"This is Endings, calling the living command. Situation has changed from mission parameters."

With that bombshell, the destruction of the Neverborn fleet continues in earnest.  It takes a while to destroy the last recalcitrant hulk but in this time Endings and Five Days Darkness manage a terse conversation.  It ends with Holmes getting offloaded into a specially designed frigate, heavily armored and insulated with hundreds of anti-Neverborn wards.  The other transports and cruisers start setting up mooring lines to drag off the Buchenwald- the name now crossed off and temporarily renamed WARSPOIL1.

Grunt and Endings are brought back onto the Pilar, which flies about looking for survivors.  There aren't many survivors- most notably Tomato, who survives but has taken serious wounds to her torso.  Eventually the Enterprise arrives, flanked by more ships from the Last Refuge's fleet.  The battered cruiser has several holes in it and crews swarming all over it like ants.

All the remaining pilots are redirected to the cleared hangar.  There's plenty of space now.  When they arrive they find Kumiho waiting for them, helping wave them in.  Five Days Darkness personally takes a hand at dragging the ships into place.  Forte is given priority, followed by Lucifer, Crimson, and Blue Fox.  Then the shuttle containing Endings and Grunt and the few survivors is directed in.

The flight crews are morose.  Chupacabra waits to give Kumiho the last drumstick, a look of pale numbness on his face.  When Crimson lands, she just drops her flight helmet and strides off to her quarters.  Axehead is nowhere to be seen- for that many might be thankful, as his bombers were the least badly hurt, and that might ruffle the wrong feathers.

A medical team waits for the survivors.  Tomato is wheeled out of the shuttle, her face grey and her torso covered with bloody bandages.  The other survivor, one of the Dragon-Blooded, waves off the medical team and picks up Crimson's helmet, then jogs off after her.

A long sniper rifle, barrel still glowing cherry red, rests next to a cloaked man sucking oxygen from a nearby tank.

Lucifer is late to board; after the enemy is defeated he makes a round through the strewn wreckage of the pilots who were killed in action, his Anima flaring as he mutters and chants prayers to ease the slain pilots' passage and ensure they will not join the ranks of the Neverborn.

The Longinus enters the hangar unceremoniously, clanging loudly on the floor before spreading its arms and slowly releasing the Gods and Elementals comprising it back to their regular tasks. Daniel emerges from within the golden chassis, floating down to the floor as the last wisps of the Warstrider disassemble and dematerialize.

As the Warstrider deconstructs itself, an erratic sound of tinkling metal and various clangs accompanies it. After it's done, a collection of trinkets and parts litters the ground - dog tags, blood-stained photographs, torn letters, rings and amulets - any mementos of the fallen that he could get his hands on. He leaves the collection for the surviving pilots to sort through, offering terse words of assurance that their deaths were not in vain to the survivors as he walks past.

He notes the man sucking on oxygen next to the sniper rifle, halting his stride. His voice is tired, his face deadpan but there is yet a subdued touch of humor to be perceived.

"So it was you, Brahe. Nice shooting. Brought back memories."

Benisuzume drifts in effortlessly, and silently, as if not trying to disturb the already exhausted minds of those present. The ships smooth surface is still covered by the remnants of her companion shadows, it all looking more like mist that is quickly evaporating.

Upon stopping, the cockpit is pushed open and Lyla swiftly climbs out of the ship, trying to shrug away her flightharness, and almost bit too frantically digging her pockets. She chucks her helmet back into the ship to reveal that she hasn't managed to remain untouched by the events.

Her hair has clung sweatily to her face, where her brow is furrowed with frustration. Lyla gives a small wave to Longinus and Daniel upon sight, but then refocuses on lighting her cigarette. She finally manages to do so, after which she huddles down to lean on the landing gear of her ship, her free arm wrapped around her knee's in lack of anyone else to hold close.

Lost at words, she just sighs and rubs her already reddish eyes.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:26, Tue 18 Oct 2016.

With so many dead from the storm, all that's left to do is help Lucifer clean up the bodies, a task Jess goes about with mechanical efficiency. She feels, rather than hears her fellow Zenith's prayers, the sensation like warm sunlight on her skin. To her aching head, it stings like a bright morning after a particularly exhaustive night of drinking. She tries to block it out, even as she adds her own prayers to the mix, turning bodies of allies to dust by the dozens with a glance. Jess swears she sees her face a few times among them.

Eventually returning with the others to the dock, Forte lands the battered Shofar with Seven Days Darkness' much appreciated help, and gets out with the carefully practiced poise of one who is proud of a victory, but mindful of the heavy losses. Releasing the lock of her helmet, Jess nearly faceplants as the ground quickly rushes up to meet her, only just barely managing to take a knee instead. Unable to do more than steady herself, Jess feels her heavy helmet slide off her head. Impacting the ground with regretful noise, its owner gazes into it and realizes just how much blood she'd lost. It dawns on her that she must look terrible, and struggles to stand, forcing herself to her feet and managing to get at least a towel from one of the attendants.

After getting most of her blood cleared off her face, Jess does her best to move about the hangar, offering what condolences she can in her state. She keeps her words short and to the point for once, not trusting her voice and knowing Lucifer had likely already offered them words of wisdom. The names of the dead come easily to her mind and she mentions each of them to those she understood would care the most. Jess hadn't really known them all that well, but she'd read carefully over the personnel files in the past to try and learn how to earn their trust.

Finally, she goes out in search of Tomato, glad the woman was alive, but concerned for her state after the report.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:29, Wed 19 Oct 2016.

There's a depressingly low number of things for Lucifer to pick up.  Space is vast and the power of the Neverborn is formidable.  There's not much left.  Mercifully that means there are few corpses that Jess and Daniel need to take care of.  On board the Enterprise there are far more, and the crews have already thankfully stacked the bodies up for one last benediction from the two Zeniths.

The few survivors are happy to get any kind of recognition from the Exalts, but things are still subdued.  Eventually Jess manages to split off and find the medical crew.  Tomato may be easily found there, the center of their attention; there weren't many non-fatal casualties.

"Hey,"  She says weakly as Jess approaches, "Glad to see you made it."  One of the medical staff gives Jess a weird look.

The lead doctor clears his throat and lowers his voice, "Ms. Maraud, Pacifica's ribs are all shattered and her lungs are perforated.  If she was a human she'd be dead already.  As an Exalt... I expect she'll be out a month or so.  Since she's a Lunar, I may be entirely wrong."

---

Meanwhile, Lyla leans against her ship, smoking a cigarette.  It's like she's in her own little bubble, with people focused on helping the injured survivors or grieving over the dead or unwilling to face someone who'd been so unscathed, like she's something to be embarrassed about.

That is except for one lone person who bursts the bubble.  Five Days Darkness strides through the crowd, a head taller than the tallest human.  He regards Lyla for a second and then sits down on the other corner of the landing gear, resting against it.  "Blue Fox,"  He mutters as he rubs his hand over his face, "Lyla.  It's been a long day.  How're you holding up?"

---

Much like Lyla's little bubble, one forms when Daniel addresses Brahe.  The older Infernal looks up from under his cowl, then pulls down the oxygen mask. "Danny boy,"  He smirks, "Hell of a job out there today." He takes another hit from the oxygen mask, "Just like old times.  Less air and more lung damage though.  I hope your chest doesn't hurt too much."
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:54, Thu 20 Oct 2016.

"Tch. Too bad it didn't amount to much", Daniel responds to Brahe with a sneer - although he takes care to lower his voice enough to not have his frustration reach anyone outside the newly formed bubble. "I don't hurt any more than last time you shot me." He smirks faintly.

He arcs a glance around the hangar, noting the debrief doesn't seem to be imminent as of yet. He turns back to Brahe, maintaining the smirk.

"So you leapt to space for the shot? Didn't think you had such selfless heroics in you."

5DD's voice pierces through her bubble, as she jolts upon his words, being lost in thought:"Um. Fine. Physically. Not even a scratch." She holds a pause, letting out a shaky sigh, combined of smoke and air.

Her hand trembles lightly when shrugging away the ash from her cigarette. It was not her first battle. She usually managed to stay rather calm and kept her composure. Usually the battles were not this focused on killing the mortals.

"Had I not attacked, Charmer would still be alive, many others would still be alive. I could've just helped them to regroup, instead of aiming for a hit that caused their deaths. How can I ever again show my face around here..."

She breaks apart silently, trying not to let it show, clenching her jaw while mumbling. Instinctively she reaches with her free hand backwards for his arm, or hand, or just about anything to hold on to.

"How about you? It was not an easy case to follow through," She asks, while snuffing her cigarette out on the floor clearly considering for a second one.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:41, Thu 20 Oct 2016.

War was a thing where death simply happened. You could only see so much of it before you no longer registered the individual tragedies. Tomato was... another matter, however. The young Lunar had actually been a rather welcome addition to Jess' time at the hangar, in part because of her energetic personality, but admittedly also because she was cute. Seeing the girl's apparent demise during the battle had affected her a bit more than she'd like to admit.

"You did tell me to get to safety." the Zenith says, her voice carrying a soft note of gratitude as she draws closer. "It's rude to deny a lady's request."

Listening as the doctor explains the situation, Jess uses the interlude to better hide her concussion. Disaster strikes when she unconsciously nods to the man's words, immediately regrets it, and puts significant effort into not screaming. She isn't the one who mattered here.

"I'm glad you made it back, as well, Pacifica. We should talk more when you're feeling better."

She stares at the other woman, just trying to understand why she'd been at the forefront of Tomato's mind when her survival had been so uncertain. It was an interesting mystery.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:42, Thu 20 Oct 2016.

Iapetus enters the hangar silently. He walks around, nodding with appreciation and thanks to all the survivors, until finally finding a silent corner. He sits down in a meditative pose, and presses a button on the throat of his armor to turn off the voice modulation and speakers.
Those who walk nearby may hear quiet prayers mixed with a soft sobbing sound coming from within the armor.

Grunt moved away from the hangar almost as soon as they were fully docked. One package had already been delivered, now it was time to get the laptop into proper hands. After that, well, there were a few terrible stills he knew about that discharged a product capable of cutting through his own somewhat more than human metabolism for a time.

"Doctor?"  One of the attendants whispers to the man.  He frowns as Jess talks to Pacifica.

"Yeah,"  Pacifica yawns- causing the Lunar to wince.  "We did a lot out there today.  I'm
proud.  But I'm going to miss my ship, it takes so long to build a frienship... is Five Days Darkness alright?"

"Excuse me, Ms. Maraud?"  The doctor turns back to Jess and holds up a flashlight to her eyes, "Can you please take a moment to look at the light?"

---

Lyla reaches back and finds a shoulder.  One of many shoulders, actually.  It's easy to grab one, Five Days Darkness is probably 50-60% shoulder.  He listens to her mumble and lets out a long breath.  "The armchair admirals back at the Last Refuge are already debating my battle plan.  I'm surprised I haven't had anyone yell at me here yet,"  He tells Lyla, "Please rest assured, though.  Charmer's death isn't your fault.  None of the deaths were any of your fault.  It's the Neverborn's fault, Thanatos's fault.  If that's not good enough, trace it further back- the fault of the Yozis and the Incarnae to never make peace like I'd asked thousands of years ago."

He snaps a pair of fingers, a small ball of light flickering at the fingertips.

"Think about what the Abyssals are.  They can't beat most of us in a fair fight so they make everything as unfair as possible.  What you're feeling right now is the result of one of their little tricks.  It's the only way they can destroy us."

---

"Please, Danny Boy.  The day I want to hurt you, it won't be with a bullet."  Brahe chuckles darkly, "That's like trying to kill a fish by drowning it."

He takes several long breaths before answering Daniel's question.  "All just practice.  Stole the ambush charm a year ago, from a Candlelight Imperator trying to snipe our water transports.  I figured it'd come in handy someday.  Five Days Darkness gave the order.  I wasn't happy about it."

Of course, Brahe isn't a pilot.  He's somewhat notorious amongst the Pre-Exodites for totally eschewing space combat.  In fact, most people didn't even know what Brahe does in the fleet; perhaps that is by design.  Thanatos certainly didn't know what was going on either.

"Tactical shifts are obviously needed.  We're going to have to figure out new paradigms.  That includes you."

---

Grunt needs to get the laptop to Journeys, most likely; it's highly unlikely that Juno would be on the Enterprise, as she almost never leaves the Last Refuge.  But he doesn't see the Sidereal anywhere, nor his specialized fighter.  He walks through the hustle and bustle of the hangar unnoticed.

His vision swims.  Then he sees fire, hears explosions.  A crewmember rushes past him, firing an automatic rifle before exploding in a gout of blood and entrails.  Two Abyssals, young and happy with a new Exaltation, rip the heart out of a war god manifesting outside of its ship.  The Red Queen strides forward full of terror and wrath, only to be eaten alive by swarming shadows.  A creature, all bone and meat, dwarfs one of the fighters.  It slashes the fighter with long bone claws made of human vertebrae and then fires spikes of human fingernails at his chest-

- and then his vision swims again.  The hangar is busy but certainly not under attack.

---

Iapetus 'meditates' for all of three minutes before he's interrupted.  "Up, brother."  The Chosen of Battles extends a hand out to him, "We've got to talk about what happened out there.  C'mon.  I've got a board room all set up for us."

Lyla squeezes 5DD's shoulder, and nods with a sigh:"that is all true, I just had to get it off my heart..." She confesses, while holding a new cigarette between her teeth.

"It's harder to destroy us when we know we are not alone. Sometimes that feeling is just hard to shrug off. Should anyone come and shout at you, I can be there to confront them," she notes wiping her eyes and pushing her tangly hair off her face. "You deserve as much shouting as I do."

Lyla throws a glance at him over her shoulder while trying to find her lighter. Eventually she inches a bit closer.

"Thanks for coming over."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:05, Fri 21 Oct 2016.

Daniel scoffs, smirking. "Tch. You'd find my endurance extends beyond the physical."

He rolls a shoulder, glancing around the hangar to his fellow Exalts who were clearly feeling the weight of the struggle themselves.

"Should've known you wouldn't do something so reckless of your own accord. Nice work regardless."

Then his dark humor fades into a serious demeanor once more.

"Paradigm shifts? As long as they're unable to reliably surpass me in battle I'm not sure it's necessary. What would I do beside my current role?"

Dilated pupils generally dislike having bright lights shined into them. Jess' lips curl into one of her most absolutely polite smiles as she struggles against her immediate impulse to punch the doctor through an airlock. Her eyes at least don't seem to flinch away from the beam, but the direction of up becomes immediately more uncertain. She stumbles backwards, head gently tapping some sort of shelf behind her. Choosing right then to sit down, Jess notices her ears feel rather wet, along with her cheeks.

Reaching up to her face, Forte's fingers come back red.

"Great," Grunt muttered a he shook his head, "A memento mori."

Screw it, eventually they'd have to pass through the upper decks. He could trade a pound of flesh for distraction and anesthetic alcohol. There was a curiosity to see if the neomah were quite as alien as others claimed.

Iapetus looks up Battles, takes his hand and stands up. After clearing his throat, he switches his modulator and speaker back on, his hand still holding on to that of Battles.
"All right brother. Is everyone joining?"

"Hmm.  Please sit down, Miss Maraud," The doctor tells her immediately, "You're suffering from a case of shieldshock."

"Shieldshock, sir?"  His student/assistant asks.

"It's very uncommon,"  The doctor explains for them both, "We first encountered it at Ceres.  That's how we lost a few Dragon-Blooded.  When shields break, there's an essence backlash.  Combined with physical trauma of their ships being battered and then rocking around in their cockpit, and it can scramble your brain.  Think of it like CTE."

"How come we don't see it more?  And what's CTE?"

"I'll explain CTE to you later; suffice to say, we don't see it much anymore.  As for the first question, generally the ships fall apart or explode before this happens.  You pushed yourself very hard, Miss Maraud.  Thank you.  But I think it's time you got some bedrest."

---

Lyla may be very pleased to see that Five Days Darkness gets her intent immediately.  He holds the light up to her cigarette and uses the nuclear force of a small sun to quickstart her cigarette.  He's staring ahead at many empty hangar berths.  They are dreadfully empty.  It's probably not hard to understand what he's thinking.

"I'm not sure that I don't deserve their anger, Lyla, but thank you."  He doesn't move as Lyla inches closer, "I may take you up on that."

There's a long pause.

"A question for you.  I know you're very busy on the Last Refuge.  But I may have need of you in the Enterprise.  Team Odysseus reported some very interesting information.  Journeys and I may need to act on it.  Would you be averse to a temporary transfer to the Enterprise for followup operations?"

---

"Paradigm shifts," Brahe nods, dead serious as well.  There isn't any sense of joking or particular menace as usual.  The ex-Mossad agent is talking business, something Lucifer's only seen once- just before Ragnarok.  "They've made a major tactical shift.  They don't need to beat you, just occupy your attention.  Thanatos looked like she was trying to just take up your time, though I think if you hadn't had backup she could've surpassed you."

A long suck from the oxygen hose falls short as it hisses.  Brahe curses in Hebrew and then kicks away the tank.

"I think this is only the beginning.  They're stretching their legs.  They've given up on the sudden blow and are now throwing themselves wholeheartedly into a campaign of attrition.  Atop that, I think it was odd they didn't have any other ships here."

---

Grunt makes his way out of the hangar unhindered.  The Enterprise doesn't look like it's quite ready to begin the 'afterparty'; there are whole sections of the ship in terrible condition.  A whole hall has been blocked off by rubble, and Grunt has to bypass to reach the recreation deck.

There he finds it's been converted to a hospital ward.  Blast and damnation!  But the bar is unguarded except for a single woman shaking up some concoction, then throwing it... in a... blender... with some painkillers and... are those mushrooms?

Ah, hell.  Tall, white-haired, beautiful, ethereal, and overall blurry.  He knows Burning Feather when he sees her.

---

Battles grunts as he helps heft up the heavy sidereal, "Not everyone.  Yourself, myself, brother Journeys, and Grunt.  Secrets and Smoker will be keying in remotely.  We have to take a look at that laptop and discuss the results of the battle.  Do you need more time to prepare?"

Battles is a pretty perceptive guy; he's asking Iapetus if he needs a bit more time to compose himself.

"I'm good to go if I can get my tools and some hot chocolate there, I can do my armor maintenance at the same time. I was not hit, so there should be nothing major to fix. So I think there will be more need for the hot chocolate..."