Avatar RP VIII: Chapter VII: Timing

[Overcast]

"OF COURSE I CAN!"

He ran to the table and pulled out a maser and a magnetronic microlevel manipulator from his coat of laboratory science, and pushed the first matchstick out of the way, he lit one of the others and started them all on fire, then blasted the burning mass with his maser, turning the entiryty into a plasma burst which he quickly redirected the current created in the ionic energy release with his manipulator to reconstruct the atomic bases of all the matchsticks into a fractal pattern that at an atomic level just looked like a bunch of atoms but was in fact the Mona Lisa! Which it repeated as you continued to zoom out in an oddly creepy fashion,

"Flawlessly! In color! At an atomic level!"

He said pointing at it, and then pointing at it with a microscope, and then a field ion microscope, and then an electron microscope, and then with his finger again,

"Do you not get it!? I was born with only one purpose, to be a scientific bastard! I can be nothing else, so I have all the skills, all the knowledge, all the degrees. ALL OF THEM...but I like the test, it actually made me believe in the reason for me existing."

And then it got awkward.

"Dr. Ethington I think I love you."
____

Overcast-Meta felt a disturbance in the force, but he wasn't sure what to attribute it to. Though something told him it was something going hopelessly wrong or hopelessly right. Of course he knew exactly what happened, but he was going to pretend to not know because that was obviously more amusing to him. The thought was striken from his memory, just like that.
____

Space Dragoon Overcast was having quite the time riding on the back of Shyria, especially as she began to REGRESS. He didn't have control over her, but the more primal she became, the more reckless he could act. And the more reckless he could act, the worse of an individual he could be! There was no time for punch and pie anymore, there was chaos to reap.

____

OCD2 felt horribly depressed being left alone with his snacks, so he forwarded them to Mauve with a smiley face attached, as well as a fabric pretreatment for the coke stain. He was so helpful.

[mauve]

"Hey Mauve! Quit sitting around, we've got aliens to kill!"

"Bwuh?" Mauve asked, looking up from where she was using Pyros to clean up the spilled soda. "Oh, right!! Killin' aliens! I'm all for that idea!" She released Pyros into the wild-- or at any rate, let him go in the zero-gravity of the ship's cockpit to float around the ship's interior half-asleep-- and reached for the ship's controls.

"To infinity... And beyoOH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII---" Mauve clearly wasn't expecting to have her x-wing hurled through space by an overeager rage-fueled Dragon Lady. She regained composure as she regained control of the vehicle. "Okay. I'm cool. Minor setback. Let's go kick some---Oh hey look, snacks!!" Overcast was being very helpful! Mauve was being very easily distracted!

The unconscious Pyros Kitty, still floating through the ship, hit her in the back of the head, reminding her that there was still SERIOUS BUSINESS to take care of.

"What the..? Oh! Right-o! Still in space! Gotta get to the killing stuff portion of my day. Thanks for the reminder, Pyros! You.... Oh nevermind. You're still asleep anyway."

Glowing with MAGICAL RAGE POWERS and fueled by SUGARY CARBONATED BEVERAGES AND PLENTIFUL SNACKS, Mauve was back in action and ready to kick ass and take names!

[Astral Harmony]

"Captain? Hey, Captain!"
Armored looked towards the Azure Aesir, weapons aimed at the Valkyr mothership but not attacking it or even charging its main guns. "I'm here. S'up?"
"Well, I have a question. Oh, but first you have two new messages."
Must be from the other NPFers. "I'll hear them."

Alean cued the first one.
"Attention Azure Aesir, as no doubt you have noticed, our ships have similar names. I am contacting you to have this rectified. Though no doubt your ship's name has been christened before mine, as Commanding Science Officer +1 of the NPF standing militia, I have special priviledges, and among them I -YOU HAVE TO TOTALLY CHANGE YOUR NAME TO THE BLUE AESIR OR SO HELP ME MYSELF I WILL SIGN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO THE SPAMBOT OVERLORDS!"

"Who sent that shit?"
"Dunno. Whoever it was, they either elected to remain anonymous by not presenting a video feed, or were just too stupid to turn it on."
"That's silly. Our ship's name is registered. It's even on the side of the ship in big, silver, 3D letters."
"What shall I do with the message, Captain? It certainly seems to demand a response."
"Respond with Response Alpha."
"But this came from an ally, right?"
"It's not too difficult to distinguish between our two ship's names. He or she or whoever that happens to be is just being an asshole."
"Well, okay. Initiating Response Alpha."

Dr. Ethington was rickroll'd. And if her screen could still recieve video feed, it was accompanied by the music video.

"Second message?"

Alean cued the second message.
"...I say shoot her."

"The hell?"
"I think it's an audio response to the previous one."
"..."
"Orders, Captain?"
"I think the rickrolling took care of that for us. Disregard."
"Aye aye, Captain. Now, we have a small, inkling little question."
"Shoot."
"Why're you naked with ten-foot long hair that is blowing in the wind even though you're in outer space and there's no wind?"
"I dunno. Why does Maya have to drink all my Big Reds when she runs out of Dr. Pepper?"

Armored, charged with the same Fury energy blast that affected everyone else, bounced from remaining piece of debris to remaining piece of debris to get away from the Valkyr mothership. "Actually, during the course of this RP, let's just refer to the ship as the Aesir."
"Pushover."
"Meh. Let's get that mothership out of the way. Prepare to fire the PMS Cannon."
"Awesome! We're finally going to use it! We'll get started right away."
"When it's fully charged, alert Mauve and Shyria...y'know, the X-Wing and the dragon, that a really powerful weapon is about to be discharged so they can get out of the way."
"Aye aye, Captain."

Armored, still as naked as Lucia from Lunar 2 and with hair blowing for absolutely no reason, standing on a small chunk of the mothership's hull that wasn't pulled in and destroyed by Teal Mage, watched unmoving as the Aesir maneuvered into position to fire the PMS Cannon.
The PMS Cannon, or Purple Mushroom Stamp Cannon, was an extremely phallic cannon that fired an overabundance of destructive dark energy barely contained in its shell. The resulting explosion created a large, violet-black mushroom cloud as the corrupting energies literally tore everything apart. Apparently the crater caused by the shell's impact, the resulting purple mushroom cloud, and the...ahem..."design" of the cannon itself left quite an impression on people.

"PMS Cannon charged to 10% and climbing steadily," Isis, the Aesir's onboard AI, reported. "All systems reporting no errors so far."

[Arhra]

The table was lit with the soft ambience of candlight, the thin whine of violins tugging at the ears in the background.

It was a table for two. In one seat Robo-Overcast sat rather stiffly. In the other was Arhra V, completely at ease. Despite, being in a realistic looking virtual environment that existed only in her mind, she had kept the granular, ever so slightly translucent look.

"Oh OveRcast," Arhra V breathed, leaning forward with her elbows propped on the table, "no-oneE Said you ha-had to stAy forever." She looked aside, crimson eyes narrowing. "They never ss-stay foreVer."

She took a sip of wine and her frown eased. "So Overcast," she smiled, a beguiling look in her eyes. "We've never TAlked mmuch before nOW. I'd lo-like to get to kNow you a little betTEr. Why don't you TelL me a lit-ittle more about yourSElf?"

The world shook slightly.

Distracted, Arhra V looked over her shoulder. Whatever invisible thing she saw didn't make her happy.

"I havvve something I ne-e-ed to TaKe care of." Arhra V said mournfully. Out of sight under the table, her hands were on her thighs scrunching up her dress, quivering with irritation. "Varia WeaPOn, hospiTality MODe."

A red sphere set in a two dimensional circuit-like glyph materialised above the table and began hovering over Overcast attentively.

"Hospitality mode, set up." the core of the slowly rotating glyph chimed in reply.

"I'll BE back as-as soon aS I CAn." Arhra V told Robo-Overcast, red eyes intense. She slumped back in chair like a puppet with its strings cut, wide eyes vacant. There was no-one there any more.

Robo-Overcast was still in his chair, of course. Arhra V had made sure that he wouldn't be getting out of it any time soon.

He was a little tied up.

* * *

The Azure Aesir fired its unfortunate cannon.

Something flickered in the space around what had been the Valker ship but nothing appeared to happen. The shell of dark energy struck, a purple mushroom sprouting on the ship's flank.

The entire ship vanished.

It instantaneously reappeared far closer to the Aesir, Arhra V's time warping Ouroboros Drive erasing the transition period.

The Valker ship was still undergoing its slow implosion, looking a little like a partially deflated soccer ball. The gaps in the superstructure formerly present had mostly closed, hiding the frenetic activity that had worked all the way from the core of the ship to its surface.

It loomed, leftover temporal energy flowing over its hull along with the dark miasma steaming from the location of the cannon hit.

"Ar-re yOu shootiNg at mmme?" the ship enquired, sounding upset. "When yoU play with the li-lion, you get bURned."

Its surface shifted, surface undulating and armour sliding aside. A gaping pit in the forward underside opened, a dark hole into what had once been the forward hangar. There was darkness and tiny stars inside.

A waving bundle of dark filaments snaked out of the hole, light glowing at their tips. They reached towards the Azure Aesir like the tendrils of a sea anemone to capture the spaceship.

Simultaneously a probe of the Azure Aesir's firewalls hit like a battering ram. Something with enormous computational power was trying to simply to brute force its way in. It was the electronic equivalent of some maniac jumping onto the front of someone's car and smashing in the windscreen with a sledgehammer.

The attack on the Aesir's AI, Isis, to come after breaching the Azure Aesir's network would be like pulling the driver out of her car through the windscreen in this metaphor.

[Astral Harmony]

Alean rushed over to assist Isis, who had simply fallen down, clutching her head as though in agony. "Isis, are you alright?!"
Isis didn't respond.
Alean looked at Rosalyn. "Ideas?"
"Whatever just attacked our ship tried to hack into the computer systems as well. Isis automatically disconnected from the network, but not fast enough to spare herself some infiltration, so she shut her own body off. She won't awaken until I do a full scan and declare her safe to boot up."

Alean stood up. "Rosalyn, please start on that right away. Isis is a badass in combat and I think we're going to need her skills. Alucard, Kira, Soleen, and Rachel, you're with me. We've gotta get the Valkyr Mothership off of us before she crushes the Aesir like a tin can. Celeste, you've got the helm. Get us out of here as soon as we're free. Maya, get in the STIGMA (Strategic Terrain-Independant Giant Mechanical Armor) and deploy as soon as you can. The rest of the crew is on standby for in-battle switch out. We can switch back and forth from outside the ship to inside and use the healing rigs to keep our team fighting indefinitely, hopefully."

It took almost two minutes for Alean's party to exit the ship, amped on Fury energy and armed with their favorite weapons.

Alean, the Aesir's Executive Officer or Vice Captain, was a stunning blonde who apparently liked belts so much that a great deal of her clothing consisted of nothing but belts. She used an assault rifle that was modified to deliver a large variety of pain from rocket propelled grenades to mercury tipped rounds to explosive buckshot.
Alucard, contrary to her name, was not a vampire, and was actually a young, cute, pink-haired practitioner of healing magic and holy spells. Armed with her staff and laser beams chock full of undead annihilation, Alucard mostly pulled healing support for the crew.
Kira was a scantily clad Frostgale Amazon. Tall and muscular with blue tribal tattoos all over her body, Kira commanded the element of ice and the brutality of dual tomahawks.
Soleen was a former diplomat for an evil conglomerate who was just using them to make money for herself. Fire magic was her specialty, but she was pretty much talented in all kinds of offensive magic.
Rachel was one of the fastest and most acrobatic girls Armored had ever met. Wielding two daggers and occasionally more than that, Regina was a blur of movement and sharp edges.

"Fire's not much good out here," Sophie complained, but was using her magic to try and cook the tendrils from the inside. She couldn't do that normally, but the power of Fury was making the impossible possible for her. "No air to feed the flames."
Alean was blasting at the tendrils with stinger rockets and fragmentation grenades. She was using the power of Fury to help her sling the grenades directly at the tendrils since tossing them would just make them fly off elsewhere. "How is a ship able to do this, anyways? I've never seen technology like this."
Alucard cut into a tendril with a beam of holy light. "The Captain warned us about getting involved. We probably should have listened to her."
Kira cleaved one of the tendrils with a brutal axe chop. "Where Armored goes, we go. And if we don't go, I still go."
Rachel dodged a tendril as it swiped at her, then cut it somewhat with her daggers. "Anybody feel different? I've never felt this light before."
"We're in zero gravity, Regina."
"Duh, Vice Captain, I freakin' know that! C'mon, you must've noticed, too!"
"You're right. I don't know how, given the Aesir's shields, but we were irradiated by the energy from that recent explosion. Be careful with how you fight and let me know the instant that you're not feeling well. There's no telling what side effects this stuff has."

The group reassembled. "I think we're winning," Rachel observed.
"Just be careful," Alean cautioned her friends. "I'm certain that ship has other tricks just waiting to be exploited."

-----

Armored was furious, seeing the Aesir getting attacked. "I'm going to dismantle that motherfucker right down to the infrastructure!" she shrieked angrily, already preparing a massive electromagnetic pulse. She wanted to fry every single circuit onboard that monstrosity. Nobody attacked her crew and her ship if there was anything she could do about it.

[Arhra]

The tendrils reaching for the Azure Aesir drew back slightly after suffering the attacks of the ship's crew. It was almost as if they were thinking.

What had been the Valker ship had barely even registered the damage. With the scale involved in a city sized vessel, attacking the capture cables was like attacking individual strands of hair on the head of a giant.

But it had taken notice now. The tips of dozens of the tendrils warped and flowed into a new configuration to deploy some new method of attack. Perhaps lasers. Perhaps drills. Perhaps more tentacles.

Instead, scanners. Fan shaped beams roved over the quintet guarding the precious prize.

Bulges traveled down five of the tentacles. Their tips became buds and then popped open into bizarre flowers.

Flowers that were actually eggs.

The five automata that emerged were built for combat. Their faces were the only part that looked like exposed flesh, the rest of their bodies covered in flexible armour and carapace. The ASURAs resembled each other and they also had a distinct familial resemblance to their creator.

The Type-A was a support unit, using pink clouds of nanomist to protect, heal and augment. Her defence was top notch although she had a deliberately limited capacity for attack. She wore a hooded partial robe of white trimmed with red triangles and seemed a little shy.

The Type-B was a sinister blend of magical and technological artillery, the shimmering forms of her energy drawing Mana Condensate Wings folded around her. It would have been chilly around her had she not been in space, which is both cold and an insulator.

The Type-C specialised in stabbing and blowing things up with a refreshingly nihilistic outlook. The orange haired gynoid was the leanest of the lot and held her two Bomber Knives at the ready. The weapons were more like short swords and had thick blades sectioned into V shaped segments.

The Type-D towered over the others and even then the dual miniguns she carried seemed oversized. She was incredibly silly and her special technique was Conversion Polymer.

The Type-E, the designated commander of the ASURA series, seemed younger than the others. There was something vaguely unfinished about her. She was slightly smaller, sleeker and purple haired. She also carried a big gun.

"We are-" she began to the Aesir crew.

"-the harbingers of your destruction." the Type-C broke in.

"Wait, I thought we were just supposed to beat them up if they won't stop doing such terrible things?" the tall, green haired Type-D asked, looking confused.

"Only if we can't talk them around." the Type-A protested.

"Wai-" the Type-E tried to get control of the conversation again.

"Can't talk them around if they've been blown up." the Type-C pointed out helpfully, right over the top of her.

"Perhaps you should ask them." the Type-B murmured to the Type-A.

The Type-A nodded. She took a doubly pointless gulp and pushed back her hood, revealing a mass of pink hair and an anxious expression. "You are requested to submit peacefully," she quavered at the Aesir defenders, "and present your vessel for inspection."

[Inbred Chocobo]

Originally Posted by Arhra

"Terrible? Let me tell you about terrible." Arhra IX said, glad to have an audience. "I was three different people this morning. Well, two people and a ghost." she waved a shapely hand in a dismissive fashion, counting a ghost as less than a full person. "I've spent all of today fighting stupid robots sent by jackass aliens (and also NPFers), dealing with falling objects and countdowns, performing assinine side quests and now we're in space!" she waved her hands around her to encompass the starry sky. "Space! Also there's a sorceress from the future who is trying to..." she winced. "I can't remember."

"As of about thirty seconds ago, I'm one person who's two thirds dead and still trying to figure out how that last third happened." she hooked a hand and jabbed at her pale chest. "I've got three damaged souls trying to knit together, I'm on the verge of complete existential collapse and the pure angry that has been injected into my soul is not helping this at all."

She looked down at her feet. The floor was crystallising beneath them. "I think I'm going to be sick." she said weakly, starting to sweat.

"Because I know disasters, I have already come up with a way to probably fix that but it's not going to make anyone happy."

"Except possibly me." she added after a moment of contemplation.

She turned and stared right into the red inferno that had started the conversation. "I've got enough on my plate so you'd better not be up to no good." she growled. "I will end you."

"So anyway, welcome to the NPF." she finished in a milder tone. "It's actually pretty nice between the catacylsms."

"Me? up to no good? You hurt me." The strange figure responded, feigning pain and suffering. "Though do you mind if I correct you on one fact? Its not actually pure angry thats been injected into your soul. Its more of a a very powerful being's form was shattered, its pissed, and you have a part of it inside you." It stopped for a second. "To be fair, I do kind of know what its like to have a splintered soul. I feel very... hollow really. Like there is a vast apart of me missing, and I have no way to fill it. Its like this form can only contain so much of me, and yet there is just so much more than what you see."

Then the figure turned to Arhra Nine. "I do have a serious question. Do I sound emo? I really don't need to turn into a sparkly vampire and I don't have veins to cut so I don't think I can be, but talking about how our souls hurt really sounds like we are."

[PyrosNine]

"Why does everyone tell me they love me when all they want to do is get a hold of my weapons?"

Dr. Ethington sighed. There was this strange meta-physical matter in everybody, everybody was attacking everybody in some way, her esteemed colleague had taken over a giant ship, and to put it gently, had put on a few thousand tons (even in space, objects have weight!) like most prima donnas not ready for the big time, and now lab assistant jenkins had escaped his containment cell, said words about no longer being subject to her action science whims, and was shortly to be thrown into the vacuum of space at the nearest burning mass center of local gravity.

Oh sure, furied up and all he was stronger than your average creepy girl hair, but Asheth had used extra conditioner earlier and he found himself shot like a rocket out of an airlock and missing three of his limbs.

Dr. Ethington held up a finger to the so called "Professor" and his cheap parlor trick.

A view screen popped up amongst the Asura's.

"Did any of y'all say Asherah?" She asked, a stain visible on her sciencey outfit she'd forgotten about in the hubbub in making the video call. "No?...Never mind."

The view screen disappeared.

She turned her attention back to Overcast, who was starting to become creepy.

"Listen you, you may be a scientific bastard, but I am an action science bitch of good breeding, and I will have none of your furied attempts to handle the embodiments of my talents! You have not shown sufficient displays of skill to interest me, forged any sort of shared agreement that i would not object to, and you haven't at least brought me chocolate Häagen-Dazs and some pyre roses!"

She took his Mona Lisa and consumed it with her darkfyre, because yes, she could still do that.

"I must ask that you leave immediately, because mon amour n'est pas pour vous!"


* * *

Pyros felt his body hit something, but due to his rather soft and squishy body, he didn't feel it as hard as whomever he hit. He did however, still feel a little sticky, and smelled something sweet.

Eh, whatever. ZZZzzzzzzZZZ

[Astral Harmony]

"Inspection?" Alean asked the ASURAs. "I'm sorry, but we'll have to decline that kind of offer. B-Force, hit 'em!"
"Seems like the negotiations broke down," Rachel said. "If you could even call those negotiations."
"It's seem like whatever that energy hit us with, it's maxed out our Rage guages," Alucard observed. "And I have a feeling that using our Signature Techniques won't make it decrease for the time being."
"Let's experiment, then. Whip out the good stuff, girls."

Alean lead the charge. Her assault rifle suddenly expanded outward ad shifted around to bring all of its weapons to bear. "Signature Technique!" Alean shouted. "Absolute Auto!"
Absolute Auto involved slamming a single target with every conceivable weapon on Alean custom assault rifle. Alean targeted the Type-E ASURA and shot at it with the rifle, grenade launcher, stinger rockets, the flamethrower (which didn't work out in space), buckshot, a light blue liquid that also didn't work, and a foul-scented acid.

Kira whirled her twin tomahawks and unleashed her rage. "Signature Technique! Subzero Surgery!"
This technique involved hitting the target with so much ice magic which could encase the victim in a solid block of ice, then leaving it to Kira to cut that ice apart with her tomahawks, usually ending up in the victim being divided into quite a few parts. She targeted the Type-D ASURA.

Soleen's whole body glowed with volatile magicks. "Signature Technique! Mana Cannon!"
Spheres of magical power filled the open space around Soleen's body. Then Soleen held out her right hand with her left hand supporting it. The energy was sucked into a much larger sphere of magical destruction. Fire magic, earth magic, air magic, water magic, ice magic, lightning magic, and even some unidentified magical elements all went into this attack. Soleen took aim at the Type-B ASURA and launched that ball of elemental power.

Alucard rose into space on white, virginal angel wings. "Signature Technique! Radiant Judgment!"
Alucard's clothing disappeared as she brought her hands to the sky. A beam of light came down upon the Type-A ASURA. From the halo of light high above the battlefield, a massive two-pronged spear rocketed down, shining like pure, polished gold.

Rachel was up last. "Signature Technique! Assault Flash!"
Rachel's speed and reflexes skyrocketed and she was already in the Type-C ASURA's face, employing dagger strikes and various kicks in a flurry on nigh-untrackable movement. Out of all the attacks, Regina's was the least flashy of all.

The group pulled back into a formation to survey their efforts. "Anybody's Rage guages decreased?"
The other B-Force girls shook their heads. This energy that hit the entire crew had put them on a rage high that they wouldn't soon come down from.
"My body's really hot, too." Rachel said, her face flushed. "I really want to do things, y'know?"
The rest of the team, even the underaged Alucard, were all feelings those embarrassing urges. "Try to ignore it for now," Alean told the other girls. "Our ship's still entangled and we may not have even destroyed those robothingies, yet."

[Arhra]

"Me? up to no good? You hurt me." the Strange Robot of Fury and Other Things Apparently replied to Arhra IX, feigning hurt. "Though do you mind if I correct you on one fact? Its not actually pure angry thats been injected into your soul. Its more of a a very powerful being's form was shattered, it's pissed, and you have a part of it inside you." It stopped for a second. "To be fair, I do kind of know what its like to have a splintered soul. I feel very... hollow really. Like there is a vast apart of me missing, and I have no way to fill it. Its like this form can only contain so much of me, and yet there is just so much more than what you see."

Arhra IX put a hand behind her head thoughtfully, scratching the base of her skull. "Are, are you coming on to me?" she asked.

The figure then turned to face Arhra IX. "I do have a serious question." The pale chaos being steeled herself. Here it came. "Do I sound emo? I really don't need to turn into a sparkly vampire and I don't have veins to cut so I don't think I can be, but talking about how our souls hurt really sounds like we are."

Arhra IX slumped a little in diappointment. "You are suspiciously well informed about Earth popular culture for a newly arrived alien from space." she told him bluntly. She was feeling unwell, she did not have to put up with this sort of joke.

"Anyway," she said, drawing the word out. "Since we blew up the Fury containers, I suppose you should thank us for letting the djinn out of the bottle. Are you the three wishes kind by any chance?"

* * *

AB's crew was fighting Arhra V's newly minted ASURA series to determine the fate of AB's spaceship.

"Signature Technique!" Alean shouted, her rifle turning into all of the guns. "Absolute Auto!" She cut loose with an atrocious variety of munitions.

The Type-E was her target, but the Type-A was having none of that. The pink haired support unit flung herself in the path of the bullets, puffs of pink mist spreading in front of her and flattening into a barrier.

Alean's shots bored into it and burst into what looked like sprays of pale pink cherry blossoms.

"My barrier takes all the harm you would inflict and transforms it into harmless flowers." the Type-A announced, the petals blowing past her. The red eyed girl frowned at Alean, folding her arms under her breasts defiantly. "You're not destroying anything."

Sophie's whole body glowed with volatile magicks. "Signature Technique! Mana Cannon!" Elemental magic of all kinds materialised around Sophie, drawing together into a huge sphere. Sophie took aim at the Type-B ASURA and launched that ball of elemental power.

The air around the Type-B's wings shimmered with hungry darkness. "Depletion Zone." the sorcerous robot said, raising one elegant hand.

A sphere of dimmness formed and rolled forward, expanding as it went. A corona of pale light around it was the only thing that made it visible in space. Nearly invisible threads of light tied it back to its caster.

Sophie's elemental sphere entered the forward edge of the field. Light dimmed, fire died, air stilled and water froze. The threads linking to the Type-B became brilliant as energy poured through them. Her Mana Condensate Wings blazed and expanded, filling up with the stolen energy.

Missiles of ice and earth shot out of the back of the draining zone, robbed of some of their momentum.

The muscular amazon, Kira, whirled her axes and released a bomardment of ice magic towards the equally towering Type-D. "Subzero Surgery!" she shouted, racing after her spells.

Barely visible, a dark blur shot in from above.

The spells hit something, freezing instantly into a mass of ice. The shadow of the frozen form inside was off, multiple dark patches instead of the shape of one person.

It then violently exploded.

Someone set her up the bomb.

"Fight harder." the lean, sinister Type-C drawled, floating above. The stubs of her Bomber Knives were lengthening, generating new segments of the sectioned blade to replace the ones she had fired off.

Alucard rose into space on white, virginal angel wings. "Signature Technique! Radiant Judgment!" A beam of light shown on the Type-A ASURA and then a golden spear descended.

"Signature Counter: GRIM EXPRESSION MINIGUN SWING!" the Type-D burst into view, shouting gleefully.

Arranged her features in an appropriate scowl, the Type-D swept both her miniguns upwards, their barrels spinning up. She played the two streams of bullets over the golden spear in a hard boiled manner, tracking the spear's downward plummet until it disintegrated. The fragments that rained down entered the Type-A's pink nanomist fields and became a flurry of petals instead.

The Type-D kept swinging, raking her fire across the rocky and frozen projectiles headed for the sorcerous Type-B ASURA and chewing them to powder.

"Signature Technique! Assault Flash!" Rachel called. Speed and reflexes amped up to ludicrous levels, she moved towards the Type-C's position as a human blur, ready to unleash a series of blindingly fast attacks.

But someone caught her.

Something materialised behind Rachel, arms already wrapped around her. The aggressor's limbs bent upwards and backwards from where they had snuck through between Rachel's arms and her body. Hooked backwards, they effectively pinned Rachel's upper arms.

A low chuckle came into Rachel's ear. "Move as fast as you like. You might as well not be moving at all." the Type-E snickered.

The youthful looking gynoid was armed with a copy of Arhra V's Ouroboros Drive, mounted in the unit on her back.

And she was lying, of course. A key weakness of the Ouroboros Drive was its inability to undo damage to its user that had already happened when it wound back time. But with it, the Type-E had looped back through the handful of seconds the Drive could travel through to assume a position where the final jump would let her appear right on top of the Type-C's attacker.

The Type-C, seeing how her companion was holding Rachel in place, lifted one of her Bomber Knives thoughtfully.

"No stabbing!" the Type-E told her sharply.

"Hmph." the Type-C said, tossing her head. "If she wants to do things, I'll do 'that' then."

She reversed her grip on a knife and tapped it agaisnt her hip as if to sheath it. She rleased it and it stayed in place. She drew that hand over her eyes, iris taking on an appearance of concentric rings. Looking into those eyes promised amazing things.

CHARM

It seemed a rather inexplicable addition to her design.

Sophie found herself ganged up on as well.

"Fall quietly into nothing's embrace." the Type-B murmured, launching out a new Depletion Zone. By enveloping Sophie she intended to interfere with any defences the spell slinging former diplomat could throw up and reduce the speed of the Type-D's bullets to turn them into non-lethal weapons.

"Get shot a lot and give up!" the Type-D shouted on cue, both miniguns whirring up again.

The Type-A was running interference, ready to stop Alean, Alucard or Kira from getting involved.

The tendrils still grasping the ship had entered the second stage of their progres. They were fusing to the hull, veiny distortion creeping outwards from the burrowing cables. The veins spreading across its armour were a sign Arhra V's corruption was starting to take hold. If the crew of the Azure Aesir didn't act fast, their ship wouldn't be their ship any more.