Once More, with Feeling...

[thespaceopera]

[It comes at some point in the mid-afternoon, not that space is anything but timeless. The Fleet holds its collective breath as a lone figure works tireless at the controls, surrounded by as much machinery as could be feasibly cobbled together in the span of a few short weeks… But Zhade is here and working hard, and at last he finds an opening.

Communicators and consoles light up everywhere, broadcasting his voice and half-shrouded face in a broad echo. There's nothing to lose, and no reason to hide themselves any longer.]

This is Zhade! Prepare yourselves-- the shields are about to come down! You'll need to hit it with everything you have. Spells, cannons, everything, all of it. Don't you dare hold back, not after the heroics you've shown us time and time again!

[He wipes some sweat from his scarred brow and hits a button, broadcasting instead an image of the Marsiva. The space around it crackles and sparks visibly, lightning rippling over the barrier in a honeycomb fashion. This is the same view as from any of the Fleet's windows. The audio picks up the sound of things sparking and crackling around Zhade, but this doesn't slow him at all.

Instead, he roars a simple command:]

FIRE—!

[The shields are down, and all is laid bare.

What happens next is up to the combined strength of the Fleet, whether they are firing upon the ship to maintain a distraction or boarding the ship themselves.]



[ooc: Please see the latest drift post for information on toplevels, threading, etc. and what to expect.]

Comments

The Ships

[spaceshipit]

[Zhade's voice comes through to give directions to those firing on the mothership.]

If some of you focus your fire on the aft, that's where the reparative generators are! Take them down and the shield will stay down, and the rest of you--

The Marsiva still has those damned weapons, somewhere, so if you can draw them out and destroy them, it'll ensure our safety out here!

[Feel free to thread any combination of firing on the Marsiva, dodging return fire, taking hits and enduring/repairing the damage, etc.]

Huntress

[tempredmental]

[Their crew losses had left them pretty useless in a battle. The best they could do was draw fire and hope their higher speed would keep them ahead as the lack of an engineer left them without shields, and the lack of a security officer had robbed them of ship-board weapons.

But, that extra speed meant they could get in there to drop off infiltration crew. Keith wasn't sure how much of a combatant Quatre was, but he knew he and Lance could handle boarding a ship.]

While the shields are down, our best bet is getting on the Marsiva. We can't provide much help from out here, as the Huntress is down too many crew spots to give us what we need to do anything for ship-to-ship combat.

Twin Roses

[unbearablynaive]

[Once again the Twin Roses has no security officer and so no standard weapons. And once again the odd, mismatched dome on the top of the ship parts to reveal a jury-rigged but huge laser cannon. It has a long recharge, so he can probably only get one shot off before boarding, but they won't be able to board at all if they can't get past those shields.

Last time he'd done this it had ended up with the enmity of someone he'd thought to be a friend.

It's still worth doing.

He aims the massive cannon at the aft of the Marsiva, trusting the strange voice over the comms. Does he know that's actually where the reparative generators are? No. But does he have to try anyway? Absolutely.

He fires.]

[goldenglasses]

[Vash is at the controls in his pilot seat. After four years he's come to know the controls intimately. He floors their ship and it rushes forward the moment those shields come down.

Shouting over the communication for Vision to hear Vash knew he'd be firing.] I'll get you close. Just please aim where you think the least amount of people might be. [They did need to break through and get into that ship, but Vash is still worried about loss of life. Still he needs to trust his crew so he'll help Vision get close enough to fire off his gun.]

[unbearablynaive]

If you've any greater insight as to the structure or function of the Marsiva, I invite you to share with the crowd.

[They went over this the last time he'd fired the cannon: there's no way to tell if there even are people on board, and he's said he'll only fire on outside structural elements given the size of the weapon.

He reigns back his irritation and says in a calmer voice,] Nevertheless, I will try.

Infiltration: Find Atroma

[divine_braid]

[Duo stood, ready to go. He had a decent selection of weapons, but most of what he had was designed for distraction and infiltration.]

So… I’ve got the location on Atroma inside the ship. We’ll be heading deep in, and I’ve got a selection of explosives here that worked last time on creating some pretty significant damage. We can use those to blow an entrance into the main chamber.

Now, I have no idea what’s going to be in there, so we need to be ready for anything. It’s gonna be down this direction, so, if you’re heading after Atroma, then you’re with me.

[Duo led the group through the maze, setting up distractions along the way to help them get through any defenses. Explosions here, a few well-placed shots there, with the help of the Fleeters on his team.

It wasn’t long before they’d battled and made their way through to an area deep inside the ship. Duo paused, checking a small hologram map he had.]

This is it. Let’s get this done.

[He guided the others and set up some explosives so they could get in, blowing a hole through the door. As he did, an overwhelming sense of dread and death and fear hit the group, and the smoke gradually revealed something inside the room… an iridescent black blob, massive, and… pulsing? Duo grit his teeth.]

Don’t give in. We need to finish this! Go!

[abracafcku]

[It's a winding crazy battle to get down to the bowels of the ship, but once there, Taako weirdly recognizes what he's looking at. Thor described it to him once, told him about how he'd seen in a window of the Marsiva and seen some sort of hulking black thing deep within it. Now, Taako has a chance to see it himself, aided with a feeling of horror and dread and the entirely too familiar sensation of death that does, admittedly, weird things to his heart.

After sliding into the room after Duo, Taako points the Umbra Staff at the black blob and releases a high-pitched laugh at the sight of it. His voice cracks in a way that betrays his nerves, but who is Taako if not one to absolutely shittalk the big bad at the end?]

Is that fucking all? Shit, you aren't even half as intimidating as the Vore Cloud I spent a hundred years running from! The fuck do we do with this thing? Kill it? Sing Kumbaya and hold hands until it withers from the power of dorkiness?

[twosoul]

[Lorden, on the other hand, has no idea what this is - and yet it's oddly familiar. Mind-bending horrors? Finally, he's in his element.

He grabs a highly-customized auto-rifle that's been magnetically attached to his back.]

Where I come from, we shoot it. Willing to listen to options, but I'm for shooting it.

[abracafcku]

I mean, if you want to shoot the thing whose power or purpose we have no idea about, be my guest. But if it rebounds and fuckin' murders me, I'm going to haunt your ass.

[The waves of despair coming off it can't be anything good. Still, he remembers that the planet cried for its "sister" and who knows if this is it, twisted and corrupted, or if it's something entirely different, right?]

Take a pot shot, see what happens.

[somakemelaugh]

[Though he tends to avoid them if he can help it, he's no stranger to a fight, and if it means a way out of this pretty prison of a reality show, or at least answers, well... He has already thrown his lot in with this bunch and it's exactly what he intends. Much as he doesn't want to end a life, he'll be all too happy to help put down whatever stands in their way now.]

[And with his death scythe back in his hand in all of it and his full abilities, there isn't any stopping him. Once they reach the inner chambers and the... creature within, he pauses, reaching fingers up to sweep back long bangs.]

Well, then. There's a sight, isn't it? I don't suppose something like that would agree to a nice chat over tea and biscuits.

[divine_braid]

I doubt it. Besides, with how it's making me feel, I think I lost my appetite.

[He glanced over at that scythe.]

What's that do?

[Duo had long since learned that sometimes weapons weren't what they seemed.]

Infiltration: Your Gracious Hosts?!

[lovelylady]

[Leading this particular infiltration team is Kid, designation "Angel". Her Australian accent is a bit out of place much like the rest of her attire, but she's loaded with plenty of weapons, including some new plasma daggers that appear to have been modified by someone with engineering expertise. Before setting out, she gives everyone a speech.]

Oi! I'm Kid, but you can call me Angel if yer nasty. Our intel says we might run into those Hosts or whatever down this entrance, not the ones I knew in my time, but dunno if they're the fightin' kind.

Whatever happens, I'm with you. [She grins broadly, blue eyes sparkling. She draws a hand over her cheeks, echoing the white war paint.] You best be ready! Once we go in, there's no turnin' back. From what we see, what we do...

Let's end this. Not just for us, but for everyone we know. Everyone we knew... and loved. Our worlds and all the other ones that haven't been born yet.

For the future!

[And from there, it's business.

Kid pauses the group so they don't run headlong into every robot they come across. She is a professional thief after all, something that she's proud to declare. After the group takes out a few headless robots and makes them… limbless, too, they stumble upon a sealed room that takes some stubbornness to open. There are no markings on this door, but there are black cords extending from the floor and the walls, and there only seem to be more when the entrance is slammed open.

The infamous Hosts, Carmen and Chase are here in what appears to be the room usually 'shown' during their broadcasts. From the waist down, they're nothing but more black cords plugged into the very heart of the ship. Strangely, though, neither of them are conscious. They're chained and held in the thrall of some kind of spinning blade, yet it was paused or knocked offline when the firing began.

Kid visibly hesitates. Mercy was never her strong suit, but she isn't about to make this decision for anybody.

Free them or forsake them, the choice is yours.]

SCREW TIME LINES THIS IS ENDGAME aka Vash the Stampede | OTA

[goldenglasses]

Part 1

[Vash looks thrilled to see Kid. Smiling brightly during her speech. True - this was a dire situation and seriousness is important, but he is still happy to see her.] What do you mean if you're nasty? You don't really think I'm nasty, do you? [He winks because he doesn't seem to mind being called nasty at all.]

Part 2

[The robots don't phase Vash at all. With his large gun, more than enough ammo to keep it filled, and the fact that they're fighting robots means his no-kill vow doesn't slow him down. He's brutal and wastes no time taking out any robots that are left to him. He's happy to let Kid and anyone with a bit more stealth to go first. After all guns are a bit loud.

It's when they get into the sealed room that Vash's extreme pacifism will become and issue. He looks horrified by what he sees.] We have to get them down! [Vash moves straight towards their hosts with the intent of getting them down. Will you stop or help him?]

Part 2

[child_of_luv]

[So, hey... remember those regains they got on the last planet? Minako was in full-on Sailor Venus mode thanks to getting her transformation wand back.

But that also meant she was there as Vash charged in with the intent to free their hosts. Minako looked at those wires and got a baaaaad feeling.]

Wait!

[She reached out to stop him before he could get too far away from her.]

What if disconnecting those wires means we kill them?

p1

[lovelylady]

[She catches his eyes and beams right back. She's always happy to see him, though being busy with the Interceptors' own mission has made frequent contact... difficult. But they've fought together. A comrade is a comrade, and there's no one to be thicker than thieves than, of course, a former thief.]

Whinge away, we all know you don't mind gettin' dirty where it counts.

[She winks right back.]

S'good to see ya, Vash. We'll make it outta this, just you wait.

[dothelokimotion]

[ there they were. nothing more than a machine. how oddly pitiful. if only loki cared about pity.

forget about freeing them or forsaking them. loki wants them gutted. knives out, he approaches them coolly. ]

[child_of_luv]

[Having been working with Vash on freeing the hosts, Minako was a bit surprised to see Loki approaching looking ready to kill.]

Why are you doing that?

The Core / The Way Out

[queenmonarch]

[ Grouping up with Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is a quick affair - she wastes no time with small talk or niceties, just immediately beelines down the corridor once everyone's arrived, keeping her eyes peeled for any hints on which way to go... and, in the absence of any, she just picks a way and keeps on moving. You'll all find it one way or another, of course.

She looks like she's born ready for this, between the multiple handguns strapped to her person, the grenades at her belt, and that black bag of hers with the golden butterfly symbol on it that's housing whatever tools she thinks she's going to need whenever you all get there. If any robot menaces come your way, seemingly possessed or not, she fights along with the Fleeters. She doesn't need extra protection, no need to worry about her. So this isn't an escort quest, thank god ]

Keep moving! It's gotta be around here somewhere! And no splitting up any more than we already did - no one needs to go being a hero right now, got it?

[ It takes a while, and quite a few waves of interfering baddies, but once they find the correct room... that's when the science begins. ... Maybe. ]

Holy... shit.

[ She's the first to step inside, and makes way for everyone else to file in behind her. The room itself is round and huge, nothing but steel, wires, and glass - some of which is broken, littering the floor and collecting dust. Looks like it's been this way for a while. Consoles line the walls, all of them automatically running and processing... something. They're unmanned. Whatever operates in here doesn't need manual input, but a quick glance at any of the monitors reveals... names. Of places. Planets. Worlds. "Earth". "Sylvarant." "Mordius-725." "Pern." More and more and more scroll across the screen. It's almost impossible to keep up.

And at the center, encased in a sphere of glass as large as a hot-air balloon, is a bright blue light. It pulses with energy, brightening and dimming as it does, to the rhythm of a somewhat alien heartbeat. And that "heartbeat" quickens when all of you arrive. You feel a familiar surge of energy, like that of the planet you just left. And even though this feels comparatively weary, there's a hesitant joy, and a wave of something incredibly powerful and dear: hope. And then, it begins to sing.

... But that song is abruptly cut off as the whole room shakes, the consoles surge with energy, and exposed wires along the walls begin to spark. You swear you can feel the core speaking directly into your mind: Pain. Help? And though it weakens a bit from the struggle, that feeling of hope somehow remains.

... What do you do? ]

Vash the Stampede | OTA

[goldenglasses]

Part 1

[Vash meets up with the group part way through. Coming from a different direction, but once he sees them he simply teams up. The good thing about their targets being robots is that there are no hesitations from the sharp shooter. Groups of them fall where they stand as Vash will rarely give them a chance to react before firing on them with scary accuracy. Empty bullet shells rain down as he refills his gun almost as fast as he fires the shots off.]

Part 2

[Following behind Dr. Mrs. The Monarch he doesn't look as phased by the giant blue ball of light. It briefly reminds him of one of his sisters in color. Only made completely of light instead of having any sort of form. He scans the room and starts to move towards the screens.] Earth. [That's a name he recognizes as even more keep spinning through.] How many are there?

[No time to figure that out. As soon as the room begins to shake and Vash gets the feeling of Pain and Help the outlaw reacts without thinking. The blue light reminded him of his sisters so he reacts to the request for help like he would to his sisters.

He rushes forward and places his hands on the glass.] I can help you! [Almost naturally Vash reaches out to the light. Not in any way that can be seen, but perhaps sense by those sensitive to magic and powers. Shutting his eyes Vash begins to offer his strength to the light while trying to take some of it's pain away and into him. It's what Plants were made for. To help regulate and control wild power surges and to use that power to terraform and create new life.

Although whatever Vash is doing it doesn't look like it's very easy. He grimaces in pain. Grunting and groaning as he struggles to handle the effort to stay in control of his powers and not allow them to get out of control. This month was the anniversary of the Lost City of July. He would not lose control and destroy everything. Not again.

But, oh god, it hurts.] Whatever is happening? Stop it. Stop it now. [Anyone who happens to be looking closely may notice the roots of Vash's blond hair in a small section is starting to turn black.] I can't keep this up forever!

[queenmonarch]

[ She watches Vash rush toward the glass, confused - he can help it? How? - but she doesn't even get the chance to ask before he's already clearly in pain. She realizes she's not going to get detailed answers anytime soon, so she just rolls with it.

She heads straight for the console that looks like it's the most directly connected to the glass enclosure, and scowls after reading the monitor. ]

Christ. It's some kind of discipline protocol - starts zapping it if it thinks about anything other than what it's given orders to do. [ But even as she's explaining, she's quickly hammering commands into it - looks like it's the good ol' trial-and-error method to try and shut this thing down...

... but eventually, something works! The room goes still and the electrical surges stop, though some of the exposed wires still crackle with leftover potential. The caged blue light pulses slow and weak, its broadcasted feelings of excitement replaced with heavy exhaustion. There's still pain, too, but it's much less.

Monarch looks over to Vash. ] It's stopped for now, but this thing will automatically hit it again if it gets distracted from -- I don't know, whatever the hell it's "supposed" [ air quotes! ] to be doing. ... You okay?

[tempredmental]

[It was a risk leaving the Huntress on auto-pilot right now, but without shields and weapons thanks to crew losses, she wasn't going to be able to offer much in the way of a fight. So, Keith had decided infiltrating the Marsiva was where he could offer the most support. He ended up on the Doc's team, racing through corridors, taking out bots, and it felt an awful lot like a mission back home. The Galra used a lot of sentry robots, so slashing through them with his blades was nothing new. Even at a distance, Keith had deadly aim when it came to throwing one of his swords (oddly a lot better than his aim when shooting a gun), and he made quite path for others to follow.

As they reached the room, he picked up on the energy right away.]

It's... like a singing planet...?

[At the back of his mind, amidst the hope and singing from the core they now faced, something nagged about those dreams and past messages he'd heard and been exposed to... sisters, help them, save them...]

Wait- is this a- ah!

[As the room shuddered and sprayed sparks, the cry of pain from the core hit him harder than he expected. Maybe because they were so close to it, he wasn't sure, but it was almost like when the Lions took a bad hit... it hurt.

He looked at Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.]

How do we help it?

[queenmonarch]

It's... yeah, I think it is just like-- Shit!

[ She's mostly steady on her feet when the room starts to rock, but even she grimaces when the core cries out. ]

I don't-- I'm not sure. I don't know what's happening. [ She rushes over to the console most directly attached to the glass enclosure. ] I'm gonna see if this one is more useful than the others. Can you, I don't know, talk to it?

[ 'Cause she's like 99.9999% sure someone else is going to be WAY better suited to talking to a sentient core light planet magic whatever thing than, you know, the supervillain who would prefer not to be nice to things. ]

Science time!

[unbearablynaive]

[Entering the room with the Core sparks a fierce satisfaction. He'd been right about the singing planets! Cautiously, aware that this consciousness would be able to burn out even his mind if not careful, he extends a handshake protocol over the electronic systems in the room. He projects his emotions as well as words, knowing it might not work but thinking it must be worth a try. The stone in his forehead begins to pulse in time with the heartbeat.]

You're not alone any longer. How do we help you?

[And in the meantime, he approaches the monitors. They may not be manned now, but there must be some kind of useful information here.]

It has consciousness. I can feel its mind. This setup is hurting it. We must find a way to stop the pain.

[seeingscarlet]

[The room shakes and Wanda stumbles, gripping at Vision's arm and gritting her teeth at the sudden wave of pain. This mind is too vast to block out completely and Wanda's not sure she wants to. Like she'd thought the first time she'd touched it months ago...something here is suffering.

Unlike many of the others here, Wanda doesn't have much in the way of technical knowledge to actually fix this, but if the light can tell them what's wrong, maybe that won't matter so much.]

I feel it too. [She looks up at him, brow furrowed.] Can we cut any of these wires?

Lup - OTA

[necromanswers]

( a. attacking the marsiva )

[Lup had been on edge since they left the last planet, since that final warning from their friends on the other side that things were coming to a head, and soon. Each day she chose her spells carefully- for offense, for communication, for protecting those around her- and each day she conserved her energy as much as she could to stay prepped for whatever came next. Finally, the message arrives, and Lup is hella ready.]

Body on the bridge, nobody touch it!

[And that's all the warning she offers to her crewmates before she straps herself into a seat and drags her lich soul loose, abandoning what looks more or less like her own dead body behind, and her spectral form passes through the front of the ship and flies towards the Marsiva at top speed, her hands already crackling with arcane energy. As soon as she's close enough, her first attack is a concentrated meteor strike, just like last time, and this time she takes aim at the parts of the ship that were still left damaged from the previous attack, seeking to reverse any repairs it'd done for itself since that day. It's her heaviest spell, and it takes the most toll, but she figures it's best to do the most damage before too many others in the fleet get close to it- she'd hate to have collateral damage, and she can only sculpt her spells around so many people.

After that she'll be flinging spell after spell as quickly as possible, weaving around the other attacks headed its way. She's trying not to use all her magic, since there's surely more to come, but destruction is also her speciality, so she's put to good use here.]


( b. inside the ship )

[Eventually Lup makes her way inside; most of her big-damage spells have been used, the ships outside have the Marsiva covered, and she's worried about what might be going on within. She's still in her lich form, not taking the time the return to the ship, not wanting to arrive too late to help or save someone who might be in trouble.

She's floating from corridor to corridor, looking for familiar faces and trying to take down anything non-friendly that gets in her (or their) way. Just don't try to stab the spooky monster helping you out, okay? Please?]