airbending master lucy, internet archaeologist (pluto) wrote in itsneverover, @ 2012-03-14 11:40:00 |
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THE SCENE OPENS ON A PAIR OF BOOTS. Pirate boots. Running pirate boots. The camera pans up, and it becomes clear these particular boots belong to Lucy, who swings herself around a corner, narrowly avoiding yet another Space Alliance soldier - who then joins the chase, of course. "Drat drat drat drat," Damn whoever had alerted the authorities to this little excursion...Breaking into a SA base was hard enough without other people bungling up their own breaking and entering attempts! The credits appear on the scene as Lucy runs by, some on signs and some just on walls or doors. The camera lingers on each name for a moment before going on to catch up with Lucy, who is turning corners at breakneck speed, not wasting any time by looking behind her at the pursuit. PRESENTING: OMBGWTFBBQ: THE CROWN OF COWORD starring CANDICE ACCOLA as LUCY, MILEY CYRUS as STEFF, and SOMEONE SEE-THROUGH as THE CROWN. Careening around another corner, Lucy tumbles into someone who is most decidedly not a Space Alliance soldier. Not being in uniform was no indication (Lucy herself was wearing a uniform, although the boots were her own and she'd lost the cap somewhere along the way of this madcap chase), but Lucy had grown fairly good at recognizing the air of a Space Alliance soldier, and this wasn't it. The other girl's own pursuers and her laser blasters totally helped with the not-a-soldier assumption, though. One blaster is leveled at Lucy as soon as they find their feet, and her own light-cutlass is at the other girl's waist. There isn't any time for a standoff, however; their pursuit closes in, a few warning blaster shots spraying around the two girls. The two girls share a look and start off together in a new direction, Lucy deflecting some of the shots with her cutlass - a neat trick, to be sure - and her new ally sending off return blasts. "Ginger, escaped prisoner," the younger girl says, as they both take the next right without discussing it. The decision was helped by not really having any other options. "Lucy, Pirate Captain," is all Lucy really has time to say - being chased by a good portion of the base was absolutely not conducive to, you know, long conversations. Ginger apparently doesn't share the sentiment. "You have a way off of this popsicle stand?" "Maybe," Lucy says, vaguely. She isn't interested in fighting Ginger in addition to the entire Alliance base, but she's a pirate, and paranoia comes with the job. "You hiring?" "Um." The two come up into a large dead-end of a storage room, and share a startled glance before dashing around to take cover behind some boxes. "Look, you seem nice and all, Ginny - " "Ginger." "Right, Ginger. But this isn't really the time for an interview - " "SURRENDER OR DIE!!!" Nameless Alliance Soldier #24123 shouts into the room, wildly blasting at nothing much. "No thanks," The pirates say together, and Ginger adds a not-so-wild blast of her own. Lucy pauses, impressed. And practical. "You're hired if we make it to the docks alive." "No problem, captain." A beat, and then both pirates leap out from behind their cover, prepared to fight their way to freedom. "SO, YOU DON'T actually have a crew," Ginger observed. Lucy was busy getting the ship ready to leave; it was a strange affair, like one of those old-fashioned earth pirate ships, but with technological additions, and a shimmering blue bubble around the outside parts, keeping the two escapees safe from space, directly outside that thin, fragile barrier. She snorts, then launches the ship in another flurry of controls, even as the base below blares the siren that's been going since someone else ruined the entire scheme. She also hit a button which sprang a blue force bubble up around the other girl, and turned, scowling. "One: this ship only needs one pirate, particularly if most of the rest of the universe seems intent on being on the wrong side, Steff. Two: don't bother looking for these blasters." Twirling Steff's stolen blasters in her hands, Lucy tucked them away again; no telling when she'd stolen those from the other girl (directly after they boarded the ship). "It's Ginger - " "I know that watch you're wearing is a holographic projector. It's standard Space Academy issue. Stolen, I bet. Now, why aren't you dead?" Lucy crossed her arms, tapping one foot. "And another thing! Just what do Jessi and Kristy think they're up to now?" Steff glared back, pounding on the bubble with one hand. It held. She crossed her arms, mirroring Lucy. "Look - I'm not with them." Lucy snorted again and Steff threw up her hands. "I'm not! Look, apparently one of them - I really don't know who and don't care at the moment - took my bloodless remains to be resurrected or something. I don't know why, but I wasn't about to stick around and find out! You know how the whole working-together thing turned out last time!" "That doesn't mean you're not working for someone else. Or yourself. Look, the only person I trust in this entire universe is Megan, and that's because she never side-swaps, so even if we're opposite I can trust her to be doing the opposite of what I'm doing!" Lucy nearly turned back to the command console, but Steff began talking again, and quickly. "Look! No, really, look here. The whole hell-goddess thing? Not my plan. I mean, I like the universe not ending. It's cool. I get to do things, like eat cheeseburgers and stuff. It was more the other people's idea than mine, and anyway I was sacrificed, why would I be on their side? Your side is cooler and less likely to sacrifice me!" Steff was beginning to look a little panicked. "Well..." There was that whole clause about side-swapping. Sighing, Lucy released the force-bubble, and handed over Steff's blasters. "Fine. But I'm going to re-dead you if you so much as think about swapping sides on me." Steff held up her hands in apparent surrender. "Okay, okay! Anyway, you're the only one who can seal up portals to other dimensions, so - " "How do you know about that?!" "Um, duh? We lived under Coword for like, ever. And chances are my former friends - probably not dead - will be looking for portals to get back at me. So, you know. Mutual benefit here - I'll totally stay on your side as long as you close any portals near us, and...well, you can try banishing them or something if they get close? That's really all I've got." Steff walked over to the console, and began to help punch in new navigation. "Oh, hey, why aren't they shooting at us?" "Oh, I disabled their weaponry before I did much else. And then it didn't matter, since someone set the base on red-alert." Lucy gave her new compatriot another glare. Steff frowned absently. "I know, right? I could sacrifice whoever did that." A pause. "Wait, you didn't do that?" "Um, no. But if you didn't - " Steff's eyes widened. Lucy sighed. "I am really sick of random new players popping up out of nowhere. Let's not think about it - nothing to be done for now." "Right! ...Hey, Captain?" "Yes, first mate?" "Where the hell are we going, anyway?" "Oh. That. To get my crown, of course." "UM, SHOULDN'T WE MAYBE get some more crew members before we try to find something that's been lost for like, centuries?" Steff, being a former semi-Cowordian (technically Hell had been under No-Panties-World, which was under Coword, so the hell goddesses had totally kept an eye on things above) knew the story. The crown had been lost ages ago, and Lucy herself had never seen it. It had been hidden for safekeeping - back in the middle of a war. "No - we talked about the whole I-don't-trust-anyone thing, right? I distinctly remember having that conversation." Lucy jumped off the docked ship - they were on some sort of jungle moon - and looked around, absently clicking the button on her spaceship keys once. A beep-beep sound assured both Cowordian pirates that the ship was locked, and Lucy stowed the keys away. "The more people who are with me, the more likely someone is with Jessi and Kristy, and Jessi in particular just can't be involved in this. Okay?" "Whatever you say." Steff shrugged, batting at a tree branch before glaring at it. The branch withered into ash, and Lucy looked back, annoyed. Steff gave her captain a sheepish look. "Uh, sorry. Force of habit. So, why do you think the crown is here?" "I don't." Seeing Steff was about to complain, Lucy grinned. "I think part of the map to help find the crown is here." "The map? I never heard about a map!" "Well, you're not part of the royal family, now, are you?" Skipping down the trail, Lucy shot a smile over her shoulder, a brittle mockery of happiness. "I'm the only one who knows about the map, since I'm all the royal family we have left." "OKAY, SO YOU REACH FOR THAT SWITCH..." Lucy, muttering, was trying to work out how best to get out of the traps that had been switched on by an interfering monkey. Honestly! There ought to be some sort of failsafe for these things. Steff, in no better position that the other pirate, was frowning, too. "Then you hit that one?" "Right, right! If we time it right we should get out of this. And then we can have monkey for lunch." If they found the monkey, and anyway, they had better things to do with their time, but it was a nice thought. Straining to keep her balance, Lucy stood on one foot, desperately trying not to falter into the path of the statues now armed to shoot arrows at the slightest movement in front of them - she was on the very thin line between two statues, and the back of her shirt already had a few tears from being shot at. Steff was caught in old earthenware cuffs, swinging axes the size of small space shuttles getting nearer and nearer her. Taking a deep breath, Lucy leapt forward, aiming to land on the stone that should free Steff. There was a crack, and Steff rolled aside, throwing her blaster at the switch to turn off the arrows, as Lucy crouched and covered her head. A moment of silence, and they both stood up, looking both surprised and triumphant. "Well! That went well." Lucy dusted herself off, continuing forward, stepping only in certain places and in certain patterns, catching up to Steff easily. "Captain, I really don't want to know what you would think of as a failed mission at this point." "Oh, we're fine. Anyway, just follow my steps, and if you see another monkey, shoot it." "Aye-aye." STEFF BREATHED FIRE straight back at the dragon, whom snorted smoke in amusement. "Well, okay. That normally works better." "Normally you're using it on people, not fire-breathing dragons." Both girls were a little crispy (or their clothes were), and Lucy's light-cutlass was held before her, though she'd barely managed to scratch the gigantic beast before them. "You didn't say there would be a dragon!" Steff jumped out of the way of another blast of flame, firing off a few more blaster bolts - which harmlessly bounced off the dragon, who gave them what could only be called a smug look. "I knew there would be a guardian at each temple, but I thought maybe they'd, you know, recognize the whole I AM YOUR BLOODY PRINCESS thing!" Deflecting one of Steff's rebounded blasts with her cutlass, Lucy looked more than a little frantic. "That's never how it goes! You always have to prove yourself, come on, don't you read?" "Um, yes, I DO READ. I left MIPSY for my books, and I was high priestess then - " Lucy was cut off as she shrieked, not quite jumping out of the way of flame soon enough, her left sleeve aflame. She dropped her cutlass, trying to get the sleeve to stop burning. The dragon, seeing a chance, was about to dart forward to destroy the last princess of Coword once and for all, when a cloaked figure darted in front of the burning princess, throwing an old sword at the dragon's heart. There was an explosion, and then utter silence, during which Lucy's sleeve finally went out (mostly due to Steff glaring at it). "WHO ARE YOU, and how did you find us?" Scrambling to pick up her dropped cutlass, Lucy didn't sound quite as intimidating as she would have liked. Steff sighed, and raised her blasters, backing up the whole intimidation thing a lot more than Lucy had managed. "I am your servant, Princess." The voice was strange - mechanical and oddly modulated, clearly the work of a voice scrambler. "Yes, well, which one?" Lucy now held her cutlass out, defiantly, although the soot she was covered with still wasn't the most intimidating. The figure seemed to hesitate. "I...cannot say. Only know that I will help you for the rest of this quest. The...universe...depends on it." "Oh, screw that!" Steff, clearly not having any of this mysterious helper nonsense, pointed at the mask and muttered a chant of hell. The mask obediently dissolved into ash, and Steff grinned, victorious. Until, like Lucy, her expression turned to pure shock. "YOU!" Lucy and Steff shouted in unison. Jessi held up her hands, backing away. "No, wait! Princess - you know who I am - and who I am not. Don't you?" Lucy wavered, though Steff didn't, glaring. Finally Lucy frowned, puzzled. "You're...not mine. You're from another world. Goshdarnit, what are you even doing here?" "I...in my world, things are lost." Jessi looked a little sad at this. "You died when the war began." "But - here, I was sent to Mipsy, when it started..." "Yes. You weren't, in my homeland. So...we were left without any of the family. Coword fell. And in looking for some way to save our world, to save - to bring you back - I found a portal. And I learned what was happening, in another place." Jessi's face hardened, and Lucy could see the differences now. "I learned that I - the me in this universe..." "She betrayed me." Lucy said, quiet. "Yes." "And I could not leave you unguarded. You...look so much like her. You are her, had she lived. She was..." "Your best friend. We grew up together, on Coword - leaving Jessi behind when I was sent to Mipsy was horrible." Lucy had lowered her cutlass, and gestured at Steff to lower her own weapons. Though Steff rolled her eyes at the command she obeyed. "I swore to defend Lucille of Coword to my very death. You are my princess, regardless of the world, and if Coword can be saved - if it can be saved in any place...please allow me to help you." Jessi had fallen to her knees, supplicant to ruler, and Lucy went over to pull her up, sighing. "I always said not to do that, you know. Even in another universe - but never mind that. Yes, you may help us. Thank you, Jessi." Lucy gave a tentative smile, unused to being able to trust the other girl, though she could see the differences now, and could feel that she was of another world, just as she could feel Steff's own strange aura. "I HAVE TO GO IN ALONE," Lucy explained to her two crew members, after they'd finally gotten around the very dead dragon. The center of the temple was a wall, a door painted in it. Stepping forward, Lucy pressed her hands to it, and suddenly the door was real. She opened it and stepped through, not waiting to hear the protests from the two girls behind her. The wall was a wall once again, the very second she was through. Steff leaned against a different wall, cleaning her nails. "Sure, leave me with the potential traitor, captain. I see how it is." Other-Jessi glared. "I am not a traitor - and if I see that other...me I will kill her, rest assured." "Well, good. Because if you were a traitor, I'd kill you." Coming from a former hell goddess, this threat was probably a good one to watch. "And why is that?" Shifting, Jessi kept one hand on the hilt of her sword, scanning the temple for any threat from habit. "Hell-goddess; I know who you are, as well." "Former! I quit." Sticking out her tongue at Jessi, Steff shrugged. "I don't know. It's fun being a pirate. Anyway, she hasn't tried to sacrifice me to anything or anyone and I'm pretty certain she's anti-sacrifice. Which is new! And she's the only person who can close portals, in case, well..." "In case your former allies come looking." Steff grinned. "Yep! And she could always come and get me if they take me. I think she'd actually try, too. Besides, the universe is a lot more fun if you don't destroy it or take it over. And I get to breathe fire at people, that's always a plus." "...I see." THREEE TEMPLES LATER, the map was more or less complete. They'd had to basically piece it together like a jigsaw puzzle, but the coordinates were there, and Steff was cheerfully putting them into the navicomp while Lucy wrung out her hair on the deck, looking annoyed. "I hate the water temple." Jessi was equally soaked, but apparently unbothered by it, just watching Lucy complain, muttering. Steff was perfectly dry, of course, having refused to go into the Water temple ("Hell. Goddess. FIRE.") point-blank. "That's the last one?" Jessi was drying her sword rather than her person. "Yes, we've got the full map now. Time for the final bit." Determination flicked across Lucy's face, but was quickly replaced by a bright grin. "This has been fun, though, hasn't it? Our very own quest." "I liked the earth temple. Those guardians were very flammable," Steff put in, finishing up the new coordinates and spinning in her chair. "I liked the air one." Lucy shrugged. "It felt homey, somehow. Anyway, are you two set?" "Coordinates are locked, Captain." Steff announced, proudly; Jessi just nodded. "Then let's go!" LUCY STEPPED ONTO THE ASTEROID alone, Jessi and Steff lingering in the doorway of the ship. "Princess," Jessi called, "Are you certain?" "Yes," was Lucy's quiet reply, spoken into her headset. "One person won't disturb them, but any more..." "...Take care, then." Jessi said, reluctant. "Don't blow shit up without us!" Added Steff. AFTER DODGING MIST-WRAITHS, who had come near and then left her, perhaps sensing her royal blood, Lucy finally found it. She'd felt the tug of ancient magic, the pull of tradition and family, and when she was finally standing there, the crown delicately resting on a mount of stone, she stepped forward, her heart near bursting with the power in the room. Then before the crown appeared a spirit; not a mist-wraith, but similar enough to startle Lucy, before she lowered her light-cutlass, staring. "Who - what are you?" A hushed voice, but so loud in the cavern. Lucy's breath catches as the girl - the spirit - smiles. "Don't you know, Princess?" A voice like liquid gold, a smile like silver. And she does. Lucy knows. "You're the Crown." The girl-ghost drifts closer, and there's a soft touch-not-touch on Lucy's cheek. "And you're the Queen." "...But that Crown..." The spirit laughed. "A solid thing, but not the true Crown. Just the one your ancestors wore, while wreathed in my power. I reside there, but it is not me. Do you see?" "Almost. I...I'm the Queen?" "You found me," the Crown told her, quietly. "You have the blood of Coword running in your veins. You are the Queen; long live the Queen." Lucy smiled, exhilarated, and then faltered, just a little. "I have to do some things before I return to Coword. I...it's important." The Crown only nodded, still smiling. "Leave the Crown here; I am with you regardless." And she was, perhaps - that touch on Lucy's cheek had changed her understanding of the very universe. She could feel the open portals, the rips in the fabric of the multiverse, and she could find each soul that did not belong; Jessi and Steff were still in the ship, their souls bright stars in the universe, filled with a feeling of otherness. "Do you see?" "Yes," Lucy said. "I see. And I will be back. I swear it." "Even if you are not, I reside in you now. Call me should you have need, your majesty." A flicker, and the girl-ghost was gone. The crown, which had shimmered so brightly before, was now dim, a trinket - beautiful and delicate, yes, but the power was missing, to Lucy's royal senses. She looked at her own hands and smiled just a little as she could see the silver-gold magic just below the surface. No one else could see it - none but the royal family would recognize it. "Thank you," She said, very quietly, before turning back to return to the ship, leaving the empty Crown of Coword behind until she could come back and truly claim her planet once again. "NOW WE CAN take back Coword," Jessi said, eyes gleaming. Steff grinned at the thought of a chance to blow more shit up. "No," Lucy said, quietly. "What?" "No. We can't do this right now - this revolution. Jessi's plan - not you, I mean, my you - is already in action. Even if we take her out here - and I'm not sure that's wise - she'll still have contingencies in place. Partners in place. And I still don't know all of what she's trying to do. I can't endanger all of you - I can't endanger Coword. I'm Queen now, and that means I have to think before I act." She closes her eyes, sighs, and then straightens, looking over her crew. "I need to go. If she opens a portal - I can find it and shut it. I need to warn my friends, and get their help. Meanwhile - I know it is much to ask, but I need your help. Both of you. I cannot leave Coword as it is." "I am ever at your service," Jessi said. "I'm in," Steff agreed, getting a glare from Jessi for her lack of formality. "Jessi; I need you to rally the loyalists. Steff - I think I'll need your help, later. In case I get locked up. Or something similar. And I have a plan..." COWORD FADES INTO THE DISTANCE. Lucy looks back, her hand pressed to the glass of the viewport, but only for a few moments. She turns to the controls, and punches in the calculations for the jump into hyperspace. She has a universe to save. |