Session 426: The Corrupted Spirits Return
Location: The Academy
After Celes has left to go back to the castle for a while to do Queenly matters and reports of the monster attacks have been dropping to nearly nothing since dealing with Autumn. The rest of the team has been sitting around and Ellie comments on people vandalising the Academy due to Jaime's weird statues she keeps making around the area, especially Lumi's building that has massive Celestial Dog statues that freaks out Bonnie. While they are talking they hear a crashing sound due to a Maka, with a name tag, arriving due to the talk from Ellie about wondering if the "month of spooky festival events" and evil candy from Sylph, claiming to be there due to the talk of evil. While everyone stares at this newcomer with varying expressions and Xanatos even lights up an e-cigeratte, the Maka announces that her name is Sparkling Justice and that she is here to fight evil. While the Maka ponders how to make fish for Talia who notes she needs it, confusing the poor Maka.
While Sylph sits on Justice's head and judges the Maka based on how her head feels, amusing Ellie, the rest ask her questions like what her real name is and such, learning that Sparkling Justice is the name of her soul. Erevis snidely remarks that a lot of people seek out justice but end up like the smoking Xanatos, motioning at him. When Lumi runs up out of breath, showing her dog features from being out of breath, a comedy show ensues with Sparkling asking what injustice has occured and Lumi notes that it is her that is the injustice due to Sparkling running off from her suddenly to the team. Lumi reveals that Sparkling Justice has been assigned to the team to help train Nicolette, but the team seems dubious since Sparkling seems a little flighty. Sylph throws her vote in for her by saying that her head is comfy and notes that Ellie should give it a try, but the Summoni notes she would break the Maka's neck, so Sylph shrinks her into sprite form. As Ellie flails and notes that Sylph is wasting her powers on such flights of fancy, everyone agrees with her, leading to the Wind Spirit being shocked - shocked!
During all this Lana and Talia have another spat over Gwen over mating him, leading Talia trying to get Lana to share him and the poor Gwen being all quiet and not knowing what to do around powerful women due to his upbringing. This leads to Erevis just cursing and telling them to both "fuck his brains out in the basement", shocking Jaime and Xanatos breaking another image of her mother and leading to Xanatos to note she rules. Sylph quietly pulls Ellie onto Sparkling head while Xanatos gets Erevis some asprin for her head where the teacher shows Sparkling some lesson plans and other things.
Later that day after some of the antics have died down, Sparkling Justice has been moved in next door to Nicolette. While the team wonders about the Maka, who seems to be a student at the Academy and here to help Nicolette, when Sasha arrives to see the new student. As they turn to focus on Sasha when Sylph faceplants into the table, looking rather pale and weak. As they move up to see Sasha, the team wonders if the corrupted Spirits are on the grounds, leading to worry for Sylph since they have only seen it a few times before now. Alita summons Brooke who stumbles against the table the moment she appears and looks to be in the same bad shape as Sylph, so Alita casts a field to help the two Spirits. Xanatos muses he should have worked on that Spirit Tracker and Erevis seems surprised he could do that. As Sasha apologizes that formal greetings will have to wait to Sparkling Justice, they wonder where the Corrupted Spirits could be and what they might after at the Academy.
As they fill in Sparkling Justice, Bix climbs the highest point in the Academy which is now Sylph's house to get a good view of the Academy to find the Corrupted Spirits. Gwen and Lana set off to search the Academy together for anything suspicious, Xanatos moves off to begin his Spirit Tracker project. As Jaime checks her house next to the manor, she finds that Gnome is okay and doesn't seem to be being affectd like the other two Spirits strangely. After Bix returns and reports his findings as Ellie tries to sense out the Spirits, they learn that there seems to be classes in session that shouldn't be, especially with Ellie right here in the manor. As they head toward the classrooms, they pass the fighting courses and see Liana's grandfather suplexing students into the ground.
When they finally reach the Summoni classrooms, Ellie and others with some detection abilities feel the wrongness in the Spirit energy, leading them to realize they found what they are looking for finally. As Sylph commenets she hates this feeling and it makes her feel weak and sick, Jaime muses that Gnome didn't even feel anything and that it must mean the Corrupted Earth Spirit must not be here. Stepping into the Summoni Building, the Spirit Energy in the building dwarfs that of the current Spirits, showing the power difference between the two sets of Spirits. As Nocturne appears out of Jaime's shadow as they near the source of the corruption, they enter Ellie's classroom and find the Corrupted Wind Spirit on Ellie's desk with a bunch of students, touching her hands and obviously making pacts with them. It doesn't seem to be a lot of students, but those hoping to get ahead of the line by making pacts earlier than they should. As Sasha sternly questions what they are up to being in here, Ellie moves toward the Corrupted Wind Spirit and quietly points out that by doing this, they are weakening Sylph; this seems to shock the students when they learn this information. However, the Corrupted Wind Spirit drops an information bomb - all the Corrupted Spirits are in the building doing pacts and the others quickly slide out, leaving Ellie, Sparkling, Id, and Sylph behind to deal with the usurper of her classroom.
As they check the various classrooms, they see the Corrupted Fire Spirit, Water in another, and Lightning in yet another. While the Corrupted Wind Spirit just walks past Ellie after she notes she doesn't want to fight, apparently not in the mood to do battle herself, the others begin to find theit own Spirits. On her way out she notes to them that they need their pacts as well and that things will come to a head sooner or later. However, the Wind Spirit seems to have a moment of insanity and snaps at Ellie when she tries to convince her to work together with them, telling Ellie that has "worked so well for them in the past" before flying out of there like the wind. As Alita and Sasha confronts the Corrupted Water Spirit in the meantime, getting a haughty response, she just opts to ignore her and resume pacting with the students. After a bit she launches water at Alita for interfering, so Alita brings forth Void to combat her, making Sasha sigh at her school becoming a battleground again. And Jaime runs into the Corrupted Fire Spirit who just eyes her as she does her thing until she senses her sister beginning a battle nearby.
While Bix tries to convince the Corrupted Water Spirit to opt for peace or submit to arrest, the Corrupted Water Spirit ignores Alita and the rest when they tell her to stop, taunting Alita to use Void's trump card on her like the last fool's that did. While Ellie and Sparkling are worried the Corrupted Spirits will just continue to come back to the school and due to pacts behind their backs, they note they should go to the batte before things get worse. However at that moment just before the C. Water spirit can attack Void, a frozen attack hits the school that is more powerful than Celsius and Shiva, and the Water Spirit is frozen in place and the air is now super cold. At that moment a Corrupted Ice Spirit appears and lands before them all, looking like she has the full use of her powers unlike Celsius, and chides the C. Water Spirit for attacking their counterparts and others before they are ready and orders them to leave; one by one the Corrupted Spirits leave, leaving only the C. Ice Spirit behind.
While they try to convince her there doesn't need to be a battle, the C. Ice Spirit informs them that there must be in fact - she has been told that if a Spirit kills their counterpart, it can repair themselves, even as she whispers to herself. While the group finds that illegal and wonders who told her such a thing, or if they can't find another planet, the Ice Spirit notes they are tied to Geyze and Geyze now has accepted these new Spirits in their place, meaning they are no longer getting anything from Geyze. Noting they have been on Kumen for some time and Kumen does nothing for them; she also notes the person helping them asked not to be named, which the team finds even more suspicious. The C. Ice Spirit finally agrees after a while not to have her Spirits attack them, though it's up to them if they choose to do so - or remember to do so, before talking to the corner, even as the group vows to help them all. Even as Gwen and Lana arrive, the Ice Spirit leaves and the weather with them. Ellie notes she feels bad for them like it's hard for them to even keep it together and would have fallen apart if she stopped concentrating; Sylph wonders what they can do to help them not to "forget" to attack the team.
Sasha has Jaime check out the corner that the Spirit was babbling about just to be safe and she finds a rock that turns out to be the Corrupted Earth Spirit trying to hide herself. Turning back into a normal Spirit form, the Spirit seems afraid and babbles that Jaime is not Xanatos. While Jaime tries to show she is related to Xanatos and married to Gnome, the current Earth Spirit, to calm her, she only gets a face at the information of marrying a Spirit. She throws a backpack at Jaime and when Id mentions using non-lethal stuff as tests on the C. Earth Spirit since she does not seem dangerous to learn what might bring them down, it scares her off. While Sparkling and the others note annoyance at Id for running the Spirit off, Ellie and Sylph move off to think of a plan to look into this more. As Jaime muses that if she was here and Gnome didn't sense her, that means the Corrupted Earth Spirit must not have been stealing pacts like the others.
As they head back they note that the one hole in all this is the Corrupted Lightning Spirit and Erevis notes that might be the key to all this. Either the Lightning Spirit is now the Geyze's Lightning Spirit and getting better, or they are now the Lightning Spirit and still have issues, which means they need to keep an eye on them. They also make plans to look into who could be feeding them said information and note that Asarar might can sniff that information out. As Sasha runs off to deal with Aimée as the children are let out of the Junior Academy that has been set up for the younger kids like Ruhi, Bella, Fae, Nell, Luna, Cherie and Cloe. Finally they make plans to look into the Spirit Portals and learn about them a little and see if there is anything that can be done with them in regards to this case.
Session 427: Allaway and the Corrupted Wind
Location: Academy
A storm is forming over head with thunder heard in the distance and the team is huddled in the Hapian Manor doing work like usual. Since Celes is gone to the castle recently, Erevis is in charge again with Simon so she asks the team what do they think they should do and asks those with knowledge about the Spirits for their input to formulate a plan. Discussing the Spirit Realm and how to get there, they go over the various locations with possible Spirit Portals including the Hapian Castle, the Spiritalist Kingdom, and the Daemon Capital area; going over the portal on the Island, it is pointed out that portal is different anf the warnings, it is decided to avoid that portal for the time being and focus on the places they know exist. Afterward discussing what places they think they can find answers on the Corrupted Spirits, they go over some plans and Xanatos and Chelsea begin to work on Xanatos' shuttle to try to detect the spirits hopefully in the hopes of finding the Corrupted Earth Spirit since she seems the most inclined to talk to the team.
Since the team is working on that Erevis decides to go to the Spiritalist Kingdom and find Kalam, talking to her about what knowledge she knows and tasks with Jaime to remain here and find her own answers. While the group debates what to do, Ellie drops the bomb shell about how Spirits can change how they look if they really want to do so, making Jaime look at Gnome with a glint in her eyes. Sylph describes to the team how it felt to be near a corrupted spirit and the situation, letting them know the weakness and how she had to struggle to use her powers and stand up to them. While Ellie muses what Vyvy is up to currently, especially with the Spirit crisis rising up, the team decides to go to Shade's grotto while Xanatos and Chelsea works and Alita goes to see Void.
Stepping outside they see Sparkling Justice playing with Aimée and Mélodie; their playing seems rough and hitting her giant hammers to help her learn to "fly" causes Lana and Id to talk about how crazy and insane they are leads Aimée to completely smash Id but before she can touch the pieces and do something with her powers, the pieces crumble to dust. Which is a good thing because it distracts them from Lana and Gwen apologizes to Lana for the craziness. Meanwhile Chelsea and Xanatos finish the device and begin to work on attaching it to the shuttle and testing things on it.
Entering Shade's grove, Gwen, Lana, Asha, SpoC, Ellie, Sparkling, and Simon make their way to Shade and her two daughters amongst the Nymphs. Talking to Shade about the Corrupted Spirits and learning Vyvy is out gathering information herself on them as well as the Spirit Realm, Shade begins to answer their questions on the matter, with Ellie wanting to help them since they feel broken and hurt. Shade explains when asked about Void that Void and Chronos was used on the battlefield long ago in the Ancient War; she talks about Chronos rewinding time and not being able to do so completely and leaving things incomplete. She notes that the history is probably still there but blocked, just out of the reach of the Spirits for the time being - the more they try to remember, the more they will forget.
She also drops the bomb of it might be tied to their past or their ancestors past and when asked if she would mind having a psionic read her mind Shade consents. Ellie asks about the person who told them they can use their spirits to heal the Corrupted Spirits and Shade confiirms it is true - it will restore their depleted Spirit Energy and give them control of the element here, but it would unlikely fix their insanity. She refers to her own situation of Spirit Energy but believes she will be fine since she is tied to her children and they will inherit the position. They try to think of ways to extend it and Shade suggests anything with Spirit Energy - like sprites or things of what nature.
While talking Geyze shakes and the storm finally hits, with a storm coming down and soaking them all completely. Sylph decides to warp them to the Academy where the others are located as the storm bears down on them all. Lumi steps out and reports all the moons in the area have begun to act up and the moons around Geyze and Kumen got a little closer and begin to shake and darken, resulting in these storms. Suddenly Sylph begins to get weak when the Corrupted Wind Spirit attacks. Next a battle of wills begins as Sylph forms with Ellie and the two stand up to the torrents of wind from the Wind Spirit. As Jaime uses her powers to ground the team and Xanatos gets the Earth Spirits to aid him, all of them attaching as he goes out, Elyph tries to get the Corrupted Wind Spirit to stand down with love. Right as she is about to kill Elyph and Sparkling is about to act, Eylph hugs and holds onto the Corrupted Spirit while Cypher and Xanatos work to take the sprites in the device in the shuttle and shove it into her mouth, powering her up.
As the CWS acts all tsunder and flies off, promising to return again, the team takes stock of what happened. Learning that the device was a success at close range they plan to use it again at long range and get it ready. Meanwhile Alita, Bix, and Selena meet with Void and while Bix takes Void's trials to become a summoni of Void, Alita asks most of the same questions of Shade. They then plan to head back home.
Location: The Academy
The Alliance holds a meeting with it's leaders and asks for Unit 6 to attend as well; one by one the various Alliance leaders come in with their assistants like Mykel while the team stands by all dressed up like Alita, Asha, Liana, and Sparkling Justice - to a degree, though she is more frills. As Sasha arrives with a crossed look and getting a glance by Jules, being one of the leaders who voiced against her having a voice on the Alliance since the Academy is more of a city state, the final two members arrive together - Celes and Shinobu walking side by side into the council chambers. Celes notes that the Hapian Dynasty and the Dark Lands wish to address the problem of the Monster Lord, which makes Jules wonder what the problem is since the monsters are leaving their lands. So Celes notes before they air their grievances she wishes to call the Unit inside the room and no one objects, allowing the team to step inside the chambers.
While the various Alliance members study them in varying ways - from Helen like they are meat to eat since she is a Were-Tiger, to Jules just being bored and ignoring them, to Leaf and Cassava being confused, and Kalam and Qui regarding them warmly. As Asha seems in awe, Celes notes she turns the floor over to Shinobu who begins to pepper the team with questions about Autumn being in her sister's body, ranging from the fact that being in her sister's body that Autumn has been inciting rebellions and strife in her kingdom and causing monster uprisings and the team let her go peacefully instead of dealing with her - showing that she is clearly angered by their actions. As she listens to their various reasons - that they have sent a call out to Lorelei in the hopes that she can do something, but that she is currently away in deep space, and in a slim hope that they can get her sister back maybe, as well as giving the Kingdoms some breathing time from the monster attacks, Shinobu notes she would have rather they killed Autumn since it is just an empty vessel and even if she was alive, she has been dead nearly seven years - what state could she be in now.
Shinobu listens to their words but states to the Alliance members that she will not vote yes on this peace treaty with the Monster Lord, even if the others do so, and will bring her forces to bare against her on the island. When learning that she will give up the body, Shinobu notes she hopes she is true to her word before she prepares her army. After she storms out and Alita following her, Sasha asks if the people on the island are still there and Xanatos tells her they got them all off of it, but the strange equipment is still there since that stuff could not be moved, leading to Sasha wondering if they left a ticking bomb in the Monster Lord's hands. Celes announces that she would help Shinobu if Autumn does not give up the body in a timely manner, earning a look from Simon. Qui asks the others if they are going to vote on the peace deal since the monsters have left as agreed by the deal Simon managed to get. The Alliance members agree to have the team go back to Autumn to talk to her and check things out while both Hapian and the Dark Lands slowly prepare their armies, giving them a small window to get this done.
Back at the manor, Gwen notes the two powers he least expected to star a war is about to begin one and finds that a little crazy. As the team gears up they discuss it a little, with Xanatos noting he used to be King Reckless and Alita noting at least it isn't between them. Jaime suggests maybe using coma patients on the PAX as a vessel for Autumn and it might be a win-win for them since the patient would wake up when they might otherwise wouldn't; Simon points out they would need the family's consent on that matter. While Id plays devil's advocate and plays darker and darker scenarios, Alita goes over to Gwen and asks if his mana could support a Familiar, leading to Gwen stating he probably could. When Alita notes he might have to support Talia's bond if anything happens to her, he gives her a look when she notes she might offer her body as an exchange for peace.
As they go to the island, they encounter a Slime Princess - a candidate who might can become a new Slime Queen one day - who leads them toward the cave being guarded be a Behemoth Queen. When asked if they need anything, the Slime notes they need food - whatever that might mean. Reaching the strange portal that isn't quite a Spirit Portal, they see Autumn talking to a Beholder type Queen. While Sparkling gushes about all the cool types of monsters, they see Autumn is trying to learn about the portal. As Jaime shows her the coma patients, Autumn notes that this is a rare body and she has no interest in giving up such a find. As the team tries to see what all she has learned with the Portal, seeing that she is doing pretty much what Simon has been doing - learning about how it works and what parts it needs to make it work - Jaime brings up using transformation magik on a body if she is so set on a Asmodean body. After Jaime notes that Neophyx's body likely isn't that strong due to being dead at one point and her way would be batter, Autumn takes the list and notes she will glance over the names if it will make her happy.
As Autumn pats the various women in the group as they discuss what the monsters need to survive and make life easier, first touching Jaime, then Alita and Sparking. She also discusses the Portal with the team, noting that the Monsters recognize it and when the team looks curious she notes maybe they can exchange something for the information, even as she pats Selena's head. As Ellie looks sad, Autumn pokes her and notes she would like to see if her monsters can learn to summon. While Sylph protests the idea at first, it becomes obvious she isn't quite certain about it while Id muses it seems odd Autumn keeps touching people. The group agrees it should be up to the Spirits, especially as Ellie eyes Sylph munching her fruit faster and not seeming to like the idea of pacting a monster. Simon gives Autumn all the information he can about the Spirits outside having one of them just outright pacting, so Autumn gives the information: she notes it is not a portal to the Spirit Realm, and it has existed for 12,000 years. She also thinks they believe some monsters came from the portal and it might be where they came from, but so did the "others".
After they return and Bix wonders about his head being 12,000 years old, Erevis ponders and believes the Portal should be safe since it seems to be based on Spirit Portal tech, Lana suddenly blurts out she thinks Autumn was trying to steal their bodies. While they wonder and muse, Asha notes she is playing them all and looks unhappy, while some wonder if she is after new rare bodies. Erevis points out she might give up her current body to avoid war but could be lining up a "new" body. As they step into Hapian Castle, with guards weeping at Liana's return, Selena scoops up Luna and plays with her younger sister. They find Celes on the throne talking to Aska and Soren, though Aska looks tired these days. When asked if monsters can pact with Spirit, Aska goes into one of her early Duality triades about rather blasting herself than doing such a thing. Then she notes if the Monster was intelligent enough and the Spirit was inclined, it could be done, but they would need to have high Spirit Energy.
When asked what makes Monsters so different, Aska notes they are not like Daemons who love and have empathy and build things, Monsters are destructive creatures who breed, destroy, and have destructive natures, and are like wild animals that might can be tamed - in time. She proposes if one wishes to do the test, a Dark Spirit might be willing and to have Shade try it, even though Soren wonders if a Light Spirit could burn the evil out of them. Simon though does express some concern about the monsters' affecting the Spirit. Simon notes that while he is sure Autumn will try to betray them at some point, they should do everything they can to keep this peace.
Date: 9.12.5999
The Academy
Shade is set up to work with the monsters, testing one Queen to see if it can be pacted with on the side. Shinobu's sister, Neophyx, arrives at the Academy. Though it is alive, she doesn't seem to be there in the head as it was feared, leaving Shinobu to take her back and look for a way to see if she can be fixed. And a new coma patient body was sent to Autumn to replace the lost one as was planned. They agree their next plan is to find the Spirit Realm while doing checks on the Monster Island to see how the summoning business is going, figuring Ellie would be a juicy target for Autumn if needbe. Meanwhile Lana entices Gwen to check her body for any "marks" off in her lab.
Location: Cheryl's Mansion
While the Geyze team is busy with Autumn and getting Shinobu's sister's body back, Lemon and Kane are taking note of the damage being done to Earth due to Luna acting up recently. With the tides slowly going out of alignment due to Luna having Lunar quakes, somehow, they determine it is not anything caused by an enemy but seems to be a natural occurance, but are baffled at what is causing it - not knowing that Tsukiyomi's death is doing it. While Lemon looks into their casefiles to try to see if she can find some information, Vesta informs them that the place Marcus was investigating undercover was hit the hardest. Lemon brings out the file and notes that what is written down is vague due to the team's memories mostly being erased, but it seems that the kids encountered a flooded Earth in the future - (The Death of Everything crossover.) Due to them barely remembering the event, Lemon notes Cheryl is probably the note taker, so someone who remembers the events. Realizing that if the moon dues to lead to a future with a flooded Earth, they will have to deal with it sooner or later as things get worse, so Kane and the others begin to plan out what to do.
Date: 9.17.5999
Location: The Academy
The team monitors the situation at Luna on a datapad on the table and Sparkling, being from Luna, worries about her home. She gets a strange idea in her head to try to knock the moon back into place, getting everyone to eye her oddly and discourage the idea, though she still finds herself wanting to do something. Bonnie tells Sparkling that Magik is as strong as she believes you believe it to be, hyping the Maka up a little. While Sylph and Ellie are lost about the conversation, the datapad also discusses the upcoming Presidental Elections at the end of the year, meaning that Dias is missing his chance to campaign against any rivals. Celes eventually brings the team back to focus - noting that Ellie and Sylph want to do an experiment with the Ice Twins, after the situation with Spirits recently, and Sparkling wants to go punch a moon; Ellie points out that while the Corrupted Spirits believe they can't co-exist, the two Ice Twins seemingly can do so easily. The group splits into two teams, one to work on the Spirit problem, the other to go to Luna.
Location: The Moon (Luna)
Erevis surveys the landscape and sees that buildings are gaining cracks and some areas are in shambles due to the Moon Quakes; while surveying the area Xanatos and Sparkling discuss the area, since Xanatos lived on Luna 70 years ago and notes Luna was crappier then, even in this state. While they walk along and Erevis destroys Jaime's perfect image built in her head, they come across Christina dealing with Smiling Suns fanatics. After a brief scuffling with them, the Suns are sent off, they see Andrea is on the moon despite the fact she should currently be in the Unknown Regions. They follow her and see she is unburying some stairs and rescues a buried Marcus and Cherry, trapped by the Moon Quakes. While this is going on, Mélodie appears, having been stalking Sparkling and taking an interest in her activities.
Andrea reveals she switched places with the Elder Billy to come out here an investigate the place after hearing about the Luna Quakes; how she knew about them she doesn't reveal, or how she switched places with her other self, she doesn't reveal it. She reveals that the other group has been being stalked by the Templars lately and are getting more and more trouble, but she's sure they'll manage to talk the Church down in time. After leaving to go back to the ship, Andrea promises to keep an eye on the team for the group. After she is gone, Mélodie grants Sparkling the power of flight temporarily - perhaps indiciating the two have pacted somehow. Telling her it will only last a few minutes, the Maka wonders how she can use that time to fix the moon. Jaime gets on the datapad Love to show where to try to move the moon, so Sparkling goes and blasts the poor moon to move it back in place, making Christina and the others pray to whoever they believe in as the moon shakes. After some damage, Luna does eventually move back into the proper position, though it doesn't seem like it will stay there, but that is a problem for another time, leaving Erevis asking Xanatos if they are relics of the past.
Location: The Academy
Jennifer arrives at the Academy to help Ellie with her Spirit experiment with Celsius and Shiva. While Nicolette takes notes for her thesis, the others gather around while the two appear to see how it works out. Asking the two questions, Shiva reminds them that the Magi helped make them out while they were trapped in the Spirit Realm and that Celsius still has holes in her memory of that time. Nicolette studies and sees that their power is shared, not split, as well as is their strength; meaning their mana is shared as well, and overuse by one would affect the other.
As for the cores, they have one Spirit Core and Shiva has something akin to a core, but it's tied to Celsius' core; Or is Celsius' core the back up core and Shiva's core the main, making it hard to tell whose is the real core - probably meaning that each Spirit can step in to become the main Spirit Core?
Either way, after some thought, they decide they need to go the Spirit Realm. Simon wonders if the reason the two spirits work is due to a Primary Core and Secondary Core, and if two Primary Spirit Cores would not work. Selena points out if you take a Spirit Core out, like the team freed Chronos, a Spirit will fade away. Either way, the team needs to becarefu - after all, unlike Tora's Spirit Eggs making manufactured Spirits successfully, the Kumen Spirits that came after were haphazard and faded due to being too numerous and fading out due to reasons. As the other team arrives, the group prepares for what is to come.
Timeline: 10-640.9.7 - 9.20ish
Location: The Unknown Regions
The Aquarius has been heavily damaged after the battle with the Dark Oneized Black Angel III, the bridge has been taken out forcing the team to relocate to the auxilary bridge that is much like the original bridge of the Aquarius while Taiga tries to repair the main bridge. While the team sets up on the aux. bridge, Mireille gets in position where Spirits used to stand in the old days, half naked in a tube for all to see instead of under the bridge, Airym prepares to run things through her to help boost the ship's performance while they are working down there. While Mireille looks a little jealous at the idea of Airym running parts of the ship through her, leading to Yuki and Erica whispering about Mireille "being at that age" of various things, making innuedos; while doing so Yuki keeps an eye on a monitor of Yurica and Saorise while Airym begins her work.
Over the next few days the Aquarius travels through Dark One territory, looking for a safe planet to place the beacon, when they are attacked by the Church. It seems they are trying to cripple them without destroying them with precise shots, leading to Pepper wanting to shoot back while Adeline plays with the Dark Rune in thought. They make a jump and escape them once more, causing lights to flicker due to how low they are on power, as well as the increasing amount of damage they are incurring. Over the next five days, now the 12th, the group encounters the Templars every day of the journey so far, leading to Erica getting more and more disillusioned it feels like. The group in general is growing more exhausted with the hit and run attacks by the Templars and it is wearing on them in general. Durt, Cookie, and Adeline wonder if they are being herded somewhere and Adeline takes a map to Erica, showing where they seem to be going. Erica sighs, noting that she wanted to be their friends but admits she is finding that less and less likely these days. Kaelan admits she might have worn out their chances during her travels the past year, but if the group can run into Leon, they might can make peace with the Templars. Studying the map handed by Adeline they see an area of space simply called "The Church", and believe it is their seat of power they are being herded toward. After some debating, they decide to head that way and see what is up, noting that they can have Andrea and those with Dark One traits stay out of sight if needed, and deal with the Templars head on.
Date: 10-640.9.21
Location: The Church
As Andrea lounges in Erica's chair along with an unknown kitsune that looks familiar, the Aquarius exits hyperspace over the area of space known as "The Church", finding many Templar ships all over the place over a beautiful planet. As they near the planet, control of the Aquarius is taken from them and they are taken in toward the planet when they are hailed. General Cersei, one of the four "God Generals", appears on the screen and greets them in surprise at coming, and offers them repairs of their ship in return of helping them fight the Dark Ones recently if they wish it, in return for a favor of staying on the planet and listen to them on how the universe is tilting toward destruction. When Dias asks why they didn't just hail them to talk in the first place, Cersei admits that two of the Generals petitioned for their destruction after hearing that the group's antics of working with the enemy, or sheltering them, leading to the team wondering which of the Generals wanted to stop them, but it was Leon and Cersei who argued that they should be brought here to be talked with at least.
As the ship is being repairs, the team has Andrea hide with Sudako while Erica has a few people stay on the ship to make sure they don't do anything funny to it while they repair it, leaving Airym to that job and the strange Kitsune. As the team steps out they find Cersei talking with Ruun, who is studying her Famfrit features curiously and noting she is glad she was not killed. Sabrina quickly joins the group, having her Maka clothes turn into a dress like outfit, and tries to keep a low profile less her race is offensive while Cersei leads them along and begins to answer questions they might have about the Templars and the Church. She informs them the Church formed due to the blight of the Dark Ones and the Templars were the army that was it's arm to deal with them, explaining that it was founded by one man who studied the universe and the flow of it, wanting to know it's mysteries.
And the leaders changed hands many times over the many years until the previous leader before the current one made a device to interact with the unvierse 54 years ago when an event occurred that altered the universe the universe at a fundamental level. Cersei then notes that at first it was not that great but the threat of the supernatural and unnatural energy grew more and more as time went on, leading to Dias to cought and look away. When asked about it, Cersei tells them it is believed by the Church leaders that things are not in balance but skewing toward one end of the spectrum in their eyes, especially lately - magic, supernatural creatures, spirits, Yggdrasil, and that one day the universe will reach a breaking point. As she hands Erica a copy of their order's book, Erica points out that the Dark Ones might be needed as a counter to the Progenitors. As she flips through it, she'd see sketches of Freyja and Chii as the source of the supernatural event, perhaps not knowing about Dias and Marcus, arguing that to the team she believes if the Dark Ones are making such a large comeback, the Progenitors might one day as well.
Cersei talks with the team and notes if things continue, the universe will tilt where the normal will that everyone will have supernatural powers like Marcus or Dias or Sabrina, and not be like Valen, who argues he is a Famfrit with some magik abilities. Right before Cersei can learn that Dias unleashed the supernatural long ago, General Leon McTreggor shows up and notes she can go back to her training, looking ragged himself. After he apologizes for the Battle of Yggdrasil, he walks with them and talks about how the Church is viewing things, bringing up the Spirits of Geyze as an example - such as how they were contained to one planet it was not a problem, but now they are multiplying with children and will spread and unbalance more. When asked if he was the one who brought them here, Leon notes he did not, it was the Church itself and asks them to becareful since clearly they are planning something. He notes they are handling the problem themselves, finding alternate means to try to fix the problem to see if they can "solve" the problem, such as relocating or looking into the unbalancing situation. After he asks if Erica was from another universe and learning that she was from one, he walks off noting that might work after leaving Erica a key if she ever needs a place here, leaving Valen stating he hates these people.
As Valen continues to rage about things, the others debate what little change they can do here and they hone in on maybe changing a third General's mind, if needed. Questioning Lorelei, she admits there was a son of a General in Tareh that aided them that might could be reached out to and as they head out to their ship, they feel a God Ping suddenly, indicating that there is a God on the planet somewhere, meaning that their problems have gotten even worse.
Location: The Church Planet
Tanan has been left the team to join the Church's Monks as the team gathers after being on the Church's main Homeworld one day. With the Aquarius being repaired from the damage it has sustained during the battle in Session 425, making the team suspicious what the Templars might place in the ship after the repairs are completed so they leave their people around to try to monitor them, some of the crew are missing due to being under the weather like Erica, Chad, and Dias. As they wax about things like Dias and Marcus and other things, Lorelei notes Kaelan said she had plan that involved someone called Thomas McKeenen. Ulieah explains for her that Thomas was the first God General in the alternate future that joined the Angel, according to the records when alternate future Jean/Lorelei made contact. After that Cersei and McTreggor joined later on, though Ulieah notes things are different here obviously, since the people are different. Valen and some others seem surprised at there being some records on file of alternate future selves to look into, while Rachael looks fishy like she might have glances at them already.
As they leave the area they see Tanan with this new Monk friends. It is obvious that Tanan is now much stronger than before, even if it appears to be self-defense moves, able to destroy walls; the monks seem almost too peaceful and meditative and their Monk leader all "wise". Sabrina and Valen talk along the way with Valen talking to Sabrina about training her how to fight as they approach in the direction of Thomas after learning where to go. Met by Ruun, she warns them to watch their step since Thomas is part of a long line of Generals and the McKeenens can be dangerous. After getting inside, they are brought to a waiting room where they see the previous men in the family, including Thomas' father - Titus McKeenen, who looks to be a rough and angry looking man while Thomas has a scholarly look.
Meeting with Thomas, they learn that not all are onboard with the current system of the Church and the function of the Templars. Stating that what caused the dramatic shift was due to the Pandora Box incident and the Supernatural Energy began to grow from there, putting the galaxy off balance, and with each galaxy it tipping more and more toward it, the Church felt it had to do something according to their prophcies and books. Some felt they had to kill the Supernatural beings, while some like Thomas felt they had to move concentrations - like himself, and Leon and Cersei. Not every Church leader believes death is the way but the imbalance continues to grow. Thomas promises to aid them, wanting to learn more about their culture, and will help find the God that is among the Church and Templars. Giving them a text on the Dark Ones and a communication device, he sees them on their way.
As they leave they run into Titus on the way out, who eyes Kaelan, who, despite being in disguise, sees through it. At first it looks like he might strike her down right there, giving off an aura of bloodthirst before moving onto the mansion. On their way they see Tanan is even stronger than before and the monks acting weird. At the end of the night, Tanan seems to be being brainwashed to destroy all the enemies of the church - defensively, of course.
Location: The Aquarius has been 75% repaired and the team prepares for their meeting with the head of the Church while Yuki muses on what to do since Ercia will be unable to meet them due to feeling unwell. They think on some ideas and Yuki notes she will go in her place, as well as those who they feel "best represents the group". After some hijinks, the group sets out and are met by a church offical who guides them along. Hotaru, Cheryl, Kellin, Angela, Thena, Adeline, Dias, Ruun, Lorelei, Yuki, Truth (as a sword), and Taiga are led past the monks where they look even stronger than before, despite it just being a day. As they soon reach the massive church building, it gives off an aura that repells evil and Dias' arm begins to burn and feels numb, while Ruun studies the building with her strange blind eyes. She then studies Kaelan and sees that she, too, is burning from the building and tells her that the building is burning a dark aura from them and the building is emitting a light aura. As Lorelei steps inside she falls to her knees and winces in agony then the other's with any supernatural begin to show signs of weakness.
As Taiga surpresses her Kitsune power, losing her fox ears and tails, Yuki follows suit while Lorelei just opts to feel the pain. They begin to walk into the Church itself and follow their guide along, while Ruun moves off alone to look for something that might help the party while inside the Church. Their female church guide seems curteous and continues to guide them along, Adeline wondering if they should bring Sabrina to see what this place would do to her before Hotaru cuts her off on that line of thinking. The guide leads through through the massive building until they are in the heart of the building and before a giant room full of Arch-Bishops, Bishops, Templars, and other important figures. And the main Pope, who seems to be an ancient man, the leader of the Church, looking more skeleton than man, along with an advisor beside him. And worst of all the team feels a God-ping in the room.
While the group seems to be studying everything, Cheryl shocked at how old the Pope looks to be - wondering if he even is still alive, Kellin begins to memorize the faces of everyone in the room, which is quite the task. The advisor thanks the guide, calling her Celeste, before having her sit and addressing the team, thanking them for coming; they offer to answer one of their questions if they will answer one of their's. Angela quickly asks the power of this building works, targeting only certain people and not everyone, referring to the Dark Ones and supernatural party members. The Advisor begins to explain it is called The Cathedral, and that is the power of belief, noting in this place, their belief powers the The Cathedral and much more, adding it is a powerful religious relic. While Adeline has a mini melt down over that answer, Celeste seems to nod to the answer, finding it reasonable, as does Dias, making Adeline make a strangled noise.
The Advisor then asks the group about the balance of the universe shifting several decades ago in theirsection of the universe and most of the unnatural occurances occurring near their planets, so they wish to know why that is the case. Kellin begins to talk about Wind and Centerpoint to the group, saying that when he did so he locked away things he didn't like; but by accident the relic sealing these things away was damaged and they were released. Kellin then asks about the prophecies and texts, wanting to know about the unbalance, wishing to learn more the author - though they have a bit of the texts from Thomas - why they believe them, what threat do they see from it. However before answering, the Advisor wishes to have one more question asked, since they technically asked a few, asking about Wind and how he is related, then about the Fairlights, and to a lesser degree an Inugami, showing pictures of Chii, Freyja, and Lilith.
After some blunt, with Kellin pointing out this tit for tat with the questions is stupid, and the team claiming they don't know them, the Advisor decides to be blunt. He states they do not trust this group and are one step from not letting them leave this room, which gets everyone's backs up, though they try to remain diplomatic. The Advisor notes they are the first 3 supernatural beings to appear according to their sources, and Kellin goes at them with crime accussations, which the Advisor bats down stating they simply were asking about them. Before the Advisor can respond to anything else, a crusty, ancient voice speaks again and orders for this ceaseless prattling to end, and to allow the group to leave the planet unharmed, much to the protests of many on the balcony, who want Dias and Kaelan. When Kellin asks what is within balance, the Pope calls him a whelp and begins to move, standing at a 7 feet and moving toward him. After some discussion, the Pope issues a challenge to Kellin, telling him if he can find his own solution, so be it, and so Kellin has the group leave.
Ruun runs into the group in the hallway, holding a statue, while Kellin notes they should becareful in case they are probing their minds. As they walk, Ruun explains more about the power of Cathedral, noting that the building could possibily kill a person if the belief was strong enough - at least she has heard it to be so. Celeste follows the group, apologizing for how everything went down as they exit the church building. They discuss if the Pope is the God they felt the ping out of, and if that means the Templars are being manipulated, and if they should alert Leon to investigate it after they are gone when they run into Thomas. Thomas notes he wishes to join them so he can learn more and help Templar/Earth relations and thinks he can still hold onto his title even if he goes so it doesn't immediately revert to Titus, his father. The team muses on inviting a spy on board and Thomas even openly notes he will spy to his superiors but will skirt the truth. At the last moment Celeste decides she wants to come along and learn more as well to broaden her horizons.
Date: 10-640.9.9.30
Location: Unknown Space
The Aquarius is once again in trouble from the Dark Ones and the Templars after being left alone for a week, leading to Sudako and Andrea to jointly being annoyed. Taiga announces she has found the perfect planet to place the beacon once they manage to lose them both, and Angela notes to Dias that leaving the planet must have been literally leaving the planet. As alarms go off from the attack, Sudako and Zegretta move off to help deal with the attack damage, as Valen tells Thomas his people are dicks. As Thomas and Valen get into an argument over symanatics as Thomas says he has never killed anyone, just been relocating them to avoid killings from the Church and spreading out the supernatural concentrations, Pepper and the rest panic about the shots being lobbed at them and Yuki orders them to open fire back. Mireille and Kyouki work together to charge the supernatural chamber to blow up Dark One Ship, while Thomas helps them with weak points on the Templar Ships and promises to help with ways to avoid them later.
As Kaelan, Zegretta, and Sudako are in one of the hallways getting people to safety when an attack causes the safety doors to come down, seperating the three; Zegretta and Sudako end up on one side of the door when the smoke begins to fill the hallways and a moment Zegretta alone comes out of the hallway, tellig Kaelan she is fine. While Kaelan looks torn, peering at the doors, Zegretta keeps trying to get her to follow her to the bridge and lifts Kaelan up to carry her off as Pepper disables a Templar ship and Taiga begins to prepare them for jumping. Kaelan opens up a foxhole and sees Sudako pinned under debris and pulls her through with a second to spare into the safe part of the hallway and closes it just as they jump. As Sudako glares at Zegretta while Kaelan hugs them both and fates; they arrive at the safe planet and set up the beacon on it to warp back to this area of space safely without needing to search around and use it as a teleporter. They decide to have the Aquarius jump back first for a check out and leave Kellin behind to protect it, then Taiga will go back for him and leave defenses for the beacon/teleporter.
Date: 10-640.10.7
Location: PAX
The ship arrives back at the PAX's docks, a little banged up, but home finally - able to make the trip home in just a week. Andrea, who has been teaching Kyouki the basics lately about the universe as well somethings about her powers, tells her about the PAX and how it is Erevis' ship, assuming she can reclaim it again from the Empress. They all talk about what they are going to do now they are back on the PAX and Thena tackles Athena once she gets onboard. They also learn about Kane and Celidah running for the Presidency in Dias' absence while Taiga moves to her club to take a break before going back for Kellin.
Fumoffu Session 4: Halloween Session
Location: PAX
While Moira wonders why Rachael has gone goth/emo and Angel is writing down LSD Snakes under Meth Gators, the team relaxes when Kitty shows up all excited about Halloween and has special spooky effects begin, setting Taiga on edge. She has everyone dress up in various costumes to get in the mood and when they return, announces they are going to a haunted school, making Taiga look a little faint, who hasn't been into scary things since going on a Kitsune Udon thing with Kitty long ago. One person dresses as Chad Winters and even seems to mimic his moves and actions perfectly, making it seem like it is him.
As they arrive at the school, Kitty all bubbly and Taiga making fox growls, Kitty explains to them about the history of the school and sends them out to explore to see if there is anything to it. As they move through the various rooms, Kitty dragging Taiga along while she gets more and more wound up, they find various haunted sightings throughout the school. They find stuff hidden in floor boards and other stuff but overall they see no definitive ghosts, outside some creepy things. When leaving the school, they see a figure in the windows watching them, only Taiga really spots it, freaking her out. And it seems Adeline was pretending to be Chad when they get back to PAX.
Session 433: Taking Some Moments
Location: PAX
After a few months have passed for both teams, the Academy Team trying
find the Spirit Realm and the Space Team recovering from their time in the Unknown Regions, things have begun to become a little more normal. Kyouki has left to join Erevis on Geyze, reuniting with her after all this time, and learn about the Spirits to train with them, Andrea has begun to train those who are part Dark One, putting them through the paces to get them in shape to unlock new power, and Dias has returned back to Earth to resume being President and deal with those running against him. While Thomas learns about the PAX, the kids try to catch up on their school work, figuring they're going to fail after being gone for so long. While they discuss school and stuff, Durt tells them he never had formal schooling, leading the group to eye him and Sabrina offering to talk to Lorelei about enrolling him.
While Thena pretends to be a lawyer with Rio as her assistant, Lenneth calls out Thena for acting silly while they are all in the bar. After getting a lecture, making Thena a little down before Lenneth leaves holding her drink, telling her if she put her energy into being more like a princess she could do more, Valen cheers Thena up. He tells her not to let Lenneth down with her attitude and shit, while Lenneth and Jaime talk outside the bar, going over her latest powers. Michiru muses on leadership while everyone talks about things, and Celeste notes it shouldn't be a matter of power who takes the throne. The team decides to take a break from studying and they all head out to go shopping.
Date: 10-640.11.4
Location: Geyze
The weather is getting cooling lately as classes wrap up for those taking them here. Rachael, Sabrina, Valen, and Kaelan meet up with Asha and Alita and they run into Sylph playing with Kyouki. They discuss the two types of school systems between Geyze and PAX and how they vary as they return back to the PAX, seeing Taiga has been working on the Aquarius and filthy. Taiga seems to being going a little sleep deprieved and trying to eye Valen by tip-toeing, but the true terror is Si standing behind her and glaring at Valen, before Taiga stumbles off all tiredly. As Asha explores the PAX curiously, they head to Katrina's and see that a meeting is going on between Lorelei, Lemon, and oddly Lenneth with Katrina, along with Adeline, Ren, and Durt in the corner. Andrea prepares more training regiments with Reikana while the others discuss the election stuff going on between Dias and Kane and Celidah, as well as the God on Geyze.
They discuss the pros and cons of dealing with Autumn, since she apparently is keeping the monsters in check on Monster Island. Lorelei agrees that sending a small group to speak and check out the situation makes the best sense, while the rest can remain behind to deal with their classes and training. The topic moves to Valen and Vesper, and Valen notes she dumped him, having not heard back from her in ages, leading to Rachael asking if Valen not calling her back and assuming she dumped him. As Valen and Thena wrestle over Thena pretending to call Vesper, Sabrina seems excited at learning there is another Maka on Geyze named Sparkling Justice while Rachael and the others wonder if Valen is now dating Moira. As Valen stomps out to call Vesper after all the harrassment to check and make sure everything is okay with her, due to the Gartareh nonsense, the others muse on how they haven't seen Vesper in some time - at least a little after spring break, maybe before summer.
Location: The Island
The team arrives on the island, finding it overrun by monsters, so Lorelei leads Rachael, Kellin, Moira, Id Jaime, Michelle, Asha, Michiru, Sabrina, and Durt to follow a Slime Princess down into the center of the Island where they meet Autumn, the Monster Lord. They discuss her being in a coma patient and Jaime notes the hope is that being in the body will help heal it, while Kellin slides toward the drape, being growled at by monsters. Both sides guage each other and Autumn asks what she can do to make them comfortable with her. Kellin asks if she can tell them what she knows about the remaining gods and she admits she does not who all is alive, but she will tell them what she knows if given a name.
For Amazo, she tells them he is a God who loves to fight and the thrill of battle, so he will be located with a race or place or person that will reflect such a thing. Angulus, he is into religion and worship, so he will be in a place that reflects that as well. As for Solitice, Lenny - the Goddess of Heroes, and Phoen, she has no idea where they might be. Sparkling seems shocked at the hero thing while Kellin asks about the person sleeping behind the drape, probing for information, but she only assures them they will be fine. After accepting the packages Kellin offers, they are guides to the surface by the Slime Princess. As they leave Kellin announces there was a body behind the curtain but he couldn't tell if it was alive or dead and Jaime informs them about the touching Autumn did, leading to Lorelei noting their alliance might be short lived. They decide to hope for the best and prepare for the worst as they head back.
Location: PAX
Andrea vigorously trains Reikana and Kaelan, helping to hone their Dark One powers, while Celeste watches from the sides with Dias, Cherry, and Marcus. As Celeste tries to learn about the Dark Ones, her order's enemies, Valen is off to the side moping about something, while the training begins to wrap up while the others return and Lorelei approaches Valen. She informs Valen that Vesper/Dusk isn't responding so they are going to go check it out. As a group of volunteers form, they all head out and go to Jarivan real quick, finding that someone else is running her place. The man, Francis, claims to have bought it from her - or at least something shady happened and he likely got it through the "Cartel" means. But they do get information out of him in return at least: someone who wasn't super tall, due to the shadows of the night, attacked Vesper and she ran off to survive. As Valen runs off to her place to look for a clue to where she might have gone, Lorelei talks to the others, noting if Gartareh was the one who attacked, which seems likely, he has the ability to rip out Gods like she did, and might have ripped Dusk out of Vesper - which means she could be confused and lost, as well as dying since Dusk was keeping her alive.
Location: The Academy
The Royals have been looking into the Spirit Realm and trying to deal with that problem for the past few months, locating the Spirit Portals and making sure of where they are - one at the Magi Tower area, one at the Spiritalist Kingdom, and one somewhere in the Daemon Realm - since the Hapian Castle one has gone missing since the Spirit Realm has vanished. While the cold is setting in, Selena brings out a heater - a fire sprite in a box - while everyone gathers around and muses; Nicolette practicing divination, the others going through reports, Gwen and Talia acting strangely toward each other, and Lana hiding in her lab. When Celes arrives with Simon and informs the team that they tried one of the Spirit Portals and that it failed to work like it doesn't know where to connect. They wonder if the Portals need to be recalibured, much like Kane does his datapad work, Xanatos points out, making Jaime dismayed, though others point out it is not a bad idea.
If the Gates have become inactive on the other side, as Nicolette points out, how do they get over there to get them to work out if the gate on the other side is no longer active, thinking that might be the problem. Lana proposes, as she returns to listen, that maybe the two gates are no longer in alignment and that a connection issue is the problem. Celes listens to both ideas and thinks both have merit, having Lana work on the connection issue, while she goes to see Asarar about maybe finding a way to bypass the Spirit Portals to reach the Spirit Realm through the Net. As the Royals split up into two teams, one team heads up to Kumen in Xanatos' shuttle, passing the spacestation being built over Geyze that has yet to be named. They ponder if maybe Yggdrasil could connect to the Spirit Realm since it rests where the Spirit Planet/Realm once was located and the tree is what it does, as Nicolette points out.
As they arrive on Kumen, they spot Sabrina acting strange as she seems to be following something and barely paying attention to the group, leading Nicolette to follow after her as she heads off on her own. Catching up to her, they see Sabrina is acting odd and not like herself, saying she feels something wrong down below in the lower levels and has Nicolette feel it out with her magical energies; the two magical energies feel a dark stagnant power down there that feels wrong, making Nicolette shiver. After stating she is going to look into it, Sabrina runs off before Nicolette can stop her. Xanatos leaves to see if he can get help from Asarar - and drink at the club - while the others follow after Sabrina deeper and deeper into the lower levels the hard way, taking the stairs.
Along the way they are creeped out that Bix is using Xanatos' voice instead of his usual doots and beeps - apparently Xanatos giving him his own voice so he could speak normally. Though Erevis and Jaime find it "wrong". As they reach the middle levels, they soon come across a group of people who remember Nicolette from her time living in the slums area of Kumen City. A teenager girl gushes over Nicolette, saying that she remembers her though is a little surprise at Nicolette not being older after all this time, and as a crowd gathers around her, they ask for her to do a performance. After Bix clears the crowd out, they continue down to the lower levels of Kumen, the abandoned slums except for those mostly up to no good.
The slums look to be in worse shape compared to 6-7 years ago with stuff growing on buildings due to disuse and some structrual damage here and there as they walk along. Passing the previous club that Asarar and Kira ran, with them studying the building in thought, it turns out the building is in fairly good shape; Bix runs off to greet the two as Asarar greets him. As the team continues onward, they soon near an orphanage and the dark entity is strong along this street, as well as several people living on it. As Nicolette slips a man on the street a coin, many people appear from the streets at the sight of it, surrounding them. Asarar joins them and notes that a lot of people live down here because they want nothing to do with authority figures, despite Riki's best efforts.
Sabrina shows up with a ball of light, blinding most of the people present, and guides them into the orphanage, saying it has been warped with bad feelings and gotten into the people. Nicolette notes that too many people were forced to live here and not enough to go around. As Nicolette uses her divination to look into the orphanage again, stating the building itself is what is evil, the two Makas work on bringing the building's evil together, the darkness that is binding it. Soon it manifests into a shadow that attacks and they work on defeating it and when they do, the building vanishes and the street seems to be normal again - the darkness in people's hearts lifted and back to their normal selves - whatever that may be for those who live in the slums. The team heads to Asarar's to discuss their job for her - the Net - but save it for the next day.
Session 435: The Truth of the Net
Location: Kumen, Asarar's Club
The team settles down in the bar to enjoy food and drinks before talking to Asarar about their mission, with Sabrina, Celes, Ellie, Asha, Sparkling, Chelsea, and Gwen having joined them. As Ymir joins them, Sylph tenatively tries one of the drinks while they inform they are looking for the Spirit Realm and hope she can help them, while Asarar pets Chelsea's ears, the two having gotten closer lately. Though note that since the Net still works, they hope there is a link or something to point them in a direction while Sylph gets drunk and Kyouki glares at Xanatos in her tiny Sprite form. While Sylph shatters a bottle with her hiccip and passes out in Ellie's cleavage, Asarar tells them about the Net and how it's dangerous and doesn't think it's a good idea to use it, going over how they discovered it worked still
Flashback date: 2.5.5993
The team is at the old club in the slums considering that to do to make a profit with people moving out of the slums since things have changed and what to do next. As they plan to lock down the club and show Max stuff with Tony the Tiger on the HoloNet, Earth's Net stuff, when suddenly the Net activates and they find themselves back in the blue world without warning. They decide to investigate, since Bella does not seem to have come with them and should be fine in the club on her own for a bit, and begin to explore the streets, which seem to all be there and empty, just like before - only they begin to have this paranoid feeling the more they walk along. They walk to the edge of the city where Riki has knocked down walls and see that the Net is still working and going strong, past the walls of it, when they feel danger and the sky darkens; they feel as if something is hunting them actively and Max hears something headed their way in the distance, but Asarar pulls them out even as they appear on the streets back with normal people.
Date: 11.9.5999
Asarar notes over the next few months they tested the Net wherever they went and saw that it still worked, but were mindful of the 30 minute timelimit, because if not something would appear or if they used it too often. Luci notes she calls it Netman. When asked what she thinks it is Asarar admits maybe a dimension of it's own not, or a new realm. Logan notes he tried once to remain but began to feel sick and the others muse on their own encounters. As they talk about having Lana work with the Spirit Portal and the Net situation, Xanatos asks if they ever tried using the Net around Yggdrasil and Asarar admits they have not, making a face at Xanatos wondering if they'd die, acting more like Cypher when she does, acting a little like her instead of her more Biotect self in the past.
Id suggests instead of moving a Portal up to Geyze, they can have them go to Geyze and use the Net near one of the Spirit Portals. While Kyouki sympathizes with Xanatos, Asarar tempts them with dancers and drinks, especially Lana with male dancers. While Ellie flails at the situation, she then begins to convince the Maka and Asha she has a game room as well to keep them busy, leading to the group to spend some time and spend some money.
Location: Geyze
After several hours the group has arrived at the Spiritalist Kingdom to see Kalam, where they with to see the Spirit Portal. Sylph rides Ellie's head, hung over, while Ellie comforts her and tells Lana about the weird stuff she did while drunk with the strippers. Cypher and Asarar walk side by side, acting pretty much the same as they follow Kalam to the court yard and have been joined by Simon. While Id scans the Portal, he finds it has been made by all the elements of the Spirits, and when they hear that Spirit activates it, Sylph weakly does so. The Portal looks like it tries to open but after a moment it does nothing, like it tried to connect to something and failed, bursting with spirit energy for a brief moment. While Asarar has everyone touch her and those with Net devices, Erevis whispers to Kyouki about something off to the side.
After a moment the group lurches and appears in the Net, a blue world and everyone marvels about being inside it, especially those not used to being inside it. While Chelsea marvels at it actually working, the others study how those not touching Asarar have vanished yet all the buildings, including the Portal, have remained there. While Asha tests and sees they can indeed use their abilities in this world, like Asarar said they could, Sylph notes the world feels wrong - stale - like there is no Spirit Energy in it. Sylph muses and thinks it is not like the original Net, but a scab over a dead place. With some prompting, Sylph activates the portal and it begins to spin like it is suppose to do so. As it spins, connecting bit by bit, the group steps back just to be safe when it opens and the things Max saw begin to pour out of the portal in droves - strange monsterous black creatures, but not like Dark Ones, something out of a horror movie.
As they are swarmed, Selena and a few others see through the portal what looks to be the Mirror Universe, seeing a ruined Spiritalist Kingdom on the other side of the Portal. Right before they are taken over, Sylph closes the portal and Asarar yanks them out of the Net, leaving the group trying to figure out what they just saw and Asarar muttering now that even more of those things are in there. Sylph lands another killer blow - she thinks she felt Spirit energy on the other side of the Portal wher all the creatures poured out of to attack them. When Sparking and Asha note they are lost, Erevis explains to them they are from a Mirror Universe and they were all brought over to this universe by a person called Kaori. Lana theorizes that maybe that other world is the real world - that ruined Geyze is the real Geyze and the Geyze they are standing on top of is a copy. As Chelsea admires Kaori ingenuity, Lana and Id take it further and wonder if those creatures were the people's original bodies, freaking everyone out at the idea. They decide to ask Kaori later to see if she can shed some light, but it is clear that many on the group are unnerved at the direction this has taken, but at least they have an objective if they want to save the Corrupted Spirits - get to the Mirror Universe through the Net.
Timeline: 10-640.Later Part of the Year
Fumoffu Session 5: Get Together
Location: PAX
The team goes to Katrina's to relax and get to know each other since they have been hanging out and doing cases for a few months now. While they get together to Hess the Cut Out and Kaori spend some time together and Moira shows off her offical new outfit she's been wearing since Halloween. Taiga goes first, talking about her issues, then Kaori talking about she is the holder of the remaining majority of Centerpoint power, around 15-25% compared to Cheryl, Taiga, Lorelei, and Aurica's 3%, as well as eating being her main thing in life now. After Valen goes, Theau is encouraged to talk next and informs them
he didnt have any family until now as well as his old school shut down; the nine year old then set out to find if he had any family and discovered Isis and she said this would be a good way to make more friends. As the younger people on the group encourage him, like Rachael and those who were orphaned during the many wars, the group seems to accept him. After discussing families and the types of Famfrits/Aurits, they begin to go through the rest of the group.
Taiga, Eve, and Aya wrangle Chad into making a simple statement, then Jaime goes. During this the real Hess shows up and she and Kaori cuddle together and Katrina's bartender watches everyone with amusement, a mysterious bartender from the past. Thena finally takes her turn and in turn worries everyone with what all she says - the usual. After Thena is done being stared at Cheryl takes her turn then Yuki. Drasek and Hess take their turns afterward, with X wondering when Hess and Kaori will provide her with grandkids finally. After Angela takes her turn then Ren, Adeline begrudgingly takes her turn, with her full name drawing some looks and she states, without conviction that DNA does not make a person. And to round out everyone Xeres and Tabetha finish.
With everyone done they spend time in the club room hanging out and even Fate shows up to learn how to do a certain dance machine and avoid Thena trying to kidnap her and drag her off. Ren talks about reploids and the Reploid production at Cran's place and how busy it is keeping her lately with Kaori and for the most part the team just relaxes today. No Meth Gators, nothing.
Session 436: The Return of Tora
Location: The Academy
The team is back at the manor, going over what they have learned about the Spirit Portals thanks to Asarar's Net powers, and realizing they are making little progress in how to approach the problem of getting into the Spirit Portals and learning if the Mirror Universe truly still exists. Xanatos believes they need to learn how they can fight the monsters, while some on the team are still disturbed at the idea of what it means that it seems that Geyze still exists through the Spirit Portal. Celes finally hits on an idea that they can pursue since they are not making great head: seeking out the previous leader of Kumen, Tora, since she seemed to know a great deal about things like the Net, as well as how to make Artifical Spirits such as Mireille, Mélodie, and
Aimée, and finally the Aquarius. Believing she might have some insight into matters that might help them with their problem, she notes the only problem is that she believes that Tora died during the clone degradation incident by V.I in Fall of Eden Session 93-94. Deciding to try to learn where Tora's wife, Sen, might be located, the team heads to Earth to talk to Lemon's Earth team.
Arriving at Cheryl's Manor the team lands in the hidden shuttle bay in the backyard, descending into the base underground. Finding the base a little understaffed these days, the team is met by those still helping the team like Vesta, Kane, Lemon, Chad, Wyrd, and Tabetha. They see the team is monitoring the other Kane and Ceildah - the original Kane who supposedly died along with Celidah in The Alien Wars 4 Session 158. It seems Kane is running for President, using the platform that Kane's entire Presidency belongs to him and his remaining term should belong to him. While the team thinks something should be done about the other Kane, feeling that if anyone should have claim it is their Kane, he seems rather laid back until pushed and he reveals that he has in fact been monitoring them secretly and planting things to keep tabs on them.
During all this Lemon looks into the Tora situation for the team while they debate the situation and learns Tora is infact still alive, thanks to Megumi making a healthy body for her using her manifestation. It was not an easy process, quite painful, but Tora survived and is alive today thanks to Megumi's efforts. While Wyrd scowls and looks down on Sparkling's cheerful attitude and Vesta and Asha compare notes, being fire types and Vesta seems shocked that someone can generate fire due to their Dragoon powers without being a mage, the team prepares to head out to see Tora, promising to be on hand to lend Lemon and Kane a hand if they need it for the Kane situation.
They soon arrive at an isolated place that looks self-reliant and has a nice garden and security system set up, clearly made up to be for a hermit type family. There they met Sen who suspiciously who seems to know who they are as they introduce themselves, calling Xanatos Erevis' Consort, much to his bafflement, and Erevis poking fun at him about not wanting the title. While Jaime tries to push a Kyouki/Erevis pairing, right in front of Xanatos, the team is led inside where they meet Seniga, the daughter of Sen and Tora. After talking with her a bit, Tora arrives and after listening to their request a bit, talks about the past and how she and Sen came to be in Kumen long ago. That she was made to be a clone of Taiga after she was thought to be dead and when the real Taiga showed up, she traveled the world perfected her art and threw herself into machines and building things.
When the reality quakes happened, she and Sen were thrown pretty far back into Kumen's past, where the two clawed their way up Kumen's power base until they made Corporate Sector to try to keep the Corporations in check. Which was easier said than done and where Tora had a way to do research on the Net and learn about it, as well as make the Artifical Spirits to prepare for a day when they were needed, as well as the Aquarius, placing black boxes in it for when each moment came that they were needed to be unlocked. One of the abilities is the ability to travel realities if the time came. Tora states she will prepare to head back to Geyze to help them, causing Sen to give the team a look at dragging Tora back into things after all this time.
Session 437: A Tale of Two Cities
Location: Kumen, Asarar's Club
Chelsea wakes up at the bar with a drink beside her like she drank all night and Bonnie in blue cat form sleeping on the stool beside her; Barry stands on the other side of the counter cleaning glasses as she yawns and Logan asking if she had a long night as Bonnie slowly turns back into her human form. As she protests that she doesn't drink that much Kira chides her about ruining the feng shui of the bar by passing out which causes Chelsea's head to pound a little. Asarar massages her and calls her Kitty, which is a nickname she has never done before, surprising Chelsea, while Cypher moves about the club doing things and Aimée using her mallet and acts like she wants to smash valuable things of Kira's, getting her relied up. As Kira chases her up the elevator with a knife, Chelsea wonders who let her up here, confusing Asarar before notes she has a job for everyone, making Chelsea look miserible at the idea with her head.
Asarar tells them after patching Chelsea up they will deal with a Corporate leader like old times. While Chelsea takes pills to help with her head, Bonnie seems to be acting lazy and like a cat - even turning back into one, making Chelsea a little worried and as she moves to get geared up she sees one of the rooms has a workshop that is clearly geared to look like her's. After they are all ready, they head for the Macross HQ where Asarar informs them she has been hearing rumors that Ymir plans to use Ylva to tamper with the election, so once Ylva is President, both of them will control all of Kumen - Ymir as the leader of the Corporations and Ylva the ruler of Kumen, which Chelsea admits has been a concern of her's. Cypher shows the group a document that upsets Chelsea - a it shows plans to take over more and more land and begin to convert that land into something called "Project Omega" and there's designs to rebuild Kumen City into something drastic.
As they are talking a woman with a cape walks in and makes Luci want one. As they try to do sneaky hack stuff and are blocked by Ymir's protection, Chelsea just says to see if they can ask to be let inside and does so, talking with the lobbyist; after being cleared they ride up with the caped woman. The woman turns out to be Red Fox, they learn, as they reach the office and find Neekito and Kito have rejoined working with Ymir who greets Red Fox eagerly. Ymir seems to be interested in something Fox has brought while Chelsea commits her name to memory. After asking the group to step out while she finishes her business with Fox, she closes the door and Chelsea asks Asarar to do her thing while she tries to listen in with her elf like ears. As Asarar hacks the screen they see Ymir talking about Fox giving her something tol power her transformation device she needs to begin turning the city into something new after Ylva wins the election.
While Chelsea seems depressed at the information, the others get ready to barge in and kill her - or at least detain her painfully while Riki is in office. As Fox backs away and minds her own business, Ymir sends Neekito and Kito after them while Chelsea notes she stands accused of world domination. After some back and forth, an epic battle ensues and a gear smashes through the ceiling where Ymir begins to climb into it, the impact of the Gear smashing through ceiling sending Asarar and Cypher out the window and grabbing onto the ledge. Logan also is barely hanging on when Kira and Luci attack Ymir as she climbs in, the attack causing Ymir's attacks with the Gear to destroy the upper structure of the building and everyone begins to tumble down with fire and debris down to the street.
Location: Geyze
Chelsea wakes up with a headache and her head laying on a table and Celes and the others staring at her worriedly. They seem to be talking about her fainting constantly while Chelsea wonders what she is drinking, seeing Bonnie is sleeping next to her. As they whisper about her condition and other things, Bonnie looking concerned asshe wakes up and Neekito and Simon checking her out. When Chelsea tries to stand, the world goes weird on her as she hears voices and the world's colors blur a bit and Simon asks her questions to check her condition, irritating Chelsea. They begin to lead her to bed as Neekito summons Brooke to check her out as Jaime calls Jennifer to help her out when Chelsea suddenly blacks out again, wondering if this is a dream, or the previous events were a dream.
Location: Kumen
Chelsea wakes up in debris and Aimée poking her as the others begin to extract themselves from the rubble, many of them in bad shape - Cypher bleeding and laying on her side and Asarar sparking and bleeding a little, Logan in bad shape as he breathes, and Bonnie just missing. But thankfully Ymir seems to be crushed under her own mech, but the others aren't in much better shape; as Chelsea tries to keep Cypher from talking too much as Aimée helps with the others. As Kira prepares to stab Ymir as she is crushed, Logan stops her and then the police and cops show up, firing at them without warning. Fox, who has survived, stays out of the way and doesn't want to get nvolved as Bonnie lands on Chelsea's head, healing her even though looks to be in bad shape herself. As Aimée attacks the police cars, they debate to what to do - go to Riki or lay low and heal, but either way they head to the sewers to get out of the immediate danger. As they carry Cypher into the sewers, Bonnie looks ghost like as they move through the sewers, showing her mana has been depleted. As Chelsea's head and vision begins to act up again, Fox and the others study her and wonder if she has a concussion. As they reach the clinic and get Cypher inside, Asarar and Logan doing worse - the former coughing up blood and Logan's arm going dead, Bonnie checks Chelsea's eyes.
Location: Geyze
At that moment Chelsea finds herself looking up at Jennifer's eyes as scans her. Seeing Cypher and Bonnie are okay, she keeps repeating that they are fine and looks beside herself, while Asha looks confused and some others. But Lana thinks it's Spirit Toxicity and Simon wonders if what she saw was real in any way. Tora kneels and notes it is possible, or an alternate future or dimension or any number of things. While Cypher assures she is fine and has been here the entire time since "Chelsea did the crazy experiment for Tora", the others ask her questions and learn what Chelsea has been seeing. Tora explains since Chelsea can use the Net, they wanted her to use the Mew Mew briefly into the Spirit Portal to see if a ship could go through to take readings and data, but she kept seeing things and passing out. Chelsea looks out of sorts, wondering what it all means, since it felt so real, and what IS real now.
Date: 11.22.5999
Location: Kumen
Asarar leads some of the group to Macross, along with Chelsea and Bonnie, while Chelsea tells them about what she saw. After hearing about the Kitty nickname Asarar jokes about using it while they go in to see Ymir and question her. After being asked if she knows a Red Fox, she denies it but looks her up for the group and reveals she runs a large enterprise called Red, who has many things like Red Fruit and things. When asked if she should contact them, Chelsea notes it may be best if she never does mysteriously. When Logan asks if she has a Gear in her ceiling, Ymir seems puzzled by it but admits she does have a Gear. As Chelsea asks if she plans to take over Kumen, Ymir states she has no interest in it and that Chelsea should see Ylva more, and Chelsea agrees, despite looking uneasy. As they leave, Chelsea notes she thinks she lived in that version of the club and is confused at things and when asked by Asarar if she thinkd if Ymir is on the up and up, she admits she doesn't know.
Timeline: 10-640.Later Part Of Year
Fumoffu Session 6: Bite Sized Reploids
Location: PAX
Taiga is eyeing their board of stuff with some stuff circled like the Meth Gators, trying to think of something new to add to the club to spice it up a little, much to the bewilderment of Moira and Adeline. While debating stuff like trophies, which Valen offers to do, and Nicolette rejeects since it feels like they are congratulating themselves, to scrapbooks, to posters of cases solved, they go through several ideas. While going through the ideas, Taiga eyes the datapad for people who can do stuff - bases Valen - and sees Fluffy Workshop, making note of it. They seem to note that Taiga seems tired lately and is latching onto this ideas to get an energy boost and outside bickering with Kitty about being old or not, seems to be showing little of anything. Deciding they could use Fluffy Pictures if they go for the posters idea, the team begins to wonder who runs all these Fluffy organizations, leading to Kaori to note it's probably Fluffy.
After talking to Nicolette, Sabrina, and Zegretta about themselves since the three didn't get to do it last time, Nicolette goes first. Telling them she's a magician and trying to learn other types of magic at the academy, she notes that there wasn't a lot of magic in the world she came from. Sabrina notes she is a Maka who is searching for justice on something but doesn't volunteer much and Zegretta seems to be in a dark mood lately and doesn't volunteer much. With that out of the way, Taiga has the group go to Earth to Alexanderia Corporations to meet with Ren at her job working for Alexander Cran. Once there they learn that something is eating Reploids and no one really knows much outside it happening at night and seeing a big dark figure. After teasing Taiga and making her pass out at the idea it might be ghosts, they drag her body along.
While there seems to be a second generation of Reploids being trained under Cole and Blue now, with Katherine helping as a counselor, there isn't that many leads so Ren leads them to the scene of one of the attacks. As they walk along they see Alexander Cran staring down at them and it feels like he is squishign their heads from his high vantage point. Seeing what appears to be a bloody scene they soon realize it is machine oil and fluids, though it doesn't fit well on most of their stomachs. Kaori finds a grate and Hess uses her strength to lift it up for her, revealing a storm drain. Sabrina and Nicolette sense something dark and wrong about it down there and warn the others.
After some hijinks they ask Cole, much to Blue and Katherine's dismay, to be the bait and he ties himself and hangs himself down there to draw the attacker out. As the hours pass and it begins to get late, the attackers finally strikes, beginning to drag Cole further down the lower area, forcing Ren to leap onto the line, then Nicolette, then Chad, Moira and Valen, holding it in place. When Sabrina and Taiga peer down to see what is doing it, the strange dark figure senses Sabrina and drops Cole, causing all those holding on to slam into the ground as the line goes loose. As they begin to fight what emerges, Sabrina and Nicolette realize it is a Daimon - a rare sight since they rarely leave the planet Maka. Working together, the team hits it with magik and various effective physical attacks, causing it to weaken and Hess using bad luck to make it fall back on top of Cole once comically; eventually their attacks and the bad luck weakens it enough for the team to do a "final attack that you believe in" according to Sabrina, so Moira pokes it with her weapon at the same time Cole uses his mini-guns on it.
After destroying it, a black gem/crystal is left, as proof of the creature like something out of an anime. Taking it, Kitty decides to hold onto for the time being. After finishing up the team heads back and decides to relax, with the group asking Sabrina questions and she admits she does not know a lot, having left to do her own thing and not having fought them a lot, but the gems are suppose to make one stronger. Which leads to Chad deciding they should collect more as does Nicolette. Sabrina and Nicolette both decide they are behind on their quotas anyway as magical girls, so vow to do more Daimaon hunting.
Session 438: The Future Is Coming (2300)
Location: PAX
After relaxing the past few months since going into the Unknown Regions and allowing Taiga, Chad, Angela, and Cheryl time to overhaul the Aquarius, getting anything the Templars might have put into the Aquarius out of it with Thomas' aid as well as upgrading the ship to withstand attacks by the Dark Ones and the Templars, the team gathers together in the hanger finally to witness what appears to be Taiga arguing with an older Taiga with pale hair. It turns out that is Tora and she seems to be a little displeased at all the upgrades Taiga has done to her ship over the years, mainly due to the fact the two have never gotten along. Tora states she is there to take the Aquarius back due to Celes needing it and Taiga protests it strongly, saying that Lorelei and company need the ship for their missions, which leads to some arguing about who needs it more.
Before anything can be settled between Taiga and Tora, Lorelei states that the call from Yasha has come in and that she needs their aid in taking back the Erusian Ascendency, which means that they need the Aquarius. Tora reluctantly agrees to let them take the ship and comes along to observe it in action, pulling Mireille off to examine her for some reason while Yuki moves to take the Captain's chair while everyone takes their seats; Kellin notes as he sits that Taiga and Tora should work together, getting a look while Taiga moves to engineering. While Sabrina moves to take Nicolette and Celeste off so they can all learn about the Erusians, the rest of the group prepare for the jump to hyperspace.
Date: 10-640.11.27
Location: Suelon - Agrarian World
As they arrive at the world, many on the ship note they do not know about the Erusians or their worlds and they marvel by the look of it as they approach. Lorelei points out that they are only 8-9 Shapeshifters left, most likely, on the Erusians, if they divided their remaining forces evenly among the Tsivrixshs, Erusians, and the Serpent Cult. Xeres notes it's close enough to the core worlds that it's a good staging ground and being a lowkey world they should not be noticed as they land without much hassle. Sabrina idlely wonders if there are Makas among the Erusian people as they all begin to exit the ship onto the farming lands on the reddish-purple grass and fields. While marveling at how beautiful the land is they slowly make their way to Yasha's staging forces where Yasha reveals herself, having been wearing a full body suit that hides her face.
While Yasha discusses what her Loyalist Forces are up to, Sabrina taps Nicolette and points out something odd about something that happened while they were walking here. It seems there are two Nicolettes and the other Nicolette tries to mimic her actions perfectly when they all turn attention to her. However when she sticks a card on the Shapeshifter Nicolette's head and one on her own, the other fails to do it and the team asks what the cards mean, leading Nicolette to say it means what she thinks of it. The fake Nicolette turns into a frog to escape with the information it has learned of the forces when the team attacks it, being blasted around making ti turn into a Ridiarum. Going on the offensive, the Ridiarum Shapeshifter is blinded by Nicolette's card on it's forehead as Celeste and Valen unbalance it, making it fall backwards, allowing Moira to destroy it on the way down.
They follow Yasha into the bunker where she begins to explain her plan to take back her Ascendency from the Shapeshifters and those working against her. It seems the Ascendency has two capital worlds: Erusia, the legislative body, and Madara Prime, the throne world. The plan is do a frontal attack on both worlds at the same time so neither homeworld can back up the other by attacking one at time. They debate who will go where and decide the two Makas will at least go to Erusia with Xeres at least since they can semi detect Hunters, and since the Templars have a device that seemed to somewhat detect them when Leon McTreggor was with them, Celeste will join the other team and try to help them. The Aquarius will take the one team to Erusia and Yasha's ship to Madara Prime it is decided.
Session 439: Erusian Resistance Force
Location: The Aquarius
The group has split into two teams to deal with the two Erusian homeworlds and so Yuki flies the Aquarius toward the Erusia Homeworld where the government aspect is located, probably where the shapeshifters will be lurking. Xeres rides with them to be their guide while Taiga and Tora have a power struggle in the engine sections of the Aquarius as both work on upgrade it. While Thena is on a magic girl kick, leading to Nicolette to wonder what a Magical Dread Princess/Pirate is all about, Yuki announces they have arrived at their target and they come out of hyperspace at Erusia. As they pass a massive defensive fleet, the powerful Erusian fleet, Airym transmission a message as they get closer. The team gets permission to land on the planet and the group soon makes their way to Xeres' place, the estate grounds are overgrown and the palatial structure is practically crystalline rubble once they arrive.
As Hotaru looks solumn hearing about the Erusian Civil War long ago, back in The Alien Wars 4: Season 6, which she was briefly part of back in the day, they enter the basement level of the house which has manged to survive all these years, much to Michiru's excitement, a contrast to her mother. While they plot how to identify who the shapeshifters and where they are located, knowing they seek areas of power, so they decided to definitely go for the assembly. Sabrina teaches Nicolette how to sense out shapeshifters and warns about how Hunters, which are the ones they are going against since only the elite Hunters are left now, can mostly avoid the Makas magical detection. As they prepare to set out, Nicolette uses her cards and warms them of danger and Xeres steps forward, tripping a wire that activates a trap; the top level begins to explode, bringing down the ruined levels of the house down on top of them, forcing the team to improvise to survive, the Xeres using her powers to hold up the house. While the others begin to dash forward as not to be crushed to death, they run into assassins who ambush them.
Hotaru intercepts the assassin after they take down Sabrina and Nicolette uses a card to shackle them to the ground so the others can do damage; Thena does her hyperspace node attack, actually managing to do massive damage to it while Hotaru slashes with her scythe, the three taking it down, leaving the Hunter Shapeshifters left in the Erusian area down to 8. The team notes how sad it must have been to wait for ages for someone like Xeres to show up just to spring that trap. As they continue onto the Erusian government buildings, the team admires the area on the way. They note how the area has a little bit of a Centerpoint vibe before it was destroyed and became Yggdrasil. As they work their way through the halls of giant dome, making their way to the main assembly until they finally arrive and see them all.
As the team wonders how to narrow it down with so many people in various clusters and groups, they begin to try to figure it out with their various powers. They each get hits on various clusters of groups and so they decide to have Thena present herself to the assembly as a distraction. She manages to do so well with surprising grace, presenting herself as the granddaughter of Erevis Zhenmei with all the proper decorum that one would expect of her. As it goes on they spot some acting strangely, so Kellin and Nicolette sets out tracking one, while Yuki and Sabrina follows another one, joined by Hotaru. Kellin and Nicolette run into a giant spider who she stomps after being freaked out, leading to the giant spider limping off, while Xeres and Thena finish their speech and move along, keeping their eye on things as well. As the spider-hunter tries to poison Kellin and is blasted away, Thena and Xeres battle an assassin Hunter that goes after her and Yuki and her group follow a third one. After Thena dispatches her' by burning it away, Yuki's group follows their's to a spaceport.
The team converges and Hotaru, Sabrina, and Nicolette take him out before he gets too far, destroying him as Yuki picks up his communication device, dropping the Hunter count from 8 down to 4. Yuki announces she thinks she knows where the remaining Hunter Shifters are located after a moment and that they need the Aquarius immediately. She informs the group they are trying to escape with the Erusian Defense Fleet by placing themselves in command positions, they board the Aquarius; Yuki notes that they likely have replaced the crew with Tsivrixsh to help prevent a revolt when asked about it. At that moment the Shapeshifters launch an attack at the Erusian city and the Aquarius quickly puts up a shield, with Pepper's help, to brace for impact and protect the city; Mireille having put everything into the Spirit Shields to help do so, so when she emerges she is holding her arm a little in pain. The team opts to help the civilians and let Mireille heal up while reporting that some of the enemy ships have escaped.
Session 440: Fire Over Erusian Ascencency
Location: Yasha's Ship
The team uses Yasha's ship to travel to Madara Prime, the throne homeworld, and while going there Throne and Celeste try to mimic what they learned about Leon's device can do with detecting supernatural beings, hoping it can find the Hunters. While each of the group deals with their own issues, from Zegretta glaring at Sudako in Kaelan's shadow, Valen having a toothache, Michelle checking her arrows leading to Durt wondering if she has trick arrows, and more. As Lorelei hands Valen a soothing agent for his teeth, Kaelan snuggles Zegretta, Durt and Michelle discuss the merits of arrows, Erica chides the group to focus on the mission even as the ship exits hyperspace, revealing ecumenopolis with artificial planetary rings comprising the Goddess Fleetyards along with numerous orbital habitats. As they near the planet and how amazing it looks, Yasha notes as she waves her hand at the display of the city-wrold's surface, noting if one takes the spire, which is her seat of power, they control the planet and its surrounding system.
As they approach, Lorelei wonders how they are not being stopped or detected, but Yasha notes it is because she is with them. She has them strap in and secure themselves as she cycles the drive system for a single heavy burn, driving it toward the orbital ring, then she cuts the primary engines before they get too close to the ring, 'gliding' it with momentum. The ship approaches the orbital ring and then Yasha pilots it with just maneuvering thrusters, passing between two habitat block, then quickly rotates the ship, jostling everything inside with the inertial dampeners cycled dow, passing sideways between drydocks. As Moira bemoans her breasts almost popping and Erica noting that's not how that works, Yasha rights the ships then passes right into an under-construction starship, pulling off tight maneuvers to weave them through to the otherside. As Kaelan and Valen bicker with tendrils messing with his ears and Zegretta bickering with Moira about "fake breasts", Yasha rights the ship into a glide, taking them through a canyon of buildings toward the spire before raising the nose of the ship and firing thrusters, bringing everyone into a hard stop at the lower level.
As they step off Yasha's ship, Celese and Erica talk about things and Erica notes to the Templar she doesn't have to be called Captain when she is not on her own ship, though everyone seems to do it - except Valen, who gives her the nickname BBE, standing for something only Valen could be known for doing. Yasha leads them to a maintenance hatch, which Valen has trouble opening so Moira helps him do so; Yasha produces a zip line to ascend the tower to reach the top levels of the spire. As they zip up, they feel a God Ping on one of the levels of the Spire, but it was so fast they cannot be sure. Yasha has them exit through another hatch and move onward, but Rachael stays behind to rest, the fast speed zipping taking a bit out of her; Valen looks conflicted about leaving her behind, but she waves him on to join the others. They team soon emerges in a formal corridor and Celeste device lights up, since Thomas remained behind on the ship to learn about the Erusian culture.
The group is ambushed by guards and the false Yasha steps forward and sits down on the throne, then motions at the group to be depatched without a word. Yasha reveals her identity and tries to stop the guards, but they still move to bring down the team - painfully. Due to their superior strength compared to humans, a rough battle breaks out as they try not to kill the Erusians. Soon the fake Yasha brings out a canon weapon that Erica begins to pummel with her fists, even as Valen uses his sneak attacks to try to bring down Erusian guards. As Erica destroys the canon but is flung back due to the explosion, the others wrap up everything and help the real Yasha. They feel the God Ping again and note it is near Rachael, who they left behind, so they leave Yasha behind to get her chair's consoles up and running and check on her.
As they return they find Rachael facing a beautiful Erusian woman in an outfit denoting that she is of a high position and has blue skin, showing she is of the Yasha's race of Erusians. They move in with weapons drawn and ask how Rachael is when the woman steps back, pulling her clothes tightly on her and introduces herself - as Phoen, noting she is pleased to see them all since the false Yasha has been running things into the ground. She asks if they have dealt with the other Shapeshifters in the place, as if pleased with them being run out, and when asked about the other Gods, notes a lack of interest in them. She does drop the bombshell that that the Shapeshifters were planning to take the Erusian stuff and give it to their enemies, especially their prized positions, leading to Michelle wondering if she is talking about the Black Angels. Durt tosses Phoen a datacube to contact them if needed before they all hurry off to Yasha while Phoen notes she will go back to enjoying her life of luxury.
Erica is contacted by the Aquarius, who has finished helping the civilians and returned to aid the group here, so the two get in touch and update each other. Yasha notes she is having trouble if the throne had not been destroyed in the fight but assures there are not Black Angels to steal and Valen informs her about Phoen. Yuki appears on the screen to warn about the theft of the ships and everyone wonders what the Susien Empire will think about the theft of the ships by the Tsivrixsh, but Yasha moves to try to lock down the Goddess Ships here, but it is too late and they are already moving.
In the end though they are forced to destroy the compromised ships, leading to the Hunter Erusians who escaped around 3 to 0, but a wound still for the Erusians with some of their Defense Fleet taken and some of the Goddess Ships destroyed. They wonder what is up with the Tsivrixsh being so aggressive lately and think maybe Kyun has been replaced by a shapeshifter, which is something the Tsivrixsh have always chafed out and might have welcomed. Lorelei promises to help Yasha and will report this to the PAX when they get back.
Timeline: 10-640.Later Part Of Year
Fumoffu Session 7: Mystery at the Academy
Location: PAX
The club meets as the holidays are beginning to look, a single decoration up so far, and the members beginning to wear somewhat more festive outfits to signal the upcoming holidays. The three magical girls are together and hanging out, spending actual time together for once and getting to know one another as Sabrina, Sparkling Justice, and Nicolette chat with one another and compare notes, with Nicolette the go-betweener. They discuss what each other does as magical girls, while Asha also comes to see what the club is also about and takes in the club's sights, learning what all there is to learn about the PAX. While they discuss Meth Gators and tentacles being Magical Girls' nemesis, Shion shows up for food and alcohol for those old enough while Taiga begins the mission, saying she got a request to go down to Geyze for Lumi.
Arriving at Geyze, the team finds snow all over the place with decorations up that are winter based/Celsius and Shiva as well as some other decorations. From there they meet up with Lumi who tells them about their problem in one of the girl's showers and despite briefly setting up stuff to monitor it, they can't see anything going on. It seems the girls are complaining about feeling like someone is watching them and going through their belongings, as well as some stuff being taken like panties, but nothing shows up on the cameras, and Lumi notes they can't keep the cameras up due to the invasion of privacy. So they are hoping the team can find something that Lumi and Sasha are missing with their mages and investigators before the school term ends.
Going to the showers the team investigates and they find nothing out of the ordinary as they begin to look it over, trying to come up with various ideas. The place has poor lighting in some places and it does give off a creepy feel as they look around in it. As they look around the winter weather begins to worsen and the howl of it can be heard as they move about. Kaelan volunteers to shower to try to lure out whatever is causing it while the others look around and wait, noticing how despite the lighting being good in the place, it looks way too shadowy. During the shower, Sparkling Justice feels someone touch her back and Kaelan's panties are taken by the time she gets out. They begin to search the lockers one by one and Sparkling just blasts one, causing a thud to be heard. Going toward the sound of the thud, she bumps into a person and hears them land on the ground, causing her to cry out that they are invisible.
Chasing the person through the school hallways, the team manages to corner them in one of the classrooms eventually. Trying to locate them inside the classroom they eventually manage to use their powers to make him appear and discover he is one of the older students in his 30's and a magi, sobbing for them not to hurt him. Taking him back to Lumi and Sasha, the man pleads forgiveness and promises he won't do anything like it again, while Thena tries to get Lumi to join her harem and she promptly shuts it down. The man is sent off to community service and the team leaves to go back to the club and out of the cold.
Back at the club the team relaxes and enjoys the warmth of it as they talk and sit back. Sabrina and Sparkling talk about Maka things while the others sit around and drink a little and Durt offers drinks to those old enough. Rio hands out Santa hats to those who need them and the team relaxes as the holidays continue to approach.
Session 441: Mysterious Signals
Location: PAX
Taiga has been upgrading the Tiger Engine, finals are coming up, Durt and Lorelei are being secretive and Durt is MIA most of the time, Tora has been unlocking functions on the Aquarius and undoing black boxes, and things finally come to a head when Tora is ready to announce everything she has done. Mirelle cuddles Erica while Tora brings up the Aquarius on a monitor and notes that the Aquarius is designed to get more powerful as Erica uses it, unlocking systems as time goes and with Mireille as the ship's spirit, is designed to be adaptive and able "learn" as well so that the ship's abilies get stronger - "the learning system". While Cookie jokes that means Erica leveled her up, and Michiru chiding her that this isn't a game. Tora notes that all she did was remove the caps on the system so that it can now learn from enemies or ships it encounters in the future and make adjustments on the fly, learning from them. She also reveals she unlocked a black box system that allows Erica to have Mireille to install anything with Spirit Energy to enhance the ship, but there are limits such as anything greater than Mireille might have effects to her systems. She also notes Mireille can only have one thing installed at a time for now. And finally the Aquarius should be able to phase into other realities it's abilities.
The younger group works on studying for finals, Valen worrying about failing and becoming a Janitor and Adeline noting she would have nothing to do with him if that became his career choice. Celeste apologizes to Kaelan, having encountered her in Katrina's bar a week ago and gotten into a slightly dervise conversation with her about Dark Ones and her Templar point of view, and promises to have a more open point of view. While they are doing this, Tora is giving her lessons on the upgrades and Taiga brings in the brand new Tiger Engine to install into the Aquarius, to try to up Tora. Yuki and Erica discuss how strange it is with Tora/Taiga around and how they interact with each other, with Erica admitting she'd probably be the same way.
At that moment Lorelei pages everyone and those studying look thankful for the interruption, while those working on the ship continue to do so. She announces she has news for Valen - that they have found Vesper Dupree finally on a Cartel world and they show him pictures of her doing mundane tasks and looking a little off. A group of them decide to go talk o them while others, like Adeline, decide to remain behind for the time being.
Location: Lame Cartel World
The Aquarius exits tiger space using the Tiger Engine 2.0 with no problems, leading Taiga to crow about the improvements and act a little unhinged, leading Airym to recommend that she get a little sleep, since she has been helping her with the improvements and installation. While Cookie laments the old engine side effects, to Yuki's horror, while Airym and Si sedate the wild fox who tries climbing up Erica. While Hotaru wonders about how Taiga has been acting, the Aquarius moves closer and Mireille offers to teleport them all to the planet if they want to try it. She has markers appear on the floor and promises to personally scramble their moleculres and then teleport them to the plane, leading to Erica lamenting not having Jelly to test the device on. Valen simply tells Mireille to do it and is broken down piece by piece, so Moira decides not to be done up by him and follows, which leads to the others following the two. While Celeste and Thena cut up that the teleporter made them evil, Thena using her clone power to have two of her, and Celeste jokingly calling herself evil now, Mireille threateningly says they can all walk back for picking on her.
Now that they have a teleporter feature, they plot how they might can use it in the future to their advantage and walk through a poor neighborhood in the Cartel planet until they find a dirty Vesper hanging up laundry. Valen walks up to Vesper and doesn't seem to recognize him at first, but has some pain at hearing his name, noting she does remember his name but not from where however. After dismissing seeing doctors and noting they all say she will be dead in a year, Vesper seems to act like she might would have before ever meeting Dusk. However, Valen covinces her to join them even as Michiru uses her psionics to feel a threat is nearing them; at that moment an attack blast hits Valen and sends him flying out on his ass. Medivh steps up with some hired goons to extract his revenge on Valen for his deeds years ago and things look like they are about to get nasty, with Thena using her TK powers to attack the hired help and the others drawing their weapons, when Valen offers to make it up him somehow. As only a shield by Valen is keeping everything going to hell, Kaelan looks ready to use her tentacles to fuck people over - somehow, when Erica notes they need to use diplomacy to settle this. Medivh settles for just punching Valen's face once and notes that Valen can send the cost to him for fixing his beautiful face as he moves off; Erica promises she will cover the cost for Valen.
During all this Vesper has been being scanned and shows she has a lot of growths in her brain resuming that are inoperable without damaging her brain and there seems to be no sign of Dusk inside her. While Rachael fusses over Valen for his antics, Thena notes they should take her to Jennifer to be looked over. Mireile warps them to the Aquarius, then to the PAX. Thomas notes that Celeste seems to have become high due to eating a brownie from Cookie and is aghast while the team wonders if Dusk ran for it or was ripped out of Veser.
Date: 10-640.12.15
Location: PAX
Valen sits with Vesper in the medical bay as she is being examined by Jennifer, while Taiga monitors the Holovid seeing how the EarthGov elections are coming along. While Taiga notes it is strange they might have new leaders by the end of the year, Mireille contacts Erica to come see her and tells her that she has detected a mysterious signal emitting from Earth that seems to be some code repeating itself. While Erica muses on the mystery of the code with Yuki, she gathers a few of the crew who are not with Vesper like Sabrina, who seems eager to go on this adventure since she has missed some things lately. During all this, Jennifer notes to Valen, Hotaru, Michiru, Rachael, and Moira that it is not hopeless but it is close to impossible in her current state, but there have been others in similiar situations as Vesper in the past like Warren and Erevis. Cuddles joins them, the main doctor in the PAX medical these days as Jennifer goes on adventures and helps out on the PAX whenever possible, discuss various options with the kids such as doing a combination of surgery complimented with magik and manifestation by famfrits. Moira asks Vesper if she remember anyone called Dusk, but she seems to draw a blank on who that person is other than feeling like she should know that person and felt she spent a lot of time with her.
Erica, Yuki, Sabrina, Pepper, Taiga, Kellin, Durt, Thomas, Celeste, and Cookie arrive at Earth and begin to pin point the signal to the North American State where they track it to some building ancient building near Mega City that looks old and broken. Lemon hails them and notes they detected them not far from them and after some talking, notes they are going to meet up with them. After landing at the site, they find trace amounts of radioactivity that is no longer dangerous to anyone as they near what appears to be a VI building. The group finds inside what looks to be machines on nanomachine and other material, as well as tubes that held two people once. Taiga works on the console to learn more as Lemon's team arrives on the scene, leading to Vesta and Wyrd to check the area out with Lemon and Kane. They learn that this place was used to rebuild Ceilidh and Kane after finding pieces of them atom by atom and reprogram them with VI programming to mess with EarthGov programming and pose as Kane Presidency and throw the elections into chaos. The two groups decide to work together and have Kane debunk the other Kane and maybe fix some of the damage to his name.
Timeline: 12.16.5999 / 10-640.12.16
Session 442: The Darkness Over the Academy
Location: Geyze
During the final day of finals, snow is coming down hard and those in the group like Rachael, Valen, Kaelan, Nicolette, Asha, and Sparkling are taking their courses to prepare to wrap the year up and prepare for winter break. While Valen hurries off to get in touch with Jennifer about Vesper's condition. While they are talking the Aquarius lands near the Academy, back home on the planet thanks to the effort of Tora, and Cypher and Chelsea watch the ship come down while Aimée and Mélodie run out to observe it. While Mireille deals with the two spirits who seem to be displeased at Mireille's boasting about being the "fastest ship in the galaxy", Lumi moves to help Erica and Yuki settle back into their place at the Academy while Sparkling throws her studying books to the side and tuns off to check out the ship. As the group watches from the manor or various places in the Academy, Chelsea's spirit daughters kidnap Mireille thug style and drag her off toward Chelsea's workshop to have a "chat" about her boasting, while the others comment on the Aquarius being here to help them to reach the Mirrior Universe.
After Lumi gets Erica, Yuki, Pepper, and Cookie situated in their rooms, she returns to the manor to call a meeting about somethings concerning her lately, though she admits it might just be her imagination. She informs them that Ylva will most likely become Kumen's new President since Riki is not polling well and does not seem to be doing enough to fight it. Chelsea looks concerned, not about Ylva since they are "sisters" through Asarar, but about the Ymir implications since they are sisters and that means Ymir now has Kumen wrapped up through Ylva. As Nicolette looks up curiously about Kumen changing, Lumi brings up Ylva's picture and shows an image of Ylva, informing her that she is the sister of the Macross Corporation leader, leading Nicolette to hope the planet doesn't slide back. The team muses on what has been happening with Dias lately and wondering if the same thing is occurring with him and Kane and people shifting their focus to another opponent, since it looks like Kane might have it wrapped up in the bag.
While the team thinks it might be alright, or at least believe the Corporations are a shadow of what they used to be, they move onto Lumi's other concerns. She informs them that the Alliance leaders have been acting oddly lately and that they have been accusing each other things, from stolen items, to grievances, to the other Kingdoms acting against each other like the Naturalist against the Legion, the Amazons against the Legion, the Spiritalist against the Ent, and so on. Lumi then slides a picture of a destrotyed site that looks to be where Weapon XII was set up spying on something or someone, though how her defenses were found and taken out, it is hard to imagine. As Xanatos immediately identifies it, they all debate what to do about the matter of having his Weapons on Geyze, even as Id denies it being there or it would know about such a thing.
While discussing the situation, Cuddles walks through the door looking for Magik users and informs the group that some young Spirits have another Spirit kid tied up outside, making a snowman out of her. While Sasha goes out there to deal with them, Cuddles tells the group about the fact she is there for help to do with Vesper; informing them about her condition could use all the healing magik and spirit power and any anyone that is versed in such talents would be appreciated. As the people inside talk among themselves about who is best in this area, Simon and Id muse on how to handle the Alliance leader problem and tackle that. While Chelsea and Cypher innocently remain in the manor, Sasha and Sparkling find Mireille proclaiming that she is the fastest while Aimée and Mélodie insist she take it back, even as Mireille refuses despite being buried alive. When Sasha asks if they had a race to see, they note that she won't race them and Mireille notes why should she, her mother told her she was the best; when Sparkling gets in on the action, noting that unless she is scared to be beaten, Sasha does the opposite and says it is something her mother told her and let her have her moment to shine. After the two knock Mireille free, she notes she is not allowed to use the ship in such a manner anyway and runs off to Erica.
Back inside the manor, after hearing that Alita excels in healing Magik, though there are others like Simon and whatnot, Cuddles also mentions she needs two people as well that have special nanomachines. She reveals they seem able to bring back the dead and that is why she wants them; when Xanatos mentions if someone else, like himself, has any, she would not be interested in them, she notes she could kill him and see if they could bring him back and use them then, making Jaime state no killing her grandfather, even though Kyouki notes she could understand that sentiment. After Xanatos notes she should go talk to Kane after Cuddles takes a sample, she informs him that Kane is actually the one she is after, surprising him and asking if Lemon is the other target, leading to a comedy routine of Kane and Lemon are helping her to get Kane. The team agrees to help Cuddles get the other Kane if that is what is necessary to help this Vesper lady and they head for Xanatos' shuttle. As Aimée and Mélodie near the manor with Sasha, listening to Sasha state they should just upgrade their ship and beat her in a race, they proclaim that they are already faster than her thanks to Chelsea, hence wanting that race, and Chelsea seems angry in their behalf, noting the nerve of Mireille not playing with her daughters. When Cypher points out that she doesn't think Mireille is allowed to take out the Aquarius to "race", Chelsea hmps and notes they could race like other kids.
Location: Earth
The Royals meet up with Lemon's group outside Kane's political rally with Celidah and they begin to discuss how to approach this as the other Kane steps off the stage. Nicolette notes that they could just ask to talk to him and hope he's not an evil close, then pauses and hope he's not an evil clone before noting she has to stop reading Sparkling's books. Lemon uses her military clearance to get into the back room where Kane and Celidah are located and while heading there Jaime notes she sometimes forgets Kane is her uncle, before Kyouki notes she sometimes forgets Xanatos is Jaime's father, giving another jab. As they come face to face with OG Kane, Xanatos and OG Kane begin to talk, and it's clear something is not quite right when he doesn't greet Xanatos like a brother. At that moment the other Kane steps out from behind Xanatos, revealing himself to OG Kane, and lays it all out that V.I brought him back with nanomachines, as well as Celidah, and have implanted directives in their heads.
The two play dumb at first, listening to the group as OG Kane pours himself a drink, Celidah backing OG Kane up. Xanatos notes that they can take that personality out and OG Kane can be his own man, and the nanomachines can save a life, mentioning that some of them have had things in their heads before, bringing up Chad making up a "fake" personality before just to be a dickhead, leading Selena to ask if Chad really did that and if that was normal to Liana - it is not. OG Kane seems to think for a long while, then seems to give in rather easily, telling them to give him a moment hand holds out his datapad to take while he gets his coat. While Id scans the object and Chad backs the hell away, even Kane reaches into his coat for a EMP grenade. While OG Kane goes to get his coat, he notes to Chad that he's not very trusting. He then follows them out, smiling like a bastard before smiling like a politican and waving at the crowd, none in the group noticing Setsuna hanging in the room's rafters with her sword, whispering one word: "zombie".
Location: PAX
The team is gathered in the medical around Vesper, with OG Kane and Celidah to be deprogammed later. After Cuddles injects the nanomachines into Vesper, she steps back to let Jennifer begin her surgery of the brain/body once more to remove the growths and the healers repair any damage the surgery does. While Alita summons Brooke and Simon, Sparkling, Sabrina, and Nicolette prepare their magiks to assist her. As Jennifer does succeed in the majority of the surgery, the healers manage to accomplish the last little bit and finish the job as Jennifer collapses. Cuddles examines Vesper and notes that she will be fine and the magik helped heal any damage done with the surgery and Valen is relieved by the news, giviing Cuddles a kiss on the cheek and shaking Jennifer on the floor, while Nicolette seems pleased with the on hands training with healing magik and Sabrina notes she is drained. Rachael pats Valen and tells him she is glad for him that it all worked out.
During this outside in the waiting room, Xanatos and Chad sit and talk about various things like love letters Chad sends her, leading to Erevis noting she "ships" them, a new term she has discovered lately thanks to Jaime shipping her and Kyouki, and begins to draw a picture of Xanatos and Chad holding hands together with a boat behind them. The two then move onto the discovery on Geyze regarding Weapon XII, which Chad denies noting he wouldn't leave any trace with the stuff he uses, and notes he has Id to spy on them all. Xanatos jokingly states he reprogammed Id ages ago, which makes Chad truly have a good laugh.
Date: 12.18.5999
The holovid shows that Dias has won the presidency due to OG Kane dropping out of the race, leading to some people questioning why his opponent dropped out and some speculating that Dias "dealt" with him. The group bemoans another term with Dias, and that it is their fault. Nicolette muses that even she knows if that Dias "dealt" with someone, he'd just punch them into rehab. Xanatos points out he thinks Dias a good President, and that by good he thinks Stacey is a good President. Jaime then oddly asks if she can make her residence permanently on PAX and Geyze, baffling Erevis since she grew up on the PAX already, and Jaime does not need permission to do it on Geyze. Outside the three spirits prepare to run on foot and Mireille notes this feels wrong, due to the fact she is not fast on foot, but
Aimée and
Mélodie seem hyped up as Chelsea cheers them on. The two then take off and leave Mireille trying to catch up and stumbling along as she is soon lapped, even as Cookie tries to subtlely speed her up some.
As they are talking Lumi arrives with bad news, leading them to wonder what it is, and some to ask what happened and if something happened with Kumen. Lumi notes that the Kumen elections are over already and Ylva won, having depressed Riki and made Bigsby chase Ylva around due to it. She informs the team that the Ent and Naturalist Kingdoms are not on speaking terms or attending meetings of the Alliance anymore, and both Kingdoms are building armies outside the Peacekeeping forces. And worse yet she believes someone died in the Kaiser's family, either Mykel or Jules, and they are trying to keep it quiet for fear or it getting out. The team wonders if there are forces trying to break the Alliance up with all these things, but the group plans to split up and deal with each of the problems, with Jaime definitely going to deal with the Ents since it is her home and the others the Legion.
Session 443: Cracks in The Alliance
Location: The Great Forest
Erevis, Xanatos, Jaime, Gnome, Lana, SpoC, Asha, Sylph, Kyouki, Ellie, and Selena work their way to the main city where they see there is some tension between the two leaders, Leaf and Cassava; Cassava seemingly building dangerous defenses with her Venus, along with some Ents, while Leaf is looking on disapprovingly. Leaf explains that Cassava has become more military like and doesn't feel the Peacekeepers are enough and believes they should have their own force to protect themselves against other people, as well as beefing up their defenses. And Leaf is worried she is going back to her old ways of her people. While they talk a ferret messes with poor Ellie and Sylph who only wants fruit or messes with Asha and Kyouki. Although Leaf tries to dismiss them, the group convinces her to let Jaime meddle in the situation and she relents. While they discuss the merits of arming oneself or being a pacifist, the strange Venus who owns the Venus notes not all the Venus have forgotten what they were taught at the Academy about being diplomatic - good old Maeryn. The group asks Erevis if one can do psionic scans of monsters and other beings for signs of tampering and Erevis notes if it was psionic based, she might could do so.
They approach Cassava and find her training Ents and Venus on how to do battle and defend themselves and the group approache her. After she notes she will not stop her stuff, the team notes they will not do so and even agree to help her, though Maeryn notes the people should leave this all to her, but Cassava notes her dragons are useless in the Great Forest due to the trees being impassable. As Xanatos admires the defenses and Lana is strung up by vines before setting her down in Ellie's arm, leading to Lana noting how beautiful she was and leading to Sylph having a tantrum against Lana demanding fruit she doesn't have, the team begins to bond with Cassava. Cassava accepts Xanatos' aid in the defenses and notes if they can talk some sense in Leaf's head about this, then she will see about mending things with her.
Location: Pyyhric
Celes, Gwen, Alita, Sparkling Justice, Sasha, Simon,
Id, Liana, Cypher, Chelsea, and Ceilia work their way to the capital with some of the group joking they seem to come here all the time lately. As they reach the palace they are led in once the guards recognize Alita and are led to a waiting room, where Mélodie gets on Sparkling's lap since she has been getting close to her lately and might have secretly pacted with her - which shocks Aimée. While Chelsea is too tired to pay attention to her spirit children's antics, Shinobu and Rain show up in the waiting area where they lead them to Jules laying on a bed where he is dead. It seems he died from a broken neck in a horsing accident and Liana and Celes exchange looks, finding it suspicious.
They are led to the throne room where Mykel resides where Alita and Ceilia are all over him in seconds. Id queries about how Angi and Adrea responding to news of Jules' death and Shinobu notes they have not responded yet but she has no doubt they will make a move soon. As they talk Hapes walks into the room and Liana finds it even fishier at the timing. After Hapes goes to see Jules, the group debates abour him with only Alita being in his corner and Sasha noting even if he wasn't involved in his brother's death someone might have wanted him here for some reason. After he returns he tells them he will stay until only after the funeral then will go again and when asked where he he has been, he says he has been doing research and has been with someone, but has no interest in ruling; during the talks though the door opens and Agni and Adrea walk into the room.
Hapes puts his hood up to hide his identity and tries to leave while the two confront Mykel over the right to the throne. After Alita notes he gave up the throne in the combat with Jules, he pushes his daughter forward to be the Kaiser, who states she will be a fine leader. As Mykel says goodbye to Hapes, using his name in front of the two, he tells the two they will discuss this after the funeral.
Date: 12.21.5999
The team watches the funeral procession with many of them wearing somber clothing, except Mireille, Aimée, and Mélodie, who wear cute dresses that they tug at. Even Liana's grandfather attends, wearing the most amazing outfit known to man. When Id asks if Erevis is scanning minds, she states she is not going to scan minds during a funeral and Id notes that is a shame. After the funeral finishes and everyone pays respects, the Kaiser council begins to speak and notes that since Jules had no heirs and Hapes has no interest in ruling, they allow those who might wish to be Kaiser to step up, which Mykel and Adrea does so. After no one steps up, the council notes that they will accept the public votes and their own and begin the process of voting for the new Kaiser. It seems that write-in choices are also accepted, though it is noted those choices rarely win compard to the power of the Kaiser council's vote.
After the tally is done, Xanatos ends up with one vote from Erevis as a joke vote, but oddly Qui ends up with quite a few votes from the public, who attended the funeral to pay her respects. At first Asha doesn't seem to remember the name, but when she sees Qui she recalls her battle with her at the Amazons. Adrea gets 6 votes and it looks like she won when Mykel manages to get 7 votes and wins, leading to Kyouki jokingly saying she's sorry he lost. Id wonders if this will mean Mykel will fall off his horse next now. Shinobu informs them the the horse's saddle was designed to break at just the right time as they watch Mykel be crowned and offer his hand to Ardea; she takes it sullenly before joining her father. As they all prepare to go, Ymir and Ylva walk by and nod at them and Alita tells Mykel when she pounced them all those years ago in the Tower, she never imagined he'd make them Empresses. Shinobu however seems to become a little distant between them, as if his rise to power means having an heir between them might cause trouble down the road - especially if she died and said heir tried to take over both lands or whatnot.
Fumoffu Session 8: The One About The Holidays
Location: PAX
The club gathers on New Year's Eve to celebrate the coming New Year and to celebrate Christmas by exchanging presents among friends. As they all gather, many dressed in various festive outfits like Santa outfits or hats, or not like Adeline who is already hitting the alcohol despite being 16, they all soon come in. Even Theau shows up with Shion bringing a bundle of gifts from Isis to hand out to everyone and Taiga is quickly on her way to getting blasted from drinking too much as she hosts the club party. Ren and Yuki show up as well in a well treat, and to support their mother, chatting with Kaori who is doinga cosply like Japanese Christmas outfit. While Kitty shows up all nicely dressed up in a cocktail outfit, Hess shows up in her pajamas, probably being the strangest dressed, and one by one others like Moira, Rachael, Valen, and so also appear.
As the party begins, the gift giving begins slowly throughout the evening as the group hangs out with each other and the gifts range from thoughtful to rather lewd. Adeline getting a personal gift from Jaime in the form of a crystal shard of sorts, to Kaori getting one from Ren in the form a sex book, Kitty getting from Ren and Yuki a spirit holder for her 39 Sprites and for Hess a lucky coin and rabbit foot, as well as clothes made by them, and from Taiga a personalized game console for Kaori. However, during all this, Valen has begun to become a happy drunk and is reacting to things and Zegretta acts a little huffy for a bit, still a little snotty these days. When Durt insuates that Kaelan likes Valen, she reacts rather violently and that she doesn't like boys at all that way and gets huffy like Zegretta, making her comfort Kaelan.
While Taiga brings out a giant cake made by Shion for everyone to eat on, nearly tipping into it due to being drunk, Reikana begins to perform songs for the club. As Shion cuts Theau the first slice of cake, Erevis arrives with Xanatos to the club meeting, getting some greetings. During this Moira has Valen passing out on her while talking and when she tells Durt to leave him alone, the man instead just slaps prods him alone, leading to Valen to getting sick and needing to puke from his drinking. Pulling out garbage, or a trash can, who knows, Durt offers it to Valen to throw up in/on. While Kitty takes Taiga off to sober up as well during this in the back room since she can barely walk, Valen opts instead to swallow his puke, making Moira make a remark about losing all interest again.
After a bit, Valen is escorted out and Rachael gives Moira a look and goes to find him, leading to Moira feeling guilty and following him, but the two cannot locate him. But not before Rachael smashes cake in Durt's face as she goes and Shion insists he eats the cake and not waste it; Kaori calling for the Cake Police to arrest him and Thena calling herself the Cake Police. The rest of the group mostly ignores the chaos, as Erevis and Xanatos dance and enjoy themselves to Reikana's singing and the atmosphere going on. After a bit Taiga notes it's time to do a New Year's Eve game and proposes the King's Game, which Kitty quickly vetos and Xanatos notes that no one plays True American anymore, getting stares. Finally Taiga just gives up and tells them to do whatever they like to do.
They finally count down to the New Year and Racheal and Moira return, with Rachael ignoring Durt and claiming he likes to rewrite history. As it hits the New Year, Rachael seems to be doing something that causes her healing powers to be activating under her clothes as she stares out with a look. Erevis and Xanatos share a kiss for the new year and Xanatos notes this group reminds him a little of the old days. As the party slowly begins to end and Bix is left cleaning the club up as 10-641 begins though Shion promises to return to help later.
Session 444: The Very Long Night of Sasha Hapian
Location: Geyze
An Alliance meeting with the leaders who have decided to show up occurs with Lumi overseeing it, telling Qui, Kalam, Celes, Sasha, Cassava, Ylva, Shinobu, and Mykel about today's topic as well as prepare Mykel and Ylva for Alliance duty. While Id floats to the side spying on the meeting and Alita leans against Mykel, Lumi mentions that they are planning to vote on whether to align the Kumen/Geyze dates with the Galatic Standard Date system to match the rest of the universe. After some questions about the matter and even if it matters, mainly from Sasha, they vote to approve the motion and set up plans to help with the transition to the new date system. With the matter now settled, Lumi takes Mykel and Ylva off to learn how the Alliance works while everyone else heads out of the meeting room where Sasha runs into a messenger.
After reading the message from the servant, Sasha is informed that her mother is coming to the Academy to meet her, sending her into a panic, so she runs off to her temple. During all this the others are at the manor watching the snow and musing on the fact they need to deal with the Naturalist soon when they watch Sasha run by, leading to them comment in various comedic ways. While Sasha tried to hurry and get her Nymph staff to get things in order, 10 Hapian carriages roll into the Academy while the others watch, leading to Celes to recoil a bit as she observes. The carriages look to be aged and not well kept, showing that they are not very new and could use some upkeep, despite once being very powerful no doubt; as one servant emerges from the carriage and rolls a literal red carpet out on the snow to Sasha's front door, everyone pauses to watch, even Mireille, Aimée and Mélodie who have become friends. As servants poor out toward the temple as Sasha is prepared, Erevis wonders if she should do things like that and has Kyouki melt the snow in front of her to look more "badass".
Celes though seems shaken by the fact her Aunt has arrived, never one to be happy seeing her, even as Sasha lets her mother into the temple, noting that her Aunt puts her mother to shame. The group is given an invitation to go the temple to meet with Sasha's mother in a banquet, so they all prepare themselves, while Sasha greets her mother - Lucera. As evening comes around, the group makes their way into the temple and finds the servants have prepared a fine Hapian social event, where even Kito and Neekito are about, perhaps drawn to it. Sasha is about in a red dress to match her eyes and mood, while Gwen hides in the corner with alcohol to avoid the crowds; Jaime is in her finest forest gown, Sylph in a beautiful leaf gown, while Asha is in a simple elegant gown and Sparkling is a semi fancy outfit, for her. Lana goes to join Gwen in the corner, wearing a gothic ball gown.
While Celes drinks punch uneasily, Cypher and Chelsea dance to the music and seem unphased by the tension the Hapians are showing amongst themselves, except for Selena and Luna. While Selena lets Luna run wild around the party, Lucera arrives at the party and takes the head of the table that should be Celes', making the Queen note that she doesn't think her Aunt respects her that much. As they all take their seats, ending poor Luna's mischief early, Sasha asks her mother what brings her there, only to learn it has to do with her. Lucera informs Sasha that she is getting older and have not thought about producing an heir yet, giving Celes a look of distaste, before noting that Sasha needs to think about the family and legacy, so she has arranged a marriage for her. While everyone seems to be in varying stages of shock, responding in various ways, Sasha for once speaks back against her mother and asks why she should agree to such a thing. Lucera and Sasha move off to the side to continue their talk.
As they wonder if her defiance might get her cut off from the family branch - not that it matters since Celes is Queen and her word is law - Gwen points out it looks like to her that her mother is hurting for money and this might be a ploy to get some cash into the family coffers. As Liana and the others think on it, it seems to annoy Liana greatly as well as Celes. Off to the side, Sasha notes if Lucera needs coin she can turn to Celes or do something, but she is not marrying the person, leading to Lucera to return to the table and stating she has a terrible headache and leaving the party. Sasha sits down and informs them of what they spoke about and Celes notes she would see her dead before she would do such a thing, Asha seeming aghast at that. Sasha waves her hand, noting her mother wanted to see her on the throne and ruling the throne through Sasha. Erevis informs them that she scanned the surface thoughts of Lucera and she has some secret she kept from both Celes and Sasha, though she is not sure what it may be.
Now that the tension is over, the group decides to enjoy the party as best they can considering the circumstances. Luna causing mischief and Celes and Liana dancing. Kyouki peers at Erevis, wanting to dance with her but not sure if she could ask to do so without pushing things. Selena muses as she watches Jaime and Gnome move off to dance themselves, before moving off to dance with Sparkling Justice. Sasha herself decides to return to her rooms, and as the party winds down, Kyouki getting that dance she wanted, they all begin to head out of the temple, with Selena carrying Luna on her shoulders. However right as they begin to exit a malfunctioning carriage begins to drive right at Celes and Liana, about to run them down, when Liana shoves Celes to safety and is crushed herself. As Selena and Celes freak out about it, running over to the wreckage, and Celes gets Liana out of the wreckage, finding her impaled. Alita comes running and begins to use her healing magik while Sasha runs down from her rooms up high, running across one of her mother's servants in the hallways. While Alita and Talia use their powers to repair Liana's body, even calling up Brooke, and Celes uses her link with Liana to help out.
Sasha questions the servant and asks what they are doing at this time of night, finding them coy with their answers when they see they are holding something. Seeing it is a pendant she asks to hold it and so he turns it over, letting her touch it when she whites out. Outside the group all agrees it was definitely not an accident and begin to suspect Lucera.
Date: 1.6.6000 / 10-641.1.6
While Liana recovers in one of the manor's bedrooms, the others peer out the window at
Lucera's carriages leaving. Celes vows to find out if they had anything to do with Liana and they appear to be down one due to the accident, which the a servant apologizes as his fault due it being old. Sasha was found on the floor of the temple with a pendant in her hand, confused and shakey. While the team investigates what little they can still, they find that the carriage seems to be at least 25+ years old and that there was a servant scrap due to Asha's tracking skills. Gwen puts the scrap up and notes if they come across the same servant Asha can lead them to him. After some comedic stunts Lana finds that it looks like the carriage was sabotaged with a tool to make it lurch forward to try to kill Liana and Celes, and head back to report the information, not noticing Luna has found a clue as well as she plays in the scene, finding a servant's ring.
Timeline: 1.9.6000 soon to be 10-641.1.9
Session 445: Corrupted Darkness
Location: Geyze
The second semester has begun at the Academy and Celes is pampering Liana after the incident the other day while Jaime has made a statue in Liana's honor while Erevis studies the students to see which strange student will join that year. While Jaime notes they have gianed a Thena clone running around now, Lumi arrives after running in, exhausting herself, and drinks Xanatos' tea the second it finishes after he waited for ages. Before Xanatos can move off to exact his revenge, Lumi announces she has information on Chad Winters and pulls out photos of him leaving Aya's house at the Academy grounds. She then shows images of him heading out in the direction of the destroyed Weapon base that was being used to spy on people; she apologizes for the blurriness of the pictures but notes the Station is still being adjusted and that in a month or so it should be able to take better pictures and do scans. The group agrees a small detour can't hurt while going to see the Naturalist Kingdom.
The team soon sets out by carriage to Nature City in the Naturalist Kingdom, where they find they are arming thmselves as well with a small mercenary army and troops all about, leading to Sylph frowning. They move to meet with Helen, a were-tiger and sister of Max, surrounded by soldiers. After accepting a package from Jaime from Luci, Helen plays coy with her answers about why she is arming herself and tells them that she has been hearing the Ents are arming themselves, that the Spiriralist are up to something the Legion, now having a new Kaise that they plan to make a super empire with the Dark Lands, and there is finally the troubling rumors of the monsters on their island, not to mention something about some spy group on everyone. Jaime claims to Helen that the marriage betwen Mykel and Shinobu has been annuled, which is not true, and after some pressing and questions by Xanatos if she is certain, Helen accepts their word and seems to relax. But who knows what trouble this might cause down the road.
As they step out of the office, they all note the advisor with her and wonder if there's trouble there as they head for crater of Chad's weapon base. They do some scanning and discover something buried underneath but as the work they are interruped by an attack by the Corrupted Ice Spirit, who seems even more over the edge than last time. As she takes down Sylph hard, Jaime summons Salamander and so the Ice spirit brings out the Corrupted Water Spirit as back up, leading to Jaime using Gnome. Despite Ellie's protest for peace, Salamander leaps for the Corrupted Ice Spirit, who seems to want the tech that is in Xanatos' hands, that is nearing the end of it's scan process. As they probe the Spirits for information, learning that someone wants wants in their hands, the team wonders if they are using them, even as Xanatos helps Sylph recover. Xanatos tries to see if they recognize Chad or XII's name and he gets some recognization out of Chad's name from them.
As the two sides battle, Simon sees the Ice Spirits absorbs his ice wall and is curious if it helps. During this Xanatos' scan finishes and learns that this is part of XII and he wonders to the Spirits if they can take them to Chad. As Salamander and the Corrupted Water Spirit look ready to kill each other, the Corrupted Ice Spirit, a little calmer - maybe, makes a crazy grin and notes she could take them to him, making the team uneasy at the idea, but Ellie states it could be a sign of trust if they take it. They decide to go with Ellie's gut and the Corrupted Ice Spirit waves off the Water Spirit before she teleports them all without needing to touch them; they feel icky with corruptive energy but manage to appear in front of Chad at Aya's house and Xanatos notes he left his shuttle behind before reminds him he has a remote control to recall it. And he notes that during the teleport the Corrupted Ice Spirit stole the piece.
Lumi rushes up out of breath again and drinks down Chad's tea before announcing that there is activity on Monster Island and notes their spies are claiming they are raising an army and are activing aggressive for some reason. As Simon begins to lose his cool finally at the news of another army and Liana tells them she warned them all about this; this leads to the two having a snip at each other before the group heads to the island. They arrive at the island and find that there are more Princess monsters and monsters of combat than before as they are led to Autumn and when asked about her forces, she notes that there have been a few threats to her lately. She tells them that Gartareh has taken down another God and that she will not sit here waiting for him to come take her down, plus she notes there are many in the Alliance that wish to destroy her. She reveals a message in Hapian that she is not trusted so she sent out spies to various Kingdoms and notice their advisors have been pushing to have me destroyed.
Autumn runs her hand along Jaime's body and asks if she could talk to the Ents, noting if she could be given some of the Great Forest, she could deal with the monster problem for them forever. The team drags Jaime away as she babbles and Xanatos makes a note to have Lorelei's group check anyone she's touched to remove marks. Celes protests she wrote no message of the sort as they reach the Academy and Lumi runs up out of breath, reaching up for something to drink which Thena provides, informing them that Sparkling might have flooded the area when she heard the word evil, so Jaime turns stuff into mud to play in it, leading to Erevis to tease her.
Timeline: 10-641.Beginning of the Year
Fumoffu Session 9: Looking Into the Clones
Location: PAX
As the club opens Kitty brings Taiga something to drink as she looks tired and grump, tapping her pen on the desk. As the two converse, the others begin to pour in slowly and Kitty gets some snacks through a ripple since Shion seems to be taking the day off by sitting on the couch instead of serving everyone. Informing the team that she doesn't have anything on the docket - before cutting off that no they are not going to look into Meth Gators - she opens it up to anyone having anything that needs to be looked into right now. They discuss Hess a bit not being there due to not feeling good and Kitty notes when a Weapon feels bad it must be a while, which makes Chad raise an eyebrow, and Taiga jokes that maybe Kaori got her pregnant, earning a look from her. Shion discusses that her mothers have been acting weird lately but since they are weird by nature it might be nothing and the club dismisses getting involved with family drama from Kellin to Moira who even says not my family drama.
Thena suggests a pirate adventure which Taiga point blank ignores as she keeps jotting notes, stating she has been keeping an ear on the ground and noting she has been hearing things, in regards to Shion's statement, but moves on. Eventually Taiga calls an end to the club since there seems to be nothing and some in the club are tired, then walks out of the room. Kaori and Kitty make plans to go see Hess after doing some shipping, while Zegretta and Kaelan plan to hang out with people who want to do it. Shion heads out to keep an eye on Theau to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble and walks out herself. Kellin asks if these meetings usually go this way, acting like he always attends them, and Jaime notes Taiga seemed a little tired today while Zegretta states she seemed to outright not give a shit. Kaori tells about a weird dream she had where there was a world with burgers trying to eat people and the dream sounds a lot like the events going on over at Geyze lately with the Mirror Universe. And with that she finally steps through the ripple into the market to shop with Kitty.
During all this Taiga goes to her lab and looks up information with her glove, bringing up screens and after determing something, she sets out through the PAX teleporters without telling anyone even though Si tails her part-way. And with that the team exits to go their own way. A few weeks later for the next club meeting, Taiga is not there and since Thena is the next Chair Person, she begins to take control of the meeting. Thena immediately begins to have them go on a pirate adventure - which seems to be really a girl's day out for a shopping trip, though she talks in heavy pirate talk and has Heaven prepared to take them to a Cartel world in her ship. The group reluctantly goes along first but soon they decide that a day off to shop sounds just the thing, especially if they can drag Chad into it.
Hess and Kitty meet them at the ship with Kaori, where Hess immediately points out she is not pregnant, and everyone boards the ship. As they lead into hyperspace to the Cartel Planet, Kitty begins to ask questions about Taiga not being there and no one has heard anything from her not showing up and Thena assumed she simply did not show up due to overwork. While Zegretta does Kaori up with light makeup to bring out her features, and Hess taking pictures of her afterward, Kitty hooks up to Taiga's datapad since Taiga allows her access to her network. There Kitty finds that Taiga went off to investigate something because she was bored and she'll be back in a few weeks as well as a pinging system to where her datapad is located back on Earth - not moving. Studying the notes Taiga left behind, Kitty finds out that she was studying information on clones, V.I, Isis, Sun V.I, Miyuki, and Chad and Aya.
Once they land on the Cartel World, those that want to come along and not go on Thena's pirate adventure use the Suisen Empire teleport network system to go back to Earth to investigate where Taiga was last located and find facility in disuse that was used to clone body parts people need. As they move inside they find the building has taken quite a bit of damage from some sort of battle, perhaps, with metal and stuff all over the place. Kitty ripples them down to the basement where the signal is coming from and they find Taiga skewered in a spiral of metal in the heavily damaged basement, bleeding out and unconscious, her datapad a few feet away. It looks like she has been bleeding out for a long time. Chad uses a medical stim to bring Taiga awake and she barely has any energy to speak and focus on them.
She informs them she was looking into clone stuff when she ran into an old enemy - a multitude of them - the V.I Venerators. Being led by someone that didn't want to reveal their face. It seems some of the clones had survived the anti-virus sweep years ago. Chad has Kitty use her ripple to cut the metal in Taiga andf free her while Jennifer and Sammael arrives on the scene and Adeline worries about running into the Venerators since one tried to take over her body long ago. At that moment something begins to try to bring the building down on them and so they leap through the ripples Hess and Kitty make to escape from the situation. Once outside of the building Chad has Kitty unlock Taiga's datapad, which brings about Mini/Chibi Taiga, the datapad's guardian to the forefront.
While they are doing this Jaime brings out the buried Venerator and he launches himself at Jaime while Si leaps out and does a flaming kick to him. While Hess does bad luck on him to make it harder for the target to fight, Kitty has Mini Taiga send the information to her server and shut down during the fight. While Michiru draws aggro and it attacks her by throwing stuff, it is thrown back and rippled, sparking from the combined attacks soon. The machine soon begins to graft metal and machines onto it's body to become bigger and stronger and Hess manages one more bad luck, giving Jaime enough time to burn it with a hyperspace attack in her Gnome combine form and reveal the core but it decombines them. At that moment, Si, Michiru, and Kaori all fire their attacks into the core and blow it up.
After the fight Kitty rubs the datapad like a cat, making Mini Taiga purr like a cat at her; when she asks to transfer the documents to him as well, she complies and sends it over to him, but he blocks it out so she can't send herself, making her huff. Back at the club, Mini Taiga sits and messes with Kitty's sprites and plays with them, while the team goes over what they learned and what might have drove Taiga there in the first plus. They discuss Theau and if he might have ties to that place or not, but in the end it will be up to Isis to look into it.