Big Trouble in Cyber Tokyo (Saber,Prythian)

[Mani4c]

Onimaru rode through the streets of the Asian network's Cyber City on his cyber cycle, trying to clear his head. Erika had recently had a debilitating episode of depression in the wake of Frank Jameson's death, and had been pulled from active duty for a month. Luckily she was now getting treatment for her depression, but Onimaru was still shaken from the event nonetheless, having nearly lost Erika and been unable to do anything to help her. As a result, Onimaru was given a leave of Absence to collect himself, ultimately deciding to visit the Japanese network and simply wander around. But even the scenic sights of Japan were unable to shake him out of his funk.

"Damn it, I need to find something to distract myself. Just wandering around isn't helping me keep my mind off of what's happened." Onimaru stopped his bike and stepped onto the curb. sitting on a nearby bench and slumping forward. "What am I going to do? Viral's still up in arms about everything that's happened, Totenkopf is helping Mary tend to Erika, and my Net-Ops friends are busy..."

Onimaru had been talking to himself, not expecting an answer. To his surprise however, someone provided one. "Well my friend, I would recommend expanding your horizons..." Onimaru sat up stock straight and looked around, looking for the source of the voice. "To your left my friend." Onimaru looked over and saw Masamune sitting next to him, sans his armor, with smile on his face and a bottle of Sake in his hand. "Eh? I didn't see you there." Masamune's smile widened, "People who're lost in thought rarely see what's right in front of them, or next to them, in this case." Onimaru nodded, "I suppose..." Masamune offered Onimaru his Sake. "Want some? Might help you clear your head." Onimaru shook his head. "No thanks, not a fan of alcohol, we can't even get drunk so there's not much point." Masamune shrugged and took a sip of his drink. "My apologies, I haven't even introduced myself, my name's Onimaru." "Masamune, if I may offer a suggestion, do you have any friends from outside of your work? Maybe they'd be free, I'll even go with you, I came here to sight-see myself."

Onimaru thought for a moment before something clicked in his head. "I do have one friend outside of my work, I just hope she's not busy." Onimaru dialed up Fyra's contact info, opening an audio channel to the young operator's terminal. "Hey Fyra, it's Onimaru. Sorry for not calling in a while, thing's have been an outright nightmare on my end... anyway, could Harmony come over to the Japanese Cyber City and hang out for the day? Just sightseeing and the like, maybe buy some souvenirs."

[Prythian]

The reply actually came fairly quickly. <Yeah, of course! I'm stuck in school, so I won't be paying too much attention. But she shouldn't really need any DPs for just sightseeing! She'll load into the North American network, but she should get there soon enough.>

Sure enough, it only took about ten minutes for Harmony to get there, and that was mainly because the connectivity program running between the two cities had been absolutely packed. The silver-armored woman looked around, her long golden hair running down her back. For any who hadn't seen her, the red-and-blue yin-yang symbol on her chest would be the most noticeable part of her appearance, almost popping out with how different the colors are. It would be, at least to Onimaru, obvious that she was in her more combat-oriented form, with no visor on her face and thicker armor. However, in the crowd that had rushed out of the program, she not only couldn't spot Onimaru, but wasn't even sure where in the Cyber City to look for him. After all, he hadn't left a meet-up point.

[Mani4c]

Onimaru got the message from Fyra and got on his cyber cycle, deciding to head for the exit point for the connectivity program and wait for her. "You coming Masamune?" Masamune put a cork in his Sake bottle and secured it on his belt before standing up. "I'm faster on my feet, I'll follow you." Onimaru nodded and headed off towards the entry point, with Masamune somehow managing to keep up with him on foot. 'He's fast, must be a ninja model, possibly samurai judging by his hakama.' ((A hakama is a type of traditional Japanese clothing that comes in many styles, this is the style of hakama that Masamune wears: link))

After about 3 minutes, Onimaru and Masamune reached the drop off point for the connectivity program. Luckily the Ying-Yang symbol on her chest made it easy for Onimaru to spot Harmony as he deactivated his bike and walked over to her, forcing his way through the crowd with repeated apologies along the way. Masamune seemed to have far less trouble navigating the dense crowds, almost flowing through the throngs of avatars and programs like water through a sieve. "Hey Harmony, sorry about the wait, traffic was murder." Masamune put his hand to his chest and bowed respectfully to Harmony. "Hajimemash**e ((Rough translation: pleased to meet you.)) Harmony, my name is Masamune. I just met Onimaru today, he was nice enough to include me in your sightseeing, I've been here quite a few times over the years, so I can recommend some places that I think you will enjoy. I'd personally recommend the park in the center of the city, the Sakura tress are in bloom and there's a festival happening there this week."

[Prythian]

Harmony looked Masamune up and down, eyebrows faintly raised. "Making new friends already, Onimaru? I suppose it has been a while, though I didn't expect you to start replacing me already." There was a faint smile on her face, and her tone was gently teasing. "Hello, Masamune. It's nice to meet you. So long as Onimaru agrees, I'll go wherever. I haven't had reason to come to this Network before. Fyra and Aqua tend to have me working a little closer to home." Of course, she had been here before... but since the reason for that was a secret, well, in her eyes it didn't count... and if it did, she wouldn't even let the slightest bit about it slip. In any case...

"By the way, Onimaru, if Aqua connects her terminal, she's going to want me to get a full analysis of your armor programs. The arena wasn't really the best place for it. Fair warning." She glanced around. "I'll definitely forgive you for being late, since I can see just how murderous traffic is. Don't worry, though." She gave him a broad grin. "I'm sure if any trouble comes up, I can protect you. I'm not worn out from other fights this time."

[Mani4c]

Onimaru chuckled, "Heh, I met him on the way, he offered me some advice and I offered him some company. Fair's Fair you know?" Masamune was looking at Harmony, taking in her appearance and filing it away for further research, there was something intriguing about this woman. "I must say that I've never seen an avatar quite like you Harmony. Your armor is...interesting, it seems very basic aside from the ornamentation, but it also seems to be modular. Like it can be easily changed into multiple configurations." Masamune spoke from experience as a code smith, being able to pick out fine details when it came to armor and weapons with a short amount of study. Yes, this woman was very interesting indeed. "Anyway, I'll lead you to the Festival, luckily it's not that far."

Masamune led Harmony to the festival, with Onimaru following on his bike and Harmony following using her thruster boots. The festival grounds were positively gargantuan, taking up more than half of the park, which was about to two square miles in size. There were food vendors, small carnival games, and booths containing all sorts of souvenirs and items for sale. Not to mention the fact that easily over 100,000 avatars were present for the festivities. "Wow! I've heard of these festivals, but they weren't kidding about the size of 'em were they!?" Masamune chuckled, "This is the third biggest festival in all of Cyber Japan, beaten out by the summer solstice festival and the New Years festival, which pretty much encompasses the entire city. Even the stores get in on the action for those." Onimaru let out a whistle. "I gotta bring the rest of my friends net time their here. They'd love this..."

[Prythian]

((Note: I'm assuming that was Onimaru that was whistling, not Masamune.))

Harmony, on the way there, just smiled to herself. Modular wasn't the right term... though she supposed to someone that was trying to spot these things, it'd be the only guess they could make. No one would assume that she was an avatar with two bodies on different terminals, after all. As far as she was aware, she was the only one in the world...

When they got to the festival, Harmony's eyes widened as she looked over the celebration. "...wow..." That was the only thing she said for a while, just kind of staring around in a daze. "...shame Aqua isn't connected... I could pick up tons of data for her here. I've never seen this many avatars in one place like this." She grimaced. "Don't have my visor, though. So I guess..." She glanced at Masamune and Onimaru, lips pulling upwards into a smile. "We just need to enjoy ourselves! We'll never find each other if we get separated, though."

[Mani4c]

((Note: Thanks for the heads up on my flub, I've fixed it.))

Onimaru nodded, "Thankfully I have some ID tags on me, they're useful if you want to find someone in a pinch." Onimaru pulled out three small circular objects, they looked like old fashioned  "Hello, my name is:" stickers. "Allow me to demonstrate" Onimaru placed one of the stickers on Masmune's chest. The sticker changed to say "Hello, my name is: Masamune" the sticker then glowed red and sunk beneath Masamune's skin. There was an audible beep, and in each avatars vision a small marker appeared, it was a box with a thin red line connecting to Masamune's chest, exactly where the sticker was placed. The box contained Masamune's name, as well as a distance indicator. "Impressive." Onimaru placed a sticker on his own chest, he placed Harmony's marker on her shoulder instead of her. "I don't want to come off as lewd." The stickers were altered accordingly and phased into the two avatars. "These markers only appear in our vision, and they're all linked together. Unfortunately they become useless after logging out. So we'd need to re-apply them."

Onimaru clapped his hands together and let out a happy chuckle. "Alrighty, now do you guys want to do first?" Masamune thought for a moment before speaking, "Well, there's a Kabuki play on the top of that hill there." He pointed to a hill that wasn't too far off that was positively covered in cherry blossoms, the entire hill looked like it was dyed pink. Onimaru nodded, "I'm neutral here, so it's your call Harmony."

[Prythian]

Harmony pretended to tap her cheek thoughtfully. "Hmm... I just don't know. I suppose if there's nothing better to do..." She said teasingly. "We could always just go to the arena and have a rematch, Onimaru, I'm sure Fyra would love that. But this is my time, not hers... alright, let's do it." She held up one hand in a thumbs up. "I'd have to miss out on something like this the one time I actually come to this Network. Maybe I should negotiate with Aqua and Fyra about having a few hours of time just to me while they sleep, as tough as that'd be on the bandwidth." Her entire voice, having been equal parts teasing and thoughtful, suddenly changed. "But you'll have to meet me there!" Almost instantly, she leaped up into the air, spinning and boosting through the air with ease towards the hill.

[Mani4c]

Onimaru laughed, "Heh, I should hang out with her more often!" Onimaru ran after her, actually climbing several of the Stalls and running on top of them. Masamune followed suit, and being decidedly lighter on his feet than Onimaru, easily overtook him. "Hey, wait up, WAH!" Onimaru fell through one of the stalls, faceplanting into a large vat of boiling Ramen Broth. "Itai!" ((Ouch!)) Onimaru pulled his head out of the vat and ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off, screaming in Japanese and tripping several times before finally resuming his chase.

When he finally made it, his eyes were stinging from the salt in the broth, and his temper had been frayed considerably. Masamune noticed the burns on Onimaru's head and started to speak, but was cut off when Onimaru made a slashing motion with his hand. "Not...one...word..." Onimaru leaned against a tree and began to watch the Kabuki play, it was a story about a demonic Samurai that had tried to destroy all of Japan's journey of redemption.

The Samurai had started off as an evil warrior who relished hurting others and destroying villages for fun, until he was sealed away for over five hundred years by a sorceress, he was awakened by a half-demon who needed his help destroying a vicious demon general. While the Samurai originally agreed to work with the woman so he could resume destroying Japan when his job was done, he slowly began to fall in love with the woman as his journey went on, they battled all manner of demons and rouge warriors. In the end, the Samurai rejected his evil nature and destroyed the general at the cost of his own life, but as a reward for his sacrifice the gods resurrected him and he went on to lead his kingdom into an era of peace alongside his beloved.

Onimaru chuckled at the story, seeing several parallels to a certain viral avatar that he knew. "Heh, Funny how life works isn't it?" As the actors took their bows, Onimaru sat beneath the tree and started to hum a song to himself, it was the theme to the show that inspired his appearance. Masamune walked over to Harmony, "So, I have to ask, how exactly does your armor work? It looks like it's simply a modular armor setup, but it's so...different than any of the others I've seen, I'm a code smith, so this kind of thing just stands out to me you know?" His tone was much more informal than before, but it was nonetheless still polite.

[Prythian]

Harmony gave him a gentle smile. "Most people wouldn't notice even if they were used to coding. It's not the armor that changes. What you're seeing is trace amounts of the synchronization program that I require to... function the way I do. To put it in another way... many avatars change armors. I, however, change bodies. There's a large portion of the coding between both bodies that's the same, but it's still a full switch from one bit of code to another." She rapped on her armor with one fist. "This is the more combat-based body. So, thicker armor. The other body has a bit thinner armor, since it's primarily used for code analysis."

Even before she said her next lines, she knew what question would come up afterwards. "My humans, Fyra and Aqua, have different preferences for what they want me to do when I'm online, you see. And it's useful for when they're both on and I can switch between the bodies freely." There were very few avatars that would miss a reference to having multiple users as opposed to one, particularly at the same time.

[Mani4c]

Masamune's eyes widened as Harmony explained how her programs worked, specifically how she could switch between bodies depending on what her operators needed from her. The idea of her being able to maintain such a delicate balance was incredibly impressive. "In all my years of code design and alteration, I've gotten some interesting requests, but what your operators have managed to do is downright spectacular! I can't imagine how labor intensive maintaining two bodies is, let alone the bandwidth that it must use up. Can you mix the code between both bodies, or are you limited to one body type at a time?"

Onimaru looked over at the two and repressed a smirk. 'At least somebody's enjoying themselves, these past few weeks have made it impossible for me to relax.' The oni avatar stood up and cracked his neck. "I'm going to head over and see if I can't win my operator a prize at one of the games, let me know if you go somewhere else so I know to use those locators alright?" He started down the hill towards the festival proper, trying to figure out which game to play first.

Meanwhile, a man in rather extravagant clothing stood atop another hill nearby, flanked by a veritable army of strange monstrous creatures. He was holding a golden pass card holder very similar to Onimaru's that had an infinity symbol engraved onto it. His name was Gaoh, a Thief-King. And his desire was nothing more than the destruction of all of Cyber Japan. ((Here's what the Man looks like: link, and here's the monsters:link)) "Hmm, what a beautiful festival." One of the monsters sidled up next to Gaoh and let out an eerie chuckle. "Shall we lay it to waste m'lord?" Gaoh smirked, "But of course, my fangs shall devour everything, what better place to whet my appetite?" The creature summoned a sword, and all of the others followed it's lead. "Forward march!" The army started to advance, with Gaoh at the front, intent of deleting every avatar in his path.

[Prythian]

Harmony was about to answer, and then she stopped, eyes shifting back and forth. She turned around, and saw the large army, clearly hostile to everyone nearby. "...We'll have to talk about this later. Fyra!" She said, sending an alert to the terminal that would cause it to slightly vibrate. "We've got a major situation going on. No time for fooling around, and you can't really pay much attention to me at the moment. Just give me Flame's Soul and send a message to Aqua, just in case." <...Er. Right. Good luck!> Harmony strolled forward, lips grim as she moved towards the army, breaking into a run. Swords of light burst from her wrists over her arms, two and a half feet each, and then burst into flame.

"Hah!" She jumped up into the air with her thruster boots, and pointed her hands forwards, palms outwards. A burst of five shots from each hand, looking more like fireballs, rained down towards the army.

[Mani4c]

Gaoh turned around as the fireballs obliterated over 50 of his troops, he looked up and saw Harmony, he had a look of annoyance on his face. treating Harmony as if she was a mere insect at a picnic. "Tch, you really think that just wiping out my troops is enough? I have an army of the dead, I can simply raise more." To illustrate his point, Gaoh raised an arm and snapped his fingers, 100 new soldiers burst from the ground brandishing swords. "I shall devour everything, and your pathetic efforts shall not interrupt my meal. But I can give you some toys to play with..." Gaoh looked at his troops, "I want 500 of you to flood into the city, destroy and pillage at your leisure. Now, go!" Gaoh's troops broke off, with half of his forces heading towards the city, bellowing a war cry and deleting anything in their way. Gaoh then summoned more troops, this time managing to create over 700 of them. "Advance, and gorge yourselves on chaos."

The army of ghouls stormed the festival, deleting the law officers there in short order, along with any civilians they could find. Onimaru was destroying as many of them as he could, but he was seriously outgunned. "Damn it, Erika-sama! I need your help here!" A voice answered him, but it wasn't Erika. <Onimaru? What's going on?> "Eh, Mary-chan!?" Onimaru's distraction gave one of the ghouls an opening that they nearly exploited, but luckily he noticed the attack and blocked the ghoul's sword strike. He delivered a punch to it's face and slashed it a few times, the ghoul howled in pain and dropped to the ground before exploding into a spray of pixelated sand. <Erika's sleeping right now, her treatments are helping, but she's still pretty depressed. What's going on there?> Onimaru deleted a few more ghouls before replying. "Some kind of massed Viral attack, there's got to be hundreds of 'em, I need my DP's and add on's here!" <You got it, sending your sword armor now buddy!> 

Onimaru's belt appeared on his waist, "Thanks Mary-Chan!" ((And cue Onimaru's theme song, subbed in English for your convenience: link)) Onimaru pulled out his pass holder and slotted in his red transformation card. "Henshin!" He swiped the card across his belt buckle <SWORD FORM>  A swarm of red armor pieces appeared around him before flying onto his body to form his base armor, quickly followed by the four large red pieces that formed his spaulders and torso armor. Finishing off the transformation was the large red object that appeared on the top of his head and slid down onto the front his helmet, trailing sparks as it did, when it reached the front of his helmet is opened up into his eyepieces and locked to the helmet with a red flash.

Onimaru cracked his neck and struck his trademark pose, pointing his left thumb at his chest before throwing his arms out to his sides. "Ore, sanjō!" ((I have arrived!, or, here I come!)) Onimaru took out the pieces to his sword and combined them as he ran at a group of ghouls that were menacing a woman and her friends, "Take this Kuso-Yaro!" ((I'll translate that on Skype, It'd just get censored here anyway.)) Onimaru slashed at the ghouls, deleting them in a flurry of sword swings. "Heh, not even a challenge. You ladies alright?" Onimaru turned to the women, who all nodded. "We're fine, thank you." Onimaru held up a hand, "No thanks are necessary, just log out as quickly as possible, I'm going to go help the rest of the people here." Onimaru ran off as the avatars logged out, heading towards the center of the festival, where unbeknownst to him, Gaoh was commanding his forces.

[Saber]

Up on the rooftops surrounding the festival, a shadowy silhouette had been hiding from the bright lights of the festivities below, watching and making sure everything remained peaceful. His armor was active, and he was holding his blade staff with it resting on his shoulder. After some scouting, he could have sworn he saw someone familiar in the crowd of people, one that was far more noticeable as she was leaping in the air until reaching the festival grounds

"...Looks like Harmony's here...And she has some new friends..."

Then, something appeared out of the corner of his eye, and a large army of what looked to be zombified avatars were being led by a single individual towards the festival grounds. It seemed Harmony had also seen the army incoming, and had already taken to the offensive. Dagger twirled the staff in one hand before looking toward his combat partner, his free hand producing a triplicate of explosive shuriken for a surprise attack.

"Time to test out that new shield program of yours."

[Prythian]

Merge nodded in determination. "We're going to crush this army and send their leader packing... or worse." Her lips pressed together. "And let's see if this modification to my fusion program is what I think it is..." As she focused, red hair whipping in the wind, the Combosphere rearranged itself into her wings... and then her form melted into golden energy, flowing into the wings and her armor, floating where she had been. The armor burst itself apart into each piece, surrounding Dagger before coming together to layer itself onto him, adding the red plates into his existing color scheme, including the hatches on his forearms where the shields were located. The wings flew upwards, spiraled around, and then slammed into position behind his back, golden energy flowing into Dagger to form the connection between the wings and his body.

"Let's get this started. I'll focus on the shields." The hatches opened, firing out small pods/bits. Each one blossomed golden, shield-shaped pieces of energy opening outwards around the bits, forming into heraldic shields. Small handle-like protrusions also formed out of the energy on the back of the bit, and the shields hovered around Dagger. "Activating built-in armor shielding..." A small fuzz of gold sparkles appeared around Dagger, an inch-thick from each part of his body. "Flight available... breaking shield limits, and activating redirection fields." A small flash appeared on each of the shields. "All systems ready to go, Dagger!"

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

Meanwhile, Harmony was flying through the air with her boots, chasing the army heading into the city. As she did so, she fired the shots she could now and then, though she was limited in the number of shots she could take. Finally, when she thought she was close enough, she twisted her body, and jumped from the air in a dive downwards, blades blazing as she struck towards them.

[Mani4c]

Onimaru ran through the ghouls, slashing them to pieces as he did, <Am I the only one who thinks that these guys are a bit too organized? How often do you see this many viruses act in tandem with on another?> "I know, these guy's aren't exactly brain trusts, someone's giving them orders." Onimaru was suddenly knocked to the ground by a group of ghouls, they started piling on top of him, not even trying to him him with their swords. Onimaru struggled to get free, feeling the ghouls punching, grasping and trying to knock his armor loose. "Get off of me!" Onimaru struggled to push himself up, the ghouls may have been bags of rotten flesh and bones, but they were still heavy enough to weigh him down by sheer force of numbers. Finally, he was able to get his feet under him, he forced himself upwards standing up and throwing the ghouls off of him. "I said, GET OFF!" Onimaru lashed out with his sword, bisecting one ghoul at the waist before turning around and decapitating another. "You think your numbers can keep me down, Baka-yarō!? ((Stupid bastard))"

Onimaru kept slashing with his sword, not stopping until every ghoul around him was cut to ribbons. <The center of the festival grounds are just ahead, I'd guess that the big cheese would be right there.> Onimaru took a breath before replying. "What makes you say that?" <He wouldn't want to wait it out behind enemy lines, these guys are idiots, but he'd want to be protected as well...> Onimaru caught on to what Mary was implying. "And what safer place is there than in the center of your own army?"

Onimaru ran towards the center of the Festival, having to fight his way there as the number of ghouls increased the closer he got. He finally reached a large clearing that was filled with burning stalls and stolen valuables. "Hey, who's the prick in charge eh!? Show yourself!" A group of burlier looking ghouls stepped forward, brandishing Iron clubs and larger swords. "You dare demand our lord's presence peasant!? You shall die here!" Onimaru got into a fighting stance as the ghouls began to charge toward him, but a loud whistle cut them off.

The ghoul 'Honor Guards' stopped and looked behind them, suddenly looking timid. "But, m'lord..." "Enough, let me see who dares to interrupt my meal." The ghouls stood at attention and took several steps back in unison, separating their group down the middle as Gaoh stepped past them, holding a bottle of liquor in one hand and a large piece of meat in another. Gaoh took a bite of meat and a swig of his drink, chewing thoughtfully as he looked over Onimaru, who was staring back. 'Gaoh, are you sh**ting me!?' <Yo Onimaru, do you know this a**hole?> Onimaru nodded, "He's based off of Den-O like me, he's a Thief-King who sought the God-Liner so he could destroy all of time." <Whoa, back up, a god liner? Like a train?> "Yes, you know how Den-O used the DenLiner to travel through time? Well, the GodLiner, or 'GaohLiner' after he stole it, could erase time itself."

Gaoh swallowed his food and snapped his fingers, two ghouls stepped forward and took his food and drink before slinking off. "You know quite a bit about me, appropriate, seeing as you're Den-O." Onimaru gripped his sword, "I don't need to ask you why you'd do this. You were a sick bastard as a TV character and you're following suit now that you're real!" Gaoh just chuckled. "I care not what you think, I am the Thief-King Gaoh, All who are caught in my fangs shall be devoured and destroyed." Gaoh put his arms out to his sides as a golden glow appeared at his waist, forming into a belt similar to Onimaru's. "And you shall be my latest meal. Henshin..." Gaoh swiped his pass over his belt, which spoke out in a mechanical voice like Onimaru's <GAOH FORM> Gaoh's armor formed exactly like Onimaru's but it was a bronze colored armor with an alligator motif.((Here's a picture:link,now cue villain theme song:link))

Meanwhile, Masamune had activated his armor and was tearing apart dozens of ghouls alongside Harmony, who had just destroyed about five of the ghouls using her fire infused blades. Masamune blocked several strikes with his dual swords before forcing the ghouls away from him, he then retaliated with a whirling combo that destroyed a half dozen of the zombie viruses. "Damn it, there's too many, and I'd bet that that bastard Gaoh is just making more of them! But if we leave the NPD won't be able to hold this many viruses off." Masamune weighed his options, he could call in reinforcements from the Japanese branch of the organization, but that would give away his true identity to Harmony. But if he didn't they'd more than likely be deleted, along with any poor soul that got in the way of these rampaging ghouls. "Damn it, Harmony! I'm going to owe you an explanation when this is over!" Masamune pulled a small rocket out of a pouch on his belt and pulled out a wire on the bottom of it, he then tossed the rocket up into the air, where it ignited and flew high into the sky before exploding into a massive array of colors. If one was fluent in Morse Code, they'd notice that the explosions were timed to form a message. [NEED ASSISTANCE, COME IMMEDIATELY] Masamune ducked to avoid being stuck by a sword swing and retaliated before looking over to Harmony. "We'll have backup in 10 minutes! Just hang in there until then!"

[Saber]

Dagger triggered the face plate of his helmet, triggering the cloaking field of his armor "...Activating proxy...Time to help out a friend in need..." He leapt up from the rooftop, letting the wings carry him towards the battle. The first thing he did was aim a wind torrent at a large group of zombie viruses coming at the duo from behind, before the heads of zombies were suddenly being decapitated or dismembered at random locations around the two defending avatars.

[Prythian]

Harmony simply sighed as she kept swinging her swords through the enemies that got near her. "They just won't stay down... if I only had my visor!" Then, suddenly, she looked behind her as, with a sudden sound, the zombies were torn to pieces. "...Is that your backup?" She was distracted by a connection. <Harmony. Situation?> "Under siege by avatars that just keep coming. They go down easily enough..." She demonstrated, one blazing blade simply cutting through a number of them. "...but it doesn't stick!" <Switching to analysis.> In a brief flash, Harmony almost seemed to disappear, immediately replaced by... herself. The armor was thinner, but most important there was a thick visor going across the upper half of her face. Numbers and letters flashed on it.

Seeing a small group of zombies heading for Harmony's back, Merge sent one of the invisible shields behind her, transforming it into the tower shield, spreading its energy thinner but wider. She did likewise with her other one, this time ramming it into enemies in the middle of the pack to knock them down. Her first shield was having the zombies piling up on an invisible wall of some sort. Meanwhile, Harmony was looking around the area, scanning them as best she could. "Aqua. Are you seeing this?" <Yes.> "Masamune! They don't have much of a mind. All of their coding is slaved to a master avatar somewhere back the way we came! I can see the data streaming to them. If we can hold them off and hope that someone else handles the leader, we'll be good!" Her eyes, invisible behind her visor, glanced upwards to where she had briefly seen through Dagger's proxy with her visor, leaving no sign that she knew who was helping, but nonetheless aware.

[Mani4c]

Masamune shook his head when Harmony asked if Dagger's attack was caused by his comrades. "No, they don't use weapons. But that's not going to stop me from accepting our guardian angel's help either." Masamune blocked more strikes from the zombies, cutting them to ribbons with ease, but no matter how many he cut down, more just took their place. "Damn it!" When he heard how the zombies were operating. "That would explain they're resurrection, he just duplicates them using that data stream, hopefully Onimaru can handle Gaoh. But in the meantime, let's see if we can't tax that ability of his a bit."

Masamune sheathed one of his swords and planted the other one in the ground in front of him, he then started cycling through a rapid series of hand signs, causing his hands to glow white as he did. "I'm more than just a codesmith!" Masamune then slammed his palm onto his sword's grip, transferring the energy into his sword and into the ground around him. "Kokūjin Ōgi: Akumetsu!" The energy exploded out of the ground trapping all of the ghouls in a large Chinese trigram, locking them in place. "Now for part two!" Masamune slammed his other hand onto his sword, causing a flurry of brushstrokes to appear on every enemy trapped in the trigram, similar to when Justicar used the technique. "Now, DISAPPEAR!" Masamune pulled his sword out of the ground and slid it into it's sheath in one smooth motion, when the tsuba((The small ring guard where the blade of a Katana meets the grip.)) struck the top of the sheath, the trigram disappeared and the brushstrokes exploded.

Every ghoul that was trapped was destroyed, 150 in all, but the move had drained Masamune. "Damn, I haven't used that in a while...I forgot how taxing it was." Masamune shook his head and drew his swords, working his way closer to Harmony as he deleted the ghouls in his path.

Meanwhile, Onimaru and Gaoh were trading blows, Gaoh was using a serrated sword that looked similar to Onimaru's((link)), Onimaru lashed out at Gaoh with a kick, but the Thief-King simply grabbed the Oni's foot and threw him to the side before pressing his own attack. Gaoh attacked relentlessly, hitting Onimaru in the midsection as he ran towards him, then rapidly spinning around and delivering a strike to the back. Onimaru made a few strikes of his own, but any hits that weren't blocked were absorbed by Gaoh's armor. "Durable bastard!" Onimaru blocked a strike aimed at his chest, pushing Gaoh's blade downwards to expose his chest. "I bet this'll hurt!" Onimaru leaned back and slammed his head into Gaoh's helmet, dazing him and leaving him open to attack. "Gotcha!" Onimaru kicked Gaoh in the chest and started laying into him with his sword, striking him as hard as he could. Each hit caused a burst of sparks to explode from Gaoh's armor, indicating that his heavier attacks were doing damage.

Onimaru then attempted to hit Gaoh with an overhead strike, but Gaoh grabbed him by the wrist and stopped the attack cold. "Now you've angered me..." Gaoh's right leg began to glow orange, the Thief-King shoved Onimaru back before delivering a punishing side kick to his ribs, the energy in his leg created a small explosion that sent Onimaru flying about 10 feet before landing on his back with a smoking scorch mark on his torso armor.

[Saber]

Dagger heard Harmony's announcement about how the zombies functioned, immediately catching the hint as he was carving up the constantly regenerating viruses. When Masamune started announcing his technique, Dagger used Merge's wings to take to the air, avoiding the trigram that trapped the zombies and flying towards the final avatar who was fighting someone far different from the others in the horde.

"This may require more than just stealth combat, be ready with some other programs if this one proves more durable than the rest."

He flew in just as Gaoh's kick sent Onimaru flying, firing a mini barrage of 5 shuriken at Gaoh's chest before landing behind him and swinging his blade staff like a golf club at Gaoh's legs.