Empiricist

[Now Playing: Emiya] A gunshot, a flash of light, and the crash of thunder. And then, silence. Silence in your head. Focus Immanuel. Focus damnit! It's hard, hard to see, hard to feel. You watch on, an observer trapped in a stranger's body. There's no pain, searing agony, just numbness, silent numbness. Focus... focus... you can barely focus. You're having a stroke. Well something close to it. Blood drips from your wound, a deep red that mixes with the rain. The shot was perfect. Right in the joint. Right in the gap. Even through the smoke. Punched a hole through, and detonated. The incendiary armor piecer expanding in an instant, and filling your body with barbs. That, is what's happening right now, that is what is wrong with you. The blockage in your brain, the bleeding, its all from these barbs. It'll take more than that to kill you of course, but it certainly won't make living any easier. You need medical attention. You need to remove the barbs. Leave it inside and you'll surely bleed to death. Marina can do it. Maybe Sasha too. Hell maybe even the gimp cocoon. But point is, you need help, and the sooner the better. You're not the only one who's bleeding. Blood seeps from Owen's cheek. The rifle had become a spear and in that same instant struck with a fatal intent, but a graze is all it managed, because that, that was the same moment the flashbang went off. If this were one of em japanese cartoons, now would be where the camera cuts the punch from like three different angles before Cu goes fucking flying off. But this ain't a cartoon, this is reality, and y'know what Owen? You're know a punkass bitch. A punch that throws someone across the room looks real impressive for Hollywood, but all that force? It's exploding across their body, spreading out, pushing them backwards. Pushing doesn't hurt a man, well not unless they're a soccer player. No, when you punch a man, they crumple. All that force? It goes into breaking them. You don't need them to fly, hell you don't want them to fly, flying means widening the gap, no, you can to break them. And you're pretty sure you just broke Cu's face. That's just a bonus, the real goal's the discharge, the electricity coursing through his body now, tensing his muscles, locking down his movement. Funny thing about all those legends, he'll fight an entire army to a standstill, he'll make the earth shake with fury, sure, but cut him and he bleeds, spill his guts and he'll die. He'll die slowly sure, and he'll die fighting, but he'll still die. He's not much more durable than a regular man. See, the thing about Cu's legend is, he didn't have to fight you. This copy of him? Now that's trouble, but what hits it still hurts it and you got plenty of lightning to go round. Trouble is, Immanuel's wounded so you got no fire support right now, and well, here comes the riastrad. A wave of heat crashes outwards as he just goes fucking 40K on you, it's less like the classical description and more like well, all his features, and his details, are beginning to melt like wax, a furious inferno roaring out beneath entombing flesh. An otherworldly being, a mix of flame and flesh so volatile you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, veiled in plasma and heralded by the hiss of boiling asphalt. An otherworldly being still spasming from lightning like a punk bitch. Aight so here's how shit's going down, just fucking being near it you're going to be getting continuously burnt, much like how you'll be able to continously zap it. Not that he's planning to do that, oh no, he's planning on going for a quick kick to the shins, a crushing body blow, and a swift disengage. You're not entirely sure what he can do at range now, but you've the feeling you'd rather not find out. Meanwhile, up in the skies... Marina you warp the fuck away, not quite out of the fist's path, but enough that you ca fly the hell away when in a stroke of luck Fort Jackass flickers and falters as one of its subforts just fucking detonates. You return file with a beam to the chest and bunch of space rockets but well it doesn't seem two phased by that, looks like you might have to go after its power supply. Still your bombardment and light show to its credit does manage to distract it, distract it long enough for a, shifting amalgamation of steel and bone to crash into its side. There, wasn't much left of it at the time of impact, Chise had to detonate the reactor to really get the juice needed to blast it back so the bone was rapidly fading, but well, she didn't need much, and now, even now, she can feel her Invasion spreading through the skeleton's torso. With its legs now formed, the fortress fucking leaps into the air. It doesn't do anything just yet, but well, it does have one arm raised to the heavens and an awful lot of kegare seems to be gathering there, congealing into an orb of general unpleasantry.

[Now Playing: Emiya] First thing's first, the air beneath Marina's feet seems to ripple, as if she was floating above the surface of a great lake and someone just dropped a stone into it, which for anyone viewing the scene from above, honestly looks like the case. See, from Marina's perspective, she doesn't see shit. There's no giant angry skeleton, no nightbound city. No, oh no, what she sees as she casts her spell is a great lake stretching out to infinity, the bed beneath littered with countless weapons. Lit up kinda like as if by cherenkov radiation, albeit a ghostlier paler light. The ripples trace a great magic circle beneath her feet, and into the depths she plunges. From an outsider's perspective it looks like a ball of water just rose out of nowhere to consume her, her clothing beginning to give off this corona of phantasmal radiance that roils and mixes with the water, the whole orb exploding outwards to reveal a gravity-defying mage's cloak that flowed like water. More ripples trace in the air around her. Unfortunately, nothing really magical comes out of them save for a couple big rocks. A couple big rocks screeching downwards at willy-shrivellingly high speeds. As these meteors just crash fucking everywhere, Owen swings under his platform and kicks off, a surge of electricity crackling behind him as he basically just fucking fires himself at Cu. Fragarach is reacting again. It's resonating with Marina's magic somehow, the blade humming with frantic energy as he makes his wish. First comes the howling gale, next come the black clouds, a miniature tempest that encircles Owen, providing him with an oh so convenient ring of electrically charged storm clouds with disproportionately powerful magnetic fields, just begging to be used. He's a feeling he'll need it - Fort Jackass' lower body has yet to form, meaning there's still a bone canopy blocking all the artillery support for now. Immanuel meanwhile is rushing down from the other side of Cu. Around both his gauntlets are now garishly pink friendship bracelets, which if his wish is anything to go by, have something quite different to friendship in mind. Summoning another railgun he blasts his mark with a steady stream of plasma from behind. Cu manages to swing his shield around at the last possible moment, blocking the stream as the trio land on the ground. With the metal quickly heating up and no doubt about to melt into a hot sticky mess, it's quite clear this defense won't last, something that Cu seems acutely aware of given that he opts to just hurl it at Immanuel and leap backwards, readying his rifle to put a round into Immanuel as he reacts to the hurl. Owen notes that while he's not getting targeted right now, Cu's kinda giving him the stinkeye right now and probably won't have any qualms about trying to skewer him with the barrel of a rifle when he makes his move. Immanuel meanwhile realizes that A: Cu's hands should've gotten scalded by that near-molten shield, and that B: the fact that he hasn't is probably related to how his infrascan is indicating the temperature of the guy and his surroundings is rising at a fairly alarming rate. Meanwhile back in the skies, Chise and Sasha now have to contend with well, the entire subfortress. Apparently after they managed to grazed through the flurry of kegare bolts and continued to spread the infection through Chise's new and improved magical envelopes of horrible Aramitama STIs, Fort Jackass just decided "fuck it" and fucking severed the infected tendril holding the subfort before hurling it at the pair. By Chise's estimates, it's probably going to explode in an enormous blast real soon. Which would probably be a lot more threatening against something that can't just devour half the damn tendril before it gets a chance to go boom. Oh also Sasha's got cutesy glasses like Owen now too. That's a thing. Also, having taken quite a pounding from Marina, Fort Jackass decides to focus on her for now, that awful ringing filling her ears as the giant skeleton with its and noticeably dented subfortresses clenching a massive fist and going for a vicious punch to the face. it's, a lot more threatening than it sounds considering that its fist is the size of a house, wreathed in an immense amount of energy, and just exploding towards her at high speeds. This is gonna be a close one.

[Now Playing: Heavy Day] Aight so Immanuel immediately douses himself with what may or may not be cocaine, swooping low as Owen launched down into cover. Ivory rounds tear through the air, drawing awfully close but never too close thanks to Marina's boost and covering fire. So Owen starts closing in on the intercept, just fucking praying that a bullet won't find its mark - he's not entirely convinced his field will destroy the entire bullet in time and really, finding out how much damage a burnt sliver will do ain't something he plans on doing today. Unfortunately, as he draws close, Cu just, fucking swan dives off the tendril as railgun fire tears through the air. The entire fortress begins to shudder, tendrils coiling inwards and coalescing. At the center of the web a great skull forms, radiating massive amounts of kegare. Teeth chattering in anticipation it turns its empty sockets... right the fuck away from y'all. See uh, aside from Owen's tendril spiralling inwards towards the forming skeleton, which okay yeah, is something that needs rectifying but not too bad in the grand scheme of things, the skeleton doesn't really seem to really do anything to you. That's because it's not looking at you, it's looking at Chise. Chise, the good news is that you basically immediately kill the entire squad by blasting off their face talismans and convincing their exoskeletons to devour the nice tasty treat inside them while you begin to ready the pillar for detonation. The bad news is, as Sasha flies you away, the entire fortress just fucking starts shifting and staring at your little Invasion foothold. Countless grasping limbs of bone explode out from the fortification's cocoon, discharging disastrous energy, really just everywhere. Some of the hands close into fists which in turn shift into skulls. The hands sweep towards you and fire again, this time aiming right for you and Sasha. Fort Jackass is resisting you, but it won't be able to stave off your infection forever.

[Now Playing: Vendetta] So the squad leader rushes at Marina ready to pound away her attacks with its fists of fury. Unfortunately for them, she wasn't using projectiles this time. Nope, condensed concussive blasts, can't Jojo your way out of that, bitch. Speaking of things these punk ass bitches can't do, Marina just fucking flies away. Motherfucker can jump, but they can't fly, and with their charge halted, there's honestly not much they can do except fire on her as she leaves, not that it does much. Still they at least did something, the only thing the other squad managed to do in this time was burn to death by deciding to just stand there and do nothing. Marina reaches into the false sky, and with a swipe of her fingers divides the clouded skies with a streak of light. [Now Playing: Heavy Day] There is a thunderous rumble and then a flash of light. A synchronized bombardment. For a brief moment, the building was illuminated by flames and shrapnel. And then it crumbles. Out from the blast, eclipsing the moon, Immanuel flies into the night sky holding Owen in a bridal carry. Owen wishes to be able to see, to see this adversary and the fortress that they control. A pair of glasses appears on him in a puff of smoke, yellow-rimmed with red hearts near the hinges. Though the lens he can see it now, the true extent of the fortress, a fractal spider's web of bone that envelops the subfortifications, tethering them to the surrounding buildings. He can see the bone spikes that erupted from where the vials shattered upon an enormous bony tendril, and of course, he can see the one who did it, vaguely right now, the glasses not strong enough to pierce his cloak completely, but enough to narrow down the possibilities. Immanuel meanwhile wishes for speed, enough speed to dodge bullets; he gets a clear snaplock bag marked with a heart and filled with white powder. As the situation has become a little more complicated and the team in a need of a little more firepower, Chise gets naked. Wait were those two thoughts supposed to be related? Anyway, after filling Sasha up unprotected with her essence and probably committing public indecency in the process, Chise notices that both her and Sasha's wishes for stealth have fizzled. Also that her twisted Sanctuary has become tempered with envelopes sealed with pink hearts, sorta like love letters but filled with Totally Not Anthrax rather than Probably Not Herpes. Oh also, that the eight exoskeleton-clad bastards in the Sanctuary also noticed the energy spike and are fanning out to investigate, y'know, like the dipshits in a horror movie? Sasha can hit them from here. Chise too. Cu's cloak finally wears off and y'all finally get good look at the guy. Slight problem though - the guy ain't Cu. Got all the powers and properties of Cu, but it isn't him. See, Cu's a handsome boy that died young, well as handsome as seven-pupiled guy with frosted tips could be at least. What you're staring down now, rifle and shield in their hands, sword and handgun at the hip, is not that. The face peering at you is wizened with age and framed by hair colored white with age. The figure you are staring down does not take the form of a boy, they take the form of Secretary of Defense James Norman Mattis. Also he's firing a whole load of bullets at Immanuel and Owen while charging along a walkway towards the subfort Marina attacked. Everyone hears a terrible ringing in their ears.

[Now Playing: Vendetta] Light tears through the dust as a bolt of lightning crashes down in the center of the room. Seeing his chance, Immanuel leaps into cover and then through said cover, unleashing a hellish spray of plasma. Unfortunately, it seems that cover is not something the Epithet cares much for, opting instead for the Hong Kong action movie approach of diving out the way firing with both guns. Guy reacts fast. Thinks fast too. Those bullets? It's not just return fire, it's aiming right for the joints in Immanuel's plating, the self-styled superhero having to take a couple Beretta rounds to avoid those rifle shots. Goddamn it, this guy's got some real monstrous force behind those attacks, even through his Regalia Immanuel's feeling those shots, worse the barrage has left him staggered and off-balance. Hmm, that seems to be their main asset: power and precision. They're agile, but that agility isn't quite suitable for machinegun fire, facing down against sustained fire it's likely only a matter of time before a plasma bolt finds its mark, the trick is in surviving long enough to do that. This, is where shit gets a bit crazier. The Epithet steps to the side, discharges a single round aimed at between Immanuel's chestpiece and pauldron before leaping through the window. His visage flickers, fighting the effects of Tor's infrascan and seems to decay into a spreading heat signature. It's some kind of cloaking. Not enough to fully overpower infrascan, but enough to make his destination uncertain. Could be leaping out onto the ground below. Could be jumping up into the air. Or maybe, just maybe, he's running along that bone tendril, one two vials of blood are now falling towards. Owen, you're just outside the room on Immanuel's side, having taken cover behind the wall in the commotion. This thing? Whatever the hell it is, it's matching up to the source material. Gae Bulg's a rifle, the sling's a hangun, outfit's a uniform. Appearance, it's hard to gauge, you don't have any way to see through that dust, so you only caught another glimpse of them as they literally vanished into thin air. Concealment. Chulainn was said to have used it before on himself and his chariot. That's bad news for you. The guy's fast, he's strong, he's precise. But if you can close in, well, all that won't matter as much when you can just arc electricity into him. Easier said than done, especially now that you got no idea where he is. There's two vials in the air too now, falling down towards the ground below. Some kind of diversion perhaps? Another thing does stand out to you here: Cu Chulainn uses a shield. Does this thing not have one too? Or is it because a shot from the armored man's cannons will blow through it? Sasha as she glances around finds that yes, a lot of unusual things are indeed occurring. Firstly, the sniper seems to have reduced themselves into an expanding heat signature. Secondly, Immanuel's position was struck by lightning. Thirdly, Immanuel hasn't said a damn word to anyone about what the hell is going on. Oh and there's the simple fact of the matter that subforts are beginning to rotate their cannons around at the building the sniper was in. There's also the whole situation Marina seems to have found herself in, namely, that she's now staring down a squad of Mononoke whose commander is now posing rifle-in-hand with a rather large and imposing skeleton coiling around their body. Chise for her part can feel curses coursing through the Monooke like pheromones, carried all across the fortress by the beatless pulse of the Gashadokuro. The fortress is going on alert now. As she approaches the next subfort, she finds that the garrisoned Mononoke are all far more active, and armored up with tendrils of bone. Impurity is flowing into their weapons. Looks like they're on high alert now. 'Course they're expecting an assault, not a pair of infiltrators. Still, this situation isn't exactly stable, the sleeping giant will soon awaken. Marina, meanwhile now has to deal with Squad C and their new pet skeleton. Squad D fell easily, namely on account of the guy pouring the blood managing to somehow miss the tendril they were standing on, and the entire group just standing there like a bunch of lemons as she set them aflame. Squad C is a different matter. Try as she might, their covering fire ensured the blood found its mark before the sponge did, so when the fire balls started flying, a hulking skeleton had risen up and wrapped around the one pouring the blood (some kind of squad leader maybe?), it rushes forwards now, kegare-charged fists blasting apart the projectiles with a flurry of punches. Its body coils like a spring. It's about to launch itself and its master straight at the girl, assailing her with both kegare-laced bullets and flurry of blows. The ringing in her ears has returned.

Nearby Your name is Owen Toirdhealbhach. You're a bouncer, and maybe a human lightning rod too. Five minutes ago you were standing in downtown Sendo keeps drunks out a bar. Now, you're well, let's get to that a bit later. First thing's first, why Sendo? Well there's the obvious answer, the answer you accepted, the answer you believed, and well, then there's the other answer, the one forming in your gut, the retrospective one. Let's start with the obvious one, you're here on a whim basically, felt you wanted a change of scenery, felt like Japan's where to be, and well if you're a foreigner looking to start a life in Japan, Sendo's the place to be. Cute. Is it the right one though? A bit hard to tell, waters have been a bit muddied. This blade of yours, "Fragarach", it's certainly an oddity, you already filed some shit with SpecProv, tried to trace it, no records of it. Okay, maybe it wasn't something made on the government's dime then. Foundry? Tried that too, they said the construction was, anomalous, abnormal to an extent. Nothing major, but some of the quirks don't sit too right, some of them seem consistent with things fished out of Heaven's Gate. Heaven's Gate, it's a big research facility here in Sendo. Its foundations were here from the very beginning, its fate tied to that of this city, and to Walpurgisnacht. Lotta foreign powers involved in it, lotta experimental work done in it too or so you here. Well, "experimental" might be a bit too flowery. "Drunken" is probably closer to the truth, "reckless" too. You heard they tried to summon God inside there. Sounds about right. Point is, it's not inconceivable Fragarach first appeared there, crystallizing out from the universe's memories, dredged out by some shady technician or just simply created as part of an experiment no one cared to file a report for. Of course, you couldn't have known that back then, back when you decided to head out for Sendo. Coincidence? Maybe. Don't really like the idea that your sword is magically guiding you towards godknowswhat. Thing is, it might not be so innocent. You hear whispers of the guy on the street, well maybe not on the street, in the back alleys more likely, of this armsdealer, calls himself The Kingmaker. Guy's a recluse, but he's influential, and those quirks of your weapon? They match his handiwork too. Maybe he's got guys on the inside in Heaven's Gate, maybe he's using stolen tech, or reverse engineered shit, but well, "vague and enigmatic" seems to be his modus operandi. So when that group of people passed by, when your sword began to react with them. Well, there really only was one way this could've gone down right? This could be a chance to get some answers, maybe. Who knows when the next chance will come? Would it ever come? You followed them, as they vanished into the crowd, as they vanished into the depths of the nightbound Sanctuary. So that's where you find yourself now, watching a firefight from the shadows. They're assaulting some kind of fortress, looking kinda like one of those old japanese castles if it got dissembled, retrofitted with steel plating and naval cannons, and had its pieces scattered to the winds. There are four main subforts bristling with cannons (which don't seem to fire, maybe they don't target well against infantry?), those seem to be their targets. The lady with the bike and the gimp seemed to cloak, so you lost track of them, the magical girl cloaked too but she soon reappeared firing paint and fire all over the joint, started painting tendrils of bone, tendrils you didn't see (is the fortress partially invisible? Seems like it), one of them even coiling into the shape of a person. Crazy hair guy buggered off to, do something or other, and that leaves the more interesting thing in all this, the armored man. The guy himself, okay not too interesting, got some cannons strapped to him, a grenade launcher, well had a grenade launcher anyway, was fighting a couple of Japanese priest looking fellows with assault rifles, the monoke this Sanctuary belongs to you presume, but that's not the interesting part, the interesting part is what happens next. The guy suddenly darts off towards this building and starts getting fired on by a sniper. That's happening right now even, and as a stray shot cracks past your head and into the asphalt, recognition hits. The bullets are ivory white, and when they embed in something, they bloom with fractal tendrils, countless barbs racing out amidst a fiery blast. That tendril effect? Pretty fucking consistent with a certain other weapon of legends (gotta brush up on myth if you're getting handed with shit from it after all) - Gae Bulg, spear of Cu Culain, created from the bones of a sea monster, and which has the pretty distinctive and nasty effect of well, filling its victim's circulatory system with barbs. A fairly dangerous effect offset by the fact that it needs to actually stab into its victim first (something the weapon itself does not help with) and the fact that it well, y'know, needs to get cut out afterwards making it a one-shot kinda deal. Of course, these drawbacks only apply to a spear, if it was somehow taking the form of well, a semiautomatic antimaterial rifle like this one... yeah, things get a lot crazier. Okay look, you admit it, you might just be grasping at straws here, this might just be a coincidence... but there's been a lot of fucking mights on your way here.

[Now Playing: Vendetta] Well, first off Marina fails her parry mainly because the attack never came out - in a flash of brilliance, the skeleton just forgets that it needs to actually fire the gathered energy instead of just letting it explode and cave in its torso. So with her pursuer having blown itself apart, she finds herself free to just fly over to the next subfort and start raining down paint. The next subfort over quicky finds its bone shell covered in paint and set aflame, unfortunately, due to it being an enclosed structure and all that, the guards aren't so much dead so much as pinned inside. Two squads rush into position on the walkways to your sides. With the battle now in full swing, they're a little more organized quickly getting into cover. In each squad, three soldiers open fire on you, not so much aiming as much as they're aiming to suppress buying time for the fourth soldier in each to pour vials of blood down onto the walkway. With Chise tracking locations and forwarding lines of sight, all Sasha needed to do was fire the bullet. Easier said than done. Phasing through solids is a rather, difficult process, needs a fair bit of focus, prep time, or maybe just a degree of shiftiness and a mechanical arm exclusively used to beat women, the latter two departments something the lady finds herself quite lacking in. Warping shots around corners, that's a bit easier, still time consuming though, and threading that needle is awfully difficult without a spotter who can see through wall, y'know, like Chise. So that's how it goes down, an explosive shot fired just outside the entrance and warped along the ceiling into the altar. Seems to have worked, the guards seem more preoccupied by the explosion they hear in the distance anyway. Speaking of said explosion... Immanuel, you're down a grenade launcher. On account of it uh, rather violently detonating. Now, you're pretty sure, even with it being a rush job and all that simply getting hit by a bullet wouldn't be enough to set off the thing's payload. And you'd be right, trouble is, it wasn't just shot. It, wasn't a regular bullet. The Rafoss Mk 211 antimaterial round, on top of being armor-piercing, is also incendiary and explosive, two words you do not want right next to your live munitions. The fact that it did that in addition to violently expanding into a fractal tangle of ivory tendrils really doesn't help either. Times like these you're glad you got armor, if that thing gets inside you, you'd probably have to literally tear it out of your damn circulatory system. Not a fun prospect. The blast spins you out, slowing your approach to the window. Though you do at least catch a glimpse of your target as they crash a couple floors down, right before they vanish into the dust and debris. They were probably a mononoke from the fortress, at least, at one point, now all but consumed by the Epithet. All that remains are the talismans, the robes are gone, replaced by a utility uniform and eight-point cover in MARPAT camo. Rifle's real distinctive, ivory white but concealed by black wrappings, minimalistic, barrel looks sharp, real sharp, like you could run through a man with it. Infascan is still tracking them, so that's something at least. If he's planning on escaping into the dust he's got another thing coming, doesn't look like his plan though. Still holding his rifle with one hand, he draws a pistol with the other and starts firing at you with both weapons on semi-auto. Tor, it's hard to tell just what happened with him, but the last you guys see of him is diving off his ship and tackling a card-wielding sieg heiling forklift out of the Sanctuary.

[Now Playing: Vendetta] Marina dances through Squad A's gunfire, tossing more bolts of paint down, she finds to her dismay that the skeleton isn't as dumb as it looks, and fairly fast on top of it, making it swing midway through her own dodge. She catches the blow with her arms, skidding backwards in the air, a bit hurt from the impact but not too bad. She darts over the subfort trailed by the skeleton who is now readying another kegare blast. Behind them, Squad A burns amidst the aftermath of her barrage. The ringing in her ears grows louder. Immanuel meanwhile darts the fuck away from Squad B leaving them a little special surprise in the form of his own grenade. The projectile seems to sink into bone of the walkway itself before thin flailing filaments of white hot copper explode up in sprays of shrapnel all around the squad. As they attempt to dive for cover and shoot him, they manage to fail at both, diving right into the tendrils and slicing themselves apart. His ears begin to ring. This, makes Tor's job a little harder. Whether or not the observer was already aiming is hard to tell, but dashing at him probably didn't help Immanuel. As Tor flanks from the side he sees a flash of light. A sniper round is tearing through the air towards Immanuel, aimed not for him, but rather his grenade launcher. There's movement coming from inside the building, they're about to crash down, through the floor, deeper into the structure. While this is all happening, Ssasha circles Chise around the back of the subfort letting the gimp cocoon work her magic. There's at least six more units positioned near the back. Straw dolls steeped in curses. No organs. No internal structure just a myriad of curses, their interplay akin to nervous signals, though nervous signals generally don't extend past the body as they do here. These mononoke, they're all linked together, like ants or insects with curses instead of pheromones. Even without that troublesome formation it may be difficult to kill them, for their deaths will almost certainly release a signal, a warning. Unless of course you can mask it somehow. Their guns are unremarkable, just rifles with underbarrel weapons and vials of blood.

[Now Playing: Vendetta] Tor pops Infrascan and well, you're fairly sure what you're seeing isn't exactly infrared, you're definitely seeing something. Namely the remainder and majority of Fort Jackass. True to what Chise saw, the whole thing vaguely ressembles a fractal spiderweb of fused bone, great tendrils anchored into the buildings around the interception, subfortifications and palisades built up upon it and a great skull looming in the very center, dormant for now. The details are, somewhat hazy, washed out, the cloaking good enough to resist the card's effect to an extent, though not enough to hide the general picture. So first thing everyone notices, is that there really aren't too many thick tendrils, like ones that are just plain infeasible to blast through, there's a couple more that can take more hits, but most of the ones that will stop attacks that don't come from right below are not going to take too much firepower to blast through. It's enough to maybe buy time for whatever you're firing at, but that's about it. Secondly, the gashadokuro really isn't that into whatever these mononoke are doing. It's kinda just chilling there, like, it's not really trying to protect them or anything, it's just, chilling there with palisades and shit built ontop of it. Only places where it seems to provide much additional protection to are the four subforts which have their walls wrapped with somewhat thicker tendrils. Going to be more work to blast through, but still can be blasted through if you focus fire. Oh, one more thing. Fort jackass is lit up with heat signatures from the mononoke, but there's another signature further away, near the top of one of the nearby buildings. A solitory heat signature. An observer? A sniper? Hard to tell, but sketchy as all hell right now and if they're packing heat they'll have a shot on basically everyone other than Sasha and Chise. So Marina immediately blasts her assailant, the general area around them, and really their general direction with paint. The kegare blast was something that came out of the blue, but it's become quite clear that it couldn't quite see past her concealment either and was just going off of when she poked it - the blast doesn't even adjust as she moves out of the way, crashing through and dissipating the air she once occupied. Splashed with hot pink paint, she can see what attacked her now, a collection of tendrils coiled up into the upper body of a skeletal figure, a few errant wisps of ruinous energy still dissipating from its hands. Most of the tendrils around it, and the walkway immediately below have been stained, so they probably won't be too much of an issue anymore. The now paint-splahed soldiers there, the ones looking kinda pissed about the whole thing? Yeah uh, they're probably gonna be more angry. Turns out the paint barrage didn't do wonders for her stealth, so Marina can just feel her cloaking dissipate as the soldiers begin firing up at her, tracers lighting up the night as the skeletal body tries to go for a left hook. Unfortunately a four of them on a different walkway also see Immanuel now and talk cover behind some of the metal barriers, firing at him. Of those, two aim their underbarrel weapons and fire, missiles of arcane energy and swirling blood racing towards him. With the whole fortress on alert and trying to shoot down the two aerial intruders, Chise and Sasha find their work a bit easier with everyone distracted. With the general structure revealed by Tor and local details revealed by Chise's supernatural senses, the pair soon navigate their way over to one of the subfortresses. Unfortunately, with bone tendrils covering the walls like ivy, cannons lining the top, and the bottom being built on one of the large "branches" of the fort, trying to find a good spot for a portal peek proves to be tricky. So they just peek in from one of the gaping entrances. Can't stare for too long - there are soldiers positioned inside, assault rifles at the ready, but the main centerpiece of this whole thing seems to be an enshrined pillar, restrained by, is that pasta? It appears to be caged in a structure of pasta covered in those paper shinto talismans. Well, the talismans are shinto, but some of the inscriptions look distinctively pastafarian.

[Now Playing: Nothing] Sasha and Chise make their way towards the intersection, the fortress, the hum of engines, the rush of wind, all cloaked beneath their wishes. Should be simple enough, should be, but well it never is, is it? Chise, as you near the intersection you feel it. It resounds. The final moments of countless beings, their hope, their despair, their will. Echos, echos of death and conquest, pestilence and famine, countless beings countless stories reduced to their ends. All that they were, all that they felt, distilled down, stripped of all hope, all individuality, all humanity until nothing remains but desperation and hatred. A madness rising from the darkest depths, staining the world so horridly, so intensely that it takes form. It is something like your kin, your rightful prey, but something different still. Myriad curses given form, given life, or some spiteful semblance thereof to drag all who live down into oblivion with it. No higher purpose, no grand ideals, no intelligence even, just a funeral pyre for a thousand stories. What you sense here is only part of it. The whole thing is much larger than you, or at least what you are now. It takes a form ressembling that of a spider's web, formed of fractal tendrils fused together from countless human bones, swaying, twitching, just waiting for a victim. You sense some of the soldiers too, alchemical lifeforms clad in warding robes, robes to hide them from their beast, the bedrock of their fortress, and realize now that they do not fly like what you were told, rather they walk upon walkways of invisible bone, complete with raiings and palisades. This fortress isn't flying, it's invisible, the gun batteries and fortifications nothing more than the tip of the very big, very angry iceberg. Anyway... on a completely unrelated note, Marina, you seem to have a lot of trouble drilling into this thing. Even with your wishes it doesn't even budge. A chill runs down your spine. You don't see anything but you sure as hell just felt something, an overwhelming killing intent come from straight in front of you. Specifically out of what you were just drilling. You don't see what attacks you, but you sure as hell see what it attacks you with. It's this conical blast of dark red-black energy that explodes out towards you. Pure concentrated impurity, distilled ruin, misfortune, disaster, reeking with the stench of death and crashing out in a noise that sounds almost like a twisted scream, y'know, in case it wasn't obviously evil enough. Give it an eyepatch and let stroke a cat and it'd practically be a supervillain. May wanna dodge that. So uh, with that happening, alarms just start ringing through the fortress. Well, not quite ringing, there's no noise, no lights, but well, everyone seems to know what's up. The troops halt their patrols and ready their weapons, sweeping into cover and sweeping their sights toward the origin of the blast, trying to find the cause. Marina's cloaking holds for now, but it's probably not gonna to hold for much longer. Oh and Immanuel your drone manages to get fairly close before bonking against something invisible.

[Now Playing: Overture] Immanuel You already got all three railguns readied. Your drones drift into the cold night air, black metal against black sky. Practically invisible, til it closes in at least. Fortress is dark, no lights, nothing, guessing the denizens don't mind the dark. The subfortresses are mostly enclosed and built around their cannon batteries with a few stubby platforms and terraces extending outwards. Interior, you can't really see without swooping in and risking detection. Still judging by the size, if you're going in there, it's gonna be all close-quarters combat, place is, decently large but not large enough for any long ranged firefights you can tell that much. Marina No dice, the card's shakes die down soon enough after a while, leaving nothing but a throbbing pulse you feel if you're really looking for it. So much for that then. Cloaking, you leap into the air and glide towards the fortress. You go for a high approach trailing behind Immanuel's drones, worst comes to worst it's gonna be awkward shooting at you from down there. The cannons, those are more problematic but intel says that they're more anti-vehicle. Might be annoying for that Tor guy, not so much for you. You begin your descent, slowly at first, cautious, ready to dart away or raise a shield. Nothing. You speed up a little. Still nothing. Seems like your wish is working, swooping further down you- Ow! You crash into something, something solid. Smooth, but grooved with rough ridges. Solid, uneven, invisible. At any rate, the impact doesn't hurt, well at least not as far as you can tell, though your ears are ringing slightly. Chise You get a missile and a mop. The missile resembles that of a bullet in shape with a rocket for a rear and a smiley face and rabbit ears at the front. The mop is well, a mop albeit with a pink ribbon tied in a bow halfway down the handle.

Chapter 1 Inventories

Sometime Later [Now Playing: Overture] Preparations are made, contacts are called, provisions acquired. You head uptown, to the bars, the malls, and the target. You find it soon enough. Light gives way to darkness, bustling crowds to utter desolation, the Sanctuary a twisted mirror image of the city it prowls. A nightbound world lit only by moonlight neath a clouded sky, a world of solemn silence soon to be filled with flame and gunsmoke. Your target is two blocks away, a congeries of fortifications floating at an intersection, a broken jigsaw of a japanese castle edges cauterized with steel and retrofit with naval cannons. If you're keen of sight you can see them already, the personnel, the adversary, figures resembling kannushi, shinto priests, robes in grey, inscribed cloth veils covering their faces, assault rifles cradled in their arms. They man the fortifications, they walk between the pieces, boots touching nothing but thin air. Somewhere in there is an Epithet Card. Maybe. Four Card Emperors were sent here for something, and it probably wasn't to sell girlscout cookies. You'd ask them but well, none of them ever came back. Still you think you can see a promising start. Four promising starts actually: the four main subforts. The fortress is mostly distributed, scattered across the air, but there are four larger pieces, which just so happen to be the pieces with the biggest guns. At the very least, it will become much easier to field your spaceships when they're out of the equation. So, how d'you wanna play this? ((Please state what your two wishes from Marina were.))

Sometime later Okay so all y'all are currently gathered outside an apartment on the other side of town on the behest of this Crow person. Place is cheap, one of those low-rise complexes with rooms accessed from the terrance. Not quite run-down, not yet at any rate, but well, put it this when, you think think "Sendo", this sure as hell don't come to mind. Y'all know what this is about by now, there's some big scary flying fortress formation downtown staffed by a bunch of punk-ass mononoke with assault rifles and more likely than not, holding one of these Epithet Card things that the Card Emperors so desperately crave. Not much more intel at this point, save for the fact that the last Card Emperor squad sent in never came back, which well, let's face it, ain't too high a bar. This, this is well, basically your first and final prep meeting for the assault gig. Figure out what you need, what you can get, and how y'all plan on doing this shit. Well, that's how the plan for plan goes at least, but Sasha had just rocked up with the bastard lovechild of the Gimp and a Final Fantasy character, so whether or not this'll follow that agenda, well, that's yet to be seen.

Sasha Sabia nods along with your explanation, before getting to work, quietly humming to herself. What enchanting precisely involves varies from person to personal; there's a few different ways of going about it, though in the end, the actual principles and result remain the same. In Sabia's case, the tool of choice takes the form of a headset and a copy of Dragon Professional hooked up to amongst other things, a few dozen metallic spheres. "Tool: Fast Marching. Inputs: Visual Field, Matter Detect. Seed: Default. Output: 'Preliminary Enchantment Boundaries'. Run Segmentation." The piece in front of her begins to glow. "View: Cross-section. Inputs: Preliminary Enchantment Boundaries. Displace diagram." The glow seems to separate outwards and split apart, revealing an internal structure a great deal more solid than that of the engine it came from. Misfitting. Fast marching on the visual field tends to be bad at mapping internal structures. Matter detection helps, but as can be seen here, it wasn't exactly perfect. Next step would be tuning the boundaries and repeating for each piece. Following that, would be linking the pieces, running the estimates, and then, only then would the actual enchanting begin. This may take a bit.

Sasha "Show me the components."

Sasha "The parcel lacks a return address. We will be unable to mail her back to the sender." She pauses. "Your name and address are on the box. Are you sure you did not order her?"

Sasha "Oh. Is this a human trafficking operation?"

Sasha "It is a term often used in cryptography. It has no real meaning."

Sasha The box appears to be filled almost entirely with packing peanuts, and are those belts? There's like, a whole load of belts buried in the styrofoam. Resting on the very top is a typed note that simply says Hope you enjoy! on the other side of it, you find the words Squeamish Ossifrage.

Sasha Sabia nods curtly and enters. The box, proves to be a little less cooperative, it's, fairly heavy actually, and rather lacking in any other information save for a label that indicates it was, indeed meant for you.

Sasha Yup it's Sabia... and a fairly large though not yet Sabia-sized cardboard box, marked fragile.

Sasha "Of course. I shall see you later then." Saturday, 9 am Right on the hour the doorbell starts ringing. It doesn't quite stop either. Just, every five seconds, another ring. Sabia.

Sasha "I think I shall grab lunch and return to the church." "Meeting with X."

Sasha "Roosterhead's masks are still lying around over there. Why?"