Home 24: A house in this market?

[Halae]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

In spite of the surprise she feels over the situation, Emily immediately steps forward - she knows the smell of cloroform, and what it means. Six darkly dressed men, carrying chloroform and an unconscious woman? Yeah, no, stumpy alcoholics they may be, but that doesn't change the scenario for her at all.

She steps forward, absolutely towering over the dwarves. With the lights not having been turned on they'll simply see a looming, jagged figure, red slitted eyes glinting in the darkness. and when she speaks, it's not a normal human voice - being very large comes with large lungs, a powerful diaphragm, and lung, and when she wants to be, she can be loud enough to be heard a block away from inside a building. when she speaks, it's with the weight of authority, and is very nearly a physical force in its own right. Authority that promises horrors unimaginable for those who disobey.

"You will put the woman down and submit yourselves, or I will be forced to correct you."

[Deathkeeper]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Domhnall scowls and draws his sword immediately. He smells villainy.

"Do as she says. Hands off the lass."

[Rebonack]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Geneva looks suitably flustered by all this.

"Bwah."

Yes.

Very eloquent.

[Earl of Purple]

Scaleback's Apartment

The dwarfs carrying the princess stick their hands in the air, dropping the elf lass. Fortunately, she's not falling that far- but she's still asleep, and can't do anything to stop her fall. She'll probably bruise. One of these two dwarfs is still holding a wet rag, but he hasn't noticed.

The dwarf that fell out of the cupboard yelps and curls into a ball, shuddering in fear. The two operating the arcane device deliberately push it over when they raise their hands, hoping it breaks when it hits the floor and isn't captured intact. The final dwarf, the one in the back, burrows behind Emily's best clothing, hoping he hasn't been spotted.

The brass sphere on its tripod hits the floor with a solid thunk and doesn't bounce once. (Unless Geneva catches it, since it's a planar traversal device, in which case she finds it surprisingly heavy, heavier than a brass sphere its size should be, even if it's a solid one- and judging by the rattle, this isn't solid- and very cold; not freezing, but considerably below room temperature.)

[Halae]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Emily reaches down to pick the girl up. She wasn't fast enough to prevent her falling to the floor, but Emily can carry a person in a single hand, and so she lifts the elven girl off the floor, her eyes never leaving the dwarves, "Domnhall, take the girl and put her in my bed. Geneva, my phone is on the kitchen counter, just off the living room. Call Intersection. I'll keep my eye on these yahoos while we wait for them to arrive." she'll hand the elf to Domnhall if he follows her order.

She is the picture of barely restrained violence. Sure, if they all charged at once, one of them might be able to get away from her clawed hands... but who'd be willing to go first? Who's willing to take the 15% (and change) chance that they'll be the one to make it through before she takes them down?

Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and Emily doesn't believe any of these dwarves are any different.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Oh yeah.

Khannie's got that one loud and clear!

She hops toward the wall, suddenly going misty and indistinct, allowing her to pass through unimpeded. The guard is rather surprised when she pops out right next to him, grabs him by the fact, and thwacks the back of his head into the wall with a thump. Down he goes. Out like a light.

That probably isn't a legal pokemon move.

But right now Khannie has more important business to see to. Bad guys!

She motions for Commissar to follow her while she pulls a key card out of the downed guard's pocket. Evil bases like this always use key cards!

[Starting Quests]

Commissar snickers and hurries after Khannie, giving the goon a good stomp for good measure as he goes.

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Domhnall nods, sheathing his sword and taking the unconscious woman. Luckily equine or not he knows that a bed looks like, and has no trouble moving her to the safety of the blankets. He'll stand there a while, standing guard.

[Rebonack]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

It takes a moment for Geneva's mind to process all of this.

A bunch of people.

In a closet.

With some sort of complex piece of what LOOKS like fancy thaumatics.

They just bridged in.

Into the closet.

They've no doubt totally fouled any chance of pristine readings.

She does have time to dive for the shiny teleportation array, if that is in fact what it is.

Thankfully she's part cat.

Cats are good at pouncing.

From her prone position on the floor she's already poking at the orb with one of her flight feathers, trying to get a feel for the magic that it operates on. It takes a couple seconds for Emily's request to register.

"Hm. What? Oh, Intersection! Right, that makes sense. This is probably a kidnapping," she says as she gathers herself back to her feet, tucking the orb under one wing as she lifts her left front leg up to her beak. That's a pretty fancy wrist computer she's wearing. "Call Intersection, emergency line."

A moment or two passes.

"This is Mrs Richards."

A beat.

"Yes, that Mrs Richards. We have some detained kidnappers here along with an incapacitated civilian. Yes. Mhmm, I'm sending my location now. No, they don't appear to be. Five minutes? Thank you."

That done?

She shoots a withering glare at the dwarfs.

"Do you have any idea what you just ruined?" she asks, unconsciously poofing up her feathers to look bigger. "I was going to help someone get home and your unscrupulous trans-planar caper just ruined the local space-time topography! It might take weeks or MONTHS to unravel the data now! What have you got to say for yourselves?"

A few seconds of fierce, intense bird glaring follows.

"Oh, and kidnapping people is wrong, too. You shouldn't do that."


[Starting Quests]

The goon makes an 'oof!' noise.

Khannie eases open the door, allowing she and Commissar to peek inside.

And what's inside?

Trouble.

"C'mon, c'mon. Keep those stones moving," a goon supervising other goons says. "The boss wants everything wrapped up here by tomorrow morning."

A group of goons are busy feeding elemental stones into what appears to be... a rock crusher? The sparkly dust coming out the other end of the machine is getting carefully measured and placed into little plastic baggies.

[Earl of Purple]

Scaleback's Apartment

The dwarfs don't move, glancing amongst themselves to see if any are brave enough to try and make a run for it. None of them are. They're surprised by Geneva talking, not realising she was intelligent- griffins and hippogriffs aren't, where they're from- and shuffle away when she fluffs herself up and starts yelling at them. The nearest dwarf, one that had been operating their device, speaks. "Ni ne parolas tiun lingvon." It's a lie, as it happens- they understand perfectly well what Geneva's saying. Well, mostly. The magic babble goes over most of their heads. They're just trying the 'can't speak English' defence.

The elf girl isn't very tall, and pretty light- lighter than a human her frame and build would be, and as that's 'slender' and 'just over five feet tall', she's really tiny. Domhnall can see that she's probably in her twenties, maybe younger or older- elves age slowly, and it's hard to tell.

The device, meanwhile, draws energy through shadows from a realm of darkness and shade, and works by opening a gateway through a recently-opened breech. It can't create a new one, and unfortunately for them, they weren't expecting to find themselves here. Chances are a different device was used when they started their kidnapping mission, one larger and less portable, and bad luck meant that when it came time to escape, their device sent them through a different hole in reality than intended.

[Halae]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

"Then we can add vandalization to the trespassing and kidnapping charges," Emily says in an even tone. Her hands remain spread out to guard against escape attempts.

Emily expects one of them to try to make a break for it if she keeps pushing. This is a good thing, because it'll be only one of them at the time, and he'll serve as a good example to the other ones what happens if she gets her hands on them... but the statement of crimes also ensures that they're aware she doesn't intend to hurt them unless they make it necessary. Two different sticks with no carrot, and one, at least right now, is significantly more painful than the other.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar looks at the goons. And at Khannie. He nods, and smacks his paws together.
Time for a sneak attack!
Well, he's going to let Khannie go first. She's better at this than he is.
But he can still bite stuff real good!

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Domhnall sticks his head in from the bedroom.
"Do you all want me to stay in here?" he asks, unsure what he should be helping with at the moment.

[Rebonack]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

"Don't you give me that," Geneva scolds the dwarfs. "You can understand what I'm saying perfectly fine. I have a friend and colleague who has extensively studied the Nexus' translation effect, and quite frankly you aren't fooling anyone here. You are in a lot of trouble here, so you may as well be forthcoming about it."

Honestly, Geneva isn't nearly as imposing as Emily is, but she's still a lion-sized apex predator. An intelligent one, too.

"Make sure the kidnapping victim is safe," Geneva calls out to Domhnall. "Lay her on her side, just in case."


[Starting Quests]

They have no idea what's going on.

But!

It is clearly something nefarious. Something a hero would need to put a stop to.

"Remember, keep it non-lethal. These are humans. They aren't as tough as pokemon," Khannie warns Commissar.

Then?

She draws her pistol, strides forward with imposing purpose, and pops the goon who was yelling at the other goons right between the shoulder blades. He looked like he was in charge, so putting him out of the picture should help disorganize all the minions! He twitches and electricity courses through him, going stiff and toppling over.

Down and out!

"Oh swearword, it's a cape!" one of the goons yells as hands go for pokeballs.

Three goons.

Three pokemon.

A raticate, a zubat, and a seviper!

How intimidating.

[billtodamax]

Fel's House

Damn right you do. Violet says, following Fel upstairs and enthusiastically drawing the curtain.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar briefly considers just leaping past the pokemon and biting the goons on the neck.
But Khannie would be upset if he hurt them.
Even if she knew about the sort of things these people got up to.
She shouldn't ever know that.

So instead Commissar does what he usually does, and starts spraying fire at the three measly pokemon, starting with the seviper as it seems the most threatening.

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Domhnall decides to do both, standing guard in the entrance to the bedroom. For now he has no idea what's going on even if he pretends otherwise.

[Earl of Purple]

Scaleback's Apartment

One of the dwarfs turns to the others."Iu audis pri ci tiu loko?" The others respond by nervously shaking their heads. He turns back to Geneva. "Vi estas freneza kata birdo, kaj mi vetas ke vi havas parazitojn." That's not a compliment; he's fishing to see if she knows what he's saying. None of them move, accepting their capture it seems. They aren't moving at all, not even to lower their hands.

The princess is quite asleep, and won't wake as she's moved onto her side.

[Halae]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

It's fairly clear the big crocodilian lady doesn't understand them, sadly. But she's very good at listening to tones, watching body movements, and can smell emotions. The end result is that while she doesn't understand what he's saying, she's fully prepared to harm them should they prove any kind of a threat.

They aren't yet, but that's no reason to drop your guard.

[Rebonack]

[Scaleback's Apartment]

Geneva is already poofed up, but if she could get MORE poofed up she probably would.

"How dare you!" she squawks indignantly. "I am not crazy and I'm completely parasite free, thankyou very much!"

She doesn't dispute the cat bird thing.

That isn't technically accurate, but it's at least partly accurate.

There's a good chance that she wouldn't object to Emily punching the mouthy one.

Just a little bit.

[Starting Quests]

A three on-one pokemon fight isn't very fair at all.

Not even a little bit! But why would a bunch of grunts and goons care about being fair?

Khannie blasts the poor rat pokemon with a burst of stone-shattering force, sending it sliding across the floor. It's out like a light. The flames from Commissar do a number on the snake, but it's still standing! It responds to the assault by GLAREing balefully at the hound! And the zubat? Well. It does what zubats do best. It shrieks really loudly, filling the air with a supersonic racket!

Commissar may find himself CONFUSED and PARALYZED at the same time.

How fun.

The Grunt with the fallen rat quickly recalls it and beats a hasty retreat!

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar is CONFUSED!
Luckily he's wearing sunglasses though, which prevents the effectiveness of gaze-based attacks.

With his warped perception of reality, the houndour does what medium-sized dogs that are confused do best. He goes to BITE anything that's near him!
This will most likely be one of the grunts or pokemon, if Khannie is keeping her distance.

[Rebonack]

[Starting Quests]

The nearest thing to Commissar is a lifelike statue of a Mister Mime that the Grunts no doubt stole from somewhere.

Why anyone would want to steal that is a mystery, but there it is.

If the pup doesn't bite a statue, he'll probably be chomping that snake again. Should he do so, the snek is down for the count! If not? Then the snake will bite HIM! Like. A poisonous bite. Not a dark Bite. That's a very important distinction.

The Zubat, meanwhile, takes a deep breath to shriek some more, only to get blasted in the mouth with a freezing bolt from Khannie's pistol. It makes a strangled noise and thuds to the floor, encased in a block of ice.

"Don't move or you're getting tazed next," Khannie yells at the remaining grunts. They look like they're taking her warning pretty seriously.

Good on them!

Because getting tazed sucks.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar gravitates to the snake to bite since it’s moving, unlike the statue.

Once those are all taken care of, Commissar looks around mindlessly, and finds the nearest moving thing is his tail, so while Khannie deals with the goons he’ll be chasing that.

[Rebonack]

[Starting Quests]

Good thing houndours have really short tails, otherwise this might be a problem.

"Listen, uh, whatever you are, we're just doin' our job, see? Ain't nothin' personal," one of the grunts stammers, obviously disinclined to get shot by the scary looking alien lady in the fancy high-tech armor.

Khannie hefts a box full of still intact evolution stones-

-and then sets on fire the little baggies full of crushed powder. She doesn't know what they were going to use the stuff for, but she has the feeling it was something bad.

For good measure she blasts some holes in their grinder, too.

The grunts look shocked, but they don't try to stop her.

"C'mon, Commissar, let's get out of here," she says as she starts heading toward the door.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

”BOOF.” says Commissar as his brain gets its bearings. He takes a particularly shiny stone in his mouth that had fallen to the floor in the scuffle, and follows Ghost out of the place, tail wagging.

He’ll present it to her once they’re out, since he can’t say anything while carrying it.

[Rebonack]

[Starting Quests]

Well.

That... actually went pretty great!

Khannie will head back to the pokemart with the stolen stones, of which the clerk will be quite grateful. She even gets offered a reward!

Which she has to decline.

That's part of being a super hero, you know?

You aren't allowed to take tips.

When all is said and done, she'll head back home, mostly because she's pretty exhausted. Her suit will be stuffed away in her closet and once she's out of it? Time to flop over on the bed.

"I hope dad isn't too mad about the safe," she mutters. "I wasn't really thinking right. As soon as I saw Miss Veronica on the TV it was like... I HAD to go on a quest."

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar proves he is not superhero material by accepting a biscuit tossed to him by the clerk.
And then Home! Commissar stows his hat...wherever it is he got it from. And then he curls up onto the bed with her.
”Big Boss loves you. Will be fine. But will need shopping.”
Indeed, Khannie will have to dig through her things to find clothes that fit her evolved form.
Her Kangaskhan hoodie still fits perfectly. Of course it does.

[Rebonack]

[Starting Quests]

"I know he does..." Khannie mutters. "I love him too..."

And?

Then she passes out.

This has been quite the day for her.

It'll be quite the surprise for Jace when he gets home, too.

Maybe she'll figure out how to cast Alter Self?

That would be pretty handy. She DOES still like being human. Guess that'll be an adventure for another time.

[Deathkeeper]

[Starting Quests]

Commissar curls up and falls asleep next to her, for the first time.
Jace will never know that she let him on the furniture. Though now that he can talk maybe he’s allowed.

[Richards Flat]

Nick Richards comes home from work late, as he usually does. He drops his helmet by the door along with the rest of his uniform on the hook. Nick Jr is conveniently with his friend Khannie tonight.
”Hellooooo?”

[Rebonack]

[Richards Flat]

Nick's call is met by silence.

For about five seconds.

"Huh...? Oh, hi Nick, I'm in the study!" comes the somewhat belated (and distracted sounding) reply.

That shouldn't come as much of a shock.

Geneva gets a bit spacey when she's thinking really hard about something. And while she tries to avoid bringing work home with her, every now and again she encounters a problem (or solution!) that she just can't wait on.

Evidentially that's what's going on right now.

The study is mostly just a place for books and a nice fireplace. Geneva doesn't keep much equipment at home. It's all back at the VIGIL lab. But right now? She's got something and she's poking at it with something else. The something is a fancy little orb with runes on it. The something else looks suspiciously like a sonic screwdriver.

[Deathkeeper]

Richards Flat

Nick gives an over dramatic sigh as he enters the study. He is very much used to this at this point. It’s a pretty regular thing.
”Let me guess, something came up and it couldn’t wait?” he asks her, grinning. Nick clinks his tail-ring against hers and brushes his wings against her hello.

[Rebonack]

[Richards Flat]

Geneva responds to the proximity with a gentle head-bonk. Her tone and body language, though, it's clear that she's excited about whatever this thing is.

"It couldn't! There was this Castaway who came up to VIGIL wanting to find his way home so of course Miss Mithar asked me to help since trans-universal bridges are my specialty and that was great since he had apparently come through a completely new bridge less than a day ago so I was excited to have the opportunity to run some tests since I don't get the chance very often and I was joking about how unlikely it was there would be another crossing event in the mean time but when we got there and opened the door it was full of dwarves!"

She throws her wings up in the air here.

Like, surprise!

Dwarves!

"And also an elf. They were kidnapping her. That's why I called Intersection. BUT! It wasn't a complete loss since they had this!" she points at the orb. "It's for opening pre-existing but inactive bridges. I haven't seen anything quite like it before and it's really fascinating! Once I figure out exactly how it works I can use those principles in my own designs. But it's being stubborn."

She narrows her eyes at the orb and whispers. "Yield me your secrets..."

[Deathkeeper]

Richards Flat

Nick returns the bonk. Bonk!
”Well, I did want to talk to you about another project. But if you’re too busy I can wait until next week...” he teases her, making like he’s going to leave the room right there and now.
Honestly this does seem like a pretty big discovery.
But he really isn’t interested right now. He has something else on his mind.

[Rebonack]

[Richards Flat]

"Another project?" Geneva replies, perking up at that.

Now he's speaking her language!

She sets the orb and the... whatever she's poking it with down. Nick has her full attention now.

"What did you have in mind? You've never asked me to look over any Intersection equipment before."

Well of course.

Of course she would assume that Nick is talking about some kind of mechanical engineering project.

What else would else would she assume?

Certainly not any other kind of engineering.