Like a bullet / Meant to be shot Who: Nebula & Gemini de Mille. What: The blue lady faces off with the shapeshifter, per orders from Captain Phasma. When: Following this holonet post. Where: Mustafar. Rating: PG-13
In a strange act of charity for the Luphomoid, Nebula purchased a ship with the full amount of credits offered to her by her hosts, the Naboo. It was a small vessel that would only hold two passengers, and its interior environmental systems were somewhat compromised, but Nebula only needed it to get her to Mustafar. After that, she'd either be dead or she'd be the newest recruit of the First Order, and neither outcome necessitated a ship in better shape.
It was those circumstances that had her nearly crash land on the surface of the volcanic planet. A sharp stop, skidding along the rocky surface with a shower of sparks, put her near one of the Techno Union's abandoned mining operations. Nebula had to kick the door free, emerging out into the abundantly heated atmosphere; her body automatically recalibrated to deal with the overwhelming temperature. It wasn't a perfect solution -- her systems were still close to overheating -- but the very fact of what surrounded her reminded Nebula of the training sessions with her siblings. The odds were stacked against her, but she had never failed to prove herself before.
She turned and headed into the mining base to investigate and see what options were available before her prey arrived.
The communication had been terse and to the point, Gemini had expected no less from ‘Jocasta’. Military types were all the same, and it made them easier to deal with, easier but far less fun. Her instructions were simple, go to a planet called Mustafar and recover data belonging to an old criminal organisation. Stealing a ship had been easy, programming the co-ordinates a little harder but she was a quick learner and anyway the automatic pilot had done most of the work, she hadn’t even bothered to look out of the window until the ship touched down on the landing platform of the old mining outpost.
The ship’s hatch opened, ramp descending slowly and she was about to step confidently out when a blast of heat such as she’d rarely felt erupted into the spacecraft. A glance down at her hands confirmed that they were sweating, pearls of fluid the same colour as her gloves leaking from the material and as she pressed the too soft fingers to face she was dismayed to feel the skin of her cheeks deform under the pressure. Losing control was never pleasant, it reminded her of the terror of when her powers first manifested nearly a decade before, her body melting even as she screamed until her throat melted. It had taken her years to relearn how to take human form and for a time her new powers had made her feel indestructible, invulnerable…until that awful moment Batgirl had set her on fire.
As she looked out the sea of lava below Gemini quailed, stepping back involuntarily into the cool of the ship, terror coursing through her. The urge to flee was overwhelming, and she nearly turned around and left on the spot were it not for the imagined voice of her mother that rang out in her head. De Mille’s did not run, not from a little heat, how could she ever look in the mirror again if she ran away? Reaching in for her inner anger she seized it, using it to beat back the fear and reign in her panic.
Gemini snarled, focussed, and was rewarded by her form firming up, the ‘sweat’ sinking back into her clothing and skin. It would take more concentration but she could still hold herself together at this temperature, although she wouldn’t get any closer to that lava, the risk of melting entirely and slipping in was too great. Hopefully she could find whoever was here quickly and leave as soon as possible. Jaw setting, she strode down the ramp, squashing her trepidation as best she could. There was a job to do and she was going to do it. Besides, the old mining base should be cooler, particularly if she could get the life support back online.
Nebula had made quick work of the surveillance systems inside the old base, and a pleased smirk worked itself across her face as she saw a woman enter the decaying mining facility. With no other living beings on the planet -- not humanoid, anyway -- it was easy to deduce that this was the 'Gemini' that the First Order captain bid her find and investigate. Nebula's hands moved across a dashboard of buttons, flicking switches and bringing old machinery to life. The hum of it made Nebula feel a little at home -- she'd been raised on starships, implanted with their guts, made one of them -- and so she could not remove the hideous smile that appeared on her lips.
Conveyor belts began to churn, dragging empty air across expansive rooms. Mechanical arms swung about, looking to pluck ready-made product from one area to another, while massive buckets hovered overhead; some were bottomless, their contents having eaten through the hard shell, while others were empty, ready to be filled once more with the insanely heated magma used in the facility's production.
The air was cooler inside the old facility, not by much, but enough that Gemini no longer felt she would liquify with every step. The walls inside were rusty in places, blasted by the unforgiving atmosphere of the planet, but overall everything was still in a good state of preservation, as if the people who’d run this place had left not long before and expected to return not long after. For some reason that hadn’t happened, running her fingers along an odd slash shaped burn scar in a wall, she passed through a door that led out onto a wide, dark space beyond.
No sooner had she stepped out onto the viewing gallery then suddenly the building began to thrum with power, systems firing up while she watched, the machinery coming to life before her eyes. Someone else was here, it was the only explanation and if someone was here and trying to power up the facility they must be after the information contained in the data bank too. Whoever it was had picked the wrong person to compete with.
She needed to find the control room quickly. A gantry led across the main factory space past the swinging mechanical arms and impressive buckets and she made for it. Her footsteps lengthening into giant stretching strides to carry her more rapidly towards her goal, ignoring the whirring machinery as not a threat. The door at the other end of the gantry was almost certainly not the control room, but if she could find the wiring at the other end she could follow that straight to the control room.
Nebula glanced away from the security viewscreen and hit a lever. One of the arms descended on Gemini, its flat-handled pincers making right for the shapeshifter. Another button had it closing, intending to pluck the woman from the walkway she was moving across.
The whistle of air alerted Gemini that something was incoming and she twisted her head around bonelessly to glance behind, her eyes widening as the giant claw descended and clamped around her. The pincers crushed her softer than normal body with ease and the next moment she was hefted up on the walkway, cursing as she slowly began to ooze her body out of the pincers grip.
Nebula's brow furrowed; she'd been told this creature was a shapeshifter, but even that didn't do the scene she was currently seeing on the viewscreen justice. She made the pincers twirl, and then finally directed it toward one of the circulating buckets. It was heading directly for one filled to the brim with magma, moving closer with every second.
The prongs twirled, disorientating Gemini even though she had no brain to get dizzy, her escape slowing. Then she felt a burst of heat from the magma, her fear welling up until she realised that the heat was softening her further, letting her fully escape the pincers grip. Wasting no time she surged up the pincer stretch-spiralling around it like a snake, shooting up away from the bucket below. Once she judged herself at a safe distance she pulled her stretched body back into a human shape and leapt into the air, a pair of huge bat wings sprouting from her back and propelling her rapidly back towards the gantry.
The woman in blue ensconced in the control room frowned, foreign obscenities leaking from her mouth. She hit another group of buttons, two more arms heading in Gemini's direction; they came from opposing ends of the factory floor. She realized this probably wasn't going to do her much good, but it was worth a shot -- perhaps the dual target would be more difficult for the shapeshifter to extricate herself from. One swung low, coming at Gemini from the side, while the other looked to pluck from up above, moving downward with aim to crash directly into the gantry.
Suppressing her fear of the magma with the thoughts of what she was going to do to the person operating these systems Gemini was not about to be taken by surprise again or so she thought. This time when the arm swung at her she tipped her wings and swung gracefully in mid-air to avoid the strike, keeping her attention on it to avoid a follow-up attack from that arm. But a rush of air had her glancing up, too late to react as the other arm crashed into her a moment later, smashing her into the gantry with considerable force, leaving her lying spread-eagled on the grated walkway seemingly senseless.
Nebula watched the screen for a moment; after seconds passed and the shapeshifter didn't move, she pulled her hands away from the controls. One hand moved to the blaster she had situated on her hip; she wasn't going to be able to tell if the thing was dead from in here, not in any tangible way. Muttering under her breath, she exited the control room and made her way down to the factory floor. She could see the shapeshifter from leagues away, and kept her hand on her weapon; she wasn't unfamiliar with traps, having set many herself, and she wasn't going to be taken by surprise in this scenario. For once, she'd gained and held the upperhand, and Nebula would do whatever it took to retain it.
Why waste time battling her way through the facility when she could get whoever was directing the attack to come to her? Gemini lay completely still for what felt like an age, waiting patiently until she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She had already adjusted her vision so as to be able to see without opening her eyes or moving, her gaze zeroing in on the blue woman, the blaster disregarded almost at once instead focussing on the cybernetic appearance of the alien. A hybrid perhaps? Interesting. She had fought robots before and knew how tough they could be, but she was going to make this one regret what it had tried to do to her. She had begun to extrude a tendril the moment she’d hit the gantry, the wire-thin sliver emerging unobtrusively from her side and slipping through the gantry’s grille-floor, extending half way towards the door. She waited for the hybrid to take a few steps forward and then struck..
“Hi there!” Her head snapped up and she gave her opponent a vicious smile, her tendril swelling as it whipped up from behind the hybrid and wrapped around her ankles, yanking her off her feet, lifting her into the air...then slammed her with considerable force into the factory wall.
Nebula's head struck the wall with some force, but the metal shell that wrapped around it protected her from any true harm -- still, the strike did confuse her circuitry, blanking out her visual sensors for a moment as her body struggled to make sense of what had occurred. She groaned, sliding down to the floor; her hands groped for her blaster, plucking it up and holding it true. She had no response for the thing's greeting, instead offering a welcome of blaster fire in what she was sure was the direction of the creature. Slowly, her visuals began to creep back online, flickering over the optical orbs installed in her head; black became gray, and outlines of objects passed over her vision. While she waited, she just kept firing.
Gemini’s smile widened as she watched the hybrid smack into the wall, the groan that came from the alien music to her ears. Good she’d hurt it, but not it seemed fatally, and not enough to stop it shooting, which would have taken the fun out of her revenge. Her form was already sliding out of the pincers grip once more, and as the blaster bolts came flying towards her she twisted effortlessly, to avoid them, her body elongating and flattening in a completely inhuman way as the last of her legs slithered free. Even though she was a good twenty feet away she threw a punch, her arm stretching, picking up speed as the fist on the end of it swelled to the same size as the hybrid, her other fist following just behind.
She might not have been able to identify what exactly was coming toward her, but Nebula could still register that there was something flying at her. She darted to the side, rolling down the gantry back toward the hallway she'd come through; once she came up, she fired again, this time at the large target Gemini's fists had become.
Her initial punches missed but Gemini didn’t relent. Her arms swung around, preparing for another flurry of blows as Nebula rolled away, the volley of blaster bolts that spat out as the hybrid righted coming as no surprise. What was a surprise was how the bolts pierced clean through her fists, the heat from the planet mingling with the power of the bolts to bore clean through her hands. Shrinking them and retracting her arms took barely a second, the holes melding shut with a thought, her face tight with anger as she stalked angrily towards the hybrid.
A fist made contact with Nebula's chin, knocking her head back; another flurry hit her shoulder and stomach, making her grit teeth in response to the unpleasurable sensory response. She struck out at the shapeshifter's arms with her blaster, wishing fervently that she had her blades; they were still in impound back on Naboo, and she regretted not taking the time to retrieve them. Impatience had gotten the better of her.
The hybrid’s blaster swung at her arms, hit...and bounced off like it had impacted a squishy trampoline. Gemini gasped in obviously fake agony, clutching the spots that had been hit with abnormally long fingers. “I can’t take it any more the pain!” She mocked, pouting at Nebula before her expression turned contemptuous. “Feeble.” The arms lashed out again, only this time they were fleshy pink tentacles thick with muscle, her formerly slender body swelling out, turning green and sprouting horrific teeth. Gemini-Rathtar lashed out her tentacles, trying to wrap them around the hybrid and reel her in, razor sharp maw opening as she lunged at her foe with a horrific screech.
Nebula's ocular orbs went wide, her processor doing what it could to make sense of what it was seeing. Shapeshifter, she reminded herself, grasping at her belt as the tentacles found purchase on her being. She didn't want to find out how well this shapeshifter could mimic forms, but it seemed like she was set for a lesson regardless; pulling a grenade from her belt (one of the many toys she'd found while searching the factory before her target's arrival), she fingered the pullpin as she was dragged closer to the creature's maw.
One of the advantages of having numerous eyes was being able to see her opponent from multiple angles, so Gemini could quite clearly see the grenade that the hybrid pulled from her belt but dismissed it as a threat. Hissing loudly, she dragged her prey closer, mouth opening wide and bit down hard, expecting to feel her teeth slicing through skin and muscle and dicing the hybrid to ribbons. But instead her teeth bent against the tough outer skin, unable to penetrate, and Gemini cursed, remembering that the ambient heat had weakened her solidity, stopping her from penetrating whatever tough substance the hybrid was made from. But if she was softer that meant the grenade…
“Crap!” She needed to spit this thing out fast.
Nebula grinned evilly, and popped the pin on the grenade. She tossed it into the creature's mouth, uncaring of the damage to her own person; she could always be put back together. As an extra insult, she grabbed onto either side of the creature's mouth and held fast, refusing to let the rathtar spit her back onto the floor.
The green reptilian skin between Nebula’s fingers turned semi-liquid and oozed out of her grip but that was about all Gemini could managed before her body exploded splattering green flesh and rubbery blue goo across the surroundings. The tentacles writhed and thrashed, twitching madly, then finally grew still. After a moment they dissolved, losing their colouring and consistency turning from pink and fleshy to blue and rubbery, what had been a Rathtar dissolving into a large puddle of viscous goop.
Nebula took damage to her legs, the one closest to the explosion severing completely. She was thrown back again, but refused to be done until the thing in front of her was dead. Pulling up her blaster, she aimed at the puddle, pushing herself up to sitting with her remaining, mostly whole lower limb.
The puddle began to rise and draw inward, pulling itself up from the floor into a column, globules of goo slithering toward it from around the building where they’d spattered. The column thinned, shaping into a humanoid figure, colours and textures swirling until Gemini stood fully formed, her face set in an angry glare. “You’ll pay for that I promise you.” Her body elongated, shooting forward to loop around Nebula like an angry snake, the coils constricting irresistibly, slowly crushing her prey. Nebula brought up her blaster and started bringing it down on the coils, to little effect. Her mind scrambled for options.
“Fascinating. I thought I might learn more about you both in a simulation such as this.” There was a shimmer, like light reflecting off water, and then Phasma stood there, wearing a black flight suit with the red insignia of the First Order. She sported both a silver blaster and a vibroblade in a sheath, plus a bigger gun on her back, but she did not look even vaguely interested in using any of them at the moment. For all that she stood a crisp military attention, her arms were crossed over her chest. The red light from the magma pools cast her white-blonde hair in a fiery glow. “Set her down, Gemini. You’ve both done sufficiently well.”
“What?” Gemini twisted her head around to stare at the newly appeared woman, her mouth falling open in disbelief. This had all been a test? The revelation made her kick herself that she hadn’t realised before, anger flaring and showing in her eyes. Had she been in the their place she would probably have done the same, but she didn’t appreciate being kept in the dark. She glanced back at the hybrid, really not wanting to let it go now that she was so close to making it scream, but if Jocasta didn’t want it dead...Sighing disappointedly she relaxed the pressure and began to unspool herself from around Nebula, slowly reconstituting into a fully human form.
Nebula scooted away from Gemini's slowly recalibrating form, unable to stand without her second leg and refusing to show further weakness. She at least pushed herself to a sitting position, scowling in Phasma's direction.
"Can't say I'm entirely surprised; this is exactly something my father would have done," she all but sneered, doing her best to keep most of the vitriol she felt toward the situation out of her tone. "I certainly hope I'll be compensated for my loss."
“Neither of you should be surprised,” Phasma answered, walking closer now that they had separated. “Nor should you be angry or disappointed. With your skill sets, you should not settle for working for anyone who expected less than your full effort, or accepted you at face value without such a demonstration. I’m actually impressed.” Her tone remained dry, although the words sounded sincere. “Nebula, your leg will be recovered and rebuilt to your specifications. You will have any upgrades from our techs that you wish. Now, I imagine you’d like to get off this rock in order to discuss compensation.” Phasma eyed the magma. “Oh, and Gemini….I do actually need that drive image.”
The growing realisation that she wasn’t going to be able to kill someone was making Gemini a little grumpy, her nerves were still more than a little jangled by the presence of the awful magma and crushing Nebula into a pulp would have made her feel much better. Oh well. Her eyes narrowed and she bit back a ‘get it yourself’ retort, but turned without saying a word and stalked off to get what she’d originally come for. Her anger would have cooled by the time she returned and in the meantime come up with some ego-wounding taunts to use against Nebula, and how to frame her request to the Captain for a ship. One thing she was sure was that she was never coming anywhere near this damned planet ever again.