_______________________________________________________________

Through a red mist, Louisa saw a myriad of monstrous shapes encroach, dissassemble, and disintegrate as she flowed with heavy momentum through the cycle of shove, cleave, shove, cleave that characterised the rhythm of her frontline strategy. Her enemies blended into a homogenous swarming mass, simple and animalistic in its fixation on her - an object in its path that dominated its limited zombified attention with its unusual refusal to die. In the gaps between the bestial and monstrous forms of the horde, she tried to ignore the twisted masks of human faces, clawing with uncannily familiar limbs, staring with eyes that remained frighteningly human in spite of their hollow absence. They were animals too. They were just as monstrous. Still... she wished the echidna parasite wasn't so cruel as to leave those last haunting vestiges of their humanity on show.

She felt the assault dwindling, and with a triumphant flair she threw her glaive with tremendous force into the hardened carapace of a heavier Warped lifeform, recalled it to her hand in a spray of ichor, and then leaped forward to decapitate the creature with a spinning arc of her blade. As it collapsed to the floor, her comms lit up with Teodora's warning. Feeling tremors in the ground, she snapped her vision upwards just in time to see the hulking shape of the Komainu warped hurtling towards her.

With little time to react, she made a short evasive hop backwards at the last moment, but was struck by a glancing blow from the impact and flew backwards, her body smashing through a crumbling barricade before crashing into the hood of a troop transport and coming to rest. She felt the reactive shock-plating in Grendel relax, leaving her with bruises where a regular human would be left with 206 broken bones. She stubbornly pulled herself out of the twisted and crumpled metal, as Seraphima announced the plan.

"Copy, KOI! Concentrating the dog -- something tells me I don't have a choice!"

The Komainu warped closed in, with Seraphima's aerobatic combat in the area giving Louisa enough space to gain a footing. Parrying a swipe of a massive paw and barely holding her footing, she bounded back with a heavy leap and hurled her glaive at the flank of the Komainu in an effort to harpoon its vitals. But missing its mark, it glanced off and Louisa recalled it to her hand with a frustrated grunt.

Already concerned about the course of the battle, her heart sank as Teodora and Seraphima turned their attention towards the new threat.

"Alright, Supplice, good spot! But can someone engage the thing that's visibly about to kill me?!"

Well now.

How did something that big make it out unscathed from Constantina’s bombardment and Kim’s detection? Halting his unimpeded little murder-jaunt, Xuan-Yu turned his gaze to the creature, raising his brows slightly at the appearance that the Warped had taken. Japanese ogres and Chinese guardian lions. Indescribable, incomprehensible organisms taking forms resembling mythological creatures…what would the white coats make of that? He tapped the Stinger Blade against his shoulder a couple times, then sheathed it into his forearm. Behind his back, tubes of viscous liquids began to churn and bubble, innocuous fluids synthesizing into a poison that, while not lethal, was still capable of affecting even beings of supernatural physiology.

And then, Constanza’s voice echoed through, speaking at a speed that could rival rappers in order to keep her messages brief without having to cut down on words. The dog headed for Grendel was obvious. The wraith stalking the backlines less so. He took a moment to think. Imagined, for a moment, what the goal was, what the problem was.

The goal was to break down the soldiers’ defenses.

The problem was the presence of the Chi-Mechframes.

The key was the lack of wide-range attacks from them.

Faye’s armor kept her alive, but her spear lacked enough killing force to down the truck-sized beast immediately. Drakos, their best skirmisher, charged for the defensive line in order to track down the invisible thing, giving the Warped horde time to gather their forces once more. Constanza, their fire support, aimed to root out that invisible foe as well, hunting for any traces of them. Xuan-Yu himself would be forced to act against the most obvious threat, lest they lose their mobile bulwark.

Like that, all four Frame Pilots would be forced away from the collective threat, one that the soldiers were already incapable of stalemating. And all it took was for an invisible assassin to reveal themselves, just a little bit.

Ah, it took one to know one, huh?

“Hey, Constanza,” Xuan-Yu drawled, speeding through the artillery-marred battlefield to convene with the team’s lancer, “Tide’s shifting in the Warped’s favour’s now. Keep your eyes peeled for the ghost, but keep your beams blasting the frontlines. Drakos, fucker’s probably aiming for either artillery or gun emplacements, if it has even a lick of brainpower. And Faye?”

His left leg bent, scarlet flexors flaring up with an incandescent energy.

“Your knight in cockroach armor’s here~”

Release.

The earth cracked beneath his step, and Xuan-Yu flew through the air, as true as an arrow, his optical camouflage peeling away to reveal the armored assassin beneath. The remaining distance between himself and the liondog was negligible, and Faye’s spear throw had stalled it enough for Xuan-Yu to slam blade first into the monster’s hindleg. Blood spurt out, steaming over his obsidian gauntlets.

There was a time where he couldn’t do this much damage even with a full clip of ammunition.

Deathstalker bared his teeth, drew his left fist back, and unleashed a second Burst Strike right into the flat pommel of his sword, aiming to punch it through the bone of one hindleg and pierce the meat of the other. If he could maim one leg and poison the other, the beast would be crippled enough that Faye could mount it from behind and slay it herself, leaving him to cover the front again.

But if that wasn’t enough?

He still had his right side raring to turn this mutt into a dogmeat hamburger.

With Norika's focus placed solely upon the centipede-like Warped, Elise began to swerve about, shifting her position in the air to drag the attention of the lesser monsters on the ground towards her. Anything that looked like it was about to attack or was aiming at Norika would be at the top of her priority list, and with each shot fired the Frame Pilot removed another enemy from the fray. Any time that the barrage seemed to stall for a moment, though, the young woman would take the chance to fire upon the massive Warped that her partner was engaging. She expected to land no major hits, of course, but even chipping away at or pulling the enemy's attention for just a moment could provide an opening to abuse...

@JDubs

---

The raging winds within the avian Warped's beak grew to a fever pitch, howling and screaming as the monster's maw opened wider and wider still. Despite its target—the young woman now cloaked in flames—putting up a defensive barrier, however, it showed no signs of stopping. Nor did it have any reason to, as whatever it was charging up was let loose.

A massive beam, half-comprised of bladelike gales slicing and whirling through the air. The first thing that it met was a stray piece of debris, which soon became no more than bits of metal and concrete ground up and dragged along as incidental shrapnel alongside the already-threatening attack. Though the initial beam hit had been fired straight towards Pyralis, a timely punch from Hoshiko had forced the Warped (and its supernatural assault) upwards. Diverted as it was now, the Warped (who seemed only slightly worse for the wear) stopped firing the beam and flew in a U-shape, turning in the air as it rose into the sky.

The respite afforded the pair was short-lived, though, as it soon began to turn back towards the duo. Flapping its wings to remain suspended where it was, the Warped opened its mouth and began to charge once more before firing another beam—this time, sweeping across the ground in an attempt to catch both of the Frame Pilots in its wake.

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich

---

The komainu seemed to have expected little resistance from Louisa as it clashed with her head-on, and taken aback as it was when the comparatively smaller opponent did not only manage to resist its charge, but launch a counterattack on top of that.

And though that moment of pause was enough for Xuan-Yu to land a decisive initial blow upon the Warped, the followup would not be so simple. The komainu howled in pain as the weapon met its mark, and almost as if by instinct the beast shifted its body enough to force the blade that had pierced its flesh to barely avoid cleaving through its bones. Injured though it was now, the beast withdrew from its attack upon Louisa before letting out a roar.

With that roar came a surge of heat, and it seemed almost as if the monster's mane, jaws, and forelimbs were alight with fire. Glowing white-hot as it was, the monster stood out against the bloodied and broken bodies of the fallen beneath it.

Uneven as its gait was now with one leg partially crippled, though, the Warped seemed to have changed its target from the Chi-Mechframe at the vanguard towards the one that had been brazen enough to attack it while unaware. A bite, a slash, a slam—the enraged beast seemed to be turning the very earth around it into charcoal as it lashed out furiously at its new target.

@Laduguer@ERode

Xuan-Yu clicked his tongue as the monster twitched, leg spasming just in time to misalign the Stinger Blade. His fist, moving at speeds fast enough to overcome the sound barrier, clipped the side of the hilt instead, tearing a meaty gash out of the side of its leg, but not rupturing any deeper muscles or tendons, not shattering to bits any bone. Idiot beast with nothing but good senses, huh.

Kicking off the monster, the black-armored assassin rolled upon the corpses, snatching up and sheathing his blade once more. His other arm went up, shielding his face from the blast of hot air that emanated from the monster’s entirety. Flames consumed the liondog, hot vapours surging out from its wound, and immediately, Xuan-Yu leapt backwards, the first bite snapping at empty air only millimeters away from him. He could feel the scalding heat now, enough to redden his skin and dry out his eyes. It’d be hard to approach for a kill in closecombat. A bad match up if slaying the beast was his goal, but that wasn’t the winning condition here.

Bite, slash, slam. Earth turned to ash with the behemoth’s approach.

Retreat, retreat, retreat. Evading by the barest margins as his blade drank in more poison.

With quick steps, dodges, and an occasional look behind his back, Xuan-Yu drew his foe further and further away from the soldiers’ defensive lines, allowed the beast to expose its back to his comrade knight. If Faye took this as opportunity to ram her glaive up its flaming butt and drag its guts out from there, then good. If Faye took this as opportunity to rejoin the actual war efforts and leave Xuan-Yu to play with this pissed-off mutt, better.

Heh, if he kept this up long enough, maybe they’d be in range for him to call for an assist from Kim.

The momentum from Hoshiko's ascent could only carry her so far. The moment her fist made contact with the massive crow-like Warped, she only had a few moments left before she began to descend again.

She took this opportunity to try and convey her plan to Pyra.

"I'll keep its attention!" she cried, trying to speak over the sound of the whipping winds and the flapping wings of the massive avian monster. She was confident she could do that, and if she did that not only could she hammer the Warped with her own attacks but Pyra would be able to bombard it with ranged attacks.

With a roar from her boosters, the brunette was sent rocketing back up and to the side, out of the way of the path of the tengu warped's beam of wind. Below, it blew apart several more oni-warped, the monster having little regard for others of its kind.

Powering her boosters again, tearing through the air, Hoshiko attempted to position herself above the creature, adjusting her trajectory in a bid to bring herself slamming feet-first into its back.

@PKMNB0Y@Izurich

---

Dark fluid, not immediately identifiable as blood, spurted from the writhing, severed arms of the centipede-like warped, as they rapidly snapped back and retracted back into its split head, vanishing into its body. With a sound uncannily like a gagging, coughing child, it spewed more of the dark red fluid from its body, now.

But it wasn't due to injury. No, it had transitioned to attempting to use a ranged attack, spewing the fluid out as a foul-smelling blast.

Below, wherever it landed darkened, and the Warped corpses it fell upon began to rapidly decay, plantlife blackening and wilting. While it was unlikely it would have such a swift effect on someone clad in a frame, nor did it appear to damage anything but organic material, it was equally likely that enough of the dark red fluid still begin to rot any living thing that it touched.

When the shots struck its flank, blowing off one of its many flailing arms, the creature shifted its attention for a moment, spewing more dark fluid towards Elise.

@PKMNB0Y@JDubs

---

The creature's form was ever so briefly visible. A glimpse of pale skin, of black hair. A limb bent in an odd fashion. But the warped was impossible to fully identify at the moment. Its movements were also swift, brief glimpses of it sometimes crawling along a wall or clambering through rubble at a high speed...

Even the beams of energy fired upon the warped were unable to reach their target, its rapid and erratic movements increasing their pace to evade the attack, its barely-visible form completely fading as it moved.

It would take more then that to pin the creature down.

It was heading right towards the Japanese forces' flank. In a few moments it had already nearly reached them, a hazy visage of long, backwards bending forelimbs reaching out...

@Medili@Mole

A wave of disgust ran through Norika. The smell was horrendous. In her time surviving outside the safety of walls and guns, she'd encountered more than one decaying corpse. However the odor this Warped's blood(?) carried was far more pungent. The only thing she could compare it to was if a badger had died in a latrine and rotted for months. However that wasn't the worst part.

Titania's heads-up display flashed a warning. Whatever this substance was, it was toxic as hell, and continued exposure to it could damage the Chi-Mechframe. Duly noted. "Kim, it's targeting you," Norika said over the comms. "Whatever it's shooting out is corrosive. I recommend immediate evasive maneuvers." Her tone was almost emotionless, though the corners of her lips twitched upward.

With the momentary distraction provided by the shift in attention she took advantage of the situation. Norika dove towards the Warped at high speeds, as if to crash headlong into it. However at the last moment, she moved aside, raising her blade to rake the side of the monster. The cut wasn't deep, but odds are it would hurt like hell. "Come on, you bastard! I'm the one you want!"

@VitaVitaAR@PKMNB0Y

@PKMNB0Y @VitaVitaAR

"Nnngh...!!" Pyra gritted her teeth as her literally-named "Protection'' force field buckled under the pressure of the shrapnel-choked wind beam. Even though Infernus was sturdier than Chi-Mechframes such as Titania and Selene, it was never designed for reliably tanking heavy attacks consistently unlike Grendel, and as such, the huge beam was cracking the barrier at an alarming rate, threatening to completely overwhelm the Frame Pilot behind it due to its sheer size. Fortunately, pilots rarely worked alone and Hinotori's uppercut disrupted the offensive, allowing Infernus a room to breathe.

The brunette narrowed her eyes as her boot-wings flapped and she soared through the sky, deciding that being on the move is still a better tactical option than staying still; she kept her eyes on the Warped while her active defense system continued topping up the amount of fireballs floating around her to respond against the lobbed debris that got too close for comfort. It turned out to be the right move as Pyra managed to evade the flying Warped's second beam, massively helped by the fact that it was trying to hit both Infernus and Hinotori at the same time, resulting in the beam being fired at an awkward angle, thus easier to avoid even with Infernus' meager agility.

She then received a message from Hinotori, conveying her intention for their enemy. "Acknowledged, Hinotori, pin it down if you can, over." Pyra stopped moving and held Infernus' lance with both hands - her left on the sidegrip situated at around one-third from its tip and her right on the shaft further back nearer to its hilt - for better control of the aiming process. At the same time, the lance's dragon-shaped head sprouted four wings of flame, their shape similar to the ones on her boots, albeit these were used to charge an attack instead of providing aerial movement.

Assuming Hinotori's plan worked at keeping the bird-like abomination's attention off her, Infernus' lance would begin feeding itself with boosters stored in specialized cartridges held inside the magazine attached to its neck. The biomechanical weapon would absorb the energies stored in said cartridges before ejecting it to allow for another cartridge to take its place in an automatic process that resembled an assault rifle ejecting empty bullets. With each booster consumed, its head-wings grew longer and the flames coalescing between its jaws intensified. "..." Pyra took a deep breath as she aimed the weapon at the avian menace, it was time to give the bastard a taste of its own medicine.

"Infernal… Buster!!"

The One Born in Fire willed the gathered power to release as a huge beam of concentrated dragonfire blazed through the air, scorching, melting, and incinerating anything unlucky enough to be in its way. If all went according to plan, the beam would consume her target into naught by ash. As for Hinotori, her defiant shout wasn't just to activate the attack, but doubly served as a warning for the younger girl to get out of the way of a potential friendly fire, in quite a literal sense for this particular case.

---

Place(s): Battlefield - Saitama Prefecture
Time: Afternoon
Interaction(s): Other members of the Defense Team

---

Oh, this one's good! Teodora mused in her mind as the beams she fired at the near-invisible Warped all missed their mark. To be exact though, she didn't exactly miss. Her aim was true, it was just that the creature had managed to evade the beams with its great speed and erratic movements. Of course, that it was near-invisible to begin with probably contributed to the attacks not landing as well. More importantly however, was how the creature then proceeded to ignore her and continued on to try to attack the Japanese forces instead as if it deemed her as a no threat. Teodora grinned excitedly once more. It was easy to conclude that this creature's definitely a boss level just like the komainu Warped.

She'll let Lousia and Xuan-Yu frag that one. She'll take down this invisible one instead.

Teodora pretended a few soft coughs to the intercom before beginning to speak. "Yes. About keeping my eyes peeled while keeping my beams blasting, Mr. Lang... I'm afraid I will not be able to fulfill. The invisible one's headed straight to wreck havoc on our allies, you see..." She swung Uragan to the side once before taking on a fencing stance. The engines of her wings began to hum louder and louder as blue light once more can be seen gaining intensity within the exhausts. See, Uragan. I told you that your time to shine will yet come in this battle. Well, that time is now, fufu.

"As for coordinates, Seraphima... Follow my flames! Supplice, moving to close quarters combat!"

Right after that exclamation, powerful bursts of jetfires exploded from her wings, propelling her straight toward the near-invisible threat. Teodora abandoned overwatch duty in favor of engaging the imminent threat, one that she has concluded must be met with her rapier and rifle at close range, her beam rapier poised for a high speed jet-propelled stab right at the Warped reaching out with its forelimbs at the clueless Japanese forces' soldiers...

Something caught her eyes. A sliver of something. It moved sneakily through the scenery, but she saw it. However, as soon as she saw it, it was gone, and Seraphima was retreating away from the large dog-lion. Her body swiftly soared through the air. So much for that! She thought to herself with her fists clenched. She was feeling more defensive, now -- a position she was not entirely opposed to. Living the monastic life had been some form of defensive, and shifting into the mindset was nothing less than natural.

"As for coordinates, Seraphima... Follow my flames! Supplice, moving to close quarters combat!"

The blue flames showered to her ten o'clock, and Seraphima shifted through the air. There it is! She could barely make it out, but it was there. Again, she was concentrating on something hard to see. It was a lot like sin, a sometimes barely visible force that wreaked terrors when not being concerned. Seraphima found it amazing how often she used her skills from the monastery on the battlefield. If she was being honest with herself, practicing being a starlet might as well have prepared her for being a soldier of war. Maybe this was just a way in which God worked mysteriously. Either way, she would take the help without question.

It's easier this way.

Of course, Seraphima was not necessarily the one to take the easy way-out. She was by no means a lazy creature. If she was, K-01 would have been destined for longer range attacks. In fact, she probably would not have been bothered with becoming a Frame Pilot if she was. There were more idle things she could have been doing than saving the world from monsters. Although, at this moment, she could not think of a single one because she preferred her current position. She did not envy, idolize, nor care to entertain the thought of being anywhere else. She was much too focused of a fighter.

She opened her palms, "I see the target!" Her voice projected into her communication device. A few small blasts came from her gloves as she began heading towards the enemy. Her gliders, like small mechanical fins, moved positions on her back. The jet back blasted her forward; all the while, the young dark-haired Greek had her tools ready in hand, zeroing in on potential weak points of the target, dancing around the blue rain of fire. "K-01 moving in!"

_______________________________________________________________

Louisa felt an uncomfortable film of perspiration condensing inside Grendel, which - despite its insulation and high thermal stability - was by no means entirely isolated from its environment, and as she trudged through the burning ash and embers of the superheated earth she became aware of the temperature steadily rising. To use the technical term, she thought, things were getting "bloody hot".

Feeling an animalistic anger rising at her discomfort, she gritted her teeth and began to run after the distracted komainu, kicking up clouds of cinders and occasionally pausing to pummel or decapitate an immolated warped dredge. As she gained momentum she began to close in, but due perhaps less to her own speed and more to the creeping effects of Xuan-yu's poison, as the monster's pursuit of Deathstalker became more sluggish as it gradually took effect.

With the threat removed from the frontlines - where she felt its uncontained destructive potential could quickly shatter and rout the advance of the Japanese infantry - and the odds made somewhat more even through Xuan-yu's impairing hit-and-run attacks, Louisa decided that it was time to tag in. Extending her glaive, she hefted it up above her shoulder like a javelin, and with two bounding leaps hurled it squarely at the exposed rear of the komainu. I don't know much about warped physiology, she thought, but things normally hurt when you shove a harpoon up their ass!

"Engage your camo, Lang! Cool off for a minute and let me take some of the heat!"

Grimacing at her pun, she recalled her weapon and advanced forward.

The effects of whatever the Warped that they were currently engaging was spitting out were clear as day to see, and much to Elise's chagrin, the monster was aiming it at her. The stench of whatever was rotting on the ground did not linger ere long in the air, thankfully enough, but that wouldn't change the fact that taking even a single hit would likely mean an amputated limb at absolute best.

"Understood," she barely managed to say as she curved around the stream of caustic liquid aimed at her before moving further into the air. "The anti-air assault seems to have weakened enough in the interim, so I'll be changing focus towards your target. The sooner it's gone, the better."

Of course, it would fall to Norika to close the fight out, but the least she could do was attempt to disable its movement. Taking out those uncannily humanlike limbs, then, would be of the utmost importance. Granted, it was a bit more difficult to aim for where the limbs met the body as she flew about, but even when she missed it still meant another bullet into its body.

@JDubs

---

As the massive beam that the avian Warped had fired left a gash across the earth in its wake, the monster noticed that there was only one target in its sight. With what unnaturally keen eyesight and intuition it seemed to have, though, the Warped seemed to begin to quickly look around in attempt to relocate what it had lost.

Too little, too late.

As the monster's gaze panned above itself, it managed to find what it was seeking—and with next to no time to fully respond. With a screech, the Warped attempted to twist its body out of the way of the incoming assault, only for it's right wing—undamaged until this very moment—to be punched clean through. Of course, this sudden shift in weight caused the bird to spin momentarily in the air as it began to fall—straight towards an incoming beam of flame.

Once the flames had ceased, the bird's body was left charred and scorched. The once-damaged wing was nowhere to be seen, scattered as ash to the wind, and the black smoke coming off of it as it continued to plummet to the ground obscured whatever else there was to be seen of it.

Confirming if it was dead or not as it crashed into the ruins, though... That was a different matter altogether.

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich

---

Though the poison coursing through its system was slowly beginning to take root, the unbridled rage that the beast seemed to be using as fuel seemed to only be growing with every attack that Xuan-Yu dodged. Regardless of how much or how fiercely it lashed out, though, the komainu seemed unable to reach it. As the heat around its body grew stronger and stronger still, though, a single unexpected strike seemed to leave the creature off-balance for a few moments. The pain, it seemed, had forced it to remember that it was not facing one single enemy, and that it had more than one target.

Though Louisa's javelin had indeed found its mark within the Warped's body, a slight deviation had steered it towards where the monster's injured leg met the rest of its torso. The flesh torn from its body as the weapon was pulled back was hot enough to see steam rising from it, but the damage had been done.

With one leg now thoroughly maimed, the komainu finally turned its attention back to Louisa and threw itself towards her, the scorching heat unrelenting as the monster seemed to be burning its very life away in order to try and kill at least one of the Frame Pilots engaging it.

@ERode@Laduguer

"You got it!" declared Hoshiko, grinning brightly as the scorched bird began to plummet towards the earth, vanishing far below. She'd been hoping to keep its attention just long enough for Pyra to pull something like that off, and it'd worked out just like she'd wanted! Of course, while the bird warped looked pretty bad, they couldn't be completely sure it was dead.

It hit the ground below, with a resounding thud, leaving an enormous crater beneath its huge, scorched, smoking body.

"I'll go make sure, and clean up down below!"

With that, and the roar of her rocket boosters, Hoshiko hurtled downwards. Her idea of making sure was a simple one, really.

The impact hit her legs, but her frame absorbed the shock easily, as she slammed down on the monstrous avian creature's head with enough force to crush it into the ground, its skull crumpling like a tin can under the impact.

In the same breath, the girl raised her fists up and took a fighting stance.

She was ready to take on the rest!

@PKMNB0Y@Izurich

---

The centipede creature let out an unpleasant chortling sound as a cut was rent into its side. This time, what spewed from its insides was blood, rather then the fetid ichor it had released as a ranged attack. But from within the wound came small, grasping, stretching hands, reaching out of the injury to attempt to grasp at any pilot who passed close enough.

Rather then a chortle, however, when it lost one of its limbs it let out a piercing shriek, its body writhing in the air. The monstrous warped's head twitched as it twisted its body, attempting to spray the pilots with the rotting liquid once again.

@PKMNB0Y@JDubs

---

Noting at the last possible moment that it had been discovered, the invisible warped sprang back, ceasing its attempt to attack one of the soldiers. Even though it attempted to evade, it was not unscathed. One of its wiry forelimbs lashed out, and caught Teodora's piercing charge in its own flesh, sending it skidding even further backwards with the blade lodged into its right front leg.

The man who was nearly snatched turned, wide-eyed, in time to see both frame pilots.

And the warped itself.

Faced with the two pilots, the creature felt it could no longer rely in its stealth.

Its body was revealed.

The creature's torso was human-like, to an extent, but incredibly gaunt and pale. Its waist was emaciated to an extreme extent, as if it lacked even internal organs. Its limbs were somewhat human-like, but bent backwards as if it was performing some sort of crab walk. From its rear a twisting, black, fanged tail writhed, resembling something like a snake as it almost seemed to watch the pilots with a mind of its own.

Its head was almost completely concealed by lengthy, black hair that trailed along the ground around it. All that could be seen, briefly, was a single wide, empty white eye.

With a hissing sound, a black light emanated from its snake-like tail as it raised and aimed squarely at Teodora, charging a blast of dark energy that looked like lightning...

@Medili@Mole

Sweat beaded on his forehead, each breath sucking in more of the heat that surged out from the monstrosity before him. His eyes twitched at the sting, but so long as he wanted to maintain a tempting distance with the liondog, Xuan-Yu remained within the radius of its surging heat. But in the corner of his vision, Faye’s angular form stalked the beast that chased after him, so in turn, Xuan-Yu prepared for her attack. One step smaller, bringing him in tantalizing range of the Warped, causing it too to pause just in time for…

The spear met its mark, opening up the previous wound further. The monster turned in its rage, exposing its back legs to Xuan-Yu again. His right leg coiled, scarlet flexors brimming with explosive might. Accumulated force released to the thunder of a human bullet, the Deathstalker chassis a black blur as it shot past the liondog’s uninjured side, catching Grendel by the chest in that same powerful leap.

And with that, the two Frame Pilots were far gone, Faye being summarily smashed through a half-dozen oni before they skid to a stop atop the gore of the Warped. As for the liondog? Perhaps it would be immediate, or perhaps it would be after a few seconds, but Xuan-Yu was not the type to leave a duel without a parting gift: soon enough, its other hindleg would be feeling just a little bit worse for wear.

He flicked the scalding blood off his blade, shook out his sore arm, then winked at Faye.

“I’ll cool off now. Consider a shower before the debrief, yes?”

And with that, Xuan-Yu dissolved into the background once more.

@PKMNB0Y @VitaVitaAR @JDubs @ERode @Laduguer @Medili @Mole

"..." Pyralis kept her blue eyes peeled as she kept a firm grip over her lance while it was still belching the fiery beam, surely no one wanted for her to slip and accidentally scorch a Japanese soldier or two, right? With her ADS protecting her from stray projectiles being lobbed her way, she could focus on angling the draconic beam so the Avian Warped would be caught in it. Auspiciously, Hinotori's 'rider kick' - its power compounded by the combination of her boosters and natural gravity - managed to literally blow a gaping hole through its right wing, crippling its ability to fly as it fell through the sky-...

…-straight into a waiting stream of dragonfire just below. Like an insect to a venus flytrap, it was caught between the metaphorical dragon's jaws as the mutated creature came under fire, literally. While conventional flames would've done only minor damage to Warped hide and flesh, Infernus was created from their kind, engineered specifically to purge the unclean; as such, what was left after Pyralis' Infernal Buster petered out barely resembled the original creature; its right wing a mere cauterized stump, and its whole body blackened with lethal infernus-degree burns. It fell unceremoniously to the concrete below, a pathetic remnant of the once terrible bird. At this point, it'd actually be crueler to not finish it off, but Hoshiko took care of that by stomping its head, a mercy kill all things considered.

Meanwhile, Pyralis breathed out as the two diagonally-angled tube-shaped protrusions on the sides of her lance's head slid open, spewing excess flames and heat in a safe and controlled manner, like a car's twin exhausts; a standard procedure of the Chi-Mechframe each time its pilot used one of the big charged attacks as twas' difficult to calculate exactly how much power was needed to obliterate a foe, like sometimes the target might already be vanquished before Infernus finished releasing all of that destructive energy. Furthermore, rare as it might be, there's always a non-zero chance that an incident might occur where the attack must be canceled after it was charged, and having a specific mechanism to safely do that was a no-brainer.

With their immediate high priority threat dealt with, Infernus quickly surveyed the battlefield. It seemed there were only Onis left in this area, but she's generally aware that the other teams were facing Apex Warped of their own based on their comms. The Human Centipede, the Flaming Komainu, and the... - for a lack of better words - Invisible Stalker. With that context, Pyralis spoke into the comms, addressing every member of the team.

"Infernus here, do any of you need assistance? Over."

If none replied with an affirmative, she'd assume that they got things under control over there and would proceed to continue what she did before the Bird Apex showed up, which was cleaning up the area of mutants together with Hinotori.

Norika felt a wave of revulsion as the hands shot out towards her. The Warped never ceased to amaze her in new, disgusting ways. She dodged backwards to avoid the grasping hands, batting several aside with her blades that got too close for comfort. "When we get back, I'm taking twenty showers back to back," she muttered. She didn't care if any of the other pilots or command heard.

"Infernus here, do any of you need assistance? Over."

"Titania here," she replied. "We've got the situation under control here. No need to send either of us back to base extra-crispy."

@Izurich@VitaVitaAR@PKMNB0Y

While Seraphima rocketed towards the the Warped, she found herself slowing significantly as the shape of the monster became more dignified. It had limbs. Human limbs. It had a torso. A human torso. It had hair. Human hair. Still, it was warped in nature. It’s human body was twisted and distorted, all connected with something like a cyclops and a snake. Something inside her felt sadness as the bolt from Supplice struck the creature.

A hiss coiled and writhed from the monster, as a charge began electrifying it’s mouth. It’s direction was facing Supplice. She was right in the line of fire, and Seraphima mentally kicked herself for pausing, losing any form of concentration. Why had she been contemplating if the monster was a male or female? It was hard enough to remember that many of them had been humans, but to begin assigning personalities was crossing the line; and yet…

It really did not matter. The humanity of the creature was gone. It was her job to destroy it and defend what was left of the human race. “Not on my watch,” she grimaced to herself, determining if she had not paused, she may have missed an opportunity to change directions and tactics. Lord have mercy… Her rocket jetted, and she zoomed towards the mouth of the creature. She had just saved herself from being too reckless.

With her dagger still in her hand, she flung it towards the giant eye. She could feel the airy slowness of our suit failing her and her lack of large ammunition. Still, with good aim, something could be done, ”Supplice! K-01 making cover! Over! Infernos, Supplice and K-01 need backup. Over.” With her claws retracted. Her frame blasted behind her. The weight slowed her down, albeit, kept her frame in-check. Her force field was projected.

All Seraphima wanted to do was claw the eye out. The window to the soul. Even if meant taking some of the hit, she calculated that her shield could take the blast, and if anything took her out momentarily, Infernus would be able to hold things while she recovered.

---

Place(s): Battlefield - Saitama Prefecture
Time: Afternoon
@Mole @Izurich

---

"And that is a point for me!" Teodora remarked confidently as she pulled her beam rapier back after landing the stab at the creature's right foreleg. The creature fully revealed itself after that as it realized that it couldn't rely on being stealthy anymore. "Oh my. With some of the other Warped I can kind of identify what they're trying to look like as... But you? What are you supposed to be? Oh well, it doesn't matter. Ready to frag this one, Seraphima?" Teodora reset her stance as she prepared to continue her assault on the creature, while the creature itself; or rather its tail, seemed to watch both her and the now arrived Seraphima.

The Warped then seemed to charge up an attack using its snake-like tail, aiming it at Teodora. "Oh. I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that, fufu." In response, both Chi-Mechframe pilots quickly reacted. Seraphima flung a dagger at the creature's one prominent eye, while Teodora performed two moves in quick succession. First, she swiftly fired off a single shot from her beam rifle at the creature's snake tail. Then a split second after that, quick blasts of flames from the engines of her wings propelled her forward in an instant as she rammed the creature in the torso, her beam rapier held in front of her to stab the creature again while also hopefully pushing it back away from the allied soldiers even further.

The beam from her rifle will hopefully stop whatever attack the Warped was charging up. If not, then Teodora was sure that her barrier can hold up to the attack. Thus why she made no effort to evade at all, counter attacking instead. It was a decision Teodora made almost by reflex in response to Seraphima's own actions. Hopefully, with both her own rapier charge and Seraphima's dagger and claws combo, it will be enough to push the creature back. Enough so that the incoming firepower that should be coming from above won't cause any friendly fire casualty to the Japanese soldiers, so to speak. "All yours, Infernus! Light 'em up!"

And thus with Teodora protected by her barrier and Seraphima by her force field, to stop the creature from moving away the two were ready to risk staying in the danger zone of the incoming aerial bombing.

_______________________________________________________________

Louisa blinked, stunned by the explosive and unexpected tackle that had rendered her and Xuan-yu a snowplough blitzing through the mass of shuffling warped thralls. Suddenly aware that the cushioned surface she was reclining on consisted of the mangled, twisted and twitching remains of whatever aberrations had got in their way, she quickly rose with a violent shake of her body. After retrieving her glaive from the three monstrosities it had idly shish-kebab'd on their retreat from the komainu, she scanned her surroundings for any trace of the now-vacant Deathstalker.

"What the hell did he say... he's going to take a shower?"

That slightly bewildering thought was quickly shunted from her head as the exchange on her comms snapped her back to the situation at hand, and she began striding towards the frontline with heavy footfalls, returning to the besieged but gradually advancing vanguard of the Japanese armed forces. Leaping into a suspiciously active scrum of bestial warped, she bisected a score of dredges with a sweeping arc, and pulled the dismemebered-but-still-clawing torso of a warped away from a terrified and wounded Japanese infantryman.

Hurling the torso into another nearby pack - an ineffectual but irrespectively cool move - she retracted her glaive into a sword, and promptly declined using it altogether, insteading choosing to clobber the head clean off a gibbering humanoid monstrosity with a single weighty punch.

"Ngh! -- a crunch sounded out over comms -- Grendel back at the frontline! Looks like we took the big dog out of the picture for the minute. I'll keep the chaff away from the infantry whilst you guys finish off... whatever the hell those things are!"

The sight of actual blood being spilled by the Warped meant that their efforts were at least showing some meaningful sign of progress, which was honestly the best they could have hoped for. The virtual HUD in her peripherals showed that the others were dealing with similarly problematic Warped, and the call-in from Pyralis showed that at least one group amongst them was better off than they for the moment.

"I—"

Elise attempted to respond to the offer of aid, but Norika seemed to have no part in it. Given how well she was faring, such an offer would likely have been unnecessary, but if it helped resolve the situation faster, then all the better.

With that said, the call for help from the Seraphima left Elise without any worries about whether or not they could handle the beast (they clearly could), but rather to distribute people where they were needed instead of focusing solely on their positions as the vanguard.

"...We should be able to handle this one on our own," Elise said, her words directed at herself as much as they were at Norika and Pyralis as she swapped out the bullets she had been loading into her rifle for something a fair deal more powerful. "Replacing live ammunition with light rounds. Aiming for the hea—!"

Before she could finish her sentence, another wave of whatever vile liquid the Warped had in store was launched at the two, and Elise barely managed to slip out of the way to dodge it. A bit had barely managed to clip one of her wings, but inorganic as it was, it seemed to roll off harmlessly.

With that said, cleaning up afterwards was probably in her best interests.

After taking a few moments to recenter herself, the Frame Pilot brought her weapon up to her shoulder and took aim at the Warped's head from above.

"As I was saying..." she said, eyebrows furrowed as a small sphere of light seemed to be forming from within the barrel of her weapon, "Aiming for the head—or whatever might pass for one on this thing. Don't get caught in the crossfire."

And with that, Elise pulled the trigger and fired.

What had formed as a small ball of light instantly turned into a thin, momentary laser that pierced through the Warped, well beyond where most of her other bullets would have stopped. Whether or not it mattered in the long run remained to be seen, but hopefully Norika would be able to carve up the rest of the monster as it recovered from the attack if it wasn't already dead.

@JDubs

---

With the birdlike Warped most certainly dead after having its head pulverized into the ground below, the smaller Warped around it seemed to hesitate for a moment before the group seemed to split up. Some continued to charge at Hoshiko, apparently ignoring the beast she had just felled without so much as a scratch; others, however, seemed to be retreating—a wise decision, in many respects, but an odd one in the face of what the Warped tended to do.

Not like it was any reason to be worried at the moment—fleeing enemies meant less bodies to have to clean up, after all—but the day was still not yet won as the young Frame Pilot chose to stall the remnants of the horde as her partner flew off to provide aide to their allies.

@VitaVitaAR

---

Seeing its prey disappear before its eyes left the komainu-esque Warped disoriented for a moment, the heat around its body still leaving the ground alight. It's eyes flicked about restlessly as it searched for the two that had escaped, but as the monster finally figured out where the two had gone, it paused.

The poison that Xuan-Yu had managed to infect it with had been easy enough to ignore before, but with the injuries it had now, the weakness that seemed to grip its entire body left it feeling heavy and sluggish. The heat began to subside, little by little, as it began to move back towards the sole Pilot that was left in its sights.

It had burnt far too much energy attempting to kill the faster one among the two, but without that one in sight and the heat in its heart beginning to fizzle out, the Warped continued ahead, fully willing (it seemed) to throw its life away to at least take out one of the beings it had aimed to kill.

@ERode@Laduguer

_______________________________________________________________

No sooner did Louisa triumphantly announce their victory over comms that she noticed a rising glow out of the corner of her vision, a vibrating tremor in the earth, and a hot breeze of excited air and immolated earth blowing along the trajectory of their ad-hoc tackle-catapult maneuver.

Leaping back from the scrum to get a better view of the battlefield, her fears were confirmed. She may have spoken too soon about the whole komainu situation.

"... Scratch that, looks like we took the dog out of the picture for a lot less than a minute. I-I'm moving to engage."

Gritting her teeth, she barged her way through the clearing she had made and took up a position far enough in advance of the Japanese frontline to somewhat reduce their risk of becoming collateral damage. Knocking encroaching warped away to the left with an armoured fist, and to the right with an extending flick of her glaive, she picked up each of her feet in turn and stomped them firmly into the ground, twisting her heels as she did. She had rooted herself firmly in the path of the suicidal charging komainu, and couched her extended glaive under her right arm, stabilizing it with her gripped left hand. It wasn't exactly sophisticated enough to call it a phalanx, but...

If this thing wants to flatten me, or blow up, or run me over, or whatever, she thought, it'll have to skewer itself first! That at least makes my odds of survival better than the dog's... right?