Faith: 5, Hyper[R]
Minato: 5, Hyper[3]
Noriko: 6
Shef: 6, Hyper[3]
Yoake: 4, Hyper[R]
Yuki: 4, Hyper[4]
The Man of Steel: 5, Resolve
So Minato and Satoshi just blaze through the spikes, explosions and kinetic impacts buckling and blasting apart the metal as gunfire traces all around them, flashes of silver plinking off of Minato and blasting into Satoshi, not that it stops either. Minato leaps into the air, tendrils interlocking into a shield to block the crimson beam. Even before the beam had fully dissipating, those same tendrils were lashing out, trying to force the Man of Steel through Shef's portal. He, couldn't block the whole beam. Some of it slipped through the cracks, burnt away at his frontal armor. Mech's still functional, though its front will be weak till it deals with the heat.
Speaking of Shef, he seems to have decided that he really can't be bothered dodging, like at all. So when the .454 Casull rounds, explosive and cored with steel launched at him out of 10 inch barrels wielded by limbs of blood and shadow, he simply stood there and
relaxed. Focus broken a spell snaps, the only thing holding close a portal, and like a trap being sprung it tears open in front of him, sending the bullets right back to sender. Unfortunately, it does have the side effect of rendering his own portal a bit off the mark, not helped by the rather poor visibility amidst the clusterfuck of spikes.
Yoake meanwhile halts time leaping into the air, blazing upwards. It's straining, this technique of hers, she has yet to master it. A split-second is all it buys. Enough to evade the spikes, enough to dodge the missile, but not enough to close in, not before time resumes. The brutal hammer swings fowards, parrying her metallic backside, the metallic arm wielding it shuddering and glowing from the impact while her own mech's armor buckles and crumples. Damage reading race out across her interface, it's nothing critical but her guns have been banged up. This thing's not quite built for full-on supernatural combat. Good thing she doesn't need it to win.
This clash meanwhile proves to be the perfect opportunity for some good old fashioned impaling. The first spear, or perhaps more accurate telegraph pole-turned-shiv crashes into the Man of Steel's front, the trip drawing blood, but the bulk of the mass being kept at bay by those shadowing limbs. The next two find themselves blocked similarly. Enough to pressure him, enough to try and halt his momentum, but not enough to do enough damage. It might be time to break out the enchants.
Still having a pinned foe is just what Faith wants, better yet for the explosions of light of the combined assault to mark her target amidst the dust and debris. Dodging explosions of silver Faith brings an orb of purple energy into her hand. A pillar of light rising from it, twin helices trace and converge inwards forming a needle-like spear shifting from an influx of divine magic. To be honest, she had no idea how to throw a fucking spear. To be fair, it hardly mattered, the magical practically propelling itself, all those feelings bottled up inside her surging forth as a hateful murderboner that crashes into Stalin, blowing away his right shoulder and everything attached to it as radiant lines trace outwards from the wound, Noriko's spear on that side managing to drive deep just that little deeper in the instant its prey falters.
Darkness and blood explode out of the wound, a formless mass dotted with paranoid eyes and desperate human mouths, it shifts and stabilizes, becoming that little more distinct, that little less formless, the vague silhoulette of a great bear, grabbing hold of the sickle, and scything forwards into the teleporting, flaming, and now-shieldless Yuki.
Or rather, into the girl in front of her. Almost through her really, the sickle managing to cleave down Satoshi's left shoulder and into her heart. Lips stained with her own blood, breathing through ruined lungs, Satoshi stares at her hands, now drenched in her own blood. As if in shock, as if in disbelief. Her expression darkens becoming unreadable. What was going through her mind now? Pain? Anger? Was there anything in it at all? Or was it just raw animal instinct? It's impossible to tell. But then she leans forwards, ever so slightly uttering words in almost a whisper.
"It takes more than that... "
"What?""It takes more than that to kill a bullmoose!"A needle thin lance of force slams down through the bear as a magic circle traces below the Satoshi drawn in her own blood, a circle depicting not runic scripts nor esoteric geometry, but rather a great bird of prey, wings outstretched, thirteen arrows grasped in its talons. In an instant the regalia expands into a great pillar, blasting apart the beast, and in an instant, it collapses back into the form of a staff. A staff of shimmering silver atop which a star spangled banner billows defiantly.
Warning! Godforged Regalia activation detected! "Tch, a cheap trick."The Man of Steel begins to reform the bear using it to reach for Yuki's fallen provisions as he sweeps his eye beams across everyone near him (which is basically everyone other than Shef and Faith). The missile launcher rises again from his remaining shoulder aiming to discharge its payload into Yoake at close range while its wielder with a burst of speed, and apparently powers of flight launches backwards, aiming to disengage as more shadowy limbs emerge filling the air around him with exploding bullets.
Faith
Status: Fine, HEAVENLY AEGIS x2, Negative Emotion mode
World Line: 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 3 1 1
Alterations: 2
Resolve: 2
Minato
Status: Fine (but his mech's head is slightly damaged and its frontal armor is partially melted and currently weakened by heat), Chou Henshin active for one more turn, Durandal, 14 stockpiled units, furious
World Line: 3 4 4 1 2 6 1 4 4 6
Alterations: 1
Resolve: 3
Noriko
Status: Fine, HEAVENLY Aegis, sexually frustated for three more turns
World Line: 4 4 6 4 1 5 6 1 1 6
Alterations: 4
Resolve: 3
Shef
Status: Fine, HEAVENLY AEGIS, 8x Cache
World Line: 2 2 3 4 5 5 6 1 4 1
Alterations: 3
Resolve: 3
Yoake
Status: Fine (but her mech's rear has crumpled somewhat and the guns are somewhat damaged), HEAVENLY AEGIS, 9x Heat Butt
World Line: 5 6 5 5 1 3 3 2 4 3
Alterations: 2+
Resolve: 2
Yuki
Status: Physically fine, GUIDANCE OF THE MOON, afflicted with a curse that leaves her short on breath, on fire, naked, berserk
World Line: 1 4 4 6 5 4 2 3 2 4
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
Satoshi
Status: Quite hurt, no meaningful wounds
The Man of Steel
Status: Left shoulder and arm have been blown off and replaced by a bear-like mass of blood and shadow that is currently reforming, light spear wound to the left side, right metallic arm is beginning to glow due to Heat Butt, Piercing Insecurities
Satoshi
The 26th President of the United States of America, armed with kinetically enchanted flagpole that can alter its own dimensions. Well-versed in multiple martial arts and possessing willpower so strong it crystallized into a Godforged Regalia.
Godforged Regalia - The Strenuous Life
Godforged Relia of Theodore Roosevelt, increases relevant parameters of its wielder and all their allies to counteract all negative factors against them.
Think of The Strenuous Life as a kind of build rounding effect. It boosts your traits to combat negative factors. For instance, it would act to raise Faith's close quarters capabilities if she has to fight up close, and act to increase Noriko's resilience if she takes a hit. Or y'know, increase Roosevelt's ability to run around despite being asthmatic and continue giving speeches despite getting shot in the chest.
Yuki's Aegis shattered since nothing was done about her being on fire. She's also still short on breath which slowed her teleport by a fair bit, though at least now she might be able to break the curse through sheer refusal to let it affect her. Though it's probably still going to be way quicker to just, break it using her own magic.
Yoake's Eternal Moment just randomly terminated a bit early since she hasn't fully mastered it yet. The more frequently its effect is used in a short timeframe and the longer its supposed to halt time for, the more likely it is to do an imperfect stop. Of course evenw ithout it Yoake's pretty fast anyway, especially with nitro.
Minato's Aegis took the hit for his mech, but Yoake's didn't for hers. This is mainly because Minato's mech plugs into his Regalia and is more supernatural, whereas Yoake's is more a high-tech non-supernatural piece of military hardware.
Satoshi's move for this turn was Technician[3] dual cast (R) with Cross Counter[6] and to use all three spirit injectors. Noting that here since I know Strider likes to get info on NPC movesets. Her Godforged Regalia, barely did shit this turn actually, and her being able to function despite all that damage is more because her specific stat descriptors while being basically mechanically identical to that of someone like Minato, are written such that it's not taking less damage but instead being affected by damage way less due to being a willpower-based reality warper. Hope I didn't make her hog the spotlight too much this turn, but I did want this to be memorable if only for the meme potential.
Noriko would've taken a pretty nasty hit thanks to her 6, but Minato took the hit for her.
Piercing Insecurities would've been more devastating if it weren't for Stalin's weird physiology and the fact that it wasn't blowing through enhanced flesh and bone so much as it was plowing through compressed blood and shadow stored within a vessel of flesh and bone.
Don't bother healing Satoshi, there's a blanket allied NPC safety guarantee because you should not be responsible for dumb decisions and mistakes on their part. She's got a self-heal anyway.
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Topic: Tengoku no Owari SI IC: Yuki Is (Not) Fine (Read 226708 times)