Thanqol

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

+Princess Eska? Princess Rita? I look forwards to working together here,+ thought Princess Adila with an extremely strained amount of formality, +but I will be entirely unable to function properly until someone tells me that I am not a bad dog.+

Like most things, Princess Adila has an extremely surface level knowledge of battle chess. She's figured out one (1) Dirty Trick which she had saved up in case she ever needed to play against Princess Helya but other than that this is not her wheelhouse. She turns her head to look at Princess Adila I. She has a different game to play.

To a degree it doesn't matter which team wins. Her friends are represented across all three, getting lost in the game is already ceding victory to Eupheria. What matters is figuring out who can do the most with the victory. Who stands the best chance of getting close? Who can most afford to take the hit? And is there anything in the game itself that represents an opportunity or a threat?

Princess Adila I might be... wrong about some things. But the Operations Manual emphasizes strategic wins over tactical victories. It's not just about capturing princesses but about capturing the right princess.

[Dice swing in the other direction: Look closely with sense on a 14.
- What will happen if I let Alina's team win?
- What will happen if I let Kazelia's team win?
- Tell me about the game itself. How could it hurt me? How could it help me?]

The third game was, of course, Brightball. A simple game - seven hoops, one ball, a team wins by scoring once in all seven hoops. Players wear daringly fashionable silk scarves with a special loop for storing the ball - it's illegal to take even a single step while carrying the ball anywhere other than your scarf, and if any other princess lands a touch anywhere on your body the loop loosens to let the ball fall out. It's a game of speed and agility, athletes moving in dancing flows of dodging and leaping, trailed by ribbons of vibrant colours.

Some of the more patriotic Jedadi aristocracy claimed that Brightball was a Jedadi invention, like everything else - the scarves represented Princess Valissa stealing silk from Illumina and the seven hoops represented the seven kingdoms she robbed. It was impossible to believe that was true after watching Princess Alina in battle for even a few seconds. It seemed to her now that the game was battle training for the Princesses of Illumina.

She'd always wanted to be good at it, but never so much now that she knew that to be true. Being good at Brightball didn't just mean being good at a sport, it meant learning how to move like the most beautiful and perfect Princess in all of Hyperborea.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

"Nice to see you again! I told her she was stupid to expect rational decisions from people. And I gave her advice on tea to calm down with. You? And are you able to survive the launch and space? I've always wanted to go to space." She takes a look over the DOOM SATELLITE as she chats. That thing is terribly, terribly constructed, AEGIS. Your recent merger has really tanked production values. For shame.

@eldest

The Shogun gives a rough little laugh. "No, I can't survive space. I'm just hanging here trying to compose a fitting death haiku but everything about this situation is so ridiculous it is not working out. Help me out?

Friendly robot comes
Unlikely guide to heavens
Literal and otherwise."

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

I mean, look at this. They've got someone whose powerset is literally controlling metal, and they've got him--what is that, boxing gloves? Come on, people, this isn't looney tunes. Box is right there! Rip the floor out, drop Angelica into the arms of a waiting jetpack trooper, and zoom out. Play the objective, people! You want Angelica, right? Throw just enough people at the worthless teenagers to bog them down, and then smash-and-grab! What are they gonna do, huh, call foul, ask for a redo? That's capitalism, baby.

[Tactical Genius: ...That's a 6. Marking XP.]

@Balmas

Hell yeah! You're a hustler, Brainstorm, no mistake. You're on the make, action on the side, paid by commission, taking life by the horns and riding those animal spirits all the way to the jackpot! All you've got to do is break up the power couple and send the teenagers back to school. Easy for a guy with an army at his command and an assault carrier hovering above your head. Calculate the firing angles, bring in the big guns, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! Who's going to stop you? The magic of friendship?

There's a certain interaction that happens when a vehicle runs into a building, and the building rarely comes off the worse in that exchange. Today you have confirmed that that principle holds in reverse. As you watch, the Gears Foundation - as in the entire multicomplex, supported by enormous thrusters and an attitude of casual disregard towards gravity - drops out of hyperspace and rams the assault carrier amidships with the same conflict resolution as a fly taking up residence on a windshield.

Okay. New plan. You've got this.

That's when Angel-IKA hits you upside the head with a chair leg.

TEN MINUTES LATER, THE GEARS FOUNDATION JANITOR CLOSET/BRIG

Errant! @Saraphim! You've been picked up along with the Stream Team by Professor Gears, incongruously tossing a rope ladder off the side of her flying building. There isn't much time to hang out and exchange pleasantries - the priority is deprogramming Victor from his hypnotism. You two know him best, so you've been sent into the janitorial closet he's confined in to snap him back to himself.

Victor, you're still hooked up to the Spiral Mind and are drinking deep of the black nectar of capitalism. One aspect of this is that you've got a whole lot of data coming in regarding Victoria and her plans. But now these unemployed scrubs want to get your time of day? Tell 'em to get outta here, why don't you?

She locks eyes with Victoria as she starts to get surrounded by guards, who are figuring out just how to get her down. "You're a human, a unique example of infinite possibility. I hope you realize how precious that is, the ability to make your choices and be yourself. And I won't take that ability from you. Totally could, but nah. But I will stop you if you chose to hurt others with your position. That said, it was nice to meet you! I do suggest some peppermint tea. Bye now!" And the door shuts. She turns to one of the guards. "What was her name again? I don't think she ever told me."

@eldest

"Oh, her?" said the megagoon, glancing back at the door as it developed a deep dent as it was struck by most of a table. "She's Turbo Knight 2."

You are taken through to an enormous launch chamber featuring a DOOM SATELLITE. It's a frightful amalgamation. AEGIS has dismantled, destroyed, or shot down a dozen of these over the years and this has been hurriedly constructed out of the various debris pieces that have been kept in storage. It's an inefficient and ugly piece of tech telling the stories of a dozen different supervillains. It certainly doesn't need three doomsday devices when it can only power one, and the fact that one of those doomsday devices will transform everyone on earth into adorable talking mice implies a very specific origin story.

But one of those cannons is a straight up giant laser, and it is to this you are tied, right next to the Shogun. She is not wearing her hat, which makes you taller than her. I'd advise you not to mention it.

"What are you in for?" she asks.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

There is a lot to process there, and fortunately, blessedly, for Princess Adila she doesn't need to. Shocked, stunned silence melts away 'midst the emerald glow letting her clearly perceive what actually just happened from a safe distance. She's not trapped in a moment of fear and pain and confusion - she was the witness to an act of thoughtless cruelty. She lets out a steady breath as her own Silver swells back to life around her, razor clarity in her eyes. Eupheria needs to be stopped.

She flexes her wings and tears through the ropes binding them like they're string. She extends them to their full extent, in that moment as proud and noble as she ever was, shining clearly through the curse. She looks around at her friends, the Princesses around her - Dandy, struck through the heart, Mitt - Alina, compassionate for those around her, Kazelia, on the brink of fainting. She wants to embrace each one and let them feel how much she cares for them. But to save them she needs to make a different sort of embrace.

Silver builds.

She lunges.

She wraps her wings around Eupheria - Eupheria and the Curse Generator both.

And in a lightning flash Silver condenses to a singularity-point, wrapping Eupheria and the Curse Generator in a single tightly held ball, right as power builds within it. There's a warping detonation that shakes all of reality and Princess Eupheria finally gets a taste of her own medicine.

[Using I Am Your Shield to reflect Eupheria's curse from Adila I upon herself: 9. Damaging my light as the price.]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

Please. This isn’t Space Invaders. In Space Invaders, you shoot a dinky little bullet up from your dinky little ship against wave after wave, moving around desperately.

@SARAHPHIM has all the bullets, and she doesn’t need to scurry around the bottom of the screen. She unleashes her bullet curtain, rising upwards, and lets the goons worry about dodging. They can dodge in three dimensions, right? Right?

Hahahahahahaha.

Though, it must be noted, this is taking 100% of her concentration and then some. Please do not distract her while she turns the sky above the school into a bullet hell zone.

[8 on Defend Others, clearing Showboat because... I mean... just look at what’s going on up there... and exposing Sara to more danger.]

@Tatterdemalion

There is only one place in the rainbow hell that isn't ablaze with glory. And that's the dirt at your feet. An appropriate place for your enemies, wah-ha-ha-ha!! But also a serious problem because you're holding up the sky here and there a dozen Spiral troopers are crawling on their stomachs towards you. It's going to be all well and good until they get to your ankles and put their grubby fingers all over your designer shoes. You'd better hope that someone saves you.

"Hats?" she asks, "Never thought about them. A friend of mine gave me a tiara recently, if that counts. But I could... you know, give them a try. Expand my horizons, I guess."

She halts. Her mouth falls slack as her brain forcibly reboots.

"Wait! You wear hats?"

@Phoe

As you're watching Sabrem's moves you start to pick up on something that's been in the back of your mind for a while now. She doesn't move like a human being.

Ordinarily, when a punch is thrown it's a full body thing - the torso twists, the shoulder rotates, hips to lean into the blow. When expanded by augmented limbs it results in enough power to throw someone across the room. Sabrem, however, is doing the opposite of those things and it should be simply terrible form. She fires her pistol one handed and unbraced, she tosses the sword with just a rotation of her elbow while keeping her back perfectly still. She's cutting every single possible corner and letting her augs pick up the slack - it's not sloth, it's a ruthless, unbelievable level of optimization, almost like a martial art for aliens. She's not chasing the maximum of her augs - she's cutting to the minimum. A minimum force slap is enough to daze a human like a solid punch from a regular person might, and so that slap is all she needs, especially when she's using that same motion to spray semi auto pistol fire with hands strong enough to ignore any recoil.

"Hnn. Course I wear hats. It rains three hundred days a year here, don't know why they're not in style. I use one of those... big red ones, like Carmen Sandiego mostly. Had a femme fatale fashion phase. Others too. Depends on the outfit. Anyway. Go save your girl."

[Yeah, that's a 13 on Take a Powerful Blow. I'll take Lose Control of Yourself for 500 points, please.]

@Balmas

You dodge the slag. You dodge the car. You dodge the TAG wreckage. You dodge the gas canister. You don't dodge the gas.

Your vision swims as the orange gas surrounds you on all sides. The Spiral Commander lands alongside you and places her hand on your forehead and into your empty head new orders flow like water. You are but a vessel, a puppet, and you have only one objective: to capture Angel-IKA.

Angel-IKA!

"Hey," you say. Mouth dry. This is the first time you've seen her, you know? You remember that she's got some sort of hypnotism perfume so should probably pull back a bit, you know, in case. "Uh. Hi. I'm Angelic - uh, -IKA. Angel-IKA."

"I know who you are," said Dominus, walking forwards into what was probably the hypnotism danger zone. You take a couple of steps backwards. "You're why I came here."

"M-me?" you squeak. You squeak again when your back hits a wall. She doesn't stop coming closer. "What could you possibly want with me?"

"That's a good question," Dominus said. A lock of tangled black hair was stuck to her face with rain and sweat and you could see your own fearful outline in the reflection in her eyes. "Why don't you tell me? What are you good for?"

"I-I-I-uh," okay this is definitely the hypnotism perfume, there's no other reason you'd be blushing this hard. "I'm, um, I'm not good at anything -"

"Pathetic," she says, but you can tell that's not what she means. Her face gets closer. Her lips get closer. "You don't even recognize how beautif-"

"HELLO" said some kind of robot, appearing out of nowhere right besides you.

"AAAAAAAH!" you say in greeting.

"OH COME ON BODE!" you hear Locker yell from across the room.

"Bode!?!" said Dominus, aiming a pistol at him with one hand and straightening her hair with the other.

"Brainstorm is in trouble and I noticed that you were the only two who weren't busy. You need to help me save him!" said Bode brightly.

"Why," hissed Dominus, "didn't you do something about it?"

Bode tilted his head to the side. Glowing eye lenses blinked.

"I thought you would both appreciate the opportunity to be heroes," he said.

"Look, lady. Humanity, collectively, is the most stubborn, idiotic, and illogical bunch of animals that you will ever meet. You are currently wearing so many different layers, in exactly such a fashion, because that is how things are done, including the makeup coating your face and nails. You just yelled at probably the most powerful tool you have access to and threatened to destroy it out of pique, because that made you feel good. You all, collectively, keep threatening your own cities and doing terrible things to each other and then go right back to where you were at the start. You. Are. Idiots." She takes a deep breath. "That's not, however, a bad thing. Out of the sheer, stubborn idiotic decisions, you decide, generally, to care about each other. To help in spite of the society built to make you care about yourself first. You want to be the ruler of the world and you're expecting to get respect for it? The one possible position where you can get blamed for everything that goes wrong, and every single hero will be after you for vengeance, for freedom, for whatever, and every single villain will be after your spot. It's not the smart thing for them to do, no, but it's the dumb thing to do and that makes it the human thing to do."

@eldest

Your words had an impact. She stands there for a moment, hands clenching and unclenching. There are a lot of questions in her life that she doesn't know the answer to and as you watch she systematically fills them in with pure rage. Rage doesn't need answers. The only way around those questions is to decide that questions are stupid and that anyone who asks or answers them is stupid.

[Marking Angry]

"Idiots, huh? Then I'm going to send a message that even an idiot can understand," she said. "Guards. Take her out of my sight - no. Put her on the rocket, next to the other one. Granddad was right. I need to talk to the public on their level."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

“You’re the only princess I fear,” Adila says, completely forgetting the existence of her Official Friend yet again.

@Tatterdemalion

Oh no, Hornet is the princess she dreads. Completely different.

(The difference being, she fears that Dandy could take over the world if she put her mind to it, but she dreads that Hornet will make the attempt)

E: As an aside, I'm still looking forwards to a scene where she reconciles with Hornet

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

Dandy takes the sandwiches, and takes a great big bite, bigger than you’ve usually seen from her. “Sakes alive,” she says, with her mouth full, “Ah’m more starved than a rattler up a tree, Ah tell you what...”

She flops down into a chair, lifting her hooves. “Looks like you’ve had a heck of a time, huh, puppy? Awww, come put your head here, Ah’m not mad at you, Ah just... Ah just need more time to give it some thinks up in my brain-pan, hun.”

She scritches you in the best place right behind your ear and your tail goes thump thump thump, dragging a chair along with it.

@Tatterdemalion

+That's not...+ Adila's thought slowly started to drift in, coming into focus like a radio tuning. +That's not what I wanted to say. It's not about me. I wanted you to know that...+

A shiver ran through her as she pushed through the impenetrable wall of comforting physicality. She sat up straight, eyes sharp and clear again, in a posture that wasn't at all canine.

Then she reached out and took the absurd straw hat off Dandy's head - and crumpled it in her claws.

+I wanted you to know that this isn't how I see you,+ she said. +Eupheria's curses are cruel. I don't know if it's playing on your insecurities in the same way it's playing on mine, and I think it's playing on others. But the Princess Dandy I see isn't a joke or a rube or in any way simple. The Princess Dandy I see is the wisest, most intelligent, most dangerous princess in Hyperborea. Of every princess I know you're not just the one I respect the most, you're also the only one I fear. If you wanted to turn the world on it's side you wouldn't need the Caduceus to do it.+

[Healing Sense]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

There are pats. Pats from multiple directions. It's enough to drown in. There's this kind of unique relaxation that one gets when being patted - a kind of total full-body relaxation, not borne of tiredness but of enjoying the moment so utterly that the mind deliberately shuts down even the slightest twitch of the body in case it interferes with the pats. Pats were serious business relaxation. In fact the only struggle she was faced with was the faint ache in her heart at the idea that the people being so nice as to provide pats weren't getting pats of their own. She haphazardly paw-batted and licked at the people and faces around her to communicate her desire to reciprocate but was far too easily suppressed back into a state of quiescence.

And in the relaxation she could start to find some focus again. She had achieved the Meaning of Life, as defined by dogs, so she could find herself with just enough mindset to focus on things around her once more. She finally, gradually starts to release her collected hug-ees from their fluffy prison. She could feel the crackle of higher consciousness start to build in her head again and she started looking around a bit more sharply, a bit more clearly. She even reached out to bite one of the sandwiches -

- and stopped. Because taking food without being offered it was Bad. So instead she gently picked up the tray in her mouth and brought it around to offer to Princess Dandy, eyes full of apology.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Samael!

Well, they're here.

Not quite like you expected, shuffling and meek and scared. Instead they're here kicking and yelling and hair-pulling and the kind of fight that would be almost comical if there wasn't that edge of feral, supernatural viciousness to it. Timmy is somehow in the midst of it, both the subject of the fight and the one who somehow seems to be getting the worst of the violence.

Do you intervene or let this play out?

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0
SHOWBOAT

It’s too easy, really. They’re not packed in close to cut off her escapes: she’s brought them into a tight knot so that there’s no escape for them. She twirls her fingers, and with each spin it coalesces: first a line, then a rod, then a baton, then a wickedly sharp arrow. Crackling with barely-contained energy, she sends it shooting into the crowd with a delighted cry, and it pierces straight through the gas lines of the first trooper, making them flop and leak out the precious zombiefication gasses. As long as she doesn’t breathe any in, she’ll be fine!

Zip, zip, zip! The arrow dances through their ranks like the perfect cut of an iaijutsu master, tearing open fuel lines and rupturing weak points in their armor. Instead of a rain of bullets for them to hunker down under, Sara is ripping through their vulnerabilities with just one, faster than they can react. Zip, zip, zip!

If she’s very, very lucky, the gas won’t get to her, and she’ll be able to use a hard light wedge to bust free from the disoriented mass, so that she can rejoin Euna. And, hey, the luck’s part of the fun! She’s laughing wildly as she controls that arrow almost by instinct, rather than any sense of sight.

@Tatterdemalion

You stand triumphant atop a crowd of ruptured, smoking suits. About half of the audience has taken their cue to evacuate but the remainders are all cheering for you and you can see that stream count go up, up, up.

BOOM

You're also the one to see the Optokoppler pull in above. It's an assault carrier, a flying warship, the central base for the entire Spiral Corps company. Evidently whoever's co-ordinating this attack has decided to well and truly fuck subtlety. You can see half a dozen hangar bays open and begin launching reinforcements at the school - combat remotes, TAGs, reserved Spiral troopers.

And you, @Sarahphim, get to play Space Invaders with the targets as they come down.

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffs, "You're not a hero yet."

What a strange sensation. Normally in these moments her skillwires are such an out-of-body experience she can't help but feel like her arms belong to someone else, which leads her to the nasty point of contemplation that, legally, they probably do. Or did. It doesn't feel like that anymore. Even though her brain is doing just as little to guide the delicate motions of defusing a bomb as it ever has, the sensations coming from her fingers are real, are vibrant, are... warm. It's her. She's doing this. It's a choice that she made, and she's doing this with her own body.

Suddenly, she can't find her anger anymore. It's not... it's not forgiveness, not it's exactly, it's... it's complicated. It's moving on. Moving forward.

"This does not make us even. So don't even think about pulling any of that Hac Tao bullshit on me, got it? Just because AEGIS rotted out from underneath me doesn't mean I believe what I said last time any less. So just... be good, god damn it."

...God damn it, Euna Kim. You are lame.

[Defend: 8. Errant will officially take Influence on Sabrem and expose herself to danger]

@Phoe

"Hnn. Yeah. Just..." Sabrem held perfectly still, the stillness of training and discipline that mirrored yours just as the unsteadiness in her voice mirrored yours. "I just..." with breathtaking fluidity she'd snatched the sword out of the ground and hurtled it across the room into the chest plate of a Spiral trooper drawing a bead on the two of you, all without even slightly shaking the backpack you were working on.

"... call your bank. Tell them you want to upgrade to the Rega Plus package. It'll cost you about fifty bucks and will switch your savings to Crown&Slate scrip. Heads out any attempts from the corp to mess with your money. And there's a guy on 18th/44th/2609 who does competent cybersurgery no questions asked."

She has her pistol out and is firing one handed, covering you from sporadic rifle fire. You know how exposed you are like this but just as you're working to save her she's working to save you. She sets her feet to resist the impact of hexshells against her armour. Her knee joint sparks and locks up as she absorbs damage.

"Plus... hnnn... I made my own skillwire chip. For you. Simple thing. Get a hat and it'll give you the reflexes to automatically adjust it to block any camera that looks at you. Lets you move around the city safely. Hnn. Do you like hats?"

Oh, Brainstorm has been there. Above the fray, getting the big picture, assessing. And if there's one thing that he's learned, it's that there's nothing quite so frustrating as getting distracted. Like, say, if someone where to thwip a little cable of nanites around that spiral trooper with a pulse rifle juuuust enough to nudge his aim high? Or maybe he snaps a missile out of the air and redirects it?

It's just the kind of thing that he'd find absolutely maddening, especially if he were to follow it up with snapping a cable onto her jetpack, and filling her helmet with buzzing, stinging nanites. See how they like it.

[Directly Engage with a 7. I'm stealing her concentration.]

@Balmas

[Marking Angry]

The Spiral Commander endures this for a little while. Big picture. Big picture. Big picture.

But when your helmet is full of bees the big picture gets a lot smaller.

She snaps out, surrounded by an aura of spectacular violet energy. Floor tiles begin to rip out of the ground and huge chunks of the roof are torn apart to procure additional projectiles - they surround her like the rings of Saturn, accelerating faster and faster, until they're launched at you like shots from a railgun.

You've got her full attention now, but take a Powerful Blow from the counterattack.

Angel-IKA!

TAGs are not meant to be ridden. They're all sloping armour plates and smooth surfaces and keeping your grip on the three meter tall combat robot is really hard. But goddamn it if this isn't the next best thing to piloting one.

Ferraphim1tp: Woah - jeez!
Ferraphim1tp: I am really glad I put in the simulator hours first
Ferraphim1tp: This thing does not move like I thought it would

There was a dull roar as the main gun began to fire, tearing through a cluster of combat remotes. You swing your wooden chair leg like a baseball bat and land a solid connection against another repeater drone. If one of those gets onto the TAG then it'll be back to team evil. You might not be a badass sexy werewolf lady, but oxpecker is also a completely valid thing for a hero to be doing.

You spare a glance at Locker. He's somehow got one of the Spiral troopers in a headlock and as you watch he rips off her helmet. She's dazed, glassy eyed, still dazed by the gas. "You're Igni, right?" he said in a voice that makes you flinch a little. "You shoot fire? Well you goddamn start shooting fire at anything I point you at." He swings her around like a human shield, holding up her right arm with one of his hands, catching bullets on her armour and clearing a huge swathe with blasts of fire from the supervillain.

And there's Dominus. Camo jacket. Flag patches. Raven black hair. Moving in the midst of a cluster of her minions and you've never seen anyone move more like a superhero. Maybe it's just that she's surrounded by goons who make her look better in comparison, but every jump and swing and punch looks like something out of a movie. She punches a trooper's jaw, shattering her respirator, and pulls her in close to her neck so that the escaping gas is brought into close contact with the venomous perfume she's wearing. The Spiral trooper goes limp in her arms and Dominus makes eye contact with you from across the room and in that moment you're feeling like she must have poisoned you too.

"Nope!" She responds cheerfully. "No idea who you are. I'm Ferra. I'd guess you know that already though." It's remarkably zen, dangling here. If she was anybody else, she'd probably be scared stiff, but honestly? No fucks given. "And yeah, no, you sound super stressed, and if you try to lie to my face again about that I'm going to laugh at you." She gives a abridged shrug. "So why do you want everyone to, I don't know, fear your power and flee in terror at your name? I'm guessing that's what you meant there."

@eldest

"You're going to -" she hissed. "I don't even want fame. It's stupid! Only stupid people want fame! I just want a completely reasonable amount of respect! I've overthrown two megacorporations and am about to take down a third and I'll be the ruler of the world before I'm thirty. Is it too much to ask that every stupid teenager with a hoodie and a halloween mask stops breaking into my office to challenge me to a fistfight? That stupid old people stop second-guessing my business strategies? I just want to be taken seriously, and if that means blowing up Australia then that's what's going to happen."