World Tree MUSH

    It's taken a month's preparation to organize this operation, a raid in enemy territory. Their target is the Foundry, a massive super-factory complex, built to be a self-sufficient arcology for thousands to live within. It's designed to withstand a war, and taking it will be an ugly affair.

    The briefing was simple. Two teams will infiltrate the Foundry, one intended to assault and seize the Foundry's control center while the other organizes a revolt. Commander Thane runs a hand across his scar before donning his helmet, flicking on the battery to his blaster rifle. "This decryption code better be worth the price we paid getting it." He mutters sourly. His team and Talia's will be inserting aboard shuttles captured. With the security grid on the fritz, it'll be easier to get in and out of this place.

    Rescuing the laborers will require several transports, a vital part of the plan, as well as destroying the defense guns and shields.

    "Halt!" A dock officer calls out, approaching one of the shuttles. "I need to see your identification codes, present them at once or risk execution!"

    Once the shuttle opens up, one of the rebels, disguised as a simple shuttle crewman, rifles through her pockets. "Oh, sorry!" The sullustan says, before pulling out her blaster. "I left it at home." She shoots the officer in the face, and the game is on.

    Talia rushes out, lightsaber switching on as she blocks blaster bolts, taking point and nimbly engaging the troops.

    An oddity on the transport is a young woman, wearing dark robes... they're a kind of dark grey that sort of shimmer faintly with motion, meant to blend into metal walls, or starlight when seen against a starry sky. As the rebels break out of the transports and start rushing the guards, the young human strolls along after, before ducking down a side passage and heading to where the laborour barracks are located. She keeps moving with purpose, pretending like she's important and has places to be, which gets most of the random mooks to leave her bed. Don't want to piss off someone who looks important, after all.

    Her boots click on the floor, and anyone who decides to waylay her that doesn't quickly back down, gets a jab of Hidden Blade through a Vital area before she moves on.

There's an unusual droid accompanying the group. Five feet tall, gunmetal blue except for the very humanoid face which is an ivory white with cyan hair. Some of that gunmetal blue forms into a heavy helmet. The upper body has eight arms, each of which ends in a different kind of warlike tool. Dagger, axe, spear, thrusting sword, arming sword, drill, claw and shield. She has six legs, each of which ends in feet that have sharpened claws to dig into surfaces. All of this looks heavily armored.

Bryllu follows out after the fighting begins, wading into combat shield first, the weapons on the arms reaching out to attack the officers. "Workers of the tree, unite!" She calls out, "You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

    A split second after Talia's boots touch ground, they're followed by a second pair. And while Lian moves with equal swiftness, it's hard to really call what she does a 'rush' - it's more accurate to say the Battlemaster flows across the battlefield.

    Her sky-blue lightsaber whips and whirls around into the path of blaster bolt after blaster bolt, sending many of them away and even returning several to senders. A step suddenly becomes a jump, a spin, a shift to one side, that puts her in just the right spot to evade a heavier shot or to parry a bolt that would be a problem. Once or twice, she reaches out and throws her lightsaber, spiraling through the air to slice some cannon or gunner before returning to her hand.

    Though she might seek peace at every opportunity, Lian Kamoya is a warrior, at home on the battlefield with a lightsaber in hand, and it shows. The Jedi Master moves with surety and precision, efficiency and grace, keeping pace with Talia and doing much to blunt the enemy's defensive onslaught.

    That was ice cold. Shooting that guy in the face like that.
    The Mandalorian doesn't comment on this though as he debarks from the shuttle, blaster in hand, disruptor rifle slung over his shoulder, and with a solemn stride in his step.
    He lets the Jedi take the fore, idly wondering to himself how he could have found not one, but two, and has managed to convince neither to take the kid off his hands. Said kid being left aboard the Rogue Shadow for the time being.
    That's a problem for another time though, as he idly puts a blaster bolt in a guy or two that tries to get in his way. No time to stop now to sweat the little details like 'guards'.

     Another oddity among the group is a humanoid vixen with blue fur, though she does look ready for action in that tight blue and black outfit and long metal power staff held tightly in both hands. She reaches out with her mind as she exits the shuttle, but she doesn't like what she finds. "Wow, someone's been messing with these guys' minds... Feels like what it'd be like to read the mind of a robot, just cold calculating and precise." She says with a frown as she joins in on the fight, blasting energy bolts on the soldiers afar and melee striking any that get too close.

    Speaking of "flowing" across the battlefield ... a black shadow flows out of the ship behind Bryllu, so black it looks like a nasty rip in space, or a graphical glitch -- it looks rather grainy, too, as if it was actually a bunch of nanomachines wrapped in Vantablack. Exactly like that.

    Double-A strides out after in her redhead-in-a-black-dress form, looking ... tense. She then turns into a pitch-black shadow and sidles off to the side, keeping watch without directly participating directly yet.

    Emily and Double-A are on Commander Thane's team, and Emily has a tactical map she's sending to Bryllu, Double-A, and everyone else who has the ability to connect with it, keeping track of targets and potential hostiles.

    (... and the Jedi in the group would sense a feeling of ... hatred, slowly building up within Emily, directed at Garo's regime in general and this factory in particular. Hmm.)

  A second ship is in orbit around the Foundry, but the locals don't know it's there. It's not visible to the naked eye, disguised by shimmering camouflage, lost in the starfield behind it. The Rogue Shadow swoops down lower, sensors examining the superstructure in minute detail as the teams inside kick off the stopwatch.

  The ship does make a handy transport for their rescued labourers.

  Static washes over the teams' communication units; it carries a strange low-frequency hum behind it: Interference from the Rogue Shadow's cloaking systems; the slight resonance of stygium crystals.

  <<Blackout to Team Bedlam.>> The dudes targeting the control centre, that is. Juno's voice is crisp, Imperial accent clipped and professional. She's watching through a security camera as the sullustan shoots the dock officer in the face. <<You have approximately four minutes and thirty seconds before the next patrol finds that dock officer's corpse. Your timer starts, on my mark... now.>>

  Juno leans back in her chair, puffing out a sigh. Her back is aching, but that's not really anything new. Those blue eyes sharpen as Bryllu enters the fray shields-first, which is a particularly neat trick in her opinion, and she frowns as Talia and Lian prowl onto the battlefield like predatory beasts.

  <<Remind me never to piss off a Jedi,>> she mutters, squinting as a bright streak -- Lian's lightsaber in flight -- momentarily knocks out the camera feed. <<Mind the cameras, if you please. I can't maintain visual contact unless I have intact cameras to work with.>>

  Juno's head swivels, toward the jump seat where PROXY sits, steadying the floating pram in which the Child travels. "What do you think?" The pilot puffs out a sigh. "I think they'll accidentally knock out the bloody cameras." Under her watchful study, Mando mows down guards, too.

  <<Mando, look out up ahe-->> He shoots them. <<Never mind.>>

  She reaches down to flick a few controls, frowning and flipping to another camera. Unlike some, the sight of an anthropomorphic fox isn't particularly disturbing to her. There's some weird stuff in and out of the galaxy.

  ...It's probably good Krystal's not really listening right now. Juno is at any given time a seething knot of tightly-controlled hatred and bloody vengeance animated by rage.

  <<Krystal, watch out for the one you've downed; I think he's going to-->> Thud goes the staff. Juno puffs out another sigh. <<...Never mind.>>

  She doesn't immediately notice Emily Nyx on the prowl, because Nyx keeps causing the cameras to freak out every time they pick up too much of her in the frame's bounds.

  <<...Huh. Does anyone have eyes on Nyx? I can't see her; I'm getting some interference on the camera systems.>>

  Juno keys over to schematics of the factory, or at least partial schematics, eyes flicking rapidly over the layout.

  <<Blackout to Team Bedlam. You'll find the control centre immediately due south of your position; but be cautious, because the pathway is not direct. Shall I guide your approach?>>

    While he advances with his personal fireteam, Thane takes a brief look at the warriors assembled by Talia. "Black Hell, where does Kyras find these people?" A rebel says while he watches Bryllu cleave through soldiers, before returning fire on a regime trooper.

    "Nyx, get us to the control center. We need that place secured." Thane barks, before he blasts away at troopers. Despite dropping two, the sole remainder of the regime fireteam engaging Thane's group simply picks up a fallen comrade's heavy blaster and lays down suppressing fire without emotion.

    Those with extra sensory perception of any kind will notice something is very 'off' about the soldiers posted here. They don't act like normal, if trained soldiers. Their training goes a step beyond that, they feel...empty, like husks of men. These men are the governor's will made manifest, a gaze cold as ice and hands steady as rock even as their comrades fall one by one.

    Talia frowns. Someone's been conditioning these men, ever since Thane left the governor's service.

    Lian Kamoya, the beautiful and wise Jedi Master that she is, cuts through soldiers and droids alike with like a scythe going through wheat. Talia even finds herself struggling to catch up with Lian as they handle the brunt of the enemy.

    As Krystal will attest, these soldiers take their losses in stride as the docking bay slowly lost, retreating to better cover while repeating blaster cannons open fire from above.

    Juno will find access to the schematics no problem, and she'll be granted access via the decryption codes Thane mentioned before. "Bedlam Actual to Blackout, we're making our way towards the security hub. Once you're in, we'll need you to do your best to misdirect any and all hostiles." Thane radios. "Nyx and Double-A are with us at the moment." The rebels take cover behind whatever they can find while Talia and her new friends soak up most of the attention. They can handle that.

    Talia deftly uses some crates and docked ships to bound her way to the upper levels, batting away laser bolts in between lightsaber slashes. Some unfortunate combat droids and soldiers will be sent over railings, falling to the floor in pieces.

    Piera will find herself a means to enter the laborer's barracks, where they're being held while the Foundry enters lockdown. An officer shouts orders over the ear piercing sirens, "Make way for any and all security personnel on-site. Interrupting them is punished by death. Those who are found outside their quarters during lockdown shall be shot on sight!" His voice intones over the speakers.

    "Indeed," Lian replies to Krystal over her shoulder. "Have care - their morale will likely not falter to the last man." With Talia going high, the elder Master opts to stay low for the time being, making herself a very visible target on the ground, both to keep the defenders' attention divided, and to provide what assistance she can to the rest of the team staying on the ground.

    "My apologies, Blackout," the Jedi replies over comms, before shifting her stance slightly; her movements become more defensive, less active attacks and more defense against blaster bolts, and her steps always seem to carry her to wherever the blaster fire is going to be heaviest. Though most here have their own ways of dealing with ranged fire, if she can lighten the load on those present - particularly Krystal - she will gladly do so.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> Main Tanking, responding to Krystal and Juno

The synthetic human in her war form advances alongside Lian. Bryllu shares her own updates on positional information, including a high quality feed of her sensory input with anyone on their side to receive it. Versions with lower bitrate available for those for whom the full data stream is too much. This data includes infrared and ultraviolet and frequent radio and sonar pulses, along with a continually updated 3d map of the environment based on observations.

<<MLE0-X413J2N9F6I2 'Emily Nyx' is using a compound designed to absorb all light. Position is included in reference data.>> She answers Juno's question, as she charges into the fire, her armor ablating away from the hits where her shield doesn't catch it. "I'll cover you." She calls out to those who wish a bit more protection.

    Piera's brown eyes flicker briefly golden in the shadow of her hood as she hears the officer speaking over the barracks intercomm... she clicks her tongue and the hidden Shinki, floating near the ceiling, decends and alights on her shoulder. <<Bedlam, this is Liberation... I am in the barracks. They have enforced a lockdown, and secured the labourers in their cells.. I am making my way to the officer's control room to free the labourers and silence him, permanently.>> says the Assassin through the Shinki's commline, the pair moving to make their way through the barracks as quickly as possible.

    "I see them, Blackout." Mando replies as casual as can be after blasting the guards in his path.
    Chances are though, those aren't the only guys he'll have to worry about, and soon enough as he follows the others, more blaster bolts go flying.
    Ever one to keep his cool in a firefight, the man in the beskar mask advances slowly.
    "Something's not right about these guys." He mutters. "They have less personality than most droids I've run across."
    From a man who hates droids... That's saying something.
    Sparks fly as bolts ricochet and rebound off the silvery plating of his beskar cuirass, the armor not even so much as scuffed for the efforts of the guards at he puts down a few more guys with well placed shots.

Krystal shakes her head as she pushes on with the group, nodding in agreement with Lian. "I feel sorry for them since I assume they did have a life, and a normal mind at some point, but there is little we can do for them now, especially when they're trying to kill us... All they need is a hive mind and it'd be like fighting the Aparoids." Krystal leaves the technical work to others who are more skilled at it. She's better at dealing with people, though she prefers to do so diplomatically, fighting to keep the rest of the team safe is the order of the day it seems. She finds some cover and helps to take out the remaining stragglers before moving quickly to help Piera with the laborers. She calls out with her telepathy. <<This is Krystal, I'm on my way to lend a hand if you can use one, let me know what I can do to help!>>

    Emily's response to Juno is simple: "Releasing Capacitor Seals 3, 2, and 1," both spoken allowed and broadcast over the comlinks. That "shadow" coalesces together, surrounded by three distinct auras, one gold, one silver, and one pearlescent -- and then all three shatter as Emily spreads back out again. "Anyway, my name is Emily, 'Nyx' is my model-designation," she adds. "So, 'Nyx-model MLE0-X413J2N9F6I2 Emily', maybe, Bryllu ..."

    "Glad you didn't call me 'Erebus'," mutters Double-A from somewhere behind Thane.

    "Also, yes, getting us in right now!" says Emily. (According to the maps they got, it's a straight shot to the control room; there's just, y'know, a whole bunch of dudes in the way.) "Sorry, Piera, I'm gonna beat you to it!" And there's an uncharacteristic edge in her voice. (It's easy to sense her inner emotional turmoil, to those who can sense such things.) She glides past Bryllu and opens up a staticky portal leading straight to the command room, wide enough for several people to enter. The shadows coalesce to form a tall woman in her forties with short hair in a pixie cut and glowing red eyes with hair covering her right eye, dressed in a black and white pinstripe suit; she then projects massive holographic twintails which clip through the floor.

    Oh, and also, she's holding a black metal high-tech-looking sword. A red hologram flickers a few times above her head as she stalks through -- "Danger", it said, and perhaps "Glitch" ...

    "Emily!" exclaims Double-A as Emily stalks through the portal, leaving it open for any other allies to come through. "Emily!"

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily opens a portal to the command room, transforms into a snazzily-dressed humanoid with a high-frequency blade or something, about to Glitch as she enters.

  There's no bones about it; Blackout is very definitely an Imperial, by speech... yet she wears Rebel insignia, and she's referred to as a general. Curious.

  Juno leans sideways in her seat, blue eyes flicking from the pilot's console to the co-pilot's console: She has both of them queued up, stretching across the aisle to flick through controls on the far unit. The display flips through different security cameras, watching each team member's progress from different angles. The other flicks through different schematics, and she traces a finger along the pathways.

  <<Blackout to Bedlam Actual, acknowledged.>> Juno's eyes slide to the camera feed. Fingers dance over the controls as she checks her handiwork, slicing into the Foundry's mainframe and issuing a few simple commands to its security systems. <<You should have an additional fifteen minutes starting, on my mark... now. Sorry, but that's all I can give you. Any longer and it will raise too many red flags in the system.>>

  A quick gesture brings up a different camera. This one shows Lian.

  <<Oh, it's nothing.>> Juno chuckles, in response to Lian. <<It's probably better that you don't need my warnings.>>

  <<Blackout to Liberation. Take the next corridor on your right and turn left when you see the intersection; that ought to take you to the control room more directly.>> She watches Piera walk the path. <<Excellent. Yes. That's the correct route.>>

  She watches as Mando mows down the opposition in his way, apparently unsurprised by his cold, clinical precision. <<Less personality? What do you mean by that, Mando?>>

  <<Blackout to Emily. Acknowledged. My mistake. Well, unless you prefer to be called Nyx, anyway. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other.>> Juno opens her mouth to say something else to Emily, but Emily goes through a portal before she can actually answer. <<Oh. Well. I suppose that's a thing,>> she mutters, half to herself.

    "For the record," Talia says over comms, "I think you'll be safe, Blackout." She assures Juno. She swiftly cuts down one of the gunners before she senses something, and begins to leap back down to where Emily, Double-A, and Thane's fireteam had gone. "Handle the gunners, I'm going to help seize the control center!" She calls out to Mando and Lian. The gunners continue to maintain fire on Lian and Mando, making it clear they're not out of this yet even as their numbers dwindle.

    The soliders weren't expecting someone to open a kriffing portal into the command hub, but as Emily pokes her head in, she'll be in for a surprise.

    The Warden of the Foundry, chief of security, stands from his seat...and he's not just wearing a simple uniform. "Secure the room, I'll handle this." He says robotically, as his armor begins to seal up his helmet. He draws a staff from his side, and projects an energy shield in his off-hand as his staff emits an energy blade not unlike an axe. "You will find we're not so weak." He says, before rushing Emily, small rocket jets propelling him towards the Eudaemon, bodychecking her directly through the portal.

    Thane and his rebels open fire on the power armored Warden, his Garo-class armored battleframe giving him the durability and maneuverability necessary to throw down in heavy combat. He stands around ten feet tall in full armor, and he's alarmingly fast for his size. Piera and Krystal will be in for a shock when they get there.

    Thane keeps composure, and he orders his fireteam back. "Let Emily handle this, back up and focus on seizing the command center!" He barks out.

    Talia rushes in just in time to find the Warden slamming his axe down on Emily's head, and she rushes in, her lightsaber blocked by the Warden's shield.

    Deep down, Talia gets the impression they'll need the whole team to take this guy down.

    Though Lian doesn't have access to Bryllu's tactical data, she moves as if she does. The comm message from Piera is met with silence; what must be done, must be done. And Krystal receives a similarly grim nod. "It is unfortunate. But we must liberate the people of this planet." 

    The maelstrom of emotion from Emily, however, has the Jedi rather more concerned. Her intuition is telling her it's a very, very urgent problem. From here, there is little she can give but words; so she reaches for the smallest collection of words that she can think of that will say the most. "Emily. It's only natural to be angry. But don't allow 'Emily Nyx' to be lost forever in that darkness. There are those who would mourn you."

    Talia is moving to assist. That means Lian has work topside. "Cover Krystal, if you can," she asks of Bryllu. "My apologies," is the only thing she says to the Mandalorian. And then she gathers the Force, and leaps to the upper levels. He'll be fine, right? He's got beskar armor. Totally fine. Meanwhile, she has gunners to take down.

    <Assistance is appreciated.> replies Aquila via standard comm to Krystal. It's not Piera's voice, at least, a higher pitch, a slightly sharper tone. The Assassin and her Shinki partner round the corner, following the directions from Juno... and run straight into a melee with Emily getting body-checked by some guy in power armour. "... Help the team release the prisoners." says the Assassin to the blue fox as she breaks into a run.

    A hand reaches into a pouch on her hip, fidgeting with something within, before deciding better of it and shifting her hand to grip her sword instead. "Aquila, find a weakpoint in his armour."

    The Shinki gives a curt nod, her visor clicking down over her eyes as she shifts to combat mode... though her sensors aren't really going to be scanning that suit or anything. She's just literally looking for any open joints or anything, her Bident gaining a sheath of plasma as she lines up, and fires her vernier jets to scream down into a seemingly vital part on the back of the Warden's armour... her jets sound almost exactly like an eagle's cry.

"Acknowledged." Bryllu answers Lian, and takes position in between the enemy and Krystal, and she begins to sing a song she learned while in the tree to bolster her own morale while she closes in on the enemy. She begins to assault the Warden around her shield, the drill especially persistently at one point, while the other weapons try to just relentlessly assault.

>> SUMMARY[Bryllu Zibhu MLDVII] >> https://youtu.be/cVm8mEdVZtw

<Understood!> Krystal responds quickly and breaks into a run herself, reaching the prisoner area as Bryllu moves in to provide some cover while she attempts to free them. <Stay calm, I'm here to free you all.> She says telepathically to all the prisoners since she isn't sure what languages any of them can speak. She presses a hidden button on her staff and attempts to use its power to unlock the cell doors, moving as quickly as she can knowing that time is of the essence.

    "You're right," Emily snarls in response to Juno, again both aloud and over comlink, "it is a thing." But at Lian's words, she hesitates, stopping just inside the portal ...

    ... and then stares up at the Warden. "Aw shit --"

    Pow.

    Emily goes sprawling, her holographic twintails momentarily taking on a cartoony zigzag appearance, before fizzling out when she hits the ground. A web of silver cracks and scars emanates from where she was hit. All that fury, all that hatred is gone in an instant, replaced by astonishment and physical pain. The danger-message is certainly gone now.

    She stares up at the Warden, stunned; she needs a moment to recover, a moment which Talia thankfully gives her. Then the scars disappear as she moves the damaged nanomachines under her surface ... but she's really not fooling anyone as she staggers to her feet, twintails reappearing and moving erratically. And now there's now a signet ring on her left middle finger, glowing with glitching and flickering runes.

    "Uhh ... Lian, consider your words taken to heart for now," she says, again both aloud and over the comlink. "But it's happened before, and I've ..." She shakes her head. "Y'know what, never mind that now. Guys, we got a dude over here! A big hefty boss-man!" She fires a couple dozen golden energy-bolts at the Warden, carefully aimed so as not to hit Bryllu or Aquila, and throws her sword forward, controlling it to try to pierce directly forward; she's not searching for any weakpoints, but simply trying to overwhelm the Warden's defenses with brute force.

    "Emily, what the fuck does that mean," says Double-A, who floated all the way up to the ceiling so that she can keep an eye on things without being in range of the Warden's attacks. But there's a noticeable amount of relief in her voice that Emily didn't Glitch.

    "I think it's self-explanatory!" Emily answers.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily gets physicsed, responds with danmaku, doesn't Glitch.

    <<I mean it's like they're not all there. They're eyes are cold like a dead man's.>> Mando replies to Juno over the comms as he puts down a couple of more guys.
    Then he sees what's going on with Emily. He's no Jedi, he can't sense her emotions but he can tell something is very wrong there.
    "... Emily?"
    Into the portal she goes.
    And then there's The Warden himself.
    "Yeah, it's fine, go." Is The Mandalorian's reply to Lian as she takes to the upper levels, more fire spanging off his beskar. Every impact makes him jerk, but he takes them standing. A few more blaster bolts go into the gunners before his focus shifts to the armored bulk of The Warden.
    He looks at the blaster in his hand.
    He looks back up.
    Yeah that's not going to work.
    For now he turns his attention to shooting down more soldiers. The others are dogpiling the big guy and can probably handle him.
    Probably.

  <<I'll be safe,>> Juno scoffs, quietly, to Talia. <<Worrying about my six is my responsibility, not my employers'; and I've been fighting long enough to be very, very good at it.>>

  She watches the screens as she talks, though, frowning at the security feed in the Warden of the Foundry's office. What's that man doing? Why are all of these people moving so bizarrely? She watches as he dons energy weapons, and as she opens her mouth to warn Emily about an impending tackle, he's already body-checked Emily into the portal.

  Juno blinks rapidly, staring at the camera feed.

  <<Um,>> she says, articulately. Well, that sure was a thing that just happened. The old general sounds a little unsettled by that alarmingly fast escalation.

  Thane's shouting snaps her back into focus, and movement in her periphery proves to be Lian leaping up to new heights with a Jedi's grace and poise. She watches for half a second, momentarily distracted. It's still so bizarre to see Jedi operating openly. They're so rare in her galaxy, even in a time of partial stability.

  All she can do is watch as Bryllu assaults the Warden, brows arching, impressed.

  Mando's explanation prompts Juno to narrow her eyes, her stare sliding out of focus as she focuses on his words. Their eyes are cold like a dead man's, he says, and her mouth turns in an unhappy downward slash.

  <<Be careful, Mando.>> It's all she can really caution without being there herself. <<Well, I'm certainly glad you're wearing beskar, at any rate.>>

  She glances back at the Child, regarding the green tyke. She sniffs, airily, with an air of mock theatrics. "Oh, hush," she sniffs, airily. "I'm not worried about him." He doesn't say a word. He never does. Maybe she's just deflecting to make him feel better, because her usual emotional state isn't fun for a telepathic toddler to be around. "Besides, he knows how to take care of himself."

  <<Blackout to Team Bedlam. Be careful. I'm having some trouble-->> Static ravages the signal. <<--maintaining visual contact.>> More static. <<Sensors are on the blink.>>

  Up on the ship, Juno leans forward and pounds on the console with her fist.

  It doesn't help, but it makes her feel better, anyway.

    The Warden deftly brandishes his energy-field axe, swinging it toward Emily and pushing it towards the Eudaemon. His strength is such that he can and does begin to try and smash Emily into the walls, crashing through solid steel with a single blow of his axe before he pushes through them. Talia is knocked away, and Piera will find that the Warden's armor is very thick. Stabbing through it is out of the question. That said, he has some gaps in his armor, servos and wires to sever and gum up. While he's too busy wrangling Emily and Talia and the others, the Warden won't notice a small assassin climbing all over him like a spider-monkey.

    The hangar bay walls shudder and crumble, steel bending as the Warden quite literally bowls through the walls. This is technology beyond any normal make. Talia makes chase, and the Warden brings up his shield again to block the Jedi's blows while he swings at Emily, his foot lashing out at Bryllu as well as he juggles multiple opponents at once.

One of Bryllu's legs gets smashed up to junk, she is briefly destabilized as she readjusts herself to her new balance, and then she continues her onslaught. As Juno's communications seem to cut out, she strengthens the power behind her signal, hoping to get through.

    As Aquila starts raking her bident through those open wire spaces and servoes, Piera approaches, going low where Aquila and the others went high. Her sword goes for the backs of the Warden's legs, aiming to sever the movement systems and slow him down... though her sword is literally just a sharp bit of metal, it's probably not going to cut through any kind of advanced armour plate.

    Just as Lian is finishing her task, the Warden comes smashing in. "Hmh. Rather disruptive sort," she muses.

    And then the Jedi does a passable impression of a member of Piera's order.

    It's a simple step forward off the catwalk she's on, into a simple flip - and in the process, she draws her other lightsaber, a second bar of sky-blue joining the first. With one in each hand, she turns another flip in the air, carefully slowing her descent with the Force just enough that she's not going to hurt herself - but maintaining as much of that momentum as she safely can, so as to bring both lightsabers down on the Warden from above.

>> SUMMARY[Lian Kamoya] >> JUSTICE

    Double-A sighs, and transmits a text-message to Bryllu and PROXY (reasoning that they can tell the non-droids here about it when there's more time): <<The Glitch is something that happens to Eudaemons sometimes, nobody really knows why. You hate something, and then you go monomaniacally murder-happy. And let's just say Emily has a reason to hate those who enslave others, though at least this time it wasn't on false pretenses. The Glitch has apparently happened to her a few times, most of them since our world Blossomed>> and then in a smaller font, <<and to me once.>>

    Emily dodges the axe, wobbling in midair and barely making the dodges. "Right," she says aloud and over the comlinks, "this guy's tougher than he should be. HEY WARDEN!"

    Emily drunkenly flies over a swing of the axe, and raises her middle finger.

    That is, the one wearing the Timekeeper.

    In a sphere a couple dozen feet wide centered on the ring, the world's colors invert and time stops, though those within and without can still see Emily's movements. She lazily leans forward, and conjures up another swarm -- this one bunched together, all more-or-less aimed at one spot: namely, the Warden's face.

    And then, just as she's firing the last couple of bolts, the Timekeeper sputters out and everything resumes.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> TIMEFACE.

After releasing all the prisoners, Krystal quickly escorts them to a ship to get them out of this place. Once they're all secured and accounted for, she rushes toward the room where everyone else is fighting the Warden, hoping to offer any help she can. However, from what her telepathic senses are telling her, things are going pretty well in the moments leading up to her arrival. When she arrives in the room she decides to just provide some cover fire against the warden as she moves around the room to try and distract him while the others continue their onslaught on the behemoth of a man.

    Lian manages to slice the Warden's arm off. Clean off. The Battlemaster's lightsaber severs through armor plating and flesh, leaving behind bright orange marks on the stump before they immediately begin to cool off to cold embers.

    Disarmed of his shield, the Warden lets out a shout of pain but otherwise remains focused in combat. It's disturbing how much these guys have been acting so inhumanly, seeing as most of them do appear to be human...for the most part.

    Pierra's blade strikes true, severing joints as it's caught in the servos, slowing him up. Talia rushes to strike the Warden from behind. "Finish him off!" SHe calls out to Emily.

    Meanwhile, THane and his fireteam are covering Double-A. "Emily!" He barks over comms, "There a chance you can open us up another portal to get in there?"

    The laborers will be rushed by other rebel squads, thankfully the shuttles are strong enough. BUT without capturing the security hub and shutting down the perimeter guns, this escape won't be very far.

    Emily sighs theatrically. "Ehh ... fine," she says. No use in that much overkill; her earlier hatred soured, she fires a single bolt directly at the Warden.

    She smiles faintly at Thane. "Sure thing!" She flies over to him, wobbling visibly, and opens another portal back to the command room, wobbling a bit. Double-A nods, and leads Emily and Thane's team through.

    "All right, I've got the codes," says Double-A. Her left eye glows green as she scans a convenient droid-socket. "Okay, this is pretty straightforward ... Yep, they're working!" Within moments, the security system over the entire facility starts to shut down.

    And then Emily connects to the PA system.

    "Never mind that last message!" her voice echoes throughout the foundry. "This foundry is now under new management! Which is to say, it's about to be under no management! Everyone, get ready for this entire place to blow the fuck up and/or simply cease to do anything productive! That's right: your mecha anime motherfucker you had for a Warden is now lying in several pieces, and this facility's output is about to go the way of the dinosaurs, and also the asteroid which killed them, since it probably didn't come out of the exchange feeling all that great!"

    She hasn't taken a breath the entire time. She doesn't need to, after all. "And guess what, General Garo?" she continues. "We're coming for you, too! You're a bitch and a half, there's no end to this story where you live, and also you still owe me money! So as you can plainly see, whatever happens tomorrow, you're our endgame! So long, suckerrrrrrr! By which I mean ..." She takes a deep breath, clearly for the sake of punctuating it dramatically. "... see you soon!"

    Double-A has a hand clamped over her mouth and is struggling not to laugh.

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> "I've come to make an announcement ..."

    Talia overhears part of that speech as the Warden falls quite literally to pieces after the team is done with him. It's just a matter of picking up casualties and bugging out at this point.

    From his palace in the planetary capital of Balmorra, Governor-General Claudius Garo stares at the holoscreen image of Emily's entire message. He's a portly man in an ornate, verging on tacky uniform with epaulets, and several ceremonial medals on his chest. The governor-general's an aging man in his sixties, with a nasty receding hairline and a bushy moustache, hair graying with little gray streaks.

    The Governor-General lets out a breath. "So it seems Thane's little rebellion is more than we expected, even with a Jedi aligned with them." He says after a pause. Then he brings his fist onto the table. The generals assembled look on, a few of them jumping in surprise at their leader's outburst.

    Garo's eyes flare with rage as he stares at the image of Emily. "This is unacceptable. We must NOT allow these terrorists to humiliate us at this juncture. Nagan!" He barks out, as an aide clears his throat.

    Nagan is an effete, willowy man, with pale, sculpted features and golden blonde hair, eyes piercing like those of a serpents. "I shall make the arrangements, Governor-General." Nagan says, his accent refined and almost like a purr. "Our spies will hunt these rebels down." Nagan smiles thinly, a very practiced, servile expression as he bows his head.

    "See to it that you do, Nagan. I will not tolerate further failures." Garo sneers. "I will not lose Balmorra, not to terrorist scum."