Everflame 2 (FINISHED)

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

The soldier beneath Chronin screamed in pain as the piece of chest armour was pulled from him. It was embedded among his skin and reached into his muscles. Wires and cables tore out as the dragon pulled it up. The guard fell back onto the stairwell, tumbling until he landed against the wall. The other two charged after the dragon, leaping from wall to wall, moving fluid like squirrels across trees. Behind the armour, they probably were squirrels, with their tails flared out behind them. They chased and leapt about, one darting ahead of the dragon while the other landed a kick into his back. The guard ahead bounded toward Chronin and leapt with palm outstretched, flared with bright light.



Lantz shook his head at Annie. "I was talking about you having people we needed to save, you fool." He smirked and lay back against the chair. With an exhausted slap he hit the console, activating the signal and programming in the navigation details for the carrier's jump. "I hope you're grateful for what I've done. You've no idea how dangerous it is to confront her." The engines began to warm again, and the ship began to rattle. "Now sit down before you hurt yourself."



The guard looked down at Tess over and sighed, looking almost disappointed at her answer. "Not your father, eh?" Then a shadow of an idea passed across him, and a smile pulled at his face. He put the datapad behind his back. "Well since you're not related, I can't release him to you; unless of course you give me something to change my mind."

[KittKat chunky~]

Annie laughed again, shaking her own head in return "I am a fool. A tired old fool who wants to get back to her own bed and get a good nights sleep." She sat heavily down in the seat Tina had vacated and sighed "I'm very grateful Lantz. Now lets just hope they jumped somewhere safe..."






Tess sighed in resignation and pulled the zip of her overalls partway down, giving a small glimpse of soft fur as she rummaged around in a deep inside pocket. She retrieved several thin plastic cards and set them down on the desk with a click; sliding them towards the guard with two fingers "I'm low on credits but, thats thirty there." Fingers still resting on the credits she gave the guard an apprehensive sidelong glance "Thats all I've got in non-digital credits... I've no other way of paying you..."

Below the level of the desk RUST-E shook his metal head and gave a whistling beep that sounded almost like exasperation.







Men and women lined up in ranks in the hangar bay, all wearing fully armored Explorator Mechanicus suits sealed up and geared. Every suit was different from small cosmetic changes to completely different models and swapped or modified parts. Surrounding the Explorators was a protective wall of internal security, dark red ballistic armor and stun batons keeping the crowds of merchants, civilians and engineers back. Yuri stood in line with the other security forces, a good head shorter than those beside him and sweating profusely in his suit.

"Keep back and out of the way! Official Mechanicus business!" One of the security forces pushed against a wolf, the civilian shaking his fist and yelling "We demand to know what is going on! My daughter is injured after that jump, and now your arming soldiers!" The wolf pushed forward against the line again, surrounded by other shouting engineers or civilians. The loud crack of a stun baton sounded out over the shouting and the crowds pulled back, the wolf now motionless on the floor with the internal security officer standing over him, baton still crackling in his hand as he shouted "I said get back!"







Blaze gingerly touched where flesh met metal, the transition from one to the other seamless. Raised voices from the set of doors at the end of the medbay sounded closer and closer, accompanied by hurried footsteps. Blaze's ear flicked up, followed a moment later by the rest of his head, to the direction of the noise as a surgeon pushed through the doors, surrounded by internal security officers.

"I am telling you, he needs rest!" The surgeon shouted, but continued to walk towards Blaze's bed.

Beside him a security officer, helmet and visor obscuring his face, retorted "Well he looks fine to me. Get him ready, the orders are for every able Explorator to suit up... These orders are from Captain Vladiik himself." It was now that Blaze realized the security officer was carrying his own Mechanicus suit, segmented armor collapsed together until it was rucksack-sized. The group turned to him and Blaze felt a cold sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the medication he had been on.

[tangletail]

Leo calmly shrugged as the scanners scanned the field around them then the planet and flicked off the mic "Eh, I didn't see that comming. Well... if they do that the planet is going to become a creature made star and possibly destroy the dragon. After all, the hotter flame always kills the rest."

He calmly read over the reports of the scan and panned through the render till he eventually found the station. He pressed on the screen once more to open up a terminal and began typing inside it. A message blimp appeared with the words "Connection Successful; Systems primed and ready"
 "Don't mind me, I am just going to resort to a little violence now for a back up plan." he told her dully before flicking back on the mic.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. If you want to set worlds on fire, you may want to care about what they are made of. You won't reveal the stone your just going to create an unstable star and destroy it and yourself. So unless you can burn far hotter then a blue star, dragon. Consider stopping then and there."

[Chrono Blackwyng]

Chronin couldn't contain his other side as he was getting pushed around by squirrel-like soldiers. He let out a roar, and parts of the wall bent away as the soldiers were flattened against the floor and roof. "You idiots are going to get us killed if you keep slowing me down!" he bellowed, finally calming down and resuming his ascent. You sure you don't need my assistance? The other two are trying to blow up the planet we're on. Unless you can give me directions, you should just wait until I get the Everflame. Well, you do have some time, someone is stalling them, I think.

[Entaru]

Nero's voice flowed out of the intercom.  "We are not like you....stars are but food to our kind.  This thing hardly rates as a...what do you call it?  A candybar?  Yes that's it...a candybar."  Nero strengthens the gravity well around Leo's ship.  "Know this...Leo.  If the stone is on that planet, it will survive the ignition.  In fact, the amount of energy released may even strengthen it if its down there.  Don't take us for fools...just because you know this plane better does not mean that we are completely ignorant."By this point, the amount of gravity holding them in place was nearly equivalent to a black hole.  Nero wasn't letting them get away this time...

[tangletail]

“I don't know about that. Even one can do damage to you in some way. After all candy these days are high in calories and cholesterol,” he mocked as his fingers continued to dance around on the terminal typing long chains of complexed commands. “You might not be like us, stick around for a while. You will find that we are far more competent then you give us credit for. Your reasoning for simple problems is primitive.”

By this time he sent the commands and waited for the next message and smiled. “So who want's this stone so baddly to send two... questionably well suited ambassadors our way?”

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

Lantz gave a smirk. "Sleep should be the last thing on your mind. The jump won't take long." The ship shuddered and tore into hyperspace. The screeched and groaned, as though it were to tear itself apart, until it soothed, and a warm calm flowed through the metal. "We'll be there before you can brush your teeth."





The reptilian guard plucked the credits from Tess' paw. "I could get this much from stopping some random guy in the street." He glimpse her chest fur and paused, then looked over her curves. "You've really got to do better, but I've got an idea." He leaned forward, pointing his snout at hers, eyes matching each. "I have a brother, young guy, your age. He's terrible with girls. He's nervous, clumsy. I need a girl like you to give him lessons, okay?" He leaned back and pocketed the money. "Tomorrow good for you?"




The squirrel guards streaked past, like lightning across the walls. An energetic charge raced along their bodies, forming at the hands. They hurled bolts and spheres of energy, burning and bending the walls. An elbow flew at chronin, crashing into the back of his neck.

The captain watched on his datapad, the guards' signals moving up the tower. He chewed his cheek then reached to his belt. He pulled little gadgets from it, placing them up his sleeves.



The beast roared through the atmosphere and light raced across the surface, flames reaching high and thick. Across the face of the planet, a greater brightness spread. The beast itself stretched and grew across the rock. Its speed was phenomenal, charging like a wave soon covering half its surface and moving to encompass it all.
General Caisen leaned on Leo's shoulders. "You best have a good plan. That other one will find nothing pretty quick."

[tangletail]

The feline's ear flicked a few times to let her know that he heard him before nodding to the seat beside him. "Strap in,  this is going to end,.. horribly well..." he groaned, adding emphasis to his oxymoron. He raised his finger slowly and tapped the console once  then again once the planet was completely covered in flames. The first triggered a low groan from the ship as the gravity was immediately cut and reversed to push away from outside of the hull. The force of this was distributed only onto the right wing in such a way that it pressed against the gravity field weakly and even forced the ship to spin rapidly.

The second caused the abandoned station to propelled its self back into orbit and slowly twist it's self to face the mortals ship. The structure was practically falling apart at this time as large chunks of metal tore away from the main hull, and sirens rang from it as a large hatch opened to reveal a small missile. The missile immediately flared to life and shot out like a bottle rocket aimed for Entaru's ship.

While all this is happening Leo quickly overrider the main controls and slammed onto the hyper-drive.

[Chrono Blackwyng]

Chronin bent forward, letting the blow push him into a forward flip. He caught the attacker's arms with his legs, and recovered in a way that slammed the squirrel's head onto the floor. The bolts flew past him as he recovered, close enough to just singe the trimmings of his overcoat armor. He let go of the squirrel's arms long enough for him to smash the biceps with a stomp for each arm. He then took his rifle out, setting it to a condensed ray of plasma as he turned and fired at the same time. The sweep nailed the other attacker across the chest and arms, but the ray passed too quickly to actually remove any limbs. The wires and armor itself melted onto the flesh of its wearer, making a sound like raw bacon on a hot frying pan. He gave them a glance over to see if either wound would be considered fatal, and left when he remembered his job. Normally, this would be fun, but now its just annoying.

[KittKat chunky~]

Annie returned the smirk as the ship rocked and juddered, finally relaxing her grip on the sides of the seat when the shaking slowed to a low humming. "Sleep shouldn't be on my mind, but its been almost two days now since I slept properly." She twisted around in the seat and tucked her knees up, resting her head against the back of the chair. Eyelids flickering closed Annie stifled a yawn and mumbled "I'm just going to get some shut-eye. Wake me up before we get there if I do manage to nod off could you?" She didn't wait for an answer as her breathing slowed until it was a whisper through her lips, quite obviously asleep.




Tess put her hands to her hips and wrinkled her nose, pulling back slightly as the guard leaned forward. She glanced to the steel floor and back again before answering "So long as it gets the big guy out of the cells, no harm in it I suppose. Yeah... tomorrow is good for me."

At her feet the little droid whirred and nudged her foot, blue eye flickering. Tess glanced down to RUST-E and frowned before shoving him out of the way with her boot. Looking back up to the guard she held out her paw expectantly "Fair is fair, I help out this brother of yours and you give me that datapad and one loony fox."




Yuri hissed to Blaze from below his visor, eyes darting from him to the other Explorators "What the hell are you doing here?"
The lupine/feline hybrid merely grinned and stretched expansively "Doing my job Yuri, Mechanicus high ups call and I have to answer... Its what your doing here isn't it? Holding back crowds of angry merchants and civvies doesn't seem like something you would choose to do willingly."

Huffing with annoyance Yuri watched as Blaze checked over his set of dark red armour "Yes, but I'm not the one who recently had his bleedin' arm torn off! Your mum would be having a fit if she knew you where going to do this-" Blaze looked Yuri square in the eyes, a dark glower welling up in his expression "Its just like the Marine Core says; We fight with strength and courage, because war is where we serve." He turned away from his friend and followed the line of explorators towards the waiting shuttle "My father would go Yuri... And my mother knows that."

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

The beast slid across the planets surface, forming together like a gel, snapping back small and fast. It burned through the atmosphere, tearing up and out into space, leaving a burning wreck in its wake.
"We have been deceived, the Everflame was never here!" The sound ground through both ships, shuddering and bending the metal infrastructure. General Caisen leapt and buckled herself into the copilot seat.
"Get us the hell out of here, boy," she said as the hyper-drive shook into action, roaring loud and hard as space bent around them.




The guards fell to the ground in a heap, and they screams ran into the comms before the captain cut them off. He growled under his breath and pulled off his shirt, exposing the bio-armour grafted to his body. He slotted the datapad against his arm, and tapped the little device strapped to his wrist. It whirred into life and gave a gentle purr of activity. The dog pulled off the rest of his clothes and stood ready at the door of the main chamber, where the everflame sat encased within the central emitter. All walkways had slotted away and it stood alone within the tower. A helmet curled over the captain's face and he stood ready to engage.




Lantz sighed, now alone at the controls with a sleeping fox as copilot. Space spun and stretched across the ship. The estimated time until destination flicked about uncertain. He'd probably have do a bit of estimating himself.
"Annie wants to know when we'll arrive so she has time to change." Lantz looked back and found Tiz standing with hands clasped together in front.
"Not long. Half hour, maybe less," he replied.
"Okay." The little girl nodded. "Also, she told me to tell you that you're grounded for a month." Lantz gave a puff of a laugh, and a smile stretched across him.
"I knew it."  He flopped his head back against the head rest and looked out as space warped about. "I guess she was super angry, huh?"
"Yeah." Tiz was quiet, not so much for Annie's sake; she was just unsure. The ship started to rattle, then give a violent shake. Tiz dropped into the rear seats. She held to the chair and buckled herself in.
"Okay, maybe a lot less than half an hour." Space tore a gap in front, and the ship was dragged through. Panels creaked and the hull began to bend until they were spat out. Ahead of them, a Mechanicus space station sat with the carrier at its base heading in to dock.





"Deal." The guard smiled and put his arm around her. He slapped the pad into her paw and guided her through a door down through the cells. They were silent beyond the blank windowless doors, each one plain and white.  "Now I'll be watching you, okay? I don't want you running off before your date." He gripped her shoulder a little tighter, with reptilian claws digging into her clothes. Eventually the guard stopped at one of the doors and grabbed its handle. "Oh and you best have a spare set of clothes. People in charge like the prisoners tied tight until the squeeze point so they can't escape. Clothes get in the way of the squeezing." He leaned to her and looked into her eyes. "I could get his clothes for you, though you already know i don't do things for free."

[KittKat chunky~]

Annie woke with a gasp and claws clutching at the soft covering of the seat. Her eyes turned from Lantz to the view screen, sleep muffling and slurring her words "We here already?" She uncurled and pressed a paw to her forehead "The carrier seems fine, they escaped somewhere safe after all. That is a Mechanicus Salvage Port, metal crushers, recycling plants and forges, all on one space station." Frowning and blinking away the sleep, she leaned forward "Though I am surprised that there aren't other carriers already docked here."




"Why aren't we docked with the station?" Vladiik stopped behind the finch officer, unfurling his dark feathered wings.
The finch grimaced and leaned back in his seat "The docking system is offline too, and that is supposed to be fully automated!" He tapped away at his controls for a few seconds more and then spun the seat around until he faced the captain "I called for a shuttle to be taken from bay twelve to bay thirty two, the few explorators we have on board are already on their way sir." And sure enough, through the great view screen that spanned the carrier bridge, a small craft could be seen sailing out across the inky darkness towards the space station.





The shuttle rocked and yawed, engines thrumming along at cruising speed as the occupants of the cargo bay held onto straps and handles. The cramped space was dark save the single emergency light set in the ceiling which washed the steel surfaces and explorators in bleak red light. Blaze stood holding onto a structural beam of the wall, cybernetic arm gripping tight with a soft whir of servos, he listened intently as the lead explorator strode amongst the group.

Grawn punctuated each step with a jabbing motion of his index finger, his own dark red armor the largest and newest of them all. Blaze wondered how the suit managed to restrain the tiger's deep chest and great forearms. "We are to make our way to the control bridge, just two decks up from where we will be docking manually. Jaeka and Lita, you two will be in charge of door slicing if security is locked down as we suspect. Once at the control bridge we are to restore power so the carrier can dock immediately."

He suddenly took several steps towards Blaze, steel boots clashing as he bared large canines "You listening boy? As far as I'm concerned your a liability, and while your mother is as loose a cannon as I've ever seen I dont want the same from you."





Tess took a deep breath, ears pressing back as she released the air as a short -hmff- through her nose "If I had known it was so profitable, I would've enrolled for the guards a long time ago you swindler."

She reached into one of the many pouches and pockets on her belt and grinned back into the guard's eyes. In her paw she held a small cellophane pouch, and inside it a small square of silver metal and circuitry sparkled "But, being an engineer does have its perks... This is a mk II droid processor enhancement. Worth more than a hundred credits and easily sold anywhere on the carrier." She remained close to the guard, pressing the pouch to him "You have it and we make sure the rest of this goes quick and easy right?"

[Chrono Blackwyng]

Chronin continued to go up the stairs, making much more progess since he didn't have to swat away a few odd soldiers after every tenth step. He made it up to a room occupied by what seemed to be only a single guard at the other end of the room. "Instead of trying to impede my progress, why don't you go get help for the soldiers I crippled back there? I made sure to not kill them, but I don't know how much internal injury I inflicted." After a few seconds of slience, he let out a grunt of frustration. "Look, I really don't want to use my other abilities, so can you please just let me get the dead rock known as Everflame so I can be on my way?"

[Entaru]

Nero felt his grip on the ship slipping and looked just in time to see his own ship get blown to bits.  NO! NO!  You'rE NoT GettinG AwaY!!!!  I Won'T AlloW IT!!!  The ship began to groan as he forced more gravity onto it, parts of the hull bending inward as invisble fingers tried to keep it in place.

[Asia Kali Yusufzai]

Lantz ran his fingers across the view controls, zooming in on the station.
"No carriers, and no lights either." He looked over at Annie, and nerves pulled on his face. "We're going in kinda blind. I don't want any more risks than is necessary." The engines rumbled through the ship and they accelerated toward the carrier. The lizard flicked up the communication panel and contacted the carrier. Tiz hopped out of her chair up behind Lantz.
"Are we doing video?" she asked. Lantz chewed it over and turned to Annie.
"You should hide," he said to the vixen. Tiz grinned and jumped into his lap. He looked down at her as she settled in. "You ready?" he asked. She nodded in reply. He ran his fingers over the controls opening communication with the carrier.




The guard narrowed his eyes and examined Tess while he pulled the processor from her. He ran his thumb across its shape then slid it into his pocket. He then pulled his datapad out, and set in the right commands, sending a message across.
"I'm being nice to you, you know?" He said to Tess. "I know people who would do much worse. I'm sure you know the stories." He put the datapad back and a young feline assistant jogged over with a bag.
"Here's his personal effects, sir," he said. The guard took it and reached inside, shifting about to find something. He soon pulled out a datapad and tossed the bag over to Tess. He typed at the door's keypad. It flashed green and he pulled it open with a faint hiss and slip. The white walls practically glowed out into the corridor, and in the corner was a large body wrapped up. The fox was unconscious and faced the wall. The guard leaned back into the corridor and winked at Tess, while the feline rolled his eyes. The reptile guard held the datapad up and threw it. It slammed into the back of Reggie's head and he jerked awake. He twisted and pulled at his restraints, and snarled and barked with teeth bared as he turned to the door. The guard gave him a nod and stepped back out.
"All yours, girl."




Captain Grezz gave an exaggerated shrug.
"I'm not stepping out of your way. Our medics are aware of my soldiers and of you. You're loud enough to wake the galaxy and the galaxy is all ears." He smiled and stood ready to fight. "So all I have to do is stall you, until the galaxy arrives." From his body came an blue flow of energy. The suit glowed with it. It pooled into his arms, reaching out like a blade of light. He whipped his arms forward and the light sliced out.




The ship's engines screamed and pushed against the walls of Nero's hold. The walls shuddered and creaked with the strain. General Caisen pulled on the space suit's helmet.
"Your plan was good, but his hold is pretty strong. Hyperdrive in this gravity well could tear space apart and blow us all to hell," she said. She clung to the seat, fingers gripped tight to it.

The beast rose through space and spread across the stars. He dwarfed the planet with his breadth.
"Your presence has hindered us, we shall find it ourselves. We shall burn every molecule on this plane of existence." He grew further and wider. Even the nearby sun dimmed against its fire.