2450/Five Nightmares: This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race
From Radiant Heart MUSH
| Five Nightmares: This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 05 April 2025 |
| Location: | Dreamscape |
| Synopsis: | As those gathered to rescue Hinoiri venture into the Dreamscape, the party splits in two - one team to rescue Hinoiri, and the other to serve as a distraction, rescuing those other souls tormented by the Salarymen. Team Go Loud - consisting of Usagi, Mamoru, Madoka, Homura, Kamiko, and Amy - make their stand, blasting through five floors of corporate hell along the way. They exploded the doors. They burned the floors. They even crashed a helicopter. |
| Cast of Characters: | Usagi Tsukino, Mamoru Chiba, Madoka Kaname, Amanda Faust |
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
As the gates outside into the Tokyo dreamscape swing wide, Emi turns back to face everyone with a swirl of skirts.
"Okay. I know you've all seen some weird things, but I'm not going to take any chances." She begins to weave pink, gossamer webbing with her hands, generating and spooling together strands of it until its thick as cable. She begins feeding it out to each of them as she goes, expecting them to pass it amongst themselves until everyone is holding on. "I don't want any of you to get separated until its time. So hold on. Tightly. I'll be guiding us through the dreamscape, but you all need to do your best to keep up and hang on. Things are likely to get ... dizzying from time to time."
Finally, once everyone is ready, she turns and stretches her arms out over her head. A rather large spider has appeared to nestle on her shoulder, itself colorfully vibrant and alive. And talking.
"Are you ready, KenKen?" Emi asks the spider.
"Ready as ever!"
"Remember, everyone. Don't stop for anything. No matter how weird or alluring."
"OKAY GO," says Emi, quoting about a million early English translations of Japanese video games.
And then its out into the streets of Tokyo. Dream Tokyo.
The transition is immediately jarring. Within the space of a breath, they are in a cityscape no longer bound by the logic of zoning laws or the pedestrian demands of civic life. Skyscrapers stack on one another, tilt at impossible angles, piercing a moonless sky full of vibrant colors and shimmering, almost holographic cherry blossoms that swirl and form shapes, almost as if they were what passed for cloud cover.
And Emi runs. She runs down twisting sidewalks that reach a crosswalk that stretches into a looping moebius strip, passing by vending machines stacked one top another, all screaming endlessly. A commuter train passes by on the right and above, moving on rails that only becomes visible just ahead of it, coming from no place and going nowhere. In the flash of sodium lights brought about by twisting street lamps, they can see dark figures with their faces pressed against the windows staring at them, mouths opening and closing like fish.
They pass amongst pedestrians, crowds and thongs of people that Emi weaves through -- not real, of course, or at least not seemingly. Put together from *ideas* of people, concepts of a person and uncanny and unreal as one might expect. It starts to rain, forming puddles that must be navigated, which reflect entirely different skylines. Visions of a Tokyo that could be, was, and never will be again. Utopian visions meshed with dismal realities. People sitting at a ramen stand, floating on a tatami-like mat. It's cook is an old man that you swear can see right through you.
Living manga characters race through the streets, pointed at by gaping tourist-like visitors. Buildings made of water colors, flowing and alive. Forgotten dialects of Japanese ring in their ears, somehow understandable and yet never known, maybe never even real. An arch made of bowls, clattering like wind chimes, a trans station with turnstiles where a train who, rather than have wheels, is moved by the power of the many human legs that ungainly twist and writhe out of its sides like a horrible centipede. Twisting down off a street, Emi leads them to a flowing river which she darts across, using the great many lanterns that flow down it as stepping stones.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
As they follow, they hear the wishes of others made during the Nebuta Matsuri, the summer festival. Finally, they're reaching downtown, where the skyscrapes climb even higher, some seeming stacked on each other like a child's house of cards. A red bricked building on their left, seeming normal for the moment it takes to notice that its walls are rising and falling like its breathing, followed by its facade of brick and glass shifting with collage like precision, eyes mouths and noses forming brief faces of masonry before vanishing again. It whispered names none of them knew... and their own.
And then there it is, looming in the distance. A corporate tower, like something out of one of the dismal visions from earlier, an austere facade as faceless -- quite lierally faceless -- men in matching office wear of white shirts, black ties and slacks and dress shoes, walk in and and walk out of it an endless cycle that never ends, as they promptly turn right around and go back inside.
The overtime never stops coming.
Emi steps finally, pasting herself against a wall of one of the nearby buildings that rise up into the sky beside it.
"This is it. It doesn't look like much, does it? Not even out of place in Tokyo proper. Mundane, soul killing, a null space of creativity. That's the Salrymen." She points to the workers. "I'm going to take some of us up this building, the rest of you hit the front door as soon as you're ready. Be careful. They're nasty pieces of work that can synchronize *very* well. Team building, you know?"
She'll give them a moment to catch their breath before she bursts through the door of her building of choice. Seems she already knows where she wants to go.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Fortunately I think we're probably good at teamwork," Endymion says to the empty air where Emi was a second ago, and then he cracks his knuckles. "Let's open some doors!"
He backpedals until he can see the whole of the front door, then yells out, "Tuxedo la Smoking Crater!"
As the last word slams out, Endymion, grinning like an idiot, stamps one suddenly glowing boot on the dream pavement, and almost instantly, the ground around and under the front doors explodes upwards, like the tall boy stepped on an underground rake or something. Or pushed down the detonator on something.
"GOOD MORNING!" he sings out. "WE DIDN'T BRING DARKBUCKS!"
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
Webs are handed out. Madoka holds onto one, and gives another each to Kamiko and Homura. The black-haired girl looks at the strand for a moment before accepting it. Madoka whispers and says, "It's only until we get there, okay? Hold off until then."
Homura waves it off. "I know. I know." She's being stoic and quiet in a way that Madoka can tell means she's bothered but to anyone else probably just looks like Homu's resting angry face.
Hope Blossom in a suit, Homura in her Puella henshin, and Kamiko travel along with the rest of the group. Madoka looks at the dreamscape in awe, Homura keeps an eye on Madoka and Kamiko, and the divine fairy looks at everything with grumpy suspicion.
Kamiko notices what she can only assume is Vending Machine Hell, at which point she shakes her tiny fist at them and yells, "You had it coming, dummies! You know what you did!"
Homura cracks a smile at the fairy's antics, and Madoka giggles, but they both make sure that she doesn't float away from them or wander off too far.
When the group finally makes it to the Salarymen headquarters, Madoka looks up at the tall building a bit mortified. An entire tower of baddies. Kinda reminds her of Obsidian HQ.
Homura comments, "Well, at least they aren't throwing it at us."
Madoka looks at the others in the group, and then forms her branchbow in her hands. "So... are we going in stealthy or...?"
Homura looks at the webbing in her hands, releases it, and then flips her hair. "... Nah. Let's make a scene." Then she holds her left arm forward, bracing her hand against her shield, and asks, "We can dream up whatever, right?"
... And that's how, shortly after Mamoru unleashes his magic, Homura ends up summoning a whole missile out of her shield which flies directly into (through?) the front doors of the building. Madoka follows up with a spray of pink arrows intended to completely obliterate whatever passes for a lobby here.
No one can say they're afraid to pull aggro.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
They cross the Dreamscape in all it's fantastical wildness passes them as they run with Emi, gripping spider silk and trying their best not to get distracted by it all - skyscrapers stacked atop each other, people and characters and buildings and floating tatami mats and screaming vending machines and -
Someone could really get lost their forever.
And then they're in front of the building, bland, typical, corporate - something that doesn't even look like a nightmare. Usagi Tsukino - Sailor Moon, still in her Lilymon costume, pink flower skirt and crescent moon shaped vining patterns on her bodice, her hair in odangos but braided back, steps up and thrusts an arm out, and the magic responds, creating the Spiral Heart Moon Rod.
"Well, anyone who wants to go loud should be with me. Emi, your team should get Hinoiri-chan. Everyone who wants to be the distraction team... let's fuck this place up!"
Endymion detonates the entrance, and she giggles and slaps the rod forward.
"Moon Spiral Heart Attack!"
A swift spin, and then the enormous pink heart flies through the hole Endymion just made. The sound of walls cracking echoes.
- Amanda Faust has posed:
Amy stares in wonder as they enter Dreamscape Tokyo, then after a couple of seconds realizes that Emi is running and runs after her.
The sights are amazing and wild and she wishes she could stay and look at them more, sometimes she slows for a half-second before catching herself and continuing to run.
She's glad for mahou superjumping prowess as she leaps from lantern to lantern. She doesn't want to find out what happens if she falls into that river.
She winces at the sight of the people... were they people? Condemned to eternal overtime. She nods.
"Of course they can synchronize well. Why shouldn't they be constantly misunderstanding eachother, or accidentally reply-alling emails, or not following the basic instructions to not click on the popups...
Attacks begin, a bit faster than she was expecting. "You have missiles too?!" she asks Homura.
"Should we really be firing blindly? We don't know if there's victims on the first floor..."
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The building - the building is so normal, and so is the Front Door. It's a normal building, this is a normal place, uncreative, dull, maddeningly normal, and the front door is the same, it's glass and metal and pull bar even though it's a push to open door.
Because why not.
The faceless men in their identical white shirts and black ties and slacks and dress shoes, walking through the door, don't notice the colorful teenagers near the entrance.
Not until the front door explodes up and out, sending glass and stone flying everywhere, sending the Salarymen flying everywhere -
And the enormous heart, and the missiles, and the pink arrows fly through the air, and in the building, on the first floor, it's mostly reception, and it's all being destroyed, all of it. There's rubble, there's broken chair bits, there's some fake plants for the sake of pretending there's life, and motivational poster scraps flying through the air, and smoke, drifting with strange physics -
And now, there are the Salarymen, looking at them. It's strange to be stared at them, because they don't have eyes. They don't have faces at all, just smooth expanses of skin, and after a moment of that silent staring, their hands come up, fingertips touching smooth browless skin - and a single, bulbous eye opens in each face, blinking once, before they start firing lasers from that eye, a single beam rapid firing from each of them, and they start swarming, like a flock of birds or school of fish moving in sync as they try to mob the heroes.
And this is just the ground floor - but through them all, in that destroyed first floor, there's a staircase, heading up. A target to aim for?
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
Madoka shrugs and responds to Amy. "Honestly, I'd be surprised if a tactical nuke would even be enough to take a place like that down."
Homura shrugs and says, "I think mine are a little different than yours. Though... that may not be true here." She pulls a dream uzi out of her shield, and then after a moment of thought she also pulls a red ribbon our and ties it around her forehead. "Infinite ammo," she explains, before charging through the now open front doors.
Madoka sweatdrops at her rambo-ing girlfriend and comments, "I feel like that's the kind of joke that Brai would get, but I don't." After rushing in after Homura, she says, "Amy has a good point. Be on the lookout for those we need to save."
The salarymen are now taking notice of them, firing eyebeams that Homura evades by... fading in and out of existence? Teleporting? It's hard to really see what it is that she's doing. Everywhere she goes though, she leaves destruction. Dropping grenades, firing ammo. It's seemingly chaotic, but there's a method to her madness. She's clearing a path for the others, especially Madoka. Threats assessed, threats addressed.
Hope Blossom, meanwhile, is rushing into the building. Her approach is a little bit more obvious and direct, and she only fires upon the salarymen who impede her path. She's going directly for the staircase, and Kamiko is holding onto her shoulder for dear life.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Endymion lets out a loud laughing whoop as the heart crashes in through the rest of the doors and finishes absolutely demolishing the entrance. Then creepy, creepy, CREEPY blank faces start shooting lasers at them and he literally capetanks the lasers, holding the flowing black and red magical silk up so that it can soak it. Or bounce them off. Probably soak them. "Prisoners in reception? Gonna be the cubicle farms," he yells out to Amy, "and if anyone who shouldn't get hurt gets hurt, I'll fix them, just shove them out into my dream with one of the roses! And let me know if you need more!"
Then he's following Homura and Madoka, at speed for the staircase, throwing an arm up and out to flood the lobby with exploding glitter roses. "Elysian Glittering Rose Bomber!"
- Amanda Faust has posed:
"I got iiiit!" Amy calls to Homura, when Madoka says she doesn't get it. "Uhh, are we not using power from our soul gems in here?" Seeing the swarming salarymen, she fires a high-explosive missile into their midst, and a pillar of fire transforms her again... And the resulting suit still has her color scheme and some stylistic elements, but it's clearly reminiscent of a certain heroic bounty hunter who was raised by bird aliens.
It probably doesn't actually make her tougher, but she feels better, as she runs to Mamoru's side to make their way upstairs. She used to dream about those games a lot.
"Roger that, Mam-- Prince!" She's not sure how bad it is if the Salarymen hear his name.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I don't think these faceless guys are civilians, and our job is to Go Loud! We've just got to fuck 'em up!"
Lilymoon dives under the beams coming for her and rolls back up to her feet, glad for the knee high green boots that keep her from scraping herself too much, and the Rod jams her fingers, but that's fine - she straightens them out by slamming the rod in a Salaryman's face.
The beam cuts off, and she grins viciously, diving through and running with her friends, trying to dodge around explosions coming from Madoka's cool goth girlfriend, as she makes her way for the stairs.
"I didn't get it! But who cares, we made it this far!" Exploding glitter roses land all around, and she laughs with grim abandon, as she reaches the staircase. "I can't believe we're working out in our dreams too!"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
They're definitely causing trouble, and making themselves known. Whatever else might be, or could be, happening upstairs, where Hinoiri is, this is where the madness is breaking out. They're causing rampant destruction... to the first floor. Explosions from missiles and grenades and fired off shots, arrows fired into those in the path of the stairs, glittering roses that explode again and again and again into showers of bright light and glitter, causing damage but also sticking glittering everywhere.
It's a mess.
But it's all here, on this one floor, and there are so many Salarymen, because more of them are coming in, because this is still just the ground floor, the most open level of this lair. There are beams firing at them, but luckily, they are still going up -
Because there are the stairs.
The stairs are normal and ordinary and they don't warp or change or distort, they're just... normal stairs. Their feet clack and pound as they climb up, a cacophony of noise, and the aftermath of the explosions echo, and yet when they reach the first floor, there's -
An office. Open, but full of cubicles, identical white cubicles, close packed, with identical computers, with identical black chairs, identical motivation posters, repeating across cubicles - there's one with a sun and a smile GIVE IT YOUR ALL, there's one with a moon and stars SHOOT FOR THE STARS, there's one with a goldfish with a shark fin IT'S ALL ABOUT MINDSET -
And each chair is occupied, with people in identical white shirts and black ties and black slacks and black shoes and they're working at computers and answering calls and they don't have faces, they're just working endlessly -
In the back of the first floor, a flash of color. A man in an identical outfit, but his hair (limp, oily, as tired as he is) is in a different haircut from the rest, a mohawk that's overgrown, not shaved down but still visibly a 'hawk. He's tapping on a computer and whimpering under his breath, because his laptop keeps DING, DING, DING, DING with new messages even as he tries to answer them.
Victim, found.
There's something else found, too - empty office chairs, that seem to be getting pushed around the floors between rows of cubicles, straps dangling from their sides...
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
Homura explains to Amy in between bursts of gunfire. "Well... my guns aren't coming from my Soul Gem. They're actually just real weapons that I enchant with magic. Except that they can't be real right now because we're in a dream world, so now I'm dreaming up weapons and enchanting them with my magic." She glances at the other Puella and says, "If I could just summon magic weapons like you or the other Puella Magi, I'd go about things a bit differently."
To Usagi, Madoka turns back for a moment and says, "Eheh. I wonder if any of us are doing that 'running in our sleep' thing that puppies do."
They get to the next floor. Madoka kicks the door down. Homura rolls through the threshold and squats, keeping her uzi by her side. The pinkette calls out, "We need to be a little more selective now. If it doesn't have a face, then shoot it!"
Homura doesn't even give the faceless nightmares a chance to fire first. She's already going after them with quick bursts of fire. One target after the other, only to vanish moments before a laser passes through where she was standing a second ago.
Kamiko meanwhile floats a little closer to the ceiling and notices the mohawk standing out. "Victim spotted! I bet if I could get closer, my Witch Stickers would snap him out of it."
"Follow me, Ka-chan!" calls out Madoka, racing towards the victim in question. She's a little surprised that a mohawk fits within the company dress code. Then again, this poor man has submitted enough already. Her pink arrows target and go after the salarymen who get directly in her way, while Homura tosses aside her uzi for a very long scoped rifle which she then uses to provide cover fire.
- Amanda Faust has posed:
"Oh, cool." Amy replies to Homura, and then a second later, asks, "Wait, where did you get REAL GUNS?! In JAPAN?!"
But perhaps it's not important right now. A victim is spotted.
Kamiko asks to get closer, and Amy -- still in space bounty hunter armor -- runs alongside Madoka.
They are team loud, so if any salarymen approach to menace them on the way, those that aren't already taken out by Homura, she aims the suit's gun-arm at them and fires. Dream is stretching her powers a little, the produced beam attack looks similar to her usual 'bang' elemental attack, but it's quieter and more focused on heat energy transfer than just tearing through things. If that's not enough, she'll start firing the usual instead, starting fires behind any targets pierced.
If she's able to reach the man in the mohawk, she tries to reach down and yank the plug on his workstation. "Oh huh, a computer problem? Lucky you, you get a break!"
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Kamikochan!" yells the prince, taking out a rose and tossing it to the tiny fairy-- a gentle lob, so she can catch it. "Wake him up and give him that! Cut the air with it, shove him through--"
And there are chairs and Endymion KICKS one at a clutch of swarming Salarymen, then kicks another because the first one made it clear that bowling is an option here, and then he kicks another one down a cube-corridor and runs to jump onto it feet-first and ride it like he's on the top of a subway train. His cape billows out behind him.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"If we are, Kazuo-kun better take pictures," Lilymoon declares, and as she's looking around, and seeing the endless rows of cubicles, she shudders. This isn't a world that would ever be her future, not with how determined she's always been to be a housewife, but it's the future of so many people.
This nightmare is mind-numbing in all its blandness. It's a moment of distraction that gets her tackled from behind, and she cries out as she flailing back and into a chair, which whooshes her towards an empty cubicle as the straps tighten around her waist.
"What the-"
She can feel the energy and life draining away from her, and does the only thing a girl could do in this situation -
Jams her priceless magical weapon born from her own love and heart, apparently, into the floor and forcibly swings the chair Tokyo Drift style until it's racing for the victim and her friends.
"Watch out!"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The Salarymen aren't very strong, as individuals, and that's been beneficial - but this floor is an endless wave of them, with just a single victim. There's a staircase, beyond the victim, that they can run to, but as they reach him, the Salaryman in the cubicle nearest him reaches out to grab Amy's wrist, as she's yanking the plug on his workstation. With the other hand, pointed at his head, he blinks his enormous eye and blasts her point-blank.
Kamiko is targeted too, with lasers flying towards her as Salarymen stand in sync, each and every one of them pushing back their chairs and firing their lasers, at the tiny fairy, at Madoka, at Homura, at Endymion - and getting shot by Madoka's arrows, or fired on by Homura's gun, or tripping over chairs that Endymion is knocking back here and there, but more are just getting up. Was this room always so big? Did the cubicle labyrinth always stretch so far?
"What are you DOING? I'm - no, I didn't save my report! It's due in, in ten minutes, I'm going to get my pay deducted -"
The victim is the one frantically panicking, pawing at the shut down computer, staring in horror and trying to fix it -
And then he's hit from behind by Lilymoon and the run away chair, which is trying to force her into his cubicle.
He yelp, and she yelps.
"Sorry! But you needed a day off anyway, so just - let Kamiko-chan help you OUT!"
And the man gets a kick in the rear towards Kamiko.
The chair that Endymion is riding upon tries to redirect him, the same way it's redirecting his princess - tries to move him towards a cubicle, and as he rides it, with his billowing cape and his hope and optimism, he'll feel it - the energy drain, of course, but also, the sudden worry, that he's got a report due, that he's missing a meeting, that way, there's a deadline coming up, isn't there, that he's got to make sure he's filed his taxes, or he'll be fined, and wait, didn't he need to get that proposal finished -
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
Kamiko is thrown a rose, and she catches it in her tiny arms. At her scale, it may as well be a thorny spear or polearm. "Got it!" she calls out.
While Amy is pulling the plug on this man's despair, the tiny goddess Chara is cutting through the air with the rose, starting up high and then dropping all the way down to the floor, ripping through the dreamworld's reality. It's a little bit different than her own portals, but she's bent enough physical laws already that this kind of thing is right up her alley.
Just in time for Lilymoon to kick the man through. Kamiko fistpumps into the air before asking, "Um... how do we close it?"
Madoka smiles at Kamiko and Lilymoon, saying, "Good job!"
Homura jumps up top the line of cubicles and starts running along the partitions between them, leaping from one row to the next as the salarymen notice her and start aiming. Purple eyes locked dead ahead, she announces, "Stairway spotted! Doka, let's hold it!"
Madoka looks at where her emo gal pal is going and says, "Oh! Um. On my way!" Then she grabs the tiny divine Chara out from the air and starts running for the stairs. When she gets there she kicks a cubicle desk over and hides behind it as cover, turning around to cover her friends. Homura follows suit, making it just inside the threshold of the door and ducking behind it while taking shots with... what is now a small semi-automatic pistol? Did her firearm change shape because she had forgotten it was supposed to be a rifle? Oh well. Dream logic.
Homura very intentionally did not answer Amy's question.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I AM INDEPENDENTLY WEALTHY and NO ONE is the BOSS of ME!" yells Endymion, reaching up and clutching at his head as he surfs the drab scratchy carpeting with the energy-draining office chair. "If I had fifty yen for every time someone's tried to crush my soul with paperwork-- actually fuck you, it's been way more than two times--"
He does a reverse Waffle House with the chair then as he grabs the edge of a cubicle and launches himself up with a kickflip like the chair's a cursed skateboard, and does an aerial somersault over the heads of ... a lot of cubicles ... and he vanishes his boots and greaves, suddenly no longer clanking as he runs, there's just the thap thap thap of bare feet on an office floor.
Every step of his makes the floor light up underneath his feet, threads of golden light spiderwebbing out from each impact. "Don't let the chairs get you they're malevolent! Also it'll close on its own, but after I see how many other real people are in here, maybe I should go be on the other side of the door to wrangle survivors? I mean they should be fine, but-- oh sweet thanks," this last to HomuDoka holding the stairwell. Beeline, if he can get five consecutive seconds he can locate more victims and they can go straight towards them.
- Amanda Faust has posed:
Amy is a bit shocked. Every time facilities or administrative staff at the school had a computer issue, their attitude was to disappear to break or lunch for 30 to 60 minutes even if it was only a 5 or 10-minute issue. They're going to... dock this person's pay for an equipment failure out of their control?!
She hadn't even thought of that.
The salarymen are indeed eeeeeevil.
So stunned is she that she doesn't notice the one coming for her until too late. The laser hits her armor and it hurts, "Ow!" She flinches, rather than getting knocked backward a couple of feet and flashing for a few seconds of invulnerability frames, but the damage is accompanied by the distinct 'taking damage' sound effect from one of the best 16-bit videogames ever produced.
Unfortunately, being point-blank works both ways. Amy points her gun-arm at him and
BANG!
And she takes as many shots as it takes to kill him.
On the bright side, that might be drawing attention away from Endymion and the victim, but now the victim's cubicle is loud and a fire is starting nearby.
Amy tries to grab the chair with Lilymoon in it and run for the stairs Homura's calling from while pushing her. "Is there just one victim per floor?!"
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Wait, wait, wait, wha-" the mohawked victim cries as the air opens in front of him, and he's pushed through, and they'll get a quick glimpse of his salaryman attire vanishing away, replaced by a punkish look and many eyebrow piercings and a look of dawning relief.
Amy, meanwhile, has been hit, and hard, but the Salaryman has been hit too, and with those close fired shots, it only takes two to split his head like a melon, flesh ballooning out like a shredded balloons. The body falls back, limp - but if she looks, she'll see the ragged edges of flesh starting to wrinkle and shift as it starts to knit back together.
That wasn't enough to kill it. Nothing they've done has been enough to kill them. But they sure are making their way through.
Endymion feels the malevolence of the chair as he declares he has independent wealth and no boss, a kind of scorn that leeches through - but then he's doing an impossible kickflip on the office chair, somersaulting over the heads of Salaryman thrusting their hands up to grasp for his ankles, just barely missing them -
And he's free and in the clear, and as the golden spiderwebs of light spread, he'll feel that on the next floor, there are three beacons of weakening energy, three victims up there, and on the floor above that, two, and the floor above that, five, and the floor above that -
It stretches on and on, floors of people being drained dry and hordes of enemies coming for them, firing in rows, working together, to aim this way and that. What they lack in individual strength, they're more than willing to make up for with numbers and synergy.
Lilymoon's chair thuds against the staircase, and she flings a hand out, grabbing Amy now as she pulls her up the stairs, her other hand flinging out for Endymion as Homura and Madoka hold off the numbers with their own synergistic firing.
"I don't know, but there's sure to be more than one! Everyone we can reach is another life saved before we have to bail!"
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
"No idea," says Homura, "But its the only one we found here."
Kamiko says, "I can kinda get the sense that some of them are real and others aren't, but I don't know if I can explain how. It's kinda like... I can feel their despair?"
Madoka winces and says, "I guess your powers are still a bit Witchy, huh?"
Kamiko points her big rose at Madoka and says, "What part of 'I free souls by eating Witch Magic' makes you think I'd get less Witchy?"
As Amy and Lilymoon pass by them, Homura calls out, "Pull back, Doka. Let's block the door!"
Madoka doesn't even hesitate. This is how they coordinate. Hope Blossom stops firing long enough to leave her cover and bolt for the stairs. She generates a wall of branchbows behind her that crams itself into the doorway, and Homura drops an incendiary grenade behind her before the two of them vanish together. The salarymen can probably follow them if they're willing to go through the flames.
The pink and purple pair and divine mascot follow the rest of the party up the stairs. Homura takes a moment to check her equipment and ammo before remembering, oh right, this is a dreamscape and she has an infinite ammo cheat. "Old habits," she explains.
- Amanda Faust has posed:
"That was two shaped charges and he didn't go down!" Amy shouts, incredulous and a bit worried as she runs for the stairs with moon. "Have we actually killed any of them?!"
Once they reach the stairs and the chair tries to hold Moon back, Amy grabs her hand in turn and pulls while kicking the chair.
Seeing Homura check ammo, she comments, "If I give you stuff to enchant is it even stronger? Or does it not work that way?"
Endymion's here, too. "I'm not sure how bad that laser got me, the armor doesn't actually block it, can you heal-- or wait, is it my real body that took the hit instead?"
If she can, she tries to carefully peer through the door to the next floor -- do they have windows? without going loud again yet.
- Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I can heal you in the dream or out there, doesn't matter to me. You're definitely hurt in waking life though!" Endymion calls out to Amy as he grabs hold of Lilymoon's hand reaching for him, and then they're all bundling up the stairs again. "There are three on this next floor. We can maybe get them before we have to bail -- here, Lilymoon~"
There's contact and there's a map of where the bright signals are relative to each other and to the rowdy band of demolitions experts. "We're not here to win. Kamiko-chan, let me show you too since you're flying--"
THey're running up a staircase. Endy's hand waves in the air and he slows down a little so Kamiko can touch it, and then they're moving at full speed again. "I'll go for the one on the end. Don't even bother waking them up. Just cut the air and shove them through, because that was great! And remember if you get hurt bad or you end up alone, ditch and we'll meet up at the villa or in the Manga Club room!"
With that, he's off like a shot, doing more absolutely impossible acrobatics sidelong in a cubicle farm with a drop ceiling.
Soon, in the distance, can be heard a yelled Smoking Bomber and then a VCHOOOOOOOO.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Have they killed any of them? It's hard to say. What isn't hard to say is that the Salarymen do seem hesitant to cross the fiery barrier that Madoka and Homura have raised together, and soon the sound of things settling back down is coming behind them - the sound of tables being righted, chairs being rolled into place, and most damningly, computers chiming as they're rebooted.
But they don't have time to worry about if they have or haven't succeeded in killing off the enemy - they're heading up, to the next floor, and when they burst into it...
Of course its a repeat of the previous floor, did they expect anything creative, anything original, anything new and different in this hellish recreation of corporate Tokyo?
The only thing that does stand out is that there are three victims on this floor, each identified by a lone scrap of identity they've managed to retain, even while being drained dry like this.
There's the young woman at the far end of the room, her hair going dark at the roots, but still gleaming purple in the light. She's clicking at a cubicle, her eyes dull, the bags underneath them heavy. There's the older man tapping at a keyboard in a cubicle close to the entrance of the room, a blue tie with Miles 'Tails' Prower flying high the only sign of originality in him. The last is a woman with a frazzled air and messy hair, a picture of two children, colorful and bright and decorated with rainbow clouds, the only sign of life at her station.
Three victims on the second floor, each getting their life drained away.
In the battle that ensues, all managed to be saved, though the Salarymen here are more vicious, having been warned by their kin and infuriated by the loss of one of their targets. They fire and fire and fire, and the chairs lash out with seatbelts like whips, trying to forcibly drag the attacking party into their midst, to make them a part of the hivemind, the draining nest.
Endymion plunges through the crowd, wielding roses like daggers and firing beams of his own, racing for the far end of the room. There is the sound of fighting, lasers firing and meeting, a beam war, and the hectic screaming of a young woman who has just had her work computer exploded.
"That man," LilyMoon says, but her eyes are hearts, and she turns to the others, fiery with determination. "Let's take it as far as we can! There's these three on this floor, two on the next, and five on the one above that. There are too many people here - the floors just keep going, and they have them scattered on the floors, so we can't - we can't get everyone, we don't have enough people, but we know about this group, so let's try and save them!"
It's not quite an inspirational speech, but it's something like that, and then LilyMoon is also diving into the fray, swinging her Rod - sometimes to drive away the enemy with forceful blows, and others to fire off Spiral Hearts and Healing Escalations.
When they save the three on the second floor, they have another staircase to climb, but this time it's with the Salarymen attacking them from the of the staircase, raining down beams from above. Climbing the staircase along becomes a battle, and LilyMoon hurls Spiral Hearts up above them, trying to deflect the beams, taking fire to try and spare the others - Madoka, she doesn't have to worry as much about, even if she doesn't want her friend hurt, but Homura and Amy are Puella, and the cost of taking too much injury for them, even in a dream -
It's enough that Lilymoon takes a number of blows for her friends, and on the third floor, is forced to bail out with a victim in her arms, a man with laugh lines at his eyes that don't match the quiet despondence with which he'd been working, nearly drained dry by the Salarymen's greed. The other victim, a young woman with glittery star barrettes and empty expression, will be rescued by one of the others.
- Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It means that the staircase to the fourth floor is a battle that can be fought only by Madoka, Kamiko, Homura, and Amy, and again, the battle is vicious, the Salarymen raining hell down upon them in the form of not just eyebeams but actual chairs hurtling themselves down the staircase, trying to ram the heroes and take them back down the floors beneath them, to catch them at the knees and crack their skulls and burst their bodies, if they can't be made a part of the whole.
The make it. Do they all make it? Someone makes it to the fourth floor, where there are five victims, some old, some young, one fresh still, frantically working, the other four nearly husks of themselves, long drained and nearly gone.
The combat doesn't vary, but its the endless slog of it, the enemy that keeps coming, that never depletes, that never tires, while they do - while they do, because it's a dream but the magic is real. Because it's a dream, but the magic is theirs and is expended by them. Because it's a dream, but every injury is real, something to be felt when they wake -
That last floor, with it's five victims, is as far as they'll be able to go.
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
Homura, without glancing up at Amy, responds to her with, "I mean, at that point isn't it just a team attack? I typically do my enchanting on the fly, and it's not really that pretty. If you could see my bullets you'd notice they'd have a faint purple glow and that's it. Nothing like the ornate things that Mami shoots."
Madoka chimes in regarding the wounds, in agreement with Endymion, "I mean... Emi-chan looked pretty messed up when she got hurt the other day. If that was from dream damage..."
Kamiko touches Endymion's hand and receives the information. Witch Stickers show up on the shoulders of Homura and Madoka, and they get the information too.
Homura frowns, and hesitates. With her timestop, she could probably get a few more out if she just dragged Kamiko along with her, but... this is a crowd and she really doesn't like the way her timestop doesn't fully work in dreams. It really feels like their singular eyes can still see her, that they're only holding still because they're suppose to, but that's probably just paranoia.
"If you have to bail, go. I still have my rose, and I'm used to fighting alone," relates Homura. This probably goes against local Puella policy, but she doesn't care.
"Remember, we're here to make noise for the other party's sake, too," reminds Madoka, pressing her back against the wall next to the door.
Homura softly smiles at the pinkette and says, "Oh, I think I have that covered."
Endy goes ahead of them, and Kamiko sees the way that Lilymoon is looking at him. She flitters around Homura and says, "Eheh... hey Homu-chan, she's doing that thing you do."
"We don't have time for that!" says Homura, raising her voice to distract from her slight embarrassment.
Madoka with a slight grin says, "Let's wait until later to tease Homura-chan, okay Kamiko?"
FLOOR TWO
Homura, not allowing herself to get distracted even though two Dokas are teasing her, rushes through the door and starts flinging frag grenades. It doesn't kill the enemy. It doesn't have to. It makes noise, and that's her job.
Madoka follows suit, bashing a Salaryman who gets too close with her bow, which snaps the weapon in half. She produces another bow and fires more and more. Kamiko, who has portals of her own, sneaks her way towards the frazzled hair woman and uses Mamo's rose to cut a hole in reality underneath her chair, sending her plummeting to safety.
FLOOR THREE
The mahou are pinned down in the staircase, and Lilymoon is making a heroic stand. Homura lays down on the ground to get a clearer shot at the nightmare workers, until eventually she flings a grenade at them which, thanks to dream logic, creates an airburst that pushes the enemy away from the entrance long enough for the mahoujin to move upwards.
Madoka slips on ahead of the others. Homura calls out, "Madoka-chan! Be careful!"
"Look after Kamiko!" the pinkette calls back. The emo puella frowns in a such a way that while she technically isn't cursing one can kinda tell that she wants to. She grabs Kamiko and throws her into the pocket dimension behind her shield, keeping the Chara safe. Now Homura is producing rockets, blowing out the windows of the floor, leaping outside into the doorway of a waiting gunship which then turns and fires its relatively very large weapons through the windows and at the endless swarms of seemingly undying workers.
Madoka glances back at the violent chaos behind her for a second, but only just, because she cannot afford to go for anything but her goal. She reaches the woman with the glitter star barrettes, looks back and sees...
She is surrounded. The chairs are closing in on her, trying to wrap around her ankle, and she's only just avoiding them because it's taking them a second to catch up to her wild charge.
Homura sees it too, and calls out through the Witch Stickers. <<Madoka-chan, pull back! We'll take it from here!>>
- Madoka Kaname has posed:
<< I'm sorry, Homu-chan! Be safe!>> says the pinkette, before cutting a hole in reality with Endymion's rose and pulling the woman through with her. Madoka's out.
Homura finds the staircase to the next floor, blows open a new window, and jumps through. She fizzles out of existence for a second before the helicopter crashes into the wall behind her, send up yet more flames.
Where is Homrua? Standing next to the door to the fourth floor, holding it open for Amy if she's coming or moving ahead if she's not.
FLOOR FOUR
Homura Akemi is a veteran Puella. She knows well how much damage she can take and how quickly she can heal from it. She is at ease with Magical Tactics as Ami Mizuno is with... well just about any subject, really. Which means she also knows when she's thoroughly screwed and, more importantly, when she's about to be.
When she opens the door to the fourth floor, she realizes full well that she's not going any further.
She also knows in her heart, as she loads another magazine, that this doesn't mean that she's done.
"Wear this," she says, to anyone still with her, before handing them a gas mask. She puts one on herself. The enemy has giant bulbous eyes, so she's going to flood the floor with tear gas. That's going to suck for the victims they're here to rescue, obviously, but she'll make that up to them by saving their damn lives.
Homura just vanishes. The gas canisters just appear, all over, and they aren't alone. Rockets and pipe bombs, all over the floor, going off. Salarymen being launched out of windows. One by one, Homura appears next to a victim with Kamiko, who is also wearing her own tiny gas mask, cutting portals open and pushing them through.
But the crowd is getting too thick, and Homura knows that directly touching an enemy while in timestop is bad even on a good day. So what can she possibly do about a crowd that gets too thick for her to slip past in a frozen second?
Absolutely nothing. As her last act before bailing, she cuts a hole in reality, pushes Kamiko through, and calls out to anyone who might still be fighting with her, "That's all we're getting! I'm bailing out! I better see you on the other side!"
Then she's gone, and Kamiko is gone with her.
- Amanda Faust has posed:
...
"I gotta fly high SO I can reach the high-est, of all the heav-ens Somebody will be WAIT-ing for me so I, have gotta fly high-er!"
Amy's taken her helmet off to sing behind the man with the tie, before putting her hand on his shoulder. Behind her, blasted-open salarymen struggle to regenerate around burning thermite. "Always thought boy genius types were cool too, huh? I feel you. Now fly high, believe in yourself, this is the only start for you, not this." She sweeps the gun arm around to indicate the office, and cuts open a portal. "See you next mission!" She shoves him through!
And then the helmet reappears on her head as she's descended upon, firing explosives all around and leaving burning thermite in chairs, but with more hits taken, and she's starting to feel tired; she visualizes the armor as keeping the tower's influence out, but it doesn't actually protect her from attacks, she already feels stressed and overworked. Yet she has to push on. The galaxy wouldn't be saved if Samus had quit...
...
On the next floor, Amy focuses on spreading fire and smoke to slow down the salarymen and try to buy those saving people more time.
...
The battle in the stairwell is where she can excel, at least, knocking chairs away with explosions, using salvos of homing missiles if there isn't time to aim...
When Homura SMASHES A HELICOPTER THROUGH THE WALL she shouts, "Oh man, that was epic!"
...
On the last floor, she gives Homura a thumbs-up at the gasmask offer. "That I do have covered."
But after freeing a woman whose desktop wallpaper is Disgaea artbook images ("AAAAAH HA HA HA HAAAA! You've served this pathetic excuse for an Overlord for too long! Leave it to me (Ore-sama ni makasero!)") she is at last snared by multiple chairs' belts while shooting salarymen, and as they drain her she starts to feel liks she should just give up. How will this fighting accomplish anything?
We just saved all these people.
She hangs on to that thought as the armor breaks apart around her, the chairs' belts pulling back nothing but costume as she collapses to the floor in the white bodysuit she's wearing underneath, and pulls herself through the portal, leaving incendiaries behind.
