[i]Running MSS system diagnostic . .. … . .. … Diagnostic complete. MSS system rebooting...complete. ALERT![/i] ...Gremlins. It was the only explanation. Cee knew gremlins were real, of course – mischievous little spirit-figments who existed solely to screw with things, introducing unknown, unknowable glitches in otherwise perfectly healthy machinery. The transitory attention of a gremlin was cause for distinct irritation in anyone who worked with machinery – or was made up of it, in Cee's case. Fortunately she had yet to suffer the terrible misfortune of attracting the fascination of a pack of the things, but she seemed to've picked up a wandering gremlin in need of some amusement somewhere between Back There and Right Here. Or at least that was the only plausible reason she could think of for why both her ship and her own sensor network had missed the existence of a [i]gigantic freaking planetary exploder drill[/i] operating not even ten kilometers away from the crashed [i]Glorious Venture[/i]. It had to be gremlins fogging her systems. Either that or PVC's constant buffoonery had drowned out the returns, even from orbit. Nevertheless, Cee was now aware of the giant-fuckoff drill working its way through the planet's crust some distance away. At the rate it was going it wasn't really an immediate threat, but the case of gremlins had already turned her Irritation dial up, and the sudden presence of some asshat trying to pluck out a planet-sized apple core cranked that dial up way into the yellow. She was [i]woriing[/i] here, god damnit! “PVC, get to...wherever the fuck it is you go when the explosions start,” Cee said to the robird. She'd never discovered an adequate explanation for PVC's ability to magically disappear prior to hard combat, only to turn up again undamaged at the end of the sort of fracas that wrecked everything in a hundred-mile vicinity...but if she'd paid for the damned thing, it was at least good that she could keep her investment. “Raah! Roger Cap'n, abandoning ship, [i]raaaah![/i]” Figures. The only time PVC ever listened to her was when she told him to be a chicken instead of a parrot. Damned bird. While PVC made himself scarce, Cee started towards one of the rents in the [i]Venture's[/i] exterior hull, holding her right hand out and conjuring up a weapon in it as she traveled. This particular weapon was as long as Cee was tall, a somewhat sword-like weapon with a rectangular, fin-like blade about a foot wide and a few inches thick. A heavy, Japanese-style grip extended from the butt of the fin, behind an oversized bell-like guard wrapped around four small thruster nozzles. All in all, the thing looked a bit like an unfinished blank for one of the dismayingly oversized 'buster'-type swords which were unusually common throughout the multiverse. The weapon assembled itself out of strands of glowing golden light, simply building itself out of thin air. Or out of Cee's on power, rather – her [i]Godforge[/i] at work, constructing the weapon she desired on the spot. This particular weapon took longer to construct than most, assembling itself in a couple of seconds as Cee muttered dire imprecations and uncouth observations about whoever had decided to get in the way of her vacation. She'd had three heavy fights in the last couple of months already, where was the freaking [i]downtime[/i]?! A few moment's travel later saw Cee on top of the old derelict vessel, facing the direction of the Plaxploder drill off in the distance. Snarling under her breath, Cee tossed the weapon she'd forged in the general direction of the drill – right before its integrated engines kicked on, launching the weapon at considerable velocity towards its target. In this case, the Plaxploder – whose days were numbered, with a number that looked an awful lot like '0'. The [i]Krakatoa[/i] Anti-Kaiju Buster Missile was a relatively recent development of Cee's, a weapon she'd first deployed in battle only a month or so ago on a world gone dark. The device used over two hundred Pompeii-class micronuclear bursting charges, detonated in precisely calculated sequence within a very specific magnetic lensing cage, to [s]fuck someone's day up right and proper[/s] generate a quarter-second's burn time for a nuke-driven gamma blade a double dozen meters wide and over half a kilometer long, carrying half a kiloTNTon's destructive yield. The Krakatoa was, in effect, a warship (or kaiju!)-killing radiation blade with one devastating stab in its lifetime. This one was aimed to impact the Plaxpoder Drill square in its metaphorical mouth, punching a non-recoverable hole in the device and flooding what was left with gamma radiation bled out of the primary blast. If that didn't disable the Plaxploder...well, she'd have to try something else. The spent Krakatoa, warped and smoking and most thoroughly destroyed by its own payload, dissolved back into motes of golden light on its way back down to the earth, vanishing before it could hit the ground. “[b][i]HEY! MEGATRON JUNIOR![/i][/b]” Cee bellowed, somehow figuring that whatever had been running a gigantic planet-corkscrew could hear her across the handful of kilometers separating them. “[b][i]I AM [u]USING[/u] THIS PLANET RIGHT NOW! TAKE YOUR LOUSY FUCKIN' PLANETCRACKER SOMEWHERE THE HELL ELSE![/i][/b] Despite her bluster, Cee could tell that there was something over there that was not alive. It looked as if she was facing another machine entity, and with that in mind, she had already summoned [i]Autochthon's Bastion[/i] to her right arm. The targe was a gift from On High's foundries for an Agent of the Maker; its mere passive presence increased the effectiveness of Cee's Ether Field by a factor of five. The shield was far and away her best defensive tool (as shields tended to be), and was her go-to when she was expecting an unknown level of reprisal from someone with an unknown Douchebag Rating. The other preparation she undertook was to snap her [i]Archangel's Halo[/i] open. A large three-quarter ring of brilliant argent power floating above Cee's head, ringed with six techno-angel machine wings arrayed around Cee. The Halo provided her mobility, allowing her to flip gravity the bird finger and maneuver freely in three-dimensional space. Which she wasn't doing just then, but somehow she figured being surrounded by a shitpile of big glowing angel wings would [i]prooooobably[/i] give the game away. More importantly, though, the Halo was also the focal point for one of Cee's most useful weapons – her [i]Sinner's Lament[/i]. A web of lightning formed within the primary ring of Cee's Halo, centered on and feeding into a single sun-bright spark of rapidly growing power. Right then, there wasn't really much there - it took time for the Lament to charge up to the sort of crazy fight-ending murderblast she'd unleashed on foes like Relius in the past...but soonest begun was soonest done. There was never going to be a crazy fight-ending Lament murderblast if she didn't get it drawing juice. Who knew – maybe Juniortron over there would be slow in crossing the kilometers between them and she'd have all the time in the world to snipe his happy ass right off the face of Tarkarus II. With her Lament beginning its charging sequence, her Bastion held at easy guard in front of her middle, and a hand conveniently free to make rude gestures with, Cee figured she was adequately set up to begin Rumble #4 in her “What Happened After Fucking Vestusio” series. Time to get her winnin' chalk ready – there was another hash in the “PWNT” column coming right on up...