Final Five

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Shrugging off the uppercut to its chin, the Abyssal turned its attention back to Runa and stared hard, as far as an expressionless visage could. Iphie's electric cage briefly caught the creature's focus, though it seemed to immediately recognize the danger present and resolve to move little from its position. A flash of white appeared on the tips of its legs, surging into the ground before disappearing. The surge was followed by a violent shaking in the ground, toppling most the Final Five onto their feet. Ling, able to float, was of course unharmed, and Iphigenia managed to maintain her balance despite the ripples in the ground that surged outwards.

Capitalizing on Runa's prone state, the Abyssal reared up and stabbed down with one of its talons. The black, scythe-like limb pierced straight into Runa's gut, and she could feel it punch out the back end and embed itself into the street. Inhuman blood spurted from the plugged wound in her belly, and while she was conscious, she was in great pain. Already her body began to regenerate however, and it seemed that, so long as that was the only hit the Abyssal could get on her, she would survive.
 
Runa was caught off guard by the sudden quake, and fell flat on her ass, only to be impaled soon after. Human or not, her blood runs the same red as anyone's. Although beyond the blood and her eyes widening in pain, she bore the injury well. Her eyes filled with determination as a predatory grin spread across Runa's face, and she reached up to grip the Abyssal's leg with two clawed hands. The air around her shimmers and she begins to move, floating off the ground enough to get some leverage with her legs and, awkwardly, force herself into a standing position. With a mighty heave, she twisted around and threw the Abyssal away from her, swinging it by its own leg.

She only managed to life it a few feet above the ground, but it's enough. As the Abyssal flies away from her, a fresh fountain of blood is flung from Runa's body right after the limb impaling her. It smacked into a car which it summarily knocked over, but gets sent flying upwards a dozen or so feet after passing through Iphigenia's electric cage, which unwound from the lampposts and encircles around the Abyssal, shocking it. In midair, the Abyssal paused as if levitating and began squirming in the cage before letting out what would be the equivalent to an Abyssal death wail; that is, an increasingly higher pitched whining as energy in the area begins to collapse in on its body.

The Abyssal collapses into a tiny point in the air above the street, going silent and dropping a small, perfectly round black orb that occasionally features a shifting dab of white color along its surface. Runa leaned over, pressing one hand to her wound, not that it would be enough to do much good. Tendrils of flesh were already writhing and growing in a haphazard fashion inside her, as her torn organs and viscera began knitting themselves back together and filling in the void left by her recent impalement. "I-I'll be ok," she quickly managed, with a few pained, labored breaths. "Make sure that thing's down this time." Although she didn't walk so much as stagger back toward the rest of the team, it was clear she was hardly concerned by her visibly horrific injuries. Inconvenienced, yes, but not concerned. She probably wouldn't even comment on her torn and bloodied clothes until someone else pointed them out.
 
The sudden shake that tore up the ground beneath him didn’t prove to be problematic for Ling, but he would have frowned at the loss of footing that affected most of the others. “Ah shit,” he vocalized as he watched, helplessly, the Abyssal impale Runa to the street beneath her. While he didn’t believe that was enough to put the girl down, the Abyssal did have another five limbs. Spheres flared into existence around him as he began to drift forward to get a better shot at the creature given the cage of lightning that he assumed Iphie had created.

His efforts weren’t required though, as Runa handled the situation rather admirably. He watched the Abyssal soar through the air, pausing only momentarily at the cage of lightning. The electricity seemed to snap from the lampposts and ensnare the creature as it continued on its path before abruptly halting midair for seemingly no reason. His shell jerked backwards slightly at the noise that emanated from the Abyssal, a bit surprised at the sudden noise from the otherwise silent entity.

He watched the resulting sphere drop to the ground and bounce several times before it came to a halt against some pieces of rubble. Ling’s attention then naturally strayed towards Runa, though seeing her already in the midst of recovery let him return his focus to the “remains” of the Abyssal. The spheres of arcane energy floated next to him idly, ready to shoot at the slightest sign of danger. Someone else, preferably Tian given he was the hardiest member, could taken care of actually retrieving the object.
 
Relieved of the pressure of the beam, Tian-Gui grinned inside his mask as the Final Five made their counterattack…only to have Runa’s uppercut ignored and Ling’s arcane missiles deflected. Well then. Clenching his fist, he gave a thumb’s up to Kyouko as the badly injured girl rose from the ashes, and rushed towards the Abyssal. If the undying beast wanted to attack, he needed to get into a better position for blocking those attacks, after all. The monster managed to act before the behemoth could meet it, however, and the tremor that radiated from the ground knocked him down, masked face first.

Too slow to recover from the tumble, Final Red could only watch as he failed once again to protect his teammates, one of the six claws of the Abyssal skewering Runa. Another injury that he should have taken in their stead.

But, perhaps, it was best that Runa was the one wounded. After all, while the Final Five had its fair share of weirdoes, amongst them all, she was the only true monster. Countering in a fashion only possible for Runa, the Abyssal was tossed into the air, landing right into the cage of electricity Iphie had created before. And it was only then that the monster was slain, squirming and shaking violently as it was shocked over and over again, until its body collapsed onto itself.

A messy battle. The mask cracked and shattered, disappearing into red dust as Tian-Gui looked at the devastation around them all. There was too much blood that was shed, and too much destruction that was wrought when the five of them had fought against an Abyssal that was only a shadow of the original monsters. He grit his teeth, before taking in deep breaths.

This would have been cleaner if he was stronger, if his body was one that could naturally call upon the power of the Arcane, if he was faster to react and to protect his allies. But as of now, he was still too lacking, despite his big words and his big body. Runa would be fine, because she was a tough, regenerating badass, but Kyouko…

“Iphie, you have a cellphone, right? Call Mason, if you have his number. Tell him that it’d be great if the location of those White Coats could be texted to my phone.”

Striding to the black ball, Tian-Gui picked it up, and was surprised that there was actually a faint pulse of energy from it. Not just any energy, but Arcane energy, a power source that was much removed from the heat energy that the Abyssal had expelled before. It seems like…hm…

“Take a look at this, Ling,” he said, jogging over to the shelled shadow, “Not sure what to make of it myself, but the armor’s reacting.”
 
Fortunately, this time her attack seemed to do the trick. Holding fast, the high-voltage cage kept the creature in its place, seemingly unwilling to test the new restraint that had been placed upon it. This turn of fortune was short lived, however, as the beast changed its style of attack; with a flash and a violent rumbling, the majority of the group were knocked off their feet. By some feat of luck, Iphigenia managed to stay upright, although she stumbled several times before being able to firmly ground herself.

Their fortunes, too, seemed to take a turn for the worse when Runa was pierced by one of the monster’s six bladed limbs, but her tendriled comrade’s quick thinking and determination seesawed the favor of battle right back into their court by flinging it away right into Iphigenia’s purpose-made fence. Unwinding itself in a high-static crackle, it bound itself around the vile creature, quite perfectly electrocuting it to death before the abyssal collapsed in on itself like a dying star. Iphie let out a low whistle; that ended up working out better than she could have ever planned. She supposed it was vulnerable after losing that shell after all.

Approaching the small orb that the beast had collapsed into, she raised an eyebrow as she stopped a safe distance from it while Tian-Gui picked up its remains. It looked small and black enough to pass off as a tapioca bubble from her drink that morning. Briefly imagining putting it into together with another bubble tea drink, she looked up as the tank of the group called her name.

Now that she thought about it, she was the only one of the three girls in the group that was not bloodied and halfway dead. Thankfully, Iphigenia seemed to have come out of that unscathed, without even a food stain on her clothes. Looking behind her shoulder at Kyouko, who had collapsed into a heap again from the abyssal’s waves, Iphie sighed and pulled out her cell phone from her skirt pocket.

“Got it,” she acknowledged, tapping away at the device before making the call.
 
“Hm…” Ling watched curiously as Tian quickly walked over to the dropped object and picked it up, seemingly with no consequence. He did note the miniscule shift with the crystalline armor that still covered most of the other man, a sign that the object radiated some sort of Arcane power albeit incredibly minor apparently. Interested, he raised a hand and caused the arcane projectiles around him to wink out and disappear. He took the object from the armored figure without a sound as the shadow hand enveloped the black ball and rendered it impossible to see.

“You’ve probably already realized it, but there’s minor amounts of energy being expelled,” he muttered as he focused intently and channeled a bit of his own magic through the limb. Small bursts of blue light illuminated his hand and the sphere he held, but ultimately failed to elicit any reaction or change. In the end his abilities weren’t really analytical in nature, ill suited to figure out exactly what this object was. Ling held out his hand, offering the object back to Tian for him to hold onto until they figured out what to do with it. “Can’t figure out anything about it either.”
 
"I'm completely fine! Thanks for asking." She still felt like crap, but not putting up a though front right now would just further reveal her weakness. Ultimately however the abyssal was apparently beat, not without giving off a nerve destroying screech however, it also revealed that the apparently most normal looking girl in their group was some kind of supernatural being too or something! Regardless, getting impaled probably sucked a lot, and thus Kyouko was still asking an already answered question "Are you okay?!"

Getting closer to the group, she also took a look at the orb-thingy that the Abyssal dropped, was it...loot? Meh, considering how much she contributed to the kill there was no way Kyouko could actually examine that thing herself! Regardless, giving a thumps up towards the entire group she proceeded. "Well, we sure showed him who's the boss around here!" Disregarding the stain of blood coming down from her mouth and the fact that all she did was tanking a single hit, the girl put up a wide grin.
 
"What? From this?" Runa replied to Kyouko's concern with a few questions of her own, confused for a moment as she looked down at herself. "Ahahaha....ow..." She couldn't quite laugh it off, even if she wanted to. It still hurt quite a bit, actually. "This is ...well...um, it hurts a lot, but I'll be fine by the end of the day." Her body did continue repairing itself at an alarming rate. that hole wasn't sealed yet, but at least no further blood or other bodily fluids were oozing out of her, either. She grinned and gave the other girl a thumbs-up. Notably, she did at least take Kyouko's claim of being fine at face value, showing no further concern toward her for possible injuries, at least.

"We did, but that really wasn't some easy fight." Just looking around was enough to show that much. Damaged and overturned cars littered the area, the pavement was cracked and shattered, those street lights were probably fused and burnt out... But hey, good triumphed over evil once again. Some sacrifices had to be made. "Still, the heroes triumph once again! Not like doing good is supposed to be easy, right?"

The monster's remains weren't really her concern, at this point. Someone, probably one of their science cadre, would likely snap it up as soon as possible and eventually tell them anything useful about their little trophy. "Man...I didn't know that's what it was like when those things die, with the damn grating noise or turning into some kinda funny glowing rock. Talk about weird from start to finish. I wonder how someone could even catch one, much less stick a bunch of stuff on it without it fighting back." She kicked a bit of the ruined restraint harness/armor the Abyssal was originally wearing. Shoddy piece of work couldn't even stand up to a little teamwork.
 
With the Abyssal vanquished and reduced to a hand-held sphere of arcane energy, the street's citizens began to retreat from their makeshift cover and stumble into the streets, some more capable of walking than others. The Final Five weren't medical officers by any means, and so the task of caring for innocents caught in the creature's wake would ultimately be left for the ambulances undoubtedly on their way.

The grill's occupants too walked outside and surveyed the wreckage before commending the five heroes efforts with sporadic bouts of clapping and cheers. An individual, presumably the manager or the establishment, and the boy who had taken Runa's order, however, were busy groaning over the shattered restaurant window that Tian-Gui felt the need to jump through.

A car came screeching down the street, narrowly missing the immobile vehicles stopped and upturned in the way, before skidding to a halt mere feet from the Final Five. The door to it swung upwards and a helmeted man stepped out quickly, nearly tripping on his own feet.

"Got call about Abyssal on street! Figured it was best of friends who would be there first. Glad that all are alive and well!" Limov Goraya said with a salute, "Do not need to give ride then it seems!" he laughed heartily. Iphigenia's phone call was immediately picked up, and for a short while Mason seemed to be walking through the penthouse on the other end of the phone, searching for Anfisa to answer Iphie's question. He returned to the speaker and said that Yigga would try their best to trace the city's network and find the source of the Abyssal harness project's original location. It would take a few minutes before Iphie was notified on her phone by a simple text detailing an address.

673 Ninety-Third Avenue, City Level 1.
Must take service elevator in any nearby buildings to submarine levels. From there it's on you to find the White Coat center. It's nearby that area though.
--Yigga
 
To the dark suited girl’s surprise, the call connected nearly instantaneously. For the few moments that Mason was occupied, Iphigenia had to wonder how superhuman the man’s response time had to be to answer the phone that quickly, but dismissed the thought as it was likely a job requirement to begin with. Giving a subdued wave of acknowledgement to the new arrival and apparent chauffeur, she pointed with her thumb to the two girls that seemed to need the most assistance before returning her attention to the phone pressed to her ear, nodding as the voice on the other end spoke. She smiled knowingly; she knew that tracing a lead in the Shanhu network was a gargantuan task that was, frankly, a bloody pain in the ass. Well, that was Yigga’s problem for now. Perhaps if she had some time over the weekend Iphie would also have a crack at it, over a nice drink.

Looking down at her phone as it vibrated, her face brightened again as she read the text from the white haired duo. “673 Ninety-Third Avenue, City Level 1,” she called out to Tian-Gui and the others, returning the device to her pocket as she did. “That’s a guesstimate; we’ll still have to search for the White Coat lab.”

As it turned out, because of the little fiasco earlier, the traffic was a bit slower than normal, despite the best efforts of their admirable driver. While Runa and Kyouko didn’t seem to be at risk of bleeding out all over the car’s nice interior, she had enough time to look up the neighborhood, catch up on her emails, and pull up some outdated blueprints of the city planning in the area. Soon enough though, they were in the neighborhood that was as dreary as the pictures depicted it as. Filled with dilapidated industrial warehouse looking structures, the district was not a place to write home about. Looking at the grimy buildings, Iphigenia chose the most abandoned looking warehouse that still seemed to be functioning, and after bypassing a few easy enough electronic locks, they found a rusty, but passable looking service elevator to the underground levels.

Unfortunately for Iphie, if her blazer and skirt were unblemished during the battle, they were certainly dirtied in the exceptionally grimy and wet subterranean levels of the Shanhu sewers. The group had to speak at a yelling volume over all the sounds of rushing seawater, some of which dripped down from above, sullying whatever clothes that was clean before. It felt almost as if the slurry walls of the city were failing, but if that were the case the city would be obviously flooded. The British girl made a point of avoiding damaging the infrastructure, lest they break something critical and drown to death. To make things a bit worse, it was quite obvious that nobody bothered to neither update any of those blueprints nor adhere to city planning rules, because large sewage pipes certainly should not intersect corridors at face level. The chances of actually finding the White Coats seemed rather dubious.

But before spending too much time getting lost in the Bladerunner-esque catacombs of the city, Iphie snapped her fingers. Any lab of reasonable size would draw measurable amounts of electricity from the power grid, and if it was measurable, she could find it. And indeed, a certain few lines drew an exceptional amount of watts from the underground transmission lines, finally leading the group in some manner of an identifiable route until they reached a corridor with a faint glow in the distance. It seemed a bit out of place but a further visual inspection yielded nothing particularly outstanding about it. The large electricity draw from down the hall seemed to say otherwise though, and she motioned down that corridor. Iphigenia certainly hoped it was what they were looking for and not some chump’s weed grow op, because she was really getting miserable down in the sewers.
 
Runa waved to their masked chauffeur when he arrived. The man was a mystery, beyond being an incredible driver, but he fit the team's aesthetics, possibly better than she did. "Hey, you got a tarp or something in there," she asked. "I don't want to make a mess." She wasn't bleeding that much anymore, but it was the thought that counts. "The thing came to us, and we got rid of it. Pretty convenient, huh?" She was still so flippant about her previously grievous injuries. Either she wasn't letting the pain show, or she simply wasn't bothered. It was enough to make one wonder just what she would call "only a flesh wound."

Runa spent most of the car ride alternatively looking out the window, or speaking to the two new members of the Final Five. She had her share of questions, most of them being the usual sort. She was quite curious about whatever superhuman powers both Iphigenia and Kyouko possessed, and was particularly curious about Kyouko, since she had yet to demonstrate anything really impressive. It just made her think she must be really holding something awesome back, what with being the heroine of that prior incident. One couldn't fault her for her enthusiasm, although just because the car ride gave her a captive audience didn't mean she had to try for a rapid-fire interview.

By the time the group arrived at their closest entry point to the city sublevels, Runa looked as hale and healthy as she always did, although her clothes still had those nice holes in them. The change of environment didn't really bother her at all. So what if it smelled a little bad or was a little wet? About the only notable concession was that her hair curled up on itself to avoid dragging through any water. Maybe it was a crumbling, dangerous maze, but there was something about the girl that seemed at home in such places.

Runa quickened her pace as Iphigenia led them along a particular corridor. The woman knew where shew as going, it seemed, though she had no clue how. "I hope there's actual bad guys to bust down here. It'd be really lame if their own creation already killed them all or they ran away or something."
 
“Mm…” was Tian-Gui’s reaction as Ling handed the black ball back. It looked like they would have to consult an expert on this then. Placing it back into his armor, Tian-Gui retracted the lion-headed epaulettes and removed some of the material off his outfit, but outside of that, kept it on. After all, he WAS practically naked, and while it was fine to go nude in front of an eldritch abomination and a shadowy scepter, it wasn’t quite as acceptable now that there were proper girls before them.

Well, it looked like Kyouko was fine, and Runa was recovering like normal. He wondered if the energetic girl also held regenerative powers similar to the tentacle monster, but seeing how blood was still leaking awkwardly from the corner of her mouth…as Tian-Gui approached her, he restrained himself from any hearty back-slaps, and settled for a grin. “Regardless of how fine you feel,” the Chinese hero said, “It’d probably be best if you saw a doctor soon. The longer you put it off, the worse it’ll get, after all.”

“And of course doing good isn’t going to be easy! After we get some free time, let’s do some real training! Gotta build up that strength for the next time we fight something of that caliber, eh?”
Pumping his fist in the air heartily, he declared, “A marathon tomorrow!”

It almost looked like everyone else, who had exited the Fire Ring Grill largely unharmed, were applauding his decision as well, which made him smile even further, before he donned his golden mask once more.

“Do not fear, citizens! As long as the Final Five is present, no monster shall be left unchecked! And now…”

Just on time, Limov’s car danced into the scene, doing fancy drifts and wheelies to dodge over the wreckage of smoking cars, and Tian-Gui saluted to the cheering bystanders. “…We’re off!”

With that, he sat his armored ass in the spacious vehicle, and the Final Five were off, now on a different sort of hunt.

To find the White Coat that made the harness the first place.
~
Following Iphie through the warehouses and the tunnels, for it seemed like the girl knew what exactly she was doing, Tian-Gui regulated himself to rear guard duty, eyes and ears alert to any sort of danger. Runa had fully recovered from her grievous wound, but it still appeared that things weren’t getting much better for Kyouko. Well, if a fight breaks out, hopefully the Japanese girl would understand her limits and take a step or twenty back.

Unbothered by the grimy dampness of the sewers, Tian-Gui’s armor appeared to be untouched by the effects of the sewer, all the slimy grossness simply slipping off the crystalline surface. The rushing water, with its ability to mask sounds, worried him more, but, outside of a few rats scampering in the dark area, it appeared that everything was fine. And, after much walking and a stroke of genius on the genius electric girl’s part, the Final Five eventually reached what appeared to be a corridor lit up by incandescent light bulbs.

“Nice job,” he praised, patting the purple-haired girl on the head, “I’ll take vanguard now.”

With that, he sped up his pace, walking to the front of the group and motioning for Ling to toss him a few arcane charges, just in case a wall was necessary in this area.

“Place seems relatively destruction-free. Though running away…that sounds pretty likely for those bastards.”
 
Finally free of mysterious object, Ling took a moment to survey the situation. Despite a fair amount of property and material damage, there had been no loss of life in the immediate area. No telling if the lesser Abyssal had caused a few casualties on its way here, but he was satisfied with how the confrontation had ended. For the most part he simply took the position of a silent floating statue, unmoving as he watched over the area.

It didn’t take long for Livmov to arrive on the scene, the vehicle weaving through obstacles in its path with nary an effort. He found himself still impressed by the man’s skills and drifted lower to the ground as the car screeched to a halt. The handle was tugged open carefully, Ling bowed his “head” to fit his shell inside the car, and slowly closed the door behind him. The last thing that could be seen was a shadowy claw that quickly slipped inside the car as the door clicked shut.

Like the two he had been partners with for a while now, the damp environment of the city’s underbelly didn’t bother Ling all too much. He simply floated along behind the group alongside Tian as one of their two latest members led the way. While he couldn’t be certain, Ling imagined that she traced the flow of electricity to find their targets given what he had seen of her power. He would ask, but it would have to be at a later and more appropriate time.

Whatever it was that Iphigenia had done, it seemed to work since the group eventually came to an illuminated hallway. When Tian stepped forward to take his position, Ling tapped into his reserves and gently began to lob spheres of energy towards his teammate. The task didn’t really require his focus and thus Ling let his gaze wander.
 
It didn't take long for Kyouko to realize they weren't done yet. And while a training montage with such an awesome hero sounded, well, awesome, it would only clarify the difference in power between her and the rest. Even the other new member had apparently some cool powers or something. Maybe it would be for the best to go along with playing weak? For some reason everyone seemed concerned about her after just one hit. But...fuck that, how could she even consider for even just a second doing that? Was her determination really that weak? No! "I never felt more alive!" Giving him a thumbs up she followed the rest into the car. Yeah, apparently that abyssal was super special awesome and they had to hunt down a scientist or something!

Inside the car, Kyouko would have been more with her own thoughts, that they were about to bust some research person made her question what actually happened to Miku's father, and then about Miku herself, and then her own father...who died, alas, her time of silent peace was disturbed by the rather curious Runa, who was asking questions after questions. With that conversation going on, Runa would get to hear one of Kyouko's self-made honourable speeches about honour AND justice! Kinda avoiding the question about her own super special awesome power, the lab girl would also learn that the red scarf that Kyouko was wearing was very important to her, and a gift from her best friend. Rather sooner than later though, Kyouko was actually about to put an end to this discussion by talking more about her family, which pretty much included that she never knew her mother and, while her father was awesome, died in that accident she resolved. Too her annoyance however, Runa kept babbling on...wow, could this girl read the mood even worse than Kyouko?! Luckily for the brown hair however they soon reached their destination...

"Woooah! That brings back memories! I used to be down here all the time!" The wet environment didn't bother the heroine at all! If anything it made her really nostalgic, though got soon taken back into reality after finding what looked like a super secret monkey lair entrance. Right, some dumb scientist guy who liked to screw around, fuck those people, they were all evil, and Kyouko would teach them justice.

With determination in her eyes, the girl continued to follow.
 
As they pushed forward, the glimmer that Iphigenia had noticed caught her attention again, and it seemed... closer. There was something in front of them. Nary a second was afforded for Iphigenia to shout out to Tian-Gui before he found himself walking straight into something solid and unseen. His head bumped into something metallic right in front of him, lurching him backwards a few steps as the surprise hit him. The 'hallway' they had walked down shimmered for but a second before returning to normal. And then...

The 'hall' before them vanished, replaced instead by a hulking machine whose red eyes looked quite angry. It reared up back, as if trying to size up Tian-Gui before unleashing a metallic shriek. An electric surge pulsed through the robot's arms before it swung at Tian's head. The force of its swing knocked aside the normally immovable hero, throwing him into the wall to his right with a crash.

A series of clicks sounded out, and the robot lifted two rather large and formidable guns from its back and onto its shoulders. A cannon and a gatling gun... both aimed down the hallway with little room to dodge. Already the gatling had begun to spin up its barrels.
 
Tian-Gui smashed into the stone wall, more surprised than anything else at the sudden appearance of the mechanical monster. Bursts of electricity crackled on the surface of his armor as he tasted the blood in his mouth. A combination of carelessness on his part and superhuman strength on the mecha’s part had caught him off-guard, and now, he was pretty certain that something in his body was messed up by it. Swallowing the hot blood, he pushed himself out of the man-sized imprint he was stuck in, just in time to see the White Coats’ mechanized guardian prime up its main weapons: an autocannon and a gatling gun. He recognized the make, that of a modified Metal Shredder LX-50, and snarled.

Eyes blazing with arcane fire, the armored hero clenched his fist as Ling’s magical energy gathered within it, before slamming into down onto the ground, shattering the floor as golden crystals raced towards the creature. A single, massive wall erupted from the stone, standing proudly before the metal beast and blocking off any chance it had of attacking with its modern weaponry. There were gaps to the side and the top though, enough that Ling, Runa, and Iphie could still launch their attacks at the White Coats’ creation while the barricade protected them.

“Looks like that’s what they used to keep them safe from the Abyssal, eh?”
 
Runa grinned like a lunatic up at the mecha guarding the hallway. "Guess we've met the welcoming committee." Tian's quick barrier would make for a safer fight, and she spared to time to flash him another, far warmer smile and thumbs-up, before literally springing into action herself. "Might be," she answered him. "Think it can take us?"

She quickly jumped straight up toward the tunnel's ceiling, showing off her ability to fly this time to keep herself up there. At the very least, it meant shooting at her would keep the others out of the line of fire, and she also had a better angle for attack from above. She appreciated the gaps in the wall, still giving her a solid vantage point from up above.

"Eat this, you damn tin can!" Runa threw one hand forward toward the mecha, firing a burst of gravitons at what passed for the mechanical monster's boxy, red-eyed head. The blast smashed into the mecha's head, knocking it aside and eliciting a brief shower of sparks, as wires and mechanisms in its neck tear. Although the metal casing of the head is dented, it remains fully functional, despite the blow.
 
It seemed, for better or for worse, that Iphie’s intuition had been correct. With the exceptional amount of indicators of high energy usage and the rather odd looking light down the pathway, she was positive that they’d found their mark. Letting Tian take the lead, she pouted as their tank gave her a pat on the head. She could tell he bore her no ill will, but her own pride seemed to take offense to it.

“Hey, I'm the same age,” she protested half-facetiously as she turned her attention back to the corridor, which oddly seemed a bit different from before. The glimmer seemed closer, almost as if some object was being cloaked in front of them. Wait—That was a cloak!


Before Iphigenia could form a sentence to warn their vanguard, he had already collided with the hidden mecha, which quickly appeared after its disguise had been discovered. Taking its combat stance as a cue, she fell back, noting the perfect enfilading fire the hostile bot had along the corridor. Undefended, the entire party would be wiped out within seconds. Thankfully, the quick thinking of Tian-Gui provided them with some form of cover in the form of a wall of stone that allowed ample room to counterattack.

Taking the advantage of this temporary shielding, she followed in Runa’s footsteps and quickly launched an attack against the mechanized warrior’s weaponry in the form of an intense arc of lightning that reached over the wall. The flow of electricity hit the spooling up gatling gun in a shower of sparks. Not immediately enough to disable it, she maintained the connection until the weapon catastrophically failed, having apparently breached the robot’s magazine with her electric charge. The rotary weapon exploded in a buffet of metal bits and sparks, prompting the girl to retreat fully behind Tian’s wall. To Iphie’s delight, it also tore the mechanized abomination’s right arm straight off, depriving the sentry of half its apparent weaponry.
 
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Nothing really caught his attention and Ling only came to a halt since the rest of the group had as well. He ceased charging Tian almost immediately and tilted his “head” slightly at the shimmer that filled the hallway in front of the group. While wary, he was still nonetheless surprised by the machine’s sudden appearance as its cloak dropped. He didn’t manage to do much but watch as the air shuddered from the mechanical shriek and Tian was batted into the stone wall.

Unsurprisingly, Tian didn't go down from such a blow even if looked like he had taken a bit of damage. Spurred into action by the shimmering wall that rose in front of them, Ling’s hands dropped to his side and a number of projectiles formed with the gesture. He watched as Runa and Iphigenia launched attacks of their own, and, unsurprisingly, the electricity user’s attack proved to be rather effective as the ensuing explosion tore its arm off completely. As Iphigenia retreated and cleared the way, he prepared to launch his own attack.

His attacks didn’t have the benefit of running through the machine’s circuitry and parts until they destroyed it from within, but Ling made up with sheer magical might. With a slight twist of his hands, the spheres darted forward, around his allies and the wall Tian had raised, and slammed into the metal guardian. The cannon was ripped from its frame with a single projectile to his surprise and disappointment. “Shoddy,” he muttered as the spheres crashed down on the machine’s body. Armor crumpled, metal bent, and parts failed. Within moments a high pitched whine filled the tunnel before the machine detonated from catastrophic failure; flames bleeding through the open gaps in the barrier.

“That was much simpler,” he declared as he turned to look at Tian, “but are you alright?”
 
"...!" Kyouko was just as much surprised as the rest, and if not for Tian's heroic defensive actions she would have surely died, alas, the armored hero gave them an opportunity! An opportunity Kyouko would have tried to seize, maybe, if not for the swift execution of everybody else. The thing exploded in mere seconds and the brown haired heroine didn't even lift a finger. Was she supposed to feel victorious about this? Maybe. But she did nothing, no, who was she kidding, she wouldn't have been able to do anything.

"...." That wasn't how it was supposed to be. Joining the Final Five was supposed to be totally awesome...and sure, it was, to an extent, seeing all four of them doing those awesome feets. But Kyouko? Kyouko was just... useless.

Shaking her head violently she clenched her fist. Drowning in self-pity would only reveal her not too obvious weakness. Yeah. She was Kyouko Hiruma. The one and only. And that tin can was pathetic enough to be taken out in a mere moment! Hah, even if Kyouko would have been able to use some special killer move, it didn't even deserve to receive it. Right. "Good Job! Though considering how weak it was I am sure more traps will linger in our path!" Convincing herself, Kyouko was full of motivation again, it would take more than just that to break her heroic spirit!
 
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