Professor Talahass von McYarglefargle The Ninth
???, Airship that was supposed to go to Oasis, en Route to ???
Affected RPers: @Velocity
<No worries, keep up when you can. If that’s the case, we’ll probably arrive at the skyport before you do - smaller, faster vessel that’s not in the process of being hijacked and all that. Best of luck to you, Professor. Stay in touch.> Morial responded, as you mentally prepare.
The strings of fate tug at your mind with a singular message that can be summarized in a simple sentence-another life-saving quip. You seem to get those whenever you're in danger, but shame they're so sparse and sudden. You quickly realize you have three seconds before that door is removed from its hinges by this entity and its sharp claws, and that, however powerful it is, it still shares weaknesses with the Pokemon whose forms they take so often. You adjust your aim calmly as the hand rips into the door, shoving aside the makeshift barricade, and remove the hinges, revealing THE most ugly Lickitung you have ever seen in your life. Jet-black with red highlights, you could mistake it for a similar condition with your skin, but it also had a demonic pair of horns, pure red eyes with no iris nor pupil to speak of (how did it see?), and the hands and feet ended in nasty, jagged digits that could easily tear through your body, as well as enough ABYSMAL iconography plastered onto his skin and cloak to make an unholy church to ZAIAKU out of his body. Most interesting of all, though, is that his large tongue ended in a spiked 'cap,' presumably to be used as a bludgeon, kept in place by a great amount of bolts. It looked quite gruesome.
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Fire GRENADE LAUNCHER at ABYSMAL LICKITUNG.
You proceed to fire a singular grenade directly into the COHORT's mouth before he gets a chance to properly react, just as his face and yours lock eyes. Ugly eyes that make you drip a tad faster, eyes that you really don't want to look at all that often-but you will. It's inevitable. Unless you keep managing to slam grenades into them fast enough.
The ABYSMAL LICKITUNG couldn't block the GRENADE in time, though a reflex in the tongue told you he certainly tried to swallow it-which would not make it any better, as it was still an explosive, and indeed it would probably be worse. He probably thought it was NOT going to be so volatile, to be fair. In any case, the GRENADE slammed directly into the beast's eyes, your intended target. On impact, the GRENADE explodes in a chemical mixture of force, flame and noxious chemicals, and you can see some nasty scarring on the face immediately. One of the eyes is definitely shot. The ABYSMAL stumbles and screams a rather anguished shout-almost like a regular Pokemon, just a bit twisted up-but you doubt it would have done that if it wasn't for exactly where you put the shot. It fell back onto a wall in the outside hallway, not too far from where you were...This wasn't a big ship, so you could roughly guess where you were from here, but you were no regular to this kind of thing.
You reach for your bag and try to grab another GRENADE while the ABYSMAL was reeling-might as well just test this thing out while you had the chance-but you heard a shout that was extremely NASTY. You got down, only to realize it was actually that SOPHIA's doing. The LICKITUNG proceeded to take the impact of a full-force HYPER VOICE, smashing his head between the powerful energies of the sound and the cold hard wall, and went still. You are fairly sure he's merely UNCONSCIOUS, not DEAD. You are also assured that any remaining ABYSMAL FORCES aboard this airship-you think it was the F.S. DOYLUS-would be imminently approaching unless they had other business to attend to.
"Isn't my first time fighting...Definitely my first time fighting these brutes, though." SOPHIA quipped. She poked her head through the door. "No-one is coming, despite the noise...You do it."
Quite surprising that there was no-one coming after that ruckus...Not so surprising she asked you to do it. Of course a Fae one would leave the dirtiest work to you. You are a man of science and aren't afraid of a little grime...But executing a COHORT was not a little grime. It was a massive walking pile of grime that was out to kill you. Unfortunately, you think finishing this off will require quite a bit of force, just to make sure, as a small explosion only did so much damage...This was going to be disgusting.
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Do it.
You walk outside the door and do it. By which she means, you take his head and introduce it to a DRAGON CLAW, jamming your fingers into a weakened part of the skull. You turn your head to the left side, away from what is about to occur. "Ladies, don't look now!"
You proceed to remove the front of the skull entirely and give a good punch to the brain of this creature. You don't actually look at your damage, but you almost certainly knew it was fatal, and knew that you did not want to look at it. It would be just as bad as those industrial accidents.
Cohorts of Chaos vanquished: 1
You immediately use WATER GUN upon your hands afterwards to quickly wash that blood off of your hands, and a few times afterwards just to be sure. Black and disgusting. You immediately regret your choice of execution method.
"Disgusting. Absolutely filthy. Those industrial accidents are coming back to haunt me...Not doing that twice."
You don't look at the corpse again, period. You turn around to see SOPHIA, looking surprisingly deadpan after disregarding your advice entirely, and CUMULA...Not looking nearly as deadpan, to put it one way. In fact, she looked very green.
"Ugh, disgusting work...I've seen worse, but that's still not pleasant...Shame the brute will just come back later." SOPHIA quipped.
You don't even want to imagine worse.
CUMULA quickly took this opportunity to puke in a bin for a few seconds back inside the room. You think she now realizes exactly what she got into, though it might just be how gruesome it was and completely disregarding your advice. Or both. All things considered that's what you did when that first industrial accident happened, so you're not surprised nor judging.
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Investigate area.
You turn your head and make out the area you are currently in, now that the COHORT has been dispatched. This is the second and upper floor of this ship, almost certainly. Almost all ships had at least two floors-larger varieties had up to four. This was a small zeppelin, so it was almost certain that this floor was on the same as the captain's floor, and you know well that they keep the passenger and engineer floors separate. Most usually kept the engines and other systems in the lower floors if at all possible, by your recollection. You are no expert in the subject but you would like to find yoruself at least not ignorant. As no-one was rushing up to you, you took the time to give another message to Moria and RELOAD your GRENADE LAUNCHER.
<"Sorry for being chatty about this, Moria, but I'd at least keep you updated and aware rather than in the dark and unsure, I think...We've got one of those filthy scoundrels without much incident, the bugger didn't get time to attack before it was quickly taken care of. I suppose that's a good start to things-forgive me, I'm a scientist, not a soldier. I do make weapons, though! Many things, really. Anyways, considering how noisy that brief keruffle was...Well, I can presume that there really aren't that many people around, as no-one's coming to our location...I'll check the rooms for survivors now.">
You didn't want to bother her on the gruesome bits. That just seemed completely unnecessary. Meanwhile, CUMULA had stopped vomiting excessively, but she's still extensively shaky, while SOPHIA is still just standing there, alert but not particuarily phased.
"Just keep calm. You can do this. Just keep calm. You can do this. They're from the pits of hell. No pity for them. They're from the pits of hell. No pity for them. They want you dead. Don't let them get to you. They want you dead. Don't let them get to you...Professor? Can you...Not do that ever again? That was...AWFUL."
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Attempt to coerce CUMULA home while simultaneously consoling her.
"Let's not leave the question hanging, request granted, I'll not attempt to do that again. But more to the point...This was PRECISELY why I told you to go back home! It's THIS kind of scene that would occur and this was a lucky break! That and your mother is almost guaranteed to do equally unspeakable things to me as well for this, but the point stands, this was NOT the time to be going out for the simple sake of curiosity. Know your limits, I say! To be fair, I don't find it terribly pleasant either, but this is part of their game plan-intimidation and attacks on morale. Everything they are, everything they do-this is how they want to make you feel, and the state of affairs doesn't help matters at all. I warned you about this, and I would hope you've had a change of heart on this matter."
She's silent for a minute.
"I'm not going to press this anymore right now-there's at least one other abomination aboard and we have to check if the passengers are well. If the Abysmals got to them, well...I'll tell you if it's gruesome in there or not. For now, just keep out of our way and leave the fighting to the adults, OK?"
She sighs and nods.
You check the halls again. Eerily clear, but you're not going to complain. You would think your visions would help to at least tell you if any of these guys were invisible, as being invisible is one of the single most obnoxious abilities you could care to name. You then take the head. You're not entirely sure you want the Fae leading you, and CUMULA is out of the question.
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Check rooms for surviving passengers.
You investigate every room. However, in each room there is either nothing at all or a very bloody corpse, with the implication the ABYSMAL LICKITUNG took them out. None were very clean takeouts, though, as evidence on each and every bit implicates that there was a nasty fight that broke out every time. All of them were in varying states of being really dead (and by implication worse) and the only one that still had his head intact didn't have much else intact, to put it one way. You fail to find anything of note other than the four corpses of the passengers on this floor.
By the last room you checked with the fourth body, SOPHIA was looking rather annoyed. "Well, glad to know our little friend was weakened beforehand...And here I was thinking he wasn't all that dangerous and just got the drop on everyone. And he was not alone, may I remind you? His buddy must still be alive and piloting, otherwise we would have crashed a long time ago..."
"Now, we can either check the lower floor to see if any of the crew survived...That's probably where they would be. The alternative is we can confront the other hijacker directly, assuming it's only two like you said."
"I would, uh, rather check the lower decks first..." CUMULA said. "Maybe they just ran down there?"
You hardly blame her for sounding like she lost a lot of her previous moxie. To be fair, you weren't all that happy about it either, that was horrendous from start to finish, and the only reason you're not joining her is because you already did that some time ago dealing with those industrial accidents, and you still dread those.
Suddenly, the ship's intercom buzzed to life.
"KythRUS oRDerSss youR DEatH, INdigO oNe..."
You stand attentive, as do CUMULA and SOPHIA, ready for anything, but you can't really respond. The voice itself was horrendous, like a multitude of vastly different Pokemon were trying to make an echo effect with poor results. It also sounded like it was having a bit of a hard time speaking.
"YOU alREADy GOt to mY LEssEr BEing...BUT I AM STILL HERE...aND I wiLL meRRILy conTINUE THiS flIghT to JaNSeN, unINTERrupTeD. nOw, a QUeSTion...To DIe nOw, OR laTER?"
Oh come on.
"I'm WAITinG On YoU, inDIGO onE...Don'T BE boRINg...COME TO ME! COME TO DEATH!"
The intercom shuts off.
"Well. He's certainly interesting...And who's this Krythus fellow? I've heard of the Brothers of Doom, Zaiaku, and even Xov...This guy, though, doesn't even ring a bell. Professor?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know who he is either...Could just be a small commander."
"Great...So, I guess this is a change of plans?" CUMULA said. It seemed she's gotten some form of stability back to her now, though you still don't hear her moxie.
-=> Professor McYarglefargle: Respond.
"Yes...Heading to Jansen right now is going to be a very poor move to allow." You say. "We get rid of him first."
"Hopefully that brute doesn't have friends." SOPHIA quipped.
You hope likewise. This day has been positively stuffed to the gills with excitement, and it's entirely too much for you.
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