World Tree MUSH

    It'sa bright California afternoon, the weather's a little on the warmer side and there's trouble afoot... The Santa Lucia Mountains are home to various hiking paths and trails and campgrounds, but it would seem that rumors of missing children have been plaguing the region of late. Just five days ago, Brick McCready, his brother Boomer, and their friend Butch vanished near the Upper Lopez Campground. This has of course gotten the attention of a certain angel, who has decided that some divine intervention may be necessary.
    Castiel is in her human guise, speaking with one of the local rangers at the meeting point. She's... Not exactly dressed or prepared or a hike, in her white dress and sandals. Especially on hearing that the trail is considered... Difficult. It's VERY popular for backpacking, camping, and hiking, but the trail is unmaintained and has many obstacles, especially with overgrowth that makes following the trail difficult at points.
    "Yeah they went missing just a few days ago. I'd be careful if I were you." The ranger warns. "There's also been reports of some escaped fugitives running into the mountains, too; normally we wouldn't be letting... Anyone go in times like this, but finding the children is important, so if you wanna join the search party..."

In most circumstances, Itana el-Zayl is a loner. Castiel makes her feel differently. There's something wholesomely gentle about the girl that makes her want to protect her.

The apparently human angel has a chaperone in the form of totally normal hiker auntie, Tanya L. Zelle. This mostly takes the form of Itana trying to fit in with the locals by putting on a plaid button-up, a pair of jeans and a baseball cap. The cap is green and has text on it reading 'MAN, I LOVE FAUNA.'

Itana can't read the hat. She can't read anything, to be honest.

"We will be cautious, of course," she assures. Her disguise is undercut somewhat by her inability to dampen the slightly clipped accent she has by nature. "But it wouldn't do to let this problem go unaddressed. I promise nothing will happen to this one."

She pats Castiel on the shoulder, once. Her expression doesn't change.

    Magic Sigil, flash of light, suddenly robot. You know the drill by now.

    This model is a little bit more slender in frame. It's shock white, and a bit moe 'alien' looking with its singula red optic, large claw graspers on each limb and slightly insectoid makeup. It's start-up sound is likely the most disquieting part, as it's chirpy, and crackles faintly, before shifting to Justina's normal voice. "Captain Justina Thyme, Centrian Expeditionary Space Force. I am here to assist in any way I can."

    The Doll farme clacks its graspers, then settles ove into a quadrupedal stance, its singular optic tracking around.

    A distressingly large number of the people involved with this request are... decidedly uncouth. The elders of the Shuzenji clan have their doubts. But Matsu was, for once, able to convince them, by pushing on a single, important point: 'We'd be getting on the good side of a divine being.'

    The fact she empathizes more with the 'common man' than with hoity-toity nobles has nothing to do with it. Totally not. Not in the least. No sir.

    Shh.

    But at least Castiel's in good company. The tiny girl with the white hair and red eyes is also not dressed for desert hiking. "...the elders are going to be incredibly cross with me when they see my clothes," she observes idly. Not that she seems particularly bothered by this.

    Normally Dante doesn't really care for the hot sunny weather. His complexion burns easily, and it's a pain having to deal with that. But job's a job, so after a shitload of sunscreen, Dante's here with some cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt that advertises Tako Bell with a cute squid girl mascot on it. Munching on some takoyaki, Dante waves a hand as he cracks up at ITana's cap. And infuriatingly, he refuses to elaborate on why it's so funny. At the very least, the weather's pretty cool in Santa Lucia.

    When he recognizes Matsu, he grins and nods at the phoenix miko. "Oh hey, been a minute, how ya doin' Matsu?"

    And so, Castiel has herself a search party. There's a slight huff at the hand on her shoulder, but when she turns her head to Itana, she's beaming rather brightly. Then there's Captain Thyme's arrival, in a new machine that makes the blonde blink slowly. Justina is probably the most prepared for the hike here as a result. "Captain Thyme, Dante, hello."
    Then her attention turns to Matsu, and for a long moment she stares.
    "You..." She stares for a good long beat as though unsure how to react to the Phoenix Maiden's presence before she finally settles on dipping into a formal curtsey that lasts for a few beats before she rights herself.
    Ahem.
    "I ah... I'm thankful you're all here to help me with this..." She says a little sheepish at first, hemming and hawing for a moment as she tries to find some words but then decides it's simply better to start fumbling her way down the trail...
    Now, the first four and a half miles of the trek are pretty easy, flat trail, several other groups of search parties along the path. But then the party reaches the trailhead for Lopez. There's a sign, and it's littered with notes from various hikers all saying the trail is impassable, warning of narrow switchbacks and tons of poison oak.
    But... In the distance. Up the trailhead, several dark shadows stand, silhouetted by the sun, looking down at the party. Eight or nine feet tall each and vaguely man-shaped... They seem to be watching the group from afar, further up the trail.
    "Ah..." Castiel murmurs. "Could that be the way we should go?"

Something about that smile makes Itana feel things she usually doesn't. There's no cynicism in what she reads into Castiel's face. In spite of her stoicism, she offers up a faint hint of a smile.

Until the latest Justina-bot shows up. The smile vanishes and Itana looks at her for a very long-seeming span of seconds. It lasts until Dante starts heckling her. She narrows her eyes and breathes slowly out through her nose. It's like steam being let out through a pressure valve to forestall a catastrophic boiler explosion.

Eventually she takes the hat off and steps back, moving out with the rest of the group. Only once she's clear of the ranger's station does she huff and remove her hat. Her shirt ends up unbuttoned and tied off at the bottom of her chest. She's got her usual top on under it.

Bow in hand, she prowls along the hiking trail, gathering evidence of what she can. Squinting ahead, she keeps herself relatively low to the ground, bow in hand. The sight of those looming shadows is hard to miss.

Itana looks back at Castiel and the others, then ahead again, expression sober. "...Carefully," she murmurs, moving off the trail a little ways to let her move between bits of undergrowth or debris. She begins to creep towards those distant figures, plotting a methodical, defensive approach that will allow her to start shooting if one of them makes a hostile move.

    Justina's Doll Frame stalks forwards, ahead of the group. She's clambering over obstacles like a pale white fluid. She spots the figures about the same time everyone else does, her red optic flashing blue-white, then shifting yellow-orange as she changes view modes... are they showing up on thermal?

    Whatever Itana's issue with her Doll frames is, the captain either doesn't notices, or doesn't care, unless it becomes an issue of course.

    "It's a phoenix kami," Matsu replies, as if she can see right through the confusion in Castiel's eyes. "A divinity of fire and life."

    Dante gets a brief stare, and then a familiar nod. "I'm..." She pauses, then looks around at the scraggly California landscape, before finishing, "...as well as can be expected. I hope you've been well recently, too." She regards Itana with curiosity, but says nothing; Justina, however, she gives a familiar nod, similar to the one she had for Dante.

    And then they have to hike. For miles.

    Even on the flats, the white-haired shrine maiden looks thoroughly miserable. Her regeneration ensures she never really tires, but it's a case of swinging back and forth, of peaks and valleys. Losing her wind, then recovering. By the time they reach the trailhead, she looks thoroughly irritated. But the sight of the creatures in the distance... something about them brings her to a halt.

    Silently, the young shrine maiden reaches out with her senses, to see what she can feel.

    "Well enough, good to see ya, Matsu." Dante grins, switching his flipflops out for hiking shoes and socks when he judges the path ahead. Otherwise, he's dressed for the sun, light clothing that doesn't encumber him much, and Ebony & Ivory in shoulder holsters. Itana's response from Itana only makes him fight the urge to laugh more, knowing he'd become a pincushion is the reason he resists the urge for now. But man, that hat tho.

    He grips Rebellion in his hands as they follow along the trail, pistols in their holsters at his armpits. When they get close to some figures, Dante hunches over and lets Itana choose the approach, knowing this is much more her element.

    "I'll go on your move." He whispers to Itana, keeping a close, steely blue eye on the eight. "Something about these guys doesn't look right."

    "I-... See. I cannot say I've ever encountered such a thing before." Castiel replies, still a little unsure, but trying to be reverent to the phoenix miko. "I am sorry... I would carry you if I could, but I'm afraid I lack the strength..."
    But those... Those shadows hold her attention.
    Funny enough they don't show up on thermal, but they... They're definitely there. Matsu's supernatural senses will pick them up easily enough.
    They aren't human.
    But staring at them too long, however, and as the group starts to approach... The dark figures vanish, just as eerily gone as they had appeared. It's eerie, but ultimately the little angel decides to press on.
    "I'm not... Certain what they are." She admits. "But we can't stop because of them."
    This is where the trail gets... Difficult...
    Two miles of narrow switchbacks made of loose dirt and dry leaves makes for a somewhat unstable path. Castiel slips up a few times, but manages to catch herself on the way down without injury. It's just REALLY tough going.
    What's worse are when the fallen trees get in the way as the party gets to the bottom and a dried up creek. There's a TON of poison oak here, which means misery if the party isn't careful to avoid it, which is probably why Castiel is walking much more carefully now, rather than test if her physical hardiness can fend off nature's wrath.
    Justina's thermal sensors and Itana's keen eyes however might pick up... Footprints on the overgrown barely-passed trail here. Small footprints. They're fresh. And still warm.

Itana is not very good at technology. Justina is technology. Itana is not very good at Justina.

With no sixth sense to pick up on the figures ahead, Itana is left with trusty vision - and yet, it fails her. The shapes are gone, as though they were never there at all. With a frown, the archer looks back to Castiel and the group. "Phantoms, perhaps," she murmurs. "Whatever their exact nature is, be aware. They are undoubtedly dangerous."

When she does proceed again, it's with an arrow in one hand and her bow in the other. The instability of the path is little object to her, though she stays close enough that she can try to catch Castiel if she needs help. "Take it slow," she murmurs when the group gets to the poison oak, maneuvering herself through the first of it.

She pauses. She kneels. She touches gloved fingertips delicately to the turf.

"Something has walked here recently. Small... like a child." Her voice is barely above a whisper. Tensing, she steers herself around a stand of poison oak and along the creek bed, beginning to plot out the path of the tracks.

    "Whatever those things are, they are not human. No thermal reading at all. Reports Justina, shifting to bipedal mode fo a moment. Her optic scans acoss the trail... but fails to pick up the footprints. Her sensors are only as sharp as she is close to the Doll, and currently she is not very close to it.

    "If I were to guess," Matsu replies to Castiel's musings, "They're... something like kami, of my world. Local kami, anyway. Spirits, and this is their territory. It's hard to say whether they're malevolent or not. But they're most likely aware of us. If they aren't hostile, then we should be respectful."

    And of course, there's more hiking. More grumpy Matsu, as well. And all the poison oak has her exceptionally wary. Between the wariness of awful plants, the general irritability of the long hike, and her own lack of tracking experience, she completely misses the tracks that Justina and Itana both spot. The caution does catch her attention, though, and she quietly palms some ofuda.

    "Ya don't say." Dante asides to Justina's drone. He nods to Matsu. "Yeah, we're on their turf. I think there's been a lotta people lost out here."

    Carefully, Dante edges by the poison oak and trails behind Itana, letting her handle the tracking while he handles security for now. That big sword ought to be a deterrent to anything out there, it just radiates menace on account of its demonic nature.

    "Respectful, yes..." Castiel considers, head dipping in a nod. She'd rather not test if the beings are hostile. "Th-thank you, Itana." She does aside for each time she has to be caught on the way down.
    It's as Itana leads the group following the footprints and trail that something rustles and moves in the distance.
    Though, once again, the dark silhouette figures appear, standing in the edges of everyone's vision, right in the corner of their eyes, something- or someone is up ahead.
    "Shit! Shit shit shit, we've been found." A man's voice can be heard in a low hiss.
    "The hell do we do now?"
    "I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll scare them off!" The first snaps back to the second.
    That's when a third calls out to the approaching search party:
    "Don't any of you think of coming closer! We have the kids and we have guns!"
    his makes Castiel pause. She looks over the group quickly. Justina can... Probably take a bullet, easily. Dante, as a cambion, likely as well. This is likely why the blonde sets herself directly in front of Matsu, and reaches out to touch Itana.
    "So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?'" She says as her hand sets on the nomad woman, a shimmering and faint golden light and warmth enveloping Itana.

>> SUMMARY[Castiel] >> Remember those fugitives the ranger mentioned at the start of the trek? We found them.

    "I do say. I just did in fact." replies Justina with a hint of confusion in her voice, that single optic turning to look at Dante as it shifts back to red.

    She continues walking on two legs for a while, scanning back and forth with her optic.

    Then, the fugitive calls out, and the Doll shifts into a very aggressive stance in a split second.

    The thermal vision comes back in again, orange-yellow optic staring intensely at where the voice came from. "Show yourselves. she demands.

    There's a brief stare at Castiel, an arched eyebrow. "...You know, they can't kill me." A pause, and then Matsu adds, "...well. I suppose that they could. But even if they managed to deal lethal injury to me, it wouldn't stick. And anything nonlethal... I'll get better." She does, however, lift up her voice to address the fugitives, with an icy tone in her voice.

    "I have some incredibly bad news for you. I can raise the dead, and I can restore any injury. Anything you do to those children, I can undo. Your only choice in this matter is whether you're taken alive, or dead. And if you die, I won't undo it."

>> SUMMARY[Matsu Shuzenji] >> Try me. >:|

Small footprints trace through the wilds. Itana does not rustle the foliage as she approaches. She moves as quietly as if she's part of the scenery.

Until the dark shapes appear. Halting, Itana holds her hands up but doesn't turn her head. She glances to one side, then back towards the sounds beginning to emerge ahead. Something has spotted them, just as something else has begun to watch them. One of these is more dangerous than the other - but it's not the one Itana's convinced she can hit from here.

Itana says absolutely nothing. She just listens to the voices. She cannot read, but she knows how a voice sounds when it carries across environments like this one, how it sounds in this wind speed, how it echoes from rocks and foliage.

A delicate hand touches her, a warm light following. Itana looks back to Castiel with a faint smile before turning her eyes forward again. Keeping low, she continues to put math together in her head. Finally, she lifts her bow and exhales, an arrow at the ready - but she doesn't let it go yet.

"Leave the children alone and surrender before I kill every single one of you," she barks across the distance.

    Welp. Looks like the guys that park ranger mentioned just got found. Dante doesn't even bother returning fire when they pull guns. Those peashooters wouldn't even register as mosquito bites to him.

    

    "Do you NOT see the sword?" He points to Rebellion, "I can kill a fucking building with this thing!"

    "I'm gonna give you one chance to rethink this. I'm normally in the business of killing demons, not some jumped up methhead losers." Dante points Rebellion with the deftness of a measuring stick, scowling. "Then again, I got a thing about people who hurt kids. So you're on thin ice as it is."

    "It is a force of habit." Castiel admits to Matsu quite unapologetically. It's part of being a guardian angel and all. It's hard coded into her to protect others.
    "We're not losers!" One of the men calls back to Dante." This is followed by a dull thump. "OW! What the hell was that for?!"
    "We're not methheads either!" Another calls back. "And you're not taking us in!"
    But there's a beat of hesitation amid the three of them, before one pokes his head out. He has a scoped rifle-- but it's more of a low caliber hunting rifle he probably stole than something seriously hardcore.
    This doesn't stop him from taking to a knee and aiming.
    The gunshot resounds through the trail, and the dark silhouettes watch on, seemingly more agitated than they were before as...
    The bullet spangs harmlessly off Itana's chest, a shimmer of golden light rippling where the bullet didn't connect.
    He blinks incredulously.
    "Did you seriously MISS?" Another snaps.
    "I had her in might sights!" He grunts back as another man with a revolver in hand takes a few wild shots that plink off Justina's armor plating harmlessly and miss Dante by a wide margin.

    Matsu lets out a quiet sigh.

    Then, there's a glance at Dante. "Please at least try to dodge them. I know they won't kill you, but if anyone else gets injured, you're low priority. I know you'll survive a few gunshots." Already, she's weaving her hands together, conjuring up a ball of flames that she can hurl at whichever of the thugs is the biggest, easiest-to-hit target.

They are losers. Itana doesn't say as much because she's busy shifting her body to angle her bow upwards. The arc of it is visible from behind her cover. She eventually lifts her torso into view.

It gives the rifleman a shot. Itana has about a second to realize she may have miscalculated--

    *pwing*

A split-second later, Itana lets the arrow go. There's a twang as it fires nearly vertically. Nearly. Then she looks down at herself, blinks as she realizes there's no blood, and dips forward. Her arrow hand plucks the bullet from where it bounced from the shield.

Itana holds the bullet up as if to show the man with the rifle. "Almost," she calls, managing to sound casual about it. "By the way, you may wish to..."

Pause.
    Pause.
        Paaaause.


"...look up for a second."

That's about when the arrow finishes coming down.

Itana can't read, but her instincts and ability to understand sound and movement in her surroundings are second to none. Her shot ran out of momentum at the peak of its arc and then surrendered to gravity - a force which is pulling the arrow down precisely where she'd calculated it to go. Which should be into the very top of the rifleman's head, point-first.

    <Aggression Index at 98.23519 percent. Engaging active threat suppression. That... that isn't Justina's voice.

    "You made your final mistake." comes Justina's voice as the XE-MI leaps into action. It's frighteningly fast as it clambers like a four-legged spide though the growth, barreling down on the men as its optic glows balefully red... if it gets hold of one, its grasping claws clamp around him, squeezing the life from him with some rather unpleasant bone creaking sounds.

>> SUMMARY[Justina Thyme] >> Lay down your weapons, you have twenty seconds to comply. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.

    Dante facepalms as a bullet dodges his head by several inches. He barely flinches at the zip. "I dunno, these guys can barely aim as it is. I think they're more a danger to themselves." He muses to Matsu.

    He yelps in surprise at Justina's attack, before he sighs and draws his pistol, stowing Rebellion onto his back as Ebony barks in his hand, a bright star of muzzle flash as he takes aim at another of the goons, aiming to shoot the gun out of his hands. This is him being nice, mangled fingers and all.

    '...look up for a second.'
    The man furrows his brow, still perplexed why Itana isn't on the ground bleeding when he looks up.
    And an arrow embeds itself right between his eyes. He goes down without a sound, just a dull thump of a crumpling body.
    The second man yelps as the revolver is shot out of his hand, and again as Matsu's fireball slams him in the chest. He drops with a cough to his knees, stunned and dizzy and burned, holding his hands up. It's on Justina if she wants to go through with finishing the job or taking him alive as she gets into melee range.
    This is where it becomes more apparent that the three men were 'hiding' in a clearing just beyond the treeline. There's a makeshift fire pit with stones from the dry river, and a pair of tents the men were likely using to hide out in.
    There is... No sign of the third man. Just a semi-automatic pistol left in a hurry on the ground by the fire pit.
    The three boys, Brick, Boomer, and Butch, are huddled in one of the tents, frightened out of their wits.
    Funny... How those shadowy silhouettes watching from the distance seem to be gone now.
    But the boys won't stop babbling about how the third man was 'taken away by the Dark Watchers'...

Itana lowers her eyelids a shade as the gunman drops, having sprouted a new arrow. She looks over to the rest of the group with a shrug. Then, back to Castiel, she gives the little angel a pat on the head.

There are frightened boys waiting for them. Itana moves to the tent with a quiet, "It's alright. We're here to help." She pushes the tent flap open to reveal that she is not, in fact, an armed thug out to kidnap kids, but an armed thug out to *rescue* kids.

Only when the kids exit the tent does something occur to her.

Itana squints at the dropped pistol. At the distinct lack of a body.

"Dark Watchers, huh...."

    It's almost like the Doll is working semi-autonimously... it continues to slowly crush its captured fugitive, until it's directed to stop by the half-elf operator... not before seveal ribs are cracked and one am is clearly dislocated, if not broken.

    He's dropped to the ground in a pained heap, the Doll operator hanging back so as not to scare the children... She does notice those dark shapes aren't there anymore, and now there's talk of 'Dark Watchers'. "We have a name of them. At least."

    Dante may look kinda scary, but he at least makes an effort to calm the kids down. "Woaaah heyheyheyhey, we're the good guys, really!" Dante says as he helps the kids outta the tent. He looks around briefly to take stock of the guys they just downed, only to notice one's missing.

    "That's weird. Weren't there three of 'em?"

    "The Dark Watchers..." Matsu repeats. She glances over her shoulders, frowning slightly, then turns back around to the kids, and speaks in a forceful voice. "It sounds like the Dark Watchers were protecting you."

    She waits until she's got the attention of the young trio, then continues in a softer voice. "These Dark Watchers... they took away one of the bad men. They could have taken one of you, too, but they didn't. And more than that, when we were coming to save you, they didn't stop us. They watched the whole way. Maybe they were even guiding us, I don't know."

    She shakes her head slightly. "But I'm a priestess, from very far away. I'm used to dealing with... things like the Dark Watchers. We're definitely on their land... and they definitely tried to make sure you three were safe."

    The Dark Watchers. It's a name that makes Castiel furrow her brow thoughtfully.
    "I certainly cannot explain them..." She admits. But thankfully, the children are unharmed, and Matsu holds their rapt attention, they stare wide-eyed as the phoenix maiden's words strike home. If anything, those three boys will grow up knowing to respect the mountains and the things that live in them.
    "We should head back before it gets dark." Castiel does point out.
    Which means... More hiking. Joy.