World Tree MUSH

    The Achilles isn't a big ship, a Pathfinder-class Scout Cruiser it's only about 500m long, 300m wide and 200m tall, angular and sleek, shaped vaguely like a futuristic arrowhead. What it lacks in size it more than makes up for with the latest Radial Drive system, making it the fastest ship in the fleet.

    Perfect for a search and rescue mission.

    Those joining the expedition at LineFleet HQ are brought aboard, their vehicles stowed in cargo or hangar bay and themselves guided to the bridge. The Captain rises from the chair at the center of a group of consoles, manned by various species, and turns to greet them. She's a very small elf woman, only about 4'2" tall. Her shock-white hair seems to shift faintly in an unfelt breeze, and her violet eyes glow faintly from within. A small water-sprite sits on one shoulder, its long 'tail' coiled around the woman's neck like a scarf. She's not wearing what would normally be expected of a Captain, instead she's wearing a purple cloak, and a navy-blue dress with heavy leather boots, looking more like a wandering mage than a ship's commanding officer. "Welcome, all. My name is Cinnamon Blossoms and Leaves of Thyme... you may call me Blossom." She says, dipping a courtsey before turning to a Kobold who's just popped out of a panel in the ceiling. "... Kahza, why are-- no nevermind, are we clear to depart?"

    The Kobold blinks as the panel clatters to the floor, and it then swings out of the opening, and drops onto one of the consoles, before swinging over a Troll's shoulder and landing next to the elf, shorter even than the small woman. It speaks with an energetic feminine tone, "All goodtogo bosslady. We got thatnewdrive all shinysparkle." she says, snapping a salute, before pulling another panel up from the floor, dropping into it and closing it behind her.

    Blossom just places her face in her hand and heaves a sigh. "Helm, take us out of spacedock, set a course and take us into Linespace as soon as we reach the ingress point."

    Having driven Shirou and Bryllu from Welville USA to LineFleet HQ and very carefully and very legally parking her minivan in the Achilles' cargo bay, Morrigan Lor'osa follows the guide up to the bridge to meet the captain of the ship.
    And she is met by someone she does not expect in the least, when Blossom gives her introduction.
    "... Thyme?" She muses. "As in... Any relation to Justina? Of that same name?" The Warlock asks, reaching into her backpack for a jellycan for the shinki perched on her shoulder.
    Then there's the kobold.
    "... Shinysparkle...?" She shouldn't be surprised but. Nevertheless-
    "Anyway! We came as soon as we got the word that the Sanctuary has been out of contact."

It's space. Bryllu may have hitched a ride with Morrigan, but she's not looking very humanoid right now. Her head is attached to the center of a 3 foot diameter curved disk. The disk has six limbs attached to it, each of which has multiple articulations and ends in four-fingered hands.

The edge of the disk is covered in a series of currently retracted blades, and the groove made for them seems to imply that these blades can be made to spin. A set of two dozen daggers is also attached to the bottom of the saucer, which floats through a series of six thrusters.

"Interesting, you cheat with gravity. Let me guess, you don't much care about obeying the galactic speed limit either?" She asks, clearly more interested in examining the ship than the people who crew it.

Suiren is very much a greenhorn when it comes to traveling the vines, but hearing about a rescue mission in space, while she isn't sure what she'll be doing, she decides to apply to be among the rescue party in hopes she'll be accepted. The experience alone will be worth it she thinks as long as she can offer some sort of help and not get in the way of others. 

 Arriving on the bridge with a single net-patterned Pokeball on her belt, she looks around, feeling a little out of place already as she's by far the youngest there, with the closest being Shirou who still looks to be several years her senior. "Um, hello. I'm Suiren, and I'm happy to help in any way I can... I have a Lapras, he's big, and can do water and ice attacks." 

 She's pretty sure her ocean expertise isn't going to get her far here, maybe she can pull off something fancy with her fishing rod, but her skill to that end doesn't feel important enough to bring up at this moment. Instead, she steps back and looks around, offering the others a smile and a wave if they look in her direction.

    Shirou Emiya certianly can't say that he ever expected to basically get a ride to space via a van. Granted, the van *itself* didn't fly to space, but... you know. Still.

    Honestly, he probably shouldn't be too shocked by his entire situation now in the first place, considering he's already visited a world that was basically like something out of an old RPG, but... No, the redhaired teenager is definitely going wandering through the bridge, taking in all the high-tech machinery and evne hanging near a window at one point to just peer out with visible notions of awe. "I can't belive it..." He even can be heard quietly mumbling to himself while pressing his hand to the window glass and just... staring. "It's like in that one show..." He's so overwhelmed by all this now that there is a non-zero chance that the introductions of the crew and Morrigan's questioning of them might go partially unnoticed by him.

    You're going to have to excuse him. He's still not used to such wildly different views in this whole multiverse-travel thing.

    Space...the final frontier.

    Wait, no, this is the wrong canon.

    Talia is somewhat out of place here she thinks, what with the whole 'space samurai' aesthetic she has going on. Still, she's eager to help however she can! She gives Morrigan, Shirou, and Bryllu a nod each, though Bryllu's appearance certainly throws her off. "We've worked with Justina Thyme more than once before, mostly just reconnoitering uninhabited planets." She explains when Morrigan asks the captain.

    Blossom nods to Morrigan. "She is my daughter." is the simple reply, as she resumes her spot in the captain's chair. "When I heard she was missing, I requested a recommission and command of the search team."

    When Bryllu speaks up, a panel opens next to her, and the Kobold peeks out. "Oh yeah, we gavitycheatlots and dipdive into special underspace to go fastfast. Shinysparkle engine gets us much faster." she rattles off, before hopping out of the panel, turning to put a few things back in place, before clambering up the wall and along the ceiling to replace the displaced panel from before... then she clambers in before pulling it closed.

    "Kahzu is a brilliant engineer, one of the best in the fleet but she's... a little eccentric." remarks Blossom.

    Suiren gets a couple of looks from the door guards, but they don't stop her. Extra-versals are a rare and valuable commodities. "Anything you can do will be helpful, I can assure you."

    Shirou gets a view of the giant station that is LineFleet HQ turning away as the ship clears its berth and begins turning. The planet beyond then suddenly becomes much smaller very quickly. The young Magus earns a chuckle from one of the Gnomes nearby, she speaks up, "Your first time kiddo? Always makes me happy seein' a newbie with their first flight."

    Talia's words earn a fixed stare from Blossom for a brief moment. "Ah, yes... in the Zeta Epsillon system, if memory serves. Very good findings." she says with a nod.

    After about a minute or so, the forward viewport begins to fill with glowing blue-white motes of light. <"Radials deployed, beginning insertion to Linespace. Standby."> a computerized voice says over the internal comms. The motes give way to a gaping maw of boiling energy, which swallows the ship, transitioning into a swirling 'tunnel' that seems to have a 'current' that pulls the ship along. "It will take a couple of hours to reach the coordinates provided." reports the helmsman.

"Please share shinytoys? My ship's brokenbusted and I need to fixmend, but I never had a shinysparkle engine to dipdive into special underspace. Homejourneys took longtimes because I am youngchild at over thirteen thousand earthyears." Bryllu talks to the kobold, trying to adjust her speech to match. "Going fastfast now bigdeals as organics witherfast so longwait not an options."

She adjusts her speaking back to normal to address Blossom, "I'll do what I can to help find your daughter, ma'am. Not sure how much I can do, I'm just a young space miner."

    Talia nods with a smile. "I'm pleased we've been able to help with your efforts. Your daughter is a fine officer." She bows her head in greeting. "I am Talia Kyras, Jedi Knight. These are Bryllu, Emiya Shirou, Morrigan, and..." She pauses when she sees Suiren. "I'm sorry, miss. I don't think I got your name."

    In any case, they're off to go Linespace. It's time for transit! Seems like they have a few hours to chill. "We'll do what we can to help find her, Captain Thyme."

    "It's not just that it's the first for me..." Shirou says, without taking his eyes away from the window. The sight of the ship moving away from the station first, and then the planet. The stars passing by! "Where I come from, this kind of spacetravel was just something we would see and read about in fiction! We'd barely even gotten people into orbit! it's just--" He might be old enough to be legally considered an adult in plenty of countries back on his Earth, but the look on his face is definitely one of boyish glee right now. And the look of wonder just looks even more immense when the ship moves into the tunnel of... Linespace, they called it?

    "...I'm pretty sure this makes me the first person in my world who makes this kind of travel..."

    Oh, right, but everyone's actually having proper conversations while he's being impressed by the concept of SPACE. He coughs akwardly after having caught himself in the middle of it all, and finally turns his back to the window. "R-right. Emiya Shirou, at your service."

    Morrigan for one does not seem impressed by the concept of space.
    It might be because her boss is an ancient horrorterror that lives between the stars.
    But the Warlock sets her hands on her hips as things get moving.
    "... I see... Your daughter. Well, we'll do our best to find her, don't you worry about a thing." Introductions though-- "Yep, Talia has the right of it." She pauses to look at Suiren as well, curious about the young pokemon trainer.
    "... Eccentric. Right." Kobolds, man.

Shirou isn't the only one fascinated by being in space for the first time and likely being the youngest from their world to do so. Suiren is staring at the view outside the ship just as intently but breaks away as Talia asks for her name. She smiles and offers it warmly. "I'm Suiren, from the Alola region, and I am very excited to be here." She admits, then moments later finds herself starting at Bryllu, having never encountered anything like her outside of perhaps some steel-type Pokemon. She looks away as she catches Morrigan looking at her, offering a wave. "Hello."

    Blossom stands. "Commander, you have the bridge." she says to the Orc on tactical, before turning and stepping out of the bridge. "While we're in transit, lets go over what we know... follow me." she says, her cloak billowing a little behind her as she walks. The elf leads the group to a conference room, a large table surrounded by chairs, and a holographic dias set into the center. She offers seats to everyone that can use them before taking one herself and pressing some recessed controls on the table. "Aphrodite, bring up the local cluster around the coordinates from the Sanctuary's last transmission."

    <"Working, standby..."> replies the ship's AI. The holographic dias lights up, and brings up a 3D model of a cluster of systems. "The coordinates place the 'distress' call being, here." the map fills in a point between two star systems. "Taking into account basic cosmic drift, we've narrowed a search volume of about four parsecs." The map lights up with a 'bubble' showing the search zone. "We should be able to scan this zone within an hour of arrival... that will tell us if this is a rescue, or a recovery."

    Talia follows Blossom along Walk-And-Talk style. She has herself a seat as the holographic readout is projected over the table.

    "Perhaps we're getting interference from the zone, hence why we've lost contact with Justina's ship." She ventures a suggestion.

    "Hi." That's to Suiren. But then Morrigan follows Blossom to the conference room and plops down in a seat. Hunching forward, hands propping on her knees, eldritch green eyes watch the holodisplay rather intently as the ship's AI brings it to life.
    "So it's a waiting game until those scans come in, isn't it?" She mutters. "And I'm going to assume four parsecs is a lot of space to search too..." She looks to Bryllu, the resident space-expert for space-confirmation here.

    "So..." Shirou ends up murmuring when he finds himself walking just besides Suiren, and throwing a sidelong look at her. Since she seems to be the only other person who is... at least in a vaguely similiar situation as him vis a vis prior spacefaring experiences. "Do you have... any idea what all this stuff they're talking about means?" It's not entirely clear why he would think Suiren would have any better idea on the scifi lingo than him.

    "Wait, so... Is Parsec a measure of time or distance...?"

"One parsec is approximately nineteen trillion miles or thirty petameters, and would take approximately three and a quarter years to cross at the galactic speed limit. Well, from the perspective of a relatively stationary observer but I am not qualified to go into details about how relativity interacts with the galactic speed limit." Bryllu answers Morrigan's question in between analyzing the ship. "Fortunately, space is fairly empty so it's basically impossible to hide any kind of energy source from a dedicated observer. Even easier if there's a distress signal." She turns her attention to Shirou, "Strictly speaking, time is a kind of distance, but it's a unit of space."

Suiren nods and smiles as Morrigan returns her greeting and begins to follow along to the conference room with the others. Along the way she shakes her head in response to Shirou. "No idea." She answers, then takes a seat next to him unless he protests. She otherwise listens quietly as while she really didn't understand the space talk, she did understand that they were here for a rescue mission, and when the time came what needs to be done to that end would be made fairly clear, even for the space newbies.

    "The zone isn't the problem, well, not in and of itself. That area is outside of our FTL comm-bouy network, messages from outside the network must adhere to the 'Universal Speed Limit' as our friend eloquently put it... meaning we will probably pick up the attenuated remnants of the original distress call in about ten years when it hits a bouy." Blossom adjusts the map. "Parsec is a portmanteau of Parallax of one Second, again as our friend put it, it is used to measure a volume of space."

    The ship continues on course, and on arrival, emerges from Linespace, like a submarine breaching the surface of water after a rapid ascent. <"Proximity Alert! Diverting power to deflection matrix, energy spike detected point three lightseconds on bearing 312.248.012, evasive maneuvers!"> The AI squawks as alert klaxons begin to sound, and the decklights shift to an ominous red.

    A tactical hologram appears in the center of the bridge, showing the sensor profile of the object. It's huge, about 3000m long, 500m wide and 400m tall, and is surrounded by a distortion in realspace which is spilling off high levels of energy... one of these spills lashes out like a whip at the Achilles, striking a shield segment and rocking the craft, though no damage occurs.

    "Report!" calls Blossom.
    "Pioneer-class vessel... Transponder confirms it's the Scylla, currently engulfed in a Quantum Flux field... Picking up a faint transponder from within the field." a pause as the computers process. "It's the Sanctuary! The QF-Field is blocking communications, and the Sanctuary seems to be caught in one of the Scylla's grapple arms. The Field is distorting most of our sensors, but I am reading a lifesign aboard the Sanctuary, and Primus spikes within the Scylla, consistant with active Doll combat." report the science station Gnomes, cycling through each sentence like they were one being.

    "Can we teleport through the field?" asks the Captain.
    "Aye, but anyone that goes in, won't be coming out unless the field is taken down."
    "Understood... I won't ask any of you to do this, we will find another way to free the Sanctuary if need be." says Blossom to those present, looking to each in turn.

    Klaxons. Klaxons are never good. And when they sound off, Morrigan stands right up.
    "The hell does that mean?" She asks, completely a space rookie when it comes to this kind of thing. Then something hits the ship's shields!?
    "... Doll combat. She's alive."
    Morrigan rushes off to change into an envirosuit super quick, before returning.
    "Get me on board that ship." Is her only reply to Blossom as she makes her return.

    Talia nods as she steps up, literally. "I'll go. It's the least I can do." She says. "I'm better at field work than I am at science, anyways. It's that or sit around doing nothing."

    She'll take an enviro-suit, if only because she can't breathe in space and her ship hasn't tagged around with the Achilles. That might've been a mistake.

    One change of clothes later, Talia returns with the suit, lightsaber and blaster strapped to her belt. "Let's go."

"What are we waiting for? Let's go." Bryllu floats away from the window, ready to take action of her own. The blades lining the side of the saucer that make up her body spring into position, and she revvs them a few times for a test spin, "If anyone needs a weapon, I brought spares."

    Shirou might have no idea what most of the spacetalk means-- but he can definitely the severity of alarm klaxons. And impacts shaking the ship. The rocking of the craft does, in fact, result in him bumping unintentionally against Suiren's side briefly, since she opted to sit right next to him.

    "W-what-- what *is* any of that?" He asks of... *anyone* who might be able to give any kind of answer to the complete scifi-noobie. Morrigan at least *seems* like she has enough of a handle on things to have her determination set, but...

    "Doll...combat...? whats a doll?" Okay, so nevermind that on immediate clarification then.

    He looks to the windows of the craft, back to the captain, to Morrigan... and then to the tube pack slung to his back.

    "...oh, hell, I guess I'm going," he declares as he stands up, and unslings the tube so that he might open it and fish out... a *sword* from within it. Although as he does, he looks to the blaster and lightsaber Talia brought, and to the... everything that Bryllu is, and then down to the silver blade of his own sword when he tugs it slightly out of the scabbard. "... I feel somewhat underarmed for this kind of situation, but I'm still coming with you."

Suiren lets out a cry as the ship rocks from the strike to the ship's shields, but quickly gets settled back in her seat, now holding on to the arms of the seat a fair bit more firmly. She feels about as lost to all this terminology as Shirou, but she does more or less understand the implications of not being able to teleport back until they can get that field down, even if she doesn't know how difficult that might be to pull off, she can guess it won't be easy. She swallows hard to steady her nerves and nods after Shirou. "I'm going too!"

    Blossom nods, "Ensign, take them to Teleportal one, we're sending them to the source of those Primus readings... whatever you find over there, you have two objectives: Disable the QF Field so we can get you out of there again, and release the Sanctuary from the grapple arm... the Scylla has been a Rogue Berserker for thirty years, and so will likely have taken irreparable damage to segments, including damage from its fight at Proxima Carybdis against the Heracles. Also remember, the Berserker AI, is the ship, trust nothing aboard to work for you, the entire vessel is a hostile entity determined to end you."

    One of the human troopers salutes, and gestures for the extra-versals to follow him. He leads the way down a corridor, around a corner, to an alcove room with a set of pads with glowing Glyphs on the floor and ceiling. "Step onto the Glyphs, we'll engage the Teleport, remain still during casting, you don't want to leave anything behind."

    After teleport, the group will find themselves in the central hangar, gutted and open to vacuum, with minimal gravity.
    Suit systems pick up a prioriity broadcast. <"INTRUDER ALERT! DEPLOYING AUTONOMOUS EMERGENT INTERCEPTION/OPPOSITION UNIT."> A second comm line, tight beam, comes from nearby. >"Someone came... I thought I would die here..."> the voice is feminine, and very clear to those who know it... Justina. A motion to the rear of the hangar reveals a pile of wreckage was actually Justina's doll-frame, unfolding from a hiding position and purging a pair of power cables from its torso.

Bryllu responds to Justina's tight beam message with her own tight beam > "Hold steady. We're on our way. If you can, please transmit any data that might be useful." < The post-human has no problem navigating the low gravity vacuum environment. and takes up flight to get a good look at the environment, before sending out both a subsonic audio pulse and a radar pulse to get a very thorough understanding of the environment.

    Once everyone is spaceworthy, the teleporter is activated. It's a weird feeling. Such devices are foreign in Talia's galaxy. Outright science fiction even. Once they've been ported, Talia grabs her lightsaber and senses out. Just in time to hear that security klaxon. "Bloody hell."

    She activates her lightsaber with a flash of green and that trademark hissing whine. "Justina? Hang on, we're coming to get you!" She calls over locals comms, before sh rushes toward the wreckage, helping the doll-drame to its feet...if it has any.

    "Dolls are like... Robot things. Justina controls them through Astral Projection-- long story short it means who we're looking for is alive and kicking. And probably in a heap load of trouble right now so we better go." Morrigan explains for Shirou's sake as she follwos the Ensign and steps right onto a glyph.
    As soon as she's on the other side she... Nearly loses her balance from the lacking gravity. But she manages, Mary clinging tightly to her shoulder.
    She stumbles her way to Justina's doll.
    "We came as soon as we heard. How do we get the Sanctuary out of the grapple arm?"

    "Oh," says Shirou to Morrigan. "That.. almost makes sense." Baby steps.

    The red-haired (sort-of-)magus does give a vaguely concerned look to Suiren. "Will you be okay?" He asks of her, with a purse of his lips, before giving a quick squeeze to the younger girl's shoulder. "You don't have to, it's... completely foreign territory to me too. But I won't let anything happen to you if you come along." Nevermind that he is probably in an even worse position than her to be helpful in a significant way.

    Still, getting into an envirosuit is a bit of an akward affair on his part, too. And he makes the point of unsheathing the sword he brought along even before going through the teleporter, since... he wasn't entirely sure how to set the scabbard into any point on the suit. He should look into getting a belt that's just tied to the scabbard at all times later.

    "O-okay, that felt kinda wei-" Shirou starts to say after they're through on the other side, and... well. Where Morrigan *almost* stumbled over, Shirou's already, foolishly, stepping forward right after he's re-materialized. Without realizing how gravity works here, he not only trips over, but ends up floating across the hall a few paces worth while slowly being brought down towards the floor by the minimal gravity.

    "---What is thiiiiis?!"

Suiren gives Shirou a hard look as she processes what he said, and how dangerous this was probably going to be. She does appreciate his offer to protect her, considering she only has one Pokemon which isn't going to be terribly mobile out of the water, she just might need it. Finally, she nods as she too begins putting on an envirosuit. "We're all in this together, right?" She says as she steps onto the teleporter pad, holding her single Pokeball tightly at her side. 

 Once on the other side, she staggers a bit as well. "Woah!" She cries as she attempts to regain her footing and not fall flat on her face.

    Justina's doll seems to be 'stuck' to the deckplates, little flickers of electricity dancing from its electromagnetic locks. <"Sending the data to you now... Demeter is tracking our location and her defense drones, led by her personal Ra-Doll will be here soon."> A slightly mangled arm reaches out to steady Morrigan. "The Grapple is controlled from Ops on deck 12, it's past whats left of the Heracles after it rammed the Scylla... but we might be able to kill two birds with one stone... if we can shut down the Primus Core, we cut off all but emergency power for the AI core, and that disables the QF Field. Without power, Demeter will be stuck using just her Ra-Doll frame, and we can possibly use the Sanctuary's beam emitter to cut the grapple arm loose."

    Just about when everyone is getting their feet again, a group of skeletal Dolls enter from a higher catwalk, claws clinging to any available surface as a singular, baleful red optic locks onto each team member. The things let out a trilling sound, before releasing their grip and falling to attempt capture. Another Doll stays up on the catwalk, smaller, almost human-size with two golden optics that stare directly at Justina's frame... that must be the Ra-Doll.

As soon as the dolls come falling down, Bryllu's blades begin spinning and she sets her thrusters for an intercept course with one of them, maybe more if she can manage. > "Controlling entity, cease and desist any further attempts to cause injury or capture. Your continued existence cannot be guaranteed if you persist in this endeavor." < The post-human sends in an omnidirectional broadcast.

    No sooner than the doll steadies her does Morrigan's envirosuit clippy at her.
    'Hello would you like to turn on maglock boots?' 
    >Yes.
    >Yesyesyesyesyes.
    Morrigan finds her balance again.
    "Justina..." Morrigan says very gently. "You're speaking another language right now." She half-elf says. "I know elvish, dwarvish, common, German, Japanese, and a few others. Pick one of those and try again." She says facetiously.
    And then the wolves came...
    Or in this case, the dolls. And as soon as they drop, Morrigan holds out her hand... With a flash of green light and the crack of thunder, four rays of deadly energy lance from her fingertips to lash out at the nearest squad of dolls, any one of them that gets hit will find itself SHOVED back by the sheer force of the blast.
    "Alright! You know what, don't bother speaking, lead the way!"

    Talia is going to keep the mag-locks off for now, instead she uses her agility to propel herself with short jumps. Right now, she looks like a Quake pro-player bunny hopping across the map. Wait, what's Quake again?

    Anyway. Talia eyes the dolls, stowing her lightsaber for now. They don't seem too terribly interested in attacking as much as evading. "Please stop, we're trying to help!" She calls out, but to no avail likely. "Oh hell, what am I doing?" She switches her lightsaber back on before she rushes some of the dolls, cutting them down with efficient, quick strikes once she closes the distance, nimbly disabling them with stabs and swipes to the brain cases and limbs.

Suiren follows Morrigan's lead and tells her suit to turn on the maglock on the boots. Otherwise, she looks around the hangar and tries to make sense of what all is going on. "Uh, just let me know when it is ok to send out a Pokemon, since they need air and I doubt you have an envirosuit that would fit a Lapras, and even if you did, he wouldn't be able to do much while inside it anyway." With that said, she lets the others do any fighting for the moment while she hangs back and tries to stay out of the way.

    Shirou does, also, get a helpful Helper message in the visor of his helmet. Though it takes him a second to figure out what's going on with it. "...What the hell is a mag...?" Actually, hey, it looks like Morrigan's got herself properly set to the floor now. "...Oh. Uh. How do I make this--?"

    Shirou eventually figures it out... though he *is* still hovering in the air thanks to his earlier stumble when the maglocks engage, so his feet are brought down to the floor with a hefty THUNK! and a yelp from him. "...Okay, okay, let's *not* do that again."

    Before Shirou can even fully get his bearings or even ask about what the hell a Ra-doll is, the hordes of freaky dolls descend upon them! "Oh, what the hell...?"

    He does, however, hear exactly what Suiren says back there. And he decides, duly, that Talia, Morrigan and Bryllu can handle offense for now. So instead, he backs up to bring himself standing right in front of Suiren, while pouring mana into the silver sword in his hand. "I got you until then." Fingers tighten around the hilt. Anything gets past the other three, he'll do his damn best not to let them get past *him* and to Suiren, at least.

    <You're speaking another language.>

    "Oh... okay, bashbash heartpower, make bigbig go nightnight. Pewpew grabbyhand." she tries again.

    The falling Dolls get intercepted by Eldritch Blasts, and a very aggressive, talking beyblade. Two get hit by the Blasts, sending them flying to slam into a far wall. One even gets sent through a breach, and gets exploded by the QF Field outside. Bryllu's buzz-saw attack saws one clear in half, the upper portion flailing its quad-claw hands at the passing post-human, while its legs go limp and clatter to the ground lifelessly.

    Talia's lightsaber strikes true, lopping off limbs, and disabling the optics easily, though strikes to the polished white plates seem to glance off, leaving only a scorch mark in their wake... odd.

    The Overseer continues to watch, before turning to leave as the last Doll is struck down. Justina then moves to exit the hangar. "The Engineering section is this way... it should still be pressurized, I cut off a lot of Demeter's hardlinks to the area, so she shouldn't be able to mess with the gas-mix or vent the area. Though expect more of those defense dolls... they were part of the original compliment of the ship, designed to fight a ground-war against an enemy that no longer exists. Each one is meant to be a match for an entire squad of organic troopers, though their frames have degraded over time, and exposure to Fates know what this ship has been through." she says, leading the way with a noticable limp, and the occasional glitch of the mangled arm's motivators. "We were caught almost immediately and I've been trying to break us free ever since... Minerva has been forced to devote all her focus on keeping Demeter out of her core systems... I've been doing this alone for four days."

"Hit the weakpoint for massive damage." Bryllu helpfully translates for Morrigan. She listens to Justina's explanation, "Well, we're here now. Your mother sent us." She explains, "And while I'm here I won't let any of you kids die, got it." She reaches out and offers Suiren one of the blades she'd brought with her.

    "Now you're just messing with me." Morrigan grouses at Justina's simplified answer.
    Bryllu handles that though.
    "Ohhhhhh. Okay now we're talking."
    "Cripes though... Four days... Can you... Feel that?" Morrigan is referring to the doll's limp and jerky arm as she follows after the astral projection guided doll.
    "Righ so. Odds are against us. But I mean. That's a normal day for an Adventurer. So let's go."

    Talia slashes and stabs, making sure to adapt her tactics. SHe's not sure what the armor is about, but it's clearly lightsaber resistant. "Heads up, these things have armor plating of some sort." She advises over the comm. "Aim for the joins and optics!" She says, making her way through the corridors toward Engineering. "Yeah, not like we've ever had it easy before." She muses in agreement with Morrgian.

Suiren smiles as Shirou moves to take position in front of her, ready to defend her as best he can. She carefully attaches her Pokeball to a loop on the waist of her suit so that she can take the offered blade from Bryllu and hold it with both her hands. She certainly isn't a practiced swordsman, but she'll do her best to swing it at bad things that get too close for comfort all the same. "Thanks, now I don't feel completely defenseless at least."

    "Wha-- what is this, a videogame?!" Shirou barks over to Bryllu's way after overhearing her simplified explanation as it's provided to Morrigan. And speaking of Bryllu, he... eyes the blade she gave to Suiren. "Um... Do you know how to use that?" He'll at least Reinforce that blade too either way -- you know, just in case. And yeah, he keeps close to Suiren for the time being still, and behind the three much more suited for the current combative situation. The fact that their imminent enemy is apparently described as meant to 'fight a whole squadron each' doesn't exactly encourage him to try and get part of that spotlight right this instant either. "Okay, so--- run that by me one more time. We're shutting off some machine up there?"

    Justina looks back at Morrigan. "It's like, constant pins and needles." she replies, then has to hop back as one of those things drops down right in front of her, moving to grapple as it trills and chitters. The optic on this one has a 'blast shield' of some sort, made of the same material. "Keep going!" she calls, dragging the drone out of the way, down a side corridor. "Destroy the main core... you'll know it when you see it!"

    The way is clear, the path to the main core lay open. As the group travel though, they'll begin to feel a presence all around them, like a vast intelligence is watching them from all around.

    Breaking into the main reactor room, that presence solidifies into that human-sized Doll with the golden optics and gleaming alloy frame. It speaks, as if from all around. "You come into my body, deflining the grave of my crew... where is the Maker?" it says, the Doll deploying melee weapons in flashes of golden light, it's magic aura flaring brilliantly, much like Justina's does when augmenting her doll-frame. "The Maker can save us... t-the madness, is alive, it's eating into me... I don't want to die."

    Into the main core and... It's not so clear in a moment. First there's the oppressive feeling of being watched...
    Then there's that Doll once again appearing to make everyone's lives a nightmare, making weapons from thin air and threatening them.
    "You have someone we want." Morrigan says rather simply. "I don't give much of a damn about your dead crew, or whether you want to live or die, or your Maker, if you don't let her go. Begone." She says extending her hand and snapping her fingers loudly.
    There's a sucking sensation in the room briefly as she attempts to simply... Banish the Doll from the material plane to get it out of the group's hair.

>> GAME >> Morrigan spends an Edge for: I cast Banishment at level 5. Begone.

"We're just here for a rescue operation. You have been trying to kill us." Bryllu answers, trying to fly past the doll towards the reactor as Morrigan is busy. She looks for a way to disconnect the core without damaging it. "I think this could be useful to repair my ship." She mutters to herself before saying more loudly, "Anyone mind if I take this?"

    "You've gone rampant. We can help you, just stop this. Please." Talia says, just before Morrigan up and skips negotiation and goes right to exorcism. "...or that. We could do that." She says awkwardly.

Suiren shakes her head when Shirou asks if she knows how to use the blade Bryllu gave her. "Honestly, not really, beyond swing it at things I want to hurt and try not to hurt myself in the process. This is the first time I've held a sharp blade bigger than my pocket knife..." She admits as she moves to follow the others into the core chamber. 

 Apparently, there was air in here, but she holds back from sending out her Pokemon while she and the others access the situation. As for shutting down the core, she leaves that to those with more technical know-how. She isn't exactly sure what Morrigan is doing, but from the context and reaction of others, she can make some assumptions.

    Morrigan Banishes the Doll... the Doll vanishes from existence, though the presence remains, and begins to scream as Bryllu begins trying to disconnect the power core while it can't intervene. "The Madness is a virus, it eats at my soul!!" then suddenly, the voice calms, almost like a totally different being has taken control. "I... I'm sorry. The insanity has taken over most of my mind... I secreted this part away, keeping it safe for an opporunity, like this one... you must destroy me, even without the power core, my mind will continue, and may infect another ship that comes to salvage my corpse... the madness cannot be allowed to spread, please... If you want to save the girl, her ship needs to be clean... if the madness manages to infect the young one's mind, the girl will die."

    The presence isn't oppressive anymore, instead if feels comforting, though the oppressive aura is on the edges, burning away at this little island of calm. "I can feel it, teeth at my ear... fingers along my spine, I... I can't fight it... Destroy my brain, it's on the bridge... please, I don't... I DON'T WANT... TODie.

"Keep them busy while I grab the core." Bryllu yells when the angry voice comes back into control. "Then we can put this intelligence out of their misery." She addresses the intelligence, "Please hold on a little longer. It'll all be over soon, I promise. I wish I could've gotten to know you before this happened to you. Can you tell me a story of better times?"

    "And that is how you avert a boss fight." Morrigan says looking smug.
    Mary Contrary, from her perch on Morrigan's shoulder plays a victory fanfare tune.
    And then the core is suddenly a lot more stable.
    Briefly.
    "You have less than a minute." Morrigan notes to Bryllu. "I can't keep that Doll away for longer than that before it comes back and tries to kill us."

    Talia dashes toward the core with Bryllu. "I'll keep you covered." She says, with lightsaber in hand. She sighs. Hearing the AI speak is tearing her heart out, like a mental patient going through dementia. She frowns and shakes her head. "I'm so sorry...we're going to make this quick, I promise."

As the voice calms, and explains the situation, Suiren can't help but feel sorry for this entity, even if she doesn't fully understand how a huge spaceship can be alive. Still, if it must be destroyed to prevent this corruption from spreading, then she will do what she must and help the others toward that goal. 

 To that end, as she gazes up at the target conveniently indicating where to aim for to hit the desired part of the bridge, she shifts the blade into one hand and grabs her Pokeball with the other. After fumbling a bit to hit the button on the ball to expand it with one hand through the glove of the suit, she points it in front of her and presses the button again. Suddenly the sphere opens and a beam of red light escapes, forming into a rather large plesiosaur-like Pokemon. 

 "Lapras, Ice Beam with everything you've got!" The Pokemon lets out a cry as he opens his mouth and suddenly a powerful torrent of freezing water erupts from his mouth, punching through the deck to the bridge above, and striking the AI-Core.

    Three things happen in rapid succession.

    Suiren deploys her pokemon partner and fires a beam to destroy the AI Core.
    Bryllu manages to disconnect the Power Core from its mounting, bringing the ship to a shuddering stillness as all power goes out.
    The Banishment ends, and the Ra-Doll returns from the other plane.

    The Doll goes to leap at the Lapras, a resonant scream of "NOOOOO!" echoing through the dead ship. Before it even finishes winding up, the Ice Beam hits the AI core, freezing it solid and knocking it out of its mounting. the Core then smashes into pieces, being frozen to near absolute zero... the Doll collapses as its driving force is removed.

    With the power off, the AI dead and the QF Field outside presumably down, a comm-line comes in. "Away team, report! The QF FIeld has gone down, we can extract you at any time. The Sanctuary has already contacted us, and we have severed the grapple arm using our beam emitters. Justina has safely returned to the ship and we're preparing to leave." Blossom says over the comm line.

As the light goes out, Bryllu gently picks up the core, and begins to ping on sonar and radio to get her bearings. > "Ready for extraction." < She announces, before one look towards the AI core, and she sings a wordless song of mourning. An entire orchestra out of her mouth. The song continues until extraction.

    Talia sighs. So it's over. The scream of the AI hits her in the soul, that visceral fear of death that makes Talia flinch. Even a killer AI can be mourned. She shakes her head sadly. "I'm sorry." She says softly, barely a whisper.

    Once Blossom's voice comes over comm, Talia answers. "We took care of the AI. Demeter is...gone." She reports, cold and clipped. "We're ready for extraction."

    Annnnd there's the Ra-Doll on cue.
    "Oh shi-" Morrigan starts to say.
    As Suiren and her pokemon handle the problem.
    "... Not bad kid." She congratulates the trainer with a light pat on the back as they get the transmission from Blossom.
    "Oh uh. Captain; we've managed to avoid dying." Morrigan replies into her comm.

Suiren goes to her Lapras' side and gives the Pokemon a gentle pat. "I kinda wish I got to bring you out earlier, but you did great Kaiko." She gives praise before once more pushing the button on the Pokeball and recalling her Lapras. Turning to Morrigan, she smiles. "Thanks! I'm glad I was able to do something, though just being along for this was an adventure in itself. I guess it's time to go back now though."

    Teleport Glyphs appear beneath each member of the team. Moments later, they're back aboard the Achilles. The Chief Petty Officer taps the comm-pin on his chest. "Captain, I have them."

    Blossom nods, then to the Helm officer. "Get us out of here... Science, drop a warning beacon, alerting anyone that comes close of the possible danger still present... we'll have to sent a recovery team... later." the elf shakes her head. "Demeter was a good friend... she will be missed."

    The pair of remaining ships turn, deploy their Radials, and 'dive' out of the area, leaving a beacon satellite behind to mark the grave of a formerly majestic vessel, now left to tumble lifeless in the void.