[Nexus] Inside 39

[TechnoScrabble]

Red Zone

The couple's remains expand, then contract, exuding a shadowy vapor that's almost impossible to see...

[PurityIcekiller]

[Red Zone]

Kyinde gave Demon Queen a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't I? It's not like I'd just let them get away with harming innocents, is it? Besides, it was nice and exciting."

She wiped some blood off her face. "Anyway, we know that the person they're looking for is probably someone conspicuous, and given the way they tried to lure her out and the fact that she was their enemy in the first place, she must have reasonably high moral standards. Where do you think we should start, in that case?" She was distracted long enough not to notice the vapour.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

Demon Queen thinks for a moment. She doesn't notice the vapor, either.

Moral standards would make me think of either GLoG or HALO first.

As for conspicuous...well, this is Nexus. That could be most people.

[TechnoScrabble]

Red ZOne

The vapor grows more and more transparent, until it blends perfectly with the air.
If breathed in, it should cause paralysis. An overdose could cause one to become a quadriplegic.

[PurityIcekiller]

[Red Zone]

"So we go to one of those places, track her down, and find out how this whole thing got started. Sounds like a plan, even if it isn't much of one." Kyinde twitched her tail, eager to get going...

Then she noticed a faint, unusual scent. It did not seem like a good sign.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

Well, that just sounds like fun!

Good thing the demon inside of Demon Queen would prefer her alive to dead.

Demon Queen nods a little. That's a start, though that'll probably take forever.

When she does breath it in, she starts to feel her hand go numb. She looks at it with some curiosity. The swirls on the stone in her chest start to move fast.

Suddenly, she doubles over, yelling. Her skin darkens, her limbs lengthen. Within moments, she resembles a mix between a jaguar and a dragon. With a mostly human head.

In the demon form, she becomes immune to most poisons and such. However, she can't talk.

She looks to Kyinde with some alarm in her cat-like eyes. She'll bound at her, attempting to knock the woman onto her back, then run away from the area.

[PurityIcekiller]

[Red Zone]

Kyinde would have reacted more strongly, but she was too busy losing sensation in her body. Due to her small size and current partially-immobilized state, she was quite easy for Demon Queen to carry.

[KerfuffleMach2]

((Just wanted to clarify, Demon Queen is trying to knock Kyinde onto her own back, so she can carry Kyinde away.))

[PurityIcekiller]

((Thanks for clarifying. I adjusted the post.))

[TechnoScrabble]

Red Zone

They bogeys realize this obviously isn't the way to go about things, seeing as how the Demon Queen has some sort of immunity, and try using the shadows to pull the pair into a dark and desolate area of the Underbed.

[KerfuffleMach2]

Red Zone

Luckily for the bogeys, Demon Queen has no shadow manipulation abilities.

So, unless Kyinde's got something up her sleeve...

[The Bushranger]

[EE]

"Not on me, no. But unless you have a dimension lock, I could in a a couple of seconds."

"The store's dimension lock is fixed, but you can step outside and summon it there," Aeryn suggests.

[PurityIcekiller]

[Red Zone]

"...I probably should have seen that one coming," remarked Kyinde as she regained her ability to feel things. Having no shadow-manipulation powers either, she instead tried using her ice-wind spell to push herself and Demon Queen away from the shadows.

[Halae]

Repost for Harnel.

((>.> Would totally appreciate not being left in the dust in a scene where my character is actually trying to buy something next time. Kinda bad form where the guy actually buying something doesn't get to say anything. poke me before assuming I'm silent. ))

Since Jakus hasn't actually said anything so far, he will continue this trend, letting Halina talk

[The Alexandrian]

[Red Zone - Alley]

Well, it looks like this fight is just about over. Clarissa's form is nearly destroyed. Her leg pops off absurdly easily. Clarissa has lost her leg without putting up much of any sort of fight at all! It's a defense system markedly similar to that of a salamander when it's tail is latched onto. It merely releases the tail (or, in this case, the leg) to act as a distraction.

But Clarissa isn't really ready to die. She's not quite finished yet.

Clarissa hurls her arms backwards. They elongate into long strands of flesh, tendrils no less. They dart back into the shadows of the alleyway, plugging into two of the tentacle weapons that Clarissa has left untouched and charging up to this point.

Wiring. A direct uplink allowing Clarissa to command her miniature troopers with her mind still partitioned.

"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!"

The tentacles begin to attempt to fire tiny packets of membrane-bound liquids at Sally in quick succession. One tentacle-gun, stationed behind a pile of junk (both are, really, but along opposite walls of the alley), is rigged up to fire sacs of liquid nitrogen at Sally. The other attempts to fling an extremely volatile brew at her that might result in a small explosion when it is exposed to the air. The packets of liquid nitrogen come fast. The detonating-parcels fire with a few seconds delay between shots as it reloads itself in a suitably disgusting manner, circular pods coursing through the insides of the tendrils. Clarissa is praying that the liquid nitrogen will supercool Sally's metal inner workings. This might leave the metal compact and brittle, possibly making the effects of the explosive ammo more pronounced, if you will.

It is clear that Clarissa is suffering from this assault as well. She is in range of the projectile-launchers. She is pelted with a few rounds of ammo, being situated in such close proximity to Sally. She also likely is splashed with a couple droplets of whatever packets hit Sally, if any.

This probably results in Clarissa freezing solid and being blow to bits by her own arms (in every sense of the word), laughing maniacally until she suddenly passes out due to extreme energy expenditures under the effects of sloth.

As if that wasn't enough, Clarissa has a fail-deadly switch setup in her current form. When the systems sustaining this manifestation's life fail, this Clarissa will explode in a ball of extraordinary energy, likely consuming most things with a sixteen foot radius.

Of course, Sally has a good chance at escape, assuming she can find a chance to even consider it a midst all of the chaos being slung at her. The liquid nitrogen has rendered the goo anchoring her to the pavement completely ineffectual, freezing it solid. Frozen things are often easy to break. That was the basis of Clarissa's attack on Sally. It applies in reverse as well. That spear segment serving as a "jack" that might still be within Sally will no longer function if the area it is within collides with a single nitrogen pellet.

Clarissa hasn't stopped breathing yet; even if this puppet dies, Clarissa might live on through the five tentacles holding the alley. It won't be much of an existence for a loooong while, but she'll probably find just enough biomass in her possession to craft a half-dead form to return to Dave...eventually...if she is somehow lucky enough to make it out of this fray with her hide still half-attached by a sinew or two.

[Zefir]

Grey Zone Park

Several swarms pour from the hive and coalesce into cyborg bee women, brandishing their laser flintlocks and vibrosabers at their supposed attackers!
"Yarr..."

Grey Zone Park

The scorpion ready his weapons... well his naturall weapons , but he waits for the first attack. After all his orders told him to defend himself and not attack otherwise.

[Ashen Lilies]

235 Noir Lane

True, he could be a customer, which is why they haven't shot him. Yet.

After a second, the door swings open. Standing in the doorway is a rather short, slightly fat man with a comb-over, dressed in a burgundy red velvet tuxedo, a black domino mask covering his eyes. In one hand, the man holds a silver platter, upon which sit a variety of drinks, mainly gin and red wine. "Yes? May I help you, sir?" He asks, voice annoyingly high pitched

[235 Noir Lane]

"I heard you were in the making-people-go-away business." Says Kal pleasantly. "I'm thinking of hiring."

[ThirdEmperor]

235 Noir Lane

"Oh no sir, we aren't just in the business of killing. We're thieves, kidnappers, extortionists and spies too. Come in, I'm sure you'll find our rates reasonable." The man says, stepping out of the doorway so Kal can enter the manor. If he trusts them not to murder him horribly the moment he does, at least.

[Lady Serpentine]

Holder of the Rails

S'Kanthos succeeds in teleporting away, vanishing just before the light consumes the tunnel where he was only just seconds before. He doesn't, however, manage to teleport before the tendrils of malice manage to get in one last attack, snapping out from all sides, trying to strike the Seeker and batter him, several trying to grab him and hold on as he leaps away, so that they'll follow him as he tries to escape.

[Holder of the Rails]

They succeed in doing so, and are transported to the Courts of Chaos with him.

((Probably to Outside?))

[Reinholdt]

The control room is dark and cold, ice covering the long unused control panels, levers and switches. They're still plugged in though, cords leading into the walls, lights blinking dimly beneath the frost.

Outside, the penguins retreat slightly, qwarking away nervously, when Boris draws the gun. One of them appears to have a coughing fit, hacking like it's about to spit up a hairball, before suddenly regurgitating a burst of flame at Boris, trying to catch him off guard. Should being set alight prove to be distracting enough to force Boris to take his sights of the penguins, even for a second, they'll swarm him once more, trying to batter him with their wings and sink their dull teeth into his legs.

[Abandoned Umbrella Factory]

Ugh. Machines. Reinholdt hates machines. He looks for any labels that might mention a door, but if he's unable to find any quickly, he'll start pulling levers and throwing switches at random.

[Zefir]

Claymore Bar and Grill

Let's see what we got here. And Zefir goes to have a look inside.

[Devixer]

[Abandoned Umbrella Factory]

Boris jumps to the left, dodging the fire, but still keeps his eyes on the penguins. As he lands, he raises his pistol and fires four shots, each at a separate penguin's head.

[Ashen Lilies]

235 Noir Lane

"Oh no sir, we aren't just in the business of killing. We're thieves, kidnappers, extortionists and spies too. Come in, I'm sure you'll find our rates reasonable." The man says, stepping out of the doorway so Kal can enter the manor. If he trusts them not to murder him horribly the moment he does, at least.

[235 Noir Lane]

Kal doesn't trust them in the slightest! But walks in regardless, casting his gaze around the manor with interest, and moving his lips slightly, as if whispering something. Numbers?

[ThirdEmperor]

235 Noir Lane

As Kal steps through the door, he might experience a sudden feeling of disorientation and possibly nausea, as if he had been spinning in circles. Considering he's an experienced assassin, he'll probably recognize it as the effects of walking through some kind of portal.

The front lobby is surprisingly spartan, a hexadecagonical room painted entirely in satin red. Twelve of the sixteen walls are bare except for a single portrait on each, each portrait depicting a different personage, all of them dressed similarly to the man who let Kal in. On the eastern and western walls, there are two doors, and the wall directly across from the entrance is mostly obscured by a spiral staircase right in front of it, leading up to the next floor.

The Overseer makes his way towards this staircase, circling around the stuffed owlbear in the center of the room, and waves for Kal to follow. Y'know, unless Kal has already started setting things on fire.

[Mindfreak]

Sidewalks
Alene is jogging, hopefully with her fiancé Meddy!

[Lady Serpentine]

[Grey Zone]

Talina is here, presumably with Nycca.

Ahead, there are several buildings that seem to have been made from giant mushrooms.

To the left is Mallside.

Cirrus Street can be seen in the distance to their right.

[Beans]

[Sidewalk]
Meddy is... I guess it's jogging. Her weird legs-that-end-in-hands are by now something she is used to, so she's able to keep a good steady pace with Anele. Wearing a sports bra and a light hoodie, she grins at the catgirl.
---
[Grey Zone]
Nycca looks around.
What's all this, mistress?

[Mindfreak]

Sidewalks
Anele grins back.
"So Meddy, maybe we should look for a wedding planner around here?"

[Lady Serpentine]

[Grey Zone]

"I'm not entirely sure... That's probably a mall, over there looks like a warzone, and those I have no clue about."

She indicates Mallside, Cirrus Street, and the mushroom buildings as she says this.

[Beans]

[Grey Zone]
Uh... the mall seems safest.
---
[Sidewalks]
Meddy nods.
Yeah, good idea.
She looks at the storefronts and signs.