World Tree MUSH

    Japan, Shinki-Earth, local time: 23:26

    A pair of young women walk down the street, chattering to each other after a night on the town. They're beset by a group of criminals with Shinki backing them up. The men aren't armed, but their shinki brandish their weapons. An Arnval Mk.2, a Graprap, a Fort Bragg and the ringleader has a Maochao. "Your money or your lives, ladies. We don't want any trouble."

    As the women are shaking in fear, and reaching for their bags to hand over valuable items for their more valuable lives, a rain of laser bolts crash down, striking the Maochao, Graprap and Fort Bragg before they can react, disabling their arms and leaving them defenseless. The Arnval manages to deflect the bolts aimed at her off of her armour, shifts to flight mode and jets off at the source.

    In the sky, lit only barely by the street lights reflecting off of the silver trim of her armour, is a Raptias. Her silver hair shifting in the wind behind the eagle-like visor of her helmet. She dismisses her blasters, and as the Arnval moves to strike with her sword, summons a bident spear and catches the blade between the tines. She wordlessly jerks the sword out of the other Shinki's hands, then twists and slams the Type Angel back down to her Master with the flat of the bladed head. She drops lower, aiming her spear at the men. "Leave now, lest the Bird of Prey feast on you next." Her visor snaps open, and her face appears, a scar running across the bridge of her nose, bisected by one running from her forehead down across her face to end on her left cheek, barely missing her eyes.

    The men run off, and the women run in the other direction, not even thanking the Shinki for the help. Tension melts off the little warrior, and she dismisses her spear into the Slipway, only to tense up as she feels a presense behind her. Piera perches atop a lamppost, watching passively as the black-armoured shinki summons her weapons again. "Peace, friend. If I had wished you harm, it would have been done long before now." comes the Assassin's voice, dropping from her perch and giving a bow. "I am Piera Forta, Il Assassino Iniziato."

    "Good grief." A perfectly black silhouette steps out of a nearby alleyway and changes into a young woman in a grungy black leather jacket and a rainbow-colored skort, a single red streak through her black hair. She pauses in greeting to the Raptias, which ... she's pretty sure she's seen before. Oh right, it was in that Shinki city.

    But she focuses her attention back on Piera. "I didn't think someone could be more suspicious than those robbers, but somehow you've managed it, 'Assassino'." Her hand is staying close to the sports bag at her hip.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Piera sus

    As it so happens, Josuke had been here to buy some replacement parts for Roberta -- and also some jelly cans, because you gotta have those, right? And he also just happened to see the tail end of the crime-in-progress. Put down quickly, yes, but still. If those guys get away they're just gonna do it again.

    So of course Josuke is going to run after the criminals! He does, however, lose them pretty quickly -- as it turns out, Shinki sensors can be defeated by knowing what the sensors can pick up and what their range is!

    So he and Roberta will soon return to the scene where the introductions are taking place -- and where the crime was. "Sorry, they got away," he admits, rubbing at the back of his neck.

    The clink-clink-clink of heavy beskar armor plating and boot spurs can be heard as the would be muggers run and their rescued victims flee. It's not long before The Mandalorian emerges from a neavy shadowm hand resting casually at his hip by his blaster, cloak billowing lazily in a passing wind.
    "Not bad." He says matter of factly.
    He sees no reason to go after the would-be robbers at this point in time.

    Suddenly, Dante. He leaps from a rooftop and performs a perfect superhero landing (It's really hard on the knees), coat flowing in the wind. "Sup." He just says, as he watches the criminals and their Shinki run off. "...so do guns not exist in this universe or somethin'? Feels like everyone just delegates it to their shinki."

    "I get that a lot, Ombra Ragazza<Shadow Girl>." comes Piera's reply. The Raptias, meanwhile looks between the two incredulously, shifting her jets to float slowly away. She stops suddenly when Josuke reappears after running off, wheeling about on him and then backing away from the human-likes like a spooked animal. Her visor snaps back down, blasters sweeping across the people that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "Who are you people?" she asks. Piera already introduced herself, so she's a little less spooked by her, despite the first impression.

    Serrah glances between Josuke and Dante. "You know each other?" she says. She furrows her brow as the Mandalorian shows up next. "... you ... know this guy?" she says flatly. At least, the two she knows aren't showing any sign that they don't know this 'assassin' ...

    "Oh, uh." Serrah turns back to the Raptias. "I'm Serrah Delany. I was with Alty when we came to get Leene. The, uh, the 'Angel of Death' ..." She sounds like she's holding the title with tongs. "... and ... I ... actually can't remember Leene's goddamn title." She yawns; she's looking a bit sleepy, actually.

    "I'm just a man making his way through the galaxy." Mando says when the shinki's visor snaps down, holding his hand up gently. "So easy. We're not here for trouble." The beskar-clad bounty hunter says in a tone that might come off as surprisingly gentle.
    "Piera and I are acquainted." He adds in.

    "Yep." Dante answers Serrah with a shrug, and he eyes the mysterious Raptias. "Few times, Josuke's good people." He says. "So lower the guns, we're just passin' through." He says to the shinki.

    It only takes a moment for Josuke to note he's got weapons drawn on him before he raises his hands to show they're empty. "Whoa, whoa, I'm not gonna hurt you!" he replies.

    At the same time, Roberta flies in front of Josuke and puts her arms out. "Don't shoot!" she shrills, the Bright Feather's light armor forming up around her with a flash.

    The Raptias looks shocked, the open part of her helmet showing her mouth hang open for a moment before it tenses back up and she speaks again. "I remember you now... You and those others... saved us." The black-armoured flier finally starts to relax a little, dismissing her blasters and opening her visor again. "It's hard to believe all of you are just 'passing through' a known mugging area in the dead of night... has my work already started to draw attention?" She sounds both... excited and conflicted about that. "I just wanted to make a difference to people."

    Piera looks back at Serrah and nods. "I've worked with Din a couple o f times, Josuke helped with a Templar agent a few weeks ago, and so did Dante. Despite appearances, I am not the bad guy, as someone else I met would say." The Assassin then looks to the Raptias. "I don't know what your kind are about, little one, but not many people are willing to risk themselves for what's right."

    Dante blinks, and he suddenly begins to remember that Shinki fighting ring. "Wait, oh man that's right! I think we saw you there." He says, nodding. "Looks like you've been paying it forward since, huh?"

    Serrah blinks. "I meant Forta," she weakly tells Dante. "God I slept badly." (This is not the worst she has slept.)

    She nods to the Raptias. "No problem," she says, inching slightly further away from Josuke and Roberta so that she isn't (apparently) in any kind of line of fire. "And I wasn't 'just wandering by', I was actually looking into the rumor about you." She shoots her a lopsided grin. "Doesn't look like you're doin' half bad for yourself!"

    She gives the Mandalorian a funny look, but then peers back at Piera for a moment. "... Templars?" she says, tilting her head. "I ... you know what, this sounds exactly like a case where something from my world is a completely different very specific thing from what it is in other worlds. Uh. Quick question, does your world have vampires?"

    "I'm just doing a little late-night shopping," Josuke notes, holding up the shopping bag. "Roberta needed some new parts, and she was out of jelly cans, too. I was having trouble sleeping anyway, so I figured we'd go and get them tonight."

    When the Raptias relaxes, Roberta does too, letting her armor go back into Slipway, breathing an audible and visible sigh of relief. "Whew... that was scary..."

    "I mostly followed them, tonight." Mando admits, indicating Piera and Dante.
    That doesn't make him any less of a simple man finding his way through the galaxy though, that's his story and he's sticking by it.
    But then he falls silent for a poignant beat.
    "Templars." The way he spits the word speaks volumes of The Mandalorian's distaste for them. "Almost as bad as The Empire."

    Raptias drops altitude a little, to hover around head height of the people around her. She looks to Dante first. "I wasn't part of that... my Master would have never approved of fighting to the death like that." the tone of her voice indicates that her Master isn't around anymore. "Templars? Empire? I've... heard of the latter on the news channel the electronics store on fourth street has on... I borrow their power cables to recharge sometimes, the owner is really nice to... Shinki like me."

    Josuke earns an ambiguous gaze when he says what he's doing, and Roberta is given a look. "You make sure you look after him." she's told firmly.

    Serrah's question earns a brow quirk. "Not that I am aware of, though some Piece of Eden or other might have given rise to the myths of them."

    "Demons of different colors." Dante chimes in with agreement to Din, with naked disgust coloring his words. He nods to Piera, "Yeah, they were all caged up like fighting dogs. It was...six different kinds of illegal and fucked up, so we put a stop to that, and that's how we met Alty." He nods, scratching his head a little.

    Serrah shoots Roberta a brief comforting little smile. "I guess the World Tree just has a way of throwing people together, or whatever," she answers Josuke. She raises her eyebrows at The Mandalorian. "Another Empire, huh," she says. "Does it have a name? Or is it just, uh, 'The Empire'. My world has the Hartford Empire." She glances to the Raptias when she makes that comment. "And if yours is on the news in another world ..." She shrugs. "Yeah, I dunno."

    She looks quizzically at Piera. "What the hell is a 'Piece of Eden'?" she asks bluntly. "That's ... oh great, it's gonna be some sort of ancient artifact with enough magical power to blow up something huge, isn't it."

    She nods along with Dante's description. "What he said," she says, then turns to face the demon hunter directly. "But, uh, later, we found that Alty's sister Leene had taken over this Shinki city and was trying to, like, do the 'rule by fear' thing. We brought her to 'er senses, though. I guess I kind of owed Alty one for, uh, helping out with some of my own stuff." She sighs. "I'm still not sure why I stick my neck out in general ...."

    Roberta blinks a little at the instructions from the Raptias. But ultimately she nods, with a salute! She's being serious now, to note! "I have every intention of it," she promises.

    Josuke can offer something about the Templars, at least. "From what little I heard, these 'Templars' are a bunch of people who think their way is the only way. And they seem like they'd stoop pretty low to get where they're heading." He also nods to Serrah. "Yeah, it seems to do that a lot," he agrees.

    "Il Mentore would have broken that up in a heartbeat, if he were not off chasing the First Civilisation." remarks Piera to Dante.

    Serrah requires a bit more indepth though, and Piera offers. "Simply put, a Piece of Eden is an artifact from an advanced civilisation millenia older than our own. They can do many things, though 'blowing up something huge' is not one of them... so far at least. Some are innoculous little things. Glorified paperweights with no intrinsic power of their own. Others are immensely powerful, able to sway the minds of the weak willed.

    The Raptias moves over to a nearby trashcan, and alights atop it, shutting off her jetpack and listening as she sits and hugs her knees. Armour vanishes into Slipway, and her grey hair wafts faintly in the breeze. It's chilly out tonight, the first warmth of spring hasn't yet touched this city.

    "No kidding. Sounds like your boss is one hell of a guy." Dante says, and he leans against the wall, arms folded. "We dunno if these Eden things are magic, or some kinda alien tech or whatever." He chimes in. "We've seen guys move faster than the eye can track, spears and armor that could split stone in half, all kinds of weird shit."

    Serrah nods, furrowing her brow. "Wow," she says flatly at Piera and Dante's summations, in a tone of voice which suggests that she really isn't looking forward to going up against something like that.

    She look over at the Raptias. "Hey, uh, you doing okay?" she says awkwardly.

    Raptias looks up at Serrah, resting her chin on her knees. "I'm, just remembering my Master... she was all about human and shinki rights, and equality... she would have hated that fighting ring... she would have felt sorry for the Angel and her sister's treatment by that man... she..." the little android's lips quiver a bit.

    Piera watches solemnly, glancing between the Shinki and the others, her hood pulled down to reveal her face as a show of trust... or at least openness.

    "You know where she went?" Dante asks Raptias. "Your master, I mean." He gets the feeling this story has a pretty nasty ending.

    Serrah ... frowns, glancing between Dante and the Raptias. She ... kind of has a feeling she knows where this is going, and she doesn't think it sounds happy, either.

    Raptias says, her voice a quivering mess of emotions as the memory replays. "We were going to the market to get things for dinner... her mother was coming over to visit... someone who didn't like her projects online drove their car into her. She saw it coming, and instead of saving herself, she pushed me up out of the way."

    The Raptias' shoulders shudder as she buries her face, sobbing for a few long moments. "The bastard didn't even get jail time, he claimed he lost control and it was an accident." The Shinki then stands, wipes her eyes, and looks up at Serrah. "So I followed him home, and made sure he wouldn't hurt anyone else again... he had Shinki CMSs in broken bodies, which he tortured for fun... I was going to teach him a lesson... but instead, I went in when he was asleep, and I cut his throat open."

    Piera listens, and then nods. "Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent. You killed him to protect those others. You are not human, but your spirit is what our Brotherhood is looking for; would you join us, and help others like your kin with that man?"

    Raptias looks at Piera, thinking for a moment or two, then nods. "I will join you. If I can make a difference to the lives of people, regardless of what that takes, I'll do it. For my Master, for the Angel.. for all those who've suffered for others cruelty."

    Serrah frowns, listening along with the Raptias's description.

    Until she gets to the part about how she dispatched the killer.

    And then she just turns around and strides away from the scene, not looking back at the Raptias or Piera or Dante.

    Dante's jaw tightens as he hears the story. There's a pit in his stomach, and he grits his teeth in barely hidden anger. "Jesus Christ." He mutters under his breath. He doesn't blame Serrah for leaving, it's...not exactly a story that's easy listening.

    What follows is clearly a ritual, one that Dante doesn't dare interrupt. He just folds his arms and observes, silently swearing secrecy.