The corners of Bionca’s lips curled into a smile as the scalie scampered away. "Suppose we’ll meet again before long." She said, but didn’t expect to be heard by the strange girl. Bionca stepped backwards into a bush and dropped the chicken leg before ducking out of sight. She wasn’t Rika’s concern anymore. At least, not for the moment.



"Oh, you’re one of those helpful types." Book Kidd completely ignored the commotion happening on the closing ramp. Or at least it was closing until it got stuck on a naval mine. He turned to Rika as she approached. "Yea, I’ll give you better orders in a moment. Just let me finish with this girl now." He looked at Phobe and blinked. "Uh, you don’t look familiar. Anyway, I’m Book Kidd. Are you familiar with the lifestyle influencer taking the internet by storm? Book Man? Yea, he and I um, we work together."

Kidd stopped his introduction when Rika swung her sword at one of the slimes. It wasn’t very easy to cut, and every swing and thrust she delivered to the blobs just seemed to momentarily stun them and toss them about. Fortunately she was rather swift and could keep this up against several targets at once.

"We don’t really know what these things are, but they seem to be monsters, so they should be vulnerable to magic. Otherwise, just protect the hands that I’ve summoned to hold the craft down. It’s trying to escape, but some of the other espers might be trying to sabotage the engine as we speak. Or maybe they’re just trying to rescue everyone else. Or maybe they are going to fight the pilot of the ship. Or maybe they’re going to go to the bridge and commandeer the thing themselves. Or maybe they’re going to take the diplomatic option and try to talk down the aliens. Or maybe…"

The slimes were not going to stand by idly while Rika played whack a mole with them, it seemed. While some of them remained by the massive outstretched hands beneath the ship, others had slunk away. One rolled into the debris left behind by its dead companions and had even more bits floating around inside of it. They arranged the bits into even larger guns, and turned to Rika to begin firing. The larger weapon made for larger lasers, it seemed. Others were swiftly climbing the side of the ship to where the two giant slime turrets initially popped up.

"Well this isn’t too good." Book Kidd looked back up at Phobe, who was still parched on his outstretched hand. "So, do I need to put you on the ground? Are you going to ninja flip off my hand? I don’t mind holding you, I just think I could fight better with both hands. Unless you have a cool idea you want to try. Have you ever seen how they throw midgets? I mean, I’m not calling you a midget, I just think you could stick a stylish landing and-"



Sharr locked eyes with Alice. The newly released butterflies hovered at her side. They didn’t move like real ones. They were capable of hovering in place with a few flaps of their wings, and had an eerie blue glow that made them stand out against the darkness. Sharr watched her opponent for a few seconds, then went to yawn into her hand.

"Guess I’ll start." She shut the book. Though the soft thud of the book closing was muted out by the alien drones of several magically charged insects. There had to be at least 20 butterflies, and they shot off in all directions. Many of them simply swarmed around Sharr, but 5 flew along the left wall, and 5 more flew along the right. They curved as they approached the corners and seemed intent on colliding with Alice on either side.

Alice clicked her tongue, quickly opening fire on the incoming swarm. Before even so much as one butterfly could reach her, she herself and the space around her seemed to burst into flames. She had encased herself in a half-formed fireball, intending to scorch the little insects into ashes.

The air around Alice filled with fire. Any living creature would have been burned significantly, especially a tiny and ethereal thing like a butterfly. They caught fire, and the very heat in the swirling flames should have blackened their little wings. But it didn’t. The butterflies were behaving more like an instrument, or something with a powerful enchantment that would prevent it from being truly destroyed. At least, without knowing what the power source was. But Alice’s spell was not purely offensive in nature. As the butterflies took turns pummeling her with their tiny burning bodies, she rushed forward, turning her focus back to Sharr alone.

The butterfly wielding girl tipped her head and grinned. "What tenacity! This is going to be more fun than I anticipated!" She stood her ground and pointed her tome at the space between the two of them. Giant wings sprouted out of her back and started to beat. There was a breeze inside the ship now, and it was quickly ramping up to a storm as it slowed Alice’s advance. The wings beat faster and faster, before they made their largest and fastest sweep yet, threatening to throw Alice back into the waiting butterflies.

"Shit-!"

A second pair of limbs burst out from Alice’s back; perhaps similar to a certain spider girl’s, but golden and mechanical, the sharp ends shaped like clock hands. The limbs struck down into the floor of the ship, anchoring her against the windstorm. She continued juggling between firing at the few butterflies attacking her, and trying to shoot Sharr out of the air.



Mika, being herself, wasn’t too quick to speak up when Jack started laying into the spider woman. It was a little weird to see Jack turn so suddenly against Iris. She’d have assumed Jack was just an asshole, as there were plenty of those in Pax already. But the woman had been playful with her moments ago. Though if Mika had to make an educated guess, it sounded like someone Jack deeply respected was somewhere in the ship. Maybe a few months ago that would have been a sentiment Mika could have agreed with. When Jack looked to Mika for a comment, she shrugged her shoulders.

"A ghost smashed my mom between two cars." She stated as a matter of factly as possible. "People die to stupid things in this city all the time. But we can’t let that stop us, I guess."

Iris just listened to Jack with her arms folded, and wrinkled her nose before departing. That was, probably, the best way to handle this situation at present.

After Jack ordered her inside (She was going that way anyway) Mika brandished her claws and gave Ashley a nod. "Of course, leader." Then she joined the others in tearing through the slimy creatures. They weren’t the best at fighting, Their clubs weren’t really a match for Jack’s halberd, and Mika was swift enough to run them through with her fists without much issue. She didn’t like fighting with strangers, but her senses hadn't let her down yet. So far, Jack was performing admirably and hadn’t been outright hostile towards her. In the aftermath it was easy to tell which of the slimes were killed by who. Jack’s slimes were bisected, Mika’s had been reduced to little jelly cubes, and Ashley’s wand managed to melt them down into a puddle. Nina and Nukkelina hadn’t joined the fight yet. While Nina had bought everyone precious time, she needed a little help freeing her weapon, which was now trapped in the ramp. Her puppets had managed to get their strings wrapped around Nina’s chain too. Hopefully it will be sorted out soon.

But just as the last slime fell, a ceiling cube fell out of place. Mika was nearly squashed, but managed to hop out of the way before it landed on her. "Are we not done yet?" Though more peculiar than the cube itself was what was hiding on top of it: A giant blob of slime.

For its size, it was fast. But it didn’t attack the espers. Instead it hopped on the other side of the massive ceiling block, and took cover. It reached out for its companion’s components and wrenched them into itself. Ashley was able to snap off a quick wand shot at it, and managed to sever one of its tendrils. But it had acquired more than enough material for what it had planned.

A massive gauntlet made of black cubes pushed the larger ceiling cube out of the way, and the creature had revealed itself. Unlike the other slime creatures they had fought thus far, this one had decided to shape itself like a person. One that Mika was able to instantly identify,

"Oh." She brought her claws up. "I think that’s a copy of the Iron Queen."

Indeed, anyone who had seen Penny in the flesh would see the resemblance. The nigh indestructible black cubes were arranged to look like the android maid’s metal gauntlets. Her flesh was made up by the slime’s semi transparent body, which was a sickly shade of green. Strangely, the imposter esper was wearing clothes. Her black and white maid outfit could have been partially made from the same black cubes the rest of the ship was made out of, but the soft frills of her outfit did not appear to be made out of slime. Nor were the ribbons that she wore on her head and back. Regardless, there was something about this slime queen that felt off.

"What a waste of time." Mika looked back at Ashley. "Someone needs to run ahead."

The slime queen didn’t wait for the espers to hatch a plan. The block that she had pulled out of the way wasn’t to merely reveal herself, but a wind up. She shoved the brick at Mika, and Jack, which threatened to crush them up against the wall. She then dove for Ashley’s position. Her fists were stretched out, and she fired a hard light net at Gemini’s squad leader.



Dam immediately ran into the portal. For now he ran to the nearest door and placed his hand on it.

"What the" He rubbed the back of his head. "Ah, yea, can’t go through there. It would be a pretty big mistake if we did." But dan didn’t elaborate on why. "I guess the best thing for us to do is- AH!" A stray net from the slime esper in the other room wrapped around Dan. "Ah! Grah!" He bit into it with his teeth. "If I know Tim, he’ll be hiding some of you guys down the yellow hall. First door on your right. Hngh!" He wrestled inside his restraints. "That’s where the lab is. I might be able to get you inside, but we need to make it there first. Boy this is tight!"



"Everyone has their limits, eh?" Tim scoffed. "I wonder if it’s truly a desire to help if you’re so selective about how you want to go about doing it." He looked to destroyed monolith, the former causality distortion engine. Or whatever he had called it. He stared at the broken mess for a bit, then spoke. "Regardless, you don’t need to be a ‘mother’ to help me. Hngh, this would have been a lot easier if Dan had been more cooperative." He approached a wall and slid something out of it. Then he marched back up to Marrie and knelt beside her. That put him at the perfect height to place a rectangular shape in her hand. It was black like everything else, but it was interesting in that it appeared to be made out of just two shapes. There was a vial-length body, and a tiny button-like cube the size of a dice on top. "This will allow you to open some of the doors on the ship. Use it to gain access to the lab room down the hall. Both the left and right doors have some of the espers that I’ve abducted. It will not be everyone, however. If you encounter any other espers, it is important that you convince them to leave the ship. Tell them they escaped already or something. Tell them you were able to defeat me and get that key. Tell them whatever you need to. Whatever you do, don’t let them access this door." He pointed to the northernmost door on this floor of the ship. "Do that, and everyone gets to be a hero. You get to rescue most of the espers, and my people don’t die here." Tim didn’t wait for a response before leaving Marrie. He left the room and its monolith through a door beside the one he instructed her not to let the other espers into.

Tangled strings.

The worst nightmare of a puppeteer.

While animated puppets are a potent weapon among Esperkind, even they had their weaknesses. And Nukkelina had to accept her own limits as Pekka charged forth across the blue room, only for a certain marine creature masquerading as a woman to ruin her careful arrangement with her chain, ending wrapped up in the process as well. While the sight might have been amusing to an onlooker, the puppet girl herself glared at Scypho as she jiggled around, her expression stone cold as her arms waved around, attempting to undo the knots that have bound her.
"You're in my way, Jellmiko," she spoke, her emotionless tone even more stilted as usual. It was unclear whether she used the nickname on purpose to annoy Scypho, or if she had forgotten the negative connotations of the term.

Finally, with Pekka spinning and backflipping enough times, the strings were finally cleared, and Nukkelina drew them tightly, a single finger plucking them like a lyre. However, it was a silent orchestra, and soon ended as Nukkelina left Scypho behind and entered the green chamber, where a black cube had transformed into a person.

...It was someone Nukkelina recognized.

"...Asimov," Nukkelina quietly spoke, and Pekka took a menacing step forward, hands down but claws upright.

"Go. I will deal with this mockery myself," she spoke to her fellow Espers as she sent the Minion with them to scout, or to be the comic relief for the next inevitable trap.
"Ser Puupää...Smash this putrid pudding to a pulp."
She lifted the strings up, and Pekka jumped forwards like a two-legged beast, ready to duel the Iron Queen.
Her dull words tinged with something buried beneath...It was anger.

With the aid of Mika and one of the freelancers, Ashley was able to clear out all the slimes in the green tinged chamber. “They’re either being jammed, or they were removed,” the Knight of Tomorrow told Jack when the freelancer inquired about tracking devices. That, or the agents in question are no longer in their esper state, the high-tech heroine reflected, a possibility that had more than a few considerably concerning implications. However, she wouldn’t have much time to dwell on that line of thought, as a sizable cube fell from the ceiling, bringing with it an equally sizable slime. It wasted no time in taking cover behind the large cube, before setting to work absorbing what remained of the smaller slimes into itself via several tentacular appendages. A shot from Ashley’s techno-wand managed to blow apart one of the tendrils, but the damage ultimately had little real effect on the creature. Soon enough, it emerged from hiding, having assumed the form of Penny Asimov, something Mika helpfully pointed out for those who might be unfamiliar with Pax Septimus’s infamous former ruler.

Mika also noted that one of them should sneak past this latest obstruction to scout ahead, a course of action Ashley agreed with. “I think you’d be best suited for that task, Cerberus,” she told her feline-themed subordinate. “I’ll stay here and—” Her voice abruptly cut off as the slime queen chucked the cube at Mika, before firing some kind of hard light slime net at Ashley herself. Using all her esper form’s impressive agility, the Knight of Tomorrow dodged the attack and ducked behind the (strangely unmoving) larger puppet construct, the net flying past her to ensnare Dan, of all people. Apparently, the shark man was here to help, at least if his directions were anything to go by. They did correlate with where Ashley had seen “Tim” carry Marrie off to, lending support to the argument that he was indeed an ally. Yet, even so, he was still very much out of action for the time being, which meant he’d be of little help in dealing with the foe at hand.

However, it quickly became apparent that his aid might not even be needed, as the large top hatted marionette had surged into motion and charged the slime queen, his puppetress announcing that she would deal with the slimy simulacrum herself. “Well, if you insist,” Ashley replied. After confirming that Mika was unharmed, she moved around the thrown cube to join her. “Looks like we’re all scouting ahead,” she told the younger agent. “I’ll cover you,” she added, addressing not only her teammate but whatever other allies wished to accompany them. As they moved out, the Knight of Tomorrow would bring up the rear, keeping her shield raised and her eyes focused on the battle between puppet and protoplasm, the tip of her techno-wand aimed at the Iron Queen’s slimy facsimile in case the opening for a shot presented itself.