Ornery did a little UI interaction to summon his pet, and a steam-crest armor appeared near Ornery, painted in his quite particular purple-and-green livery. Ouroboros was an adult now, and while he still wasn't quite that high-level, he was far more useful now. For one, Ornery could actually wear him.
"I'm here, Ornery. Not like I wanted to come with you or anything," Ouroboros' synthetic voice echoed from within his helmet as he stood in wait.
"Love you too, Ouro... and no, I don't think we'll have to go inside the Temple, no." Ornery shook his head, a little glassy-eyed as he looked over his external programs running on the second monitor. "It's usually not quite that simple. It shouldn't take too long - just enough time that I can build up the speed I'll need for this. I do have a warning, though..."
He lifted a finger on one hand, while waving towards Serena with the other hand.
"... The moment I put on the Spirit of Sharing, both of you will get afflicted with Berserk. I can attempt to mitigate it, but I'd prefer to do it closer to when we're to enter Briona Gwydion."
If he tried to hold Sid back, he would prefer to do it for the shortest amount of time possible - if he tried to keep him restrained for too long, he could get unpredictable and lash out.
He already wasn't all that happy about Ornery's thought process.
Ornery hoped that savaging some of the local monsters in the process of building up speed would appease him somewhat, but the man was unfortunately fickle.
"Aside from my... condition that I won't be elaborating on at the moment, though, there shouldn't be any risks at this time. I'm not an amateur. And should anything
especially abnormal occur, either Noblesse or I should be able to get us out. Have you ever been in Mag Civialis' jail before?"
Ornery spun his mean blades, hardlight wing structures appearing behind his back.
"I haven't and I hope I won't have to be, but if Nobs has to get us out, that's probably where we're going. Anyway, we need to go kill time before my program spits out the coordinates, and I might as well get this done with."
He hadn't put the ring on yet, but sitting still would still not do him any favors - especially not with Sid lodged somewhere within his nervous system.
(How the hell did that work, anyway...?)
"Ouroboros, armor mode," Ornery commanded.
"Let it be known that I'm doing this because I have to and not because of any particular fondness towards you," Ouroboros announced whilst switching to wearable mode, the armor settling around Ornery's frame.
Now, Ornery was clad in a relatively bulky steam armor, and was hopefully ready to rumble. This wouldn't fully compensate for the defense malus that Sid inflicted on him just by being there, but hopefully, it would help.
So, he launched himself into the air to provoke some of those flying enemies above into coming down - and come down they did.
KILLER HARPY | WILD GRYPHON | KILLER HARPY
HUMANOID | BEAST| HUMANOID
ELEMENT: WIND
"Ah, shit, there's three...!"
With his defense being lowered by Berserk, his only viable method of defense was evasion. Maneuvering between razor-sharp feathers flung at him by one of the harpies was a surprisingly easy task thanks to his danmaku skills, and the added boost in speed allowed him to avoid the gryphon's wild dive, as well.
Not keen on waiting too long for his party members, he struck his foes... with a mere Sword Dance.
What? He wanted a dodge buff.
In the background, his program chugged ever closer to scan completion...
