Head spinning, Louise claws her way to consciousness long enough to see a man pointing his weapon at her sister from behind a barricade. "-at are you doi-"
The world dims and she realises that she must have fallen asleep again, as they are now standing before the doors to the command center and a pair of guards in
heavy armor.
"-eds healing!"Cattleya insists imploringly to an indifferent guardsman.
"Nobody gets past this point until cleared by-" Another guard begins to argue, making Louise wonder if perhaps all the guards here just like to be difficult, before cutting herself off. "Nevermind, in you go."
"-one get down there a-" Someone says, followed by a familiar voice cutting them off. "-mand? We've got a problem."
"God damn it!" The earlier voice growls, accompanied by a meaty thud. Blinking heavily, she struggles to stay awake and looks around to see that the voice is the Bradfort man that is important for some reason she'd never cared about. "More than one. The Valliere sisters just arrived in the command center and Louise is heavily injured. We're running out of fighters and the science division has gone missing."
The hated blonde commoner appears at her side and begins poking her. "Dear God
, did you get hit by a truck?" The blonde asks before pulling Louise's mouth open and shining a light inside. "I'm seeing a lot of glass imbeded in her mouth, but no damage to her teeth or jaw... what happened?"
"I'm not entirely sure." Cattleya admits from outside her field of view. "She just punched the door off it's hinges and started screaming. I-I tried to help, but there was just too much... the... the glass is from a potion bottle."
"Jeez kid, you know you don't have to eat the damn things, right?" Her local nemisis asks in a partonizing tone. While she never stopped hating that Germanian trollop, at least Zerbst wasn't a filthy commoner that deluded herself into thinking she was worthy of bantering with a Valliere. Unable to voice her resentment, Louise settles for glaring and attempting to set the woman on fire without making a movement that would implicate her. "Whatever, we'll probably need to operate to remove the glass that's no doubt lodged in your throat and stomach."
Cattleya's worriedly asks, "Operate?"
As the woman rummages through a bag and pulls out a needle that's probably full of the same poisons they used on her when she first arrived, the blonde nods. "Of course, I'll need to open her up and dig the fragments out, lord knows it'd be unpleasant if we let nature run it's course."
Panicked, Louise uses her good arm to push the newly identified chirurgeon away and Cattleya puts herself between the two. Not seeming to understand her concern, Victoria nevertheless carries her out of reach in case the blonde tries to lunge past Cattleya.
If we make it out of this mess, I'll need to repay Victoria. The youngest Vallière thinks, patting the spider-girl on the head like Master Cynric would do as thanks. After all, there's a good reason that only the poorest commoners are willing to risk chirurgie.
I may not like my body, but I'm not going to accept disfigurement!
Trusting her sister to keep the crazy excuse for a healer at bay, she puts all of her focus into healing her wounds. The magical glow startles the rest of the rooms occupants, causing several firearms to be pointed in their direction as Louise rushes to heal her wounds. Two entire minutes of nonstop casting Grand Healing relieves everyone in the command center of all injury, from injuries as severe as Louise's to minor scrapes and arthritis, the only ones not restored to peak health are those whose limbs were lost in the fighting and even those are mostly regrown by the time she stops.
Spitting out the bloody shards of glass that her spell pushed from her internal wounds, Louise stands and dusts herself off. Acting as if that entire debacle hadn't happened, Louise sneers at the blonde 'doctor' that sought to maim her further and turns to address the Commander and Bradfort. Her words never leave her mouth though, as she finds herself surrounded in darkness. Her immediate thought is that she blacked out again, but the squishy warmth and crushing grip informs her that Cattleya is hugging her.
"Iwassoworried!" The elder pinkette sobs into her hair. "Thank Brimir you're alright, why do you keep getting hurt like this?!" With her sister's outrageously large mounds of fat (that Louise was definitely not jealous of and would deny such allegations vehemently) preventing her from speaking, she settles for returning the embrace. While normally this would be comforting to the younger girl, she's painfully aware of how public their current situation is and just how pathetically childish she must look.
Struggling for a moment to find a decent place to put her hands, she gently pushes free from her sister's grasp and gives her a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, see. There's no need for tears."
Wiping her eyes, Cattleya smiles back weakly and tries to look imposing as she says, "You're never doing that again, do you understand me?"
"Of course, dear sister." Louise laughs lightly, "I give you my word, I'll avoid punching doors from now on." Swallowing nervously at the glare Cattleya aims at her, she looks to Victoria for support, but the other girl is just staring vacantly at the floor. "Sis... It was an accident. I promise I will be more careful next time, but I can't just not use such a useful spell."
Sighing, Cattleya slumps her shoulders and nods. "I know... It's just... This is the second time in
months that you've been grievously injured and I can't do anything to help."
"It's alright, I know you're worried, but you need to trust me to make my own judgement when it comes to my magic. If you'd like, I can teach you one of Master Cynric's healing spells when this is all over." Louise offers.
"I'd like that. When did you become the reasonable one?" The elder pinkette laughs. "I remember a certain little girl threatening to fire the maids because they wouldn't let her fly mother's manticore, even though she was barely out of swaddling clothes."
"Didn't happen." Louise denies, turning away at her sister's answering snort. Striding over to the two men in charge of X-com, the youngest Vallière clears her throat to get their attention. "Did I hear Espinoza mention a problem?"
A silent conversation passes between the two and the Commander smiles as he leads her away from Bradfort. "How are you feeling, Louise?"
"Hold tight Strike one, help is on the way."
"If you're trying to be endearing, stop it." The girl says flatly. "I came over to offer my assistance, you don't need to wheedle it out of me. Just send you soldiers to the djinn labs and tell me where to go."
A pained look passes over his face. "I wasn't... whatever." He sighs. "Look, we lost contact with Vahlen's research team fifteen minutes ago and the cameras show no sign of anyone in the labs."
"WHAT?!" Louise shrieks, several guns pointing in her direction being the only thing preventing her from drawing her blade. "I specifically said to protect Master Cynric while my sister and I defend your base, how worthless can you commoners be?!"
"Sorry kid, but we're a little busy here. I couldn't get anyone down there before they went silent." Flagg says apologetically, causing Louise to grind her teeth in anger. "Don't worry, we'll find some way to get them back. Corporal Espinoza believes he found a portal to an alien base, why don't you head down to the caverns to meet him?"
As tempting as it is to just kill them for their failure, it wouldn't help bring her teacher back. Rather than waste any more valuable time on these 'people' when there was a rescue to perform, Louise stomps away from the man and shoves her way past the guards at the door. Cattleya gets Victoria's attention and they both follow wordlessly as the three of them make their way to the armory, Tsun joining them when they pass the security checkpoint outside the elevator.
A short while later, the girls are in a poorly lit tunnel following the few chaurus that are late to arrive. The tunnels branch off into three paths, but they can see that one is collapsed not too far from the entrance and the chaurus only seem interested in one of the two remaining, so it's rather obvious which way leads to the fight... the constant sound of combat helps as well. Along the journey, they pass hundreds of corpses, mostly alien and chaurus, but a few humans in the same heavy armor the guards at the command center wore and even a half melted suit of powered armor. Whoever was in the powered armor appears to have died the most painfully, as the suit kept them protected just enough to cook thoroughly rather than die quickly from a large wound.
Eventually the group arrives to a scene of absolute chaos. The large chamber ahead of them is illuminated by constant flashes of plasma weapons, the aliens standing in a circular formation around a ring that is large enough to drive a carriage through with ease, fighting desperately against the surging tide of horse sized insects. On the ceiling of the chamber, Louise can faintly make out several chaurus tunneling up to the surface to allow reinforcements to join the fray faster. As one of the grey aliens uses it's mechanical suit to pull a giant bug from it's comrade's back, she spots the armored form of an X-com soldier charging toward the alien position.
Sending her familiar to assist whoever is wearing the armor, Louise begins bombarding the aliens. Lightning bolts strike out from her right hand while spikes as large as her thigh fly from her left. Cattleya stays back with Victoria defending her as Louise follows her familiar into the fight, arcane lightning frying the mechanical aliens and Ice Spikes impaling the softer targets that are too slow to dodge. Six aliens die to her spells before one of the sectoids uses it's mechanical suit's height to fire over the swarming chaurus and she is forced to continually cast Ice Wall to block it's barrage of plasma.
The heat soon proves too much for the semi-offensive spell and she barely manages to cast Fire Shield before the emerald beams slam into her. Blinded by the plasma searing her flesh, Louise faintly hears Cattleya screaming in fear and rage before a wave of water washes over the area, quickly turning to steam. Blinking away the spots in her vision, the tiny pinkette climbs back to her feet and idly notices that her vest is completely ruined before she unleashes a storm of lightning on her stunned attacker. As the alien falls over and explodes, Louise tears off the ruined remains of her enchanted vest and draws her sword, pointing it at the few remaining aliens and creating an explosion in the middle of their shrinking formation.
Taking advantage of their moment of vulnerability, Esponoza throws the melted remains of his helmet at the first muton to rise and kicks it in the head, breaking it's neck. The portal flares to life and a sectopod marches out, only to have it's right leg get blown off at the knee before it can fully exit the portal, causing whatever was behind it to explode as the purple rift tears the mechanical walker apart before shutting off once more. Meanwhile, the remaining seven or so aliens are devoured by chaurus.
"Y'know, that wasn't as bad as I expected." Espinoza comments as Cattleya and Victoria join him and Louise at the portal ring. For some reason, the armored man scowls and mutters, "I shouldn't have said that."
The pinkettes can only look on in confusion as Victoria nods in agreement. "Enough chatter, ladies." Granger says, seemingly appearing out of nowhere with two halves of Tsun in her arms. "Cover the X-ray's machine in case of reinforcements. Pinky junior, you're skilled with computers, right?"
"Er... Not really... I just spent a few minutes poking my datapad until I found the instructions." Louise admits, ignoring the nickname for now.
Nodding as if she hadn't expected anything else, Granger points to the ring and continues, "I spent most of my life fighting drug cartels in the jungle, so that's better than me. I needed somebody else to tell me how to work the damned thing. Go poke that ring until you get the portal online."
Shrugging, Louise heads over to the vertical ring and after a cursory inspection, she depresses the only button on the thing. A whirling cloud of violet spreads from the edges of the ring until, in a flash, the event horizon forms. Turning her head, she triumphantly declares, "Mission accomplished, feel free to bask in my greatness."
Status: 2nd Degree burns
Magicka: (2679/14000)
General plan of action:
[] Write in.
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A/N: If you had chosen not to heal Louise, she would have used up her remaining magicka buffing the others and been sedated for surgery... though by your plan, I'm assuming you underestimated her injuries. I made healing an option specifically because it would be costly. You're about to storm an alien portal to an unknown destination, how do you intend to do it?
Since that time of year is coming up, be sure to spread the spread the season's fear!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh fhtagn!
