DeviousMe

Not quite. Jade had noticed. However, when Bisys continued to speak and seemed to be acting normally (or at least in a way the Dragon could interpret as 'normal' in her current state), he didn't remark upon it. Instead, he looked to Paxtera in tandem with the metaloid satyr, hoping she could indeed help.

Akat meanwhile seemed downright oblivious, circling the Plant man in the manner of a curious cat. She didn't say much, instead spending her attention looking the creature over from top to bottom, though she did find the time to respond to his statement with a simple, "Neat."

In fact, it was only due to this relative quiet that Jade heard it. Well, more got the slightest wind of it. He didn't even know what 'it' was, at least not at first. But after a few seconds of listening for it, the 'flaps' of his ears spreading and widening to 'catch' the sound better, he did know that he wasn't just imagining things.

"The heck is that...?" he mumbled quietly, focusing his senses intently in the direction of the faint, clearly very distant sound. Still, it was there, "Some kind of...beating...?"
__________________

Ildela's idea bore swift fruit - and thanks to Patches, probably much more than expected. Not only did she quickly pick up on the machines' communications, but she also found she understood them plain as day. Despite their terse, purely digital format, they came across to her just as fluidly as if the machines spoke ordinary English.

Unfortunately, they weren't saying much.

'This part has failed' was the most common message, usually followed by a confirmation thereof and an order to a maintenance unit to put that part on its list, though there were also things like diagnostic reports and declarations of standby and 'awaiting orders'. All in all, the whole 'city' seemed comparable to one large machine on standby. It was as if Ildela was inside a gargantuan desktop PC with its user 'afk' - it was running the programs left going, but not doing anything new, instead waiting for instructions.

Of course, that didn't mean it wasn't doing anything. Like Ildela had observed, there was indeed activity all over the place, and not just in the 'city'. It may have fallen under the category of pre-programmed response, but that didn't make much difference when an event for which the appropriate program had been left running occurred.

Such as a gathering of Drokar bones and humans near a fire.

Ildela observed the response in virtually the same instant as the report had come in.

DEPLOY REAVER UNIT TO LOCATION_

"Whoa now, hang on there just a minute." Jade stepped beside and slightly ahead of Bisys, the clawed fingers of his hands coming to rest over her shoulders while the corresponding wing curled protectively about her back and other side. His eyes inspected the group of Marbles with suspicion, "If these guys don't trust you, why should we? No, I don't like this at all. If you're trying to hurt her, well, you just forget about that here and now. Got that?"

He glanced to Paxtera, and then down to Bisys, "It's up to you, but I'd feel a lot better if she went and...huh?"

The Tree ship almost instantly drew the bulk of his attention as it lifted off, the magic that propelled it logically snatching up some of the Dragon's senses like a magnet might a nail. Akat was similarly enraptured, though the Khelari's interest was more one of simple, curious marvel than any particular common relation. It was sheer, childlike amazement that held her gaze to the vessel's maneuvers, and as a result she never even noticed the arthropod emerge from the path she'd been about to take before the spectacle had begun - a spectacle she watched with quiet awe until the very last moment.

"Wooooooow..." Patches translated her expression of wonder as she stepped forward to approach the 'crewman', "Ready for what? Are you the autopilot? What do you run at?"

"Yes, um..." Jade couldn't help but be curious as well, despite being somewhat weirded out now, "What exactly are you ready for?"

Meanwhile, Ildela's entrance into the 'city' - assuming she wasn't detected of course, which wasn't too likely - would progress much like her mother's in Dwarf form; rather uneventful. The artillery that scanned the horizon and the interior alike kept doing just that, and the machines that maintained the structure continued to do their jobs. Indeed, even the 'walls' her mother had encountered were still there and untouched, the entire monstrous assembly of metal and machinery in exactly the same state as it had been for the past few hours.

As well as the past few hundred years...

((Haha, I return...well, sorta. I'm using the office net right now, so don't expect much postage, but I can log on every now and then. ))

"Wait, what?" Jade questioned at the Marble's words, taking the acorn from the pocket of his jacket that he'd stuck the thing in, and examined it with a curious glance before turning to look back to Bisys, "I thought that this here was it?"

Meanwhile, the Harvester still headed where Paxtera had been earlier - to the Twin Cities. Well, the 'functioning' one, at least. If its defenses spotted the machine's tail, the reaction would be the same as before. If not, well, there logically wouldn't be a reaction...

"We might be able to do something about that if I can wake up a few architects." Akat remarked to Dr. Mechano's elaboration, "They'd probably jump at the chance to throw a city to another universe."

"Erm..." Jade regarded her with a tad of trepidation, the mental image those words had produced just a little frightening, "I...guess it's worth a shot, right? Where can we find them?"

"Oh, you wouldn't survive there." the Khelari smiled with a shake of her head, "It's past the transition zone. I'll go get some. Shouldn't take long."

As she started to guide her steps back toward the range runner, Jade passed the thoughts through his head again. The people of Paragon, or at least the city government, would have to know about this. He'd have to go back and tell them...
__________________

OOC:

Okay, here's the deal: starting tomorrow, I have no idea if I'll have internet access for the next 6 months. If I do, feel free to join my characters where they're going, hold them back from doing so, etc. If I don't, Akat will return to the Khelaris patch and encounter something that prevents her from returning, and Yydr, please have Jade do whatever he'd need to in order for you to keep playing Bisys with the rest of the guys. I really hope I can make it back here soon, but if not...well, it's been fun, I had a great time writing with yalls, and I'll see ya when I see ya.

Pardon the terse exit, but starting tomorrow, I have no idea whether or not I'll have internet access for the next 6 months. If so, Sage will reappear in some comically random spot quite soon. If not, well, I guess I'll see ya when I see ya.

Need? Probably not. Want? Probably so. The Illusionist not only found himself in Hell a moment later, but also discovered a rather disturbing fact.

Sage had disappeared - the car had no driver!

Though this didn't really seem to bother it, the Lamborghini coming to a stop on the gateway's other side just as normally as if someone had stepped on the brakes, the vanishing act was likely highly disconcerting...

"You guys have great imaginations." Sage laughed before sliding backwards into the driver's seat like some giant octopus. He looked back to the Illusionist, smiling widely, "'Specially you. I like you."

Whether or not this was a good thing he didn't say, the Vrakht turning his attention to the departure. He didn't want to run over the people walking into the doorway...well, not enough to actually do it, at least. So he waited for them to file through, as well as for any others who wanted a ride from him to enter the Lamborghini. Once that was done, he gunned it.

"Later!" he shouted and waved to Azuria out the open window in tandem with the unnatural roar of the abnormal vehicle's engine, "I'll be back for the deal with the thing!"

And with that they went through...

"P-shaw." Kasha snickered at the Illusionist, "I never have any thoughts at all."

Whether that response had been meant to reassure or frighten was uncertain, as either ay Sage's attention was drawn by by mages entering the gate and vanishing into the whispering darkness inside. He turned to Azuria, though adressed the gorup at large as well, "Uhh, wait - you guys want to walk through Hell? Padron the pun, but hell no. That's just not done. Okay, we're taking my car."

A snap of his fingers later, a downright demonic roar bellowed forth from the blackness in the huge doorway, though those present would find it had much more in common with some monstrous engine than a monster. Of course, the two might well have been one and the same, namely in the form of the jet-black Lamborghini Diablo that literally leaped from the gate and came down on the floor of the MAGI office with loud report, tires screeching as the car skidded sideways to a stop.

Sporting a modified layout of four seats, the car may have looked normal enough, even the seemingly fluid flecks of silver chrome that decorated its chassis here and there possibly being of this world, but just about anyone able to sense it would undoubtedly know it was not. It may have looked like one, may have carried oversized exhaust pipes, but there was no doubt about it: there was nothing in those pipes; at least nothing of the physical world.

"Hop in." Sage gave an inverse nod toward the vehicle as he stepped toward the driver door, "Trust me, you don't wanna walk through Hell. You'll get the foot burn..."

((I've lost track of what time of day it is, but I think I remember describing the sun starting to set sometime back - so if you feel like it, feel free to delcare it nightfall and hop over. ))

"Flatterer." Akat grinned back to Dr. Mechano, curling the tip of her tail about Dr. Mechano's right leg and letting it slide down and away as she passed him. Following to the Heart Tree, she turned her attention to one of the elves walking with them, "Hey, you don't have any more of those robes, do you? It's still cold here."

Jade's attention, on the other hand, had latched onto the scientist the moment he'd spoken that last sentence and remained there all the way to the tree.

"Auto-return?" he questioned with great interest, "Wait, so you mean you have a way home? How? Can we use it to bring Paragon City back to Earth? Or this forest back to where it belongs?"

Meanwhile, the Khelari's chief interest had shifted to the Heart Tree, Akat having never seen something that big made out of wood. It thus took her a few moments to realize she'd even been asked a question, finally turning to Lady Aineruda, "Huh? Oh. Um...I don't know. We don't have trees made out of wood on Khelaris..."

"Fine, fine." Kasha breathed with slight despondence. Why was everyone around here always so serious? Oh well. At least that Illusionist character looked to have a sense of humor. The Vrakht smirked deviously as he took a knee, placing the palm of an orange hand against the floor, "But remember: you asked for it."

Then it happened, from one instant to another. It didn't even look like Sage had done anything, and this did come pretty close to the truth, but regardless of noted action, the reaction stood there plain as day.

The gate.

With a sound of hollow thunder, like that of some titanic bell having been swiftly struck and then silenced just as abruptly, the gate had appeared. At least five stories high and nearly half as wide, it stood right behind Kasha in a space that by all logic should've been much too small for it to fit...and yet it did. Like some terrifying herald of chaos that openly declared defiance against the 'laws' of the physical world, it towered and loomed, the pitch-black wood of its flanks and frame adorned with ornate, golden glyphs that spoke the verse of the traveling word.

And with a mighty grind, the gate swung open.

"All yours." Sage smiled casually to the group with near-closed eyes, standing once again, as if nothing about this was at all unusual. The vapid, whispering darkness within the doorway of course suggested otherwise...

The moment Paxtera assumed her Kurukt form, the hunter-killer did something rather strange, though probably not unexpected - at least for her.

It stopped firing.

The missiles veered off, not sharply, but still with noticeable course changes, as if their target had suddenly vanished. In a way, this was true. Like the artillery at the active of the Twin Cities, neither the hunter-killer nor its 'smart' munitions had any protocol in their programming to deal with a Kurukt. As a result, they did what they always did in regard to things that didn't fall into their known parameters.

They ignored it.

Granted, had Paxtera actually started assaulting the machine, the new form would've been classed as 'general threat' and received an 'avoid and defend' protocol, but seeing as how she didn't, that dubious honor fell instead to an incoming missile.

Half a second before it struck.

"Target destroyed." the smooth, neutral tone of the range runner's autopilot echoed casually through the cabin as the H-K came apart in a ball of temporarily distorted space and time, then hailed to the ground in pieces.

"That was fast." Jade remarked with a blink of impression, wondering just how the projectile had gotten from here to there so fast, not to mention without a sonic boom. That the weapon had been designed to operate with targets that often moved anywhere from a few thousand to several million kilometers per hour, as most asteroids did, didn't really cross his mind. Of course, the finger still digging around in his presently very widely fanned right ear, a result of Bisys all-waves broadcast, was somewhat of a distraction too, as was the ringing in his head it sought to combat, "Uhh, you got any more of those?"

"Seven." Akat gave a nod as she scrutinized the holographic overlay, which by now zoomed out and panned about, "I don't see any more right now, though."

"Okay." the Dragon returned with a like gesture, then turned and headed back down the ramp in search of the elven leaders, "Hey, guys - I think we're safe for the time being. You were talking something about seeds that was important, right? What's going on?"

The Khelari of course didn't stay where she was either, also curious as to just what was going on...

"Spoilsport." Sage smirked back at Pious, releasing the man, "And are you sure? If I did, who would take you?"

He turned to look at the newly arrived Illusionist, smiling warmly in his direction, "Ooh, I love magic. Can you make a table disappear? How about a motorcycle? Oh, uh, right - we taking your ride or mine...?"

1. Aye. Fun set, though not too powerful. Not for minmaxers.

2. Yep. I tend not to go too far into the specific movements, generally describing them abstractly as dodging and weaving around while shooting to give the enemy a tougher target. Sometimes I'll go more specific, like tossing the guns into the air to reach for new magazines and reload both at once, or flicking one by a corner and shooting it so it'll shoot what's around that corner without endangering the shooter, etc - you know, general 'expert gunslinger' stuff you can find all over.

Azuria's eyes went wide the moment Pious entered Kasha's 'personal space'. Still, she wasn't fast enough to save him. Virtually the instant the retraints came off, it was already too late. The Vrakht had made his move and latched onto the Priest with a warm, fuzzy hug.

"D'awww!" he exclaimed happily and with a wide smile, "I knew you liked me! We're going to make a great team, I just know it...!"

"Um, I'm not..." Jade looked about those assembled, his gaze coming to rest on Bisys, "Hey uh, can you let her know to get some distance? Send her a message or something?"

The hunter-killer meanwhile, knowing nothing of any of this, kept on its course toward Paxtera. Noting its first missile volley had been destroyed, it launched a second, then a third, and finally a fourth for good measure. It seemed to have been programmed with utterly no concept of overkill, and indeed it wasn't. So long as it had ammunition and a target, that was all that mattered.

Still, it wasn't exactly stupid. On the chance that the 'human' in its sights did away with these missiles as well, it deployed a pair of 24 mm chain guns and brought the barrels up to speed, preparing them to fire as soon as Paxtera came into range...

((Welcome back. Seen Mechano around anywhere? >_>))

The hunter-killer wasn't too smart, but even its programming had been given knowledge of something called an aeromine, which was the classification it gave to Paxtera's photon seekers once she'd left them a large enough distance behind her. As a result, they weren't given enough priority to shoot down, but certainly listed as things to be avoided.

The missiles didn't change targets either, nor did they veer out of the way of her energy blasts. They may have been smart enough to track (and lead) a moving target, but they certainly weren't clever enough to avoid incoming fire. They were fast though, and relatively small at a distance. A large enough barrage of energy blasts in their direction was liable to take them out however, as their lack of armor made them very susceptible to such fire.

"Okay." Jade meanwhile nodded to the Khelari indicating the wireframes on the holodisplay, "Can we do anything from here? Or do we need to go there to help?"

"Yes." Akat answered curtly, reaching her hand toward the controls of her chair's right armrest, "It's in range."

"Weapons system activated." the voice of the autopilot spoke almost the moment her fingers touched the metal, the model that indicated the H-K turning green in hue, "Missile armed. Acquiring target lock."

"It's designed to take out asteroids and debris." the Khelari commented, "But I'm pretty sure it can handle this. Can anyone tell her to not get close to it? I've never actually seen what a gravity missile does..."

"Um..." Jade's thoughts tied themselves in a knot for a moment, the Dragon blinking at Bisys with seeking eyes while he reached down to help her up, "I guess uh...you just did, yeah. Uhm, so...what just happened?"

He'd directed that question as much at her as toward the Khelari, looking at Akat when he spoke the final words, the scaleless reptilian standing there in somewhat of a daze. The hand that she'd placed on the hull served now more to support her than anything else.

"Whoa." she remarked with a grin, gradually regaining her balance, "That was pretty, heh...intense. I don't usually go that deep. What's this about seeds and leaves? Is it meal time? Because I could go for..."

"Okay, everybody stop." Jade interjected with both hands at this, addressing the round, "Right now. There's too many things going on at once here. We should take care of them one at a time. First we deal with the H-K. Then we can worry about your seeds. After that, we go destroy the machines, and then we focus on getting everyone back home. Uh, Akat, you said you can find out where the hunter-killer is, right?"

The Khelari but gave a shrug at this, turning toward the range runner and heading up the ramp into the ship, "Don't know. Let's go find out."

Inside, the runner looked much more like a human might imagine a traditional starship. The shapes and general architecture may still have been rather foreign, but plated with metal and the living composites, the place at least had a familiar feel. Several wide seats that could adapt to the contours of their users were attached to the floor, the frontmost presumably the pilot's, and from this side the forward dorsal hull formed a clear and fully transparent windshield. In addition, several harnesses and what looked to be cabinets held equipment, and finally there existed things that resembled control consoles, though those were apparently missing controls.

"Atmospheric cycling completed." a soft, somewhat monotonous, and yet still oddly welcoming tone announced from a hidden speaker system, its manner and pitch much like Akat's, "No adverse effects detected. All ship systems functioning."

Upon the approach of the Khelari to the forward chair, the formerly blank consoles came to life, lighting up with luminescent patters of dots and lines that even those with very little imagination could've identified. The voice announced almost happily, "Command interface enabled. Autopilot navigation online. Requesting new heading."

"Not just yet." Akat stated calmly as she sat down, placing the palm of her hand against the console directly before her, looking behind her a moment to Jade (and any others) who'd come in after her, "Let's see what we can find first."

As if that had been the command, the windshield darkened, a pale wireframe model of the local terrain appearing within a detailed display of graphs and glyphs, and quickly became not so local anymore upon the Khelari returning her attention to it. Though it chiefly moved and shifted when she passed her hand across or through the projection, it didn't seem to actually need any physical guidance. Either way, it soon identified a certain few dots on the display with text Akat recognized.

"I think that's it." she indicated the dot that represented the approaching H-K, as well as another approaching it - Paxtera, "And it looks like someone already found it."

Meanwhile, the aerial machine had done much the same in regard to the Kheldian. Of course, it didn't know she was a Kheldian. It didn't know about her energy shield either. To it, all that mattered was that enough parameters matched up to identify her as 'human', and therefore a target. The hunter-killer didn't waste any time. Even from beyond the horizon, it could fire quite reliably, and thus Paxtera found herself sighting not just the machine, but also no less than three inbound missiles, each packed with enough high-explosive yield to turn a bunker into a cauldron - and that wasn't all the machine had up its proverbial sleeve. Nets, chain guns, rockets, bombs, and more were part of its standard payload.

Despite this rather extensive arsenal however, defensively the machine had little going for it aside from speed - at least against a Kheldian, that was. Bullets and such it could resist just fine. Energy blasts? Not so much. It had decent maneuverability, but if Paxtera caught the thing with a well-placed energy blast, it'd end up with a hole through it in almost exactly the same manner as a certain Gre'shil in Boomtown had earlier...

"Maybe." the Vrakht gave Pious a suggestive smile before raising the hands bound behind his back to demonstratively move the chain. The smile became a soft, pleading frown, and his eyes sad and soulful, "You know, if you untied me, I could probably just call a Gate. Pretty please...?"

Y'know, after reading the intro to the RP thread, I think I'll go ahead and bring a different character.

1. Name: Sage (Kasha Athosien)

2. Species: Vrakht

3. Physical: Tall, lanky, and altogether too bony even for a Vrakht, a bipedal humanoid species possessing physical traits of hominid, reptilian, avian, and aquatic lifeforms. Roughly the size of a slightly above-average human, Kasha's body is covered from head to toe in a fine layer of white-to-deep orange microscales that mesh rather well with his short, wild, and falu red hair, the same hue present in his eyes. Small, somewhat dull claws grace the tips of his four0fngered hands, as well as each of the three large toes of his seemingly oversized feet, their width surprising considering that Vrakht are indeed plantigrade. His batlike ears are large and somewhat mobile thanks to their fan-like structure, and cerulean tattoos decorate the sides of his lower jaw and legs, as well as running down the entire length of Kasha's tail. While not fully prehensile, this fifth limb does form a useful counterbalance and is decently mobile.

4. Power: Immortality. Having made a deal with a powerful Prince of Hell, Kasha cannot truly die. If his body is killed (which surprisingly enough hasn't happened since the deal's inception), his spirit automatically returns to the City of Dis. From there, all he need do to obtain another is step back into the physical world...assuming the imps haven't backed up traffic again. Aside from this, Kasha has little more power than a very athletic human, though his speed and great flexibility do stem form his alien physiology.

5. Skills: Close-quarters martial marksman. While most people would agree that a gun is something best used from far away, Kasha finds that getting up-close and personal greatly extends his awareness of the situation. Nevertheless, he tries to avoid full-on melee engagements and isn't against resorting to long-range tactics should the situation calls for it. His ability to track things and individuals through terrain that by all logic should foil any such attempt is not unimpressive either.

6. Limitations: No intrinsic powers. Though often armed and armored better than many a super, without his gear, Kasha is little more of a threat than a human with military training. Luckily, he does have ways of calling such gear to him under certain circumstances.

7. Weakness: Kasha's lackadaisical and oft-cocky attitude has the tendency to get him into all sorts of trouble. The fact that his skills as an expert, undetectable covert operative exist mostly in his head doesn't help much either.

8. Reason: Has robbed MAGI of artifacts on several occasions. Time for some payback.

"Oof!" came from the counter not too far beside where Azuria stood as if in answer to Damsel's question, followed by a whiny, "Heeey, not so rough."

The burly, black-clad security officer who'd just slammed the wild-haired orange head of the Vrakht intruder down onto the counter only narrowed his eyes behind the dark sunglasses that complemented his bald head and deep-brown African skin tone well, "Quiet. You're lucky I don't just throw you out by your tail."

The Vrakht called Sage, or rather Kasha Athosien (though no one here knew him as that) only looked back at the officer with a silly, innocent grin. It made for a rather odd scene, what with the man holding the quasi-draconic-reptilian being by both his neck and the heavy chain of the cuffs that bound his hands together behind his back as if he might do something horrible at any given moment - and yet he didn't look even remotely threatening. Clothed in little more than a forest-green sleeveless shirt and a pair of pants that resembled urban combat fatigues (both of which stood in stark contrast with his orange-hued skin and falu-red hair and eyes), and visibly unarmed and unarmored, the chains that bound his hands, feet, and even tail into some weird, restrictive harness looked decidedly unnecessary.

"Aw c'mooon..." he pleaded in a soft tone that suggested he wasn't taking any of this seriously, further estranging the situation, "I didn't even do anything. Can't you just let me go?"

At this, the officer seemed to seize up, his eyes almost visibly bulging out behind his sunglasses, "Didn't...do...anything? You tried to break into the vault! Do you have any idea what we have to do to all those locks now?!"

"Not really no." Kasha shrugged as best he could in his position, "But I didn't actually go in."

"That's because we caught you!"

"Still didn't go in." the Vrakht looked back up at the officer, "But what if I made big cutesy eyes and said I was sorry anyway?"

At that, the officer deadpanned. It took him several seconds to muster the coherence to look at Azuria. The woman in turn gave but a sigh and a wave, indicating to the man that he should let the captive back up. When the officer pointed down at Kasha in a questioning manner, she retorted, "Yes Steve, I'm sure. He may not look it, but he has extensive experience with demons and related matters...and he still owes me for all the things he broke."

"Me?!" Kasha blinked in apparent surprise at this as he stood straight again, "Nuh-uh! That was totally the Behemoth! I didn't have anything to do with that!"

At this, Azuria seemed to lose it for just a moment, shouting back, "You were the reason it got out in the first place!"

"Ahem..." she cleared her throat almost the instant thereafter, regaining her composure, "My apologies. He has that...effect. Don't let him get to you. He is much more knowledgeable than he lets on. I cannot say it will guarantee your safety, but we have an agreement. He will do his best to guide you through hell."

"Um, excuse me." Kasha piped up again, trying to raise a finger, but restricted by the chains, "About that, actually. Which hell is this? 'Cause you know, there's several and all that. I might not actually know anything about this one..."

"That's what I'm about to go find out." Akat answered Lady Aineruda, "But like I said, I really don't think it'll be able to take an impulse cannon and keep going."

"Now then..." she looked to Bisys with a gentle smile, reaching for her hand and taking it into her clawed fingers, "What do you do? You open your eyes."

For a few moments, that may have been confusing, especially as the scaleless reptilian closed her own. It didn't take long for the purpose to become fully apparent though, Bisys despite her now-mechanical nature beginning to feel...something.

"There you are." Akat remarked with a smirk, and moments later, it was all just...there. Bisys didn't just see and hear the world around her anymore as her awareness extended beyond her metal shell - probably much like it had been before, and yet still somehow different.

First there was the Khelari. Bisys felt her heartbeat, felt her life. Through her hand in turn was the range runner. No heartbeat, but nevertheless a pulse. A life of parts. Parts that included the marks of spirit. The blood wasn't on the runner...it was in it. It may not have flowed, but it was as much intrinsic to the ship as that in the veins of Akat. It wasn't spilled. It was life.

"Do you see it?" the reptilian inquired quietly, even as the awareness still extended. Through Akat's bare soles came the ground she stood upon, the fallen leaves and grasses of the forest. She felt the trees, the fey, everything that moved about - and everything that didn't. The decomposing leaves beneath their feet, the corpses of insects and animals being fed upon by the land, rocks, soil, the planet itself. She felt the world as the Khelari did, as a living, breathing entity. It was probably quite a familiar sensation. Everything had a part, everything had a place. She was even aware of the other planets in this system, of its sun and beyond. Her people didn't regard the vacuum as a barrier, but as a bridge. It had energy, and that made it alive. Differently, but still without denial.

"Both living and dead." Akat spoke to her, "Death isn't the opposite of life. It's just another part of it. If it didn't exist, neither would life. Can you see it? Everything's connected, even across space. Don't feel separate. You're a part of it too, here and now..."

((Yeah, I figured as much - I use costume slots for a shapeshifter character myself. ))

"Careful what you wish for." Akat ginned back to Dr. Mechano in response to his grin, her tail swaying to and fro in the patient, yet at the same time excited manner of a cat preparing to pounce upon a ball of yarn, "You just might get it."

"That's what I'm afraid of..." Jade muttered to himself almost silently, regarding first the Khelari, then Bisys again before taking a deep breath and speaking aloud, "Okay. If you're good with it, give it a try. But uh...be careful, okay? If anything starts getting weird, stop right away."

"Actually, I think I have a better idea." Akat interjected at this, the text having vanished from the runner's projection, signifying that the requested swap of atmosphere had cycled. She reached back up to the hologram and pushed her claws through it and onto the ship's hull, the runner responding by once more opening the entry ramp. This time, the only consequence thereof was a slight hiss of equalizing pressure.

Keeping her fingers in contact with the fuselage, the Khelari extended her free hand toward Bisys and motioned for the mecha-satyr to come toward her, "Take my hand. Let's see if we can make a connection..."

"Came from what?" Jade shook his head with vigor, trying to get the sharp stench from his nose and mouth, his manner thereof very comparable to a dog that had eaten peanut butter, "Eugh...the heck is that stuff?"

"Well, um...air." Akat answered with an awkward shrug, feeling a similar yrge to hide behind something, "At least it is where I come from. I...it kind of slipped my mind that it's not good for people not from Khelaris. Sorry about that."

The Dragon gave a muffled cough, but didn't otherwise reply. He'd gotten the idea and didn't want to make her more uncomfortable with details. He made a mental note to remember not to go wherever this At place was without...hey, wait a minute.

"Bisys?" he turned to look down at her, "Do you think you can sti...uh-oh. What's...right, the blood, isn't it? Let's go and get you somewhere else, okay? Or uh...hey, if I ask you to, can you make yourself...er, I guess you'd say immune to blood...?"

Not entirely sure, but I don't think I'd be interested. The thread's taken on too much grit and noir for my tastes and seems much more suited to the unshaven, chain-smoking detective than renegade supers with their own motivations now.