World Tree MUSH

    Earlier:

    "Minerva, dupe into your Doll frame, we're going planetside... Mamabear, stay here and keep your audioprocessor on the comms. We might need your combat frames."

    "Understood. Captain."
    "Deploying Doll frame, interfacing.

    Justina then settles into her projection chair and jacks into her own Doll on the surface. These Dolls are specially made for the largely metallic, surprisingly suburban landscape. They shift from humanoid, into small rover-like vehicles and zip off in search of the signal source they located.

    NOW:

    Those arriving via Vine would find themselves wandering through empty streets. There's noone around, not even furtive glances out of windows... just cold metal, empty streets and abandoned vehicles. There's a large spire in the distance, like a huge drill bit wedged into the surface of the world. It's lit up, almost taunting.

    There is rarely a time when Justina Thyme reaches out to Morrigan Lor'osa, and Morrigan will not come.
    Justina has called.
    And so, Morrigan has come.
    The old battered, 2003 Ford Windstar comes rolling out the Vine and slows down as it trundles down the empty streets. Morrigan is munching fries, as Mary Contrary feeds them to her from her perch on the Warlock's shoulder while she drives.
    "Huh. Spooky."

    Talia munches on a delicious Quarter Pounder while floating some fries to her mouth with the force. Monch monch. They got McD's on the way.

    Her eyes narrow as she looks around mid burger chomp, suspicious of their surroundings. There's something off, there's no signs of life anywhere.

    "I've got a bad feeling about this." The Jedi murmurs softly. At least the food's okay.

    EARLIER: The pair of Dolls trundle along, until they come to a river of sorts. Some very unhealthy looking water. The shift back, just as tall, cybernetic creatures rise from under the water.

    Justina attempts to negotiate.

    The negotiations are short, as the Dolls are dogpiled, bound in some kind of energy ribbon, and carted off.

    A young boy, partially cyber-enhanced witnesses mutely, before hopping on a hoverboard and scooting away.

    NOW: As the old Ford Windstar and its occupants trundle down the road, a young boy, about 14 years old or so, with a metallic arm, and two metallic legs, as well as a replacement eye that glows a faint amber, comes zipping up behind the car. His voice warbles synthetically. "Friend find. Look Behind!"

    "Do you hear that?" Talia says to Morrigan before Endee, who is currently seated in the back of the van, beeps something rudely. Talia looks aghast. "You can't say that! Maybe they need help!"

    She pokes her head out the window to try and figure out who's behind them.

    Morrigan rolls along the road keeping an eye out. Right until a youth comes up against the back of the car.
    "... Huh?" Slowly she rolls the van to a stop, looking curiously at Talia while munching a fry hanging from the corner of her lips before she rolls down the window.
    "Ssssssup, kid?"

    EARLIER: Justina and Minerva-Doll struggle, as they frogmarched into a large ampetheatre. A tall creature stands before a large pit in the middle of the ampetheatre. There's a quintet of 'judges' sitting high above, up a flight of steps that is almost a ladder. "Has the Imperial Magistrate Reached a Verdict? asks the creature on the floor, looking up with glowing red optics in his still mostly meat face.

    "We Have. reply the five in unison. Their faces frozen in masks, showing a singular emotion. One in a snarl of anger, another giddy laughter. A sneer, a frown, and a neutral deadpan.

    "Guilty or Innocent?"

    The laughing mask speaks alone. "Innocent.

    The person over the pit screams a wordless plea, as the gangplank is dropped out from underneath them, plunging them into the sickly water below. They surface for a moment, then get dragged under by, something.

    NOW: 
    "Friend Find! Look Behind. You go wrong way, you fool I say!" The boy comes to a stop, hopping off his board and kicking it up to catch it and rest if on one end. He points to the spire. "Offworld come and get taken. Coelcanths grab them, Very shaken!"

    "I don't think they need help, I think he's trying to help us." Morrigan mutters as she looks to Talia. Morrigan shifts the car's gears. "Only people around here I know from offworld are... Justina and Minerva." She says, wheeling the car around towards the spire.
    "Lead the way, kid."

    Talia frowns. This is bad. If they've been taken, that means negotiations have been more or less a failure. It means they need to act fast. "Why did they get taken?" She asks the boy.

    The boy hops back on his hoverboard. "Offworld speak to Coelecanth leader. Man be crazy, not even heed her. Offer up goodies, speak word of greeting. Leader laugh, eat then give'em a beating." he says... then points onward. "Wesley find new friends today~!" he chirps happily.

    With the boy on his hoverboard and Talia strapped in, Morrigan shifts gears and puts on speed.
    "I don't like the sound of thaaaaat." She says, furrowing her brow as she starts tearing through the streets toward the spire. Hopefully the boy's hoverboard can keep up with a 20 year old van.

    Talia buckles up as she and Morrigan tear down the street. Endee meanwhile squeals while rattling around in the back, the poor boxy droid having been held down with those stretch cords people use to keep things in place when driving them around in a van.

    The race through the outskirts is easy enough... then they come into the main concourse and there are various vehicles left abandoned in the street.

    The kid's board is easily able to keep pace with the van, and has the advantage of just going over blockages.

    Meanwhile: "I can't access any of my systems." complains Minerva. "Keep trying... anything before they dump us down there.

    The pair are on the plank, staring up with their arms bound and those ribbons sapping energy from their offensive systems. "Silence or you shall be held in contempt of this court!" bellows the 'Prosecutor.'

    Justina's Doll snaps its head up and the venom in her voice echos through the chamber. "I have nothing BUT contempt for this court!"

    Talia chucks a double cheeseburger at Wesley. "Catch!" She calls out. Endee keeps beeping in annoyance. Talia just sighs. "He's clearly starving, we can't just eat in front of him like that!" Beep beep. "You're in a mood tonight. Did i forget to give you an oil bath?"

    The kid on the hoverbike can go over obstacles easily enough.
    A big clunky van cannot.
    Morrigan has to swerve to avoid the abandoned vehicles while keeping her speed as she sees the spire.
    She sees the rickety double doors.
    She looks to Talia from the corner of her eye.
    "... Buckle up."
    It's the only warning Talia gets. "Mary... We're doing the thing..." Said as Morrigan slams the pedal down, kicking the van into full speed as MAry hides in her hair.
    "Aaaaaaaaaah I can't believe I'm doing thiiiiiiiis!" Morrigan snarls as she...
    RAMS into the doors with her van at full tilt.

    Buckling up and tightening the seatbelt, Talia braces herself as Morrigan guns the throttle. Gripping her lightsaber hilt in hand, she hopes for the best. Were she Christian, she'd be crossing herself right now.

    "I am one with the Force and the Force is with me." She repeats this over and over and over as they get closer to the gate.

    "Innocent." snaps the angry mask. The plank drops the pair and the ribbons lose their power. Whatever was upkeeping them doesn't work in the pit. They splash down and sink down to the bottom, watching the biomechanical shark monsters circling them. "Captain. They have more of these creatures than we have Firebolts." informs Minerva. "Then lets hold a demolition derby!"

    The pair shift into the vehicle mode and start driving, circling around the water-filled basin. They boost speed until the water starts to swirl, rising up and then sloshing out of the sides.

    The monsters shift as they're beached, extending legs and snarling with their mouths lined with sharp metallic teeth. The pit floor rises, turning the ampetheatre into a giant arena as the two Dolls fight for their lives.

    And then the doors are slammed into, knocking them off their frame and over onto the Prosecutor. "PIRAHNAKONS. EXECUTE THEM!" bellow the magistrates from their high perch.

    As soon as the doors slam away, the van swerves wildly out of control, screeching to a dead halt. The engine block is caved in and its venting smoke something fierce as Morrigan gently lays her hand on the dashboard.
    "It's been a good run... You did good, van... You did good." She murmurs, before she swings open the driver's side door, murder glowing in her eldritch green eyes.
    She doesn't even wait or so much as bother as asking for an explanation. She holds out both her hands in finger-guns.
    And she started blasting.
    Eldritch blasting into the fray.

    Talia does something extremely dangerous and stupid while Endee squeals in a panic in the back. The poor droid can only watch in horror as the van smashes through the doors and the sapients hop out of the van.

    Talia hurls herself out of the van's window with all the grace of a proper Jedi, landing onto the ground with her lightsaber flashing to life. The emerald blade thrums and hums as Talia leaps at the Pirahnakons, landing on one and cutting it to pieces. "Excuse us-"

    She hurls the pieces at the other monstrosities of metal and flesh, superheated chunks of metal would make decent projectiles, especially cut at angles that can cut.

    Meanwhile Endee cuts herself free from the van's remains with a buzzsaw, before righting herself onto her struts and wheeling out of the wreckage, cursing a blue streak in droidspeak before shooting a bolt of electricity at the nearest pirhanakon that comes near her with the shock-prod.

    She really needs to get some better defensive equipment.

    The monsters, Pirahnakons, don't seem to have much fight when the 'prey' fights back. After a few dozen of the hundreds fall they start to fall back, becoming more timid and less actively attempting to attack.

    "WE SAID. EXECUTE THEM!" Another bellow, as the monsters look between themselves, and then up at the Magistrates.

    Talia strikes a soresu stance with her lightsaber held deftly in a bent elbow pose, fingers pointed out at one of the pirhanakons. Endee meanwhile wheels besides her mistress with the shock-prod still sparking, menacingly daring the creatures to try their luck with a few mocking trills and whistles.

    One of these two is more menacing than the other, admittedly.

    It is when the Pirahnakons stop attacking and hesitate-- when they pause- when they fail to heed their master's demands out of fear because their prey fights back hard- fights back tooth and nail- fights back fully intending to walk out of here and survive- that the Warlock gets a crazed gleam in her eldritch green glowing eyes.
    "PIRAHNAKONS!" She bellows. "Do you not grow tired of the yoke your so-called masters impose upon you?" She asks, spreadin her arms wide. "You could execute us." She points out. "But for each one of use that falls, we'll take out a hundred of your number. Easily." Morrigan points out. "You could fight us. You could win. But at what cost?" She asks. "How many of you have to die before you achieve little more than a tired, pointless and pyrrhic victory?"
    Then she points at their leaders...
    "But... Your masters... What power do they truly have over you? EXECUTE *THEM*." Morrigan snaps. "Execute them and be free! Turn your attention upon your oppressors- devour them and make them rue the day they thought they could dominate you!"

>> SUMMARY[Morrigan] >> LITTLE DID YOU ALL KNOW I MAXED OUT MY CHARISMA STAT AND CAN STILL BE COMPLETELY FUCKING EVIL. 8D

    The monsters look at each other. Turning to their neighbour, then they seem to smile, the mood shifting across the whole vast swath as they turn and start to climb the side of the ampetheatre toward where the five Magistrates are. The five turn and flee, as the monsters use their own bodies to climb the sheer walls.

    Justina and Minerva move over toward Morrigan and Talia. "It looks like the problems on this planet will be solved very shortly." states Minerva.

    The two Dolls then look at the broken van, before Wesley, the young cyborg kid, comes up and plants something into the broken hood. Golden light, similar to the glow of his replacement eye, spreads over the vehicle, and all the damage seems to 'flow in reverse'. "Fixed and hip, can I get a trip?" he asks, looking proud of himself. The old beater van looking almost brand new now from whatever he just did.

    A grisly not-unwarranted end comes to the leadership of the planet, as the Magistrates are savagely devoured. Talia winces, but Endee seems to be recording the whole thing with her sensors.

    "It seems we've caused a power vacuum." Talia muses to Minerva. "Are you two alright? We came fast as we could. Unfortunately our transport is-Brand kriffing new what the hell did our friend do to it?!" She does a perfectly executed double take as Wesley sits there smugly with the van renewed. "You work fast, little one."

    And thus. The Pirahnakons turn against their masters.
    Morrigan dusts her hands off, looking smug.
    "Mischief managed~." She singsongs like she just won the lottery.
    And then she goes bug-eyed like she really did just win the lottery, when the kid fixes her smashed van.
    "A-ah..."
    She'll need a moment. She's going to be emotional about this.