ya_assemble | [LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

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[LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

"Inspector!" Rafa cried out, as the Inspector's ship crash landed in the purple jungles of Khalafross. Clad in his traditional animal skins, he was an imposing figure, even despite the fact that the Inspector was taller than him. "The danger light blinks! Rafa can see with the eyes of the ship! Our most hated enemy comes for us: Blorgons!"

Native to the planet Tumantis, Rafa was one of the Tessujex, a subgroup of the people known as the Suveteem. In the Inspector's adventures, he had discovered that the Suvateem were actually descendant of a crashed space exploration survey team. (Their name, in fact, was what "survey team" had devolved into over the centuries). The Tessujex had evolved from the animals on board that had accidentally been exposed to mutagens during the crash and developed human intelligence. (Hence the name Tessujex, a twisted version of the words "test subjects.")

After the Tessujex were used as slave labor for centuries, the Inspector was responsible for making the Suveteem realize that the humanoids among them were not the superior species they'd once thought they were and that their claim that they were descended from the gods was false, the Tessujex finally had a chance of being treated equal in their society. After that, Rafa, one of the Tessujex's most noble warriors and resistance fighters had declared that he would follow the Inspector to the end of time until the debt could be repaid, especially if it meant the Inspector could teach him the ways of peace after a lifetime of battle.

"We must leave! Quickly! And fight them in the jungle. Rafa knows the way!"

They had no way of defending themselves on the ship and there was no way to repair it while the Blorgons were on board.

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"AHHHHH!" Nico suggested helpfully. Geez, why did they make those klaxons so loud; did they think that they wouldn't notice the head of their giant fighting robot being ripped off without all that additional racket?

She fumbled around for a panicky moment before she found the controls for the staff thing. She wasn't really practiced at staffs that weren't magical, and while Raph did have some training with a staff, it wasn't his specialty -- especially not one that also had a one-shot blast that could come out of one end. Nico drove the staff forward at the kaiju with a shout, triggering the explosive at the tip as she did so.

If the damn thing was just a little slower, she would have had it!

It veered just enough to avoid the center mass but the blast took off the kaiju's arm in a viscous spray of...hydraulic fluid?

For just a moment as the lightning flashed, the kaiju suddenly looked less like a monster and more like another jaeger, in black armor with horns that made it look like a bat-eared cowl -

Not that Raph knew it, because he didn't know what Batman was, but that was what it looked like. Batman.

As the other jaeger rallied, he and Nico briefly heard a voice - a single voice - over the other jaeger's intercom.

"Troy and Abed in a jaaaeger!"

It was the same reedy voice as earlier, during that brief flash of the other Han Solo and the other Inspector, and the sound of it was jogging something in Raph's brain.

"That guy - he's that guy we saw earlier! He's - he's why we're here - I think? Either we were supposed to bring him in or take him down, but I still can't remember which or how we got into this!"

It was still too fuzzy and they had no time to untangle the situation because the other jaeger turned back into a kaiju again - and it raised a fist and shot globs of something glowing at their Conn-pod.

The front of the Conn-pod exploded, sending metal shrapnel everywhere. Fortunately, their Drivesuits were sturdy enough to take the beating, but the jaeger was already on its last legs. As the jaeger stumbled backwards, putting some space between them and the "kaiju" it turned so the exposed Conn-pod was pointing away from the kaiju, giving them time.

Wires were sparking everywhere, alarms were blaring, displays were flashing red with "CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE" messages. Some of the electronics and hydraulics were failing as coolant and other fluids spewed from broken pipes and tubes.

There was no way they were going to win this, especially when they only half knew what they were doing now that the illusion was broken. So Raph did what any good ninja would do and what any good jaeger pilot wouldn't it, and ripped himself free from his mount, pulling tubes and wires away until he was free to move through the cockpit.

The moment he ripped off his helmet, the strange fluid inside spilling everywhere as he coughed the rest out of his lungs, he suddenly changed back to his true form (albeit still in his drivesuit). It was as if him no longer playing along meant the illusion was suddenly broken. Now that he no longer fully fit the mold of an unstoppable jaeger pilot that never gave up and had reverted back to being a ninja that knew when to cut and run, it was goodbye human jaeger pilot, hello teenage mutant ninja turtle.

"We need to abandon ship! Try to get out of this - this - whatever it is, like we did before!" he cried out, voice ragged from coughing, as he stumbled over to Nico to help her detach, too.

As the jaeger listed in place, he stumbled and slammed right into her. He could hear the heavy choom choom choom of the approaching kaiju. They only had a few seconds to abandon ship - a minute, tops.

Edited 2015-01-06 06:51 (UTC)

Nico hoped they were here to take that guy down. He was having way too much fun putting her in dangerous situations for her to be in much of a mood for a rescue.

She struggled out of the clamps attached to her suit with Raph's help -- a lot of Raph's help, since she'd used up most of her residual memories to get the staff to work. She fumbled with her helmet until it unlocked, the red streaks dyed into her hair running out with the weird liquid that had been inside.

When the jaeger listed and Raph fell against her, she latched onto his shell as hard as she could.

"I can't swim in that!" she shrieked over the sound of the wind and the waves below them. Scuba training had not prepared her for high dives into stormy seas.

Unfortunately, they didn't have time to get out of the suits in the jaeger. A massive kaiju hand suddenly loomed up, heaving towards the hole in their Conn-pod, about to slam into what was left of it.

"No time!" Raph screamed, yanking her along by the hand towards the gaping hole and then bodily yanking her out with him as he jumped out. The kaiju hand slammed right through the hole in the Conn-pod with a sickening crunch the moment they were clear.

"HOLD YOUR BREATH - FEET DOWN!" Raph cried over the shriek of the wind as they dropped like stones, still holding onto her so they'd plummet in together and not be separated by the waves raging around the failing jaeger and raging kaiju.

They sank like stones, too, the swirl of the waves buffeting them around wildly under the water, but ultimately failing at pushing them towards the surface. At the very least, they were ripped away from the fight, meaning they had at least a chance of not getting crushed.

They could barely see each other in the dim light under the water, but as the jaeger sank in the distance, its external lights gave them at least some light to work by. In the other direction were other lights above the surface, as if there was a coastal city not far off in the distance.

But the only chance they had of getting to it was getting their suits off and surfacing before they drowned so they could swim to it.

Raph started to tear off his suit furiously. Fortunately, now that they were away from the jaeger and the little bubble of reality around it, it was much easier to get out of the suits than it should have been.

But could they do it fast enough?

Edited 2015-01-06 07:08 (UTC)

Getting out of her suit nothing, Nico was already struggling just to stay conscious. She had pretty decent lung capacity -- thank you, tuba -- but they'd gone down and around and around, and it had taken most of her energy to not lose track of Raph. Scuba training in the Pacific Ocean off L.A. was one thing, but splashing around in the depths of where ever the hell they were now was another thing entirely.

For all that she was surrounded by water, she burned. Her lungs most of all, but also her eyes and nose from the salt and whatever else was in the water. She burned, and the only thing that could put it out was the water that would kill her.

Where was the Staff of One? Where was her power now? She weakly fumbled at her suit, hoping for a sharp edge she could scratch herself with, to summon the Staff if it hadn't been lost in the ocean depths.

Huh, she hadn't thought she'd die from drowning...

Hands were suddenly there, first ripping off huge chunks of her armor with surprising strength and then as she struggled, as she started to lose consciousness, gently grasping the sides of her face.

He wasn't going to let her die like this, panicking underwater, her hair fanning out like a morbid halo, just inches away from him.

There wasn't time to coax her to breathe out, not before she did it involuntarily and started choking down water so Raph decided to take things into his own hands.

His face hovering just an inch away from hers, he kneed her in the gut, not enough to be painful, but for enough for her to be forced to breathe out, and before she could breathe in again, he clamped his mouth over hers, made a tight seal and breathed out so she could draw his air into her lungs.

Not only was he pretty sure he probably had a bigger lung capacity, even on half a lungful of air, he could manage for almost fifteen minutes. With no air, he could probably manage at least ten. His body was made for being underwater without air and that probably meant that the air in his lungs was still mostly good to breathe, too.

Edited 2015-01-06 08:06 (UTC)

She was confused enough that there wasn't time to register 'betrayal' on her face from the knee to the gut before he'd latched his face onto her face in...rescue breathing. Yeah, that was what it was called in this situation. Not a kiss, even if it looked like one because she'd been about to drown. Having death denied would make anyone's heart act weird. ~~And she was just, you know, not going to think about how the last near-drowning she'd witnessed had gone.~~

She'd have to thank him later though, because under water rescue breathing was only going to do so much for either of them if they didn't break the surface soon. And beyond that, the cold was going to kill her fast if she didn't get out of the water. So she thrust the whole awkward turmoil to the back of her mind, breathed in what he gave her, and resumed her suit-shedding crawl toward the surface of the water.

As soon as they were both free of their suits, Raph grabbed her arms to get her to wrap them around his neck from behind.

Too slow. She couldn't swim fast enough to get to the surface before they both ran out of air. But to be fair, very few humans could have managed it. So, as soon as she had a good grip, he swam as fast as he could, powerful breast strokes and his weird padded, slightly-webbed feet causing them to zoom up to the surface far faster than any human could've gotten them up there.

They finally broke the surface just as he was started to feel the ache of oxygen deprivation himself, and he gasped uncontrollably the moment he made contact with the air, treading water hard enough to keep them both afloat despite it.

Nico gasped for breath as well, trying not to accidentally strangle him as she readjusted her grip on his shoulders so she didn't slip right back down into the water. She probably looked like a drowned rat, but the amount she did not care was as vast as the ocean she was not-quite-yet dying in.

"Docks!" she said, pointing ahead of them and slightly to the left. "I think. Night vision...awful."

He kept swimming, paddling along with her clinging to him, finally staggering up a steep boat ramp onto the docks and collapsing in exhaustion the moment he was on dry land, legs still dangling in the water.

The kind of swim he'd dragged them both through could have killed many a rescue swimmer and it was only because of his turtle-ness and the fact he was a particularly impressive specimen of turtle that he'd gotten them to land.

The entire dock they were on was devoid of people and shrouded in fog, reducing the entire world to a dim grey, dulling all colors to something close to black and white. Far off in the distance, across the river, blinked city lights, the outlines of skyscrapers creating a particularly distinctive skyline.

Raph turned his head to look at it as he lay there. Then he sniffed the air, looking at the river.

"That's - the Hudson," he gasped out. He looked over at the city skyline, shrouded by fog. "And that's Manhattan."

He lifted his head up slightly to look around, before flopping it back against the ramp. "We're at the Red Hook Terminal. How the heck did we go from that to winding up in Brooklyn?"

Nico rolled off his shell to her hands and knees -- better that one of them be prepared to do something if someone showed up, considering how exciting everything had been so far. She staggered to her feet and peered into the darkness before peeling off her short maroon jacket and wringing it out. Tt left her shivering in her sarashi wrap and knee-length black shorts, but it was better than standing there with everything dripping.

"We went from one alien planet to Tatooine to a giant robot on Earth," she said. "As long as it's not my New York, I'll take it."

She glanced back to see if he wanted any help getting to his feet but oh boy, she was already freezing, she did not have the blood to waste blushing.

"You've, uh," she gestured at her mouth, then back towards him. "You've got red--"

You know what else she ought to wring out? Her hair. It was going to start falling out of the high ponytail she'd styled it in if she didn't wring it out right now.

Red? Of course he had red, he had a red banda - oh.

On his face. Apparently, lipstick was pretty waterproof, okay. He sat up slowly and wiped at his mouth awkwardly, trying to get rid of it and trying not to think about the fact her lips had put it there. That, for just a few seconds, her lips had been touching his lips, as her hair had fanned out in the water -

No. No, he'd been giving her air. So she didn't die. Not romantic at all. She'd probably been grossed out by his gross turtle breath, anyway.

Annnd now she was back to not having that much clothing again, though not to the degree the metal bikini had been. Although now that he had a moment to breathe it meant he had a moment to reflect on the fact that she'd been in a skimpy metal bikini. And attached to him via the brain - and - and - pressed against him in a cage, looking him in the eyes -

Okay, wow, a lot had happened in the last few hours. A lot that was probably best ignored.

"Not sure what Tatooine is, but I'm guessing it was the place where you -" the pause was very subtle because Raph was slick like that, so he quickly segued away from thoughts of what she was wearing, past and present (and future? Oh boy, he wondered what was coming next...) "- strangled that blob-guy. That whole thing looked like some knock off of Space Wars."

He paused.

"A lot of this seems like knock offs of stuff. That bit with the aliens was like Doctor Whatsit - that's a sci fi show about an alien who travels through time and space back home. And the thing with the blob guy was like Space Wars - Leo's a total nerd over it it." Almost as much as Space Heroes. "And the giant robots were like a ton of mecha shows and movies I've seen, especially Pacific Rift."

He tried to think, tried to remember how this had all started.

"And I don't know about you but I don't remember how it all started. How did we go from chilling at the Pole to joining in somebody's tv and movie marathon up close and personal? And what's that tall, skinny guy we kept getting glimpses have to do with it all? Do you remember anything?"

Edited 2015-01-06 10:21 (UTC)

Maybe they weren't knock-offs. Maybe they were the versions of the stories that had made it through into that guy's reality. But that wasn't really important right now. Focus on what was important and not on the whole dashing-rescue-from-inevitable-death thing. Yes.

"I don't..." Nico frowned, pressing her fingertips to her temple. "You said something earlier about how we're here to either grab that guy and bring him back to the Pole or to defeat him? I don't remember how it got started either; but he's definitely at the bottom of all this."

She rubbed her arms and glared down at her still-wet coat. It would have been nice if whoever this guy was, he hadn't left them splashing around in the water in their new...

Wait.

"I don't usually dress like this." She awkwardly tucked her hands under her arms, both to try and warm them up and also to cover her chest a bit. Not that much was showing, but. "I have perfectly good bras--" Wait wait, no. She continued quickly, "--why am I wearing bandages? You're wearing what you usually wear, aren't you?"

Raph could only stare at her awkwardly after that declaration, trying to find the right words - any words - to use in response. To his credit most of the staring was at her face. Most of it. There was only the briefest, quickest, most unconscious, most ninja glimpse ever at her chest when she mentioned bras, but otherwise he was very good and kept his eyes at eye level.

"Uh. You look -"

Oh boy, dangerous territory here.

"Kinda ninja-ish? Like -" In a scantily clad way, at least. "- uh, in a 'trying to distract the enemy' way. Which is definitely a pretty standard kunoichi tactic. Karai used to flirt with Leo to get him off guard before we all found out she was Sensei's long lost daughter. She tried to do it with me a little bit too but it always just made me wanna punch her harder."

Since it was pretty obvious what she'd been doing.

Raph finally stood up, staggering weakly to his feet. Looking down at himself, he said, "My gear's a little off. Same weapons but just...different." He held out his hands, eyes widening slightly as he finally realized what looked so...off about this place. "Uuuh, is it just me or are we both lookin' a little black and white and...cross-hatchey?"

Edited 2015-01-06 10:45 (UTC)

"Great, 'skanky ninja' was totally my favorite Asian girl Halloween costume," Nico grumbled, trying to decide if the extra clothing was worth putting her wet coat back on. It would just make her colder, sure, but she'd at least look like she remembered to put all her clothes on this morning. Evening. Whatever.

She glanced back down at her coat, frowning. It had been maroon, hadn't it? She'd thought it had, but now that he mentioned it, things were looking more monochromatic than usual. She pulled her hands out from under her arms. "I'm definitely rocking the high-contrast black nail polish look right now. Trying to see the cross-hatches is giving me a headache, so I'm going to go with 'yes'. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No." He paused and tilted his head to the side. "Yes."

He briefly closed his eyes and when he opened them again, they were just white. No iris, no pupil, like how some superheroes had little see through parts of their masks over their eyes that hid them.

He drew his sais, twirling them in his hands.

"The other me's. I think this is - I think this is tied to one of the other me's. Maybe a comic? Jack said it all started with comics. Comics, then cartoons and movies and more comics. It feels like this place is - it's someplace where everything's supposed to begin."

A pause.

"And where it already ended."

He spotted something moving out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see ninjas suddenly appearing all over the damn place, on all the massive cargo containers, on the cranes, everywhere.

"Oh, for the love of -"

The Foot. Of course it was the Foot.

"It will be your end, turtle," boomed a voice from nearby, echoing around the shipping crates. "Here, at the beginning of it all."

Raph's eyes went wide. It was hard enough to face Shredder with his brothers, but now? When it was just the two of them and he was so exhausted from that swim that he was barely on his feet? Against a veritable army of the Foot?

And this Shredder didn't sound like the one Raph knew, and did, at the same time. It sounded like the Shredder that had killed his father and the Shredder that had beaten up Leo, but at the same time he could tell it was a different one, one that was more...primeval. Like he was more the idea of the Shredder.

If this had been the Shredder he knew, he'd have thrown himself right into the battle, exhaustion or not, because of his rage, because of what Shredder had done. But this wasn't his Shredder and he wasn't back home and his brothers weren't here and he wasn't even fighting fit.

His brothers weren't here and someone that'd never once tangled with the Shredder before was. It wasn't even that he thought she wasn't badass but these weren't rent-a-ninjas and right now the two of them were clearly not myth-powered even if they had their usual powers and abilities.

And this was the idea of The Shredder, at its most primal.

"Nico," he said calmly - far too calmly. Frighteningly calmly, a tone of voice she'd likely never heard him use before. "You need to start running."

Edited 2015-01-06 12:10 (UTC)

"That," Nico observed, dropping both arms down to her sides and extending her fingers behind her, "is more than the usual amount of ninjas."

Where exactly did he expect her to run to? Could he even take this many ninjas right after he'd carried her up out of the ocean? She glanced behind her, hoping for Godzilla or something to pop up and be a distraction. Where was the guy who they were here following?

She shifted backward slowly, gravel crunching underfoot as she tried to figure out if the Staff of One was anywhere nearby for her to grasp.

"RUN!" Raph screamed at her now, voice far less calm, as he jumped into the fray, trying to make himself as obvious a target as possible.

His hope was that she'd get somewhere safe, he'd be able to toss a smoke bomb and ninja away, and they could meet up later. Digging in and trying to win this thing was practically suicide, it needed to be a hit and run, and that meant it was better if one of them already started running.

But as difficult as the fight was, even while exhausted fifteen years of skill weren't anything to scoff at. Even while exhausted he could have held his own against some of the best of the best of her world.

However, unlike some of the best of the best of her world, he wasn't holding back. At all. Back when the Foot had all been human, they'd tried to knock them out with kicks and punches and the flats of their weapons. They'd had the luxury. They'd given the Foot so many beat-downs, of such magnitude, that most of them had decided a ninja life of crime wasn't for them. Shredder had run out of volunteers and had to commission all of his robot ninjas instead.

But when it was a lone ninja against, oh, three hundred Foot? And some nightmare version of the Shredder? That wasn't the time to hold back.

This was the first she ever saw him fight an enemy that wasn't a practice dummy and if it wasn't for, you know, all the blood spray, it would have been pretty majestic. Because even exhausted, he danced like lightning. He was a storm - half of the one they'd been together in the Drift - raging and flattening whole seaside civilizations. Sometimes he even gave the impression that he wasn't beholden to gravity and capable of liberating other people from it, leaping and bouncing off of crates, people, any available surface, flinging Foot ninjas around like rag dolls in complicated maneuvers that had them slamming into other ninjas and sending them also flying like errant bowling pins.

Edited 2015-01-06 12:42 (UTC)

'All the blood spray' was kind of hard to ignore. There was an awful lot of blood spray. Nico leaped backwards, clapping her hands over her mouth in horror. The ninjas seemed to be focusing on Raph instead of her -- for the moment -- which just meant that she had a better view of the carnage.

This was what he had in his head?

Pretty much.

Only he usually envisioned himself winning.

They were wearing him down. A lucky punch here, a kick to the chest there. It didn't happen all at once, but he was clearly losing control of the situation. An attempt to use a smoke bomb failed when one of the Foot managed to grab his foot as he leaped away, swinging him around and slamming him into a crate that broke on impact.

Edited 2015-01-06 12:54 (UTC)

He was going to lose.

"RAPH!" she shouted as he vanished under a veritable avalanche of ninjas as the booming voice from earlier roared with laughter. She took off toward the heap, only to be shoved aside by a second wave -- surely they couldn't all be trying to stab him at once, could they? There were two many of them, they'd stab each other!

"Oww!"

Blood seeped from Nico's arm across the gravel and sandpaper on the dock. As it did, her soul sung with a very welcome sensation.

Someone really ought to start briefing the ninjas.

"When Blood Is Shed, Let the Staff of One Emerge."

The magic was a bit more...dramatic here, possibly to make up for the lack of color. The Staff of One blossomed from her chest amidst light and smoke, and the ninjas sure as hell were noticing her now.

"Go the #$%& to sleep."

They all collapsed simultaneously, every last one of them...except for one.

He stood, staring at her and her staff, cocking his head in confusion.

"You don't belong here. Wrong canon. The big two would never be able to agree on the rights for a crossover with a small indie comics company."

The ninja's image briefly blurred revealing a tall, brown-skinned man with a concerned gaze, wearing a ninja turtle costume. He carried a bo staff. Then, as if he couldn't reconcile what he was seeing, as if it alarmed him, he bolted, running like a deer in headlights and shoving his way through a wall - which suddenly ripped apart like paper - and disappeared.

Nearby, the mound of ninjas was moving but Raph was having a little trouble climbing out of it.

The grumbling sounds at least made it clear he was probably okay.

What the...

Nico shook off her confusion. She could either chase after that guy and risk leaving Raph behind in this reality, or she could help Raph out of that pile of ninjas and hope they could catch up. She went with the latter, wading gingerly into the mess of ~~blood and~~ bodies and trying to move them aside. At least most of them were sleeping.

Most of them.

"Raph, you okay? I saw the guy, he was wearing a turtle costume and babbled something about crossovers and big companies verses little companies before he ran off, come on!"

Raph popped out between two Foot clan ninjas like a daisy, looking extremely affronted, sais in his hands as he awkwardly tried to force his way free.

To his credit, despite the blood bath of earlier, he wasn't stabbing anyone while they were down. Apparently that'd been fully reserved for that specific moment of being in deep deep sewer runoff.

"A turtle costume!" If he sounded pissed it was because he was pissed. And still breathing raggedly, what with all the fighting and such. "Like it's aaall fun and games!"

This guy was running around talking about comic book crossovers while we're stuck dodging ninjas and nearly drowning."

He stumbled the rest of the way out and joined Nico's side, following wherever she was running off to.

"What is that?" he said, the moment he saw the hole. The paper hole. In a brick wall. Whatever was beyond it was brightly colored, a stark contrast to the grim black and white world they were in, as if they were in one half of the Wizard of Oz movie and about to step into the other half.

Edited 2015-01-06 23:41 (UTC)

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