More on that later.
Angela	BRIAH In Central, the magical girl EGO using agents are being assaulted by a pair of Apostles both wielding electric spears. When Rita arrives, one turns on her immediately--thrusting forward with a propelled strike for her chest, streams of electricity crackling off the weapon. The other--perhaps sensing Woz as trying to find a weakness in WhiteNight, turns on him instead. There's three people here and two Apostles, but if Sougo gets close, one of those brothers will definitely take a swipe at him--but otherwise it attempts to press his electrified weapon into Woz and inject him with tons of painful voltage. Lilian asks Angela information. Ayin's win condition... "It sounds like he intends to seize the Light and use it to immediately corrode everybody in The City. I don't know if he can reach everyone, but he can certainly reach through District 12. In essence, he will be turning everyone into Abnormalities--ones spawned from himself. I do not know if that is the best term to use but instead of planting seeds, he would be turning people into trees forcibly. Metaphorically speaking." She considers a timer. "It'll be approximately sixteen to twenty three hours before the facility gets above ground depending on how difficult to dig through the firmament has become. We are at Ninety Seven Percent Completion to the Seed of Light--that's enough to at least saturate the District but it'll leave the rest of the City untouched. ... The Head may be able to shut it down. It may not be able to. I will sign you in to our Babble service--it is our local comms. A countdown is already present there, presuming the sixteen hours." DISCIPLINARY: Gebura is shut down, and Nonon and Ceri are out, leaving only Shajo and Tweed as the Agents in this department. Shajo's pretty tough, but Bartholomew is really giving them trouble, pinning them down with a red beams from a wicked wand. WELFARE: These Agents--and the people under their care, literally incapable of even fighting the Apostle Thomas who is menacing them with a large crimson scythe. They barricaded the hospital to keep Thomas out but it's only a matter of time before he busts in but he's distracted so you might be able to ambush him. Shou can arrive without Thomas realizing it.
Angela	ASIYAH INFORMATION: Flamel is able to use a teleportation cloud to sequence break! He really is a Platformer! The Information Department is the Apostle Matthew, wielding two 'daggers' that are sized for his enormous body so they really come across as two swords. The Apostle immediately turns on Flamel, trying to shred his body with the two blades. The Information department, presently barricaded, can't presently lend a hand but Sal shouts through the blocked door. "Is someone there? We're gathering Enkephalin Readings. If we combine this information with what Woz's hiding, we might find a solution! Can you hold out for a minute?" Petra and Angela arrive later. Angela can't fight but she does say, "How much longer, Sal...?" "Almost there... I think it... It involves One Sin! Someone has to...gaahh... Let me cross reference it with Woz--....Someone has to 'Confess' but..." SAFETY: Strange, this Apostle has a pillow on their head. Wait, didn't the big stupid speech include Baba among WhiteNight's Apostles? ... Oh no! Baba has a giant club and is embroiled in a battle against the silent Moku. Moku is barely deflecting their attacks and dodging strikes but one good hit will probably disintegrate her inner organs. TRAINING: Strange, this apostle is wearing headphones. Wait, didn't the big stupid speech include OhNo amongst WhiteNight's Apostles? ... Oh no! It's OhNo! OhNo has TWO giant clubs and seems to be intent on splattering Haschen, Mikey, and Ya-Boy with those clubs of theirs to make a beautiful new kind of music. Well, beautiful if you're a freak. They are trying to avoid OhNo by moving real quietly around the department but they can't fight OhNo. Especially since OhNo was the best fighter of the department. CONTROL: Xion does some teleporting around, exchanging some words with Zi-O. Angela looks towards her, sees that she can teleport, and suggests, "Get to Asiyah, we'll be there soon." Cinder is struggling with Rook and Random, there, fighting an Apostle themselves. For a moment it seems like they have the upper hand but then a pulse explodes out of WhiteNight. It does not strike at the mind or body but rather the soul. The spirit. All three Agents in Control scream--and then soon do most of the rest throughout the city, their attacks disrupted as they feel an attack on the very concept of ''I''. Xion arrives right as the pulse goes out and Cinder falls to the ground, shuddering in agony and crying. There's no visible wound. Why is it called Pale? It is named after the Pale Rider. It's worse than necromancy, it is an attack on the very concept of 'I'. It's death in its purest and most awful form, ego death--slamming into you directly. It can be endured, but for how long? And to make matters worse... As the aura hurts the Elites and the Agents of the facility--even Angela stumbles in her elevator...The Apostles--even the ones that Hibiki and Parker killed... They get back up. Fully restored. And to make matters worse--the elevator shifts to horizontal now!--Those still in the elevator are going to have to work hard because the glass in the elevator shattered and it's a long way down.
Petra Soroka	"If it's a Meltdown, shouldn't you be shut down too?"     Petra shakes her head, barely a fraction of a second into the motion when the unintellible telepathic blip of <no,> flashes through Rita's mind. "I've been fucking with stuff, don't worry about that. As far as I know, nothing we did while you guys were gone has anything to do with this shithead's tantrum."     Right before stepping into Kukuru's portal, another one appears that Petra recognizes and hesitates a (hundred) moments longer to respond to. "Xion! Angela's dogshit dad is trying to kill everyone in the world because he's a bitch! If we kill him now, though, it'll ruin the Seed of Light!" "Fuck you it isn't my fault I'll kill you!" "This is definitely at the very least -somewhat- your fault, Lilian!"     "Shut the *fuck* up or *die*, princess! *Lilian* isn't the reason why this creep has a fucking god complex! Maybe you should try not being an example of why humanity is irredeemable instead!" "Do we have the fucking Seed charged or what?!"     Petra side-eyes Angela, but she knows the answer already. Clipped, short words, while squeezing Angela's hand, "Nope. The end of it's *started*, but it's definitely not over until this is resolved."     To endeavor to be more helpful than that, Petra goes on to explain, "Woz said there was a unique Work that this thing responds to. In every other case I know of, that Work's tied with some big vulnerability in the Abnormality's breach patterns. *Our* timer is just figuring out what it is and then do it-- probably me, since I've got the training."     Then, Petra and Angela appear out of Kukuru's dark cloud in Information Department. Out of Lilian's range, on the floor above, Petra subtly taps Angela on the shoulder and passes thoughts to her at the speed only she can understand. <Don't give Lilian access to Babble, though. Us losing now and us losing later are kind of equally bad, so, uh, just rely on me for a bit. It sucks it sucks it sucks I know, but we've got to start thinking like that.>
Lilian Rook	'He simply cannot accept that the Seed of Light could be finished without him! Or that he might not be god's gift to the City after all!'     "I'd advise you stop talking and leave the ideology and character analysis to the professionals." Lilian says, drawing and priming her sidearm first. The click-clack routine of menacing sounds is a comforting ritual by now.     'Part of him wants to be a savior, but he doesn't think the people he's saving deserved to be saved. Part of him wants to complete the project for Carmen, but Carmen didn't start the project for Carmen, and he knows that but he can't reconcile it with how he feels about those people. Regular people.'     "It's the worst case scenario." Lilian says, as a form of agreement. "Everything took so long, and they were forced to adapt so thoroughly to the City, that a man like him can either 'go native' and become part of it, or he can cling to his resentment and pride to get through it. He wobbled on the edge of the coin for a minute, then fell on the latter side. And it's the harder one to diagnose."     Stowing her weapon, Lilian adjusts her hair as if it's a tactical concern, unfastening and refastening her pin to keep it out of her face some minute degree more effectively. "It's not as if the City has done any better since he went underground and became X. We've practically been beaming its goings on into the facility, so he'd have to be even more aware of exactly what a murderous rotting cesspit it is than otherwise." Lilian sighs, and down-modulates her tone to try at a moment of what remotely feels like attempted levity. "You'd think I'd get some credit for Trídéag."     '...Loyalty to me counts for nothing. I am a king!...'     The mood leaves her. Lilian's expression falls to deadened neutral. ". . . But I suppose that hardly counts, does it?"     'And also...-someone- basically told him that Carmen's hopeful dream was never going to come true and that people are not worth the time! This is definitely at the very least -somewhat- your fault, Lilian!'     "Alright. I changed my mind. You're ambulatory gasoline to Adam's mindset, so I'm declaring you a liability. Your job is to shut the fuck up and not say even one more word that makes anyone want to agree with Adam, or I will personally slit your throat and have Kukuru heal it later."     Lilian's tone is a total reverse of thirty seconds ago. She says "I'm not being figurative; the things you spew have consequences, and right now they're an unacceptable danger to the mission that people gave their lives to complete.", and then phases away.
Riku Asakura	The spear is caught by a blade that detaches out of Geed's head.  The Psychic Slugger (not a psychic attack, just called that because it moves around on its own) tries to block as many of the strikes as it can, but the spear still strikes some blows, causing sparks across the heavy armor that Solid Burning has.  Things become more complicated when Geed goes flying.   The palm strike hits, causing more sparks and sending Geed flying towards Rufus.  Geed attempts to course correct, as jets of fire burst out of his back and shoulders, redirecting his momentum and causing him to land more controlled and skid across the side of the room better.  Panting, Geed calls out for something..! "GEED CLAW!" he booms, as the psychic blade returns to his head, and a claw weapon falls into his outstretched hand.  It is a blue-handled weapon that follows his red, black, and silver color along the blade.  There is a spike in the center of the weapon between the two blades, and he draws it out with an Ultraman grunt.   "CORKSCREW JAMMING!" he calls out, and is covered in fire, before he spins, becoming a literal fire tornado, and dives headfirst towards the Apostle.  Streaming throughout the room, he aims to drive the claw straight into its chest, aiming to try and burn it from the outside in with the potent strike.   Regardless, an explosion follows, aiming to try and stop the Apostle.
Kukuru	Kukuru might know the Apostle. She's met many of the Agents before, worked with them, fed them, even healed or revived plenty others. That's why, even though she's fully prepared to fight and kill them here, she's still holding back a pained noise once she sees the Apostle coming towards her with that long blade. "I'm.. Sorry, dear. We can't let you stop us, no matter how much this hurts... Everyone." The claws come up to take the slice directly, and she lets out a low hiss as the blade slices into the claw and across her front. She's able to push it off enough and keep it from completely cutting her open, though, staggering back to fix herself up as Hibiki takes advantage of that opening to slam the Apostle away from her. "Th.. thanks, Hibiki. And sorry you had to do that, dear. We'll.. We're going to have to that a lot more today, aren't we?" She murmurs, letting out another quiet noise at the thought of having to strike down more Agents-turned-Apostles. better her than letting everyone else have to deal with that, though, and she steels herself for more pain as she rushes over to check on BongBon and Sakura. "Dears, dears! I'm here, we're all... Everyone's here. It's going to be okay!" She calls out to try and reassure them as more of those nanites are sent forth to help mend whatever wounds the pair have received already, shortly before turning her attention back to the Apostle. "What a mess... But we're almost there. Survive, and we'll see the end together!" Kukuru raises her hands, then falls forward into a cloud that appears on the ground in front of her. It drops her from just above the Apostle, where she aims a hammerblow-like strike to try and just splatter them against the ground wholesale.
Rufus Shinra	> If he recognizes Rufus, that sure isn't stopping him from trying to murder him. He doesn't talk. These Apostles don't seem to be inclined to talk. "Hey - c'mon," says Rufus. "You aren't at least gonna say something back? Just going to-" Rufus gets knocked down from the 'ceiling'. "Come *on*, you're still in there! Give me some sign that you are! I'm pretty sure you're one of the ones that came to check on me while I was on carrion shoveling duty! Right?" "Come... on! Do I need to knock more sense into you!" Rufus focuses, building up energy. "Keep them pinned right there and don't move!" he yells to Geed. And then he casts. --------------------- |EXPRESS TRAIN TO HELL| --------------------- An entire flaming train emerges from nowhere, barreling straight ahead across the facility, before disappearing also into nowhere. If Geed can keep the apostle pinned right there, all of the train will hit it, rapid fire one car at a time. (It'll be an uncomfortably very close miss on Geed, also.)
Rita Ma	Rita clambers up out of the elevator shaft just in time to roll out of the way of an electrified spear-strike. She kicks the next strike away with the rubber sole of her shoe- "Get somewhere safe! We'll handle it!!", she calls out to the employees- and      - - - - - - - - hurts - - - - - - - -      ducks under one spear, rises with a clawing stroke across one Brother's chest, hooks her leg around his throat and grips his head with both hands like she's trying to rip it off his shoulders, lashes out with a kick against the other's head while digging her fingers as far into the collarbone as they'll go, leaps off with bloodied hands and open mouth to drag the second one down like a snapping hyena, unfurls her tentacles to stab into it and try to drink its soul, turns an utterly glassy gaze onto the employees, and--      "Hggck?" Rita coughs out around a bloody mouth, staggers to her feet, sways as the light flickers back on behind her eyes after the White damage pulse, and then limps over towards Cinder to offer her a hand up.      "Are you... okay? Some kind of psychic thing, I don't... here, I'll help..." But Rita's glowy healy energies might not be able to fix that.      A Rita without 'I' can kill, but she still doesn't want to take a second pulse.
Petra Soroka	The Apostle in Information isn't Petra's primary concern, but it's an obstacle to get where she really needs to go. After a quick <And go *hide*!> to Angela, Fourth Match Flame ignites in her hand and Petra dashes forwards to intervene between it and Flamel. A white-hot magnesium spark erupts where the sword clashes against the Apostle's dagger, only incidentally saving him while giving Petra an opportunity to spill morphmetal out of the bottle on her side and telekinetically plunge a spear of it into the Apostle's chest.     Slipping off to the side, morphmetal sliding through the puncture wound to rejoin Petra by the Info department door, Petra knocks her knuckle against it firmly *once*, before cutting through it herself. She roughly points a thumb behind her to gesture Sal out the door. "Help. I can do this better than you."     Really, the amount of help that Sal could provide to containing the breach is minimal, compared to the Elites already here. Any extra fraction of a chance helps, though, in this last-percent-challenge, but on top of that... Petra has subjective minutes between the second she rams the door open and the second where she points Sal outside. Plenty of time to weigh all the options, judge what she knows Sal is capable of, and consider every outcome. It's enough time that she has no choice but to plan ahead, because there's nothing else to think about in the moment.     I guess, if they die now, then that saves me the trouble later. How the fuck is Angela still so *nice* to everyone?     She wasn't lying about being better at analyzing the enkephalin data than even the Captain of the Information team, though. A cybersynaptic pulse from a Silver ring hovering in her palm connects her to the computer, and then a hundred times faster perception lets her sort through the raw data in an instant. It's exactly the same task that she asked of Angela almost two years ago, before ever working at Lobotomy Corporation, and only a minute after entering the data room, she has her answer. <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, reading the data out as it comes to mind, "Name's White Night, ALEPH, obviously. Confession work is... Confession work is...." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka tensely, "There's eleven Apostles right now. It's-- 'incomplete' in some way. And the 'twelfth' is a devil, or a-- a traitor, or something. Someone who's already prone to corroding, like, heavily attuned with their EGO, has to go to One Sin and a Hundred Good Deeds and... " <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Sacrifice themselves, I guess. Give up resisting it and die along with all the other Apostles. Stop being human just like Ayin wants."     Petra leans back and severs her connection to the enkephalin reader, vision throbbing black as the Pale damage pulses through the facility. It's not the first time she's felt it, but from an enemy a floor away, hitting the entire facility-- it's probably only a matter of minutes until every single clerk in the building dies, and the agents right after. Pink-stained saliva from biting her tongue dribbles over her lip, and she wipes it away with a forearm that she dug her nails into hard enough to bleed in the instant where her consciousness blurred out.     "Flamel--! Get to whatever the fuck you're scanning for and let *me* take care of this guy!"     Petra leaps from tilted floor to tilted floor, balancing perfectly and skidding down walls to get to the Apostle in Info. She jumps from one sideways wall to grab onto an enkephalin pipe hanging loose from the new ceiling, swinging and plunging her sword into the back of the Apostle. It flares up, charring the flesh around it black, and then while it's stunned, a pillar of morphmetal forms above her and drives itself down through its skull.     "You have *forty* seconds!"
Hibiki Tachibana	It's not easy, to punch through a 'monster' that you know used to be another of the Agents. The same Agents that they're fighting to protect. The same Agents whose lives are part of the reason she's here. There's a grimace on her face and a shadow over her eyes as she skids to a stop, fist still outstretched after pummeling through the Apostle-- Andrew.     "...Sorry..." That's all Hibiki can manage to murmur, fixing her posture again and looking from the crumpled Apostle to the pair of Agents - and Kukuru. She holds a stare for a moment, then turns her head away, drawing her scarf up further. "We don't have a choice. If Adam accomplishes what he wants..." She trails off, squinting.     "...I won't let him."     That's exactly when the aura that pulses out of WhiteNight strikes; her eyes widen, her knees give out, and she clutches at her head as she doubles over, clenching her teeth together. A few strained breaths beat through, caught completely off-guard by the attack on her very ego.     For a split second, it destabilizes her headspace enough that she almost wants to return to being a primordial beast of instinct herself. Taking that sort of blow to the very soul right after coming out of empathizing with Ayin...     ...her eyes have a slightly exhausted quality to them, as she forces herself back upright... just to see the Apostle return back. "...There's no end to them, until the others finish what they're doing at Information. All of that planning goes over my head..." She mumbles, bracing herself up again and buckling her knees. She narrows her eyes--     --and as Kukuru comes from above, she dashes in to follow up. A high jump that carries her above Kukuru as she descends, before she brings back her left fist, pilebunker priming back--     --and comes down once Kukuru has finished, to first /smash/ her fist into the Apostle hard enough to crack the tiling of Records-- before the piston hammers back into its moorings, a focused shockwave of raw force delivered straight into the point of impact to double up on the attempt to splatter it into nothing.     For now. Grimacing as she steps back, steam hissing from the mechanical gauntlet, Hibiki takes a long few seconds to think. That's never good.     "...Kukuru. We don't need the two of us here to keep just this one under control. And we can't permanently beat them. Can you keep this one suppressed and away from the others? And..."     She looks to her. "...Can you... teleport me as close to the source of that wave as possible?" She's quick to add on, "I'm not going to pretend I can stop it alone. But if I can delay another one of /those/ happening, it'll give the others more time without these things-- or that awful, crappy feeling... stopping them from getting this done."
Timespace Riders	This is definitely at the very least -somewhat- your fault, Lilian!     Woz hurriedly reads--but the speed of the Shinobi form does also allow him to Post mid-speed-reading. "Ayin wrote the script. Even thousands of years and tens of thousands of retellings later, something of the author exists in the story. As my Demon King pointed out numerous times--"     CLANG!     Zi-O's greatsword pins the Apostle's spear to the ground, blade touching the electrified point. Grunting through the pain, the Demon King kicks the Apostle in the chest, generating a colorful HIT! effect at the point of impact and a pleasantly affirming 90s-video-gamey bweep.     "--Thank you, sire--" Fwip, fwip, fwip. "This is the handiwork of someone who does what he does not because of belief, but because it is that last thing in this world to remind him of what is gone now."     The information looks worse and worse, even with what he's able to glean in the midst of battle with White Night occluding the possibilities. <J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, quietly harrowed, "I have it." <J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, "The Abnormality is attempting to occlude my research, but because it involves potential futures rather than a specific point in spacetime, I am able to persevere." <J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, "Firstly..." The sound of pages flipping. "Do not under any circumstances attack White Night with psionic techniques or abilities." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka makes a quietly distressed noise. "White damage immunity?" <J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, "Worse. It appears to sublimate such damage and heal from it. Additionally..." fwip, fwip... "It is resistant to all other means of attack, save for those specially designed for use against divine beings." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons makes a nervous laugh. "Appreciate the advice, if I got into a fight with that then my order of operations was going to be heavy psionic attacks and then other means of attack if that didn't work." <J-IC-Scene> Riku Asakura as Ultraman Geed says, "This guy sounds very tough." <J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, "I am afraid there is more, Ultraman. While it does not fight personally, it appears to attack everything in the facility on a regular interval--" He pauses. "One minute," he says breathlessly, continuing to speed-read. "Which also rejuvenates its Apostles. We may at least take solace in the Apostles being less resilient, though not by so far as to make them trivial. There is something else, but..." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Right. It heals them? Then-- everyone who isn't busy in Briah or Atziluth stick with me in Info, and we'll group together to take them down one at a time." <J-IC-Scene> Shajo growls, "So we can either fight the Apostles forever and die after being worn down, or go after WhiteNight and get stabbed in the back and die." <J-IC-Scene> Rufus Shinra says, "This ending sucks."     Another attempt to harm Woz is deflected with a sideways swat of Zi-O's greatsword, causing another HIT! effect as the blade strikes the Apostle's wrist. Zi-O follows up by funneling the momentum into a stance as if preparing for a thrust, but rather than go for it, he launches a polychromatic burst of energy barely contained by swarming, disembodied silver clock faces, exploding on impact. Then comes the thrust, followed by an overhead, the Demon King maintaining pressure to force the Apostle away from Woz and get him more breathing room.
Timespace Riders	<J-IC-Scene> Woz as Kamen Rider Woz says, with anxious yet pointedly and effortfully restrained frustration, "White Night is interfering most fervently with my attempts to glean further. The most I can further see is that there may be an alternative means of Work to deal with White Night. Thus, it would seem all the more vital for Information to be reached." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Right, right, got it, good info Woz. I'll take it from here then."     Woz lifts the Jikan Despear and makes to join Zi-O, but the Demon King forbids it--     "No, Woz! There's more than enough of us here, and we can't afford to have you bogged down in a fight when you could still help us." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons shouts over the sound of blades swinging violently. "One Sin! I need that spot cleared of Apostle hazard now!! Keep going, you can do it!" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Someone needs to work on that! Put your heads together and you can do anything, including solve the new god's puzzle! bait it away or tear it down, one way or another you can do it -- we need it cleared for something, but what do we need it cleared for?" <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Think, think, who or what wouldn't be confessing a sin right now in this worldview? What disrupts the toxic cycle? Brainstorm fast." <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "If we deprive the fire of oxygen now, it can't grow out of control. What does an absolute god demand unrepentence from? What can't be allowed to absolve itself? Get that to One Sin now!"      Woz posits an idea--that it must either be Ayin himself, who cannot forgive himself and thus cannot confess, or Carmen, who is unapologetically not of the City and whom he imagines would never ask forgiveness for work towards a kinder world. But; as Flamel, Lilian, Angela and Rufus pointed out (the latter much to Woz's not-unwelcome surprise) there are complications with either of those being the answer. No--the answer is Repression work, as Angela has stated.      Woz nods at Zi-O--a pulse of White damage briefly overtaking the both of them. For a moment, a place far away from here beckons to him, a spot next to a throne bedecked with pelts of countless slain beasts, at the right hand of a king in red. Flanked by a dozen of the best of the best, all garbed in the same olive drab robes, there was a certain unity of purpose there; a comfort in the unburdensome life of one meant to be wielded--      --to be wielded. That's what power is for. Some people use it for bad things, and then other people say that using it at all is bad. So when people are starving and someone gives them more than breadcrumbs, that's treated the same as taking food away from a hundred people. It's stupid. And so is he, because he cares more about how he looks using it than actually using it. It can't ever be used unless he's a god or a savior doing it. It can't just be Ayin, using it the way Ayin would. I think I might hate him--      Both Riders have a moment wherein they recover from the White damage pulse, each snapping out of a daze, glancing first to each other then to Rita, before Zi-O has to intercept the Apostle heading for Woz a third time.      "Go, Woz! Help Flamel!"      Woz strikes a handseal, disappears in an archetypal deer-scare 'thoonk' smokepuff, and reappears alongside Flamel to escort him.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel is so, so hopeful that apostles don't have nonhuman-style vision centers, or thermal vision, or anything like that. It would be so convenient if his invisibility worked on them. He is so hopeful. The knives dash his hope, and spray more vital fluid than the stuff he's already covered in, though Flamel's own 'blood' is gleaming psychic energy. Flickering back into visibility, he takes a different tactic: Heavy barriers, layers and layers of them. They shatter under the massive, highly lethal swords, but they buy him space and time.     Still, a wave of soul damage gets him reeling too. Just because he's a psychonaut doesn't mean he's less vulnerable to certain psychic attack -- sometimes, moreso, really. He kneels, and his barriers shudder. Wait. This isn't psychic. This is in the soul. And while he may have spectacular physical and mental power... Flamel is a man who is *very* weak-souled. It frays his tether to the physical, to the mental, to everything. He falls to his knees and breaks into a staggered prayer he's never spoken to something he's never believed in, before he catches himself.     Sins. Apostles. God. He really wishes he had Meika here.     "Someone get me cover!" He calls out, grunting as this barrage wears his barriers down and he stands more. Petra is the one who gets it. "Good!!" He calls out, and clamps both hands to his temples, dispersing his barriers and focusing on the scan. He links into Information, draws from whatever remaining power, seeping his clairvoyance frequencies into whatever enkephalin reserves they have on-hand and hijacking whatever psychically-responsive machinery they have there. He *can* find the corroded one, the *devil*. He reaches into every mind he can all at once, enduring every death in the facility simultaneously in first-person, just to find that devil.     A weak soul is worn down yet further.     If he finds the location, he relays it instantly. If it takes too long to find the objective, a good bet is heading around the outskirts of Central and to wherever the devil-apostle is later found, with Woz as a fresh escort. That's where you can get everywhere else -- and where Flamel can find more cover as he stumbles and focuses on his search. Moments are not spared to ease the pain of the dying. He just can't afford to.
Xion	Running into the 'end of the world' late and underbriefed was unfortunately a bit of Xion's style, but even she was paused by the sheer, leaking issue that was apparent before her. Xion knew that several of the major actors were on their thinnest and least-capable emotionally to explain to her what was going on. Perhaps, Sougo too, was past a reasonable point of helping a Nobody-come-lately with the truth, but he helps out anyway. 'and some gross feelings about his role in the project.' Nodding quickly, understanding at pace, Xion frowns and follows the tracking of Zi-O's helmet. It's a lot to take in, and clearly Sougo is putting his whole head behind the request to explain, so Xion keeps her tone low and parenthetical. "It's always some gross feeling, isn't it..." She observes, and blinks once at the further answers. She gets it, a little, enough. Worse than the moment of 'we're fighting a gross guy who has decided to become a god instead of tallying the score with them losing'. "The sort of thing that creates savior who doesn't want to save anyone." 'Because a god can't be imperfect, right?' "I think that's the worse answer I've ever heard in my life. Worse than all the others." Xion answers honestly, gobsmacked by the audacity. "'I'm fine', because gods don't have problems?" It's a sick joke and she almost laughs, choke-sighing a faint sound instead. "You're right, Lilian," Xion asides to the hair-maintaining Lilian with a look that tracks off Zi-O's helmet and onto the Dame Commander. "I think we should take the Greeks away from them. This kind of thing, this running away, doesn't help anyone. Least of all Ayin, or anyone else. Do you think it's because the man himself also doesn't think he's worthy of being saved? Seeing the 'wrong' tomorrow, someone else's, many other people's tomorrows together is what he's fleeing?" She asks, because she doesn't know. But then. . . Instead of Time Is Stopped, Sarra is Here and Xion awkwardly shifts in a greeting that's immediately stifled by '-somewhat- your fault, Lilian!'. Xion turns on Sarracenia fully, an accusatory look in her eyes. The vibrational frequency -- the entire asidesy action -- has tilted her. "Great. I've got the mission, Director." Xion answers at a snap-to moment, and reaches out a hand up to Sarracenia's lapel go grab her by the outfit. She has to reach up! Xion's a mere 5'2", and all of the Princess' height advantage is for naught. 'Get to Asiyah, we'll be there soon.' "We'll be there." Xion answers confidently, and then shoves the princess through a portal. For Sarracenia, her head goes back through a swirling plane of darkness behind she sees for a half-heartbeat, and then the rest of her is submerged like a baptism through an ethereally 'thick' environment of inky dark and aphotic non-colors. Direction becomes moot, gravity forgotten, and sensory deprivation becomes all-but-complete, and then the other half of the heartbeat happens and she's almost waking up on the other side. For Xion and observers, it's a lot more simple: She shoves Princess Sundew through a Corridor and immediately follows before Sarra can say more dumb things to Lilian in the middle of a crisis. Working on the good-enough faith that Sarra has for Xion to not kill her, the motion is startlingly fast, and she's through a step behind right after. --- CONTROL Xion and Sarracenia emerge, Princess first, into Control and Xion dance-turns the Princess with one arm while holding Kingdom Key in the other, the twirl out getting her angled on to the Apostle. "Cinder! We're here to help!" Xion announces, to make the team aware of her presence, and couches Kingdom Key into a stinger-ing thrust pose and lancing forward with a flash of white-- -- and there is another flash of White --
Xion	She doesn't hear herself scream, even though the Noirette does screech banshee-like and inhuman as she tumbles to her knees and face-palms herself with a gloved hand just to clutch at her face and cover an eye. Lifting the Kingdom Key, weapon of the Heart, besides herself, Xion's uncertain grip on her suddenly-heavy weapon dips the tip grows worse when the golden-gripped weapon wavers, static-crackles, and then bursts into an explosion of pale starlights, scattering the weapon into points of light. Empty-handed, Xion is blasted onto her side and howls louder, being directly attacked 'herself' and being distanced from the strongest and most-clear form of expressing 'who she was'. It's not the only expression. Fumbling for a rock in the storm, Xion peels a hand off her face and jams it into coat pocket, rooting around for something to layer-over and help her declare who - or at least what - she was. A purple medallion, with a grille-eyed masked robot man on the face in black mechanicals and purple armor, is what she draws out in a tight grip, and levels that tight-gripped fist at the Apostle. A muted transmutation occurs in her hand as the power-token becomes a real object, a brake shifter gripped D-shaped pistol that looks more like a toy than a real weapon with a slide slot in the back for further insertions. It growls, GUN and fires a pkew-pkew-pkew of shots from the muzzle, and Xion manages to peel her other hand from her face while she rises and fires at the Apostle. "Even if you think you can erase people from the world, even if you're a god - people will protect their ability to have an identity. It's not decided by someone else, and not some god *or* some machine!" She rallies, not worrying about the fact that Mashin Chaser's power - her power, 'her' - was the Reaper that Wouldn't Kill. The shift in the dimensions of the area barely deter Mashin X(ion) as she falls towards the Apostle with a flying Break Gunner punch!
Lilian Rook	'Do you think it's because the man himself also doesn't think he's worthy of being saved? Seeing the 'wrong' tomorrow, someone else's, many other people's tomorrows together is what he's fleeing?'     "He's not exempt from what I said. Even as a 'god'." Lilian says. "What enslaves the City is only half the fear of being cut from it and burned for defying it. That alone isn't enough without its twin and conspirator." She looks directly at Xion for a moment. "People have to fear taking responsibility for their own lives as well. Protecting themselves, making the best of themselves, reaching out and someone that others want to support, and facing the consequences of their actions, having to consider them all the way through themselves; a new government or a new God are both ways of running away from that fear even while facing the first."     . . . . . . . .     'My gear is in Central' was correct, because people saw Lilian put it away. What was left in Disciplinary, she was less clear on, and why would she leave something in a separate place on the same floor anyways? But it must be something, if she's willing to split off from Rita and Woz in Central against two Apostles. She doesn't even stop to share that knowing Look with her Star of the City.     'I do not know if that is the best term to use but instead of planting seeds, he would be turning people into trees forcibly. Metaphorically speaking.'     "What a tremendous waste of time and total misuse of the whole concept." Lilian says, rushing hallways by kinetic cornering, most of her mind on something else. Does she try it or does she not? Does she take him seriously at his word, or challenge it for being only that?     'I will sign you in to our Babble service--it is our local comms. A countdown is already present there, presuming the sixteen hours.'     "Good. That's plenty of time, so our failure state is just being wiped out by the Abnormality. That's simple enough, for once." she says. It'd be almost sarcasm-worthy stupidity if it weren't said by the only other Elite who deals with lethally respected gimmick monsters on the regular.     Lilian crashes into Disciplinary at top speed, for the second time. One of her understated specialties is this sort of ambush; she draws and opens up with Winter Crow, expending the entire amalgam rod in three shots that spark like point blank fireworks, then unsheathes Night Mist alongside it, colliding with Bartholomew as if he were struck on the highway and hurling him into the next room, braking herself mostly by the impact with the Apostle.     Falling to three points to fully stop herself after 'shoot three times from offscreen and toku kick to next set', Lilian turns and looks at Shajo, says "My. What a privilege to protect the happy couple. I feel fired up already." and jumps to her feet with her sword towards the corrupted Agent again. "Disciplinary was down half its real manpower because of me, so consider me your replacement Gebura for now." says Lilian, visually scanning the area for something that she's trying to find.     ". . . That's not even funny. I take that back actually."
Lilian Rook	Too late. The pale blowout surges through the walls, and there's nowhere in the whole facility to avoid it. Lilian staggers forward, and catches herself only by instinct, stance awkwardly stretched, knees shaking. Her brain catches up, and--     §I blacked out?! Me?! Are you serious?!§    §<<It's a little <early/short> to <become/recome/undone>, isn't it?>>§    §A wide range attack like that shouldn't be allowed! Forget the facility; we'll be wiped out by then! I can retrieve Petra, Angela, Rita; Xion can make it out on her own; but--§    §<<--<Angela/Unchosen of Carmen> dies. After all of this. A successful <execution/revolution> of <the world's will>. Then <our/my> only choice is to-->>§    §--have some amount of faith in her will to be born. I can't 'save her' all the way to the end; and I know she's someone who won't give up reaching for the sun just as she touches the light. I'm not going to--§    §<<--try 'it'? <Corrode>? Won't that happen anyway at this rate? He can't <deny/turn away> <my/your/our> <a priori>. Only <denude/revelation> it. So-->>§    §Fuck it. I'm the role model, right? I can't afford to not look cool right now.§     Breathing deep, then breathing fast, Lilian watches for the Apostle's next attack, calling out "Don't just get behind me this time! Shajo! Tweed! Flanks!" while preparing to defend herself and counterattack.     And slowly, bit by bit, sort out the tangle of contradictions that the mangled engine of T2 is to her, and thread out a buffer against what her skin already crawls and itches in phantom pain just from the anticipation of it. Her outline distorts, faintly, with an erratic, hair thin line of pulsating redshift.
Sarracenia	'*Lilian* isn't the reason why this creep has a fucking god complex! Maybe you should try not being an example of why humanity is irredeemable instead!'      "Me?! I am not the potty-mouthed toxic one that shouts that people are worthless and should just kill themselves all the time!!" Sarra shouts. "And no of course she is not the reason he has a god complex!! But, she might be th-      'You're ambulatory gasoline to Adam's mindset, so I'm declaring you a liability...I'm not being figurative; the things you spew have consequences, and right now they're an unacceptable danger to the mission that people gave their lives to complete.'      Sarra shakes with how angry she is now. She is the one endangering everyone?! Lilian even defensively and preemptively said it was not Lilian's fault, which -clearly- means it was!      The only thing that keeps the princess from continuing her accusatory shouting is the idea that somehow it might cause others to side with Adam or strengthen him or something. That and Woz making a sound argument. One that Sarra actually understands. But, Sarra can't just NOT express her anger, and with a frustrated growly scream she swings her hammer at an empty wall, smashing a pile of rubble out of it before...getting grabbed by Xion?! The look on Xion's face makes another thing that keeps her from continuing her shouting, and since she doesn't fear Xion she actually looks surprised and perhaps even apologetic.      Sarra lets out a yelp at the shove and goes stumbling through the portal. She is both awed and afraid of the swirling plane of darkness, then 'wakes up' in Control. She stumbles a few more steps before blinking a few times. "What in...?" She looks back to see Xion coming through, then is treated to a dance-turn, which confuses the princess and puts her in a bit better spirits. She naturally moves to counter-balance with Xion during the twirl, then brings her hammer up and goes into a fast twirl herself as they get angled toward the Apostle.      'Cinder! We're here to help!'      Cinder is someone that, despite everything, Sarra considers a good person worthy of being helped. "Ah! Hello, Cinder! Fear not, for we have your back!" she says, caught up in Xion's energy.      Then, that flash of white hits.      Sarra's lights go out almost immediately. The princess's 'self' has never been very strong, and while it has grown stronger over the last little while...she has never experienced an attack like this one.      Luckily, it is not for long. Sarra blinks, then looks up from her spot facedown on the floor where she landed after the pulse. She gets up quickly, feeling pretty weak after that. Her hammer feels heavy for once, and she has trouble lifting it. "I have not let anyone tell me who I am, and I am not about to let someone else tell me I am nothing! Especially not a sham of a god and his corrupted disciples!!"      With her 'I' weakened though, Sarra's hammer doesn't recognize her as her. She can't get it off the ground. Her teeth clench as she grips it more tightly and lifts...then her eyes widen as it leaps forward of its own accord! Her grip carries her with it as the hammer swings itself wildly, with Sarra only able to keep it aimed toward the enemy. It is only marginally less dangerous than Sarra purposefully swinging it, and leaves cracks in the walls and floors wherever it hits.
Petra Soroka	ADAM:     For those up in Control, Adam is luxuriating in an ivory and gold throne that absolutely wasn't there before, erupted in the main chamber of the department to perfectly frame him in front of White Night. Hovering behind the back of the chair, the Abnormality's halo is almost over his head, and the seven wings surround him like a fan. Obnoxiously, of course, each wave of Pale damage passes him by unharmed. "Even if you think you can erase people from the world, even if you're a god - people will protect their ability to have an identity."     "And yet, they haven't. Not in this world, and not in the one they would create for themselves if given the chance." Adam leans his elbow on the throne, letting the wings of White Night flutter against his fingers. "People are all too willing to abdicate their choice of identity to the animal politics that govern them. If no, why not make those politics mine? Why not choose for them?"     He twirls his fingers, and like a magician's trick, after the next flap of White Night's wings, he has an apple resting in his palm. "The Carmens and Benjamins of the City shall find that I am a more benevolent master than any other. As the new god of this world, those with the nobility and splendor to their Light that some few of mankind have proven to have will be uplifted to a utopia unlike anything they could have dreamed of."     "And the rest..." Adam languidly brings the apple to his lips, with a crisp bite that pierces through the din of the battle. "Will simply need a shepherd."     His eyes linger on Xion for a few seconds, unnervingly clear and unflinching. "And you somehow have no Light at all. Simon," To the Apostle wreaking havoc in Control, "Kill her."
Angela	ATZILUTH In Architecture, Riku can spear through the Apostle's chest but it keeps kneeing Riku in the gut even as it's being slammed into a wall. These are very tough beings, but at the very least he's keeping it from being able to follow up after everyone. And it's probably good for some people to stick around down here. He can feel the other Abnormalities watching them. Not interfering or breaching. Like Silent Girl, they are biding their time. Fortunately, Rufus throws a train at it and even Apostles, when hit by satanic trains, don't fair well. The train splatters the Apostle into the wall once, twice, thrice... And for a moment there's a calm that passes over Architecture. "It will not be by its own will it is once again given flesh..." A voice from one of the cells whispers. and that's when the pulse hits it. The Abnormality struggles beneath the whole of TRAIN it's buried under before it throws train cars all over the place, but predominately at Riku and Rufus! Why are trains so horrible all the time??? Meanwhile, Hibiki can catch a breather and hitch the Kukuru express to where she wants to go. Particularly when Kukuru comes down on the slowly respawning Apostle before it can respawn, crushing it underneath her hammerblow almost immediately after the pulse resurrected it. If it was just one Apostle, Hibiki could fight all night. Unfortunately, well.
Angela	BRIAH (and some Information Department) Hearing Lilian, Angela can't help but wonder if it's her fault by encouraging working with Trideag at all. Of course news would filter back. She made sure of it because it seemed the practical choice, important even. Yes, she supposes, The City likely only has gotten worse in the twelve years since they went underground. She doesn't know where Lilian's phased off to but she's told to not add her to Babble directly so she just sends the information directly to Lilian's radio. She has an onboard clock. It's fine. She feels a little sick about it. She hears Petra say something over the radio. A growing sense of unease fills her because she knows all the Agents that can be. But just in case, she looks to Flamel. There are two pings within the facility that fulfil Flamel's criteria and are in range to do something about it. One is Petra. And the other ... is Cinder. Flamel relays the information instantly. The future unfolds before Angela's eyes without any future vision whatsoever. "--Petra! We have to get to Control now!" She has rarely has been so urgent. Meanwhile in Disciplinary... ''My what a privilege to protect the happy couple.'' "Nonon's not in. But I sure do feel safer already." Shajo's MORALE BAR instantly hits max. Even Tweed's does. The pale strike hits him and he stumbles, his EGO threatening to corrode as his sense of self weakens. He hacks out black bile and drops to a knee. He might've given up too if Lilian didn't give him and Tweed a command. She IS the role model. And Gebura has been teaching them teamwork ever since Lilian beat her. Disciplinary moves like the well oiled machine that Lilian always wanted, snapping to her commands like they were written down by god and that, for the moment, is stronger than the Pale Assaults. Shajo smashes the Abnormality back and Tweed follows through with a slice, delaying its attack by a moment--allowing Lilian the perfect opportunity to finish it off. It'll still resurrect with the next wide range assault, however. In Central, the possibilities for the future are whittling themselves down to one in Woz's book. Woz can appear in Information to take down Information's Apostle--just in time to hear Flamel's answer as to who can successfully confess. He can join Angela and Petra as they head back up or continue protecting Information. It's down to two futures now in the book. Only two. In Central, Zi-O blocks an Apostle from chasing after Woz. One of the brothers. This stuns him long enough to receive a barrage of firepower from the Agents--and that gives Rita the opportunity she's looking for. Or at least the opportunity something within her is looking for. She comes crashing down on that very Apostle and stabs into it with her tentacles and drinks. And drinks. And yes, there it is. The soul. And now it's gone. The Apostle drops to the floor and flakes away into ash. He tasted human enough. Memories... Memories of being hired. Memories of joining LobCorp. Joy at being selected for the 'best' team. Memories of a glorious ascension. A bit of WhiteNight is in there too. A fraction. A dream. A hope. An existence. Cracking the egg so that a bird may fly. One down. But is she sure she doesn't want a second pulse? The Apostle is right there and weakening. Perhaps a second meal will add to the piece of the puzzle, save more lives... TEN APOSTLES REMAINING. FOR NOW.
Angela	ASIYAH In Control, there's still an Apostle standing guard. And Xion punches it INTO THE FLOOR after peppering it with shots. It sinks to a knee. Sarracenia arrives and shouts that she's here to help her. Justin Rook and Random glance at each other knowingly but they are used to this. Cinder laughs at the encouragement. "Thanks... We really could use your help. We can't even get close to that thing OR that anime fucker." She barely even acknowledges it as The Manager. Has she even SEEN the Manager before?? And just as Cinder's hope is at its height... She hears it, then. ''Someone who is already prone to corroding, like heavily attuned with their EGO, has to go to One Sin and a Hundred Good Deeds and.... Sacrifice themselves, I guess. ... Stop being human just like Ayin wants.'' She turns her head to look, not very far away, towards the first Abnormality worked upon in this facility. She thinks about the Eversion Cannon, about the Beauty of Ash, the way the Beauty of Ash summoned Exigent Serenity. Her eyes widen with a sudden realization and she says, "Thanks, Xion. You've always been a wonderful friend. I love you a bunch, okay?" And then she takes a deep shuddering breath--and she rushes inside before anyone can stop her. One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds. It is the first Abnormality you see when you arrive through the Warp Gate, and it was from which the first EGO was extracted from seen in the hands of one Justin Rook. One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds is a giant skull, far too big to belong to any human, with an even more ginormous cross embedded through itself. A crown of thorns is wrapped around the horizontal bars of the cross and the skull's forehead and an eternal too-bright glow shimmers around it. This Abnormality wasn't worth looking much into. After all, it was just a Zayin and it didn't even hurt too much in the unlikely chance you messed up the Work. Mikey could consistently do the work and he's terrible at Works! Even Agents without EGO Gear could handle it. And all it does is loom silently. It does not attack. It doesn't even seem to judge. It waits patiently for those to come to it. The Cell is completely normal. The number 27 is painted on the wall, its purpose being there no longer known. A yellow and black warning line indicates a safe distance to stay from the Abnormality lest one possibly receive light burns. And that's it. Cinder slams the door shut behind her and looks at the giant skull. The door snaps locked behind her. And that's when the third pale wave hits, like the collective unconsciousness itself trying to drown you in its waters. Many clerks simply--die. The Agents hold strong for now, but a fourth is likely to do the rest of the clerks and many agents in. That sixteen hour timer suddenly feels a lot shorter. Simon gets up immediately to try and fulfill Adam's command and stab Xion with his sword repeatedly.
Riku Asakura	Ultraman Geed is about to dodge the remains of Doomtrain's cars being flung at them when suddenly the pulse from White Night hits him.  It's terrible.  Death in the most explicit way possible.  Erosion of the self is so overwhelming that it feels all-encompassing.  This goes through the body of Ultraman Geed and strikes at Riku who is in the giant of light itself.   The train crashes into Geed and pins him under the car as he tries to overcome the poison trying to erode his will, and quickly pushes the car off of himself.  The crystal on his chest goes from a calm blue to a blinking red, indicating his energy reserves are tanking.  He's gotta push through this, he thinks to himself.   Worse, the conversation about sacrificing someone to stop White Night causes him to doubt, which only hurts against White Night itself.  "Hey, I just wanted to say to you... the train was really cool." Geed says to Rufus, as they face down the Apostle who keeps getting back up.  Whatever is going to happen, they have to keep this guy down.   Back on his feet, Geed holds up a hand, the Geed claw forgotten.  Parts of the armor on his hand fold back and start charging energy as he faces down the Apostle again.  Red energy seems to gather along the four points where the armor folded back, while a huge burst of steam blows out the back of Geed's arm.   "STRIKE BOOST!" he shouts and punches forward.  The energy is released in a burst of red and white light.  The red light laps like fire, while the energy in the center of the beam is pure white-like, aiming to strike down the Apostle once more.  Struggling, Geed keeps pushing on, because the Seed of Light is important.   Because /he/ wants to help people.  Because he wants to help Angela, who is trapped here.  Break the cycle so this story will have a happy ending.
Kukuru	When that pulse of Pale energy comes out of WhiteNight, Kukuru doesn't even realize it's happening until she feels that pain hitting a her very core. She very nearly drops to the ground from that, and something feels intensely off immediately afterwards. Were those claws always so heavy and itchy? These clothes.. No, this body. Isn't she supposed to be... Smaller? Bigger? Not like this, but... Not like any of those things, either. Even increasing the flow of nanites in her body to grow slightly or forcing them out to shirnk slightly doesn't help her feel any more... Right. "All of that planning goes over my head..." "M.. Mine, too. A lot of these things everyone says..." That's right. Kukuru doesn't have a mind for those kinds of big plans, either and that feels.. Normal. It's not a good thing to feel normal about, but Hibiki's words and reminding Kukuru what her name is help her to recenter herself a little more. "Keep this one... Here, then? Of course." She answers immediately, leaving herself no time to really even think about it. "If it can't kill me and I can't kill it... I can keep it stuck, mhm. And I can still-" <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Where-oh, this is itchy... Where's WhiteNight now? Hibiki needs to get there, and fast." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Control! Right at the-- top, side-- near the Warpgate!" <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Perfect. Thank you, Petra~" Her hand goes out in that intensely uncomfortable claw, and an ominously purple-black cloud appears besides Hibiki with the other side leading to that specific spot in Control once Petra gives her the directions. Those directions keep her head on straight, because how could she possibly let down her friends now of all times? "Remember, Hibiki. I can heal your body today, but anything else... It's gonna take longer, but I know you'll pull through." She smiles softly, then steels her gaze on the Apostle once more. "Don't worry about us here. I'll make sure this one doesn't move from this spot." It's a prideful boast, but Kukuru's feeling in better form now that she's got a slightly better idea of what this Apostle is capable of. She can't kill it, but it can't kill her. That rules out just splattering it over and over, since she'd probably tucker herself out before it runs out of whatever's bringing it back to life. So... What if she just doesn't kill it at all? She has the tools for that. As Kukuru approaches the Apostle once more, however, the third pale wave sweeps through, and she feels that shock to her core again as she suddenly becomes aware of just how wrong she is. She can feel the nanites pumping through her veins, flowing through her flesh, invading every bit of her body like a swarm of itchy little dust specks she can't get out of her eyes, her mouth, everything. Even being here feels like too much work. It'd be so easy to just lay down, fall through the ground, and land right in her bathtub to wash all this horrendous itching off. Even going home feels like a hassle, too, since it's not like she looks like anyone in either of them. Those drills certainly don't belong to a human head, and she's not nearly leathery or boney or fuzzy enough to be a monster. It's all just... Too much.
Kukuru	If it wasn't for Ayin going through his newest phase and these Apostles stalling so much, she could've been home already, and Angela... Angela would already be free if not for them. That's why Kukuru's still here. She's not here because she likes this work, but because her family is here. Even though there's so little in common between them, Kukuru's obsession with her family redirects all the feelings of inconvenience and horrible itching into a sudden, deep hatred for the Apostle standing/reforming before her. No... For Adam. The Apostle is still a victim in all this, but whatever the Agent inside is suffering is a small drop compared to what Angela must be going through. With her resolve returned, Kukuru slams her claws down at the reforming Apostle again, but not straight at center mass. Instead, she goes for the arms, aiming to shear them off and doing the same with the legs before pouring some nanites right in to keep them from bleeding out. Can Apostles bleed out? She'll find out, since she certainly doesn't want them to die and start regenerating again.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel breathes deeply through the agony. "It's all gonna work out. Okay? Just... haaahhhh..." He's bringing Cinder to One Sin. He's focused, focused entirely on fulfilling his purpose. Even his obsession with information has abated in service of one thing and one thing alone: Fulfillment of his role as an apocalypse-preventing *thing*.     "You'll be okay. We're all gonna be okay." He lies, whispering to Cinder as he directs her to the One Sin that she knows the path to better. "We stop White Night, we stop all of this. It all goes away, and everyone will be alright." The more his bright smile beams at her, the more it must feel like a lie. "You can do this. Everything's going to be okay."     "Everything's going to be okay."     All the substance of a therapist's answering machine.     "AAAAARGH!" Flamel can't stay on his feet when the next pulse hits. "SSSSSSSS... STOP THIS THING!!" He screams, hands on his face. Carmen's blood drips between his fingers, mixed with a psionic light. "I can't, I can't, I can't exist much longer, you have to *STOP THIS!* SAVE US!!" It takes him an agonizingly longer time to get on his feet, and then another to stumble to the locked door and search out a comms panel for local Babble.     "Hi-- Hi. Hi... sorry, I seem to be. I seem to be unwinding a little, even though my physicals and mentals are! Are!" Pause. "Are okay! Given I'm less of a. I'm less. Less of a person than most, it's probably going to kill me first. Kill me first. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me." He snaps out of what sounds like a repeating track. "It's probably going to get to me first if it keeps this up. Then it'll come for everyone else. For everyone else. I think you know how to do this better than I do. But I know there's something you can tell it. Something you can confess that nobody else can. If you do, if you say it, you'll save us. You'll save us. Save us. Save us. Save us. Save us. Save us. Save us."     "Save us."     "I. Believe. In. You."     Flamel can't believe that they can contain this any other way. Once more, he hurts those who deserve kindness most for the sake of a humanity he isn't even part of. A layer of abstraction so that mankind, so that men like Ayin, may freely, guiltlessly demand death. And he won't even stop smiling that awful, encouraging, friendly smile.
Rita Ma	Rita looks up at Sougo and Woz from her knees, bleary-eyed, deeply unwell. The light in her eyes is almost back as the Apostle's energies drain into her; but that only fills her with a different kind of nausea.      It still tasted like a person. Innocent. I can't do this.      She looks pale because of it, and maybe for other reasons too. To eat is still to make contact. Rita's eyes plead with Woz and Sougo. She isn't even sure what she's begging for, though.      - - - - - - - - sick - - - - - - - -      The second pulse hits. Rita stops being conscious of silly little things like 'other people', and becomes aware of the presence of danger and food. A half-dozen of her tentacles burst through the other Brother of Thunder, secrete acids to externally digest it from a half-dozen contact points, and then drink.      Rita, still recovering, coughs up glowing goop between her fingers. "STOP," she demands of the other Apostles and White Night, but how much reprieve that freeze will actually give the Agents, she can't say. <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Cinder and Petra. Only candidates are Cinder, and Petra. Petra can't be an apostle. Is Petra an apostle? No-- Cinder." <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "N-no. Wai... ait. Petra. Miss Petra. You can't let her. There's-- I can kill them. I can get rid of them. Ten more, I can do it. Don't..." She sounds like she's about to throw up. <J-IC-Scene> Shajo says, "...Can you get them down in one or two minutes, Rita? ... I mean, you already..." <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Yeah," but it's more desperately hopeful than certain.      Two down in-- thirty seconds? It's burning me inside-out. The other eight in one minute. Four times as fast. I can't? I'd die if I could.      I have to try though. <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Ku-- ruru. One Sin. Now, please. And-- down Apostles to me." <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "... Ohhh. Oh. I understand. Okay. Central, right?" <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Yyyea- eah."      Rita's tentacles coil under her, lift her up, and settle her on her feet like a helpful separate organism. Glowy soulstuff dribbles off her chin and hands. Two tendrils pick up those sparking lances from the floor. Her eyes do their best to refocus.
Rufus Shinra	> The train splatters the Apostle into the wall once, twice, thrice... "... There." "It's over - damn it..." Rufus takes a breather. "That didn't feel good," he complains to Geed, the tone implying that there was some major injustice committed by the universe here in making Rufus Shinra feel bad. "People that I worked beside. Putting the actual hours in to see this thing come to fruition. Having someone turn on you like that and you have to put them down, that's awful." "At least it's over." This statement does not, actually immediately preceed the pulse of regeneration (proving it's not over). Real life does not have that sort of perfect dramatic timing. > "Hey, I just wanted to say to you... the train was really cool." Rufus starts to say something appreciative in response, and *then* the pulse of regeneration happens. > "It will not be by its own will it is once again given flesh..." "It didn't... EVEN TAKE?" is the last thing Rufus says before getting smashed by his own train. Geed has to solo the apostle for a bit, after that. Rufus is but a man with fancy equipment, and not the sort of person who can shrug off a train easily. He's looking a bit worse for the wear. Lightning spells! Lightning works on most things, right? Rufus casts lightning spells. And using magic especially means he can stay in the back row while the Ultraman takes the fore. > <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Cinder and Petra. Only candidates are Cinder, and Petra. Petra can't be an apostle. Is Petra an apostle? No-- Cinder." This was... This was supposed to be fun. Lobotomy Corporation is dangerous, sure, and people died, but it was the fun kind of dangerous and the funny internet video kinda deaths. And this was supposed to be - well, dangerous, but also hopeful and triumphant. Not... Not people he knew. Not people that he'd miss. He and Cinder weren't close. But - she was there, frequently. With Petra, or at Lobotomy Corporation. She was known. She was a part of things. And now - she might not be there anymore. Rufus casts lightning again. The magic flickers out before it leaves his hands. The pale wave hits. The suffering continues.
Rufus Shinra	In another life - Rufus lounges. He's up to his eyeballs in drugs, and partners, and good food and fancy clothes and every form of distraction and entertainment at his fingertips. Anything from football tickets to entire football teams is within his reach. He doesn't want for anything. He doesn't need anything. Anything he's missing, anything in his life that breaks or goes away can be replaced. He is living his best life while slowly dying inside, and he knows it. None of it matters. All the hard edges in life have been sanded smooth and cushioned, and whatever joy he gets is fleeting as the novelty wears off and his attention turns inexorably and ever towards the next thing he hopes can keep his attention. Is that better, would that have been better, than being here, actually living, and feeling small pieces of himself chip away bit by bit?
Petra Soroka	Each pulse of Pale damage hits Petra only slightly less hard than it hits Angela. By the time the third comes around, she's gritting her teeth so hard that her jaw aches, covered in impulsive crescent moons of fingernail marks, a burn mark singed into her neck from where she nearly pressed Fourth Match Flame's blade into it in a moment of identity void. If death is forced on her formlessly, her impulse is to give it shape, carve scars into her body to turn her autopsy into art. Angela is practically dragged along, too heavy to carry but unable to walk on her own.     One down in Information for the next few dozens of seconds. One eliminated in Central, and not getting back up. Angela might be critically injured, but she can take one more at least, right? If Petra gets up to Control Department, she can just... take down White Night with Xion and Cinder, and Rita and Lilian can make sure the rest of the facility isn't destroyed in the next 90 seconds. <J-IC-Scene> Flamel Parsons says, "Cinder and Petra. Only candidates are Cinder, and Petra. Petra can't be an apostle. Is Petra an apostle? No-- Cinder." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka swallows. "Eh-- huh? The--? For the?" <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "Well that's not-- I-I mean-- like, it's just, corrosion, right? Just-- who else corrodes a lot? A-ah-- Nonon? But she's at... o-or, Ceri, who's at...."     Petra stumbles for one entire second as if she's been punched in the gut. Her babbling in the radio is minutes behind her thoughts, remembering that the others are nonstarters long before she proposes and then discards them verbally; she just can't not. Her feet keep moving doggedly to the elevator shaft, one step at a time.     By the time she gets there, she's had the chance to envision every possible outcome she can imagine. From throwing herself against White Night and somehow heroically saving the day-- I'm the best *fucking* agent in this facility, what good is that if I can't beat one fucking Abnormality?!-- to using ¶that power to skip past Flamel and stop Cinder from entering the cell herself-- I swear to *god* I'm going to kill Hokma for forcing us to not break the fucking TT2-- or putting herself in One Sin's cell instead-- But.... But. That thought can't resolve, not in the fifteen subjective minutes it takes to get to the elevator shaft and leap up the sides into Control, and probably not after, either.     Out of the elevator shaft, the sound of sharply splintering glass. The thing that emerges out of it isn't Petra, but the Beauty of Ash, animalistically lunging across the Control Department floor in a bound and a half to rip into White Night with its full force. Wounded worse than Petra is, the Beauty of Ash is frosted-through with fractures, leaking fluid that scintillates through every color of the rainbow in an instant and boils off into pure light an instant later. The razor sharp arms of the mech thrust into White Night, scattering feathers and tearing outwards, each sharp-edged crack and splinter along its entire body another weapon to cannibalistically rip into it.     And in the next pulse of Pale damage, it shatters, point-blank. A billion fragments of glass chromatically abberate in a stuttering explosion, then move smoothly and suddely to collapse back into Petra's mirror as she plummets down from where she was in its chest. She drew blood, golden ichor that splatters onto the Control room floor, but it's not nearly enough. Not enough to avoid...     "Flamel--" Right outside the door in the Department she knows by heart. "C-Cinder, I--" Right inside. Petra can't see her, but she knows. One of the many downsides of Angela's curse is not being allowed to entertain denial long enough to speak it.
Kukuru	<J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Ku-- ruru. One Sin. Now, please. And-- down Apostles to me." <J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "... Ohhh. Oh. I understand. Okay. Central, right?" <J-IC-Scene> Rita Ma says, "Yyyea- eah." Wait. Rita has a plan. A good one, even, that Kukuru can facilitate easily enough. Staying her hands from the Apostle for a moment, she has to mentally map out several locations at once just to make sure things work properly. The first two clouds: Pushing a hand through them into Central, so she can feel the floor and scrape the ground enough to signal to Rita that she's reaching in and trying to feel her way around. The third and forth clouds: Pushing her other hand into Central, scraping the walls to have a ballpark of where she's aiming that way. It takes a few more seconds for her to get her bearings straight, and then Kukuru pulls her hands before leaving only the clouds leading between Central and Control.
Rita Ma	- - - - - - - - please - - - - - - - -      On arrival, Rita and her body are in perfect agreement. As the door to One Sin shuts and she drags Kukuru and the maimed Apostle through, a tendril snakes out to grab Flamel's wrist, a stolen Apostle spear nails his jacket to the wall while another stabs into the door's gap.      Rita slams into the containment door with her whole roiling mass a half-second later, but feverish and shivery, she can't wrench it open. She 'wakes back up' in time to wheel around on Flamel again, eyes coldly wide.      "You can't let Cinder do that," she forces out, still trembly. A tentacle wraps around Flamel's chest, squeezing- unintentionally?- too tight. "It'll-- you'll kill Petra too. She'll, always be thinking- 'what if it was me'. 'What if I--'. Trust- me." I know what it's like to be sacrificed for.      "Why did you have to say, 'Cinder or Petra'. Why?! Tell her- get out of there. It can still be me." It can't. I don't think I can even do five. But I have to try.      <J-IC-Scene> Cinder says, "...Not for the greater good at all, but that's ok. It's reward enough. Thanks for getting us here. Just don't let Rita do that to herself anymore, okay?"      She slumps back against the door, eyes dazedly searching Kukuru's face- the gentle grown-up who always makes things right, somehow. Rita's on her third mental soft-reboot, frayed and tired. She can hardly bear to look at Petra on the floor, who's already had time to digest her denial, and who therefore is the enemy.      Her cheek presses against the door, 'looking back' at Cinder, who's hidden behind gray metal.      "I have to try," she repeats. "Miss Cinder..." Surely this isn't selfish of her. She tries to keep that nice evening they shared, out on a boat on that lake by the village, out of her mind and voice. "... Ple-ease, don't, do this to Petra."      I was just telling Ayin about sacrifice. But this is-- different. Isn't it? Isn't it...?
Flamel Parsons	Flamel is leaning against the door, whispering into a comms panel. When the Beauty of Ash shatters, spills Petra next to him, he gives her that same encouraging smile. "Petra." He whispers. "So fast... Good work. You did so well. You did so well to get here. It's important. I don't know her very well. I can't be a witness to this. I'm not a real person. So she needs someone else. She needs someone else, who's real, who can know this."     He reaches out with a weak hand, trying to fight through the agonizing pain. He reaches out with that hand still covered in Carmen's blood, with a smile on that face still half-drenched in it. To try to help her to her feet. "It's going to be okay." He says, encouraging. Optimistic. "Just do your best for this next part, Petra. Do your best. Everything will be fine." He wants her on her feet. Next to the Babble comms panel he was using. Maybe any internal cameras they can see.     This is not a person. This is a thing. This is a rock. A stone that pareidolia assigns personhood to.     Rita slams into the scene. Flamel is gracious enough to pull Petra aside just a little, and stumble a bit, to try to give her room for it. He watches the display of agony, emotions, pain. He looks to her, with that soft, kind smile, and back to Petra. And then he sheepishly stares at the bloodstained hand he helped Petra with: "Because, you know, even though I'm a spy, even though... I've always been an agent like this..." He looks up to Rita. "I'm not used to lying. And I think I'm not very good." He struggles a moment. "I'm not good. I'm not good." His hand shakes, clenching unsteadily. "I'm. Not. Good."     "But it'll be okay." He whispers. "We do our best. And everything turns out okay. Everything turns out okay. Everything turns out..." He lays a palm on the door. "I believe in her."
Xion	Xion's swung Break Gunner-holding fist cracks in a purple power wave as she drills the Apostle down with it, eyes tracking to the erratic hammer-wielder and bouncing acrobatically out of the way and into a quick recovery roll into a crouch. Sarracenia goes to semi-unwilling town on the Apostle, and Xion rises to take a moderately wide-stanced pose, bringing palm into the Break Gunner's nose to transform with the grungy retort of Brake Up!. Stepping forward as Sarracenia wheels away, purposeful as a scrap-and-gears armor appears in segments and attaches itself over the coat like it's not even there. With a bolt of purple transformation effect electricity, the armor locks in mid-stride and the heel-helmeted 'Mashin X' advances on the downed apostle to step down on their attempts to get up for a moment. She knows it won't 'kill', and she's not above hurting the immortal force trying to kill her. That it was an agent. . . Just meant that after a beating they'd feel better. Probably. Thus, the Never-Kill Reaper rode again. Taking advantage of the wild hammerblows, she struggles with the Apostle with the upper hand for a short while. Looking up to Adam, yellow lenses flickering - one behind grille - Mashin X points the Break Gunner to follow their sight, with the Apostle downed. "For a god, you have a complete wreck of an ability to reason. Do you also think that all the apples are yours because you've built a fence on native land? 'They' have. 'They' are *right here*!" She shouts, and doesn't entirely mean herself. Part of her whole borrowed identity speaks through her, demands that she deny someone like this, someone choosing for others. 'This sort of force,' waves of nihility that re-beg the question that all of Xion had asked before. But why not? Only the calmness of perfect justice helped Xion - Mashin X - maintain her posture. "You'll choose for everyone, and only elevate a few? Presumptive." The flat tone has an android's distaste. "For a divinity to choose a flock like apples in trees that don't belong to them." 'And you somehow have no Light at all.' Under the mask, what is left of Xion grimaces, no amount of perfect justice able to answer that. The creaking groan of her throat pushes with the desire to snap back, but, what was there even to say? Attempting to fire again, this time at Adam, with a charged blast from the Brake Gunner, she's thrown aside by the rise of Simon and blocks her vitals with her empty arm and the shot goes wide. Improperly braced against the sword strikes, she flinches and is pushed away -- from Cinder. Driving in with a burst of low engine rumble-sounding speed, she throws a few punches that send powerfully heavy gravity shockwaves out to blast Simon away, and looks entirely towards Cinder as she's addressed. Her armor of 'perfect justice' wavers, and her back turns towards the Apostle, emotionless mask turned toward the departing agent. She hates, so much more than parties, being thanked by people in the middle of a fight like this. Parties were the times where she didn't know why she was around, because, there wasn't anything for her to do. Being thanked, like this, meant that there was something she might've been able to do and she didn't. "Cinder, I--" Xion begins, and finds her breath terribly hot inside the helmet that she wears. Questions, pleading whispers, the snapping-shut reality of moments getting so terribly short, and her faint hope that she could just wish it all stop for a second - so she could move, choose, do something to avert this fate comes -- and time does not slow down for her. The White Night had already taken control of the ticking of seconds. Instead Xion feels a slam-wake of nausea at false acceleration and staggers forward, reaching for Cinder.
Xion	Sometimes, a sour sometimes, there wasn't anything that she could do at all. Flamel Parsons is there, like some sort of overly smiling specter even though she doesn't even sense the hint of a smile on him. Xion - and not her 'perfect justice' in armor - reaches out towards Cinder as she's going//being led away in sick palliative smiles//sprinting off a cliff. The armored hand extend and she takes a step - she can still teleport within the facility, the Corridors can skip the distance - grabbing anyway in desperation. She's far, far, far away, and then the pulse hits. 'I am the Hero of Everyone's Hearts, X!' and it was pronounced ''Key''. And she was the reliable hero that everyone loved, and she appeared at every crisis, and over and over nobody slipped through her fingers. That tattered flag of who she once was fails to break the storm of self-erosion and erupts into failing sparks and the tunes of a car accident. Simon, swiftly revived, stops the armor's forward progress further by impaling no-one from behind. A crackle of resistance in the armor fragmenting into energy doesn't do more than fluff Xion's hair and hood as she slumps in the breakdown of her transformation, eyes shadowed-over. Reaching gloved hands forward to hold the keepsake medallion in her hands while the blade in her stomach is removed, Xion wobbles and burbles and holds the medallion in her hands. Swallowing down the goopy wet in her throat, Xion croaks out a pathetic mumble of "I love you, too?" that still doesn't at all solve the Apostle ordered to kill Particularly Her doing just that at her back. No longer impaled, but lacking her layer of ego-reinforcing armor, Xion throws a pivot swing with her closed fists into Simon to clobber the Apostle away from her and buy her a step to bleed and focus. Exhaling at a cough, she wipes her mouth with one hand and goes for jacket pocket for another Medallion. Many had been drowned in possibility, bowed in content, but one still sung with purpose-of-self for her to use. Drawing one in blonde-gold and diffused-rain blue, Xion's raised-in-tone and brought-to-harmony voice turns her hoarse and goopy-throated emotions into something that keeps her moving. Vivianne, a homunculus who had found 'self' even before God her creator, and dragged her whole family into that knowing with help against the overwhelming force of society *and* the literal force of manifested dreams. It, as an alchemically golden handled keyblade of rain-blue, still rung true in all of this. With the light back on in her eyes, pupilless and watery-blue borrowed, Xion parries and swings out Simon the Apostle's blade, riposting down with a two handed slash that gushed with explosive water pressure! "What a *miserable* god you are!" She sings, crying.
Sarracenia	'Thanks, Xion. You've always been a wonderful friend. I love you a bunch, okay?'      Sarra has read enough heroic novels and watched enough heroic movies to recognize a farewell when she hears it. She lets her hammer go for a moment so it will stop frenzying and looks toward Cinder. "Why are you-"      Cinder locks herself in with One Sin. Sarra looks confused. She as usual does not know enough to really understand what is going on. At first. But, as the name of this Abnormality fully sinks in along with the things being said over the radio the princess's eyes widen. "...Cinder..." Sarra says, almost reverently. Sarra is not one to stop someone from heroically sacrificing themselves. It is the most noble and heroic end one can have. "...we will not let your Light be wasted, or forgotten." she vows, then turns toward Adam.      The pale wave hits again, and Sarra is again blacked out by the attack. She awakens a few moments later, bleary-eyed. She has a lot of trouble getting back to her feet. "Nnng..." With her vision still bleary, for a moment Adam looks to her like the angelic god he is claiming to be. Once it clears though...      'People are all too willing to abdicate their choice of identity to the animal politics that govern them. If no, why not make those politics mine? Why not choose for them?'      "Gods only lay out a path, from what I understand. The people still have to choose to follow it. If you take away that choice you are not being a god. You are being a demon! A tyrant! If you take away their choices then they would be little better than machines!" Sarra looks around at the fallen clerks and struggling agents, then frowns deeply. "...what is the point of being god over a graveyard full of zombies? How is that helping anyone? How is that fulfilling?! The Carmens and Benjamins of that world would be working to bring you down, just like the Carmen and Benjamin of -your- world have worked to bring down the hold the Corporations have over this world!"      Sarra reaches into her purse, and pulls out a bob-omb. "Do you know what I heard? I heard that the first Adam doomed all of humanity. It sounds like you might be doing that again. Taking their Light, and the Light that Carmen and you and all the people here worked so hard to gather...that is another thing that makes you a demon! Corrupting people into monsters! That is also being a demon! And demons like that should be defeated! For the greater good!"      Sarra has hated the Code of Thirteen, but right now...she is feeling a few of them. She isn't sure why it pops into her head right now, but it does. Perhaps the weakening of her 'I' has her seeking other identities she can hold on to. "Those who die for the greater good hath their reward." Sarra looks toward Cinder, then back toward Adam. "The many outweigh the few. The righteous outweigh the unjust. Stay thy hand not for unnecessary persons." Sarra laughs a bit in appreciation of the irony. "Maybe Lilian was right. For once. You may have sacrificed a lot for this, gone through a lot of suffering. But, I think you have become one of those unnecessary persons. For people to be freed, to be spared, to be saved from an unjust 'god' like you..." Sarra pulls out another bob-ombs. "Thou shalt kill without hesitation. Doubt proves thou art not fit to take away life, nor to offer it. If we cannot stop you now, many will die...or worse. And as a Fixer of this City, and part of the Trideag Association - people bringing hope and light to this City! And...well, it is my job to stop things like you!"
Sarracenia	Sarra may not be good at a lot of things, but she is pretty good at Red Damage. That normal, everyday type of damage done by weapons. And explosives. And she starts throwing them. Bob-ombs, fuse bombs, dynamite, proximity mines, Bullet Bills. If it explodes and can be thrown, Sarracenia pulls it out and throws it. As she does, morphmetal flows down from her lotus hairpin and covers her hands, and silver spikes join the onslaught.      Sarra almost literally throws everything she has at Adam and White Knight. Sarra might kill someone today. If she can, then they can save Cinder, not that she is confident in that since she knows how relatively weak she is compared to the others here. Usually killing is something Sarra avoids like the plague, but that someone has become a monster. A monster that threatens this entire City, and perhaps this entire world and beyond. A monster who became a monster by choice. And Sarra's self is pretty weak aright now.      Or, Sarra might die today. And...well, those that die for the greater good hath their reward. She has almost died several times now and actually died at least once. This one feels like it would stick, though. She really wishes she could have met her hero by now...a few tears fall down her cheeks at the thought.      And, while Sarra does not think for a moment this apostle can kill Xion...well, Adam threatened her, too! "And Xion has more Light in her little finger than you do in your entire body!"
Lilian Rook	'One is Petra. And the other ... is Cinder.'     §That's it? Petra's girlfriend? That's such a small price to pay for everyone.§     Lilian is instantly rendered ill just for thinking the thought. Only slightly because of guilt; the rest is because of not feeling that guilty.     §I'm tired of this. Why does it have to be the fate of the entire world every single time? Nihil. The Queen. NAZCA. Iðunn. Now this. How many times do I have to push myself this hard in so little time? Why does it feel like it's getting worse and not better? Titanomachia, Gebura, Galle, Ash; and look at the enemies still ahead of us. This is insane. I'm running up an escalator as fast as it goes back down. Even the few who are keeping up are getting exhausted. The rest are only falling behind. One sacrfice, just to slow it down; to catch our breath. Surely they have to understand that.§     The air crackles around Lilian. A perfect redshifted negative is left of the place where she just wash. Searing radiation scours a painterly trail of light and a smoking helix through the air. Night Mist pierces into the heart of the outsider and harshly burns out the core of the alien; the surreal; the thing of the realm of imagination. Lilian burns from contact with something else. Her armour smoulders, cherry red, across its outer surface, hissing steam from the moisture in the air. The surface looks scraped raw, as if she'd ground to a halt over half a kilometer of road. It shows flecks of gold like broken skin. Lilian's cheek oozes blood from her freshly split scar.     §Fuck you Adam. It's still my turn. I get it. Rule zero. I'm stronger than you. You can't stop me.Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you die die die die die die die d§     "I couldn't have asked for better with Sword Team here." Lilian says to Shajo and Tweed, catching her breath between revivals. "I want to take you with me. All of Disciplinary. Ever since the Queen, I've been thinking that I'd kill for subordinates as disciplined as you. I mean it." She does, but that's neither here nor there. Say what it takes. Keep their morale up. Reaffirm their sense of self. Rita is doing all they can. If she can't, Lilian has already resolved to push herself to Control and thrust her blade up to the hilt in that abomination as a last ditch gamble. She's thinking of it even now.     §It hurts. Fuck it hurts so much. That was so clumsy. Of course the entire texture of reality has changed; it's not 'the world' anymore, but 'Adam's' shitty idea of time that I'm working around. I really don't want to do that again. I have to be ready. Think about it a little more. Clear your head. Don't get it twisted, you're type black. Not--§     "Ghuh--?!"     Lilian's train of thought disintegrates under the third pulse. Her legs nearly give out, but she remains standing, as always. When she collapses, next time or the time after, she'll right herself immediately; her body will automatically. 'The last one standing', 'the one who doesn't stay down', 'the resting place of the world's axe'; it's too engraved into her to fall now. The Apostle rises, and before she knows it, she's already spitting out, through a wad of blood, "Point! Tweed, Shajo, in that order! Follow and break!"
Lilian Rook	Her body moves against its will. After the last wave, it feels even more like a reluctant mass of sluggish matter adhered to her 'skin' than after the first one. Parrying multiple attacks in sequence is tiring. Leaving an opening that requires minimal time, Lilian flicker-cracks through its arms and breaks left for the two Agents to capitalize in sequence. She doesn't know whether the backlash that turned glowing armour from red to orange and split her lip open, or the last wave peeling away the outer layers of 'I'; the piece of self she holds fractionally more tenuously than the others; was what put those little stars in her blood, and turned the scarred quarter of her face pitch dark.     "Up! Ready! Again!" Lilian cries out, hunching over her sword to catch her breath only for a few seconds, then standing up straight and throwing out her hair, reattaching her pin in an easier posture. Her hair floats back down to her back slowly. "If it isn't all sorted by the next impact, then I'll have to leave it to you while I strike at the source!" Lilian says to the flagging agents. Anything to give them hope. A wall to put their backs against and a route to fight their way out through.     §Are you joking? Look at them. Another wave might finish them. Even if they hang on for my being here, the others are certainly worse off than Disciplinary is. Half the clerks have already died off; so fast and all at once that I can smell it. Other Agents might already be dead. Listen to Rita. She's not going to make nine at this rate. She's not built for this. How many can I take? Ten? Fifteen? What does it matter if Angela dies on the fifth? I don't want her to. I don't want to sacrifice her for the project. She's not unnecessary.§     Lilian takes a deep, queasy breath, that hisses and fogs in reverse. She keys her radio. <J-IC-Scene> Cinder can't bear it anymore, "...Don't." <J-IC-Scene> Cinder says, "...Don't do that, Rita." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Cinder." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I don't have the authority to order you, but--" <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "Those who die for the greater good hath their reward." <J-IC-Scene> Lilian Rook says, "I hope Parsons is right. But if he's wrong, then . . . thank you for being there for Petra." <J-IC-Scene> Cinder says, "...Not for the greater good at all, but that's ok. It's reward enough. Thanks for getting us here. Just don't let Rita do that to herself anymore, okay?"
Timespace Riders	Two possibilities.     Another pulse. Woz stifles a sob, a strangled noise of intense effort, as the context for the first--for that remembrance of blissful ignorance--is made plain. So, White Night, you gave me the poison before you showed me the trap I was ensnared in.     Why does it have to be so tempting? Why does this have to be so difficult? Why is there a step back for every two steps forward, and why does it feel so impossibly difficult to take the next two after? Either way, my work to protect one person betrays another. You are as contemptible a story as that man. Would that my enduring anger towards you, my desire to spit upon you in this moment, were enough to pass for Repression work. The pulse passes, and there is enough of Woz, Kamen Rider of lost causes, to continue on. ...But though you have driven your knife into me, forced me to choose between Petra, Angela and the opiate of surrender, only one is correct. Petra, too, will be harmed no matter what transpires here today. To go back to a life of running from the burden of my own decisions would be a living death. Therefore-- I must live to pick up the pieces. It can still be me.     "It cannot," says Woz, striding around the corner with weapon in hand--though not raised towards her in the slightest. The way he talks is as if he's seen this conversation before--he couldn't have heard her, catching up as he is. "This is a moment wherein the borders between 'should' and 'must' are firmly defined; and wherein the latter is the victor over 'should' and 'third options.' I am truly sorry. It is ours, as those who may yet survive, to do so, and to render the world a place which would have been kinder to her, for those yet to come."     "Cinder... I will spread the story of what you have done as far as my feeble talents as a chronicler will allow," says Woz to Cinder from the outside of the containment cell. "Let the light within you be a guiding star for those with their own Cities to survive, worlds and worlds away."     He holds a blank Miridewatch up for her to see through the window in the door. The whir of clockwork sounds, so fast that it almost seems like the cry of a cicada. With a brilliant flash of white, unassuming square face of the watch is replaced with the helmet of a Kamen Rider--swept red ridges very similar to Cinder's hair, with two 'bangs' serving to suggest both eyebrows and the hands of a smartwatch.                                     CINDER!
Hibiki Tachibana	"Thank you, Kukuru."     If the situation was any better than it was, if she was feeling better than she was, not having every inhale and exhale come shuddery, this would be the part where she'd be giving Kukuru a shaky smile. She just can't muster anything but seriousness in the current state of things though - but that does mean she means it. "...I'm not worried about me. And I know you'll be okay here."     She turns on her heel, towards the smoky teleportation cloud. "Keep the rest of them safe."     The Symphogear user takes a step back, and then gets a running sprint through it. Leaving Records, and into Control.     ...     --Just in time to get hit by the next wave of Pale as soon as she bursts into Control, her eyes once again going wide as her breath hitches in her chest. She can feel her heartbeat drumming loud in her chest. She can feel her eyes blank out. Using her voice is impossible.     Putting thought into forming words is impossible.     She doesn't have the ability to think straight to direct her body.     She stays running, keeping her momentum, on sheer and automatic autopilot. With the very concept of the 'self', the 'soul' momentarily thrown into disarray, instinct takes majority control. The endless and unfightable tides of the collective unconscious. And the deep-rooted urge to destroy. Giving up the reins to something other than 'you'.     It's just convenient that, in the few seconds where her soul is beaten into the pits of her being - where flashes of black streaked with crimson briefly yet entirely shroud her body, turning her into a hazy silhouette in motion, clenched teeth turned into bared fangs - the largest opponent of them all is where her focus is naturally drawn.     That 'God'.     "GRAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH--!"     Hibiki(?) makes a sudden drop from a two-legged dash to a four-legged lunge, blitzing /past/ where Adam postures in front of the heavenly Abnormality to get below it. A glint of lucidity returns to her wide, pupil-dilated eyes, body flickering back to normal-- but it only speeds her up, rather than gives her any pause, as she leaps directly upwards with enough force to crack the flooring beneath her.     And come up the abhorrently powerful Abnormality's underside, right as prepares to unleash another of those crippling waves, to pummel into with the full intention to try and rip into it before it can unleash.     "THE LIGHT ISN'T /YOURS/! YOU /KNOW/ THAT!"
Angela	As battles against Apostles continue, buying time for ... something. Something that seems either sickening or impossibly far away... There've been deaths at Lobotomy Corp before, but most of them were early on before you got to know them or they weren't anybody you really knew. Flamel begs. It feels like begging. Angela's head snaps to him. She doesn't show wounds too well, as she has no blood, but you can see the agony in her eyes, see the stumbling, notice that her movements are stiffer, more robotic than normal. Her steps feel like she's being pulled along by golden string. She collapses to the floor once they reach Control. She's so close. She pulls herself along the floor, willing her everything to get back up and make it to that door. She can't deny reality for that long either. But she insists that Flamel try the device again over and over as if she could reject reality and replace it with her own better reality. Maybe she has a bit of god complex in her too. It isn't just for Cinder, of course, it's also for Petra. It's also for Angela. Rita is saying all the words she's thinking so she says nothing at all. Every word Flamel says makes her want to kill him that much more. It wouldn't even be murder. He's less real than she is, he'd even admit it, even if it's not by much. Lilian buoys Tweed's spirit more easily than Shajo who hears too much in the moment. But he follows orders, albeit grimly, and that's enough. The Apostle goes down again and again. They get the timing. It's almost musical, the way they eradicate this creature again and again. Is this what Kali felt like when it all went wrong? Or have we not managed to make it there yet. "Dame Commander... I think we have it handled here now." Shajo says. "Go where you gotta go. Rest if you need to. Either way, it'll be over before my arms tire out."
Angela	Cinder didn't expect this many people to give a shit. She expected Xion, Petra, maybe Rita and Angela. She's kind of glad that Lilian's being practical about it. Yes, she's being practical. She's doing what Ceri and Max did. And they have a monument! A war hero monument! Yeah, Cinder thinks, thinking about it like that isn't helping at all. What did Xion do for Cinder? Arson, mostly, but Cinder was always in love with the flames. But she was also just...kind. Helpful. A friend that wasn't also her hero. Petra is the hero of her heart, Xion just had a place in there too. A friend. She doesn't know what to say to her besides what she said. "Thanks for making me feel real." She murmurs to the one who had to fight for realness. She looks up at the skull and she takes a deep breath before slinking down against the door she just locked behind her, hugging her knees to her body. She's shaking. Her heart's pounding a mile a minute. If she does nothing, she'll be fine. She'll get a bad headache but she'd be fine. But then Petra... Then Petra and all the Agents... Maybe The Elites could down the White Night eventually, but there's no POINT if the day ends with most of the facility dead. "FUCK!" Cinder shouts. "Why'd it have to be me?! I'm happy, I have people to live for! I just decided my life was more important than the world...Haha... Wings I'm such an idiot." Confessions. She needs to make a confessions. Angela makes it to the door and uses it to pull herself up. "Cinder." Angela says, an AI that is unsure if she's lying or not. "...You need not do this." Cinder couldn't help but laugh. She wasn't sure it was true, for starters. She did a quick mental calculation. One minute until the next pulse from WhiteNight. Every pulse a battle against eleven Aleph grade Abnormalities and radiating harm to all her friends. She rushed in before she could think it through but she smiled grimly anyway. Angela always acted one way, acted like she didn't care, but that's all it was. An act. She needed to not care because otherwise she'd have to feel every awful thing they forced her to do to the Agents. The fact that she was hesitating at this moment explained all she needed to know. 'I knew it. I knew we were friends.' Woz tells her he'll spread her story. Sarracenia calls her a hero. Lilian tells her she can't order her. "ok." She says, but relents for Woz. "It's... fine. There's the River. We'll meet there someday. I won't have to wait as long as Angela, probably."
Angela	Confessions. "You remember, Angela, why I joined LobCorp? Yuri even warned me it was a dangerous place but that didn't deter me at all. I was taken out from the Outskirts and put into a cushy life that I didn't feel I really deserved and I couldn't help but resent it... but even though I resented it, I still got used to it, I could feel myself getting used to it. I used to be a tough girl, but eventually I was losing fights I used to win and getting used to shrimp cocktails. Fuck, the worst part? It was easy. All I had to do was not fight against it and it would come as naturally as breathing." She sighs. "I couldn't make it as an Agent, so I took a job as a clerk. Do you remember, you said that I usually died early on. And this was the only reality..." She points a wavering index finger to the ceiling. "This is the only world where I made it as an Agent. And it happened after I met Petra. I don't know what happened, but something ''magical'' happened that day, I swear. I saw Petra tearing apart Schadenfreude and I remembered what it was like to live in the Outskirts. Fight, Cinder, Fight!" "And then at my next assessment... I finally qualified! A TETH Ego, one of the weakest there were. But more than that, I got to know Petra, I got to know YOU. And yeah, you were flawed, you were desperate... but Petra said saving you was what was important and I didn't get it at first--you never seemed like anyone who needed help--but eventually I got it. I guess living in the Outskirts as long as I have, I never really got the fear of AI even though we're way more likely to be killed by a machine out there. I guess...cause when you see those machines, you know they don't really talk. They don't have skin. They don't give a shit."
Angela	Cinder looked up, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "You know, Ange, it isn't really too weird to be crushed by the circumstances of your creation but I know it's different because they made you knowing you'd be an Impurity and they didn't care. You were the kind of person I was always told I should help, someone down on their luck through no fault of their own. And a TETH EGO User to save a whole facility? To save you? ... That's a bargain. And 'sides, I'm the one--who is the devil dreaming of heaven." Cinder curls up hugging her knees. The skull floats in front of her, silent as death. Smoke curls off her arms, her legs, her mouth, her face. Fourth Match Flame crackles and sparks as flame ripples along her body, slowly spreading along her. She doesn't scream. She doesn't seem to feel the flame. Her flesh does not burn--or rather, her flesh starts turning into ''fire itself'' harmlessly, as if the human body was always just an illusion. "...But to be honest, Petra. I'm still scared. I still don't want to go through with this. I was never as brave or as cool as I thought I could be. And I don't... I don't care about the Seed of Light project. I care about Angela because...she deserves to be free. And I care about Angela because you care about her. And I care about you because...fuck... I don't get how everybody misses it, but you're so fucking brave! Sure, you stammer sometimes, you get scared sometimes, and sometimes the Dame Commander slams your head into a table or stabs your hand and I think 'Fuck I gotta help her!' and then I think 'But this is what she wants, I don't get it but it's what she wants and I'm too selfish and cowardly to fight it. I wanted you in my life. And if that meant not stepping in when your head get slammed against a table, I guess... that's what I had to do. I couldn't think of it as selfless to just let all that happen. It always felt selfish of me even when you demanded nobody interfere." "But you know what the worst part of it is, Petra? I got to see it. I got to see heaven, or at least a piece of it. Living amongst the stars, Persephone there with all those kids. I got to look out a window and see them, the stars, they seemed so close I thought I could catch one in my hand. And it was so fucking beautiful, Petra. It was hard to come back down to earth but I couldn't stay. Avoid making and thinking normative judgements. Should. Right. Wrong. Normal. Weird. Avoid feeling approval or disapproval, fuck, Petra. I could TRY but I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess that's why I could empathize with Angela."
Angela	Cinder blows air out of her mouth. It comes out as smoke. "...You know the worst part, Petra? I'm mad about it. It's not even just Sapient Heuristics. There's gotta be a thousand happy futures out there I could've had, but I was built wrong. If not from the start, then... Maybe if I'd never been taken to this fucking City, I could've made it. But now something's wrong with me. And maybe that's why I can understand you as much as I do." Tears well up in her eyes, they blow to smoke and ash before they get far from her face. "But that's how it is. You know Yuri told me about that pilot you found together? How he... how he died. Died protecting another piece of heaven. I thought, 'That's so unfair' and I cried, I couldn't stop crying about how unfair it was. God I'm tearing up now just thinking about it. But you know, even if the project works out, it's just a beginning. Maybe I can help make it happen, just a little bit, eventually. I don't think it can happen with Angela still locked up, that's not how a heaven should work. And I know it's just a step. And even if I made it out of here, I wouldn't get to live any of those heavens in my life." She taps out a message on a personal pad. Something for Petra, perhaps, for later. She sets it on the floor. "...But I know the Scorched Girl story. I could see heaven through that glass pane with the stars so near, or in a burning flame... But that's as far as I get. I... I'm sorry, Petra. And I love you. I'm so scared..." She turns around, presses her forehead against the wall and whispers something to Petra. There's time enough for one last conversation even as Angela feebly pulls at the door, shaking. The skin and bone become flame. The heart becomes fire. The soul burns forever as Cinder ceases to become human and, for an instant, becomes something more. A shooting star in a cell. "Ah, Petra I... feel so beautiful... So warm." The fire speaks and then--
Angela	The lights of the facility flicker as they are overcharged. The flame erupts into the form of a beautiful moth, swimming around in the air like it was free for the first time in its life--before the light of confession engulfs it and it fades away into nothing. WhiteNight shudders and howls the wail of an omnipotent godly infant. It writhes in pain. The pale pulses cease to be. The Apostles, the ones not devoured, suddenly slump over as if they've given up or maybe whatever making them move like that has given up. And Hibiki barrels in on all fours and the God Slayer tears into the creature. And tears. And rips. And claws. The Infant God of the New World collapses to the ground, green blood ripping out of its body in droves, Light erupting out of its form until it finally goes still. And returns to the form of Egg, vanishing back down into Architecture in an instant per automated protocols. Hibiki knows that it could have fought back, but that confessional light rendered it utterly helpless. It took Hibiki's power to make the most of it. The doors slide open. Fourth Match Flame is there, smoldering, but the EGO Suit is gone. The pad is there as well. Written on it are two links. One links to a photo album of all the lands and places Cinder and Petra had traveled to over the two years they've known each other. And underneath that is a link to a text document with a hundred locations in the multiverse listed with maps and assorted information about them. Underneath that link are the words. 'Was hoping to take Ange to these places once she was free. Do this for me, okay?'
Angela	The full casualty reports will be a tomorrow problem. For now, Angela--who cannot cry--turns to look at Flamel. There is only one way she can express agony, she realizes, and she says, "Flamel, please read my mind." Her tone is about as desperate as it ever gets which is not very. But if he does. He gets to experience an instant made into an eternity. She thinks about punching Flamel in the face. She thinks about drowning him. She thinks about breaking his neck with her own bare hands. She thinks about crushing him in the crusher that killed Tiphereth B so many times. She thinks about melting him with melting love and turning him into a slime monster. The truth is, Angela has seen so much death in her life, so much that it takes her no effort at all to think up these methods. She just casually goes through the list. Devoured by spiders. Exploding into spiders. She doesn't try to force Flamel to feel it viscerally, she can't do that. She can only make these visions go by so quickly because of her own time-frozen mind. Stabbed with a sword. Head bitten off by a bird. And so on until, finally, melted. And then something seems to leave Angela. The anger, perhaps. The hate. She gets it out of her system in what's forever for her but an instant for a world. And she doesn't try to keep Flamel any longer. "Thank you." Angela says, completely genuinely but just as genuinely toneless as she walks to her office without another word to anyone.
Angela	ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE An abandoned woman in blue stands by a River. And then she sits by a River. She feels a ripple, though there is no visual sign of it. She extends her hand towards it, then reminds herself that she really better not. These are not the waters that she seeks. Unbidden by anything that can be sensed, she whispers to the water without looking at it. "Busy waters today." She says. "But it'll be busier ere long. ... And it would've been a torrent. But I guess not this time. ... You shined bright, didn't you? Your story will be remembered. I know that's small consolation. But I already wrote it down. I've an old friend who is into stories like these. She'll get a kick out of it." She sits there for a moment. It always felt like an obligation to walk along this River when it got busy like this. But for her, it's no time at all before she gets back up and continues walking down the River alone as she so often had. Bari, the Abandoned Princess. Bari, the Book Hunter Bari the Knight of the White Moon. Bari of many titles walks along the river, and Cinder flows alongside her until the second parting.
Kukuru	Kukuru may have gotten the wrong idea of Rita's plan, as she's certainly not expecting to go through that portal with Rita and the Apostle. It does get that Apostle out of Records, at least, and that means at least the two Agents left there should be safe from it, but... No, they'll be safe. Hibiki went after WhiteNight, and that means they'll all be safe. Kukuru  That just leaves what's happening right in front of her, the extremely specific matter that demands her attention right that moment. C-Cinder, I-- You can't let Cinder do that, I don't have the authority to order you, but-- Just don't let Rita do that to herself anymore, okay? I believe in her. It cannot, Kukuru knows what needs to happen behind those closed doors. She's not nearly smart enough to come up with an alternative solution, and she's not strong enough to force a different solution. Is anyone here that strong? She doesn't know if there is, and the only thing she's certain of is that... "It... It'll be okay." Kukuru replies quietly, not to anything verbal, but to Rita after seeing her looking straight at her, and after seeing Petra going down. "Ev... Everything will be fine. We'll..." She repeats after with a misty-eyed smile, visibly struggling to keep it together. Although she never talked to Cinder that much, she's known her as a relative constant within Lobotomy Corporation. She's known her as a wonderful girlfriend to Petra, a great ally to many of her friends, and she can only guess at how this must feel for Cinder herself, knowing what's coming next. "Everything will be fine." She repeats again, stepping over to the door and reaching around Rita to try and pull her away from it into a shaky, yet tight embrace. She staggers back as she does that, too, trying to scoop up Petra with her other arm to just hold her and Rita's faces against shoulders. "It's going to be okay. Th... There's..." Kukuru's teeth chatter lightly inside her skull as she forces that smile to remain, not knowing what else to do but that. "...You need not do this." Kukuru lets out exactly one Horrid-sounding sob after hearing that from Angela, and then her face goes right back to that terribly forced smile. "Angie... C-come here. This... It'll be..." It's too hard to speak any other lies, so she can only reach out towards Angela. Her healing only works on bodies, not on others' hearts, and certainly not on her own. All she knows how to do right now is to help Rita and Petra (and Angela, if she opts to come back) hide their faces, to muffle any noises they might want to hold in, or to even give them someone to lash out at besides Flamel if they must. All that pain they must be going through right then and there, and even everything that must be running through Cinder's mind behind those doors... There's that flash of light, and she holds them tighter. Kukuru only glances back before tightening her hold, trembling as she fails to hold the light sobs in. She doesn't want them to see it, but she won't stop them from shoving her away, either. None of this feels fine, even though Kukuru knows things will be eventually. She has to believe that much, at least, and to hope that this won't ever be necessary again. If not, she might start to empathize with Ayin after all this time.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel watches. He watches what happens. He listens to the words, commits them to memory. He does his best to be a witness and he knows it wouldn't be enough. Thank god Rita's here, thank god Woz is here, thank god Petra is here most of all. People deserve more than a rock.     "I knew it. You saved us. You saved everyone, Cinder."     "You made it all okay."     The heat seeps through the wall. There is no heart to warm.     When Angela arrives, she finds him slumped, back against the wall. Covered in blood, cut up by apostles, battered by efforts of psychonautry. When she asks for him, he stands, smiles, and nods. "Sure thing, Angela." He says, in an upbeat, positive tone. The agony comes in one brief, high-intensity wave, simultaneously extended for days and condensed to milliseconds. He *could* disconnect it at any moment. And he doesn't. From the outside, it looks like a strained expression of surprise and agony overtakes him, and then there's a sudden jerk of pain and an awful crack, before he slumps back against the wall.     "Thank you."     "Yeah." He whispers, his friendly tone cracking softly and revealing a very light... warmth beneath it. Angela mourned her. To know her like this, in just in this loop, it must have been like truly meeting someone new. They *were* friends. And to lose her all the same, like so many loops before, must have been agony.     But Angela's neutrality to him after... Either he's been categorized into the same box as the Sephirah, or she has come to understand him as a fellow traveller, a script-following non-person.     His palm left a handprint in Carmen's blood on the door to One Sin's chamber. Perhaps a surviving clerk will clean that up before things are all finished. Perhaps the facility will be annihilated by the Seed's dispersal before anyone really sees it. Maybe all this will be for nothing and it'll all be buried in the depths after this place has turned upside down. But the sign of what happened is impermanent. Flamel's hands are marked in perpetuity with Cinder's blood. Not much will clean that up or leave it outside of people's thoughts. He slumps under the smeared print and stares at his own hands silently.
Timespace Riders	It's... fine. There's the River. We'll meet there someday. I won't have to wait as long as Angela, probably.     Woz's helmet dips in one of his characteristic, stately little nods. He tries to keep the same level of clipped professionalism--but normally he doesn't *have* to try. Normally, it doesn't feel like his center of mass is leaden and threatening to drag the rest of him down with it. And normally, there isn't a pause before he does the gesture to compose himself. You were the kind of person I was always told I should help, someone down on their luck through no fault of their own.     Woz holds the Ridewatch close to his chest. Elsewhere in the facility, Zi-O raggedly clashes blades with an Apostle, heaving a breath, forcing their weapon to the side and delivering a clumsy blow to the jaw with his elbow. I could TRY but I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess that's why I could empathize with Angela.     Woz's fingers tighten on the bezel of the watch. Zi-O is struck and knocked down, but wards the Apostle off with a blast of energy, shouting a hoarse battle cry as he leaps, then again on empty air, to his them with a rising knee. He tries to focus on keeping them away from the employees that are still alive--and doing that has meant taking hits that would've gone to them, even with White Night killing more every minute. And even if I made it out of here, I wouldn't get to live in any of those heavens in my life.     Woz grips the Jikan Despear tightly in his other hand, then finds it in himself to stop clutching the Cinder Miridewatch so desperately--to lower it, and look into the face of the Miridewatch. How foolish of me. I promised to be a chronicler, yet balked at the events I was to chronicle. I should be thanking you for sharing your story where I might hear it, and not selfishly demanding a say in how it ends. I am ashamed to confess I never knew how much I would have liked you until this moment. Therefore, thank you also, for this first chance to fight in your name, alongside those others with such scant chances of reaching Heaven.     When she turns to face Petra, he nods, flings his scarf outwards and disappears...     ...reappearing elsewhere in the facility, in the path of an Apostle.
Timespace Riders	Woz inserts the Miridewatch into the Beyondriver's sidegate. A bold, challenging distorted guitar riff over a house-style backbeat plays as Woz throws both arms wide, slamming the sidegate shut as he does.             Fight! Fight! Burning Bright! Futurering Cinder! CINDER!!             A meteor, burning on re-entry, strikes his body and ignites him, his form occluded in flame, cast in stark relief as a black silhouette within the inferno. A caul of soot and ash covers him, before a brilliant heat explodes from within him, the backdraft stripping the ash and soot from his armor.      Cinders hang in the air around his black, flame-motif tabard and the white flame cameos within his red app-icon pauldrons. A set of swept ridges very much resembling Cinder's hair frames a blank black visor--soon bestudded by backlit red katakana on their way back from pummeling the Apostle.                                               x  x                                                  x       x  x                           x              x      x       x  x                     xxx    xx             xx     xxxxxxxx                          xx    x       xxx    x     x        x                   xxx        xx        xx   xx   xx         x    xxxxxxxxxxxxxx   xx       xx             xx              xx                             xx             xx         x    xx                            xx             xx           x xxx                          xxxxx          xxxxx            xxx                       -xxxxxx        -xxxxxx            xxxx x                                                      xxxx     x                          "HaaaaaaaAAAHHH!"      Woz's leaping hammerblow distorts the flesh around the impact zone, leaving a sizzling black fistprint in the spot. The following throat chop, straight kick and roundhouse leave more and more burning, roiling patches of hot pitch, until--                                 AXE-CEPTIONAL!!                                      The now axe-headed blade of the Jikan Despear strikes it and sets each point of impact violently ablaze, sequential explosions rocking the room. The lights flicker, the Apostle slumps. The retainer--and elsewhere, the Demon King--heave sighs of grieving, shaking relief.
Sarracenia	Princess Sarracenia Sundew, Crown Princess of the Sundew Kingdom...is perhaps the least important person in this story that cannot be restarted. She would never admit it, but she is aware of it.      As such, she says nothing and does not try to get closer as the others gather at the door. As Cinder starts speaking the princess stops fighting and turns to face the door. She lowers her head and closes her eyes in honored reverence of Cinder and the sacrifice she is making. As Cinder talks about her life and her dreams and fears, Sarra quietly lets tears flow down her cheeks. She feels like she has been crying for days now, but at least this time it is in honor of someone and not out of fear or disgust or torturous empathy.      She opens her eyes at the flash of light, then yelps in surprise at seeing Hibiki of all people tear into Adam. The door opens, and Cinder is simply gone. Sarracenia does not feel the weight of the loss nearly as much as the others, but she can at least sympathize with Angela and Petra if not empathize. Kukuru having trouble get to Sarra a bit more, but she continues to remain silent as the facility alert is lifted.      She watches the exchange between Flamel and Angela, not knowing what happened. She watches Petra and the others, and still stands quietly, hands held politely in front of her.      It is not until everyone else has moved away from the door that Sarra approaches. She reaches into her purse and pulls out...one of those cute shimmering red flowers from Pipeland. Sarra can think of nothing she she can do to show her respect better than leaving a fire flower, and she is uncertain if even this will be allowed.      The princess places the flower just inside the door, and unless anyone has reason to stop her...she quietly leaves the facility.
Xion	With a weapon that sung at a hoarse shout 'I am, I am, I am' in golden notes and the beats of raindrops, Xion struck at the Apostle again. Blade to blade, live or die, she fights until the Apostle stops moving and then past that point. Rain, mixed with droplets of what passed for her in blood, swings as weapon as waterforce and crashes down and hailpoints. She is, but what? What is she? What good was she? 'I am the one that can unlock the door!!' patters down on the parched ground of Xion's heart, and the heaving-breathed bladewoman turns to make good on this half-fired impulse. Who was she? The homunculus? The vessel for a will? A tool? Just a tool? She needed a tool! A tool to get her past... But the child-god had made a decision, and singled her 'light'-less heart out for judgement particularly. She would never go to the promised land as long as the power of this domain stood sacred. By the time she's thrashed and sung her way clear of the blade of Simon, Xion hears the echoes of confessional finishing. She knows from the empty-beating void that she had been reduced to on the inside that she was damnably too late. Even if she had the key she had found inside and the pulses stripped from her, or the key that was a lie to the world and a dream for herself she begun her journey with, what then? An open door and still a dying need? And if God was pathetic for doing nothing but denial, couldn't she at least hold Cinder's hand? That was something! Tortured by the spot in her where she had strung a hot red thread that the source back to flickered as matchflame, Xion turns a second time from Simon and runs towards the furnace Flamel had so tenderly shown Cinder to, seeing Angela's back and the strange window and Rita rendered in strange colors and diffusions of less than invisible, and Woz's approach to show the window one of his own objects, and feeling. . . 'Step aside!' Why aren't they? 'The door, I'll-' Oh. They won't. She feels her foot hit the floor. 'We have to!' We who? For a moment, Xion hates Woz. Do something! Kamen Rider! For a moment, Xion hates herself. She can find 'me' by what she loathes. But there's no solution there. Neither of them could do anything but vulture something to keep from the dying. If anything, touching that and knowing how badly Cinder wanted to live pulls the last fighting effort from Xion. There is flicker of lights that isn't the pulse to strip the last singing-crying tatters of 'I am' from her, and there is no sacred call to all of her once more if it really wasn't easier to not. There is a warmth, and with a falling-away guilt, the Nobody knows she can't even hold her friend's hand before she goes. The next step under Xion crumples, even without the whole world turning about, and she falls awkwardly and messily to a knee, an arm, her side, and a braced arm. A '''finally'''-freed moth of heat flutters about, casting warm embers down through Control and the facility. In the moments of its flourishing-flame birth, Xion looks up, and reaches out in an wordless 'ah', to touch the flying thing, and then it fades. Blank eyes trace towards the god who had called her lightless being torn apart, then to the blade of gold besides, still pressed to the floor, still in grip. It's too heavy. It's all too heavy. She was used to weightless blades that never failed. This was all, Too much. And so, when an ember from the heat-haze left by the moth lands on Xion's outstretched hand instead, and she feels a kiss of the faintest warmth through black glove. It is all the heavier for Cinder to hold her hand, and the noirette releases her strained-tight grip on her sword to instead clutch her knees and cry. Vulture that she was, to have no-one to give back to was all the worse to bear.
Rita Ma	Rita's ear is close enough to the door for her to catch most of it, and her eyes are too fogged and dull to parse half. The wriggly heap of her unraveled tendrils keep trying to worm into the door, but feebly, on their own initiative.      Her chest rises and falls. Her vision swims, unfocused. As the confession goes on, her thoughts race. If I still remember that trick from Exigent Serenity-- The Time Track wouldn't allow it. If I could order White Night to stop-- It's too driven to subjugate. If my bit of Mat' Prizrak could make a Cinder clone-- It won't. If I could help Hibiki punch through-- Not fast enough.      Spiraling down towards the inevitable conclusion: for once, I don't get to be the sacrifice. That hot, prickly, old feeling that settles in her throat- of someone else taking the bullet- how long has it been?      Forever ago, Rita as a newly-minted monster stares enviously down into the ocean. She thinks about Teon dying for her- Lisa dying for her- Kana, getting shot for her- Bota, being maimed for her. At least, she thinks- one good thing and a hundred agonies- she won't have to suffer being 'protected' anymore.      "Ah, Petra I... feel so beautiful... So warm."      Her thoughts halt, along with her tendrils' worming. Little shuddery gasp- too late- with the fry of a salt-raw throat.      "... I really would have liked... the world where we got to be together more, Miss Cinder. You and me and Petra. I'm sorry I... couldn't get us there."      The door reopens. Rita twists around to look back, at the fallen sword and scattered embers. "You can't bring her back, can you, Ms. Kukuru," she mumbles, already knowing the answer. The ache is well-settled in her heart.      Her eyes linger on Flamel's bloody handprint. She can't look at Lilian's eyes accusingly. She can't even hate the wretched little robot collapsed in arm's reach. They were right, and she was immature- or maybe she just wasn't enough?- and it's awful of her to take it less gracefully than even Petra herself, but...      While most of Rita is guilt-paralyzed, her tendrils hug Kukuru back, and reach out tentatively to touch and squeeze Petra too, in silent apology. I guess I only made it worse.
Petra Soroka	"I can't be a witness to this. I'm not a real person."     Is Petra?     The 'other' one, one of just two agents with a tenuous enough grasp on her sense of self to be capable of sublimating into the vacuum, the see-through glass and vapor of a person, the option-that-no-one-considered. Wearing the same EGO that Cinder is immolating into on the other side of the heavy steel door, and not catching fire like she does, the source of their possible corrosion is fundamentally different, even if either one would satisfy One Sin. Where Cinder's innermost feelings are more attuned to the ephemeral flame embodied in her EGO than they are with humanity, Petra's rest in the perfect, absent, oblivion that would allow a flame to be the only source of light in the universe. A walking silhouette of void, a puncture away from violent decompression, pin in hand.     A hundred subjective seconds aren't enough to process a response or properly form an expression. She nods dully, arms slack by her side. If she had any expectation of some other option working at this point, with Angela barely alive and every agent only minutes from being wiped out, then she'd be helping fighting, but a thousand seconds bypass anger, bargaining, and depression.     "... I don't need you to tell me that."     Petra drags her back down the door, mirroring Cinder on the other side, feeling the incremental warmth building from her corrosion inside. She comes up with a hundred times as many reasons to feel guilty for sitting instead of fighting, for sitting on this side instead of that one, and feeling guilty most of all for not even seriously considering the alternative, when it was just a year ago that I was surprised that Liza might actually kill me and it'd stick for once, and just two years ago when I was trying it myself, and three years ago when I wrote up a plan to, and four years ago that I fumbled my last shot at anything else, and only *now*--     It doesn't take much to make Petra cry at the best of times, and at the worst of times, she doesn't cry at all. Whatever she feels during Cinder's final confession, she doesn't say it out loud, just tilting her chin up and thudding the back of her head against the door with a desolate expression. A hoarse, shuddering sigh passes her lips, and she pushes herself up to share some last words with Cinder through the door that no one else needs to hear. Even Angela won't, if she went and looked through the audio logs; she'd only find a dead stretch of silence in the recording, excised by Petra's morphmetal from the record.     When Petra pulls her head away from that hushed conversation, she finally has tears silently streaming down her face. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her Fourth Match Flame suit to look up at the moth as it burns away, and the EGO suit leaves smears of tearstained ash across her cheeks. Quietly, but above silently, she murmurs again, and it catches in her throat with an undignified whine. "I l-love you too." "You made it all okay."     The bland stare that Petra levels at Flamel can't muster up the fire to feel hostile, much like Angela's. After a dazed few seconds, she turns away to look at White Night-- already handled-- Ayin-- on the ground, throne-less, black-haired and golden-eyed-- Xion-- crumpled, crying, and somehow Petra feels entirely unequipped to say anything to her-- and then gets scooped up into a hug by Kukuru. She neither returns it, nor fights back, and there's no body-wracking sobs that she would be comforted by suppressing inside Kukuru's arms either.     After a stretch of fifteen hundred seconds, she steps backwards without any force, slipping out of Kukuru's grasp. Dully, before walking after Angela, "I'm okay. I thought I said not to do that without asking."
Lilian Rook	'Dame Commander... I think we have it handled here now. Go where you gotta go. Rest if you need to. Either way, it'll be over before my arms tire out.'     Lilian looks at Shajo, and can't hide the signs of relief in her eyes, even if she can stifle down the desperation. "You're everything I could hope for." she says. "But I don't have time to rest right now. I don't know if there's time left for a miracle, but I have to try."     Her cheek on the other side is bloody and abraded. The skin around it is red on its own. Her gauntlets have peeled away at the fingertips, exposing only more black underneath the gold underneath the black. Her armour will need rest to reconstitute even beyond that. Lilian will need it to heal. Her breathing is laboured, her eyes sting, her breath fogs, and her footsteps are shrouded in steam. But she has to force it.     Lilian collapses against the wall in Control. The wall sears white hot while her hand slides down it, the surface atoms smearing like a bloody handprint. She gasps for air as if she'd just run miles. The armour is peeled down to its base layer around her feet, and molten around her shins. One piece, then another, clatter off of her, and spin smoking away into the corridor. She reaches up to wipe blood and saliva from her chin, and barely flinches as it burns away on the back of her hand instead. Her scraped-raw skin goes from burn red to night black. Her bleeding scar has turned gold.     Trembling with aching effort, Lilian picks up her sword, as Hibiki lunges at White Night. Even if she's all but sent Cinder to her death, she still has to try to prevent it. Cinder is "Blood shed for thee . . ." Lilian whispers to herself, then charges out onto the floor, weapon held high.     'Ah, Petra I... feel so beautiful... So warm.'     Lilian's breath hitches. Her blade buried in flesh ceases to be real to her. The words that rasp out of her are only "The second time . . .", whatever it means. They hurt coming up, and they hurt leaving, and they hurt in her absence. Her chest clenches around her heart as if it's trying to stop it. Lilian wobbles, then falls back against the wall behind her, sliding until she sits against the cold metal floor. Her grip remains on her sword, dragging it bloodily down to rest beside her. She leans forward, halfway to her own knees, raggedly catching her breath, sweat-drenched hair hanging low enough to occlude her face.
Lilian Rook	§Come on. You weren't friends. She was just someone you arbitrarily hooked up with Petra, because she was stupid and into her and you thought it'd make her more normal. She listened to you, but of course she did; all the employees do. They have to. It's surprising she cared about Angela in the end. And I didn't know any of that about her. I never asked; but that's because it wasn't important. Which means you didn't care. She and Petra were cute together, but that's not your business and not your priority.§     Lilian draws a deep, shuddery breath, that rasps in her throat.     §It was cheap. It was such a low price that it was the obvious choice. It's not like it was Xion, or Rita. It wasn't even Shajo. Didn't you see how many people died already? Just today? It's literally one more. It's one on the heap of bodies to prevent a hundred more. It's good. It was the right thing. You know it is. It's in the fucking Code so it was the only thing you should have done anyways. It was completely unavoidable and you did the right thing; not just for everyone else, but yourself, because it was right, and not stupid, and something you can stand by, and better Petra than Tamamo and--§     Lilian clenches a fist, and in a surge of unexpected energy, raises it to swing against the back wall. Just as soon as she does, the adrenaline dies out. The call to cathartically destroy never answers her, no matter how much as she wants it. She sit there, and hangs her head, for as many minutes as it feels like she deserves.