Rebel_Scum

"And we can't help but wonder, is the energy lost in conversion more or less that the energy expended trying to fend off people like us?", Paxtera asked curiously, inwardly amused at how civil this discussion was when only a few moments ago they'd been beating each other up. "We assume you factored that in when doing your math, yes?"

"Again with the assumptions", was all the peacebringer said in reply, as the elven contingent arrived. "And the cavalry arrives right on time.", she commented, before looking around curiously as the world seemed to slow down around her... nope, she didn't do that. And it wasn't what she thought it was, ok.

"It does, yeah", Kethara agreed. "So we just be sure to not bother it too much. Like that go back to stop it happening thing, as I understand it that either flat doesn't work or causes the universe to implode, depending on which theory you're looking at." Oddly she seemed to have near absolute certainty that they could do it - if they were careful and did it properly.

"And no, Portal Corp can't. But Mum might be able to if you ask her nicely", she answered Cerelassion.

"The hell I wouldn't", Ildela started to say, but a stern look from her mother silenced her. For now.

"You assume you would actually have a few hours in which to do it", Paxtera replied, looking back to Tafari. "Consider how long it took us to find you, and decide for yourself if that's really a reasonable assumption. Besides... why are you so set on specifically here anyway? Surely in a place like Patches there's an energy source somewhere that no one will mind you taking. Hell, go drain the power out of a few of those harvester robots out in the ruined city. People would probably encourage you doing that."

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"That could probably be arranged...", Kethara mused quietly to herself, though easily loud enough for the elf to overhear.

Indeed it didn't really achieve a hell of a lot in terms of actual damage, but the explosive detonation of energy right behind her was more than enough to fling her, shields and all, into the air and away from him. Thankfully she recovered in time, her ability to fly saving her from an inconvenient and highly undignificed facefirst landing. "Oh, that's so not fair", she commented.

Ildela just grinned at him again. "Well, if you actually try to fight instead of concentrating so much on looking good while doing it..." She shrugged. That in itself was actually the reason for her shields being invisible unless struck - excess energy creating such a visible effect was far better utilised in actually making the shield stronger.

Paxtera just gave her daughter a long-suffering look. Capable of taking care of herself she might be, but she really did need to learn when to not take things any further. To Tafari, the peacebringer didn't even bother giving an answer.

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"You should talk to the guys at Portal Corp", Kethara suggested. "They know all kinds of stuff about moving things between dimensions. Maybe not quite 'most of Paragon' sort of things, but I'd imagine they're learning real quick. Humans are kinda like that, very adaptive."

Ildela may be many things, but overly attentive wasn't one of them. Thus, it indeed came as a complete surprise when he rushed at her. But her defense was not to stab him, no. It was to slash him across the face with one sword, then stab him with the other. Not that it mattered, while it probably hurt a little it did nothing to stop him grabbing her. Oddly though, she seemed completely unbothered by that. "Ok, so you got me. Whatever shall I do", she commented, again seeming wholely unconcerned as her shields shimmered and flickered around her, keeping him off her but only just.

And then of course the reason for her lack of concern showed itself, as she winked playfully at him before dissolving into a cloud of some sort of shadowy energy, streaming out of his grasp and around him to reform behind him. She then proceeded to grin deviously, and ram her swords into his back hopefully while he was still too busy wondering what the hell just happened to defend himself.

Paxtera, meanwhile, seemed equally unconcerned at Tafari ignoring her. She knew she wasn't really doing much to him, after all. And she also knew her daughter was fully capable of taking care of herself. But hey, if he was going to ignore her like that then why not play support for a while? Reverting back to human form, she pointed a hand at Ildela and in a flash of greenish energy, neatly undid a good chunk of the damage Tafari had inflicted on her.

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"Sounds like a plan to me", Kethara commented, following them away. Aside from that comment though, she seemed content to just listen like she had been doing, rather than add her two cents to everything. One thing though, she just had to comment on.

"Why just focus on surviving?", the young peacebringer asked. "Why not work with said allies, and find a way to get back to wherever you came from? I mean between everyone, surely we have enough brainpower to figure something out eventually right?"

Too late. She was already there, was already quite literally in the process of stabbing him when his power sink went off. In fact, aside from draining her energy some and of course disrupting her stealth (or more accurately, disrupting the flow of energy to a small device in her pocket which amplified her natural ability to turn invisible) it actually proved helpful, as Tafari was more concentrated on draining than on defending himself. So, she embedded her swords in his back as he spun round to punch at her.

Upon which he ran into another minor problem. Her energy shield was very much still present and still boosted by Lazardarus's magic. His energy-charged punches produced nothing more than a shimmering lightshow in the air between them as they rebounded off the previously invisible field surrounding her. She gave him a 'did you really expect that to work' sort of look before commenting, "I'll have that back, thanks." Concentrating, a pale blue energy field expanded off of her, sapping whatever it could grab from the immediate surroundings - including Tafari, though his resistance to such would shield him from the worst of it. Everything else around her however had no such protection, and thus the grass she stood on wilted slightly as parts of its lifeforce were siphoned off. By no means lethally large parts though, unlike Tafari she wasn't so greedy as to destroy everything around her. She took just enough to restore what Tafari had taken from her.

Paxtera meanwhile shrugged to herself as Tafari turned away from her, then swooped down while he was distracted to deliver a massive double-fisted strike that let off an almost incandescent light from the point of impact. Not really wishing to remain in smashing range in her comparatively squishy human form, she then proceeded to shift back to the Dwarf. And punch him again, just for good measure.

Sadly while hitting a stationary target at such a speed was about as easy as normal, hitting a target that's actively trying to avoid being hit while going past at superspeed? Not so easy. Thus, it was only the edge fo the shockwave that caught Paxtera. Perhaps not so unexpectedly, she wasn't knocked of her feet as she maybe should be. She turned to face him as he stopped and started back toward her.

"Murderous rampage when things don't go your way.... nope, still doing nothing at all to break the stereotype", the peacebringer commented oh so calmly. She then jumped into the air and stayed there, since if Tafari couldn't reach her then he of course couldn't hit her. She started slinging energy bolts at him, not because she thought they'd be effective but rather to keep him too distracted to notice the stalker creeping up behind him. Assuming he didn't, Ildela was planning to give him two large messy stab wounds as close to straight through the heart as she could get them.

On a somewhat related note, that almost perfectly describes one of my characters. I think I'm gonna have to pull out of this though, sorry.

"Probably", Kethara replied, shrugging. "No idea what though, only powers I have are all energy-based, and that guy has armor MADE of energy. So.... yeah, not like I can do much."

Now, one would think the same line of reasoning would apply to Paxtera too. But she had the advantage of having full control of her powers, while her daughter was still learning. And Kheldians by their very nature are resistant to energy-based attacks, even when making no attempt to be so. Of course, when they DID want to be so, they were almost as resilient to it as Tafari was. The Dwarf form in particular was highly resilient to almost everything. So, naturally it was that form which the peacebringer chose to shift into.

"Oh, NOW he's gonna get it", Kethara commented to Akat, watching.

And he might be, too, as Paxtera quite casually backhanded him across the face with one massive claw. Being a peacebringer there was of course some amount of energy in it, but it carried a fair amount of physical force, too. And not only that but in Dwarf form she possessed an ability much like tanker class heroes and their odd power to infuriate people far more than they reasonably should. She'd never really figured out exactly why she did, but regardless Tafari would for the next ten seconds or so find it very difficult to focus on anyone other than her. And that was assuming she didn't hit him again.

Ildela, of course, was well aware of this and intended to take full advantage of it. Thus freed from any potential retalliation at her attack, she took a moment to throw a casual salute to Lazardarus before disappearing again. And, since it worked so very well the first time around, she set about again gathering up a big gob of whatever that stuff was to throw at him, from a completely different direction as the first one so he wouldn't be expecting it. Well he probably would be expecting it, but with no way to tell which way it would come from...

Indeed she would, but she wasn't so stupid as to wade into that storm of energy surrounding him to do it. True, stabbing him in the back would be more effective than what she was about to do. But, doing that would likely get her hit by the lightning around him and disrupt her stealth, thus rendering her unable to stab him in the back. So instead, she pointed a hand at him. Bracing it with her other hand, she started gathering.... something... around it. Even she wasn't sure what this stuff really was, but the fact remained that in about six seconds there'd be a hell of a lot of it heading for Tafari. The firing of which would of course render her visible, but she wasn't too worried about that. Until she actually fired she was stil invisible. All Tafari might have to indicate she was gonna shoot at him would be the faint hiss it made as she was charging it. And after she fired she could simply fly away and wait for her stealth to start working again, then come back and shoot him some more.

"Odd, you complain about us assuming things because you come from the Isles.... yet in every way you act exactly as the stereotype...", Paxtera commented rather sarcastically, before rising into the air and flying over, not to attack him but to grab the elf and get her out of immediate smashing range. Chances were she'd take a smash or two herself in the process but she didn't care too much, it'd hardly be the first nor would it be the last hit she'd take over the years.

Kethara meanwhile all but ignored the fight, instead responding to Akat, "He was a robot, they don't sleep. Suddenly being organic, maybe all that time awake caught up with him?"

Perhaps she did and perhaps she didn't. Perhaps he merely wasn't looking in the right direction, after all she'd shown neither the ability to fly nor any indication she had it in his presence so he really had no reason to look up to find her. So unless he was very much unlike the vast majority of people and would look up with no real reason to do so he likely wouldn't find her, regardless of whether she had some enhanced form of stealth.

"So... complete fool it is, then?", Paxtera asked, still perfectly calm despite things rapidly going to hell around her. "And an arrogant one, at that. Do you really believe you can take on all of us, and there be any other outcome than your defeat?" Obviously she'd been outside the radius of his attack.

Oddly, neither her nor either of her daughters attacked him in any fashion just yet.

This. So very much, this. Only PM I've ever sent to a dev (that I remember) was when the dominator changes were on the test server to ask why the same logic that got it buffed for dominators didn't also get it buffed for controllers. Never got a reply to that PM either.

"And again, with the assumptions. What real definite evidence do you have that it won't? Have you been in this situation, exactly, before now?" Oddly, Paxtera spoke as if she believed this to be an actual possibility. Which, really, it was for many people in the Isles. "And if not, what makes you so absolutely certain, even in the face of the people who live here and thus likely understand this place better than any of us saying you're going to do serious harm?"

"That won't be necessary", the peacebringer stated flatly. Her daughter on the other hand, promptly vanished. Tafari and others might note the sword she'd thrown at him was nowhere to be seen, as if it'd disappeared the moment it hit the ground after hitting him. Which it in fact hadn't, it had only disappeared once no one was looking directly at it. The stalker on the other hand disappeared regardless of if someone was looking at her, simply fading out of sight. Even her shield and the energy that composed it was all but undetectable, as thought it and her straight weren't there. The only thing that might give her away would be the sound of her moving about, if she did. It was dampened but still there. Likewise, she still had physical presence. So if someone literally bumped into her, they'd of course know where she was.

"I can't move him, I think we already established that...", the younger peacebringer replied, shrugging helplessly. Not that it stopped her coming over and trying to help move him if she could.

At that, Paxtera frowned and shook her head sadly. "Some people just never seem to get the point...", she muttered to herself before raising her voice a little to speak to Tafari. "Again with the self-centred attitude. Whether they're not doing anything with it or you have a better use for it is irrelevent. It isn't yours, it's theirs. You have no right to take it, period."

While her mother seemed to want to solve this with words, Ildela had a more... direct solution. When Tafari mentioned throwing something other than energy at him she shrugged and commented, "Ok then." She then reached over her shoulder to grab one of the swords strapped to her back. Then, almost faster than the eye could see she whipped it out of its sheath and in the same motion hurled it at Tafari, spinning end over end in the air before (if he didn't dodge or otherwise evade it) embedding itself in his forehead. Or in the side or back of his head, depending on which way he was facing. The sword of course was most definitely not made of energy, rather being a purely physical object possibly made of any number of metals from common steel all the way up to impervium.

Kethara meanwhile was looking at the gathering Fey creatures. "Umm.... guys? We might want to move. Like, right now."

"Just have to go out of your way to upset the locals, don't you...", Paxtera commented, sighing quietly. She wouldn't intervene though unless the elves asked her to. Or if that energy draining field he was using expanded and started sapping her energy too. Then, she would become rather upset.

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Toy's scan of Ildela would produce nothing particularly out of the ordinary, by Rogue Isles standards. She appeared to be surrounded by some form of invisible energy barrier, but aside from that she didn't appear to have any other powers. Oddly, despite the definite presense of the aforementioned energy barrier, she didn't seem capable of actually projecting such a thing, nor did she have devices or magical artifacts on her person to do it. So where was it coming from? Who knew. What was definite though was the pair of sheathes strapped to the back of her trenchcoat, and the slightly curved sword sitting in each one. Odds were she was fairly proficient in their use.

"Ildela", she answered. "Bladed Mirage, if you want fancy pseudonyms. And the kid over there is...." She trailed off, looking over at her sister. "Actually what is your name, kid? Don't think you ever told me."

"Kethara", the kid in question supplied helpfully. Figuring the Khelari had everything well in hand regarding Trisys, she went over and extended a hand for Toy to shake.

"Now what would be the point of being a time traveller if we can't act like we know things you don't?", Pax asked, doing her best to look innocent and likely failing miserably. She followed him over to where the 'meteor' had crashed, saying nothing in response to his comments about the elves. Because he was right, the ones at the gate at least really did seem far too trigger-happy.

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"Incoming", Ildela and Kethara both commented in the exact same deadpan tone, just before the android smashed into the ground nearby. Whether they'd actually known he was going to fall then and there or if they'd merely heard the crashes as he hit trees above them, who knew.

Ildela couldn't help but smile to herself at the Elven noblewoman's unflappable calm through all of this. No matter how many elves she met, their ability to be completely unbothered by just about anything always amused her. "We can leave, if you want. Maybe the chaos will leave with us?", she asked as she followed the elf over to where the android had crashed, before stopping at the edge of the crater and raising an eyebrow. "Hey, I know that guy. Well, I know of him at least." And so she did. He had something of a reputation, and there weren't that many rainbow androids in the Isles to get him mixed up with. "Toy Dispenser, right?", she asked him.

Kethara meanwhile stayed with Trisys and her master. "I'm not sure that's the best idea", she cautioned Lazardarus. "I mean, he was a robot for gods know how long, and last I checked robots don't sleep. So, being turned into a living being again... Well I know what the first thing I'd do would be.

"No, not really", Paxtera replied. "We were, once... A very long time ago. As for getting them home... all things in time. Forgive us for not being as self-absorbed as you are."

"Just a word of advice though... you may want to drop the stuck-up attitude before you offend someone with it and find out you're not actually as awesome as you think you are. Just saying." She shrugged. Wasn't really her fault if he didn't and got smacked down by something for it, but it wasn't in her nature to not give the warning.

"Not exactly, no. Same dimension, different part of it", Ildela replied. "Can probably get you in to see the powers that be though, if you wanted to talk to them."

Kethara meanwhile assisted Trisys in finding out... well, she wasn't sure entirely what. But she was helping anyway, moving as directed.

"Given this is his home, he does have that right", Paxtera told him, before turning to the commander with an apologetic expression. "Apologies, he's from the Rogue Isles. One of many with a vastly overinflated idea of their own importance. We'll try to keep him from starting too much trouble."

"Then we suggest you get into a better mood, before you irritate someone you really shouldn't", Paxtera replied. Whether she meant herself or someone else was unclear. She could in fact not identify the energy he possessed, but that didn't particularly bother her. It was hardly the first such energy she'd encountered in her long life, nor would it be the last. Not that it mattered particularly much, energy was energy regardless. And being a Kheldian, she was fairly resistant to energy.

Apparently unbothered by his hostile manner, she proceeded through the gate once the elves opened it.

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"I'll help if you want", Kethara offered, going over to her and standing in front of her as she'd asked, so she could see her.

Ildela, having nothing better to do, found a wall to sit down against. She drew one of her swords, pulled an odd looking stone from her pocket and started sharpening it.