4840/Tomb Blaster

Tomb Blaster
Date of Scene:	04 December 2016
Location:	Desert Mountains
Synopsis:	-<OOC>- Li Syaoran says, "I like to imagine at one point in that, ren and li had to hug. And li was like 'I will kill you later.'" -<OOC>- Ren Tanaka says, "As the credits for today's episode roll, there's probably snapshots of things like that that happened during the day, yeah" -<OOC>- Ren Tanaka says, "see also: li chasing a scarab with a butterfly net for some reason"
Cast of Characters:	165, 1058

---

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    SEVEN HOURS AGO:

    A message comes up on a Union mission board as part of their connections with various interdimensional evil-fighting organizations. For reasons that will soon become obvious, Ren Tanaka and Syaoran Li are sitting there watching a fuzzy, bootlaced transmission from the British 'Counter-Horror Environmental Scramble Service'. Somewhere in the desert mountains there's a... well, see for yourself.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tfo7SZYmrk

    "...It's critical for you to prepare and deploy immediately. Your help is needed as backup here on a mission to eliminaate danger from within the tomb. Intelligence has identified a security violatio within this sacred tomb. Something unearthly is present and survivors believe an ancient and deadly curse has been unleashed. Bio-mutant scarabs are growing inside and must be contained and destroyed before they can escape the tomb and spread the curse. It's up to you Tomb Blasters to seek and destory."

    Ren scratches his head in confusion and looks at Li. "A biological mutant that spreads an ancient curse?"


    FOUR AND A HALF HOURS AGO:

    
    INSIDE THE PYRAMID OF KING ANUBIS

    We're clearly not dealing with your regular egyptian culture here, or even your regular pseudo-alien-ascended, cyber-egyptian culture right now. The outside of the pyramid is lit up like a rock and roll stage, glittering in the night. Inside the pyramid, shaking his fist in frustration as he rides alongside them in a separate railcart, we see master criminal Vlad Abdab: expert tomb robber, international criminal and thief of historical artifacts. He may be here for treasure, but he might not have expected the pyramid to also be a breeding ground for those scarabs.

    "Oi! Come back! You two will see!" he shouts in anger as Ren and Li's vehicle pushes ahead of them. "You'll pay for this! The emerald's mine, d'you hear? MINE!"

    "Oh look, Li," says Ren, "We've found someone you can hate on sight more than me."

    "They'll get you in there! Heh heh heh! They'll get you alright!"


    NOW:

    Ren pushes the front off of the sarcophagus he was stashed inside. Boy, it's been a busy couple of hours. And neither of them know where Abdab is now!

    "Ugh. Li, you'd better be in the first one of these I find," he says, pulling bandages off of himself with one hand and a sarcophagus lid with the other. "Son of a... mumble, grumble... bio-mutant scarabs, indeed..."

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran finally, after what felt like forward, shoved the sarcophagus off and climbed out. Or rather, fell out. He tore off the bandages, got to his feet and turned to Ren. He took a slow, very, very slow breath. "You." Awww, he was you again. "I take it back. I do, in fact, hate you more than that lunatic."

He checked his sword, once satisfied it was there he glowered at Ren. "You lead, this time."

Li leading was a bad idea. Since he'd led, he'd triggered four traps, five pits, a giant rock and may have accidentally brought a ghost of an ancient pharoah to life. But it was fine, he knew how to seal it back up.

"And don't you dare tell Sakura-chan about the mummy dance."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Ren does a little flourish bow that causes a piece of bandage to fall out of his hair.
    "I'm sworn to secrecy, my liege."

    If this wasn't as dangerous as it was, you'd almost think that it was kind of hilarious. Certainly we've been hitting a lot of the right beats so far. But there are just a few things about all of this that make it impossible not to take secretly.

    For one thing, even though the two of them are extricating themselves from environments made and filled with stone, the walls and floors around here are changing without rhyme and reason to ones made of metal. There's mist and dust in the air because what are unmistakeably ventilation systems are coming back to life after seemingly thousands of years. The dessicated mummies that are leaning out of some of these pods on the walls of this corridoor are failures of cryogenics, more than anything else. Every door is open but that's because of the failure of a security system through the pyramid.

tAnd...

    This huge, open room has scowling skulls on the wall, and a blocky, animal-like face relief on one far side. Its mouth pours a liquid stream into a pool in the centre of the floor.

    But there are glowing scarabs crawling on the walls, and that's not a stream of water or even bio-slime. Dozens of snakes are pouring out of it, and there's so many that they're starting to climb out of the pool. Getting through here is going to be a challenge in itself, let alone doing anything about it.

"...whatever reason it's for, soon this place is going to be crawling with biological weapons," Ren observes, his eyes tightening in the low light. Only electronic lights and the electric blue of the scarabs' shells are providing most of the light here. "It's times like these I really regret not asking for a second blaster." It would have been two more guns than he's ever used in a very long time.

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran stared for a moment and face palmed. "I swear, You. I will find a way to make you pay for this. I am not sure how, but it is your fault. I can feel it. Should have just destroyed the whole place and..."

He trailed off when they passed one of the crypts. He paused and then walked over, wiping off some dust. His eyes lit up. "Oh, there's mention of a curse, it... no. Wait, mis translated. It's..."

The look of excitement faded. "I swear i hate people. All people. Of all time."

Written in the wall, near a crypt. 'I hereby curse Aromep, he slept with my sister, the pig.'

He drew his sword and looked at the pit filling with snakes. Eh, what's the WORST that could happen? "Roar of the heavens, I bit thee, come to my aid! Strike!" And lightning coursed from his sword towards the pit.

this would end poorly.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
"For once," Ren says, continuing to skulk in the shadows as the two of them scope out the room, "I'd almost agree with you. But if this lab's any indication," watching as that seemingly endless stream of snakes churns out of the wall, "This place is kitted out for the aspiring pharaoh who wanted to take his fully working genesis labs with him into the afterlife. And for every time you destroy all the dangerous biological material in the lab by setting it on fire, you get an equal amount of times where it just makes it into a gigantic dirty bomb."

    "How good are you at calling coinflips?"

    Well, let's not think about that so much right now. Instead, let's think about how Li isn't so much incautious about the scarabs as he is just utterly inconsiderate of them. Ren just watches in surprise as he goes and checks out the writing. And it... huh.

    Ren pauses, and looks at the neon scarabs. Come to think of it...

    "Li," he asks, looking around them. Scarabs frame his entire body in small lamp-spots of blue light as he does so. "What do you suppose the chances are that this whole mess of ancient-curse-mutants are just meant to go after a certain small number of unfortunate schmoes, and anything else is just a consequence of circumstances?"


Well, just to be sure, let's electrofy everything anyway.

    Faced with the prospect of second-guessing the violent grudges of a bunch of mummies, we go instead with the route that leads to maximum dedicated, high-risk mayhem. Li's electricity goes leaping into the pool and the mouth puking into it, causing the statue's face and eyes to practically 'light up' as electricity crackles along it. Not to mention every snake coming out of it!

    Showers of stray sparks go off in far more directions than Li may have been intending- wait, no, that's not entirely his fault after all!

    Inbetween flashes of lightning, the face of Abdab can be seen from up above, the worst man to ever wear an indiana-jones-style fedora. He's tossing shaped EMP charges down at both of them, aiming to cause as much chaos as possible in defiance of Li's focused demolition.

    "You've come too far, now! I told you, the emerald is mine!"

    "Look, have you still got your gun?" Ren asks Li, as the mad flashes of electricity begin to disturb cyber-spiders who had previously been quite passive in their huge metallic webs. "You've got your sword, come on, fair's fair!"

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran sighed and glanced back. "What? A little electricity never hrut anything. Besides, if we just wreck this place, job done, right? Once it's not churning stuff out, then they can just work on containment."

And then the idiot. He sighed. "YOU! Idiot! Those grenades aren't going to work on me! I don't use technology!" he snapped. Well, other than his sword, he supposed. Then raised it towards him. "Petals of the wind, heed my call. Come to my aid! Gale!" The winds would pick up, bursting forth straight at the guy!

He then glanced to ren and... tossed him the gun. "Here. Not like I have any use for the bloody thing."

The first spider that came close to them got stabbed in the face then electrocuted.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
"Aromep, whoever you are, I hope you appreciate this," Ren grumbles.

    He takes the safety off of the blaster which, let's be real, is probably /also/ called a tomb blaster. Our codenames are Tomb Blasters and we're blasting things in a tomb with guns called tomb blasters.

    "I'm not disagreeing with you!" he says back to Li, doing a threat assessment. "It's just that when we're buried deep in the armpit of some nightmare monster factory, I'm thinking about which ones might not shoot us first, unless, we shoot them first OR our names happen to be Aromep!"

    Nothing to it but to do it- we've got spiders falling down from below, some agitated snakes, and it's possible that even if they're going to be attacking us, the scarabs might... not...? Right now? Unless we start shooting them again?

    "If you two spent a little less time talking to one another and a little more time shooting you might have more luck! Eh?" shouts Abdab. Frustratingly, he's actually really, really good at his job, and is managing to throw his charges at just the right angle to provoke several things into attacking us and nothing into attacking him.

    And Ren is spending a lot of time shooting at spiders and not shooting at him now he actually has the gun.


    Also for no clear reason it sounds like a guitar power chord whenever one of the webs gets electrified.


It also serves to illuminate the fact that the area up ahead is either dilapidated, was never fully constructed, or both. Pipes and machinery that were meant to be under the walls are exposed, there are blank gaps that stretch out into space with no clear definition of distance, there's scaffolding underfoot and it's inhabited by some of only the biggest snakes and spiders who have been eating the others for centuries.

    Just in case you wanted a little platforming action in your rail shooter.

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran sighed and then glanced back. "Ren, don't die." Because there were platforms so of course he had to start doing the stupid thing.

He drew one of his talismans as he leaped towards the first platform and started making his way towards the other guy. leaping from one to one, using his wind spell whenever something came too close.

Of course he just leaves Ren behind to fend for himself. Because he's li.

He'd make his way towards it, however, rather than trying to attack him, he'd aim his blade out and send another bolt of lightning at the area UNDER the man.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
Abdab is content to just be a cackling bastard for now, and evidently disappears into the rafters after stirring the hornet's nest up sufficiently.

    Ren is finding it difficult to multitask- he needs to use that blaster to keep things off of Li's back, because while he could follow the young man sufficiently on his own power or they could deal with the more problematic mutants, they can't do both.

    "One of us is going to have to do one thing while one of us does the other thing," Ren says in as many words, looking at the various machinery and half-finished things in the way of the clear path. Unfortunately, Li chose who was doing what for both of them.

    "...not actually all that good with a gun," he says, shouting because his back's turned. "Or rather, well... it's been quite a long time since I used one, I suppose? Certainly not for actually fending things off. Generally even if you go to a gunfight, a gunfight's never really a fight. Or, well, you're not fighting with the guns, you're fighting to shoot the other person with your gun one time. You know what I mean?"

    He's stressed. He doesn't ever really allude to his background unless he's stressed.

    Meanwhile, giggling Abdab is going to make Li's life a lot harder than talking to Ren already is, because he's operating a control panel for some of those machines now. The ones with spikes on them.

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran frowned and glanced back. "If you're unable to do it, then run," he said coldly, before glancing back towards the guy. While Ren was helping he was, obviously, not trying to accept the help, using his magic to try to keep things from getting too close.

"Just keep talking, idiot," Li grumbled before holding out his hands and, with another incant, sent a burst of magical water out, freezing or, at least attemtping to freeze, one of the traps shut.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
"Eh heh, I'm going to spike you!" Abnab says- looking at Li, ostensibly talking to Li, but not actually talking loud enough to be heard BY Li.

    When he activates the switch, Li's already frozen a patch of machinery over- and when the parts attempt to slide over one another and rails switch positions, there's a *clunk*... and something different happens.

    The gantry that Abdab's stood on begins to slide away, becoming a new rail cart that clicks onto an electric rail- and fairly quickly, too.

    "Ha ha ha! You'll never catch me now! I'm going to make it to the emerald before you!" he shouts, practically dancing in place. As he does so, to make matters worse- the heiroglyphed wall panels, strangely colourful without much else around them, rotate around.

    Human-looking Ushabtis, half-mummified humanoids with armor plating, appear from the panels. Some of them are armed with glass slabs, others with hatchets of laser guns. They don't start attacking immediately, which naturally makes Abdab laugh because they've appeared between Li and him.

    "Looks like they already know who's boss, huh?"

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran sighed, leveling his blade on the creatures. He slowly began to inch forward, but didn't attack first. He'd let them make the first move, but the moment they did, he would take off, leaping in amongst them and sending out a burst of air to scatter them as he TRIED to race after the guy, turning only a moment to levy the sword on them. "BURN!" Fire would lance out from the sword to enshroud the creatures, filling the air with a scent that bears not thinking about

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
Meanwhile, Ren is having a time.

    Although they came here to blast the scarabs, much to his own inconvenience it ends up being the only thing Ren isn't shooting, almost. It's strange because although C.H.E.S.S. said they were the primary threat and neglected to mention the other snakes and spiders, it's them that Ren is spending most of his time fending off.

    However...

    'Make the first move'? How exactly is Li going to define that? Because although the Ushabtis are armed and in his way, most of them aren't attacking him. They're standing still, some are pointing guns at him, others are checking their glass slabs, which seem to be flatscreen tablets of some kind.

    "...are there any other curses we could translate?" Ren yells from the far end of the corridoor. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but this is what we've been reduced to.

    Has Li already set them on fire by now, though?

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran Well, if they weren't trying to fry him, he'd try to just get past them, not launching an attack of his own. He didn't know what they were. Defensive? Probably? "I don't know! Maybe? I'm thinking of a few curses myself right about now!"

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    In all honesty if you shout 'Burn!' and light your hand or weapon up at a bunch of flammable guys they're gonna take a few steps back.

    Thus we find ourselves in the very strange situation of Ren and Li briskly moving through this dilapidated part of the techno-pyramid while being flanked on several sides by cyber-mummies, but none of them really doing anything and most of them unsure what to do right now with themselves.

    One of them looks at the neon blue, glowing mutant scarabs that have started milling around on the walls and are somewhat unsure what to make of them.

    "One of you wouldn't happen to be named Aromep, would you?" asks one of the Ushabtis, who seems to have massive poofy 80s hair for no clearly obvious reason. He's trying to follow them but give the guy a moment, he's slow and delicate.


Meanwhile, Abdab has made his way into a huge chamber inside of the pyramid.

    

    What looks like a smooth statue is surrounded by obelisks and scaffolding. Mutants are being loaded into chalices, which convert them into a goo which is then pumped into the statue, making it start to appear muscular and furry. Looking at the huge emerald on the statue's ring, and spotting a space behind its head for a driver, Abdab can't help but cackle...

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran sighed, his cheeks burning red as he glances towards Ren. "I swear. IF you EVER tell Sakura-chan about what happened in there, I will kill you. they will NEVER find the body."

And it would never be spoken of again. They raced down the hall, the things looking to them. He paused for a second and glanced to the zombie. He paused and... "No. We don't have time for this." And then just left the poor zombie behind.

Seriously, was there anyone he wasn't a prat to? He'd race after the guy.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
And now we're walking down a hill. There's a definite sense that we're moving out of a dense area and into somewhere with a lot more open space, at least. And the Ushabtis are following them because frankly, they're all a bit confused right now.

    "Did... did all of you make a gigantic facility full of mutants-" Ren begins.
"Cursed mutants!", says one of the Ushabtis proudly. Only for another to frown at him, and he looks embarrassed.
"Cursed mutants just to go after one guy?" Ren asks someone. Said someone, as it happens, is actually King Anubis himself, who has turned up with his solid gold head-dress and armor in order to find out exactly what's happening here.

"I really, really hate Aromep," the king replies, scowling, with his arms behind his back. "It's a long story, alright? Very long story. I'd go into it, but it's a /very/ long story."

"I dunno," Ren says. "We could listen. What do you think, Li?"

    Li's gone. Li can really move when he wants to!

    "Li, where did you go? Come back! You're missing some premium lore here! It could be very interesting! Li!"

    By the time they catch up, Li's probably found Abdab. Of course, Abdab's found the giant Anubis, which rather than any sort of cyberheart to control it (because as we all know, the brain is useless and can be pulled out of the nose whenever you need to get rid of it) currently has Abdad piloting it from inside the chest. It's mutant-powered up with giant muscle sections and scarab slime for fuel, and it is very big whereas Li is very small. But Li's got a sword! And that might not be all...

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran kep going forward, ignoring all of it, his sword out. Occasionally he'd glance back and then shake his head. "You are amongst my top two most annoying people right now," he grumbled when he entered the chamber and kicked a stone. It managed to bounce off a wall, hit his head, and trigger an arrow trap which he barely managed to throw himself on the ground to hide from. "Hate. This place."

Then he got to the room with abdab. Li stared, leveling the sword on him. "Is that supposed to frighten me? Your fancy machine is no match for my magic! STRIKE!" Lightning would erupt from his blade at the creature.

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Even the mutant scarabs have backed off from Li by now. Abdab clearly hasn't, and still has more than enough confidence that he'll be able to do this. In fact, as soon as Li makes his way into the hangar, almost simultaneously the two will end up talking over each other-

    "Is that supposed to frighten me? Your fancy sword is no match for my emerald! Anubis!"

    The huge robot-slash-mutant stomps forward, engaging Li in battle. It's got about five or six times the height advantage on him, plus mutant strength and being made out of stone and metal, but on the other hand it's got a big obvious emerald on its hand and a big cackling jackass in its torso.

    Give it enough time for the two of them to exchange blows and missed attacks though, with lots of scaffolding and obelisks for Li to take advantage of if he needs to move, and Ren, King Anubis and his entourage is going to show up.

And to be honest, what's going on when they get there is just so awesome that it really needs some epic fight music, doesn't it?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptoGy4uXqXs&t=2m44s

    Well, that's what the king thought, anyway.

Li Syaoran (1058) has posed:
Li Syaoran actually paused and glanced back. "Is that REALLY necessary?" he called back, before ducking under a punch. He charged in, tossing down a talisman before the ground would, while not open up, it would crack under him and make a small ditch for its leg to fall into, then aiming the sword at its other leg, sending a burst of wind down at it.

Once it was lowered... He pulled back and pulled out an incant seal. "This ends now. I call on the ageless depths of the dark, the keeper of time. Accept my sacrifice. Stop." And then time... did.

He sheathed his sword and walked to the statue. It would only last a little bit, but he reached up none the less and plucked the gem from the statue, before turning and walking back towards ren. He paused, then cut a string on the guitar before restarting time, by ren now, back to the treasure thief, jewel in hand and... panting lightly, swaying a little and actually falling to one knee. "S-shit."

Ren Tanaka (165) has posed:
    Eventually, it all just gets a little too much for one Li. Maybe it's one too many close shaves, maybe it's the mummified back-up dancers. Maybe it's the fact that Ren is nodding his head along because hey, you know, it IS kind of a catchy song after all.

    In any case, there's a sound that's almost exactly like a guitar string snapping and cutting the song off right at the end by whapping the rocker in the face, because that's exactly what happened. Simultaneously, the emerald power source for the giant is on the floor, as is Abdab, who was having the time of his life up until then and now he just looks kind of suddenly disappointed.

    The King looks kind of disappointed, too. Even /Ren/ looks disappointed.

    "I was really getting into my groove, there," King Anubis says.

    "Don't look at me, I was impressed you knew how to rock," says Ren.

    "We never even got to the part with the giant snake robot."

    https://gyazo.com/2ad0bc4de7cdb39e839deb71668ba285

    Camera turns to snake robot.

    Turns back to Li.

    Iris out.