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Lt. Andesine
Poking at the frozen magic and getting it off. (6 + 0 (leadership) = 6)
HP: 50/50.
Medkits: 3/3.

As Andesine inspected the piece of frozen magic that she’d wound up scrambling to, a swarm of youma flooded in, because what this situation really needed was more chaos. (Technically, they should’ve enough of that in the form of the capital-C Chaos from which the Negaverse drew its power. Different sorts of (c/C)haos, she guessed, but there’d be time for arguing the semantics with herself later, when she was neither dead nor immediately in the vicinity of a situation like the one that had arisen.)

Conflicting orders flew between General-King Jet and General Faustite—or, more accurately, as Faustite pointed out: Jet had given the order, and now, Faustite’s more informed read on the situation was telling him that they shouldn’t have been holding back against General Galvorn. True, Jet hadn’t given the order to ignore his previous order to stand down. But Andesine didn’t see why stopping in her current course could have been a good idea. Everyone who’d meant to research anything in Galvorn’s chambers had continued diving for information, so why shouldn’t she have continued looking into the frozen magic?

If Jet gave the order to fight and no one was ready…… Hell, the situation had quite caught them on the back-foot. Being even more behind wasn’t acceptable. Could get people killed. Trying to keep her breaths measured—lack of oxygen, good way to start panicking and making terrible, bullshit choices—she found that she could nudge the burst of magic that she’d come to. Could get it pointed toward Galvorn, on a trajectory that ideally wouldn’t commit any friendly fire. On the list of Last Possible Things Anybody Needed Right Now, that ranked pretty highly.

The unpredictability in what the Knights had left behind gave her some hope, as she searched for some way of releasing the magic. Who knew what would come out? Hopefully, something more controlled than the Uranus Knight’s spinning hallway or the gusts of wind powerful enough to throw people across a room and up several feet.

Eternal Kamacite
HP: 100
Roll: 2
Engraved Medallion - Suppresses energy signature to Super
Rugose Pendant - Kamacite takes the form of a small, white, nine-tailed fox with red markings

“Merde...” Kamacite hissed under his breath when nothing useful appeared from his search. Faustite told him not to concern himself about Forgemaster -- Galvorn’s personal youma. And that the youma problem had been solved…

So what he hadn’t expected was a sudden outpouring of youma into the room. He stared in surprise at their new company, and looked wildly up at Cymophane and Roselite in horror. If the youma decided to attack them--

No, why would they? His team had managed to avoid being attacked too fiercely by the youma when they first ventured into the Scar. Why wouldn’t it be the same this time? If they could get Officers, especially higher ranked Officers, to command them.

“General King,” Kamacite said into his communicator pen. “Those items we brought with us might give us the same cover we had in the Scar before.”

They made it out of the Scar alive before, thanks to being able to disguise themselves as youma. Maybe they’d have the same chance now.

From his robes, Kamacite pulled out the engraved medallion he received from Axinite, and his personal black stone. He hadn’t used it yet, but knew what it was capable of. He’d seen what it did to others before, and knew Albite and Cymophane made use of it before.

There was one more thing he wanted to research before he drained the energy from the stone. He typed in “dagger” into the search field. Cymophane mentioned it, and he thought he saw one earlier but it got lost in the chaos.

General King Jet
HP: 125/84 - 10 (time magic (magic) via Tama) - 15 (time magic (weapon) via Andesine) = 59

There was no time. He heard Faustite’s voice in the communicator. He knew people were getting hurt. He knew he had to make the call -- to attack, to continue to try and talk Galvorn down…

Agents were getting restless. They were so used to attacking, used to fighting. Jet understood wanting to take down an enemy. Wanting to stop someone who was hurting their friends, their family.

General Galvorn was no longer human. He’d morphed into something else, into a youma, consumed by Metallia’s Chaos.

But there were others in their ranks. Maybe not there. Hadn’t Benitoite talked about youmafying his own recruit before? Didn’t they have youma with them on their ventures into the Scar the first time? Just because youma could be dusted, could be killed and be reborn... how utterly demoralizing and horrifying was that? To say it was okay youma were killed because they would just be brought back eventually?

At what point do officers stop defending half-youma because they mistake them for full? Why would Metallia have an entire space dedicated to youma who hungered for energy and starseeds, instead of just getting rid of them and keeping the energy and starseeds for herself?

And for Faustite to say it would probably be better to dust Galvorn…

After Jet had talked to Faustite, asked him why he just accepted allowing himself to be used because he was half-youma? He did all of this for them -- the energy to power the building, the plans for the mission.

He heard the whiz of energy, of magic.

Agents were no longer inspecting the time-frozen magic, but instead aiming it at General Galvorn and releasing it.

With a curse under his breath, Jet pulled away from Aquamarine before he could stop him, putting himself in front of the magic shot off by both Lieutenant Andesine and Tama. The magic that Captain Witherite attempted to use seemed to putter out.

Taking the hit for the youmafied General Galvorn took the breath from his lungs, but he didn’t have time to deal with anyone who couldn’t follow orders when they had a youma blinded by rage and pain to deal with. One that was still injuring their friends.

“We don’t need his research do we, Faustite? This isn’t why we came here.”

Jet didn’t use the communicator this time. He called across the room to where Faustite had been cut badly with the General’s weapon.

“We’re evacuating. Those who are the most injured, or can’t follow orders, leave first. Use your med kits, you have them for a reason!”

He heard both Kamacite and Taenite’s messages over the communicator, and turned to try and find the Eternal Senshi, only to see a small youma in his place.

“Use the stones we have. Senshi get priority. Officers, especially Generals, need to command the rest of the youma to stand by us. Niter, use your magic on those weapons of his, and take this pendant,” he called over to the Super Senshi, holding out the stone reserved for Team Monarch, but was ready to throw it to him if he gestured that he would catch it.

“Rigel, use this,” he said, holding out his own pendant to the other Super Senshi nearby.

He spared a sympathetic look at a likely enraged Aquamarine. He could say he was fine. He wasn’t. He could feel the blood soaking into his clothes in various places, but he couldn’t think about that right now. They had an evacuation to worry about.

Youma still had a place in the Dark Kingdom, and not as front line fodder. If they couldn't protect and help their own...? Well, maybe it wasn't a surprise that they were still fighting the White Moon.

"We're leaving. We won't fight our own," he said to Galvorn, holding up his hands and dismissing his weapon to show he was sincere. "But you can't keep attacking us."

Super Corrupt Heliodor
HP: 75

Helio cursed as Galvorn lashed out. He’d been lucky enough to not be a target but many were. Some managed to avoid the attacks while others did. “Faustite! ********> He cursed as the attack struck his boys shoulder. Black liquid ran down, hissing at contact with the flames.

“Better make a decision soon, cause at this rate, we’re sitting ducks as we wait for your leave to ******** do anything.” He hissed out in frustration and rage in the direction of General King Jet.

They all, quite literally, had their hands tied. Sure, not attacking the youma that appeared was a fine decision. As much as they tended to hate corrupts like him, he wasn’t out for their blood in anyway. But this Galhorn? He was too far gone. Lost in the past and oblivious to the fact that he had a General King yelling at him to stand down. Besides, who said they had to attack to kill? Beating him down to submission was a valid option.

Helio swung his full attention back to Faustite. Following the General, he looked at the wound. It was deep. “It might have.” He answered in response to the remark about a tendon. He pulled out a med kit via subspace.

And then the call to evacuate came across the communicators. “You have got to be kidding.”

After all of this, they were going to leave? Just vacate the premises because Jet didn’t want to fight someone who obviously had no qualms in hurting them? There were better ways to handle this and this was not it. What was going to happen now? Is the plan to ignore all of the work they’d done here? Leave it to Galhorn to do with as he wishes? Attempt to come back again? What if things escalated right back to this point and no attempts at communicating civilly worked?

Nope this all seemed like a giant mistake. Maybe, it wouldn’t be in the end, but right now it felt foolish. He glared daggers at Jet before turning back to Faustite.

His General had been the leader of this mission and to have anyone, even a General King, step in and take over had to have felt like a slap in the face. At least, that was how the corrupt viewed it.

Cause in all honestly, things were going fine until Jet had decided to play Knight in shining armor.

Helio didn’t move though. Instead, he waited for Faustite. “On your leave.” He murmured to his commanding General, fully aware that Jet was technically the one he should have been obeying.

St1rickenized

Gu1ine

anyone in prox

Anyone in prox could hear him

Captain Jadarite
Attempting to round up her team and leave
HP: 70/75


Even as Jadarite and every other person in the room halted in a tense standoff at the orders of a General-King, the youma lashed out anyway. With a flick of his serpentine wrists, there was a whirlwind of blades flying in the direction of her and some of the others, bloodying Faustite. She tried to step out of the way, and just baely found herself at the edge of the whirl.

Jadarite was hardly a pacifist. Diplomacy was one of her favorite tools, but there was a time and a place for it, a time when it was advantageous.

This was not one of those times.

She knew that, just as if she knew that if she disregarded Jet's orders now, he would have no reason to respect her in the future, and his respect would be something that would be an advantage in the future assuming she lived past the next five minutes.

She decided, weighing all the options, that following those orders and leaving was the best thing to do.

In the meantime, she added her voice to the voices of the others commanding the youma. "Stop," she snapped at them. "Stand down."

Her gaze found Albite, first, and wordlessly, she begged him to keep listening.

Hylonome had found her own general, and Haymitch was slippery enough to take care of himself, which meant that which meant that next, Jadarite was heading off towards one of the sealed magics, and her own Lieutenants.

"New orders," she told him, breathless. "We're heading out."

Eternal Cymophane
Using his personal Rugose Pendant per Jet’s orders. Cymophane now looks like an ugly, undead black panther.
HP: 100

“Oh, hey, youma!”

The presence of this building and the youma’s absence from it and the surrounding area had been the entire point to this mission in the first place, which meant that, if they were here now, the mission was technically a success, right? Sure, they’d fallen into a mystery in the process, and it’d be nice to put the puzzle together, but at this point, if they could get out of here without any loss of life, including Galvorn’s, Cymophane thought they could consider it a win.

He recognized the lamp salesman from the last mission into the Rift. Cymophane hadn’t had the opportunity to converse much with him before a starseed got pulled out, which bummed him out a bit at the time. The lamp salesman seemed like an entertaining fellow.

It really was too bad youma didn’t like Senshi.

Cymophane caught sight of Kamacite as his fellow Eternal made use of his pendant. Wow! So cute! Cymophane would have gushed about it, but the longer they stood around looking like a snack, the more tempting they’d be for the youma.

Using his own pendant, Cymophane took on the appearance of a large, predatory cat, his teeth and claws long and menacing, his dark fur missing in patches to expose rotting skin beneath.

“Tae,” he said in a growling voice. “Use your pendant.”

Captain Roselite
Trying to command some youma.
HP: 75

Roselite wasn’t injured. He was no longer a Lieutenant either, which gave him a measure of authority he hadn’t had the last time he was in the Rift. As a Captain, he should have gained a small shred of respect from the youma.

Maybe. Possibly. Roselite had never tried to command one before. In theory, they should respond, but… well… Roselite wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t listen. He didn’t exactly think himself worthy of respect.

He stayed where he was with the weapons system at the ready in case the turrets became advantageous. (Somewhere beneath his racing, paranoid thoughts, Roselite had to wonder why just anyone could get into the weapons system. It seemed like a huge security risk not to require a passcode, or some other type of credentials.)

(It was also far too much responsibility for him to feel comfortable wielding.)

At Jet’s orders, Roselite swallowed nervously, cleared his throat and spoke to some of the nearby youma, one of which appeared to be a nine-tailed fox near where Kamacite had just been.

Wait, where did Kamacite go????

“Um… We need you to assist us. Please. I mean… um… yes. Please.”

Youma Galvorn
HP: ??? (-36)

Galvorn saw that one of the strangers (Tama) had trained magic on him, and he turned to stand his ground against it, but one of the ones insisting he was not an enemy took the blow. Galvorn snorted at the display. Another (Andesine) sent a weapon his way, and this he was prepared to block, but again, the same one moved to intercept the attack. Was it Caz, then, as the Cosmos Knight had said? The one who wanted to keep protecting him, despite the allegiance he chose?

No General would stoop so low as to be kept by a knight — "I will not bend the knee to any Knight in cloak and dagger!" This time, he swung his weapon at Jet, perhaps to Miyamoto's relief.

But another one spoke, talked of stasis, of changing times. Galvorn rankled at that one, too. "Your disguise is the least believable of all, Knight," he chided back, and sent a halberd straight for Faustite.

Chambersite would find, helpfully, that a bony rat-like youma was among the number that had filtered into the space.

When Kamacite looked up dagger, he received a stream of nonsense symbols, numbers, and letters in response. Whatever might have been recorded about this dagger had become so corrupted as to be unreadable. Only the name Chelonium stood out among the random letters and numbers.

Niter's magic took hold, and Galvorn suddenly found his hands empty of their many weapons. Brow furrowed, he flexed his hands in the air as if that would relocate them in the midst of all this knightly trickery. He soon learned, however, that they weren't simply invisible -- they were gone. "You can't fool me, knights!" He shouted, enraged, as he made for the one that confiscated his weapons.

As Jet, Faustite, Jadarite and Roselite gave orders to the diffuse gathering of youma, roughly a quarter of them heeded instruction to hang back. Many still heeded their own impulses, either out of earshot from the agents or simply not paying attention with the myriad distractions unfolding. Some youma were interested in the monochrome splotches that held magic captive, while others took up the opportunity to torment lower-ranked officers and senshi alike. Valeria, Triplite, Albite, Niter, Spectrolite, Sodalite, and Fafnir were being pursued by youma of all sorts — skeletal cats, rhinos made almost entirely out of horns, feathered serpents, giant rats, and rotten komodo dragons were but a few of the instigators.

Quote:

Characters targeted by Galvorn may roll 1d10 (+ combat bonus) to dodge his strikes. If 7 or greater, the attack is dodged. If 6 or less, the character sustains 20 damage.

Characters targeted by youma may roll 1d10 (+ combat bonus) to avoid their claws. If 5 or better, your character avoids their attacks. If 4 or below, your character takes 5 damage.

Characters heading to the elevator must roll 1d10 (+ leadership bonus). The cumulative total of rolls will determine, in tomorrow's story update, how many people were targeted for attack on their way out. Regardless of your roll results, the character will make it onto the lift.

To stay on time for the event's conclusion, the next post will assume that the elevator made multiple trips to the first room of the facility. This is to preserve continuity, as earlier posts established that the elevator can only convey two teams at a time.

If your character chooses to stay in Galvorn's chambers rather than approach the elevator, please quote me as that directly influences the content of tomorrow's post.

If you do not post between now and the story update tomorrow, please assume that your character followed orders to go to the lift.