@ vs. Mani:
Faced with Kai's ongoing barrage, Kyou slinking away to restore her thermoptic stealth and Asher trying to slice at her; Mani defense was simply to flash out of sight.
It was not stealth. The Black Mindy had engaged its gravimetric propulsion to become 30 000 kilometer distant in an eyeblink. There - too far away to really make out even with visual magnification - she turned around to aim at Asher and began sniping at him with rapid-fire aether attacks.
"Let me show you why the Mindy is the Star Army's symbol, and not the Daisy mudpounder!" Mani transmitted as her attacks again slashed into Asher's torso armor. Those had nearly carved through his armored hide when Shikaku used up one teleport charge worth of capacitor power to flash-restore his barrier in order to save his life... and even then the long-range barrage half-depleted the newly regenerated barrier.
This was a problem.
Mani was a speck on their sensors, much beyond the effective range of their plasma rifles, and too far for the Daisy fire control suite to be able to fire accurately at her even with aether weaponry. Also, it was very difficult to dodge her attacks: without the insight of body language to know she was attacking them - she really was just a speck on their long-range sensors - they wouldn't be able to avoid attacks which essentially traveled at light speed.
Mani's armor, a Black Mindy, was a spacy armor. One made for greater traveling speed, a more advanced fire control system. Without the constraints of close confines, like on the Gate, she had the luxury of outdistancing them and - with no cover on Hoshi's dorsal hull for them to hide behind - pick them off one by one at little personal risk.
@ vs. Meni:
Without the benefits of an active barrier, Meni couldn't just shrug off the concussive impact of Masako's grenade. However, the Kuroneko, a veteran of many battle, used the kinetic impact to force her into a roll that allowed her to quickly spin on Nimura to point her good arm at her while the sprite was turning away to take advantage of the distraction to fire mini-missiles at Eve.
Nimura never got that far. Meni fired her scalar cannon at the sprite's back and - with Nimura's protection also down - knocked her out, the Daisy power armor stiffening up in a brief seizure before it fell facefirst to the floor.
Masako meanwhile had reached the dropped saber-rifle, whacked the severed arm off it, and taken it for her own. She had just pulled it out from the floor as Meni was suddenly in her face, trying to kill her again.
It was too quick! Meni had gone through the shock of losing a limb, rolled with the additional impact of a grenade, taken Nimura out and she was already back at Masako's throat? That was more than just a little scary!
Meni's remaining saber-rifle brutally hacked and cut at her, Masako barely managing a shield block and a saber parry before one of Mani's feet shot up, slamming into Masako's midriff and tossing her back into the changing room.
Her Black Mindy opponent pursued after her with unhurried steps, her aether sword's heat causing the tatami floor to catch on fire.
@ vs. Eve:
Nyton did not manage to do even half of the fancy moves he had hoped to pull on Eve.
Even with the Nepleslian pushing at his evasion and defense to the best of his ability while pumping out plasma attacks whenever he had a good opportunity to strike Vermillion - its barrier making for a pretty broad, easy to hit target - it didn't stop Eve snatching him up on her first try.
The Akuma had just blurred forward and caught him with both its large clawed hands, closing in on his torso and pinning his arms to his side. As if it was trivial for her, she seemed to just anticipate his erratic course and with one lunge she manhandled him just as easily as an adult to with a child.
Whatever they did, Eve always seemed one step ahead of them!
Both clawed hands burned with crackling aether around the sad vestiges of his Phalanx' barrier before she twisted around and rammed into Surtur - whom had been struggling to get up to assist him - with his power armor the leading point of the charge.
Without the Phalanx, the impact would have pulped him. As it was, he had the wind knocked out of him and his body was aching in ways he unfortunately did not have time to dwell on as he realized that Vermillion was now pinning his Phalanx right over the chest of the supine Surtur, both clawed hands still grappling him and pinning his arms down with his leg projectors in poor position to attack.
His barrier was gone, and the heat from Vermillion's aether-limned claws was starting to get through his armor. If the claws didn't get through the armor and kill him first, the broiling heat would!
"Is my warm embrace enough for you? Or do you need even more loving warmth?" Eve asked, her voice sounding sickeningly sweet. "Do feel free to self-destruct if you crave even more."
Of course, the problem with that was the Vermillion's barrier was still reasonably strong, while Surtur's was depleted. If Nyton went kamikaze, he'd fail to kill Eve, and Kotori would die along with him.
@ Miyoko:
Perhaps reassuringly for Miyoko, she did not have to make the trip to Hoshi's bridge alone. The power armored Suzume dogged her steps, her Daisy power armor nervously scanning around as they made their way to their destination for any dangers.
Finally, Miyoko had sight of the bridge's door and saw Mara run out to then head for Hoshi's engine room.
@ Tom:
Tom opened the hatch and stepped through the flzzling field erected by the ship's life support systems to retain atmosphere inside the ship. tom knew for a fact that the main hull was growing increasingly reliant on being kept together with these fields, which was not a comforting thought. If either computer control or power failed, the failure of these fields could lead to a structural collapse that would destroy the main hull.
Applying bulkheads to close up the hull breaches was definitely on his 'important things to do' list, but that was only something he'd have time to do after the fight proper, in the meantime, he just had to hope the stopgap solution of the atmospheric retention fields would hold them together until then.
For now, he was in the breached capacitor compartment. He saw Rin in position on the other side, and witnessed the ruptured plumbing from which two geysers of coolants jetted out into space... but that wasn't the most arresting detail for him.
What demanded attention was the stars and how the Blue Rift colored local space in hues of cyan and magenta. The section he was in was all rough, jagged edges and the very occasional twisted structural ribbing. The compartment otherwise had no more outer wall, no more floor and no more ceiling.
This was no mere hull breach. That portion of the ship had been effectively destroyed, a part of what had been meant to be inside the ship completely open to space, and the dent it made in the ship's silhouette was larger than a T7 Raccoon shuttle.
The valve was right next to him, ready to be turned to stop the coolant flow. They were probably lucky there were even valves left to turn!
@ Rin:
With Rin right by the valve on her end, all she had to do was turn it until the flow of coolant stopped. she saw Tom's Daisy armor emerge out on the opposite side of the compartment, also getting in position to turn the valve on his end.
