Confessor Ayla's Story

"Hold on to me, kid, I think I know what you were running from now!"

And with that, Kurt waved his hand and said what seemed to be a few nonsense syllables...and then the two of them, the old man and the injured cat woman Jazzimoré, were just...gone. Even before Ayla could chuck one of the Aschen's most potent weapons, the anti-magic grenade.

In a blind panic, unable to think straight, Jazzei obeyed, latching onto Kurt’s sleeve with the paw that wasn't broken...! And as the chaos that was now Gambit’s Bar began to dematerialise, Jazzei took one last look back at the Silver Stranger (whose name she still didn't know!) and tried to call out to him... but it was too late! All at once, Kurt Bannon uttered what sounded to her like nonsensical words, and the stranger vanished (along with everyone else!) as they whizzed through a wall of space and time, with Jazzei wondering vaguely if she would ever see him again…
And then came an unwelcome feeling... like she had left her stomach behind at the Bar! (It wasn't best pleased about it either!) “I think I'm going to be sick!” she muttered, before blacking out again...

Spike nodded, Aki was right, things were going to hell in a handbasket fast. "I agree" Spike said simply to Aki. "Hold tight" Spike said as she took hold of Aki's hand with her left hand once her wine was finished she set the cup on the table. It was time to get out of dodge while the getting was still good. The last thing Spike wanted it seemed, was to open a magic rift and have it get shattered and then out of complete control.

So naturally Spike opened a quick portal to....

Someplace else. Taking Aki with her to safety.

Then from there it was really on Aki to get them even safer

Munkus however mouthed a quick word of thanks to Kurt before heading for the back door, easily hopping the bar counter as Kurt and Jazzei disappeared as Munkus went after something, his senses were going overboard he knew Jazzei was being watched, he felt eyes even on him and Kurt as it was!

Ducking into the bars kitchen the workers on duty were bvriefly startled before pointing the way the other man had gone, Munkus bid his thanks and darted towards the side door to the alley

Things were spiralling fast, much, much faster than they should've been capable of. By the time EVE had relayed her combat analysis the bar had erupted, and everything went to shit. Ayla had just reached into the left sleeve of her robe, and had one hand on a grenade when the first set of people vanished. "Godsdamnit!" she swore internally, letting the anti-magic weapon go just as Spike, and Aki vanished as well. This was exactly what she had hoped to prevent, and it made the situation a lot less stable. Luckily for the Confessor though, Mantrid had spared no expense on her redesign, so despite being slated for the Adepts of War she sported truly beautiful neuroenhancements, and adapting on the go was always her speciality.

"Godsdamned mages," she snarled, that particular Aschen predjudiece suiting her just fine. "You'll get the chair for that, subhuman!"

Diverting her attention to EVE she set plan B into motion, "αστέρι μου," the endearment was mostly lost on the A.I, Ayla knew that, but it would still tell her cybernetic teammate more about her emotional state than any heartrate monitor could. She was livid. "Set a beacon on my position now, and prepair to yank me via Bifrost, I don't have a blink pack on, deploy Angel on my position immediately. Sorched Earth, but bag&tag trenchie.." She trailed off for a moment, rapidly calculating just how long a cross-solar round trip would take. She settled on a flexible eleven seconds, "And scramble Pheonix Gamma, we're giving chase to target Jazzimore only this time we're going in loud." Ayla was leading with her emotions front, and center now, as essentially raiding a Terran hospital was a flawed idea, but it didn't matter to her, or the Emperor. This backwater wanted to misbehave? She'd be ready with the rod.

"Tap into my anti-magic grenade supply when we hit Langara, synch detonation timers with my re-entry. I don't want to be screwed over by the same prick twice." With that she gave the trench-coated man a coy wink, and dropped from her comms channel. "I'd love to stay, and play Mr.Mysterious, but I have grown up people work to do. Why don't you enterain my friend instead though? She likes it rough."

On the wall, a poster, recently put up, read:

Grinning Ghoul Extravaganza Spectacular!!!
Join your host Cassius Countdankworth for a Cabaret and Burlesque show that you will never forget!
Why not enjoy a free spirit or two while you enjoy the entertainment? Which will include: pole dancing, fire juggling, knife throwing, acrobatics, singing and dancing, all performed by some of Terra’s finest beauties.
Starts 10pm on Saturday 1st December at The Grinning Ghoul! See you there!
roleplay/the-multiverse/places/the-grinning-ghoul

Five and a half seconds was the time it took to travel through the Bifrost between Terra, and Langara. When Ayla emerged, she should have been working a return trip to Terra to Bifrost into the hospital, but Marlene had other ideas, and opted to intercept the return trip.

Marlene was wearing scrubs, a surgical mask covering her face.

Making a face, Marlene spoke up. "You really wanted to go in loud? In one of the most heavily fortified positions on Terra?" The IIA Operative asked, canting her head.

"Might I propose a better solution?"

"OH JESUS!" Annebelle screamed as she looked behind her, "How the hell did you people get here??? I could have swore you weren't there just now..." Annabelle looked down confused for a second and looked back up "More importantly, what are you doing here? I mean you obviously don't work here, or you would know that they have different colors on different days.

Annabelle stood up slowly from her Sniper's nest inspecting the strange wemon.

The door to Gambit's Bar opened and a Yautja entered. Looking around the room, he walked over to the bar, took his helmet off and got seated on a stool. Taking what looked to be a human Sony Walkman TPS-L2 from 1979 out of his pouch, he inserted a Mixtape with human music that he found... interesting to listen to, put on his headphones and played some 80s human songs.

As a bartender approached him, he took the headphones off, paused the music and took a notepad out. Looking through it, he got out his pen and made some notes, before turning his attention towards the Bartender.

"Apologies for the wait. I was just trying to find a specific page in my notepad. So, I'll have a bottle of Argonian Ale. Should you not have any in stock, however, I'd be willing to order a flask of Velvet LeChance."

The bartender took his order and turned to go search the storerooms. Forsaken then put his Walkman headphones back on and continued listening to the Mixtape while he waited.

As soon as Ayla fully rematerialized she was breathless, not from transport shock, or even the crisp Tauron air, but from the stillness. And the perfume. Her eyes were closed tight; Adepts had very specially augmented optics to both increase clarity, and distance as well as flash reduction, but she still hadn't wanted to be disoriented from grenades she ordered EVE to detonated, but the scent told her everything. Above the clinical, almost sterile backround, and the ever lingering oder of the Victory Soap used by most of the operators of what she knew to be the Hub was Marlene Angel's perfume. It was subtle, surprisingly so, but the weak, vanilla notes curlded the Confessor's stomach. She could recognize it, and the other woman's shampoo from two Imperial miles away, enchanced olfactory capabilities, or not. Everything about Angel was burned in to her memory, and only when she was already a few seconds later would she open her eyes, teeth grit.

"I told EVE to send me directly to the HVT," she greated the spook with no lost love. "Is this your doing, Angel?"

Despite the frosty attitude Ayla still couldn't bring herself to actually look at the other. Her eyes wandered everywhere, but towards Marlene, and it was nothing new. Quite the contrary, the Confessor's refusal to even glimpse the agent, let alone make eye contact, had become quite legendary, and served as gossip-fuel within the Empire's Intelligences. A million theories, each more wild than the last, were routinely passed around in quite, safe moments, but none ever dared to broach the painfully obvious truth of it. Ayla had yet to truly recover from her brief stay in the Whispering Mountain, and even less so from Marlene's intimate violation of her very being via the Chair. It was a wound that even the astoundingly adaptive neurophysiology of her species couldn't heal, and so with great loathing she merely listened to her one time tormentor. Once Marlene finished however, Ayla stuck to her guns.

"You think it unwise?" She hissed, each syllable laced with a barely concealed venom. "You want to what, let me guess, sneak in as always? You spooks are about as one track as possible, and your arrogance has delay-" A sudden shift in her H.U.D cut her rant short; video feed from the IIA squad had been patched directly to her, each agents helm, visor, glasses, or implants giving her a front row seat to the violent outbreak at the hospital. She barely managed to catch Kesslee's timely exit amid the chaos. Swan cock, what else in Hades could go tits up? Clenching her jaw even tighter, Ayla did her best to maintain her composure with Marlene, though there was no doubt she laid the blame for this sudden snafu squarely at the other's feet. If that bitch just hadn't stuck her obviously silicon nose where it didn't belong..

Knowing full well that Marlene most likely had the same feeds patched in, and failing that precognition, she snorted. "A little late for your quiet approach I suppose. At least if you had left well enough alone it would've been me in there, not a bunch of useless thugs. Although.."

There was always opportunity in a chaotic theater of combat, and Ayla turned away to give herself a moment to think, crossing her arms over her chest in the process. Like always a rapid stream of tactical options cascaded through her warped mind, and though she didn't really have enough time to sort through each, and every option, she adapted to the situation in a heartbeat. "Okay Angel," Ayla generally refused to call Marlene by her given name, it simply felt too personal to her, "How about we switch it up? A comprimise." Perhaps it was a stroke of sudden genius, perhaps it was merely grasping at straws so as not to fail her Emperor, or worse, Kesslee, but most likely it was her self destructive impulses rising to the surface. "I go in loud, extremely loud, you follow staggered, and get to play spy. Sound good? I sure hope so.."

Ayla didn't really care in the least as to whether it appealed to the other woman, or not, because she made her mind up. Today was going to be memorable, the gutterrats of Terra had pushed her a little too far, a little too often, and the time for games was over.

Instead of waiting for a reply Ayla brought her left hand up to the ear area of her helm, a completely unnecessary gesture, and pinged the ever dutiful Aschen A.I again. "γλυκιά μου," she called out in her typical monotone, which was quite the leap for her. Normally Ayla would never address EVE informally, let alone personally around others, but now..Now it didn't matter. "I'm going in ahead of Angel, prime grenades, and get me as close to the target as possible just like before, although this time I'll need you to relay something to all Aschen operatives within a two mile radius. Tell them 'Ares Walks'". That particular phrase was completely unique to Ayla due to Mantrid's willingness to treat her a guenia pig, and though there was a chance that due to obscurity not every agent would recognize it enough would that the proper precautions would be taken. If they were smart they'd start running now.

"Execute safety protocol override Fjord, Fjord, Six, Niner, Brandy, Four," she knew the risk she was taking, but as displeased as she was it felt worth it. When she was remade to serve the Empire it was as an Adept, and thanks to her bodies' extreme resilience she had gotten all the bells, and whistles. One of the good doctor's more questionable additions was a direct N.S.C.D.I, a unique, experimental internal injection system that fed her a volatile cocktail of narcotics. Standard models were generally safe for the Adepts, as their bodies burned toxins at such a rate even extremely high doses could be auto-administered without fear, but Ayla's? Ayla's was a whole other beast, calling for extremely stringent safety measures, and failsafes. "Execute overdose prevention overrides for seals one through nineteen as well, same authorization."

There was a good chance even her immense neuroplastisity would break under the strain of what she was about to attempt. She didn't even shy away from the thought however, if she didn't come back in mind, or body so be it.

"It's too late for quiet..." Marlene said to herself as she watched through space and time, the entire situation in the hospital was going tits up, several operators were going silent, and Kesslee had withdrawn.

"You want loud, Confessor?" Marlene asked, keeping her eyes affixed to the massive ring of electromagnetics, supercooled graviton conduits, and high-energy capacitors. The device was truly a feat of Aschen engineering, facilitating instantaneous transit anywhere in the universe.

"Prepare for transit!" Marlene ordered. "Wing City Hospital."

Marlene kept her eyes locked onto the Bifrost Hub. It began to hum, as monstrous energies built within the capacitors.

Gritting her teeth, she cast a glance sidelong at Ayla, while taking her right hand and reaching into the jacket pocket of the scrubs she was wearing; she produced a small crystal, and stared at it for several moments.

"So you want to go in loud, huh?" Marlene asked, letting the crystal sink into her skin, thin filaments of shimmering white began to follow the patterns of the veins in her arm, and the woman grit her teeth at the searing pain that began to radiate through her arms.

She fell down onto one knee, as the shimmering white lines moved into her chest, then across the left side of her body. A moment later she opened her eyes, pure energy began to radiate from them, like two glowing white orbs.

Slowly she began to stand up, as the entire Bifrost hub began to shake, and buckle under the immense transfer of power.

"I'll show you loud!" Marlene called out, her voice reverberating in an almost surreal fashion, while a column of light shot fourth from behind them, into the large interconnected ring before them.

"Let's do this..."


A moment later, they would be thrust fourth towards the portal, pulled into the Bifrost, and on their way to Terra.

A brilliant, rainbow coloured sparkling light erupted barely a foot behind Jazzimore as the Aschen finally commenced their full assault. To those privy, or previously witness, to the secretive, and rather new piece of technology the Empire had developed there would be no mistaking it: The Bïfrost system. Within another couple of seconds however the dazzling display was cut short, utterly obliterated by the intense, white flash, and gut-wrenching sound of two Anti-Magic grenades detonating in sync. The light enveloped the room for a moment before dissipating, locking the area down for any, and all mages caught unaware by the sudden ambush. Those without arcane capabilities, equipment, or connections would be left completely unharmed, along with most mundane infrastructure, but to a magic-user the pain was said to be excruciating. Debilitating even, to journeymen, or lower.

Much more concerning however was what had brought them to the hospital. At the epicentre of the "explosion" stood Ayla, although she barely resembled the proper Confessor that had skulked through Gambit's anymore.

The detonations had shredded her beautiful velour robes, and unlike most every member of the Cabal she didn't sport their exosuit underneath. Instead she wore the Kinetic Absorption Skin that the Adepts kept under their massive suits of armour, "the Glove" as they informally called it thanks to its extremely skin-tight nature. Ayla's was a custom job though, reinforced to withstand extra kinetic force, and dyed a more fitting black with an energy weapon resistant micropolymer. The insignia of the Cabal, a circular series of interlocking talons in the shape of an aperture, was emblazed its throat in a deep, rust red, but none of that was quite as attention grabbing as her posture. She was crouched on all fours like a wild predator, her overdriven muscles clearly bulging, and rippling beneath the suit, the woman more closely resembled a steel tension wire about to snap than a human. And for good reason.

The suite of combat enhancing narcotics had already taken full effect, the dose her injector was administering directly to her nervous system blurred the line between merely insane, and fatal with each second. Even her carbonfiber musculature was strained under her current strength, sinew mere micrograms of stimulants away from tearing. All chains had been removed from one of the Empire's most unstable monsters.

Her swivled, a movement so fast it blurred to the naked eye, towards Jazzimore, and a barbaric growl rumbled from the Aschen's chest. "Where in Hades are you running, little pussy?" Snarled Ayla, her voice much lower, and hoarse. If she had the facilities she might have noticed just how much she sounded like Tim again. Or worse yet, how much she felt like him. "Your shit ends here."

As all the events transpired around him and Jazzei on the rooftop Munkus' left wrist went off like a bunch of meowing kittens. Briefliy looking around confused Munkus realised it was him "Oh that's me, one sec I gotta take this. Hello" Munkus aswered his phone. There was no telling who ewas on the other end as they couldnt be heard.

"Oh hello dear... yes of course... No, nobody's dead... yet... Yes yes I actually have that on my to do list.... Yes I'll get the milk too let me make a note of that" Munkus' quickly wrote on the holographic screen he held in his hand as he spoke on his phone. "Oh nothing too major dear... Yes I am at the hospitakl and aware of the shooting fun.... Huh... No that wasnt me. What did he look ?" Munkus quriked an eyebrow and looked around for Larry, not finding him "I dunno, he's not here...." Then Ayla showed up.

"Babe, dear, listen I gotta go, somebody's fuckin' with my connection, yeah, I'll get the meat and milk, anything else ?.... Alright, set the table for three dear I'm bringing home a guest, Ahuh... yeah make sure the passport folks are informed too..., yup. Dont worry you'll see her when I get home..." Munkus then stood stock still but his other ear was seen with its fur sticking out as if in a strong breeze as his wife yelled at him before calming down and saying something "Love you too sweetie, home soon." Munkus hung up

Turning to Jazzei he took her hand in his, then he backed up, and both of them disappeared into smoke to somewhere as he stepped upon the strange pattern on the rooftop.