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<RickDominated> The Elemental Pole of Lightning, Autocthonia

<RickDominated> For the three vistors, it's been a quiet trip so far, minus the nation anihilating bolts that they had to dodge to get into the pole itself, now finding themselves being lead through the endless adamant coridors by the starmetal caste Lissome Avid Engineer.

<RickDominated> "...I don't remember it being this quiet..." She mutters. The constant, hammering thunder is utterly muffled by the distance.

<AdventFalls> Rei looked around, the giddy smile on her face suffused with awe. "Someone else here, you think?"

<RickDominated> "...they'd have to have braved all the same stuff we did."

<RickDominated> "And they don't have you."

<AdventFalls> "You can cheat electricity," she reasoned. "You can cheat a great many things with the kinds of power in this plane of existence."

<AdventFalls> She pointed at the ceiling, then put her finger down. "A person with enough power could cheat the fabric of reality if they wished it. A person with enough sense knows not to."

<RickDominated> "...you're as crazy as all the Chosen of Creation."

<AdventFalls> "It's not crazy if it's real." Rei shrugged.

<AdventFalls> "At least it's been quiet. How much further?"

<Sandwitches> "When did you become so philisophical?"

<AdventFalls> "Since my first trip to Zi. I just don't talk on it much."

<Rick_Dominated> "Only a couple of miles I Think, short jaunt..." She shrugs.

<AdventFalls> "I guess it helps build the anticipation for those making the pilgrimage."

<Rick_Dominated> "That and Starmetal Castes tend to be tad...touched."

<Rick_Dominated> "Paranoia and overcomplication is in our blood."

<Rick_Dominated> "...if we had blood."

<Sandwitches> "Isn't that... ichor, jsut blood by another name?"

<Rick_Dominated> "If you'd count, you'd find there are 108,000 steps to reach here, 50 different murals carved into the walls in binary... and yeah, it kind of is."

<AdventFalls> "Tomato, to-mah-to. You don't have those down here, do you."

<Rick_Dominated> "...a what?"

<AdventFalls> "Exactly."

<AdventFalls> "Have you ever met her? The woman at the pole."

<Rick_Dominated> "Oh god, her again..." She chuckles. "...Rei, Bodara is...she's *six miles tall*."

<AdventFalls> "I'll try not to get underfoot then. If we meet her."

<Rick_Dominated> "She's magnetically affixed to the pole itself."

<AdventFalls> "So we won't see her."

<Sandwitches> Homura looks a little... unnerved.

<Rick_Dominated> "...what's the matter, Homura?"

<Sandwitches> "...  Nothing."

<Rick_Dominated> "There are bigger Ex Machina in Autocthon."

<Rick_Dominated> "...Like Oberashti."

<Rick_Dominated> "Pray you never meet him."

<AdventFalls> "You say that of a lot of many people in this world."

<Rick_Dominated> "And I mean it for most of them...Oberashti in particular."

<AdventFalls> "And I trust you on that. You say the silence is unusual?"

<Rick_Dominated> "He's better known as the "Shogun of Genocide..."

<AdventFalls> "....Yeah. Let's just keep moving. Question about the silence stands."

<Rick_Dominated> She looks about to answer, but they enter a rather massive chasm.

<Rick_Dominated> "Oh, here it is!"

<AdventFalls> "The shrine is here, then?"

<Rick_Dominated> "Yep...this is quite close to the core of the Pole and..."

<Rick_Dominated> She stops.

<Rick_Dominated> "...wait."

<AdventFalls> "Something wrong"

<Rick_Dominated> ...and Homura can see something scuttle along the cieling...long legged and spindly...

<Sandwitches> "...  Something is in here with us."  Her shield has appeared on her arm before she even finishes the sentance.

<AdventFalls> On that word, Rei's FORTRESS flared into existence around her shoulders. "Let's not be hasty about shooting things."

<Rick_Dominated> "Hold on...hold on...I think...thats a Design Spider... what the Void is it doing here though..." Even Rei can see the skittering shape now.

<AdventFalls> Rei tilted her head. "I don't know what any of that means. Design spider?"

<Rick_Dominated> "They maintain the Design here....er.....something like the Loom of Fate. ...what's it doing *here* though..." She looks upwards towards it, yelling out a command in some kind of langauge netiehr of them recognize.

<AdventFalls> "...Should've found a person with universal translator power...."

<Rick_Dominated> And it chatters back, making her scowl. "...a rip, in the design."

<AdventFalls> "Down here?"

<Rick_Dominated> Another call, and a response again. "...Yeah, all over. ...something's happened, and they're not sure what."

<Rick_Dominated> "Which means something from outside the design..."

<AdventFalls> "We're technically outside the design, aren't we? ....Unless they're talking about the barrier we passed through."

<Rick_Dominated> "The...Design makes for all this. It anchors Autocthonia in logic, at least. So to be outside the design..." She mutters...and is cut off by a powerful whipcrack of *something* as a lancing blast of white-hot flame streaks forwards, smashing the Design Weaver to the wall. "Oh and what a shame...~" A familar voice to both Homura and Rei extoles.

<Sandwitches> Homuras expression hardens, the girl spinning to face the voice.  As she spins, a massive rifle appears in ehr hands. "..."

<Rick_Dominated> "...I knew I smelled voidsucker..." Lissome growls. "You again..."

<AdventFalls> The FORTRESS wheeled around to point at the voice on reflex, Rei looking at the source.

<Rick_Dominated> Indeed...a spindly and deadly looking shape hangs to a wall, a smoking cannon for her left arm, the same cracked mask as Rei and Homura had seen before, on thier first battle here...

<AdventFalls> "What do you want?"

<Rick_Dominated> Her clawed hand comes up to her face, stroking at the hairline crack in her expressionless mask. "Paying *HER* Back...she Broke my...Beautiful face..."

<AdventFalls> "Does this really have to happen now?" Rei growled. "Because you're picking a REAL bad place to fuck with me."

<Rick_Dominated> "I'm just as immune to your thunder as the crystal bitch...!"

<Rick_Dominated> "But you're not who I give a half of a damn about...it's *her*!"

<Sandwitches> Homuras answer...  is to take aim at the crack in the mask with her Rifle.

<AdventFalls> "Tell me. You ever heard of bears, lady?"

<Rick_Dominated> "Bears!? Stop interupting my Fateful duel!"

<AdventFalls> "DAngerous things to most people. Even with a weapon a mortal can die easily."

<AdventFalls> "In nature, they're one of hte most dangerous things in the forest. The males you can deal with. It's the females that are deadly."

<AdventFalls> "Mother bears are the baddest motherfuckers in nature right up with papa wolves. And there's one way to get a mother bear on your ass."

<AdventFalls> The FORTRESS was primed in an instant. "Fucking with her kid."

<Rick_Dominated> She chuckles, turning to Rei and....

<Sandwitches> Homura and her rifle are perfeclty still, the girl making no movement whatsoever...

<Sandwitches> and then in the next second, she is half the distance she was before, Waves of energy radiating off of her as she lets loose a bolt of greenish-blue energy spiraling towards the mask...  fire, earth, wind, water, and wood all swirling around that stream of energy before it smashes into the crack-

<Rick_Dominated> The apostate can't even react, futilly raising her hand, a charm trying to spring to life...before her head is snapped backwards, a brilliant radiance blotting out everything else in the room with blinding light as it pitches back the apostate, slamming her into the wall behind her, cracking a beautiful mural of the Primordial War, shattering every part of it as she slumps to the ground, leaving behind a greasy stain on the

<Rick_Dominated>  wall and spreading out from her body.

<Rick_Dominated> Lissome, in the process of drawing her beamkalive just...gapes.

<AdventFalls> "I'm not even..."

<Sandwitches> Homura's rifle vanishes, the girl turning away from the body and walking past Lissome and Rei.

<Sandwitches> "I don't need to be protected."

<AdventFalls> Rei stood there for a whle shaking her head before following.

<RickDominated> "You...what...I...you just torched the thing!" Lissome whines.

<Sandwitches> "And?"

<Adventfalla-phone>  "She did." Unlike lithsome Rei sounded... Impressed.

<RickDominated> "...I thought we'd at least fight..." Behind them though, the shape gives... a twitch.

<RickDominated> "She's the one who took out my entire assembly!"

<Sandwitches> Homura just raises an eyebrow at the woman.

<RickDominated> "Well, her and three other Apostates...she's the only one left."

<RickDominated> She looks slightly smug as she says that.

<Sandwitches> "'I designed that technique to eliminate a particualrly dangerous entity in the past.  I assumed that it would have at least some type of similar effect on that "Apostate"."

<Adventfalla-phone> "So. One left, then?"

<RickDominated> "...Homura kind of blew her head off, right?"

<RickDominated> theres a terrible...mechanical screech... "R-Right...?"

<Adventfalla-phone> "...I think this one cheats death."

<Sandwitches> "..."  Homura shighs with annoyance, and turns back towards the sound, rifle in her hands again as her hair flutters out behind her.

<RickDominated> "Y-ysssshohh...." Theres a cough, and a gout of black, evil looking oil is spattered all across the floor in front of it as it's torso heaves, neck moving erratical. ...and then... it *laughs*. "H-hahahahahhahahahahahaha....! Y-You...you broke..." Pieces of tarnished moonsilver and starmetal clack to the ground in front of the fallen shape, eight segmented tentacles streaking out from other rents in her armor. "You...you br

<RickDominated> oke it..."

<AdventFalls> "...You wouldn't have a bigger gun would you."

<Sandwitches> "...  Just as annoying as Tiberius."

<RickDominated> Her clawed hand streaks out, covering her head now, oil leaking down it's side. "My...my beautiful...face..."

<Sandwitches> "...  He wore a mask too."  She rises the rifle.

<AdventFalls> Rei's FORTRESS began to charge. "Does it match her insides now?"

<RickDominated> She stands up, screaming as it falls to her side...and behidn the ruin...is a smile and the former alchemicals once "True" face, eyes glowing a bright yellow. "I'm going...going...to...to...!"

<RickDominated> http://i.imgur.com/xK1ngYP.jpg

<RickDominated> "...pink is not her color..." Mutters lissome, activating her Beam Klaive at last.

<Sandwitches> Homura goes DEAD still, not even breathing.

<AdventFalls> "I'm taking the shot. Unless there's something yuo watn to tell me."

<RickDominated> Her clawed hand strokes her face, drawing a deep, oil spilling line across the clay "flesh" there. "I'll...I'll never forgive you...~!"

<Sandwitches> "..."  she just doesn't move.

<Sandwitches> ... The gem on her hand is starting to darken a little...

<AdventFalls> There is a loud BOOM, the full might and fury of the AEX-00X FORTRESS opening fire upon the Apostate. "I've had enough of you."

<RickDominated> She simply leans to the side. "And you...!" A crouch...the sound of bursting thrustings as she charges at...and *over* Rei, her tentacles smashing her out of the way as she lashes past her...

<RickDominated> And now, she towers over Homura...

<AdventFalls> Rei flies. Not even an Exalt can see her body careen through the walls of magical material, collapsing each wall and layer as her body takes the brunt....

<RickDominated> Leaving the other Alcehmical and Homura fully alone by the looks of it as the structure collapses down behind her.

<Sandwitches> Homura slowly moves...  looking up at the Alcehmicals face.  "...  You... Can't be here..."

 -------------------------------------------------

<RickDominated> Rei slowly awakens...all of her existance seemingly pain...Her arm aches, as does her side and face...

<AdventFalls> Flying through layers of magical materials built by champions wanting structural integrity? God that shouldn't happen.

<AdventFalls> She tried to get up, only for the pain to shoot up her arm. Rei can't even find the right curse word she was too blinded by it. That was a broken arm at LEAST.

<AdventFalls> Her legs were still throbbing too. She'd definitely rebroken her leg.... oh, now her other one was fucked up too.

<AdventFalls> Her one good arm reached up, the hand rubbing her face. "Fucking..."

<AdventFalls> Couldn't focus. Not even for an emergency power pull. And she had the perfect thing to pull for this too! Now her daughter was in danger and she was out for the count.

<Rick_Dominated> Her cheek feels crushed as well, blood having pooled out of it at some point, her face sticky...

<Rick_Dominated> And evertthing....seems to be ringing.

<AdventFalls> She winced. Welp. No more speaking for a few months if she survived that long.

<AdventFalls> Couldn't hear for shit either. The only thing that hadn't gone wrong was that her spine wasn't severed. She rested her head back on the ground.

<AdventFalls> If there were materials, she could try to conjure something. Make something. But she couldn't make out what was around.

<Rick_Dominated> And can hear it...the distant, constant booming of powerful thunder cracking.

<AdventFalls> The one good arm pushes her up. She tried to get a good look at it, only to roll onto her shattered ribs.

<AdventFalls> A cry of agony rings out as she gets a look in the direction....

<Rick_Dominated> Just behind her, she can see the collapsed tunnel that she'd come down...the starmetal and adamant completly wrecked and twisted...she's not even sure she could blast her way through it at full power.

<AdventFalls> FORTRESS couldn't get through that. She looked in the other direction. One good arm, she could drag herself somewhere.

<Rick_Dominated> And in front of her...she can see the passage, stretching off to infinity it seems.

<Rick_Dominated> Though...some...thing. Some force, primal and pure seems to be pulling her from there.

<AdventFalls> Her eyes widened. She felt compelled to go. Compelled to see it.

<AdventFalls> She decided to try something risky. Not like she could fuck up her ribs worse.

<AdventFalls> The pain of getting herself onto one of the shards of metal was unbearable. But once she was on....

<AdventFalls> It took just a little spark, egged on by something in the walls. The last spark she had in her to magnetize the shard to the opposing polarity of that force.

<AdventFalls> The shard slowly started to move....

<Rick_Dominated> The walls around her buzz, little fingers of lightning buzzing around....and theres an almost childlike curiosity looking at her, moving all around her like the air is alive...

<AdventFalls> She coughed up blood as she continued flying down the hall. Fuck. There went a lung. She might not survive the next ten minutes.

<AdventFalls> Might as well make them count.

<AdventFalls> Her vision started fading. She wouldn't even get two minutes.

<AdventFalls> Her grip started to slacken on the shard. No. Not when her kid was on the line. Not with everything. She never got to see that picture taken....

<Rick_Dominated> The air around her...starts to seem alive...and theres the sound of girlish almost giggling.

<AdventFalls> Insanity before death. Rei'd never heard of that one before. Her head went slack onto the slab, breathing labored. A single word wheezes out of her mouth, praying this is all a horrible dream. "Please...."

<Rick_Dominated> Her vison fogs...fades...and when she can see again, theres a standing, luminescant bolt of lightning...a hand and humanoid shape unfolding out of it...reaching out a hand to caress Rei's cheek.

<AdventFalls> It's a simple gesture from reflex. One last thing before Rei thought she was going to the afterlife. She reached back.

<Rick_Dominated> A jolt of electricity...revitalizing...warm and friendly...

<AdventFalls> Something snapped back into place in Rei's chest. Liquid started to drain from her lungs, air returning to her blood.

<AdventFalls> She takes a deep breath, in shock.

<Rick_Dominated> "Like Mother...but not..." The thing...in front of her says, speaking incredibly quickly, Rei not understanding it's words but it's very soul.

<AdventFalls> Her head tilts up to look at it.

<Rick_Dominated> It's tiny, like a child... a bulbous head on top of a child like form, two dark black eyes looking right at her in an angelic innocence.

<AdventFalls> "Is this... the Pole?" Rei gasped in pain, her cheek still pained.

<Rick_Dominated> "Pole of Lightning...Home of Mother....Not Home of you...?" It quirks it's head.

<AdventFalls> "No.... Came from... beyond." Rei wheezed.

<Rick_Dominated> "Ah...hurt...flesh...not champion..." It lays a hand on her head again though, jolting her a little, taking a little more fatigue from her body...

<Rick_Dominated> "...differnt." It finally settles on.

<AdventFalls> Her legs snapped into shape from the hand. It's slow, but Rei finally starts to rise from the slab. "Different."

<Rick_Dominated> "Different!" It says again, taking her hand, floating down the way. "Mother hurt....something broke...Pole hurt too..."

<AdventFalls> Rei's cheek started to mend from the touch. "Fight... out there. My daughter..."

<Rick_Dominated> "Gremlin...?" It says, voice actually quivering with fear.

<AdventFalls> "Apostate," she groaned. "Champion out there fighting it with my daughter. I was there... and.... one hit." She pointed at the slab. "I was going to die."

<Rick_Dominated> The lightning trembles again, pulling closer to Rei...

<AdventFalls> "What is it?" She looked to the lightning, trying to edge closer.

<Rick_Dominated> ...it's almost like a small child, the way it clings to her.

<AdventFalls> Rei squeezes the child's hand. "It's going to be okay. It... has to be.

<AdventFalls> "

<Rick_Dominated> It's big, liquid lighting eyes look up to her. ...and there's a massive, wild *jolt*, even Rei can feel it... "...Mother says...to come to her..."

<AdventFalls> Rei's hair stood on end as her bum arm suddenly regained its integrity. She continued towards 'Mother', heart beating faster with each bolt.

<Rick_Dominated> "Calling...calling..."

<AdventFalls> "I'm coming."

<Rick_Dominated> She sticks quite close to Rei, clinging to her shoulder, pulling her along...

<AdventFalls> Suddenly they're soaring down the hall. The girl is scooped into Rei's arms, what's left of FORTRESS propelling them full speed...

<Rick_Dominated> She seems elated, clinging tightly to Rei...

<AdventFalls> "Is she your Mother? What does she call you?"

<Rick_Dominated> "Penitant Thunder of Supplication."

<AdventFalls> "My name is Rei."

<AdventFalls> "Rei Ikari-Yamamoto."

<Rick_Dominated> "A name not suited...no...you are..."

<Rick_Dominated> It concentrates.

<Rick_Dominated> "...Maiden."

<AdventFalls> "Maiden of Thunder is a title I have back home...."

<Rick_Dominated> "Or...Mother." She smiles, and holds Rei closer.

<AdventFalls> Rei blushed. "...I am A mother...."

<Rick_Dominated> She looks about to say something else...and then...Rei's hair stands on end, an invsible threshold being passed...

<Rick_Dominated> The corridoor vanishes...into a room full of steaming thunderclouds...

<Rick_Dominated> ...no.

<Rick_Dominated> It's too majestic to call a room, instead a...chamber. Even Rei's eyes have to strain to possibly see the other side...it's larger around than the pole outside is, impossibly so. Thunder and storm rage in equal measure, and in the middle of...

<Rick_Dominated> ...a being is transfixed, held in state by impossibly powerful magnetism, her arms crossed over her chest...even at this distance...she's made of pure, undiluted lightning, the feeling that Rei has been feeling this entire time now...vastly, impossibly changing itself, amplified to impossible levels.

<Rick_Dominated> "Mother..."

<Rick_Dominated> ...and yes, Lissome was right. Badura, the Living Lightning *is* Three Miles Tall.

<AdventFalls> It's a wave of energy washing over Rei as she approached. "...Badura?"

<Rick_Dominated> *Bodara

<Rick_Dominated> "Mother...!" The little jolt of lightning flashes forwards, racing towards the massive being....

<AdventFalls> "...Hi. I... didn't think I'd get this close."

<Rick_Dominated> She's silent, not moving at all, but the raging storms around her increase in intesnity...

<AdventFalls> "It's almost... intoxicating...."

<AdventFalls> She fell to her knees, a gooey smile on her face.

<AdventFalls> "Wooooooooooow."

<Rick_Dominated> The thunder crashes...and the massive woman's eyes open, each as wide around as gunbuster is tall.

<AdventFalls> Rei remained in aweful silence.

<AdventFalls>  Rick_Dominated The thunder crashes...and the massive woman's eyes open, each as wide around as gunbuster is tall.

<AdventFalls>  AdventFalls Rei remained in aweful silence.

<Rick_Dominated> Maiden Of Thunder, My Home Welcomes You

<AdventFalls> "Thank you for the hospitality."

<Rick_Dominated> The little lightning elemental zooms around her in midair, smiling all the while.

<Rick_Dominated> The Realm Of Brass And Shadow Is In Turmoil, As You Know

<AdventFalls> Rei nodded.

<AdventFalls> "Yes."

<Rick_Dominated> The Maker Stirs In His Sleep, Fitful As His Sickness Rages

<Rick_Dominated> You Have Seen And Fought The Signs And Causes

<AdventFalls> "Yes. It's almost unending."

<Rick_Dominated> Autocthonia Needs A Spark. A Catalyst. But You Are Broken Still.

<AdventFalls> "That sounds like a job for one of the Celestial Exalts. I don't have the power...."

<Rick_Dominated> And We Have No Celestial Exalts That Would Help. I Remember Them, The Solars Of The Deliberative Would Upsurp, Destroy. No...What Is Needed Is More Like You

<AdventFalls> "Why? Because I'm not power hungry?"

<Rick_Dominated> You Shall Have To Simply See... Closer Then...Come To Me...

<AdventFalls> Rei didn't have to try. The electricity in the air.... she floated closer....

<Rick_Dominated> The little Elemental smiles as she watches...and the power just seems to envelop her....

<Rick_Dominated> Rei Ikari-Yamamoto finds herself seemingly completly lost in the white...