World Tree MUSH

    A city like many others across the World Tree. A technology level roughly on par with early 21st century America, although all the writing is in a language not native to any other Earth, but everyone speaks English... One of the many weird quirks of the many worlds.

    It's meant to be summer, but in one corner of the city, it's snowing. The snow almost forms a flat curtain separating the effected area - several city blocks across - from the rest of the city. Within the 'curtain', the sun is weak, the wind is bitter, the trees bordering the streets have transmuted into firs for some reason...

    Earlier. "Piera... I'm picking up something strange on my sensors. The temperature is dropping rapidly." Aquila says, bringing up holographic displays, showing the dip.

    Piera, meanwhile, frowns. "Something is coming. I can feel it... Aquila, go for help, anyone you can find." she says, sending the Raptias flitting off on her oversized jetpack toward the nearest vine.

    Now.

    Snow... Piera paces through the snow with a shudder from the cold. Her robes are meant to be all-weather, but the extreme shift has her chilled to the bone, and that feeling of imminent doom doesn't help. She keeps moving, adjusting her robe to bind closer, and making sure her gloves are seated properly.

    As soon as Aquila sends the signal, she gets a return-ping from Emily, who happened to be in the city at the moment. Moments later, a "rival battle" themesong from some video game or other becomes audible in the vicinity, shortly before Emily herself strolls into view.

    She has taken the form of a sort of catgirl with robotic ears and tail and glowing purple eyes, dressed in a lavender-colored sci-fi uniform with a hoodie over it. The music is being played from the robot ears themselves; seems they're actually speakers. "Ehilà, amichidas," she says evenly, with her amused and faintly smug smile. (Italian for 'hey there,' followed by a portmanteau of 'friends' and 'murderesses'.) "I've seen unseasonal snow like this before. If I'm right about the cause of all this, you're gonna hear someone say something like 'death approaches' right aboouuuuut ..."

    High atop a rooftop, Tirsiak's right eye twitches a little bit.

    There is no voice that says anything like 'death approaches'. Instead, Piera hears, as if whispered into her hear, a single word:

    "Run."

    The word seems to dig down right into the ancient lizard brain. That is not a good sound.

    Suddenly, black, transluscent animals appear around Piera - moose, bears, rabbits... They don't seem to be doing anything but stand there, though.

    Tirsiak silently drops down from the rooftop.

    Aquila perches on Emily's shoulder as the Eudaemon strolls along. She doesn't seem all that worried about Piera. She's seen what the Assassin can do, how far she's willing to go for her goals. So she just enjoys the music while the Eudaemon casually walks.

    Piera looks toward the music, spotting Emily, and her partner arriving. Her words seem to soothe a little, then the Assassin tenses up, a sword drawing with a hurried, but smooth motion. "I will not run from you!" she shouts back, turning around at the shadowy animals. "Show yourself!" She's scared, as anyone in a life and death situation would be, but that fear is funneled entiredly into a 'Fight' response, a trained killer, someone who survived the harsh streets of renaissance Italy through their early years of life.

    Emily smiles. raises her eyebrows. "Eh, close enough," she says. "Releasing capacitor seal 3!" She's surrounded by the gold, silver, and pearlescent auras; the silver one shatters and the other two fade, and then a hunting knife materializes in her hand. A hologram is briefly projected over it with the text DOE KNIVES Hunting Knife - registered to Cid Harley.

    She gestures to Tiri as she lands. "Piera, Aquila, meet Tirsiak," says, sounding completely unafraid as she strides forward. "From what I could figure out, she seems to be an adorable spirit of the hunt. I didn't get a chance to test a thing I wanted to try the last time I encountered her." She gestures with the knife. "We ready?"

    Said 'adorable spirit of the hunt' drops down to all fours, glowering at Emily Nyx, teeth bared. But then... she ignores Emily and charges right at Piera. She leaps into the air, right hand flexing and claws glistening in the weak sunlight. She goes for the throat!

    Meanwhile, Emily is getting crowded by those animal shades. They're very physical, despite looking like shadowy ghosts, and seem intent to box her in and keep her away from Piera.

    Aquila lifts off Emily's shoulder, summoning the rest of her armour and her twin laser blasters. She goes after Tiri when the Spirit leaps, firing bursts of those tiny lasers at her flanks, trying to knock her off balance.

    Piera turns, bringing her sword up to intercept that lunge, bracing herself in the snow as she bares her teeth in clear defiance. She's pretty strong for a human, though her eyes seem to lim around the edges of the irises in a shimmering golden hue. Tirsiak might understand the implication of a kind of Hunter Sight or something similar.

    Emily smirks back at that glower! As soon as Tirsiak makes that move, the fight-music becomes clearer and slightly louder, no longer sounding like it's coming from the speakers.

    She summons a second knife in her other hand -- once again with that momentary 'registered by Cid Harley' notice -- and flies up into the air to avoid the animal spirits. "What, no birds of prey?" she quips, before she throws one of the knives at Tirsiak's shoulder -- not to wound, if possible, it's aimed just to nick her skin to try to catch her attention. Regardless of success or failure, it would then fly back up to Emily's waiting hand.

    The tiny lasers elicit a snarl from the spirit, although she's not knocked too far off course and still clashes with Piera. Piera's snarl of defiance earns an eager grin from Tirsiak as she presses forward, attempting to overpower the surprisingly strong mortal and throw her to the ground-

    And then she's nicked by a throwing knife. Tirsiak leaps back and levels a glower at Emily. "Stop interfering!" she snarls, loud enough it echoes off the buildings.

    Aquila continues to pepper away with laser blasts, she knows she can't really damage the Spirit, but she /can/ be annoying enough to break her focus or give Piera an opening.

    When Tirsiak glowers at Emily, after breaking from the lock, Piera doesn't fall back, she instead surges forward, aiming to bring her off hand around with her palm open... why sould she do that instead of use the sword?

    SHNK!

>> SUMMARY[Piera Forta] >> Aquila being annoying. Piera uses Emily's distraction to Go For The Throat with Hidden Blade!

    Emily smirks at Tirsiak. "Serious question, Tiri," she says, tossing the knife in her hand. "Or ... Tirsi. I don't know the correct way to give you a nickname. But I really have to ask: what precisely surprises you about this interference?"

    Hold her attention, hold her attention ... good, there goes Piera.

    "The prey runs! Or fights! The prey does not get protected by three random other prey, some of which aren't even edible!" Three? There's only two other than Piera. This... might be a thing that keeps happening. "A pack fights together! A herd flee-"

    Tirsiak is stabbed in the throat by a Hidden Blade while she was distracted.

    She stands there for a few seconds, and then promptly... collapses to the floor, blood staining the snow.

    Y...yay?

>> SUMMARY[Tirsiak] >> Well that was easy!

    Piera rips the blade from Tirsiak's throat, pushing off the fallen Spirit and backing off a bit. The blade slips back into its hidden sheath, wiping the blood off in the same motion.

    Aquila moves over to land on Piera's shoulder, keeping her blasters out, just in case... usually these supernatural spirits don't go down /that/ easily.

    Emily blinks. "Huh. Well, that worked," she says mildly. The music changes to a victory fanfare.

    She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. Trying to figure out how to handle this the next time ..." She looks around curiously. "Wait, who's the third one, though ...?"

    "That doesn't... count..." comes a gurgling voice from the floor. Tirsiak is sitting up, the wound in her neck visibly closing before your eyes. "That doesn't..."

    The weather is starting to clear, and the snow is starting to melt.

    "No! That didn't count!" Tirsiak shouts, leaping to her feet. "That shouldn't satisfy! There was no chase! The prey didn't win! She had help!!"

    She seems to just be shouting at the air. Which is warming up as the clouds shift.

    "Humans are a pack animal." remarks Piera as she comes down from that 'fight high' that true terror can elicit. "We are top of the food chain because we can adapt and overcome, and use tools to our advantage. No other animal can do that." Yeah... she's referring to the two robotic people here as 'tools', in a broad sense. "Whatever force you used, it seems to disagree with your assessment."

    Aquila dismisses her weapons and armour, shifting to sit on Piera's shoulder once more... she then pushes the Assassin's cheek at being referred to as a 'tool'.

    "I mean, maybe nature-spirits can't count?" Emily continues. "Or -- whoa!" She whirls back to face Tirsiak.

    And gets an answer, after a fashion. She blinks at Piera's answer for Tirsiak. "Hmm ... yeah, y'know what," she says, glancing between the Assassin and the spirit. "I'm not human, obviously, but I was crafted in mankind's image. And y'know what, Tirsiak?" She smiles. "Piera's assessment rings truer than yours, I think. Reapplying Capacitor Seal 3." The gold and pearlescent auras reappear, and the silver one reconstructs itself, and then all three fade.

    "I have been hunting humans since before your society existed, mortal!" Tirsiak shouts at Piera. "In that time, humans have-"

    There's a pause. "... Changed."

    She froooowns. "Humans aren't the frightened bands of apes they used to be. Humans are more complex than that now..."

    She whiiines. "This isn't FAIR." She crosses her arms and huffs.

    "Life is often unfair." remarks Piera, glancing at Emily and nodding to the Eudaemon. "Thank you." she offers. The pair have their differences, but Piera knows she would likely have had a hard time of it if the Eudaemon hadn't shown up.

    Emily chuckles. "What Piera said," she says. "It'd be news to me if nature was supposed to be fair." She simply nods to Piera. "No charge," she says, gesturing vaguely and dematerializing the knives.

    She smirks faintly at the disappearing snow. "Human nature, huh," she says, and there a slight edge to her voice now.

    Tirsiak glares at Emily. She... does not seem particularly mad at Piera, despite her being the one who STABBED her.

    Tirsiak gives a huff, levitates a few inches off the ground, and begins to float away. "...I'm going to get candy," she mumbles. Sniffle.

    Emily shrugs. "Candy sounds like a good plan," she remarks.

    And then she turns around, and walks resolutely away in the opposite direction that Tirsiak was going.