Scene #9222: The Giant Kidnappers

Owner	Pose
Futaba Nuki	On a good day, the nameless little village that Elites have been called to would be in the middle of the planting season. Farmland is abundant in the northern region of China, and although this isn't a wealthy area by any means, it would look peaceful enough to anyone passing through for a quick bite to eat or a night's lodging at local inn with a grand total of five rooms. There's a stream trickling water through the border of the village, and plenty of foliage for children to play in and their parents to forage in. Calling Elites here, naturally, means today is not a good day for the village. Rather than seeing a poor yet idyllic farming village, those responding to the strange call are met with a dusty village in the midst of a drought. The grass is withered, the fields lie fallow, and the townspeople cower inside their ransacked homes as the village itself has turned into a small battlefield. On one side of the battle, armored soldiers in purple wielding swords and spears, floating mechanical pods with farmers banging on them from the inside soundlessly, and a giant skeletal monstrosity that looks like someone turned inside out so the bones could protect what little sinew is there connecting it all together. On the other side of the ongoing battle, an imposing bearded man in green wielding a guandao, and a less imposing man in black wielding a sword. The pair seem to be holding their own against the soldiers, but seem to be increasingly perturbed as the waves of soldiers and massive skeletal figure keep pushing them further and further away from the floating pods moving in the opposite direction.
Meresankh	Meresankh arrives leading a cluster of hovering insectoid constructs. As she reaches the edge of the village she comes to a stop while her technomantically-controlled servitors fan out. Long sinuous 'wraiths' with beam emitters and wicked blade-limbs slink in twos and threes between the houses, while larger spider-like battleforms disgorge dozens of hamburger-sized scarab drones from portals on their underbellies. The wraith constructs are the first to engage, pouncing from cover toward the purple soldiers while the tomb-spiders hang back and amass scarabs. Scything through spear, shield, armor, and flesh with ease and then leaping out of danger with a flick of their tails, the wraiths hit and run, harrying the enemy formations to stop their advance. Meanwhile, the queen herself assesses the situation from the air, a good ways back from the fiercest fighting. Unlike with her Necron warriors, Meresankh is quite willing to send the constructs on suicidal attacks, because they can be rebuilt or replaced with ease after the dust settles. As the fighting begins on the ground she zooms her vision in on the floating pods, attempting to ascertain if they are piloted from within or remotely. If she can hijack or at least scramble the input signals, their escape would be greatly stymied...
Audrey Basque	Agonizing for an entire day over the events of the previous week seemed to be becoming a trend for Audrey, one she'd be all too happy to learn how to shake off. And sometimes the cure for shaking it off is just... go out. Do something. It doesn't matter what! Maybe it's shopping night at the mall. Maybe it's drinks and lies night at some high class fundraiser. Maybe it's a random signal on the radio asking for help. Today it's that last one! A quaint little village is a nice change of pace from the big cities. It'd be even moreso if it wasn't semi-deserted and a battlefield at the moment, but that's what the calls for help entail. Audrey is wearing what amounts to a white high-collar blouse, a dark blue knee-high skirt dotted with twinkles and lines that very much mimic the night sky and some plain brown knee-high boots with only a small hint of heels. Her hair's bundled up in a big ponytail today, though her bangs hide her forehead and she's got two long sidebangs loose from the rest. She'd gotten comfortable enough to start rapid-chaining her refractions-- so when she arrives it's with a crackling mirrored effect, like she's stepping out of another layer of reality that broke through for a moment. She recognizes Meresankh from the dreaded FROG INCIDENT, and elects to spend a few seconds taking the situation in. Okay, skeletons, pods, captured farmers, and two local heroes(?) trying to fend them off. Seems... straightforward? Please be straightforward, she needs this right now. She lifts a hand, like she's reaching for the floating pods containing the farmers. The local gravity on the side of the skeletons increases, not enough to crush them, but enough to slow them down-- more importantly, enough to ground the pods without destroying them, to prevent them from taking off. It's not a particularly visible effect, if she weren't reaching out to aim it.
Riku Asakura	Riku runs to the village from the nearest warp gate but quickly sees that the situation is a total cluster. It doesn't take long to figure things out, though. These soldiers are trying to kidnap farmers, and that big skeleton figure appears to be on their side. There wasn't much more that needed to be said. "You go!" he says, drawing out the Fusion Riser. He activates an Ultra Capsule and the ghostly figure of the original Ultraman appears. "I Go!" he activates a different capsule, and with that, a ghostly figure of Ultraman Belial appears on the other side of Riku. "Here we go!" he says pulling the holster and scanning both capsules in sequence. "Time to get ready!" he says as he brings the Fusion Riser to his chest, and pulls the trigger. "GEEEEEEED!" With that, a blue light burns out from the Fusion Riser, covering Riku and summoning forth the power of the Ultraman within. Soon enough, the figure of Ultraman grows just as tall as the giant Skeleton, and from the blue flame a punch comes to try and smack the thing away from the Capsules that are holding the trapped townspeople. "Haaaah!" he says, as the form of Ultraman Geed Primitive takes form. He makes a motion with his hand to indicate to the giant Skeleton that he's here to fight it.
Natsuki Nuki	"I've got to find something to do, I've been holding back and doing nothing for what seems like months!" Natsuki growls, scattering the objects on her desk and spilling papers in in/out boxes across the floor, and the other occupant of her spacious top-floor office at her Osaka club. "Sheesh!" Takeshi yaps, looking up annoyedly from the Game Boy Advance he's playing while curled up in one of the big criminal highback chairs. "Just go, like, ask the Concord concierge if there's anything you can be doing." Natsuki is about to growl something about tone or rolling eyes at her when she realizes who that would sound like, and chuffs out an annoyed breath instead. "Fine." She flips out her phone and dials without looking. "But just because you reminded me. Asshole." Takeshi flashes a grin to his sister, sidemouth while still looking at his game, and Natsuki rolls her eyes while calling up the operator. --- Floating down towards the dusty village and the ongoing conflict on the sweep-down of a pillowy-thick dark thunderhead, Natsuki approaches the large battle and the two protagonist types, pausing mid air to act... extremely confused. Leaning down forward, Natsuki appears fashionable sneakers swinging down first, an Osakan woman with an eyemask pattern around her eyes, tiger ears buttoning the top of her head, wearing a street fashion outfit with Baditz-Maru black top and black shorts trimmed in white and a pastel pink fashion hoodie over her shoulders. "Are you kidding? How can anyone tell what the heck to do with this? Who even called for help? Was it you two losers? Or was it the... orbs? Hey!" Seeing Riku transform into Ultraman and remembering him from Sotenbori, Natsuki's hater nimbus swoops down near to the Ultraman, still at a recline as she keeps pace with the flowing karate of Geed. "Hey, do you know what's going on? Is this a hero of justice gig? I've been doing too many of those, so if Ultraman is handling this I can just..." 'Go into town'? They're dirt farmers! Thrashed with indecision and dissatisfied, the floating Natsuki stops when she sees the metal scarabs nearby and turns. "Are the seijin over there with you?"
Futaba Nuki	At first, the arrival of Meresankh's servitors brings yet more panicking from the villagers, and apprehension from the two men already in the middle of fighting the soldiers in purple. It's only when her forces start tearing into the soldiers that the two avoid actually swinging at them further, with the man in green slamming his podao into his own set of soldiers to launch them aside before looking over at Meresankh's soldiers. "Allies? So he fulfilled his promise..." He comments while running a hand along his magnificently long beard, taking advantage of the brief respite to breathe, readjust his hold on his polearm, then rejoin the fray with powerful sweeps and high swings that crush straight through a group of shield-bearing soldiers. Meresankh's analysis of the pods, meanwhile, reveals that they're being piloted from within through a built-in AI. It's definitely not the sort of anything that exists in this era, even if the soldiers in purple are fighting to keep anyone from catching up with them. There's a simple security system protecting them from casual tampering, but that might not even be necessary as the increased gravity from Audrey's effort prove to be enough to mess with whatever's keeping them upright at all. "As if things couldn't get any worse... You! Get the Carriers back!" One of the armored soldiers starts barking orders at those wearing far less armor, clearly some kind of squad leader among them as he sweeps his sword to make it clearer where and who he's gesturing at. Some of the soldiers nod and start scrambling to try and get those Carriers moving, just brute forcing it with one soldier on each side struggling through the increased gravity to keep them moving ata brisk jog rather than the steadyt glide the carriers had managed on their own earlier. Luckily, Audrey's able to keep a low profile throughout that process. The soldiers have their attention on fighting the pair trying to stop them, after all, and they already had a lot to focus on before the constructs started coming into play. The only local that seems to notice her presence, even, is the man in black, although it's hard to spot that he does. "Sorcery...? No complaints." He comments to nobody nearby, using a soldier's face as a springboard to evade a spear charge from several others. He lands with a spinning slash that takes their legs out from under them, and he just stares at Audrey for a few moments with a conflicted expression of both caution and relief. Eventually, though, he nods once in her direction before getting right back to slicing through the opposition alongside the bearded warrior. Everyone's attention gets grabbed momentarily, though, when Ultraman Geed Primitive appears with all that shouting and flashing. The soldiers are already on alert from the earlier interference, however, and the one leading them is already barking more orders at them while the skeletal thing turns to face Geed. "Dammit.. Call for reinforcements!"
Futaba Nuki	Their caution is proven right, of course, as Geed starts throwing hands with the big skeleton thing. It recoils with a strange mechanical shout, staggering back a step before stopping its momentum, then lurching forward with a haymaker swing right at the Ultraman's center mass. There's little technique evident here, just a giant looking to trade blows with another giant. Instead of receiving the reinforcements that the armored lieutenant called for, however, another Elite arrives from a thundercloud and draws even more confused looks her way. There's actually some relief among the soldiers this time, though, when she doesn't throw down with them immediately. "If our lord sent you... Yes, help us get these back! You'll be rewarded handsomely for your efforts!" The lieutenant calls out to Natsuki with a firm raise of his sword arm, swinging down a moment later as he continues to direct the soldiers fighting the protagonist-coded pair and everyone aiding them. "Two losers...?" The man in black looks up at Natsuki as well, although he doesn't call on her for help nearly as readily as the lieutenant. "... Do as you will." Instead, he lets out a quiet noise before parrying an oncoming soldier's stab with a quick flick of his wrist, then steps in to stomp on the soldier's foot and shoulder-check him to the ground with one smooth and (arguably) excessive motion. The soldiers, meanwhile, start to rally together again as the initial shock of so many people showing up to fight them wears off. They fight hard with blade and spear, relying primarily on their numbers to try and overwhelm everyone with spear charges and shield bashes. Perhaps tellingly, though, their numbers don't seem to actually be increasing in the battle compared to those showing up to aid in dragging the Carriers away from the battlefield. It seems, for whatever reason, that their main concern is getting those carriers back rather than routing everyone in front of them. Indeed, the battle line already seems to be drawing out of the village slowly, but advancing proves to be tricky as arrows start raining down at the group to halt an advance!
Riku Asakura	Natsuki floats around the head of Ultraman Geed as he fights the giant skeleton. This causes him to regard her for a moment as she asks her questions about what is going on. He shrugs, "I do not know exactly, other than these guys here..." motioning towards the giant skeleton and the soldiers "...are kidnapping innocent townsfolk." Then the haymaker comes in, smashing into Geed and causing sparks to rain down from his chest where the blow hit. "...Yes, the ones over there are with me," he says, remembering Meresankh. They look like villains but fight with him, so he can't say much about them. "Excuse me, I have a giant Skeleton to fight!" he says to Natsuki, and jumps at it, aiming to send a knee directly into the face of the giant skeleton, aiming to knock it back and away from the village, before smashing it with an over the head double-fisted blow.
Audrey Basque	Oh, that's Riku! And the woman next to him is-- Audrey's stomach turns upside down just a tad at the blurry memory of all that drinking. Still, familiar faces aren't unwelcome right now, they help stabilize the chaos a little bit, and remind her she doesn't need to... no, she still needs to, it's her unhealthy hill to die on. The rain of arrows is a little bit sudden; she'd focused on the frontline, the swords and spears, and hadn't noticed the archers at all. She's a bit late gathering up her defenses, a distorted field around her that shreds arrows as they come close and then catches what's left of the splinters and metal arrowheads in her orbit. She keeps the mess spinning around her, refracting as she steps forward to appear next to Natsuki and Riku('s head level) in the air, hovering in a way that doesn't seem to quite be flight. "Hello, Riku, Natsuki! Pardon me, I am going to cut off their escape. Catch up after?" It's a bit brisk, but she refracts off immediately afterwards to reappear behind the retreating carriers and pods. Just look cool. You got this. She seizes something, a mirrored crack or perhaps a strand of reality, it's hard to tell-- but she stretches it, pushing both hands out fully to her sides, and causing the landscape to sprout an extra few miles of empty field behind her, adding distance to cover if those carriers want to regroup with something. "Now, follow-up, just like we practiced!" She releases the hail of arrowheads and broken arrows around her, accelerated by a gravity slingshot around her body. Best try to shred through that archer line quickly.
Meresankh	Meresankh watches the pods fall to the ground, and connects their sudden stoppage with Audrey's arrival. She makes a mental note to inquire about modern astromantic techniques, for the discipline appears to be alive and well! Turning her attention to the fighting more directly below, she lets out a noise of concern as she spies her wraith drones getting bogged down in the melee. After briefly weighing her options, her scepter glows as she issues a silent order for them to fall back, and seek cover against the incoming hail of arrows. The queen herself tries to do the same, dipping below the roofline of the houses and sheltering in someone's backyard. The withdrawing wraiths give ground to the soldiers, inviting them to seize the center of the village... at which point the ploy shows its teeth. Meresankh's spider constructs release their scarab drones, hundreds of them, to pour over rooftops and between houses down into the village square, rushing in from three directions at once. Although scarabs (real or robotic) are known for their capacity to devour unprotected flesh, these drones perform just as well against wood or even metal, and set to work not on killing the soldiers but on destroying their weaponry! Sword blades are torn in half by powerful shredding jaws, spear-hafts reduced to splinters. In a matter of minutes, or less if the swarm continues to grow and pile on, there will be nothing left to fight back with!
Natsuki Nuki	One second, Natsuki's lazy Lakitu-ing of the embiggened Ultraman Geed is quite easy, bobbing and weaving along even to the extreme agility of the enlarged hero. The head doesn't move that much, unless he does flip kicks and stuff. It's fine! "Haaah??" Natsuki asks, leaning in to the hard expression of her misunderstanding. "Look, Ultraman," Uru-tora-mann, she pronounces it, rolling it. "You need to figure out how you're living your life, just showing up to whatever fights appear like it's your job." She drawls, rolling onto her back and waving a leg off her stormcloud perch. The ozone from her passage - smelling every bit like a high pressure zone, perhaps lost on someone whose nose is a space mask - crackles through from her angry cloud's wash, but she's reclining! Moisturized and in her lane, Natsuki tries to make things look effortless while asking Geed about why he's here despite answering he same summons, her attention is snapped to by the proclamation beneath. "Your lord? Are you telling me we're some daimyo dingus loser's on-demand mercenaries because you two aren't up to the challenge? Well..." 'Excuse me, I have a giant Skeleton to fight!' As the giant Ultraman heads in to fight the huge skeleton, Natsuki floats to a stop over the two heroes on the ground, lazy. "Yeah, yeah, you've got business, and there's no real pleasure to be had here. They're farming the dirt farmers and it's not even funny!" Having heeled it up in the sky, it might seem like divine retribution when a whole barrage of the arrows aimed at her danmaku antagonist dangle of fashion aims up at her. Surely, she'll evade! Surely, some great reaction will happen! She's one of the heroes that have shown up, right? Well, she sure doesn't look the part. Being shot - a lot - Natsuki tumbles out of the sky with a string of epithets and curses, as clear as textboxes being shown in zoom-out and peals of thunder, and falls towards the melee with the 'two losers'. 'Pardon me, I am going to cut off their escape. Catch up after?' "Don't think I can't catch up with you, new girl!!" She shouts into the melee, not quite getting the message clearly, especially when there's a whole PILE of musou idiots to jump on her. Angered enough to not quite 'fight' as 'attack while moving forward', Natsuki storms off after Audrey, marching a path right through the soldiers to get there. The soldiers called for reinforcements when Ultraman showed up so they're either racist (possible) or assholes (likely). She's not being picky. "Outta my way, morons, I'm not being left behind in this pile!" Being showed up by her junior was out of the question!
Futaba Nuki	The skeletal thing Geed's facing off with feels stranger the more he fights with it. Most foes would have some kind of defensive capabilities, perhaps an evasive maneuver to get out of harm's way, something to not just take big swings straight to the face. That's exactly what happens here, though, as Ultraman crashes right into it, sending it toppling to the ground with a heavy crash of oversized bones against dirt. "Useless... What did they even send us that thing for?" THe lieutenant scoffs as he sees the skeleton going down so easily, raising his sowrd again and gesturing once around himself before pointing at Ultraman. "Just make sure that giant freak doesn't take his eyes off of it!" 'The Biped, sir?' "Yes, the Biped!" With Audrey appearing besides Natsuki and Riku, there's little doubt in anyone's mind who's side she decided to join. The spearmen have a pretty hard time reaching her considering the height difference, but the archers are still trying to take shots at her despite seeing that their initial volley failed to even reach her somehow. Several of the archers fall when she launches their destroyed projectiles right back at them, too, but they haven't made the connection just yet. Those carrying the Carriers are having a hell of a time trying to get them out of the battlefield, too, as Audrey's spatial distortion means their goal is so much further than it has any right to be. They jog, they take turns on carrying and defensive escort duty, but they never seem to get any closer. Odd, that. Despite the lieutenant's orders, it doesn't seem like the soldiers are backing up the Biped skeleton much at all. Nobody's willing to just charge at Geed with person-sized spears, after all, and they've already got their hands full with Meresankh's drones on top of the men in black and green fighting them head on. The soldiers do get some respite, however, as the drones back off. "Good... Now, push the advantage! Drive them into the dirt!" The lieutenant shouts as he redirects the lines of purple soldiers to start pushing forward again, forcing the two protagonist-coded warriors back through sheer numbers even with the bearded man in green flinging away swaths of soldiers with massive two-handed swings while the clean-shaven man in black keeps them at bay with acrobatic kicks and flips. Eventually, the ploy does bear fruit as the soldiers take the center in the hopes of splitting the two off from the Elites, and being beset from several sides puts the soldiers on the defensive. The archers have to be more careful about where they're firing, too, either having to choose between not firing at all lest they risk hitting their allies, or... Aiming at the force of nature coming right at them, slinging expletives that won't be invented for over a thousand years. They're far more willing to shoot at Natsuki as she comes down from the sky, especially when she winds up near the two locals. "Mercenaries?" The man in black asks, sounding both confused and wear. "This entire situation is... Confusing." "Dingus?" The man in green repeats, letting out a brief chuckle with a hearty reverb. "I cannot speak for our friend here, but I am not fighting in that tyrant's service. I've come to stop him from claiming..." The man in green pauses, looking over at where the Carriers don't seem to have gotten anywhere at all. Despite his apparent confusion, he joins up with Natsuki in plowing through those soldiers between her and Audrey. "Let us clear a path, then. They must be headed for the checkpoint down the mountain." As the battle continues with lines shifting every which way, the Biped eventually starts moving again. It doesn't stand back up like a person would or even a weird robot would. Instead, it swings its upperhalf around to get on all fours, then abruptly leaping several times its own height into the air before slamming right back down at the clumped up group, apparently aiming to flatten everyone in one big splash!
Riku Asakura	The skeleton starts walking weirdly, going to all fours and jumping up to body smash them. Geed attempts to catch the giant robot skeleton but underestimates its weight and his strength, as the two go down together in a pile of limbs and drone. Groaning underneath the thing, Geed kicks up to try and knock the thing off of him, before jumping back up to his feet and going back on the offensive. Back on his feet, Geed rams the giant skeleton, aiming to try and wrap an arm around its neck and try and drag it down into the ground, aiming to hopefully roll over its soldiers for a change. As he does this, he punches the machine, repeatedly trying to find purchase on the machine, and then toss it to the ground.
Meresankh	Meresankh watches the 'Biped' go down. "Primitive construct..." she mutters to herself, before it scrambles onto all fours and pounces. "What--" The skeleton monster slams down, catching Meresankh under part of its torso. Briefly crushed, Meresankh has to teleport to get out from under it. Her cloak sparkles as it dematerializes her, then she appears outside the village, where she remembered seeing the capture orbs (or whatever they are). "ENOUGH!" she calls to the soldiers pushing the capsules. "These people are under my protection!" Without waiting for a reply, she flourishes her scepter, sending a wave of rippling lightning crashing between the soldiers!
Audrey Basque	Did she just anger Natsuki?? Oh she's chomping right through the front line and towards her?! No, wait, that wasn't a race or a challenge or-- The big one jumped up. And it's coming down fast! Audrey covers herself with her arms, standing her ground in the shockwave. She avoids being knocked back, but the dust getting caught up in her field is actually really, really inconvenient. This was like with the fire, but dust isn't really usable in the same way. She has to drop the defense to let dust and debris fall to the ground, coughing in her elbow at still being in a dirt cloud at all. "Awful..." She hops off the ground, floating backwards and out of the dust, narrowly avoiding another wave of arrows. Audrey sees a chance when Meresankh unleashes lightning, flicking a hand to compress a chunk of the battlefield and line up a greater amount of soldiers in the lightning's path, tightening up their formation whether they want to or not. She looks back towards the carriers and pods, making sure they're not finding a way past her expanded space.
Natsuki Nuki	'I cannot speak for our friend here, but I am not fighting in that tyrant's service.' "Haaah?" Natsuki repeats her tone from earlier, yanking arrows out of her shoulders and tossing them aside before powering through the crowds of musou soldiers with an annoyed purpose. "Is that the name of some evil lord actually? Lord Dingus? Ha! Haha!" The thought of a random warlord named 'Dingus' able to summon up ten thousand Dingus Soldiers, loyal to the Dingus clan, a true Dingus empire, made her break out into birdcall laughter. "Well good! I'll destroy all of Dingus' armies, so that no-one who even claims to be Dingus will ever see the light of soci-" Really feeling herself, Natsuki's momentary run-besides the gregarious hero is cut short when she bowls right into a gang of soldiers and disrespects them so badly she's caught unawares by their all-offense no-defense dodgeless behavior. Piled on, slashed and speared by the terrified soldiers who want NONE of Ultraman's smoke, Natsuki makes a lot of noise and draws a lot of heat. "Did you all think that was an invitation to jump on me, Dingus army?!" Natsuki asks, trying to grab up soldiers one or two at a time, one to a hand (and perhaps one to a tail!) and hurling them into their friends. Bowling for Dinguses and hurling crowds of them at Ultraman's leg, she lets his karate chop action figure it out. "Go pick on someone in your league, losers!"
Futaba Nuki	Wrestling with the Biped proves to be quite the potent maneuver for Geed. The Biped doesn't seem to be particularly suited towards fighting anything larger than a person, especially when it's against something far more maneuverable than itself. All that rolling and punching outright breaks off that boney collar, sending it crashing to the ground in pieces. The Biped does start to adapt, though, by thrusting its boney beaked face right at Geed, trading blows right on the ground with little regard for its (and the soldiers') safety. The soldiers, naturally, are not fond of this because they aren't Ultraman nor Biped sized. They were already hurrying to get some distance when it was jumping, and the slam gives them more reason to stay away and focus on just fighting Meresankh's troops. Merersankh herself issuing the challenge to those carrying the Carriers, then, has them redirecting their efforts on trying to cut her down, but not without getting flung about and zapped into individualized craters by her bouncing lightning blasts. "Well said, stranger. We can introduce ourselves after the battle is over." The man in green bellows as he tosses aside another swath of troops, launching them directly into another set just before they were about to pounce on Meresankh with their spears. The man in black remains silent, meanwhile, in favor of cutting through a group that had been ready to bring their weapons down on Audrey, only pausing to watch Audrey repositioning even more soldiers into the path of Meresankh's lightning. "... How? This sorcery is different." The man in black asks, not projecting his voice particularly well to Audrey even as he watches her at work. It's pretty hard to hide how he's trying to puzzle it all out, although he's still forced to split his attention between her and kicking soldiers in the face. With Audrey momentarily distracted, though, the Carriers are starting to make a bit of headway. The soldiers have successfully brought them to the mountain and, with little regard for the people inside, just shove the pods along until they're starting to roll down towards the checkpoint that had been mentioned earlier. "Lord Dingus...?" The lieutenant directing the purple soldiers narrows his eyes at Natsuki slinging those insults towards his (probable) employer, raising his sword again to signal new orders. "That doesn't sound like you're complementing Lord Dong Zhou... But no matter. You'll die here with the rest of these fools for opposing him!" Despite ordering those soldiers to swarm Natsuki, however, she's making quick work of them just slinging them around and slamming them into each other complete with heavy impacts from the soldiers sprawling into each other. The lucky ones just come to a stop in painful heaps, and the unlucky ones are thrown right down the big hill, rolling alongside the Carriers headed towards the checkpoint. The greatest threat of this battle still proves to be the Biped, however, even though it's going back to moving on all fours again. It abruptly stops trying to beat up Ultraman, instead calling upon a sudden burst of strength to start stomping around on all fours and rushing around like a wild dog, trying to just run right over all the Elites even as its hands break off, its face cracks, and its legs snap off at the knees from launching itself skyward for one last explosive splash.
Riku Asakura	The biped and Ultraman Geed continue to trade blows throughout the fight, and Geed gives as good as he gets in return. Unfortunately for the men underfoot things go poorly for them, stepped on or smashed into as the two battle it out. Geed seems to purposely try and drag it throughout the enemy force's lines, trying to disrupt them as much as he can. However, the Biped makes a last, desperate attack going on all fours again. As it launches itself into the air, Geed attempts to catch it again, but this time it doesn't go even half as well. The thing crashes into the giant of light, causing him significant damage on the way down. He crashes to the ground in a pile, before slowly lifting himself back up. The jewel on his chest starts to blink red, indicating a limit to his reserves, and he would have to finish this fight quickly... or he wouldn't be finishing it at all. Pulling his arms up, he surges with energy all across his body. Black and blue bolts of energy surge, seemingly concentrating on his arms until he snaps back and faces the biped. Then he brings them both down in a plus shape in front of him, releasing a stream of energy from them, aiming to catch the biped in the burst. The beam explodes, aiming to try and destroy the biped once and for all, while also peppering the soldiers who are trying to kidnap civilians.
Meresankh	Watching the village battle through the eyes of one of her Scarabs, Meresankh thanks her lucky stars that she won't be there when that Biped comes back down. As her lighting blasts finish sparking back and forth across the soldiers, she notices some of them have cleared her energy field and pushed the capsules down a mountain slope! Lifting into the air, Meresankh hurries after the escaping soldiers. From up in the air, Meresankh can't get a good view of the topology, and won't know where exactly the capsules will roll. What she can do instead, is make that decision herself. Sweeping down the mountain at running-plus-falling speed, she switches her scepter from 'ZAP' to 'PRINT' mode and points it downslope. There, just in time to catch the rolling capsules, a diagonal wall running down the mountainside rises in thick black stone. As the capsules roll sideways and slow down, Meresankh sculpts a bowl-like curved wall to hold them all. As the soldiers pursue behind her she turns, and flourishes her cape - from which emerges a trio of her Wraith constructs, squeezing out of the folds one at a time as she summons them from the village. Her scepter lights up and the wraith's claws glow with power, more a show-off maneuver than anything else but whatever can buy her allies time to catch up will have to do...
Audrey Basque	Audrey still can't multitask particularly well. Not in a fight, at least-- in a classroom, that's something else entirely. Between the man in black questioning her-- "Spatial magic!" Short, to the point. -- and looking back, towards the escaping carriers. Audrey now has to choose between the fight, and preventing those things from escaping with the farmers. And if it weren't for the unhealthy mindset she's in, she might actually try to focus on one of those things instead of keeping her attention split. She bragged she'd cut their escape off! Now that big one is charging around like a wild animal too! She focuses on-- the escape-- no the big one-- no all the little ones-- no--! She twists space, tries to restore that crackling, mirrored field around herself, but not quickly enough, and not with enough space. She biped smacks her away, and she gets knocked a five meters back and thumps into the dirt, whining. "Ow... like tripping down stairs but worse." That's gonna leave a bruise on her cheek. Awful!! She crawls back up, in time to see a spearman tumbling her way, letting herself hop off and group and into the air to catch a breather. "Can't get distracted... can't... come on," She turns her bad to the biped, to reach her hands towards the escaping pods and carriers. Just-- take all the strands, wait for just the right moment, when the star she needs for this blinks out for the fraction of a second it needs to, when there's a the slightest fluctuation in how things flow and-- grasp, crunch, thread it all together into one point. A black dot, in the midst of the carriers and pods, as Audrey shifts that entire area's gravity to be centralized on one point. Not with enough force to CRUSH them, that would be awful, but enough to hopefully gather them all up into a big katamari of carriers and skeletons, and stop them from continuing. Bonus: this probably shreds the skeletons closest to her too. There's a bit of a gravity pulse, it's unlikely to harm the biped but the little ones won't be so lucky.
Natsuki Nuki	'Lord Dingus...?' "That's-- rrright!" Natsuki answers at a heave, long-lashing black serpent tail sweeping up whole small units of soldiers and crunching them together or rudely crashing into terrain powerfully to threaten smashing and scatter debris in cones of danger. "Your liege, the dingus!" 'That doesn't sound like you're complementing Lord Dong Zhou... But no matter. You'll die here with the rest of these fools for opposing him!' "Yare yare... was it that obvious? That you're a huge moron? Come on, come on! Pretend to be insulted on behalf of the only reason you have power! Shout it! Wail because you can't do anything! An onrushing spearman with a dream rushes at Natsuki and she catches the weapon with a swipe of her hand that drags the ordered-forward warrior along for the ride, flinging weapon and warrior up and over in a parabolic arc to the shouting purple lieutenant. "Dong Zhuo? That's the loser you're following? No wonder you're harvesting people - you're bit players in a story that will never remember you!" Natuki shouts, finally actually on the trail of what the hell anyone is doing. It was hard to decode, between the abductions, the alien claw robots who were un-abducting people (while shooting lightning, but it's green), and Ultraman. . . but finally, someone said a proper noun that wasn't 'the sounds of stage extras gasping' and Natsuki insulted her way to knowledge. "And now I know--" That she's about to be run the hell over. The Bipede's wild charge across the battlefield threatens the groundbound Sanrio repping Osakan chimera, madly threatening to completely flatten her on connection. Stomp! Stomp! Sto(m)p! Stop. Natsuki grips one of the legs as it falls on her and sticks, hugging the far wider object in a mighty heave before twimsting and shattering off the threatening-offending limb and action command hammertoss-smashing it back into the large threat while shouting. "oi, Oi, OI! I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU! DINGUS ARMY'S SECOND BIGGEST LOSER!" She's not going to explain the first biggest loser is Lord Dingus himself. That's something you'll have to read the item lore for.
Futaba Nuki	After that last splashing attack, the Biped's visibly on its last legs. A few seconds later, it's on its last leg thanks to Natsuki just wrenching that limb off entirely, sending the skeletal machine into another clumsy tumble. Somehow, it's able to stagger back up onto that remaining leg, but it only stays in place for a moment longer before Natsuki lines up that throw and... It's good! The legs slams into the Biped's chest hard enough to cause a small explosion of yellow light from that core, drawing out one of those mechanical screams from the machine as it staggers and drops to the isde, propping itself up almost by accident with that stump of an arm. As it struggles to try getting back up, Geed lays into it with that cross-shaped laser. That light-leaking core explodes again, and the Biped buckles backwards while dropping to its knee. The arms go up briefly, then fall right off as the light drains from the ligaments holding it all together. "Bit players...? Wretched scum!" Visibly and audibly enraged, the lieutenant shouts back at Natsuki even as he issues the order to retreat, hurrying down the path while directing his own soldiers to start falling back as well. "Do not think your disobedience will go unnoticed! We'll be back for you!" He shouts in his retreat, picking up the pace while gesturing at the Carriers on the way down. The soldiers in purple aren't able to recover the Carriers, however, thanks to Meresankh's stone-summoning abilities and Audrey's earlier spatial interference. With as many interruptions as there were earlier, the Carriers don't get a chance to roll down the path for long before getting caught up in Audrey's threads, all pulled together into one convenient mass for Meresankh to pull them together into a big Carrier and skeleton-machine-part bowl. After beating back the stragglers, the men in green and black come to a stop by the wreckage of the skeletal machine while looking down the mountain path at the checkpoint further below. "We've recovered the townspeople... Good work." The man in green speaks first, stroking his beard once before turning to Natsuki and Geed. "You fought valiantly against such overwhelming odds... I don't know who you are, but you have my thanks." "We're not done yet." The man in black speaks next, still watching the checkpoint at the bottom of the hill while approaching the pods. "These... What are these? Do you know how to open them?" He asks, looking over at Meresankh and Audrey briefly before trying to just jimmy his sword into the joints, the openings, anywhere to try and pry one of the pods open. As they speak, however, a rumbling comes from both sides of the path leading down towards the checkpoint. Soldiers clad in yellow start to surge out of the mountain, emerging from nearby caves to charge down the path towards the Carriers. Leading that charge is a (slightly less) bearded man in yellow wielding a staff, all of them looking ready to crash right into the checkpoint head on. "It's time... We are righteous! Have no fear, and follow me!" The man in yellow shouts to those soldiers behind him, all of them charging down the mountain after the Carriers while Meresankh guides the pods towards the sides to hold them safely. "Do not let the tyrant reclaim these villagers!" A new battle begins at the bottom of the hill as the soldiers in yellow collide with the soldiers in purple, vying for control of the checkpoint. It doesn't look like it'll be much of a contest at this point, however, with the purple soldiers' morale decimated by the Biped's unexpected destruction even before reaching the checkpoint. Still, it's an option for those that would rather brawl a little longer instead of bringing the villagers back up to the village.
Audrey Basque	The carriers are immobilized-- the biped wrecked (absolutely), and the soldiers no longer an immediate threat, though, definitely one that needs to be cleaned up. By someone more suited to that. Audrey lets out a sigh of relief, allowing herself to hover back to the ground, at which point she wobbles onto her legs a bit. Oh, they're... sore from the tumble she took. That makes sense. That makes way too much sense. She fidgets a bit, and hovers off the ground again, just half an inch, but to get the pressure off her legs for now. If she'd worn the cloak it'd look really cool... But she couldn't bring herself to. It's too tied to-- The man in black derails her thoughts and she looks at him, before looking back at the pods and carriers. "... I have no idea. Um. Actually, hang on." She raises a finger, to unbundle space and return it back to normal. GENTLY. It wouldn't do for the katamari to fall apart and for farmers to get hurt. "Maybe there's... buttons on them? If not... I bet I can..." She takes a second, to visualize one of the pods clearly in her mind, and cracks the space directly in front of her, and then the space inside one of the pods, to allow the farmers to simply walk out that way. "This works. But it's a lot of them. Can you..." She looks at Meresankh, a bit intimidated by her looks. "Open them?" She scratches at the bruise on her cheek, idly, bothered by its presence quite a bit.
Meresankh	"These... What are these? Do you know how to open them?" "Mere trinkets," Meresankh declares. "And yes, I do." The orb atop her scepter glows and the geometric shapes within shift second by second as she begins to hack into the capsules' AI controls. For good measure, she retrieves a differently-patterned scarab from the interdimensional folds of her cloak, which clambers onto the exterior of one of the pods and punches a metal proboscis into the surface. If there's any real intellect in there - which might be the case if it were a Necron construct, Meresankh smugly thinks to herself = it will find its will consumed by that of its new queen.
Natsuki Nuki	Natsuki's pink jacket and puffy socks are trashed and muddied in being run through an actual battlefield, but despite the mildly unsatisfying 'crunching and disabling guys and throwing them at the ankles of Ultraman', she's rewarded much more distinctly at her wrenching and ripping at the shelled leg of the biped. When it breaks, and she cracks the strangely orange internals to be showered in tech(???) gore, the eroding pieces crumbling in her grip are gripped up like armfuls of coins before the dust-dissipation leaves nothing of worth in Natsuki's grip. The twitching smile fails off the tiger-eared woman's face, and her arms drop to sway at her sides in a heave of breathy annoyance. "Seriously? A robot? All that... orange, and power, and it's a damn machine?" "You couldn't even summon something worth fighting? Wusses!" Natsuki spits at the retreating soldiers moving to a second fight, before crossing her arms and finally noticing the half-dozen arrows still sticking out of her torso. Baditz-Maru had eaten two to the face! Unlucky little guy. Yanking out arrows and discarding the bloody points while she's approached by the warrior, she gives the appraisal a critical eye. 'You fought valiantly against such overwhelming odds... I don't know who you are, but you have my thanks.' "Nnnyeah, I heard 'Dong Zhuo'. Are you the Yellow Turbans?" She saw the charge of the yellow-robed soldiers. It was an easy guess. "Do you serve Zhang Jiao? If there's these new kinds of enemies coming to the support of Dong Zhuo, maybe your forces need outside help too? I'd be willing to provide it -- I represent quite a lot of interests that can provide..." Yanking arrow from her torso, she snaps the end with the faintest pressure of her thumb. "... weapons? Power? My associate is the young woman with the space-warping magic - show me to your leader, and we can talk, certainly." Finally, FINALLY, a chance to indulge in the most basic of this for that: the arms trade. Hooray!
Futaba Nuki	The man in black steps back to watch as Audrey and Meresankh work on those pods, still not quite getting what they're doing or how they're doing it and just seeing that it actually works. He can, at best, intuit that there's some kind of difference in their approaches, but that's about it. He does, however, step over to where Audrey's standing to offer her... A mask? It's a moderately decorated one, too, with black fabric and red trim that looks rather similar to the colors of his outfit and sash, respectively. "You fought well. Thank you. This should help." It's not medicated or anything. It's just high enough to help cover her face and also be a fashion statement of some sort. The farmers inside, understandably, are still kind of freaked out about the entire ordeal. They're also extremely tired from getting rolled about and handled so roughly by the carriers, the soldiers carrying them, and then being katamari'd to safety. It's tiring enough that they can't even freak out when they see Meresankh, either, just sort of gratefully weary that they can finally breathe that fresh air again and stare groggily at the battle going on further below. Meresankh discovers, meanwhile, that the AI in these Carriers is truly basic! There's certainly room for her to inject proper intellects in there if she desires to, but the ones present in the Carriers are, sadly, just lines of code rather than anything that can learn and develop on their own. They're programmed to know friend from foe based on IDs/lack of IDs, to follow basic capture/follow/wait commands, and to bring captured 'resources' to designated areas. Natsuki, meanwhile, does indeed find that the skeletal Biped's parts truly are mechanical: The bones, the ligaments, the orange fleshy bits, all of them are fully synthetic in a way that's still satisfying to break, but probably not great to breathe in for long. They're not cheap-feeling by any means, but they have a distinctly expendable feeling to them. The man in green, meanwhile, raises an eyebrow slightly as Natsuki drops a few names that have him looking down towards the distant-ish battle as well. "I did hear that, too... No, I am only a traveler in these parts alongside with my brothers. The Yellow Turbans..." Another pause, as understanding crosses his face. "Then that man we met before you arrived, and the one leading that charge... Zhang Jiao, was it?" He raises an eyebrow briefly when Natsuki picks that arrow out of herself, then shakes his head lightly. "If you're looking to work with them, you'd be better off asking them directly. They've been building their movement for a while now, and I suspect they're finally making their move against Dong Zhou now that he's begun to act so brazenly against the innocent." He strokes his beard once, then looks over at Audrey when Natsuki brings up the magic. The man in black, too, looks her way. "But... I've seen your valor, and your honorable hearts. If you seek to wield your blade for the weak like you had before, I can introduce you to my brothers. I only ask that you not show off that arrow trick again. He'll make a contest of it.""