[] Fishies!
-[] Bring Tim along
Maskless 6.13
Saturday, May 7
The spray from the warm sea breeze dots your face as the ship cuts through the water. You have already contributed just about all you have to offer in the form of Perfect Storm's calculations for where it things the fragments of the Agharti landed. The sailors are directing the ship, Tim is walking Dragon through how to convert a drone taken from her latest Dragonsuit to run off mana, and you are taking the time to sit in the shade of said Dragonsuit's rotors and flip through your emails.
Not that you pay much attention to them. The voice mail your Device told you about this morning weighs heavily on your mind. With a resigned sigh, you close the holographic window in front of you. "Play the message again."
«Purpose of repetition?»
"Because I have no clue what I'm going to do and maybe inspiration will strike if I hear it a couple more time."
The ensuing silence tells you what the Intelligent Device thinks of that idea, but finally it relents and begins the playback. "Hey, Calamity. It's Vista. I got your number from Miss Militia, hope you don't mind. She told me you two talked when you went sewer-diving, and I was wondering why… I mean, I thought maybe…" A sigh, the inflection no different from the five other times you heard it. "I'm just gonna be straight with you. What the hell? I thought you'd give me a call sometime in the last, I don't know, MONTH! Okay, yeah, that first week or two, I wasn't in a good place, and I needed the space, but any time after that? Another story entirely. I could even forgive you with the whole deal about how you were worried about how the PRT would treat you, although even that was silly. Yeah, we messed up. Yeah, I got hurt. It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last. We're heroes; danger comes with the job. And after Militia told me that, I tried to be patient. I really did.
"But here's the thing, Cally: I need somebody in my corner who gets what I'm talking about. Flambé, Cherry Bomb? They're nice and all, good kids, but they're still kids. They haven't fought Nazis and Oni Lee and Endbringers. They don't get it like we do.You're from home, you know what it's like. I know you're older and you'd probably get along with the Protectorate better than a Ward, but you treated me like an equal. Hell, like a friend, and I don't exactly have a lot of those right now—
"Crap. Just— ignore that part, okay? Point is, I'm not upset with you about the thing with Cadejo. I don't think you're responsible. But I am upset that I haven't heard from you, especially since you were asking Miss Militia about how I was doing. If you care that much, you can ask me to my face. Just, call me or something, okay?"
"I feel sorry for her boyfriends when she gets older. She's going to be downright vicious with her guilt trips."
"Thanks for the commentary, Sam. Maybe if you have time to come up with jokes, you have time to give me a helpful suggestion about what to do," you snap back.
Samantha shrugs, eyes closed as she sunbathes on a lounge chair. "You want a suggestion? I second Vista's motion. You asked Tim to build her a new arm, but you weren't sure how to tell her about it. Seems like this is as good a segue as you're gonna get."
A sailor walks around the other end of the Dragonsuit and gapes for a second – yes, busty raccoon woman in a pink bikini, nothing to see here – before turning to you. "Calamity Witch, we've arrived at the coordinates you gave us. Dragon and Shipwright are waiting for you on the bridge."
It takes a few minutes to find the bridge, and in that time it appears the crew have already tossed Dragon's mini-subs into the water. You look over Tim's shoulder at the grid of computer screens showing the descent to the sea floor. "How long till they reach the crash site?"
"At current speeds, two to three minutes," Dragon answers from yet another monitor. "Hopefully we can recover something from the Elitnaya's ship."
You shake your head at that bit of theater. Yes, Tinkertech can look fantastic and futuristic, but Dragon expects the crew to believe an alien spaceship is nothing more than an old battleship a Russian Tinker was playing around with? Maybe you need to rethink your choice of role models, particularly if she can actually pull this off.
Smooth, shining steel soon comes into view. You lean closer while raccoon-form Samantha hops from your shoulder to Tim's so you can both get a better look. This part of the ship was savaged, chunks missing all along its length and its contents scattered far and wide. "What could have done this?" you whisper.
"Maybe the Simurgh didn't like the idea of alien invaders?" Tim answered, joke falling flat. That had been his immediate reaction to learning the truth about his technology, and it had taken some fast talking to get him to stop and listen before flying off the handle. And then you had to convince him not to immediately run to your dad and spill the beans. That revelation was one that was probably better coming from your mouth. Sometime. Eventually.
"More likely she had no idea what they could do and did not want to take a chance. Precognition is anything but perfect. If new parahumans can catch precogs off guard, this would definitely be an out-of-context problem, even for her. That's assuming she had anything to do with it. It might have already started breaking up from reentry. Some of the edges of those tears look melted."
"Sextant is recording all this, right?" Tim nods. Good. Maybe the Enforcer team will have some answers when they finally show up.
"Whatever the reason, the hull is so badly damaged that going inside is probably a fool's errand. Our purposes would be better served exploring what was ejected." The drones have already split up to comb over the sea floor, and you watch in dismay as it quickly becomes clear that this was the living quarters. Metal footlockers have split open to reveal articles of clothing, uniforms and more casual outfits both. A shiny something mostly buried in the sand turns out to be the corner of a family photo, a young couple with a son, a baby, and a dog smiling in front of a green sunset. Scraps of technology with wires pilling out like tentacles, to damaged to guess at their function. A few trinkets and pieces of jewelry.
"Go back!" exclaims Tim, pointing eagerly at one screen in particular. "There! Pick that up."
"You know what that is?"
"Not one-hundred-percent, but I have a damn good guess. I think it's a Device."
You look at the glassy red card again. "Thinking of giving it to L— our other prospective mage?"
"Give it to her. Take it apart to study it. Feed it to Perfect Storm so it won't have to cannibalize itself next time. I can think of a couple of different things we could do with it."
Dragon is unashamedly watching you, no doubt learning more than you would have told her on your own. It's hard to hold it against her, though, and you have already told her a lot about magic already. As long as she doesn't use any of this against you, you suppose you don't mind too much.
The remote-controlled sub takes a second to fiddle with the Device, but eventually it stuffs the card into its maw to be suctioned up with all the other goodies you have collected on this trip. Someone picks that time to start ringing an alarm bell. "Wonderful," you groan. "What crisis is it this time?"
Dragon's avatar stutters for a few frames before she scowls. "The Dragonslayers. I had hoped to fly the Sybaris once or twice before they tried to steal its drones, but it seems they have different ideas."
A blur heralds Samantha's return to human form. "So what's the plan? Get close and beat the shit out of them, or keep them off your suit until you can fly another one over here?" Dragon gives her sarong a doubtful look, and you can only shrug in response. Her normal business suit isn't any tougher, honestly.
"It's too dangerous to delay them. The Sybaris does not have much weaponry, but if the missiles are hit, the explosion could still sink the ship. That said, Saint will retreat once their suits take enough damage. For all that they hire themselves out as mercenaries, they are defensive fighters primarily."
"One tiny problem with that plan." The three of you look at Tim, who in turn points at the monitor. "All the stuff we just picked up. If you fight and the ship gets trashed, everything goes back underwater. Not to mention, I can't exactly fight, and they'll shoot me down if I try to fly out of here."
"Perhaps Calamity Witch or Samantha could stay behind to defend you, but that still would leave us without a fighter."
You sigh. So much for any simple solutions.
Talked shop with Dragon and omake: +2 Inspiration to Advanced Device.
+1 Inspiration to Digital Blueprints (and then PURCHASED).
…Damn it, Saint, can't you not be an asshole for like five minutes?
[ ] Fight – The Dragonslayers have made their name beating up Dragon and taking her stuff, but this time she isn't alone. Take them down hard.
[ ] Defend – You have Knight Armor now, and all your defenses are stronger for it. Bunker down where you are and outlast the attack.
[ ] Run – Tim's squishy, and you don't want to lose the items you have managed to collect. Teleport them to safety; that's the whole point of the voyage.
Battle plans are welcome, and yes, some of these could be combined. Just remember that the clock will keep ticking while you do so.
