I've been chillin' out on a star with my 5 star view

[lucetimods]

Who: All draftees
What: The space battle commences
When: After 3PM on the 19th to the 23rd
Where: In Space! On the Moon!
Summary: The battle finally begins! First there's asteroids to take down, then we finally arrive!
Rating: SPACE

MORE SPACE

All the details you need are here, so read up on it. This didn't get mentioned before, but you can tag the cultists instead of killing them. Details on this are on a previous draft post. Using the scanners are optional!

There will be a thread for interacting with NPCs, but they may not all go up at once, so keep an eye out for them.

Note: A log for the events in the village will go up on the 21st, in time for the hurricane and droid incursion.

Comments

[herotypical]

There. She knew the shape of his shoulders and the character of his walk. Buffy flattened against the side of a building, ducking back out of sight. Breathing. Breathing was spectacularly difficult, despite being inside the dome. It was because the awareness of what she was doing was sinking painfully into her muscles.

Buffy peeked again and felt a pang of affection, seeing him doing such good works. It would be a shame if she had to disable him in her attempt to take it back. But, he'd promised...

Would he keep that promise? After all, pirate.

The Slayer spun her scythe and gathered her courage and strode confidently from behind her momentary cover. She entered the temporary medical site as if she owned the place. She did not, however, go straight to him. First, she grabbed a canteen and drank deep.

[all7seas]

She was here. Jack wasn't at all surprised. In his guts, writhing, had come the expectation as soon as he'd had the news.

He wondered how far Buffy Summers would hunt him for it. Maybe not very; not with the enemy so close and the nature of the moon base. She would never kill him for the locket, but how badly would she hurt him? How much of his blood would she be willing to spill for it? The pirate closed bloodstained fingers over the cold metal and watched her move about the temporary refugee camp. Graceful. She was graceful; truly his most beautiful.

If they married, maybe that could be their song: the one she'd picked out for them, that night. Maybe if they agreed on that song and he gave her the locket and she slew the General or at least convinced him to join her cause, the slayer would have him. Maybe he could keep hiding behind thoughts like that for a little while longer. There was nowhere else to run, after all.

Gently he pulled another wounded fighter to his feet and began assisting the man toward the shuttle.

[herotypical]

Buffy wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. The water was lukewarm at best, but her body was grateful for it. After a moment of watching Jack through the corner of her vision, she took another drink. He wasn't running.

He couldn't be blind to her presence; she would never underestimate him by thinking so. But he wasn't running and that, strangely, was not what she had expected. So she screwed the cap back onto the canteen and tossed it onto a pile of supplies -- but not before splashing water on her hand and scrubbing at her face. She knew there was a thin scratch but she wasn't sure how bloody it was.

She wanted to look her best for the confrontation.

[all7seas]

After delivering the injured man to the escape shuttle, Jack leaned back against it.

Suddenly, he felt exhausted. The locket seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Her life. Her beautiful, beautiful life.

One does not simply walk into a Cultist camp and win the General's heart.

Jack felt his muscles tense to run.

[herotypical]

She wished she was in her own clothing. She wished for a lot of things. Albert was right. She should have kept the locket when she had the chance. She should have secured it well before now.

Buffy filled her lungs and began her approach. A few feet away, her eyes lifted and from that point on -- so long as he did no evading of her own -- they didn't dare break contact.

[all7seas]

"You're bleeding, Annielove."

[herotypical]

"Still?"

She frowned and rubbed again at her cheek. The cut didn't so much as sting and...and she was at the full scope of her abilities, out here. It would heal soon. "Trust me. The other guy looks worse."

[all7seas]

He spread his palms against the metal hull of the craft behind him. Refugees were still limping aboard; someone inside, from a different enclosure, was sorting people into seats and through a kind of triage.

Jack was just the grunt work.

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, calculating how fast he would need to go to sprint past her and find a hiding place in this quickly-emptying sector of the city.

"I trust you. With my life, sweet love. You know that."

[herotypical]

"No one's doubting that. O-or, I'm not..."

Dammit. Buffy hadn't planned to stammer. She was to be the Slayer in this moment and a general in her own right. If she couldn't hold her own while talking to a lover, how could she expect to negotiate with an enemy?

There were still a few feet between them. It felt like miles. Did he know? He must. Why else would he open with such a serious statement. Then again, Jack wasn't exactly a stranger to spontaneous vows.

"Things are pretty wild out there," she began. Clumsy.

[all7seas]

"Any dead? Of ours?" Sharp.

[herotypical]

A shrug.

"Not that I've heard. Lots from other enclosures, though. Guess we're like the special forces, or something. Alpha Squad. Whatever. But the Third Party did just breach the city."

[all7seas]

"Mmmmm.




What is it, mate?"

Why have you come here?

Might as well start with questions he didn't want the answers to -- and already knew the answers to. Very slowly, Jack began edging to his left.

[herotypical]

"It's...

Jack. This'll go a whole lot smoother if you don't run."

[all7seas]

"Not running, me." The sharp tones gave way to helpless ones as the pirate's fists opened and closed spasmodically. "Nowhere to run here in space.


Did you know I've been working on his ballad? 'The Ballad of Leonard McCoy.' It's a catchy thing. In it he frequently makes love to beautiful women all around the universe."

[herotypical]

"I don't think he ever actually did that. But -- hey, what's the point of a ballad if you don't stretch a few truths?"

The stupid scythe was in the way. Even holding it casually, it was between them. A barrier -- edged and powerful and hers. She allowed its blade to drop down. To hit the ground.

"Still, I think I'd rather be honest. He's here. You know that, right?"

[all7seas]

"Sorry -- who's here?" Careful dumb-playing; it bought time.

[herotypical]

"Please. Your in-the-knowness is written all over you. I'd like to think that -- by now? I can read you."

[all7seas]

"Like I'm your very own chart, as it were." Hmph. "Can you read my very next page, Buffy Summers?"

[herotypical]

Her very own. And how was she treating him?

"I...I have to try. I can't not try. The General is out there," she tasted the non-name and it tasted like ash and iron. Like that same hot August day. "And I should be out there, too."

But first there was the matter of the locket.

[all7seas]

"And me? I've had an extraordinary thought. I negotiate with him. Me. Captain Jack Sparrow."

The locket was safely tucked inside his space suit. Skin tight. Almost good enough for exotic dancing in zero G.

[herotypical]

"That? That is never going to happen."

She wouldn't allow it. Because he'd be torn limb from limb and all those charcoal feathers plucked and...great. After everyone else had done it for her, it was her own turn to put visions of Jack's death into her mind. Wonderful.

Buffy reached beyond him -- but only to lean her weapon against that ship's hull. "He and me have business. He..." has a reason to listen to me. "The chance might not ever come up again. I've waited years for this."

[all7seas]

"And he an' me have business as well, eh? I've negotiated far tricksier things, Buffy. Let me try first."

[herotypical]

She remained close.

"No. Nuh-uh. He killed Derek to...send a message. I don't wanna be the recipient of a Jack-o-gram, too."

Buffy didn't reach for Jack's hand but she did flatten her palm against his side. She would've gone for his chest but -- knowing where the locket was likely to be, she didn't want to spook him into running.

[all7seas]

And Jack did not want to be the recipient of a Buffy-o-gram. He wasn't sure if he could live with something like that, not at all at all.

But then there was the other side of the coin. Angelica he had stopped -- had saved -- through a trick. She would never forgive him and he had very safely marooned her. Jack didn't think he would survive non-forgiveness from Buffy Summers. Not now.

"Funny, isn't it? Wasn't expecting him this round. Not in space."

[herotypical]

"Two surprises for the price of one. And it's not like I'm actually keen about either..."

It was half a lie. Buffy didn't like being in space -- she had made that abundantly clear back on the Liberator. It made her more nervous than being at sea. But she wasn't exactly unkeen for the General's arrival. It wasn't so much something she'd wanted and hoped for but more like the wait had been such a strain. The suspense. The denied conclusion. All that unfinished business.

"It's just a job," she tried to tell him. A vain attempt, really. Only a handful of people knew Buffy well enough to understand just how far beyond work this was -- or how even being the Slayer wasn't so much a job as a way of life (and death).