[center][h2]Elise Kim[/h2][h3][i]The Horizon[/i] — Engineering Bay[/h3][/center]
With no real questions about their mission proper, Elise returned the commander's dismissal with a brief nod and salute before following her peers out of the room. The engineering bay, as ever, was abuzz with activity. The young woman had long since given up trying to understand the complexities that came with managing both the ship and their equipment, but the efforts that the staff present put into maintaining was not lost upon her.

Regardless of those matters, the Pilot soon broke off from the others to retrieve her own piece of equipment: a small glove, into which the polished core of her Chi-Mechframe, Selene, was embedded. After confirming that everything was in order with the engineer who had handed it off to her, though, the young woman promptly gave her thanks before following the others to the hangar.

Given the size of her Chi-Mechframe, though, Elise chose to wait for the others to head out first—or, at the very least, wait for the advance team to make their exits first. Their eagerness to head out into the fray soon left only her and Rune on standby, and the larger man had soon thereafter made his own parting statements.

"Try not to leave too big of a crater."

As the last to leave, though, the Pilot was left to transform at her own leisure.

Elise held her one gloved hand over her chest, the jewel-like stone embedded within glowing ever-so-brightly as a halo began to form over her head. Though slow and measured at first, the sound of the halo whirring around her head soon gave way to an imperceptible silence as the rest of her Chi-Mechframe—vaguely winglike armaments, a set of mechanical shoes equipped with stabilizers, auxiliary tools to feed her information around the halo, and the rifle she had come to know inside and out—formed, piece by mechanical piece.

With everything in order (and a brief test of her own equipment while still in the hangar, just to be safe), Elise nodded and took a deep breath before following after her peers. Taking an aircraft down would have been far more preferable in her opinion, but going down alone in one felt a bit too uncomfortable.

Doubly so given everyone else's penchant for superhero-style landings.

With her wing narrowed to a point, Elise began to dive towards the ground headfirst, a thin barrier projected from the machinery around her halo to protect her as she sped forward. Through the parted clouds, the young woman could make out the front lines—and with them, a small crater that marked where her partner for the mission had touched down.

Rather than make a similarly spectacular appearance, though, Elise simply slowed her descent once she drew close enough to the ground. Her mechanical wings unfurled as she seemed to hover in midair, casting a slight shadow upon the battlefield as she made her presence known.

"Elise Kim, present," she spoke in Japanese as she gave a slight bow towards the soldiers, "I shall be in your care."

[@SaltSight][hr]
[center][h3]Saitama Prefecture[/h3][/center]
What had once been a sprawling suburban residential area had long since been ruined, unmistakably scarred by the Warped that now roamed the streets. Though torn asphalt and years-old bloodstains marked the earth, actual combat had not been seen in the region in ages.

But such "peace" had to come to and end.

A few of the Warped—ones more humanoid in nature, though with distinctly inhuman monochromatic skin—had already begun to congregate at the arrival of the soldiers. A few of the smaller ones had already begun to bear down upon the defensive line; behind them, larger beasts thrice their size ambled forward. Their distended bodies seemed more akin to bloated corpses, swollen and misshapen, but their speed was well beyond what a shambling corpse might have reached.

Though their initial targets were the swathes of humans firing upon them, the arrival of a few new targets in their midst quickly changed their priorities. Lumbering giants and nimble gremlins alike lunged out at the nearby Pilots, their only aim to tear them limb from limb.

[@VitaVitaAR][@Raineh Daze][@King Cosmos]