RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission Shichi: Yugen

IYS Kaiyo - Hallways

Meissa stopped as soon as Eden stopped, peeking around the corner with an NSB.

Why did it have to be her? Meissa knew she'd have to shoot Saki the instant she saw the facial recognition lock on. And yet that was an uncharacteristically brave Saki, standing in the hallway.

Meissa stepped around the corner and raised her rifle. But wasn't her "mother" also brave in her own right? Putting her own relationship with Eden on the line in order to help a person such as herself. And here she was again, standing in front of not one, but two power armors with nothing but an NSP.

But Saki the mother wasn't like this. She wouldn't have faced down a power armor, she would have ran. And yet, the same Saki had also shown her own might, a strength that came when the situation called for it. During the Mishhu swarm that attacked the Kaiyo, it was Saki that stepped up to the position of greater command.

Maybe this was sort of like her mother, albeit exhibiting her bravery in a different manner.

Either way...

"She's not Saki we know," Meissa telepathically comforted Eden, even though her own telepathy had a slight quaver to it.

The sound of an Aetheric discharge echoed through the halls.

"Let's go."

YSS Kaiyo
Main Aether Array...?

Arbles hummed a bit nervously to herself as she slid the pieces of the ship's heart together in the way All had been directing, now attached somewhat awkwardly to the very front of the ship. As the last bits and bobs of the assembly slid into place with a clicking feeling-the exterior parts of the plumeria were of course not pressurized and thus could not transmit sound-Arbles popped a message to Mochi, All, and Anastasia. The er, "SPROING", is where the "BOOM" normally goes, in your terms. Returning to the ship interior momentarily... We're supposed to turn the array back on when both parts are assembled, right? The large switch glared at Arbles, its little display panel glowing with colored letters spelling the word "OFFLINE".

YSS Kaiyo
PA Bay

William frowned. He didn't like this, not at all. But he had no choice, his mother had spoken. "Yes Sensei..." William said softly still standing rigid and ready. If things went south he would be there to intervene, if Rei didn't beat him to it.

He moved, blocking the exit to the PA bay. There was no escape.

IYS Kaiyō
Hallways/Power Armor Bay

After seeing her nearly helpless target point it's forearm in her direction, Hanna leaned back into her cover and activated her forearm melee weapons. In the next instant, she teleported next to the downed armor and ripped her aether blade through it's chest and neck.

Once the strike was resolved, Hanna deactivated her forearm aether blades and decompacted her Gauss Cannon as she flew towards the power armor bay

"Jones-Hei, status update! No..."

As her AIES informed her of Orion's death, Hanna had reached the power armor bay. As she rocketed inside, she positioned herself behind a framework and leaned out to fire at the armor that was targeting Mat with her gauss cannon sighted at eye level.

IYS Kaiyō
Hallways/Power Armor Bay

Yoshida paused only briefly as Hannah tore into the helpless form of the armor, before she shot ahead. There was no time to waste, not even on useless words like 'you didn't have to do that!'. Not when Orion was already a goner. Not when Mat could be next. And certainly not when their final chance of escape would vanish before their eyes if they messed this up.

As she burst into the bay with her gattling rifle fully revved even before she turned the corner, already spraying it at head level to cut some foes down to size, she desperately hoped that Eden and Meissa weren't going to find themselves on the wrong end of another squad, or worse, the ship's defenses.

YSS Kaiyō
Engineering

Anastasia continued working with Arbitrated, making back and fourth trips down the maintenance conduits to assist the... switch. It was quite clear she was used to this form of zero gravity movement in confined spaces, and it didn't seem to bother her a bit, like fitting a winged thread through a needle.

Back in the Engineering bay, she had started installing the boom into the sproing, using an excess of cables and support tubing from the nearby damage control stations. It was a bit of a sloppy job, like trying to plug a vacuum cleaner directly into a transformer to make toast. However, it was going smoothly.

However, the technician's pace sank along with her stomach as a blood curdling noise broke out across the comms, accompanied by a scream. The familiar sound of flesh being impaled by an aether blade. Anastasia was locked, her face paled as she realized what channel it came from. It wasn't until Arbitrated spoke directly until she was snapped back to reality.

"Uh, ohmmm...", the weary Elysian stuttered. "I think, we're waiting on one more piece."
Anastasia spoke out to the away team, audibly disjointed. "Eden, the reactor is ready, have you found what you set out for?"

IYS Kaiyō
Power Armor Bay

As the fire of his allies tore into the enemy, hopefully burning through their shields, Mat dashed forward and slid under the enemy fire and past one of the enemy armors while their attention would be split between him and their new attackers. He sliced upwards at the torso of one, switched to rifle mode and pushed off the wall that was behind the sliced-at alternate Yamataian soldier.

He flew towards them, to tackle them and hold on with his left arm then come to the ground and use them as a human (or Yamataian) shield as he opened fire with his Aether saber rifle on the remaining enemies.

YSS Kaiyo
Bridge

Misaki nodded to Asuka before looking to Riku. She knew she needed to open a line to this other ship. She knew they were on the other Kaiyo for a reason, and they would fail if the other ship destroyed the IYS Kaiyo before they could get back. She needed to act fast if she was going to though. Misaki knew that the third ship, the one she was beginning to deduce might be on their side, might not take kindly to them asking not to fire on what Saki could guess was an enemy.

She felt sweat beginning to bead up with her slight shiver, as well as an uncomfortable feeling of weight and worry washing over her. She looked down at Kikyo for a second, who was trembling due to evidently feeling was Misaki was feeling as well. Misaki closed her eyes, and for a second she wanted to ball up and cry. Though she couldn't, she wasn't going to lose anything today. Everyone was going to come back home.

Misaki opened up a comm line to the All ship, and spoke in an authoritative tone, "This is the YSS Kaiyo, cease your fire on the IYS Kaiyo. We have boarding parties in action and failure to comply will not make me happy."

She felt herself gritting her teeth, another uncomfortable feeling in her gut rumbling slightly audibly only added to her weight and stress. She was not going to lose anything today.

YSS Kaiyō
Bridge

Saki got a quick response. All was suddenly on the bridge wearing his red technician panels.

"Yes, yes, shooting has ceased on the IYS vessel, but you must kill them off, do you understand that? We will give you no more than one more minute to do so. Use the time wisely. Oh, and Eden?" He asked her. "Did you say goodbye?"

Then, in another instant, he was gone.

YSS Kaiyō
Engineering

Anastasia had received a hurried message from Eden that said a second after the man named All disappeared: "We're heading to your location with the device. Once you get it, follow All's instructions."

"It's all in place," All said about ten seconds after he had initially disappeared. "Now what we do is wait." He looked to Anastasia and asked, "What would you do if I stayed here with you? Went to your universe and all that pizzazz?" He shook his fingers out in front of himself and smiled giddily.

IYS Kaiyō
Power Armor Bay

Mat shot an armored enemy from behind his second personal IYS personnel shield, which was by now incapacitated by his and Hanna's murderous destruction. He was dispersing his fire on the enemies while Hanna shot out some of her own. Coupled with Yoshida's gatling, the bay was soon clear of enemies. Only once their foes were downed completely did they hear it: a loud explosion coming from the hallways of the ship. Then, behind them, they could see Meissa's armor as she teleported into the bay with the device in her arms.

IYS Kaiyō
Hallways

Eden stood, lip trembling slightly as Meissa's shot rang out in the hallway. She stood, SLAM in hand, looking at Teien Eden and Meissa Nashira further down the hallway. Meissa, lower in the Zero-G passageway, was only partially visible, but Teien Eden was in full view of Norogumi Eden as she raised the SLAM, ready to juice out the SLEX. She unloaded the synthetic liquid explosive a second after Teien Eden plugged a destination into Meissa's teleportation unit using her own LSP and threw the device into her hands. After having watched Meissa catch it, Teien Eden triggered the teleportation unit to activate.

A millisecond after Meissa had left, the explosives Meissa had only just minutes before lined the hallway with were struck by the SLEX and the two combined to create a force Teien Eden's Mindy could not stand. Piece by piece at first, then all at once, the armor was peeled from her before all that was left was her body, void of any uniform to speak of, being ripped apart by flames. Norogumi Eden watched as her alternate self was ripped apart slowly, then all at once. The flames died down when there was nothing much more to consume and Teien Eden along with her armor, were diminished to a pile of indiscernible hunks of blackened material on the ground of the hallway. Norogumi Eden then turned on her heel, headed for the power armor bay.

IYS Kaiyo - Power Armor Bay

Shit.

Meissa crumpled to the floor.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She didn't account for that scenario. No one could. It was too wild. Too unpredictable.

And yet here she was. Meissa sighed.

"Mission successful, Infantry." she spoke, after having gotten up with the box in her arms. "But command's down. I'm back in on-field again."

Click. Switch to YSS Kaiyo transmissions.

"This is Nashira. Mission objective is secured and in tow. We will enter through the power armor bay with the cargo."

Say the losses, Meissa.

"Casualty count, two. Orion Jones went down. And Saki..."

There's no use hiding it. She'd look through the stored data anyways.

"...I'm sorry. Eden and I were caught in a trap. My own explosives were used against me. She gave me the cargo and forced my teleport. She's on her next life now."

Click.

Recall drones. Throw out the rest of your grenades into the hallway in spite.

It didn't make the angel feel any better as she led the Infantry to exit the enemy bay.

Dammit all.

YSS Kaiyo - Bridge

The fox took a spot of time to breathe as the casualty report came in. Eden down.

It was a battlefield, alright. And losses were inevitable.

She only hoped Eden went down well.

IYS Kaiyō
Power Armor Bay

Once the enemies were down and Meissa had teleported into the power armor bay, Hanna was standing by the closest framework to the door while watching Meissa's breakdown. She was thankful for her face plate, which served to conceal her true feelings behind a thick layer Zesuaium.

For once, Hanna sympathized with Meissa's emotions. Beneath the Zesuaium face plate, Hanna's expression tensed and twisted as she fought the urge to fall on the ground or to yell at her field commander for doing the same thing. Hanna had nearly given in to the urge. The Neko had opened her mouth to speak when her sensors pinged, alerting her to the presence of a hostile.

There was Norogumi Eden, standing at the entrance to the power armor bay.

In almost the same instant, Hanna pulled out her revolver, sighted it, and set it to the heavy setting.

The blue-white flare of a plasma discharge flashed in Hanna's HUD as the Neko shot at a woman that looked like her captain.

YSS Kaiyo
Bridge

"No..."

Tears welled up quickly in the exec's eyes, her trembling increasing tenfold. She seemed to gasp for air like someone about to cry but seemed to swallow everything, bottling up all of her emotion. She just couldn't cry, though she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. She sent a message to Meissa over the communications line, her voice audibly strained.

"We are commencing fire, evacuate now and stay out of the firing line."

With the message sent, Misaki sniffled for a moment before going dead silent. She leaned back into the Captain's seat and reached through her SPINE into the ship itself. She locked the batteries on the IYS Kaiyo and whispered to herself as she opened up the silent blue-beam crescendo of the Kaiyo's main turret batteries.

"Eden... Give me strength."

The captain was dead. Yoshida had a feeling something dreadful like this would happen. Was it you, you disgusting copy? She thought as she noticed the new arrival at the door. Every single one of the IYS soldiers seemed... despicable to her. They were worth less as people than the goo they were made from in their vats. Even if they were defending their own homes- they weren't worth a passing glance. Let the All kill each and every one of them- she would almost help them do it if it didn't mean being stuck here.

Instead, she turned to one of the armors, with a breif thought. "I wonder if we could trigger a self destruct before we go, as a parting gift." Of course, her initial reactionw as to look to meissa for that sort of thing- but she seemed out of it. There was always the optiont hat Orion's suit be used in such a manner instead. "We can use orion's suit, or one of theirs. Or we can just leave." She was stock still. Her voice, hard and cold. She no longer regretted their slaughter, or the exicution of Eden's shadow happening just before her eyes.

Mat's eyes widened. Those bastards had killed the captain? He snapped the neck of his human shield in disgust.

"Let's go." He simply said to Meissa, putting a hand on her shoulder.

IYS Kaiyo - PA Bay

Meissa turned around to face Mat.

"You know what?" Meissa broadcasted to all of the Kaiyo's crew. "I hate this place. Apologies, Saki, but we need ten seconds. Infantry, you have ten seconds to vent your anger and cause as much damage to this damn ship as you can. Once those ten seconds are up though, you better be en route back to the YSS Kaiyo. Begin."

After finishing, Meissa shrugged Mat's hand off, flipped over the remaining crate of plastic explosives, and stuck detonators in the blocks.

IYS Kaiyō
Power Armor Bay

Reina Madoka, a Jôtô Hei like Meissa that was in the power armor bay said to her, "If you think you can give us orders to spur the inevitable onwards, I order you to go to the YSS Kaiyō. Immediately and without cessation. Get to engineering with that," she pointed to the device," and give it to them so they can do some good with it!" She pulled Meissa's hands away from the crate. "Go!"

Madoka was right. But that didn't hold back the anger she felt towards the IYS Kaiyo.

"Well then, come with me." Meissa told her fellow Infantry member. "You guard me."

With that, she took the box, placed the detonator switch on the upturned munitions crate, and flew out of the bay.

Mat simply shook his head. He was angry too, but there was no damage they could do that the Kaiyo's guns couldn't.

He followed Meissa out into the void.

Space Between IYS Kaiyō and YSS Kaiyō

Reina Madoka was ready and willing to follow that order and was on guard while they flew between the ships. A pair of power armor blinked into existence in front of them and Reina shot, but the power armors flew away and, soon, the YSS personnel's Mindy sensors showed a fighter moving through the air where the power armors had just been. Reina had her saber rifle raised, but did not shoot.

"They're fighting their own battle..." she said. "And we got caught in between."

Once near the YSS Kaiyō, MEGAMI's sprite showed in the corner of their HUD and she chirped, "Please teleport into the hallway next to the power armor bay and do not come into the power armor bay itself."

"Why?" Madoka asked.

"Please comply. The Princess is unarmored in the bay."

"Understood," Madoka said. "Matsuvi-hei, you can go first. Meissa second. I'll follow up the rear. I'm sure Eden would want to see us sprinting down those halls to engineering."

IYS Kaiyō
Power Armor Bay

Norogumi Eden was flung into the air from the scalar grenades and her armor slowed to an almost non-functioning condition, but she regained herself and used her strength to walk into the bay, only to be targeted by Hanna Madsen. The Neko that retained so much of Eden's appearance and yet differed from her so much in personality shot out the SLAM one last time, set to kinetic and aimed directly at the cyan-haired and tailed infantry Neko.

"Good thought." Meissa told her cohort. "Teleport in fifteen, I had to use mine."

After fifteen seconds, the three of them winked out of existence, and appeared in the hallways of home.

YSS Kaiyo - Engineering, After a Bit

Meissa's armor burst through the door with her CFS off, hand holding up the all-important box.