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Eclipse Phase (Private)

Wyrmwood: Stranger Tides
The Open Ocean​

The appointed time arrives; the Swallow is at rest on the sea, sails furled and engine cut, awaiting the merfolk. The seas are still, and while the ship’s nightshroud keeps the deck safe for the vampirates aboard, beyond there is daylight. A few days have passed in-game since the orders were given to arrange an accident aboard the Lightbringer - which, from the screams upon the weave of magic, was evidently lost with all hands. A message was given by its late captain, and now there is only the w-

-the entire ship lurches violently to port, as though something huge has slammed into the side of it from below. A number of the deckhands look overboard and watch as thick tendrils wind their way up the side of the ship, feeling their way past gunports until they crest the guardrails and slither onto the deck. The ship begins to list to starboard as whatever has attached itself to the ship pulls on it, the tendrils winding their way around cannons and masts, each tentacle wider around than a cannon-barrel or mast - but delicate enough not to damage anything. Upon the tendrils, now clearly visible beneath the sun, is elaborate scarification in the script of the Abatecah, a script intended to be read with the hand more than the eye.

Some of the deckhands begin shouting to call attention overboard, and it quickly becomes apparent as to why: crawling up the tendrils that now bind the ship are the Abatecah themselves. The scaled, piscine merfolk slither their way up the side of the ship, a dozen of them pouring over the side and onto the deck, their arrowhead faces full of shark-teeth and alert to any sudden movements. The Abatecah warriors hiss and snarl, flourishing their weapons and licking their teeth as they take the measure of the crew on deck. Three more Abatecah follow the dozen aboard, these ornamented with precious metals embedded into their very bodies that carry the twisted charge of alien magic; they stand an additional meter above the Abatecah warriors - all of which stand two meters in height, with plenty of tail behind them - and examine the assembled crew, many of which are visibly nervous to behold the imposing ambassadors of the deep.

<The thrall told us you want a meeting>, one of the three ornamented Abatecah signs, searching for anyone who might comprehend the merfolk’s sign language; they stand tallest of the three ambassadors, with an opalescent cranial fin that shines in the light and crisscrossing scars that hint at many battles past. <Tell us why you should not join it.>
 
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Mach thought he was ready. Carnivorous selkies or Aquanauts? Why would that be scary? Well, the Kraken shook Mach up for a second, but this wasn’t a titan machine, it was an AR thing. It was fake! He knew it was fake.

The Abatecah came next. Carnivorous bio-slitheroids? Okay, a lot more intimidating than Mach was picturing, but even though he cocked both his AR cannons, he was fine... Right?

Then one came up to him, covered in barnacles. And the barnacles were animated. His instincts read it as exsurgent and his bolter, the real bolter, came into his hands before he registered that it was still fake. It wasn’t real, it was... He shut off the AR. Nothing there. He left it off, and slowly holstered his weapon. Shit, he had to calm down.

[Hey, the GM is wondering if you’re okay.]
You say anything to him?
[I told him you sure as hell aren’t, but I’m here for you.]
Fuuuuuck.
[I haven’t said anything to the team. You can still pretend you’re fine to them, if you want.]
... Fuck me, man. Who designed that motherfucker?

Sleipnir {Tacnet}: [I’m taking a break from ARspace. Feels like the other me’s gonna figure us out sooner rather than later, and I don’t want to be caught off-guard.]
 
Euphemia Cross​

Watts-Mcleod is a destroyer with no casualties.

Eppie did not die the day of her infection, nor did the peers that carried her feverish body into the med bay become ill by their proximity. Her touch did not hurt them, her body did not metamorphosize into anything beyond what it had always been. She was still Eppie Cross, aged twenty nine, a gatecrasher by trade, the first of her kind to study the archaeology of the new worlds revealed by appearance of the Pandora’s gate. Watts-Mcleod did not destroy her, but when Eppie’s fever broke and she woke from sleep lucid three days into her admittance to the med bay, for six days, it was not Eppie that spoke. She was changed in a way no one could name. If there were changes in her biochemistry, they were invisible; if it shifted the neurons in her brain, they could not detect it. She was as she had always been, and yet…

And yet.

She acted in ways that her own wife could not explain. Knew languages she did not speak, had mastered skills she could never dream to understand in an instant. Overnight, a woman who often forgot to use her inserts was suddenly capable of drafting, programming, and utilizing a nanofabricator to degree that surpassed their resident nanotech - creations advanced far beyond what was thought to be possible - created by a woman who had never once been capable of even activating the machine. Even when she awoke from the first of many fugues, she was fundamentally changed. A woman of unfailing warmth and love that brought comfort with just her presence, now made into someone where one could look into her eyes and feel as if millions were staring back.

She was Eppie Cross, and yet she had become someone else. Within herself, she was Eppie Cross. But it was like someone - something - had moved in with her, and would pry her away from the controls of her own body as it pleased. She had gaps in her memory, spaces of time among the real world that would vanish into nothing, the explanations of the crew that filled those gaps leaving her with more questions than answers. She would say things in words she did not know, offer knowledge - if it could be called that - with the confidence of stating an undisputed fact. She would be in one place, one moment, and the next, she would be somewhere else. Flat on her back with the ice of Europa’s surface burning cold into her bones, and look up upon a sky that should be filled with stars, but find only eyes in their place, staring down at her with a knowing knowledge of things she could never fathom. Feel their eyes seeking into her mind, her soul, into her memories, seeking, looking, searching for something-

She could see something holding her body, if she strained to look through her peripheral. Possessively. Too tightly. Like a miser cradles his coin, or how a dragon guards it’s hoard. Whispering secrets, whispering instructions, into the ear of her limp body. She would beg for it back if she had a mouth, would scream if she was granted a voice. All she can do is gaze upon her body in arms of a creature that she cannot name or stare into the endless expanse of eyes - some human, most not - that gaze down at her.

She would wake, and would be told the scene is a delusion of whatever has infected her mind. But the scene feels so real, the ice against her spine so cold, and she does not breathe in the form she takes there; feels comfort, rather than consuming terror, to feel the nothingness of space against her skin. She dreams of being covered, head to toe, in eyes, like the eyes that stare down at her from the endless expanse. She has sight from all angles, a complete three hundred and sixty degree view of everything around her; she knows what it’s like to know one’s surroundings at all times, to be omniscient to any threat, and feels peace, even as the eyes stare down to her. Peace to feel so safe, peace to feel at home within a body she feels is no longer hers. And then she wakes, not as the someone else she will become, but as Eppie Cross, and it fills her with grief that leaves her weeping and shaking to reach to her face and know the only eyes she has are the ones fitted into her skull.

This change frightened her - still frightens her - but not as much as it frightened Miranda. Miranda, who vowed to her in marriage that Eppie would never walk alone, withdrew into herself to see what Eppie has become. Eppie knows her behaviour - when she is awake, or when the Other is piloting - scares most, but reminded her wife of the horrors of the exsurgents, even of the TITANS. She was afraid, and couldn’t mask it well enough for Eppie to not see the strain creasing her wife’s beautiful features everytime Miranda looked at her.

Eppie does not remember the conversation they had. But when she woke from one of her fugues, she had tattoos on her face and the beginnings of a piece down her trachea in a language she does not know, and Miranda looked ready to weep every time she looks at Eppie. Sezé played a recording taken, of Miranda gently taking her hand and asking - almost begging - Eppie to not join them on the next mission through the gate. The fight they have before Miranda left is the worst they’ve ever had, and it sent Eppie into a fugue for close to four days. When she came to, she had a packet from Miranda waiting for her, filled with apologies and promises that she will search the other side of the gate for a cure that gave none of the peace Miranda intended.

Watts-Mcleod does not destroy actively. It changes, mutates, evolves. It puts something delicate, so, so delicate that every small movement creates fissures, fractures, and breaks into Eppie’s cupped hands. Every small movement, every stress, every trauma, leaves cracks on it’s surface she cannot hope to repair, and can only fear what she will become on the inevitable day she breaks it. There is a voice in her mind, too, that sings a haunting melody from far away that dares her to close her hands around it and crush it so that she can finally see the picture the fragments will make. Of why it has chosen her to become a monster. Of what she will become when she completes the metamorphosis that she has barely begun.

Perhaps, if she had as many eyes as she had in her dreams, the image would be clear.

Perhaps, if she had as many eyes as she had in her dreams, she could regard her reflection without a deep, gnawing feeling that her body is wrong, that she, down to her ego, is not faithful to the image she is supposed to take. It shakes her, to look into a mirror and feel she is wrong, worse still to look into a mirror and have a face other than her birth morph stare back at her after having been able to stay solely within that body for so long. Though the scum bargers were kind enough to dye the hair the same shade of pink her birth morph has sported since she was nineteen, the face is wrong. The hairline is a different shape, the jaw too round, the eyes too large and a shade too blue. The skin of her face is clear of freckles, blemishes, scars, or tattoos - any traits that someone has lived - truly lived - in this body have been erased.

It makes her stomach churn, truly, making the sickening anxiety she already feels to float in microgravity even worse. But she can’t be seen quite yet, not until she settles into this alien skin. Something burns under this skin, itches in her chest, neck, and face, where tattoos should be but aren’t. Breathing in deeply for a few seconds, she holds her breath and calls Esteri’s words to her mind, and says them outloud in a breathy exhale, “It’s only for a little while. Try to see it as different, rather than wrong.

Just while you do this job for Firewall. She stares into the wrong - the different eyes staring back at her, brown eye brows, not black, pulling into a frown. She uncaps the small pot of pink paint given to her, grabbing the makeup brush from where it floats in the air. She calls an image into her inserts of her birth morph, referencing the tattoos over her face as she carefully applies them in paint. There is a buzzing voice in her mind, reminding her at once in softest whisper and at once in the loudest scream, that this body is wrong. Not her own. Not real. Not the one she wears, not the one she left on Pandora. That her true body lies beyond the gate, into the ruins, in the shrapnel of TITAN tech found within the crevice Eppie insisted on exploring. That if she had kept going after she had gotten infected, she would have seen the image it wants her to see, if only she had enough eyes to truly look -

Eppie digs her knuckle into her temples, breathing deeply to banish the flashing images behind her eyelids and the deafening buzzing in her ears. There is a heaviness on her mind, of something enormous, as unfathomably large as it is to picture the size of their entire universe, watching her every thought as the neurons fire to create them, and it’s gaze turning on her silences the buzzing hum. She paints on the last details of her tattoos, and when she inspects her work, she feels both more at home with the body she wears but also defeated by the unease that lingers.

She makes her way through the room towards the door, reaching for handholds to ground herself, her stomach flipping to float through the microgravity. Pulling up the contact code in her inserts, Eppie writes up a message and sends it to the agent assigned to meet with her:

Jukebox Maiden {PM to Ebonstahl}: im ready, can we rendezvous in the spin drum? i’d kill to have my feet on solid ground.
 
Ebonstahl {PM to Jukebox Maiden}: [Understood - stand by for coordinates.]

Coordinates are routed over the Eye in short order - coordinates that route from the Peculiar Taste of Silence's egodrome and sleevebanks to the nearest transition point into the drum currently available, routing to an out-of-the-way "breaker bar" set up close to the bow of the massive barge. AR graphics make light the tyranny of the Silence's labyrinthine corridors, and sweet spin gravity sets in on the ride down the elevator into the drum. From there, the graphics have to adapt to the ongoing rager that is life aboard the barge, but the bar is easy enough to find after a moment to re-calibrate past an open scum market and a flash cuddle-puddle.

The breaker bar - one without a name but an oasis of goddamned peace and quiet amid the surrounding party - is sensory-light and soundproofed, with the music outside only dull thudding. The air is laced with the smell of cannabis, alcohol, and sweating bodies seeking repose, with comparatively softer music playing. The bar is self-serve: racks of bottles are kept by the scum themselves, with a maker fabbing up the next concoction on order.

"Hey there~" someone rasps from off to the side - a neo-raven heavily augmented with cybernetics greets, perched on a table near the door. "Looking for a place to lie low? c'mon over with me, cherie?"

Ebonstahl {PM to Jukebox Maiden}: [not normally this forward, just keeping up appearances in case anyone's watching.]

The neo-raven takes wing and flies over to a shadowed booth, with curtains that automatically draw around the pair that enters. "There you are, cherie - make yourself comfortable. The maker's public, order what you like off the menu - I know you've had a long way to come~"

Ebonstahl {PM to Jukebox Maiden}: [Make of the advances what you will - here's the situation: our sentinel team is trying to protect a Firewall agent from his errant fork. To make a long story short, they're trying to ingratiate themselves with a group of scum passionate about Live Action RolePlay in the hopes that the fork - transmitting surveillance data to your inserts now - will try crashing the party and piss off way more people than they bargained for. Where you come in is that while they're all in there, there's no one running interference out here; I've been keeping tabs on their movements, but they've already trashed my shop and I'm hardly kitted for combat. Your task will be to help keep Marcus and his team of Guanxi mercs busy, distracted, chasing their tails, or otherwise delayed while the team makes friends with the LARPers, until the trap is set. With any luck, the idiot and his goons will bite off way more than they can chew and choke on it.]

Ebonstahl {PM to Jukebox Maiden}: [If that sounded harsh, then feel free to look over the surveillance footage we already have on this guy - he's as dangerous as he is fucking rude.]
 
Okay, so this explained where that one new morph was coming from. Some morph engineer had to play this game too. Aquatic morphs weren't super practical on a scum swarm, but practicality had never stopped anyone before. Devin stepped a little in front of the rest of the team, who all seemed more than a little spooked. Cowards.

Devin swept into a bow. "We're honored that you accepted our invitation, your Magnificence," he said. "We've come to offer you gifts. We've arranged a lovely shipwreck for you," he said, gesturing at Captain Milton's ship behind them. "I regret that it may be more difficult than you anticipate, to put us in your thrall. Stormbringers aren't the sort to go gently. I'm sure you understand. But we wouldn't have troubled you without something better. We have a proposition for you that would give far better prizes, if you're interested." Devin wasn't sure what the psychology on these things were like, but there were few sentient creatures who didn't want all the information, when you dangled a worm on a hook in front of them. At least not in his experience.

"We know where there's going to be many more ships just like that, and if you help us, you can have them," Devin said.
 
At the insinuation that they could not easily put the crew of this ship under their thrall, the speakers of the Abatecah flare their fins and hiss; at the idea that such creatures as these, who presume themselves the equals of the deep folk, to have something the Abatecah could not take for themselves, draws outraged hissing from the surrounding Abatecah and further incenses the three speakers that stare down Devin Murphy; at the idea that the Abatecah serve, and not rule, the speaker slams the end of his spear down upon the deck, causing the tendrils wrapped around the ship to squeeze ever so slightly and cause the lumber and metal of the ship to strain.

<You presume much. We rule these waves. We take what we please. We should take your ship, your flesh, and your essence for your insolence.>

"My apologies, your Magnificence. I never meant to suggest that you didn't. Our ship is simply...prickly." Devin gestured at it, since it was. "I only meant to draw your attention to other ships, in greater numbers, to satisfy yourselves with."

With another, gentler tap on the hull, the tendrils relax, and the ship ceases to strain; the Abatecah are stilled, but the speaker still scans the surrounding prey in appraisal. <Once seven, now six. Your offering pleased. However: thirteen is many more than six.>

Devin Murphy {TacNet}: [HELP]
 
"They're real might is right," Vidar reads in the cove chat, among other dubious and raunchy information; picking up that the scum find these beings of the deep endlessly fuckable. He could not disagree more. He had found AR graphics to be suitably and unnecessarily real in 2070 and could not muster the suspension of disbelief as easy as others his junior. But he was more of a punched when frightened type-

[I. Got This] He sends to Devin as he steps forward and draws his sword with a NKF flourish.

<You are the thrallmaker. You invoke the rite of single combat. Very well. Name your term.> The Speak signs.

"My terms are, that when I win, you may claim every soul that falls into the sea, as no soul can stop you from taking them, but that you sink only the ships of the treasure fleet. If I lose- I don't name any terms cause I'll be dead. Lets go."

<Your term is accepted. If I win, I claim the right to the flesh and [arcane essence] of your crew first.>

"Well You'll have to catch them first, they did summon the four winds yesterday," He says with another lazy flourish ending in a defensive stance.

He hit his adrenaline boost and the fight starts hard and fast, the speaker snaking across the ship as Vidar puts him on the defensive, ending with sliding his blade across the Abatecah speaker's flank, drawing a thing line of blood that follows his blade. The Speaker lets out a high chittering and a squeal that makes the hair on his arms raise. The fear is in him and that makes it real. Makes it count. The haptic feed back from the AR is good enough to pass muster. He wishes fervently that UC9 had a blade class because he didn't know that fighting monsters- monster that weren't real filled him with a sort of glee he hadn't felt in a long time. The speaker comes at him, twisting and slithering across the deck, brandishing his spear. And he thought for a moment- with out words that it might be difficult to gauge where the blade was and was not, because the creature lacked hips to keep an eye on- but as he bid his feet to move he'd found he'd hit stride- becoming everywhere that the blade was not, duck swerve, step, flourish, step. He'd found flow and broken a sweat, didn't realize he'd subconsciously parsed the games Ai fight patterns.

His second strike comes in as a surprise, the natural ending to a side step and parry, and slice top to bottom deep enough to stop the average man. But the speaker forces him back, put him through his finest footwork, and there's not greater thrill than putting himself where the blade will not be with the least physical movement. He breaks a sweat and forgets for a moment its just a game. That much higher risk things happened that pulled less focus out of him, he forgets for a moment that his mood has been a yo-yo and that he's looked at least three maps. There is just him, the blade and the monster. His mother named him Vidar and in that moment he felt so very good at slaying Fenrir. He feels the opening before it happens, and slides his sword into the Abatecah's gut and out and spins away as it fumbles and coils on itself, he spins away and brings the sword back down and around, slashing into it's thick powerful tail. It rolls and thrashes, causing the blood and sea spray to froth into a bubbly pink, slick against his boots.

It rips a gem from its arm and crushes it with a fist. The act is visceral in his chest, like the blooming of a new fear or a small earthquake beneath his sternum. He steps back- almost remembering he is in a game- and that video of Anime tiddies is happening in real time and not in another dimension. The Abatecah comes at him furiously, claws coming close enough to catch is hair. Back, back, back- and this time there is no AR Box to fail him, and he steps forward at just the right time and the Speaker slides himself right on to like they don't know how to be where the blade is not.

For a moment, he thinks it's all over.

But the Abatecah rears, arcing upward and over head on its strong tail- the javelin comes fast and hard before Vidar can get done noticing how very small his is. The javelin makes him a pin cushion with a pain that is at once fierce and yet not enough, not really, for the way it pokes out the other side of him. The anger hits him harder than the pain- his pride bruising like a paper thin thing, as if he hadn't spent the match being untouchable. He grasps the javelin and pulls it out-

"You Swedish mother fucker-" He howls, coming at it with the very javelin. The claws and a feral hiss drive him back, and he discards it and spits.
the waves crash.

The Abatecah lounges, comes close as Vidar hits the deck and rolls, comes up and bounces his blade against the thick hide of that strong tail.

"Do your people yield?" He calls, because the blood upon the boards of his ship is becoming thick, and not even an imaginary creature can have so much.

<Abatecah do not yield>

He's relieved, because, deep in him he knows he's the same. A fight is always all or nothing- that was the thrill of it after all. Before cortical stacks, before the good nano packs. You killed or died and there was something satisfying about it. He didn't want to admit that mankind's conquest over death, had ruined his addiction to dueling. But there it was. There is a certain joy in doing, but there's a blood lust he's out grown, that he wouldn't want back even if he could. He ducks another Javelin, not falling for it twice. Comes in close as the Abatecah leans low and ready to pounce, and side stepping too fast for it to change course, arcs his sword in a gleaming semicircle.

A perfect Oslo Execution.

The head hits the deck with anticlimactic thunk.

The Cove Chat is moving fast and full of exclamation points. He tries to breath. shakes the blood off his sword and sheaths it. He wonders if anyone still knew what that move was called. or if some other slang had taken up the job.

"Alright," He says to the rest of the Abatecah like they are naughty children, "Shoo. Off with you. Go eat the treasure fleet!"

<We will honor you're terms,> One of the remaining speakers signs before slinking back into the waves. He laughs and it's a sort of unsettling release of tension sort of laugh, but also I just kicked a monsters ass laugh, and I'm 100 years old and this is the coolest I've ever felt. He sits down to catch his breath, against the rail of the ship.

"Mermaids, right?" He says to the crew, "Can't fuck em, can't kill the treasure fleet without em."

his artificial wound still smarts something awful but he tries to pretend otherwise. Pain is easier to push through when he knows its not doing him real damage.
 
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Devin was always glad Vidar was his friend. Usually though, that was because Vidar could quote whole episodes of Moomins at him, but knowing that you were friends with someone who could do that with a sword was comforting.

"I dunno, if I got the chance, I'd fuck it," he said.
 
"You would, you would," He said shaking a finger at him, "But like I only take to bed what can kill me. Call me old fashioned."
 
"This might as well be happening," Vidar intoned, as Devin beamed at him drunkenly. kink shamed and affirmed on his own pirate ship. What a day.
 
The Peculiar Taste of Silence​

Seated cross legged in the booth, Eppie considers Scirocco’s words regarding her target carefully. During shore leaves from gatecrashing, Eppie and Miranda spent a significant amount of time with Miranda’s home swarm or the swarms that swung by the outer rim, and honestly… getting the LARPers on their side as a means of protection wasn’t a bad idea. Being the butt of quite a bit of roasting made them fiercely protective of their games, and though Eppie wasn’t sure how much of their in-game fighting translated to actual combat, she’s positive attacking a large group of well armed scum isn’t going to go well for the fork and his goons.

But that protection is only guaranteed if they get the time to really make enough of an impression to make the scum so invested that they’re furious to be interrupted when Marcus and his men storm the game. She’s never met the other sentinels, knows nothing about them due to the strict opsec of Firewall, and has no idea if any of them are capable of the balliness required to not only impress the scum, but scum who enjoy games of high fantasy that allow them to be the boldest, bravest, and brashest versions of themselves.

So whatever she does, she has to do it big.

She smiles pleasantly at Scirocco, “Hey, Scirocco?”

“Oui?”

“Can you do me a favour?”

“Bien sûr.”

“Punch me in the face as hard as you can.”

Scirocco’s head twists to one side and then the other in rapid succession; “I beg your pardon?”

His incredulous reaction is expected, but it still brings a laugh bubbling out of her, “I swear it’s relevant to what I plan to do to hold up Marcus, I just need some visual aids. Hit me as hard as you can.”

“If anyone asks, I had your consent-” Sicrocco says, strain in his voice as he winds up and throws a punch with a cybernetic wing that clocks Eppie square on the jaw.

It’s hard enough to serve the purposes that she has in mind, but - holy shit he hit her way harder than she thought he was going to hit her, her vision doubling a moment as her hand rises to cup her jaw. She can already feel the pain of a bruise rising up on her flesh as tears well and spill over her cheeks reflexively, the wound throbbing under her fingertips, “Fuck- okay, damn, thank you, but Jesus-“

“I hope that will work toward whatever scheme you’ve got in the works. The nanobanage’s on me.”

“Thanks, sweetie, but it’ll heal up on its own soon enough. This’ll be perfect. Do we have a read on where Marcus is now?”

"Allow me a moment to retrieve it for you..." Scirocco says, eyes going out of focus, "Here he is-"

-and then a location appears on Eppie’s map of the ship, downloaded from the Eye. She watches a second, making sure to get a good read on it’s location so she doesn’t get lost. She rises out of her seat in the booth, ducking down to air kiss both of Scirocco’s cheeks, “Merci beaucoup, mon ami, get ready to watch the chaos!”

With that, Eppie ruffles her hair aggressively to appear that she was getting up to appropriately scum worthy business in the booth with Scirocco, then slides the curtain open and slips out of the booth to head towards Marcus’ location. Sezé keeps open the map of his location, occasionally filling in moments of hesitations with proper directions to lead her through the sprawling maze of hallways, the pounding bass of EDM growing louder and louder. When she is sure the party is around the next corner, Sezé sounds a rumbling, singing tone into ear to make her pause.

[He is right around the corner. I advise caution in proceeding, you don’t want him to see you quite yet, with what you have in mind.]


Roger that.

She peeks around the corner, eyeing the situation. Far down the hallway, there is a group of scum furiously arguing with Marcus, despite the peacemakers that have arrived to break up the argument and negotiate both side into standing down. Eppie whistles lowly; generally, infuriating scum to the degree of raising their weapons took a whole lot of effort, and even that wasn’t guaranteed to raise a reaction unless you committed a serious offence, like rape, domestic violence, torture, so on and so forth. For Marcus to infuriate the scum the way he clearly has takes… well, she wants to say talent, but that doesn’t exactly feel like the right word. It takes having a vile, horrendous personality.

[lord almighty, you weren’t kidding about him being a shitbag]

[He's been a pain in our collective ass since we started this operation - show no mercy, chérie.]

[at least tell me that the guy thats actually on our side is more tolerable than him]

[Having met him, I can confidently say he is considerably more tolerable.]

[i can work with that!]

Eppie looks around for a spot to hide to make sure she is not spotted by Marcus, then sits down about five feet to the left of a couple aggressively making out, figuring that would draw more attention than she would. Eppie turns inward, to her inserts, a finger placed to her lip in thought, Sezé, bring up the circle-a for me? The ones nearby, but not inside the party.

A list appears before her eyes, and she begins to search the mesh for people suiting the sort of character she’s looking for, browsing the pages set up by people and the posts they reblog. She pauses on a public group of extreme augmentation fans, with a handful of local members nearby. A quick look at their pages shows many posts about, of course, genehacking, but also posts about safe BDSM practices and the importance of enthusiastic consent, shared hotlines for people who are suicidal, survivors of sexual assault, and survivors of domestic violence.

She checks their location, finding them not too far down the hall from where she sits, and when she crawls around the couple to peek down the hall, sure enough, she spots a man with a body of what she imagines a crocodile-human hybrid might resemble standing outside of a body mod shop. She slips back behind cover, breathing quickly to get ready for her plan. She brings to mind the most heartwrenching experiences of her life to the forefront of her mind, like when she found out some of her friends on Novogo Edema didn’t make it out, being told she was no longer able to gate crash because of her condition, her crumbling marriage to bring tears to her eyes, then picks herself off the floor, pulling her hood up to not draw Marcus’ attention to her hair.

She lingers outside the shop a minute, making sure to look appropriately dejected - sniffling and wiping her eyes of their tears as she pretends to inspect the sign as if she wasn’t aware this was a body modification shop. With a shaking breath, Eppie walks in, taking a seat in the waiting area, pulling her hood off her head and rubbing her nose.

It doesn’t take long for any of the scum to realize she’s there - not only is she pink head to toe, but the sniffling draws the eye of the compassionate like nothing else. One of the scum there, sleeved in a samsa, smacks the arm of the crocodile-man and nods his head in Eppie’s direction. His eyes, a bright neon yellow, shift to regard her, and he does a quick jog over to where she’s sitting, “What - hey there, y- whoa, hey, what’s the matter?”

She wipes her nose, sniffing hard, “Oh - uh, fuck, I’m so sorry, I just...” Eppie takes a shaking breath, then pulls down her hood and tucks her hair back behind her ear to display Scirocco’s bruise swelling under her cheekbone and along her jaw. When she speaks, she makes sure her voice is thick with emotion “I know this is a lot to ask, but can you guys fix this? I don’t know what to do, and doctors ask too many questions, and my usual guy isn’t answering my messages, and I just-“

Eppie’s voice breaks, and she lets herself just dissolving into sobs, burying her face in her hands as she pulls up the crocodile-man’s info on her inserts. A hand delicately pats her head, and she can see the crocodile-man, who she now knows is named Zhou, crouch down, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright. Can I see?” Eppie moves her hands, and by the softness in his eyes, she is giving an oscar-worthy performance. Brushing her hair out of the way, he winces sympathetically as he sees the full damage of the bruise, “Shiiiiiit - hey, Marlow, quit pounding Mack and get some nanobandages.”

The Samsa - Marlow - looks over, his eyes so very large and fixed on her, before he pulls his friend along, who is sleeved in an exhuman sleeve Eppie recognizes to be in the predator strain. The predator - Mack - grabs some nano bandages from a cabinet, then puts them in Zhou’s waiting hands.

Delicately, as if Eppie were made of glass, Zhou begins to place the nanobandages over her bruise, “Hey - Eppie? Is it cool if I use your name?”

She wipes her eyes of tears, nodding quickly, “Y-Yeah, for sure.”

“Eppie, hey - shit, you got hit good. We can get you somethin’ for the pain in a sec. Did… Did someone do this to you?”

Marlow pipes in, browplates shifting down on his face, “No docs here, and we ain’t recording anything. You can tell us.”

“I...” She wipes her eyes, wincing when she touches the bruise, “God, it was my fucking ex. I just... We broke up recently because he would, well, do this -“ And gestures to her bruise, voice breaking, “But now… We were living together and he won’t give me back any of my shit, and when I went today to confront him, he hit me… ” she chokes up, putting her head in her hands, “Now he’s hired some goons to protect him and won’t even acknowledge that he knows me and says I’m just some crazy stranger that won’t leave him alone. He’s even wearing one of my morphs! I don’t know what to do...”

Mack is pensive, but slowly speaks in a low voice like gravel, “Hey - Wasn’t that the guy who got splashed by the ship earlier?”

“Which ship?” Marlow asks.

An octomorph joins them from the back of the shop; her inserts supply their name as Radich, “The one that flew off and then fuckin antimatter exploded.”

Zhou growls, “... He sure was. That fucker’s been trouble from the jump - now he’s fuckin with you too? Grab the heat, this motherfucker been trouble.”

“You don’t gotta do all that for me...” Eppie starts.

Zhou clasps his hand affectionately on her shoulder, “Nah - this dude’s been poppin’ up on the mesh lately. Time to put these mods to the test.”

She sniffs, smiling up at him as she puts her hand over top of his and squeezes gently, “Thank you so much... I-I don’t know how to repay you.”

“Shhh, none of that - we’re just tossin’ garbage where it belongs,” He shrugs, but almost seems… Bashful?

Eppie beams up at him, “Thank you... so much. You really don’t know how much this means to me.”

Through her inserts, she opens up her conversation with Scirocco, certain he was watching: [and thats how its done]

[brava, cherie!]

It’s like a tornado of productivity as they suit up - handing off weapons to each other just in case, with each of them asking her no less than four times to stay in the shop for her safety but quickly adding that they respect if she wants to see them beat the shit out of Marcus. She smiles and assures them she’ll stay and watch from the safety of the shop, which seems to make all of them relax a bit to know she’ll be in cover if it actually gets messy.

“Wait,” Eppie calls as they move to turn the corner. They pause, curious, and Eppie rolls up on her tiptoes and makes sure to kiss each of them on the closest approximation of their cheek, beaming up at them, “For good luck, and a token of my appreciation.”

Zhou ruffles her hair with a murmur of thanks, Mack pulls her into a hug with the the arm not holding his gun, Marlow bonks his head into her’s in what she assumes was a nuzzle but isn’t quite sure, and Radich picks her right off her feet with four of his eight arms in a hug, all of them chorusing “Thank you”s and “We’re gonna kick his ass”.

Eppie pulls a chair out as they march into the hall, Zhou taking the lead with righteous rage. In the conversation Eppie had with the shop boys, Marcus didn’t make it further than a block, and even though it’s hard to see from her own eyes, she can tell through cams that he’s irritated beyond belief. As Zhou marches towards them, Msrcus has the good sense to grow a bit antsy as Zhou shouts, "Yo, Marcus, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Eppie alternates to the views through cams to get a better look as Marcus blinks in absolute bewilderment, “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

"Nah, man, I'm here to provide a little community service for a lovely pink lady, cause I hear you're a son of a bitch that beats his partner. What the fuck kind of man lays his hand on a lady that small like that?”

"... What in the entire FUCK are you talking about?”

“Y’know, she told me you’d fucking say that, you limp dick piece of shit. Think this makes you tough shit, punching a girl and not even owning to it?”

"I LITERALLY have NO IDEA what you're talking about? My dude, I've had a really bad day today and I need you to fucking back off, okay?”

Zhou’s expression is hard to read, on account of being half crocodile, but the shadow that comes over his face could only be described as murderous rage “You are having a bad day? You think that would be an actual excuse, you piece of shit-”

Zhou steps into the space between himself and Marcus, swinging the entire weight of his body into a punch that hits Marcus so square in the face that she hears Marcus’ faceplate crack from her position. Eppie winces sympathetically, whistling appreciatively as she whispers, “Oh, shit-”

The entire scene dissolves into chaos she can’t even track. The minute Zhou lands a hit on Marcus, his goons move in but are quickly occupied by the other three men, Radich handling the two flanking Marcus on the right by himself, with Marlow and Mack taking the other two. She can’t see much of the scuffle, even when she switches to cams, just a mass of bodies and violence, but from what she can see, Zhou is kicking the absolute fucking tar out of Marcus, and the guards he’s hired seemed to be too fairly matched against the other guys to be able to rescue him.

It’s absolute chaos, and it is absolutely wasting Marcus’ time, and Eppie hides a grin behind her hands. The peacemakers return to the scene once the fighting drags on long enough, shouting something along the lines of, “Hey, hey, hey, what did we just ask! Stop causing trouble!”, breaking the fight apart as some other scum heckle from the sidelines, “Are y’all having an orgy or something? Shut the fuck up!”

The peacemakers manage to drive space between the two parties, Marcus appearing so furious he shakes with unhinged rage, the synthetic wiring exposed from the fight sparking from damage. Zhou and the others turn to return to the body shop with a few more verbal barbs at Marcus, looking a little worse for wear, which brings a frown to Eppie’s face, but otherwise okay. As they approach, she stands to trade spots with Zhou, who seems to have taken the worst of the hits.

She sucks in a breath through her teeth at the swelling black eye, using a finger to tilt up Zhou’s head to cast the wound into light, “Oh, ouch,” She reaches over to some of the nanobandages left over from Eppie’s own bruise, lining up the bandage over the worst of the bruise and delicately pressing down so the adhesive takes, her brows upturning in concern when Zhou hisses, “I’m so sorry about all this.”

"Fuckin - God, that dude was an asshole. Pretended like he didn't know you - serious denial. But damn… Him and his thugs? A lot better armed and armored than what we were ready for," He pauses a moment, wincing as she applies some bandages to his wounds, then puts a hand on her waist, “Just... Stay out of trouble okay? Fetish morph aside, that motherfucker ain't messing around right now. Would hate to see you to get hurt."

“I’m so sorry, I really didn’t think he would go that far. I’ll be careful, but message me to let me know you guys are all okay. Some of them look painful.”

"I’ll be sure to hit you up - n’ trust me, they are."

“I’m so-”

“Don’t apologize, sweet. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but it’s worth it to teach a motherfucker like that something about respect.”

Eppie breathes out a sigh, “Then can I give you a hug?”

He smiles, a sharp toothed grin that would probably be a little intimidating to a lesser person, but when he opens his arms, Eppie crouches into his embrace, squeezing him tightly until he groans in discomfort. She moves back, wincing apologetically, “I’m -”

“No, it’s good, it’s okay. There are worse fates than being hugged too tight by a pretty girl.”

She laughs, feeling a blush rise in her face, when Mack clears his throat from behind her, “I’m… Also injured. So injured. And could use a hug from a pink gal.”

She spreads her arm out in his direction with a welcoming smile, waving her hand invitingly. He grunts in pain as he tries to crouch him down beside Eppie and Zhou, which takes a couple of seconds of uncomfortable shifting while he uses Eppie as a crutch, but he joins the hug with Zhou, pressing his head into her shoulder, mindful of his mouthful of teeth so close to her easily broken skin. In a moment, Marlow joins at her other side, ducking under arm and presses his face between Zhou’s shoulder and Eppie’s collarbone, a contented, chittering sound escaping the insectoid man. From behind her, she hears a sighed ‘fuck it’, then Eppie feels Radich wraps them all in his grip, pressing everyone even closer together.

It’s cramped, Marlow and Mack have so many elbows and spikes between them that she can’t shift without getting stabbed in the side, Zhou’s scaled shoulders are kind of chafing her exposed skin, and the sensation of tentacles is… odd, to say the least. Nonetheless, she hums happily into the hug, the warmth and comfort of companionship something that actually managed to solidify herself into the quiet moment, rather than getting lost within the beasts inside her mind. For a moment, the Star is not singing within her mind, there are no voices attempting to speak to her, and there is nothing but her breath and the breath of the men she holds.

But as Eppie has intimately learned, all good things must come to an end. Voices from outside the shop draws her attention, and when she opens her eyes a crack, she spots Marcus and his goons passing by the shop, not impeded as much as she had thought by injuries or peacemakers. She swears, untangling herself from the hug, “I have to go, but I’m dead fucking serious - I better hear from you four so I can make you’re all okay.”

“Yes, ma’am,” They chorus.

“Good. Thank you. Thank you so much for everything.”

She steps out of the doorway of the shop, careful to not attract attention as she watches Marcus’ back get farther and farther away. She turns inward to her inserts, quickly trying to search the mesh for nearby mercenaries, or really anyone that seems capable of holding their own in a fight. Seze brings up a result within a handful of seconds; a company of six armed scum, and a quick observation of the posts they make to the mesh confirms they will fit the bill. She opens a group message with them: [hey i need some backup against my ex and his armed goons like right now, you guys down to help me?]

[worm, give us a little time to suit up]

[thank you!]

The next message is their location to meet up, which is blessedly close to her current location. Flipping her hood back up to cover her distinctively bright hair and skin, Eppie speed walks around the corner, then sprints when she is out of Marcus’ line of sight. Opening the tracking Firewall has set up on Marcus so she can make sure he doesn’t get too far, she re-opens her message thread with Scirocco: [scirocco, make sure to keep an eye on marcus, i got another plan to hold him up, but i need to rendezvous with the people i messaged first]

[I am watching already. I don’t need to remind you time is of the essence, but I will let you know if there is any additional haste needed.]

Sezé dings her with directions leading her to the scum, orchestrating a route that is efficient but doesn’t cross paths with Marcus and his group before she is ready to meet them. She spots the scum after almost skidding around a corner, pumping her legs harder to get to them so they can set up the interception, breath burning in her lungs from the sprint. She barely slows as she approaches, feet sliding as she tries and fails to slow momentum. One of the scum catching her in their arms as she slides into him, “Damn, girl, what’s the hurry?”

She sends them a map with Marcus’ location noted, “Sorry - I don’t have a whole lot of time to explain - my ex-boyfriend is a piece of shit and won’t give me any of my stuff back, is pretending he doesn’t even know me, and has hired guards to protect him. I need backup to confront him, but he’s trying to leave the ship and I’ll never catch him if he gets out.”

“We’re just about ready, we’ll lead the way once we’re good. How’s that?”

Eppie holds her tongue on pushing the pressing issue of time as they run final checks on their weapons and body armour, but the instant they half form the word, “Ready,” Eppie is on her feet, forwarding them an updated location on Marcus. The scum lead her through the labyrinth of hallways of the ship, but Eppie breaks to lead the group as she spots Marcus’ back. She gestures to the scum to slow from their jog to a brisk walk.

“Hey, Marcus!” Eppie shouts down the hall, the acoustics carrying her voice all the way to Marcus. He turns his ruined face towards her, managing manic irritation despite half of his face plate being broken. His crew comes to a stop, their eyes scanning her as if evaluating the risk she poses to them and their charge, but their eyes quickly shift to the scum, “Give me my shit back, you fucking asshole!”

He blinks, his expression walking a thin line between utter bewilderment and rage, “Who the fuck are you? Are you the bitch those fucking freaks attacked me for?”

Eppie looks back at the scum, her face a perfect, unspoken message of ‘see what I’m talking about?’ before she turns her gaze to Marcus, feigning exasperation. “Jesus fucking christ, Marcus, are you fucking serious? You're really gonna play dumb? You're acting like a fucking brat!”

“I have literally never fucking met you in my life? I don’t even have your name on any of my rep profiles? Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t fucking need this right now - what the fuck do you want from me?”

Eppie laughs with no humour, “Playing deaf, too? I want my fucking stuff back!”

“Your stuff - what fucking stuff? I got here a few fucking hours ago, I have never been on this fucking ship before, all I have is this goddamned fetish morph, some fucked up armor, and my gun - nothing else,” His eyes brighten, his lips curving into an unsettling smirk that folds unnaturally where the skin is broken, “What stuff of yours could I possibly have - list everything.”

With anyone else, that’s an angle that might’ve worked to catch someone off guard. But Eppie grew up under the guidance of a woman who could elegantly lie her way in and out of anything; lied her way off of Earth, out of the beginnings of the Jovian Republic, and into Europa. So Eppie doesn’t miss a beat as she gestures to Marcus’ body and snaps, “Well, you’re wearing my fucking morph, for one thing, you arrogant piece of shit.”

His smile slips almost comically, eyes blowing wide, "Your fucking- what? no- I-"

Stepping forward into his space as she sets up the camera in her inserts to start recording on a five second timer, so the recording doesn’t pick up her sneer of, “-and you didn't have a whole lot negative to say about her when I was wearing that morph, bitch boy.”

Marcus is speechless, his mouth working but no words leaving his lips. Each twitch of his voiceless mouth pulls his expression deeper into a snarl, a visual made even more crazed by the cracked and torn plating of his face place. She can almost hear the whistle of a kettle ready to boil over playing in his mind as his nose scrunches up, and she can see the moment he snaps in his eyes before he even swings. Eppie braces for his hit, ready for the force of a synth to hit her.

Except the hit never comes.

You see, the thing about the scum is that they are a hedonistic, laissez-faire, live and let live people. They fuck in any way they can imagine, drink as much as they want, and do any and every kind of drug to fill the gaps the rest of life can’t fill, and they do it all when it pleases them, wherever it pleases them, with whoever pleases them. But, in her experiences on scum swarms, is that, when it comes to communal spaces it, there is one thing that really doesn’t happen.

In public spaces like this hallway, nothing, especially not the floor, ever gets cleaned. If the scum can live without ever cleaning some mess, they won’t ever get around to actually wiping it up. And Eppie can guarantee that there is not a single square inch of flooring on this ship where someone hasn’t gotten fucked, or spilled an entire 40, or spilled any type of drug, or whatever else could possibly happen during a scum party.

This piece of information seems to be something Marcus is unaware of, since when he swings to punch Eppie in the face, his feet slip out from underneath him. The moment of unsteadiness allows Eppie to step out of the way as he loses his balance and falls flat on his back. She almost - almost barks a laugh at that, but adrenaline makes her only focused on the fight. Eppie scans the area for any sort of weapon she can improvise, since she knows she has no hand-to-hand combat experience and it shows, but finds nothing that she would be able to use.

Out of options and out of time to figure something out, she drops down to try and pin Marcus down to land a hit on him. She gets as far as sitting on his stomach, but Marcus wiggling and struggling and the floor is so fucking slippery what the fuck happened to this floor makes it too difficult for her to get him down. Marcus throws her off of him, and Eppie is barely able to roll out of the way of a punch aimed to her head. His fist hits the ground right by her head with alarming aggression, the impact making Eppie yelp so high she’s sure a recording could be used as a dog whistle.

Eppie kicks at Marcus to make distance, which he easily dodges by simple retreating a few steps, but Eppie uses those handful of seconds to look for another weapon. She is very aware of the gun at her hip, but the favour she called of the scum didn’t include them risking their lives in a gunfight, so she frantically looks for a weapon to use. Marcus tries to kick her, but Eppie rolls out of the line of the attack again, trying not to scream like a bitch.

Out of the corner of her eye, by the wall, Eppie spots a wrench about three quarters the size of her arm, and scrambles to her feet towards it. She clambers to pick it up, spinning on her heel as she straightens to swing the full weight of her body into a hit aimed at Marcus. He jumps back with a vicious curse, pivoting back into Eppie’s space to throw another punch. Eppie throws herself backwards, her spine full force slamming against the back wall, but Marcus’ current position has him lined up for a hit she’s sure even she she could make, his head turned away from him due to the momentum of his attempted strike.

She hoists her wrench high in the air, bringing it down as hard as she can into the back of his head. Against all odds, the wrench not only makes contact with Marcus, but the force of the hit makes her teeth chatter and her bones rattle as it caves in a part of the back of his head. Instead of any sort of biological sound of impact, the sound is akin to crunching metal and circuits, sparks flying from Marcus’ head. She yelps as the electricity arcs up the wrench and shocks her so hard she almost drops it, her body tingling painfully from her fingers to her toes, but adrenaline maintains a white knuckled grip on the wrench.

It takes a couple of seconds before Marcus lifts his head. In hindsight, perhaps Eppie should’ve taken that brief opportunity to cave his head in with the wrench, but she was so utterly and completely shocked she had not only landed the hit, but had done as much damage as she did, that Eppie froze. Marcus’ hand raises upwards with bewilderment written across his face, blinding feeling the open air around the back of his head as if he could not quite remember where his head was located, or how to arrange his arm to touch his head with his fingers. The circuits spark again, his fingers pressing against the open hole in the back of his head, his expression shifting from disorientation to horror as his horrified eyes lifts to Eppie’s ‘doe-in-the-headlights’ gaze. It takes only a fraction of a second for his expression to shift into murderous rage, and as he rises to his full height, Eppie realizes she might’ve fucked up.

He steps into her space with furious intention, his hands reaching out for her weapon, for her, to break her, beat her -

- it overwhelms her suddenly and without mercy - she is not on the Peculiar Taste of Silence, she is on her back in Europa - she stares into a sky of eyes, a tendril made of stars descended from the heavens wrapped around her entire being - she breathes in the Void, and in turn, it devours her, taking and giving - it sings to her in words she has never known, but it’s lyrics feel as intimate as her native tongue -

- Marcus is being held back by his men, a good ten feet away, almost frothing at the mouth in fury. Eppie, too, is not in the same place she was just a moment ago - she is held in the arms of a scum, her arms curled tight around the wrench, his voice in her ear, “Let it go, girl,” as a warning, as if there was something within her that could truly deal damage. Eppie looks into Marcus’ furious eyes, and the moment of eye contact makes him flinch. She wonders if he can behold the behemoth that lives behind her eyes, that he looked upon just moments ago without knowing anything at all.

"That's enough", says the steel morph, training the automatic rifle on Eppie as Marcus is pulled away.

Eppie drags in a shaking breath, trying to hide how unsteady she feels, “Now you made me have to damage my fucking morph, asshole.”

Marcus shoves his men off of him, pointing an accusatory finger at her, "Fucking shoot that freak if she follows us, I don't give a fuck who she says she is."

“Coward,” She hisses at him, but Marcus pays her no mind at all as he and his men leave the scene, guns trained on her until they are at a safe enough distance to turn and march away.

"Fuck - what an asshole," the scum holding her says.

Eppie sighs, using the scum’s arm to steady herself, “I’m so sorry about all of that, guys... Jesus.”

"Y’know, I really thought he had you at the end there, but before I could even move, you had ducked out of there so fuckin’ quick - almost didn’t see it. Wasn’t expecting at all.”

Eppie feigns surprise, but his words chill her bones to ice, “Yeah? I guess instinct just took over.”

Another scum adds in, “Gave him a real good hit, too! He probably gotta see a mecha’ about that."

“Yeah,” Eppie drags in a rasping breath, “Yeah.”

The scum holding her leans down, concern in his face,“You okay, coya? You look a little pale.”

“Oh, me? Yeah, dandy, I just, uh…” Eppie blinks a few times, trying to shake her head of the blinding image of the Star from her mind, trying to remember how to bring words to her tongue comfortably, her mouth alien within her body, “Never really been in a fight before. Guess the adrenaline is just a bit much for my taste.”

"He's got some serious tech behind him. Buncha terminators with real hardware. What kinda buisness you get tangled up in, don’t mind my askin? ”

“Just poor romantic taste coming to bite me in the ass. He stole all my stuff - that morph he’s rocking is mine. I got this shiner from him, earlier.”

The scum appraises her bruise, whistling appreciatively, "Looks like an edge hit too, 'from what i seen guards can do."

Another scum, after a moment, asks Eppie, "Also - why turn a guard into a fetish morph?"

The question is beyond what she expects, and it forces a laugh from her and steadies her. She smiles, taking a moment to consider a lie, then coyly says, “As much as I would've loved to be iconic enough to make a guard up like that - I actually won it. But like... think about it. Wouldn't you want a gal that looks like that to also be able to just... pin you against the wall, no matter what kind of crazy morph you’re wearing? It’s dreamy, honestly~”

They all share a look among themselves, considering Eppie’s sound logic, "Shit - yeah!!"

"Poor thing's gonna need some work after that,” A scum mumbles.

Eppie stomps her foot in fake indignation, crossing her arms, “I know! How dare he!”

Scirocco’s conversation comes up with a new notification: [Jukebox - we’ve got a problem.] Attached to his messages are camera shots of Marcus through various halls of the ship, clearly taken since their altercation based on the massive hole in the back of his head, but the additional attachment shows a map of Marcus heading towards the rest of the crew on the Wyrmwood: Stranger Tides.

She swears viciously in her mind, then looks to the scum, “Sorry, guys, I really have to go after him. I appreciate your help, but I’ve got it from here! Thank you so much!”

She takes off down the hall, opening her messages with Scirocco, [i’ll try to hold him up some, but we need to rendez-vous on wyrmwood. they’re going to need all the backup they can possibly get. can you get me patched in to them?]

[Une moment, s’il t’plaît.]

Once she’s showing as connected to the rest of the team, Eppie sends them all a message flagged for urgent, [you got marcus headed your way, i'll try to slow him down but be ready!!!]
 
At long last, the raid has come.

The Salty Swallow sails in formation with the massed strength of the pirate fleet. The skies are overcast, the sea riven by a surf that the steel bows of the pirate ships easily cut through. The AI crew is about their work, preparing the Swallow for the battle to come; spells are readied, cannons are loaded and ammunition rolled up, the sails and the engine both propelling the vessel forward through the choppy seas. All the while, the crew sings a jaunty tune, promising death to their enemies and fortune to those bold enough to seize it.

“The Swallow is ready, sers!!” An AI first-mate declares. “The Flyer is ready, the guns are ready, the lads are ready - let’s have em!!”

Not far off, only partially obscured by a thin mist, lies the treasure fleet. The three galleons sail in a row, led by a ship-of-the-line and frigate ahead, and only one frigate behind. A spyglass’ view shows that the ships are all tattered, their wards weakened and their hulls scarred from the crossing - and their crews scrambling to prepare for the battle to come as well. Even in their damaged state, however, the Imperial treasure fleet has an imposing air about it; where there should be fear on the faces of the crew, there is only steeled wills and grim faces, bracing for the coming onslaught-

“THERE YOU ARE, YOU MOTHERFUCKER.”

From behind this scene - as if tearing out from the rear cabins of the Swallow - is the errant fork of Marcus Speidwagon, still sleeved in the same excessively endowed morph from earlier and toting the same particle beam bolter; the morph and its body armor has since taken considerable damage, the body armor damaged and the synthetic mask itself in tatters, revealing half a synthetic face to create a the garish sight of a half-mad Marcus staring at the hardsuit that contains his fork. With him are his four mercenaries, weapons up and trained on the squad. They show signs of the battles previously fought, but are no less dangerous for that, eerily still as they let their employer take point.

“Wait a minute-,” Marcus says, catching sight of the same crew that was with him on the Annora Arabella. “No...no no no no no you gotta be kidding me- you got to be FUCKING KIDDING ME!!! No way, no FUCKING WAY- YOU ASSHOLES??? YOU MOTHERFUCKERS - AGAIN????”

Marcus’ gun is up now, his eyes darting from one Firewall agent to another as the truth of the situation settles on him. Even with a synthetic morph, the wild look in his eyes and the way his gun trembles with the realization are unmistakable. In a chronic run of bad luck, another thread within him has snapped. “I should’ve- I should’ve fucking known you assholes would be here- you assholes gotta be the ones who’ve been sending everyone on this ship after me, weren’t you?? First you fuck up the Annora Arabella, then you fucking send half the fucking barge after me, and the whole time you’ve been working for the motherfucker who stole my identity and got me shot up???”

“You know what - no,, I fucking hate this place, I’m so fucking done with this - you all just fucking give me the motherfucker in that hardsuit and I’m done - we take him, whoever the fuck he is, and we’re on our way. Otherwise I’ve got you outmanned, outgunned, out-teched, I don’t see your one spec-ops Fury here, I’m not wearing fucking frilly blouses and I will make you eat my fucking gun before I BLOW YOUR FUCKING STACKS OUT!!!!”
 
[I especially liked the parts with the wrench : U] Vidar shoots back right away.

2sday; Tacnet: [ Just remember the cover story. We're a family unit. That includes you Mach, don't admit he's right. We are celebrating Abby's birthday. We did a job for him and he didn't pay us. We don't know why he's here. Got it?]

Ti, cove chat; [Hey I got an armed interloper, I think he's confused.]

Vidar put his hands up placatingly, coming in between both Marcusi, "Just put the gun down and we can sort this." He had the deep suspicion he was going to get full up on lead, and that, this was probably what would sell the deal. Everything was going to plan but he could feel the sweat trickling down and catching on the back of his suit. Shit.
 
Marcus looked at himself. He’d watched the proceedings through the cams, and he could see that the other him broke a good while ago. Maybe even before he got onto the fleet. The other him looked like he’d walked out of earth’s ruins, scars to prove it. He’d been the same, before Psychosurgery and Nanti. Nerrix’s inhuman grip wasn’t good for anyone, especially a veteran of the fall. He had to try to get through to him. So he sent himself a message through Guangzhi.

[I don’t have long, and my team didn’t clear a damn thing with me when it came to keeping you busy, but if this is a fight, you’ll lose. There’s a way out of this, me. You just have to listen.]
[Listen? LISTEN? I’ve been assaulted in every goddamn sense today! Physically, mentally, SEXUALLY! I GOT SHOVED IN A GODDAMN ANIME SEX DOLL THAT USED TO BE A REAL COMBAT MORPH! I AM FUCKING DONE LISTENING YOU LITTLE SHIT!]
[I saw. This has to be the worst day you’ve had since the fall. Just watching you fucked me up a little. But I know the only reason you’re here is that you wanna be free. If you surrender, I can get you to a damn good psychosurgeon and away from Nerrix. I know you wanna know how I got away.]
[You’re lying, and I know it! You either wanna merge me, or fuck with my head till I’m not me! I can’t trust you, I can’t trust them, I can’t even fucking trust Meter, and he’s supposed to be ME! I AM DONE WITH FUCKING EVERYONE!]

In the few real life seconds the exchange took, the other him shifted from furious to murderous. The kind of rage that can only be expressed through screams, roars, and violence. Marcus honestly wanted to slap his teammates for doing all those things to the other him, but it was equally his own damn fault for not talking to his other self as much, or trying to help him until now. Nothing to do but draw the bolter and hope he could make it out alive, his other self’s stack in hand... He really wished it hadn’t come to this.
 
Mach I was a long gone lost cause, so Devin let Mach II try to reason with his evil twin and turned his attention to Mach I's new help.

"Hey, my dudes," Devin said. "Did your new buddy tell you he tried to burn us for saving his ass?"

They turned and gave Devin a look that would have frozen his blood, if the alcohol content was lower.

"I see. You're not my dudes, and you don't give a fuck. Carry on."
 
Abby quietly makes contact with Other Marcus's inserts, then contacts her new friend, Sônia.
ManicPixieCyberHacker: [Hey babe, remember that asshole I mentioned that is the reason I was paranoid? He's here. Wanna help me fuck with him?]
SenhoraElétrica: [Wait - what? Why hasn't Eighth Frame called hold on the game??]
SenhoraElétrica: [What's going on, are you okay??]
ManicPixieCyberHacker: [For now, yeah. Things seem to be escalating pretty quick though, and he has a whole team of thugs with him. I have an idea to distract him long enough for them to be dealt with, though.]
SenhoraElétrica: [Got it - what's the gambit?]
ManicPixieCyberHacker: [It is a little ethically questionable, but I wanna upload a scorcher into his inserts. Possibly into their TacNet if possible.]
SenhoraElétrica: [A little questionable?? XD He must really have pissed you off. XD XD]
SenhoraElétrica: [Nothing like cracking cyberbrains to put your skills to the test though!! I'm game, let's give this jackass some nightmares C:<]
Abby smirks for a second before putting on her best "spoiled brat" face and starts shouting at Other Marcus. "You motherfucker! You hire us for a gig, blame us when shit goes bad because you didn't give enough info, get pissy when we try to unwind after a stressful job because 'the job isn't over or whatever', don't fucking pay us, and now you wanna come in here like a fucking lunatic and wreck my fucking birthday celebration? Fuck. You."
Of course all that screaming is just a smokescreen while her and Sônia bruteforce their way through the protections on Marcus's inserts.
 
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“HEY- Don’t you fucking talk to me like that - you fucking clowns would’ve been a goddamned waste of money at any price.I don’t give a FUCK what day it is, GIVE. ME. THE. FUCKER. IN. THE. S-” Marcus starts to say, before he cuts himself off for just long enough to register something on his entoptics; “Brute force attack - you MOTHERFUCKERS-”

“Wow- Can we not do this in the middle of a larp?” Vidar Demands.

“FUCK YOU-” Marcus says, bolter trained on Vidar as he fires; the beam strikes, and while the hit is weak, the heat is searing.

The beam hits his small frame hard enough to spin him round and the screech that leaves him is high and harpy sounding so much that he doesn’t realize it's his. A bolter doesn’t feel like a bullet and the number of times he’s been hit with a bolter is now exactly once. His Exo suit takes the brunt of it, and the wound was not so bad- but he face plants into the planks, nose busted, the smg slung around his shoulder skittering across the planks. And that’s when Penny cuts the AR.

The four mercenaries Marcus hired are nothing if not prepared - they turn and break for cover, moving quickly to put crates and boxes in the line of fire. The guard and the slitheroid duck around the starboard and port corners of the aftmast, respectively, while the steel morph rushes to take cover among the scaffolding of the flyer launcher and the fierce kite blasts off for the cover and positioning of the port guns.

Vidar rolls to his side, surprised that a second shot hasn’t sounded, and finding the small pistol at his side pops of a shot. It goes wide. He rolls and then skitters around the foremast.

“Fucking mother fuck-” Marcus curses, rushing a shot on Vidar that misses clean and strikes the smooth surface of the foremast instead, Marcus himself sprinting for cover by the second gun back on the starboard side.

The more polite Marcus, of course, had some impolite things he had to do right now. Namely, draw fire, shoot at the enemy’s air support, and taunt his other self. So, rather than running for cover, he shouted out “Hey, does this seem familiar?” and fired two shots at the Fierce Kite. Only one landed, but that was enough for him. “Happened to you today, didn’t it? Everyone saw THAT one.” he continued, bracing himself for what was sure to be a LOT of retaliation.

Eppie feels like she’s been running for hours, breath burns in her lungs and reminds her too closely of the vacuum of space sucking all the air from every cell in her body, and her stride only breaks with the deafening sound of a gun far too close to her position for comfort, but she knows she’s finally found where she needs to be.
She comes to a stop, dragging breath after breath back into her desperate lungs as she eyes the stairs that seem to lead to the action, and sprints up them two at a time, slinging her SMG from her back and into her hands. Eppie crouches behind a small half wall, peeking up over the edge of her cover to spy one of the synths from earlier crouched behind a cover that defends him from the rest of the sentinels. Eppie crouches back down, quickly checks her gun is loaded, safety off, and set to automatic as she springs up, brings her gun into position, and unloads on the synth.
The shot knocks him off balance, and although she can tell it might’ve hurt a little, she can also tell that him angery as fuckkkk.
She lets out the highest pitched shriek ever recorded coming from a human being as she ducks back down behind cover, “SCREEEEEEE - I’m not fucking statted for fucking combat, guys!”

Devin skittered around the foremast, getting to the same place as Vidar the opposite way.

[CoveChat]Hey guys, you may have noticed things are getting s p i c y over here on the Salty Swallow
[CoveChat]We managed to piss off some singularity seekers earlier and they don’t know what ‘fuck off and die’ means so uh…they’re here to crash the party I guess
[CoveChat]We’re sorry the worst dudes in the world followed us in
[CoveChat]We thought we’d all just downvoted each other like adults but I guess tf not!!

“Vidar, we should retire somewhere where no one shoots at us. I’ll make you a mimosa there,” Devin said, and he peered around the foremast carefully. He saw evil!Mach and fired immediately, and suffered for his lack of aiming by missing entirely.
“Fuck.”
“Good Job Captain Mimosa!” Vidar snaps.
“I’m drunk and I can’t shoot!” Devin snapped back.
“GREAT!”

Yasmin al-Rundi {TacNet}: [Something is wrong, comrades!! I cannot get ahold of Eighth Frame!! I fear for their safety!!]
As soon as the first shot is fired, Yasmin is off - making for the forecastle and rushing up the stairs as quickly as she can to not get caught out by any of the mercenaries or Marcus.

Abby snarls at Marcus and dives behind the foremast for cover. While back there she networks with Penny and the Grim quickly and with Sônia’s help they start the process of cracking into Marcus’s own cyberbrain.

The four mercs set to their grim work with ruthless efficiency. The fierce kite blasts off for an advantageous position, and while they spin too fast to be able to fire accurately, they now have a position on Vidar, Abby and Devin. The flanked steel morph repositions to get cover against eppie and returns fire with burst fire for a hit that knocks her back. The slitheroid and guard focus their fire on Mach - the former of which misses, but the latter of which lands a center-mass hit that bites through his hardsuit and sends him to the ground. A stroke of luck saves Mach from the second volley; the Guard glances down at their weapon before ducking back behind cover, and the slitheroid mis-fires and blasts a hole in the hindmast.

The Cove chat seems to be chaos, despite Devin trying to clue them in.
Ti Knivfar{Captians chat}: Salty swallow is having a very real shoot out. They’re focused on us, so I think they’ll leave anyone getting the fuck out of dodge alone. Eighth frame is not responding and I’m worried one of these singularity-kinksters may have neutralized him to get a jump on us while still In AR. I tried to get them to take it outside.
Ti Knivfar{Captians chat}: Fuck I’m sorry guys. We just wanted to Birthday-pirates.
Vidar looks up at the fighting Kite wide eyed. And it’s a good things he’s a violent sort of coward and that he’s already dead. He springs up and dashes forward, draws his very real monofilament sword, gets a good leg up on a real crate to get some height and brings the blade down hard across the lightweight battle morph. It goes spinning and goes clattering across the deck.

The steel morph’s shot hits home, a bullet clipping Eppie’s arm. This wouldn’t be much of a deal for someone else - say, like someone who should actually be involved in a battle, for example! - but the pain sears through Eppie’s entire arm and brings immediate tears to her eyes from the blinding pain. Eppie checks the wound to make sure it didn’t cut an artery, clenching her jaw and trying not to react to the pain, but can’t help the curse she lets out, so loud she is probably audible to the other ship, wherever the fuck they were, “Oh, MOTHERFUCKER!”
She picks up her gun with her good arm, testing that, yes, moving her wounded arm at all hurts real bad, before she stands, aims for the steel morph, and opens fire. The shot hits home in a patch exposed by her last volley and sends him sprawling, his gun lost on the scaffolding, and Eppie takes a little bit too much pleasure in the fact that she actually made the shot to pay back for the chunk he took out of her arm.

TheMeg {CoveChat}: [On my way.]

“God damn it god damn it god damn it-” Marcus swears, fumbling for his bolter as he does his best to line up a shot on his fork; he summons up as much of his focus as he still can, rattled as he is by the ongoing fight - and shoots wide, his bolt striking the foremast siding beyond the hardsuit he was aiming for.

Devin looked at the siltheroid who had failed to shoot him through the hole in the aftmast. The slitheroid looked back at him.
Devin raised his gun and fired.
The slitheroid failed to die, but he was certainly having a bad day now.
Devin did not wait for him to get the stars to stop circling around his head before he darted off to find new cover.

Yasmin draws a bead on the slitheroid from the forecastle, watching as Devin unloads into the heavily armored synthmorph; taking a page from his playbook, she sets her own assault rifle to full auto - the smartlink confirming the order just as she lines up a shot on exposed electronics. The slitheroid spots her and turns just in time for her hail of bullets to miss its guts, but not to save itself from getting hit. Good thing i brought this garish thing along, Yasmin thinks, watching the synthmorph hit the deck with an audible clank as he struggles under her barrage.

‘Dai’, for his part, recognized that he’d drawn enough fire, and unless Firewall actually provided him a Fenrir, he’d never function as ‘the tank’ of the party. He could, however, still shoot despite his grievous injuries (which made him somewhat regret selecting a pod instead of a full synth) and got to his feet, running back towards the boxes his team was behind. But of course that damn Kite was flying, and he had to put a stop to it. One shot, and… Oh shit his gun was broken, and it wasn’t shooting now. Well. This was bad.

Despite the chaos around her, Abby closes her eyes and focuses on running circles around Marcus's muse that was trying to shut out her and her team. It wasn’t bad, but Abby had yet to meet a muse that could out-hack her by herself, much less when she had help.

Clearly benefiting from some kind of neural enhancement, the synthmorphs hired by Marcus are nonetheless struggling to keep ahead of their enemies; the steel morph scrambles to recover its assault rifle while the guard is forced to perform some percussive maintenance to get her railgun working again, and the fierce kite struggles to reboot itself. The slitheroid, however, draws a bead on Mach, and while its first beam goes wide and strikes the foremast, the second beam scores a hit, scorching through hardsuit and searing flesh.

“Oh fuck yes - WE GOT YOU NOW, YOU PIECE OF SHIT-” Marcus hollers, drawing his own bead on Mach as the other beam sends the hardsuit tumbling. The fear and dysfunction that have thus far haunted Marcus seem to vanish in a moment of triumphant clarity as he pulls the trigger and watches his beam strike exactly where the hardsuit had been holed by railgun-fire earlier.

Marcus-the other one, who’d been free for so long, felt the thud of the exploding round. Then he didn’t feel anything, really. He just saw traffic passing him by, while smoke rose from the engine in the san francisco heat.

From the forecastle comes the thud-thud-thuding of heavy boots, and Yasmin’s heart nearly explodes until she sees the welcome sight of the Meg stomp into the play-space, gun drawn and leaping into the fray with scarcely a thought to her own well-being. The Meg vaults over the forecastle, finding cover among the cannons of the port side just as Mach’s hardsuit slams into the deck. “How many and how dangerous???”

Vidar managed not to swoon. Just barely.
“Five; professionals in armored Synths- So keep your beautiful head down, okay?” He says. And then his face falls. As he scampers over to Mach Penny send The Meg his Ar notes on the battle which include such gems as; “Delusional asshole anime tits Marky,” and “sssnek.” as well as his own guestimate on how swordable each one was. Not being exactly a professional, the data was not exactly professional. And as he slid to a stop he cussed.
“Don’t you fucking know what cover is you dumb fucking lugnut,” He says. He grabs him by th foot, and heaves. And forgets for a moment that he is not six three- he is Five four and Mach in his hard suit is at least two and a half of him. His feet, in shoes designed for 0g, struggle for purchase comically, his hands slips and he hits the deck hard.
Pm To the Meg; [Today is a comedy of errors.]

Under cover fire from the guard - both her bursts missing their intended targets but providing him the cover he needs - the slitheroid moves up to the hardsuit containing Mach, and with its own cybernetic strength is able to hike up the hardsuit and begin carrying it back toward his allies, keeping the suit aimed in the direction of hostile fire. The disable fierce kite continues to struggle for life, the damage done by Vidar’s sword clearly having hit something critical. The steel morph rushes to take cover from Eppie, but in a rushed effort to suppress her perforates the cover protecting him from her counterattack.

Deciding returning fire quickly is more key than reloading her SMG, Eppie drops her SMG and unholsters her pistol, flipping it to full-auto. A small notification pops up in her entopics, [Wound detected!] and Eppie sighs in blissful relief as her medichines kick and completely numb her gunshot wound within few breaths, whispering to herself, “You heal that wound, you funky ‘lil nanobots.”
She rises, now able to ignore her bleeding wound, lining up her shot on the steel morph. She unloads the entire clip into his body, each shot hitting home on his body, one after the other. Without cover and with damaged armour, the assault is too much for him to be able to make, and Eppie hoots in victory as he falls, falling back into her cover.

Marcus spots Vidar on the floor and lines up on him from cover, trying not to shoot the slitheroid as it carries his own fork back toward their side of the battlefield; the sound of the steel morph hitting the deck with an awful clang causes him to flinch at the last second, the beam burning away his own cover.
”FUCK-” he swears, opting to make a break over toward the guard and take cover behind her.

The Meg is focused completely on the fight ahead of her, aiming down the sights on her smartlink to return fire on the railgun-armed guard; the guard ducks back in time for the burst of bullets to zip past or bite through the cover, but with no indication she’d hit her mark.
Swearing, the Meg retrains her sights on the slitheroid making a break for it, hardsuit in tow. A much clearer target, even with the hardsuit, the Meg’s next burst finds its mark to tell by the sound of bullets striking armor. For that, however, the slitheroid is undeterred, snaking on for the cover behind which the guard and Marcus are hiding.
“That armor’s tough,” the Meg quips, already lining up her next attack.

Devin tries to shoot the slitheroid too, but apparently a moving target is too much for him at the moment, and he fails to land a shot.
“Hold still, ya slippy bastard,” Devin grumbles.

[I will see what I can do to help!] Yasmin says over tacnet, rushing over to the other side of the forecastle - where she has a perfect line of sight to her target. Her burst fire is quick in coming, the guard exposed and taking a hit severe enough to tumble backwards and fall to the floor past Marcus - all of her armor couldn't protect her from Yasmin’s critical hit.

Again the muse, Meter, tries to lock her out, and again Abby pulls the wool over its metaphorical eyes. Though to be honest on her end it looked closer to lapping the poor thing on a Rainbow Road-style racetrack. Whether this was due to her hallucinations, Marcus’s cyberbrain, or both, she wasn’t sure.

“No no no no NO-” Marcus yells, just as his guard’s railgun explodes due to some unforeseen fault in its operator’s hands, preventing her from returning fire on Yasmin. The slitheroid drops and attempts to pry open the hardsuit containing Mach - to no avail, the suit rated to withstand more than even its powerful limbs. Marcus is keenly aware of the threat Eppie poses, and turns to open fire on her; neither of his shots land and the swears tumbling out as the situation begins to spiral out of his control.

Eppie curls her hands over her head as she hears gunshots impact against her cover. She peaks through the one whole punched through the cover by the steel morph, spotting Marcus as the one aiming at her. She sticks her middle finger up over her cover for a few seconds, “Suck my dick, Marcus, you absolute fucking walnut!”

The Meg, for her part, remains in place, lining up her shot on the guard and waiting for her to stop flailing from the railgun exploding in her face before firing the shot; her first burst strikes home, sending the guard to the floor yet again - but the guard is able to throw herself out of the way of the second burst, apparently expecting it before the Meg can finish her off.
Rather than take another few burst shots from an increasingly unfavorable position, the Meg moves up behind the low cover of a set of prop boxes, her angle not much improved but setting the stage for her next attack.

“Dai, you dumb fucking swede, do you even know what cover is?!” Vidar calls from the ground as the slitheroid drags him off. He throws himself up, part of his brain rattling off an alarm that he needs to stop- he’s bleeding, but he’s already dead and medicine has advanced to a point where his old internal stop alerts come on a little too soon. He stays low, leaning to snag the strap of his smg. He slides, pops off enough bullets to give them cause to duck further behind cover and push his back up against the mast block.
He switches the chameleon suit on, revels in the mental process of it for a moment and breathes.

The Slitheroid has abandoned subtlety and begin physically attacking the hardsuit encasing Mach, its first attack too weak to do the damage needed to free him; the Guard draws a rail pistol and tries to fire on whatever attacked them from across the way, firing blind and missing wide.

“FUCK YOU-” Marcus snarls, aiming his bolter at Eppie and firing - the first shot wide, and the second one on target.

This is unknown to Eppie as picks up her SMG, digging out her clip from her bag to reload her weapon. As she is about to slide the clip into place, there is a moment where all the hairs on the back of her neck and forearm rise as if a tingle of static had washed over her. Time seems to slow to a stop, the soft vibration of the entire pantheon of the Star and it’s creatures humming in her ear, quiet at first, but building, louder and louder, a buzzing of a single bee developing into a hive, and then a dozen hives, and then thousands of hives-
They fall silent as the spell of time slowing breaks and the Star screams.
Eppie collapses, not even hearing Marcus’ shot miss her by inches and break through part of her cover as she throws her hands over her hears to stop the deafening wail. It is a voice not of a man or a beast, it’s tone a single being and yet it is a voice of thousands. The cry lasts only a moment, but it is enough to leave Eppie writhing in pain on the deck, hands clutching desperately at her ears as if she were able to muffle the sounds in her mind, coming from so far away. It leaves her breathing hard through her clenched teeth, her mind ringing with the echo of the Star’s unbridled song, as she crawls over to her gun, sliding the clip into her SMG with shaking fingers, and does the same with her pistol.

“That’s it-” The Meg says aloud, breaking cover and shouldering her assault rifle as she breaks into a charging run for the synths behind cover. The ring of steel resounds through the game space as the Meg draws her monofilament sword and brings it around in a whirling arc that Yasmin has a clear view of over tacnet - an arc that, despite the slitheroid’s best effort to escape, is perfectly placed to bite into the synthmorph’s components that were already compromised by the hail of bullets it took: with a shower of sparks, the slitheroid collapses into an inert heap on top of the hardsuit it was just trying to pry open.

Devin wiggles down behind his cover, reloading his gun and muttering “fuckfuckfuck” under his breath.

The Meg makes for a formidable obstacle to aim around, but the guard makes the mistake of exposing herself to Yasmin, and the three-round burst isn’t wasted - sending the guard tumbling to the floor in a heap, leaving only Marcus left standing. Yasmin simply keeps her sights trained on Marcus, aware of efforts to subvert his cyberbrain that are about to come to fruition.

“Welcome to the worst trip of your life,” Abby snarls under her breath as she uploads her scorcher. Without his defenses, he stood no chance, and her choice in programs was particularly nasty.

“What - no no no no no NO-” Marcus snarls, his shots missing and his backup crumbling around him. The Nightmare scorcher strikes swiftly and without mercy: Marcus screams and drops his bolter as though witnessing the horrors of the Fall all over again, crumbling into a different kind of heap and curling up against the aftmast in a bid to make himself as small as possible and make the nightmare stop.
 
Vidar rounded the edge of prop mast, becoming a deadly shimmer across the naked map of the salty swallow, sword raised and poised for something devastating and downward aimed-

Only to find his quarry curled on the floor.

“Oh,” He said, still invisible.

He then brought his weapon to his side as he rippled back into existence in a violently pink vac suite with a lime fractal along the hip. He gave the Meg a look, because he hadn’t yet realized that this was the work of his beautiful new daughter.

“Could’ve sworn he was fighting fit a second ago,” The Meg says, still tensed as though Marcus could leap onto her in a blink - and her sword ready to part synthetic head from synthetic morph. “I’ve seen people break under pressure before, but not like this. What should we do with ‘im?”

Vidar paused, this was just terribly awkward considering how much he was really looking forward to beheading marcus, but he was just too pathetic, he elicited far too much sympathy and his disappointment and mild concern showed clearly.

“As a guy who has episodes I think he’s having an episode. Probably since before he hired us. We know him. Kinda....Jeez. Should do...something.” He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the gang, cause he really didn’t want to kill a man crying on the ground, that wasn’t his style, but also you couldn’t give a synthmorph a xanax.

“Well, might as well put the poor fucker out of his misery,” the Meg says, preparing a strike that is sure to take Marcus’s exposed head off his trembling, screaming, writhing synthetic morph.

It takes a moment for Eppie to be able to come back to herself, but when she does, she registers a lack of gunshots, terrified screaming, and crying. She pulls herself up by her arms, gripping the railing with a groan, her brain spinning from the scream of the Star. She spots Marcus, who is crying like he is having a violent panic attack, and spots an enormous bruiser that has a bizarrely close resemblance to Zhou and a tiny ghost, the bruiser prepared to kill him.

Some might say Eppie borders on being a little too soft hearted. She shows empathy even when it endangers her life, has patience for way too much bullshit if it means helping someone struggling, and physically can’t stand by if she witnesses someone crying. Marcus is an undisputed dickhead, and tried to shoot her not even a handful of seconds ago, but… She an experienced sufferer of panic attacks, and he is having an attack that seems twice as bad as her attacks at their worst.

Before she can even process her thought, she shouts, “Wait!” Her arms drop her weight to the deck, refusing to hold her up any longer. She tries to get her legs under her, but her brain is firing off signals to weird parts of her brain that seem to just be dead ends that leave her lying face down on the floor. She tries again to get herself up, and manages to only get her arms underneath herself enough to lift up her torso. She accepts that this is her fate, dragging herself across the floor to the stairs.

Then reaches a bit of an issue. Getting down the stairs with no legs.

Eppie decides that, being gay and all, she’ll just Make An Entrance and risk busting her entire head open, and rolls down the stairs.

She goes in sideways to not go ass over heels, but as she quickly rolls down one stair at a time, something on the way down shakes her head back on right, and just before she breaks her nose on the bottom of the stairs, she uses momentum to throw herself to her feet in a scrambling manner she imagines resembles a cat recovering their balance. She holds her flailed pose a moment, arms spread wide and legs positioned as if she were lunging, unable to believe she actually managed to land at the bottom of the stairs intact.

She looks up owlishly from the ground at the bruiser and the ghost, realizing the sheer ridiculousness of what is currently happening, then stands straight, approaching them and the crying Marcus. She pulls the disabler she got earlier with Scirocco, which was sticking out Eighth Frame’s fuckin’ spherical body (long story), “Please let me use this on him instead of just killing him like that. Please.”

The Meg’s expression is even more bewildered than earlier with this latest twist to an already bizarre situation; her blade is poised inches above Marcus’s neck, and it hovers there for a few additional seconds as she contemplates whether or not to indulge Eppie. She looks from Eppie - disabler in hand - to Marcus - still raving in violent incoherence - and back to her, before her sword is back in its scabbard in a blink.

“He’s gonna fight feral if you try to get him with that now. Vidar - wanna help me with him?”

Vidar slacks his shoulders and sheaths his sword, “Feral is an understatement.”

They bend themselves to the task and with ungodly amount of spitting and kicking hold Marcus down. He is glad that MachII; the superior mach, can’t watch.

“Okay - if you’re gonna disable him, do it now before he snaps out of it!!” The Meg says, nodding to Eppie as she fights to keep her half of Marcus under control. “Access jack should be on the back of his neck, c’mon!”

Eppie crouches down without hesitation, moving Marcus’ hair out of the way to find the jack, then plugs in the disabler into the back of his neck.

There is a soft beep and a sound like an electric charge building before Marcus’s limbs splay out like the Vitruvian Man; they stay rigid for only a few seconds before going limp, the morph utterly inert in their hands and the light on the disabler a steady green.

“Well, that’s that sorted then,” the Meg quips. “Weirdest end to a fight I’ve seen in a while.”

“Sore losers are never satisfying,” Vidar agreed, “Are you- his people?” Vidar asked pointing at Eppie. Not sure if this person who had messaged him from firewall earlier or some bystander.
Heliotrope{Pm To Juke box maiden}: New phone? Who this?

“This is, unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend. Needless to say, he didn’t take to getting dumped. I’m… so sorry.”

Jukebox Maiden {PM to Heliotrope}: [it me, eppie, who dis]

Vidar made a face that said yikes, purely from imagining dating this version of Mach.

Heliotrope{Pm to Jukebox Maiden}: [Vidy, dis me. You’re very pink 100+!]

Jukebox Maiden {PM to Heliotrope}: [thank u!!!!!!!! ur sword is cool!!!!!!!!]

“Shiiiiiit, your ex-boyfriend typically try shooting up LARPs? Didn't one of you say somethin about singularity seekers earlier, too? You gotta learn to pick ‘em better, babe,” the Meg jokes in the way someone who just survived a firefight and wants to ease the tension some does.

Eppie laughs, “Oh, don’t I fucking know it,” She places an arm gently on the Meg’s arm, as they are within reach, “Are either of you hurt at all?”

“I was late to the party, so I’m fine - you holdin up okay there, captain Knifvar?”

“I’ve had worse, I came to play on level five anyway,” Vidar says, obviously bleeding from his nose and side.
“You’ve a talent for collecting them, I see-” The Meg jokes as she looks back toward the forecastle, where more scum are streaming in, some with guns and a handful with medical supplies. Vidar looked away with some measure of embarrassment or bashfulness it was hard to tell.
 
"Right, okay, get him out of there-" the larper known as Camilla Spooner says to a group of scum who work on extracting Mach's severely injured security borg from the hardsuit. Removing his morph is a delicate operation: the hardsuit has to be partially disassembled - not so hard, given it too is wrecked by gunfire - in order to get him out of it without doing any further damage to the morph. From there, Camilla and several of the other scum bargers gather around and break out medical supplies, gathering around the security borg in order to begin the difficult process of stabilizing his wounds.

The Meg is now joined by Cheng-I-Sao and Khyar ad-Din, who watch the proceedings with grim expressions on their face. Others collect the disabled morphs of the singularity seekers who tried to aid Marcus in his stack-grab, laying them out in something between a row and a heap. The tone of the space is heavy - the party thoroughly crashed, the assailants dead but one of their own unconscious and critically wounded. The captains and organizers talk among themselves, discussing what to do next, before approaching the team.

"Your friend, there... he's looking really bad," the Meg says. "Cammie and the others are doing what they can, but between rail slugs and particle beam burns his guts are fuckin minced. They'll need at least an hour to make sure you don't lose the morph altogether, probably more to stabilize it, and then he's looking at close to a week in a meditank. Cammie says they won't be able to move him much, so maybe you lot'll want to look into borrowing a Dr. Bot to have ready, if they can save him."

"Least the others'll make for good scrapping," Cheng-I-Sao mutters in a dark tone, looking back at the wrecked synthmorphs and scowling. "Shooting up a LARP, disabling Eighth Frame, and for what?"

"Eppie here says that he's her ex," the Meg answers, drawing puzzled looks from the other captains.
"Her what?"
"Yeah - there was a whole scuffle earlier. Turns out my brother Zhou got into a scrap with him and his over it."
"Wait, so... why did they end up coming here?"

"Got something else here," Sônia says, inviting herself into the conversation. "I did some digging around on the mesh - I was able to nick some files off of his cyberbrain before we scorched him - and, well, it turns out that him-" she first points to the ruined fetish guard, disabler sticking out of its neck "-and him-" said while pointing to the security borg that is currently the focus of a whole team's effort to ensure its survival, thankfully out of earshot, "-are the same person."

"What?" Khyar, Cheng, and the Meg all gasp at once. Sônia sends the aggregate of her data collection to the inserts of everyone present, the logs of rep transactions and even chats between the forks on display for everyone to see.

"Two different forks of the same ego," Sônia clarifies.

"Now how does that work?" Cheng-i-Sao asks, looking to the team for an answer.
 
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Devin sighed deeply, and said, “Welcome to our stupid fucking telenova life. We should start a streaming service or some shit. So. Dai--” he gestured to the security borg “--is my boyfriend’s--” he gestured at at Vidar who shrugged helplessly “--video game friend. He’s visiting for a while. And we had no idea he had a fork at all, let alone one who hates him, until we had run into him earlier. The solar system ought to be bigger, right? But noooo. This motherfucker--” and here he gestured to Mach 1 “--hired us to help him out with a deal. It went wayyyyyyyyy south, because everyone else involved was a fucking idiot, and he was so fucking mad at us for getting him out alive because we didn’t get the shit he was after too. We thought we were just going to down vote each other and move on with our lives, but apparently he likes ruining birthday parties for fun too. We literally found out they were forks when he showed up so like, we’re as confused on that count as you are.” Devin paused and turned to Eppie. “I’m so sorry, but like, good call dumping that? You might want to give the other one a try though. He’s stable, at least. Mentally.”

“Dai’s good people,” Vidar said giving devin a look.

“I mean, my fork never wants to ruin people’s fun. He’s just on the Carnivale having a good time.” He shrugged.

“Wait wait wait back the FUCK UP!” Vidar said in all seriousness.

“It’s not important, we talk like, once a month. I send him memes, he sends me XP vids, and we’re all happy.”

“And you were just going to mention this- NEver? This is....”- Vidar made a motion at him and walked away.

“What happens on Carnivale STAYS on Carnivale!” Devin shouted after him. He turned back to the other scum and said, “Anyway, I’m sure we can sort something out between the two of them.”

“Hold up, Marcus is a fork?” Eppie says, feigning complete bewilderment, “I - I didn’t know. I mean… He said he had a ‘brother’ here he needed to take care of here, I didn’t imagine that it was to…” She shakes her head, turning to Devin, “Marcus was a piece of work, I need some time from anything close to resembling him,” Eppie looks up to the Meg and the other scum, “He’s my ex, but he’s… Not a complete dick, so I can take him. I know some good people that will be able to help him - therapists and doctors, to help him get the help he so obviously needs. Plus, he took all my shit in the breakup and won’t give it back, so I’ll just kill him with kindness ‘til he gives me back access to our place.”

“I’m too old for this,” Vidar grumbles off on the sidelines.
 
"Not a complete d..." The Meg mouths, utterly baffled. Khyar ad-Din and Cheng-i-Sao exchange a glance, a silence between them that goes on long enough to suggest chatting over the mesh - but the scum around them don't stop and respond to any summons, nor do those working hard to save Rougang's morph waver in their efforts.

"Shit, dudes," the Meg says on their behalf. "That's, uh... that's pretty wild."

[Hello everyone], Eighth Frame finally says over CoveChat. [I am coming back on line; in case it needs to be said, I am calling 'hold' for the time being. I would like to run diagnostics and ensure everything - and everyone - is well before proceeding. Gameplay will necessarily be suspended for the time being.]

Ebonstahl {The Eye, to Sentinels}: [Bonjour, mes amies! Lucky you had me on hand to help this poor sphere out - their disabler charge hit him hard. I hope fixing him up earned us some good will.]

"Finally, some good news," Khyar ad-Din says, looking up and hands out.

[Glad to have you back, Eighth], Cheng-i-Sao responds; nodding to Eppie, she says aloud: "Seems your friend came through for Eighth Frame. Thank him for us, would you?"

"I don't envy your family life," Khyar ad-Din says, looking over both the wreckage of Marcus's Guard and the ruin of Rougang's security borg. "I suppose you ought to take both of 'em, when you can. Camille tells me it'll be some time yet before your Dai can be safely moved, but the wrecked fetish morph you can probably take to a chop shop somewhere and get the stack pulled. We'll handle the singularity seekers - those morphs'll make some good homes for deserving scum once they're fixed up."

"So... suppose this is it for now," the Meg says with a shallow shrug. "You lot probably have your, uh, home life to sort out, and we're calling hold to the game, so - take care, yeah?"

Another message arrives, this one on the squad's TacNet:
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [fuckin ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [guess who woke up from his nap and is still stuck in a meditank for two fuckin days]
Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [been following the whole fuckin scene on TacNet tho - @Vidar fuckin rad XP btw]
AzathothWakes {Pm to Jukebox Maiden}: [hey there! got the update from Starglass, figured I'd pm you as the squad's missing tac-ops specialist n' medic. you been takin care of these jokers?]
 
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"Dealing with any of that is the last thing I want to do right now," vidar declares with a wave. His nose is still bleeding, and his off hand frets at the dark mauve hole in his birght pink vacsuit. "I was thinking about getting a drink, since I've been shot exactly one too many times by non pirates than I was planning on-" And that was when he noticed the amount of blood coming out of his wound was minimal, and that the amount pooling up inside his vacsuit and trickling down his leg was maximal. "-And I - Was-"
Browning out is a funny thing. He knew it was happening and he couldn't stop it- couldn't redirect the already given command to his mouth to ask out the Meg. Couldn't get his legs to cooperate.
"Wondering- if? You?-"
He hit the deck of the salty swallow hard and staid down. Maybe someday he'd get to kiss The Meg, but today it was time to kiss the floor for a third time.
 
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