World Tree MUSH

    Earth. Chicago Metropolis. The last few centuries have not been kind to the people of this city, with more and more building, political strife, and who knows what else leading to a sprawling network of skyscrapers and bridges across them, with the lower portions choked with shacks and ramshackle housing for the lower castes, while the upper parts are shining and clean structures that pierce the clouds.

    The Vine leading to this place is outside the city itself, but intersects with a monorail line, leading to a small checkpoint intended to keep the riffraff at bay. This had the expected effect by those who know about how the Tree's Vines work... and it moved to right next to an area of civil unrest and basically ended up funnelling a ton of undesirables in, thanks to the upper class attempting to shut things off. Good job.

    Athena had put some word out through whatever means she could referencing a problem she wasn't sure how to deal with herself. A supposedly-abandoned factory was where she requested help, through lines that may have been intercepted... or maybe people are here for their own reasons. Someone has been specifically seeking out and kidnapping people of various nearby Worlds, and the strange and advanced technology they used had sometimes been glimpsed. Whether tracing the kidnappings or the tech, it all leads to this place... a broken down factory.

    With very new-looking electrified fence and automated turrets, along with drone patrols. That's not suspicious at all, is it? Athena certainly thinks it is, the armored and well-armed woman in a nearby decrepit building, keeping an eye on it while waiting for contacts.

    EARLIER:

    "Research Chief Besithia?" Aranea asked, entering the personal laboratory of the much older and shadier man who had called for her.

    "Commodore."

    "What's the sitch?"

    "We've lost one of our new-model troopers."

    "You tend to send them off to die, so that's not -"

    "To an off-world force. With impressive technology I might add. I'd like you to bring him back, along with what was used to get him."

    "Right. Sure, on it."

    NOW:

    A red ship approaches. Aranea'd needed quite the time and effort to figure out where to go, and most of it was done through help from the Harvesters - of which at least one had elected to accompany her, and she didn't mind in the slightest. She's pretty social, all told, and was as curious as anyone else to hear of the worlds beyond hers.

    But when it was time to act, she'd elected to jump into the fray immediatly. The tracker in the soldier's body led them here, now that they were in range. The ship's rear doots open up and down, Aranea's spear appearing in a flash of red light, with the typical hum of magitek too (though the ship's engine probably drowns it out with its own).

    "Hope you can keep up," she asides to Claudia.

    And then she jumps out of the ship, angling the spear downward as she places a foot down onto the large area where the head and the shaft connect. Looks like she's going for the dragoon landing, right onto one of those turrets, and the shockwave from the landing might even hit a few drones.

Claudia Kinborrow is right there beside the younger Dragoon. She's here similarly for reasons of helping out a fellow Harvester! And Aranea's proven better company than most! A real military girl not some stuffed up noble. 

 Claudia herself had spent most of the trip either drinking or cheating some of Aranea's men out of their gil in rigged card games. That might also be why the armored Templar is happily leaping out from the drop of the ship. 

 "Oh don't you worry now, my leapy armored friend! Old Claudia here will be right by your side! Let's go and have a good time, get your lad back in time for supper! Drinks are on him though!" A wink before Aranea leaps off. 

 She's no dragoon though, she snagged a parachute. 

 And thus half way down, Claudia hits the chord, then flicks it away when she's at maximum falling Holy Monk speed. Her arms glow, and then she takes the other turret by slamming her fists down, trying to tear through metal and cable with strength and holy ki! /Smash/!

    So the last time Tsuyu Asui had seen Athena, she left the supposedly reborn goddess with something that is very imoprtant to a teenage girl.
    Her cellphone number.
    Some text messages back and forth about this issue, and not too long after... She's here. Funny thing, though, she's not in her school uniform, but another kind of uniform entirely. A form fitting green and black bodysuit, with a matching pair of goggles, and frog-feet styled flippers... It seems more like an aquatic environment oriented outfit, but she's come in her superhero suit today.
    "So like, I really probably shouldn't be here." She croaks. "I'm technically not a licesened hero yet, so my hands are a bit tied in what I can or can't do, but I mean, if I just so happen to be in the area where something's going down, I guess I can help out." She says idly to Athena, as people begin arriving. Aranea and Claudia are new faces for her, she starts tapping at her chin.
    "Technically as a Greek God would you count as a hero? I'm kind of looking for someone for some internship time."

    It might seem odd to have a woman dressed as a primitive wandering about, especially with spear and bow. Primitive or not, Aloy navigates her way through the city easily enough, her Focus interfacing with the local mesh and pulling up a map for her. The sheer amount of people here is making her uncomfortable, but now that the abandoned factory that isn't really abandoned is coming closer, it's much more comfortable for the huntress who is used to smaller collections of people.

    Except there's a fence. Aloy has no idea of Athena's presence, she's tracking something from HER world. And while she's analyzing this, a dragoon and a monk are plunging in and making a me-

    Distraction. A convenient distraction. Aloy hmms, and while the turrets and drones are handling Aranea, she quickly scans the fence for power lines with her Focus, trying to home in on some sort of central place she can either attack(if she's lucky) or do some weird logic puzzle to turn it off(if she's not so lucky)

    And so things immediately become a mess!

    Athena talks quietly with Tsuyu at first. "Hero? Me? No, but I used to help out heroes back in the olden times. I think you'll be fine here though... this is a kidnapping across world lines, for an illegal experimentation, and I also looked it up. Technically this place has been decomissioned and demolished. It's public property, not private. I'm betting some Meth bribed someone to use it and didn't want a trail leading back to his property. You should be-"

    In the clear, is what she's about to say. Athena doesn't expect that the dragoon lance shears through the turrets like that, announcing the presence of someone else not happy with the kidnappings. The lance splits the casing wide open, sending showers of sparks, and the turret lowers its barrel without firing. Claudia punches another! And this one sparks and shoots, not totally disabled, but she's stopped it from being able to move. Wow this is easy!

    Except when the drones buzz over and begin firing lasers... at the turrets. Patching wires, spraying nanomist, and doing ongoing repairs in an instant while the other turrets open fire on the two invaders.

    Into this chaos, Aloy scans for a power source. It's on the other side of the fence of course, but she's identified the main line leading to the fence itself. If someone could get to that, somehow, or destroy it, that would take care of the problem right away!

    Athena frowns, "Looks like we aren't the only ones worried about it. Okay, I'll talk to your instructor, Tsu. I respect how you're upholding your rules." But right now there's a mess to take care of!

    And there it is. Aloy looks at the people causing trouble and comes to a quick conclusion. The enemy of my enemy is... at least a possible temporary ally. Unaware that she's being watched by frog and god, the 'primitive' woman ducks out from her cover and eyes the power source. Then she pounts it out, calling out to the two that launched from the sky, "The fence power is over there! Can one of you shut it down?" This might end up just telling Tsuyu.

    She has other ways to help out. Those drones are patching the turrets, she can see that. "They're fixing the machines," she murmurs to herself, because it wouldn't be a normal day if Aloy didn't state the obvious in monologue. The patrolling drones give her an idea though...

    The spear thrusts toward one of the drones, but not to penetrate. Hopefully she can do this before being shot up... but the goal is for her to let her override crawl over the drone and turn it against the others, so it tears apart the turrets instead of fixing them.

 Grin! "And that is what you get, filthy heathens, for using machinist's drek! Good old fist for me, not let's make sure this heretic's sticker doesn't move agai...by the Father what in blazes is that!?" 

 Claudia's triumphant smashing of turret is utterly ruined as those lasers begin to /heal the machinery/. The monk looks utterly agast and horrified. Teeth grint, and she /glares/ at those drones! "HEATHENS! Using such disgusting technology! Turning aside the natural order, just wait 'til I get my hands on your scrawny necks you godless wretches!" She hasn't yet notice Tsu and Aloy yet, she's a little bit busy yelling and now trying to smash down some of said turrets. Luddite she might be, but she's not stupid either. Her right hand glows, and then she punches the air! 

 A lancing glow of holy white power crashes away, he holy monk trying to tear into those healing drones. They're clearly the true threat if they want to get anything done!

    Tsuyu spends a beat tapping a gloved finger to her lower lip. "Eraser Head will probably be pretty mad, but if you talk to him..." She muses. More importantly though. "Oh. Public property. I see." Though she does blink. "What's a Meth?"
    She spends a beat turning that vacant stare on Aranea and Claudia as they tend to the drones, but Aloy points out something very important. The location of the power station for the fence.
    The amphibian girl lowers into a crouch on all fours lazily... And then she jumps.
    It's a leap to rival Aranea herself, as Tsuyu clears the fence in a single frog hop, turning in the air and landing lightly on her feet in a crouch once again. With the turrets distracted handily distracted, she'll just... Fiddle with the power station and flip switches firmly to the 'off' position.

    Seems these aren't that sturdy - but they can be repaired on the spot. Of course. The onslaughter of turret fire drives Aranea back momentarily, using her spear as partial cover. The shots that make it to her seem to be slowed by some kind of red-ish, barely visible field around her, enough that she's not full of holes already. More knocked back a couple inches.

    Seems they have friends trying to get in, too.

    That'll make retrieval much easier.

    The dragoon's red spear twirls, humming loudly as she points it towards a cluster of those pesky repair drones. Red lights on it flare up, and blue lightning suddenly arcs out, trying to shreds through the machines in a circular pattern. That is, in fact, some manner of Thundara or Thundaga, though it has a weird emulated quality to it. It's not true magic, but it's close enough.

    Asided to Aloy, "You guys here because they stole people you care to get back too, or just causing a mess for the hell of it?" She won't judge if it's the latter, promise. Civil unrest is entertaining.

    She's not going to reply to Claudia about heathen technology because... yeah. Magitek. Though Aranea does seem quite amused all-in-all to have found a kindred spirit. A significantly more vocal and religious one, but one nonetheless.

    "Huh..." Using a spear to take over drones? That's pretty strange. Athena has seen some weird stuff, but this crossover of tech and primitive weaponry is new to her. The armored goddess leaps out from where she was as well, moving on toward the installation that is now increasingly looking less decrepit as lights flare on and rumbling issues from within, the sound of something starting up.

    Good thing that Athena can just walk right through! Tsuyu flips a few switches and the lights on the fence go out, the externally-installed system displaying its weakness! In return, Athena joins the fight by blasting some of the drones and answering, "Something like that. I don't want to see them using offworld bodies, things are messed up enough with clones." Her energy rifle goes to work to give cover to the others who are now under fire.

    Aloy hijacks a drone, the machine turning colors with the weird corruption thing she does. It turns about and starts dissecting other drones as ordered. This is giving more breathing room to Aranea and Claudia! Claudia and Aranea both wreck most of the drones, making the repairs to the turrets slower and leaving them heavily damaged, easier to take out.

    Athena then calls out, "We should find the sleeves inside! They're bound to have reinforcements coming in!"

 Oh, hey, they're not alone! A glance first to Tsuyu, then to Aloy, and finally to Athena. Then riiight back to her partner in chaos! 

 "Well well, looks like this is just turning into a proper party, eh? Should've brought some cookies or a potmeat! Father's on our side today, Miss Highwind, that he is! Ajora's blessin' our hinds proper!" Griiiin. Especially as those damn turrets are down. 

 Off the turret, and down to the ground. "Oi, you lot! Looks like we're all here for the same reasons. Your lads got nicked too? Horrible shame that is. What say we give these bastards a good drubbing!? Now hold still, can't have you all dying too early." 

 She mutters arcane words, and a green wave of magic passes over those closest to her! Aranea and her mostly, but maybe Athena is close enough to get the Regen spell. Nothing to punch yet, instead she'll buff the party.

    "Yeah, what a shame it'd be if they used OUR human experimentation bodies for THEIR awful human experimentations," Aranea replies, dripping with sarcasm, towards Athena. From her tone it doesn't seem like she's okay with any of it, but she also seems like the kind who follows orders regardless.

    Well, they get to catch a break from the drones and turrets, so they'd better not waste any time.

    "Right, well, let's kick that door down and say hi before those things are repaired enough to shoot at us again."

    Aranea moves to literally kick down one of the factory's doors. And if it won't yield under her boot, that's what she has her spear for.

    Offhandedly, to Claudia, she shrugs. "Don't know about any saints or gods, I'd rather have you behind me than some force I can't see. One actually heals me, no offense." Or maybe all offense intended. There's certainly a compliment in there.

    "Handled."
    Tsuyu calls out lazily in regards to the electric fence. Not a problem anymore, and the froggy girl slouches in place for a moment, waiting for her next instructions. She's following Athena's lead here.
    "That's pretty messed up, though. Kidnapping people from offworld for this kind of thing." She does muse, before turning her attention on the building.
    "I'll leave those things to you guys, I'll start taking a look inside." She decides and... Presses herself against a wall. There's a moment where her coloration shifts- skin and super suit altering into the same shades of stone and brick, making her harder to pick out. Aranea makes to kick in the door- and as soon as she has that open, she'll have a froggy shadow following her.

    "Looks like someone has been busy, all right," Aloy agrees. "I'm chasing a kidnap victim, too." Tucking her spear out of the way, she is heading after Aranea. "Aloy. I don't know who you are, but I guess we're both after the same thing. Let's try not to get in one another's way." A pretty reasonable request, she thinks!

    While the others are going to head into the building, Aloy decides to take care of some of the Turrets so those aren't going to be a problem. The wave of regeneration is a breath of fresh air, and she nods, "Thanks. Let's see what I can do to slow them down."

    That turns out to be a quick shot with her bow, the electrified arrow she shoots trying to delay the repair of the turrets so they won't have to fight their way out.

    Athena whistles, letting her own combat drone buzz in and start blasting, to cover the entrance. "I don't know how many they've taken, but sleeving into offworld bodies is just going to make this mess worse." She makes a face as she follows the others in... and Tsuyu vanishes. But Athena continues to speak and explain. "Some Meth - Methuselah - is likely trying to get a new body for a thrill ride. Only an immortal would be able to pull this off, and it's just the sort of thing that damages the spiritual fabric here. Resleeving into nonhumans is dangerous enough, what would an offworlder do?"

    Aranea and Claudia seem to have an easy time with the turrets... but now there's the disused factory. Rusty walls and corridors, doorways without doors, and plenty of clutter abounds. Tsuyu is already slinking through and finding out where the corridors lead! Presumably with this being a factory, there's some kind of open space for the whole operation to run from.

 Claudia rolls her eyes at Aranea. "Well, I suppose I can't blame you for being a heathen! Don't worry, we're going to change that one day. Besides, having a Templar at your side is just about as good! This will be a sinch!" 

 So confident! Whump! Door. "Never get tired of seeing a Dragoon do that." Laugh. A glance to Aloy. "Right you are, lass! Keep those arrows up. Fancy bow you got there." 

 Tsuyu is weird. Bliiiiink. "Did that girl just...change colors?" Okay, this world is weird. 

 And then there's rusty abandoned factory to traverse. The monk is a glowing night light as she charges just behind Aranea like a good temporary subordinate. If there's a door that looks like it's going to be a problem? She solves it with a nice and hard punch. Like a good monk, everything is a nail waiting for her hammer hands to bring it down. 

 "So where would I hide a bunch of poor sops if I were an unholy abomination against Ajora?" She mutters to herself and the group at large. She keeps her eye peeled though in case of soldiers. Or turrets inside!

    "Aranea," she answers Aloy, looking left and right to try to make sense of the warehouse. Lots of clutter, doors, broken stuff. Why take them here? This doesn't look like a state-of-the-art facility at all.

    "Sleeving?" she also asks out loud, though from the context she vaguely understands that it means taking over another body in some form or another. It's not really her wheelhouse. Mad science isn't on her resume, and she tries to keep her head out of whatever mess the chancellor and his research staff are doing.

    "Hey, don't get me wrong," she answers Claudia. "I knows gods're real, I've helped put one down. Wasn't pleasant, but I'm not about to tell you your god's not real. Just saying, your hand's the one healing me. When this Ajora of yours extends his grace to me I'll see about changing my mind."

    Oh, Tsuyu just did change color. That's a thing.

    Well, that's enough time wasted. "I'd probably go as deep underground as it goes, I guess, behind blast doors and more turrets. Can't tell if there's anything under us, so let's just look for whichever part of the place is fully powered and lighted up."

    "That's... different," Aloy admits, when Tsuyu changes color. She keeps her bow ready, but she's going to retreat into the building now, with one last shot toward the other turret to give her some extra time on the way out. Then she's inside. They'll just have to deal with it on the way out if they aren't down by then. Maybe there's a control panel in here?

    "I've never heard of sleeving," Aloy admits. "This is the first time I've been to a world that seems more advanced than mine. Usually the people I work with don't really understand machines. This place is a lot more chatty than most, I'm getting broadcasts all over even here."

    Hugging to walls, pausing every few paces to make sure her coloration matches her surroundings, Tsuyu's pace is a slow one, at first. Before she latches onto a wall. With a shift of her weight, she presses her palms to the wall and heaves herself up. Her feet plant next, and then... She's scaling the wall as easy as walking. This continues until she's nearly to the apex, where she starts following the wall, perpendicular to the ceiling. She picks up her pace a bit.
    It's not exactly perfect stealth, but you would be surprised how many people, especially guards, simply just don't look up. SO she takes the opportunity to scout ahead. The factory is big but occasionally there's a call to the group from up above.
    "Hey, I think there's something this way." or "Head that way, it seems right." Easy directions to follow.
    "Yeah. I changed colors."
    That too.
    "What? You act like you've never seen a frog do this?" She asks at all the commenting over her palette swapping.

    Tsuyu is getting a good lead on everyone! Athena leaves Little Owl to take care of the drones, backing into the corridor while everyone else is looking through it. She takes this short break to explain, now.

    "Sleeves are... bodies. Whether born or not. In this world, you can change your body if you know where to get a new one. Meths, the rich and powerful, have used this to make themselves basically immortal by cloning their old bodies and downloading into new ones. The poorer people are stuck with what they're born with... and some even have to literally rent their bodies to thrill seekers."

    Athena swings her rifle onto one shoulder, and pulls her slugthrower out instead. "I'm not sure what problems your worlds have, but your sleeves in my world will just cause problems. I guess we're on the same side for now. I'm Athena, one of the local... powers that be, I guess, who are trying to fix all this."

    Lights are on in places! They're leading to a powered elevator, but it doesn't have a direct route through.

 Blink! Claudia peers at Aranea, and gives a savage grin. "Oh, what's this? You're goin' around putting down heathen gods, blasphemies against all that's right and holy? Then you don't even think to give your good friend Claudia a nudge!? Why, I'm insulted! Put out! Proper mad and saddened! Breaking my heart you are, and leaving it all in pieces with those guns!" She crowds, faux-wounded, only to wink to the soldier. 

 "You'll see the Saint's work soon enough! Maybe after you pick up our tab for this grave wrong you've done to me!" 

 Still, there's a mission to complete. Tsuyu is easy to follow. Kid could make a good squad leader! She finds herself impressed, and marks the girl down to find her later. Always good to have talents like that. "The fact, my little croaking moppet, that you're right only makes me that much more mad about it! Cheeky little lass you are!" Complains the Templar. 

 Claudia herself is looking a little green as Athena describes what sleeving is. "...Saint preserve us! Treating a man's body, gifts from above as nothing more than disposable /things/! I...this world's lot better get it's act together! Like the old sinners of Mullonde past, the Father will strike down such blasephemies! Won't be anything left! Disgusting!" She spits on the ground. And keeps the plight of the poor in her back pocket. How...useful. 

 Oh, there's debris getting in their path to the powered elevator? Claudia cracks her knuckles. 

 "Stand back everyone! Time to clear a path so we can get our lads /out/ of this heretic infested swamp of a building! SAINT AJORA'S CROSS!" And then she punches the ground, sending a wave of furious holy ki towards anything and anyone that might get in the way. Hopefully she won't damage the elevator! Claudia Kinborrow is bad at being gentle.

    "Sounds convenient for the rich and like hell for the pool," Aranea comments to Athena, though she also adds: "Bodies. Our bodies are bodies, not sleeves." It's weird to refer to their bodies as sleeves, whether that's accurate or not. And whether it's sleeves or Sleeves.

    Claudia replies, and Aranea laughs. "It was basically ten years ago. Not quite sure what happened but the Astral, Shiva, decided to wake up and turn a desert into a permafrost. Empire got pissy, grabbed all the mercenaries they could get and threw bodies at her 'till she fell over. S'how I made my mark and earned my rank." And her spear, too. They don't make those unique models for just anyone. Pretty costly.

    "Promise if another one crops up I'll invite you over though."

    Well, there's their elevator. And Claudia beats a path right to it. Aranea follows along, not missing a beat.

    Aloy is scanning the area with her focus, but it looks like she's ready to go down since Claudia is so... energetic. The topic of gods makes her grimace, though. "I'm not sure about other worlds, but I've never had much luck with gods and spirits in mine. Nothing but trouble, for me. The Matriarch thought I was the daughter of the Allmother herself, and that just caused me no end of problems in the end. Turns out she wasn't exactly wrong, but wasn't right either."

    With things getting more cramped, Aloy switches back to her spear. "The drone's probably freed itself of the override by now. I'll have to stick to this if we get into a fight."

    Cheeky? Just a little. Though Tsuyu keeps further comment to herself, by the time the group finds the elevator.
    And Claudia pummels a path to said elevator.
    "Nice."
    As to sleeving though... "So that's how the Siren could have been brought back, right? I'm guessing that's why her bouncers were so keen on getting back her stack, thing huh." She says, piecing things together.

    Athena is already stepping into the elevator and nodding to Tsuyu. "That's right. The Siren you saw could have been put into a new body and would have kept growing in power. I'm not sure her stack is fixable now anyway... but at least we can put her in VR and talk to her if we need to, until something more permanent can be done. We're distant cousins so I'd rather not kill her if I don't have to."

    Athena listens to the god discussion and bites back her own reply. "Taking over the drone was pretty good. I didn't expect that. But be prepared for-"

    Ding.

    The doors open, and yes, here's where the facility is. LOTS of bodies, in tubes, most of them unconscious. And the ones that aren't unconscious are rising, disoriented. Looks like maybe a half dozen, all in various stages of humanity and demihumanity. The soldier that Aranea is after is here and flexing his limbs, looking in better shape than the elflike one nearby. It's obviously a strange situation for the newly-bodied.

    When everyone arrives, the cyborg one looks up, then snaps attention to the floating drone in the middle of the room. "AL! Did you... sextuple sleeve me? I told you to get a strong body, not this!"

    The drone whistles, "You told me to find the strongest body available in the world, Master. Recent data has made that requirement much more broad than usual. The other thirty-four sleeves are being prepared."

    "Daughter of the head god huh?" Aranea eyes Aloy, amused. "Can't say we got any children of the gods around my parts, but we've got this whole king and oracle deal that's apparently nothing but trouble and at the center of the war, so must be something like that. Not offpsrings of the gods but related in some way. Honestly, I just spear stuff," she admits, not being one for politics any more than worship.

    There's the bodies.

    Well, people. Not bodies yet, evidently. That COULD be arranged if things get nasty.

    She moves over to the man with cybernetic limbs, though doesn't make the mistake of trying to grab him. She knows those troopers are pretty strong, and if it's not even the soldier's mind in there anymore...

    She does point her spear, though.

    "Yeah, so. Gonna have to ask you to come with me. I'd rather you cooperated, I'm supposed to bring you in alive."

    Nevermind the fact there's all these other people and probably even security around.

    "Not exactly," Aloy replies. "It's not a god at all... but close enough. In the end I'm just as human as anyone else in the tribe." Except, of course, for what she ends up doing right here. When the doors open and the 'fight' is ready to start, she doesn't attack the bodies. She instantly figures out what's happened.

    "You forgot to give your AI proper limiting factors. That never ends well," Aloy says as she looks for a console, her Focus scanning. She isn't going to go after the sleeves... Athena and the chameleon frog girl can deal with that while she... hunts down and traces the signal feeding into the sleeves, figures out where it is, and hurls her spear at it. Can't let the download continue, right?

>> GAME >> Aloy spends an Edge for: Cut off the signal with a flash of insight.

    "What's an Allmother?"
    Into the elevator and Tsuyu's natural coloration returns. The girl stands slouched and she follows out of the elevator into the next room. Full of people in tubes.
    "I'm sorry. Did he say 'sextuple sleeve'? Does that mean what I think it means?"
    Even better question, "Can they be like... Un-sleeved?"
    Tsuyu is taking the opportunity to ask as many questions as she can. This is a learning experience, after all, letting heavy hitters like Aranea tend to actually subduing the moving ones.

    Athena is listening, and this raises some questions for everyone. "A Godkiller and a God-blooded. What an interesting group we've ended up with." It's just a little too busy right now to have much discussion! Athena moves into doing /something/ as soon as she can, and answers Tsuyu, "Yes, yes they can as long as we can-"

    Then a spear smashes into a data line, and her pistol lowers. "... keep him from downloading and subdue what he already has." Which is what SHE is going to do! Even if it means moving swiftly and pistol whipping the confused elf, her body showing an accelerated pace that makes it a lot clearer that she herself isn't exactly human.

    The cyborg, the one who is actually clear-headed, looks at Aranea. "Oh, well... this wasn't expected, but this sleeve is very suited for me I think. Why don't we test it out, hmm?" And he moves.

    Physical ability isn't everything, is it? Whoever this is has a lot of experience with combat, and the martial move he does is quick, brutal, and aiming toward Aranea's knee! He's more than a match for almost anyone that could be thrown his way.

    Probably not a match for the likes of Aloy or Aranea though.

    Well that's going to be a pain. Of course he'd try fighting. And with experience to back him, that's not a bad body to have.

    The dragoon's spear spins, blocking the kick with the head before she backs away, to avoid remaining in melee, of all things. Either he'll outpunch her, or he'll push his luck and get killed. Lose-lose.

    "It's not bad, but if I were you I'd go with something less vulnerable to electricity. Just saying."

    She slams the end of her spear into the ground, and lightning arcs out, as red lights dance around the spear, its magitek core humming to life again.

    It's not enough electricity to seriously harm someone, but it's enough to make life very uncomfortable for someone with unshielded cynerbetics. The empire never did care to make their cannon fodder especially shock-proof. Or death-proof.

    A diving roll goes for the spear, and Aloy yanks it out, and turns around to help Athena take care of the riff-raff. With the others stopped, hopefully Aranea can take care of her soldier. Hopefully! She doesn't want to stab them randomly anyway.

    "Athena, what do you need to get them out of there and back to their original owners?" Aloy asks, sliding over and thwacking a body that's moving with the back of her spear.

    Teeeechnically, Tsuyu shouldn't be here. Let alone get into a fight with someone who kidnapped forty people. This is the job for an actual hero, not a student hero in training.
    She should be hanging back and leaving it to the others but- hey where did Tsuyu go?
    There's a ripple of motion from behind the cybernetic body that Aranea is dealing with.
    "Ribbit."
    Only Tsuyu's croak gives her away a second before her tongue lashes out, lashing like a whip to try and take the legs out from under the cyborg with a sweep and present Aranea with a better opening. Before she yanks her tongue back to avoid getting shocked in the process anyway.

    The other bodies go down far more easily. Between Athena and Aloy, they're taken care of swiftly. The AI, AL, is flitting about and muttering, "Oh dear, oh dear... oh dear, oh dear..." And then...

    The whip of Tsuyu's tongue lashes out and causes the cyborg sleeve to get interrupted mid-kick. "What?" He jerks away, but not before he stumbles... and then screams out with the thrashing reaction of someone who is, um, being electrocuted!

    The sound of something landing above, likely those reinforcements, thunders through the factory, but Athena is already typing into the nearest console. "Okay! I've managed to restore everything but the soldier here. Grab who you came for and let's get out of this place, I don't want to end up in a shootout with his personal army."

    Reinforcements, already? These guys don't mess around. Sounds like their work's done anyway, or at least as done as it'll get. Aranea reaches down to pick up the downed soldier and sling him over a shoulder, to the best of her ability depending on whether he's still in an uncooperative mood.

    "C'mon boy, you're coming along. And if you're lucky the research chief won't dissect you. I'd recommend cooperating so that doesn't happen."

    It'll probably happen regardless. If the body even lasts that long. Athena seemed to imply there'd be an issue with sleeving into off-world bodies, though so far they haven't seen any signs of that. Might as well ask.

    "Is it common for body-snatchers to have access to armies of robot drones? And why the big scare over people from elsewhere?" What's the worst that can happen anyway? The body dies? Sounds like a negligible loss on a world where bodies are like clothes.

    Athena starts moving now. "Humans in this world have two souls that form the greater one. In manufacturing and splitting bodies without the effort put into it by normal procreation - or the effort put into creating an AI, since some of them seem to have souls - it only creates a sort of half-state. Multiple-sleeving like this strains the soul, and it has to get it from somewhere. That's why the dead are starting to arise."

    She kicks the console, causing it to spark and die. "And sleeving into an offworlder means that our half-soul clashes with whatever remains of what's in there. Spiritualism doesn't work the same on other worlds as far as I can tell. The ones that were disoriented shouldn't have been so easy... Meths resleeve all the time. I don't want to find out what the long-term effects are."