What Nina liked to imagine could have been a totally cool and excellent chase sequence came to an abrupt end when the CRESCENDO reassumed its normal form: a massive ball and chain. The sudden and unexpected weight tied to the end of her formerly-a-jump-rope brought her down to one knee—but she would not remain there for long, as the realization put a very literal spring in her step. Alice had returned from alien Wonderland, and what a souvenir she had brought back with her! "We are back in business!" She grinned, lifting the ball and chain with frightening ease.

There were other quick observations to make, too. The space pirate could talk, which was disappointing for reasons Nina couldn't quite nail down; his name was Tim (also disappointing) and Dan didn't seem to be fully on board with whatever he was doing (but who could tell if that would last?) Tim was also the perverted kind of alien who wanted to stick his scientific curiosity in all kinds of places, and she was so not down with that. Maverick Alternative could pay her to take a few bullets, but alien probes were off the table. Regular probes too, for that matter. Hopefully that stipulation was in her contract somewhere.

Speaking of taking bullets, it was about that time. "Time to be drawing fire now," she remarked casually, casting a melody on herself as she hid behind some trees. "Accepting any prayers for good luck, friend!" she called to Nukkelina cheerily. Once her melody was completed, she took to flight, intending to shoot right for the turret that was aiming at her and Dolly. Once she'd cleared the trees, winds whirled around her, as did her ball and chain—slowly at first, but by the time she was closer to her target, she'd have built up terrifying speed. Clearly, she intended to smash that thing in one blow.

Seeing a bright green light approaching in her periphery, Nina quickly veered left, but the projectile was gratefully aimed at the turret rather than her. Perhaps someone more cautious than Nina would have considered whether or not the truce between Maverick and GEMINI would hold once their magic returned before exposing her flank, but Nina was not that person. (For the time being, the truce seemed to hold for the one who acted like she was in charge, so!) Hopefully the rest of the beach was behaving themselves, and trying not to get slimed too badly. Dan, the one who seemed most likely to flip sides, was pretty far away too, so Nina's attention was once again reserved for the source of the offensive substance, now.

Scypho’s mood and expression quickly soured the moment the cloaking field wore off. Turning her head away and turning her nose up in disgust at the cluttered and polluted sea. Anyone who had littered and polluted and led to the tainting of the ocean was even lower than scum. She would have much rather kept the clean and pristine sea the way it was, the reality before her made her bitter and sick to her stomach.

She didn’t have long to dwell on her personal feelings about the pollution of the sea with the situation quickly spiraling into even more chaos. As everyone's instruments and outfits returned to normal the only thing about Scypho that changed was the pool noodle wrapped around her waist returning to its original blade form. Her outfit remained the exact same as it was before and was no different then when the illusion was in place. As she already dressed like she was a denizen of the sea and was well dressed for the occasion to start with.

The moment her sword turned to form she grabbed its hilt and unfurled it from around her waist as she turned her gaze upon Dan and Tim, or should she call him 'ॐ🙰🙕'? Watching and listening with a scowl spread across her unamused face as they let their disagreement spill out openly for all those in attendance to observe. It didn’t take long before things broke down and Tim began his full scale attack upon the remaining espers. The gelatinous blob turrets took very little time to start raining down fire upon the approaching Mavericks. Scypho could see Nina was already heading straight for one of the turrets, while the neon Gemini agent targeted another allow Scypho to focus on avoiding the incoming fire while swinging her whip like blade around her to deflect and block any of the shots that she felt she couldn’t gracefully avoid. Her movements light footed and almost like a dance.

With Nina and the Gemini agent focused on the turrets, Alice keeping Tim busy and Bionca going after Rika that would take some of the heat and focus off of Scypho herself. Which meant she could take care of a little loose end while the other problems were taken care of. Her eyes darted immediately towards Dan as she started to make her way across the pollution strewn beach towards the Alien man shark keeping her blade swirling around her. He may not be the one actively attacking them, but that didn’t mean he could just be left alone, even if he was in disagreement with his alien ally. “You will make quite a lovely specimen to put into my aquarium…though I wonder if I flip you upside down if you’d experience tonic immobility…If you decide to struggle or fight we may just have to find out..” Cooly addressing Dan her head tilted aside as her hooded red eyes stared holes into him before she winked with her left eye. Even with the wink her expression and demeanor remained unchanged. If they could avoid fighting and worked together while putting on the guise of a confrontation it may be of great benefit to the both of them, Maverick included.

She doubted Gemini would want to work with Dan after what had unfolded, which left an opportunity for Maverick to get his help to get back the abducted members. It was hard to judge what Iris would think of such an approach, but it was better to just do this then ask for forgiveness later if needed. Besides Iris was only temporarily in charge so even if she ended up disagreeing it wouldn’t be the end of the world. She didn’t care one way or another if the Gemini or Freelancer abduction victims were freed as long as those from Maverick were released she would consider it a success.

Jack was not deterred when her instrument bounced off of the craft - the much larger than she'd expected craft. Nor was she when the apparently large purple man (frankly she didn't care if she misjudged some random invader's size while he was zipping around the beach) turned his hand into a bouquet of tentacles and wrapped around the barrel of the now-water gun. She turned to look at him, yanking her weapon back towards her, though when the alien's grip held fast and the tendrils that made up his arm slid down the length of the gun towards her hand her lips curled up into a snarl. She'd been holding it with both hands, but she released one and held it up with clear intent to cast.

She might not be able to hurt this guy -yet- but she still had options. And if he was protecting the ship even after her (rather pitiful for Jack) attempt to attack it, then clearly it he thought that it was possible to damage it. Her golden eyes creased upwards and her expression morphed into a sharp toothed sneer. She'd give him something to really worry about, then.

...of course she hadn't expected the guy to almost immediately back down, disengage, and toss her. Loathe to let go of her instrument for even a moment Jack stumbled into Mika, and after bouncing off of the girl she caught herself on one knee in the sand instead of falling flat on her ass. She didn't offer and apology or ask of Mika was alright given the whole "impossible to be injury" circumstances, but almost out of habit Jack's eyes flickered over to the dark skinned girl and assessed her anyway. Predictably, she seemed fine.

As Jack stood, Dan's imposed reality began to fade away. She blinked as a gust of bitter wind hit her, her battle suit still doing very little to shield her from the elements all things considered. The gray wash over the city, the trash piled onto the beach... yeah, it wasn't pretty bit that was about how she remembered it. Ah, and good ol' Goldie!

"Oh, Beautiful, you're back!" Jack cooed to the instrument in her hands.

The dark but clear plastic topped by yellow foam was gone; in their place sleek was heavy gun metal and sharpened spike and axe blade. She ran one hand down the barrel before bringing it up to adjust her glasses before her gaze snapped back to the alien. Alice had just come out of the ship, so she must have done something to reverse the spell - though it didn't seem like "Tim" was that concerned about it.

"The aliens took anglicized names...?" Jack scoffed as the two extra-terrestrial monsters went back and forth. She could have interrupted, but she wanted to know what was going on too. She wasn't surprised to hear that everything that had been happening in Pax Septimus had been one big ruse.

There was one thing that Tim mentioned that soured the look on Jack's face for a few moments. The only people who are left are on this beach. Meaning every other esper in the city had been captured, even...?

Nah, what a stupid lie.

On the bright side, now that the "causality field" or whatever was gone, the gathered girls could rampage to their hearts' content.

One of Jack's heels began to glow as she backed up a step then stomped down and dragged her foot through the sand in front of herself and Mika, drawing a line from which her melody erupted. Thousands of grains surged upward and rapidly hardened, resembling something like amber sea glass when it took its completed shape: a thick wall with narrow arrowslits, curved slightly around the two espers. It should protect them both at least from the first round of bolts, but as for if it would hold up? She'd deal with it when she found out.

Now that a battle had started - an actual, real battle - Jack slammed the muzzle of her instrument into one of the arrowslits, just barely large enough to fit the bulkier end of the weapon. As much as she wanted to turn that bug-looking armored alien into swiss cheese, an alien monster was still a monster. She'd probably have to get up close first, and make him sliced cheese instead.

Firing on the turrets it was, then.

"You heard her, Cerberus!" Jack said following Ashley's shout, using Mika's field name. She was still a little shaky on the names of everyone present, but with those ears there was no one else that fit the moniker. Briefly, she looked at Mika from the corner of her eye before resuming her aim. "Then let's move up their extinction's time table!"

Jack pulled the trigger to see if these turrets were as squishy as they looked or if they had tangible guts her bullets could penetrate.

God damnit...

Marrie didn't get a response, at least not to the question she had asked. Instead, she was given the fact that Dan had, in fact, been behind the disappearances.

... Well, maybe. The conversation between him and another alien left enough room that he could have been telling the truth. Besides, he had at least been going about it the right way! Or a better way, at the very least, than just abducting people and experimenting on them.

And on that subject, really? Aliens came to earth and decided to abduct people to do experiments on them? How cliche. But at least one thing was pretty obvious: things just became a lot harder to solve via an open dialogue, because everything was suddenly back to Pax's status quo. With Fenrir now attached at the wrist instead of to her back, Marrie's options had grown quite a bit.

And so for the first time in quite some time, Marrie cast a Melody. She fired a Projectile, just past the purple alien, to try to make a portal behind it on the wall. She allowed the magic to flow through her, double-casting another portal under her feet for her to fall through once the projectile made contact.

She'd have to incapacitate the purple guy, but it would be much easier than dealing with the turrets he made. Plus, she was probably one of the three or so espers there who wouldn't kill it first and ask questions of Dan later.

As Nukkelina stood up from the sand, she felt her foot stick a bit, and looked down to see the mound of what was supposed to be damp sand had actually been a pile of rank seaweed. The illusion had been broken, and the true visage of Dan’s so-called paradise had been revealed, as was the return of the puppet girl’s elegant dress. The bikini-clad Minion also transformed, taking the form of a diminutive humanoid horned doll with a vaguely knight-esque appearance. But most impressive was Ser Pekka Puupää’s transformation : his white gloves trembled and pulsated, until sharp, mechanical claws exploded out of them, ripping the gloves into tatters that scattered into the winds. The hawaiian shirt and blue swimming trunks were also shredded, as the Instrument’s true form violently came forth, the jointed parts haphazardly spasming to free itself of the false layers until it stood silent again, standing at a slight, inhumanly extended lean to the side. The brim of its black top hat had replaced the tacky baseball cap, yet the mask underneath remained, motionless…and remorseless, as did the puppet mistress herself.

There was no hesitation, no questioning Dan and his extraterrestrial partner in crime. However, only a single sentence sounded out from the near-still girl:
”Science Fiction…The Grand Magistrate has mixed up the genres.”
Leaving the strange words to hang in the air, Nukkelina focused her powers, and conjured a new ally to the Maverick Alternative’s cause: a taller, more fearsome Minion Elite. While it shared the lesser Minion’s theme of a knightly humanoid, this one was taller and more imposing, with a blade for an arm, the free one holding a shield. Nukkelina then flicked her wrists, and strings extended out. Using Subtle Spell 4, she ordered the lesser Minion to flank the alien ship and climb aboard. Nukkelina hadn’t yet planned what the Minion would do once inside, banking on it being caught and destroyed by the slime spewers, distracting them from the real threat.

She flicked her strings upwards, and they arched like approaching fingers. She responded to Nina:
”I won’t give prayer, for I have lost all faith. But I will enact justice on those who would give us false hope.”
She ordered the Minion Elite to assist Iris and Scypho at the frontlines, and rushed towards the upper slime turret to aid Nina, Pekka leading the front: the hulking monster bounded across the grainy earth before launching off the shoreline to pounce on the turret, completely ignoring the shots of slime that would surely be shot at it as it aimed to rip and tear into the green goo. After all, a puppet felt no pain, and no fear. But Ser Pekka would be the one to inflict great suffering and terror as Nukkelina had decided: those who would lure them with promise of a cute beach episode only to instantly ruin it would be ruined themselves.

Cutlery met frying pan.

The frying pan made a dull ring when it bounced off of Rika’s greatsword. She was nearly overwhelmed by all she was forced to grapple with. An unfamiliar weapon in her hand, armor she was seeing for the first time, and a seemingly friendly woman possibly trying to cave in her skull. With everything to take in, her eyes flicked up to her opponent in an attempt to read their expression. She wasn’t all smiles anymore, though she didn’t look pissed off either. Rika had spent enough time on Pax’s streets to read a face. She knew the difference between the people that wanted you dead and the people that didn’t. But there was a rare type of person that was neither of those things. To contract killers and hired hands like that, this type of unsavory work was just a natural part of life. It was business. She couldn’t confirm that was what Bionca was, but it was what her behavior reminded her of.

"If you’re this dense, you can take a pan to the head." She spun the frying pan in her hand. "You just need to take a nap for a while."

The cook ninja didn’t reach for her knife yet. With her empty hand, she flicked a pouch into the air and swiftly pulled a wolf mask out of her bag and pulled it over her face. The next moment, the smoke bomb went off and flooded the area with smoke. Between all the external noises and the sand, it was difficult to tell what direction Bionca was coming from. But something was moving around in the sand, and it was coming closer.



As Iris closed in, it was hard not to watch Nina as she took to the sky. She wasn’t super familiar with all the new esper’s abilities, and someone who offered to be the group’s shield wasn’t someone she expected to take to the sky. Espers were weird like that. They seemed to defy reality at every turn, more so than the monsters that visit their world.

The spectacle was too much for the turrets to ignore either. They immediately focused on Nina as she drew closer. Though as she neared the turrets, it looked like they were changing firing modes. The cube like barrel of one rearranged into a lattice, and fired a web of lasers at the airborne esper. Such an attack might have been avoidable at range, but at such close distances there was no opportunity to evade. The net struck Nina, but did not burn her. It didn’t even hurt. Rather, it seemed to inflate and turned into a hard light construct that spread across her torso. It closed around her shoulders and tried to lock together behind her back. A hard light construct was building itself around her body. Though the turret that did this to her had been struck by a salvo of plasma. The first round got the turret all jiggly, but then the follow up shot blew it apart. Slime was spread across the roof, and what used to make up the barrel rolled off the roof and into the sea below.

"That works."

Iris refocused her attention on the other turret. It wasn’t too hard, since Nukkelina’s puppets were offering to be fodder. Pekka had been a hair too slow to assist Nina, but they arrived on top of the ship to offer any other assistance she might need. The elite was shot at plenty, however. Though rather than being covered in a net, each little beam of light turned into a hardlight cube when it struck the elite’s shield. They spread across the surface and encumbered the puppet. It used its sword arm to cut away the ‘barnacles’ attached to its shield, and was at least slightly successful at doing so. But it was keeping everyone else free of them, so it was successful in assisting the front line. Iris was able to form a blob of black web in her hand and fling it at one of the smaller slime contraptions beside Tim. It was a direct hit, and it melted to the ground when it came in contact with the acidic strands.

The poor little minor puppet was far less successful in his mission. The ship looked like a giant crate and had no obvious openings other than the front ramp. Everything else was made of nearly identical cubes and it was hard to say what was a door and what was a panne. Puppets lacked many things, as well as a mind for reason. It awaited its next order, being unable to complete this task.

"It’s still difficult to approach the alien." Iris commented. "Even in the wind, his fumes don’t carry very far."



Not all of the mavericks were assaulting the space ship though. Some were trying to intimidate their host, captor, or whatever role Daggernose played in this. Initially he was too mortified to respond to the outright hostility that was taking place. But after a few of the slime turrets blew up, Dan found his attention on the jellyfish girl.

"What?" It took him a moment to process what she was saying. "Why do you have an aquarium? Do you live in one?" His eyes moved back between the fight and Scypho. "What are you doing!?" It seemed like Dan was responding, though it wasn’t clear if any of the jellyfish’s words were intimidating him. "He must have stored them all on the ship. I’ve been hanging out in the hotel at night. H-he said he wasn’t interested in playing with humans, I had no idea he was doing this…"



The Mavericks were only half of the invasion party, however. More shots were aimed at the ramp’s other flank, but Jack was quick to erect a barrier. Maybe not the very fastest, however. One of her legs ended up getting hit by a few projectiles, and a few hard light constructs appeared on her leg. The vast majority appeared on the other side of the sand barrier she made.

"Huh…" Mika eyed the melody for a moment. Though Jack was quick to repeat Ashley’s orders to her. "I think I can do that." She looked at Alice and nodded, perhaps confirming that they would be moving up the ramp together.



Well, someone had to keep Tim busy, and if GEMINI was needing back up who was she to deny? Alice nodded back to Mika, and started to open fire at the wretched stinkbug. "You and I aren't finished yet, jackass!" She barked at Tim. The more time and more importantly, if she was being honest distance she could give to the others, the better.

Tim’s only retort was to point his palm at Alice. The strange apparatus that he held spun like a propeller, and her shots hit the spinning weapon. Mika shrugged her shoulders. It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting, but it would do.

Under the cover of their fire, she sprinted forward. Getting anywhere near the purple man would be a bit of an issue. She was further reassured when Jack’s bullet seemed to harmlessly rip through one of the jelly turrets. The response didn’t surprise Mika too much. Even though these guys called themselves aliens, they must have been creatures from another world. They were no different than monsters, if the effectiveness of Ashley and Iris’s attack was anything to go by.

She hopped into the air, and a giraffe appeared under her feet. It behaved like a ramp, allowing Mika to run up its neck and get to the roof. The larger turret on top was still firing on their position, but it seemed to be a little more confused now that the other turret was down and there were so many more people on the ship.

"I had a premonition about this…"

She reached into a pouch and drew a smoke grenade. She chucked it into the slime, and it poured smoke everywhere. Would Mika be able to see through it? Probably not, but it was so big she’d hardly have trouble hitting it. Her arcane claws cut into it, but it wasn’t something she could destroy herself. Not quickly.

Right on cue, the slime seemed to spontaneously combust into flames. Alice aimed over with her rifle and unloaded a whole clip’s worth of ammo into it. While Jack’s bullets had little effect on the slime, Alice’s rounds made much larger holes in the gelatinous creature.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

Put those infrared goggles on, babe.

And because she had infrared goggles she was able to aim around Mika who was fumbling around in the smoke. The turret was on its last legs.

Alice hears the chattering of the lonely lunatic....

Stay sexy.

Ever the charmer.

Meanwhile, Marrie had managed to successfully open up a portal a little ways inside the ship. Tim was briefly off pressure with Alice firing on the turret, and the alien hopped backwards to see what was going on. Though Tim hadn’t even arrived at the portal before Marrie fell through it.

Right into his purple haze…

Marrie feels her veins oxydizing....

This one seems friendly. Why resist?

Tim tipped his head, but that was all the time he was going to waste on being confused. He hoisted Marrie over his shoulder and power walked deeper into the ship. As he walked towards the back, more of those small slimes started to appear in the hallway.



"Well that’s not good!"

As soon as Kidd uttered those words, the ship started to rise into the sky.

"Well that’s really not good!" He started to run towards the portal. "Quick, they’re going to kidnap everyone!" He stopped mid sprint and ran back towards the magic circle he made. Kidd drew a candle stick from his cloak and placed it on the magic circle. "Gnyeh!"

As the ship tried to hover into the sky, rusty hands of blood and steel, as big as the espers themselves, rose out of the ocean. They clamped all over the underside of the ship in an attempt to hold it down. But the rust was flaking off the hands with every passing second.

"If we don’t get aboard that ship, they’re gunna start doing weird stuff!" Kidd huffed and puffed as he ran for Marrie’s portal.

"You know you could just leave me alone now, right? I'm not gonna stop you from assassinating whoever you're here for like this." Rika said, not really expecting her words to get anywhere as she held her blade up in a guard shaped more by instinct than anything else. Okay, so, she doesn't really seem like a crazy person, but she also doesn't really seem invested in my well-being, so I guess she's probably ALSO trying to kidnap me? I know I'm hot, but c'mon, really? I'm like, a dragon and shit, isn't there anyone easier!?

Not knowing which direction was safe, she decided to stay in place and get ready to weather whatever this weird-ass furry had to throw at her. Steely scales formed around her body as she kept her head on a swivel, relying more on sound than sight to anticipate Bionca's approach. Of course, Rika didn't really expect to get the drop on a more experienced (and, let's be real, smarter) combatant, so she decided to not really try. As long as she could activate her magic before Bionca tried to hit her again, it wouldn't matter how much faster she was. Rika could just flatten her with a shoulder check, relying on her superior strength and the fact that she was about to have the general characteristics of a freight train to carry her through long enough to start running the hell out of this smokebomb.

To Ashley’s relief, her attacks seemed to be effective in eliminating the turret she’d been aiming at, while another turret was knocked out by a shot of Iris’s webs. However, the Knight of Tomorrow also noticed that Jack’s gunfire appeared to have no effect on the remaining gelatinous weapon emplacements whatsoever, and neither, apparently did Nina’s flail, which meant…

“We need to use magic on those turrets!” Ashley called, even as Mika ran on top of the strange craft and began attacking the third remaining turret with her enchanted claws. “Physical attacks won’t harm them!”

Thankfully, the other Mavericks and Freelancers were providing enough hastily constructed cover, covering fire, or simply more immediate targets that the high-tech heroine was free to take aim on the final turret. Unfortunately, just as she locked onto her target, the entire craft began ascending…

“Damn it…!” Ashley hissed, lowering her techno-wand. A moment later she heard Book Kidd call out that they needed to get aboard the retreating ship, which was pretty obvious as far as the Knight of Tomorrow was concerned. It didn’t take long for her to notice the swirling portal nearby, its familiar appearance indicating that it was one of Gale’s creations. Did she rush off by herself again?! the high-tech heroine wondered, before casting that worry aside and running toward the swirling gateway as fast as the powerful legs of her esper form could manage. Here goes nothing… she thought with no small amount of trepidation before jumping in.

Nina wasn't quite fool enough to willingly remain in the turret's line of sight after seeing it just switch firing modes like it had a ready answer for her shenanigans, but it was rather too late for Nina to change her trajectory in any meaningful way that a machine couldn't easily predict. She tried cancelling her flight and using her ball and chain to grapple to the edge of the roof instead, but the net still managed to catch her. She fell, still entangled with her chain and swung right into the side of the craft with a hefty clunk. Her Storm effect lingered, successfully soaking her in ocean spray and dusting her with sand from the beach. She struggled with the net for a moment before seizing it with both hands, each facing opposite ways and tearing it apart with a desperate push note, which also sent her swinging from her perch on the side of the craft into another arc straight onto the roof with another clunk.

Nina groaned as the ship began to lift off. "Always on time for work, late to party. Typical day in life of Nina," she huffed, looking back at the portal everyone was racing toward. She knew she wasn't going to reach it in time. She ventured a guess some of them wouldn't, either. Instead, she heaved her massive flail and wedged it into the ramp as it was retracting, then dashed for the gap, stumbling slightly as the hands rose from the sea to stop the aliens from fleeing. She slipped inside, trying in vain to pull her stuck instrument in after her a few times, giving Pekka and company a chance to follow after her before she realized, sheepishly, that she could just dismiss the thing to free it instead. It likely wouldn't be too useful as anything other than an impromptu shield moving forward, so she kept it in her metaphorical pocket for now. She turned her attention instead to the slimes in the hallway ahead, readying her next melody. She wasn't sure what the slimes were made of, but hopefully they would politely freeze just as any respectable liquid ought.

Nukkelina was disappointed by the Minion’s failure to scale the alien vessel. It was quite adorable though, as it desperately fidgeted around frantically with it’s little limbs flailing about making a directional arrow expression (>_<). The Puppetress forgave the pathetic creature, and gave it a new command to shimmy over to the ramp. The Elite Minion was more successful in its task, having intercepted enemy fire, even if it ended up crusty due to the aliens gooping on it. At least they weren’t outright sliming it like a contestant in Nickelodeon’s Double Dare.

As for herself and Pekka, Nukkelina sighed. It seemed one of the other Espers was in trouble, being beset upon by a chef using cooking implements as weaponry. It seemed the girl was a Freelancer, as Nukkelina did not recognize her. While she usually wouldn't have batted an eye at forgettable damsel in distress, the girl’s monstrous features, complete with horns on her hed and reddened skin, elicited a feeling from the usually emotionless girl. Was this sympathy? It was an unpleasant feeling, and one she would rectify.

”O fair dragon, may ye find solace from those who would attempt to dine on your flesh.”

She sent the Elite Minion to attack the Knight of Tonight, attempting to place a defending shield between her and Rika and thus allow the latter to escape.

Nukkelina continued moving. Pekka had climbed aboard, the menacing marionette simply staring in Nina’s direction, before Nukkelina pulled on the strings and the monster turned away, before it hopped down, catching the ledge like a gorilla and swinging itself through the entrance and into the ship. Nukkelina also moved south over the sand and then east up the ramp in accordance with Pekka, gracefully flitting over the sand and metal with Hover, represented by being suspended by near-invisible vertical strings flickering in and out of reality.

Scypho gazed at him wordlessly while Dan asked questions and went through his dismay at the actions of Tim. None of that was important to her, and none of that currently mattered as far as she was concerned. Seeing that he was going off track she would have to guide him right back while keeping her wavey blade held curled in a loop and still. "I do, it is the only place that one can experience the beauty of the sea around this dump” Gesturing towards the polluted beach and water beyond. “You can settle your disagreement with ॐ🙰🙕 later. I need you to assist me in locating and freeing my Maverick colleagues, you understand?” Leaning forward as her piercing red hooded gaze drilled into him with a stern tone. He didn’t seem like he would be one to have all his thoughts collected and put together. If that was the case then she would just have to nudge him in the right direction until he was useful.

“Now lets work together, we both have much to gain” Offering her free hand out towards him using a bit of a softer tone then before as he seemed the type to want to seal a deal with a handshake. It wasn’t something she would normally want to do but the circumstances didn’t allow her to be as picky or as stubborn as she would like. It was both fortunate and unfortunate that this Carcharodon carcharias was the peaceful and confused sort. With the immense amount of muscle and that massive jaw of razor sharp teeth, if he wanted to he could bite her head off. This particular Carcharodon didn’t seem like he would even hurt a fly. Maybe when this was all said and done she could really add this specimen to her aquarium so she could study him more closely. Plus he might even prefer it there instead of being cramped up on that alien ship which she doubted would even survive the day. Her primary interest and love was with Jellyfish but she also quite enjoyed learning all she could about the other critters of the sea. Opportunities like this didn’t present themselves often, but for now she had to focus on getting his help in locating and rescuing the rest of Maverick.

Perhaps Tim made a mistake, in his choice. Perhaps. After all, what other esper could talk quite like Marrie could, when it came to an alien or Visitor? Her delusion that he was friendly only made her more interested in that very thing.

"Hhhey, you must be the 'interesting people,' huhh? Definitely seem interesting... but do the-" her arm waved dramatically towards the gelatinous cubes they passed, "- slimes count with that? 'Cause otherwise it's just an interesting person, ya knowww?"

Something seemed odd to the esper. After a second or two of thinking she realized it was her own speech. She must be more tired than she realized. Weird, she didn't feel tired.

"So Dan said yourrrrrr... planet? Yurr planet got the Freezer Special, yyeah? That's rough, mann. I've always wondered what that would be like, ya know? Being the last person alive... At least I think it's always been always? It might not have always been always, anyways. I dunno, I think it'd be really bad, right? But also kind of freeeee..." the last word trailed on as Marrie felt a jolt from Tim's walking, "eeingg, yeah? No more people to worry about, but if you don't have worries about people then it's borning, right? Heh, 'borning,' that's funny. And there wouldn't be any borning if there's only one person left, ya know? That might be nice... I dunno, I never really got that sort of thing. I'd'd rather make things instead. Yeh, living things too, but not mushy bioleegicell things, right, I like the digitel stuff a lotttttt more, right, so I figure, hey, 'if ya aren't gonna have kids the old way, why not make a kid a new way,' right, cause it's soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than the messshy way, right, and I always wanted to meet pepple frum another planet, right, cause I mean what kind of experiences could they have had, right, and..."

There was a short pause as the blue-haired esper took a breath, finally, and fell even deeper under the spell.

"Like what kind of things could we learn from another planet, ya know? Soooo many cool ideas that we never heard of 'cause there's sp-aaaaaaa-ace-" Marrie held her palms together only to spread them apart as far as she could, 'betwen 'um, but there'sh space between evreething, right, so why should a lill space stop us, right, I mean like... thersh spess between us, and between us, and bettwen us, and that never gets in the way, right, specs never gets out of the way, so why let it be a wall between intereshtin groupshs like alieuns, right, and hey, did you guys find our satellites, or I guess ther not satellites if they dunt orbit somethin, but the satellites we sent out with meshages and stuff in case there're aliens out there, like I mean there are, like duh, even before you guys got here therew's no way there weren't, right, but now that you guysh are here, it makes it even more obfeeish, riesh, can you beliv there's peple who think there'sh no aliens out there, cause like of coursh there'sh aliens out ther, I mean you know that cause yur a alien and all, or we'er the aliens too I guess, right, so I mean obvioushly you know thers aliens, but thersh people who don't think therrer aliens, and that's so dummmmmmmmmmmmmb, right, like I meen we can go to spaesh and the universe is so big that thard be no way there ain't aliens, right, like magic is real so how could aliens not be reel, right, but..."

Marrie turned to try to whisper into where Tim's ear would be, were he a human, but couldn't quite reach. She decided to continue talking in her normal volume instead.

"Yu can keep a secrit, right, so like, I never once thought about aliens after getin magic, right, which I feell kind of bad about, 'cause I always used to think bout aliens, but I never thought about magic aliens, or like, what magic imp... ump... emp... emmplied about aliens, or like the ooniverse, right, but it makes thinks so weird that ther'r magic aliens out there, right, and here I am just treddin watter to try to help people, right, and cannt even do that right, right, but there's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

Her words turned into coughs as she choked on her own tongue. After a few seconds of hacking out her lungs, she regained her breath.

"oh many more people to try to help, right, cause there'r aliens people who probebly need help too, right, and I jost hate when people have to s'ffer, ya know, right, and loosing your planet's gotta rillee suck, right, and make you sufferr a lot, and I just feel terrible about it, right, and want to help, and yurr a nice guy, right, and yuve been a grate listner, and Dan's a cool guy, right, and you two probably lernd a lot aldee, but I'd be down to helpp if ya need, cause like I dunt want yu gize to suffer, right, and theresh so much we culd lurn from yush too, right, and mu... mue... mootuel undershdanding is always nice, right, and we could all lurn sooooooo much together, right, like I mean like, like... like I mean what if yoo guysh didn't known bout clouds or somethin, like yu could lern bout clouds and like, we could learn bout space, cause you know, right, like, there'sh space everywhere, like theresh space between us, and between us, and between us, and like... out there, ya know, right, and jushed thiiink bout all the shtuff we could learn if we worked together, right, I mean yah there's that one laydee who wansh to be gode or whatev'r, but like aliens can beat that, right, and if we all put our headsh togetter, I'm sure we can beat shom dumb ghod, right, so like, let's be friendsh, right?"

It was the longest of times, it was the shortest of times. After all, talking is a free action.

Another person might have been rattled when one of their limbs were encased in some foreign substance, but Jack kept her focus on her attack. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that regular bullets weren't going to cut it, and though disappointing it wasn't much of a surprise. Jack clicked her tongue. Yup, it was definitely time for her to move up and get into melee strike range.

She was vaguely aware of the situation going on behind her -one of the Mavericks accosting Dan, that ugly goat guy's ritual, and the fun Freelancer turning coat- but the one in front of her was more of her concern. She drew the barrel of her instrument back from the arrowslit and swung it down to slice the outer section of the hard light coating her leg. Would it peel off? Would it crack at the impact point? As long as it fell away from her, it didn't really matter how. And even if it didn't, it certainly wasn't going to impede her from moving.

"Alright," she said with a glance at Ashley running towards the newly opened portal, and the girls in front of her taking on one of the turrets on the ship's roof. Swinging herself up onto the top of her barrier, she pooled her magic into her feet once more. "Let's sink this thing!"

Could she have just taken the giraffe-shaped ramp that Cerberus had created? Sure, but where was the fun in that. Not to mention she wanted a little more oomph for her next spell. Jack pushed herself off from the raised up spot, hurtling towards the remaining turret that wasn't shrouded in smoke while it was focused on the summoned puppets and other espers. Her instrument was held back over her shoulder with its grip in both of her hands, a brief, bright glow traveling up the weapon and settling in its blades. Then she swung it in a powerful downward arc, the arcane weapon poised to slice straight through the jelly - and then strike the ship beneath it, hopefully to destabilize the turret if not compromise the craft's hull itself if the slime still held up.

In such a frantic situation, most anyone would be forgiven for acting a little frantic. But Rika decided to keep her cool. Even if she couldn’t see anything, she decided to wait for an opportunity. Once Bionca made her move, she could rely on strength she doubted the other esper had or was prepared for. Breathe in, breathe out, or maybe don’t. Rika wasn’t sure if the smoke was an agitant or even a carcinogenic.

Though something else happened while she waited. One of Nukkelina’s puppets had come to her aid. Not that she was able to see its approach. Not only that, but it couldn’t see where Rika was. After it used its sword to scrape the gunk off of its shield, it ventured into to smoke and tried to place itself between chef and would-be cuisine. Though Bionca was the only one with eyes in this space, which was something she made use of immediately.

She retrieved her knife and shoved it over the doll’s shield. It found its way into its neck, which caused the entire thing to collapse as if its strings had been cut. Puppets of this nature were strong, and even comparable to espers, but an esper’s tools and finer abilities would always give them an edge against simple conjured opponents. That was doubly true when they had such a clear advantage.

But Rika knew where her opponent was now, and so she led with a shoulder charge. What she didn’t know was that Bionca had conjured a wolf pup to assist with subduing her. While it was just as blind as Rika was, it served as a tripping hazard for Rika’s clumsy escape. Bionca shuffled off to the side while she fell, and brought her frying pan over her head to deliver an unseen blow to the dragon’s head.

But she only hit sand.

Some new feature of Rika’s form had spirited her out of the way of danger, and deposited her outside the smoke cloud. She was standing upright, and aside from swearing she had been struck in the back of the head with a frying pan, she was alright. Mission successful?

The smoke had dissipated by this point, revealing a little wolf pup with an apron. Unlike its master, the puppy seemed happy to be there. It’s tail wagged in circles and the apron had a paw print embroidered on it.

"Hmph." Bionca scooped up the puppy. "If you don’t want me to go after you, then you can leave the premises. Otherwise…" Bionca didn’t finish speaking. She walked backwards towards a bush while her arm swirled with magic, and a drumstick appeared in it.



"Tch!"

With all the shooting, and largely because of Tim’s smog, Iris hadn’t been able to close the distance between them. Things were made more complicated by the ship’s attempt to lift off, only to be stopped by Book Kidd’s ritual. While it kept the ship from entering the sky, it did make things unstable. The spacecraft rocked side to side, and Iris was only able to steady herself by planting her extra legs on the ground.

She prepared her sword as the last remaining door turret prepared to aim at her, but Jack was on the way. Sure enough, a few good strikes was all it took to free her body of most of the material. The rest would come off in a hot show. It didn’t take her long to run for the ramp where her target waited. Jack leapt up the ramp and cleaved the thing in half. The creature pretty much exploded, throwing gel-like gunk in all directions, bombarding herself and Iris with the strange substance. The ship itself was far more robust, but did dent and crack from the effects of her melody.



Between careful covering fire and Mika’s own efforts, the last giant turret finally fell. It separated from the ship and rolled off the side of the ship and dissolved in the salty waters below. Mika cast a glance at the Mavericks at the other end of the ship, but said nothing to them. She’d cooperate with them for now, but they were still allies to monsters.

After recovering and freeing herself, Nina wedged her weapon in the doorway before it could fully close. Then Nina, both puppets, and her slipped inside the ship where they were joined by the others.

"Why do you have slime on your face?" Jack was covered in it, but Iris had only been hit in the face by the slime explosion. It did look like she had tried to kiss the turret.

After wiping the chunks off of her face, Iris took stock of Jack. "Ah, thank you." She wiped her hand off on her shoulder before placing her hands on her katana again. "We should refrain from damaging the ship too much." She addressed everyone "It would be a shame if it were to explode while our friends are trapped inside."

No sooner did Iris mention this did both girls become aware of a knocking sound. It got louder and louder and louder until…

The side of the ship burst open, and an esper with a planetary design flew out. Black cubes that made up the ship’s exterior were blown out of place, yet perfectly intact. Though she wasn’t alone. Several more of those smaller mobile slime turrets were pursuing her.

"Well that’s going to make things more complicated." With a snort, she raised her voice. "Mavericks, continue chasing Tim! I’m going to seek out the other espers!" Her legs reached over her head. They all converged at one point before spreading open, creating a black net over her body. "Continue to work with the others." And then she stretched it over her body and vanished from sight. Not only had she turned invisible, but she had passed through a wall. Something that Jack was able to see with her glasses.

Ahead, there were far more dangers to tackle. The room before them was filled with more of the slimy bastards, and Tim disappeared around a corner with Marrie. Though these once seemed to be equipped differently. While they had black cubes floating inside them, they treated them more like melee weapons. They wielded cubic shields and had cuboid clubs to beat back the intruders with. Though if the outer turrets were anything to go by, then these things likely had other abilities as well.



"Careful not to get shot, I can only heal so many of you!" Alice shouted out once she dropped in from the portal after Ashley. The hall was going to get far too crowded with so many of them occupied with dispatching the slime turrets, and Iris had decided to focus on jailbreaking, guess she could try and stall the ship from the inside? With a huff, Alice sprinted off ahead. As much as this was irritating, she couldn’t afford to let up yet.

While there was a room ahead filled with danger, Alice did notice that there was a sealed door to her right. Though it was locked shut and she had no idea how to open it. Without using force, that is.

Luckily, that wouldn’t be necessary. She simply turned herself intangible and stepped through the door itself.

Abandoning everyone else, or at least not caring if they could follow, Alice sunk through the door like it wasn’t even there. She found herself in a very large, very orange room. There were various tools and props made out of cubes, but only the aliens knew what any of them were made for. But for its size, there wasn’t very much in it. There were no slimes to speak of, and most of the instruments seemed to be located in the center of the room around an altar. A warm, orange light lit the space, but left the corners dark. There didn’t seem to be anything important in this room, but with some searching she might find some hidden passage or another door along the shaded walls. This ship had certainly been designed around being as difficult to navigate as possible. At least to creatures that needed light to see. The walls were always so dark.

But before Alice could begin her search, someone stepped out of the darkness. Someone who’s voice she recognized. It was feminine, haughty, and belonged to a brat or a gremlin.

"Fancy seeing you here." Under the orange light, the girl’s purple and white dress looked violet and pink. Two butterflies floated above her shoulders, and the fingers of her gloved hands were pressed together. "I would have thought you’d have stuck with the others and maybe endear them to you, but this makes sense. If it’s not your favorite failure, it’s not worth wasting your time protecting, is it?"

Alice scoffed. "The others will be fine, they can go without being babysat for a moment." She would’ve leaned against the wall, but, well, melody. "I’m more wondering why you’re hiding in the middle of this floating scrapheap, of all places."

Sharr pouted. It wasn’t genuine. "Well, unlike you, I was trying to enjoy a nice dream. So my powers have been greatly suppressed. And, well, Dan’s arrival suppressed them even further." Her smile returned. "So I got ‘captured’ knowing that simpleton would screw things up somehow. And now that it’s come to pass, I’m back to my old self of a fashion. Well, until he initially returned." She giggled into her hand. "Now I can start to put my plan into effect. I think calling this a setback is too strong a word. It is a detour though. Yes, once we’re done with this detour I’ll be able to go through with the next part of my plan." With a sigh, she looked up. "You know I only joke when I say Finn is a failure. That’s a nickname your loving friend gave him, right? He’s actually been very useful to me, and I’m sure he’ll continue to be useful moving forward."

"She’s a petty bitch, and that pettiness is gonna end up biting her in the ass inevitably. Wasn’t exactly happy with me coming here to do my job." Alice rested her rifle over her shoulders. "She sends her regards, by the way." She idly walked around the room. Night vision wasn’t going to help much with looking, was it? "And since you felt the need to mention the kid; you don’t seem too worried about him being with Oros as we speak, for whatever she or Aigorost plans with him." Alice glanced back at Sharr.

"I suppose Oros the Mad will try to swing him over to her side." She tapped her chin with her gloved finger. "But the ball is very much in his court on that. She can tempt him. She can whisper things into his ear, but she has no real power over him. Short of bribery or blackmail, everything he does from this point forward is his own choice. He may be thirteen, but being a man takes responsibility for his actions. In that respect, I’d say he’s more mature than most, wouldn’t you?" The question was rhetorical, as Sharr pretended to look at her wrist. "Hmmm, so how invested are you in Ashley?"

"Doc’s little pride and joy, how could I not be?" Alice wryly smiled. "You were last trying to take her grimoire, which spurred her into causing all of this in the first place. I’m to assume said grimoire wasn’t one of your making, or at the very least, Doc had a hand in its creation specifically, which is why you need the little slice of discord back before it becomes something worse. Is any of that correct?" She asked.

"No dream should include intrusive, outside thoughts." With a snap of her fingers, a book appeared in her hand. It was just as extensively decorated as her dress, and featured a butterfly embroidered on the cover. "There are many things that I wish to jettison from this dream. One of which is Ashley’s grimoire, but there are other things as well. Such as you." She flipped open the book. Each page contained a specimen of butterfly, which flew off the page as it was flipped to. This seemed to cause a chain reaction, as the pages flipped on their own, faster and faster, releasing more butterflies into the air. "I’m actually interested in taking this new grimoire for a test drive. Maybe you’d like to be a training dummy for me?"

Alice quickly aimed her other gun at the growing swarm. "Not as if I have a choice here?!"

"You didn’t get my permission to come, you don’t get the option to refuse."



"You want me to help you? You trust me to do that?" Dan was rather puzzled by the request, but some of his earlier confidence seemed to return. "You’re right! We need to rescue Marrie! And convince Tim that this isn’t the way to go about doing things." His hands settled on his hips. "I can deactivate the exterior turrets with my- oh…" They had all been destroyed, of course. He rubbed the back of his head when he realized this could have all been made much easier. "Uh, well it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. The causality generator is responsible for handling commands from off the ship, and that’s down." He sighed. "But if I get on board, I should be able to override some of the ship’s systems." He suddenly looked much less confident. "Unless he removed me from the administration registry. Then I’d have far less control."

The ship was struggling to leave the ground. They really didn’t have much more time to gab.

"Alright! We’ll figure it all out once I get aboard!" Dan turned towards the portal Marrie made and ran towards it. "Don’t worry Marrie! I’m coming for yaaaaaaaa!"



Book Kidd was really moving fast. He put on the breaks as he approached Rika. "Forget about her!" He reached for her wrist. "I know those cute fem fatale types are probably right up your ally, but-" Kidd’s attention was drawn to the side of the spacecraft blowing open. "Damnit! I’ll be right back. Stick with Orion, she’s not too horrible!"

Book Kidd barely had time to finish his sentence when he saw an esper blast out of the freshly created hole. "Uh!" He was holding his book with one hand, so he reached out with his other to try and catch her. Fortunately, monsters such as himself had tremendous strength, and it didn’t take too much effort to catch her with one hand. It did take some dexterity to prevent the woman from toppling over once her caught her though. He stumbled forward, then backward, and finally came to rest with her still suspended in the air. "Ah! I did it!" It was an awkward position for Phoebe to be in, however. She was sitting in the palm of a man that was dressed up in ornate cultist robes. Seeming to sense this, Kidd offered a few words. "It would be weirder if you weren’t wearing underwear."

Though the banter was cut short when more of those slime things crept out of the hole in the hull. They weren’t just after the newly escaped esper however. Some of them were attacking the hands that were holding the ship down.

"Stop boarding the ship!" Kidd called out, and his book glowed a bright crimson. "We gotta protect the hands!" He pointed his book at the slimes, and a crimson bolt of rust and blood zipped over to the hole in the ship. It exploded, but none of the blood or rust struck anyone nearby despite being in the blast zone. But the death of so many nearby slimes just bought them some breathing room, as more of the creatures were pouring out of the broken hull.



Tim was not concerned with the espers trying to follow him. He had prepared for a possible engagement with the espers. Most of the strongest threats were well quarantined and wouldn’t be a problem. Better, now that the causality generator had been destroyed there was no reason to stick around. The experiments could commence, and who cared if they didn’t have every last esper in Pax? They had enough of them, and if they needed more there were other parts of the world where they would be less suspecting.

With the sound of combat disappearing behind them, Tim carried Marrie into the room that held the causality generator. It was in ruins now, squirted on and torn apart by one of Dan’s guests. He leaned Marrie up against a wall and stepped away from her. He had heard all of her rambling, but hadn’t responded to any of it.

"You like aliens, hmmm?" He squeezed one of the tubes running along the outside of his outfit, and the purple cloud of smoke dissipated. He turned to Marrie and kneeled in front of her. She had finished talking, and it seemed like her mental facilities were serviceable. At least, as serviceable as they would be. "Why do you like them?" He kneeled in front of her. "Do you have a fascination with animals too? Is it that they’re exotic and different? Aliens are intelligent creatures right? Would you find a dog as interesting as an alien if it could talk or reason at a human level? What about beyond a human level?"

The questions were rhetorical. Which Tim indicated when he stood up and continued talking. "There are not many of us left, I’m sure ‘Dan’ told you as much." He approached one of the walls, where there seemed to be a console of some kind. At least that was what it had to be because Tim was pressing little cubes on it, but it was impossible to tell exactly what he was doing. "We’ve performed all kinds of genetic experiments on ourselves. We’ve made ourselves a great deal stronger than we ought to be. The issue is genetic diversity. A race that is perpetual and never changes is doomed to fail eventually no matter how powerful it is. That is why creating new offspring with traits combined from its parents is an ideal way to create a race that constantly improves. While this can introduce defects, it is important to the long term survival of many creatures, ours included. This is no longer an option for my people. Or at least it wasn’t until we came here." Tim stopped pressing buttons. He didn’t look at Marrie. "Do you really want to help us?"