Adrift Amongst Silver Waves: The second one.

[Lazy Coyote]

The literal wall of sound that you release slams into the open mouth of the fish. Even over the Sonics, you hear a loud crack as its upper jaw folds almost all the way back and it shakes it head in pain as it dives past Coyote leaving a trail of blood Coyote felt a moment of satisfaction at the win before he remembered something. He looked up, and the noticed that the entire pack of fish, around 5 in total, are now staring at him hungrily.

Click to shrink...

Uh oh.

Coyote's eyes bulged, and he sent out a dozen or so bursts of sound that were shaped like him in all directions, before he flapped his powerful wings and kicked his legs directly towards the surface, making sure to stay reasonably far away from Sanctuary.

If he could get these things a little closer the surface, he'd stand a much better chance at beating them. His sharp sonics were a lot more deadly than his blunt ones, but using them underwater made them all but useless. Above water though? He was the king of the skies.

 

[Brightflame]

As you begin flying you quickly find fairly quickly that you are far out at sea it takes you almost two hours of flying and resting before you see anything. And what you see is incredibly small it looks like a boat, it looks around 30ish feet long painted an olive green with a small canopy around midship and as you watch you just manage to see a little bit of movement on it.

Click to shrink...

"FINALLY" I exclaim in relief. For over two hours, I didn't see a damn thing, no land, no ships, nothing! But finally, I found something! Sure, it may have just been a small boat but it's something! Who knows, perhaps there are people on it.

I turned down to my dragon, "I know you're tired, but can you...paddle your way to that ship?" I got a snort in response and Midmire began to use his wings to swim to the ship, "....I really need to find a way to understand you."

Once I believe I was in ear range of whatever sailors there may be on the ship, I cleared my voice.

"Hail!" I shouted, "Is there anyone on this ship?"

 

[CaesriusPolybius]

As you finish the Broadcast you get less than two feet away when a panicked voice suddenly bursts from the radio. " SS Gilded Brillance, this is The Grafton we are in desperate need of any assitance. We have been boarded by unknown hostiles. We nee-" the voice cuts off as sounds of struggle comes over the radio. It goes on for a few seconds before five quick Bangs ring out over the receiver and the same voice this time sounding pained and scared continues. "Please. We need help!" the voice dissolves into broken sounding sobs.

Click to shrink...

Fuck. Wait, was that radi-NOW IS NOT THE TIME, ALFRED. Just be glad the Guild Standards Office is so obsessed with compatibility with antiquated systems.

For a moment - just a moment - Alfred considered staying quiet. He was new here, he could just say - then his hand clasped around the cylinder at his waist. There was a reason that, after nearly two centuries of peace, the Psion's Guild still used a sword as their badge of office. He, like many others, had never thought he would need to use it. He, like many others, had desperately hoped that he would never have to use it. But he had received it for a reason.

Shit.

Returning his hands to the closest control terminal, where he had just begun the process of starting up the Motive Heart, he shoved intent into it, starting its emergency initialization. It would awaken, unknowing and searching for someone to bond to, and then instantly be forced into readiness. A... thoroughly unpleasant way for anything to be born- and yet, Alfred knew it was the only way it would be able to keep itself safe and let him find his way back to it. It wouldn't wake up quickly enough to let him help, and he could fly faster than it anyhow.

That begun, he turned his attention back to his comm protocol, turning off his distress signal - cutting it off just as it began to repeat. He grinned grimly as the broadcast system focused in on the signal it had received - Liberator bless GSO coders for not accepting the ease-of-use limitations the rest of us can't get past. - and began to broadcast to the area the ship was in in specific.

"Grafton, this is val'Karnaya. Continue broadcasting, I'm tracking your signal."

For a moment, he stopped broadcasting, and turned his attention back to the Gilded Brilliance's Motive Heart. He copied over his communication protocols(setting their self-configurator to "user: other"), and then wrote a short message for it, in a language it would understand.

"When you awaken, submerge to no deeper than 100 meters. Hold there. Respond at my signal. If I'm not back in time, go into hibernation and set broadcaster to emergency beacon 5-1. I'm sorry. -Alfred"

The motive heart was made of psimetal the same as everything else; even if something went wrong as the Gilded Brilliance tried to adjust its buoyancy, it could survive both pressure from far deeper and the submersion itself. Albert was more worried about his own attempts to get to it in the worst case scenario...

In any case, he pushed as much energy as he could spare into the ship's capacitors; enough for a few hours. Hopefully enough overall. Then, he activated his flight program and his armor; as the psimetal grew around him - shifting with his will to imitate the Gilded Brilliance in electrocapacitance - he slid a finger up his gauntlet - and vanished into a blink.

Reappearing above the Gilded Brilliance, armor fully formed, he turned, and began to fly at his top sustainable speed in the direction the communicator had focused. He began broadcasting again.

"Grafton, this is Alfred val'Karnaya. Now en route to assist. Unknown boarders? I suggest you stand down."

As his intended target (though not actual target; they were all in the targeted area. probably.) switched from the people calling for help to those who were attacking them, Alfred pushed some Malice into the transmission - and then immediately closed down the emotion-broadcast function; he didn't want his uncertainty and worry (well honestly terror, but Alfred wasn't being very honest with himself at the moment) at what was about to happen to bleed through.

 

[Ryven Razgriz]

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

As you and your men climb aboard you begin to get a better look at the battle and its participants. what at first looked like mermaids you can now see have a lot more in common with anglerfish, sharks, and eels. None of them look quite the same and all of them are armed to the teeth with obsidian tipped spears, massive clamshell axes, and spiked clubs of shark teeth. The men, on the other hand, are armed with a mix of revolvers, mostly MAS 1873 revolvers and Modèle 1892 revolvers, and naval sabers and boot knives. They seem to be wearing a strangely mixed uniform your men recognize some of it from historical photos but, none of them are wearing a full uniform from the same era.

Click to shrink...

Letting out a short breather, I once again scanned the deck of the ship just to make sure that everyone's frozen. Thankfully they remained still.

"Right, Security fai--" Err what?

"Eh! Eh! Eh!" Ma'am we'd prefer if you call us Gremlins instead!

Eh? O-okay?

Clearing my throat I renewed my order to appease the Marine Fairies. There's not a lot of them but they were essential in keeping my former steel hull clean of pirates, boarders, spies, smugglers and the likes. "Se-err... Marine Fairies, please disembark and board the Sailing Ship, find out what's on the lower decks and cabin and see if there's anyone in there. Make sure to not touch anyone and anything strange, weird, out of place or an unholy combination of the three."

"Oui!" Yes Ma'am!

I kneeled and extended my hands towards the floor and watched until the last of the miniature chibi marines are out and about doing as I ordered and started scouring the ship.

And there hunched over in the middle of the deck clutching a glowing orb is a young, extremely scared, man. You'd put him at maybe 18, almost unhealthily skinny, with short dark brown almost black hair that is slicked back by water and blood from a small head wound above his right eyebrow. his dark green eyes are filled with fear. He's holding the orb out in a manner that suggests he was trying to point it at one of the mermaids as they were about to stab one the other crew members on the ground.

Click to shrink...

Standing up, I went here and there investigating the still aquatic beings and the humans from various different eras. I also made sure to stay the crap away from the guy carrying that glowing orb. "Yeah, I'm not touching that Orb until there's literally nothing to do but touch it."

... These aquatic beings reminds me a lot of those fishmen from One Piece. They couldn't possibly be from One Piece now are they? Actually, am I in One Piece?

Shaking my head away from that pile of headache. I took out a bandolier of ammo and grenades, mainly frag 'nades, as well as arming my left hand with my cross-spear. After that, I walked over to one of the wooden rails, sat and waited for my marines to come back.

(OOC: @See my smile What did my marines find?)

In the meantime, I can easily deduce that this ship has been attacked by the fishmen and judging from the way the guy holding the orb is posed, I think he tried to 'fry' or 'laser' the fishmen attacking one of his own only for the orb to pause their time instead.

As for the mix-match of uniformed men. I don't friggin' know. Some I recognize as WW1 troops and some even dating back from colonial era, if what I see from that god awful bucket of a helmet and their blue top wear is correct.

Sighing, I just hope that I can go back to civilized areas already. Well, proper early 21st century civilization considering the fact that time-travel may be involved.

 

[LucidProp]

As your Snowman slowly takes shape your radio catches two separate signals. One seems to be a fairly simple weather broadcast, that as you tune in seems to be just wrapping up. "- And with that I want everyone to remember Port Sith're Radio for all your weather forecast needs and to be especially careful around the Marks this time of year. They'll be looking for folk to disappear. Be safe and have fun out there!" the second one seems to be a mix of battle music and propaganda for something called the Markesann Empire. "-This is a reminder to all citizens there is a curfew in effect as the morrow is Birthday of our glorious lord of all that he casts his eyes upon. And to any dissidents who are currently listening: please return to us. The loving Embrace of the ALL will gladly welcome you back into the mind."

Click to shrink...

PT-41 nodded to herself, satisfied at her snowman whose pebble eyes and mouth, stick hands, and carrot nose were made of nanomaterial. Now, all she had to do was make a cloak and a graduation hat and her Lexington Snowman would be complete! Alas, she was about to place the finishing touches on her master piece when information suddenly flooded into her ears. Radio transmissions, in a language that was in her databanks, informed the girl of two very peculiar pieces of information.

One, she still had no idea where she was.

Two, that her databanks were either lacking in information, because she couldn't find anything on Port Sith're, the Marks, or the Markesann Empire, or gasp she was in another world entirely.

Both possibilities were equally improbable. The Fog's databanks on humanity were complete! Even when the blockade was raised, information was constantly updated and recorded, while the thought of getting sent to another world without her sensors signalling an alert was just way too demeaning. Yeah, she had a reputation for being a bit of an airhead, but...

Argh, thinking too long! Bad! Act now!

The PT-Boat's thrusters glowed a bright orange, Quantum Computer attempting to brute force find the source of the Imperial Signal. Triangulation was rather ineffective without a satellite to bounce a signal off of, so PT resolved to do it in the old fashioned way. "Yosh!" Arms crossed and back straight, the girl looked straight ahead as her hull quickly accelerated at speeds that would boggle her human equivalents.

Between the Port and the Empire, the choice was obvious. Empire obviously meant lots of information and infrastructure she could hook up to and steal information from! Hurrah for inadequate human cyber-security!

 

[Sinsystems]

As you pass the Speedboat you see three men in expensive looking clothing airing up a small rubber Dinghy stop and stare at you as you pass and as you pass the armored vessel you see a larger longboat being dropped into the water filled with men and women in rough-hewn clothing made of a mix of strangely colored and textured leathery substance. A few of them wave at you and one or two are laughing amongst themselves and miss you as you pass. And finally the Skadovsk. As you pull up next they side fo the vessel you notice that they have just finished dropping a small wood and styrofoam platform into the water with a rough rope ladder leading from it up to the deck and sitting in a small folding chair staring slightly aghast at you, is a woman dressed in a rubbery protective suit holding a rifle of some sort. As she watches you and you pokemon approach she just sorts of points it in your general direction, she doesn't outright aim it at you or anything just sort of prepares just in case.
"Hello, Velkome to Skadovsk. Anything you vould like to declare before you kome aboard." she speaks in a heavy accent that you cant quite place.

Click to shrink...

Chang'e waved back at the people as she passed, even the people on the Dinghy as they were probably just shocked at seeing an Araquanid as large as Charlotte. When they arrived at the Skadovsk and the woman who was obviously the guard to prevent anyone like those Rainbow Rocket guys from coming on board, Chang'e frowned as she took a moment to work out what the woman was saying through her accent as it wasn't like anything she'd ever heard before.

"Alola!" she said taking a moment to pat Charlotte's water bubble to assure the Pokemon that the lady with the gun probably wasn't hostile, "And umm...I don't think so, it's just me and my Pokemon so I don't think there should be anything I need to declare....oh question! Do you guys take PokeDollars, I hope you guys do as I don't really have any other money."

 

[Estro]

The spider took several steps back before in surprise as the small being before it, to it at least, seems to appear. It stands there silent for a moment and then lets loose a loud screech that sounds like the rending of metal before it spews a jet of fire out of its mouth and then charges Karen fangs and razor-sharp pedipalps held high as it tries to eviscerate the small being that dares to entire its realm unannounced.

Click to shrink...

The fire washes over Karen, the mortal flames nothing compared to the fires of her soul, that small fragment of the black warm flame enshrouding her, smoke trailing every movement she made. The giant beast charges, and Karen ducks under it's pedipalps, her skid across the sea kicking up a salt spray behind her, as she pivots to flick a leg out, smashing into one of the spiders own. Chitin cracks beneath the blow, but the monster reacts far too nimbly for its size, and she withdraws at two other legs come to smash into her.

The two combatants fall back, Karen breathing shallowly, not wanting to inhale the ash the lava flows keeps spitting out. She breaths shallowly, but she breathes hot, and she falls into a more formal stance, years of practice accommodating for the undulating waves beneath her feet. With another ear splitting screech, the spider charges again, and Karen snaps both feet together, and plummets into the water.

The cold - somehow - water hits her like a fist as she plummets into the depths. Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen feet deep she falls, before she opens her eyes. The black water stings, as she opens her mouth, and words formed of fire are spoken.

"Pree-Aesma, Un-Intra, Ys-Prama; fortify my spirit. YS ATN VARAMA PRESH, temper my blade."

Bubbles of steam begin to form around her, as she falls into the sevenths position of the third kata. Flickers of black fire start to appear around her, and she inhales, the water turning to steam in her lungs.

"The sacred action is division."

The water beneath her lower legs explodes into steam, propelling her up, up and up, a knife hand held above her head, as she aimed to pierce the spider at once.

 

[Estemi]

Your thermals reveal next to nothing other than a few small crabs that quickly dive into the water as your ship begins moving. As you move away from the rocks the hum gets slightly quieter until you lose sight of the tall pillars in the fog but, the sound never leaves completely, It stays at a low almost imperceptible hum for the next hour until. It starts to get louder again and over the next minute as your men get into position and ready their weapons.

You see it.

Those same goddamn rocks rise to meet you out of the fog. But, this time there's something profoundly different. A figure standing on the third one form the middle, a seabag at his feet and his right arm outstretched and his thumb up in the universal sign of "Can I get a ride."

Click to shrink...

As the Hesperides slid through the water, there was a collective sigh of relief from the bridge staff. Though no-one wanted to admit it, they were all a bit freaked out by the weird rocks that were all but singing. The Petty Officer on weapons control was about to ask for permission to fire at the distant rocks when he became distracted by an now all too familiar sound ...

"What the ..." mumbled Elise, under her breath, the sight of the exact same rocks jutting out of the water causing her to blink rapidly, as though her brain didn't quite believe what it was seeing: which, of course, it didn't. Looking around the bridge, she saw that her crew were also having a hard time believing what they were seeing.
"Captain, um ... Typhoon has thermal contact ..." At the Petty Officer's call, the captain slid out of her chair and peered over the shoulder of the man sitting in the gunner seat. "It looks like ... I think he's trying to hitch a lift, ma'am!"
Elise looked closely at the screen. Sure enough, there, clear as day on the screen, was a man with a bag trying to catch a ride. For the second time in as many minutes she struggled for words, "What the ..."
"It's the same rocks, ma'am. I'm sure of it."
"How?"
"You see that cluster of holes there?" the Petty Officer replied, pointing again to his screen, "They're exactly the same as the ones from the rocks before, and I don't mean similar: those are exactly the same." He brought up a saved screenshot he had taken earlier, and threw it up on the screen next to the Typhoon's. The two images were identical.
"And was that man there a few minutes ago?"
"No ma'am. No idea where he's come from."
Elise didn't trust this situation at all. Part of her wanted to just try and get out of this again, but something told her that these rocks would just keep popping up again and again. She needed to find out more about this man, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be prepared. "Acquire target," she said to the Petty Officer, "and maintain visual. If he tries anything, then I want you to blast him to kingdom come."
"Aye aye, ma'am," came the reply, as the gunner station became a flurry of movement. Out on the foredeck, the large gun swiveled on its axis with a mechanical whirl. Four dots appeared on the screen around the targeting reticule quickly flashing until the Typhoon had finished its rotation. Several beeps from the console, and the white dots now appearing steady, confirmed that the weapon was now pointing directly at the gentleman sitting on the rocks. "Typhoon aimed at target."
"Gunner of the watch? XO? With me," ordered Elise as she left the bridge onto the upper deck.

The XO and a woman with a rifle followed her out, immediately feeling the chill from the fog as the moisture saturated their clothing. Also on the deck were the two gunners manning mounted .50cal machine guns that they had taken out from the ship's armoury during the Action Stations call, one on port side and one on starboard side, and both were watching the situation unfold with great interest.

The mercenary captain picked up a microphone connected to the ship's loudspeakers, and tried to strike up a conversation with the strange man on the rocks. "Ahoy there," she said, her voice calm but carrying a distinctive authority, "this is Captain Ladon of the Herperides. Who are you, and what are your intentions?"

 

[Blackout]

And she quickly gets eyes on and what she sees is... not something she expected. A small orange rubber dingy with a small frail looking figure curled up inside it.

Click to shrink...

Gangut approached the boat, apprehensive.

"Um, hello?"

 

[See my smile]

Uh oh.

Coyote's eyes bulged, and he sent out a dozen or so bursts of sound that were shaped like him in all directions, before he flapped his powerful wings and kicked his legs directly towards the surface, making sure to stay reasonably far away from Sanctuary.

If he could get these things a little closer the surface, he'd stand a much better chance at beating them. His sharp sonics were a lot more deadly than his blunt ones, but using them underwater made them all but useless. Above water though? He was the king of the skies.

Click to shrink...

As the pack of fish darted toward Coyote, several of them took glancing strikes from the blunt sonic attacks. But, the one that had initially attacked charged him from behind. With its jaw snapped early in half it wasn't able to actually do any real damage to him but, he was pushed up slightly... and toward the pack as well.

"FINALLY" I exclaim in relief. For over two hours, I didn't see a damn thing, no land, no ships, nothing! But finally, I found something! Sure, it may have just been a small boat but it's something! Who knows, perhaps there are people on it.

I turned down to my dragon, "I know you're tired, but can you...paddle your way to that ship?" I got a snort in response and Midmire began to use his wings to swim to the ship, "....I really need to find a way to understand you."

Once I believe I was in ear range of whatever sailors there may be on the ship, I cleared my voice.

"Hail!" I shouted, "Is there anyone on this ship?"

Click to shrink...

As he approached the vessel he was able to get a better look at it.

Spoiler: boat.

It was fairly small of a seagoing vessel and was fairly heavily armed. As he approached he was also able to watch as it's crew scrambled to several gun mounts and tracked his approach. But, it was only when he got within around a hundred feet that he was able to see what the crew looked like. Sitting in the frontal mount with both hands on a fifty looking extremely nervous was a fairly young looking girl.

Spoiler: Fifty girl.

standing and holding the rear fifty caliber in a death grip was another girl this one probably in her mid-twenties.

Spoiler: other girl.

Then there where two crouch behind a chicken plate next to the command post on the middle of the boat. One had set an m60 on the plate and had it trained on you while the other one was holding a grenade launcher and was shaking ever so slightly.

Spoiler: other two.

and finally sitting inside the command tower with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding a large pistol is another girl.

Spoiler: Captain girl.

(OOC: I'm gonna be honest I was not expecting anyone to get this.)

Fuck. Wait, was that radi-NOW IS NOT THE TIME, ALFRED. Just be glad the Guild Standards Office is so obsessed with compatibility with antiquated systems.

For a moment - just a moment - Alfred considered staying quiet. He was new here, he could just say - then his hand clasped around the cylinder at his waist. There was a reason that, after nearly two centuries of peace, the Psion's Guild still used a sword as their badge of office. He, like many others, had never thought he would need to use it. He, like many others, had desperately hoped that he would never have to use it. But he had received it for a reason.

Shit.

Returning his hands to the closest control terminal, where he had just begun the process of starting up the Motive Heart, he shoved intent into it, starting its emergency initialization. It would awaken, unknowing and searching for someone to bond to, and then instantly be forced into readiness. A... thoroughly unpleasant way for anything to be born- and yet, Alfred knew it was the only way it would be able to keep itself safe and let him find his way back to it. It wouldn't wake up quickly enough to let him help, and he could fly faster than it anyhow.

That begun, he turned his attention back to his comm protocol, turning off his distress signal - cutting it off just as it began to repeat. He grinned grimly as the broadcast system focused in on the signal it had received - Liberator bless GSO coders for not accepting the ease-of-use limitations the rest of us can't get past. - and began to broadcast to the area the ship was in in specific.

"Grafton, this is val'Karnaya. Continue broadcasting, I'm tracking your signal."

For a moment, he stopped broadcasting, and turned his attention back to the Gilded Brilliance's Motive Heart. He copied over his communication protocols(setting their self-configurator to "user: other"), and then wrote a short message for it, in a language it would understand.

"When you awaken, submerge to no deeper than 100 meters. Hold there. Respond at my signal. If I'm not back in time, go into hibernation and set broadcaster to emergency beacon 5-1. I'm sorry. -Alfred"

The motive heart was made of psimetal the same as everything else; even if something went wrong as the Gilded Brilliance tried to adjust its buoyancy, it could survive both pressure from far deeper and the submersion itself. Albert was more worried about his own attempts to get to it in the worst case scenario...

In any case, he pushed as much energy as he could spare into the ship's capacitors; enough for a few hours. Hopefully enough overall. Then, he activated his flight program and his armor; as the psimetal grew around him - shifting with his will to imitate the Gilded Brilliance in electrocapacitance - he slid a finger up his gauntlet - and vanished into a blink.

Reappearing above the Gilded Brilliance, armor fully formed, he turned, and began to fly at his top sustainable speed in the direction the communicator had focused. He began broadcasting again.

"Grafton, this is Alfred val'Karnaya. Now en route to assist. Unknown boarders? I suggest you stand down."

As his intended target (though not actual target; they were all in the targeted area. probably.) switched from the people calling for help to those who were attacking them, Alfred pushed some Malice into the transmission - and then immediately closed down the emotion-broadcast function; he didn't want his uncertainty and worry (well honestly terror, but Alfred wasn't being very honest with himself at the moment) at what was about to happen to bleed through.

Click to shrink...

"We tried! The fucking things just killed everybody!" The voice has gained a slightly more hysterical edge to it and you can hear the fighting in the background now and it doesn't sound good. You eventually reach what you must assume is the Grafton and the situation doesn't look good. The Grafton itself is a fairly small cargo vessel colored a light grey with a small forest of cranes and crates dominating the middle of the ship.

And currently, there was a large wooden sailing vessel rammed into it about mid-ship. On the deck of the Grafton was a pitched battle. On the bow, You can see around 25 people fighting for their lives against a horde of skeletons while back at the tower near the back of the Grafton a large group was trying to bash thru one of the lower doors to gain access to the ship's interior. Scattered about the deck are clumps of the undead slowly taking stilll screaming people apart at the joints.

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

Letting out a short breather, I once again scanned the deck of the ship just to make sure that everyone's frozen. Thankfully they remained still.

"Right, Security fai--" Err what?

"Eh! Eh! Eh!" Ma'am, we'd prefer if you call us Gremlins instead!

Eh? O-okay?

Clearing my throat I renewed my order to appease the Marine Fairies. There's not a lot of them but they were essential in keeping my former steel hull clean of pirates, borders, spies, smugglers, and the likes. "Se-err... Marine Fairies, please disembark and board the Sailing Ship, find out what's on the lower decks and cabin and see if there's anyone in there. Make sure to not touch anyone and anything strange, weird, out of place or an unholy combination of the three."

"Oui!" Yes Ma'am!

I kneeled and extended my hands towards the floor and watched until the last of the miniature chibi marines are out and about doing as I ordered and started scouring the ship.


Standing up, I went here and there investigating the still aquatic beings and the humans from various different eras. I also made sure to stay the crap away from the guy carrying that glowing orb. "Yeah, I'm not touching that Orb until there's literally nothing to do but touch it."

... These aquatic beings remind me a lot of those freshmen from One Piece. They couldn't possibly be from One Piece now, are they? Actually, am I in One Piece?

Shaking my head away from that pile of a headache. I took out a bandolier of ammo and grenades, mainly frag 'nades, as well as arming my left hand with my cross-spear. After that, I walked over to one of the wooden rails, sat and waited for my marines to come back.

(OOC: @See my smile What did my marines find?)

In the meantime, I can easily deduce that this ship has been attacked by the fishermen and judging from the way the guy holding the orb is posed, I think he tried to 'fry' or 'laser' the fishmen attacking one of his own only for the orb to pause their time instead.

As for the mix-match of uniformed men. I don't friggin' know. Some I recognize as WW1 troops and some even dating back from the colonial era, if what I see from that god awful bucket of a helmet and their blue top wear is correct.

Sighing, I just hope that I can go back to civilized areas already. Well, proper early 21st-century civilization considering the fact that time-travel may be involved.

Click to shrink...

As your marine fairies sweep the vessel they find that below decks the story is very much the same sailors fighting those same messed up mermaids. They also find a group of four four-armed men of greater size in the same weird mish-mash of gear as the rest and are holding weapons no man should be able to as easily as they are, in order: two blunderbusses, An old Hotchkiss 5-inch cannon, two boarding ax, and two truly massive revolvers, and four cut down Chauchat machineguns. They're holding the line in front of a door that has a sign that reads. "Engine Room." But, other than that there wasn't much out of the ordinary.

PT-41 nodded to herself, satisfied at her snowman whose pebble eyes and mouth, stick hands, and carrot nose were made of nanomaterial. Now, all she had to do was make a cloak and a graduation hat and her Lexington Snowman would be complete! Alas, she was about to place the finishing touches on her masterpiece when information suddenly flooded into her ears. Radio transmissions, in a language that was in her databanks, informed the girl of two very peculiar pieces of information.

One, she still had no idea where she was.

Two, that her databanks were either lacking in information, because she couldn't find anything on Port Sith're, the Marks, or the Markesann Empire, or gasp she was in another world entirely.

Both possibilities were equally improbable. The Fog's databanks on humanity were complete! Even when the blockade was raised, information was constantly updated and recorded, while the thought of getting sent to another world without her sensors signaling an alert was just way too demeaning. Yeah, she had a reputation for being a bit of an airhead, but...

Argh, thinking too long! Bad! Act now!

The PT-Boat's thrusters glowed a bright orange, Quantum Computer attempting to brute force find the source of the Imperial Signal. Triangulation was rather ineffective without a satellite to bounce a signal off of, so PT resolved to do it in an old-fashioned way. "Yosh!" Arms crossed and back straight, the girl looked straight ahead as her hull quickly accelerated at speeds that would boggle her human equivalents.

Between the Port and the Empire, the choice was obvious. Empire obviously meant lots of information and infrastructure she could hook up to and steal information from! Hurrah for inadequate human cyber-security!

Click to shrink...

As you begin moving towards the Empire Radio broadcast the other one slowly gets less and less clear until the music that had come on after the broadcast is completely drowned out by the unending propaganda that was coming from the empire radio. The man speaking never stopped and as far as you can tell he spoke nearly nonstop for the four hours it took for you to get eyes upon what you assumed was the port that the signal was coming from. Five tall spindly metal towers stood defiantly in a semicircle around the wharf where six or seven large freighters sat as they where slowly unloaded. Around 100 meters to the right of them were sixty or so, smaller vessels of mixed sizes with the biggest being a 100 foot long from stem to stern Yacht. The city beyond seemed to be fairly large with the tallest building being around 5 stories tall and made of a brilliant white stone.

Chang'e waved back at the people as she passed, even the people on the Dinghy as they were probably just shocked at seeing an Araquanid as large as Charlotte. When they arrived at the Skadovsk and the woman who was obviously the guard to prevent anyone like those Rainbow Rocket guys from coming on board, Chang'e frowned as she took a moment to work out what the woman was saying through her accent as it wasn't like anything she'd ever heard before.

"Alola!" she said taking a moment to pat Charlotte's water bubble to assure the Pokemon that the lady with the gun probably wasn't hostile, "And umm...I don't think so, it's just me and my Pokemon so I don't think there should be anything I need to declare....oh question! Do you guys take PokeDollars, I hope you guys do as I don't really have any other money."

Click to shrink...

The woman shrugs and her entire suit jingles slightly at the movement. "If it kash ve vill take it. Ve are also open to trade-" she pauses and looks around for a moment before continuing on in a whisper. "and if you have any food zat ain't in kan I vill pay top dollar for it." Her voice gains a mildly desperate edge to it and she looks sort of manic.

The fire washes over Karen, the mortal flames nothing compared to the fires of her soul, that small fragment of the black warm flame enshrouding her, smoke trailing every movement she made. The giant beast charges, and Karen ducks under it's pedipalps, her skid across the sea kicking up a salt spray behind her, as she pivots to flick a leg out, smashing into one of the spiders own. Chitin cracks beneath the blow, but the monster reacts far too nimbly for its size, and she withdraws at two other legs come to smash into her.

The two combatants fall back, Karen breathing shallowly, not wanting to inhale the ash the lava flows keeps spitting out. She breaths shallowly, but she breathes hot, and she falls into a more formal stance, years of practice accommodating for the undulating waves beneath her feet. With another ear splitting screech, the spider charges again, and Karen snaps both feet together, and plummets into the water.

The cold - somehow - water hits her like a fist as she plummets into the depths. Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen feet deep she falls, before she opens her eyes. The black water stings, as she opens her mouth, and words formed of fire are spoken.

"Pree-Aesma, Un-Intra, Ys-Prama; fortify my spirit. YS ATN VARAMA PRESH, temper my blade."

Bubbles of steam begin to form around her, as she falls into the sevenths position of the third kata. Flickers of black fire start to appear around her, and she inhales, the water turning to steam in her lungs.

"The sacred action is division."

The water beneath her lower legs explodes into steam, propelling her up, up and up, a knife hand held above her head, as she aimed to pierce the spider at once.

Click to shrink...

The spider's carapace manages to resist the blow and in a blur of movement slams its entire body down onto the surface of the water in an attempt to smash Karen with the sheer force. At the same time, the two-bladed pedipalps stabbed underneath itself desperatly searching for Karen.

As the Hesperides slid through the water, there was a collective sigh of relief from the bridge staff. Though no-one wanted to admit it, they were all a bit freaked out by the weird rocks that were all but singing. The Petty Officer on weapons control was about to ask for permission to fire at the distant rocks when he became distracted by an now all too familiar sound ...

"What the ..." mumbled Elise, under her breath, the sight of the exact same rocks jutting out of the water causing her to blink rapidly, as though her brain didn't quite believe what it was seeing: which, of course, it didn't. Looking around the bridge, she saw that her crew were also having a hard time believing what they were seeing.
"Captain, um ... Typhoon has thermal contact ..." At the Petty Officer's call, the captain slid out of her chair and peered over the shoulder of the man sitting in the gunner seat. "It looks like ... I think he's trying to hitch a lift, ma'am!"
Elise looked closely at the screen. Sure enough, there, clear as day on the screen, was a man with a bag trying to catch a ride. For the second time in as many minutes she struggled for words, "What the ..."
"It's the same rocks, ma'am. I'm sure of it."
"How?"
"You see that cluster of holes there?" the Petty Officer replied, pointing again to his screen, "They're exactly the same as the ones from the rocks before, and I don't mean similar: those are exactly the same." He brought up a saved screenshot he had taken earlier, and threw it up on the screen next to the Typhoon's. The two images were identical.
"And was that man there a few minutes ago?"
"No ma'am. No idea where he's come from."
Elise didn't trust this situation at all. Part of her wanted to just try and get out of this again, but something told her that these rocks would just keep popping up again and again. She needed to find out more about this man, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be prepared. "Acquire target," she said to the Petty Officer, "and maintain visual. If he tries anything, then I want you to blast him to kingdom come."
"Aye aye, ma'am," came the reply, as the gunner station became a flurry of movement. Out on the foredeck, the large gun swiveled on its axis with a mechanical whirl. Four dots appeared on the screen around the targeting reticule quickly flashing until the Typhoon had finished its rotation. Several beeps from the console, and the white dots now appearing steady, confirmed that the weapon was now pointing directly at the gentleman sitting on the rocks. "Typhoon aimed at target."
"Gunner of the watch? XO? With me," ordered Elise as she left the bridge onto the upper deck.

The XO and a woman with a rifle followed her out, immediately feeling the chill from the fog as the moisture saturated their clothing. Also on the deck were the two gunners manning mounted .50cal machine guns that they had taken out from the ship's armoury during the Action Stations call, one on port side and one on starboard side, and both were watching the situation unfold with great interest.

The mercenary captain picked up a microphone connected to the ship's loudspeakers, and tried to strike up a conversation with the strange man on the rocks. "Ahoy there," she said, her voice calm but carrying a distinctive authority, "this is Captain Ladon of the Herperides. Who are you, and what are your intentions?"

Click to shrink...

The man watches you and your ship for a moment before he speaks, his voice hoarse and tired sounding. "Just another unforntuante soul looking to get the hell out of this place." He gestures to the rocks behind him and continues. "This place...It isn't normal."

Gangut approached the boat, apprehensive.

"Um, hello?"

Click to shrink...

The girl blinks and says, sounding more than a little surprised. "Oh, are you real? It's been... a long time since I've seen anyone who was real." and one of her hands slowly raised as if to touch your face.

 

[Estemi]

The man watches you and your ship for a moment before he speaks, his voice hoarse and tired sounding. "Just another unforntuante soul looking to get the hell out of this place." He gestures to the rocks behind him and continues. "This place...It isn't normal."

Click to shrink...

Captain Ladon and her XO exchanged a brief glance that roughly translated to "you don't say?!" before the young captain got back on the loudspeaker. The man had deftly avoided her questions with a non-answer, which just increased her distrust. There was a very strong impulse just to give the order to engage, and blast her way out of this.

"How did you get up there" she asked, "and how what do you intend to do should you get down? More importantly, how do I know that you're not part of this place's trickery?"

 

[Lazy Coyote]

As the pack of fish darted toward Coyote, several of them took glancing strikes from the blunt sonic attacks. But, the one that had initially attacked charged him from behind. With its jaw snapped early in half it wasn't able to actually do any real damage to him but, he was pushed up slightly... and toward the pack as well.

Click to shrink...

Fuckfuckfuckfuck- Coyote glanced around desperately, despairing when he noticed nothing he could use to help him get away.

... Fine. These things want a fight?

They're gonna get a slaughter.

Coyote sent out a pulse of sound through the water, noticeably weaker than his other sonics, but if he could get this right he could win this fight in one fell swoop.

All he needed was to find a frequency that the fish all shared, maybe their scales, or their teeth, or bones, and once he got it he could send out a pulse to shatter whatever they shared into a million pieces.

God he hoped it was something important.

He started humming slightly as he warmed up, starting to get a bit nervous at how low his oxegen levels were getting.

It was either this or bust. Maybe he could get to the surface if this failed, but It'd be a gamble.

 

[Ryven Razgriz]

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

As your marine fairies sweep the vessel they find that below decks the story is very much the same sailors fighting those same messed up mermaids. They also find a group of four four-armed men of greater size in the same weird mish-mash of gear as the rest and are holding weapons no man should be able to as easily as they are, in order: two blunderbusses, An old Hotchkiss 5-inch cannon, two boarding ax, and two truly massive revolvers, and four cut down Chauchat machineguns. They're holding the line in front of a door that has a sign that reads. "Engine Room." But, other than that there wasn't much out of the ordinary.

Click to shrink...

"Yeah I'm getting more and more One Piece vibe here." I say as the Fairy Marines reports back their findings.

I had the Fairy Marines come aboard and stay in the doors and hatches but for now, I summon my rigging.

As the heavy rigging deploys, I felt its weight weigh down on my body. I had my guns point in all direction, including the general area of where humans are, just in case and loaded AP shells as AP munitions are less likely to bring us down together with the ship rather than using HE munitions, never mind the guy having a Hotchkiss as an infantry weapon.

How in Jeanne's tits did the ship not sunk yet with those oversized weapons as 'infantry weapons' will forever remain a history in my head. At least until they're 'unfrozen'.

As I will not be touching that glowing ball, I did the next best thing I could with it, stabbing my spear on the floor, I took my rigging's anchor and carefully 'tie' it around the glowing ball on the young man's hand in a way that, when I pull my anchor, it'll only take the ball without including the young man's hands with it. "Yeah, still not touching it."

"And. Here. We. Go." After that is done. I stood up and took my spear with my right hand and readied my Chicago Typewriter with my left. With gusto, my crew pulled the lever to retrieve the anchor. As the chains pull, I watched with wary eyes and readied myself for any and all kinds of movement, entirely expecting combat.

 

[Brightflame]

As he approached the vessel he was able to get a better look at it.

Spoiler: boat.

It was fairly small of a seagoing vessel and was fairly heavily armed. As he approached he was also able to watch as it's crew scrambled to several gun mounts and tracked his approach. But, it was only when he got within around a hundred feet that he was able to see what the crew looked like. Sitting in the frontal mount with both hands on a fifty looking extremely nervous was a fairly young looking girl.

Spoiler: Fifty girl.

standing and holding the rear fifty caliber in a death grip was another girl this one probably in her mid-twenties.

Spoiler: other girl.

Then there where two crouch behind a chicken plate next to the command post on the middle of the boat. One had set an m60 on the plate and had it trained on you while the other one was holding a grenade launcher and was shaking ever so slightly.

Spoiler: other two.

and finally sitting inside the command tower with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding a large pistol is another girl.

Spoiler: Captain girl.

(OOC: I'm gonna be honest I was not expecting anyone to get this.)

Click to shrink...

Well...shit. These people don't seem to be like the most friendly of folks and I doubt Midmire would be able to cover them in cursed flame before they filled me with lead, and I don't want to kill them anyways. It seems that they're just cautious, I would be too if a zombie riding an undead dragon appeared near my ship aswell, so perhaps diplomacy is an option. I raised my hands slightly as to indicate I mean for harm.

"Peace!" I called out, "despite my appearance, I have no intentions of attacking your ship, rather I wish to ask for your help. I found myself in the middle of the ocean with my dragon, Midmire, here and are completely lost. Could you all possibly help us in finding land, so that we may rest and recover?"

 

[LucidProp]

As you begin moving towards the Empire Radio broadcast the other one slowly gets less and less clear until the music that had come on after the broadcast is completely drowned out by the unending propaganda that was coming from the empire radio. The man speaking never stopped and as far as you can tell he spoke nearly nonstop for the four hours it took for you to get eyes upon what you assumed was the port that the signal was coming from. Five tall spindly metal towers stood defiantly in a semicircle around the wharf where six or seven large freighters sat as they where slowly unloaded. Around 100 meters to the right of them were sixty or so, smaller vessels of mixed sizes with the biggest being a 100 foot long from stem to stern Yacht. The city beyond seemed to be fairly large with the tallest building being around 5 stories tall and made of a brilliant white stone.

Click to shrink...

OK!

She had to do this very slowly and quietly! Remember PT, no alarming the humans! No shooting! And no going beyond the speed limit! You gotta hook up to the nearest computer without attracting undue attention! "Wish me well!" With one last bow to her Lexington snowman, PT-41 found herself slowly sinking beneath the waves. She would have cried at the sight of her hardwork being ruined if she weren't submerged underwater.

Now that she wasn't visible above water, her hull's light colors dimmed underwater, and her ECM suite ensured that she'd be invisible on radar and sonar, PT-41 slowly sailed towards the wharf, where she would try and surface in an area without prying eyes.

Granted, she had to endure the painful slowness of the entire ordeal, and not exploding into full throttle was turning out to be a incredibly hard challenge...

 

[Sinsystems]

The woman shrugs and her entire suit jingles slightly at the movement. "If it kash ve vill take it. Ve are also open to trade-" she pauses and looks around for a moment before continuing on in a whisper. "and if you have any food zat ain't in kan I vill pay top dollar for it." Her voice gains a mildly desperate edge to it and she looks sort of manic.

Click to shrink...

Chang'e thought for a moment, "Well I was planning on making some Malasadas after I was done shopping....so if you want I'd be more than willing to share a couple." she said with a friendly smile "After all you guys are letting me shop on your ship so why shouldn't I repay the favor? So do I have permission to come aboard, if you guys don't have any fish on sale I'll have to let Charlotte do some hunting since she never got the chance at Breakfast."

At the mention of her name the Araquanid made a clicking sound, agreeing that she was getting a little hungry and would like to see if she can't catch a Magikarp.

 

[CaesriusPolybius]

"We tried! The fucking things just killed everybody!" The voice has gained a slightly more hysterical edge to it and you can hear the fighting in the background now and it doesn't sound good.

Click to shrink...

"Apologies, Grafton. The last part of that message was meant for the boarders. The GSO's comm program is good, but even it can only do so much." Especially when dealing with something as obscure as radio waves; frankly, he was glad it managed as well as it did.

You eventually reach what you must assume is the Grafton and the situation doesn't look good. The Grafton itself is a fairly small cargo vessel colored a light grey with a small forest of cranes and crates dominating the middle of the ship.

And currently, there was a large wooden sailing vessel rammed into it about mid-ship. On the deck of the Grafton was a pitched battle. On the bow, You can see around 25 people fighting for their lives against a horde of skeletons while back at the tower near the back of the Grafton a large group was trying to bash thru one of the lower doors to gain access to the ship's interior. Scattered about the deck are clumps of the undead slowly taking stilll screaming people apart at the joints.

Click to shrink...

When he arrived, Alfred's mind scraped to a stop - or at the very least, it missed a few beats.

Skeletons. That... that shouldn't be... but obviously it is, because there they fucking are.

Okay. I know someone mentioned this back in classes. There's a wa- control. It's the same as any other mind control; try to drown out the controller.

The psion began to ready himself - and then stopped doing that, because with that many targets there was no way he'd be able to target his comm well enough without hitting the defenders. Crap.

He looked around again, and - oh. Some were trying to get into a door. He... was pretty sure he could do something about that, actually. Open Fabrication on the programming interface, change a few numbers... aaand close the programming interface not twenty seconds later.

Alfred flew closer to the ship, and as soon as he was close enough, vanished into a blur - and reappeared fractions of a second later, hitting the wall above the door with a light tap as the safeties kicked in.

Provided he arrived before they managed to get through, he then fired off his recently modified Fabrication spell, and watched as psimetal began to flow rapidly across the surface, forming into a large rectangle over the door.

Not a moment later, he shrugged, and directed his comms to broadcast at the pile of living bones beneath him - and loosed a veritable torrent of psychic noise at them.

 

[See my smile]

Captain Ladon and her XO exchanged a brief glance that roughly translated to "you don't say?!" before the young captain got back on the loudspeaker. The man had deftly avoided her questions with a non-answer, which just increased her distrust. There was a very strong impulse just to give the order to engage, and blast her way out of this.

"How did you get up there," she asked, "and how what do you intend to do should you get down? More importantly, how do I know that you're not part of this place's trickery?"

Click to shrink...

"How else does one get up somewhere? I climbed trying to get above this god's damned fog! And to answer your second question." He points down to the base of the rocks and looking down you can just make out the shape of a small fishing skiff that is just barely visible through the fog... and it's crashed into the side of the rocks. "I was busy fishing and wasn't able to stop in time before these cursed rocks appeared. You're the first vessel I've seen in two days."

Fuckfuckfuckfuck- Coyote glanced around desperately, despairing when he noticed nothing he could use to help him get away.

... Fine. These things want a fight?

They're gonna get a slaughter.

Coyote sent out a pulse of sound through the water, noticeably weaker than his other sonics, but if he could get this right, he could win this fight in one fell swoop.

All he needed was to find a frequency that the fish all shared, maybe their scales, or their teeth, or bones, and once he got it, he could send out a pulse to shatter whatever they shared into a million pieces.

God, he hoped it was something important.

He started humming slightly as he warmed up, starting to get a bit nervous at how low his oxygen levels were getting.

It was either this or bust. Maybe he could get to the surface if this failed, but It'd be a gamble.

Click to shrink...

As Coyotes pulse moved out through the water, it ran over the fish and quickly bounced back to him. He didn't know what the frequency was for but, it was something.

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

"Yeah, I'm getting more and more One Piece vibe here," I say as the Fairy Marines reports back their findings.

I had the Fairy Marines come aboard and stay in the doors and hatches, but for now, I summon my rigging.

As the heavy rigging deploys, I felt its weight weigh down on my body. I had my guns point in all direction, including the general area of where humans are, just in case and loaded AP shells as AP munitions are less likely to bring us down together with the ship rather than using HE munitions, never mind the guy having a Hotchkiss as an infantry weapon.

How in Jeanne's tits did the ship not sunk yet with those oversized weapons as 'infantry weapons' will forever remain a history in my head? At least until they're 'unfrozen'.

As I will not be touching that glowing ball, I did the next best thing I could with it, stabbing my spear on the floor, I took my rigging's anchor and carefully 'tie' it around the glowing ball on the young man's hand in a way that, when I pull my anchor, it'll only take the ball without including the young man's hands with it. "Yeah, still not touching it."

"And. Here. We. Go." After that is done. I stood up and took my spear with my right hand and readied my Chicago Typewriter with my left. With gusto, my crew pulled the lever to retrieve the anchor. As the chains pull, I watched with wary eyes and readied myself for any kinds of movement, entirely expecting combat.

Click to shrink...

Before any of that is able to occur. The very second your chain touches the orb all hell breaks loose. The sound suddenly rushes back into existence releasing a cacophony of yells, screams, gunfire, and the clashing of steel. Below decks, you hear several loud roars and the even more deafening booms and chatters as they four-armed giants join the battle. The young boy in front of you seems to start and then collapse to the ground heaving and crying. The man on the ground expertly evades the trident coming for his neck and shoots the mermaid in the chest with his revolver splattering you with darkish purple blood.

The Battle has restarted with a vengeance.

Well...shit. These people don't seem to be like the most friendly of folks, and I doubt Admire would be able to cover them in cursed flame before they filled me with lead, and I don't want to kill them anyways. It seems that they're just cautious, I would be too if a zombie riding an undead dragon appeared near my ship as well, so perhaps diplomacy is an option. I raised my hands slightly as to indicate I mean for harm.

"Peace!" I called out, "despite my appearance; I have no intentions of attacking your ship, rather I wish to ask for your help. I found myself in the middle of the ocean with my dragon, Admire, here and are completely lost. Could you all possibly help us in finding land, so that we may rest and recover?"

Click to shrink...

The Girl inside the command area narrows her eyes before uncocking her pistol and reholstering it. "Well then where are you going?" her voice is cautious and you notice that none of the other girls take their weapons off you. The girl with the grenade launcher seems to be shaking ever so slightly.

OK!

She had to do this very slowly and quietly! Remember PT, no alarming the humans! No shooting! And no going beyond the speed limit! You gotta hook up to the nearest computer without attracting undue attention! "Wish me well!" With one last bow to her Lexington snowman, PT-41 found herself slowly sinking beneath the waves. She would have cried at the sight of her hard work being ruined if she weren't submerged underwater.

Now that she wasn't visible above water, her hull's light colors dimmed underwater, and her ECM suite ensured that she'd be invisible on radar and sonar, PT-41 slowly sailed towards the wharf, where she would try and surface in an area without prying eyes.

Granted, she had to endure the painful slowness of the entire ordeal, and not to explode into full throttle was turning out to be an incredibly hard challenge...

Click to shrink...

You drop below the surface and see an assortment of wildlife with beautiful island fish and abundant sea fauna, its also remarkable silent well, at least until you final pass into the area surrounding the port that is marked by the pylons the second you cross the border a bright and cheery voice suddenly speaks to you within your mind. "Hello [Unknown] since your psionic marker is not within our databases that means it's your first time within our borders and that makes us so unbelievable joyous! All we need from you is for you to come to the Port Authority building just off the Fishing Docks to get yourself a berth and we'll be all hunky dory!"

Chang'e thought for a moment, "Well I was planning on making some Malasadas after I was done shopping....so if you want I'd be more than willing to share a couple." she said with a friendly smile "After all you guys are letting me shop on your ship so why shouldn't I repay the favor? So do I have permission to come aboard, if you guys don't have any fish on sale I'll have to let Charlotte do some hunting since she never got the chance at Breakfast."

At the mention of her name, the Araquanid made a clicking sound, agreeing that she was getting a little hungry and would like to see if she can't catch a Magikarp.

Click to shrink...

The woman's eyes go slightly feral at the mention of, not only food not from a can, but, actual fresh hot food. She reaches into one of her pouches and produces a mass of strangely plasticity money. You see a couple of words that you can't understand and the number 1000 on most of them. "I vill give 15,000 rubles for five of whatever you just said." She sounds extremely desperate. It's at this point that the longboat from the hunter ship pulls up, and the ten people on it pile out and quickly begin climbing the ladder some with a nod to the woman but, most of them rapidly climb up the rope ladder.

"Apologies, Grafton. The last part of that message was meant for the boarders. The GSO's comm program is good, but even it can only do so much." Especially when dealing with something as obscure as radio waves; frankly, he was glad it managed as well as it did.



When he arrived, Alfred's mind scraped to a stop - or at the very least, it missed a few beats.

Skeletons. That... that shouldn't be... but it is because there they fucking are.

Okay. I know someone mentioned this back in classes. There's a way- control. It's the same as any other mind control; try to drown out the controller.

The psion began to ready himself - and then stopped doing that, because with that many targets there was no way he'd be able to target his comm well enough without hitting the defenders. Crap.

He looked around again, and - oh. Some were trying to get into a door. He... was pretty sure he could do something about that. Open Fabrication on the programming interface, change a few numbers... and close the programming interface not twenty seconds later.

Alfred flew closer to the ship, and as soon as he was close enough, vanished into a blur - and reappeared fractions of a second later, hitting the wall above the door with a light tap as the safeties kicked in.

Provided he arrived before they managed to get through, he then fired off his recently modified Fabrication spell and watched as psimetal began to flow rapidly across the surface, forming into a large rectangle over the door.

Not a moment later, he shrugged, and directed his comms to broadcast at the pile of living bones beneath him - and loosed a veritable torrent of psychic noise at them.

Click to shrink...

As the wave of psychic energy reaches them almost immediately the majority of the skeletons wander off seemingly uninterested in the door all, that is but, one. It stands around ten feet tall and seems to be made from a mixture of animal and human bones. Its legs are two thick cattle legs that attach to a sizeable humanish torso, with the arms of some sort of big cat with long wicked claws that are wrapped in some kind of barbed wire that seem , and the head of what looks to be a wild pig of some sort with a thick skull and tusks. Its eyes burn with a green energy that you can't quite place and releases a long low moan as it begins to take several large loping steps toward you

 

[CaesriusPolybius]

As the wave of psychic energy reaches them almost immediately the majority of the skeletons wander off seemingly uninterested in the door all, that is but, one. It stands around ten feet tall and seems to be made from a mixture of animal and human bones. Its legs are two thick cattle legs that attach to a sizeable humanish torso, with the arms of some sort of big cat with long wicked claws that are wrapped in some kind of barbed wire that seem , and the head of what looks to be a wild pig of some sort with a thick skull and tusks. Its eyes burn with a green energy that you can't quite place and releases a long low moan as it begins to take several large loping steps toward you

Click to shrink...

Wait, what? That's shouldn't be... unless these are just golems that look like skeletons, or their creator was powerful enough that again, bad time for this. Attempts at logicking later.

With a twist, he landed between the creature and the plate of psimetal, and raised his right arm. Disable flight, enable TK, and an attempt at picking the strange golem up with it.

If this attempt was successful, throwing it overboard would probably be a good idea. If not... well, blinking past it would probably be a better one.

 

[Brightflame]

The Girl inside the command area narrows her eyes before uncocking her pistol and reholstering it. "Well then where are you going?" her voice is cautious and you notice that none of the other girls take their weapons off you. The girl with the grenade launcher seems to be shaking ever so slightly.

Click to shrink...

I frowned, "as much as I want to say home, I doubt the United States of America are anywhere near here, nor would they accept me in my current form even so. So, anywhere I suppose, I just desire to reach dry land and perhaps reach civilization that won't shoot me on sight."

 

[Estro]

The spider's carapace manages to resist the blow and in a blur of movement slams its entire body down onto the surface of the water in an attempt to smash Karen with the sheer force. At the same time, the two-bladed pedipalps stabbed underneath itself desperatly searching for Karen.

Click to shrink...

The second she impacts and doesn't feel the chitin crack, Karen is rolling to the side, trying to dissipate the energy across her entire frame to minimise the cost of impacting very fast into something harder than rock. Clinging to the underside of the beast, she takes a fraction of a second to take a breath, but has to throw herself back into the sea, skidding along the surface of the waves, to-avoid the spider's pedipalps. By the time she had came to a stop, the spider was already after her again, forlegs trying to pin her down as she furiously backpedalled, dodging this way and that way. As she fought in furious seconds, time elapsing in spent heartbeats and shallow cuts, she felt a heat building up behind her, as the spider slowly pinned her between one of the lava spewing rocks and itself.

Throwing herself to the lip of the rock, Karen took the second she had while the monster regained to breath deeply, the fire of her Atum kindled with the pain and desperation of the fight, warm black flames licking at her form, her undisciplined channelling clear for all the world to see. She would have to time this perfectly.

The spider lunged forwards, and in that moment Karen kicked the shallow coating that had formed over the lava, propelling her under the beast while hoping, desperately hoping, that she'd measured this right, and that it would over-extend just enough.

 

[Ryven Razgriz]

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

Before any of that is able to occur. The very second your chain touches the orb all hell breaks loose. The sound suddenly rushes back into existence releasing a cacophony of yells, screams, gunfire, and the clashing of steel. Below decks, you hear several loud roars and the even more deafening booms and chatters as they four-armed giants join the battle. The young boy in front of you seems to start and then collapse to the ground heaving and crying. The man on the ground expertly evades the trident coming for his neck and shoots the mermaid in the chest with his revolver splattering you with darkish purple blood.

The Battle has restarted with a vengeance.

Click to shrink...

"Fuck." I unconsciously mutter but got scolded in return. 'Language my Lady.'

Standing up, I took two steps back as I levered both of my weapons with my Chicago Typewriter 'typing' death at the fishmen as bullets leave the barrel of the SMG in large quantities along with my other hand readying the Spear so I could stab whatever poor sap that would try to close in on me.

My rigging on the other hand, swivels their turrets around searching for target and as soon as they do, they opened fire at the fishmen.

 

[Sinsystems]

The woman's eyes go slightly feral at the mention of, not only food not from a can, but, actual fresh hot food. She reaches into one of her pouches and produces a mass of strangely plasticity money. You see a couple of words that you can't understand and the number 1000 on most of them. "I vill give 15,000 rubles for five of whatever you just said." She sounds extremely desperate. It's at this point that the longboat from the hunter ship pulls up, and the ten people on it pile out and quickly begin climbing the ladder some with a nod to the woman but, most of them rapidly climb up the rope ladder.

Click to shrink...

Chang'e's eyes widened as the woman practically shoved money in her face, the manic look in the woman's eyes not helping the matter as she looked like a starved Snorlax, "Whoa hold your Horsees, you don't need to pay me. I was going to share them out anyways and I'd feel terrible if I took money for that."

To her side Charlotte made a click to see if her trainer would be alright on her own as she really wanted to go hunting.

"Yeah I'll be fine Charlotte, just pop over to the boat for me and tell Rotom to ready the kitchen for when I get back." Chang'e said and at her trainer's acknowledgement the water spider began walking back to the ship to deliver her message. Chang'e knew that after that Charlotte would likely sink beneath the waves and weave a large underwater web to catch any fish that happen to swim too close.

Turning her attention back to the woman, "See we'll have a large batch of Malasadas in the oven right after I'm done shopping, I'll even make an extra big batch so you and your friends can eat as much as you want. My treat!"

 

[LucidProp]

You drop below the surface and see an assortment of wildlife with beautiful island fish and abundant sea fauna, its also remarkable silent well, at least until you final pass into the area surrounding the port that is marked by the pylons the second you cross the border a bright and cheery voice suddenly speaks to you within your mind. "Hello [Unknown] since your psionic marker is not within our databases that means it's your first time within our borders and that makes us so unbelievable joyous! All we need from you is for you to come to the Port Authority building just off the Fishing Docks to get yourself a berth and we'll be all hunky dory!"

Click to shrink...

Gasp

The mission was a failure! Focus PT! Focus! There are more important things at the moment!

"Who are you and how did you get access to the Joint Tactical Network?!" The girl all but shrieked, rapidly ascending and quickly breaching the surface as her hull moved to comply with the request. This shouldn't be possible! The Fleet's Electronic Defenses were perfect! There was no record of humans even possessing the technology needed to do such a feat! Wait wait wait. Psi. Psi. Psi. The voice mentioned Psionics. What did that mean?

A program combed the Fleet's database for her, eventually coming up with results that were less than helpful. This was outright magic if the records were to be believed, so that left only one thing...

Psionics was a codename for a new superweapon or something! This made it even more important that she get ashore and find out! All for the glory of the Fleet of course!

 

[See my smile]

Wait, what? That's shouldn't be... unless these are just golems that look like skeletons, or their creator was powerful enough that again, bad time for this. Attempts at logicking later.

With a twist, he landed between the creature and the plate of psimetal, and raised his right arm. Disable flight, enable TK, and an attempt at picking the strange golem up with it.

If this attempt was successful, throwing it overboard would probably be a good idea. If not... well, blinking past it would probably be a better one.

Click to shrink...

Reaching out with your TK you grasp the body of the strange skeleton and with barely a thought throw it overboard as you hear it hit the water below you notice something curious happened. The Skeletons around you have begun to fall apart. They quickly begin to crumble there spines snapping and falling to the ground.

I frowned, "as much as I want to say home, I doubt the United States of America are anywhere near here, nor would they accept me in my current form even so. So, anywhere I suppose, I just desire to reach dry land and perhaps reach civilization that won't shoot me on sight."

Click to shrink...

The Girl narrowed her eyes for a moment before she gave a low whistle and the rest of the girs slowly lowered there weapons. "We're heading into port Damilack to turn in a few bounties. Stay close to us on the approach and youshould be fine." And like that the boat begins moving again. You watch as the rear gunner keeps her fifty trained on you the entire time.

The second she impacts and doesn't feel the chitin crack, Karen is rolling to the side, trying to dissipate the energy across her entire frame to minimize the cost of impacting very fast into something harder than rock. Clinging to the underside of the beast, she takes a fraction of a second to take a breath but has to throw herself back into the sea, skidding along the surface of the waves, to avoid the spider's pedipalps. By the time she had come to a stop, the spider was already after her again, forelegs trying to pin her down as she furiously backpedaled, dodging this way and that way. As she fought in furious seconds, the time elapsing in spent heartbeats and shallow cuts, she felt a heat building up behind her, as the spider slowly pinned her between one of the lava spewing rocks and itself.

Throwing herself to the lip of the rock, Karen took the second she had while the monster regained to breathe deeply, the fire of her Atum kindled with the pain and desperation of the fight, warm black flames licking at her form, her undisciplined channeling clear for all the world to see. She would have to time this perfectly.

The spider lunged forwards, and at that moment Karen kicked the shallow coating that had formed over the lava, propelling her under the beast while hoping, desperately hoping, that she'd measured this right and that it would over-extend just enough.

Click to shrink...

And with a crash the things massive forelegs slammed into the lava and for a split second, it looks as though the creature will spin towards Karen and continue it's assault. But, it is unable to it seems that while it can survive the lava, it's outer carapace has cooled from the water and after it's leg had crashed through the lava it caused the lava to cool near instantly.

ILS Saint-Louis
Anybody knows what's the time and date?
Sailing ship's Deck

---

"Fuck." I unconsciously mutter but got scolded in return. 'Language my Lady.'

Standing up, I took two steps back as I levered both of my weapons with my Chicago Typewriter 'typing' death at the fishmen as bullets leave the barrel of the SMG in large quantities along with my other hand readying the Spear so I could stab whatever poor sap that would try to close in on me.

My rigging on the other hand, swivels their turrets around searching for target and as soon as they do, they opened fire at the fishmen.

Click to shrink...

With a cacophony of gunfire and screams most of the Fishman die without even knowing what had killed them their dark blue blood splashing everywhere. The few that survived the initial salvo charge you with rage and sorrow filled screams and are cut down in an instant. The survivors of the crew of the vessel all look at you with trepidation until one man who must be the captain judgeing by his hat and the long coat he is wearing walks up his saber still dripping with the thick blue liquid.

Spoiler: The Captain

"Eet eez good zat you arrived whén you did Madame ai fair zat much longair and me et mine would 'ave been slain. Ai am Captain Lapeyrère ét zis eez ze AMS New Orleans." He holds his free hand out as the rest of his crew begin to patrol the deck checking bodies and, depending on the race throwing them over board or lining them up on the deck.

Chang'e's eyes widened as the woman practically shoved money in her face, the manic look in the woman's eyes not helping the matter as she looked like a starved Snorlax, "Whoa hold your Horsees, you don't need to pay me. I was going to share them out anyways and I'd feel terrible if I took money for that."

To her side Charlotte made a click to see if her trainer would be alright on her own as she really wanted to go hunting.

"Yeah I'll be fine Charlotte, just pop over to the boat for me and tell Rotom to ready the kitchen for when I get back." Chang'e said and at her trainer's acknowledgement the water spider began walking back to the ship to deliver her message. Chang'e knew that after that Charlotte would likely sink beneath the waves and weave a large underwater web to catch any fish that happen to swim too close.

Turning her attention back to the woman, "See we'll have a large batch of Malasadas in the oven right after I'm done shopping, I'll even make an extra big batch so you and your friends can eat as much as you want. My treat!"

Click to shrink...

The woman nearly begins to cry at that and the last two people up the ladder look vaguely worried before shrugging and continuing to climb. "You are the first person to have food zat isn't salted orrr kanned in four months." You see a single small tear flow down her cheek before she shakes her head and with a small blush on her face that she is trying to hide she quickly looks around and then says. " speak vith Beard. Tell him Fox sent you."

Gasp

The mission was a failure! Focus PT! Focus! There are more important things at the moment!

"Who are you and how did you get access to the Joint Tactical Network?!" The girl all but shrieked, rapidly ascending and quickly breaching the surface as her hull moved to comply with the request. This shouldn't be possible! The Fleet's Electronic Defenses were perfect! There was no record of humans even possessing the technology needed to do such a feat! Wait wait wait. Psi. Psi. Psi. The voice mentioned Psionics. What did that mean?

A program combed the Fleet's database for her, eventually coming up with results that were less than helpful. This was outright magic if the records were to be believed, so that left only one thing...

Psionics was a codename for a new superweapon or something! This made it even more important that she get ashore and find out! All for the glory of the Fleet of course!

Click to shrink...

That same voice still as perky as it spoke again. " I have no idea what the Joint Tactical Network is I am merely speaking to the unregistered psionic contact that entered the ports Mental Net. Oh, and I'm Mary Number 256."