Location: Geyze
Over the past few months - less time in Prime for many months for Geyze/Kumen - Rada and Drasek have both been in contact with the other Erevis who is simply known as The Empress. For Rada, she explained the situation and what will be coming in 15 years or so, the return of the serpent Nidhogg, and how she lost in her turn but was brought back like Samson and Cherry. Explaining her actions - taking the PAX, her actions toward Erevis, and being honest about her own Progenitor nature, she tells Rada that since she knows he is one of the few preparing for what is coming she wants to help him be stronger, first with basic combat training then will move on to learning other stuff. She admits to a few things about Erevis and her hopes about her to him and since Ao's daughter is working for the Empress - as is Ao now after being defeated by the Empress - and all of them are alive, either the Empress has everyone fooled, or maybe she is being honest about defeating the Nidhogg.
Drasek, after the incident in 325, speaks with the Empress and confirms Ao is alive, learns what the Empress is up to these days and learns about Nidhogg as well as her goal to deal with the serpent in 15 years. She also confides in the Progenitor about her desires to see something else from Erevis before Drasek returns to Geyze. She also mentions the Progenitor flaw about emotions and the various way it can appear and why Erevis has always run from her Progenitor nature. Over the past few months as well, an incident in the Zhenmei house where the 13th God finally rose and some of the Zhenmei family left to help deal with it - Lenneth seemingly vanishing that night, as did Godiva and Aschae with Xanatos and Erevis' blessings. And the satalite coverage from the PAX is finally nearly completely installed to help detect the Outlaws.
In present day, it is nearing what we would call Halloween but for the Daemon's their apex of their Demonic Month, Erevis' family along with Celes, Liana, Selena, Lana, SpoC, Alita, and Mykel decide to travel to the Academy to enjoy the celebrations, some of them putting on special costumes that transform the user into the outfit - such as a Lilin or catgirl. Arriving at the Academy they are greeted by many of their friends from the Academy who are already enjoying the celebrations and they all begin to spread out to enjoy the various booths and activities. Xantos and Erevis find Aya and Eve doing a kissing booth, so Erevis pays the fee to give Aya a long kiss while Xanatos takes a picture to send to Chad with the caption that Aya is part of Erevis' harem, though at the moment Chad does not seem to receive it (See Session 350 and 352/Anniversary 21).
Thena is also there, visiting from her searching of Cheryl and Chii, who also has with her a strange purple haired familiar that Bonnie takes note of and attempts to learn more about off to the side away from others. Athena walks about with her daughter, showing her the sights, while Selena tells Lana about a singing/band concert to win some witch gear/outfits, which has Lana run off to compete in against Ceilia. Luna plays with Fae who is also there enjoying the holiday and the two kids run around playing with each other, much to Selena's enjoyment, since she loves to spoil her sister. She also spends time with her mother - Liana - trying out various food dishes like fried tentacle while spotting that her mother is having a strange lilin contest with Sasha, both of them getting into a strange sexy battle, their costumes driving them to act like Lilin. Xanatos and Erevis enjoy playing pranks in the haunted house, while the antics outside continue, causing their own antics.
Date: 10.31.5997
Location: Geyze
After several days of the Daemon celebrations continue, a few of the team decide to drag themselves to the final day, the long nights of the celebrations beginning to wear on them. Erevis and Xanatos decide to tease each other on the way to the Academy, joking about what they will wear and deciding to wear the topless Amazon outfit. Wearing a coat, the group arrives where Shion is doing her rounds and bumps into Kaylin who is wearing a sexy-slave girl outfit, which gets Shion to do a double-take since Kaylin has wore no costumes up until now and went with something outrageous. Sylph also arrives, having skipped out on most of the celebrations to train and moves about to seek out Ellie and Fae and enjoy the good food. Xanatos and Erevis reveal their outfits - Erevis wearing a topless Amazon outfit and Xanatos wearing an Amazon outfit as well (thankfully no Amazons noticing), which earns a shocked laugh out of Amazon and Jaime being horrified by her parents.
After enjoying the celebrations for a while though trouble soon raises it's head when a group of daemons attempt a ritual on the special night when the planets are aligned just right and the month being on it's apex, and they managed to unleash a 13th Hour, with everything going green. Those with daemon energy begin to feel super charged and their baser daemon desires begin to be rioted, with Shinobu struggling not to drain Mykel as she eyes the daemons doing the ritual. Once the team learns that they are trying to free an ancient daemon that Shinobu's family freed, they work and defeat the daemons and destroy the circle, ending the Dark Hour for good. However, unknown to them, during the Dark Hour a group of Daemons elsewhere have a daemon woman laying on a slab with a dark aura around her like something out of a Japanese horror movie and the second is an ancient monster they have managed to summon that looks like cute little critter of cthulhu looks that gives headaches and nose bleeds if you look at it for too long, draining sanity even from daemons.
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The Thena Side Story continues (pt. 1), Bonnie notices Rio and the unusual Familiar's purple hair, since familiars do not have purple hair - either the standard Blue or the very rare white. While Thena is there, Bonnie talks to Chelsea and has the family examine Rio so they can learn more and take samples of her to learn more. Having Caesune Gaune, Chelsea's mother, look her over, and examine Bonnie to do a comparison, they notice some differences and oddities. Showing how Bonnie is lit up with magic circuits and her body is designed to throw magik through her to keep her alive, use it, and channel it, and it's shaped much like Chelsea due to the bond. She shows how bright it is due to her familiar nature. She then shows Rio's scans and how there is no brightness in her and her circuits are like that of a fighter, Caesune notes to Chelsea, and uses chi not magik. Caesune concludes that Rio was designed to take magik from their meister to power up their chi attacks and fighter power, though she does point out how there is dormant magik circuits in Rio; and that Rio can use familiarize but it'd be very dangerous for her since Rio's lifeblood is magik yet has little ways to gain it. Bonnie takes notes of the scans and samples, looking intrigued by the concept of the fighter familiar.
Location: Royals Floor, Hapian Castle
Almost everyone has brought out their finest for an official Alliance ceremony; the satelites have been completed and Shion is to announce that the outlaw groups that have flocked to Geyze and Kumen will be tracked down and brought to justice. Erevis is planning to attend so she can stare the Empress down; Alita, Ceilia, Celes and others are going as spouses of the Royalty, and others are going just for the free booze...like Drasek. When Lana finds out that this concerns technology, she realizes that she is grossly underdressed and gets aid from Alita. As the girls play dress-up, a shuttle crash-lands atop Xanatos's work shed; Jaime suggesting that a shuttle has come back for revenge against him.
When Celes, Erevis and others arrive at the shuttle to investigate they're greeted by several kids, X and what appears to be Cheryl. Having escaped from Earth's pursuit, they have come seeking asylum for the youngsters before they return home to fight against the Shapeshifters. Quickly understanding that this is a matter for Erevis to work out, since Celes is part of the Alliance and therefore a part of the Suisen Empire, they head off to the Ceremony. "Cheryl" messes up and reveals herself to be Lemon, and despite Adeline having mental shields against probes, Erevis agrees to watch over the children.
At the Ceremony, with Celes, Liana, Alita, Ceilia and others arriving just as Shion finishes her speech (which hasn't gone un-noticed); with the announcements complete, and open invitation for individuals to assist the Alliance groups, Shion opens up the ceremony to a more relaxed feel reception where she begins mingling and talking with people. Selena going to sign up to help the Alliance.
Later, the Alliance team consisting of Selena, Cypher, Sasha, Jennifer, Sammael, Athena, Bix, Simon, Bonnie, Chelsea, Liana, Alita, Ceilia, and Id is transported to the Naturalist Kingdom to begin searching for the Outlaws. The satellites transmitting signals to arm-bracers that can show overhead views of the forest and activity around them; however the satellites aren't able to detect the low-tech traps that greet them...or the mines that have been set up. With Sasha having found one of the mines by accident and stepping on it, the team works together for the first time to identify strengths and weeknesses while also discovering their capabilities. With a mix of Ceilia and Simon's frost and ice magic, and Id providing scanning for the devices, the mines are dealt with.
Finding another trap and sensor at a stream crossing, they have Celsius freeze the entire stream allowing them go get where they need to go and not be soaking wet (there is sadly, a lack of wet t-shirt contestants or jokes). They finally arrive outside of a small camp, about 20 outlaws of various races and some very surprising highly advanced weapons. Deciding on a simple plan, surround and capture, Bix starts things off when everyone is in place by marching into the camp blasting a loud announcment of his own to cause confusion amongst the outlaws. It works well, several of them running off to get nabbed in the forest, others grabbing for weapons...one weapon in particular getting aimed at the combined Aska/Selena and knocking them out of their form. Sasha destroys the weapon before the rest of the Outlaws are brought to heel, many of them missing teeth or unconscious, several missing hands due to Selena/Aska's unrestrained swordplay, and some glad to be blocked in ice.
Afterwards, Celes muses while reading the report on the mission; wondering whether it was Aska or her daughter that had been that brutal.
Session 350: The Seven Heroes of Legend
Location: Hapian Castle, Royals Floor
As Selena and Liana return all dirty from their mission with the Alliance, the team hears loud noises outside the Hapian Castle and some peer outside to see Sylph and Gnome training, with Gnome usually winning since her element has the upper hand against Sylph - the Earth Spirit winning 4 out of 5 battles; but the two seem to be training mostly to get stronger so they do not become out of it when they are around the Dark Spirits with their elements. Celes calls forth a meeting about the descendants of the Ancients that went out to form the 7 Kingdoms that became modern Geyze and goes over their mission statement since it has been a few months since they have touched base on it last - having been looking for a possible lead this entire time using the map Shinobu gave them. Lana asks a few questions and they muse what happened to the descendants/families since not all the leaders have the Ancient Hero blood in them, like the Hapians or Shinobu's family or Qui's family, making them wonder if something bad happened.
After finishing, Celes gathers supplies in a huge backpack and decides to join the team, so she, Liana, Selena, Erevis, Jaime, Xanatos, Lana, SpoC, Alita, Ceilia, Ellie, Mykel, and Drasek teleport to the Legion's capital, with Drasek basically forced to after the Hapian guard chases him to the teleporter, much to Celes' confusion as Drasek lands on top of the group on the other side, causing a scene. After untangling themselves the team notes how the Legion is changing and looking more and more modern with large screens showing advertisement and has a more Earth/PAX feel to it, losing it's Romanish feel as time goes on unlike the other cities that are blending the modern stuff with their culture as time goes on.
As the team leaves and begins to enter the Lava Plains, Sylph begins to complain at the lack of wind and each of them begin to feel more and more heat, slowing down as lava actually covers the ground in areas. While Drasek seems unphased and earns glares from Selena, Jaime summons Salamander to aid the team in crossing the lava plains. After teasing them a bit as the team debates the merits of Drasek being a hobo due to what he wears - and Erevis promising to buy him a maid and new suits - she gives the team fire shields to be able to walk across the lava streams and the team tentatively continues to walk along the burning fields until they come across tree that somehow has survived all this time with dried up fruit. Tasting the fruit it restores their stamia and energy - after learning that Spirits cannot be poisoned by food easily but can tell if food is poisoned for others - they rest at the tree and talk for a bit before continuing. Meanwhile, Jules looks over the reports of Celes' people going into the lava plains and wondering why a person such as Celes would tread there chasing legends, dismissing it as rubbish. Hapes nods in agreement and steps out of the room with a frown and leaves Jules zooming in on the section with a spy satelite that Shion has installed and reaching for a communication device.
After traveling an hour or so the team arrives in a valley with holes carved into them that looks like they might have once been lived in long ago, believing they might have found what they are looking for after all this time. They debate on the looks of this place, since it does not match any of the current day Legion cities or culture, and even has a bit of some of the Pueblo culture on Earth. Spreading out the team begins to examine the various holes for clues that might lead them to the Fire Hero that they came to find out about and where his descendants are now. Sylph locates some tools such as an old sword, which Ellie and Lana immediately check out and try to determine more about it. Seeing it is ready to break due to old age Lana has Sylph put it down gently and Mykel examines it for markings, telling them it is a precussor to what would become the Legion swords, it is that old. Xanatos scans the area and find something buried under some rock so Jaime and Gnome works to unbury it while the others keep looking around the place.
Sylph and Ellie fly up to a higher hole and examine it while Erevis and Xanatos, along with some others, walk further ahead down the valley. Finding a mummy up in the hole, Lana climbs up to join them and begins to examine the mummy eagerly, looking it over and finds an undamaged Ancient egg device. During this Jaime and Gnome begin to free an ancient sword while Liana, Erevis, Selena, Xanatos, and the others up ahead begin to sense someone up ahead just when some Outlaws ambush them and attempt to either capture them or kill them. Working together they begin to repel the Outlaws when they are also attacked by the Dark Fire Spirit, Dark Wind Spirit and Dark Earth Spirit, who are aiding the Outlaws.
The Dark Wind Spirit battles Alita, trying to seperate her from the others by flying her up into the air to fight after she summons Undine and fuses with her. The Dark Earth spirit keeps looking at Xanatos and seems unwilling to fight, until when things begin to heat up as the Dark Fire Spirit begins to throw fire at the magic shields erected, begins to move off to the side. Ellie notes the Dark Spirits will continue to be a thorn in the team's side it seems to Sylph as the two fight the Outlaws and Fire Spirit, who seems intent on melting the team. However a moment later the Dark Earth Spirit forms a rock shield dome to protect the team and keep her sisters from getting to them, making the Fire Spirit keep throwing fire at it to try to get to them; though Alita is trapped outside. The team uses it to debate what to do as Mykel brings Alita down to the rock surface with the TK, even if she is on the other side, while they debate what to do once the rock wall shatters.
As Undine and Alita seperate, Alita tries to talk to the enraged Dark Wind Spirit, who begins does begin to talk until Drasek throws knives in her back, having been hiding during the fight and was not trapped in the rock dome. Enraged at the trick to lower her guard, she seems to want Alita dead even more, especially since she already blamed the team for the damage to the machine that houses their Dark Water Spirit. Jaime has Salamander rejoin them and fills her in on what is going on, making the Fire Spirit frown and look a bit weak around the Dark Fire Spirit. Drasek knocks a hole in the rock dome and as the Dark Wind Spirit becomes enraged and gathers her power; Celes puts the two items into her backpack so they can hurry and escape. Slipping back into the hole, Drasek and Alita rejoin them but so does the Dark Wind Spirit, who tackles them and begins to do battle once more with them.
Deciding the team needs to get out of there, Gnome notes she cannot teleport and it has never been one of her abilities. By now the Dark Fire Spirit has busted a hole as well to fight them while the Dark Earth Spirit hangs back, not wanting to fight. Ellie threatens them to not hurt Sylph, since the Dark Wind and Fire Spirits seem crazed and angry, their presence making Sylph fall to her knee weakened. Xanatos notes, after one of the Spirits says they are being paid to capture them all, that he'd like to know but the spirits refuse to say other than pointing to the Outlaws and that they are doing jobs to get the parts for the machine. The Outlaws pointed to shift into Shapeshifters, surprising some of the Outlaws with them who apparently were unaware. Deciding to retreat, Sylph and Salamander begin to warp the group out of them and Lana has to hurry and grab onto someone as the two spirits pull the team out of there barely in time, especially with the Outlaw weapons going through the magic shields until Jaime forms a stone wall to stop them.
Reappearing in the Royals Chambers, they find Neekito who is playing with Fae and Luna nonchalantly, peering down at the team. Lana bemoans the lost of the mummy as Gnome returns home, being exhausted a lot lately due to the amount of summons from her Great Forest by Jaime and the training By Sylph - being a bit of a NEET Summon. Salamander notes the Dark Fire Spirit is bad news due to reeking of bad intent and warns the others to becareful. She notes the corruption might affect them mentally to some degree and to look out, making Xanatos wonder if it might work to their adventure somewhat. Ellie hugs onto Sylph during all this while Liana free Celes who was tied up and almost dragged off by the Outlaws in the end. Erevis points out that the Dark Earth Spirit kept eyeing Xanatos and wonders if there is something up with that when Fate arrives out of nowhere, having been traveling a lot with Thena lately due to her search for Cheryl and what will happen to Cheryl if her fate is not changed.
Fate, who seems a little younger by a year or two, begins to note all the groups are converging in a central point to do with the shapeshifters. She notes the Earth Team led by Marcus was captured in the prison cube in space after attempting to rescue their family and were thrown into the very prison they were trying to get into. After that they tracked down Lemon's team and almost shot them down before attempting to grab Lemon and Erevis' people since they had contact with them. Fate notes it will mean the group will likely join Lemon's team in going to the Prison Cube to help out there and aid them in the breakout and help them. And finally she reveals that some of the space team led by Taiga and Lorelei was ambushed while getting supplies. They were gassed and many of them knocked out and thrown into the prison while some of them managed to make it back to the Aquarius and escape the place. Fate notes that they will head to the prison cube to free their friends and if they time it they can join them in breaking them out.
The team muses on how this is bad and Celes notes this one adventure she does not wish to take part of and Liana notes she would rather deal with tentacle monsters. Fate lights up and seems to have a vision, noting that the tentacle monsters grow larger every day and she observes it attacking their cities and Lana seems fascinated at the idea, so Liana gives her a book. Selena throws her hands up at how nonchalant everyone is at hearing the idea of fighting such things, the bane of women. At that moment Fate notes to the team they are about to have a decisive moment that might change the course of their history but cannot tell them more without turning into her smaller form, before vanishing.
Moving into the dorm area they find the Dark Earth Spirit in Xanatos' room and they cautiously talk to it and learn more about the spirit. Admitting she cannot remember name the Dark Spirit seems interested in Xanatos since he saved her life when the Cartel agent was draining her life/energy even after the Dark Earth Spirit had begun the save in process. Xanatos evades the question on what type of person he is and if he can fix the machine and asks about her sisters and so she admits the war changed them all and they now have their moments and she begins to sound a little unhinged and says one day their spirits will be used up and replaced like they were used and when they die they'll be replaced and forgotten. Setting down the bluepritns of the machine with the missing parts, Xanatos asks what they will do with their freedom and the spirit admits that they want to find the rest of them and then live in peace; at least most of them - some want to get revenge at Aska and Shade and others.
Asking her to try to talk to her sisters not to do bad things and maybe talk them into meeting Xanatos, she says she will try. But she is the lowest ranking one of them. With that she leaves and the team wonders if she can be trustworthy and if they made the right decision to change the future Fate was talking about.
Location: The Alliance Area
Shion looks over the outlaws captured as their injuries are seen to by Jennifer and other healers, eyeing the weapons that were recovered and reports of what some of them were capable of. A discussion arises about the balance of power shifting due to Geyze and Kumen's arrival in the reality, and what may come about in the future. Finally, a decision is made that in order to get the proper information from the Outlaws, they'll be split up and questioned at length...though one lucky Outlaw get a flash of boob from Jennifer much to the surprise of many.
Date: 11.2.5997
Location: Hapian Castle, Geyze - Royals Floor
Erevis and the Royals team have returned to consider what they found in the fire plains; the ancient sword, the egg-shaped device, the mummy and their encounter with the corrupted spirits. As they continue analyzing the sword and egg in detail; they find that the sword is an actual Fire Sword artifact that will burn with fires equal to that of Salamander herself when held by the right individual, keyed to the phrase "Burning Sword of Justice". With a Salamander copy providing only limited information, Aska is called to provide additional insight, the Salamander Copy fading away while the main Salamander is preoccupied at the Legion Palace.
The egg, Aska reveals is best described as an Ancient Memory Journal, that records events from a single persons perspective; after charging the egg with Spirit Energy, Aska leaves to attend other matters. The egg opening to allow them to review events; the planning between the suspected Fire Hero and another Ancient, their friendship, their discussions of the past and the corrupted spirits. It goes on to show the Fire Hero starting a family, gaining a wife and eventually a daughter...the friend growing jealous and eventually acting on it when the daughter was perhaps 10-12 years old, poisoning the Fire Hero. The wife and daughter having left beforehand as a precaution.
As the group muses and considers the events from the egg, Erevis considers something entirely different; whether Alita, Ceilia and Mykel have given thought to this search possibly bringing about a claim against the leadership of the Legion itself...and have the Legion Leaders throught about it as well? Lana suggesting that the safest place for the Wife and Daughter of the Fire Hero may have been in the Amazon and could have been the root cause for the rivalry between the two kingdoms in the distant past. As they consider retrieving the mummy from the fire planes, others start preparing for the trip to the Cube Prison.
On the shuttle waiting for the trip to the Prison, Erevis, Reese, Xanatos, Drasek, SPoC, Lemon, Jaime and X are joined by a much younger looking Shion trying to hide her identity and involvement in going against EarthGov to rescue her mothers.
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The Thena Side Story continues (pt. 2), after leaving Geyze when the datapad beeps and traveling back to a Cartel sector, Thena and Rio grow closer with cuddling and getting to know each other while Thena tries to hire Mercy and charter a ship to the deeper sectors of the Cartel sectors where the signal is from. Eventually though a ship does come for Thena and it turns out to be Heaven of all people, who came due to Thena's inquries of help and it seems Heaven, who has always been one of the children who has kept to herself in the family, has taken to working the spaceways. Stating that she will take Thena to her destination if she wishes, and at the same time Mercy states her fee is 100,000 credits beforehand and 100,000 after the assignment is finished, it seems things are finally falling into place for her. It seems Fate has been doing her poof thing for a while, and the reason being a lot of the team has been captured in a Prison Heaven explains as she leads them to her ship and Thena puts together Fate is drawn to major incidents. Heaven updates her on other situations going on but it is obvious the shapeshifters have been striking back with this incident.
Taking Thena to the planet she wanted, Thena, Rio and Heaven meet Mercy at the planet, who managed to get ahead of them and teams up with her. She seems in disbelief she is being hired just to bodyguard Thena but states it's her money. After hearing the details, Mercy floats off somehow and investigates while Thena looks into the game servers Taiga's MMO has to see if Chii is playing them. Returning she informs them that a woman of Cheryl's description was seen in the city and they go looking; when Thena asks how Mercy did that "flying" thing and wonders if it is a Spirit, Mercy states without emotion she cannot fly and has no spirit, she simply can glide. Infact, it almost seems Mercy has no emotions outside anger. Thena marks her and Mercy eyes her like she might do something but since it is a client and job, allows it for now - until the job is done.
Narrowing it down to a hotel, people there respond to pictures of Ben stating that yes, a man around here kind of looks like him but the hair is a little different. However, before they can learn more, the group is attacked by a man and a woman who demands they call off the search for "the woman". Since Thena refuses, the woman states she will have to delay them and a battle breaks out until they attack the building and begin to make it collapse, forcing them to try to evacuate and protect the people inside. However, Thena did manage to slap the woman's butt as she escaped, marking her. Thena is left wondering with how they operated and their energy hands if they are dragoons, weapons, or something else.
Timeline: 10-639.5.13 / 11.2.5997
Anniversary 21 / Session 352: The Cube
Location: Inside the Prison Cube
The opening scene reveals that Marcus' team had been captured a few weeks ago while doing their mission and have been forced to work inside the giant Prison Cube all this time, learning that some EarthGov officals run it along with Shapeshifters that help maintain it. Over time Taiga's team is thrown in as well, having been captured and the two teams and they are now forced to work together if they are going to escape this place. During one of their breaks from the hard labor, the team muses on their situation, with the nulling affect many of them are not doing well with the situation - some of them having shut down entirely, not used to being without their powers. And it is the first time that some of them have been together, such as Cel, Durt, and Chad all being in the same room, making some of the team eye them - and they take advantage of it off to the side. However their little break does not last forever as a Ridiarium sizes them up and begins to make threats, especially toward Dias. While the two begin to fight, the others simply watch until Marcus defuses it by telling the Ridiarum that he managed to kill Dias.
As the fight ends, a strange Tsivrixsh wearing an eyepatch approaches Erica and has the gall to take her chin and talk to her, commenting that the group is standing out a lot with their antics and that the guards will not protect them in here. When Pepper protests that Erica gets all the attention from mysterious strangers, the Tsivrixsh notes he was going to make the offer to each of them one by one, patting her head, and notes that he will help them get out of the place but he needs a group. As he moves off Dias notes he should stay and try to take over the prison and run it which gets looks from the prisoners, making Darien note that didn't seem to like that idea. At that moment Asarar shows up wearing a guard uniform, with Sunny beside her, and they begin to order the team to move along, even giving Dias a foot stomp. As they move the team onto their shifts, Asarar holds a device to block any listening devices and notes to Sunny that she has detected the Aquarius and another ship approaching soon and then will be the time to open the cells - especially since Sunny plans to grab a few prisoners.
That night while the teams are in their cells, Taiga studies Sunny outside in the hallway and Chris in her cell, finding the twins concept a little strange, mainly due to how different they act. The others in their cells try to deal with night time - Sabrina, Peper, and Reikana not so well, Darien doing exercises to try to get his body back in shape, Yuki missing Erica's body, Dias attacking walls, Cel meditating, Marcus exercising and so on. Meanwhile Marcus' cell open and three prisoners attack them, following up on the actions from early that day, so that Dias has to watch his friend; however Marcus manages to hold his own well, even as the team moves up to their cells to watch. During the fight Asarar opens the cells after disabling any cameras so the team can come out, though Marcus has managed to take down two of the prisoners on his own. As they are escaping the pirate Tsivrixsh tells them they'll need his help to escape the place as he knows the way to the maze exit - even while the team each makes snide remains about why they would need this womanizer who seems to have an all female group surrounding him. Calling himself Xsh'ed, his real Tsivrixsh name unknown, he claims to have studied under Captain Red long ago.
Angela opens his cell and Xsh'ed begins to guide them through the prison, even as Truth and Wyrd talk, having been reunited a few weeks ago, though the two seem a little awkward after Truth's encounter with the fake Wyrd. The Tsivrixsh reveals they are in a giant cube with the inside being a maze like cube with traps so the guards do not properly patrol it, figuring any prisoners that try to find the exit will be killed. While the team is heading for the entrance, Sunny meanwhile gathers some of the prisoners to help her with her side mission. Thanks to Asarar the team meets no guards and soon they each a hatch where the room layout is in a cube layout with numbers, where they have to figure out the puzzle of the letters and numbers and which rooms are safe, not knowing they have to match the two sets of prime numbers to navigate a series of rooms to the exit. Working together the team begins to move from room to room, sometimes having to backtrack as they move forward.
Location: Outside the Cube
The Aquarius manages to send a shuttle over with Lemon, X, Erevis, Jaime, Drasek, Shion, Xanatos, Kellin, Rachael, SpoC, Si, Leruste, Moira, and Cookie arrive onto the outer Prison area and meet up with each other as they proceed along toward the hatch, leaving the Aquarius waiting nearby. As they begin to enter the Cube proper the nulling inside affects them as well and hits the team just like those captured, surprising those who rely on their powers. Erevis suggests Drasek go back to the outside proper when he is affected harder than most and he complies and they too begin to navigate the maze, helping each other and trying to figure out the numbers and letters, slowly figuring out the puzzle over time. Using articles of clothing to activate traps they begin to get further and further into the Cube and slowly begin to learn which rooms are dangerous as they get deeper inside.
Location: Inside the Cube
The other team slowly begins to figure out the letters/numbers combination as well as they work their way through the rooms, slowly making notes on a paper. Having made a few wounds and mistakes along the way they begin to get further along having done three floors deep it feels like and many rooms along. However after a bit they finally reach Erevis' team who is also coming along, meeting them part-way in when they hear the rooms shifting and behind them something is happening to the rooms, indicating the guards know they are trying to escape. As they hurry along to the exit they barely reach it before the Cube's reconfiguration occurs and whatever is happening to the rooms that is "wiping out" the occupants, with their powers finally returning. Drasek is there waiting for them and they find outside in the prison proper new weapons and armor to help them as they are going into the next battle - more powerful versions of their weapons of their old weapons that Asarar managed to smuggle out and leave up top as well as new stuff. However the team learns enemy ships are approaching so as they move over to the Aquarius to settle, many of them move to borrow Gears while others prepare to settle into the Aquarius during the upcoming battle.
While Yuki has Rada help on the bridge as a massive Gear and the ships come out of hyperspace, the team's Gears launch to do battle with it and the incoming fleet. Kane, Si, Durt, Angela, Kellin, Marcus, and Reese, begin to fight the giant Gear while the Aquarius deals with the incoming fleet. While Pepper begs to be the one to shoot the enemies and Jaime summons Gnome, Asarar and the Mew Mew Ship arrives on the scene, the former noting this is her way of owing the team one. While the Gear team destroys the large Gear and heads to aid the others, Pepper takes control of the controls and aids in firing as the three ships converge on the fleet to do battle. As they take the EarthGov ships out, some of them have Dark One tech in them and dark tendrils attempt to take out the Aquarius and the Mew Ship and upon destroying the tendrils and destroying the ship, the remaining ships attempt to escape. Pursing them, the Aquarius targets their engines and manages to cripple one of them, despite Chelsea thinking they should let them go - the ships that do manage to escape leave behind an orb of some sort.
Ordering the ships to return to their respective hangers, the heroes begin to retreat while Rada and Airym scan the orb. They note it begins to grow every 33 seconds and Jaime wonders if it is a singularity orb to Rada and the other's confusion. Rada notes they should not get anywhere near it unless they want to end up dead and Erica orders them to halt their fire. Sending a warning to the prison once Taiga notes they might be trying to erase all existence of it, the Aquarius and the Mew Ship begins to prepare hyperspace coordinates that Erevis has prepared a few systems jumps away as the orb grows larger. They barely jump with 33 seconds to spare as they arrive at a peaceful planet and their sensors indicate the previous system no longer seems to exist. Once they have landed and the Mew Ship docked on the Aquarius, the there teams are finally reunited and have a chance to catch up, with Sabrina being asked to go around and scan everyone, which makes her glance at Iceheart and Freyja a little. Asarar and Chelsea make plans to catch up privately and talk about things, since her team - who are with her - has been away for so long and Asarar notes that they rotate who picks their next jobs, with many wanting to stop by Kumen next so it seems the Cypher group might be doing a job close to home next time. Also with the spirits now able to be called several of the teams opt to make pacts while they have a chance.
Location: Hapian Castle
Celes seems in good spirits as they prepare for the trip to go to the fire plains to get the mummy they discovered, noting it's been a while since they have gone a true adventure - referring to the people from Geyze. After worrying if they should contact the Academy and seeing if they should get help from Sasha and her students, Celes prepares to set out with her Royals. Having Sylph teleport them to the fire plains and avoiding the Legion Capital just in case there are shapeshifter spies out to get them, Celes is glad there are no guys to leer at them - outside Alita and Ceilia - as the team has to wear little as they trek through the hot plains to reach their destination. Celes even ponders cutting her hair for a bit but Liana forbids her. As they soon arrive at the location, Lana runs over to try to find where they hid the corpse and Liana watches Selena and Lana, suspicious the two might be into each other.
They only find, however, a device to try to detect people who come near by - a sort of spirit-tech device - and the mummy gone, much to Lana's dismay and cursing. Ceilia does a spell and finds a piece of the mummy further down the valley some Sylph warps Ellie toward the location. The others follow as Sylph and Ellie locate a mummy arm. Deciding to use it to try to get the necessary materials off of it, the team prepares to go back until the team that went to the Cube returns.
Date: 10-639.5.20
Location: The Aquarius
The Aquarius and Mew Mew Ship, having been repaired after The Battle of the Cube, Sabrina finishes her magical scan of the crew with the leaders of the three teams, each of them agreeing to meet up later to go over what they picked up from the scan. Taiga hands the envelope of the scans to the leaders to open later as to try to keep being overheard. Asarar notes to Chelsea after she finishes her current job she and crew will be trying to stop by Kumen and Geyze again. After saying their goodbyes, the three teams depart from each other.
Date: 11.4.5997
Location: Hapian Castle
Celes has been putting together maps for the team to use as well as an old fashioned flying carriage for the team, much to the astonishment of Selena. After asking why they don't use the teleport system if they have it, Liana notes it is possible to be traced and other things when a newcomer says Liana is correct. Adeline, who somehow has snuck in past the guards, stands there as surly as a 14 year old can. Adeline explains how the PAX systems take note with logs who uses what and where they go and sends it to the PAX. Afterward she tells them that Erevis and company have returned and so Sylph and Ellie decide to take Fae on the trip while Celes opts to have Luna remain in the castle with Neekito.
As the team loads things into the carriage after meeting up with Erevis and company, and Luna trying to eat wrapped candy, they get ready to set off. Selena gives the little girl some cute armor to protect her before they set out. As they fly along, Sylph chatters away - asking things to Fae like if she has any boyfriends or girlfriends, and others talk about how the carriage works. They even go into airships and how they would work. And soon time begins to pass.
Date: 11.6.5997
Location: Plains City Dina
Arriving at the border city to the Amazons, the team explains to the people from Earth about the Amazon culture. While there they see something called the Guild and some in the group even take a job for them to learn more about them. But for the most part they decide to stay here for the night so they do not have to sleep on the ground and in beds for once.
Location: Plains City Dina
Preparing their supplies, the team begins to pile into the carriage for their next trip, with Selena and the others talking about doing a guild mission the night before in the village's guild - having explored and mapped out a cave for them. As the carriage begins to take off along the snowy air, having a little trouble taking off, they discuss the snow and Celes mentions that as they go further north the more snow/ice they will encounter. As they fly they talk about the units of tempature that Geyze uses and compare it to Earth and other planets, with Celes noting they use a spirit-tech type of measurement and Selena shows how the carriage's spirit-tech works to warm them if they get cold. The team continues on toward their destination while the carriage shakes and threatens to freeze from the snow/ice.
Date: 11.9.5997
Location: The Amazon Capital
As they near the capital they note that is looks like it seems to spring/summerish in the capital despite it being a snowy iceland all around it and Xanatos asks if this is a spirit's power at work and they note it is the case, with Brooke maintaining some sort of shield most likely. The Amazon capital seems to be divided into two main areas these days, the Old Amazon Capital that looks more like the old Amazon style and feel and the New Amazon Capital that has embraced new technology and mindsets, with a blend of Geyze/Earth/PAX technology; the old capital keeping the old ways of dressing and thought and being in tune with nature. As they exit Lana flirts with Mykel for a moment as they exit the carriage, drawing eyebrows from everyone and embarrassing Lana, and Sylph wonders if Mykel really is that handsome to have all the women falling over him - and getting a flat no from Ellie. Erevis points out the reason the Zhenmei family works is that the lovers rarely are together at any one time and are often away doing their own pet projects, often rotating; and that if you have too many lovers together at any one time it can lead to problems. After Mykel's response he likely will not add to his harem.
Selena leads them to meet Queen Qui who pulls Celes and Liana into hugs, then formally greets everyone - and everyone notes that Simon is there as well, leading to speculation on why he was there, since Simon seems to be around Qui often. Retiring to her office for tea and to talk where the group discusses "pinging" and the need to find descendants of the Fire Hero, as well as hoping to learn more about the Ancients and look over any documents she might have that they can study. Qui agrees to let them have their own rooms to use while they do their investigation and are welcome to stay as long as they need and she can use this time to look over Selena's training in the Amazon arts. The team moves off to look/explore the capital and do their own things while they are there and Xanatos is left musing on something.
Date: 11.5.5997
Location: The Alliance/Academy
Shion gathers the team as well as a few of the Alliance leaders such as Jules, Riki as well as Ymir as a guest for a meeting to discuss the Outlaws after the information they learned about them. Going over the Outlaws, she notes that it seems not all of them are working together and that there are various bands from various races with different agendas. Jules brings up the fact he learned they were in the Fire Plains recently and there was evidence of a battle there and some stuff stolen that looked old, likely belonging to his people long ago. They decide to hit 3 camps and put spy material in them so they can monitor the camps and learn more about the Outlaws and if something comes up capture some of them.
Starting with the Spiritalist Kingdom, the team approaches an Outlaw Camp out in the snowfield. Disabling the sensors and spy fields while patrols are moving about, the team manages to plant their spying equipment without being detected. Next they find the second camp in the Great Forest where this one seems to be set up near the Ents/Venus capital and are observing them, but also they have a lot of guns and turrets set up. Hacking into the turrets and taking them over, they ambush the Outlaws here lest they have designs on the Ents here and manage to subdue them with a quick but brutual fight, taking some of them captive and their weapons. Maeryn's pet ferret is frozen and Bix becomes upset, so Salamander is summoned to help save it, and she manages to unfreeze it for them and it is fine. After that the third camp is easily spied upon and they finish their mission.
---
Thena Side Story continues (pt 3), having checked the hotel that Cheryl and Chii were staying at and gathering what clues remained, after the two mysterious enemies ransacked it, Thena has Rio use what normal familiar abilities she has to find the location of their enemy that Thena tagged so Thena can teleport them near a warehouse. While fighting them in the the warehouse, they note their energy does not seem to be dragoon or weapon but some sort of alien type energy. Rio uses her familiarize since they have been running ragged and they are facing two of them, giving Thena double strength in fighting and herself more power; her hair going white like an elite familiar. Mercy, Rio, and Thena begin to defeat the two and take them down rather easily in 10 seconds, leaving them on their knees, though Mercy does server the spinal cord of one. As the battle ends, Rio begins to fade and vanish due to using familiarize, making Thena panic and she uses her progenitor energy to barely keep Rio there, chiding her for using such a dangerous move.
Fate appears, sensing the situation perhaps, giving Thena mana crystals to use to help restore Rio to a healthier state, telling her she might need more of these if she ever wants Rio to use that move again. The woman states her race is unimporant when asked while Thena restores Rio propely, saying it is a world between the Erusian and Tsivrixsh borders. They claim it does not matter anyway since Cheryl and Chii are dead in the warehouse destruction they caused before Thena and company arrived, making Thena nearly go ballistic until Fate stops her, reminding her they go missing, not killed. Asking who they work for the woman notes it is a large group and maybe one of them knows. Turning to examine the warehouse Thena finds faint signs of a foxhole which gives her hope of tracing where it went. They end up back at the hotel where they began; it seems that Cheryl and Chii doubled back. With pure luck they managed to get up to the roof just in time to see Cheryl and Chii entering a shuttle where Thena has Mercy throw her at the shuttle; managing to slap a tracker onto it as it lifts off, they watch the shuttle leave orbit.
Team Aschae, they track down the new Goddess of Heroes through various planets, learning this new Goddess of Hero seems to be more brainwashed than the last one and seems to be hunting the Gods as well, or at least hunting information. Lenny continues to evade them, putting a strain on Iceheart and Freyja's ship as she evades them and moves to a new planet. It is a wild adventure. Yes. A very wild adventure. Team Necia, meanwhile has begun to hack into Ben's network slowly with her computer skills, but due to Earth's problems has left it finally lest she be captured, moving out into space.
Location: Amazon Capital
Since arriving at the Amazon Capital, that seems to have spring weather due to the Spirits' power despite it being a cold winter outside the capital, the team has been exploring and getting used to it before having dinner with Qui. While the team enjoys the meal, with Jaime wearing forest clothing, Lana barely arriving in time after looking at the books at the capital, and Ellie feeding Fae berries. Hapes joins them for dinner, surprising even Qui it appears, and gets questions from the team such as if he is single from Lana. After Hapes joins the group, with Gwen escorting him, the dinner proper begins and they all discuss various topics, with Liana and Ellie happy to see Gwen at least, despite him not being suave like Hapes. After discussing Jules being vexed about an incident at the fire plains, likely referring to the incident in Session 325 and other matters, such as Lana trying to get into Hapes' pants. They discuss the Kaiser position and if it could be taken by another and Hapes confesses it can be wrestled away but won't go into the details to outsiders.
After dinner and Hapes has left to his room for the night, Qui brings the team to her study for the night. Celes admits to her fear that Hapes appearing mighty be for some nefarious reason, since it is odd that he just appeard right after as they come after the incident with the fire plains. While some think it might be due to him having feelings for Qui - or just being lonely in general - they admit to it being a possibility. Qui notes she also does not wish to tie her kingdom to the Legion, hence avoiding any relationship with Hapes. She points out if Shinobu and Mykel ever had a kid, that would let the Legion have a foothold onto the Daemon Realm one day.
Moving onto the reason they came, Qui opens up what books and information her mother kept all the years. Qui also gives Gwen away to the team to use as they feel fit, much to Gwen's chargin and Talia's delight. Having some maps on hand, Gwen leads them to some of the older matrons that help rule the Amazons as well. Dreading going there, since many of the matrons embrace the old ways where men were a lower class, and tries to hide but is forced to step out and talk to them, much to Liana's amusement. While Lana makes a fool of herself some more as they all sit in the tent and drink some strange liquids the matrons offer, begins to tell the group about the history of the Amazons.
After hearing about the Amazons trekking and being fragmented for a long time, before becoming one people and the conflicts with the Legion, one Amazon leader decided to make a temple up north. However, they soon learn that temple is now in the center of the great lake and is underwater. Meaning the team needs to find a way to reach it somehow.
Session 356: Ancient Water Temple
Location: Amazon Capital
After Erevis has finished sending a coded message to Shion about needing a diving machine - discreetly - to help them reach the Water Temple, the team finds they have time on their hands. Xanatos notes he surprised the others haven't gotten impatient and left without them - since they planned to use magik and Spirits to dive down and it was the Earthers that wanted something more techy to reach the Temple. Mykel remembers back when they froze the lake long ago, drawing eyes, while Selena and Alita debate testing their Summoni powers with Undine. Alita calls Undine/Brooke to have her help them see how far they can go into the water while the others talk about adventures, with Liana discussing crashing boats is how one truly does adventure on the sea. As Gwen, Ellie and Sylph join them, Brooke puts a film of water around Selena and Alita so they can breathe under water, creating a pocket of air, and Selena dives into the lake. After informing them that her pockets of air will last as long as the person wants them or until she is critically injured - though the more she divides her power the less effective it is - she moves to join them in her water form. The team watches the three go and Celes notes she will continue to wait for news from Shion and Riki about the diviing machine.
Date: 11.14.5997
Location: Amazon Capital
Selena and Alita continue to map out the lake finding places where the Water Temple is not located when the Mew Mew Ship arrives in the capital under the guide of delivering something for Qui. As they wait for those in the ship to step out, Lana immediately gets on Erevis' bad side by saying she could not keep getting into the ring with the Amazon's only to know she would get the crap kicked out of her - something Erevis had been doing the past few days to train under them - drawing eyes from everyone around Lana. While Jaime proclaims she bets that Erevis is already the champion of the ring, Erevis dismisses it but does note that she is regaining some of her old speed she once had and Liana notes her grandfather never lost his as he got older and Mykel notes he could always show up to train the team.
The team is greeted by Cypher, Chelsea, and Ymir who have come to help with the diving machine situation and when Jaime looks dissapointed that there is no Athena, Ymir snaps asking if Athena can work on such a machine. Ymir notes that the team is lucky she was around, having been helping the Alliance with the gun stuff, and put that on hold temporarily to do this project with Chelsea. The team thanks Chelsea and Ymir, since it seems Chelsea did the bulk of the work, and Ymir notes that the Mew Mew Ship is unique in many ways and so Ymir just built add-ons to it for this trip and it should work underwater for short periods with her spirit's help. While Cypher and Chelsea flirt, after Cypher notes she is just there to look pretty, Ymir answers Xanatos' question about what project she was doing before coming there and states that Shion likely wouldn't like her blabbing it to others'.
The team boards the Mew Mew and Cypher assures them that they have everything on board if the Temple is submerged after Xanatos brings it up and Chelsea and others note there are means - such as Brooke and suits. After Selena gives Chelsea the map she and Alita have been making, Chelsea begins to pilot the Mew Mew into the lake. After Cypher notes this is the first offical test outside simulators, Gwen notes he wants off and hides behind Ellie who is paying more attention to Aimée, due to how she teases Fae a lot whenever Fae and Aimée play. The spirit guage that Ymir made for the Mew Mew keeps them alerted about the pressure of the lake as they go deeper, in Ymir's voice, and lets them know if and when they might need Aimée to help power the ship. A few of the team are bit shaken by the shaking and noises but it soon stops and Chelsea explains it is the water and pressure adjusting and Selena runs around, fascinated by being under water and eyeing things inside the ship. Surprisingly, out of all of them, Sylph does the worst - freaking out being in the ship, something she does not normally do, but knowing she is under water and with no wind for some reason begins to make her rock in her seat and act weird. Selena muses on the fact out of all the spirits, Sylph is the only one that seems to hang out with them and Ellie reminds her that Fae is with them, so Sylph clings to Fae, calming down - a little.
Finally, Cypher detects something large up ahead with spirit energy and Chelsea comments this reminds her of the Earth legend of Atlanta. Lana corrects her with Atlantis, but Selena and Chelsea are fairly convinced it is Atlanta while Jaime chimes in that Atlantis is in space now. Lana huffs and notes that she is talking about the lost continent of Atlantis and Erevis notes to her that many people think it is in space now and so we just smile and nod for them, while Jaime mumbles about Atleans; then in the same breath Erevis tells Xanatos perhaps he should be a teacher for the Geyze team like he was for her in the old days, hinting she could return to her old speech patterns. During all their antics they come across a smaller version of Undine/Brooke's temple under water that looks much less fancy and Gwen bemoans he should have stayed back with Imogen since he thinks she had a crush on him.
While Cypher fiddles in the back for equipment and Alita calls for Brooke, Gwen and Liana whisper together about Imogen, but Liana teases him, asking if he meant Selena - making him fluster since Selena is 15 and her daughter. Liana seems amused and notes that she thought Selena was into Lana but with how Lana acts she thinks she is wrong and Selena might be into someone else and her suspicions were off, drawing the eyes of Selena who seems suspicious of their conversation. During this Brooke arrives to Alita's call and the team prepares and heads into the Temple finally, some taking Brooke's powers - other's Cypher's breathers she brought from the back. Sylph comically warps out into the water, unable to wait a second moment and flails about in the water but soon the team begins to work their way inside. As they enter an airpocket inside a chamber of the temple, Brooke admits it seems familiar to her, but due to being "killed" memories of the time are lost to her. The team finds the air pocket is being created by spirit-tech, keeping the water at bay inside the temple somehow and if the spirit-tech machine were to be disabled, it would fill with water like the rest of the temple.
Working their way further into the temple, they see various beds and stuff, finding a less fancy version of the Priestesses Rooms. Lana theorizes it is template of the modern temple and Ellie wonders why they would build it twice and almost the same way, finding it uncreative. They soon find the old Undine's room and see it is much smaller than the current one and Sylph notes that Undine in her hay day could be prideful and arrogant at times. Xanatos rescues what books and journals there are, though water damaged, while Brooke notes she vaguely recalls the Amazon leader wanted to leave the place and as the spirit of the amazons it was her duty to leave with them. She then teleports with the books and items when Sylph refuses to go back to the ship, returning a short time later to continue aiding them; the team continues deeper into the Temple.
They arrive in an area that is different than the current Water Temple with the spirit-tech barely keeping the water at bay and might die out in under a year. When Xanatos notes it is a good thing no one is claustrophobic, Sylph twitches in response. As they go to explore the rooms, SpoC inadvertantly activates a spell in a desk and Mykel uses his TK to protect the desk. They eye the pieces of the document and since no one has Chronos, they begin to wonder what they can do to restore it. Selena summons Neekito - who is holding Luna - and asks her if she can mimic Chronos' ability, which she does try - poorly. The desk flies at her head and she has to duck with Luna to avoid both of them getting hit and Selena lets the catgirl go. While Liana makes a desk joke that Erevis approves of they have little to go on in the room, so since the team still senses a little spirit energy, they decide to investigate and spread out, with Celes making a joke about not being this wet since a time she and Liana had done something in the past, making Selena aghast at her parents.
In the final room they find a place where people many stayed and discover many things. Gwen discovers an Amazon doll, Erevis a game, and waterlogged books. They also discover clothing that belonged to the people of the fire hero's people back in the ancient time. They speculate that the fire hero's descendants ran here after the betrayal and the destroyed document might hold some clues, so their homes is that Lana can piece it back together and find out what the connection of the Amazons and the fire descendant. The team begins to head back to the Mew Mew Ship to head back to the surface.
Session 357: Retaliation Part One
Location: The Academy/Alliance
With Ymir helping Chelsea's ship issues to get it ready to go underwater (See Session above), Shion's Alliance group has stalled on unlocking the Outlaw's technology for the time being so all they have to go on is shifting through the information given to them by the Outlaw leaders they captured. While Cypher works on the ship with Chelsea, they discuss the Guild cropping up and the team learns that it is apparantly an arm of the Alliance and Shion knows who runs it. Sasha and Rain even discuss it, Sasha fondly remembering back to the old days of being in the Academy and doing such jobs that the Guild does when the Peacekeepers cannot get there in time. Sasha heads over to go over the files to learn about the leader and go over Shion's files, while meanwhile Shion goes over what they do know about the Outlaws once more, trying to see if they can figure out some sort plan in their tactics.
Date: 11.16.5997
Location: Amazon Capital
Ymir looks over Lana's work on the materials they got from the temple, wondering if she can restore the damaged paperwork. They read over what little has been restored and Qui believes it is a diary and believes it to be the Amazon leader at the time and her desire to move her people to a safer location, due to fights with the Legion and the temple getting older. Due to the diary and looking over the map, the team thinks they have the location of a village that might be important and is mentioned in the diary of a group that was seeking sanctuary with the Amazons. Due to them heading off, Chelsea and company decide to take the Mew Mew back to the Academy since they are no longer needed there and say their goodbyes, taking Ymir with them. As they pack up in the carriage, the team heads out to investigate.
Location: The Academy
Shion and the team so far are hitting a roadblock getting more information out of the Outlaws when suddenly an attack against the Academy occurs causing alarms to off. As the team begins to prepare, they see that the Outlaws have launched a sneak attack against the Academy and Alliance, using various tactics to try to go after the school via the teleporters and cause chaos. Making the students seek shelter, Sasha orders other stuff to be done to shore up their defenses while the team gets ready to go on the defensive.
Session 358: Retaliation Part Two
Location: Flying Carriage, Amazon Kingdom
The carriage has been bombarded by snow since leaving the Amazon capital that has been shielded by the snowy weather by Brooke/Undine's protection, leaving Xanatos and Erevis musing on their affection on the winter season as their favorite time since it was the time of year they first bonded. As they land near a small village nestled by a village, Erevis soon throws Gwen and Mykel out of the carriage with her TK to the surprise of others with only the comment of "wondering why" but mainly due to reading Mykel's mind and the dirty thoughts and due to Gwen's whining about certain things along the way. Lana and Gwen bond surprisingly - having been doing it recently since the Amazon Water Temple - as they all make their way off the ship and into the small village. Getting a detection ping from the village the group begins to approach it and they are noted by the villagers who study them warily - a mix of women and men with men seemingly in charge, or at least equal to women here in the village.
Alita manages to get them into the village to stay the night while Lana looks to see who the signal belongs to as they move deeper into the small village. They are taken to a house furthest from the village by the man and Alita notes it is unusual, even with the changes Qui is bringing about, for a man to take charge like he is doing so far. The woman of the house does not appear to be a fighter but keeps a lot of spears on the wall of it and prepars a meal for them after demanding they do not track anything in; Erevis TKs Lana into a seat after she trips trying to hide her device that tracks the bloodline of the heroes. After Xanatos notes they seem very guarded the woman notes they do not like outsiders meddling in their affairs and Alita tries to learn more women when some of the villagers enter with real weapons finally and the woman asks for them to drop the pretense and reveal why they are there.
Unable to reach Brooke and the villagers believing the Legion is behind them coming, Gwen pulls out the papers Qui gave him to show to the villagers, especially since the pinging reveals one of the new villagers might be the descendant they seek. Reading it, they do not appear to be impressed, referring to Qui as the "girl queen" and note that the last few Amazon leaders seem to have forgotten the promise their ancestors made to their's long ago; and they have noticed Qui seems quite friendly to the Legion leaders. Deciding to reveal a bit of the past, the woman tells them that long ago an Amazon Queen took in the wife and child of the fire hero and some of the people truly loyal to him that she trusted absolutely, but when the Water Temple began to flood they set them up in this village so that they could one day take back their homeland. In a sign of trust, they left some of their most prized possessions to show their friendship with the Fire People and when the time came they would join them in taking back the Legion Lands with them.
Assuming that they are here for item for the "girl queen" when they assure her that is not the case until Celes interrupts. She notes she would not mind taking it - since they would like to study each of the relics before she gives it back to Qui. Noting that Jaime has the Fire Sword, she pulls it out and lights it up, noting she is one of the few who can light it up thanks to her pact with Salamander. The woman takes it from her and two people step forward from the back, the descendants according to Lana's decides, and she hands it to the older man in his late 40's while the girl appears to be in her late teens, early 20s. Both of them have reddish hair with a strange reddish color to their eyes, clearly related, and they each take turns with it; the man bringing out a brighter flame than Jaime is able to do so with Salamander's power and shoot a fireball forth while the girl has trouble achieving the same results. The village gives Gwen a smaller blade with a blue hue - the Water Sword.
After Celes asks if the two who used the blade, Agni and Ardea would come with them, the village has a conference, the woman elder noting it might be time for the village to leave this place finally. Mykel asks Erevis if she thinks the Ancients and the Progenitors have parallels and she does not think so, but SpoC notes there are parallels and the Mirror Universe is a mirror universe. Mykel then asks Agni what his plan is with the Legion and he notes it will decide once he speaks with Qui but depending on her answer he might decide to honor the memory of his ancestor and restore the lands of his people, with Erevis giving a knowing look as if she has already read the mind of Agni - knowing the obvious outcome to come.
Location: The Alliance
The Mew Mew Ship seems to be running late - with no sign of them in the skies at all or on the radios, so Shion decides they will have to act without them. Shion divides the teams up - one to deal with the fires breaking out and the rest to deal with the invading forces. Jennifer, Simon, Athena, and Id move off to deal with the fires, while Shion, Sammael, Bix, Kaylin and Maeryn deal with the Outlaws attacking the Academy and Alliance while Bonnie moves to check out the Prison to see if anyone goes after the prisoners they took recently. Summoning Celsius, Jennifer has her deal with the rampaging fire going through the streets of the Academy while Athena forms her fire armor to help move through it without being hurt and absorbing it, using her metal claws to rip their armor up that is protecting them from the heat.
As Simon helps take down Outlaws causing the fire he also begins to use his ice magic to begin to put out the fires along with Celsius. As their combined might begins to make the fire wane, people begin to target her to stop it, making Sasha come out of her building to aid in the efforts and people show up, shooting the attacking men and dragging them off in the confusion. As Sasha and the others deal with the men sneaking up on Simon and Athena, Athena notes that the KOed bodies have been slowly taken and removed in the fire confusion. As the fire is nearly put out, Simon falls to his knees, weak from the overuse of magic and so Athena lifts him up like a princess and leaps for the infirmary while Celsius is demerged from Jennifer, weak from dealing with fire, since it is opposite element. With the fire dealt with for the most part the snow begins to fall along the ground.
Nearby the major forces begin to battle with Shion leading her team, eyeing the Outlaws - most of them are rag tagged but they do have a black dragon, an ancient Kumen hovertank, a spirit-tech mech. a giant monster in a harness, and some Magi-Tech machine that was recently dug up and barely held together. Noting the varity of weapons being modern and spirit-tech and their "super weapons", Shion warns them to becareful and notes that the monster looks almost like an ogre of Earth legend, though on Geyze there might really be ogres, so be wary of it's tough hide and to becareful of the hovertank's long range attacks. With that the team launches their attack and begins the battle: the hover tank's attacks appear to be very powerful but it's aim not great as they all move in quickly. Maeryn does battle with her black dragon against the other black dragon in the skies while Kaylin does long range battle with the hovertank with Sammael aiding her with hyperspace blasts, having teleported above the tank and firing down. Shion and Bix deal with the ogreish monster, keeping it occupied and the two work together to bring it down.
The hovertank's armor proves tougher than their attacks, so the two work to look for a weak point to exploit, so Kaylin fires and jars the cannon and knocks it away from killing more Peacekeepers while Sammael lands and melts the cannon's end from firing more blasts. Following up, Kaylin shoots another well aimed shot and blows the hover-tank up completely, taking it out. Up in the sky Maeryn's dragon is amost bit in the head by the enemy dragon so she tries to use her beast powers to tame it as they swerve and fly around each other, but it continues to try to eat her instead now, so she slams her staff in it's mouth, preventing such a fate. Bix shoots the ogre in the face, knocking it off balance and he goes for the chain around him to strangle him, allowing Shion to slide and help him, the two using their strengths to bring it down and strangle the ogre to death while the others are battling, allowing them to move onto the magi-tech mech.
Sammael teleports onto the spirit-tech mech and stabs it with a hyperspace blade, attempting to take out the cockpick and kill the pilot, but due to bad luck fails. It merely pops open and knocks Sammael off, but leaves the pilot exposed as Bix and Shion rush to the scene. Meanwhile in the sky the black dragons keep falling to the ground as she manages to get her staff out of the enemy dragon's mouth and hits it over the head, preparing for a crash landing. She then has to use what plant life is still alive in winter and bind it as it tries to recover from the fall and eat her, managing to capture it. While this is going on the others from the fires arrive as Sammael manages to freeze some weapons as the pilot is hit and the magi-tech mech crashes into the snow - at first. Before it begins to fire wildly all sorts of weapons into the air with no real aim. The spider-mech is attacked by the combined might of the team and they manage to destroy it.
As they return to the main part of the city with prisoners, they find Aya and Eve setting up treatment areas for civilians to get their injuries mended. Turning the prisoners over to Bonnie, the city does not look overly bad and it will only take a few months of repair work to fix it. Sasha contacts Shion from her Headmistress building that she wants the equipment the Outlaws used salvaged and examined. The team wonders who was removing players off the field and helping them throughout it and decides it is time to look into it more fully, wanting to look into the Outlaw prisoners and finding out what all they know.
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Thena Side Story continues (pt 4), unconscious for a week due to how hard she pushed herself, Thena wakes up on Heaven's ship with Rio beside her. Fate walks in and announces they are already on the next planet. Heaven, after being acousted by the overly friendly Thena and marked, notes they are on a planet that is not on on updated star charts but could belong to either the Tsivrixsh or the Cartel. After Heaven and Thena bond a little, growing closer after all these years, Rio, Mercy, and Thena begin to head out onto the planet to find Cheryl and Chii. Thena carries the sleeping Fate, in child form, into a sleezy desert city with Mercy looking all over for ambushes and they soon to find an inn that is somewhat decent and expensive, serving high class people. Asking the innkeeper about Cheryl and Chii if he might have seen either he gives her an address to try; paying for rooms they set out and search the city. After reaching a building bribing her way in, the group enters and finds one of the cartel's dark market places where they sell people and items off the grid, the innkeeper likely thinking Thena wanted asian girls after Chii's picture.
Entering the place and having Mercy move off on her own to cause chaos and distraction, the group takes seats to watch some of the bidding and what is being sold. A Dark One like girl is brought up on stage to be bid on and Thena picks up on the thoughts of two aliens in the crowd who are thinking of Cheryl and Chii, who are there keeping an eye out for them. There is also a strange man in a coat and hat with the two aliens, watching the bidding on the Dark One girl and the two aliens begin to bid on the Dark One girl. Rio warns that the people here are preparing a trap to knock them out so Thena does a hyperspace attack, blinding everyone, signalling Mercy to do her thing; the man in the coat pulls it off and reveals it is not Ben like Thena was thinking but some man with prison tattoos and short blonde hair.
As Thena rescues the Dark One girl and gets her out of the building, the man prepares to leave with the two aliens however Thena begins to prepare moves to draw him back and closer to him. He states that he does not want to fight her and he is friends with Ben. And the reason Cheryl and Chii are being hunted is that Cheryl is being so insistant on their attacks and it looks like Thena is becoming the same way; after one of the aliens notes something, he waves a hand and asks them to try not to kill her. After a tense stand off Thena lets them go if they are really with Ben and lets her move mess with the slavers; as they all meet back up, Thena asks the Dark One her name and she says it is Fourteen, but child Fate notes you can call her Eliya if Thena wanted and Thena marks Eliya on her butt. Deciding to join them for the time being, lest she be enslaved again since Dark Ones are rare these days, the team sets out to find Cheryl and Chii once more.
Heaven arrives on a motorcycle and after being filled in they all they change into the clothes Heaven brought them for disguises. As they return to the inn, they plot out how to find Cheryl and Chii as well as deal with this "friend" of Ben's, either by trying to locate where they are in the city, likely hiding in the city with a psionic blocker, or by causing havoic and drawing them out though Thena forbids Rio from using her full power, much to her chargin. Making educated guesses off where the bad guy teleported, they appear in an empty part of the city that retains that sleezy feel. Approaching a suspicious building, Thena sends in a duplicate and manages to sneak in through various levels of it to get further and further in until she is underneath the floor where people are talking about Cheryl and Chii as well as Thena, going through various scenarios to deal with the three.
Thena opts to just appear in the middle of the meeting, surprising everyone inside of it, causing the aliens to look guilty as the prison tattoo man eyes them. The man claims he does not seem to be acting weird in his eyes and reveals they were both in prison together for years, referring back to the end of The Alien Wars 5 when Ben killed a person. He also states that Ben is out exploring and looking for something when Cheryl and Chii came gunning for him and trying to take him out. They agree to a truce for 32 hours and he won't attack Cheryl and Chii in that time and she will try to get them to stop as well; the man enters the portal and leaves and Thena's duplicate rejoins her body, telling the others about what happened. Thena attempts to do a frequency to lure Cheryl in when a Cheryl look alike attacks them and knocks them down, forcing Thena to TK shield them.
However this Cheryl has kitsune features and white hair, studying them, before leaping off and leaving them, telling Thena to go home. A game of cat and mouse begins as Heaven notes Cheryl's ship is being accessed remotely, having placed a device on it to alert her earlier, and will let Thena know more soon. During it, Thena and this strange Cheryl do battle as they leap through the streets and out into the dessert, nearing where the two ships are parked; each time she tries to tie Thena up or tell her she does not have the level of access to know what she is doing, Thena will escape and continue onward, the rest of the team lagging behind. Soon they reach the two ships and the Cheryl begins to try to get inside with a foxhole and another Cheryl is there, preparing it for takeoff. The real Cheryl steps off and moves over to Thena to talk to her, since she finally reached her after all this time. Fate seems to be MIA again and Thena informs her of the prophecy and everything that has happened and despite Cheryl saying it is too dangerous, she wants to come along. She believes Samson is in Ben's body; at least she wants to believe he is his body. And that 30 years ago Ben did murder someone.
Finally, Cheryl notes if Thena can beat this other Cheryl, she will let her lead her to Cheryl and they can work together. Cheryl enters the ship and the Kitsune Cheryl steps off the ship to face Thena, who waves the others away. After an epic battle with neither side giving in easily, the Kitsune Cheryl finally admits Thena is tenacious and can handle her own. And that she might have lost if it continued - maybe. The Kitsune Cheryl notes Cheryl left to protect the others like Thena and Thena barging in, with a group no less, is endangering them. After a while of arguing with each other of how they view things like friendship and protection and strength, she reveals her name is Cherii and is a humanoid being like Lemon with Cheryl and Chii's DNA. She was made for this mission to help them to down Ben due to his unique abilities. She begins to work on her shuttle that was damaged in the fight and prepared to answer questions about what has happened during the time Cheryl and Chii were gone in space.
Team Necia has set up on a net planet and begun to build up her computer systems and begun to hack into Samson's networks, learning what he is doing and what he is after, planting herself into his computer systems like a spider and weaving a web. She also is seeing what Thena is doing and learning of her antics are up on the HoloNet and following them.
Team Aschae has encounterd the Goddess Lenneth a few times but each time she has escaped. They also have heard rumblings of a new power in space that is not the Erusians, Earth, Tsivrixsh, or Cartel, in the far region of space. Likely the cause of the changing of space due to the Mirror Universe merging with Prime Universe. It is believed the Heroic Goddess has gone there next, so the team heads there and has seen sights of a new power on once dead worlds - now alive. With powerful ships and forces they are forced to retreat until Lenneth exits.
Location: Amazon Capital
Celes and Qui have been meeting with Agni and Adrea while the team has some down time to unwind. They discuss Hapes some since he apparently left 2 days ago before the two appeared with the fire villagers, making it seem a little suspicious, and Gwen has been looking for him. While talking they learn that Agni is under the impression that Qui's family promised long ago to help them overthrown the false leadership, putting her in an awkward position so he was hoping to talk to Hapes or even Mykel. Due to Lana thinking everyone suspicious is shapeshifters, Selena hands her drugged tea to calm her down a little relax her. After discussing succession, possible overthrowing, and if it was even possible for Agni to achieve such a thing, they head over to where Agni and Adrea are located, talking to Salamander.
Alita talks to Adrea about possibly marrying into the Kaiser's family which enrages Agni and insults Andrea. Before Alita ends up on the pointy end of her spear, Xanatos notes it could avoid bloodshed and other bad things. Since it seems Qui will not aid them in their mission and having been insulted, Agni's people decide they will head back to their village and decide from there what they will do to reclaim their homeland, apparently having the fire sword has stirred something in them. Celes notes she plans to go to another location as they move off - to see the Kaiser. So the team loads into the carriage and sets off.
Date: 11.20.5998
Location: Legion Capital
The snow makes the travel slower as they head toward the Legion lands, but soon they begin to near the volcano that is near the capital. Discussing Salamander and other topics, such as if she threw her support behind Agni and Adrea, and other topics such as corrupted spirits, they soon arrive at the capital which has begun to embrace Earth and PAX technology. A maid leads them into the palace and soon Jules meets with them and after some small talk, they move onto important topics. They learn that Hapes has not reported in lately, apparently having left the capital and it is reported he left to be with some woman. When asked about history and things, trying to probe him if he knows about his family's bloody history, he notes that was more Hapes' department and with Hapes gone, he cannot tell them.
Telling him about Agni and Adrea, Mykel begins to push his luck in other areas, beginning to tick Jules off. After some verbal sparring between the two, he ignores Xanatos and others who try to warn him about Agni and Adrea's coming and the stake they may have the Kingdom, seemingly, and leaves after offering them rooms, leaving. They also note he seems to have made a pact with Salamander at some point. Liana notes to Celes she needs to make a point to stop Mykel when possible from now on when it comes to running his mouth in the future. Jaime summons the fire spirit and asks when she made a pact with him and she notes she cannot remember when it was but it was when he needed her to investigate something that concerned him; she notes Spirits keep information in the pact secret from others unless absolutely vital to the world at large, noting the team would not like if she went talking about their business to others. When asked if she would pick a side, Salamander said no - the last time that was really broken was in the Legion-Amazon War and Sylph threw a mean punch then.
The maid confirms the rumor about Hapes running off with a woman asked and Alita wonders if possible Hapes and Adrea had a thing, since Hapes talked to some of the Fire Villagers before running off, though the timing is a little suspect. While Jaime goes to do her plant thing in every city and Mykel goes for a walk around the palace, the team settles in for the time being.
Location: Kaiser Palace
Spending time in the palace, the team has been spending time keeping themselves busy - such as Selena studying her books so she can one day become Queen, Xanatos returning with Erevis after using Neekito to visit with Shion to report with her about what has happened so far, and the others debating what to do if this breaks out into a power struggle. Celes muses that there is likely not much Shion can do about Agni and his plans for the Legion leadership and his people's march toward the capital as well as what Jules' response might be toward it. Knowing that any documents that they might want are with the fire people and not here in the Legion, there is not much true research they can do into the true bloodlines though they do decide they would not mind looking into any documents Hapes might have since unlike Jules he gathered all sorts of books on the Legion and other nations. Celes points out that there is not much their group can do here if their only goal is to find out more about the decendants and any relics tied to them, but if they wish to try to mend things they could try to talk to Jules one more time and try to gain access to any information Hapes has collected over the years. The team decides to remain.
Location: The Alliance/Academy
Back at the Academy and Alliance, Shion debates over what she learned from Xanatos and Erevis and calls the team in to meet with her. She informs the team she is sending them on a long term mission as she informs them about the situation brewing in the Legion territory and keep an eye on Agni's group without engaging them or the Legion forces, but try not to let them get wiped out either if at all possible. After everything is settled she'd like them to try to follow or at least learn what Xanatos' group is up to since they seem so intent on avoiding teleporters and are sneaking around moving from kingdom to kingdom doing something as if they are hiding something and with high level leaders, Shion is worried something could happen. After calling on Aska, the group teleports up to the Legion's area to begin their mission.
Location: The Kaiser Palace
As they wait on a maid the team talks and when the subject of tea comes up, Erevis notes that any who talk about tea negatively cannot touch her chest and pointedly notes Lana definitely cannot after she begins to walk about strange things regarding facts on it - though Mykel ends up with a TK whack to the head due to thoughts in his head. The team is finally led to a meeting with Jules where they are allowed to sit down and ask him questions as he has some for them as well. Xanatos goes first asking Jules if the claim to the Legion throne angers him and he states that it naturally does because it will mean chaos and strife through his realm when it needs to be strong. After asking where Agni is at and being told they do not know due to their nomadic nature, they ask their next question: what will satisfy him. Jules informs them that that constant evolution so that they can be secure for ages to come.
Since their answer is the only question he truly was interested in Jules prepares to leave when Mykel hurriedly asks Jules what he will do next. Jules informs him he will try to find Agni and perform a rarely known Legion rule that will allow him to do a rite of leadership under combat to avoid the strife and destuction a civil war would bring. The rite of combat is where one can challenge the other, if they have grounds to the throne, to combat - the challenged can pick the location while the challenger can pick a few other options. It is in a magic dome that lasts an hour where no one can heal them and usually ends in death due to the fact no one can reach them to heal them, though one can yield if they opt. Jules states it is the only way to go forward as Agni might divide not only the people but the Senate as they might not accept him plus the battle will allow him to see the mettle of the man.
Lana asks to see Hapes library in his room and after Alita and others state they will supervise her going there, Jules dismissively lets them go inside since he informs them that Hapes has abandoned him for another woman. He seems to believe he knows where Hapes has gone and seems no longer interested, deciding to prepare to try to find where Agni and his people are located. Some of the team are led to Hapes' room where they find a large but organized room. The team wonders who the woman Hapes could be interested in and Celes' notes that Geyze/Kumen has a higher female population than most planets at around 58%. Gwen joins them and answers Drasek about what he knows about Hapes, stating that he was into Qui at one point but Qui has always kept Hapes at a distance of friendship and only comes around to spy for Jules, in his belief. Searching the book they find the Lineage Books that Mykel brought up as well as a few other things and while looking talk to the maid who drops the information that she thinks Hapes has a girlfriend on Kumen. The team - at least Lana who thinks everyone is a shapeshifter - ponders the possibility of a shapeshifter before leaving with the information.
Location: Legion Land
Simon, leading the team in Shion's place, finds melted snow and signs of the Fire People as they arrive at the location Shion gave them, gathered around and taking a break as they travel. Agni allows the team to join his group if they pull their weight but while discussing things they are surrounded by an small group of Legion soldiers, making Agni's people tense up and hold their weapons. Simon advices patience on both sides and not to break out fighting, trying to uphold Shion's orders, when Jules approaches them. While Adrea advises patience and to observe, seeing Jules makes Agni go into a rage and charge Jules, forcing Simon and the others to use their powers to stop him before he attacks. With Jules is Celes' and the others with him, making it the first time the two teams has been near each other in a long time. Jules announces he is there to parlay with Agni and speak with him, leaving it to Agni if he will do so, moving off to his line of soldiers; Simon advises he speak and Agni is distrustful and believes Jules is there to try to get something like his daughter's hand in marriage so he can be more legit. Either way, both sides are left staring at each other and debating what to do.
Location: Legion Field Near the Border
Jules' group, which includes the Royal's, sits at one side of the table while Agni and Adrea's group, which include's Simon's Alliance people, sits on the other side of it. Coming together due to a parlay, they decide to talk however while Jules seems calm and collected, Agni burns with hatred for Jules and seems barely able to control it. After some back and forth Simon asks Agni why does he think he is qualified except his birthright and he states that the Alliance will not satisfy the Legion because they have been twisted into this warrior race and they will long to expand and take over, backstabbing their Alliance allies while Agni will guide them back onto their "true" path once more. Jules shuts down his argument by pointing out that the Legion and Amazons are both warrior races yet Agni has no problem with the Amazons; he also admits yet while his mind is focused toward military gains and what he can do to advance his people, he sees no reason to reverse social reforms, leaving such things to others who are interested in them in is Kingdom. And Jules believes the Alliance is a necessary thing and they will need Kingdoms like his and the Amazons to be fighting forces if they are ever attacked, calling Agni out on just wanting his throne and making excuses. After admitting he simply believes he can rule the Legion better, Jules is satisfied and pushes the rule by combat terms over to Agni to read and decide if he will agree; if he does not he will forfeit all claims to the throne.
The terms are simple - Agni has two weeks to decide the location of the battle and two weeks after that the battle will occur. The battle will last 1 hour and a magical barrier will prevent anyone from healing them. If one forfeits during it the barrier can be dropped but neither man seems likely to do so. The month period will be spent informing the entire kingdom of the battle so no one will seek vengence and plans can be put into motion for both sides. Agni ends up signing the contract finally and both sides begin to split up. The Alliance team decides to continue to babysit Agni for another month until the battle while the Royals decide they will continue their search for the next month. Jules hands Mykel a Guyus crest heirloom as they leave and the Alliance team tries to listen in, only catching the part where Jaime mentions the part where they will be going to the Great Forest she will be marrying Gnome. Assuming that is where they are going Jennifer uses Celsius to teleport a few of the team there to see if they show up.
Date: 11.22.5997
Location: Fortess Trading Port Cannae
Stopping the carriage at the fortress, Selena checks their bags and finds one of Maeryn's ferrets inside it, spying on them. They debate what to do with it as it tries to act cute and climbs up Selena's arm and some even suggest trying to make it a counter spy. As it jumps to Jaime, who suggested the counter-spy thing, and sucks up to her, until Xanatos stun-shots it. A few on the team are unhappy with the Alliance mistrusting them enough to send a spy and they decide to have a spirit teleport the ferret back or something later after they leave.
Date: 11.24.5997
Location: Forest Naturalistic City
Landing outside the city, Celes informs them they are just here to pick up some supplies and speak with the Alliance leader that is in charge of the Naturalist Kingdom. As they travel into the city, many enjoying how in touch with nature it is, they relax and joke amongst themselves, like forgetting how Gwen is with them half the time, until they meet with Helen, Max's sister and leader of the Naturalist. After discussing the werebeast hero descendant, Helen explains to the team about werebeasts and the various types of them. With the clues pointing to the Walled-Off Village, Helen explains to them about it and how the village is a place where people try to commune with lower-level spirits and let them into their bodies to be vessels. She states she can look at their library to learn more about the village but that it has not been responding to people lately when the team announces that two people are nearing that seem to be a cat-girl and a doctor.
Realizing one is Athena and the other Jennifer who has been tracking them since the Great Forest after being side tracked, Erevis rips part of her clothing and TK floats it off so that Athena will follow the scent and be distracted a bit longer. And TK slaps Mykel's head for good measure when he stares at her chest from which she rips the clothing. Xanatos also notes that the TKing Erevis has been doing lately is wearing her out and making nose bleeds, so he notes they will train to work on it. As they are preparing to head back to the carriage, they hear some people discussing how Shade lately has not been responding to calls to summoning and people wonder what has been happened to her. The team barely escapes as Athena and Jennifer arrive and watch them go, with Jennifer commenting it is a shame they missed them and Athena noting she will give Simon a hint of where they look like they are going and if he is as smart as he appears he can figure it out from there.
Date; 11.28.5997
Location: Walled Off Village
Meeting up with Jaime, who they left behind to deal with the ferret and Shion, the group emerges from the carriage with Selena complaining about needing a bath due to the harsh pace Celes made them take. They soon figure out that the village has been decimated by a plague and worry that Gwen might have drank polluted water that might have a virus in it. They now have to decide if they are in trouble and what type of plague/virus did this, and if so, what happened to the descendant.
Location: The Walled Off Villaged: The Naturalist Kingdom
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Thena Side Story continues (pt 5) Cherii begins to answer the questions of Thena and the others while working on her shuttle; Samson in Ben went to Ben's friend who they spent time in prison together for help. The friend is the one who has the aliens working for him and each time Cheryl and Chii foiled Samson and the friend, their tactics got more and more violent. She states Cheryl has been following the friend's communication and other sources while tracking them from planet to planet and they get into fights only when things get dicey. Thena does her mark thing and almost gets into a fight thing again, with Cherii chasing her with her tools and threatening her and making Thena giving her a kiss and running into Heaven's ship, dragging Rio along and teasing her, enraging Thena more - hard to tell if she got Cheryl or Chii's anger issues.
In the morning, Cherii has her small shuttle ship repaired and prepares for take off as does Heaven; both ships leave the planet, heading after Cheryl and Chii once more, with one Thena in Cherii's ship and the other with Heaven due to her duplicate powers, making Cherii dryly wonder why she hadn't blown up by now due to the distance of hyperspace. While Cherii stacks things on the duplicate Thena's head while talking to her, they discuss how to get Ben out of Samson, with even Cherii admitting she does not know how Cheryl and Chii plan to do it. Either with reality powers or something else like trying to talk Ben to the surface so he can force Samson out himself. Back on the ship Heaven and the real Thena spend their time talking and going over things, with Heaven teasing Thena and being the dominant one unlike Thena in a few matters, being a Dark One. The two's talking eventually leads to some romance and they head to the captain's quarters.
Afterward, she gets to know Eliya who is suspicious of her, figuring she saved her either to fight or for her body since she was enslaved with that intent in mind but Thena assures her she is free to make her own decicions and when this is over she will introduce her to other Dark Ones. At this point, after a day of traveling, both ships land in a space port and the two Thenas combine, a key point to note, and the group moves on into the city that seems to be a mix of Tsivrixsh and Cartel people due to it being a border planet. They arrive at the building Cheryl and Chii were staying but it is on fire and burning making Cherii panic; Thena rushes in, using her hyperspace like Kellin to put the fire out and rescue some of their belongings. There is also two bodies inside that looks burnt hinting that Cheryl and Chii were killed. Thena runs a scan and decides it is unlikely to be them due to there being some errors in dental and only trace amounts of DNA present.
Cherii begins to act lost without Cheryl there and Mercy urges them to leave before the authorites question them so the team leaves the building with the belongings they managed to save and once gone, Cherii goes over the things she might have left out. She explains Cheryl had leads on where Samson was going and doing something shady with money and transaction he felt he could not do in the core systems. Cherii decides to follow Thena's lead for now but if she fails she will leave to go on her own, putting a time limit on Thena; she also laments if they only had access to Cheryl's network, they could do more. Thena begins to go through what they salvaged in the fire and discovers a chip hidden in a stuffed bear, sending the chip's data to Heaven on the ship, who says she will need some time on it. Kid Fate returns, eating an apple, then touches Thena's stomach and warns her to becareful for the next few months, indicating Thena has gotten pregnant due to her encounter the day before and notes something about a virgin pregnancy.
The team heads back to Heaven's ship where she is studying the chip and they discuss counterplans to Samson/Ben's power to control Dragoons, especially females, and go over various ideas of who to call from Angelos, to Zeraphna, to the Betas and so on. They also mention a ship full of Betas and wonder if Samson is after it and Cherii notes if that is the case he has had a year to look for it. After a bit they hire Mercy to set up a bounter on Samson/Ben to keep him tied up and anger him. Paying her to set up the contacts, they go to a planet to speed up the process and talk to a woman to make it happen. The world looks to be a strange world designed to get lost in with lots of flying cars and other designs but Mercy flies Heaven's ship in and lands it on a pad, leading them to a certain building. After a cordial talk with the woman, Thena states she wants a bounty on Samson that states they must take him alive and it is for 5 million.
Leaving the world, the team returns the ship and Heaven puts the chip into Cherii after repairing it as best she can and learning it was meant for her. It jolts her and knocks her out, making Heaven worried the corrupted data did something but Cherii awakens and acts a little different now, stating she knows where the planet of Cheryl's database is located. The team flies toward the planet, now heading more toward Earth territory, and lands on it, finding a planet that looks to be a farming colony. The coordinates lead them to a farmhouse with farm animals outside and other animals, but the hideout is protected by a Cheryl bot that is there just to fool people, likely neighbors due to it's limited knowledge. Shutting it off, they find the database underneath the stairs in an hideout under the house with rows of computers and high tech devices. Together Cherii and Thena figure out the password and unlock the database, bringing up Cheryl's files.
She seems to have computers watching the Earth like the President's office, the Aquarius, one on Iceheart's ship, some on major world's leader, and even managing to get into a camera loop on the PAX to watch it. Heaven warns that listening in might alert the other systems when Thena tries to do audio, as Heaven begins to patch Cheryl's systems into her ship. Heaven notes that if they had someone like Mireille they could probably hack into the systems easier and maybe get audio on files. Asking if they can kidnap Mireille, Thena dismisses it since the Aquarius needs it so they wonder if there are more out there; Rio says she has heard rumors of more out there. The group decides to head to Geyze once more and borrow a spirit who can combine with a ship to help their quest.
Necia Quest Part 2 manages to learn a bit more of what has happened and learns that Samson has taken Cheryl and faked the Cheryl and Chii bodies. Despite the fact he does not have Chii yet, he is confident Chii will show up soon. So he begins to lay a trap for Chii to bring her into it hoping to catch her soon as well. Using her computers she begins to search for Chii and finds something surprising on another planet one system over where Chii has escaped to with someone. So she begins to send some data out for certain people like Shion to find.