FujiwaraPhoenix

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — Ruins

The flurry of blows that Sento had unleashed seemed to be doing more than their fair share of work in grinding down the massive machine's defenses, and the masked hero wasted no time in capitalizing on the opportunity presented to him. If their enemy was on the verge of breaking down and was trying to summon reinforcements to help, then there was little leeway to keep chipping away until something finally gave out.

Once he landed back on the torn-up concrete below, Sento extended his right arm out to his side. From his Driver extended a pair of clear pipes, both of which quickly reformed into a weapon that looked like something between a drill and a sword. With his grip tightening around the handle, Sento cleanly slid the Rabbit Fullbottle out of his belt and onto the slot on his weapon.

"Ready? Go! Vortex Break!"

As the voice declared the attack's name for him, the Kamen Rider drew back his weapon, now whirling around with a crimson tornado of energy, and stabbed it towards where he calculated Hibiki's kick would land. The torrent of red energy burst through the air with terrifying force, and by his knowledge of what he had done this far, would be enough to open the defenses up for long enough to land a clean hit.

@Raineh Daze

---

Earth — Alien Facility

Between the unrestrained one-sided carnage and shouts of anger and confusion, a bystander viewing the battle unfolding within the facility would have been forgiven if they had thought a well-trained team had invaded—or that the defenders had aim so terrible that they might as well have arrived lobotomized. The latter was certainly not true—the invaders would have had no reason to station defenses that were so woefully underprepared—but the former was equally as untrue.

Could a single pair of young women, equipped with no armor or firearms, cause this much damage without so much as a drop of sweat upon their brows?

The aliens' eyes did not lie, nor did the security cameras recording the chaos as it unfolded. Bullets flying from all directions towards Fu Xuan had simply veered off course, deflected time and time again by something immediately incomprehensible and sent straight into the heads of others attempting to unload their weapons in kind. That was to say nothing of the exploding tiles, of course—those seemed at least somewhat more comprehensible in the moment, but not by much.

"The room you're looking for is down the path to your left. It seems to lead to a larger room in the middle of the building, but there's lots of vantage points on the upper levels with a clear view down, Miku would respond to Qingque's question. "The enemy seems to be moving up there, so be ready for the worst."

Of course, that 'worst' would only further compound as the aliens—the ones still left unharmed, at least—recognized that their efforts to remove Fu Xuan were only reducing their own number and shifted their focus towards the tile-slinging girl by her side.

Whether or not that was a good thing for either of them was another question entirely.

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — Ruins

With his kick having landed with terrifying force, Sento used the mechanical monster's leg as a springboard to right himself as he fell back to the ground. The cracked age-old asphalt beneath his feet left a crater as he rose back up and casually dusted himself off before looking at what damage he had incidentally caused by sending the thing careening off with Hibiki. Amidst the rubble, however, that same mechanical beast seemed unperturbed by their two-pronged attack.

If anything, it seemed as if that their attack had only barely scratched it up. Given how it now seemed to be preparing a counterattack, any further analysis would probably have to wait.

The ominously charging beam originating from where the machine's 'head' should have been was enough of an indicator to get out of the way, but the way that his co-combatant seemed to be charging in meant that they didn't exactly share the same plan.

"What sort of bullheaded...? Agh, forget it! She's probably the same type of fighter as those two!" Sento complained before charging back into the fray after her. With leap after leap, the spring on his crimson leg pushed him forward again as he began to zigzag after Hibiki. The end goal was simple enough: pull attention away from her if he could by being a visual nuisance or, failing that, get to the machine's 'neck' and launch another kick or ten to try and break the joints and metalwork keeping it attached.

@Raineh Daze

---

Earth — Alien Facility

While the impact of the first tile had initially done little more than confuse and agitate the brute as it turned towards wherever it had come from, the second and third promptly exploding in it's face and carving out perfectly spherical holes from it's neck and forehead and leaving the now-lobotomized corpse to crumple to the ground. It's companion, having seen such a sudden execution, is given but a second to alarm the rest of the compound that it is under attack.

The signal is sent, but it's life is forfeit; another attack from the Master Diviner leaves it a headless corpse, sickly blood spilling out into the metal floor nearby.

With the patrol dispatched but the enemy now alerted to the presence of an enemy, the entrance that the pair of aliens were guarding is left locked—sealed by machinery that could may as well be paper to the pair.

After blowing the sliding door open one way or another, both Fu Xuan and Qingque would find themselves in a utilitarian room of metal and plexiglass, with a red symbol marking no small number of the few holograms and panels lining the area. Open doorways nearby would indicate that no lockdown procedures had yet begun, but...

"Be careful, you two. The aliens are aware that you've entered the building. They're taking up positions nearby to box you in. I think they'll to open fire once you make a move," Miku's voice would state from the communicators on the pair. "The equipment you're looking for is probably a bit further in. I don't know if they know that what you're here for, but it isn't out of the question."

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — Ruins

Sento let out a small disgruntled sigh as he finished trudging up towards the exit, and having been met with a city that had long since been left to nature, frowned ever so slightly.

"I take back what I said before," he said with a shake of his head. "A somber place like this feels a bit more pressing than the chaos of an apocalypse."

Not that he would ever receive a response in turn. The steady shockwaves echoing through the ruins would reveal their source soon enough—a massive metal machine that looked more like a monster than a weapon of human make. With an appearance as ominous as that, the physicist's hands moved before his brain could catch up.

As the schoolgirl beside him leapt into the fray, Sento pulled out a machine from within his coat and brought it to his waist, at which point a belt extended out from it and wrapped around to anchor itself in place. Once it was secured, the scientist pulled a pair of small bottles out from their holster—one red, one blue—and began to shake them both up and down. After a few seconds of doing so, he slotted them into the Driver at his waist in turn.

"Rabbit! Tank! Best Match!"

The voice that rang out from the Driver caused Sento to smirk ever so slightly as he began to cycle the lever nearest his right hand. A series of clear tubes and metal framework would soon form around him, paired with an enthusiastic "Are you ready?" from the device as the former filled with red and blue fluid that promptly took the form of two halves of armor.

"Henshin!"

With that declaration, the armor snapped onto Sento's body. Once the two halves were secured, bursts of steam would flare out from the vents of the armor, along with one last line from the driver anointing it's completion.

"Hagane no Moonsault! RabbitTank! Yeah!"

While Hibiki had taken the initiative to directly engage with the hulking metal creature, Sento did not fail to acknowledge that she, too, seemed to be wearing her own set of armor as he rushed into the fray after her. It was, in his eyes, far less suited for battle than his suit was...

But maybe that was just how the designers of her equipment intended? Questions to address for later.

The same could not be said about the fact that she seemed to be singing as she threw her first punch at the metal monstrosity, complete with a backing instrumental track.

"Is that gear powered by singing or something?" he muttered to himself as he bent his left leg down and caused the spring on it to coil up. In the blink of an eye, Sento crossed the space between himself and the monster that the brunette had engaged. After righting himself on the ground in front of it, Sento turned back to confirm the safety of the person who had been fleeing the machine before returning to focus on the behemoth proper.

"I can't say the song's half bad, though...!" he said before launching towards one of the machine's leg joints with a kick from his right leg primed to land.

@Raineh Daze

---

Earth — Alien Facility

With the sole visible soldier dispatched, both Fu Xuan and Qingque would find themselves at liberty to examine the corpse of the deceased in the scant span of time before the enemy forces realized what was happening. The angular body armor on the soldier's body had done nothing to protect from the attack that had decapitated it, leaving it clean enough to examine. When the question as to what was being sought after resurfaced, though, Miku was quick to respond from the other end.

"I don't think that anything on that dead body would be that useful. Miss Wynn said that we needed more technologically advanced equipment, and the weapon that blew itself up just now was the closest thing that they had on them," she said. "There's ammunition, it looks like, but this terminal isn't marking that as 'sufficient' for whatever's needed."

If one was to peer through the bottom of the helmet to view their decapitated, though, they would notice that while the form of the soldier appeared human at a glance, their face was most certainly not; if anything, it would appear as if their faces had been molded and stretched due to the modifications that had been mentioned prior. Their eyes, noticeably larger than a human's, were paired with a nose that seemed to be merged into their forehead. Any further examination would require removal of the helmet itself, though—a task that seemed less likely to provide useful information given the nature of their mission.

A glance beyond the nearby trees, however, would reveal an unconcealed facility in a clearing nearby. The lights positioned around the perimeter shone with a glaring starkness, beyond which other alien soldiers seemed to be standing guard. While some looked much the same as the lone patrolling combatant that Fu Xuan had taken down, others seemed far less human in appearance. Brutishly large humanoids and bipedal machinery patrolled the complex, waiting for enemies that might or might not ever arrive.

"That building over there seems to be where most of what we need is kept," Miku said. "There are a lot of hostile enemies guarding the area, so please stay safe."

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — Ruins

While the change in scenery was not particularly surprising given what he had already experienced that day, Sento found himself quietly staring at the nature-laden scenery they had been transported to. At a glance, the abundance of greenery left the place feeling less like the result of an apocalypse and more like they had just arrived in some sort of deeply-forested area.

Said assumption was promptly thrown out the window once the composition of the region was taken as a whole. The unnatural structure in front of them quickly told Sento that nature had long since claimed this region for itself; the skeleton that it was built on top of was simply obscured from their sight.

For what it was worth, that also meant that scrounging up whatever they needed to keep themselves afloat might not be the worst of jobs. While the exact nature of the plants growing in the region would be nebulous with the who-knew-how-many generations of iteration between the world's end and now, surely there had to be some things here that were close enough to what he was familiar with.

The steady rumbling of the ground underfoot was enough to pique his interest, though; if the smaller wildlife wasn't acting up because of it, then maybe it would be safe enough to get a closer look at the type of fauna that would've come about after—at the minimum—centuries of evolution.

"I think that the word 'cataclysm' was doing a lot of heavy lifting in Wynn's explanation," Kiryu remarked as he began to make his way towards the exit. "Going to be honest, I expected a lot more fire and lava at first, but I'm not going to complain about this."

@Raineh Daze

---

Earth — Alien Facility

After a brief moment of prescience, Fu Xuan would find that the helmeted figure in the distance would, in a few seconds, catch sight of the pair of girls and, provided they did not resolve the issue in time, begin to open fire upon them. The ensuing noise would naturally draw the attention of others present nearby, and if the two managed to handle the oncoming waves unscathed, then it would only be a matter of time before more enemies would join the fray. The window of opportunity to change that future was shortening, but the fact that it existed was enough to make a decision on how to proceed.

In that brief period of time, Miku's voice would come through the bracelet, though slightly less certain than Wynn's had been.

"Hello? This is Kohinata Miku speaking now," she said in response to Qingque's question. "By the looks of things on this terminal Miss Wynn gave me, it seems that the aliens you'll be engaging have gone through extensive genetic modification. It looks like they were made for fighting more than anything else, so I don't think they can be reasoned with if what I'm reading here is correct..."

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

As an FYI: Opening section of the other team will be handled by @VitaVitaAR.

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — Room of Crossroads

Having quietly taken the bracelet he had been given and giving it a brief once-over, Sento slipped the device into his wrist as Wynn calmly split them up into teams. The few questions he had in mind had already been asked by the time he had finished his brief prodding, but only Shino's remained unanswered by the time he had decided to refocus on the white-haired woman standing opposite the group.

"The materials in question can be anything from flora—be it the wood of trees to underbrush—to the fauna you may encounter and otherwise be forced to engage with on site," Wynn replied. "More complex compounds derived from biological specimens would provide a higher return, but former sustenance crops that have evolved to survive in these environs—or otherwise have been within these locales to begin with—should be a higher priority if possible. You could also opt to hunt the local beasts since we could also process their corpses, but I'll leave that to your discretion."

After saying as much, Wynn equipped a bracelet of her own to her right wrist and motioned to demonstrate.

"A simple interface should appear with a gesture like this. From there, you should be able to either transfer the target to storage or request an analysis. The total capacity is shared between your teammates, so consider coordinating as to what you should bring back," she added before giving those present another glance over. "If that is everything, then I'll open the gateways now. I wish the best of luck to you all."

As she snapped her fingers, a pair of gateways opened up behind her, one in front of each screen.

"The gates will close after you've all departed, but you can contact Ms. Kohinata and I through your bracelets once you've finished on your ends."

"What a multipupose tool," Sento mused to himself before glancing at the other two by his side. "As the oldest here, then, I'll take point. Let's see how bad this 'cataclysm' really was," the scientist said as he stepped through the portal with his usual confidence.

@Raineh Daze@Cmmelody

---

---

Earth — Alien Facility

After passing through the portal, the two Xianzhou girls would find themselves in a slightly wooded area under the cover of night. The faint stars in the skies only emphasized what little shine the pallid reflection of the single moon hanging overhead could provide. At a glance, this place seemed to be no more than a normal forest with naught out of the ordinary.

There would be a brief pause before Wynn's voice would call out from their bracelets, just loud enough for the two to hear.

"I'm confirming your position near the facility in question now. Your target should be to your north. There are multiple entities—all armed with plasma firearms—currently patrolling the area relative to your current position. Miss Kohinata, can I trust you to take things from here? I'll need to monitor the other group a bit more closely," she said as the faint glow of a helmet could just barely be made out in the distance by the two.

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — ??? Apartment Complex

With the knowledge that the rooms were identical in hand, Sento found himself somewhat less pressed to immediately pick a room for himself. The discussions continued for a bit longer, but ultimately the choice of location fell to personal preference for necessity for most of them.

Most save Qingque, at least. The physicist could only imagine how rough it would be to share a room with your direct superior.

When the group had finished speaking on the matter, they reconvened once more where Wynn was standing by. The white-haired woman's gaze swept over the group and, after taking a quick mental roll call, nodded her head.

"I presume this means that you are all ready to depart, then," she said before another gateway opened behind her. "Right this way, please."

Past the portal was a large and seemingly-empty circular room. Once the group had passed through, Wynn turned back around and gestured around her.

"This is the Room of Crossroads—an old name from an older era, but a fitting one nevertheless. I'll be connecting you to your destinations from here going forward. I will divide you into two groups in order to handle this matter efficiently."

After Wynn waved her hand in the air in conjunction with her last sentence, a pair of virtual screens—one on each side of her and both large enough for the group to see—opened up behind her.

"The one on my left here is another version of Earth," she began, looking briefly towards Sento and Hibiki, "but has since fallen to interstellar invaders who intended to turn them into no more than resources for their empire. In having done so, various linchpin existences of that time have fallen, leaving eventual collapse all but certain. Fu Xuan, Qingque, you two will be handling this matter. Compared to the technology of the Xianzhou, it may seem a bit lacking, but I'd like if you could retrieve components for repurposing on our end."

After a brief pause, though, the woman continued.

"As for the one on my right... A cataclysm consumed this world, rendering over 98% of the population deceased. In their place, monsters—both organic and not—roam the land, which has since been reclaimed by nature. Mr. Kiryu, Ms. Tachibana, Mr. Aburame: I'd like if you could recover some more organic materials for our systems here. The less we have to process to turn into usable synthesis material, the better, so please be prudent about what you recover."

With that, the woman gestured towards the group, creating a number of bracelets that floated in front of them.

"These devices will allow you mark and transfer whatever it is that you plan to move over here. There is an upper limit that you will be able to move, denoted by the gauge you'll see here when you open up the menu therein," she demonstrated with a bracelet of her own. "This will also act as a communications terminal to our location here, so you can notify me if you're at capacity and are ready to return."

Having stated her piece, Wynn lowered her hand and panned across the group.

"If you have any questions or concerns, please state them now before I connect these locations here."

@VitaVitaAR@Rune_Alchemist@Raineh Daze@Cmmelody

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Kiryu Sento

??? — ??? Apartment Complex

As each of his newfound companions introduced themselves, Sento chose to keep quiet and nod his head so as to allow everyone their piece. Once the last had finished, the physicist brought one hand to his chin and thought for a moment before furrowing his brow.

"Right, so we've got a ninja, two high schoolers, a civil servant, and a clairvoyant employing said civil servant...?" he trailed off before moving to scratch the back of his head. "One heck of a team we've got assembled here, but I suppose everyone's got something in their back pockets if we got pulled for something this important."

With that, Sento clapped his and together and nodded.

"In any case, this is no time to judge a book by its cover," he said before glancing back towards the building next to them. "I think this place is big enough for all of us to get our own room if we want, so I'm going to go ahead and take a room on the first floor. If the fate of multiple worlds is at stake, I'd like to have the space to be able to rebuild the things that I didn't have on me when I got pulled here."

After throwing another glance—this one a bit less certain—towards the shinobi (or, more specifically, the insects that he was showcasing), Sento walked up to the nearest apartment door and looked it over. There didn't seem to be anything special about it at a glance, and the doorbell system seemed to be paired with what seemed to be a touchpad of some sort.

"Huh. For a futuristic city, this seems comparatively mundane," he remarked before giving the doorknob a slight twist and a tug. The door in front of him smoothly swung open, and with no hesitation he strode into the room. A brief glance around indicated that the rooms and their sparse furnishings were in near-pristine condition. Beyond that uncanny oddity, they seemed to be no different from a 2LDK back in Tokyo.

"It's... Pretty ordinary, honestly," he remarked as he stepped outside, making sure to close the door behind him after he and any others who had followed him in had stepped out. "A bit barebones, but I've definitely seen worse."

Having said his piece, Sento turned towards Shino as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

"It'd probably be a good idea to check all the rooms out like you suggested, though. Figuring out where everyone's going to set up shop would also be a good idea, since I don't think we're going to be the only ones worrying about customizing the place if we're stuck here," he added before gesturing towards the other members of their group. "Does certainly feel like we're househunting, though, which is certainly not the thing I'd expected to be doing here."

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

@Rekkuza: I'm vaguely familiar with Guilty Gear, but I'd probably say to steer away from Robo-Ky? Others are probably workable from what I can see from a brief look over.

Paths Unwound — A Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

@Rekkuza: I think that the floor is... Hm. It's a bit tough for me to describe because I don't like powerscaling terminology (it's absurdist most of the time at best imho) so it might be better to throw character ideas onto the table and start from there.

Base humans would unfortunately not function given the circumstances, no.

If there's a generally considered "fan consensus" character then I'd lean towards "yes", but only if they're defined. I wouldn't accept someone like Demi-Fiend due to the absurd shit he can do, but conceptually he'd make the pass even if he's got multiple routes in theory that bring him to his endgame.