From Zero-G to 60 (OPEN)

[jessie]

So, listen. Ogann was no super smart scientist. That wasn't her deal, her area, her wheelhouse. But she did have such smart individuals under her charge, supposedly, and so she didn't understand exactly what this was, right now. She didn't understand how someone so smart could've given her such stupid instructions. Not only were said instructions vague, but also indecipherable. When she gets back from this, someone's going to become an example, if not the whole squadron.

She sat in her transport, out in the vast void between Ushian X-9 and X-8, fiddling with this nonsensical... what was it called? Rift bracelet. It's supposed to work best between two blah blah blah, optimal conditions snore. She's just gonna pop in, pop out, and pop back in with about 20,000 soldiers. She's also got her translator, so she could let the inhabitants know exactly what was happening to them. This was gonna be sweet, if she could just make it work already!

She just started shaking it, frustrated, which is exactly when it worked, popping her out of her transport and into the air above Giant's Lake. The displaced air made a loud sound. She didn't even have time to shriek before she fell straight into the drink.

[Monolilith]

At least Nero's ears didn't pop at the noise. Audio perk perks. But he still jumped really hard.

Harder at the splash, though.

He scrambled to his feet and hurtled into the water without a second thought. Once beneath the surface, he was graceful as a dancer, kicking briskly but with ease to the fallen stranger. Those odd white eyes fix on her, his hair swirling around his head like some kind of emo-ass black halo. He looks her up and down.

[jessie]

The shock of the drop had Ogann lose all her air, and they were still rising to the surface in smaller bursts. Absorbing the water, her clothes had become quite heavy. Stupid alien fabrics. She had shut her eyes against the murky sting of unfamiliar water, and therefore didn't see Nero. She thrashed, choking and sinking, the sensation of not being upright. She was just in this state because of the surprise, you see, not because she couldn't swim. Definitely not. There was nothing Ogann couldn't do.

[Monolilith]

Well it sure LOOKS like the poor piece of crap is gonna drown. So Nero, thoughtless and certain, wraps an arm around her torso, right under her arms, and kicks to the surface, where he flicks his hair out of his face, worry visible through his valiant but useless facade of calm. "Hey. Hey there."

[jessie]

It takes her a moment, but she manages to start coughing up the water that had invaded her lungs. She's wet, and now she's cold too, from the air chilling her drenched everything. She's shivering, half because of the cold and half because she just heaved a bunch of water out of her.

What was that. What WAS that. What is this crazy place, with this liquid just laying on top of the landscape? What kind of nutcase terraformed this?

Oh, hadn't something pulled her out? She looked over. Oh. A humanoid of some kind. She tilted her head curiously, just a little, for a second, until the steel wall came back down. She hummed a little, melodically, only to herself.

"Ich-" Oh, yikes, throat's raw. "Err, mmm. Hewa, hmmm, I didn't need - there we go - I didn't need help." Her accent has a rhythm, as if she's always just about to break into song. Her tongue slips around the words, like she barely knows what she's saying.

[Monolilith]

"... Yyyeah. Uh huh. You're welcome." Promptly, he releases her, sinking down so only his eyes are above the water. Watching, more sardonic than malevolent.

[jessie]

Still shuddering, bones compromised by sheer chill and shock, she slowly pulls herself into a sitting position. She's had about enough of this. She's proven that there's land to control and inhabitants to enslave, now it's time to go back and get dried and pampered and commended. She brings up the rift bracelet, looking at it's settings.

They're blank.

She taps it, pushes the nodes. Nothing. Even when it was being finicky in the transport, it didn't read blank. She slips it off and holds it, and water dribbles out of the seam. That's, probably not good.

In a swift motion, she stands and unholsters her blaster, pointing it towards Nero. You may think pink-haired little girl wouldn't strike much of a threatening figure, but her sharp steely glare proves otherwise. The blaster makes a distinct charging sound. "Take me to your transport station. Under the authority of the Ushian Empire."

[Monolilith]

A beat. A prolonged one. Then he snorts, bubbles popping at the surface from his breath. He raises his head just enough to speak. "Uh, never heard of it, n' I've been everywhere but here. New as you are, kiddo."

[jessie]

Her sneer falters, blush rising. "Don't, don't laugh at me! I'm very serious right now. This can boil this whole liquidpit - lake? Lake." Well. Certain models of the blaster could. Hers is not currently on that setting, she hadn't brought a lethal one because she didn't foresee this outcome. Didn't realize she'd need deadly force. But he doesn't need to know that.

"If you can't take me, then I'll be forced to take you as hostage, until I find someone who can. Leverage." This translator was getting a bit annoying. She got the feeling it was getting a bit snarky. Stupid semi-sentient technology.

[Monolilith]

"Yyyyeah huh. Have fun with that." And down he dives, fast and sleek, popping up mere seconds later on the shore, which he sits himself on. And waves, like the sarcastic bastard he is.

[jessie]

Ogann was now just red, from the tips of her ears. She couldn't actually boil the entire lake, so she just had too take this treatment, with no weight.

"Fine! That's fine! I don't need you! I can find it myself! I'm a great finder!" Frustrated tears pricked at her eyes, but she pushed them back. Only babies cried. She holstered her heat gun huffily, and crossed her arms. "I'll just go! Who even needs you!" She turned, and started to stomp off, but shortly tripped over a root from one of the trees on the bank. The fall made her shriek, quite embarrassingly.

[Monolilith]

"... incredible. goddamn incredible."

But he stays where he is, and doesn't say a word loud enough for her to hear. Just watches, drawing up a knee and leaning his chin on it. He raises a finger to tuck a stray lock behind his ear, and makes no other motion.

[jessie]

She pulled herself up, a little slower than one normally would, testing the gravity. It was heavier than on Ushian X-9. She got up, alien clothes now stained green with grass blood, sniffled and scrubbed at her face to hide any evidence. Of which there was none in the first place. She wasn't no cuff, she was all grown.

Not even looking back, though she was sorely tempted, she walked off. She had no idea which way she was going, but she squared her shoulders to make it look like she did know. She didn't have the weight to threaten Nero into helping her, and she didn't need to, if she could find some other gullible loser.

I dunno. I tried my best.