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@Esailia Better hope the Captain sees you before Aamra does. :P
I'm good either way!

Also posted finally, hope it's all right. I added a flavor line from Tango I thought would help the scene flow better, if it's wrong just lemme know and I'll fix it.

Commander Aamra Tulez



It was a cavalier operation at best, Aamra Tulez ruminated as she finished double-checking Anderson's inventory check. A mission that an actual squad or command crew could have done without having to spend three days shaking brigands off of their tail, perhaps without even having to fight their way out in the first place. Any proper team would have been rightfully embarrassed for such a slipshod operation, but for this particular band of criminals it was apparently to be expected. Pausing as she came to the container with the Committee's classified payload, she deftly removed the key-card accessing the container from her inside pocket to proceed with the security check. Still securely locked.

"Tango," Aamra commanded the ship's AI. "Kindly give me a security sweep of high security cargo vault."

"All sensors are reading normal, Commander. Logs indicate the last authorized access was performed by yourself approximately six hours previously. No unauthorized access has been detected."

Aamra nodded approvingly as she marked off the last point on her digital clipboard before folding the hard light device and replacing it with the key-card in her jacket pocket. "Thank you, Tango, Continue your passive monitoring, I will return for the next sweep in six hours."

"Alright, everyone. Tango has offered to keep watch while we all try to get some rest for now. No arguing, this is an order. If we don't die in an ambush, I'll let you know when they attack again."

Aamra sniffed derisively as her spots flashed wintergreen, not at all amused by the Captain's attempt at a bit of dark humor. Turning on her heel, she made her way out of the cargo hold and returned to her quarters. Sighing in relief, she shed her uniform top in one fluid motion before folding it neatly and setting it to the side. The duty shifts had been almost as cavalier as the mission itself, and as much as she disliked the idea of sitting idle while they were still in danger, she could use the rest.

"Meditation music, half volume," Aamra ordered the music player, lighting incense in an ornate vase on her side table as the first strains of oceanic pipes began to play. Taking a deep breath, she picked up one of her sheathed long daggers from the specially made wall holders, weighing it in her hands as delicately as a fragile glass figure. She rolled her neck as her muscles ached in relaxation, convincing her to forgo the usual ritual stances in favor of some simple meditation. Closing her eyes, she crouched into the lotus position, the sheathed dagger resting lightly on her clawed fingertips.

"My spirit speaks to the waters, strength and harmony the waters bring," Aamra recited sleepily in her native tongue, her head beginning to hang over slightly. "The sea brings balance to my spirit... through balance...my chains will be... broken..."

---

*BOOM*

"HSSSK!"

Aamra Tulez ripped the blade from the scabbard with a furious hiss, her pointed teeth visible and her markings pulsing an angry red as she looked around for the disturbance. It took her less then a second to realize what had happened to knock her out of her inner peace, though the explosion hadn't been strong enough to knock her out of her position in the center of the room. A cavalier operation indeed.

"Rise and shine, people, we got uninvited guests on my ship. Aamara, Max, meet me in the cargo hold. Yasaliah, I need you to get us in position to shoot these assholes. Sam, group up with Tony and get your asses on the turret controls--"

Aamra was already dressed again and out the door before the message finished, her long daggers sheathed behind her back as she spun the barrel of her Longstrider after loading in fresh ammunition. Forgoing her usually diligent stride, she stalked her way towards the cargo bay with grim determination, her senses finely tuned to locate any hostiles. Aamara made it as far as the cargo bay before three of the pirates appeared from a side corridor and charged, evidently attempting to intercept any of the crew trying to do what she was doing now.

Continuing her pace, Aamra dispatched the first attacker with a few well-placed shots, gracefully ducking behind a corridor wall to avoid angry return fire. Letting the two remaining pirates approach, she drew one of her long daggers in her offhand and, as one of them tried to approach, Aamra dashed out of cover again with a snarl, drawing the blade across his throat and replacing the dagger in one swift motion before charging at the last one. He attempted to lunge in for a poisonous bite but she was faster, grabbing him by the neck and lifting him into the air as she made her way into the cargo bay. The Ulna snarled viciously at Aamra, who responded by snarling right back at him with her teeth bared before throwing him into the wall with a crash, the pirate sliding down the wall into an unconscious heap. Returning to her normal composure, she quickly made her way up to the Captain.

"It appears we are being boarded, Captain Chase," Aamra Tulez said entirely seriously, wiping off with her free hand the bit of blood on her face that matched the more gruesome one streaking her normally pristine uniform.
@Jones Sparrow Silly question I didn't think of until now, but are there other members of our crew besides the named PCs, a la grunts and redshirts?
Apologies for lateness of post, I forgot I had a thing to do in the morning >.<

Will definitely have Aamra make her grand appearance tonight though ^^
Will post this evening. ^^
@Jones Sparrow I know the feeling entirely lol, no worries.
Maddy knew that things looked different when you were much taller or much shorter then you normally were. Still, she didn't think she would ever get used to how alien it all looked from down here.

Jogging after the retreating guards, the ground jolting slightly with every step they took, the minuscule Maddy, barely coming up to the soles of their boots, took cover behind a counter that to her looked the size of a skyscraper. To her mild surprise, she didn't seem to be out of breath after running from the back room to where she was now. An effect of her smaller stature, maybe? It'd make as much sense as everything else to do with her powers, considering that her body shouldn't even be able to function at this size. "Damn it Maddy, rationalize later, do things now," she forcibly reminded herself before she could go completely off topic.

Spotting a monstrously huge pile of cardboard boxes stacked against the counter, she made a calculated risk and took a running jump to the first level. Just as predicted she easily cleared the jump, almost flying through the air with ease thanks to whatever property had given her the stamina to run that distance. Thankful for this aberration of science, she bounded up the side to a countertop before running up to a massive pen holder to take cover in what now appeared to be some sort of delivery service office. The scene was a bit much to take in, and in more ways then one. Maddy had to duck behind the pen holder again at the flash from a gun barrel and count to ten to avoid having another panic attack and accidentally change sizes again. Calming down, she took another look...and had to duck around the corner again and count to ten, this time to control her laughter.

As serious as the situation was, it seemed that the first few men she saw weren't the only ones dressed like that. Every mook wielding a gun in the room was dressed in tight leather and metal studs, some of them in high heeled boots, and every one of them had a massive head of long shaggy hair and appeared to be wearing eyeliner. They were all so hair metal that they looked more suited to wielding triple-necked guitars then firearms, yet here they were marching around a delivery store looking like a late eighties rock concert gone wrong.

Ridiculous as they were, Maddy could still see the immediate problem; hostages, at least as many as the hair metal enthusiasts, crowded into small groups with their hands behind their backs. A few looked like cops, but most of them were just ordinary people, including two younger girls with an older woman who looked like they could be their mother. Maddy swallowed nervously. She had to do something to help, but she couldn't take on half a dozen of these guys even with her shrinking powers. Sure physics didn't apply at this size, but she wasn't going to gamble on being bulletproof just yet.

Before Maddy could plot things out further, a siren became audible in the distance. The armed goons visibly tensed up as one of them leapt the counter and approached the backdoor, coming within inches of knocking over the cup Maddy was hiding behind.

"Sarge!" the goon yelled, pounding on a back door. "Cops are coming!"

Maddy heard the distinct sounds of someone inhaling followed by two footfalls before the door burst open with the kick from a gaudy platform boot, followed by a man who frankly made the rest of the goons look like grunge rockers from Seattle. Dressed in leathers covered with so much metal studs and golden spikes that Maddy had to avert her eyes from the reflection alone, the newcomer wiped a hand under his nose, slightly smearing the white and gold makeup caked onto his face before letting out a shriek and diving in her direction. Maddy's heart leapt into her throat, thinking the deranged man with more hair then head had seen her, but at the last second she dived to the side as the man slid across the counter, leaving a cloud of hairspray in his wake, tumbling over and picking up an unseen electric guitar shaped like a star and immediately tearing into an extremely loud and intricate riff, earning admiring cheers from the other hair metal cronies and painful winces from Maddy and the hostages.

"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH!" the guitarist shrieked again, mounting the guitar on his back and exchanging double-high-fives with his minions one by one. "Pump up the amps and turn those speakers to eleven baby, Sergeant Shredd and his mad dogs are here to take this city by storm!"

"HELL YEAH!" the goons all chorused, quite a few of them firing off their guns into the air as they cheered.

"Shred Devil is all set to go boss!" one of the goons piped in.

"Righteous!" Shredd declared, giving him another testosterone filled hi-five. "Soon Pacific Point will be the stadium from which we rock the world!"

"Pacific Point PD!" a loudspeaker outside the store announced as the flashing lights came into view. "We have the building surrounded, come out quietly or there will be trouble!"

"And the audience has arrived!" Shredd went on in the same triumphant tone. "Eddie, take one of these fogies with you and give them our demands. Tell them if that lame-ass rockabilly punk Hound Dog doesn't show up to dance we start plugging the rest of these hostages!"

The hostages visibly bristled as the goon named Eddie pulled an older man with graying hair wearing a managers uniform up to his feet, marching him out the front door with a gun in his back. As Shredd wandered off to pound out a drumbeat on the wall, Maddy looked after the retreating goon with his hostage. The other goons wouldn't spot her at this size, she could easily make her escape out the front door with the hostage taker. The police and Hound Dog could handle this better then she could. Best not to get in the way.

She made to dart towards the now opening door before a gentle sob caught her ear. Craning her neck, she caught the tears running down one of the young girls' face. Her mother attempted to comfort her, but the girl just kept sobbing quietly, her breath coming out in choked gasps as she hung her head lower. She looked barely younger then Maddy was.

"Honey, it's okay," the mother said softly. "You're going to be fine."

"Th-they're going to kill me," the girl sobbed.

"It's going to be alright, honey," the mother continued, trying her best to sound convincing.

"I d-don't want to die..."

"I don't want to die," Maddy repeated quietly, tears running down her face again at the memories coming back to her. The sound of gunfire. The pain in her chest. The scream of terror. And the fear that Maddy would close her eyes and she and everything she cared about would be...gone. Those were nightmares she would never inflict on anyone, not even her worst enemy. Maddy clenched her fists as she felt determination well up inside of her, eclipsing her terror and any thought of escape and her own safety. These people were in trouble, and she was not going to let them get hurt like she was. Not them, and not anyone else, not while she had anything to say about it.

Driven by this newfound desire, Maddy quickly took a more analytical approach to the scene. There were six bad guys in the room including Shredd, but it looked like three cops had been caught unawares and taken hostage when they first stormed in. Maddy figured she could take one of them out if she had to, and if she got the cops free to help...no, that still left two goons. Maddy wasn't going to gamble the other hostages lives on the four of them getting to the other two in time.

She then saw one of the cops pause when he looked at one of the supposedly ordinary hostages, a younger Asian man with a buzz cut and a mean look to him. Maddy wondered what his deal was before the man turned to look at one of the goons, revealing a dragon tattooed on his neck vanishing under his shirt. Maddy didn't give it much notice until she saw the man look at a woman around his age, equally mean looking and with a perfectly matching dragon along her neck as well. One dragon was nothing spectacular, but if it matched another, it was a trademark of the local Ronin street gang, one of the criminal cabals that got overrun by the Hounds and the emerging supervillains a while back. And both the man and the woman, two individuals in a gang that was known for being particularly good fighters, were glaring with contempt at their captors.

Maddy felt the rush of excitement that came with discovering some new scientific marvel as a plan formed in her head. Her, three cops, and two gang members made six, easily enough to take on the goons in a rush, but they needed to be freed first, and that's where she came in. Moving quickly, Maddy jumped from the counter between the patrolling goons and made her way to the cop and the female gang member that had been restrained together. Waving her hands in the air to get their attention, the female gangster spotted her first, glaring in silent disbelief at the tiny girl before nudging the cop to get him to look at what was in front of them.

Not wanting to alert the guards by shouting to be heard from down here, Maddy performed a bizarre game of charades to get her point across, first pointing to herself, then to the cuffs restraining them before miming them being pulled apart. The cop jerked his head in a slight nod to communicate that he understood as the gang lady did the same. Maddy then pointed to the other three potential fighters in the room to signify they would be freed as well, then mimed a pouncing motion to signal that they would all ambush the goons. The two of them nodded again curtly, scooting aside slightly to let Maddy get to the bonds restraining them. They were tied up firmly, but at Maddy's size it was easy to pick apart the fibers and rope so she made quick work of it. Slowly and quietly she made her way to the other three in the room, communicating the plan before freeing them and finally moving towards where their leader, Shredd, had started strumming another riff out on his star guitar. Out of the corner of her eye, Maddy saw a few of the cops motion to the bystanders to get down.

Then, to her horror, she saw the seventh goon return with his hostage the manager. She had hoped to take them out while the other cops outside were focused on taking this guy down, but it was too late now. It was now or never...

"Boss, the cops say Hound Dog is out of state," the hostage taking goon lamented. "What do we do now?"

"Well, we do what we came to do anyway!" Shredd declared eagerly as Maddy quietly slipped directly behind him. "Boys, it's time to start the concert! Pick a fogie and make them sing!"

"You're not making anyone sing, today," Maddy announced as she quickly grew to her old size again.

Maddy couldn't believe she was hearing that coming out of her mouth, but it had the desired effect as the goons recoiled in shock along with their leader at the sudden appearance of the wintergreen garbed heroine.

"The concert's cancelled."

And in an instant, everyone sprang into action. The two closest goons to Maddy tried to aim their guns and fire but were quickly tackled by two of the cops. A third goon who had been looking over a glass display case found his face slammed into it as the third policeman apprehended him. There was a loud shriek as the female Ronin bull rushed one of the goons and smashed him into a table with enough force to collapse it, while the last mook grabbed for a hostage to defend himself who so happened to be the other gang member, who responded with a fist to his jaw hard to send him crashing through the front window. And as his men were being felled around him, Sergeant Shredd let out a heavy metal shriek that would make David Lee Roth jealous and drew a long dagger in each hand from unseen holsters and charged at Maddy, aiming for her throat.

Her adrenaline pumping into high gear, Maddy quickly shrunk to dodge the blow, seemingly disappearing again only to quickly grow back to size with an added shoulder bash, a move she picked up when she took martial arts classes eons ago. The combined momentum with her growth proved to be quite a potent force, enough to send the good Sergeant sailing across the room and embedding him in the drywall, the star guitar on his back letting out a discordant riff of electric fuzz as it made contact.

"Ugh...man...that so totally doesn't rock..." and with those words, Sergeant Shredd's eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out, still stuck in the wall of the building. Not even stopping to admire her handiwork, Maddy quickly turned to face the seventh goon, only to find him already passed out on the floor, the manager standing over him rubbing his knuckles.

"Punk ass kid," the manager said in a waspish tone of voice. "Didn't fight in 'Nam to get taken down by some nut with more hair then brains."

Maddy felt her legs give out under her as the tension of the moment broke, collapsing into a nearby chair as the hostages all got to their feet, the manager and the gang members helping to untie them. At the same time, SWAT team members began to pour in from the sides and back of the building, helping to free more hostages and arrest the criminals who were still conscious. The feeling started to come back to her legs again as some of the people in the entourage approached her.

"Nice work,"one of the cops Maddy freed remarked. "I'll admit I'm not the biggest fan of you superhero types but I'm glad you were here to help."

"She's a damn hero if you ask me!" the manager piped in. "And smart on her feet to boot!"

"Uh," Maddy said, completely drawing a blank on what to say next. "Well, just glad I could be here I guess. Kinda new to this whole thing."

"New or not, that was pretty bombin'," the female gang member said. "Growin' and shrinkin' like that, that shit is awesome!"

"Th-thanks," Maddy said shyly. "I just did what I could to help."

Before the pleasantries could continue, there was a thump that made the ground shake and a flurry of activity outside. Maddy felt her stomach twinge at the sound of something large and mechanical beginning to approach from a distance.

"Shred Devil is gonna smash you all!" one of the still conscious goons gleefully before being forcibly restrained again. "You're gonna get thrashed for what you did to the Sarge!"

"Something tells me I have some more work to get done," Maddy said urgently, getting back to her feet.

"No one will hold it against you if you want to sit this out," the cop suggested to her. "Pacific Point PD can take on this Shred Devil, you've already done enough to help today."

"More then enough I'd say," another of the hostages continued, prompting general murmurs of agreement, but Maddy shook her head and steeled herself for this next fight.

"No one else is getting hurt tonight," Maddy declared. "Whatever this is, I can handle it." Before she went off, someone grabbed hold of her hand. It turned out to be one of the girls she rescued and heard being comforted, her eyes now filled with tears of happiness instead of terror.

"Th-thank you," she said earnestly. "Thank you so much."

Maddy, in spite of herself, smiled warmly. "It was the least I could do."

"You saved our lives, ma'am," the girl's mother said warmly. "We couldn't thank you enough for what you did today."

"Could I...just ask one thing before you go?" the young girl piped in.

"Sure, go ahead."

"What is your name?"

Maddy pondered for a moment, as she had been wondering that same question. She couldn't use her actual name of course, but she had been hung up on an alias on the off-chance she needed one. Lowering her head to think, she caught sight of her own green suit, made of a material of her own invention that grew and shrank with her, and an idea hit her. She remembered how the fabric changed its shape and form through exploiting valence electrons in the molecules of the fabric, and the joking nickname she had for the unnamed material struck a cord with her.

"Valencium," Maddy said with a little bit of pride in her voice. "My name is Valencium."
Sounds fun, can't wait ^^
@RumikoOhara He looks neat. I can imagine our characters having a bit of a weird friendship going on. :P
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