RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 3] Sunny Day on Prilisa Four

Fitz rushed everyone into the shuttle and ran into the main pilot seat, "Ok let's get this thing started..." but his enthusiasm was crushed when the text appeared...


He then face palmed, his retreat strategy wasn't going to work, and the shuttle wasn't armed with anything useful. At most they could lock themselves in the thing for a while. He checked audio logs for anything new but without any sort of codes he was in a bind, this was his first assignment after all.

He tried to think of something but the loud explosion interrupted his thoughts, as much as the sound of incoming Nekos.

He gloomily turned to everyone, "Well you all have two choices, you can stay in this ship and lock it up for a while, or run out into the wild where the cat things are currently leaving." By giving this suggestion he would probably abandon these people, but at least he would know their general location for the short term, hopefully long enough to find a more permanent solution or a way to help his team. While he waited from the group to respond he thought over the possible plans that might help out.

Just as the neko emerged from the wrecked door, Keziah's fist shot forth, arcing through the air on a direct collision course with her face.

And then the explosion. It threw off her balance, just enough to make her fist hit nothing but air. But also just enough for her to miss a small chunk of falling rubble from the ceiling. It smashed to the floor barely a few steps from her, tiny chips shooting off and bouncing off her armor harmlessly. Before she could recover, the neko was rocketing off towards the crown.

She just stared at them, confused for a moment, before she went to Dream, standing just behind the 'Spacer. "I've never seen a revolution before," she whispered as she scanned the room over, making sure that marine, Fitz, had gotten absolutely everyone out.

It was the loud, hard landing of something heavy that made her turn back. To see Tweak standing on top of the newly crowned neko.

Tweak's speedy approach to the generator room left her former foes in the dust. However, the cat-eared Freespacer would not see the nekos stop short at the tree line of the spaceport itself, fixating themselves not on the large moving, man-driven object on the edge of the landing pad; Cassefin's Wolverine. It didn't take long for them to leap back into attack mode, the lot of them quickly jumped from the brush and charging the maintenance vehicle.

Deacon's neko-pursuers also did the same, ignoring Deacon in favor of the much larger, much more tantalizing target of three potential prisoners in the Wolverine.

George and Lenny quickly began to show signs of retreating courage in the face of the neko swarms stampeding towards them. Cassefin, on the other hand, looked far more determined to win. "Don't just sit their gawking, you dolts! Shoot them! Hit them with something, dammit!" the Head Administrator commanded, raising her CSS Variable Weapon and glazing the neko-filled horizon with short bursts.

"Y-y...yes ma'am!" the two replied in unison as they set themselves up to intercept the charging horde. Inexperienced as they were, the two primed the weapons and readied they massive arms.

---

Closet Queenie released a gurgle as Tweak's form landed on top of her, the neko's legs giving way under the weight. The headdress flopped off of her head and jingled, siren-like, as it fell, landing a few feet away from Tweak and her unfortunate landing pad.

Closet Queenie could only groan, still momentarily disoriented from the sudden shock. Former Queenie, however, was devastatingly quick to make a frantic lunge for her crown.

((Eek! Sorry, I'm falling behind.))

Claire, after witnessing the change in neko leadership, shook her confusion from her mind and followed Fitz after releasing the last of the team. She had stopped trying to figure out what the Neko's were doing a long time ago, as it was a meaningless venture at this point.

As she watched Fitz's failed attempt at getting the ship started she muttered a curse under her breath. "Neither option sounds too well. The damned things can easily outrun us, and, remember that they're nekos, they would eventually break into the ship if we stayed in there." She sighed. They didn't have very many options. Was escaping really that much better than not? She still hoped so.

"it be better if we knew where our weapons were aye?" Fitz said in reply, left hand on his head in thought, "but most likely place they be would be in the room we ran from." He certainly hoped the others were doing ok, he hadn't heard anything on his radio in a while.

Keziah was quick, too, and she lunged at the crown, her hand shooting out to grab at its edge. The queen was faster, and had a head start, but it wouldn't be enough. Her fingers found purchase in the odd headdress, just enough to try and rip it out of the neko's hand. In the instant of a thought, her muscles primed to full power, and she tugged at it viciously, the crown jangling in protest between them

But the neko was strong. Stronger. She held onto it and then pulled back, harder, her face twisted into a fierceness that was frightening. The retaliation made her lose her footing, but at the same time she jumped, rolling in mid-air to slam her shoulder into the ex-queenie's jaw.

They collapsed to the ground in a heap, the neko groaning, momentarily stunned. Before she could do anything, Keziah rolled away, the crown tightly in her hand, and put it on her head.

Tweak tumbled as her landing was less than stable, but quickly rolled to her feet again into a crouch mere inches from the crown before Kez and the OQ (original queenie) started wrestling over it.

"Woah! What's going on?"

Did Kez need any help?

All Dream could do was laugh. Those nekos rolling on the ground for a headdress made out of spoons were really the epitome of Yamataian civilization. They were their own best distraction, even

She was, of course, recording all of this.

"NOW would be a good time for the damn reinforcements from Cirrus to arrive!" She shouted, sending a mental command to the Wolverine damaged by Cassefin's grenade, ordering it to come to her at max speed, while simultaneously pulling out her jagged scalpel/shortsword and tossing it at Tweak. "You'll make better use of this!"

The Wolverine's weapons were offline, but it still had claws capable of applying a 5000 kg pressure.

She had a few ideas on where to apply that pressure, of course.

The two nekos continued to claw and scrape their way off the floor after the silvery headdress, up until the nanosecond it touched Keziah's helmeted noggin. The fit was loose due to the shape and near-frictionless surface of her CSS suit helmet, so she would have to constantly keep her good arm raised to keep the crown in place, but holding it on her head seemed to do the trick.

Once the two cat-eared amazons saw that they had been beaten to the punch, they both stopped short. Closet Queenie leaned forward with her palms on her knees while Former Queenie plopped her rump on the nearby rock, both of their heads hanging and sighing heavily in disappointment. The two nekos, after their short moments of mourning, looked up at Keziah with expecting gazes...and simply waited.

---

Outside on the landing pad, oblivious to the events happening in the generator room, it would appear that Cassefin and her Wolverine might fare better than originally anticipated. The nekos attacked as soon as they reached the mechanized vehicle, leaping and bouncing like rubber balls at the Wolverine. George and Lenny had a difficult time targeting the speedy nekos with the turrets, constantly firing and missing in all directions. Swinging the arms seemed to have a more desirable effect; everyone once in a while they would get lucky and clip a flying cat-amazon and send it sprawling...but the neko was usually quick to jump right back up and continue their assault.

The nekos could not seem to tell the difference between a Nepleslian and a Wolverine maintenance vehicle, and were attacking the machine in the same non-lethal ways they dispatched the security team earlier in the day. Some of them were catching on, however, and slowly intensifying their attacks.

"Well, it seems they only listen to the crown."

She felt silly. Incredibly silly, holding this thing on her head. It jangled each time she shifted, or breathed. But at least her arm wouldn't get tired anytime soon.

Though, there was the question of what to do with them now that they were passive.

"How do I tell them what to do?" Keziah muttered aloud. She raised her bad arm at the two former queens, and carefully waved them away.

The two nekos narrowed their eyes in contemplative confusion for a moment. One of them slowly looked behind them while the other idly scratched the underside of her chin. They both glanced at each other and, noting their shared misunderstanding, pursed their lips, shrugged, and returned to staring blankly at Keziah with big, round eyes.

Deacon made his way out of the trees after the momentary confusion of seeing the rather large explosion. He gathered up his gear as well, seeing as his and Tweak's plan seemed to be falling apart. After he got the basics of his armor back on, he slipped into the pullover and slid the sleeves up his arms.

Then he would head towards where the tide of bodies was attacking something, something large and metal. Canting his head to the side, he noticed that on that thing was a body not neko in origin. He moved a little nearer and found that it was the Administrator and two other humans.

Something flashed across his mind from when he and Tweak had been hiding in the shuttle, something that whoever Tweak was talking to had said...About the shuttle being for Administrator's use only. Taking a deep breath, the Kohanian knew what he would have to do, even if it meant incurring the wrath of his boss.

Licking his chops, he got down into a sprinter's stance at the edge of the forest, narrowed his eyes on where Cassefin was standing, and then began to run full speed at that spot, even if it meant going over, or bowling right through, the tide of nekos. He would have to save the administrator if ANY of them would be leaving this place.

These nekos were a handful...much more so than Cassefin had first anticipated. She, of course, did not expect two inexperienced screw-ups like George and Lenny to win the battle outright, but even her own efforts proved to be less than desired. She was a terrific shot with a gun; it came from her past experiences handling them, but even when she landed a series of rounds into one of the bouncing aggressors, it got right back up again and resumed its assault.

Deacon's charge towards Cassefin was not as succesful as he would have hoped. As he came into view in the swarm, a neko redirected her attention and swiped his legs out from under him, sending him skidding to the tarmac.

"Damn these stupid ceramic rounds," Cassefin muttered to herself as she hastily replaced the magazine of her CSS weapon with another. "This is why I should always CARRY those goddamn plasma enhance-"

The Head Administrator was not able to finish. During a rather sharp from the Wolverine to follow one of the neko's movements, Cassefin was suddenly put directly in the path of another cat-eared attacker who was attempting a flying headbutt against the behemoth machine. Instead of colliding the hard, flat surface of the vehicle, however, the neko's blow caught Cassefin on the side. Releasing a surprised, choking gasp, she fell off her perch and hit the turf, hard, her weapon sent spinning off towards the side.

George and Lenny were too busy with problems of their own to immediately notice Cassefin's departure.

Deacon knew something like that would be tried, so even though the neko tried, it would quickly find that Deacon was not like the rest of the security team. It tried to knock him off his feet, and instead of falling to the ground, he leaned back and handspringed off one of the nekos, using only one of his arms, the other went to his belt to pull one of his guns, and fire two shots of the mass driver ammo he had loaded while putting back on his armor, into the forehead of the neko who tried to sweep him.

That done, he looked up in time to see his Administrator take a headbutt and fall off the Wolverine. There were far too many of the beasts between himself and his boss, so he settled for next best thing, and used all his speed and strength to get himself to, and ontop of, the metal behemoth.

From there, he would plot his next move.

The situation was tragic, but Dream's eyes were wide with laughter and disbelief.

So it doesn't matter WHO it is, all that matters is that stupid headdress? AND WHOEVER HAS THAT THING IS THEIR QUEEN?!

...For the first time in her life, she felt actually, sincerely sorry for all Yamataians. If their society was like this, they must really be a very sad people.

But she tried to think of something to help Kaz. Those nekos either didn't have an intelligible language, or didn't have a language period.

If only she were connected to Polysentience, she could ask some linguistics specialists.
Damnit.

Think fast, Dream. "Just, you know, act queenly or something." she said to Kaz. "Keep them busy, I'm... trying to work something, until the squads from Cirrus arrive."

Too many things were happening all at once, she was losing track of the tactical situation.

Raaagh, she couldn't even communicate with George and Lenny.

Anyway, she redirected the other Wolverine, the damaged one, on the landing pad, to support the main fight. Unlike Cassefin's stupidly ineffectual tactics, however, she was aiming to win: The Wolverine's claws weren't trying to swipe at the nekos, but to catch them as they swarmed around, one at a time, with both claws, and ripping them in two.

She's had enough of these motherfucking nekos on this motherfucking planet.

Scot said:

"it be better if we knew where our weapons were aye?" Fitz said in reply, left hand on his head in thought, "but most likely place they be would be in the room we ran from." He certainly hoped the others were doing ok, he hadn't heard anything on his radio in a while.

Click to expand...

"I'd figure they would still be in the lobby where you guys found us. I don't remember seeing them dragging our weapons off..." Claire looked around her at the other memebers of the security team that had been captured earlier. "Well at least, mine and perhaps the weapons of the team that came to 'assist' us. The rest of them I've no idea. Wherever they got caught I guess, unless the Neko's though they were shiny enough to take."

She sighed a bit. "Wish I had a radio." She looked behind her at the rest of those present. "Any of you have one? Or a helmet with a working radio?" Claire returned her gaze to Fitz. "Even so, we should probably go back for the rest of the squad assuming they're still kicking. Especially if we need that one crabby lady to open the damned door."

"Right."

Act like a queen. Okay. That should be easy.

She walked around the neko's, staying several meters from them as she made her way to the top of the rubble, and sat down. The crown shifted unsteadily as she made her way up, and she didn't like having no arms to help her with the job.

So up there, perched above everyone else, she still didn't feel remotely like a queen.

Maybe one of a ruined kingdom (queendom?), which would make sense right about now.

"Hopefully they won't try anything. But what should I do, just say 'nya' at random lengths?"

Tweak frowned, disappointed when she saw the dumb looks on the amazon nekos' faces as they stared at Kez.

These...these are the feared nekovalkyrja? The warriors that everyone cursed, stopping barely short of blaming for everything wrong in the universe?

True, she had to admit that they were savvy fighters. They learned at what seemed to be the same rate she did, and their teamwork was good. But were all of them like this? Little more than highly-trained savages? If so...what was she? Tweak knew she was capable of so much...how could these nekos exist this way when they most likely had the same traits?

As Kez made her way to the top of the heap, Tweak started toward the doorway leading out of the generator room into the hallway, taking a flap in each hand and giving her knit cap a tug down on her head and just letting her hands hang from the knitted chords that were the flap ties. She didn't go back to the lobby, though. Since the primary threat, as she knew it, neutralized, she just wanted to be alone. Surely there was nothing else that could go wrong...they could complete this mission without her.

Coming down from a combat high sucked...

The shots from Deacon's HHG were quickly dodged by his neko victim as she flipped backwards, her blood pumping fast enough to anticipate such projectiles, even if she didn't fully understand them. George nearly leaped out of his skin when he saw Deacon's form rise up and latch onto the Wolverine.

"Geh! W-what the hell are you doing?!"

By that time, the two CSS members also noticed that, for all their whiffed swings and missed shots, they hadn't been berated for a good minute or so. Lenny seemed to be the first to notice Cassefin's absence, his big head swinging side to side as he looked for his superior. George was busy both attacking the swarm of nekos, as well as watching an approaching Wolverine carefully.

"Uh...George? Where's the Head Adminuhstrator?"

---

The Head Administrator was still down on the ground amongst the assaulting nekos. She had not moved since she hit, saved for a brush or two from the nekos as they focused on the Wolverines.

---

Dream's Wolverine seemed to stir a lot more reaction from the teaming horde of nekos. Although they didn't appear too bright, they knew a more serious threat when they saw one, specifically in the extended claws of Dream's Wolverine. As a result, they upped the ante more, strafing and dodging the mechanized monolith's swinging arms.

Noticing the doubt in Tweak's eyes, Dream mused something aloud.
She nodded sagely, allowing herself (and others, of course) a bit of philosophy. Or maybe it was more correct to call it sociology.

"Amusing. For Yamatai, the greatest weapon..." She glanced at the two nekos. "...is stupidity. Stupidity as the pinnacle of conventional military design: blindly following authority, acting without thinking. Weapons without wisdom, or deepness of thought, or culture, or dignity. It's... far worse than I thought."

Of course, she wasn't merely musing idly. Trouble wasn't over yet.

Apparently, the Wolverine she was controlling was being (of course) more effective than the one piloted by George and Lenny, and the Nekos were swarming it.

All the better, she thought, trying to make it trash around as much as possible and attract as much attention as possible while luring the nekos further and further from them.

"Hey, Kaz." Dream asked then, nonchalantly. "Apparently the nekos like my new Wolverine. Does it have a sufficiently powerful self-destruct system, or do I just need to make the reactor go critical?"

But then she noticed Tweak walking away. "Uh-oh. Hey, wait, Tweak! We ain't finished yet, I need your help with a thing!" Dream said, running up to her. "As soon as the scene out there clears up a bit, we gotta jump in and save Headmaster Real... I think she's been wounded."