Powder Miner

Satomi's expression clouded further a moment when Kusuke asked her what had happened to her -- would it make her sound weak if she said what had happened? Then she realized that, bluntly, it was too late for that and she'd already sealed her dishonor the moment she showed up like she did. It was plenty apparent that she had been defeated and destroyed. Satomi wilted further, and looked down at the ground for a few moments before she finally spoke. "Ar... Arminius. It was Arminius. He... he..." She choked up -- how did she even describe it? Did she want to describe it? She didn't want to think about it. "...it was horrible. I-I..." Satomi choked up, falling silent again. But when Kusuke offered to fix her kimono, she at least nodded.

Perlita got into the battle just in time to witness 6D be slammed with spike-end of an extremely large hammer, and she winced instantly upon seeing that; it looked like it hurt, a lot. But before the Mexican-American girl could do anything more than open her mouth in preparation for calling her Persona's name, she saw the other two fighters... and specifically the condition that they were in. Upon seeing the purple-haired one's state in particular, Perlita's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. She was horribly wounded! "A-ah, hold on, I've got you, miss... purple... lady! Crawford! Diarama!!" In a way now moderately familiar to some of the members of the party and very thoroughly familiar to Gabriel, a figure popped up into existence -- a literally-blank-eyed, eight-foot tall and inhuman-looking woman, whose black, sequin-covered cape glittered and sparkled as both Perlita and the figure moved their arms (something which revealed that under the cape, the figure was wearing a somewhat racy red gown and black tights). This caused a three-circle swirl of pink magic to appear around the purple-haired girl, and accordingly a wave of powerful healing magic followed. Perlita uses Diarama on Nepgear, healing her for 6d4+SYN (12)+SYN (12) HP!

Left sitting on the ground in the woods and lacking sufficient motivation to get up and do anything, Satomi had just stayed there for a while, occasionally sobbing, then wiping her tears with the sleeve of her kimono -- which was itself a horrific mess, frayed and singed with soot trapped between the fibers -- she had been essentially lit on fire while wearing it, after all. Then, after a few moments of barely keeping it together, she would find her breath wavering again, once again becoming uneven, and soon enough she would find herself seguing back into the sobbing. This cycle was stopped by the arrival of some sort of messenger from Leo, telling of imminent danger and battle... and even in Satomi's current state, she was plenty capable of putting two and together. The samurai-ko let out an awful noise from the back of her throat, as she considered the fact that she would have to get up and do something about it. Tears ran down her face yet again. She didn't want to, she didn't want to, she didn't want to, after everything that had happened -- but she was a Crab. Satomi Kaiu was a member of the Kaiu family of the Crab Clan, and as a Crab Clan her Duty was ironclad. If she sat around sobbing instead of fighting at the Wall, she would quite possible be killed on the spot, and that simply spoke to how much a Crab had to be driven by what they did. So, letting out a whimper, Satomi stood up and began to walk unsteadily towards the smithy, where she would make an absurdly sorry sight -- face still wet from tears, gaze usually downwards, gait unsteady, kimono a half-burned disaster, and the girl simply lacking much of the animus she usually had.

Nader turned to look at Alan, no expression visible at all -- he was, after all, wearing a mask. He stared for a few seconds, in a probably somewhat intimidating manner, a smile playing at the edge of one lip in a manner invisible behind his headgear, before he said: "Or perhaps it's that I am the reasonable one and you're now just realizing it thanks to actually meeting one of the interdimensional assassins I've been talking to, hmmm?" Nader paused, and when he spoke again his tone was different -- perhaps there had been some wryness to his previous statement, but he was totally serious when he spoke next. "Well, I'm going to go look for Sandman. There's something I want to do and I want him to back me up during it if he's well enough."

Navin massaged the bridge of his nose more as they all walked into the apartment. Well, at least they were being let inside now, so he supposed that was in all fact progress, but... well, he was going to have to keep at this line of questioning with some persistence, he realized, because whatever had gone down the previous time Solomon had been here was probably even worse than he thought it was. "I get the feeling that this is going to turn out to be a headache we are going to have to deal with the fallout of. Am I wrong, Solomon?"

"Oh, ah-- uh-- well-- well, okay, there they go. Iiii guess I should really be following them, huh. Uh, Gabriel, c'mon!" Hiking up her dress just a little bit, to the point where it reached the middle of her calves, Perlita began to ran after the others who had charged in. When the warm breeze hit her, she couldn't help but slightly wince; whatever that beam was, it must have been preeeetty darn powerful for her to feel heat from here. Still, if everyone else was going in, she couldn't just abandon them...! Perlita joins the fight!

One javelin hit her, mostly bouncing off of her armor but rattling her enough to hurt -- not enough to normally matter too much, but with her current shaky physical condition it did hurt. Still, her own javelin had done better, and since she was sure that she could take a few more hits like that, she was prepared to do so. Hardening her face into a tight-lipped line, Ceridwen grabbed another javelin from the side of the dragon beside her, strode forth with a jangle, and then sent it flying at the javelin-wielding Calissian as hard as she could, that tight-lipped line opening into a shout. "Hyah!" Y13, throw a javelin at the Soldier!

Lizaveta cringed as the cavaliers charged forwards, approaching rapidly... ...and then slamming into Lenore, violently wounding her. "M-Mink...! I'll, ah, I'll help you!" Lizaveta's mouth went dry for a moment as trepidation filled her, but nonetheless she raised her tome and fired off a blast of darkness to help her comrade. Attack Cavalier A!

Ceridwen let out a breath -- she had spent long enough now hanging back and letting herself be scared, now it was time to get back into things. Getting hit by one spell didn't change what her relative strengths were, and the things she should be doing... and avoiding the enemy certainly wasn't one of those things. Applying some medicine to herself to at least get back to a more stable condition, Ceridwen began to advance once more. W12, Ceridwen vulns herself.

The fairy poking out of Masako's hat lowered herself a little further out of it, and began to murmur various ways of making her danmaku usage more efficient into her ear... and this time, the suggestions that she was giving were twice as precise and potent as before, the little fairy rattling out a stream of remarkably on-point advice and accurate data. Isobel, meanwhile, proceeded to toss Hikari one of her healing poppies. "Here, eat this!" Isobel uses Healing Poppy on Hikari, healing 3d4+INT damage! LOTUS uses Efficiency Analysis on Masako, boosted by Tactical Uplink: Partial to remove both turns of cooldown from Shocking Insight! Active Cooldowns: Efficiency Analysis (1 Turn) Tactical Uplink (Partial) incoming in 3 turns 15% dodge chance, 20% poison damage reduction and poisoning effect durations shortened by one round.

Azgrurk had just picked Satomi up, hauled her over towards Arminius, and then immediately essentially trapped her in close proximity with the piece of her very soul that she had had stolen from her and turned into a separate creature by the man who turned pieces of people's souls into minions, and who had also put her through utter fiery agony with some sort of truly foul magic, forcing her to confront this no less than immediately after it had happened to her. Satomi... Well, Satomi gaped at it for a few moments, eyes wide, silent except for very quiet sounds as she choked up and was unable to find even an incoherent vocal response. After a few moments of this, she finally made a somewhat louder sound, a halted breath as tears formed in her eyes and began to stream down her face. The little sounds she was making got louder and fuller until they became outright sobs, the samurai twisting and turning to try to escape Azgrurk's grasp or at least look away from the thing that had been made of her, outright crying in front of him despite the shame of it. "N-no, no, no, please, I don't w-want to see it, I duh, I don't, please, please, get me away from it!" And now Satomi was outright bawling, losing control as she just tried to make the situation stop, to get out of it.

Satomi let out a quavering noise when Azgrurk suddenly moved over and picked her up. She couldn't argue with his statement that they still had work to do, because of course they did, they had to clean up after Leo's mess, she had so much powder distribution to do to get rid of that horrible Tainted place. And she was not only a samurai but a Crab, her current display was piteous and shameful and outright dishonorable. By acting the way she was, she knew she was betraying her own role as a samurai. But... but... but... Satomi slapped lightly at Azgrurk's hand, but it had no real venom behind it. Eventually, she just spoke quaveringly as Azgrurk began to carry her into the woods. "Please don't... please-- please don't take me near him... and that thing... I don't want to see them..." she spoke quietly, shutting her eyes tightly.

Had Arminius simply stabbed her, Satomi would not have hesitated to continue fighting with him, and in that case she quite likely would have won -- she was a good deal more fit than him, after all, and certainly better armed, and on fire as she was she had had the ability to take them both down. But he had not simply stabbed her. Instead, he had continued to do rather horrific things to her, as he had-- had-- taken something from her, and turned it into another one of his awful little minions. In that moment, Satomi had all of the energy taken right from her; mostly, it was just thanks to the shock and horror of what precisely had happened, but she felt more tired even than she should have been, and that burning rage that so often had been a part of her life wasn't there to be drawn on anymore. Satomi didn't know how to handle it. She really, really didn't know how to handle it. And with the state that she had already been in even before Arminius decided to aggress her... She didn't handle it. Instead, Satomi simply brought her knees to her chest as Arminius was chased away, wrapped her arms around them, and trembled terribly. Satomi does nothing.

"Things seem pretty much covered here now that those jumping fuckers are gunned down. I'm going to go reinforce the entrance and cover the people coming in." And Nader clanked off to do precisely that. Nader moves to C6. Gut Punch is cocked. Active Cooldowns: Akimbo (0 Turns)

Navin had resorted to pinching the bridge of his nose, watching the conversation around him begin to take another nosedive. "While I hate to be impolite, I suspect that it might be time for everyone to just... stop talking... for a little bit. We are just standing out here in this hallway, probably not doing anything to further... whatever we are even trying to do at this point, and not getting anything out of Solomon, Solomon." Navin took his fingers off of his nose and looked at the others. "Instead of having an argument, why do we not focus on whatever we can do here, and then talk about this in a more controlled way later? This is not doing us any favors."

Perlita winced at the discussion -- she, much like her friend, was not much of a strategist, but she had to admit that the ideas that had been argued over had made her a bit uncomfortable. One of the other members of the party spoke, though, and then did Gabriel, giving her a chance to speak up. "Uh, I really don't want us to split up, yeah. I can heal pretty well when we're all together, but if we end up all apart and I've only got one or two people to help me fight, I think it might end up being pretty bad for me overall... so, yeah, I think it'd be best if we could stay all together and stuff."

Navin's expression morphed as the elven woman listed off the apparent previous failures and incidents of the group when it had previously been to this place -- from a fairly alert, anticipatory expression to one that looked increasingly nonplussed and resigned. Well, it sounded like this place had already been a barrel of fun, complete with horrific collateral damage and, apparently, shooting political figures. "Oh." He took in a breath, and then his gaze (the resigned gaze of a man who has realized that this was going to be on par with some of his more absurd adventures) and spoke. "Solomon, could you repeat for us exactly what you have gotten us into? I am going to do it either way, but it sounds like there is quite a bit that has gone on here that you did not evidently feel the need to elaborate on." "It might be better that you ask some questions, too, since you are going to have a much better idea of how exactly this place operates than we will."

Ceridwen groaned quietly as she slowly moved off of her dragon -- her face got a concerned nuzzle from Ynddi, but that didn't seem to do much for her mood. Her armor was quite heavy, and while this normally wasn't much of a problem, since some of her flesh was currently reddened and burnt in lightning patterns, with the Dragon Knight still seriously wounded, the shifting of her armor as she dismounted was quite painful. She'd have moved forwards first, but having seen Rhian eat a bolt of ice out of nowhere... Ceridwen suspected that moving forward would turn out very poorly for her. Ceridwen dismounts.

LOTUS let out a high-pitched yelp as she impacted directly with Masako and then the two went tumbling down, resulting in a slightly disheveled little fairy once Masako finally expected what had caused her impromptu, downward course correction. "I... had not predicted that I would cause you to crash. ...ah." The AI-turned-fairy attempted to straighten herself out a little bit, and then was quite promptly stuck under the tengu's hat, with a little muffled sound of annoyance. She had to, with a grunt, lift one side of Masako's hat, and then stick her head and arms out under it, unintentionally making a rather adorable sight. "It's far outside of my normal specialties, but more or less yes. Let's see if I can assist you..." LOTUS sent out a twin pair of danmaku bursts to the sides of one of the fairy swarms, not intended to actually hit them but to instead potentially render them unable to dodge another attack. Isobel winced as she watched LOTUS impact with Masako and send them both to the ground (apparently the botanist had made one hell of a toss), and her gaze lingered for a few moments to make sure that she hadn't just killed or maimed the little fairy. Upon seeing Masako stick LOTUS under her hat, at least, Isobel let out a sigh of relief and then turned back to the fight. Well, it didn't look like anyone was hurt, so swinging this stupid thing it was. LOTUS uses Weakness Pinpoint on Fairy Swarm A, granting 10% crit chance on attacks coming towards it for a turn! Isobel uses Hatchet on Fairy Swarm A, for 1d4+STR (2) damage! Active Cooldowns: Efficiency Analysis (0 Turn) Tactical Uplink (Partial) incoming next turn 15% dodge chance, 20% poison damage reduction and poisoning effect durations shortened by one round.

Ceridwen hissed and winced as she and her dragon got up off of the ground, flexing the leg that had been trapped under Ynddi, and then she looked down at the ground, with an unsure expression. She didn;t really know what to say. Really, there maybe wasn't anything to say at all. She'd gone in for something that should have been easy, messed it up, and then the others had to fill in for her screwup after the mage took her out instantly. That was... that really wasn't acceptable. "..."

Lizaveta, feeling a little unsure about where things were going since she'd been briefly separated from the others, looked around before straightening herself up and marching herself to one of the fronts. "I can't go getting hesitant now...!" J7

The expression on Johanna's face might have been unreadable, but after the announcement and during the journey, Ceridwen's was very much readable. Shock, uncertainty, and being worried thoroughly sick were the ones usually visible at any given moment in time, with Ceridwen sticking close to her dragon apparently for some level of comfort, but there were occasional shocks of outright fear visible when her thoughts turned to the darker -- especially after news came of the collapse of one of their defensive points. Her home was under attack like it had never been during her lifetime, by people who were supposed to be their allies. Were they failing? What would happen? It was on the Allied Guard's shoulders, maybe. But that didn't make it any less terrifying -- moreso, really. She couldn't afford to give it anything but her all. And of course, there was the matter of the "prominent Mid-Wing Commander" that had been captured. Her mentor, and the nearest man she'd ever really had for a father, was a Mid-Wing Commander -- and while there were quite a few of those, prominent ones, commanders prominent enough to cause a morale drop, was a smaller category. Gareth was too clever to get captured, right...? Right? Right? But Ceridwen, of course, was still worried. Now that she found herself at the gates of the enemy castle (and boy, what did this being an enemy castle mean for the future...? She'd barely been able to think about it)-- Ceridwen shook her head. She didn't have time to get distracted now. Now... now was when it counted most. Ceridwen set her face grimly. "I won't let them do this." And she advanced. Ceridwen moves to S10 and stabs Mage 1 with the Iron Javelin.

Naturally, I’ll take it

Lizaveta swallowed, standing there for just a moment more as the others advanced on without her, but despite how strange she felt, she had to continue on and help out. It was why she was here, and it was to help...! Lizaveta jogged back up to the group. L6.

Caught up in the flow of the battle, Lizaveta flung another blast of magic at the knight -- this time slaying him as the wounded guard had his armor punched through by the magic. It was only after she did that that she suddenly paused, staring down at the corpse. "Huh... I actually... I've never..." She stopped speaking, her mouth going dry. It was just, s-sure, but... she felt funny about this... J4, kill Knight A