Tangled Currents - Lady Tanya, Stormy Waters subthread Options

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Being concealed by the spirit was nothing novel for Spriggan, but it was a new sensation to Tanya - at least concealment by this particular spirit - she knew that all were different, really, with their own flavors or personalities or whatever spirits had. With this it felt like being cuddled in a warm blanket, though the feeling was far more emotional than physical. It would have been difficult to put into words, but it did give her a sense of security as she scanned the house.

The four yaks on the ground floor were spreading out now, maybe to the various entrances. And there was the form. A big amorphous something her radar had picked up - or tried to pick up - that she'd first spotted in the kitchen but then moved to the dining area. And then was gone - just like that.

The read had not been unlike that she'd gotten from Spriggan's first spirit, but neither had it been the same. This one, for all its formlessness, had definitely given off a firmer ping than the first.

Now, though, all remained quiet, the house still completely black. The grounds were empty as far as she could see, and it was a straight shot across manicured lawn to the point where she figured she'd be able to see the vehicles. No cover at all, but there was still that reassuring feeling of being shielded from prying eyes....

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya chews at her lower lip in frustration as she reasons that some sort of spirit has put out her fire. Still, although a setback, it does not mean the team is out. She turns to Spriggan and whispers. "They used some sort of monster spirit to put the fire out. Sad, but there it is. My scan still shows six upstairs and four down. We know they have five trix wizards, so the odd man upstairs might be their mage. I expect that my cavalry is still a ways away and these guys may have some means of deflecting them, so it is back inside for me." Grinning, she continues. "I want to effect an entry from where we went in the first time, but I need a bloody great diversion. Can you summon a combat spirit of some sort to appear upstairs and engage the mage? I am guessing that will bring out his spirit and create enough noise that the four guards downstairs will rush to assist their mage, leaving me a route back in so I can come up behind them. Could still be dicey, though, with that many combatants, but perhaps your spirit can help even the odds a bit in our favor. I will make my way closer to the small study and signal you to summon your spirit. Whatever you did to knock out those other guys would be great here. OK, ciao."

She sets off for the small study.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Still enveloped in a feeling of security, Tanya made her way easily to the study door. It was closed again. The grass outside it was slick with blood and gore. The window pane next to it was completely gone.

Inside, her optical suite could clearly make out a suited yakuza just inside the doorjamb that opened onto the adjoining room, apparently ready to shoot anything that tried to come in.

[Mercy]

Tanya stops a couple of feet away from Spriggan and goes back to whisper, "I will say "now" when I am in place. At that point, you drop the invisibility and summon another spirit that can distract or subdue the lone man upstairs. If it can knock him out, then send it downstairs to draw the guards away so I can enter safely. How does that sound?""

After getting the OK from her companion, Tanya heads off to the house, sliding against the wall near the window with the missing glass. It does strike her that the spirit may have extinguished the fire, but it might not have received instructions to turn the gas off and it could be filling the kitchen and other parts of the house, just waiting for a spark to ignite it. With that thought, she opens her left arm compartment and carefully removes two of her explosive grenades, thankful that they are small enough that she can carry both of them in her left hand as she unspools the whip in her right. She readies herself and uses the radar to keep track of the gunmen she can see as she whispers into the mic. "Now."

[Aria]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Spriggan thanked the smaller air spirit for its valued service and then stretched out her senses for a more powerful sister... Mab's voice laughing in her ears she found a likely candidate and beseeched its aid, slightly surprised by the ease with which it answered her summons

~Please great sister, will you grant your powers to smite down my foes within this house?~

She felt rather than heard the stormy assent as the mighty vortex appeared before her, a dancing sprite wreathed in lightenings and smoke

~Please start with the individuals on the top floor...it is possible there may be a mage and be accompanied by other spirits who will try to hinder you...but your strength is great and I will follow behind to aid you if I can~

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Using her astral sight, Spriggan watched as her huge spirit nodded its assent, static electricity crackling so strongly through the ether it threatened to spill over to the physical realm. Rarely had she ever called a being of such power.

Equally visible from her vantage point and with her vision unhindered by the material world, she could see Tanya crouching outside the door to the small study, the ground around her blackening with the first tinges of astral pollution from the slaughter that had taken place there.

The spirit approached the house in a blur, then paused to materialize. Scanning the wall near the rooftop, it found what it was looking for readily enough, and filtered itself though a vent. Once inside, it was set upon immediately - a materialized water spirit and an astral mage. They were clearly waiting to ambush it upon entry, but it had likewise been warned by its master and was ready. Brushing off the flood of angry waters, it went straight for the magician in a bid to end the fight quickly....

Outside the house, Tanya waited with bated breath, expecting some reaction to her signal. It wasn't quite what she'd expected, but there it was...sounds of rushing water and roaring wind from the house's second floor. As yet, however, no obvious sounds of human response...

[Mercy]

Tanya reasons that the four men downstairs are thinking that the guardians remaining upstairs are enough to protect the trix wizards. If that is so, Spriggan's new ally will need some help. A flash of her hand across an open window and her two grenades are gently lobbed into the small study. She moves quickly to the side, gaining as much protection from the solid outer wall as she can. The grenades were arced in the general direction of the Yak gunman, but Tanya does not even really care if they land next to him or not, as she expects that the dual explosion will send shards of death reaching out for him as long as he is anywhere near the open doorway. That, coupled with the deafening explosion and force, ought to allow her to enter the building and begin evening the odds a bit. At least that is her thought as the grenades go off.

It also strikes her that the explosions might finish off the unconscious Tanaka and Aldo if they have lived through the hail of bullets their late and unlamented companion had shot into the room before his own timely demise.

[Aria]

As the flash and roar of Lady T's handiwork filled the night air Spriggan sprinted forwards to assist her in dealing with whatever threat emerged from the fume and fog...

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Tanya heard footsteps rushing away deeper into the house and then the double grenade blast sent flames and overpressure through the outer door and the window. The wall she was sheltering behind came apart with it, and she was pelted by hot debris, saved from being shredded only by her protective clothing, her face shielded by her orthoskin.

Even from a distance, Spriggan was nearly thrown off her feet by the shock wave, and realized she was only alive because the glass had already been shot out of the window. Pressing on to back up her companion's dynamic entry, she also saw her spirit, felt her spirit absorb a vicious spell from the astrally backpedalling mage before enveloping the man's incorporeal form with its crackling air currents. It started squeezing the life force from the man, and then a deluge of water washed over its back as the other spirit joined in the deadly three-way embrace...

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex



Tanya is a bit surprised at the effectiveness of the grenades and is really glad that she had not been standing in front of the shattered door when they went off. She steps into the ruin of the small study and scans with her radar sensor as she walks forward into the wardrobe, seeking the locations of her foes.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Even as Tanya walked into the wardrobe, her radar picked up movement just outside the opposite door. He audio suite could hear the man breathing heavily.

Elsewhere on the ground floor, three other forms were converging on her position from their previous posts at other doors.

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metrople


Tanya allows the adrenaline to pour through her system, heightening the excitement of the encounter. She smiles at the effort of the gunman to hide just around the corner of the door, believing that he is setting himself to be able to shoot her as she comes through the door. Tanya is already moving in the dance and whirls through the door opening. The gunman is nervous knowing that the death that has stalked his leaders and companions is coming for him and despite being ready, his burst of fire goes wild. Tanya smiles as she dodges the man's fire and flicks her hand forward........................

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The man screams horribly when his gun arm is severed, and the scream stops a moment later when his head comes off.

As one, the rushing footsteps stop. A few bullets fly Tanya's way but with no accuracy. Curses in Japanese. "Chikusho!" "Dame da!" "Iken yo." One set of footsteps recedes, and Tanya's radar tracks him to the front door. Another voice shouts, "Ue ne agaru ze!" Upstairs! And more footsteps are heard ascending to the second floor.

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex


Blood spurts from severed arteries as the gunman's lifeless body crumbles to the floor. One of the Yak shooters runs for the door and the other two go pounding up the stairs and Tanya calls to her partner over her shoulders. "Two thugs headed up the stairs to reinforce what is happening up there. Warn your spirit that he is about to have unwelcome company but that we are right behind." Without pausing, Tanya is continuing out of the second bedroom, making it out to the entryway to the family room, her whip at the ready.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Meanwhile, Spriggan continued to sense her spirit's struggle. Frothing waters threatened to smother it while the mage it held pummelled it with mana bolt after mana bolt at point-blank range...until the huge sylph finally crushed his trapped astral form into nothing.

And almost as soon as the mage was gone, so was the water spirit.

Straightening itself up as well as it could - its power nearly spent - the spirit directed its attention to the humans that shared its space. Two had been tossing furniture down the staircases, but when they saw their own magical protectors fade away, they ran for the door to the house's rearmost bedroom....

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya notes that there does not seem to be any enemy remaining downstairs and heads to the kitchen, hoping to hear the hiss of gas from the severed lines and or the smell of a buildup of the explosive fumes. As she waits she extracts another explosive grenade from her left arm compartment. "Hey, Spriggan, how is your spirit friend doing? If he is still at 'em, let him be, but if he is weakened a lot, maybe you can let him go and summon some sort of fire spirit to help us burn the place down."

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

Tanya moves through the house unmolested. Though her cybereyes and other sensors reveal all, she notes that the house is completely dark, not even the ubiquitous LEDs of active home appliances peeking out from nooks and crannies. Her low-light useless, she must rely on thermographic other spectrums.

The carpets are wet as she moves toward the center of the ground floor. The kitchen is a wreck - catastrophically burnt out and then flooded, body parts half-floating in a centimeter or so of standing water.

There are smells - blood, ash, ozone, cordite. And yes, gas, but nothing strong, nothing that would raise a householder's eyebrows. Reaching for an intact corner of the stove, she tries a knob, then another. No response.

[Mercy]

Tanya looks around. "Frag, no go here. Back to the original plan. Let's head up the stairs and see what is going on."

She leads the way to the stairs going up from the kitchen area. Working around the debris that someone has tossed down, she finds that her gymnastics ability comes in handy here.

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

On her way up the stairs, Tanya and Spriggan briefly heard scattered gunfire, but by the time Tanya vaulted the overturned desk they found obstructing the staircase and helped a chuckling Spriggan over, the loud sounds had been replaced with quieter noises. Emerging into a large game room, they found one young Japanese man quietly choking on his own vomit under the billiards table, and another yakuza in a suit slumped unconscious in an adjoining doorway, gaudy dress shirt covered in puke and phlegm, machine pistol forgotten on the floor.

Tanya could not see the spirit she'd heard only moments before, and Spriggan pointed to a heavy door, shut. A bright red LED - the only bit of working electricity in sight - silently proclaimed the door was secured with a high-end maglock. On the other side of the door they could now hear screams, crashing, and breaking glass.

[Mercy]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya notes the two men still alive and the noise from inside the room and looks over at Spriggan. "Your friend need any help in there?" At her companion indicates by shaking her head that the spirit is doing just fine by itself, Tanya walks over to kneel to the side of the puking gunman. She carefully wraps the whip around his neck and tugs on it, ending the miserable life of another Yak thug. She then moves to the unconscious man in the fancy shirt and removes his comlink and earbud before slicing his head off as well. Standing, she inserts the bud into her ear and uses the 'link to temporarily reestablish her PAN, connecting her devices to it before listening to see if any conversation is still coming across the net. She looks over to her friend. "Hey, I would advise against taking anything from the bodies. There is always a chance that these fraggers have some sort of tracking tag on some of this crap, even the cred sticks, and it is just not worth the chance that they can find out where we are. I do have a couple of bug zappers, but I would hate to miss even one."

Tanya quickly goes from room to room up here to make sure she is leaving no one else alive before returning to the game room. Noting that the screams were dying out, she moves to the door and takes her time with the lock. She pulls out her dart gun and uses its flashlight to give her light to work with, eventually bypassing the lock and opening the door. The swirling spirit is standing over the last body and looks to Spriggan. Tanya looks over her shoulder at the Elf then bows before the massive spirit. "I think he has done a good job, but he looks like it was a close thing with the mage and his spirit. Please thank him and let him go home to heal." She walks around and destroys any decks left out then slices the head off each of the wizards in an effort to damage any implanted decks.

Satisfied that the second floor is clear, Tanya descends the stairs with Spriggan and repeats her actions with anyone she can find on the lower level. She is half listening for the sound of sirens and is not really surprised that the authorities are not coming. She shrugs and accepts that either she was not taken seriously or the wizards here managed to short-stop her efforts. When the last man is taken care of, she returns to the kitchen and goes to the fireplace in the family room. Removing the pieces of Tanaka's clothing she is still wearing, she places everything neatly on the fake logs then dismantles her PAN and places the 'link she had been using on top of the clothes. Finally ready, Tanya turns the gas on full without initiating the lighting sequence, letting the gas flow out into the room and steps back to a position near the outer door, where she does a scan of the building exterior and grounds to see if anyone is waiting for them and waiting for the gas to build up a bit. Finally, Tanya nods at Spriggan. "Time to leave. I think we have done our work here, don't you? Can you please go get my clothes and carry them for me for a bit? Thanks. Oh, and when you get away from the house a bit, you might want to go prone."

Taking one of her grenades, she waits for her companion to leave and get away from the house before arming the grenade and rolling it along the floor towards the fireplace and its gas supply. Not waiting to see if the grenade makes it all the way, Tanya races from the villa and joins Spriggan, diving onto her stomach near her friend, waiting for what she hopes is a very satisfying explosion and fire.

[Aria]

Spriggan shuddered at the calm way Lady T dealt with the prone figures and struggled to ignore Mab's cackles at her squeamishness... and then it was time to leave and she was all too glad to be packing up and going home!

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

The house went up in a magnificent flowering of blue-tinged orange cloud.

It hadn't been easy. There'd been absolutely no response when Tanya had tried turning on the gas in the fireplace. She'd had to grab one of the corpses' commlinks to access the house, which was when she'd discovered that the gas supply to the house had been cut off out at the street a couple of minutes earlier - right about the moment she'd tried burning the kitchen down. With no one opposing her, it was easier to reactivate the supply, the rest was history searing into her retinas as this very moment.

[Mercy]

Tanya rolls over on her back after the initial explosion, but the glow of the fire does not leave her eyes. She is naked on the ground and pounds her forearms into the dirt as she cries out, "Oh my God! Have you ever had so much fun in one night? The adrenaline was pumping into my body just like the time my main chute did not deploy when I pulled the chord, except that was all at once and over in a couple of seconds and this lasted for several minutes. Can you believe it?" She turns over and props herself up on one arm, looking at the Elf near her. "You are one very effective partner. Where have you been my whole life? If I was not covered in blood and various body parts, I would kiss you. But I suppose I need to clean up a bit and get dressed."

Tanya stands and holds out a hand. "Come on, I guess it is the lake for me. A dip in that freezing ass water ought to clean off most of the blood to allow me to get to some dive motel and get really clean. I hope that you know what happens next, because I don't have a bloody clue. I was sent to the plaza and told to meet someone and you showed up. I have no idea if anyone even knows what we have done and if they will ever get in touch with us, but I don't think they are done with us just yet. Any ideas?"

[adamu]

Friday, 22 November, 2075, 1807, Target Villa, Seattle, Seattle Metroplex

We definitely know what you have done.

It was Lady Bethan's voice. Looking up, the women saw her astral form before them.

And I certainly hope we are not done with you.

But that, I fear, will only be told in the next few hours....

For now, though, the immediate danger to yourselves is past....

If all hope is not lost, we will send you word of your next task in due course...

[Mercy]

Tanya looks up at Bethan's astral form and nods. She turns to Spriggan as the form dissipates. "I guess that answers that question, eh? So, where do we go from here? I still need to get cleaned up and then we need to get to our bikes."

She smiles broadly when Spriggan offers a spell to clean her up without needing to go into the cold lake water. After dressing, the two return to their motorcycles and look at each other. Tanya breaks the silence first, "Thank you, Spriggan. I thoroughly enjoyed your company on this mission. You were very effective and I would welcome the opportunity to work with you again and really hope that whoever these people are they put us together again. Here is my com code and I ask you to use it whenever you want, even if it is just to chat." She holds out her hand and shakes that of her new friend before climbing on her bike and roaring off into the dark.

On the way, she lights up her 'link and sends a note to Monique. >>Hey, Cherie. Tanya here. I am safe and OK. I had a couple of close situations and think I need to do some work in some areas. I want to take a break and disappear for a bit to work. Not sure how long this will take. Meet me at the carpark for the florist down the street from the hotel so I can give you the bike. Adieu.<<

She drives the Mirage into the Downtown district, cruising to the parking lot near the hotel to find Monique already waiting there. The women embrace and Tanya promises to make regular contact and the Frenchwoman promises to tear the city apart if Tanya does not keep the schedule. After a tearful embrace, the woman part, with Monique getting on the bike and driving off and Tanya turning away and walking to the local bus stop to take a ride towards Chinatown and the next stage of her life.