World Tree MUSH

WIth the annoyingly frequent habit of 'off world' persons having skills and abilities that put trained professionals to shame, the securities division of Lagos (LLC) put a call out for experianced persons that wouldn't mind playing babysitting duty for a package that they need secured until 'approved personnel' arrive to assume responsibility.

The package itself? A black cube that's three feet on each side with a keypad and a pair of key holes on the topmost side. Y'know, standard Ominous Package of Doom thing.

Ash had taken this job since it seemed to be both straightforward and more likely than not straightforward. Lagos had on site robotics and automated defenses. He was hired on to act as a wildcard. In turn Ash had asked Anna to come along 'because there are just enough too few details I would really rather have someone on hand in case they're roping me into somethign stupid.' Sure Ash's personal honor code might demand job completion, but it says nothing about making sure friends are on hand that are willing to punch him in the face for being dumb.

All in all? The storage facility looked like a fairly standard u stor-it with rows and rows of little buildings with only the extra high fenses topped by razorwire and the 'Trespassors will be shot on sight' and 'fences electrified. You will die if you touch them' signs marking this as visually diffrent.

As for Ash? he was prone on a roof covered by a tarp setting next to 'leftover' mantinance equipment to help sell the illusion that the tarp was just an emergancy roof patch til contracotrs could get in to properly fix the place up. 

The package? In what looked like a random storage cubby... that just happened to have killer robots inside ready to murder anyone but the authorized courier when the door opened.

Anna is lying under the tarp next to Ash. "Y'know, mercenary work seems like the kind of thing I ought to object to," she says, in a tone of voice which suggests that there's approximately a zero percent chance she'll actually do so.

Spiral is back on Earth, trying to get the exploration program going with the other Starbringers. Ordinarily, she'd jump at the chance to join Anna on trips through vines for the sake of casual exploration, but this is clearly neither, and she simply impressed on Anna the importance of keeping out of trouble.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm saying this as a broke college student, and my whole magical girl gig is meant to be for dealing with a specific kind of monster." It might be obvious at this point that there's a note of teasing in her vaguely androgynous voice. "But, y'know, it's the principle of the thing!"

Ghost was sitting on the roof top of one of the buildings, having gotten here from... places. "Houston, I'm at the location." Today, her frame wasn't as... white as normal(was that racist?), instead it was green and almost plant like. "On the roof."

"Good," Jacker said. "I'm in their security system. It's still active, but won't even know you're there. Can you--"

"Get in, jack your dingly dong into one of their computers then take the super duper top secret 'package' of theirs? Yeah... It's a gun, isn't it?"

"W-what?"

"The package? It's a gun, isn't it?"

"... Not a gun, but... well... It's not a working prototype. It's more a--"

"UGh. You are SUCH boys. Sending me in to get a fancy new toy..."

"It's for the client!"

"Sure it is. Ghost out. I'm going in. Have tea and crumpets ready for me when I get home."

"You don't even--" Click.

Ghost snickered and ran to the next roof. No alarms yet. Of course there wasn't. Jacker wasn't just good, he was one of the best. the day he couldn't take over some company's security was the day he turned in his keyboard and started larping.

She landed on the roof they were on, not heeding the tarp.

Which was probably about the time Ash went 'Wait. That was a warframe... wasn't it? A very, very small one?'

She ran to the door and, likely to their surprise, when her hand went over it... the electrical alarm went off! Did she have access codes? Did she have an insider?! Was this all a setup?!!!!

"This job smells JUST enough that having magical backup would be nice. I'd ask Raven, but can't find her." Ash's warframe lay prone and relaxed. "I know the job boards are pretty hot on people that want whatever's in the box and my job ends precicely as soon as courier team's got posession. Nothing's stopping either of us from grabbing it then if we find out it's got like super-cancer in it or something." 

Then he frowned inside the transferrence pod. "Anna Ordis is picking up encrypted radio chatter nearby. You mind running a couple laps see what's going on?"

Ash's warframe faded into invisibility. "In three... two... one..." 

The tarp blew off of the roof they had been laying on, revealing a hole indeed was there. 

Ash quickly ran to a diffrent roof, light footfalls making soft clang clang noises as he hopped from one roof to another while pulling his bow from his back.

"Ordis?!" Ash's vision focused on Ghost right as the Alarms went off.

"Unknown, matches no known type or even prototype frames Operator." Ordis's voice was concerned. 

The door opened in spite of the alarms. Jacker was definitely good. The problem is every OTHER door opened too, and every door had in it something straight out of the Terminator franchise. Skeletal bulky machines, each with a plasma rifle and each one firing at Ghost.

Ash grunted as he aimed his bow. The Dread had a fantasticly stupid draw weight, makign it impossible for him to use out of frame and even with hisframe it took time to draw back proper, making it mor esuited to single targets than crowd control

So while all the robots were showing up with plasma guns theres this one thing with sam fisher lights on its face aiming a Bow at ghost. And... did... did it seriously have a katana and throwing knives? Who let Genji in here?

Anna nods. "Totally fair," she says blandly. And then she blinks and goes silent as Ghost lands right next to her and then runs off again.

When the tarp blows off, the other occupant is revealed to apparently be some sort of column of blue light. When it clears, there's a frilly magical girl in a blue costume with green and white trim. "Hoooo boy!" she says. "I mean, just being here with that many robots may or may not be above my pay grade, even if they're on my side."

She leaps off the building surrounded by a blue glow, and casually saunters towards Ghost. "Hey there, friend!" she says, with a smirk she really isn't all that good at. She punches her fist into the palm of her other hand. "Whatcha up to?"

>> SUMMARY[Anna Freeman] >> Anna transforms and tries to be threatening.

Ghost lifted her arms up. "W-wait!" she cried. But, well. Yeah, like they'd wait? Hot plasma descended on her and she threw herself to the right, narrowly avoiding. Then... "W-wow. You're really pretty," she said to anna, giving a... Grin. And wow, that was a very humanoid grin, for a robot. the detail was incredible. "You look like some kind of magical girl. Are you seeing this, Houstan? What? NO! I am not... Well, she IS adorable. But sorry, kid. This is a really grown up matter, and-- I AM AN ADULT! What? NO! OY! I am going to punch you for that!" she snapped, her cheeks red as she stomped her foot like a child throwing a tanktrum... "Oh. Right. Bad things!" More blasts shot at her, boom, boom... Dust in the air... And wen it cleared... she was gone? Where'd she go?

Only to appear a few seconds later behind the robot in the door she'd try. With a big blast, the robot was sent forward... And then the door slammed shut, locking. She could stealth?!

"Houston, i'm in! Let's go have some fun!" They better move quick. Because she was~

"Operator," Ordis deadpanned. 

As Ash lept towards the door Ghost would find herself standing on an elevator that helpfully was going down while also not so conveniently flooding the compartment with gas. Good thing she didn't breath right? It didn't even do chip damage to her chassis or wiring.

The robots milled about now that the target had been lost. Ash's sword cleaved the door apart moments before he jumped in. 

On the bright side Ash landedon top of the elevator. On the not so bright side he was getting a face full of the same gas. "Anna hang back there's some kind of gas leeching out doing pretty gnarly things It should clear by the time this thing hits bottom.... You can make the jump right?" 

A hundred meters straight down in the REAL security complex complete with all sorts of juicey other things to grab in addition to The Box of Doom. 

When the doors slid open it honestly looked like a warehouse if it were designed to look like an apple store. All soft white lights, curved glass. Sleek looking containers here an there set in the walls. A giant vault room with rows on rows of Pretty Things. Not to mention the servers IN this place had to have all sorts of juicey data on them.

Anna blinks at Ghost's compliments, and a blush forms! "Oh! Um ... th ... thank you!" she says. "I mean, uh ... I'm Anna, and I actually am a magical girl, but like, uh, I'm nineteen!"

And then Ash interrupts, and she blinks and shakes her head. "Um, right! Will do!" she says hurriedly, dashing backwards away from the gas. "Yeah, shouldn't be a problem! Windrunner protects my whole body while I'm transformed, so I should be fine as long as I run down the elevator shaft."

This also gives her the opportunity to ... recover.

Ghost yelped as the elevator shook. She glanced up. "Houston. We got company."

"It's fine, deal with it. It's that weird edgelord robot."

"Gotcha." The door opened and... She dashed out, waiting for him to come out and do his big destructy thing. By the time he came out of the elevator(or whatever remained), she was running down the hall, away from the others.

She'd jacked the dongle into one of the servers, so part one was done. They were in the network... Whcih meant... Time to get to the next part of the mission...

"Come on little robot~ Let's play~" she said as she ran through the building, towards the destination, the drop. It was going to be so much fuuuuun! She squealed with delight as she turned a corner and... when he came around it...

She'd blast him straight in the gosh darn face with her guns. HOW DID ONE SMALL GUN SHOOT SO MANY BULLETS AT ONCE?! GAHHHH!

THat was a wonderful plan except Ash could both turn invisible and... well to be honest this was something HE would do in her situation. Kite enemies into a trap and then lotsand lots of bullets. 

While he was invisible he studied her stance for a moment and nodded approvingly. Her attitude to one side she has a firm grasp of proper gun handling. Still... He teleported, appearing behind her and even managed to smile from within the somatic pod. "Nothing personal kid."

Anna peers over the edge of the elevator shaft. As soon as Ash disappears, she leaps off the edge, twists around in midair, and starts running down the opposite wall, her body surrounded by a corona of blue light.

... When she's right above the bottom, nearly at the exact moment Ash speaks up, she realizes that she doesn't actually have a plan for landing.

WHUMP.

Fortunately, as promised, the Windrunner ability protects her from becoming a red magical girl, and she promptly jumps to her feet. "I'm okay!"

>> SUMMARY[Anna Freeman] >> WHUMP.

Ghost turned and... He could teleport?! That was SO COOL! And unfair. Soooo unfair. How could he-- ACK! Sword! She yelped and stepped back, into him. She gulped and whimpered. "Y-you win... You just... you beat me. I surrender. You are so much stronger and better than me... And your... Interesting. Is someone in there?" she asked. And then smiled. "That looks like fun~" she said...

And then her body went limp, all the lights in it died. What in the....

And then he was FORCIBLY ejected from his body.

A giggle came from the Ash frame and all the lights, now glowed blue instead. He retracted the sword and picked up the normal chassis, shoving it in a closet and out of the way... Before... 

"Time to take this for a--: And then bullet jumoped. The frame was silent... and then... "WOO HOO! OH MY GOSH THIS IS THE COOLEST THING EVER! EEEEEEE!" BAM! BAM! WHUMP! BAM! She uhhh... was learning the controls. And running into a LOT of walls. Ow.

>> GAME >> Ghost commits an Edge for: Ghost taking over the Ash Warframe.

"What?"

Ash blinked inside the somatic pod. Ordis still had feed from his frame it wasn't a radio blackout. HE could hear this... Girl... taking hiswarframe out like it was a brand new car.

"Operator I'm confused." Ash frowned as he stepped out of the somatic pod and startedfor the lander. "Ordis. I need you to distract her." He pulled a braton from the arsenel rack and headed for the lander.

"H-how?!" Ordis asked as the Lander detatched.

"Greetings Operator." Ordis's voice rang through Ghost's stolen Warframe. "I am Ordis and I will provide you with a tutorial on movement." Ordis's cracked glass cube filled the central part of Ghost's vision as he spoke. "Would you like to proceed Yes/No?"

Anna stares at Ghost-Ash. Ash-Ghost? She isn't sure which way around it should be. "You have got to be kidding me," she says, after a moment.

And then she shakes her head. "Yeah, no," she mutters. "Sorry, Ash, I'm gonna have to knock you stuff around a bit." Energy swirls around her fist. "WINDY ..." And then she charges forward towards Ghost's Warframe faster than the speed of a car, surrounded by a blue corona, fist-first. "... PUNCH!" Regardless of whether it connects or not, she will quickly reverse direction, boosting backwards back the way she came.

Ghost stared. "Nope. Nope nope nope. Disabling... There we go." Tutorial offline! Coms were still up. "Who in the world is ordis? WOO!" And then, BAM! Explosion, hee hee. This gun was awes--

And then MAGICAL GIRL! And magical girl PAUNCH!

The frame was sent FLYING back, slamming into the wall, and dropping to the ground.

Ghost blinked and then gave out a light, giddy giggle. "Oh my gosh. this thing isn't even wrecked. Loooots of damaged systems, though. I've never fought a magical girl before! This'll be fun!" she said, before getting to her feet and bullet jumping towards her... using the blade to slash through things that got in her way.

This was Ash sprinting towards the elevator shaft. Nevermind the drop. Him dashing killed his momentum allowing what would have been a fatal landing to. well.. Not even hurt.

He wore dark robes, the same he wore during initial meet and contract negociations. 'A Touch of Exotic' Ordis mantained.

He followed Ordis's directions to where his warframe's feed had shown her chassis was stowed. From his robes he pulled a simple piece of paper and tucked it between plates of armor before shackeling its arms and legs behind its back. A soft smile before giving it a gentle pat. "No hard feelings." 

Then he stepped out into the ongoing magic girl-robo hijacker fight.

"STOP!" His voice carried, reverberating off of every surface in the warehouse. He didn't shout. It just... carried.

Ash's hood was raised, his hands concealed beneath dark robes. Yet somehow one would see the soft yellow glow of his eyes.

Anna gulps. She's never fought against a Warframe before, either! She does a backflip away from Ghost, boosting a little bit farther away, and then she starts gathering Heart Power between her hands. "Okay," she says. "I guess this is gonna be a --"

At Ash's shout, she stops, dispelling the Heart Power. "Yes?" she says. She doesn't take her eyes off the Ghostframe for one second, though.

Ghost blinked a few times, staring and... "Is... is that a-- Huh? Oh! Right. Yes. Stop... or what?" she asked. Then... "Waiiiiit. Are you the pilot of this thing? Oh gosh. I'm sorry," she said in a teasing tone. "Don't worry, I won't be too rough on it--" There was a creak and one of the edges broke off.... well, fell off. And then sparks shot out. ".... that was like that when I got in it." BULL!

She crossed her arms. "So... what do you want to do? I mean.... I've got your little bot. And like... I don't want to hurt you. that's not part of the job. But you're in my way and I have to steal a big... ummm... Package... thing. ANyway bYE!" and then she just ran off! SHE CAN'T DO THAT! But mission goal! GAHHH! And GOSH DARN IT! There was an explosion and then SHE TOSSED THE REMAINS OF A ROBOT SHE JUST BROKE IN FRONT OF THE DOOR! STOP! DOING! THAT!

"You're here to get the thing I'm here to defend until people come to take it away." Then she just... ran off. Wait what? WHY WOULD SHE-

He dashed until he was right behind her and then he put his hand on the back of his warfram'es head. "Alright kiddo. Out you go!" Ghost would feel something forcefully SHOVING her out of the frame. 

"Ordis...I'm.... yea my frame got trashed. ETA on pickup?"

"Extraction team is two minutes out. Advising them that hostiles are in the area."

Anna watches Ash run towards his Warframe. Correctly guessing that he has some emergency measure for kicking out unwanted hackers, she immediately turns around and heads back towards Ghost's recently-vacated original body. Not too close, of course; she stands just far enough away that she isn't immediately within melee range, and she puts up her dukes in case Ghost has some tricks up her sleeve for getting out of her shackles.

Ghost blinked a few times. What in the... She was outside of the body? Why would... Okay then. This wasn't going to be so easy... She hovered there for a second, arms crossed and staring at the frame. So taking it over... She was NOT in the mood to play keep away with it.

She smiled. But she could still have some fun in mind. While they focused on ehr original body... Suddenly one of the large androids in the building... Glowed blue. And launched a plasma burst at ASH'S ALREADY DAMAGED FRAME! Then continued on towards the point. CRUD! HOW WAS SHE DOING THAT?!

Well that wasn't good. Ash immediately dashed from the frame, letting it drop, raising his right hand to send a burst of kenetic energy at the android. Trackin Ash was weird. One moment he's in one place, the next seemingly a few meters elsewhere. Then BAM it's like he force-shoved the droid in the chest. Hard.

"I get this is just a job but... that was utterly uncalled for."

Anna just sighs loudly. "Hey, cute intruder-girl!" she calls out. "Quick question! Uh ... just how 'vital' is your, um, original body?" Once again, she gathers Heart Power into her hands.

Once again, she totally fails to sound threatening. But she's aiming at the original-body in question. While hoping really hard that she doesn't accidentally lose her grip and fire if the answer is 'very' ...

Ghost froze... Oh crud. They had her body. The android... Ran at the WARFRAME?! Wait, it was down, why would she--

Boom. It self destructed. THOSE ROBOTS DIDN;'T EVEN HAVE SELF DESTRUCTION FEATURES! HOW?! Moments later, the girl appeared inside her body and... Fell over. "W-what? OH COME ON! That's just RUDE!" she said, before looking up.

"Hee hee. Heyyyy.... cutie... I don't suppose you'd be willing to... Aim that somewhere else, would you? I kind of really need this robot. And I didn't damage that ride... much..." Oh crud. "ACK!" And jacker was yelling at her. "Ow. Yes. Got it. Working on it! I'm a little tied up at the moment!" She was... trying to get free. The things in the joints were easy to get out of. Shackles on her arms? Not so much. "Ugh. Man. You two are just rude. How can you abuse such a pretty young girl like me? I thought we were gonna be best buddies," she said, making a pouty face up at Anna.

"Look," Ash sighed. "Your support that hacked the seucrity has probably already hoovered up everything the local servers have." Ash looked over at his now quite thoroughly trashed frame and shook his head as he walked towards Ghost. His right hand started glowing as he aimed it palm forward at her body. "Actual retrieval teams are due in... oh about a Minuteish or so."

He knelt down to look Ghost's chassis over. "You're just here on a job that's now scragged. Come out with us, I act like you're part of my team so you can get out with whatever data you siphoned off. Call it square."

Anna nods. "Ash is talking sense," she says, beads of sweat dripping down the side of her head. "And my job was to protect this one specific box. So as long as you just head outta here afterward and don't interfere with the transaction as we WAUGH!"

She loses her grip. The blast of Heart Magic impacts the floor several feet away from Ghost's head.

"Uh. Sorry," says Anna. "I'm, uh, I'm still new at using this power."

Ghost yelped, then looked at her restraints. Then up at him. Then back at the restraints. Then... Sighed and held them out. "Houstan, you get all that? Uh huh. Yeah. Well, at least we'll get the main payment. We'll be fine without the bonus. Yeah. Probably not. But hey, you know I'll be fine. Worse comes to worse, I know how to get out. Oh, probably not. But who knows? It'll be fun to find out."

She smiled to him. "Houstan hates this plan. So let's do it," she said with a grin. For a robot, she was incredibly life like. "Name's Ghost. I'm the best at what I do, as I'm sure you've noticed," she teased. "Though I can't admit I am a... TINY bit impressed at you two. And I wanna know exactly how you did that!" Her eyes fell one ANNA?!

"Cause oh my gosh you're a magical GIRL! That is SO COOL! I know a little bit about them because Jacker always watches the little amibo's." Pause. "An-a-mays. Never really liked them. But man, if you can do stuff like that, it's totally rad! You have a mascot thing, right? Like a fuzzy cat?" Oh gosh... "Ohhhhh. I bet you have a really risque transformation scene, too." OH MY GOSH!

As actual employees started showing up Ash had Ghost carry his frame, or rather drag it as he gave his statements. 'Yesser the unit is intact Nosir Whatever hit came from some networked thing that took control of my armor. IF it wasn't for my subcontractors it would be a total loss.'

The ride up the elevator was quiet for Ash. He was doing this girl a courtasy as a way of paying forward the times he's been on the losing end of a contract and needed an exit. Once out of the gates he'd pat Ghost on the shoulder. "I left contact info if you want ot get in touch. It'll be a good week before my warframe will be up and going but." He shrugged, "Consiquence of business."