World Tree MUSH

    There are not a lot of where space pirates are a common sight. At least not a lot of worlds where the Vines lead to places where people with space travel capabilities tend to *go* to.

    This particular pirate vessel, however, is still planetside. For now, anyway. The otherwise high-tech cargo ship illegally outfitted with weaponry - and likely accomodations for both illegal material goods and human cargo both - bears many scars upon it. Scorch marks on the hull, pieces of armor plating blown off to leave visible depressions all across. Some of the scars are old. Some of them? Much fresher. Fresh enough to warrant repairs. And repairs require being firmly placed upon the ground to allow crew to go over it. More tech capable pirates (imagine that!) move across the hull and the engine exhausts in an effort to fix deficiencies with the assistance of hoverpacks, while others have spread in the surrounding area with weapons at ready. In case something - or someone - comes along to ruin their "pit stop" here on the grassy lands fifty kilometers away from nearest point of civilization.

    Usually outfits don't operate with just one ship. Which begs the question; where are the others?

    Reports of a grounded ship draw the attention of a certain 'Goddess'. She approaches the site, stealthily, crawling up onto the top of a ridge and sighting down the scope of a long rifle. "I see about 20 marks on the perimeter... another 15 fixing the damage... they'll be here for a few hours at least." she says, glancing to her left, where a small Shinki is sighting down the scope of her own rifle. "Confirmed... potential for at least another twenty still inside the vessel... the local government did post a reward."

    Uni nods. "I'll cause a distraction, you infiltrate the ship and disable their engine system from the inside. Destroying some of the consoles in engineering should do the trick."

    Bravette salutes, and the pair split up, Uni heading atound to the rear of the ship, and opening fire with several bursts of her rifle, while Bravette waits for the expected reaction of the rest of the perimeter moving to engage, then zipping over to slip inside of the ship.

    The pirates did not expect that. Well. They might have expected some hopefuls to try to come after them, but they didn't expect just *one* to be there!

    Either way, after the rounds fired off from Uni's rifle drop a few pirates by the ship, the rest move off into action. THe engineers along the ship's hull leave their work in favor of assuming defensive positions (and scrambling for the weapons they left aside!), while the guards move closer to the ship to tighten their perimeter, hurriedly firing high-velocity munitions back towards Uni.

    Inside, the remaining crew's scrambling through as well. None notice Bravette slipping along past them, thankfully.

    Even further inside, in a very specific corner of the cargo space, there's much fewer pirates to be found. Three of them argue with each other by a small room blocked off by several steel bars, until two of them run off to join the rest of the defenders, leaving their friend behind on... guard duty?

    Behind the bars, something stirs.

    Back outside, one of the gun turrets mounted atop the ship spins around, trying to track Uni's movements. Uh oh.

    Uni keeps moving, switching ammo types and flinging fire-aspect bolts as the defenders start to group up. She dives back behind the ridge as the ship-grade weapon swings around, breaking line of sight and repositioning. She's a lot more mobile than a regular human, but is still only one person... what does she expect to accomplish?

    Bravette hides in a high shadow, clinging to a wire until there's only one guard left. She looks back toward where the other two went, then summons her Gattling Cannon into her free hand, and opens fire on the remaining guard, spraying him with high velocity rounds before dropping down and shooting the lock off of the door.

    At least the pirates are expecting that to be her downfall. It helps that they are not at all aware of her little helper inside of the ship. As the mounted gun opens fire in Uni's general direction - only hitting the earth of the ridge she's put in between but still continuing in hopes of suppressing her - the pirates take to the flanks, bouncing towards her location with hover-pack assisted motions.

    As for the guard inside getting blasted by a gattling cannon? He definitely did not expect THAT, judging from the utter look of shock on his expression that lasts through the few seconds it takes for him to slump onto the floor. Whoever is behind that door did not expect that either, clearly, considering the "GAH!" that's heard from the other side.

    In the next instant, however, the barred door sans the lock SLAMS open from the force of a kick by the inhabitant emerging from the unlit room. A tall, young man in jeans and a tank top, with aging bruises visible here and there is presented from within, staring at the little gatling gun -bearing robot with bright green eyes.

    "...You're... one of the good guys, right? RIGHT?"

    Bravette says, "Bravette. MMS Type Firearms, Zelnogrard." replies the small robot. "I am here with my Master on behest of the local government." she adds, dismissing her weapon and floating down. "YOu should evacuate while Master distracts them. I am going to destroy their engines."

    Uni is being surrounded. She summons a grenade and hucks it left, then strafes the right, breaking over and deadrunning to a new ridge, firing a few bursts of electric bolts at the turret as she crossed open ground.

    Bravette's introduction earns... a slow blink. A very, very slow blink. "... I have no idea what any of that means," the young man admits immediately, with a straight face. Destroying the engines, though? *That* he undertands! And it draws a brief surge of armflaily panic from him.

    "AH! ARe you going to blow this thing up?! Can you like-- wait? For like TWO MINUTES? I need to... GET SOMETHING. JUST--!"

    Without even waiting for a response, he's already running right past the Robot Helper and down the same way the two other guards went. O...kay.

    The turret briefly shorts out when hit by the electric bolts, the controls interfered by the electrical surge. The grenades Uni throws do their work well enough too, all things considered-- the blasts might not take out more than a few, but it holds them back long enough to give her an opening to change positions.

    Uni skids behind another dirt hillock, "Bravette, sit-rep, how's taking out their engines going? I can't keep this up forever." she radios, turning her weapon on any guards that are stupid enough to round the corner.

    "Master, I found a prisoner... he seems rather agitated. I am proceeding to engineering now." replies the Shinki, watching the retreating back of the young man for a moment.

    THe young man goes a completely different way from the Shinki. If Bravette knows the layout of the ship at all, she'd probably guess he's on his way to the armory. That... can't be good at all, can it?

    Once she gets to the engineering section, she will-- actually find more pirates there, shockingly. The actual engineers put in charge of the reactors. ONe of them does inevitably notice her with a panicked sound and a frenzied effort at shooting at her with a pistol. It... is not very effective. These ones aren't anywhere near as trained as the pirates outside.

    Speaking of the pirates outside. THey continue advancing in their formation towards Uni, carefully, and the mounted turret sets once more to prepare to fire upon her position...

    Right as an explosive sound rings out from the ship. It's not an actual explosion, but the effect might as well be the same, as one of the entry hatches is sent flying outwards, and right behind it comes an armored figure leaping through.

    Enter Sieger, with a startling form of his Knight Armor. The golden highlights in the otherwise grey-but-sleek light plates along his body shine under the rays of the night even as he comes slamming down onto the ground and into the stereotypical Superhero Landing pose. "ALRIGHT!" He promptly declares. "I'M BACK!"

    Most of the pirates have turned back to look to him. Only a short few seconds pass by in pause before several rifles and the mounted turret all turn towards him.

    "... Oh."

    Bravette summons her Gattling Cannon again, spinning up and just spraying the engineers, and strafing it across the consoles, aiming to just rip out the control systems and disable them.

    As Sieger causes a distraction, Uni pops up and opens fire into the turned backs of the guards. "Don't just stand there, find cover!" she calls, firing and ducking back into cover, before rolling out and deadrunning across open ground again.

    The engineers taken care of and consoles destroyed, the ship isn't about to get moving very soon, at least. And the rest of the reactors are left open for tampering too, at that.

    The initial barrage from the pirates aimed at SIeger gets intercepted, in the meantime, by... of all things, SIeger's hands coming up, and conjuring forth glowing red triangle of transclucent energy in the shapes of several runes. Some manner of shield that soaks up the kinetic energy from the rounds-- though cracks form pretty quickly in it. Uni opening fire at the pirates does create a moment of reprieve for him. But that moment of reprieve? Despite the young woman's suggestion, it's not spent trying to find cover.

    It's spent charging towards the closest grouping of pirate gunmen with a speed well faster than what a normal human can manage and driving a gauntlet-covered fist into the ground, cracking it below them in an explosive reaction that sends several pirates flying off their feet.

    And just like that, between the efforts of Uni, Bravette and Sieger, the formation of the pirates is in a complete disarray.

    Bravette radios. "Master. Engines disabled. Should I rejoin you, or damage the reactors also?" she asks, landing on one of the broken consoles, and peering at the open reactor housings.

    Uni keeps spraying fire as the formation breaks and begins to scatter. "Stop running, put down your weapons, and you won't get shot!" she shouts as she keeps firing shots across the paths of those that start trying to flee.

    Sieger doesn't catch up quite immediately to the fact that the battle is more or less won. The young man in armor bounds through from the earth-quaking attack to speed from one person to another, assaulting them with fierce punches and kicks to knock them out... and around.

    A moment after Uni's made her declaration, he does catch up, and drops himself down to one knee-- a knee that just so happens to press down upon a knocked-over pirate. "Should probably listen now," he murmurs, with a flash of a grin. "TUrns out I'm not alone this time around."

    With the turret's control systems taken out by the dmaage to the engines, there's not any heavy fire support to be given to the pirates at all, and thus defeat grows more and more obvious. And with that, weapons fall to the ground, one by one.

    Uni radios. "Come on out Bravette. Mission complete. I'll send word to the locals to come round these guys up." She gestures to the surrendered pirates back to the ship. "Gather up. Now. You're going in the cargo hold until the local authorities show up. Any funny business, and I'll blow the ship." she says to the pirates.

    Bravette nods to herself, lifting up and flying out of the ship on her jetpack. She floats over to, and lands on Uni's shoulder, looking at Sieger. "Oh, it's the agitated prisoner."

    THat's a pretty serious threat. Even Sieger seems vaguely concerned by it.

    Once it's all said and done with, however, the young man moves on over to approach Uni and Bravette. Only to squint his eyes at the little Shinki left on Uni's shoulder. "... That's all the descriptor you have for me...?" He mutters quietly, before shaking his head and flashing a toothy grin to the two of them.

    "THanks for the help! I thought I was going to have to chew through the bars with my teeth to get out of there!"

    Uni gently headpats her Shinki. "What else is she supposed to describe you as?" she asks, quirking a brow at him. "We didn't come here to help you, just be glad Bravette likes helping people."

    The Shinki leans into the headpats, and summons a little canister to sip from. "System stress peaked at 67. Tuning may be required, Master."

    "...Eh?" The grin disappears quickly, and Sieger blins his eyes once, twice, thrice at Uni. "...Wait, hold on. You wouldn't have just *left* me there either, would you?" He asks, with a faint wince in his body language.

    "... no." replies Uni, looking away with a slight huff. "I-I'm just saying you should be grateful to my partner... th-that's all." Bravette quirks a brow at her Master, then looks accusingly at Sieger without a word, just brows knit under that ribbed helmet, and behind her combat visor.

    "...?" Confused as he is by Uni's behaviour, Sieger *does* still manage to somehow catch the accusing look from Bravette in spite of her helmet. He still does not fully understand, but he can tell he said SOMETHING wrong.

    "...Well you helped too," he insists, thus, with a slow roll given to shoulders covered by thin armor plates. "So I'm grateful to you both. Especially since you're the first actually helpful person I've met in... I don't even know how long of being lost now. Oh well."

    With a brief flash of light, and a scattering of mana dust, the armor and the gauntlets both are cast away, the magic returning the jeans and the tank top Bravette saw him in before. And a brown leather jacket that flows loosely about him with it's zipper undone. He must have grabbed that on the way to retrieving his Device, too.

    "Either way. Hi!" With those suddenly-more-cheerful words, he extends one large, rough-skinned hand towards Uni. "I'm Sieger!"

    Uni looks at the hand askance, but doesn't take it, instead opting to fold her arms over her chest. "Uni." is her response. Bravette says nothing. She already introduced herself, and the pair just kind of look at Sieger with almost identical deadpan expressions.

    "......" Sieger's left, with that, akwardly keeping his hand held out. Smile turning more akward by the second. "... D-... do they not do handshakes in this dimension...?" He asks, sheepishly, before he withdraws his hand, letting it fall lazily back to his side with a sigh.

    "Dunno, not my dimension... still looking for a way back to it." replies Uni a bit snippily. "I don't shake hands with people though." She shrugs, then finally pulls a radio from somewhere. it just kinda appears in her hand as she brings it up to her ear. "Comm-check. Desert Flower, this is Hawkeye. Ship secured, crew neutralized. You can send in your recovery team now."

    "...Don't like the whole touching thing. Got it. WAIT." Sieger perks up, suddenly. "Ah! You're just like me then! I'm trying to find my way back to my dimension too! We're both lost!" Well, that might not have been the best way to put it. He doesn't dwell on it, though. He quiets up for the moment she takes to speak to the radio, before he continues. "I've been stuck in this dimension for... I don't know, a month now? And I got into this biiiiig fight with these pirates and uh... They took me prisoner for wrecking a bunch of their stuff."

    A quiet cough rumbles up his throat, and he glances away.

    "I *almost* won, though. ALMOST."

    "Nearly only counts in horsebird shoes and high explosives." retorts Uni with a roll of her eyes. "You don't know about the Vines, do you?" she asks next, gesturing vaguely back the way she approached from. "They're how you get from world to world in the Tree... you've been here for months and not even seen them?"

    "...I mean, I've been to other worlds, I just..." Sieger lets out an akward cough, and looks off to the side and away from Uni again. "... I wasn't exactly given an instructional pamphlet or anything. And I thought there might be multiples in one world? And I could try to find home like that. I don't know!"