The Swamps

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens onto a scene of grey-green organic dampness. It's late in the year in the swamps of Point Lookout- maybe November, maybe December, hard to say. The bombs threw the climate off something awful, mostly in the nuclear summer direction, and the plants don't really know when to stop growing versus when to just slow down.

There's a humming of bugs and a feeling of large things moving in the deeper, browner, more acidic waters off in the distance, but for now the ground is solid as Ellen observes, "I think this was Tobar's shack- the man who was doing those surgeries. When all of this is done I'm probably going to burn it to the ground, assuming it's not too damp to catch fire."

Comments

[ambriel]

"Stand firm. Remember your purpose here. If you have no objection to magic, I could give you some small amount of protection."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen shakes her head. "No objection," she says, "and I trust you. If it-"

There's another wave of malice and barely-controlled rage.

"-wouldn't be too much trouble, please?" Ellen says when she gets her breath back.

[ambriel]

Ambriel steps forward and lays two fingers on the front of Ellen's helmet, directly above her forehead.

"Ellen Park. I give you my blessing. Let your armor be your SHIELD." The last word rings like the tone of a bell.

"Now, let us end this."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Given that one of the titles the more conventionally religious members of the Brotherhood use to refer to God is 'the Shield of Soldiers', that's pretty much the best thing Ellen could hope for. She smiles- again, not something likely to be seen given the helmet- and draws herself up straight.

"Thank you," she says. "Time to take Professor Calvert down."

There's a set of stairs leading down at the end of the corridor, just past the smoking wreck of a Robobrain. There's side rooms here and there, of course, but Ellen's learned by now that prewar buildings didn't put significant areas in little side rooms. Architecture demands certain configurations, and if this is the St. Aubin's facility Desmond spoke of, then the central room lies just below them.

So down the stairs they go, into an area with bunk rooms on either side and seething frustration and rage heavy enough in the air to taste.

[ambriel]

"He is very close," Ambriel says, and readies the spear.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

One of the bunk room doors is locked and barred from the outside. Ellen glances at it in passing and murmurs, "He probably has Whydah and Morgan in there. We'll get them out after this is done- they're probably not in any condition to protect themselves."

"Is that a mouse I hear clanking around out there?" calls out a voice more felt than heard. "So, the would-be Dragoon's shed their skin for a shell, eh?"

Ellen growls to herself and readies the plasma rifle. She shoulders the door at the end of the room open. Beyond lies a huge round room of catwalks and cables and electronics, with storage tubes holding Robobrains and Protectrons at regular intervals. In the center, at the confluence of three catwalks, is a tall, faintly glowing tube of blue biogel in which a pulsating human brain is floating.

"Found yourself a friend, eh? And here I thought it would be that corpse Lockheart who'd finally get here to try to do me in. Robots! Get these two out of my sight!"

There's another wave of malice and hatred as the robots' tubes slide open, but the psychic influence slides off Ellen to either side like water against a ship's prow. "Here we go, Ambriel!" she calls out as she opens fire.

[ambriel]

After a glance to confirm that Ellen has the robots, Ambriel strides forward, heading for the catwalks.

"While I don't believe you will take me up on it, I will give you one chance," the angel says conversationally. "Do you repent of the evil you have done in the past, and swear to travel a new path from now on?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

(Evil Overlord List item #212: "I will not send out battalions composed wholly of robots or skeletons against heroes who have qualms about killing living beings.")

(Let's just say Ellen is laying waste to those robots like her name was Jehane Butler and Frank Herbert was hanging around to take notes.)

The brain turns its attention to Ambriel, and the atmosphere in the room switches to one of utter incredulity. "Excuse me?" it says. "Do you have any idea who you're talking to? My plans are finally within reach! I'm not about to turn aside now..."

[ambriel]

"I thought not. Would you care to explain this fascinating support system? I did not think it was possible for a human brain to survive outside its body, but I have been proved wrong several times today."

Ambriel makes it to one of the catwalks that surround Calvert's tube.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Don't think you can be clever enough to outwit me," the brain warns. "That's bulletproof glass you're looking at there, and the biogel solution that supports and feeds me gives me more than enough neural conductivity to summon all my innate psychic abilities. So much as lift a hand against the tube and I'll swat you down like a bug!"

(Ellen's usual battlecry is "Knees are a privilege!", but that doesn't really strike much fear into treaded robots. She feels vaguely cheated somehow. Oh well. More fighting, less thinking.)

[ambriel]

"Bulletproof?"

Ambriel glances at the divine spear. And at the glass.

Then the angel drives the spear straight through the tube. Shattered glass pings off the metal grating.

The biogel is too thick to flow, but it does start to ooze and drip.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The ripple of utter shock that tears through the room's atmosphere is almost enough to catch Ellen off guard even though it's not directed at her. "What in- how did you do that?" the brain cries. "You can't do that!"

[ambriel]

Ambriel does not waste any more time with quips, and proves the Professor wrong by doing it again.

Oh look, if you make the hole big enough, the gel comes out faster!

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Stop! Stop! What do you want? I can give it to you! I'll find a way to get it-"

"That's not going to work, Professor Calvert," says Ellen, who's just put down the last of the robots in a shower of glowing green. "That's really not going to work."

[ambriel]

Once more. The level of gel is sinking, lowering the brain toward the catwalks.

"Ellen. Is it enough to destroy the tube and gel, or must we destroy the brain as well?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen casts a momentary glance at the tube as the Professor starts shrieking threats at the top of his whatever-it-is-a-disembodied-psyker-has-instead-of-lungs. "We need to destroy the brain," she says. "I've read too many comic books to take the chance. I have a sword that will do it, if I can get an opening."

[ambriel]

Ambriel freezes for a moment, head tilted as if listening.

"Yes. It should be you." The angel stands aside, making room for her to get closer to the tube.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods and steps forward, her plasma rifle slung over her shoulder. She reaches to the hilt of the weapon she's had at her waist this whole time.

"Wait!" cries the brain desperately. "Wait. I can't- I don't- I'm sorry! I surrender! Please, I beg you!"

Ellen freezes.

(She's killed people who'd surrendered once before, because she had no choice. You don't forget a thing like that.)

[ambriel]

Ambriel blinks. Odd, he seemed very sure a moment ago-

"FOOLS," the brain says, and lets out a blast of percussive, telekinetic force.

The angel is forced back against the railings with a crack.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen is thrown back a considerable distance, her armor clattering around her as she tumbles. She grabs for the nearest support- the edge of one of the robots' storage booths- and pulls herself upright.

"I said it in the Pitt and I'll say it again," she mutters. "I am so very tired of people like you."

There's a streak of lightning in her hand as she runs at the remains of the Brain's life support tube. The Scribes of the Order of the Sword don't fool around when it comes to making weapons.

[ambriel]

Well, that was...expected.

Ambriel wrenches out of the dent in the metal and stands ready behind Ellen.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The problem with massive blasts of psychic power like that- from the point of view of the blaster, anyway- is that it takes a few moments to gather your strength again for a second one should the first fail to fully do the job. Professor Calvert is too busy thundering "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE UP AGAINST!" to notice that they, in fact, do.

Ellen makes a point of hitting the remains of his tube with her shoulder rather than her crackling blade. Ambriel's already put a hole or two in it. Blunt force can work with that weakness, spidering the cracks outward in every direction and sending more pieces of the tube scattering to the floor.

Whatever else Calvert might be doing (the air temperature's going up; perhaps he's trying to psychically set them on fire), it doesn't last long. The instant there's enough of an opening to do so Ellen rams the blade Scribe Cancio made for her through the opening- and through the mortal remains of Professor Calvert.

And it's finally quiet, save for the tinka-tink-tink of falling bits of glass.

[ambriel]

"Well done," Ambriel says, kicking the rifle out of the hands of one of the twitching Robobrains.

The angel offers Ellen a large, curved piece of reinforced glass. "Perhaps this would serve to carry what is left. We should release your friends."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen pulls the sword free, shaking it clean as best she can before sheathing it, since she's not in a position to wipe it at the moment. "Thank you," she says. "That... that should do pretty nicely, yeah. After we get Whydah and Morgan out."

Professor Calvert is dead. He's not gonna get deader. She can do the rites for him and those poor Robobrains once she's seen to the living.

[ambriel]

"Of course," Ambriel says with a smile.

"I believe I can open the door."