World Tree MUSH

    There are many places to hide along California's Highway 1. The coastal highway was not friendly to simply stopping, built as it was along the steep and rocky coastline. During World War II and the leadup to that conflict, the United States' Department of War (now known as the Department of Defense) built numerous defensive emplacements in anticipation of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacking the Golden State. More than a few of these 'pillboxes' dot Highway 1, overgrown with vegetation after decades of disuse.
    The Beacon Society's investigations led to this particular one, showing signs of use even though beaten and weathered cyclone fencing and US DOD warning signs would dissuade ordinary people from approaching. The sun is approaching high noon, the sky is dotted with clouds, and the cool ocean winds whip through the area.

Of course the fact that there was magic coming from the vegetation instantly gets Benedicta's attention as her horn begins glowing yellow. This was certainly more than just a rundown defense emplacement. She can feel the cool wind blow her fur and her hood reveals the rabbit girl. At least this place was remote enough she shouldn't attract too much attention.

    This is not the first time Serrah has had the extremely sensible and forward-thinking idea of going out in the middle of the day. This will also not be the last time. She's looking incredibly sleep-deprived, and even-more-obviously undead. She's dressed entirely in black punk garb at the moment, aside from a rainbow-colored skort.

    "Not gonna be in top shape right now, fair warning," she remarks to Benedicta. "Better than a broken arm, but, uh." She shakes her head, and grabs a baseball out of the sports bag at her hip. "Yeah, uh ... yeah." She yawns widely, showing her fangs.

    ... And then her tongue darts out over her upper lip, like a cat would after yawning.

    Jun had recognized the place almost immediately. Not the insallation, no... the area. United States, his world. He wanted a random 'away from here' place -- he doesn't feel right going back to his parents now, so he's basically homeless -- when he went through it. He hasn't really been back to his world since 'the incident'. But this is pretty far away, so he's not too worried. Still. Those Vines are pesky sometimes, aren't they?

    But why here, of all places? Jun is curious enough to want to find out. It's possible that he might Benedicta and Serrah there, provided they aren't hiding, and heads in their direction in his curiosity. For magical senses: he is indeed magical, and it's life-flavored. So he might stand out just a little.

    Aurelia glances at Benedicta. She's not in her transformed state. The large gray cat she brought with her is huddled up near her feet, trying to stay out of the chilly wind. She looks at Serrah. "Thanks for coming but... if you're uncomfortable out here, I'd prefer if you stayed home and safe? I mean, you decided to come so you're probably not leaving, yeah?" The young woman looks around and squints as she notices the tall slim man. She taps Benedicta and Serrah on the shoulder, indicating the man with a nod of her head. "Anyone you guys know?"

Benedicta looks a bit uneasy as she sees Serrah's fangs, they've met before but there's still a bit of predator-prety instinct going on. "Nope, I hope he isn't with the Cabal or this is going to get awkward really fast. You might want to transform Aurelia, there's no telling what we might be up against here." The intel that Beacon was able to provide her with was limited after all.

    Serrah chortles, and shakes her head at Aurelia. "Kid, 'home' is currently either the mansion of a vampire who wants to control me because he liked the idea of having a minion he saw on TV once, or a vampire-slayer's hidden bunker," she says dryly. "So, heh. Neither option is 'comfortable' or 'safe'."

    She looks over towards Jun when indicated, and finds herself leaning away uneasily. "I dunno either, but I'm getting an 'unhealthy for vampires' vibe," she says in a low voice. "Soooo ... probably good news, in a more general sense." She grimaces as she notices Benedicta's reaction, and looks away. "Unless ... the ... Cabal isn't exclusively 'Dark' or whatever, in which case, all bets are off I guess."

    Jun is transformed, as it turns out. Which is probably a good thing, given what's going on. He'll head towards where the three girls are, and offer politely, "Hello. I'm uh... Well, I ended up here by mistake, I think... but there's something strange going on, and I'd like to look around. Are you three here to do that too?"

    He looks between them... and yes, his gaze remains on Serrah for a few moments longer than normal. But it's not a glare. He actually seems confused!

    "Yeah..." Aurelia glances at the cyclone fencing. "... that's what we're here to do." She glances around one last time to make sure nobody normal is around. She then walks up to the locked gate and fiddles with the heavy padlock for a bit before it pops loose. Metal manipulation is nice for undoing locks like that. She holds the gate open for others to get inside. She'll put the lock back in place once that's done.
    The concrete face of the pillbox installation has weathered considerably in the nearly 80 years since it was build. It's a bit Cyclopean in its squat no-nonsense military build. A slit-like window facing the ocean, some kind of low wall on top like a castle tower. A rusty looking heavy metal door. As one approaches, one would notice subtle signs of footprints in the trampled vegetation and shiny new wear on the hinges of the door.

"Well, I suppose there could be a member of the Cabal with light magic, I never expected there to be one with warding. Go ahead, but the Cabal can be pretty dangerous. Don't say I didn't warn you." Benedicta doesn't have a problem with Jun coming along if he's not with the Cabal but she's not going to promise his safety. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to go home either if those were my options." She can't blame Serrah.

    Serrah looks back at Jun as if her fight-or-flight is low-key going off. "I'm a vampire," she answers his unstated question, in a flat tone of voice. A pause. "I'm a friendly kind, though," she adds.

    She chortles, and nods to Benedicta. "Yeah, really," she says. "Okay, uh ... let's see if I can't make a complete mess of all this." She melts into what appears to be some sort of liquid shadow, and flows up to the door. After a moment of apparent poking and prodding, she manages to slip in through the no-longer-airtight cracks.

    Jun nods to Aurelia. "If it's all right, I'd like to come with you," he says, almost meekly. He places his hands together in front of him, almost prayer-like in fashion, and promises, "I'll stay out of everyone's way." He offers a smile of greeting to Benedicta, though Serrah's admission has him looking to her in surprise.

    Well... everybody seems cool with everybody else, so Jun isn't going to mess that up! He'll follow the three girls past the fence as Aurelia holds it open for them. And then there goes one of them melting into shadow?! A bit surprised, but well... stay out of her way, Jun!

    The interior of the bunker is much more well kept than the exterior. Somebody has taken pains to repair the damaged concrete and keep the lights operational. There's a door that obviously leads to the defensive window area, a room or three to the left that probably held guns, medical supplies, and food. What would draw the eye though, is the new looking metal door set into the concrete in the back of the place. The small reinforced glass window in the door shows that bright fluorescent lights emanate from within. This door is secured with a tough looking lock. There's a strong floral scent coming from the gap between the door and the frame.
    By the time Aurelia catches up with the others, the housecat has turned into a metal lion and Aurelia is in reddish-gold full plate, ready in case of trouble.

Well, there's certainly going to be trouble as the metal door suddenly unlocks and Sybil dressed in her Hornet Queen attire steps out with several of her doubles. "Oh hey rabbit, you've decided you want to be a test subject after all. That saves me the trouble having to capture you. Your friends aren't welcome inside though. We've got Cabal business going on."

 "So you're working with them after all! You better remove the seal on my arm right now, or we're tearing this place apart!" Benedicta glared at her rival as she threatened her.

 "And even if Shel did so, I'm certain you would still try to tear this place apart. Besides as Hornet Queen I take orders from no one!" Sybil and the clones begin to surround to the group to keep them from leaving.

    Serrah rematerializes and opens the outer door for the others, then peers at the locked door. And the lights. "Preeeeeeetty sure we just hit jackpot," she says --

    And then the Hornet Queen makes herself known, and the group is quickly surrounded, and she sighs. "Yep, jackpot." She shrugs grandiosely, and then suddenly she's in a slightly different posture, gesturing with a baseball, as abruptly as if she was a video that had skipped ahead. "I hope your Cabal remembers how badly things went for 'em the last time me and Benedicta were in the same room together," she says conversationally. She shoots Sybil a fangy grin that doesn't quite have as much force behind it as she probably intends it to. "Thanks for, for keeping us out of the sunlight. By the way."

    Yeah she's still looking sleep-deprived.

    Jun is peering around the interior of the place as he enters. It's because of this he doesn't notice Aurelia's change until... oh hey GIANT METAL LION! He restrains his surprised reaction to a quiet squeak, thankfully.

    But of course there's MORE trouble now... and Jun has no idea what's going on! He's probably the only one who doesn't have a snappy comeback for the situation. But he does have a sword, which he draws. It's actually a sword HANDLE, one that looks like it's made of metallic coral, but a blade of light soon sprouts from the handle.

    And despite seeming to be more or less ready for trouble... there is a wide-eyed expression on his face. Wide-eyed, confused, and more than a little nervous. Possibly a less-experienced maho here...

    Aurelia looks slightly confused at the fact that Sybil has appeared, then she pulls down her helmet. She hasn't forgotten the nasty Easter incident where Sybil tried to kidnap Benedicta. She also hasn't forgotten what she almost did out of her anger. Her face flushes red with shame behind the helmet's mask as she remembers Zero having to bite her leg to get her to stop from killing Sybil. There's a subdued peal of thunder as Aurelia summons her sword into her hand, the blade catching and reflecting even the dimmest light in its adamant depths.
    "There's no volunteers here." Zero growls, large tail swishing in anger.

"Good, because the rest of you aren't getting inside! Don't like the sun huh? I'm sure you noticed the plants growing without any sunlight...turn on the generator!" One of the Sybils yell and a spotlight shines through the opening exposing everyone to artifical sunlight. Benedicta frowns at the sudden heat exposure and does her best to shield her eyes as they adjust to the light. The clones take advantage of the distraction and slam their staffs at the group trying to catch them off-guard.

    Serrah lets out a squawk of alarm at the sudden sunlight! ... And then she immediately settles down. "Oh, hah, artificial sunlight," she says with a smirk, jumping over the staff-attack and landing upside-down on the ceiling. "... Slightly pushing me down, oddly enough, but still." There's still a bit of sluggishness there -- she still hasn't gotten a full night's sleep in the past few minutes -- but noticeably less than there was outside.

    She glances back at Jun. Even she can see that he isn't doing too hot. "Stop the World!" she calls out, jumping towards him. She grabs Jun's shoulder --

    From Jun's perspective, it looks like a ripple of light emanates from Serrah, and everything becomes desaturated, slightly tinted purple, and frozen in time except Serrah and Jun himself. "By the way, I can stop time," she says, rapidly chucking baseballs (which also become frozen in time as soon as she's no longer in contact with them) ... though it isn't long before she runs out of subjective time. "Oh whoops --"

    -- and to everyone else, it looks like she and Jun are suddenly out of the way of the clone that was attacking him, and there's a bunch of baseballs flying out towards the clones.

    "GAH!" Yeah, Jun doesn't like the sudden bright light either. He's not prepared for the attack, and it would surely knock him down, where he'd be easy pickings for these attackers...

    Except suddenly everything just STOPS...

    Jun blinks at Serrah's words. "O-oh... tha-thank you..."

    Yeah, he doesn't have a lot of time to comment, because time begins to move again! But he has that extra few seconds to prepare, to mentally mark where the clones are. So when things are no longer stopped, he lunges at the nearest clone and takes a swing!

    It's worth mentioning that Jun's sword is also 'holy', though whether that's going to help him here is unclear...

    Zero seems to take the sudden light worse than most; darn sensitive, cat eyes are. This allows a few of the Sybil-clones to get some good hits in, the staffs clattering on the metal-clad lion. He recovers and takes a swipe at one with a massive paw.
    Aurelia's sword, however, presents a bit of a problem for anyone looking at it, since the diamond blade refracts the intense light into countless colors about the room, briefly glowing as bright as the sun. The light also bounces and reflects off of her orichalcum armor with the colors of a sunrise or sunset. Aurelia only has time to throw up an arm as the Hornet Queen's copies move to attack her, shielding her head from the staff blows.

A few of the clones are hit by baseballs out of suddenly nowhere and vanish. Along with the one that Jun cleaves with his sword. The remaining clones do get a few good hits on Aurelia and Benedicta. "That didn't quite go as well as I expected. Ugh, if we only that lizard-woman the doctor mentioned was with us. She could easily flash fry them..."

 "Wait, a moment you're working for the scientist that transformed Lizzie?!" Benedicta's tone of voice suddenly got a lot more serious and her eyes narrowed.

 "I don't work for anyone! He's going to help me rule the Cabal! And you will all kneel to me!" Sybil boasts quite loudly, but suddenly Benedicta's claws come out and she pins the Hornet Queen to the wall. The fact she doesn't disappear gives away the fact that the al-miraj girl has the real Sybil.

 "How can you go along with something so horrible!"

 "I'm really sick of you telling me what do with my life. Sybil, don't cheat off my test, Sybil wearing fur is murder. Sybil, you shouldn't drink!" Even being threatened and cornered by Benedicta's she's still mocking her.

    Serrah flinches away as Jun swings that sword-which-is-made-of-pure-holy. "By the way," she says, "watch where you're swinging that, it's definitely not healthy for my undead complexion OH GOD!" She flinches away from the sudden brightness of Aurelia's sword.

    And then Benedicta has Hornet Queen pinned against the wall. Okay, good. And Hornet Queen's still being an asshole. Okay, not good. Serrah lets out an almost animalistic growl. The broader context is still mostly lost on her, but she's up too late in the day, and she's tired and cranky, and now the part of her which feeds on her own negative emotions has had enough. "Oh will you shut up already!" she shouts, stomping over and swinging her fist to try to punch Sybil in the face with enough strength to knock an ordinary human out.

    Jun is... not going to comment or interfere with the argument. It isn't really his place. Instead he just concentrates on the clones, if there are any more. He'll be keeping them off of Benedicta as best as he can, if there are any more. If not he'll just... stand back.

    Serrah's warning gets a nod. "Right... uh, sorry about that," he offers sheepishly. "I'm new to all this, so I don't really know how any of this works yet..."

    As the commotion starts becoming centered on Sybil and Benedicta, a man covered in dirt, trailing wriggling worms from under his coat, bolts for the open outer door from the open inner door.
    Aurelia does her best to pry Benedicta from Sybil. "You don't want to do this..." She says, knowing exactly how the other woman feels.

Serrah's punch to Sybil's face gets Benedicta's attention along with making the remaining doubles vanish. She releases her but the Hornet Queen is still dazed by the blow. A glowing magic barrier appears in-between the group and Sybil keeping them from attacking her any further. "Leave, I won't allow you to harm my queen any further." A soft voice can be heard from inside of the lab.

 "Dammit, come out here and remove the seal you placed on me!" Benedicta scratches her claws against the force field but seems to have little effect on it. She doesn't get a response from Shield-Maiden either.

    Serrah seems more startled by the barrier than anything else, and she suddenly looks very ... worried. "Gahhhhh I almost lost control again ..." She looks towards the source of the voice. "Who the hell is that, anyway!?"

    She takes a few deep breaths, and shakes her head at Jun. "It's ... you're definitely fine most of the time," she says weakly. "But ..." Her gaze jerks around towards the running man. With the worms. "What the fuck," she says, and then one timestop-hop later, she's in the way of the door out, glaring at the man. "Hi there," she says flatly.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Sleep-deprivation is unpleasantly like drunkenness.

    Jun is standing back away from the struggle -- he's not really sure what he's supposed to do. Serrah's words get a nod... but then he also catches sight of the running man. "Hey!" he calls out, running in his direction. "Where are you going?!" This is probably not a person that needs to get away, so he's planning to try to stop the man from escaping.

    Serrah will definitely get to him before Jun does, but he'll be right behind them. With luck this'll end up with the man trapped between Serrah and Jun.

    The labcoat-clad man halts in front of Serrah, glances back at Jun, then explodes into a bazillion bugs, all trying to swarm past Serrah in his quest for escape.
    Aurelia backs up at the sight of the ward, then... remembers some training that Orania made her do the last time she was expected to face members of the Cabal. Focusing on the diamond blade with a portion of her magical power, she brings the mageblade crashing into the barrier in a clumsy attempt to dispell it.
    Zero pounces towards the Shield-Maiden, figuring he'd be a great distraction if nothing else.

    Serrah jumps in surprise at the bugs. "Gah!" Unfortunately, she's still in the cooldown of her timestop, and she has no idea how the hell she'd get in the way of a swarm of bugs regardless. She looks over her shoulder back at Jun and at Aurelia and Benedicta at the shield, then squints out into the sunlight, then looks back at the commotion inside again. "What. The. Fuck."

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Serrah has lost the thread of the plot here.

Sybil comes towards her senses and while the others are distracted by Shield-Maiden and the doctor she makes a few new clones of herself and the group takes off in all directions as a distraction, one of them heads towards Zero to lure him away from Shield-Maiden. Meanwhile, the young knight makes another barrier before pulling it around herself before vanishing from sight. 

"She works for the Cabal too, she calls herself Shield-Maiden. I think she's a dullahan or something." Benedicta explains to Serrah.

    Jun also jumps when SUDDENLY BUGS! But he also tries to 'pick them up', with a sheet of water underneath them. Of course then a bunch of things happen BEHIND him, and he's distracted! It could be possible for that water to suddenly not be enough, or for him to suddenly 'drop' it!

    "What happened?" Jun asks, as he tries to grab the 'sheet' of water again. He doesn't really have any context for what's going on. He is, however, starting to get used to completely having no idea what's happening, since he doesn't look too terribly confused this time.

    Zero gets confused at all the new clones and wards as easily as Aurelia does, leaving the two looking at their allies with bewilderment. 
    "Sooo.. what?" Aurelia asks, flatly, feeling super dumb.

    "Wha--" Serrah swings a fist at one of the Sybils ... which turns out to be a clone. "Right. Right." Serrah sighs, and rubs her eyes. "I am up way past my bedtime." She grins nervously at Jun. "The Obsidian Cabal is bad guys, basically. Uh ... does anyone have any idea what was up with the bug dude?" Beat. "Also, is it remotely a good idea for us to be just chilling around in what is obviously a Cabal facility with just the four of us and no backup and an uncertain number of enemies deeper in?"

    Jun nods to Serrah's explanation. "Aha. Right. Bad guys. Makes sense." That's easy enough to understand. He takes mental notes here, since... well, he knows this is his world. And this 'Obsidian Cabal' may have had something to do with the dragon that Jun found. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to ask any questions before accepting the Pearl. Maybe if he'd been just a bit faster...

    Well, thinking about that here and now isn't going to help anything. He just agrees with Serrah's other sentiment. "Yeah, if we don't know what's in there, it might be better if we come back with backup?" He phrases this as a question because he's not really got any authority to ask anyone that any of these girls are working for, or with, to send such a thing.

    Aurelia nods, finally getting her bearings. "Yeah! Uh, I mean, we can definitely send in the heavy hitters now?"

"It might be best to head back to Beacon for now, we got some information at least and I need to talk to Lizzie. If nothing else, Dr. Bug Guy should stir up some memories. If Sybil was telling the truth, which is a big if I admit. Plus, I'm sure they want know that she's calling the shots now. I wonder how the hell that happened? I wouldn't put her in charge of a lemonade stand let alone a secret underground cult." Benedicta must figure that they're really hard up at the moment.