World Tree MUSH

    The dull roar of an explosion tears through the old ruins of the ancient city, shaking thousands of years of dust from glassless windows and rotting concrete.
    "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you open a door." Jackass says, with her thumb on the trigger button to a now, very detonated, series of charges.
    2B stands in place at the entrance to the desert, 9S at her side looking aghast.
    "Why would you need to blow up the gate?!" 9S asks, baffled and exasperated with Jackass' antics, while 2B folds her arms under her chest, looking entirely unsurprised.
    "Because it was in the way." Jackass replies brightly, dusting her hands and tossing the detonator over her shoulder. "Alright everyone! The way to the desert is open! There is no resupply beyond this point and no communications either. So try not to die, because no one will ever find you once the sands cover up your bodies~." The resistance android says, motioning for anyone arriving to follow 2B on in.

    "Nice explosion!" Natsu says, giving Jackass a huge thumbs up of approval to her 'destroy other people's property' method of opening up the desert, "You coulda just asked me to melt it, though!" 

    Either way, Natsu is here. It's a job, it pays money, he needs money to live while he looks for the other members of Fairy Tail, and guild members take jobs! All these things create a confluence of events that result in one (1) Natsu being on site. 

    Blessedly, by the nature of being a Fire Dragon Slayer, he seems perfectly dressed for the desert in his vest, scarf, sandals and pants. He grins and punches his fist into his palm, "Sweet! So what're we here for? Beat up some robots? Explore a bit? Sounds easy!"

    "Nice pep talk, 'Jackass'." Dante fires back to the android without missing a beat. God, he's gonna have a lot of fun with that name. The Son of Sparda's going classic today, sporting his old red longcoat and nothing beneath from the waist up, muscular chest taunting everything. "Alright, let's get this on with. Lead on, 2buns!" He motions to the leader android with a cheeky grin. It's not like he can help himself, given 2B's -bizarre- choices in clothing. 9s isn't much better, looking like a 1940s English schoolboy. Putting aside questionable fashion, he shoulders Rebellion and waits for 2B to get going.

     Luke is here!, apparently enjoying the explosion as much as Natsu did, "That was awesome!". Next to him, is a tall, pink and black bear of some sort, who seems to not approve of random explosions as much as Luke is, and is hovering as close to the teen as allowed, after teh talk of 'don't die', one would say something like momma bear, and likely it would apply to the attitude, despite Luke's protests.

    The pair quickly follows 2B, the boy wearing his usual shorts and shir (and cap!), but this time he is with a pair of goggles, to keep sand out of his eyes perhaps, "I'm ready!" he calls, "And relax Bewear, I'm sure we will be fine.", he shoots at the somewhat uneasy fluffy ursine.

Emily is laughing out loud before the explosion has fully died down. "Jackass, have I mentioned that you're my favorite member of the Resistance?" she says. She's in the form of an auburn-haired woman in her thirties with glowing purple eyes, dressed in a midnight-blue business suit. "Seriously, that name set the bar really high, but you've cleared it and then some!"

She strides forward after the two YoRHa androids. "Releasing capacitor seals 3 and 2!" Three distinct auras appear around her, one gold, one silver, and one pearlescent; the first two shatter and the third one fades; she's surrounded by a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, and then she's wearing a white version of 9S's uniform, her hairstyle has become the same as 2B's, and she has four arms for no apparent reason. Oh, and there's a large falchion sword on her back, sticking in place with nothing apparently holding it there.

She maintains her smug and faintly amused smile. "In this particular Blossom, Natsu," she says, "smashing robots is always what the job is." A pause, and she smirks at Dante. "... did you just call her '2buns'?"

Inwardly, however, she's steeling herself. Her most recent missions here were 1. Simone, and 2. discovering the hard way that she has some sort of unresolved trauma as a result of Simone. She doesn't really drift all that far from Luke's Bewear, either.

One explosion later... didn't they have someone else on this trip? Right, the little guy. Where's he at? He was just here a second ago.

Oh there he is, hiding behind a bit of debris a distance away from the explosion.

Once the explosion clears, he peeks out from behind the piece of debris, his large nose poking over it. "...Is it safe?" Well, no, it's not, but... well. Still, he comes out of his hiding place as the group starts into the newly-opened area.

Luigi apparently took the term 'ghost in the machine' literally, since he's fully outfitted with Professor Gadd's magnum opus, the Super Poltergust 5000! Fortunately it can do more than just suck up ghosts. Of course, to anybody who doesn't know what it is, it might just look like a particularly sophisticated cannister vacuum. Because that's... kinda what it is, all bells and whistles aside.

To his credit, it's also clear that Luigi doesn't appear to be relying TOTALLY on it -- he's got it put up properly on his back, with the hose attached to the cannister on his back. So whatever he's bringing to the party, he's bringing more than just a fancy vacuum cleaner. That said, one would be forgiven for not seeing it. He's kind of a short, pudgy fellow in green and blue laborer's attire. And he appears to be looking around far too much to not be incredibly nervous about where he is.

...Then again, look at the world. Maybe he's the sane one here.

Of course Jackass's 'pep talk' does nothing to make him less nervous. He hunkers down at the words, and looks at the destination uncertainly. Long enough, in fact, to notice that he's getting left behind by the others. "Waiiiit!" he calls as he hurries after the group.

    Oh you can believe Jackass is giving a big thumbs-up right back. "I know I'm you're favorite, Emily, I'm everyone's favorite. And if I had just let you melt it that would have taken all the fun out of blowing it up."
    In fairness, though, it is not 2B's fault that the standard YoRHa battle dress uniform is an actual dress, but when Dante calls her by that nickname, the silver-haired android stops just long enough to give him a very pointed look, before smoothing her skirt down with one hand to make sure it's nice and low.
    "We're investigating the desert." She explains in a quick briefing. "The resistance has found an increasing number of machine lifeforms in the area, and they think it might be indicative of something bigger. ... Feel free to engage and destroy any machines you encounter along the way. And she is not waiting for any stragglers as she strides through the gates into a narrow canyon, sand already dusting the canyon floor, before it suddenly and abruptly widens into a vast... Open...
    Desert.
    Sand dunes as far as the eye can see stretch out off into the horizon, and as soon as 2B takes the first step in those high heels of hers-- she loses her footing. Though she maintains her balance in a slide down the first dune, it looks like the loose sand will make walking surely a nightmare for just about anyone.
    "Wow, these dunes sure aren't going to make it easy." 9S comments, stating the obvious.

    "Ya don't say, Nines. Gee, I wouldn't have noticed!" Dante quips, deftly sliding down the dune after 2B without hesitation. He practically surfs all the way down, trying to maintain balance. The sun in his eyes definitely makes it tricky for Dante to see far, and he produces some sunglasses just for his vision's sake. The Son of Sparda's so used to it being night, or at least overcast and rainy, when he works. The fact he doesn't exactly look the type to tan well doesn't help.

    "Ya know? I just had a thought. What if what we're looking for is underneath us and there's just so much sand we can't see it?" He muses after some period of silence, taking off down a direction. Seems like he might be onto something, given how _vast_ the desert seems to be. Just how far into the future are they?

    "So we are simply exploring all over for information?..." he begins to ask, but Dante apparently makes the kind of question he wanted to add, "One of my pokemon can detect strong electrical fields, if that helps?" he mentions, even as he carefully slips to the edge of teh Dune, watching Dante just surf his way down. 
    The boy hesitates, when the large, pink/black bear reaches, gingerly picks him up, places the boy on a shoulder and proceeds to move down the dune as well, letting out a squeaky growl as it slides without much trouble, while Luke playfully tugs at one 'ear', "Showoff, I would have done that on my own, just needed to prepare." he protests, even as the two move after Dante, since he seems like he migth have an idea.

    Natsu specifically does not slide down the side of the dune! 

    This is because when he sees two other people lose their balance and slide, he looks down at his feet. They immediately surround in dark red flames and as he steps forward slowly, the sand underneath him is turning into glass footholds as he calmly walks down the side of the dune while replying to Emily, "I'm pretty okay with beating up Robots! I'm at my best when I can just punch problems anyway." 

    He boredly cracks his knuckles and continues strolling after 2B and 9S to see where they're leading him, "I dunno, why would they be under the desert? If they're seeing more machine life forms and it's causing issues, they'd be on top of the sand to be issues in the first place!"

Emily's response to troubles with unsteady footing is once again to simply rise off the ground and float above it.

"Wish I had scanners that weren't optimized for maintenance that have merely had lots of practice in a completely different post-apocalypse," she says dryly, "because that, Dante, is an excellent question!"

She shoots Luke and Bewear a smile, before she looks over at the two YoRHa androids. "9S, I'm gonna be -- whoa." She's immediately distracted by Natsu's display, and she whistles in appreciation. "Anyway, uh, Nines, heh ... I'm gonna fly up and take a wider look, but I'll be in radio contact if I see anything." A pause. "You and Tubes, too, if necessary."

Without even waiting for 2B's reaction, she then flies up higher to try to get a broader view of the wide area, before radioing 9S with, <<Testing, testing, one two three! Is this thing on?>>

Luigi listens to the briefing, and nods... though looks a little apprehensive when 2B mentions destroying the machine life forms. "Oh, um... let's see, I got-a my tools here somewhere..." And he pulls a wrench from underneath the cannister vacuum. "Aha!" he declares triumphantly. He does have some tools on his person, yes. He's a plumber after all, he'd hardly be worth his salt as one if he didn't carry tools. Though he of course figures it's going to be by taking them apart physically rather than just 'bash'.

The dunes are a real pain in the butt for Luigi too. He has to get a running start up the first dune to avoid sliding back down it the wrong way. Which admittedly is pretty damn fast, particularly for a short pudgy guy. But then when he crests the dune he's going too fast to stop. So he kind of tumbles a bit, and gets his head stuck in the sand. Which of course takes him a second or two to remedy. He's unharmed though, even if he does have to dive back in after his hat.

The second time he has to go up one, he decides to just jump over it. And since he can jump about five times his own height as well as somehow jump twice more when he's already in the air, he'll probably be okay in navigating. He's also a lot less ungainly in the air, to note.

However, Luigi has no idea where the thing might be that they're looking for, so as the others offer opinions and the like, he remains quiet and just follows 2B. She knows where she's going, he assumes.

    Eventually, people overcome the desert dust- be it either by glassing it underfoot, or floating, jumping, or just trudging on in the sun without a care.
    "Loud and clear, Emily." 9S replies, before 2B cuts into the radio.
    "Don't call me that."
    Bright and sunny as ever, isn't she?
    Now, as to the debate of whether or not the machines are above or below the sand, the answer to that comes fairly quickly into the investigation when the sand shifts... And a single, toy-like figure pushes itself up to stand. It pauses.
    It looks at the approaching group.
    And it screams.
    What might be odd about this machine lifeform is... Wearing clothes. Specifically a mask and a tattered cloak. And it runs around in a circle for a moment.
    "An...droids! An... droids...! Scary...! Scary...!" It monotones before sprinting off.
    The sands shift again though. And a squad of similar machines rise, wielding crude blades and firing off sparking spheres of energy at the intruders.
    Technically both Dante and Natsu were right. They were under the sand. But they weren't a problem until they were above the sand.

    Dante stares at Luigi. He's gonna use...a vacuum out here. "'kay." He says after a moment to ponder this, before he starts to ape the plumber's method and jumps to skip ground when he can, summoning red glyphs beneath his feet to propel himself again while in mid-air. Air-hiking his way across the sands, he suddenly sees a robotic shape emerge from the sand suddenly.

    He draws Ebony and Ivory and sights the robot up as it runs off. He thinks about taking the shot, but then considers otherwise. "Nah." Doesn't feel right to light this poor guy up.

    Then his conscience is assuaged as more robots show up, engaging the group. These guys he feels better about tearing apart.

    His pistols open fire on the robots, using dashes across the dunes to evade returning fire by a hair's breadth of impact, responding with demon-energy enhanced .45 Auto.

    For some reason, he really feels sick about scaring the first robot off like that, deep down in his gut.

    Natsu looks towards 9S, "Hey do they usually do that? Because... I mean..." He hand-gestures towards the robot running away from them after screaming and calling androids scary. 

    He doesn't seem TOO scared of the robot army, though. He's actually holding a small biped up to eye-level by the scruff of its neck and staring into the mask with a slow head-tilting gesture as he inspects it. When it swings the sword at him, he catches it in one hand and it immediately melts into slag before he goes back to looking at it. He shakes it a bit, "Hey. Can you talk too? What's the deal here, little buddy?" 

    He continues shaking it a bit more as he looks at it, asking it a few more questions, "Where did your friend go? Why are you scared? Can you talk?" 

    "I think I'm gonna name this thing Happy 2." Natsu declares as he continues walking, dragging his new robot with him. 

    "HEY! DON'T NAME IT AFTER ME!" Shouts a voice from overhead. Flying above Natsu in a slow circle is a blue cat with white wings that shouts down at him.

    Oh look, a scared robot dude!, wait, angry robots are shooting at him and Bewear now!. Dante certainly looks quite awesome jumping mid air and shooting the little machines, and he has to keep in mind how to avoid getting in the way of... and sand makes some moves hard to do... As Luke considers a bit of strategy, the large Bewear squeaks and jumps out of the way, placing the boy down adn growling for a command. "Oh, right, Rock Slide!" says the boy as he snaps out of concentration. 
    The bear nods and turns to face the group of machines, letting out a chirpy roar, energy building up on its arms!. It slams the sand, sending white energy ripples, before a large grey boulder emerges from under the sand somehow. As it finishes sliding out, the bear quickly moves forward and slams a punch, causing the stone to break into large shards that get shot towards the group of little machine guys.

<<Sorry, sorry!>> Emily's transmission to 2B sounds genuinely contrite.

Emily considers the attacking Machine Lifeforms, and she swoops down lower to get a better look. Oh, and she also fires golden bolts of light down into the attackers. She manages a lopsided grin at Natsu, before parrying a slash from one robot and then beheading it with her sword. "So, 2B, 9S," she calls out, as she dodges a bolt of energy, "Machine Lifeforms which are capable of speech, and which have changed their appearance to match their general environment. Where have we seen that before?"

... There's a certain amount of unease which she can't quite keep out of her voice.

She watches the fleeing individual robot. "Gonna try radioing that one guy over there!" she says. <<Only two of the people in this group are androids, just so you know,>> she transmits. <<Unless you count me.>> She decides not to point that half of the seven individuals here are human, considering the whole point of this war. <<So what's goin' on?>>

The robot comes out of the sand. Screams.

And Luigi follows suit, flailing! "WAAAAAAAH!"

...Hey, it startled him, screaming all of a sudden. What'd it expect him to do after it screamed at them so suddenly like that?! Burst into that song about life, death, and rebirth?!

These aren't really vacuum-worthy foes, though -- it's bright up here, so there's no need for the flash. Even if they DO have ghosts in them, the outer covering would have to be broken off first, and the ghost subsequently ejected, before he could do anything about them. And a flung plunger can only do so much against a metallic monstrosity.

So he'll fall back on the rest of his repetoire here -- a combination of flinging fireballs and iceballs at the robots! And he has this weird ability to rocket at enemies head-first... which looks like it should hurt a lot more than it seems to, considering these things are made of metal and he's hitting them head-first. And of course he can always try the good old standby of jumping on their heads!

Through all of this, to note, Luigi he looks like he's utterly terrified. Those desperate running windmill punches -- which, to his credit, seems far more effective than such a tactic should be -- are delivered with closed eyes, though somehow don't seem to miss all that often. He looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here... and yet he's fighting these things with as much effectiveness as any other reasonably skilled combatant.

    "Uhhhhhh they don't- usually- do that!" 9S replies to Natsu as he fends off a few smaller machines with his katana. 2B tears into the machines with a cold and disapassionate killer grace. Because the machines ARE attacking, with their crude weapons and firearms.
    "Scary...! Scary...! Afraid... Afraid...!" Happy 2 babbles back at Natsu.
    Emily points something out, and a frown hardens on 2B's face.
    "Doesn't matter. They're attacking." She replies, tone frigid as the group tears apart the machine; bullets, Bewear's boulder smash reducing a fair number to mulch, and Luigi flattening several under boot.
    The fleeing machine seems to be in too much of a wild flying panic to even respond to Emily as it rushes over a dune, more machines pulling themselves from the sands in its wake, more throwing themselves at the group- some literally suicidally blowing themselves up once close enough.
    It's not long of a chase before a large series of buildings appear from the horizon, a massive and sprawling apartment complex that the machine flees into; a swathe of dead YoRHa and resistance androids left haphazardly strewn at the entrance in various states of 'decay', some entirely stripped of their synthetic skin altogether.

Emily is slightly ahead of the group, being that she doesn't need to worry about struggling against the sand. "I'm just saying!" she says, slight annoyance in her voice. "The last time that happened, we ran into GAH!"

She practically falls to half of her previous height, and hurriedly turns away, grimacing. "... shit. I'm ... shhhhhhhhhoot. Okay. Okay. No need to panic. Ugh ..." She slowly turns around to face the android corpses, winces, and looks away. She takes a few deep breaths, even though she's basically a robot and this doesn't actually mean anything. "Mmmmmrrrrrrghrghrghrrrgh."

Luigi's concern, once they become visible, will be the suicide bombers. More than that, his concern will be to keep them away from the rest of the team. So that's who he'll be aiming at, with flung ice-balls to freeze them in place, as well as rocket launches and boot stomps to try to destroy them before they can get to the others. Keep them off the team, even if a few do end up exploding at him. That's okay, it's perfectly fine. But not if they explode at the rest of the team. He can take it.

Hopefully they'll be past these and no more of them will be showing up (at least not immediately as he finally makes it to the site of what looks like it might have been a site of carnage a long time ago. He's scared, yes... but Emily seems to be having trouble. So he'll force himself past his own fear to ask, "A-are you... okay?" Well, no, she's clearly not, but like. He's trying at least, right?

    "Don't worry Happy 2-" "STOP CALLING IT THAT!" "-I'm going to make sure you're okay! So just stick with me, little robot buddy." 

    And so Natsu proceeds, carrying Happy 2 under one arm and marching along on the chase as he pursues the fleeing robot along with 2B and 9S. He doesn't seem THAT perturbed at the sight of the android corpses, flayed. After all, it's just metal and stuff, by his standards. Unfortunately for him, that also means that when he leans over to smell it... 

    Sniff sniff. 

    Sniff. 

    "I can't tell anything. Between the desert, robots, and androids, there's not a lot of scents here for me to track. It's not like those two..." He points to 2B and 9S, "Where they've been active long enough to have a scent. These just all smell like metal when they've had the stuff that makes em unique removed." 

    He stands up again, "We should be careful. There's something dangerous inside, I bet."

    Dante notices Emily running off, and he begins to follow. "Yo, Em, where are you going?" He calls out, sprinting after her alertly as he stows his guns. Following Emily, he skids to a stop in the dunes as he hears that horrified scream, and suddenly gets back to running.

    He sees the pile of android bodies left about like a killing field, torn apart and some stripped of their flesh. Dante's skin shivers involuntarily despite the scorching heat, and his face pales in disgust. Even if they're just robots, the visual alone reminds him of several killing scenes he's seen in the past. None of them were pretty either. "...oh that's...that's just messed up." The Devil Hunter mutters under his breath, as Luigi seems to join them. "You don't notice the -mass grave- here, amico?" He snaps at Luigi in an uncharacteristically gruff tone, motioning to the corpses.

    It's a little bit of a fight all the way to the entrance of the apartment complex, but things thin out by the time everyone reaches the corpses and Natsu begins to try and smell them. The superhuman smell of his determines just that, though, there's not a lot of variations in smells here aside from dust and iron.
    Though 9S does pause to curiously sniff under his arm, subtly.
    "... 2B I think I need a bath."
    "Just follow standard cleaning proceedure."
    "But baths are so relaxing, 2B~."
    An exasperated sigh is the Battler unit's response as she sheathes her katana, but casts what appears to be a somewhat worried look up at Emily, ever so briefly. It's so brief it might go completely unnoticed as she starts trudging past the dead androids. Luigi can express concern better than she can.
    "Let's go." 2B presses. "There's no time to mourn for them now."
    And she leads the way right into...
    A large clearing amid the buildings, a wide courtyard absolutely FULL of masked and cloaked machine lifeforms that do not seem to have noticed anyone yet as they...
    They amble about.
    They embrace.
    They rock little empty cradles.
    "Love... Love..." One buzzes.
    "Baby... Baby..." Another babbles over an empty crib.
    "Nice... Weather... Today... Isn't it...?"
    "How... Do you... do?"
    It's a complete farce of a society amid the dunes.
    "... This is really not normal..." 9S whispers.

    Seems, thankfully the robot dudes are more trouble than actual danger, and both him and Bewear make their way through the field towards the building!. That run comes to a stop as they spot the broken... people?, wait no, those are machines... Still, the boy shudders uncomfortably, and the large pink and black pokemon reaches one arm to hug the boy close, moving and trying to avoid staring at the machines much. "That's... really messed up." mumbles the teen, quite glad to just follow 2B further into the building, doing his best to ignore the mass grave.

Emily shakes her head. "I'm ... I'm okay. Just need ... a few minutes. Or something to stab, one of the two." She grins weakly. "Jesus Chresus, what is the point of getting this kind of reaction. Simone is dead, I helped smash her. Android corpses ... c-can't even hurt me. It's ... ugh."

A blindfold (also like a white version of 9S's) materializes over her eyes in a swirl of silvery glitter. She then turns back around and brings her sword back up. "Sorry, Luke, I'm ... probably gonna be kinda foul-mouthed for a few minutes." She 'looks' over at 2B and 9S. "Wow. And yet this still somehow slightly less fucked-up than Simone was, even if it is pretty fucked-up by volume."

... She does notice 2B's expression. Noticing things is kind of her 'thing', at least in terms of actionable skills. For now, though, she files it away for future reference; another thing she's noticed is that when 2B is in mission-mode, there's no point in small talk.

And then they come across the courtyard.

Emily pushes up the blindfold, and stares at the ... behavior of the Machine Lifeforms. "... Okay, yeah," she says, breaking into an unsteady grin. "This is, in fact, weirder than me."

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Brick joke.

Luigi nods at Natsu's assessment. "Something in there had to do all this," he says, indicating the carnage around the area. Well, maybe not 'carnage', but past carnage? Carnage remnants? Something like that. Either way it's scary.

Dante's gruff snap in his direction does make Luigi hunker down a bit more. "W-well of course I did..." he notes, in a small voice. He did, really. But everything is scary here! His accent comes out more the more scared he is, and it's pretty noticeable with his next words. "I was-a just trying to get-a her talking..."

It should be noted that he seems to be just as scared here, at the site of what looks like a freaking mass excinction event, as he was of the explosion that opened the area to start with. Weird? Sad? Hard to tell. Good possibility that the little guy's a touch mental, though.

But fortunately 2B and 9S lead the way into the area... and into the groupings of robots doing... well, things they probably think are normal. But it's so very much NOT normal that Luigi is freaked out. He's gone full-on teeth-chattering, knee-knocking scared. 2B Seems the one to ask, so he notes, barely above a whisper, "...W-wh-what are they d-d-doing...?"

    If things were messed up before, then NOW things just got weirder. "You said robots were supposed to be hostile, right 2Butt?" Dante asks shakily, reaching for Rebellion warily. There's something seriously off about this, and it's gotten to him already. "I have no idea, dude. I got nothin.'" Yeah, he's stumped.

    Natsu coils back his arm and tosses Happy 2 off into the desert and far over a dune, "Okay little guy! You go be safe! There's gonna be a fight here probably maybe!" 

    Natsu dusts off his hands and then wanders in, "You don't need a bath, guy. Everything has a smell. Even if that smell is just metal and sand." He cracks his knuckles a bit and then they head... into a really weird place. 

    "Uuuuuuuuuuh...." Natsu looks to 2B for Guidance and is pretty much just as confused as everyone else here.

    Luke glances back at Emily, "It's fine... I heard that stuff before." he does not make much comments on where he heard that, even if the Bewear looks a bit shocked by the revelation, dissaproving bear. Any potential reaction beyond that is postponed by the bizarre sight of the many machines, blinking a few times, and slowly glancing towards Dante, then 2B, "What the..." he mumbles, while the big pokemon next to him carefully hugs Luke and tries to look in every direction at once, "This is... messed up."

    Happy 2 goes sailing off into the horizon, stubby little arms and legs flailing as it goes. But more importantly...
    "Child. Child. Child."
    "Love. Love. Love."
    "Happiness. Happiness."
    "Together. Forever."
    "Carry me!" The machines blather on.
    "What is this...?" Even 2B looks baffled as the group has to pause to figure out what they're even looking a.
    "... D... Don't listen to them, guys." 9S says after a beat as a machine ambles by. "They're just imitating. They don't have emotions or feelings. Let's take them out and get this over with." He suggests, causing 2B to brandish her katana.
    It IS just plain weird. Like On a whole different tier from Emily. And 2B decides to not think about it as she moves to cut down a machine...
    The machine from earlier that ran away appears, dropping from a window.
    "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS!" It delcares.
    Which causes all the other machines to turn, eyes flaring an aggressive red as they start to swarm the explorers in droves.
    "They are hostile." 2B answers Dante. "They are very hostile."

    "This isn't making me feel better!" Dante replies to 9S, before he swaps out Rebellion for something...-necessary.-

    He pulls what looks like the death metal lovechild of an electric guitar and a scythe, slashing at the robots as they swarm the group. He twirls and spins with the blade, before suddenly the weapon converts into its guitar form, and a sensual voice echoes out from the weapon; ~Mmmmm, sugar, you always take me out to the most LOVELY places.~ Nevan croons, lighting blasting all around Dante as he strums a few bars.

    Warming up with a guitar solo, music starts playing from out of nowhere. Somehow Dante manages to sound like he's dishing out a sick bass solo as he lets out a torrent of lightning-powered bats at the robots, and he begins singing.

    https://youtu.be/xVU6o7xg_Lo

    Lovers of the dark, step into the light
    We know you're brave, you've come to see us dream
    Many times before, now we open up a door

    It goes on like this for a while, and it's *beautiful.*

Emily looks at Luigi. "Trying to be social, I guess," she says. "Yeah, Luke, you mentioned. Uh." She puts her lower hands on her hips and pinches the bridge of her nose. "I'm getting whiplash from the change of mood here, yikes." She watches Happy 2 go, then turns back to the Machines.

Which are now attacking.

Still grinning, Emily lets out a hiss through her teeth, and her eyes glow orange as her blindfold dematerializes. She also radios 2B and 9S a text to reassure them that there's no virus, she's just angry, for reasons that she hopes are apparent.

She charges forward, sword in hand, slicing and dicing through the Machine Lifeforms. There's a certain measure of viciousness that's very unusual for her, and obviously different from the way she was fighting before. She also fires a few golden bolts, but they go wild; even when they hit, it's not clear that they actually hit the targets she was aiming for.

She doesn't even seem to notice what Dante's doing with his guitar, uh-oh ...

    Luke is almost, almost relieved when the darn things start to attack, even if he still finds it extremely disturbing. At least Dante is doing something cool that takes his mind out of the disturbing situation. Ok, that guitar thing is pretty cool. He reaches for his pokeballs, wondering if getting a flashier pokemon might be better to try to match it, but decides against it. "Bewear, Swords Dance, then charge at them with Brutal swing!." he finally calls. 
    The bear claps a few times at the guitar, before nodding. The bear once again squeaks and growls, light blue swords begin to circle around it for a moment, before they fade, a bright red aura forming around the pink and black bear, kind of menacing looking!. It charges ahead in a sudden burst of speed, charging to the middle of the nearest group, limbs glowing as it swings those arms around, smashing the machines around.

    "Happy 1 get down here!" Natsu shouts directly upwards. 

    "JUST HAPPY! I'm just Happy! There is no Happy 2." Happy objects as blue cat lands in front of Natsu and its wings vanish. 

    "Okay, whatever. Look, I need your advice. They're starting to attack." He thumbs towards the robots, "I'm not really worried, but I don't know what attack I should use. What do you think, little buddy? Roar?" 

    "Noooo, no. You can't use your roar. It's too closed in, you'll hurt everyone," Happy points out, "It's not like it's just you and Lucy right now. Or Gray or Erza." 

    "Haha, yeah. Yeah..." Natsu scratches the side of his head and thinks about it, "Good point." 

    "You could use your classic!" 

    Natsu snaps his fingers! "Good point, little buddy! I knew I could count on you!" 

    "Yeah no problem!" The cat says as it sprouts wings again and flies off. 

    Natsu turns to the robots and cracks the knuckles on his right hand, "Alright rustbuckets! Let's do this." 

    "Fire Dragon..." His right hand erupts into flames as he dashes forward, throwing a haymaker of flame that explodes on impact right into one of the robots, blowing it apart and melting it from the force of the attack, which emanates enough heat and shockwaves to probably melt any surrounding robots, "IRON FIST!"

It's all just so bloody weird that Luigi's actually somewhat relieved when the robots snap out of their almost trance-like emulation of human behavior and start to attack them. Luigi does blubber a little bit, that can't be helped. It's probably a good thing that Dante's singing and playing guitar, even if it's a demonic guitar. Because it actually calms Luigi down a little. Enough to notice the electric bats. And suddenly he gets an idea!

The Poltergust's hose is pulled from the side of the device, and aimed at the bats. Not all of them, just a few on the sides of the greater swarm. And with a whirring sound -- yup, that is a vacuum cleaner -- Luigi tries to pull several of the bats from the side of the greater swarm. Only to then flip a switch on the hose. The suction switches directions with a click, and all of the electric bats that Luigi had sucked up into the device fire out at a different swarm of robots, at great velocity!

    For every robot that is cut down, shocked, batted to death, battered by Bewear, or melted... More come. More and more and more, it's a swarm and soon enough 9S and 2B are fighting back to back with Emily and Dante. Natsu's powerful blow busts a wide opening in the near endless tide, but more continue to come! 
    "This. Cannot. Continue." A machine buzzes.
    "This cannot. Continue."
    "This cannot continue."
    "This cannot continue."
    "This cannot continue."
    It becomes mantra, chanted as one as more of their number are cut down. Until the machines seem to no longer want to focus on fighting.
    Instead they climb, latching to one another, forming a hive-like structure with their very bodies between the buildings overhead. And for a long moment. There is silence, as the machines glow. And when that cocoon of machine bodies cracks open, what drops free is the form of...
    A young man. Perhaps in mid-twenties, long LONG hair wrapping his body and covering him up.
    His speed is inhuman as he suddenly lunges from where he stands, to try and plant a devastating knee into Natsu's midsection if he's not fast enough. And then he whirls around, intending a badkhand for Dante, zooming to Emily next with an outstreched foot aimed for her face. Before he's suddenly battering at Bewear, and bowls 9S aside as easy as breathing.
    "An...droids..." He says, voice warbling with static and distortion. "Why... Fight...?"

    Dante's about to complete the song, with Nevan -groaning- with ecstasy that will get this player sacked if he goes into too much detail right now, but he's interrupted as he sees a naked man slap him aside like a ragdoll. "Okay wha-" He's slapped away, knocking him off his feet. That bitchslap would've pulped a lesser man, demon blood or no. "...okay, that's new."

    He leaps back on his feet, and then Dante begins to strum some more, before he gets his rhythm back again. He lets out a hailstorm of lightning-bats at the naked android-man-thing. This is definitely a first for him.

"It's gonna continue!" Emily snarls, slashing back at the machines. But suddenly she has nothing to slash against. Her eyes go up to the 'cocoon', which she misinterprets at first. "... we're fightin' a ball of dudes?" she says ...

... right before the new figure appears and kicks her in the face, sending her sprawling. Silvery glitter leaks from her nose. "Okay, this is not where I expected this to go," she says. She charges forward, slashing at the new figure's torso.

At the same moment, she gives him a cursory scan -- nothing military grade, and it doesn't even go very deep or see in much detail. But she sees enough.

"Wait a tick," she says, firing a few golden bolts. "He's a Machine Lifeform!" A brief hesitation. "I mean, of course he is ... but ..."

Luigi is back from the main group and seems to be out of the strange man's focus for now. But that might be because he stopped firing bats when the weird man appeared from the inside of the weird cocoon of robots. That shouldn't even be possible! But it is, it just happened... and Luigi is scared! It just knocked aside everyone like NOTHING... all those much better fighters, much stronger people, dealt with in an instant. What hope does he have of doing anything against that man...?

A dark, sticky little voice intrudes. He CAN. He just doesn't WANT to. Because he's too much of a coward. He's too afraid. Not of the situation. Not of that weird man. He's afraid of the other people here, that voice challenges. Afraid of his own allies.

Luigi grunts, and hunkers down in his place, pulling his hat down over his ears as if it would block out that voice. ('No. I'm not afraid of them.')

('You're afraid of what they'll think.')

('I don't want to hurt anybody!') Luigi pulls his hat down farther, hoping to block it out. ('Shut up shut up shut up shut up...')

    Luke is starting to panic a bit as the horde of robots begins to overwhelm the group, and the pink bear begins to fall back, mostly for Luke's safety than it's own concern about the battle. Of course, the attention turns to the very weird naked android suddenly rushing around and smackign people!. Given the speed boost on the Bewear still being active, the pink and black pokemon manages to turn around and block the strike with its fluffy arms, the android can likely tell there was something odd about the creature, the thick fluff seeming to absorb a great deal of the smack, but even then, the pokemon is pushed back several feet with the strength of the attack and grunting from the pain, the forelimbs shaking after the block, but still doing it's best to pretend to be unharmed. 
     Cue Luke getting a 'oh crap' face as he sees his strongest, built for trading punch physical beast getting pushed aside with a single strike. "Oh crap...." he mumbles, "Bewear, are you ok?" he asks in a bit of panic, "Try thunderpunch!". The fluffy pink/black pokemon nods, shaking its arms again and trying to jump towards the new android with the same enhanced speed from earlier, even if likely, it is still slower than the young man, electricity suddenly bursting from it's left arm as it tries to punch it's opponent as hard as it can, less concerned with friendly fire from Dante than taking down that guy.

    The knee connects cleanly into Natsu's gut, sending him flying back like a bullet. The mage skips once against the ground and then slams into a wall, splintering and cracking it in a spiderweb upon his impact before slumping to the ground limply. He sits there for a few moments, "Heh heh.... heh heh heh... well. You're a strong one, ain't ya? That was a good hit. I guess I can't hold back against you, huh?" 

    Flames start to erupt around Natsu's body, the heat emanating from him in waves. It's scorching enough to melt the stone wall behind him, the rock beginning to drip and drop as he plants a hand into his ground and pushes himself to his feet. The sweat across his body immediately boils off in eddies and whirls of steam as he grins, "Alright. Hell with the property damage. Let's play!" 

    As Natsu marches forward, the flames continue to swirl and flow around him, melting the sand in his immediate surroundings to glass as he marches towards the new opponent that just entered the field, "I won't hold back." 

    There are many forms of magic in the world. Especially in Natsu's world. But some magic is lost to the flow of time, from centuries long ago. The practioners wiped themselves out, or the magic was too powerful to survive, or simply those who had it killed eachother off. 

    Among those is a type people speak of with fear. Because its practioners are said to be ferocious monsters, people who consume the power of a dragon. People who become a dragon themself, and in turn receive the power to fight on the level of dragons and gods. 

    Dragon Slayer Magic. Bequeathed to humans by dragons for the purpose of killing dragons. 

    The flames around Natsu swirl up, forming the massive image of a dragon behind him that lets out a roar that sounds like crackling flames. 

    Natsu darts forward, "Why don't you try one of my strongest attacks on for size!" 

    Slamming a foot down right in front of the opponent to dig himself in and center his gravity, Natsu begins throwing punch after punch at the Machine Lifeform that sent him flying. Each blow is delivered with enough force to shatter a wall, and each impact lets off an explosion of flame as it is landed. 

         Dragon Slayer's Secret Art: Crimson Lotus - Fire Dragon's Fist         

    Where the crude little machine lifeforms were numerous and myriad... This one lone machine lifeform has more power in him than all their number combined. And he shows it in the force of his blows. Lightning strikes him, as do golden rays of energy and he jolts and jerks-- before he learns to make a shield out of energy itself.
    Luigi seemingly cowers and he pays him no mind.
    Bewear slams into him with enough force to launch him into a wall, leaving a man-shaped crater in the concrete... And he pulls himself out of it. 9S rallies, and 2B leaps in with her blade and he-- learns to parry.
    It's like for every attack thrown at him he evolves- he learns how to counter and enact reprisal in powerful blows.
    But then Natsu.
    Natsu unleashes the power of the dragon itself. Blows rain down at a pace so blinding and powerful, that it outpaces the new machine man's evolutionary capabilities. He tries to deflect blows with his body. It goes poorly. He tries to shield. It goes poorly. He is battered, struck, beaten and burned as the sand itself turns to glass in Natsu's wake, body breaking under the combined assault of Dante, Emily, Luke's pokemon, and Natsu's sheer indomitable strength, he staggers backwards--
    Only to be stabbed in the back by 2B, her katana emerging from his stomach in a spray of blood.
    "Guh!" He exclaims as she pulls it free and he collapses to the ground in a heap.
    "I guess we're done here." 9S Muses.
    But where there was one- there are now two. A flash of golden light heralds the emergence of a second machine man from the body of the first, which he picks up-- and screams. Loud enough to start bringing the buildings down.
    "... We are definitely done here-- retreat." 2B announces- and starts booking it as concrete begins to fall.

Emily exhales as 2B stabs him, without any sign of satisfaction.

But she flinches back from the scream.

"Right, then!" she says, rising off the ground and flying after 2B. She lands ahead of her, holds her hands outward, and a staticky portal opens up, with desert visible on the other side -- she's gone as far away as possible, so that the corpses aren't immediately visible. "C'mon, through here!" she says, slipping through quickly.

And then she stops. "... The corpses," she breathes. "The Machine Lifeforms must've been gathering the corpses so they could reverse-engineer androids to make those guys!"

    Natsu has a few moments to pant, steam and flame rolling off him as he catches his breath. 

    The flames puff out after a few moments as he turns around and then looks towards Emily, "Right! Thanks for the exit!" He shouts, watching as the world comes down around them and he dashes towards the portal, "Let's move!" 

    He takes a few moments to punch a couple pieces of falling debris out of the way to try to keep the path clear for other people, and then he dashes through the, landing in the sand as his sandal-clad feet skid across it and he digs his hands in to stop himself. 

    He pants a couple times and looks to Emily, "Really? Those guys were really strong. If the first one survived to heal after the second one came out, they're gonna be trouble as a pair. Even for someone like me." Natsu admits.

    Welp, Luke never expected to see displays like the ones from Adam, or Natsu, and tries not to stare, while Bewear looks what Natsu does with admiration and cheers, trying to figure out how the 'human' is doing that, perhaps he can learn how to pull that off!. The pink and black pokemon retreats to Luke's side as the battle seems to calm down, just in time for something even worse to happen. Luke covers his ears, and Bewear wastes no time picking the boy, and looking around for a way out, offering a squeaky chirp in thanks as he slips inside, carrying the boy. Once safe, teh bear walks towards Natsu, waving it's arms and cheering at the guy.

Things seem to go silent for a brief moment... long enough for Luigi to peek out from under his hat. "...See?" he mutters, to himself more than anyone else, standing up to dust himself off. "They had it-a aaaaaall under control. I didn't-a have to do... that thing..."

And then a second machine being appears, seeming very upset that the first one had died. So upset, in fact, that it starts collapsing the building! Luigi's first concern, again is the others. So he takes hold of the Poltergust hose again, about to pick up a big rock and toss it through a wall to make a door!

But then Emily makes a portal! Since it's there, Luigi makes for it, fleeing at top speed from the collapsing building. So fast, in fact, that he has to slam on the brakes HARD on the other side, raising a spray of sand! And he still skids for a good five yards before finally coming to a stop. Once he's stopped, he slumps, panting. That was scary!

And he's not about to call attention to what he did there at the end. Or rather, what he didn't do at the end. Thankfully everyone else was there to actually do something about the beastly thing...

    Now's time to GTFO. Dante's godlike guitar skills can only get him so far before the team's overwhelmed, not for lack of effort on their part though. Seriously, Natsu's something else far as beatdowns go.

    He runs like hell, zipping from bit of debris to debris as they call to bound off of them, propelling himself further up toward the portal Emily forms. He jumps through, and lands to a knee, skidding across sand wherever they end up. "We gonna just ignore the part where we got our asses whipped by a couple of Ken Dolls?" He points out, stowing Nevan. Emily's thought makes sense, sort of.

    In through the portal and out the other side to the quiet of the desert's soft whistling wind... The rumbling of the apartment complex in the distance behind echoes with the machine's final scream.
    "... I really don't want to think about that." 2B says to Emily at the notion that the machines were gathering up dead androids as she looks up and takes a headcount. Looks like everyone made it out.
    "... They're going to be trouble alright. We should probably report all this to command." 9S mutters as 2B plants her hands on her knees, actually looking winded for a beat.
    "I won't tell anyone, if you won't, Dante."
    2B has been offworld. She knows what a Ken doll is.

    "No, I didn't even notice the naked part! Naked people just don't really phase me any more!" 

    It's true. The amount of clothes destruction that happens in the average Fairy Tail mission (Particularly to the girls), not to mention Gray's weird stripping habit, it just doesn't really phase him at all at this point. 

    "Still. We should regroup and recover a bit. Then figure out what our next step is."

Emily closes the portal once everyone's through, and she seems to deflate. "I mean, you can't judge someone's toughness by their looks, most of the time," she says to Dante. "Or ... level of nakedness. I know we've both fought Salome, heh ..." There's just not enough force in her quip, though; she's still visibly rattled.

She eyes Natsu. "I'm ... just gonna ... drown my, uh, my sorrows in ice cream some more," she says weakly. "Ahahaha ... ugh." She looks around at the rest of the group. "Anyone wanna come with? One of the regular Vines in this world leads right to a Branch world with a place right down the street that has great root beer floats."

    Luke feels... kind of overwhelmed, that was... scary, he hasn't met anything able to do that to a Bewear in a single hit, or get hit back and just get up like nothing. "I might need to train my pokemon more... if that's the kind of things... that are out there." he says softly. He does not even bother to think 'hey, that was just a naked dude', he still is processing 'dude'. The Bewear growls and sits down, breathing heavily, the two clearly a bit uneasy. When Emily offers icecream he nods, "I... think I'd like to come, and Bewear too, if that's fine.".

    Natsu then takes notice of the Bewear, "Hey big guy! How ya doin!" He raises his arms up and waves a bit when it is waving at him and then sits down. Natsu looks to the two of them, "Training's the only thing you can do, guy. I've met a lot of tough people in my life. Some of em were stronger than me by a lot. Sometimes, you gotta dig deep, fight anyway, and then train the hell outta yourself so you can get stronger for next time." 

    Natsu punches a hand into his palm, "Getting stronger to protect the people you care about. That's the only reason to get strong, if you ask me."

    "Yeah, ice cream sounds like a good call right now." Dante agrees, ambling over to clap Bewear on the shoulder. "Those two androids weren't messing about, no. That bitchslap nearly broke me in two."

Luigi's not flailing around. He's not squeaking about how scary that was and how that was so bad and and and... Nothing that might be expected of him. He's just sort of... staring back at the area they just left. Quiet. Unseeingly. His gaze is turned inwards.

And so's his mind. Why couldn't have just... moved? Helped someone? Done something? Maybe next time. If there is a 'next time'...

And a dark, sticky part of his soul turns over a little more...

    The Bewear is certainly inspired by the speech!, it squeaks happily and gets up, nodding, "That's very nice." Luke says, smiling. The Bewear suddenly moves towards Natsu, "Bewear, wait, I told you already, don't..." the big, pink and black creature tries to snag Natsu in a hug, at least it doesn't actually squeeze too hard, but it must be at least uncomfortable. "Bewear, please don't hurt him." calls Luke, realizing it was too late to stop the hug, while the bear wags. "We need to find a good training partner to get ready, to be able to help if something like that happens again, yeah." The boy turns around, noticing Luigi just... being quiet, "Are you ok?" he asks, he noticed the green clad man doing amazing stuff earlier, even if scared.

Luigi might not have noticed Luke... for a moment. The moment he does though, it's clear. He jumps a little, with a bit of a squeak. "Aah! What? Oh... Y-yeah, I'm-a fine," he assures, with a smile and a wave of one gloved hand. "Let's-a go, there's nothing more we can do here." Though notably he follows the others instead of leading. Because he's that kind of person.

    "Ahahaha! Woah there big guy! You're like Elfman, you don't know your own strength!" Natsu is lifted up off the ground and given a pretty hard hug. Natsu seems to at least be able to endure it to some degree, returning the hug in equal strength and wrassling with the bear a little bit.