World Tree MUSH

The smell of blooming citrus fills the area as Benedicta makes her way through one of the many orchards in Fresno, Californa. The sun has started to set but it's still fairly hot as summer approaches. She's been downing water to try and keep from overheating.

Sybil's holding the damaged Wasp Queen armor in her arms as she waits patiently for Aurelia to arrive. Shield-Maiden is also present and practicing the ritual to remove the seal on Benedicta's armor. The pair have made sure that's there's no one else around.

"You weren't followed right, rabbit?" Sybil turns her head repeatedly to make sure that Baroness Spider or any of her minions had decided to tail the al-mir'aj girl.

"No, but I might have invited a few friends to make sure you hold up your end of the deal." Benedicta lowers her hoodie so her ears can dangle freely and removes her hands from her pockets. "Couldn't you have picked somewhere cooler to do this?"

"Well, let me make clear now, if any of you try to attack me or Shel that the deal is off. I have no intent on going back to Beacon with you unless if it's to get my magic back from Heartbreaker." The teenager crossed her arms as she said that. "Besides, the hotel where I'm staying has a no animals allowed policy."

"Yeah, like that's going to happen. Even depowered you're a royal pain in the ass. You know we're not in high school any more right? Besides in your current situation you need all the help you can get." Benedicta was doing her best not to go off on Sybil.

     Floating out from behind Benedicta, as if he were hiding behind some trick wall and is now revealing himself, is Damian. Munching on a nice, juicy orange. He probably isn't going to pay for it either.

"'Sup." he says, shooting Sybil a toothy grin, orange juice dripping from the matted fur of his chin as he lazily levitates a few feet above the ground. "California's kinda lame nowadays, but at least there's good citrus. Just hope it doesn't catch fire."

As if to demonstrate his point, he snaps his fingers to ignite a small flame on the tip of his thumb... which goes out in a small puff of smoke almost immediately. "Aww jeez, I still don't have the hang of it. Ugh..."

    Serrah steps out from behind a tree, shading herself with a pink umbrella covered in red hearts, and looking ... well, she hasn't had the best amount of sleep, but it's closer to that than the worst.

    "Oh my god will you both settle the hell down," she says, but there's a dryness to her tone. She nods in greeting. "Hey, Sybil, Shel. Everything doing all right at your end?"

    ... She glances at Damian, but ... nah, no, she's not gonna comment on the theft.

    Aurelia arrives late, wearing shorts and a tank-top to combat the heat. She takes deep breathes since she rushed to get here, pulling a cold water bottle out from... nowhere basically and downing it. She offers one to Serrah, Damian, and Benedicta. She just narrows her eyes at Sybil, not offering her a refreshment. 
    "You'd better have a good deal if you want any help from me."

"The vampire and your boyfriend? For a Catholic you certainly keep some unholy company." Sybil's attention turns towards the pair as they arrive. "Don't worry, it'll be a lot more interesting when I'm charge. Hey, don't start any wildfires we have enough problems with those..." Damian catches matching glares from both Sybil and Shield-Maiden.

"Wow, we actually agree on something. The wildfires that is, no one in their right mind would want you in charge." Benedicta takes the offered cold water bottle from Aurelia.

"Hello Serrah...just the usual, I've been busy trying to keep Wasp Queen safe." Shel takes another look around to make sure no one followed them.

"Well, fine it doesn't matter to me either way if the rabbit goes hippity hoppity the rest of her life but I suggest you get to work on my armor if you don't want that to be the case." Sybil offers the damaged armor to Aurelia with that.

     Damian grumbles a little but nods. "Yeah, yeah. It'd be kinda dumb to start one right after talking about how it'd suck." he says, tossing the orange into the air and catching it with a pair of suddenly very oversized jaws. In a moment, he's back to his normal appearance, the orange now quite gone. He also accepts the water offered by Aurelia. "Thanks, pal. This heat's nothing much for me, I mean I literally live in Hell, but it's nice to have something to wash down the fruit."

Sybil's comment about Benedicta's 'boyfriend' (really hard to mistake who she's talking about here) causes him to choke a little on said water, but he recovers quickly enough. "Yeah, whatever. You guys carry out your business, we'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Including you."

    Serrah accepts the water bottle from Aurelia without looking. "Technically I'm not a vampire anymore, I'm a dhampir," she says evenly. "I got resurrected last year."

    She sighs softly at the bickering, but doesn't comment this time, realizing that she's probably the oldest person here. She simply nods at the response to her inquiries. She turns towards Aurelia as Sybil offers the armor, but her attention, like Damian's, is actually mostly on lookout.

    Aurelia takes the armor, and looks it over. "So what are you offering? Let's hear you say it, because none of us have a reason to trust you." She's checking the armor's metallurgic properties, kind of metal, alloy composition, that sort of thing.
    "I mean, I guess we could hunt you down and throw you in a teeny cell where there's a publically viewable toilet. And no makeup allowed." Aurelia taps on the armor experimentally.

Sybil points to the seal on Benedicta's arm, "It would be pretty easy for Shel to remove it. After all she was the one to put their to begin with. Besides you're the ones who owe me. I'm being nice by just making the offer, I could just have my knight here fix the armor. I don't need your help." Of course she fails to mention that it would take Shel months in order to do so. 

"No make-up? I'm pretty sure that considered a war crime. Besides what would throwing me in a cell do for you? You would still have Baroness Spider on the loose and I'm sure she's just as eager to go after you as she is me."

Shield-Maiden can be heard sighing from underneath her bevor as she hears Serrah, "I'm glad to hear it. I don't think that's possible for me though. I'm not even quite sure how long I've been this way for."

     Damian snickers at Aurelia's suggestion. "Just give her a pile of leaves instead of toilet paper. That'll be fun." he suggests, then tilts his head at Sybil as she tries to claim she doesn't need help. "Yeah, I doubt you're doing this out of the kindness of your heart. Either Shieldy there can't fix the armor, or it's enough trouble that you'd rather have us do it. Don't try to bullshit in front of someone whose dad invented bullshit."

    At Aurelia's outright antagonism, Serrah takes half a step towards her with the expression of someone who really wants to flick the other person's ear right now. Nevertheless, she manages to hold herself back, and leans against the nearest tree.

    "Damn, sorry to hear that," she answers Shel. "Yeah, we basically cut it down to the last week in my case ..." Without breaking eye contact with Shel, she walks over and flicks Damian's ear. "... but that sounds just awful for you."

    Aurelia looks to Shield-Maiden. "So release the seal then. I don't know who told you two that I could fix this, but they were wrong. I'll need *your* help, Shield-Maiden." She hefts the armor and it vanishes, Aurelia hiding it away into her pocket dimension. She waits for Sybil and Shield-Maiden to figure out what they want to do, hands on hips and staring expectantly.

"Hey, I'm a perfectly nice person, I just hate the rabbit. You do know she thinks that she's better than the rest of you right? Why would you want to be friends with someone like that. You better intend to return that after Shel removes the seal, or that's going to be the least of your worries." Sybil doesn't sound too happy about the armor suddenly vanishing. She removes the necklace from her pocket before instructing Shield-Maiden. "Go ahead and remove the seal from the rabbit's arm but keep the spell ready just in case..."

"I wasn't thinking clearly. If I known what I do now, I would have preferred just dying..." Shel explains to Serrah before suddenly being interfered by Sybil. Her armor faintly glows black as she approaches Benedicta. Shield-Maiden makes a gesture like she's crossing herself before touching the al-mir'aj's girl's arm. She winces in pain before the seal vanishes from sight and all that can be seen on Benedicta's arm is white fur.

"Finally...I never thought I would get that damned thing off." Benedicta shakes her right arm it clearly hurting a bit as she does so.

     Damian flinches at the ear flick, giving Serrah a "what was that for" kind of look. As Shel removes the seal though, he summons his banjo and starts idly plucking at the strings. "Well, that part's done. May as well uphold our end of the bargain, eh? Fair's fair and stuff." A moment later, he watches Benedicta shaking her arm and adds, "You okay, Benny?"

    Serrah pointedly answers Damian's look, "Remember what I said about settling the hell down?"

    And then she grimaces at Shield Maiden's comment, and looks away for a few moments. That is certainly something she has trouble wrapping her mind around. All she can respond with is a sympathetic, "Damn ..."

    She watches as Shel goes to undo the seal on Benedicta's arm, and relaxes. But only slightly. "So. Uh. Aurelia, uh ..."

    Aurelia pulls the armor back out. "You did hear me when I said I need help fixing it, right? It's actually resisting my magic, so I think it's warded somehow." The armor seems unchanged, though there's weird distortions washing over it, mostly over where there's damage. The damage seems to flicker and 'heal', but then it's right back to the way it was.
    Aurelia looks up at Sybil and Shield-Maiden, with a 'I told you so' look.

"Let me, "Let me see what I can do...is that alright, Queen? I wonder if it's because of Lady Wasp?" Shield-Maiden knows that her former liege is still partly present in the armor. She approaches Aurelia before touching the armor herself. It starts to glow black as well, hopefully the metal controller wouldn't feel any backlash from it.

"Go ahead, you don't have to ask me. Man, I hope the armor doesn't reject me or something once it's fixed." Sybil sounds a bit concerned now about that.

"I'm okay, just a bit sore from getting the ward removed. I guess it's kind of like getting a tattoo off." Benedicta smiles at Damian as she says that.

     Damian shrugs, both at Serrah and at Sybil. "Not our problem, man." he says, conjuring a toothpick to get some strands of orange skin out of his teeth. As Benedicta reassures him though, he smiles back at her, genuine warmth in his expression. "Glad to hear it. If she tries to pull something, I'll deck her one for you."

    Serrah takes a deep breath, trying to regain her composure, shifting her grip on her parasol. "Tattoo-removal doesn't usually hurt that much," she says. "Or ... wait, no, I'm being dumb, tattoo-removal magic isn't widely-available here, is it."

    She looks ... slightly lost at the general discussion between Aurelia, Sybil, and Shield-Maiden. "Uh ... how ... do you remove tattoos in this world?" she asks Benedicta.

    The armor reacts better to Shield-Maiden than it did to Aurelia. Some kind of remnant of Metal Wasp whispers to Shield-Maiden about wanting Sybil as a new body and how this other mage was meddling with the armor...
    Aurelia looks at Shield-Maiden. "Get anything?"

"I think Metal Wasp wants me to fix the armor alone. Sorry for bothering you, Aurelia..." Shield-Maiden doesn't mention aloud that Metal Wasp wants control of Sybil's body.

 "So we went through all this trouble for nothing?" Sybil sounds a bit annoyed at that.

 "Laser usually, I don't have any tattooes though. My parents would get upset if I got one."

    Aurelia shrugs. "Hey, I did try. Armor's haunted, Sybil." She offers Shield-Maiden a bottle of water, unaware of the maho's undead nature.

     Damian shrugs. "Never gotten a tatto. Don't really need to either, I can just do my thing and make one appear." he says, changing to human form briefly to demonstrate as a black circle of three sixes appears on the back of his hand. "See? Kinda limited on color, though..."

Another moment later and he's fuzzy again, sneaking a brief hug for Benedicta as he returns to banjo strumming. Nothing in particular, just trying to find a tune that sounds good.

    Serrah blinks. "Lasers?" she says. "... Oh you mean literal lasers, not beams." She looks thoughtful; the idea that you could do that sort of thing with mundane lasers hasn't occurred to her. "... coooool."

    She frowns between Sybil and Aurelia. "Well, shit," she says. "So much for that." She taps her chin thoughtfully. "... maybe we could try figuring out how to exorcize it. I mean depending on the method, I wouldn't be able to do that myself for obvious reasons ... but ... hmm ..."

"Thank you, but I don't need water and I don't think you want to see what's under my bevor." Shield-Maiden gives the water bottle to Sybil instead. "I can't do exorcisms either."

Benedicta hugs Damian back, "It must be nice to change your appearance like that without needing a doll of yourself." That was always kind of awkward.

 Sybil takes the water bottle from Shel along with the armor, "I guess we're done here then, come on Shel I want to take a nice cold bath back at the hotel."

     Damian finally seems to settle on a tune, just a quiet little thing that serves as a melancholy backdrop for the scene. "Yeah, it's pretty cool. The color thing is what gets me though. If I could just figure out how to do that, the sky would be the limit..." he responds to Benedicta, before realizing the meaning behind what she said. "Oh, uh... sorry, I didn't mean to come off like I was bragging..."

    Serrah frowns. "Guess that's that, then," she says awkwardly. Oh, so that's what she kinda-sorta-not-quite-feels from Shield-Maiden ...

    She frowns. "Y'know, I haven't tried to give myself tattoos before," she adds. "... Like, I can change my clothes, and all that, but ... I just realized I really don't change my appearance much. I like myself the way I am." She shakes her head, and looks sidelong at Sybil and Shel. "You two take care of yourselves, arright?"

    Aurelia sticks her hands in her pockets, watching Sybil and Shel go. Then she looks at the other three. "Guys want some ice cream?"

"It's okay, it'll be nice to go back my human form tomorrow. Hopefully, no one will try to start something until this heat wave is over with. Ice cream sounds good right now." Benedicta's in a better mood now that's over with.

     Damian tosses his banjo back into the ether, grinning at the mention of ice cream. "Oh hell yeah, let's get some rocky road!" He then elbows Benedicta, winking as he says, "I'll even pay for yours, so you can focus on celebrating getting rid of that tacky mark."

    Serrah nods. "Yeah, ice cream sounds like a good idea for me, too," she says, gesturing with her umbrella. "Preferably indoors --"

    She accidentally gestures in such a way that it doesn't completely shade her for a second. She hurriedly moves it back into place, then smirks up at it. "... but I'm not picky," she finishes.

    Aurelia thinks for a moment, then calls back to Sybil and Shield-Maiden. "Hey, ice cream's on me!" and waves the two over to join.

"I can't taste anything, do you want go along?" Shel looks at Sybil upon hearing Aurelia's offer.

 "I guess we might have to work together again to deal with Baroness Spider." She doesn't sound too happy about about the idea but decides to go along with it.