A mute, a television demon, an alien, and Death walk into a bar

[Slapson]

(Moritz isn't here, so I'm posting this in his place.)

"I'm in."

"Sounds like fun."

"Hell yes."

"..."

A Demon, a rebel, an inventor, and a mute. The four of them stood around the table, brought into the homey, Australian tavern by none other than the most swole, manly figure to ever grace this god-forsaken earth. Their client stood at one end, stroking his most epic mustache with care. "I'm not one to beat meat I already pounded twice. Or nuts & bolts. Or both. So I'll have you four take care of it."

He tossed some money into the air, turning and walking out the door as trillions of dollars in every currency from euros to shekels showered the floor.

The red-haired lady was the first to speak.

"...so, should we get started?"

Yomishka, Vayla, Zai, and Eilee: 3 (Promestei, Moritzva, AkuAkuAkuma)

versus

SOLSTICE:

This takes place after SOLSTICE ravages the planet. Assume EQUINOX is ******' gone somewhere. Blame Thomas, he probably did it. So she's not showing up.

Base (8-B) Yomishka, Cataclysm (High 6-C) Vayla, Act III (5-B) Zain, and (8-A) Eileen, used, versus Original Solar Drive (High 5-A) SOLSTICE.

Speed =

Yomishka's Mystic Shields are restricted.

The Geek Squad has 1 year of prep and prior knowledge.

 

[Promestein]

"I'm not one to beat meat I already pounded twice".

I...

Hm.

Let me get back to you on this.

 

[Promestein]

I'd need to know what everyone here is capable of with prep, exactly.

 

[Moritzva]

I'll write something up-

From my knowledge, the biggest challenge is actually getting past that dang barrier.

 

[Moritzva]

So, from my end-

Vayla would certainly take a leadership role of the group to unify them and keep them on target, given that one is a work-obsessed outcast, one is a mute, and

one is Yomishka.

Her methods of prep are difficult to say, since historically, any Valev usually prepares or improvise in the most unpredictably wild ways available to them in any given scenario, as I'm sure Perpetual can testify. I apologize for tormenting you.</s

To my knowledge, she has no reliable way around the barrier due to it's massive wall of resistances, and the only thing she has that can hurt it at all, the Flames of the Consortium, would probably get dispelled moments after Vayla creates them, as SOLSTICE has enough stamina, or 'magic', to basically do it forever. On the plus side, the chances of her adapting to the esoteric, extra-dimensional misnomer fire is very low.

On the other hand, she does have a fair share of defensive methods to take a few hits. She'd likely attempt to test them during prep time, but I'll get more into this later. Naturally, the main strategy would be to draw aggression from SOLSTICE to let her more offensive-potent partners actually do the damage to her, using some death prevention spells, illusions, and temporal trickery (not time stop, but more focused spells on specific attacks that hopefully won't be adapted to since they won't hit her) to extend the opening as long as possible.

Naturally, to actually hold aggro against SOLSTICE, I imagine one will need to, well, piss her off. I believe it was noted in SOL vs EQ that one of EQ's advantages was that SOL was angry and beyond reason. The only question is, how well can the group piss her off?

Maybe she could seduce the emotionally torn SOL and add insult to injury. That would be pretty in-character.

 

[Moritzva]

I'd need to know what everyone here is capable of with prep, exactly.

On that note-

She has her Barrier, and obviously AP. What other big things should the Squad look out for? What advantages, what weaknesses?

 

[ThePerpetual]

What constitutes a Win Condition, here? And is SOLSTICE somewhere on Earth with these four?

If the planet is ravaged, does that mean that everything and everyone is dead? If not, in this scenario, how much of the world/it's inhabitants is left?

 

[Moritzva]

What constitutes a Win Condition, here? And is SOLSTICE somewhere on Earth with these four?

If the planet is ravaged, does that mean that everything and everyone is dead? If not, in this scenario, how much of the world/it's inhabitants is left?

Killing SOL or rendering her unable to fight. So, killing.

I'd have to ask Prom, but iirc Earth mostly is left of SOL's army and people- not that many.

The squad has access to dimensional and space travel so I doubt it matters where they start.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Okay, so I guess I need to get to 'things Zain does with prep time', since this mostly seems to be a Prep Time contest-

1) "The Eighth Sephira, an incarnation of the Archetypes 'Splendour'... facilitat(es)... accurate traversal of the paths between realities."

In other words, the power to traverse the Yesod, or plane of dreams. This is useful in that all things leave an imprint within the Yesod, a sort of subconscious/unmanifest self that, on account of having the Yesod Sephira as well, Zain can traverse and explore.

SOLSTICE, as far as I can see, has no reason to not possess a Yesod imprint in some significant way (she has a subconscious, right?), so the Yesod can be used to perform detective work on SOLSTICE and everyone related directly to the things she's done. Certainly, it wouldn't register as an 'attack', not without the target to whom the subconscious belongs making a conscious decision to visit it and lock it up themselves.

The Kether, similar in function in that its universal against "anything that'd be recognized as an attack" wouldn't recognize simply visiting another person's subconscious as a form of attack, either, so there's established precedent for it getting around something very much like an Absolute Barrier.

2) "the power to conceptually tether himself to other places, people, and ideas (can be used to awaken others' True Selves)"

Since none of these other chuckleheads have their True Selves or anything analogous awakened, a month spent on emotional resolution Arcs per target ought to be enough to make everyone 5-B+, Sub-Rel w/ FTL combat speed, and an Archetype Armiger around which new powers develop. More specifically...

"Wields an Archetype Armiger (All such wielders can perceive and interact freely with non-corporeal beings, spirits, supernatural energies, and Archetypes)"... Resistance to Ailments and to (two variable elemental types), Mind, Soul, Concept, Fate, and Willpower Manipulation

First off, that. Secondly, depending on what shape their Armiger takes (derived from a conjunction of a broader mythological theme, and a personal more aspiration/objective-focused theme), they might unlock any number of new Armiger Skills as the year progresses. (Sadly, I can't assume that he just power-levels to Act IV level and beyond, though, if this is neutral territory, as story events like getting banished to the Daathe, which directly prompted much of the growth being possible, aren't so in neutral territory.)

This much is very much a Wild Card, as what they'd develop is a case-by-case basis: there exists precedent for characters getting powers that'd let them assemble dramatically potent technologies given prep time, for instance, or gather energy, but the highest precedent set for any powers of that particular variety is... 5-B+.

So TLDR everyone is now on the same general level assuming they're not completely obstinate about refusing personal growth.

3) Sharing the Sephiroth

If any kind of covenant is formed between them: like, a team, anything with some kind of personal significance/emotional weight to it really: then the Sephiroth recognize its members as conjoined with an aspect of the Self and thus share, though not the active effects, the more passive/constant ones: namely, the Regenerationn (Low-Mid, Mid-Godly over time), Type 2 Immortality, and assortment of higher-dimensional resistances to various distortions and manipulation.

4) ...emotional support?

I dunno, he doesn't do a lot of actual fighting with hax, and doesn't have a lot of ways around the barrier aside from slowly whacking it, and the Death Arcana does nothing until its down. So, unless either he can somehow convince her to be a good person through the Yesod (which I somehow doubt, he can't speak at all and he's just a relatively normal college age guy) or Reactive Power Level his way to Dwarf Star level from just endlessly fighting SOL's armies, I don't know if he can actually... do anything to her.

For all of this fancy stuff listed, he kinda doesn't throw hax around until Act IV, unless you count Time Stops and such that she no-sells, so being at such a sharp AP disparity is kinda an Ooph.

...so yeah, that's what I've got.

 

[Moritzva]

>refusing personal growth

Yomishka and Vayla:




—

In all seriousness, they still do get one-shotted, but Zain can likely still act as a support to keep them on track while Vayla gets distracted with her new girlfriend, as well as allowing them to survive soul attacks and potentially develop new abilities.

What kind of new abilities develop with Zain's thingy, again?

 

[Moritzva]

Also, thinking about it, Zain being able to farm exactly what buttons to push can surely assist in both Vayla seducing, and pissing her off later on.

 

[Promestein]

... Seducing SOL to find her weak spots with help from Zain's use of Yesod is actually a great idea. It's extremely risky, of course - SOL is controlling, unpredictable, and violent. That being said, she's lonely and has low standards. It wouldn't be hard to get her attention.

Seducing and then betraying her would probably make a confrontation a lot easier, too. At this point in time, SOL just isn't emotionally competent enough to react to that in any way but a catastrophic breakdown and a murderous rage. She won't use her precog to its full extent.

Also, it's not necessary to bypass her Absolute Barriers to kill her in this key. If the Solar Drive is destroyed, she'll be rendered more or less harmless, though if her soul isn't ****** over she'll just slink away as a ghost. Even then, finishing off her soul will be really hard. She's basically a cockroach.

 

[Slapson]

Eileen's general set-up of prep is to study her enemy in secret, usually with her cloaked UFOs and the like. She's almost never where her enemies are, and prefers to let her equipment do the work while she starts constructing something that could help her fight her target directly. The time this takes varies, but she could get a good idea of another person's abilities. She just needs the time to put something together and improve upon it until its viable, which can take from days to months.

If it's something similar to what she's built before, then she could make something similar in just a day or so, or repurpose existing equipment in even less time for efficiency.

 

[Promestein]

SOL might be able to detect one of the cloaked UFOs, so I think that could be risky, though Zain could help provide information. The Solar Drive isn't public knowledge, so Eileen would have to figure out that it exists in the first place, and then how it works. It might be difficult for her to figure out the magic in the equation.

That being said, if she gets it going, she could almost definitely make something to counter the Solar Drive. It has its issues in this key, quite a few things there to exploit if given the chance.

 

[Moritzva]

... Seducing SOL to find her weak spots with help from Zain's use of Yesod is actually a great idea. It's extremely risky, of course - SOL is controlling, unpredictable, and violent.

Naturally, that last part will be found out the hard way when Vayla learns that, as it turns out, it's hard to fight back against someone who's an entire metaphysical numerical tiering above you.

Now admittedly, while there's around a 90% of Vayla temporarily forgetting about the mission and just hanging out with SOL for a few months, she'll eventually remember that she's suppose to be gathering information. And The Collective probably won't remind her, either.

@Slaps, the lipstick via kissing things works, right? (It's been changed a lot as of late, so I'm not sure if it still is.)

@Prom How is it possible to get to it through the barrier? Iirc, EQ needed to at least weaken the barrier first. I imagine the group will learn of the Solar Drive pretty quickly, given Zain probably picking up on it, or Vayla asking about it, or something. As well, what exactly gives someone an Absolute Barrier? Is it a magical power of some sort?

Let's just hope SOL doesn't realize that she's in bed with Death. Not sure how her reaction would be to that.

I also wonder if SOL's soul is adverse to being eaten after she gets beat. Of course, that depends on if they can get that far - we'll debate that after preparations.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Again, the abilities an Archetype Armiger develops are kind of a Wild Card, and individualized to fit the wielder as their life story develops once gained (technically, looking closer at Yomishka, I'm not actually sure if he can wield one due to 'a tumor upon reality' essentially making him a near-perfect analogy to a Qliphoth, essentially the exact opposite of what powers an Archetype.)

All else fails, he can just try regenerating/throwing himself at SOLSTICE ad infinitum in the hope that eventually her will to keep this up will break first... but this isn't Act IV, yet, so I don't really have a lot in the way to demonstrate he's at that level of Soulsborne-protag stubbornness yet (...a lot in the way of feats/getting more powerful is all front-loaded into Act IV as you may've figured out.)

 

[Moritzva]

Well it seems like, on a whole lot of levels, Yomishka is not exactly "character development material." Which sucks, since that means he's especially fragile in this fight.

Vayla could, with some luck and in their time together, probably get Zain down to join the "Distract SOL Suicide Squad."

By the way, how does Zain survive her attacks?

 

[Promestein]

The barrier is tough, and SOL's is particularly tough, recovers from damage faster, and adapts to harm more effectively than average. EQ's normal attacks damaged the barrier because of their soul-affecting components, and she still needed to more actively strip it away with a spell designed to counter it directly.

SOL does not want to be spiritually vored and would probably try to kill Vayla if she realized she's Death.

 

[Moritzva]

The barrier is tough, and SOL's is particularly tough, recovers from damage faster, and adapts to harm more effectively than average. EQ's normal attacks damaged the barrier because of their soul-affecting components, and she still needed to more actively strip it away with a spell designed to counter it directly.

SOL does not want to be spiritually vored and would probably try to kill Vayla if she realized she's Death.

The biggest problem is, soul manipulation or not, nobody really has the raw AP to damage it. There are ways around such, but it's tough.

Can soul manipulation damage it even without the AP to back it up? How can the Solar Drive be hit without destroying it? And, what exsctly generates an Absolute Barrier? And most importantly, just how effective could a determined Vayla with a plethora of prior knowledge be at seducing her? And does Absolute Barrier provide durability?

 

[AkuAkuAkuma]

On Yomishka's game plan, with the boys having the luxury of a year to prepare themselves it is functionally enough time for him to psychoanalyze SOLSTICE through assistance of Yetzer Hara; Giving more room to exploit more emotional insecurities and flaws through his shapeshifting that have the possibility of making more openings for other characters to deal blows.

Paired with this is SOLSTICE lacking any intuitive knowledge on magic and Yomishka being ungodly adept at its use despite utilizing it for theatrics; Alongside the use of chaos bolts at range to spark body convulsions at a distance while maintaining anonymity from precognition with being off the radar due to his physiology. Added, with the potential to help in breaking and cracking the barrier if allowed the opportunity to be within melee distance briefly.

Opportunities to flee as a ghost will likely be squandered with a couple of us being able to interact with the intangible, and Yomishka still having the ability to touch concepts in the bad place if given the space to.

@Mort, Fragility is a commonality where he is from, this ain't a first where he has faced opponents who have supremely outclassed him in strength. Even escaping handedly and managing to inflict a significant deal damage upon them with his abilities.

 

[Moritzva]

So, Yomishka is going to be the main damage dealer here, but in order for him to not get utterly obliterated, the group has to make sure he doesn't get targetted. After all, if he gets close enough, he can conceptually slap, and he can invoke various other effects if the barrier goes down, but the problem is getting there.

His physiology will help, but SOL seems pretty damn good at sensing just about anything on the planet.

How strong is TV Demon's conceptual manip. compared to her resistance?

 

[Promestein]

Absolute Barrier stuff

1. It's a part of her soul, the outermost layer
2. Soul Manipulation that isn't all that potent or backed up won't deal a whole lot of damage
3. The Absolute Barrier contributes to physical durability but she's tough on her own

The Solar Drive is protected by a forcefield inside SOL's chest, which will fail if it's disconnected from her body. It wouldn't be very hard for any of these people to destroy it once it's disconnected.

Vayla could do a great job of seducing SOL, though I wouldn't say SOL would fall all that much in love with her. She'd be more fixated on the feeling of importance, possession, and killing her own loneliness than any real emotional connection. She'd only be rougher with her as a result.

 

[AkuAkuAkuma]

@Mort, Hold high doubts of SOLSTICE's sensing him with the failure of this being equally incapable of targeting Yomishka if wasn't in his direct sight and not complying to traditional time. His concept smacking is effectively around the same potency as hers and in the Type 4 range.

There isn't likely to be a supremely overwhelming upset in conceptual power between both though he's bound to yield some damage on barrier if given the golden buzzer to attack; Though it'll very much be a war of attrition.

The primary problem is just getting physically slapped in general, a punch will more than render him gibbed and there is still the issue of dealing with a lot of SOLSTICE's nuclear energy and matter between all of the characters on the offensive or defensive.

 

[Moritzva]

Reasonable enough. All that really matters is that she can grow close enough to learn about stuff, and screw with her emotionally during the fight. Likely to add insult to injury, really, with 2-3 lovers abandoning her in rapid succession (loose definition of "lovers" used).

Vayla has always been good at drawing emotional feelings out of people, given her very human perspective and ideas alongside overflowing confidence. This will be massively assisted by her actually trying to do it, rather than just passively being headstrong and inspiring. Yomishka and Zain will also be able to provide a lot of cards, hopefully to draw emotions from the amazonian robot. Naturally, she'll get obscenely pissed off once she realizes the whole "Wait, I am a few billion times weaker than this wife beater, ****-"

You know, that, and Vayla both hates and loves ladies of her stature, so her own emotions will be a whole lot more sincere.

 

[Moritzva]

@Mort, Hold high doubts of SOLSTICE's sensing him with the failure of this being equally incapable of targeting Yomishka if wasn't in his direct sight and not complying to traditional time. His concept smacking is effectively around the same potency as hers and in the Type 4 range.

There isn't likely to be a supremely overwhelming upset in conceptual power between both though he's bound to yield some damage on barrier if given the golden buzzer to attack; Though it'll very much be a war of attrition.

The primary problem is just getting physically slapped in general, a punch will more than render him gibbed and there is still the issue of dealing with a lot of SOLSTICE's nuclear energy and matter between all of the characters on the offensive or defensive.

So, from a range, we can safely say that Yomishka will be decently fine as long as he doesn't throw too many attacks that give away his position. He can also do damage in melee, but getting him there, and getting him out, will be tough.

If Vayla can piss her off enough to become the central target, there's a good shot.

 

[AkuAkuAkuma]

Yomishka can properly teleport in and out though a delay three to five seconds render him vulnerable as he can't exactly throw a punch anymore outside of his magic. His matter is dispersed during this period though SOLSTICE in turn can interact with intangible.

If the man isn't properly guarded or having SOLSTICE off his ass he is going need to his reality warping and shapeshifting to kick into hyperdrive to not die in one hit. This will more than prove difficult with subsequent tries and attacks if not helped to the extreme.

 

[Slapson]

Just a couple thoughts here from me:

• I think Vayla is too prideful in her own right to put up with SOL for too long, but since Prom stated that SOL would act normal for a while around Vayla and Moritz said that Vayla's pride is exactly why she'd put up with SOL, then its reasonable to assume that Vayla can get close enough to SOL to learn more about her.

• Eileen would try to slip a camera onto Vayla somewhere if it meant that she could get better surveillance on SOL when her UFOs aren't active. I don't know how much prior knowledge the group is working with here, but since Eileen is privy to using UFOs first (which, despite the cloaking technology, could be detected by SOL), I don't see the hidden camera scenario as likely unless Eileen is willing to risk potential detection.
  • And, even then, I don't think it's 100% to work, either.

 

[Moritzva]

Vayla would probably reject the idea of cameras.

One, because she'd assume SOL is far more tech-savvy than she is with magic - living with a superpowered engine in your chest tends to make you do your research, she'd say.

Two, because she very much values privacy.

--

What key things can Eileen come up with, here?

 

[ThePerpetual]

Uh, he'd probably survive with Attack Reflection, dodging/teleport spam, etc., at least if we're assuming he can't ascend to High 5-A levels beforehand. Certainly, being able to slip into and out of other realities with The Lovers Arcana/the Hod would probably prove a big help, but I assume that keeping the others alive is more the goal here.

 

[Moritzva]

...my reply was deleted.

Fuuuuuuck-

 

[Moritzva]

Well, since my time is limited, I'll quickly note that once the battle starts, it would likely start along the lines of sending Vayla in first, with Zain and Yomi cloaked somewhere, while Eileen chills on the moon.

Vayla grabs her attention, pisses her off, and uses illusions, speed amps, death prevention, and purely defensive combat in order to string her on while her allies poke and try to figure out when to get an opening.

...and most important for Vayla, is using her copy of that Barrier.

--

Edit: To expand on the above point,

It was brought to my attention that, if distracted, smaller, harder to notice effects could potentially be forced through the barrier without her knowing. Now, assuming Vayla has a multitude of opportunities to... distract her, she certainly will be able to sneak Ruby's power copy through. Thanks, Ruby. Cataclysm was a goddamned mistake.

While most of it can't be copied due to really being fueled by the Solar Drive, which she does not have... the Barrier, however? It scales on willpower, not AP...

And Vayla's willpower? Oh boy.

To say she has willpower would be a slight to the word itself. Vayla is beyond immensely dedicated to her goals, usually involving "hitting things until they stop breathing', and she's damn good at it. Valevs are known as one of the largest threats to any Consortium empire not due to raw strength, but due to the fact that they never, ever give up until they drive you into the ground.

In a world where warfare is determined by how far you are willing to debase, degrade, and sacrifice yourself in order to come on top, Valevs have been the kings and queens. Whether that's good or bad, isn't the point.

But most importantly, Vayla is very, very angry. SOL has insulted her pride and made her feel helpless not once, but for six months. The amount of drive she has to wipe this interloper off the face of the Earth, reduce her to dust and quash her squeaming soul under her boot...

I think she has a fair share of willpower.

 

[Promestein]

SOL's got plenty of willpower too, so they'll have fun together. Though her willpower is mostly fixated on simply staying alive. She's pretty good at that, and managed to realize much rarer than one in a million odds in surviving for any notable period of time as a ghost after dying as a child.

Vayla is definitely going to be angrier here, though.

 

[Moritzva]

Oh, SOL has a helluva lot of willpower- what's important is that, if Vayla sneaks in a power copy during loving, wholesome encounters, which may take a few tries, she could use her own Barrier to at least assist in tanking a few hits. It's not a great solution, as it's undoubtably much weaker, but it's a surefire improvement from instant death.

I imagine Vayla's raw dedication and brutal focus and will towards her goals will do good at keeping her alive.

The real question is, how will well will Vayla be able to keep up a defensive battle while her allies find opportunities to strike? It would ideal to trick her into thinking Vayla is alone for as long as possible - considering SOL likely has next to no way of knowing what Vayla's magic is outside of what has been previously shown in self defense, she could likely trick SOL into thinking that she is the one behind Yomishka's Chaos Bolts and similar.

On the downside, any clones created wouldn't have the Barrier even if it does work, so they just ******' die in one shot.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Some things I don't think I get, yet.

1) What, exactly, is the situation? What I understand of it is:

> SOLSTICE has ravaged the Earth. Apparently, her army now runs things on whatever is left. (How/why are they there?)

> Somehow, these four pop up after the fact and are tasked with defeating SOLSTICE (i.e. permanently disabling her.) (How do they get there?)

> They have a single year of prep time before the battle starts. (How does the battle start?) (What can be done with this prep time?)

2) Tied into the above, especially the last:

Where exactly is SOLSTICE during this time? And how much does she know about this ongoing fight? For example, does she know that she has to permanently disable all four of these individuals specifically, or does she only know that there are four individuals out for her blood? Does she know that she's in a "versus match" at all?

3) From the sounds of things, the opposed parties can interact with one another during this preparation time, and SOLSTICE does not know that she is the target of an... assassination attempt, essentially? Anyways, taking this to be the case,

For one, what occurs if SOLSTICE finds out ahead of time that there's a plot against her? What happens to the rest of the Preparation Time? Two, once the preparation time does end... then what? Under the SBA, nothing actually changes about the fight if no reason is given for doing so.

Generally I just don't think I understand the situation well enough to evaluate it clearly.

 

[Moritzva]

As I take it-

1. Most of SOL's forces, she either won't use, or they won't be helpful. (See, EQ vs SOL, which is a very, very similar situation).

They also have an absurd amount of space travel, and interdimensional travel, so getting there is... not hard.

Anything can be done within this year, and at the end of that year, they either have to have SOLSTICE dead or be fighting her. As in, on the planet, actively seeking to put her down.

2. Seeing EQ vs SOL, she's just going to stick around Earth. She does not know anyone is coming for her, at all, until alerted. So essentially, EQ vs SOL.

3. If she is alerted, she can probably start murdering and/or prepping of her own accord. When Prep Time ends, Thomas wants to see her dead, or wants to see them fighting her, or else he'll hire someone else.

 

[Promestein]

1. SOL's forces aren't huge in number, and at this point, most of them will be drifting and acting on their own, save for a few like Venus. Venus will stay around SOL, but I dunno how strong she'd be at this point in time.

2. SOL is gonna be languishing in this mental state. She'll mostly keep to herself, and will wander around Earth venting her violent urges, and probably occasionally looking for someone to alleviate her crippling loneliness.

 

[Moritzva]

^

A very relatable feeling. One that Vayla will be glad to exploit. Y'know, until it smacks her in the face. Literally.

 

[Moritzva]

So, back on this - about how well and for how long can Vayla distract her and not get hit.

 

[Promestein]

Vayla has plenty of skill and experience, and, due to her own blind rage, SOL is likely to not properly account for those things (if she knows about them at all) and make subpar movements and attempts to hit her. She'll probably try to nuke things at some point, but it'd be more difficult for her to go through with it, as she doesn't have quite the amount of control over her magic to not potentially annihilate Vayla, so it'd probably be a pretty inefficient and clumsy attack.

The moment anything bites her in the ass - the moment she realizes that the fight is more serious than trying to pin down Vayla - is the moment she'll start forcing herself to calm down and strategize more. She'll act a bit more patiently, use her precog properly, and so on.

It'd be hard to avoid her even at the start, though, as she's plenty skilled herself.

 

[Moritzva]

So, the first bit of the fight effectively boils down to how capable she is of dodging attacks - obviously, blocking won't do much, so Vayla has to avoid as many direct hits as possible, as she'll only be able to survive 2-3 with the weakened Barrier before having to dip into death prevention as a last resort.

Vayla's primary fighting style has always been to optimize on opposing mistakes rather than make the first move herself- wait for them to overextend, or make a move, then counter with twice the force. Additionally, battles of attrition have always been her style, where she'd carefully burn out the opponent's mana over long fights.

Chances are, in this fight, she'd hold onto all her abilities that SOL had not already seen and reveal them only when the time is needed, while taking advantage of her frenzied state.

Now, whatever device Eileen makes, obviously Vayla can't be the one to carry it around. It's surely not small, and SOL, even if angry, isn't blind enough to let herself get hit by something like that. Though she can chip at the barrier with her Consortium Fire, which would both serve as a good distraction and demand SOLSTICE expend energy and focus into it every time- it's not the greatest method of damaging the barrier, but it'll do.

I imagine the turning point will be when Zain is cloaked by illusions and sent to set up or get within range to use the device - Yomishka is better at stealth, but also a bit more important to land the final blow, so best to not put all the eggs in one basket.

That device will be to cripplingly damage the Solar Drive, in which the entire team jumps out and starts wailing on the weakened yet still crazy dangerous robot. From there, a punch or two from Yomishka could put her down.

—

So as I see it, Vayla has the tools to delay and create an opening- it's a matter of, can SOL actually land a hit on Vayla/detect the party/potentially pin down and kill any of them?