ic Necklace of Ropes

[Avenger Assembled]

And so it was that the intrepid band of heroes found themselves in a Furion warshuttle headed for the Palace of the Virgin Flame, with a painfully silent mistress of the dark and terrible arts sitting in the jump seat behind them. Tarva was obviously not pleased to be returning to the heart of the Terminus and was practically vibrating with suppressed tension - or perhaps, from what they'd gathered of her volubility, with the effort of keeping silent. She squeezed her pale hands into fists as she seemed to forcibly contract into herself, the black radiance around her now dialed so far back she looked like a photograph someone had drawn a line around in black ink. Outside they knew the hexagonal craft bulged with weapons and stealth technology to allow them to get close to the stronghold of Steelgrave; inside it was simply a hexagonal room, a head in the back (past Tarva), with a control panel and viewscreen (decidedly not a window) in front. 

 

As the Silver Tree receded behind them, the round opening on the control panel beckoned. Scarvos had pressed the red and gold 'egg' into Eve's hand before they left , saying simply, "^{A sacred trust. Use it when you have left our planet}." And that, it seemed, had been that - though the heroes had gained the distinct impression that the surly Furion had simply skipped a few procedural steps before packing them off and sending them on their way to fierce battle. 

[Avenger Assembled]

The Palace of the Virgin Flame was right where Tarva predicted it would be, still in orbit around the brown-grey world of machines that were so often Shadivan Steelgrave's boon companions. But the planet itself, for all its grimness, was not where their eyes focused. With the exception of Wraith, none of the trio of heroes were particularly religious people. (As for Tarva, well, she had abandoned the gods of her youth not long after witnessing their evisceration at the hands of Omegadrones) But there was something unholy about the Palace in its great orbiting bulk even from a distance - something perhaps blasphemous? 

 

A mile long, it was clear for what it was - a gargantuan image of a humanoid woman. She had been tall and pale, with red hair and blue eyes - the hair now a curl of reddish-brown fire that roamed up and down the naked 'skin' of the floating palace, a coating of flame that forever teased the Terminus with the form of whatever woman this once had been. It was grotesque, a blasphemous mockery of a life cast as the home of a remorseless despot, and the blue eyes, cast in crystal large enough to hold their small spacecraft, seemed to stare out at the reddish skies of the Terminus in some last, nameless emotion. 

 

Tarva stared at the palace, her inky shadows a subdued cloak around her body, before she declaimed, "There it sits. The pleasure palace and testing grounds of Shadivan Steelgrave himself. I knew he would not leave when he had such work to do here. He will complete his dread work." 

[Gizmo]

"Um. That... Wow." Ghost Girl's ephemeral face flickered with a mixture of emotions, none of them positive. Even at a distance the surge of panic the fire pouring forth from the bizarre floating fortress clawed outward from her stomach, trying to force its way up her throat even as she concentrated on remaining calm, trying to imagine it as the massive statue's hair and nothing else. At least it mostly distracted her from wondering why Steelgrave would build his workshop to look like a woman-- assuming it had even been 'built' and not something much, much more disturbing. She wasn't even going to consider the 'pleasure palace' part of Tarva's introduction if she could at all help it. "That's just pretty heinous, you guys. Do... do I want to ask where the entrance is...?"

[Fox]

Wraith's familiarity with - and fondness for - the human or human-like body was admittedly more abstract than her companions', but her own human guise and time on Earth gave her at least a decent grasp of the anatomy and a sneaking suspicion that there weren't many points of ingress or egress on a giant woman-building that didn't carry some level of unfortunate implications.

Such observations, she had to accept as she shifted her weight, were better left to experts. Instead she tried to regard the Palace as a...monument? A trophy? "I am not familiar with the customs and culture at work," she admitted, glancing at her friend for signs of her reaction to the fire, "but this does not appear to be the dwelling of the...mentally balanced. I cannot tell if such a place is the sign of obsession, or...the word is 'vanity'?"

[April]

Blue Fox had spent the majority of the flight examining the 'egg' that Scarvos placed in their care--it reminded her of Red Bird, the machine intelligence that formed a partnership with Midnight--but she stopped when they arrived at the "pleasure palace". Normally not one to be slow on the uptake, she was momentarily speechless at the sheer size of the figure until Ghost Girl's words finally registered.

At least Eve had the decency to blush.

"I don't even want to speculate, Ghost Girl. Tarva, is there an unobtrusive entrance to the.. construct? Some sort of secondary access or emergency hatch or something?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"The eyes are quantum storage devices," replied Tarva. "A craft this size can enter through the outer membrane and be concealed within the quantum radiation, then you can enter the ship through one of the power ducts. The laboratories you seek are within the braincase." She fell silent for a moment before saying hesitantly, "You must not be seen. Take a stealthy approach as you traverse the tunnels. Remember that what one drone sees, all will see. R-remain within the head, where the testing grounds are located." She cast a measuring look at the heroes around her before adding, "Do not enter the body. There is nothing there that will serve your mission. I..." She jumped to her feet, practically vibrating with restrained tension, her fists punctuating the air with every world. "Do not be taken alive. Do not allow me to be taken alive. Please."

[Gizmo]

Something in Tarva's tone jostled Ghost Girl from her transfixed staring at the fiery hair of the gigantic simulacrum. "Aw, don't worry so much! You just need a hug." Turning to her corporeal teammates, the phantom gestured significantly with her chin. "Somebody give her a hug. Everything'll be fine! Nobody's getting taken alive. You already reek of death, Tarva!" Kimber's tone was chipper and reassuring while something cold and calculating gleamed briefly in her eyes before subsiding. She didn't need to turn the full extent of her undead sensitivities toward the sorceress to notice the proverbial blood dripping from her hands. What she intended to do about that in the long term was difficult to predict. "So! Power duct it is, right?"

[Fox]

Wraith stretched - literally, in fact, her body contorting a bit and a shiver of tiny limbs like half-formed scythe-tipped millipede legs rippling up her length as she flexed. The situation was grim, of course, and the giant woman-ship-building foreboding, but a significant portion of her was a bit thrilled at the prospect. Sneaking, spying, maybe a good fight...if it wasn't the Terminus, or so monstrous an enemy, it would have all the potential to be so much fun. And even then....

"Being captured alive is not my path," she agreed, with a certain satisfaction. If she went down, it would be fighting, preferably against great odds or on a glorious hunt. It was only fitting. "Ghost Girl does not have to worry about such things, as is her advantage. And the Blue Fox is...well-equipped for danger, and has us anyway. The power duct sounds like our best option, yes, then - should things go well, we may not even be noticed."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am the walking dead, Ghost Girl. It is fate."

 

The vitreous humor of the eye was thick and gluey, ominously rising like sludge around the viewscreen of their borrowed vessel as they burrowed deeper and deeper into the massive ocular structure. Had it been weeping as they'd passed overhead, or had that simply been exterior lubrication pouring over skin that had looked all too human even in the depths of Terminus space? The air inside the pod seemed to grow thick and greasy as they headed deeper and deeper into the sludgy liquid, for all that the internal sensors assured Wraith (of the three, the best with interstellar technology) that everything was fine. Tarva shrank down into herself the deeper they entered the fortress, but even now there was art to her panic as she folded in on herself like a crouching ballet dancer. 

 

It came as a palpable relief when their vessel found the power duct, invisible against a vast metal wall but palpably present to their ship's sensors. With a low rumble, ship met docking ring - and they were ready for their next move. Inside, they found a smooth, featureless tube big enough for two of their little party to travel abreast on the flat inner walls. It was hot and stifling, close to human body temperature, and the air was rank with unnameable scents, but they were inside. 

[April]

--Well, let's be about it then.--

Wraith and Ghost Girl heard the familiar (and to Tarva, unfamiliar) thoughts of Blue Fox as the team slipped their way deeper into ... whatever it was this structure was. There was entirely too much of the structure that mirrored the living human body for the telepath's taste and it was definitely unnerving.

She still carried the 'egg' with her, she wasn't too comfortable with the idea of leaving it behind on the ship--there was always a chance it might be discovered. The white-haired heroine wasn't sure how to activate it though, Redbird was already active when Eve met her.

--Do you have some idea where we have to go inside the braincase, Priestess? It's not exactly small.--

[Avenger Assembled]

-Stay inside the tunnels!- came Tarva's horrified mental exclamation, quite unlike her brassy, bold spoken voice. -Stay inside the tunnels and DO NOT LET THEM SEE YOU! If they do they will_- The images that came now were unspeakably vile, pouring out of the shadow-priestess like an opened box. Sorting through them, Eve could tell that intruders were actually fairly common in the Terminus. Across a vast, near-infinite multiverse, and given how easy dimensional technology was to develop, many heroes had the idea that they could take down the forces of ultimate evil. They came and they failed and failed and failed and their blood seemed to drip down the walls as cold, remorseless steel shoved its way into their very veins and murdered their souls and they crawled and begged and died died died - 

 

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" said Tarva, her hands over her mouth to hide her own scream as she shut down the flood of emotions by main force. "I'm so sorry, I didn't...I never had someone at me like that. I know the path, I swear! Please don't leave me here!" 

[April]

--I've seen worse, Tarva.--

Eve's mental voice was gentle and calming even if the mental picture the priestess painted was enough to give the psychic pause; it was only her iron will and years of practice in controlling her own emotions that kept any sort of trepidation from her thoughts and her body language. Still, she hesitated a moment, and gave Tarva a mental nod.

--I would not leave you behind, but remember that we wish to remain unnoticed. Ghost Girl and Wraith I know can be swift, silent and subtle. If you also possess such talent we would be most grateful in your employment of it.--

--Besides, I'm sure you possess other talents. There is a certain pleasure in using them here against these enemies of life.--

[Avenger Assembled]

Tarva's thoughts were full of silent fears - but the overwhelming terrors that had washed out into Sage's mind were done. After a little while, she was able to think again and led them forward, vanishing herself into a shadowy outline plastered flat against the wall. Eventually they reached what was evidently their destination, a line of black steel ductwork who scalloped vents were trivially easy for Wraith and Ghost Girl to pass through. Getting Eve through was a little trickier, but shadowy magic in the form of wriggling black tentacles that with spiky mouths (one of which distinctly addressed Ghost Girl with a cheery, slithering whisper of "Hello, Rebe-!" before vanishing)  slid the panel aside just long enough for the dextrous Blue Fox to make her way into the great vault that Tarva had led them to. 

 

It was an unsettling place. There were no Omegadrones visible, why would there be here in the heart of Steelgrave's great fortress. Instead there were vast transparent pipes that stretched upward like a cathedral's ceiling and down like a valley's depths, an unnnerving, vaguely unEuclidian geometry that was accompanied by a slow, regular THROB of a distant pulse from beneath their feet - and with every throb came movement in the pipes, a silvery fluid that sloshed back and forth with a too-thick, too-reflective radiance that shone with an oily sheen that seemed to speak of slow, wriggling sensation down the spine. 

[Gizmo]

"There, you see, Tarva?" Ghost Girl addressed the nervous sorceress in an encouraging tone as they passed by the tentacles. "We're rebels! Rebels are cool! We should get matching leather jackets when we get home! With patches!" The latter was aimed more toward Renard Bleue, hoping to win the French telepath over to her proposed team uniform. Even Kimber had difficulty keeping upbeat as they passed through the silver filled pipes, with their ominous, organic shuddering. "Guh. Does that make anybody else think of, like, a heartbeat?" she asked hesitantly, unable to resist peering downward, trying to spy the source of the viscous liquid.

[Fox]

Wraith's surface rippled in discomfort, hands and feet (though there was precious little difference between them at the moment) converting from claws to soft pads so as not to damage the pipes and their...contents. "I do not like this place," she quietly hummed, clinging to the side of one of the pipes and eyeing a fluid that she was trying very hard to not associate with liquifed...well, her.

"This place is gross. The...design of it was perhaps bad enough, but I did not think it would have a pulse. I wonder if it can be killed."

[Avenger Assembled]

Suddenly, there came from above, and all around, a terrible booming laugh - one that made Tarva scream in utter despair! She turned and was ready to leap directly from the platform where they stood towards the nearly bottomless drop beneath their feet before the shaft they'd entered through suddenly slammed shut with a sizzling whine - as did the doors of the complex where they stood, all around. Tarva bounced off a force field before she could fall and landed back amongst the heroes as the voice went on. They were not even graced with a face. 

 

"Oh, Tarva. Did you really think you'd fooled me?" It was a warm, loving voice now, all cool, mocking control. "I've seen you naked and covered in blood, honey, your little shadow tricks and your little games don't fool me." He snorted and went on. "I don't even understand you - after all the things you've done, my little project gets your goat? But no matter. What bothers you won't be a problem for long." Overhead, the nearest pipes were beginning to bubble and their sides to slowly iris open. "You know, this is going to be a little messy, but I think Madrigal will pay me enough to afford a new lab." Overhead, a single drop of grey nanite solution fell and landed, sizzling, on the observation platform beneath. 

 

"This is the part where you run!" he added with a whoop. 

[Gizmo]

"That, um... that seems like it might actually be pretty good advice," Kimber piped up in the dread silence that followed the projected monologue, her bravado undercut in the face of the pooling nanite solution. The phantom suddenly felt a lot less confident that Indira would be able to simply metabolize the little metal horrors and she didn't want the rising tide of goop anywhere near Eve or even Tarva. "Everybody get going! Maybe I can slow it down some!"

Floating forward and a little higher into the air, the phantom faced the dripping grey goo and allowed her jaw to stretch toward the floor like melting wax. "I dunno if you're still listening, buddy," she spoke to the walls, her voice taking on an oddly raspy, echoing quality as though coming from the opposite end of a tunnel, "but creepy deathtraps are one thing and just up and talking about what somebody does when they're naked is a totally different deal! Rude." A blast of wintery blizzard erupted from Ghost Girl's mouth with a howling scream, spreading layer after layer of ice across the nanites.

[Fox]

"Yes." Wraith spared a glance at the nanites that had already hit the platform, narrowing her eyes at it in cautious suspicion - she was reasonably sure she'd be an awfully tough meal, but didn't really want to put that to the test against unknown, sinister technology. "Up is no longer an option. We go down; this area must have flightless access for maintenance and construction. We must find it."

As Kimber began to freeze the incoming host she lashed out her arms, grasping Eve and Tarva in over-sized claws while she sprinted for the edge of the platform. "I apologize for not asking permission first," she calmly apologized as she reached the edge of their standing space, one foot digging into the edge of its surface to swing her down and into the platform's shadow before letting herself...drop.

Wraith made no attempt to slow herself or her kidnap-ees down the slightest until they'd nearly hit bottom - at the last second she flipped around, hurling them upwards as hard as she could to slow their descent. The rest of their fall was met with a sudden (and surprisingly cushioned) impact on Wraith herself, who'd hit ground only to pull herself back into an approximation of a thick, gel-like crash pad.

"That worked surprisingly well for a first try," she noted, draining away from around her passengers to reform into something more bipedal. "But I was mostly sure it would work. Please help me look for an exit."

[Avenger Assembled]

Kimber's icy scream did indeed freeze the nanites, laying down a layer of solid metal that briefly stopped the flow - a layer that cracked visibly as she watched, more nanites spilling out even as frozen particles fell like snow instead of rain. She could slow the flow, but evidently not slow it down as it came dripping down towards the others!

 

Tarva had been ready to die earlier, but something about the frantic activity of the heroes forced her into action. Chanting in a rapid-fire tongue of cold blasphemy, she summoned shadowy phantoms over their heads - gibbering forms that blocked the light from overhead and the falling rain of nanite solution that was rapidly threatening to become a flood. It pattered sickly against the shield that protected them, and no one could say who it might have hit without Tarva's protection. "Don't worry about my nakedness," she reassured Kimber, "he is only mentioning what I lost so that I might suffer for it as my soul is devoured by his machines!"

 

Wraith could see two obvious exits - an irising octogonal door on one side of the small space at the base of the huge room, and another smaller entrance that was a nearly perfect circle, built directly into the floor on which they stood. 

 

"He is watching us! Act now!" Tarva called with the terror of the imperious.

[April]

"OK, this guy has graduated from bothersome to intolerable," Blue Fox commented while she examined where they stood. Spying what appeared to be a control panel, the French heroines took the Furion supertech 'egg' that resembled Midnight's Redbird. She wasn't entirely sure how to activate the machine intelligence, Redbird had already been alive at the time, but she still followed the motions Trevor used to sync her up with his bike.

"New mission, team," she said calmly while she waited and hoped for the Furion AI to activate, "We should not content ourselves with merely stopping Steelgrave's goo and enhanced Omegadrones."

"We're going to blow this whole damn station, body, thing to pieces."

[Avenger Assembled]

As Eve slid the device home, she distinctly felt a vibration against her fingers and heard the subvocal sounds Synchronizing! The Furion AI sank partway into the control panel and began to swivel wildly back and forth; the overall effect like watching an eye suddenly 'wake up" , especially when a distinct blue glow arose from the side of the sphere still facing them. "I am here to assist you; I am Bluebird and I am your...Oh no!" came a voice that sounded young, excited, and definitely male. "Oh no, this isn't good! The Fleet and her friends in peril!" The whole of the control panel flashed blue and the irising door opened, even as another spatter of falling nanite solution hit the unprotected platform outside. They had seconds to act, if that! "Quick, we've got to get out of here! It's safer out there!" Arrows flared to life on the wall nearby, pointing to the open door. "Solution release is now! Go, go!" Once they were all outside, taking shelter in what turned out to be a tiny room with no visible outlets, the door slammed shut behind them just as the whitish-grey mass of countless trillions of nanites came crashing down in a tidal wave of horror! As the nanite wave smashed itself uselessly against the door and the team took stock of where they were - Bluebird made a rude sound. "Hah! No flood can stop us!"

[Gizmo]

"Omigoodness, tiny talking metal egg guy!" Ghost Girl exclaimed as she swooped in behind her compatriots and rotated in the air so the she was floating with her face centimeters from the Furion artifact. "Hey little buddy! Nice work with the door! Although I don't really see a door out of here... Maybe it's a trash compactor! Well, no, it'd probably be messier, then." A sudden dread fear stopped the poltergeist's rambling and as she turned to Wraith her face turned a much paler shade of blue. "You... you don't think it's a trash incinerator, do you? Um, I'm j-just gonna see what's above us, okay?" With a quiet gulp, she floated high enough into the air to poke her insubstantial form through the ceiling.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Thank you," replied Bluebird, this time with a voice that was noticeably feminine (and if anything even younger!) - yet unmistakably the same they'd heard before! "I am...ooh, there are a great many minds here! And all of you so different!" The eye in the machine swiveled around and looked at all of them with confusion. "We should rise to the upper tier of the Terminus construct," said that odd little voice with fierce determination. "Detonating the power supply will implode the dread machine into the Doom Coil itself! What are guards to such as we, the Swift and her mighty companions!" 

[Gizmo]

Poking her head through the ceiling, Kimber found a long, empty shaft there to greet her. "Say...!" Ducking back down into the windowless room the phantom spun in a tight midair circle and dove downward to look beneath them as well. Popping back up a moment later, she clapped her hands excitedly and beamed at the small, harried group. "You guys, I'm pretty sure this is an elevator! You did totally awesome, Bluebird! I'd pat your egg but I'd probably just pass through and make your little circuits explode or something, so later!" Floating over to a blank part of the walls, she tapped her chin with one finger and made a humming sound as she tried to logic her way through the design. "There's got to be a control panel in here, right? Everybody start pushing stuff, see what happens!"

[Fox]

Wraith's eyes turned up in amusement at the comment about how different their minds all were, but the expression was brief - she didn't know exactly what the full capabilities of the nanotech on the other side of the door was, but she doubted it would have held her for long and she wasn't far off from a blob of nanomachines herself.

She'd climbed up to the roof of their little room to make room for the others, a four-legged, silver monster-beast lurking on the ceiling, but at Ghost Girl's prompting extended another long, multi-jointed arm and began jabbing at the top of the control panel. Well, 'top' relative to everyone else, anyway. "I believe I am fully in support of blowing this place up," she confirmed, humming in...concern? Excitement? Whatever the Kinigosi equivalent of adrenaline was, she was apparently feeling it now that the action had passed. "I do not know exactly what a 'doom coil' is, but it sounds very final and I believe I like that."