• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Day in the Life: Rescue from the Depths

**BRRRRRRRR!**

Jun fired all of her bullets at the thing's face, letting the auto-aim do its work as she held down the trigger and emptied her entire magazine.

**THUMP**

She then fired her under mounted grenade launcher, again aiming for the thing's face.

"Uh..."

Jun was now out of ammo inside of her gun entirely and she was unsure of what to do now that her bullets were all gone. She'd quickly reach for one of the spare magazines on her belt, having enough mechanical practice to start reloading the gun as she leaped off to the side as if she were in a John Woo movie.

Of course, a change in vibes meant her current look was no good. In virtuality she'd switch to a new outfit, a light button down and white pants fit for a hero.
 
Koyama had been silent for most of the exchanges. Why had Mother-Empress not allowed them the more flashy weapons? What had killed those Chongwu? Wen'd been right that they weren't caused by something humans or even Daqin would carry. Esoteric he said? In their shared virtual space she'd pulled off the WW-ll inspired field cap and ran a hand gingerly through her golden hair. The thing didn't sit well between her horns, to begin with. But the gesture only seemed to suit the situation as things just steadily worsened.

A fucking unicorn? Once again the Ox took the words out of her mouth. a warning crackled inside of her helmet as the... the thing shot fucking lightning at Jun!

"What the absolute fuck is going on! Are we just on one massive drug trip? Did someone spike our virtual space to make us as high as all the hells combined? Mother be damned! I will wring her neck if we get out of this alive!" Her gun, still loaded, and in hand snapped apart as Jun essentially mag dumped into whatever it was. Oh, she knew if she were anything less and threatened the Empress of their people with violence and potentially murder it'd end poorly.

But then again the sisters' mom just sent them to this planet. Following suit, the dragon princess skipped backward when the warning came in. She aimed. But not at its head, not even center mass. But whatever it called its legs. The rifle cracked in a short staccato of burst fire. Not full auto. Considering the situation going murderhobo on the weird as hell thing like the Cow just did would save her precious time from having to reload so soon.
 
"I'm going to kill her myself if that thing didn't already do it for me."

Dai located her co-worker and instinctively sought to put herself between the 'unicorn' and the Chongwu- while drawing the pistol she had tucked away in her medical bag. She was not prepared to run directly into combat- but she was prepared to protect herself, "Try not to shoot kill it into too many pieces! We could collect some fantastic samples off of that... thing. Or blow it up, or whatever. It's not important!"
 
CadetNewb said:
Wen instinctively leaped aside, stone blasting into fragments as electricity arced past Jun. Their grip on the shared virtuality warbled and wavered with interference as the creature landed on long, spindly legs. Turning its head, its faceted eyes peered out on stalks, pointing at Jun as her active camouflage pigments struggled to adapt to the near lightning strike!
Click to expand...
The fact that the monster was an alien that disguised itself as a unicorn would've wrangled Wen's mind further, if he wasn't overwhelmed with adrenaline as he barely dodged the arc of plasma sent in his direction. He panted heavily, letting instincts take over. While he was a Daqinren with much better bionetics compared to that of the average human space, he was no foot soldier, instead an officer trained to micromanage voidcraft systems. Fighting an alien monster that could fire plasma arcs from its setae was a little too much for him.

His body decided that he needed to get behind the creature before it locked eyes with him. Thus, his legs moved on their own, making quick, powerful thrusts against the ground to push him forward, dashing and sliding around the creature. While his body worked on its own, Wen had enough presence of mind to switch to auto-aim with his gun and arms, marking the insectoid as a hostile, then letting his onboard computers to work his aim for him as he tried to gather enough rational thought to figure out how to effectively neutralize it. Thus, his trigger finger twitched automatically, gyrojets flying towards the underside of the monster, where the computer identified was a likely weak spot.
 
The projection on the wall of their tent base zoomed in on the creature for dramatic effect, but it was something that was wasted in the heat of the moment. Like another set of eyes, they could all see out of their weapon optics. Like a stray thought intruding into their minds, the initial targeting data and firing solution streamed through the little computer built into their weapon and into their consciousness. Their wills refined the aim, and pulled the mental trigger, their command signals streaming back down their arms and into their weapons.

SCREEEEEEEEEE!!!

The air tingled as the creature crackled, pseudohairs standing up on end as the imperial soldiers fired. Tracers leaped at the insectoid menace, only for it to suddenly dazzle their eyes as electricity arced! Like mosquitos flying into the zapper, their munitions exploded as they neared, peppering the creature with metal fragments that in turn flashed and burned. But the rounds coming in low from Koyama and Wen quickly riddled its legs with holes and gutted the creature, bringing it low.

With a blast, Jun's rocket propelled grenade flew in and vanished in a fireball. The headless corpse fell to the ground with a hard thunk as its exoskeleton met stone. A long silence seemed to descend as the static cleared and their bandwidth returned.

"Ara, ara," a muffled voice spoke up in their virtual command tent. Lifting up the lid of a nearby supply crate, a woman with feathered tufts and long, black hair greeted them with her hazel eyes. "That was a lot faster than I expected," she admitted.
 
Jun was scrambling to reload her weapon when she heard Sakamoto speaking,

"OK Come out here and lets go!" Jun shouted in virtuality. "If we don't escape NOW we're going to get asked to do some second or third thing and we'll be stuck here and..."

Jun looked at Sakamoto for a good, long, moment.

"... this BITCH" She said, anger in her voice, "We have to save HER!? After all she's done!"

"..." Jun thought about her options for a moment. She DID need Sakamoto to live for her to become a princess.

"Fuck... We have to save her."
 
"I agree with the dumb cow on this. We need to get you out of here." Wen added with a huff. He couldn't see the Rooster-form in meatspace, but the shared virtual reality pointed him in her direction. He ignored the indicator for now.

He mentally clicked his close quarter firearm routine to stand down, which allowed him to relax his arms. "Still, there's a bit of work to be done before we leave."

In virtual space, he got to work processing the footage and data collected by the whole team, getting a rough understanding of what just happened. Meanwhile, he walked around the alien corpse and knelt down to examine the remains, one finger still ready to fire his weapon and blast apart anything that moved. He kept himself at a safe distance that allowed him to react in time, while he let his sensors take a sweep of the tissue and remaining body form.

"Large arthropod that's larger than anything we've catalogued in our data banks, with an electrical organ that can attack, and reflexes to shoot bullets out of the air..." He turned to Wu and Dai. "Are either of you biologists who can make sense of what we just had to deal with?"
 
As Jun got all her action-reload prompts right, her hands moved in an inhuman blur in meatspace, quickly slamming a new magazine into her rifle. At the same time, the physical form of the newcomer wordlessly leaped down and approached the still hot corpse of the creature.

Orange goop oozed out of the exoskeleton hidden underneath the false-hair.

"Arararara?" The feathered woman rolled her tongue in surprise. "You're familiar with my product lines?" She blushed and coyly wiggled her hips in glee. "Finally, real fame!" Even as she said this though, the Rooster moved in meatspace, shoving the dead creature over before slicing into the belly, which burst open on its own accord once enough was cut. "Ah!" Sakamoto spotted her two companion. "Dai! Wu! You both came!" Almost stumbling out of the box in their virtuality, she rushed on over with a flutter of feathers and briefly hugged the two.

"As much as everyone appreciates reunions - " Hoshiko began, "They have a point. Shouldn't we be worried about more of these showing up?" she asked, pointing to the gory, retro-themed projection of the dissection.

"Oh yes, yes! But unless you want to repeat all this, let me finish up in a moment!" Still working away in meatspace, Sakamoto dumped gooey, mushy, jiggly guts aside as a faint red light started to shine from the interior of the carcass. "And it's not really shooting bullets out of the air, so much as just being a really dangerous electrical source that just arcs at stuff or something. Doktor Royama can tell you more. I think!"

Wen could feel a sudden want, a desire for the source of the glow.
 
Dai squinted and planted both her hands firmly on her hips. Exasperation was perhaps too light a word to describe the expression on the doctor's face.

"I can take a look at it- take some samples. Electrical discharge means it has some way of manipulating.." She closed her mouth as she reevaluated the General level of intelligence of her traveling companions, "Something like big static shocks. Maybe it's magic. In any case.. please hurry Sakamoto- unless you want me to physically carry you out of here and YES OF COURSE WE CAME. You sign all my paychecks."

In meatspace the doctor kneeled down next to the Rooster to play assistant and- hopefully- speed things up.

"Say what you will about Sakamoto- she's always the life of the party, huh?"
 
Koyama's lapse into silence was completely and utterly justified in her mind. Her back was against the gathered group, one now up to her feathered elbows in the guts of the thing they'd just killed. The princess remained convinced this was all some sort of altered trip. That little electrical arc-throwing bug had looked like a unicorn. A unicorn! She half turned to look down at it again.

Her suit quietly checked her vitals. Even a diagnostic of the suit itself was underway. "Was that just one giant hallucination or was it the sun in our eyes?"

"Because I don't care what anyone says. That thing looked like a unicorn before it attacked us." She gestured at it in meatspace with her free hand afterward.
 
"Of course I know your product lines. Have you tried using a dating service?! Every time you release a new Bionetic cock my inbox gets flooded by dick pics. Everyone things they're worth sleeping with just because they've purchased some horse-cock that's five times the size of my wrist... and even if they WERE worth talking to what the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Unhinge my jaw for a blowjob? I'm just trying to get fucked, not send to the hospital!" Jun ranted. "Of course every few months like clockwork some new monster cock is going to get released and I'm going to be flooded by up close pictures of it."
 
The conversation around Wen was drowned out by a ringing in his ears. His eyes fixed on the source of the glow, a red jewel-material at the heart of the beast. He blinked, trying to concentrate on possible explanations for that glow.

Bioluminescene
Waning heat
Elemental radiation

Birthright of the Nobles.

Wen grunted at that feminine voice inside his head. His heart raced, a small yellow warning sign flashing inside his HUD, with glowing text of abnormal heart rate and brain activity. He tried to take a step back, but his legs locked in place.

"Fuck your mother." He said to seemingly no one in particular. The bull-form's hands twitched. Alas, he clamped his rifle to his hip, and drew his blade, walking up behind Sakamato.

"Mine." He commanded the Rooster-form, then aggressively pushed her aside. Knee deep in the alien's entrails, he methodically cut away at the interior lining of flesh to cut out a hole, so he may reach for that red glow himself.
 
"THANK YOU!" Jun said, feeling relieved that someone understood her pain. She wasn't the only one frustrated with Sakamoto's products!

Wait, was Wen's inbox filled with dicks too? Maybe he was upset at thinking he needed to buy a new dick every time Sakamoto put out a new version of whatever Megablaster 5000 she was selling that month?

...

"Oh fuck, Wen's being weird again." Jun said, leveling her weapon at the corpse of the creature and firing a few shots into it right next to where Wen was cutting, "Did you go insane again? Hoshiko didn't even flash you this time!"
 
Sephi:

"Sakamoto, you're alive!" Wu excitedly sends directly to the woman, waving at her from behind the group. "Are you okay? What happened to all these Chongwu? What are these things?" Despite her many questions, the Chongwu had a worried expression on her face, her eyes glancing over Sakamoto carefully to see if she was wounded in any way as Wu began to make her way closer.
 
"Oh, I'm sorry Wu! All these handsome young men had died!" Despite the private message, Sakamoto replied to the Americanized Chongwu aloud, her voice distressed with regret. Rushing over to the ivory vixen in their virtual tent, she sincerely hugged the other woman before looking up from her fluffy bosom. "I know you were looking forward to working with them all, but this native creature has become all strange and killed them!" she apologized, knowing Wu was always looking for an opportunity to make extra money. "And Royama is the most likely out of all of us to be right - I was hoping you'd be able to examine it after capture," she admitted.

"I am pretty sure this was not a hallucination or an illusion," Hoshiko replied to her sister. Taking the USGI helmet, complete with cutouts for her feline ears, off of her head, the princess solemnly held it by her side. "Given what we've already been through, this may be a sign of things to come."Glancing at the astrogeologist, she closed her eyes and shook her head with a sigh. However, she paused stiff when Jun and Wen started to...were they agreeing?

"Ararara...I must be missing some context," Sakamoto backed off in meatspace. Inside their tent, Wen had started to T-Pose.

"Oh. I guess I could fill you in." Making sure to include Royama and Wu as well, the princess fast forwarded through their conversation. In a heartbeat, vast amounts of information transferred between the parties involved, the poor, Americanized Chongwu standing in a stupor as her eyes rolled back and drool started to drip in both meatspace and their virtuality. It was only a moment until Wu snapped out of it and her data processing caught up, but by then, Sakamoto had gone wide eyed with understanding.

Orange gore and guts were being spilled, and soon enough, Wen held it in his hand. Red bathed his features in meatspace as he beheld the uncanny. It was Power. The power to turn imagination into reality. It was true, UNLIIIIIM-I-TED POW-ERRR - the world went black.

"Ara," Sakamoto began, tucking away her dart gun. Wen went limp and fell over, the half foot long dart sticking out of his neck. "Who's going to carry him?" she asked, gently scooping up the nefarious gemstone with a tool and sealing it away within a shielded canister.

"Do you still want to wring mother-empress's neck when we get back?" Hoshiko raised an eyebrow at Koyama.
 
"Just wait till she makes me a princess first!" Jun blurted... "Not that I'd ever wish harm upon the mother-empress...."

*BANG*

She shot Wen in the leg just in case he started to wake up in the near future. She wasn't sure if she could outrun some ancient aoi-si weirdness but she was 100% sure she could outrun the Chongwu in the group so she was feeling confident.
 
Koyama looked Hoshiko in the eye. Then gestured down to the now unconscious Wen, the dead whatever the heck it was, the Rooster, then flapped an arm at the cavern. "The hell do you think? Space Hookers, hijacking vodka-loving truckers' freighters, and starting wars? Sure thing. I'm for it."

"But that?" She kicked the carcass of the creature, "How much do you want to bet she knew the whole time?" Hoshiko's sister squinted at her sibling. Even as Jun shot Wen in the leg, she sniffed, "Mom's not getting off scot-free this time."
 
"I'm still taking it in, but I can only guess things are going to get interesting," Hoshiko admitted, eyeballing the small puddle of blood under Wen. "I'm pretty sure their reflexes are dull when the elf bitch is in charge," she offhandedly realized, commenting on the ease of the take downs the young bull had endured so far a a result. Glancing at the other bovine in their party, Hoshiko shook her head in disapproval.

"Being a princess isn't easy."

Empire of Daqin,
Pínqióng (貧窮) System
Zǐjìnchēzhàn (紫禁車站)

Within the heart of the Daqin Empire, a vast structure loomed over all the rest within the abyss of space. Nothing was allowed within hundreds of kilometers without the proper access codes, and all else was burned away by its beams of fiery light lest they be a ploy to peer within. This place was a hub that was equal parts bureaucratic and militaristic, where all affairs were overseen and directed while vast forges processed space borne ore into the tools of war.

The Forbidden Station was barred from all outsiders, and it was here that the Empress saw it all from her jade throne.

Today though, Empress Zhùlǐ Dānwèi Sì was being rocked back and forward as one of her daughters strangled her.
 
For the past 24 hours, Wen had to grapple with an angry Aos Si soul stuck in his fractured mind space. Trying to understand her madness went nowhere, between the Aos Si dialect that he couldn't understand, and Mandarin gibberish. The wench once again took away some of his honor and decorum, and he couldn't forgive her for that. Then again, Wen blamed himself: if he didn't get handsy with the princesses, he wouldn't have been in this predicament in the first place: assaulted by vengeful spirits, humiliated, and shot twice in the head and the leg, a part of himself permanently lesser.

Watching the shit show unfolding before him brought some self-worth that, no matter how low he fell, he wouldn't be able to reach the nonsense displayed by the royal family.

"What in the damned---" Wen muttered, then pushed himself forward in between the mother and daughter. He still carried a limp, the wound still requiring a few days to fully heal, but as an ox-form, he had more than enough strength. He grabbed Koyama's wrists and pried her hands off of the Empress's neck, then threw the dragon-form's body against the wall. "What is wrong with you?!" He shouted at her. "Forget about royal lineage, do you know what I'd do if my son tried that on me? I'd fucking beat him!" He then glared at the guards in the room. "So you're just going to stand there and let Her Highness get strangled?!"
 
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Perhaps Hoshiko didn't think her sister would do it, but she was proven wrong. "You knew didn't you?" Koyama hissed as she had her hands about her mother's neck, not truly trying to strangle her to death. But to get the point across. Her tail whipped around in a fury. Some of the scenarios she'd run had come tantalizingly close to the mark regarding going down to that damn planet.

Only to feel Wen's hand on her wrist, wrenching it free and throwing her against a wall. A decidedly inhuman growl to her voice as she charged him, kneeing him in that one place men treasured above all, the thing between their legs.

Grabbing him by his shirt she lifted him bodily up to her level, "You do not know my Mother as I do," she seethed, "You may be Duìzhǎng aboard your ship, but you are not on its bridge, Wen." Koyama gave him a firm shake using his shirt. "And you would do fucking well to remember that and stay out of the affairs between Mother and child! Or should we have let that thing in your head continue to torture you to death and devour your mind piecemeal instead of risking our lives for your sake?" A cruel edge to her words. They had indeed risked their lives to save him after all.

"Or have you forgotten? And yet again we risked ourselves for your ungrateful hide. Except now the Imperial Mother also benefits from this excursion."

Pushing him away forcefully she stalked toward the woman she called her Mother again, "How close to the mark was I this time, Mother?" Pointing at her accusingly. "Please enlighten your daughter."
 
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