World Tree MUSH

    "Aite, we have a bit of a situation." Rebecca says loading her shotgun casually in the spacious back of the van being driven to the mission zone. The man driving the van, Falco, is dressed like something right out of a cowboy flick, complete with the requisite mustache.
    "There's this ripperdoc on the outskirts of Rancho Coronado." This isn't anything new if people took the job from the fixer that set this up, but Rebecca is just giving a recap.
    "Turns out he's gone stone silent and a bunch of his regular visitors have gone missing, and their families want it looked into. So they hired the fixer that's hired us all tonight." She says as the van comes to a stop.
    "Falco'll be waiting for us not too far from here, we can call him to leave when it's time to go." She says hopping out the back.
    The van has driven the party to a desolate place on the outskirts of Night City, the desert and wasteland are creeping in an attempt to reclaim the city as dusty winds blow harsh and scathing.
    Rebecca points to a squat building about a block away.
    "That's our joint." The solo says, already marching towards it and opening the door.

Somehow, Neviah Younger keeps getting roped into these things. She has no idea why. She has no idea why this is a legitimate route of funding for her. She has literally zero clue and it drives her bonkers in the dark recesses of her mind.

Maybe there will be some trace of the world she's lost. maybe not. nevertheless, the professor's tucked into the back of the van, bundled up into her high-collared coat and turtleneck, her Enfield-Snider rifle resting beside her with a few rounds tucked into her belt. She listens to Rebecca explain things, lips pursed and chin tucked, wordless behind her glasses.

They arrive soon enough. Slipping a bullet into her rifle, Neviah keeps herself low as she slinks up alongside Rebecca and squints towards the building.

"It looks imposing," she murmurs, only to blink when Rebecca just heads for the door.

The professor gasps. So much for sneaking in.

    Catra, to her credit, had been napping the entire trip. Only when the van comes to a halt does she wake up and blink. "Huh? Wha? We here yet?" she yawns and stretches, having been using Melog as a cushion. The feline creature yawns, too, and bumps Catra with its nose. "Yeah yeah, I'm up, I'm up..." she mumbles and hauls herself out of the van, adjusting her jacket. She's adopted that kanabo as her own by this point and the heavy nubby bat is the only weapon she's got on her.

    The sight of the harsh desert outskirts gives her pause, "Whoa. This reminds me of the time I got banished to the badlands and became the leader of a gang. Huh! That doesn't sound half bad. That was fun..." she grins and looks at the building. "So missing persons, probably got ganked, and we're here to figure it out and up the body count?" she asks casually, turning to look at Rebecca as she jerks a clawed thumb behind her towards the structure.

    Scavenger's here. Old habits die hard, and you can take the merc out of the biz, but you can't take the biz out of the merc. She does take a moment to look up what a Ripperdoc is, and a couple of other important tangental facts before speaking up... following after Rebecca silently with the practiced grace of a long-time wet-worker. "So, a back-alley cybernetics expert's gone silent and a lot of people have started going missing?" she confirms. "Sounds like he's gone murderous to me." she looks at the others. "Keep your heads in the game. I don't want to have to save any of you."

    The Zalak shifts her gear-rig, and rests a hand on the blue grip of the carbon nanomaterial katana she picked up on the last gig as she follows Rebecca in the door.

    Last time Hyouka came to this world, she came in her usual 'relatively stylish track pants and hoodie'. It's a good look for her! It works pretty well, if you can get past the fact it looks like an elf is wearing track pants and a hoodie. But that outfit got... well, a little shot up. And while she does have other similar pieces, she's not keen to get those shot up as well.

    So this time Hyouka is here in cheapo sweat pants and an old tanktop. It probably looks absolutely ridiculous alongside Rebecca, really. Especially with her not having equipped the FISTEAU yet. She's just... an elf-looking woman in sweats and a tanktop, walking alongside a tiny girl with blue-white skin, pink tats and heavy firepower. "So, the doc's gone silent, all of his patients have disappeared..." She frowns, glancing Scavenger's way. "That's one possibility. Could also be a third party. Did something to the doc, and is abducting his patients as they come in. No way to know until we get a look inside."

    Another van ride to certain death! Someone's, probably. Whose is up in the air as always, seemingly. Marceline doesn't make a fuss about riding in the van, though naturally with less room in the van, she's hauled her hefty axe-bass along. Just to steal away those last few centimeters of elbow room. She's at least made some effort to police her hair, having hauled it into a hasty bun. She's wearing gnarled up jeans, some Night City style sneakers and an ancient band tee with THAGOMIZER emblazoned across the chest.

    She's tapping at the strings in a rhythmic fashion, clearly playing out a tune but mercifully, the guitar emits no sound behind the rattle of strings. When the van stops, she's nothing but hasty to get out and stretch her legs! She raises into the air, scans around, "So disappeared peeps and no word from anyone directly involved, cool. Could be some kinda monster biz out here needs crackin up." She turns a dial on her guitar and the instrument grumbles as she trails the group.

    "Yo, anyone wanna bet me this time what we'll find in there? Ooop- Nevermind."

    Hasty Becca gonna stop her from being almost-right like with the refridgerator. She grins down at Hyouka, "Decided to roll out with the comfortable look too? Diggin it." Scav gets a bemused look and Catra a raised eyebrow.

    "Yeah? Ran a gang? How was that?"

  Agent Anneka Stojespal has tagged along with the others, crouched in the back of the van. Dressed in agency standard light combat gear (bulletproof vest, fatigues with lots of pockets, combat boots), she's spent her time checking her ICER pistol. She also wears a light comm headset, presumably linked to her talking jet and her boss.

  Out they go, and she follows the others out of the back of the van, squinting into the harsh wind of the hinterlands. She follows after Rebecca with a shrug, looking ahead as she tucks the ICER back into its holster. For the moment. A hand rises to tap her headset to check it before her attention returns to the area.

  She doesn't offer any conjecture. There's not much point. Instead, she keeps half her focus on the area around them, and half on the conversation around her.

  "Leads?" she grates out, to Rebecca. Do they know what they're looking for, or are they just rattling around blindly hoping to get lucky?

    Rebecca pauses briefly at the door to look at her assembled crew. And raises a brow at Neviah's rifle.
    "... Single shot breech-loader? How OLD is that iron?" She asks incredulously before rummaging around in her jacket. Producing a Lexington handgun she passes it over to the Cambridge professor with the ease of handing in her assignments as though she were passing over something more mundane and less life ending.
    "It's cheap but it'll do better in close quarters. Keep it. Or don't. I don't care."
    "Yeah, they probably got ganked." She asides to Catra as the door swings open into darkness. A set of stairs lead down into that darkness and Rebecca's lashes flutter before her pink-green eyes glimmer in the darkness like a cat's eyes as she swings her shotgun in front of her and takes point.
    "Leads? ... My guess is the ripper's totally behind it and we're walking into a bloodbath."
    She's honest at least as she reaches the bottom and flicks on a light switch.
    The ripper's clinic is... a mess. Brown-red stains blot the floor and walls, a hospital style bed-chair is in the center of the room and it's sticky with dried blood. A door leads to the back half-ajar, but the clinic is eerily silent. ... Too silent.

    "Aw c'mon, not even me? Catra grins at Scavenger, giving her wink. Melog makes a noise somewhere between a mix of 'rawrf' and a yawn. The bipedal feline just blinks, "What? I'm teasing. I can take care of myself." she grumps, cheeks darkening slightly. "Besides, what could be in here? Bunch of scavengers? Rival gang? Bill collectors? Zombies?! Is it zombies?" she laughs. Then to Marcy's question about the gang earns a shrug.

    "Kind of sucked, to be honest. You usually just get a bunch of spineless sycophants ready to flinch and beg the moment you make a sudden movement. Or anyone with half a shot of moxie feels like they can either pull a fast one on you or take over when you're not looking..." Her shoulders slump and her expression sours. "It was better running the army. Loyal soldiers... heavy artillery..." she counts on her fingers. "But the food sucked annnnnnd..." she trails off, her ears laying flat. "...we were the bad guys. I don't want to talk about it. Let's go."

    And then in they go. Her nose wrinkles at the smell of blood and the stains on the walls downstairs. "Huh... yeah no this feels off..." her ears perk back up and she grips her kanabo in both hands like she's swinging for the parking lot.

"About thirty or forty years old?" Neviah answers Rebecca with a quick blink, looking down at her rifle. "It's surplus from the Royal Army...."

She's handed a pistol, and she holds it up as if she has no idea which end is the boomy end. Turning it over awkwardly a couple of times, she blinks. "...Thanks...?" she manages, blushing before looking off to one side. As the group follows Rebecca into the lab, the professor melts to the back of the line.

It gives her a moment to look off into the distance and spend a moment alone with her thoughts.

    /They all think I'm a useless joke, don't they?/
    /And they're right./
    /I'm just a useless lump surviving on the charity of other worlds!/

It's a morose Neviah who finally slips through the door, keeping the new pistol tucked close to herself and keeping her eyes away from anyone's faces. The lab, at least, provides no shortage of things to look at - most of them deeply unpleasant.

At another time, Neviah might hurl herself into investigating in detail. She doesn't. She pulls herself into a darker part of the room, too preoccupied with her own self-loathing to contribute.

    Scavenger's nose also wrinkles at the stench of dried blood and death. The triangular ears atop her head lifting to try and catch any sound other than the group's own movements. "Too quiet." she murmurs, clutching the hilt of the katana a little tighter as she moves toward the door at the back of the room.

    Hyouka glances over her shoulder at Marceline, and responds with a wry look. "Well, the 'cheap and easy to replace' look, but it's pretty comfortable too, I suppose."

    Rebecca, meanwhile, has a very cheery guess as to what they're likely to find. A guess that's looking more and more likely when they get into the clinic. It's now that everyone discovers Hyouka doesn't actually have to yell 'Fisto, ON!' to activate her FISTEAU units. Because she just... does so. Her forearms split open, pieces and components fold out and assemble themselves from the pocket of magical space within, and in seconds, she has two massive gauntlets aglow with Lightning-aspected mana. "This... this place looks like a horror movie," she observes dryly. DARGN adds a soft, "I'm inclined to believe it was the doc's doing at this point as well."

    "Hey, old weaps still deserve some respect. Things'll croak you just the same as anything new." Marcy thumbs her nose, seeming mollified that a solution was at least offered to the rifle-chick she doesn't know.

    "Nnf. Word. Hey, uh... You pulled up from that nose dive, at least..." Her gaze sweeps the room and her nose flattens into a bat-like spade shape. She sniffs a few times. "Yup, mad crazy stink. Lemme-"

    As she drifts further into her room, she tries to pick out different blood-smells. Maybe put together a rough count of how many different people may have found an untimely end here. It'll take some focus, enough that she's at least stopped playing with her guitar. For now. Feral green eyes fix on Gloomy Gus Neviah taking up a corner all to herself. Huh.

    "Anyway, here, someone hold this." She unslings her bass and sticks it out into the air, presuming someone will just take it and hold it. Maybe Hyouka!

    She'll wait a few beats before shifting into an outright canine form to sniff around in a little more detail.

    Her voice clear as crystal despite a completely different bod shape, she asks, "How many peeps do we think were croaked? I'm trying to count smells. Good thing nobody's showed up trying to turn our insides into our outsides, right?" She grins up at Anneka of all people. Which, as some manner of overfuzzy canid, just makes her look like she's viciously baring her teeth.

  There's no reason to expect any of this to end well. Anneka looks down, drawing her ICER pistol and smoothly thumbing its safety. As the light turns on her gaze rakes across the room, single eye sharp as a hawk's. First impression is 'blood.' Second impression is 'not that old.' Third, as she looks up and spins slowly on her heel to survey the room, is 'too quiet.'

  Half a glance is cast back to the talking cat, who is, evidently, talking too much for the agent's tastes.

  The exchange with the rifle is observed quietly, and Anneka's eye follows Neviah as the professor fades to the back of the line like snow in summer. She looks on for a long moment before picking up the pace to keep up.

  Scavenger's comment earns a curt nod from the agent, long red hair bobbing beneath her cap. "I agree," she murmurs, gaze scanning the shadows--

  Movement at the periphery of her vision; Anneka turns on her heel just in time to see the FISTEAU units finish assembling themselves. That eye widens subtly, distinctly impressed, and... Marceline is staring at her. The agent clears her throat uncomfortably. Focus.

  For now, she keeps an eye (...ha) on the periphery.

    Marceline does eventually stop being a creep and puts her nose back to work, claws tap tapping on the floor as she head for the back. Sniff sniff SNIFF.

    Rebecca, clueless of Neviah's feelings of inadequacy, hands off the pistol and gets to sweeping the room. But it's as Scavenger says... It's too quiet. And while Hyouka gets ready for a fight, and Marcy tries to scent all the blood well.
    There's a lot of old dry blood. About six or seven people's worth.
    "About Seven people have gone missing." Rebecca replies to Marcy as...
    Something in the back room CLANKS loudly.
    Rebecca swivels her shotgun that way and narrows her eyes.
    "We might not be alone. Keep on your toes."
    The back room is just as dark, and there's no light switch, but Rebecca can see clear as day, which might be why the solo issues a hushed "Fffffuckkkk..." Under her breath.
    In the darkness something- a hand- brushes on Anneka's shoulder.
    "I don't think you want me to find the light switch in this room." Rebecca notes quietly, her darkvision- and anyone else that can see in the dark- will make out the shapes of limbs hanging from the ceiling and walls. Arms, legs, mantis blades... Lots of them. All cybernetic in nature, but it's still probably unnerving to say the least.
    That's when a flicker of light and the smell of electricity comes from the next door over.
    And a laugh.
    "EUGHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!"

The fact that there's danger in the air isn't lost on Neviah. She's just doubtful anyone would bother to try and save her when the threat inevitably emerges. She looks down at the lent pistol again, fussing with it a little as if to try and puzzle out where the bullets go, before pursing her lips and shaking her head as if to try and force down the self-reproof.

She feels /stupid./ For just a moment, the urge to turn the pistol on someone occurs to her. She forces it down and looks up again, eyes sharpening as she tries to focus in on the horrific scene that is the lab.

"I'd guess six or seven people," she murmurs after just a couple seconds' assessment, just as Rebecca reminds how many people have gone missing.

Adjusting her glasses in the minimal light, Neviah maneuvers through the room and out of her pouting shadow, trying to find a place where she's not going to get shot first. It doesn't help that she has no idea where the danger's coming from - but as she passes in just the right way that the light from this or that source is briefly intersected, she pauses. She looks up at the ceiling, biting firmly down to her lip.

All of a sudden, she doesn't want to know.

There's a flash of light, and a cackle. Neviah jumps a couple of feet and hisses with surprise before collecting herself with a brisk shake. Cradling her new gun like she would her old Tranter, she glances towards where she figures Rebecca is, then swallows her gorge and tries something that is probably ill-considered, yet makes sense to her and her need to feel like she means a hoot to anyone.

She slips ahead of the others, towards the door, and rests a hand on the handle, ready to make entry unless someone stops her.

    Hyouka is very much considering grabbing that guitar with one huge hand, but...

    Something in the back room clanks.

    It probably looks kind of hilarious to see a superhumanly fast cyborg, with superhuman reflexes and massive smash-fist forearms, just about jump out of her skin.

    By the time they all head into the back room, the FISTEAU gauntlets are glowing a bit brighter along the purple mana circuit lines lacing their surface. She moves in at the front of the group, or at the very least one of the vanguard, and when Rebecca murmurs a rather unnerving caution about the light in here, the faux elf cautiously lifts her fists up into a guarded stance. And for a second time, about jumps through the roof when someone cackles in the next room.

    Catra sighs, "Shot down..." she mumbles, shaking her head. "Hey, head back outside, keep an eye out in case someone comes in?" she gestures for Melog to head out and watch their backs. The cat-creature just vanishes and it's off and out of sight. She turns just in time to nod to Marceline, "Yeah. It uh. It was pretty bad. Not my proudest moment. But I was a kick-ass commander!" she puffs out her chest for a second and then takes the axe, hanging her kanabo from her belt. "So wait you can play this -and- use it for head-hunting?"

    She 'wields' it while Marceline does the hunting hound schtick and just follows along. She's not exactly the best at running an investigation, herself. But then that next room and she squints into the darkness. "Oh. Whoa. Never seen -anything- like this. Not in the badlands, not in the Fright Zone... what kind of crazies do you *have* around here?" she asks, rhetorically, after literally fighting Tyger Claws and Maelstrom already. And then, right on cue, the sound from the next room. Her ears flatten and she sighs, "I just had to ask.." she mutters.

  About seven people have gone missing. The volume of blood corroborates that, and Anneka's mouth sets into a grim line made even more grim by her scars. Her eye darts toward the darkness of the back door. As Rebecca swivels her shotgun, Anneka pivots on her heel, training her ICER on the same location as--

  Clank.

  About six things happen in sequence.

  A hand brushes Anneka's shoulder. Anneka shrieks. The agent jumps out of her skin, pivots, and leaps away. She lands in a half-crouch, ICER drawn and ready. Nerves buzzing, it takes her two or three ragged breaths to slow down the madcap pounding of her heart. That was fun.

  The ICER whips around toward the sound of laughter. Is this the... what did she call him? Razor boy? No, something else... Anneka glances at Rebecca, before tossing her chin towards the source of the laughter. That our ripperdoc? As she does the agent is already moving to fetch up against the nearest wall, using whatever's handy for cover and making every attempt to melt into the shadows.

  Seems she forgets that if these people have augments to their eyes, they can just see her anyway.

    "Reminds me of a job back home... stank more, and the hanging bits were starting to rot." remarks the Zalak with a disgusted tone. She draws her katana now, preparing to just go in and shank the guy doing this, when the clank and laugh sound from the back.

    Any element of surprise is likely lost with Anneka's shriek of surprise, so Scavenger crouches slightly, resheaths her blade and gets into a stance some might recognize. Wide legs, hand hovering over the grip of the katana, back straight but angled forward, as if she's about to start running.

    Nose to the ground, Marceline, despite fixing her vision to be more dark-friendly, doesn't see much of what's going on. Ears swivel around, following people's movements and speech.

    "Huh, yeah. My dad left itwith me when I was still a kid and for something to do, I turned his boring old battle axe into a bass guitar after I found a mall with a mostly intact guitar store."

    The thunk raises the hair along her back and she freezes at the door, a growl boiling up from her chest as she pushes into the dark. Being lower to the ground, though still fairly huge for a wolf-dog-thing, she's lucky enough to not be touched by any hanging limbs.

    "Hnh. Six or seven, I think..." She shoots Neviah another look. "Dang, you got some chops to pick that out with just a look. Nice goin- Hey, where-" Then Anneka shrieks!

    She joins in with a startled yelp, reverting hastily back to her fully humanoid base form. "What the dank?!?" Lifting from the floor thoughtlessly, her field of view is filled with the severed limbs of many departed folks. Then there's the cackling. "Rrrrgh, guess that's our dude?"

    "These things aren't like. Gonna come to life again and grab onto anyone, right?" If anyone wsn't thinking about that before...!

    People aren't taking a room full of severed cybernetic limbs too well. Rebecca called it. But that is to kind of be expected after the bloodbath in the room prior.
    That laugh though...
    "That's probably our ripperdoc, yeah." The solo mutters to Anneka once the SHIELD agent has calmed down. "My guess?" She asides to Catra. "He's probably short-circ'd. ... Gone cyberpsycho."
    Rebecca makes her way along the wall to the door, pink and green glowing cat's eyes turning to the group as she makes a hand gesture. And then counts down on her fingers...
    Three... Two... One...
    Kicking in the door to the next room, shotgun raised, Rebecca... Lowers her gun slowly.
    "Ah. Holy shit."
    The ripperdoc is there alright, his arms replaced with surgical hands- scalpels and pliers and needles on every finger, cackling as he works on the twitching body of one of his victims, cyber-eyes wild and buzzing with static before he turns on the group, grinning widely.
    "What do you think...? What do you think of my masterpiece?"
    His masterpiece being a mass of writhing cybernetics and organics in a hard to decipher configuration of limbs- each with one too many blades on them.
    "He's gone full cyberpsycho." Rebecca says, disgusted and pitying.
    But this only seems to incense the ripperdoc.
    "Cyberpsycho? CYBERPSYCHO? Ahaha... AHAH! EUGHAHAHAHAHA!" He cackles, crowing madly with laughter as he presses a button on the nearby computer terminal.
    This makes his 'masterpiece' shudder. It jerks and twitches to life before lurching at the group, bladed limbs screeching as they slice at the air.

With a glance at Marceline, Neviah inclines her head, but she doesn't have much to say. She's trying to keep her voice down right now. If there's any hope of surprise, it'll have to be short-term and situational - the laugher may know they're there, but they can push down the railroad faster than anticipated.

Rebecca kicks in the door before Neviah can open it. The professor blinks, twice.

And behind the door, there he is, fully expecting them. Neviah's experience with cyber-technology is scant; to her, the array of static and mechanical parts is as baffling as any magic, the cybernetic amalgam of limbs and flesh and machinery as horrifying as anything spewed from the mind of some future writer of eldritch horror tales. Neviah draws in a breath.

    'What do you think of my masterpiece?'

Neviah answers by immediately taking two steps forward, leveling her pistol and unloading what must be the full clip at the thing without so much as a hello.

    The ripperdoc has probably gone cyberpsycho.

    Hyouka grimaces. "You'd think a ripperdoc of all people would understand the risks..." But she's still moving, sticking right by Rebecca, FISTEAU at the ready. As soon as Rebecca kicks the door open, the elven cyborg hurls herself up-and-over, coming up in a roll onto one knee with her fists cocked. And... she too, stops, face slowly dropping into a rictus of horror. "Th... oh god..."

    The utter revulsion in her voice is plain to hear.

    But already, the violet lines along the FISTEAU begin to glow brighter, arcs of lightning jumping along the massive gauntlets. She stands herself up, with a deep frown, glances once or twice back and forth between the doctor and his 'masterwork'... and then wordlessly lunges in. Her first blow deflects a bladed limb with the supernatural toughness of her FISTEAU's armor, crackling with a discharge of lighting - and then the second comes around in a low, powerful uppercut, swinging the opposite arm for the center of mass with a heavy burst of magical energy to go along with it.

  Oh, so cybernetics can drive a person nuts, too. Anneka's expression seems to say, Isn't that charming? She shakes her head before turning to watch Rebecca's count. Three, two, one, let's jam.

  She barrels into the doorway with her ICER upraised, and promptly blunders into Rebecca. "--Shit--" Then she sees what's behind Rebecca. "--SHIT--" She's also watching as the ripperdoc triggers something on a terminal. "Aw, shit..."

  The ICER whips between the ripperdoc and the ripperdoc's work of art. She doesn't seem to know which one to track, and finally reaches up to thumb her headset with her free hand. "Val. Get your ass to my coordinates. Tell Philip Coulson to get a medical team ready." She swallows, looking up at the 'masterpiece.'

  Yeah she's probably gonna need those medics. The agent raises her ICER and fires at the least bladed-looking spot on the... whatever that thing even is. Was. Whatever. Anneka fires quickly, but it isn't the rapidity of panic-fire. Her shots are measured, and her eye is steely. She's making a genuine effort to concentrate. Her aim is a little... compromised.

  Her head tilts towards Rebecca, but she never stops looking at her target as she shouts. "What the hell!?" Because seriously, what the hell'.

    "So not zombies?" Catra peeks into the room as the noise starts up. The cackling. The whirring. The grinding. The *THING*. "Oh. Sort of a zombie. Worse than a zombie..." she grouses and looks to Marceline. She tosses the axe back to her, "Love the idea, here! All yours!" she shouts. And then she's dashing through.

    The nimble catte isn't looking to get in the thick of it. There's people with guns, big axes, big fists, and a *sword* here. She'd rather not get in the way. But she's got a target of opportunity. The mad doctor. And if there's something Catra is good at, it's dodging blades and flailing limbs. "Oh come on, Horde training was harder!" she huffs and snatches her kanabo up in both hands.

    Avoiding the swings and swipes, she darts forward to go for the knockout blow: A big metal bat upside the Doctor's head.

    Things getting mad cray pretty quick. Marceline sucks in a breath despite not really needing to, brushes a dangling arm away from her face as she approaches the door everyone's stacking on. Peeps being careful, then Rebecca just kicks the thing in. She laughs, the small solo's audacity weirdly charming despite the tense situation.

    Her eyes rove to Catra and she reaches out, snatching the thing out of the air with a smoothness that hints at her literal centuries of handling the thing. No time for a reply- Go time!

    Everyone jamming up in the doorway makes her do something risky. She flies in over the top of everyone's heads!

    In her short burst of speed, while perhaps not remaining totally clear of the risk of friendly fire, she makes a line to the cyberlimb spider and snarls, "It's ugly and it stinks! If this is your masterpiece you'd be better off polishing dook!" She twirls mid-flight, bulding momentum that she puts into an axe swing she at least hopes will cleave the monster apart. Or at the very least will take a few limbs out of the fight.

    "..." Scavenger is silent as the scene plays out. The ripperdoc displays his 'Masterpiece' and then sics it on them. She holds as Neviah mag-dumps the monstrocity, clicking her katana out of its lock with a thumb.

    A breath.

    Hyouka dive-rolls in, and slugs the thing with surges of lightning, arcs dancing across the limbs. Scavenger's main hand grasps the hilt of her katana.

    Release.
    Anneka fires her ICER at the 'Masterpiece', measured shots. Scavenger's stance tightens just a little bit more.

    A breath.

    Catra bypasses the monster to go after its master. Good, one less body to get in the path. Muscles shift as she readies herself, a flicker of golden light limming in her eyes as she gathers her Art.

    Release.

    Marceline goes high, clearing part of the path for the Zalak and swinging her axe down from above. Perfect.

    A Breath, hold.

    Scavenger's body uncoils like a compressed spring. She darts forwards unnaturally fast, juking between Anneka, Rebecca and Neviah. Once past them, she lets her breath go in a sharp kiai, her katana flashing across the monster of amalgamated cybernetics. By the time she comes to a stop on the other side, the blade is back in its sheath. She clicks it back into its lock with a note of finality.

>> GAME >> Scavenger spends an Edge for: Heroic Sword Maneuver: Azai Slash

    The chaos is fast, but... Oddly controlled, all things considered.
    Neviah opens up with a full semi-auto fussilade of 21 rounds, gunshots ringing through the clinic loud and clarion. Hyouka swings in, massive gauntlets pummeling into the construct with brutal force with that haymaker of an uppercut...
    "I see it! I SEE IT!" Rebecca replies to Anneka's demands to know just what the hell they're looking at, the pint sized solo unloading her shotgun at it as ICER rounds pelt the thing in its organics... Because it has organic... Pieces among all that circuitry.
    Marcy's axe cleaves into the THING, shearing off limbs and sending them flying and writhing before...
    Scavenger takes three breaths and holds it...
    "Jesus CHRIST." Rebecca blurts as the zalak darts by, Scalpel in hand and cleaves the damaged monstrosity apart.
    It's a good thing Catra goes for the ripperdoc, kanabo in hand. He's not trying to get away, he's just standing there, cackling. At least until Catra's kanabo makes contact with his skull, dropping him like a sack of potatos. That seems to be the end of it and Rebecca heaves a sigh as she loads a single shell into her shotgun.
    Pacing over slowly she stands herself over the KO'd ripperdock. She levels the shotgun to his face.
    She pulls the trigger with a resounding BLAM.
    Only once that's done does she heave a sigh.
    "Fuckin hell, this was a job for Maxtac not us."

The shots, in fairness, are not /super/ on target. Future guns fire faster than the state of the Victorian art that Neviah's used to; after four or five shots she's struggling to keep the bullets going dead centre. A few of them ping off of bits of scenery.

It works out, at least. By the time she's out of bullets, she's stumbling back to thump against the wall, looking on with silent horror as the others hack into the amalgam of metal and flesh that is the abomination before them.

Neviah Younger covers her mouth after a few more seconds, her cheeks taking on a slightly green tinge. "Urk...."

    Scavenger stands once the melee is done. She doesn't flinch at the execution, but her ears pin down as she turns to leave again. "You know where to send my cut... I'm going to go take a shower... a long one." is all she says, kicking a hacked off limb out of the way as she makes to head back out into the open air.

    Outside, the stoic Zalak lets out the breath she'd been holding on the way through the morgue, thumbing her pad to send a message back to Rhodes Island. <"Might need a new Infection Monitor."> is all she sends, as the ring of metal and lights flickers, ZZZTs, and breaks... falling from her arm in two useless scraps of plastic and burned circuits.

    "As someone who has been on multiple front lines of literal warzones..." Catra pants, staring down at the fallen doctor and the absolute mess the rest of the group made of the weird beast. "...fighting with this many people in such a small space really sucks..." she sighs, her shoulders slumping. She steps back, though, when Rebecca approaches and blinks when she finishes the job. "I couldn't tell if I broke the guy's neck or not with that..." she twirls her bat and secures it. "...but uh... are these guys... just not curable?" she asks, frowning.

    "Like we had robots and weird stuff like this on Etheria but nothing that ever... made anyone go insane..." she pokes the body of the doctor with one of her toe claws. "Anyway. I'm hungry..." she puts her hands up behind her head and makes ready to head outside to catch up with Melog. What a weird catgirl. She looks back over her shoulder at the group, though, and grins. "Marcy! Gotta show me how that axe sings when you're not playing surgeon. And Scavenger... you uh... Can you teach me how to do that sword thing? That was... *amazing!*"

    Then she rubs the side of her head, "...we're not walking back are we?"

    Shing! The axe cleaves clean and fast, sending limbs flying! She's quick enough to avoid being anywhere near Scavenger's spectacular finishing blow and she offers an appreciative whistle. That's promptly drowned out by Becca's final parting shot through whatever's left of the doc's brain meats.

    "Huh, dang. Kinda cold." She pokes a finger into one of her ears and twists, grimacing. "So I guess I'm not very used to gunshots. That stuff sucks indoors."

    Scav leaves, she turns to the group. "Wizards are almost all this crazy back home. Happens to all of em eventually." One shoulder lifts in a shrug and her shirt falls from it, showing a bra strap. "Anyway, job's done. Pay's comin. Still dunno what else I'm gonna spend that on." Odd thing to worry about, considering what we're surrounded by. Guess dank tombs full of gruesome corpses aren't really weird where she's from either?

    It ends in a brief but furious cascade of violence, and Hyouka is left breathing heavily afterward - telling, given that technically she doesn't need to breathe at all. The FISTEAU units break themselves down and retreat within her arms again; she straightens up, looking around the doctor's 'OR' with a frown that borders on a grimace. "...there won't be any more victims, I guess, but..." But they were too late to save the ones that already disappeared.

    Sigh.
    "Cyberpsychosis is a one way trip." Rebecca says with an almost tired finality. Anyone paying close attention to the usually boisterous and smart-aleck solo might see a tinge of a sad expression fluttering across her face for a beat, before her expression hardens.
    "You dumb fuck." She spits, kicking the dead ripper's corpse hard. Again. And again. And again.
    "It's always a one way trip. And it never ends well for the victim or the people that wind up being their victims." Rebecca says as she turns and heads out the clinic. Falco will be waiting in the van outside.