World Tree MUSH

It was rarely a quiet evening in Cape Chillblain. But tonight it was even less so as the air raid sirens had been blaring ever since the Polar Vortex had been spotted passing the perimeter of the largest (and only!) city on the Borealis continent. Yet the infamous airship had only lurked there, just out of the range of the defense artillery and above the max altitude of the Enforcers' gyrocopters.

With their eyes locked on the skyborne galleon the city defenders didn't realize they'd spotted it as it was -leaving- the urban airspace, having already made its particular dropoff. The revelation they had been distracted came loud and abrupt when the alarms went off in the office tower of one of the mayor's rich bought-off industrialist supporters. Zeerust-style patrol cruisers clusters at the foot of the building to disgorge Enforcer troopers with their anti-personel rifles. Only for there to be another rumbling noise as an explosion went off partway up the building, sending a shower of smoke and glass erupting outward on the one side.

Its through the plume of acrid smoke that the greatcoat-clad white fox lept out of the building, bombadier scarf and pilfered courier bag alike flapping behind her as she dropped onto the nearby roof admist the debris. Renya slid across the slope of the roof a bit, then grabbed the drain gutter on a higher wall and swung herself around the corner just as gunfire deflected off the steel and brick just behind her.

"Stop that!" One of the officers swatted the other's rifle down. "You might hit a window! Or someone inside!" The fox's shilouette was briefly glimpsed before disappearing between buildings again. "She's purposely avoiding our direct firing angles from the street, the devious bit--"

"VIXEN!", is shouted in retort as Renya pops her head up from behind a chimney. "Bitchs are female dogs ya bloody git--Yeep!" Only to duck back down as another shot rings past, hunching and scoot away to the side to continue her rooftop run.

Never a dull night in this city. Having been sitting on a rooftop not far from downtown, monitoring the Enforcer frequencies on his helmet's radio, Tekno was thinking about going to check out the ship, but it seemed like it wasn't attacking...Which was even more suspicious.

The alarms going off go him onto his feet, and the explosion that rocked the building made the feline grunt, "Well I suppose it's better than stopping a mugger."

He knows who the building owner is...Part of him thinks it's good karma to have it happen to this guy. But at the same time, this could be a staged robbery to get rid of evidence..Better safe than sorry.

Igniting his jetpack, the feline shoots off into the air, getting some altitude over the building, as he spots the shooter down below, "Great. Those idiots couldn't hit them if they were standing still.." Cutting his engines, he fires his grapnel gun from his gauntlet and hooks onto a building, swinging down towards where she's fleeing to. He intends to cut her off.

The duller boom of a cannon firing in the distance, and a flaming craft going down over the cape to hit the water below. The Enforcer commander is probably standing somewhere yelling about his gyrocopter backup over the voxcomm and ignoring anyone trying to tell him the airship had altitude advantage over them.

Occasionally shots rung past Renya and ricochetted off the exteriors but with no way to follow her onto the rooftop no one could get a direct bead on her as planned. "Just gotta make it to the pick-up..."

She dropped down over and edge, catching a railing that seemed to serve no other point than be there with the gap in the soles of her boots to slide along it a fair distance before firing her grappler off to grab an aetherial antenna and swing off, around the corner and back onto another rooftop. Good ol' doubleback to throw pursuers off.

"That'll lose the lubbers for a while," Renya cackled as the line retracted back up her sleeve, and turned around to ... come face to masked face with the leather clad rocketeer.

"..." The surprise only lasts a moment though before she snaps back to her usual bravado, putting one hand on her hip (and not far from where her weapon is sheathed). "Well well, likes like I underestimated some bloke bein' able to keep up." The other hand grabs her hat and pulls it off as she leans into an exaggerated bow. "Hats off to ye, laddie."

"Oh trust me, I'm full of surprises." The feline has goggles on to obscure his face from being identified, and a leather helmet and mostly leather armor. He looks over the pirate lady, spotting her bag and then looking back up to look into her eyes. 

"So while I admit I'm all for messing with his stuff, I can't have you setting off a bunch of random explosions in my city." He takes a step forward, but doesn't engage yet, "So you wanna tell me what's in the bag, or am I going to have to find out the old fashioned way?"

The tricorne is returned to her head as Renya shifts back upright, adjusting it a little so it doesn't misalign between her ears. "Ye must be the the so-called vigilante they've be cussin' 'bout lately." Sigh, no one has a flare for the dramatic anymore.

Tail swishes as she gives her hip a little jostle to bump the courier bag to hanging behind her back and out of easy reach of being grabbed, a smug grin across the muzzle the entire time. "Ye mean the fun way~" A flick of the arm draws Frostbite but all she does is take a step back with one foot to assume a deulist's ready stance. "Captain Renya Rimehart, Pirate Princess of the Verdigris skyways, don't stop for nobody... But if ye think ye can do the Enforcers' job better than them."

Pause. "Not that it be hard to," she assides.

She beat him to the punch, when it comes to disparaging the Enforcers. The vigilante actually smirks a little bit, "You can call me Tekno." He replies to her, "I don't have a bunch of fancy titles, though. Just the guy who's making sure Cape Chillblain is safe from criminals from without and from within."

He takes another step backwards when the weapon is drawn, assuming a defensive stance. He doesn't appear to have any weapons other than a pistol that is holstered on his right hip, but he hasn't drawn it yet, "Tell you what." He says, "You seem like the type to prefer something a bit more unique than just hitting each other." He says, "So you tell me where you're going...And we'll race there. If I beat you, you hand over the pack. If you beat me, you walk away clean."

Icy motes are already gathering around the gunblade's edge but it is actually lowered a slight bit at that proposal. "Now that be the sort of spirit you don't see oft these days." It leaves a brief trail of frost through the air to accent the movement as Renya turns to point across the city. "Ye see the big metal skeleton over yonder?"

It's hard to miss. Even only partially constructed the so-called 'Chillblain Colossus' already rises higher than any other building in the dieselpunk cityscape, another one of the Mayor's frivilous expenditures for the supposed sake of business.

"High nough to deaddrop without stoppin, stay higher than their so-called radar grid." Explains how she got ground side with the airship only passing overhead.

It would take a pirate as audicious as the infamous Rimehart to use the government's own ego-stroking as her plaything.

And the moment is interupted by another ringing of rifle fire. "Somethin' tells me they wouldn't be happy to see either of us." Renya fires her calisabre as she kicks off, an icy ledge forming long enough for her to slide to the end of and leap off to the next rooftop. "Get the lead outta ye boots boy, or ye'll never keep up, rockets or not! Yaahaahaahaarrrr!"

"I hate that thing." He mutters a bit to himself, as he looks across the city at it. That's a pretty far race. Of course without much of a warning, she takes off, after the Enforcers finally seem to have caught up and opened fire. Tekno ignites his pack and takes off after her. Of course down here, the gyrocopters are more than capable of getting to them...So he has to do what he can to avoid those.

If it weren't for the Enforcers in the way he could just fly all the way there, but when he gets buzzed by a gyrocopter who wheels around to try to line up a shot on him, he cuts the pack again and hooks his arms down to his sides. He has a wingsuit wing built into the armor, that he can hook to his legs and deploy. Helpss him move silently when he's not trying to get somewhere super fast...Or when he's trying to avoid detection.

There's a cackle from Renya as Tekno gets buzzed by the gyrocopter. One would almost think she'd known they'd keep him from just flying to the finish with his jetpack... Though opting for some sort of gliding option, not so expected. But we can't let him have all the attention now can we?

The wily vixen jumps off her rooftop and hits heels against a retaining wall, kicking off in such a way she can reach up and grab the top to vault herself over. On the other side is one of Chillblain's busier roadways, even at this late hour, but that doesn't deter her any. She lands on the bed of a diesel hauler, only to scamper across it and leap off to the hood of an older steam-driven open cab roadster.

"~ I run on the wrong side of life," one hand grabs the top of the windscreen as she leans towards the couple seated inside. "I'm the one you fear when you hold your wife."
A patroller screechs to a hault, ignoring the motorcars being forced to veer out of it's way as the Enforcers leap out and bring up their rifles... Only for Renya to jump from the roadster as it swerves to avoid the armored car and hop across their helmeted heads like skipping stones.
"I run where the darker crowds run; on the rain swept streets where the black rain runs.~"

She jumps to the opposite retaining wall, pausing to look back and cackle at the troopers struggling to pull their helmets back up before leaping over and back to her race.

Not one to be outdone by her, though Tekno's not the singing type. He ignites the pack again, pulling up alongside of her and the car's she's hopping between. He keeps pace with them, turning to the side to watch what she's doing, "Better not fall!" He calls out to her. Though without warning one of the Enforcers takes a shot at him!

"Hey!" He yells out at the guy who shot at him, turning and pulling back, before aiming with his gauntlet and firing. It's no lethal shot, instead a dart charged with electricity fires from it, striking the guy and shocking him unconcious.

Stun dart? Huh, no wonder he never drew his actual gun, he didn't need to.

The other side of the wall is the traffic going in the opposite direction, so instead of going back down Renya goes up and away with her trick jumps to parkour up a direction sign and leap from it to grab another rooftop antennae.

"~I play where the darker kids play," she swings around to the other side, holding on with one hand and a boot hooked around a support as she reachs out dramatically with the other arm. "I'm the one who goes out when you end your day. I dance where the darker crowds dance; on the pitch black clouds in a rum stained trance!"

One of the gyrocopters swoops in between the buildings, but the pilot is paying more attention on trying to get a bead on Tekno so he doesn't notice her, or the gappler being fired to grab one of the landing struts.
"~I see things the darker kids see; though you wouldn't believe all that's happened to me" Renya pulls herself up on the side and leans over the cockpit to grab the pilot by the back of the head and slam him down into the console. She pulls hims back up to grin to his groggy face, "I've been to the back side of Hell," then pushes him out to claim the controls for herself. "I've played with your fear and enjoyed it well!~"

The ejected pilot lands with a grunt on a rooftop, probably with several broken bones but nothing lethal. On the street level a trooper is just sort of gawking at it all. "Does she make a spectacle out of -everything-?"
His partner just shakes his head with a defeated sigh. "You're new here, aren't you?"

Things being as crazy as they are, Tekno actually follows her lead. He spins out of the way of one of the other gyrocopters and then uses his grapnel gun to latch onto the bottom of the one she just stole. This way when she flies towards her objective, he can wait behind her...And then at the last second shoot ahead and win the race. Unless one of those Enforcers gets a lucky shot in and takes this thing down, it's a fool proof plan!

Renya opens the courier bag and pulls a couple of papers out, stuffing them in a pocket of her coat instead. Then leans over from the cockpit to pick up on where Tenko is.... only to find him hanging off the very same gyrocopter. "Well, this has been fun! But it's almost my stop." What, you think she was going to tell you where she was -really- going? "But seein' as ye made a good showing I'll 50/50 with ya laddie."

There's not much time to really ponder what she's saying as she holds out the bag to dangle in the wind for a moment, before letting go of the strap so the downdraft of the main rotor will blow it right to Tekno.

Followed by shooting the controls with her weapon to freeze them in place, and bailing out herself.

At the same time another vehicle, a three-wheeled cycle of some kind, roars past where the Enforcer patrols stalled out of the chase. How did that sneak up on them?!
Because rather than diesel or steam powered, it's got some kind of clockwork driven engine that makes very little noise and nothing for emission. Which would be how the goggled raccoon driving it kept such a low profile. Until Renya lands on the back of the seat as it passes under the copter now sputtering off in the opposite direction. The small and near silent cycle veers off and disappears into the noisier and dirtier deiselpunk traffic.

Renya hooks an arm around the operator, only to quirk a brow in surprise. "Maven? Magnum was suppose to be the pickup."
"Had to man the cannons when these landlubbers were dense enough to actually send gyros out." She turned her head just enough to glance back without losing sight of the traffic around them. "Did you get it?"
"I got enough." Renya patted the pocket. "The rest... well, it ended up in hands -other- than the corrupt enforcers at least."

Well that was unexpected. Of course now the gyrocopter is on a crash course for the monument, and Tekno is still attached to it. He watches that bag tumble through the air, vanishing into the night, and he disengages from the gyrocopter, falling back away from it.

As he falls, he takes aim with his gauntleted arm and fires a single missile. It's a small rocket, but it's size hides it's power, as it detonates the gyro before it can hit the monument. He hates the thing but the people of the city seem to like it.

With that out of the way, he turns around and dives after the bag. It's going to be close, but he folds himself up tight to gain as much speed as possible, snatches the bag's strap with one hand and fires the rocket with the other, nearly scraping himself on the road before shooting off into the night sky. Well the Enforcers just got thuroughly embarassed, and he has some intel to work with on his crusade. Not a bad night overall, even if the captain did get away...For now.

There is one thing about diesel fuel over steam engines -- it makes a much bigger detonation! The gyrocopter explodes before it can crash into the construction zone and from high enough up it there won't be much more than some smoking debris hitting the pavement before.

In the morning the news will write it off as a set-up after the presses are greased a bit by 'contributions'. Rimehart showing up just to make the Enforcers look like fools wasn't anything new, hell her mother did the same thing back during the Pirate War and Chillblain was just being established fully.

Most of the documents in the courier bag is what Tekno is likely expecting. The industrial bigwig is in the back pocket of the syndicate trying to overrun the city from the shadows, using his legal business to laundry some of their dirty money. What might catch his attention more though is several of the papers buried amongst the other is efforts to break into the black markets...

... And these are places he's never heard of before... Are these off-world locations??