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 Esper 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 Nina, her expression stone cold as her arms waved around, attempting to undo the knots that have bound her.
"You're in my way," she spoke, her emotionless tone even more stilted as usual.

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 Nina 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.

"Uh, magic, got it." Rika started to move into a more defensive position closer to the hands, considering what, exactly, she planned to do in the meantime. She began composing her spell, at which point she noticed the gigantic fuckoff gun the slimes decided to just assemble to blow the shit out of her, specifically, because fuck Rika apparently. "Oh, crap-!" She hurled the ball of jagged steel that had formed in her hand in the general direction of the reformed turret slime, then dove for cover. This would have been decidedly more pleasant had Pax remained under whatever spell it had been subject to, but risking the random detritus washed up on the beach was probably less painful than eating a laser to the face.

If she were cooler and better trained, she might have turned this into some sort of combat roll, but as she was, she was mostly capable of getting up really fast after what amounted to a dramatic bellyflop. She stood as her spell burst into crushing chains and crumpling plates around the offending slime and its neighbors, complete with the shriek of bending metal. "No, no, stop that, don't do that." She really didn't want to see what happened when the slimes got up to the innards of the ship, so she shot-putted yet another metal ball up in that direction, to similar effect. "Right, now protect the yaoi hands." The dragon girl readied her sword and prepared to bat away any stragglers that decided to attack the hands, figuring that continuing to listen to the weird and rather questionable goat guy was better than letting aliens kidnap magical XCOM or whoever was in there.

Tim's name might have been disappointing, but being on a space pirate ship was still exciting. Nina was ready to freeze some slime creatures, but got distracted by the spectacle behind her. She had dismissed her instrument, but she must have tangled Dolly's strings up somehow. Maybe it was her storm note that had done it. Ironically, the only one frozen was her in the face of that glare. "Soory! I will—" she started, but she would do nothing while her ally freed herself with, really, some very nice moves, Nina thought. Ever the hopeful one, she flashed Nukkelina a thumbs up.

Everyone around her had ideas about how this plan, which was not a plan at all but more of a desperate gambit—really, she was quite surprised so many of them had chosen to do the same thing she did, it was quite reckless—should go. They should split up, stick together, destroy and not destroy the ship, fight this new opponent together—or not. They were all having good ideas, Nina mused, but though she imagined herself a quick thinker, weighing the pros and cons of all these ideas was not a free action. While they deliberated, Tim was getting away with kidnapping someone who was easily a top three contender for friendliest face on the beach. Thankfully, she had orders she could rely on, and with that thought centered in the front of her mind, she cast a Slick note on her boots to give herself a much-needed burst of speed. "Then I leave to you," she told Nukkelina as she whizzed past, putting the desired distance between herself and the testy puppet.

Ashley seemed to have the respect of those who might otherwise hesitate to work with her, had the second-coolest head of this group (besides Nina, of course), and she could heal. As a potential ally, she was a triple threat, so Nina approached her with haste. "You are working with boss, so we are pursuing target together, yes?" She turned a clean 180 degrees as she passed her. "Nina is taking point, then!" She declared her intent with a beaming smile before turning back around and taking off after Mika in pursuit of Tim.

A loud groan echoed through Marrie's mind. Of course the purple guy didn't want to actually collaborate with the various espers. Why would he want something as logical as pooling information? Ugh...

Still, he was being helpful by giving her the key. She supposed that from his point of view, this was even a good compromise. But she wasn't satisfied with it.

In the end, she decided to do as Tim asked, at least at first. If she could just get everyone to safety, off the ship, maybe she could handle things from there. She'd have to try.

And so, after making a mental note of the doors the alien had mentioned, she rushed towards the lab to begin freeing the espers who were held captive nearby. She'd get them all to a central location and lead them to... well, hopefully that smoke hadn't messed with her enough to make her forget where the ship's entrance was. Once that was done, the real challenge of convincing the others to go back to Pax and getting through to the purple guy would start.

Scypho made no remark when Dan became entangled, instead watching with mild disinterest as he tried to gnaw through it. Turning her head aside and towards the yellow hall that he made mention of. As far as she was concerned the others could handle the purple roach and whatever that green slime esper was. Especially with the combined Maverick and Gemini offensive that was ongoing. There wouldn’t be any point in involving herself if they could handle their business while she handled finding the rest of Maverick. Starting to make her way towards the yellow hall, walking past Dan, she nonchalantly uncoiled her blade and it unfurled out in the blink of an eye to assist freeing Dan from the net by cutting it loose without looking at him or taking the time to stop. If he hadn’t made mention of being able to get her inside of the lab she may have just left him.

But, he still had a usefulness, at least for now so she had very little choice but to ensure that he made it to the intended destination. Even if he was proving helpless and somewhat incompetent at times. He was still far more familiar with the ship and how Tim thought and would act, even if he was being slow about it.

---

"I can make it down." Came the simple reply from the girl towards the extremely strange-looking cultist with giant hands. In the next moments, the girl looked over the edge of his palm towards the ground. The very waves of air seemed to vibrate about her palm, distorting in the localized gravity field she manifested as she cast her spell, until Ouranos pointed at her target without a word. Instantly, the same distortions appeared above the ground, waiting for their Mistress' command.

Without a second thought, Ouranos stepped off the massive palm, feeling the gravitational magic she'd become accustomed to flowing around her as she fell towards the indicated target, and the spell activated to push against her... slowing the girl to an easy hover above the ground. All grace, looking every bit the celestial royalty her outfit invoked. Celestial royalty, which could soon prove to be equally furious in its elegance, as her trio of 'Meteors' swirled up around the Esper. Settling into a lazy orbit as she drifted towards the slimes. Ouranos' eyes narrowed as she looked towards the girl on the ground who'd just assaulted the large gun being built, and followed her shift in attention towards the slimes attacking the hands holding the ship in place.

Damned thing is probably too big for me to hold down... Ouranos thought to herself, shifting her momentum to bring her within range of a group of slimes moving towards the large hands. "If we can find the engines on that thing, we can keep it from lifting off!" She called towards the girl on the ground. Leaving out the second half of her statement that the knowledge was solely based off what she saw in Sci-Fi movies. In the next moment, as she drew in range, Ouranos pointed toward a group of slimes near the massive hands. "Hey, assholes!" Ouranos shouted, an angry edge growing in her voice that these things had been holding her captive until recently. In the next moment, the Esper outstretched an arm and her trio of meteors hurled forwards in deadly blurs, each aiming directly for a slime.

It was not a shock to Jack that she (and those two espers working for GEMINI) were pretty much doing all of the work. In her opinion, at least. She didn't have a clue where that spider had gone, so all she had to go on was that the other two Mavericks were just making a bungle out of themselves behind the espers doing the real work. Jack scoffed lightly and brushed slime from her person.

It was a let down to know the other girls didn't have a way of tracking their comrades, but whatever. Systematic search it was.

At least after they took care of one more enemy. Jack blinked in surprise when Mika identified the shape the new, larger slime took as the Iron Queen of Pax Septimus. "That's her?"

Jack really didn't know what she expected. Someone bigger maybe, or more elegantly dressed. Or even more skimpily dressed, not this in-between. The golden eyed esper tilted her head at the slime queen, letting out a huh. She'd heard of the Iron Queen before, of course, but had never seen her in person. This green copy was her first time getting a "real" look at the ex-monarch.

In the middle of her musing the slime chucked the large ceiling brick it had come down into the room on at her and Mika, forcing Jack to dive to one side to avoid getting crushed. When she popped back up, the situation was a little different.

At first Jack was fine to leave the mini-boss to the doll-like esper and go ahead with the others. She didn't know Nukkelina and had no particular investment in whether she lived or died. But thinking about it for more than a second, Jack came to the conclusion that it would actually be really stupid to entrust their backs to the puppeteer. She couldn't be sure that Nukkelina would win, and if their priority was search and rescue, leaving an enemy alive behind them on their escape route was also a bad idea. Plus if she failed to contain the slime, let alone defeat it, then it could follow behind them and pincer the other espers in.

Jack looked over her shoulder. The puppeteer seemed to have some kind of history with the Iron Queen. It was easy enough to tell that from her expression and her body language, not to mention the want for a one on one battle. Seeing the simulacrum of her foe must have stirred up some real emotions for her.

Fortunately for Nukkelina's well being, Jack didn't give a shit about any of that.

She skidded to a halt near the green room's other exit so suddenly that Orion bringing up the rear went by her, after which Jack used all (extremely imposing I assure you) 5'8 of herself to seal the remainder of the ship off from everyone else still in the room. The slime copy would not be getting past her even if it wanted to - but also the other Mavericks and Dan were cut off from Ashley, Mika, and Nina, for now.

If they need help they'll holler, Jack reasoned of the three that had moved on. Until then, there was a false queen to dethrone.

"Uh-uh," Jack tutted, wagging one finger at the assembled espers and monsters as she leaned on her instrument, deceptively casual. "We want to clear this ship as fast as possible, so the rest of us are taking this goo ball down. Gotta make sure no monsters try and jump us from behind."

Her gold eyes flickered meaningfully to Dan as she said that. Then, with a hint of a grin, Jack threw the simple spell she'd been composing at the mock Iron Queen, her own brand of damaging magic. "So let's get started!"

Kidd was absent mindedly listening to Phoebe as he flung another ball of sinew and blood at their opponents. "Uh, I mean, probably?" He shrugged his shoulders. "But without the workshop manuel for the ship, I don’t think we’d even know what the engine looks like. I mean, what’s with this thing? It seems like everything is made out of black cubes and slime. Unless you saw something different on board?"

She hadn’t, of course. Other than some of the glowing light fixtures, everything had that low poly look like a dated arcade game.

The magical steel meteors closed in on a few targets, but the ship was suddenly rocked by two massive quakes. What they lacked in power they more than made up for in volume. An explosion around the hands swallowed up the well armed slime that had been firing on Rika, and another explosion of steel rocked the side of the ship. The cubic debris were reduced to splinters as well, which had to inhibit their ability to be used as weapons. What had looked like a hopeless skirmish just a few seconds ago was looking much more manageable. Rika’s spell had protected the hands, cut of the aliens from powerful reinforcements, and did significant damage to the hull of the ship.

Significant damage.

To the hull.

Of the ship.

"Hey!" Kidd pointed at Rika. "Who I want to love is none of your damn business! This certainly isn’t the place to bring up my ‘yaoi hand’ or whatever!" Then when the ship creaked, Kidd turned his head to look at his massive hands. "Oh dear…"

While the hands were no longer being attacked, the strange ship was breaking apart under them. Some of the hands tightened their grip, only for the ship to break free and leave them with a handful of giant metal cubes. Others still held on, And one side of the ship started to lift upwards.

"Not good!" Using his superior athletics, Kidd was able to jump onto the side of the ship. Though he didn’t weigh nearly enough to actually pull it back down. The ship wasn’t going to be getting away (yet) but anyone inside was likely going to lose their footing very soon…

"Where’s the engine? We gotta stop it!"

But even with all this going on, more slimes trickled out of the new holes made in the ship.



As it turned out, the giant ceiling fixture was moving just a little too fast for Mika and Jack to jump out of the way of. Yet neither of them were hit either, as they both seemed to phase through it and arrived at the other side. Mika looked at Jack and raised an eyebrow, amused that they both seemed to have the same power.

"Of course, leader." Mika returned her focus to Ashley. It made sense that she would be the best person to run ahead, but she had been making an effort to be more of a team player. She still remembered the fight against the weretigers in the casino where she openly mocked her superior officer. In truth, she still found monsters to be utterly disgusting creatures. And a slime version of an esper, even one that made it her mission to shelter monsters, was an aberration that she would have liked to have slain with her own hands. But there would always be time to kill monsters. Her other squadmates? Her superiors? Their time was fleeting and they needed rescue.

So she agreed with Ashley’s request, and ran ahead, expecting Jack to follow after them. The Slime Queen did not pursue Ashley or the others, and seemed to recognize that there were still many espers by the entrance of the ship. But then Jack saw about trying to stop the other mavericks and shark from advancing. Mika trusted the stranger, but it was anyone's guess if leaving her with a bunch of espers she seemed to be hostile towards was a smart idea.

"We’ll be okay." She wasn’t sure why she said that, other than to reassure herself. Ashley was put together enough to not need someone to baby her, and Nina seemed like the epitome of chilled out.

But the next face they saw was a friendly one, as Marrie came down the hallway. Though she looked a little determined and was futsing with some device in her hand. The door she was standing in front of opened and she walked inside.

"Huh."

Mika didn’t know Marrie that well. She knew Ashley knew her, she knew she was there when her mother died, but it wasn’t like they had ever spoke. Perhaps it was that curiosity that had her looking into the room where Marrie had gone.

…

Marrie wasn’t concerned with the people behind her. There was something far stranger before her.

The lab didn’t look that much different than anything else. Just more cubic instruments with a few glowing bricks here and there. The giant slime that was almost as big as the room itself? That would get anyone’s attention.

It had a nice cool, cyan shade. Though various espers and monsters were floating around inside of it. Marrie noticed Stacy, Mika and Ashley noticed Binky, and Nina noticed Luna. They seemed to be unconscious and floating inside the massive slime, unharmed. Was the slime drawing off their energy somehow, or had they been defeated and this was its way of preventing them from further retaliating? It wasn’t clear, and it didn’t really matter. It needed to be stopped.

The slime groaned. Some primordial screech that belonged to an apex predator from beyond the stars. It couldn’t move out of the room. It was a cylinder that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. But that didn’t stop it from growing many, many tendrils. The space around it was starting to fill up fast, but not before Marrie noticed another door inside the room. There had to be more people in there right? While there had to be two dozen espers inside the slime, more had to be deeper inside.

The slime stretched and contracted, and the ceiling outside the lab started to move. Tentacles were coming from the ceiling now, twisting and stretching their way towards the espers. Whatever they were facing, it had yet to sate its appetite.



It only took a moment to cut dan free, and then he was up. Unfortunately, there had been a cave in ahead, and more unfortunately, it seemed like the lot of them were trapped with the slime queen. Though really, she looked more like a maid than a queen. A very menacing maid, but a maid none the less.

"Oh man!" Dan started to panic. "I can’t help Marrie from here! We’re trapped!"

But the other espers had cooler heads than Dan. Which was why they were able to react when the slimy entity stretched out its arms and pointed in two different directions. One of its fists were aimed at Jack, and the other one was aimed at Nukkelina. The metallic blocks in the Slime Queen’s body glowed before nets were fired in both of their directions. Jack's melody collided with a net, eviscerating it on her side. But the imposter queen wasn't done. She spun like a top. The centrifugal force caused her arms to stretch and curl in the air, until they were scraping the walls. Even if her nets missed their target, her fists would surely find anyone that stood still for too long. Yet the room was not perfectly smooth. There were small alcoves where one could take shelter if they needed to.

Yet.

The giant block that Slime Queen had slid at them earlier was still in the room, and one of her outstretched hands grabbed a hold of it. Was she going to throw it again?

Ashley was just about to back out of the green-tinged chamber and into the yellow-tinged corridor, when the freelancer of the small rescue party stopped in front of her. The young woman informed her that she’d be staying behind with the others to help ensure that the slime queen didn’t follow after them. It was honestly a good strategy, and one the Knight of Tomorrow couldn’t really argue with. “All right,” she acknowledged with a curt nod. “Good luck,” she added, before exiting the chamber and heading down the corridor after Mika and Nina. No sooner had she done so, then she saw a very familiar face heading towards them.

“Gale?!” Ashley exclaimed upon catching sight of the bluenette.

It was certainly a stroke of luck that the blue-haired freelancer had apparently freed herself, but the young woman’s seemingly distracted nature was more than a little concerning. Is she under some kind of mental manipulation? the high-tech heroine wondered. However, there was no time to ruminate on such matters. Marrie promptly rounded a corner, which Ashley and the others soon discovered led into a blue-tinged chamber, one dominated by a giant blue cyan slime cylinder containing well over a dozen captured espers and even a few presumably Maverick-allied monsters. It also quickly became apparent that the slime was more than simply a storage medium…

With an otherworldly groan, the giant slime generated a plethora of writhing slime tendrils, some even extending from the ceiling. To make matters worse, the entire ship seemed to violently tilt forward, causing Ashley to begin sliding towards the giant slime. Shit! What’s going on out there?! Leaping over to a small alcove on the side of the chamber, the Knight of Tomorrow braced herself against it, while firing an energy bolt at one of the nearby tendrils. Then, taking aim on the giant slime, she began charging up an exceptionally powerful blast.

“I’m gonna try and vaporize that giant slime,” she told the others. “But I’m gonna need a little time to power up, so if you three could keep those slime tendrils off me, I’d really appreciate it!”

Nukkelina noticed the tremor that began to take over the ship, causing the green-hued hall to tilt precariously. However, Nukkelina, borne aloft on silvery lines of near-imperceptibility, ignored such troubles, and kept a tight rein on Pekka to ensure the enchanted puppet stood its ground in its battle against the Iron Queen impostor. She gave a throwaway glance at the boisterous Esper who remained at the doorway: she seemed similar to Nina in their simple-minded brutishness. Yet, she would yet to see if she also matched the latter’s capacity for foolishness.

The approximating abomination attempted to trap Nukkelina via a viscous web: the Puppetress responded without a blink of the eye by spinning to summon a Minion, followed by kicking the poor little guy backwards like a ballerina, sending it straight into the net, neutralizing the threat. She then followed up with another spin, her leg still poised like on a vintage music box, controlling Pekka to shoulder-tackle the arm with all its might. The moment it was slowed down, Nukkelina would lift a hand, and with pointed fingers shoot a diagonal string right through the amorphous approaching arm while letting Pekka be knocked back like a ragdoll.

To an onlooker, this might have seemed like a pointless attack…Until the trap was sprung as the string had pierced it’s target: the Gravity spell imbued in the string’s tip embedded in the ceiling activated in the form of puppeteer strings flickering in and out, pulling the amorphous mass upwards.

"Your move," Nukkelina spoke rigidly to Jack as she pulled on her strings and lifted Pekka up, the monstrous construct having risen like a feather despite it’s bulk. She was ready to defend against new attacks as she observed how the sharp-toothed comrade in arms would take advantage of the opening she had given.

"Oops. . ." Rika let out the understatement of the century as the ship heaved. I guess the ship itself is a bad guy. . . ? Also, goat boy was yelling at her for being homophobic or something? Or sensitive about his big hands? Or both? It didn't really matter either way, because she was like 60% certain that ship flying away was going to be a successful mass alien abduction like something out of an old scifi film. She took a few running steps before leaping up next to Kidd, landing with a grunt. "Wow, that's so much harder on your knees than people make it seem like."

Agreeing that hitting the engines was a good idea, but having about as much knowledge as anyone else nearby seemed to have of the ship's layout and overall design, she elected to choose an alternative route. After looking around unsuccessfully for a couple seconds, she promptly gave up. "Oh, fuck it, they probably glow on the inside or something." With another grunt, she raised Gram above her head, and drove the blade down into the hull as hard as she could, attempting to see if she could cut a hole in it, or at least randomly put the blade through something important.

Imagine Nina's surprise when the kidnapped Marrie suddenly appeared! No one needed to, though, because it was plainly visible on her face. She couldn't have freed herself and dispatched Tim so quickly, could she? For a moment, Nina glanced between where the girl had come from and where she was going with that key. Silky said to follow the space pirate, but in her moment of indecision the choice was made for her. Her feet were Slick, and the ship was tilting.

Tim's armor had kind of a cool look going on, Nina was thinking, so why all the slime and tentacles? Why did Hollywood have to be right about aliens being gross? Such were her thoughts as she caught herself with a Flight melody to prevent herself from sliding into the room that was quickly becoming a pit of slimy tendrils. It seemed everyone had decided to follow Marrie, and a quick peek inside led to the discovery of Luna and others. Freeing them while the slime they were bathing in could still move seemed like a risky proposition, however. There were no guarantees their freed comrades would be in any state to be useful, or even safe. "I prefer pudding on chilled plate, not wiggling through air like flying snake," Nina remarked, sending an ice beam toward the cluster of tendrils on her right. The last thing any of them needed was for their exit to be both uphill and blocked off.

A sour expression spread across her face as she saw the cave in up ahead as she let out a sigh. Shooting a side eye glance back towards Dan while he complained once more about being delayed in rescuing Marrie. If she hadn’t had to attend to Dan and his slowness she might have been able to make it to the room before the cave in. Instead she was stuck in a room with a slime maid doing her best impersonation of a blender. She didn’t know who the slime maid was, but she knew well enough that she was not affiliated with a group Scypho knew of and was part of Tim’s efforts to retain his captives.

However, if that had been the only issue confronting her right now then it wouldn’t be quite so bad. No, the worst part of this situation wasn’t even the slime blender maid, it was Dan’s pining for his lover as he continued to panic and become distraught anytime he was delayed in rescuing her. Scypho was starting to think he wasn’t much of a Carcharodon carcharias, rather he behaved much more like a Phrynosoma, a horny toad. She would have to scientifically classify him later as she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Moving swiftly as she ducked in behind the massive man shark to put his body in between the spinning slime fists and herself. She figured he was rather robust and would serve more than well enough as a form of protective cover. “Marrie, was it? You know I think I heard something recent about her dating a Dolphin man…alleged because she thinks Dolphins are so much cooler than Sharks, but I’ve never met her so I couldn’t say…...” Remarking offhandedly to Dan while she used him as her own makeshift cover. If it would get him to stop crying out about Marrie after five minutes then it would have been worth the remark. She had her doubts about it of course, after all he was quite the stubborn love-struck fish that couldn’t keep Marrie’s name outta his sharp teethed mouth.

Dodging the Slime Queen's lariat was simple for Jack; she was standing in the doorway after all, so all it took was a step back while the fists passed by. If she timed it right she would be able to duck or jump over the swinging gauntlets and probably be able to sever one of the slime's limbs at the part it stretched out. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan. One, two–

"Gwah?!" she exclaimed as the ship lurched, listing heavily enough to one side that it threw off her balance. Since she'd been about to move forward, the sudden tip threw her onto her knees where she caught herself before she face planted. She grit her teeth and forced herself back up to her feet, using the edges of the doorway to pull herself back into the green room.

It was just in time to note the slime going for the big cube, and then see the puppeteer's spell activate.

If Jack had to guess, the slime was either going to toss that box or absorb it like it had the other black cubes inside the smaller slimes assuming it was made of the same material. Stopping it from gaining even bigger gauntlets, or some other weapon by absorbing it seemed prudent. But...

"My move?" Jack echoed, a hint of incredulousness in her voice. She narrowed her eyes, but they only briefly touched on Nukkelina; for the most part they were focused on the current enemy. "You just saw it stretch itself, right? Making a piñata out of it isn't gonna stop it, so how about you finish the damn job!"

Though even in saying that, Jack took up the responsibility of what she saw as 'finishing the job' of entrapping the slime monster. If nothing else, Nukkelina's suspension of the Slime Queen made her an easy target for follow ups. Jack threw her next spell at one of the cuboid gauntlets the slime wielded rather than the jelly-like body itself. Heavy gold-plated restraints bloomed in order to wrap around it, locking the weapon in place against the ceiling. If all went well it would take time for it to break free, and until then it could stretch its body all it liked but it wouldn't be able to fling that black iron fist or anything it held around. One less bludgeon to worry about getting hit with.

Jack didn't think about the fact that if one ceiling cube came down, it was likely that the others could too. Instead she intended to utilize the reach of her halbeyonet, kicking off the floor to counter the ship's listing while taking the instrument in both hands and swinging it hard in an overhead chop at the slime's midsection. She may have complained just now, but you didn't just not hit a piñata - even if the fun of not knowing what was inside was negated by said piñata having a translucent slime body.

Well, that was not how she was expecting the others to be kept locked up. She was stunned enough by the sight that she didn't catch the others entering the room behind her. But she heard their voices and, of course, the first approach was to fight.

"Happy to see that you all came to find me, but once we've got them out, we gotta talk!"

Well, hopefully the slime wasn't going to die from getting a little beat up, and given the location of its captives, Ashley probably wouldn't be able to outright kill it.

Marrie backed up towards Orion, keeping her eyes on the slime's tendrils, and prepared a Melody for when they got too close. She considered just casting a Shield and Reflect Melody on Ashley, but without knowing the slime's properties, and there being a good chance it could steal mana given the state of the captives, she chose another option.

[Touch -> Restrain -> Mulitcast -> Touch -> Restrain]

Once the tendrils were locked down, she'd figure out how to extract the prisoners.

Maybe if Rika knew how the ship worked, she could stop it. Maybe if she could cut into the ship, she could sever something important. But while the ship gave easily to her magic, it resisted her sword. The thing bounced off the hull without so much as denting the mysterious material.

"Uh…" Kidd looked to Rika, even as the ship continued to raise in a lopsided manner. "Can you cast a spell like that again? It did a number on the ship before. Your sword doesn’t seem to be doing that much."

Phoebe looked on. It wasn’t clear if it was fear, confusion, or just awe at what she was seeing, but she did nothing as the ship continued to take off. This was a precarious situation for a new esper to handle, and Kidd wasn’t of much help. At least, he had only managed to delay the inevitable with his hands.

The two were going higher and higher. The ground was starting to look pretty far away now. How high up were they? Twenty feet? Thirty feet? Falling was starting to look painful, then like it might net someone a trip to the hospital.

"Maybe one of us should climb inside? It doesn’t seem like any more of those slime things are coming out."

Above the hole where Kidd and Rika were hanging, a hologram of Tim was projected on the side of the ship.

"So that’s what’s stopping me from taking off?" He grumbled. "Release my ship, or I’ll use the less diplomatic option."

"Since when have you done something diplomatic?" Kidd yelled at the hologram.

"Fair enough."

Kidd and Rika could hear something thick and wet being squeezed down a narrow passage. Kidd hoisted himself up and looked down one of the holes that the espers had made in the side of the ship, and he could see a corridor filling ooze moving towards them. It kept growing tentacles to latch onto the walls, only for those tentacles to become overrun with more tentacles. It looked like it was made out of the same material as the slime.

"That could be a problem." Kidd looked down the other hole, and saw that a similar mass was climbing and growing its way out of that hole as well. "That could be a big problem. But I can handle it!" He pulled himself over the edge and disappeared into the hull of the ship, vanishing from sight.



The floor was tilting, and it wasn’t really good for anyone. Fortunately the rambling girl didn’t need Mika’s help and Ashley had wedged herself in a corner to prepare a shot. She was prepared to pounce on Marrie if she did anything weird, but she cast her magic on some tendrils. As to be expected, the shapeless entities were difficult to hold down with restraints, and the tentacles were able to remove themselves easily. But it was better that it was something ineffectual like that then another case of brainwashing where one of their own would be turned against them. Mika turned her claws into snakes. One bit into the frame of the door, and prevented Mika from sliding much further into the room. The other one she could use to defend herself and Ashley from the slime monster.

Nina’s ice beam changed the dynamics of the monster a bit, however. When it was cooled and sluggish, it had a much harder time resisting it’s restraints. This made sense, Mika reasoned. While a gel-like creature was shapeless and malleable, they tended to be less so when cooled sufficiently. Though Mika only had a moment to examine the effects of the ice beam before Ashley’s technolight projectile cleaved into the monster. Giant chunks of the creature fractured and broke apart.

There was only about half the creature left. Reaching the other door in the lab wouldn’t be an issue, but the espers would have to deal with what remained a bit more delicately. Freezing the creature and breaking it apart could harm the remaining espers. They still didn’t know what condition their friends were in. Was this slime keeping them incapacitated, or was it keeping them alive?



While Dan was sulking (not very useful) The jellyfish girl (also not very useful) decided that now was the time to lie about some dolphin man that Marrie thought ‘was so much cooler than shark men.’ The farce was absurd, of course. Dolphin men tended to build their harems in interdimensional worlds where time passes as fast as a summer vacation. They were creatures of magic, not science. Though as absurd as the lie was, the jellyfish girl delivered the words without giving a hint to this fact. Though what was this about ‘not really knowing?’ Did she know this first hand, or was it just hearsay. Either way, Dan knew what he had to do.

"Well in that case, I’ve just gotta show her how much cooler us shark guys can be!"

Dan looked to the ceiling and, while the jellywoman was trying to steady herself, he jumped onto her head and sprung up towards the ceiling. A massive block had come down, and the slime that had entered from here certainly had to come from somewhere. This was something the former inhabitant of the ship seemed to understand, as he vanished from sight.

Nukkelina’s tactic worked like she had imagined, at least, up until her target started stretching. While Jack explained why it wouldn’t work, the slime maiden gave a live example. Her feet never left the ground, but her arm stretched up to meet the ceiling where Dan had disappeared to. Though Jack’s follow up ensured the opportunity wasn’t wasted. As the string’s magic gave out, Jack’s golden vines came in to continue the job.

While Jack was able to brace herself, the ground kept getting more tilted, and the high ground that the slime queen held kept getting higher. The creature allowed it’s slimy tendril to slip off of it’s makeshift glove, and it’s other hand swelled up. It enveloped the massive cube in it’s only remaining hand and slung it straight for Jack’s position. While the cube was far too large to fit inside the doorway normally, the massive piece of debris was slung at them fast enough that it caused the walls to deform. All the neatly stacked cubes that made up the wall were pushed away as the massive object was shoved into the corridor.

Thankfully, Mika, Marrie, and Nina were able to keep the myriad slime tentacles from attacking Ashley as she charged up her attack, which struck the slime cylinder and vaporized roughly half of it. However, before she began powering up a second blast to finish the creature off, the Knight of Tomorrow paused as a concerning possibility occurred to her. What if the captives are linked to that thing in some way? Could killing it actually harm them? She had no idea, but she did have a way to find out.

“Hold on a moment before trying to free anyone from that thing,” Ashley advised as a smaller orb of neon green energy coalesced between the glowing prongs of her techno-wand. “I want to make sure it's safe to remove them.” With that, she fired off a finder pulse at what remained of the slime cylinder, its multi-spectrum diagnostic data acquisition field hopefully granting her some insight into how fully the creature was linked to the captives contained within it.