2295/Legendary Fight: Evil Ocean

Legendary Fight: Evil Ocean
Date of Scene:	21 May 2015
Location:	Mushroom War Earth <MWE>
Synopsis:	Environmental correction experiments lead to the discovery of just how gunked up the ocean is on Simon's planet.
Cast of Characters:	Tomoe, Staren, 279, 622, 768

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Simon Petrikov (622) has posed:
    The Earth that Simon comes from is a not a very nice place. The skies are grey with clouds of ash, the temperature has been falling steadily since the nuclear war, the terrain has been ravaged by disasters man-made, natural, and supernatural, and there is not a single human to be seen anywhere. Un-altered wildlife exists, but is scarce, with mutations and nightmares-made-flesh being on the rise in population.

    The whispering shadows that had hunted several Union members are an example of one such monster. But there are others. Magic is returning to Earth following what will become known in later centuries as the 'Mushroom War', and it is coming back with a vengeance. Once or twice, Simon himself has witnessed what he believed to be flying saucers and laser battles in the clouds at night, and rainbow-hued snakey-looking things.

    Being back here, on this totally gunked up Earth, is not a pleasant experience for Simon Petrikov, but he figures just leaving it the way it is isn't good either. This IS his homeworld after all. And somewhere out there, his Princess might still be alive too.

    The nature of the problem he has called others out to help with this time is that his attempts at using Science to detoxify various bodies of water has not been going great. He thinks there may be some kind of pollutant in the ocean that keeps re-contaniminating other water sources. So the solution is to try to clean up the whole ocean! Of course, before they can do that, they need to figure out what the source of the contamination is, and how to fix it.

    Simon is still working on the first part, but he is running tests right now. And, being as dangerous as this world is, having some protection along seems prudent.

    Bottles and beakers and bunson burners and other baboratory I mean laboratory things are all situated on a hill overlooking the ocean. The grass is grey and dead-looking, and there's the ruins of a coastal town visible in the distance. The ocean itself seems to likewise be grey-green and brackish. The limited light doesn't help at all.

    Simon is wearing a sleeveless vest over a white button-up shirt, with beige slacks and dress shoes. His white hair is pulled up and back into a ponytail as he pours a single drop from a red bottle into a bottle of clear fluid in his other hand. "Theeerrre we go." The clear fluid turns a muddy orange.

    "Right, just like thaaaat..." He mixes the orange fluid with a glass rod until it takes on a more pumpkin-like orange coloration, then he starts speed-walking his way towards the beach. "Alright! Time to see if this works!" He pauses long enough to wave to those who have come and gesture them to follow. "Uh, might want to watch my back. No telling what might happen!"

    Cheerfully, he calls out, "Mind the skulls!" as he hops over a ridge and lands on the grey sand. Which apparently has skulls and bones sticking out of it.

Cory (768) has posed:
    While a few here might've been sciencing up a storm on this dismal place, Cory's been roaming around. By now there's no telling just how many laps around the region she's made - probably 4 or 5? - or how many weird mutant monsters she's been scoping out or derelect old buildings she's poked her head into, only to get freaked out by something weird and chased into the skies once again.

    Yeah, she dropped in periodically, always keeping an eye on the Simon the Science Guy in case anything jumps out (and in fact, almost hoping it did for the sake of a decent workout or maybe a good meal...) but only NOW does she descend from the skies and land on the beach between some skulls.

    "Finally I get to see what you've been up to, right?!"

Staren has posed:
    The Earth that Simon comes from is like looking into the past.

    Was this what his world was like after the Coming of the RIFTS? He's glad he's got advanced technology to protect him and allow him to fight this world's evils -- he supposes that puts him in the same position as the legendary Glitter Boys of old.

    Staren isn't wearing his own armor at the moment /only/ because he has a proto-abstractum henshin that can /become/ armor at a moment's notice. In these environs he doesn't feel safe without protection. A squad of five of his metal unicorn golems stand watch around the perimeter of Simon's work area. Staren is following Simon's work, trying to keep up and helping with tasks when Simon can tell him what to do. He's not a chemist, but he knows some basic things about chemistry, and can pull up references in his HUD with a thought. During the more boring bits of waiting for things to heat up or precipitate or, heavens help us, /titrate/, he works on a nanoprogramming solution. Just in case this doesn't work, he may in time be able to program nanomachines to find and eliminate the toxin. Program other nanomachines to make /more/ of themselves and /those/ nanomachines, and maybe in time it can clean the ocean...

    But right now, Simon is ready! Staren watches the final step, then follows quickly. When they reach the beach, he pulls on the goggles Ainsley gave him, just in case. Just in case what, he's not sure, but it's always good to be safe!

Maxine Sandberg (279) has posed:
Maxine sent out Maxi for this mission, she rather not expose herself to heavy amounts of radiation even with protection. Of course she's not a nuclear physicist so what she might be able to added to this is limited. Of course she's instantly concerned as she what's left from the nuclear war. Marceline lives in a place like this? Of course that leads to more questions about what's going on. She follows behind them keeping a bit distance just to be safe.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe knew Simon's home was not a very nice place. There's a reason why she'd never set foot on it in the flesh. She was here as her Alf self looking perhap sin some way more fitting. She gets the idea to purge the water of toxins for whatever life remains was a good one. She also had her translucent wings out and she followed along after Simon hoping her skills at fighting would not be needed.

"So let's see what happens and thanks."

she's just going to hover a bit above the ground now her wings flapping a bit to keep her aloft.

Simon Petrikov (622) has posed:
    "Thanks again for coming out here, guys!" Simon offers as he picks his away across the beach. Aside from human bones, there's also a steel girder half-buried in the sand, and a statue of a man on a horse, a shattered rowboat and various other random bits and pieces of human civilization. "Even with Evergreen, I'm not really up to taking on any monsters here." Simon finally makes it down to a little bit away from the water's edge, where he has a machine that looks like it was based off of a coffee maker set up.

    "And yeah, let's just hope it works, Cory!" The blue-skinned antiquarian-turned-scientist crouches down and pours a little bit of the orange solution from the bottle into the filter of the device! ...Or he starts to, but then the tide flows up the beach and Simon has to snatch up his machine and back up a few steps. Laughing nervously he says, "Haha! Whoopsie daisy! Was a little too close there!" He stops, and sets down the machine again. When he goes to pour again, he looks up at the sound of the ocean and has to once more pick up the device and back up to avoid the tide coming in. He isn't smiling anymore.

    When he goes to put it back down again, he doesn't even get as far as the bottle this time before the water flows up the beach towards him. Simon frowns and backs up some more. He only gets as far as bending over this time before the tide threatens and forces up to back up until he trips over some skulls and lands on the slope of the hill he has all his equipment on.

    "Oof! What the cabbage!?" he offers as he tries to keep both his filtering device and the bottle from getting broken or dumped.

    Then the waves that have advanced all the way up the shore towards them retreat back into the ocean.

    Anyone else who didn't back up when Simon did is likely to have some very wet feet now. Wet with icky, gross water, too.

    Simon pauses. Glances right, glances left, blinks a bit. And then makes as though he's going to pour the bottle only to let out a, "NyaAAAHAH!" As he has to flip over, and scramble on his hands and knees up onto the hill proper to escape a five-foot wall of grey water that smashes into the place he was just resting.

    "What's going on here!?" Simon calls out rhetorically, as the wave retreats back to the ocean and then swells with even more water, which forms into a giant hand.

    "...Ooooookaaaaaaay."

Staren has posed:
    Staren moves back when Simon does, the first time. The second time, he moves back again, but frowns. "Is the tide supposed to come in that fast?" he asks. When the water goes for Simon, Staren reaches into his bag, pulls out a rod which expands into his staff, and produces brief firehose-like spray of clean water to push the seawater(?) away from Simon. "Simon!" he shouts as the larger wave comes for him, while getting back -- he doesn't think Hydro Pump can deflect that much!

    Staren turns towards the ocean. "You wanna /fight/, Ocean?!" The catboy shouts as he deploys his armor. He wonders what's in the water, and how much he could vaporize with the plasma missiles he /forgot to bring today/ goddammit.

    The ocean forms a giant hand.

    Staren stares. "Holy shit, it /does/ want to fight." Surprise doesn't distract him for long, though -- after a second of staring, the tip of his staff reconfigures from a nozzle to to a more magical-looking assembly and fires a tiny bead of condensed energy at the hand, hoping it will penetrate inside before it explodes in a massive fireball!

Maxine Sandberg (279) has posed:
Maxi gasps as she gets a better look at what happened here. She's a bit surprised anyone was able to survive what happened. She watches as the tide is drawn to the device "Is the water trying to destroy your filter?" It looks like that's what's going onto her. Good thing she kept some distance, Maxi can handle some water but getting pulled into the ocean would certainly cause trouble. Is the water alive itself, or is it possessed? She's here more to study what's going on Simon's world and to study any technology that might be left behind then fight.

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Scissors!"

    With a hand of water rising out of the ocean, Cory's first impulse is to ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS, just for the hell of it. So yeah, she just a hand out with the classic scissors gesture, but quickly retracts it... AND her tail, which wraps around her waist in a hurry.

    Then the fact that it's a GIANT WATER hand really sinks in, and she doubletakes. "... Wait, what the sludge?"

    She ends up landing in front of Simon, with one arm extended for the hand with a similar gesture to its own. The main difference is...

    Her open palm glows and shimmers. The tiniest spark of light emerges from her skin and expands slowly, casting a blue-white light over the waves. In a few moments the tiny spark's become a baseball-sized sphere of Ki and it's continuing to balloon outward, if slowly.

    "okay hold up, hold up! Words are supposed to come before fists! .. Am I talking to an ocean?! ... Does it even know how to talk?"

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe says "I'm happy to help Simon and ya this is a post nuclear nightmare. I'd not want to be out here alone either."

She thinks for a moment as she looks over thing as SImon gets ready to work. She watches but she's got her sword at the ready and this is a good thing too. AS something happens but it's too fast for her to tract. She swears and moves in to try and guard Simon as best she can.

Simon Petrikov (622) has posed:
    Staren's energy ball explodes inside of the hand, leaving a hole in the palm where there used to be water. The hand wiggles its fingers a bit, reaches them down to inspect the hole by touch, then seems to be flexing or something until more water flows up to fill the empty space. It's a hand made of water in the ocean. Finding replacement water isn't difficult.

    Simon turns to Maxi and says, "Looks like it. I'm actually... Kind of already over it." Being on this world and then the Multiverse, has already made him accept that this is what's happening right now. The bizarreness is not as bizarre as it would have been if he was still just a normal dude in a non-apocalyptic world. To both Maxi and Staren, Simon says, "I haven't seen this reaction before in my testing. I think whatever I have in the bottle must be the real deal if some kind of intelligent force is trying to prevent it! ...Though maybe we should figure out if it's actually dangerous or not. It could just be defending itself, right?"

    Cory's attempt to communicate with the hand turns out in an unexpected manner. It moves as though in response to Cory's rock-paper-scissors, by forming a fist. Rock, right? But the fist is upside-down. And there's a middle finger extended.

    How rude! When Cory starts gathering energy to attack, the rude gesture is replaced with the hand flowing and shifting its form into an open palm aimed at the group on the shore, in a mimicry of what Cory is doing. Huge waves start to roll in behind the hand, the surface of the ocean going from 'choppy' to 'the way the ocean looks in stormy weather, only without a storm'. The rumble of the ocean vibrates the beach as all the water flows into that hand, and enlarges it until it is as tall as a skyscraper.

    Simon just looks up and up and up until he actually falls backwards because he can't tilt his head at that angle. Even with Tomoe and Cory in front of him, and Staren ready with his magical energy bullet, it kiiiiiiind of looks like they might be a LITTLE bit outmatched.

    Water begins to build up into a giant ball in the palm of the watery hand, continuing to mimic Cory's maneuver. It's swirling with a gross black and green ooze.

    "Hey, man! Hey! We don't want any trouble!" Simon insist, waving his hands frantically as he lies on his back.

    The watery hand hesitates with its city-block-sized ball of water.

    "We're just trying to clean up the ocean a bit-"

    The hand twitches and then releases the giant globe right at the group!

Cory (768) has posed:
    "Good grief! What the hell's in that miracle mix of yours, science guy?!" Cory blurts, standing wide-eyed before an onrushing wave. her Ki blast falters from lack of concentration, but in comes that blast while it's petering out!

    "You've GOT to be kidding!"

    Filmy light extends from her outstretched hand moments later, forming a spherical barrier around her, Tomoe, and Simon. It's not much of one, but it survives the first few seconds of impact before collapsing. With a glubby shriek Cory's flung backwards and upwards, slammed against the beach and goes tumbling through all the waves, bashed against boulders and skulls and debris of all kinds... but then...

    Rays of crimson light spear up through murk and rip some of it apart. A drenched, waterlogged, and rather soggy Cory erupts like a meteor in reverse, wreathed in an intense red aura. Her muscles ripple and hair's whipping about wildly... no doubt what this is, right?

    "KAIOKEN TIMES NINE!"

    And without any further ado... "Screw you too! HAAAAAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAY--"

    The screaming continues seemingly ENDLESSLY, because each syllable punctuates Cory thrusting an arm forward and back like a piston, launching volley after volley of small Ki bolts, each with tremendous explosive power packed in them!

Maxine Sandberg (279) has posed:
Maxi watches as the watery hand flip off Cory, so much for trying to reason with it. It seems like the ocean's trying to kill them, which isn't quite what she was expecting. Neither was a massive globe of water. She tries to dodge it, but it's simply too large and the impact knocks the robot over.

A shower of sparks go flying about as she pulls herself back onto her feet. "This is certainly an odd form of water pollution." She reaches around inside of her lab coat, trying to find something that might have an effect against water before producing a tear gas grenade and lobbing it in the water.

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is getting hte idea they might be a bit in over hteir head she ownders about the nature of this stuff doe sit have a mind of it's own? She's nto sure but she's now got her blade out and seems ready for a fight yet it's becoming clear they may be indeed out matched.

"Simon...I think w're a bit out classed!"

She is already chanting now attemping to send a burst of fire into the thing as it comes after her and everyone else.

Staren has posed:
    Staren doesn't think he's actually fighting the /ocean/. This is just a hostile water elemental or something.

    Still, at the ocean is about the worst place to fight a water elemental. Well, at least they're on the shore and not a boat.

    Hmm. The hand was slow to reform. Maybe they /can/ destroy it all at once, if only they knew where it was... but Staren can't keep doing that -- he's used up most of his PPE reserve powering his staff, and even his spare spirit battery probably won't let him throw enough fireballs. At least, he doesn't think he can count on it being enough to destroy this thing. The staff collapses, and Staren puts it into the bag, his hand coming out with the most stereotypical magic wand ever, a stick with a star-shape on the end and clear crystals built into it.

    Cory and Simon point out that they should consider diplomacy. The ocean /flips her off/. And then the waves feed into it.

    "How much of the ocean can this thing control at once?!" When the hand starts /growing/ over a storey tall, he starts rapidly swinging the wand this way and that, creating smaller fireballs with more concussive force. It's probably only slowing down its growth at best, though.

    When the water ball is flung, Staren just turns and /tackles/ Simon to the ground, his personal forcefield extending around them. Cory's a saiyan, Maxine's a remote-controlled droid and Tomoe's an avatar, they'll have to deal. Thanks to Cory's barrier taking the brunt of the force, Staren's forcefield, which really isn't designed for this sort of thing at all, doesn't collapse until the worst has passed.

    Staren puts an arm around Simon and tries to wade out of the water. He can only hope they don't get caught in some killer undertow...

Simon Petrikov (622) has posed:
    Tomoe's fireball is consumed in the water bomb, but doesn't seem to have done much except disrupt the surface. When it hits, it hits with the impact of several dozen olympic-sized pools being dumped on them, a roar of water that drowns out all other sounds.

    Simon is tackled to the ground! "Oof!" With the combination of Staren's force field and Cory's barrier, he seems to be okay at least, but the entire beach is submerged now and the dead fields surrounding them have been flooded and turned into a filthy marsh.

    Simon looks towards Maxi and calls out, "Hey, are you okay?" Maybe Maxi is a remote-controlled drone, but that isn't how Simon's brain works. He wants to make sure ALL of his allies are safe, no matter who or what they are.

    Staren's fireballs didn't seem to do much except get extinguished and produce some steam. The tea gas grenade from Maxi lands in the water with a *plunk*. It might be releasing gas underwater, and some of it might be drifting up from the surface, but it doesn't seem to be harming the whatever-this-is.

    Then Cory goes flying up into the air engulfed in a red aura and starts bombarding the watery hand with energy blasts, blowing it apart, and causing countless eruptions of salt water along with the half-domes of Ki that cover the ocean's surface near here.

    When it's over, there's a pretty hefty crater that the water nearby is flowing into, rushing to fill. And no sign of the giant hand.

    Then a rumble fills the air as the surface of the ocean for as far as the eye can see begins to rise up, giant hand after giant hand forming and turning to face them. And then an absolutely titanic wave rises up behind them all, blocking out the entire horizon and then some. In the wave is a shadowy face. A pair of dark 'eyes' and a jagged, murky 'mouth'.

    "...I'm going to have to agree with Tomoe on this one." Simon looks around at his trashed equipment, the water-ruined filter device, and the spilled bottle of solution. "Let's get out of here!" he suggests as she scrambles to his feet.

Maxine Sandberg (279) has posed:
The force field barriers shield Maxi for the most part, but she's already substained some water damage from earlier. With that and the radiation she won't be using this body for much in the near-future. Still, she would like to salavage it if possible so she goes rushing away from the water. Sparks shoot out behind her as she does so, but she knows they need to get to higher ground before extracting.

Staren has posed:
    Cory kills the water! At least, weakens it enough so that Staren and Simon aren't pulled into the ocean. As the water recedes, Staren looks around. Did they get it?

    No, the answer appears to be a very emphatic NO. This thing... whatever it is, it stretches to the very horizon! That... that is so unfair, how do you fight something like that? Visions of nanomachines and nukes swim in Staren's head, but right now is not the time.

    At least it doesn't look like it'll reach them in the next few seconds. "Cory! Tomoe!" Staren calls. "Fly out of here! Simon, Maxine, to me, I'll teleport us!" Staren puts away the wand (his armor allowed him to grip it with superhuman strength so the water wouldn't rip it away) and draws out his staff again, the pieces in the head reconfiguring into a tighter, closed configuration. Together with his personal teleporter, it will allow him to bring a couple more people.

    Energy flows out over their bodies, glowing softly for several seconds, and then they teleport to the warpgate.

Cory (768) has posed:
    Well this has gone from weird and disturbing from just plain WRONG in no time flat, Cory wants to say.

    But she doesn't, because she's staring way too hard at the face that emerged while she was busy catching her breath after the assault...

    "This... is someone's wacky joke, I know it!" except it isn't. She can FEEL how much it isn't.

    With everyone else pulling away, she does so as well. "Seeee ya, you big drip! Learn to talk next time!"

    With power still crackling around her, she rockets off through the sky but loop-de-loops around the group. If anyone needs a quick rescue she'll snag 'em up!

Tomoe has posed:
Tomoe is just going to have to deal, well she's thankful she's got no water in her body that this thing might be able to /turn/ on her. She's likely going to end up having a very bad day all things considered. Cory does dfo a hecl of a deal to cover them she watdhes th fireball do about nothing. Okay she should have tried light sperlls as the water's now coming for it and WHAM it hits the barrier.

This is something in her mind they will need a full out raid to handle.

"We're going to need help now lets get going!"

She was going to grab Simon but Staren's got that handled she's not got to be told twice to fly. With everyone cared for? She's going to spread he wings and take off at toop speed. Leifa eat your heart out!

Simon Petrikov (622) has posed:
    Teleportation! The easy way to escape! The flyers seem to likewise be successful! ...Except when the rumbling of the ocean grows louder and louder, and - even if they are outflying the waves - they may become aware that the ocean is -chasing them-. The shore is being completely torn apart, the beach is gone, the fields are gone, and the hands keep crashing down behind them as they lunge up and into the air and then come back down in fists that leave craters of polluted water. That giant tidal wave with the face is the most terrifying though, because it doesn't stop or fall apart when it runs into something. Everything simply gets washed away and drawn into itself.

    It reaches the abandoned coastal resort town during its chase, and entire multi-story buildings, houses, roads, and cars, some of them with skeletons still sitting inside of them, just get picked up and flung around inside of it like they are no more than toys. However, a saiyan and a digital avatar seem to move too fast for even the ocean to keep up with, and eventually, it seems to give up.

    Its mouth is downturned, its eyes down at an angle, as it sinks back down to a more level surface. It doesn't retreat though. The coast of the continent they're on is going to need the maps redrawn on it, because the coast isn't where it used to be.

    When they get to the Warp Gate, situated nearby a Union quarantine center where Simon and Marcy lived for awhile after their unification, Cory and Tomoe should find Simon, Maxi, and Staren to be okay! A bit shaken up, maybe, but totally fine! ...Except Maxi, who may need some repairs.

    "So!" Simon begins as he claps his hands together. "I'm thinking... Maybe focus on fixing some other problems first before coming back to this one. Yeah? Sound good? I thought so!" He nods enthusiastically and then starts shakily making his way towards the Warp Gate and OFF this planet.

    But some day... They might be able to go Round Two with The Ocean!