Final -V- IC

"You're kidding me."

Yep. Nope. Even Iphie was not staying around to tank a railgun shell, even if Valentine Thremont was vane enough to shell her own office. Indeed, she did not have to be told by Tian to make a swift exit; she was already up and leaving, right behind Runa. While she did not have the liberty of flight, jumping down the literal and metaphorical rabbit-hole, she allowed herself to freefall in her escape, with the full intent to stop and bottom out near the end with electromagnetically induced braking against the building's steel frame.

She could only hope that Tian and the building itself could withstand the attack that appeared against them.
 
Jin-Sun blinked underneath his faceplate as warning klaxons began to blare throughout the underground facility. Either Carrie tripped the alarm after the other cyborg's life signs had gone dark, or something was happening up top. He activated his comlink, patching back through to Tian-Gui.

"This is Jin-Sun, there's alarms going off through this whole facility! The hell's going on up there?"

"Valentine poofed. Hypersonic projectile incoming."

"...Shit. I'll never make it back up in time. Headed deeper into the facility, then. Good luck. Try not to get yourself killed. Jin-Sun out."

"Same to you. Take care of the girls." Tian-Gui cut off, closing the channel.

Jin-Sun paused for a moment, shaking his head.

"Fuck. He doesn't think he's going to make it through this, is he?" He ground out as he began to dash through the underground halls, sacrificing stealth for speed now that the facility was on high alert.
 
Fire. Inferno. Streaks of plasma. In the short split second the projectile had to reach the helpless office building, it built up from a distant light to a transient and violent flare of total destruction. Then it hit.

Tian-Gui had established several layers of Flamestone wall at the front, and braced behind them for the inevitable impact as it would undoubtedly break past. Every minute dampening of the force he could manage, the better. It all happened in a split second. Glass and steel bars shattered inwards as a hole the size of a bus began to form. The Flamestone walls crumbled one after the other, and struck into Tian-Gui's outstretched arms, digging his heels into the flooring.

His skid crawled to a halt at the back end of the building, heels hanging over the edge of empty air as his body broke through the glass windows. The bullet span in place briefly before promptly dropping upon the ground. A hole stretched through from one end to the other, enveloped in flames from the sheer heat of the event. The building was gutted on three floors, but remained standing... somehow. Tian-Gui's armor glowed a molten orange, having taken so much force into the arcane suit, and steam emanated from every surface. Either he was lucky, or the building helped him more than he could imagine.

The Final Five exited the building alongside a huge crowd of confused, frightened, and soot-covered office workers. Even as the sentinel reached his comrades, his armor was still aglow, gently. Debris crumbled from the hole in the building, raining down flaming papers and the crushed remains of desks, chairs, and the like.

Brushing themselves off, they had a moment to converse amongst one another before something caught all of their eyes.

To the East rose a swarm of distant but immense objects. They counted in the hundreds, clustered around the unfathomable image of a beast whose size demanded the skies as its own.


Without a doubt, the mythic fleet was the source of the defeated cannon shell. The count, the size, the armor... This unbelievable thing was surely the dominant force of the skies from then on. What they were building was no mere dreadnaught, but a veritable king of the planet's blue skies. Not merely a king, but a tyrant. This is what Heavyware was devoting itself to. Something to rule the world.

The Final Five's communications device opened up, and from it came John's voice.

"How in the seven damn hells did they make that without something slipping?" he growled, "No matter. Just another wall to breach, obviously. With how easy it was for you guys to get into the factory it shouldn't be a problem to reach them there."

"It's not that simple," chimed in Anfisa, "What you don't see is the shield matrix they've got around the whole fleet."

"Shield matrix? An energy shield?" John replied.

"Nothing that mundane. It's far too complicated to explain without a background in quantum physics, but let's just say that the shield is manipulating time in such a way that there's only one thing I know of that could get past it."

"Time?! How does that even make any sense?"

"It's fundamentally the same technology that went into the Mars Styx Accelerator, which is, coincidentally, the only thing that could them past the shield," Anfisa explained, "But it would mean traveling to Mars."

"We have one here, don't we?"

"It wouldn't be able to move them in the right direction, facing away from the Earth's surface. They would need to use it to reach Mars, and then take the one stationed there back... right into the heart of that air fleet." There was a pause before john spoke up again.

"Let's get it done then. Iphie, Tian-Gui, Jin-sun, Runa, Kyouko. You're headed for Mars."
 
Agony.

His bones were creaking, being ground to dust.

His muscles were tearing, mangled like meat through a grinder.

His skin was burning, blackening to ash.

His throat tore itself apart for the sake of a battlecry drowned out by the cannon shell's destructive roar. Those Flamestone walls of his were breached oh-so easily, but Tian-Gui nevertheless refused to bend underneath the pressure. It didn't matter if this was one of the Thremont's secret weapons. It didn't matter if this was stronger than any other attack he had withstood before. It didn't fucking matter, because compared to Lotte's love taps, this was NOTHING.

Two trenches formed beneath his feet as the battering ram continued to push him back. Unpleasant cracks sounded all over his body as fissures formed in his resplendent armor, only to be hastily patched as he lost more and more ground. Dimly, he could feel glass break behind him. Momentarily, he could feel the ground give away below him. And, balancing between life and death, Tian-Gui let loose all the power he could, two jets of flame erupting behind him as he propelled forward, pushing back the bullet with all his might.

It spun. It slowed. And finally, it dropped.

That massive, glowing projectile, warping from its clash with the golden titan, fell from his gauntlets. Its sheer weight drove it through three more floors, before it fell off the other side of the building. A few seconds later, and a resounding boom shook the damaged building, a plume of dust rising up.

Turning around, Tian-Gui let out a hot sigh. This was a different type of pain than that extra dimensional being the Final Five had fought before. This...this was real pain. The pain from a well-won conflict. He swayed, those burning blue eyes flickering in a moment of weakness, but Tian-Gui held on. He wasn't dead.

He wasn't dead, so it was his duty as a hero of Shanhu, no, of the entire world, to continue fighting.

Glowing like the midday sun, he took a step off the hole and fell, landing alongside the others heroically. The impact jarred his fractured leg bones, and agony consumed his mind once again, but...

...that was why he wore a mask.

"Employees of Heavyware Industries," he called out, his white mane billowing upwards from the heat that radiated from his Armorer form, "The Final Five have no quarrel against you. It is the Thremonts that tried to kill us and it is to the Thremonts that we point our Sword of Justice! Leave now and you leave unharmed!"

His voice rang through the gathered crowd, before he turned his attention to the tyrant that rose from the east, a dark sun that blotted the sky. A jolt of true terror ran up his spine, and Tian-Gui swayed.

No, not swayed. He sauntered. Through force of will, he grit his teeth and sauntered up towards Runa and Kyouko. And, biting down his fear, he said, "Well, shit. Looks like Ling Ling really was building a giant robot. Should have painted it red though. Every mech gets stronger if it's red."

Flamestone crystallized inbetween the cracks in his bones. A temporary fix, but one that would have to do. From Earth to Mars and then back again in order to take down a Superdreadnought Mobile Suit, eh? For the sake of taking back the Abyssal Orb that no doubt powered this world-destroying menace?

As blood seeped between his teeth, Tian-Gui grinned viciously.

"Well then, you heard our bridge bunnies! Everyone, time for overtime!"
 
Jin-Sun gazed up at the sky as he exited the facility, his jaw dropping behind his mask at the sight of the massive aerial armada in the eastern sky. That monstrosity of a fleet was even more than he'd assumed Heavyware had the resources to construct.

Locating the rest of the group, he decloaked next to them, folding his arms across his chest.

"Oh, that's great. They're rich enough to build a doomsday fleet." He snarked, trying to cover up his trepidation with sarcasm. "Be nice if they'd invested that money into something useful, like feeding the hungry. Or a Nintendo console with up-to-date hardware for once."

As John mentioned their next assignment, Jin-Sun took a moment to run a diagnostic in his HUD, frowning as he read the results.

Scanning...scanning...

Scan complete.

Operational energy sufficent for 5.72 hours of extended combat.

Right arm damaged. Output lowered to 54%.

Torso armor compromised.

Recommendation: Seek immediate repairs. Overall combat efficiency lowered to 71% of maximum output.

Jin-Sun tapped his communicator.

"While you're at it, you mind sending some method of repairs with the transport? Took some bad hits fighting the other cyborg. Anfisa, I'm uploading my damage report now."
 
Iphigenia made her escape along with the rest of the fleeing office workers. Long before leaving the smoldering building, she had whisked off her singed lab coat, blending in nearly perfectly with the crowd of black-suited men and women. Everybody's survival was thanks to Tian Gui; in a feat nothing short of a miracle, he had tanked the hit aimed for them and survived.

Scanning the crowd on tip-toes, Tian was not hard to find, but after a brief search, found the remaining familiar faces of the team. Using the advantage of the chaos, instead of grouping up with the other members, she stayed within the crowd, using their secure communications line to inform the rest of them. Her attention, however, soon gave way to a spectacle in the sky. A massive cloud… no, a swarm of airships… blotted out the sun. Doing a quick count in her head, she estimated at least a few hundred ships, but that was not even the concern… eclipsing them all was a massive mecha that physically blocked the sun, and it looked primed, ready, and dangerous.

The purple-haired girl was stunned. There was absolutely no way that Heavyware had the industrial capabilities to engineer and deploy a hundred of the ships, let alone the massive titan that made itself the centerpiece of its battle fleet. The size and scale of the fleet was on the level of stellar empires. Hell, their market cap didn't even reflect a portion of the likely cost to build even a few of the ships they fielded in the sky.

Her communications channels quickly lit up. First expletives from John, and then actual information that Iphie could grasp. Unfortunately, she wasn't a weapons engineer nor a quantum physics major, so much of it was lost on her. "Can't we just upload a virus to it? Like in Independence Day? …No?" The British girl wasn't too keen on traveling to Mars, but she wasn't keen on fighting head-on what appeared to be a rogue super corporation bent on world domination, either.

"…Regardless. I think it's time we high-tailed it out of here."
 
Runa left with the others, although she didn't bother walking, as she was already in midair. As seemed to be usual, she carried Kyouko in her arms, as the other girl lacked convenient means of getting around that didn't involve vehicles. She landed a safe distance away, and set Kyouko down, then looked up to survey the damage.

"Damn, crazy motherfucker actually did it..." She wasn't going to just admit to Tian that she doubted his ability to be completely indestructible, but to catch something like that attack was a feat, even for him. Hopefully, he was alright...he couldn't exactly heal the way she could, and she knew there wouldn't have been enough of her left to regrow from, if she'd tried that stunt.

Then she kept looking up. There was no way something like that could exist. A gigantic robot that dominated an already over-large fleet of airships. It was just too goddamned cool. Any concerns of the expense of such a thing, or the ability to hide it were swept away by the mere fact it existed. If things weren't like the comic books before, they were now, and Runa couldn't be happier. Of course, in her current form, she couldn't exactly blush and smile with excitement, so she only did so internally.

"Yeah, probably time to leave," she agreed. "Although...couldn't a sufficient gravity well alter local spacetime enough to defeat a shield like that?" Some things, she seemed to understand too well without needing to think about them. That didn't make her right, or even able to properly explain the maths behind what she could do, though. She also wasn't likely to try just flying right up and then making the equivalent of a black hole.

"So, how're we going to Mars, anyway," she asked the others.

When she could get to Tian more discreetly, Runa did also have a few things specifically for him. "Man, I don't know how you do that sort of thing. Like, it was totally cool and all, but are you okay?"
 
It was coming. Fast. Just like the others, Kyouko had to get out of here - any thooughts about some suicidal heroic defense maneuverer easily overshadowed by Tian.

As she looked down the hole, the brunette quickly made a plan for herself, but doubted her own abilities long enough to allow Runa to simply take the initative. "H-H-Heeey!" The girl complained as they quickly descended towards the bottom - safely.

Following the others outside under what seemed like an earthquake from above, Kyouko was about to complain to Runa as her attention was drawn towards the sky. "..." Gaping in awe, any sort of negativity was gone upon the sight she beholded, not even caring about the implications such a doom-fleet was making. "Why do the bad guys always get the most awesome stuff?"

Having nearly forgotten about the heroic Tian, she was soon taken back as he appeared besides her and Runa. Kyouko did not doubt his defense and was, in fact, surprised about the damage he took. Or maybe the girl was simpy not about how much destruction the shell could have really done if not for his heroic intervention.

"Want me to patch you up?" She asked him while quietl adding in thought 'or at least try.' That they were going to mars was obviously great too... .
 
Of course... even being the Final Five, preparing to go to Mars took time.

Though technology was like a runaway train on Earth, the fear of the outside universe had driven mankind to focus on bolstering their lonely homeworld into an impenetrable bastion. After the Mars Failure, one was even less inclined to develop space travel. To get up past the atmosphere, one needed a specialized and rare transit system, or to jump from the side of an upper-atmosphere commercial jet and hope your momentum was enough to break past the atmosphere. Strapped to Tian-Gui's back, perhaps, they might have been able to do it, but John preferred a less extreme method, especially after the recent incident. He was overruled.

After a bout of cooling Tian-Gui's armor and repairing Jin-sun's otherwise too-complicated-to-repair systems, the Final Five were ready for their space ride. Utilizing a private Courtlandt thermospheric private jet and some boosting from Runa's gravitational manipulation and the rocket-propelling abilities of Tian-Gui, they had themselves a plan.

Decked out in spacewalk suits that were, in the end, not too much bulkier than regular clothing, the Final Five found themselves on the approach of the Mars Styx Accelerator. It was a dark, long, vaguely triangle-shaped piece of space debris, apparently still capable of functioning despite its appearance. Drifting slowly towards it in the vacuum of space, they were hailed from the ground by John.

"Remember. Follow exact instructions. This thing can pull of shit you can't even imagine, despite being built for one thing only if you press the wrong buttons. Who the hell knows what it might do now that it's untended." As they got closer, the size became more apparent; it was about the size of a larger warehouse, seemingly capable of housing some operators and any necessities they needed, along with the rest of the bulky machinery that powered it.

"Its solar cells should be full considering it hasn't been used. Charge time to launch time should be pretty quick," John continued. Eventually the Final Five made it to the smooth 'top' of the Accelerator, just beside a hatch that took a couple motions to unlock. Inside the pressure chamber, they waited for the atmosphere to return to normal before removing their helmets.

As they made their way through the interior, using flashlights to maneuver the pitch-black halls, they came upon the launch chamber, shaped like a flat rectangle with a circular ceiling and floor towards the center. Upon the curved section rested a rail system that carried a box that looked not unlike a large cargo container.

Whoever was designated to operate the controls did so, and they boarded the box as the systems jolted into life.

Mars Styx One. Online. Starting critical systems for life support. Engaging power feed to station blocks.

Lights flickered on and a whirring sound rose from the electronics around them. The door to the box opened with a swish as they pressed the button for it, revealing an industrial interior complete with torn leather seats and safety buckles.

Aligning accelerator with Mars Reception Base.

The station shook as propellants began to turn the station towards the unseen planet. The Final Five took their seats and awaited the impossible journey.

Launch sequence initiated. Final checks complete. Engaging charge of tachyon conversion accelerator.

The final Five felt a vague tingling sensation as the whirring sound grew more and more deafening.

Launch in ten...
three, two, one. Launch ini-

There was a sudden and powerful lurch as they accelerated, and just as soon as it had appeared, it vanished without any sense of gradual change. Sound seemed to disappear, and the vehicle shook. Then... blackness. Where once the group was situated in seats spread across the vehicle, they now found themselves standing in an empty blackness with no transition. Still... it felt in their minds as if they were moving forward, stationary as they were in the void.

There was a ripple in the blackness beside them. An image bled forth, shimmering like a sunlit ocean's surface from the perspective of a soaring bird.


They could see the side of a woman, facing away. Black hair of great length sat gently at her back, and she seemed drearily focused on something they could not see from their realm. As they looked on, the reflection seemed to take notice.

Their realm twisted once more, and they found themselves standing upon the precipice of infinity. Black platforms floated in empty space unto eternity, and upon the horizon stood a monumental hell of fire and steel staring angrily upon their point in space. A chime rang behind them, unveiling an old foe.

The otherworldly entity stood at the other end of their platform, eyes the same white, turbulent flames as before.
 
"Yeah," Tian-Gui replied as Runa and Kyouko approached him, "I'm totally fine. Being the bastion of justice and all that, it'd be pretty pathetic if this alone was enough to take me down, eh? Lotte will probably be laughing her ass off, wherever she is, if I complained about this much."

With those few lines, the golden giant took the lead once more...at least until Iphie offered up her private jet for their trip to outer space. His armor was still sizzling, of course, but they had some time to make preparations and Tian-Gui spent most of it in a cooling vat, safely expelling some excess energy while Jin-Sun got his own repairs done. The rest of them were all fine and healthy, and that was all that really mattered. Everyone needed to get into tip-top condition for their clash against the world-destroying mecha, after all.

They could spare no expense at this point.

Over his already bulky armor, the extra-extra-extra-large spacewalk suit made Tian-Gui look like the Michelin Man as he bumbled in the vanguard of the Final Five. With how hilariously clunky his fingers had become at this point, the fat white blob was more than willing to let everyone else manage the Mars Styx Accelerator. An alarming creak sounded as he sat down on one of the leather seats, and, for a moment there, he was almost afraid that it would break under his weight, but thankfully, it held.

Now, he could just take a short break. Close his eyes. Ignore the pain. Recover a b-

What had been darkness was replaced by the presence of a raven-haired woman, eyes marred with…grief? Despair? No, something deeper than that, something that made him want to fight with all his might. An inconceivable 'distance', just as profound as the 'death' he had experienced in the face of that massive projectile.

Before he could reach out, however, that fragile reality of his changed once more, an alien landscape forming before them. An alien landscape and the appearance of the same floating entity they had faced off when they investigated that underwater lab.

The Intangible Psyker, capable of hopping between dimensions and mentally assaulting them all.

Was this its home dimension? Or was it just eager to fight them again? Regardless of what was up…

"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOU!"

An image of the Thremont's massive mecha flashed in his mind.

"FLAMESTONE ROCKET PUNCHH!!!!"

Four jets of flame erupted out of Tian-Gui's right forearm as his gauntlet separated from the rest of his armor. Flying in a corkscrew, it shot through space with the force of a battering ram, ready to smash apart this roadside interference.
 
Jin-Sun grumbled as he put the poofy, white spacewalking suit over his cyborgized frame. He was reasonably sure that what was left of his organs, not that there were many left, were fit for space operations considering that they were vacuum-proof beneath his armor. If they ran into trouble while outside, the suit would only get in the way. Well, the lack of gravity would too, but that was a concern everyone would have to deal with.

As the launch began, Jin-Sun sat back in his seat, calling up a quick diagnostic of his systems. Everything was in working order and at 100% output after his repair, so he closed the process on his HUD with a satisfied nod as the countdown reached one...

...And blinked only to see the world around him twisted into some sort of hellscape. A woman appeared, only to be replaced with some sort of eldritch entity.

"Wha-" Jin-Sun began, only to be cut off by Tian-Gui.

"WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YOU!"
"FLAMESTONE ROCKET PUNCHH!!!!"

"...What." Jin-Sun muttered flatly under his breath as Tian-Gui suddenly launched an assault. The cyborg ninja drew his sword, glancing back at the rest of the Final Five for confirmation to engage this foe that they seemed to know, but he didn't.
 
Runa insisted she didn't need a spacesuit, but after much protesting and argument, was squeezed into one anyway, as the alternative was her running around naked while out of her armored form. She still didn't really need it; the rigors of space posed no challenge to her, even if this was a much faster way to actually get to Mars than just flying on her own.

She definitely wasn't the one to trust with any delicate start-up procedures, but she'd do her best if she absolutely had to start flipping switches and turning dials, because someone had to. Just as long as the instructions are thorough. The actual state of the systems and transport didn't worry her at all. it was old, unused, but going to work, or they wouldn't be bothering with it. Or so she justified it to herself.

The sudden transition brought an obvious question to Runa's lips. "So, is this just what happens when you use this thing?" The equally sudden transition from a black void to a glimpse of someone just brought more questions, though she left them unspoken. Who was that woman? What had her so upset?

And then their world changed again, and the Five were face to face with an old acquaintance. Tian wasted no time in delivering a fine greeting. Runa actually paused a bit to explain things to Jin-Sun. "Oh, we ran into that thing earlier, before you were on the team. Of course, that was underwater and stuff." She addressed the other figure directly, next. "So, I guess you're not just some weird security system or research project, whatever you are."

She took a little time to prepare, merely concentrating gravitons in an area for a larger than usual blast. They had enough trouble with this thing last time, but maybe it wouldn't be as bad this go-round.
 
While Iphigenia initially aligned herself with John in being not too amenable to the plan, it took some time for her to warm up to the sheer absurdity of the plan and having to pull one of her corporate jets out of the line of service for their little endeavor. While she wasn't enough of a miser to throw a fit that insurance didn't cover such antics if the aircraft was destroyed or damaged, such fleeting sentiments were compounded enough on top of the other equally reasonably objections she had. Seeing that she and John were soundly overruled by the rest of the Final Five, however, she had sighed and relented.

Unfortunately, Iphie's woes did not end there. Not alone in her complaints, she found the spacesuit that was foisted onto her wholly uncomfortable. Floating out into space was never on her bucket list, but she supposed that she could write it onto there and check it off now. John's statements were not very reassuring. Despite having a team of scientists and engineers within their organization to look the operation over, and even getting a personal reassurance as to the Accelerator's capabilities from a Standard Electric aerospace engineer, John's repeated statements of 'should be's was not very conducive for a good mental state.
Deciding that she was the most qualified individual amongst the five to follow the instructions and operate the control systems, Iphie took it upon herself. Tapping away at the buttons and electronic interfaces necessary to launch the accelerator, the purple-haired girl strapped herself into a torn leather seat as she finalized the system for an automated countdown and launch. She nearly held her breath in anticipation as the countdown ticked to one, closing her eyes, feeling the acceleration of the craft…

Then, suddenly nothing. Did the vehicle malfunction? Iphie opened her eyes. But before her was not the interior of a space vessel or station; instead of the worn leather seats that she was sitting in mere moments ago, she found herself along with her colleagues in a pitch black void. A flash of a woman's face, and then fire and brimstone. Iphigenia immediately recognized the malicious entity that once again appeared before them. Like Runa and Tian, she didn't hesitate to strike against their old intangible foe, forming a spear of lightning in her hand.

"Wow. Sod off, please."

With a single throw, the brilliant spear flashed off.
 
"Do we really need those things?" Kyouko complained as her small frame made itself more or less comfortable inside the space suit "I still can't believe we're really going into spaaaace!" She quickly added joyfull. "I wanna take pictures, is my phone enough or should I have gotten a space cam or something?" Sure, she had some doubts considering how abandoned the complex looked, but ultimately, it was supposed to work, no? Not to mention it was more thriling with some risk anyways.

Putting herself into position inside what looked more like a giant cargo container, the brunette complained. "They don't even have windows in here!" Clearly, Kyouko wasn't yet completely aware of how that machine was actually functioning. Regardless, a small laucnhing sequence later, they were finally about to go to Mars.

...

Or so she thought. "...?" Was the sudden change of scenery supposed to be like that? Just as the face of a woman only increased her confussion, she quickly realized something was clearly wrong as they were confronted with anold enemy again. "You..." The girl murmured as she gulped some fearful memories down her throat. Her fear quickly replaed by confidence as she could feel her own powers somehow being enhanced. "NEED ANOTHER BEATING?" With those words the girl, too, charged towards their foe.
 
The collective assault of the Final Five, even as the entity stood stone still, fell flat on the defenses of eldritch power. Fists disintegrated in midair, bolts coagulated into tiny balls and popped like bubbles of soap, and charges were met with a forceful wave that knocked one to the ground. The entity remained untouched. Lifting a hand towards the Final Five, it seemed for a moment that in this realm their hopes at victory were nullified, and that their time of heroism had come to an abrupt, unexpected end. A vision of annihilation flashed before them, and they glimpsed something not unlike the endless existence of being one with a greater power.

The hellscape upon the horizon flared, and a mechanical, angered sound wracked the otherworld. The black platforms they stood upon rippled as if having suddenly been turned into a gel, and the shadowy body of the entity before them was stripped away momentarily. They sensed a feeling of protection, though there was little to show it. The otherworld began to break in parts nearby, revealing images of the Accelerator shuttle just outside, as if this world had veiled them from the outside.

The entity regained its form and shuddered with what appeared to be fury. With a wave of its hand, a black miasma surged forth for the Final Five, running along the black platform like a wall lifting from its surface. As the Final Five dodged the arcane energy, the hellscape beyond flared once more, and the Final Five were accosted by individual visions alongside a feeling of invigoration. Something was spurring them to victory.
 
"Im-incredible!"

Against their onslaught, the entity was unscathed, having perfectly dealt with every one of their attacks. For a moment, Tian-Gui almost thought of that feat as 'impossible', but he bit down on that fear. How many times in the past had he tanked an attack that others had thought was impossible to withstand? This monster, now that it was in its home dimension, was no doubt stronger than before, perhaps even invulnerable. But the golden titan stepped forwards once more, in front of the prone Kyouko.

Visions of annihilation rushed past him. His bones broken. His Flamestone shattered. His blood pooling beneath him. All hope lost.

But he was the vanguard of the Final Five, their greatest shield, and, if it wasn't hope or confidence that allowed him to stand before that interdimensional ghost, it was his steadfast conviction that did. The deathblow was coming. He could sense it as clearly as his own heartbeat. John will have to find another way to deal with the Thremont's deathbot. A new Final Five will have to be recruited and trained. But they undoubtedly will.

After all, in a world of 7 billion individuals, there will always be others to carry on the legacy, others with stout hearts and a passion for justice.

But that deathblow did not come, and instead, the hellscape cracked, fragments crumbling like eggshells, revealing the reality that it cloaked. The Accelerator shuttle. The path that they sought. Something was guiding them once more, something was protecting them. The same something, perhaps, that pulled that monster out of their dimension in the past.

The black miasma came, but this time, Tian-Gui was the one that withstood it. His armor was crackling, overcharged once more as the energy seeped into the Flamestone, fracturing it. A hundred screams tore through his mind, his azure eyes flickering erratically. It was the same nauseating sensation as those psychic attacks before, but that…was fine.

He could see it. The light at the end of the tunnel, softly blinking, the sole light that lit up the blackness.

He could see it, and he could reject it. Because time was up for others to protect him, to guide him, to inspire him. No, for the members of the Final Five, for the rest of the world, that light was himself. And so…

"I'll clear the path," Tian-Gui declared, the fog dispersing as a blazing aura burst from his armor, "so the rest of you, get past that monster and back into reality. We still got a giant mecha to dismantle, after all."

With a deafening boom, Tian-Gui purged his armor, maintaining only enough to cover his body in a slim suit. The scattered pieces rotated around his raised fist, before locking together, sharpening into a massive spear. And then, with a crunching, crushing sound, it compressed further, turning from a great lance into a spear. His face tensed with concentration, even as his vision swam, but even so, Tian-Gui smiled.

"Hey, monster, remember this?"

White flames encapsulated him, as he charged forwards, empowered by flaming radiance.

"FINAL FIVE FINISHER!!!!"
 
The failure of their assault left Runa perturbed. Just what the hell is this guy, she asked herself. And more importantly, what did it want with them. This was the second time the Five had encountered the strange being, and it had still failed to communicate any intent or reasons behind its actions.

The waves of despair threatened to crush Runa's psyche, drowning her in hopelessness and oblivion. She almost let herself go, before a vision broke into the absolute blackness of whatever psychic attack had washed over her. Runa couldn't recognize any of it at all, it didn't look like anything she had ever seen before, and yet she felt a strange longing and certain confidence, from what she had seen.

Pulling herself together, Runa once again faced down the enemy from beyond. "If you're not even going to try and talk, just go away, already!" Tian gave her a clear objective, rushing forward with the usual reckless disregard for any amount of safety. Charge on ahead, huh? Well, it was worth a shot. She shot forward, flying low to the ground right behind Tian, to swerve away at the last moment, angling for one of those cracks in the strange reality that had become the battlefield.
 
Their assault was in vain, as if it was toying with the heroes merely for its own pleasure, Kyouko was soon overcome with a terrible feeling of dread. A similiar feeling she had felt only two times so far - not too long ago. Regardless of what her heroic senses were telling her and how much guts she had, her entire frame simply didn't want to listen. "Stop..." She whispered in pain. The brunette felt tiny, afraid and cold as she was uncontrollably shaking all over. Images far worse than the nightmares that haunted her since the death of her best friend flashed before her eyes as she fell to her knees. "STOP IT!" She yelled out again, well aware that nobody was there to help here - or so Kyouko thought.

"...?" It was just a brief moment, merely a fraction of a second, yet long enough to imprint a clear image into her mind. A gentle feeling of security returned to Kyouko as she wondered who the woman, which gently smiled upon her, could have been. After all, it seemed like the same person they witnessed mere minutes ago. "..." Slowly regaining her senses, Kyouko finally stood up as she scanned her broken surroundings.

Understanding their situation, more-or-less, Tian quickly took charge of the situation, giving them clear instructions on what to do. "See you on the other side!" While he might have seemed suicidal, Kyouko did not doubt him at all - her model would survive. With that, all the girl could do was simply run.
 
"Ah, shit."

The reaction of the purple-haired girl was quite subdued for witnessing the attacks of her and her fellow teammates bounce and fizzle away ineffectively against the ethereal entity. Even in their glorious display of absolute firepower, nothing happened; in the end, their most concentrated efforts looked like little more than fireworks popping away in the vastness of the night sky.

A vision of utter destruction flashed across Iphigenia's mind. An omen of annihilation; a discontinued existence. Her name would be the last in the world. Agony.

With all that Iphie had accomplished, with everything that she had built and history her name had created, was it all about to end here, ignominiously to an enemy she did not know? She could not prepare for it. She would not. She beached herself, battered against the visions of doom, slowly being whittled away by a tsunami of despair.

But then there was hope. The visions of hell around them gave away, cracking and fragmenting away to once again reveal their anchor to reality. She glimpsed the white interior of the shuttle. The ugly, cracked leather of the seats they sat on, and she caught the glow of the panel that she had operated mere moments before.

The chance spurred Iphie on. A feeling of comfort slowly washed over her as she experienced another vision; a silhouetted council stood before her, as if in judgment. Perhaps a frightening vision on its own, nothing but positivity radiated out. She blinked again into reality.

"I understand, Tian. You better be right behind us!"

With that, Iphie, too, dived for the fractures in space.
 
Jin-Sun readied his sword and prepared to attack the otherworldly figure alongside his compatriots, but staggered as it emitted a pulse of force, knocking the Final Five to the ground.

Visions of doom passed through his head. The Final Five slaughtered here, the Thremonts running amok, their fleet unchallenged. More people snatched up to be converted into the triplets' cyborg assassins. Was this it? Was this as far as he could go?

A final vision appeared before him. A shadowy figure with metallic augmentations unfailingly identifying them as a cyborg, spurring him on. Right. Of course. He couldn't fall here. Not until the Thremonts were brought to justice, at least. He owed that much to those who came after him, those who were snatched and tortured because of the data gathered from his own successful conversion.

Jin-Sun rose to his feet, offering Tian-Gui a casual salute as he gave them the barest outlines of a plan.

"Taking all the fun for yourself?" He quipped, already starting to dash forward. "Just for that, I'll have that mecha torn in half before you can even get a hit in."

And with that, he too sprinted for the exit.
 
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