World Tree MUSH

    Venice, Earth, Mid Renaissance.

    The dockyards are a busy place, even in the early evening. The sun casts the ocean in a dun drab, the smell in the air is nausiating... and the rooftops are crawling with men in flamboiyant outfits, red beret-like caps, frills and lace and velvet, carrying crossbows, and a couple with large feathers wielding primitive slug-thrower rifles.

    In a warehouse overlooking an out-of-the-way dock with various unscrupulous-looking individuals and a large ship bearing no identifying colours or emblems, a meeting of two groups that were at one point very close, now trying to resume that relationship.

    "Seeker... I see you have brought some offworld guests." a stocky man in purple attire speaks, stepping into the warehouse where a tall, slender man in steel armour stands with his helmet visor propped up. He looks half-cast, Italian facial structure, but a much darker skintone than one may expect. "Emilio, you are late. I trust the request from the Grandmaster is well in hand? Your smugglers had better pull through with this."

    Meanwhile, outside.

    "This will be our best chance to take down both The Seeker, and one of the few Borgias remaining in power." Piera says to those joining her. "I will try to infiltrate the warehouse, anyone else who can sneak should try and do the same, get into position to strike... anyone who can't, may wish to make a distraction. If you do not kill the guards, at least ensure they will not become a problem before we are done." With that said, Piera leaps onto the side of a building, and starts clambering up like a white-clad monkey.

    Infiltration, right.

    Dante's hardly the sneaky type. He prefers to be as flamboyant as possible, and he's not sure if he can handle doing a repeat performance of before.

    Oh hell, of course he can. He's at the moment making as much of a racket as he can, with a boombox blasting hiphop music that utterly destroys any attempt at trying to be downlow.

    ~WHERE THE HOOD WHERE THE HOOD WHERE THE HOOD AT!~

    Explicit lyrics ensue.

    One of those 'offworld guests' is a man in heavy silver armor, boots clinking with the soft rattle of spurs with every step he takes as he comes to a halt, short cloak trailing behind him. His face is a mask of beskar; a distinct T-shaped visor that obscures his features in entirety, the long, slender frame of an Amban phase-pulse disruptor rifle clasped lazily in his arms.
    The Mandalorian is here.
    A job is a job, and the Templars pay well.

  One of the two mercenaries the figure had brought with them is an older woman of relatively average stature. Somewhere in her fifties, Juno Eclipse looks every inch the scarred campaigner, wearing a reinforced jacket, white low-collared tunic, pants and combat boots. A blaster pistol is gripped loosely in each hand, her hip holsters empty.

  Her regard is cool, detached; but those tired blue eyes are alert. The old general expects trouble, but then again, the old general always expects trouble. She's standing near the man in the silver armour. A glance is flicked his way, but the helmet doesn't give much away.

    Emily's taken her default form, an auburn-haired woman in her thirties with robotic eyes, dressed in a midnight-blue business suit and with a (slightly wilted) Lunar Tear flower in her hair.

    "I think the boat has sailed on any possibility that I might do anything stealthy," she says over Dante's music, with her usual amused and faintly smug smile. "So, I mean, 'distraction' is definitely something I can do. Why don't I start the guards off with something ominous?" She pauses. "Or at least, it will be, if Timey Gonzales managed to let his bosses know to beware the petals of the Lunar Tear."

    She focuses a moment, then opens a staticky portal leading to a spot close to one of the rooftops with the Templar, just out of sight of where they could easily see. She reaches her hand through ...

    And then a moment later, glowing white flower petals are drifting through the air, in a way that doesn't follow the air currents at all.

    Of course Josuke would be on Piera's side. Kid is the very definition of a delinquent! He's also very much not a stealthy guy. Having control of a giant pink-and-blue poltergeist that screams while punching things at super speed does not a stealthy guy make.

    Nonetheless, he's going to try. His Stand is invisible to most anyway, so maybe it'll be all right, right?

    Probably not, but he's gonna try anyway.

    He's not going to follow Piera directly, no -- there's a good chance that he's not going to be able to keep the stealth up, and he doesn't want her to get in trouble because of him. And hey, if he gets caught, he might further distract guards, to give her more opportunity to do what she came to do.

    Josuke's armed this time, at least, with a metal bar that he picked up somewhere. Or possibly destroyed a sword with Crazy Diamond to make. Either way, he's making his way up the building in a different place, hopefully still out of view, because he's essentially being carried up via his Stand.

    As Dante's boombox shatters the calm of the generally quiet docks, all the guards go on alert. "There he is! ON HIM!" calls one, a tall man with a feathered cap, leading a group of lesser men, and a hulking bear of a man in full plate armour and a heavy battleaxe. These guys are less agreeable than the ones guarding the Runner. They give him all of the time it takes for them to get in range before they attack.

    Emily's storm of petals gets the rooftop guards on edge. "The Tears! The Nyx is here!" calls one, unhooking his crossbow. Josuke would find he's lucky, as Dante's managed to gather a large posse of the guards for himself... right up unril he gets on a roof, and one of the rooftop guards draws a bead on him with his crossbow, "You shouldn't be up here! Get down, NOW!"

    Meanwhile, inside the Warehouse.

    "Of course, of course! Two thousand are already aboard, we're just waiting for the last group to---..." Emilio begins, before WHERE THE HOOD AT, starts rattling the old wooden structure. "What is /that/?!"

    The Seeker drops his visor and unhooks a short rod made of a strange golden metal, he thumbs the side, and it springs out into a 7' long spear, sharp at both ends with strange symbolds engraved into the entire surface, it glows faintly with white light. "Trouble... I heard the Petals have been spotted." The Seeker looks at the mercenaries. "You know what you've been paid to do."

    That.
    That sounds like trouble.
    Or DMX.
    But mostly trouble.
    It's probably not the first time Mando has worked with smugglers, and he knows full well to not even bother asking about what the cargo could be. But the suddenl blaring sound of music rattling the warehouse has the bounty hunter flicking the safety on his blaster firmly into the OFF position as the Seeker calls upon his spear.
    "Ready?" He idly asides Juno's way. Just entirely calm and casual in spite of the situation about to unfold.
    It's probably for the best he left the kid back on the Rogue Shadow with PROXY.

    Josuke's just as surprised to see the guard as the guard is to see him, honestly. Though he still doesn't take long to react -- at least, not with Crazy Diamond. The Stand quickly grabs hold of Josuke's shirt and flings him at the guard! And on the trip, Josuke swings at the guard with the metal bar!

    And Emily leaps into the air above the rooftops. Now she's in a form which is equally-standard as far as Emily's concerned, the form of a four-armed lavender-skinned demoness with two glowing purple eyes and two vertical rows, her hair so black it looks like a rip in space or a graphical glitch. She's wearing a neon-pink crop top with the text "I'LL STOP WEARING PINK WHEN THEY INVENT A DARKER COLOR", red booty shorts with an evil AI's rant about hating humanity, on the backside, and she's beeping the melody of the refrain from Caramelldansen along to Dante's background music.

    "What's up, bitchessssss!" she calls out, doing two Jojo poses simultaneously with her four arms. "Releasing capacitor seal 3!" She's surrounded by her silver, gold, and pearlescent auras; the first one shatters and the other two fade, and she fires a single golden bolt directly at the rooftop, carefully aimed to avoid actually hitting any of the guards.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily ... Emilys.

    Dante sees his ploy to distract worked successfully! He makes short work of the goons, constantly thwacking them as the boombox goes from 'functional' to 'a grip' in seconds. Poor DMX, never got to pay his taxes, now he's gone to the big jail in the sky.

    In any case, he doesn't even bother shooting or stabbing the mercs. He does however perk a little when he sees a familiar, silver-armored figure. The badass in Beskar gets Dante's attention, and the Son of Sparda opens fire with Ebony, making a point to aim for the Beskar.

    It'll hold, right?

  The Mandalorian asks if she's ready. Over the years the old general has learned not to really enjoy being right about her hunches. It usually ends in some kind of massive inconvenience for her, or it ends in a blaster firefight... and so on, and so forth.

  General Juno Eclipse heaves a resigned sigh and checks the charges on her blasters. Both of them look like they're ready for a fight, and she's about as ready as she's going to be.

  "Once more into the breach," she sighs. "All right. I'll follow your lead and cover you, for now. Shout if we need the ship. PROXY can bring the Rogue Shadow back down if we need to exfil in a hurry." One pistol is raised into a ready position, arm cocked at the elbow.

  "If you can shut that damned noise off, though, that would make this much easier--"

  Juno's there at The Mandalorian's side, and then suddenly she is not.

  With a grunt the old general lunges away as Dante opens fire. She's already twisting mid-flight to fire on Dante with both her blaster pistols, alternating fire between them as her mouth twists sharply. The landing sucks about as much as she expects it to, picking herself up with a grunt of pain and scrabbling for the nearest thing that will serve for cover. He's probably going to be able to get in a parting shot, though. Dante probably has a slight edge on her in terms of speed.

    Josuke's fling gets the guard by surprise, and he takes the metal bar to the face. He falls with a choked moan, then slides off the roof to land in an awkward, broken heap, then rolls off into the water of the canal.

    Dante makes short work of the lesser mooks, but the guy in plate armour is made of sterner stuff, taking those smacks from the boombox with grunts as they dent his armour, but don't put him down. That axe comes swinging down at the Devil Hunter, at least trying to knock his aim off.

    Emily's flamboiyance gets the rooftop guards looking skywards, crossbow bolts whizzing up at her, while the guards near the bolt strike dive away... one loses his footing and goes tumbling into a pained heap on the boardwalk, his leg bent unnaturally.

    Emilio makes a break for the ship, while The Seeker steps out as well, climbing up a ladder to head towards Emily. "Come down and face me, Nyx!" he challenges, brandishing his Spear.

    A small voice echos across the water, as Dante's boombox shuts off from damage. A child, a little girl. "S-Someone, save us!" then a shriek and a man's voice growling. "SHUT UP YOU LITTLE SHIT."

    The voice came from the ship.

    See this is why Josuke would make a poor Assassin. Because when the guy falls into the water? Josuke actually goes in after him. Because the guy is likely to die, and Josuke's not about killing anyone.

    Sorry, Piera... Josuke is gonna be a bit late...

    He's probably also going to complain about his hair being messed up too. The stuff he uses on his hair is only so strong, after all!

    Either way, he's going to try to pull the guy out of the water. Hopefully he's not dead, so Josuke can heal him. If so, he'll still be unconscious, but at least he'll be alive when he wakes up.

    It starts.
    The reports of gunfire put The Mandalorian on edge, but for a demonic-energy infused bullet to come whizzing at him- it's too fast for him to dodge. It hits him solidly in the chest, and with a grunt the beskar-clad hunter skids back, boots dragging furrows in the ground as he takes the bullet standing.
    The Beskar holds.
    He should return that in kind, but something else catches his attention. A girl's voice. A shriek.
    It's none of his business.
    He should defend the Templars like he was hired to do.
    He should put it out of his mind.
    ... He sighs.
    Raising his phase-pulse rifle to bear he aims it... At the ship; sighting through the scope as he clicks on his visor's thermal vision mode.
    <<Blackout.>> He mutters into his helmet's comms. <<I'm liking this less by the minute. Cover me I'm going for the ship.>>
    He does not like what he sees as he completely ignores his chance to shoot back at Dante and starts hustling to get aboard the nearby vessel.

    As he dodges the merc with the axe, Dante is about to try and make chase before he sees Mando just up and fly off. "Hey, where are you going?!" He says, pistol-whipping axeman before he sighs and takes off. He completely ignores the melee, pretty convinced that Emily can handle Mr. Spear. Mr. Axe can have a nap, Dante thinks.

    He runs toward the ship that's suddenly so important, completely ignoring the objective at hand. "You wouldn't run off just on a lark, what's this about?" He says, deftly jumping over some crates on the way as he sprints toward the docked vessel.

    Emily smirks down at the Seeker, but gives the rest of the fight a quick once-over. Josuke and Dante are handling themselves ... oh, it's that armor-guy who had an alien kid before. And Blackout. Emily wasn't really expecting them. Ah well, she pretty much knew that sooner or later, she was going to fight against someone she'd previously fought alongside. Not that she has to actually fight them; again, Josuke and Dante are handling themselves.

    ... Dante is handling himself. Oh well, she can't blame Josuke for sticking to his guns about his non-killing policy.

    She descends to face the Seeker, materializing a spear which looks almost plain by comparison. "Before we begin, Seeker, there is something I'd like you to know," she says, her smile never wavering. "If they can, the Brotherhood of Assassins will kill you no matter what." She shrugs. "I, on the other hand, am undecided on whether you must die."

    ... That scream.

    Emily pauses, tilting her head slightly so that her gaze is shifted towards the ship. Now she's torn between the potential fun of a clean fight, and the potential hilarity of just walking away from the challenge.

    Eh, Dante and armor-guy are going after it, at minimum. She smiles, focusing her attention back on the Seeker. "Wanna help my decision?" she asks sweetly, holding her spear at the ready with both of her right hands.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Your move, Seeker.

  From her position curled up on the ground and trying to present as small a target as possible, Juno hears the voice. She, too, was hired to defend the Templars. Paid for a job; one of many mercenary posts she's been forced to take over the years, just to keep that damned ship afloat--

  But there are certain things Juno Eclipse cannot ignore.

  <<Go,>> Juno growls, into the comm unit at her own ear. It's wired directly to The Mandalorian's helmet. Her pistols swing back around as she tries to haul herself back to her feet and into some semblance of a stable aim. <<Don't get too far out. My pistols aren't made for long range.>>

  As The Mandalorian raises that phase-pulse rifle toward the ship, Juno twists, slinking back into cover and aiming a potshot at Dante from the shadows.

  "None of your business," Juno answers Dante, in a tone that is very definitely resigned. Her voice is crisp, clear; accent very distinctly British. Galactic Imperial, actually, but close enough. To underscore her point, she squeezes off two shots at the vicinity of Dante's feet as he runs. Or rather, where his feet might be by the time he puts them down. "Now shove off. We're busy."

  Her jaw sets. <<What do you have?>> she asks Mando, frowning as her eyes track Dante.

    The guard is really wounded, the bar broke his nose and collapsed a bit of his upper jaw, the fall broke an arm and leg, and he fell in the water unconscious... but there's still a pulse, so Josuke's Stand should be able to fix the damage and get the water out of the guy's lungs.

    Dante dodges the swing, then clocks the axeman with his pistol. This caves in the helmet enough that it sends tall, metal and grumpy toppling over into the water next to the boardwalk, emitting a massive SPLOOSH as he sinks.

    Emily earns a glare from the Seeker. It's hard to see behind the visor, but the brandishing of a spear earns the Eudaemon a quick jab for her trouble. The entire weapon seems to come alive, as quick as the jab is, it snakes around, aiming for where the heart would be on a human. "Any ally of the Assassins should die." he says grimly.

    As Mando and Dante approach the ship, Emilio appears on the deck with sword drawn. "Don't you dare set a single foot on my ship, mercenary! Men, stop him!"

    The girl's voice rings out again. Whoever she is is far braver than her peers. "Please, they're sending us somewh--AAAH!" The male voice comes again. "I SAID BE QUIET! Speak again I'll cut out your tongue!"

    Piera makes her appearance now, dropping from the mast sponsons to impale Emilia through the neck from above.

    This is fortunate -- hopefully Josuke got to the guard before too much water got into those lungs. He can get it out, but it's better if not a lot got in in the first place. But yes! Healing will happen as soon as Josuke is able.

    Once he is, well -- back to the roof! This time, though, since he can hear the commotion, he just uses his Stand to throw him back up there. It's not like he's going to attract any MORE attention, after all!

    "A hunch." Mando snaps back at Dante.
    Just where is The Mandalorian going, Dante may wonder. It's right for the gangplank of that ship with its ~mysterious~ cargo.
    No sooner than he's on board and Emilio steps up to meet him and Dante, the beskar-clad mercenary halts.
    Once again he glances down, helmet's heat detection system kicking in.
    He sees all those small heat signatures huddled below him, clustered together, afraid and alone save for their captors.
    The girl calls out again and that steels his already iron convictions.
    He stares Emilio down, that T-visor hiding any emotion the silver-armored hunter may have.
    No words...
    He simply raises his blaster, point blank, intending to put a superheated laser bolt through Emilio's chest.
    The only thing that stops him is Piera dropping from the mast onto the man. In an instant The Mandalorian's aim shifts, putting two bolts into the nearest guard, stopping him from coming to Emilio's aid.
    <<It's kids.>> He radios to Juno.
    <<The cargo is younglings. Plan's changed. I can't let them take these kids.>>

    Emily's briefing on the artifact at least prepared her for funny business.

    So her spear turns like a snake as well, trying to wrap around the Seeker's artifact and deflect it. Unfortunately, she misjudges what kind of grip she can get on it, and so the spear manages to plunge deep enough into her chest to pierce a human's heart.

    Instead of blood, silvery glitter splatters around it from the damaged nanomachines. She stares down at it for a second or two, brow furrowed.

    She rolls her eyes at the Seeker. "See, this is why nobody likes you," she says. Her voice doesn't sound like she's fatally wounded -- in fact, she doesn't even sound injured. She jabs her upper left finger at his chest. "This, right here, is why I view the Templars as bad guys."

    Her torso disintegrates into silvery glitter, and she simply steps sideways away from the spear as it reforms; the left half of her crop top is now black. "For all their faults, the Assassins are the ones who saved my life, and you are the ones who tried to kill me and many others, for the crime of just walking into your home Blossom," she says. "Releasing Capacitor Seal 2!"

    The golden and pearlescent auras appear, the golden one shatters and the pearlescent one fades, and in another swirl of nanomachines, the spear becomes a larger black spear-like contraption made of different segments of metal. She charges forward, stabbing at the Seeker, her own spear snaking wildly.

    ... There's the slightest bit of unsteadiness in her movements, though. Maybe she was hurt, after all?

    Dante's about to square up, drawing his pistol on him just as Piera makes her appearance! Emilio is dramatically and hilariously impaled with the mast, and he wastes little time in opening fire on the guards, Ebony firing pinpoint accurate shots to bust some grapes, so to speak.

    He doesn't really take Juno's fire too seriously, deftly evading and moving so it hits a guard in the knee. "I'm tryin' to help here!" is all he says, dodging a guard's spear with a causal 'Woo!' before he blasts the guard in the side of the head. Those pistols can kill demons, what they do to humans is...well...

    There's a reason Dante doesn't exactly put his trade in killing -humans-.

  The old general doesn't speak. She concentrates on keeping Dante within the sights of her blaster pistols, occasionally sprinting to a better vantage point when one presents itself. It's hard work to follow those two; they're both fast. She can keep up, with effort, but it's hard work. Juno is breathing hard by the time she slumps against a wall, cautiously peering around the side and sighting down the muzzle of a blaster.

  Where'd he go...

  There he is. She narrows her eyes at his protest. Isn't that what they all say? It's a resigned thought as Juno aims to fire another several shots. If she hits, great. If not, well, it's meant to be as much of an urgent distraction as it is an actual effort to do harm. Mostly, she wants him to back off from The Mandalorian. She's supposed to be covering the bounty hunter.

  <<That little mynock can't take a hint. He's fast. I'll try to keep him off you as much as I can, but he's on the edge of my range.>> Juno frowns. <<Do what you have to do.>> Tacit permission to throw the plan into the fire. <<I'm still covering you.>>

    Piera stands, yanking the makeshift spear she made from a bit of mast out of Emilio's neck. "Requiescat en pace you piece of shit." she snarls, spitting on the corpse before basckhanding a swordsman that comes at her with the bloody lump of wood. She looks at The Mandalorian, her face obscured by her hood. "This is what the Templar are all about." is all she says, before she makes to leave, darting off towards The Seeker and Emily's confrontation.

    Mando puts down another guardsman, drawing more from inside. Two more with swords, a crossbowman, a spearman and a brute of a man in plate armour. They all move to engage Mando and Dante.

    Juno, when she stops to cover Mando, earns herself the attention of one of the taller men with a large feather in his beret. He brandishes his rapier and moves to stab the campaigner. "Die now Putana!"

    The Seeker's spear coils and moves to intercept Emily's as it comes in, but the shift up in power has him on the back foot. "They are agents of chaos! They wish to plunge the human race into ignorance and complacency! The Templars are working to bring Order and Enlightenment to the world! What's a few lives lost for the entire race to thrive!?"

    Josuke's efforts are rewarded with a living man. Yay! His return to the roofs is largely uneventful until he gets into range of the main conflict near the warehouse.

    <<Watch your back, I'm going in.>> Mando replies to Blackout as he looms over the corpse of Emilio.
    This is what the Templar are all about Piera says. It's not something The Mandalorian can abide.
    As the other guards emerge from below deck, the beskar-clad hunter takes stock of his situation. It's him and Dante against four men, equipped for varying ranges of combat. He considers his odds against two swordsman, a crossbow, and someone in armor that looks far heavier than his own.
    "I give up." He says loud and clear, slowly lowering his blaster to the ground.
    What no one sees is the slight flick of his left wrist, arming the salvo of micromissiles loaded into his gauntlet.
    No sooner than his blaster touches the deck, he flicks his wrist again.
    Four tiny missiles launch from his wrist-launcher, letting loose a loud series of shrieking, whistling, noises as they swirl around in errante courses, homing in on the swordsmen, crossbowman, and even the heavily armored brute; the armor-peircing, highly deadly, explosive, Whistling Birds seeking to punch through armor, clothing, and flesh beneath with all the force of tiny bullets before they explode internally with a series of tiny but deadly pops.
    Mando casually picks up his blaster and starts heading below decks.

>> GAME >> The Mandalorian spends an Edge for: Whistling Birds

    Josuke's a bit late to the party, apparently. He's used to that, though. And there are probably going to be more guards in his path the closer to the commotion he gets. So he'll make up the difference with Crazy Diamond. By having his Stand THROW him to the scene, and then catch him before he hits the ground.

    This'll probably look funny for anybody who can't see his Stand -- he'll fly in from above somewhere, and then will seem to just STOP, just barely in time to keep him from going splat. However, for those who CAN'T see his Stand, there will be clues that something's afoot -- a general feeling of the heebie-jeebies, the smell of ozone, and air passage from something unseen that moved.

    He'll make his way over to Piera as quickly as he can. "Looks like a change of plan, huh?" he observes. "Mind filling me in? I was trying to keep someone from dying." Which might not come as a surprise for anyone who knows him.

    Emily rolls her eyes. "Okay, I mean I get that you're trying to do that," she says, ever-so-slightly easing up on her stabs. "Or you think you're doing that, or you want everyone else to think it's what you're doing. And I'm not the best judge of this stuff, seeing as how I'm ... kind of more of a fan of the freedom of chaos. But, uh, Seeker ..."

    She launches a more vicious stab from the left -- a feint. "... I'm not one of the lives of your world," she says, feinting with another wild stab from the right. "Did you think I was an Assassin-wrought threat when I just happened to wander in through the Vine?" Another stab which snakes towards his stomach before jabbing down to miss between his legs. "How about that fourteen-year-old schoolgirl Usagi, who ran off? Was she a threat to order and peace?"

    Her snaking spear finally lances forward to try to wrap around the Seeker's neck -- not a stranglehold, just trying to hold him in place and scare him. "Do you think those children you're kidnapping now are a threat?" she asks sweetly. She shakes her head. "Really, Seeker, this is all the kind of stuff that results in something terrible happening you, which it's just about to." Ah, here come Piera and Josuke ...

    ... She isn't restraining the man's hands, or trying to make him drop his spear. She's left herself wide open.

    "Wait, seriously?" Dante says, as Mando suddenly surrenders. Dante's not the surrendering type, that's just...not how he works. Nobody who's ever tried to a demon has ever lived to tell the tale, or wanted to live afterwards. These guys don't seem like they're too inclined to accept surrender either, given the amount of havoc that was caused here.

    And then suddenly a bunch of tracking darts hit the grunts, and Mando's off again. "...neat trick." Dante quips, before following, going down to the lower decks to search the place. Seems like SOMETHING onboard has Mando searching it like a fiend. SOMETHING has to be important about this, so Dante starts searching too, kicking down doors effortlessly until they're splinters.

  <<Appreciate it. Good hunting,>> Juno offers. At the same time she tries to scoot sideways, opening up a clearer line of sight to Dante... but soon Dante stops being an important target. Suddenly her hands are full with a guardsman screaming at her and brandishing a piercing blade.

  It's all Juno can do to dance out of the way with a grunt of alarm. The blade punches through the outer layer of her jacket, slipping between reinforced plates stitched into the lining. Blue eyes widen as it slides further, slipping past the protective plates.

  Her mouth twists as it bites into her ribs; she looks down as though incredulous. Her focus flicks back up to the guard, and she actually reaches out to seize his collar by the throat, pulling him closer. Then she raises one blaster, snarling. The Whistling Birds distract her for an instant, before she attempts to discharge the weapon right into the guard's face.

  Blood spatters the ground and part of one of her boots. She tries to ignore it.

  That hurts. That hurts a llllot, but right now she has more important things to focus on.

  <<Bring as many as you can to the ship. We'll get them aboard and somewhere safe. PROXY, bring the Rogue Shadow around, too. West dock.>> Juno's voice sounds... off, even though her commands are snapped off smoothly.

  <<...Try to hurry.>> Yeah something's not normal.

    The Whistling Birds scream out, the smugglers not understanding what's happening before they're hit, and exploded, dropping lifelessly in the wake of the attack. This leaves the hold door wide open. As The Mandolorian heads inside, he would find rows upon rows of children, all of them scruffy, unwashed and terrified. They're all chained to the deck... except for one girl who can't be much more than 10 or 11 years old. She's worked her chains loose from the deck and has them wrapped around the neck of another brute of a man, pulling on them with all her might as he thrashes and tries to throw her off. Her feet are dug into his back to add as much leverage as she can muster.

    Emily parries and intercepts the Snake Spear, sparks flying as the Isu device works overtime to try and overwhelm Emily's defenses. Then, as she grabs him with her spear, he just goes for the center of mass, overriding the spear's automatic targetting and just aiming to jab the thing clean through the Eudaemon. "You would never understand Our plan, and The Father of Understanding's will!" he snarls.

    The Captain's head gets a new hole from Juno's blaster, falling limp as the rapier clatters to the dock and his body crumples down to splash into the canal.

    Piera approaches Emily, hidden blade extended as Josuke lands not far away, she lunges at The Seeker while he's distracted, aiming to ram her blade between the plates protecting his torso.

    It is as he thought.
    It is as he feared.
    Mando pauses in the doorway at the sight of all the younglings stowed away in the ship's hold, chained down. Then he looks up.
    The one youngling strangling out her guard is an impressive sight, but Mando isn't going to stand idly by and so much as give the guy a CHANCE to overpower her.
    Storming towards the guard being strangled, Mando reels an arm back-- and hauls off with one hell of a haymaker. Getting hit by this punch will not be fun. Getting slammed in the face with a beskar gauntlet? Even less so as he intends to KO the guard and starts searching him for keys.
    "... You did well." He asides to the girl. "That was very brave of you."
    Assuming he finds keys on this guy he tosses half to Dante.
    "You start on that side I'll unlock the ones over here."

    Well, people are heading for that ship for some reason, and there are still screaming people trying to murder Piera (and probably Josuke too, since they're clearly allies). He just assumes the people working with the guy screaming about 'the father of understanding' are probably the enemy.

    So while people head for the ship, Josuke decides to make things a little difficult for the Templars. By erecting a solid wall of arm and fist as Crazy Diamond unleashes a flurry of punches at the Templars, a loud, "DORARARARARARARA!" that many of the soldiers may not even hear sounding from the Stand.

  Outside, something big and dark casts a shadow over the cargo ship. A loud electrical whine joins all the sounds at the dockside as a ship descends from the sky. It's at least as large as the ship in the water, swiveling so its nose points at the cargo ship.

  The Rogue Shadow hangs in the sky, patiently waiting as it hovers. The blue-white of its ion drives flash-scalds great clouds of seawater into steam.

  Yeah that might be kind of noticeable to anybody else at the docks. The shuddering low-frequency hum of the Rogue Shadow's engines is definitely widely audible.

  <<The Rogue Shadow is in position,>> Juno radios, to The Mandalorian. Her voice definitely sounds slurred, but the ship's control is steel-true. It doesn't so much as waver where it hovers. <<We'll touch down on your mark.>>

    Emily lets out a squawk of pain as the spear goes all the way through her. Nanomachines splatter everywhere. "... Okay, th-that was ... that was a legitimate mistake on my part," she says, "I wasn't trying to just ... just tank it ..." She jumps back, causing more nanomachines to splatter everywhere, and promptly keels over onto her back with a sound like a sandbag breaking and scattering its contents, rather than a body thudding. Was that the sound of a ring hitting the rooftop beneath her ...?

    But then she grimaces, and the nanomachines reform into her body as she pushes herself back into a sitting position, peering over at the Rogue Shadow's descent. There's still a visible silvery scar on her stomach. "... Gonna need to ask Josuke to punch me with his Stand," she says, turning her attention over to Piera. "Hi, amicida!" (Still going with her terrible Italian portmanteau of 'omicida'/'murderess' and 'amica'/'friend'.)

    Dante was about to make some quippy one liner about how their savior was here, but...he just sees a bunch of kids chained up in the hold.

    His gut tightens and he looks disgusted, beyond disgusted, as he watches the kid strangle her captor. He doesn't bother interrupting, "Is THIS what you guys were protecting?" He asks, spitting on the floorboard in distaste. He just smashes the guard's head in with the butt of Ebony. "Ya got him, kid." He says bitterly to the girl.

    He takes the keys without hesitation and gets to freeing the kids, eventually losing patience and just breaking the chains with his bare hands. Hurting kids is a sore point around Dante, obviously. It just sets him on fire, seeing these kids like this.

    The Seeker struggles for a moment, then goes limp as Piera takes him to the roof, kneeling next to him and seeming to go away somewhere for a moment or two. "Though this passing may be painful, it will be a gentle sleep. Resquiescat en pace." She reaches to take the Spear, figuring out how to collapse it and tucks it into a pouch, then spots the ring... just as it slides off the roof and plunks cleanly between a pair of boards into the canal below. "..." She looks over to Emily and just shakes her head.

    As The Mandalorian and Dante work to unlock the children, the feisty girl kicks at the downed guard. She screams at him in italian, running a mouth so foul even a sailor would blush hearing it. She then moves to help unlock the other kids, then guide them out onto the deck of the ship. There's about a hundred all told, with another two thousand already wherever these were to be taken. "Grazie, Grazie Signor!" the children say to Mando and Dante, the girl approaching Mando after the last kid is freed. "I will become strong enough to protect people, just like you Signor. Grazie." She looks up at the Beskar Clad Warrior, eyes burning with a warriors fire.

    Piera looks over to Josuke. "I think we have some wounded... perhaps you can put your skills to use." she suggests, gesturing to Emily,

    <<Mark. Bring the Rogue Shadow down. Let's get these younglings on board.>> Mando replies to Juno over their shared comm link, as he begins ushering kids onboard the starship. They'll probably have to bring these kids over to the locl authorities to sort out where they all belong, but that can come later as he looks to the tiny warrior promising to grow up to protect others.
    The Mandalorian takes to a knee, to better put his visor on eye-level with the girl.
    "... This is the Way."

    As soon as Piera leaves, Emily pouts, and peers over the edge of the rooftop into the water. Then she immediately gets up and follows after, hovering above the rooftops. She's not remotely keeping pace with the Assassin, but it seems she doesn't need to worry about damage to internal organs.

    "Yeppers!" she says in agreement with Piera, her voice back to normal. "Just, uh ... got too wrapped up in the aesthetic to pay attention to what the other guy was actually doing. Reapplying capacitor seals 2 and 3!" The pearlescent aura reappears around her, the gold and silver ones rebuild themselves, and her spear dematerializes. "Mind givin' me a taste of your punch ghost, Jo--" She frowns suddenly. "Oh my god, Josuke, your hair!" she exclaims, as if this was the worst catastrophe that could ever have happened here. "Your fabulous hairstyle got all messed up!"

  <<Acknowledged.>> Juno's response is soft enough that the distortion on the line almost drowns it out. <<The hatch is open, so board when you're ready...>>

  There's a thump over the line and the sound of somebody scrabbling with something. In the sky, the Rogue Shadow slews momentarily to one side before catching itself and maintaining equilibrium.

  <<Don't mind the blood.>> Juno's warning is even fainter. <<Should have room here for a dozen of them,>> she adds. <<Any more and you'll have to move them to the Razor Crest after we can exfil.>>

  Slowly, carefully, the Rogue Shadow sets down on the nearest stone-built part of the dock; whatever structure looks like it can actually bear the weight of the light transport. The ramp retracts, and blue-white running lights shine out from the open hatch like an inviting beacon.

  There is in fact a blood trail leading up the ramp. It forms a straight line to the cockpit. She wasn't really kidding.

  ...Worth itttt.

    Josuke nods to Piera's observations, looking to Emily. "Did you get hurt? I'm sorry I was late, I was dealing with something," he notes. He'll go over to Emily then and use his Stand to heal her if she'll allow it.

    The girl looks into that impassive helmet. She reaches up, touches the side of it, then nods. "Si, This is the Way." She doesn't really understand the true meaning of those words, but the conviction that passes through the Mandalorian's impassive voice is enough for her. She then runs off to join the rest of the kids boarding the Rogue Shadow.