[PLOT] - The Overlord and the Twins

[The_Vizir]

((ENTROPY, L-8 XIV, AND L-11 XIV APPEAR HERE - IN THE DRY BUSH NEAR THE FOREST'S EDGE - AS DEREALIZATION STRIKES THE BELUGA. READY, SET, GO!))

[The_Vizir]

Lev woke up to the smell of loam invading his nose - and the taste of it invading his maw. He sat up with a start, spitting out the dirt that found it's way into his mouth. "Oh, that... bl-WHA?"

Lev looked around frantically as his memory restored itself - he was on the Beluga, a slipstream portal opened, and then... he was lying on the dirt? W-WHERE WAS EVERYBODY?

A low drew his attention to his side, and he saw...

Leigh sitting up, shaking the twigs out of her hair "Ohh wow... I feel like I got slammed into by a freight shu- Lev? What's wrong?"

Lev opened his mouth a few times, trying to figure out what exactly to say to-

"And where is everybody?"

[Luxon Cobrat]

"I hate to go out on a limb," called a female voice from above, "but I think everybody else just disappeared."

See, Entropy was perched on the limb of a tree at that moment. Is joke! You laugh now!

"I knew that flying box was wierd, but I didn't know it could make people do that," the succubus went on.

Truth be told, she was more than a little disoriented herself. One moment she had been battling the g-forces in Norad's transport shuttle, the next she found herself crashing headlong into her second tree that day. Or was it her third? It was all pretty fuzzy by now. As she gathered her thoughts, though, one seemed to hit her particularly hard, and she jumped up from the limb to soar quickly up above the forest canopy. Then she came back down to ground level, looking greatly relieved.

"It looks like the sky's still holding up," she informed the cybernetic twins assuringly. "I don't think it's going to fall. Those earthquakes earlier had me worried, but I guess the sky's pretty hard to knock down."

[The_Vizir]

Leigh rubbed her temples and looked up into the trees. "Ya think?" she scowled, before stumbling up to her feet. "Woah... all my drivers are totally unaligned. This... this ain't no good..."

Lev grunted and lay back on the cold forest floor. "An' mine are mostly offline here... still. So I'll hafta ask we all just stay here for a few 'til I get all of myself back online." A sigh, and Lev closed his eyes, slowly shutting down part after part of his body and bringing them back online, refreshing their integration with his core. It wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, but it was better than going around without being able to stand because your legs motor functions weren't firing properly.

Leigh shook her head and leaned against the tree beneath Entropy. "I... don't know 'bout that there, Entropy. It's never done nothin' like that before, I'll tell ya. I think it was done ripped right out from underneath us would be my guess, but I ain't got no idea how or why..."

She looked around at their presently-calm surroundings. "But I'll tell ya what doesn't make no dang sense here, Entropy, an' it's not that for some reason the atmosphere didn't up and decide to ignore gravity and float off into space. It's that there is no firestorm. The sky is clear, I'm not hearing me no crackle or blaze off in the distance... nothin'! What happened to the explosion? It was tearin' up the forest, and then it's gone? I don't buy it, not for one second. Somethin' real odd just happened here..."

Leigh leaned back, listening to the quiet ambiance of the forest - the gentle blowing of wind through the trees, the chirping of birds and the buzzing of insects. It... was too normal. Too quiet for what had just happened. Leigh shook her head and looked around "Any idea where we ended up here, Entropy? This looks like the edge, but I ain't certain. An' Lev's got all the maps on him at the moment..."

[Luxon Cobrat]

"It's the edge," Entropy confirmed, having seen enough to know that much when she had flown up to look at the sky. "Close enough anyway. A little ways north of that elven city."

And she only realized what she was saying as she said it.

"Wait... Now, that wasn't a city, was it? I'm pretty sure it was just a village."

Entropy rubbed her chin thoughtfully for a bit, then sprang back up into the branches and emerged above the sea of leaves once again. Staring intently off to the south, she looked over the large cluster of architecture she could clearly see in that direction for several moments. Then she dropped once more back to the ground.

"Yeah, it's a city now," she announced. "I know I get confused a lot, but that village has turned into a city, plain as day. I didn't see any fires, either."

[The_Vizir]

Leigh rubbed her eyes as Entropy confirmed her suspicion... well at least they were closer to her dad than they were before, but... "Wait, what?" the cyborg stared at the once-and-future overlord as she registered the comment about something that caused her logic processors to hiccup. "What elve-" but weather it was because the chaos of the situation was slowing her systems down, or Entropy was just that fast, the demoness was flying up through the towering trees before the dark twin managed to complete her sentence.

Now, Leigh wasn't quite certain what was going on here, but whatever it was it was big... and something she probably needed to see for herself. "HEY! WAIT UP!" she shouted after the overlord, as she focused on manifesting her wings. Drivers flared, amps hummed to life, and the barrier between hyperspace and reality... wobbled a bit. No opening, no sudden growth of wings, no... well, nothing much other than maybe the shadowy whisps that sprouted from her shoulders flaring a bit. Okay... that's not good. She took a deep breath in, steadied herself, and opened her mind up to hyperspace and - "WOW!" she jumped forward as her back spasmed, electrical tingles running up and down her spine. Reaching over and massaging her shoulders confirmed her worries "Right then. Emitters overtaxed right now, drivers won't let me engage them. Fantastic." she sighed.

However, she didn't have time to complain about how she was powerless and stuck in some world where the rules of physics weren't counting anymore, as Entropy returned gracefully to the ground once again.

"Jeeze," Leigh jumped a little at the succubi's sudden reappearance near the dark twin. "Could ya be any quieter?" she asked, still massaging her shoulders. But the succubi's apparent invisibility to cyborgs suffering from feedback issues from their modules was beside the point. "So... ye're certain there's a city in the forest now? Like a big city? With towers and everythin' there?" The Terran's mind was racing, evaluating the various possibilities of the situation before her, barely even registering the comment about the lack of fires, as she came to a solid conclusion about what to make of this revelation.

"Cool!" she said, an excited grin forming on her face. "An elven city? A real elven city? Like... like Rivendell or Evereska or ShiKahr? That is just AWESOME!" the hybrid was almost bouncing with excitement. "We should go check it out a..." her hand dropped from her shoulder, "Wait... where did an entire city come from... and where's the fire? What's going on here?"

Leigh shook her head, and looked longingly in the direction of the real elven city that had suddenly appeared, then back in the direction she suspected the wreck of the Norad III lay. "Umm... well, dad was tryin' to get us all away from that there explosion, right? And if there's no risk of an explosion anymore, I mean... I don't know what we're all supposed to do. Did that explosion there summon that city? Or did we all just... SEVEN NINE THREE AND ONE!" her hand slapped her forehead. "We might have just slid into a parallel reality! We all could be actin' out a real-life episode of Sliders! Only... with a demon and two AIs instead of four humans, but..." and then the experiment's eyes widened as a stark realization hit her.

"What if dad doesn't exist in this universe? What are we going to do then?" She had never really been without her father since she awakened here in the forest - to be without him was something she hadn't ever really considered. Having the back up of the toughest being in the forest -from Leigh's eyes at least - made her somewhat invincible b and untouchable. Her dad would always be there to save her. But what if he wasn't anymore. What if she was alone, and it was really only her and her brother and the crazy cat lady who used to rule a layer of the abyss and now spent her days building an evil lair for fun. Panic struck Leigh as she grabbed Entropy's arm. "What are we going to do?"

Because asking the crazy cat lady who used to rule a layer of the abyss and now spent her days building an evil lair for fun what to do was really the best option at this point. Certainly a sign of desperation...

[Luxon Cobrat]

Come to think of it, Entropy really couldn't be certain the city was elven from this distance. It had been sitting over the same area the elven village had occupied, but the succubus supposed any number of races could have built it. At least the architecture did look like something she would expect from elves, anyway.

Leigh seemed rather enthusiastic about the city, though, and Entropy started to think it might not be a bad idea to head over there with her and check it out. But then the... whatever Leigh was...

Entropy decided that she must have been a Sky Monster.

Then the Sky Monster began to panic. Entropy wasn't sure what to do about that. Maybe try making a funny face or finding something to rattle? No, no, that was for younger kids...

"I'm, uh... sure he's still around somewhere," Entropy offered.

She wasn't sure how much an empty assurance would really help, though.

"You know, why don't we just go look for him?" she suggested. "No sense jumping to conclusions, right? He's probably sitting right out there in the desert wondering when we're gonna show up, I'll bet."

[The_Vizir]

Leigh nodded frantically... right. Looking for him. Good idea. Right... but... umm... where? The Terran cyborg frantically scratched her hair, trying to figure out their next steps. Do they head out into the wastes - it was a long walk, and what would happen if their dad wasn't there? Or... or or or they could set up a signal fire or something. A beacon! Yeah, that might work, but with the interference, who knows what would get through...

And then Leigh heard it - a faint explosion at the edge of her hearing. "Wait..." her grasp on Entropy's arm tightened, and her ears twitched. She closed her eyes and shut off all external sensory feeds - and replayed the audio.

The sound profile matched perfectly with a sonic boom.

A grin split the experiment's face from ear to ear as she jumped and grabbed Entropy around the neck. "EEE! HE'S ALRIGHT!" The black experiment bounced excitedly before catching herself. "Right, so..." she pointed off towards the elven city "There was a sonic boom, and it came from that direction. The only thing capable of making a sonic boom in the forest that size is one of my dad's ships. So I'm guessin' here, an' this is just my hypothesis, but that our dad is lookin' for us here and scannin' the forest. We get to that big clearin' near the city, and we should be easy spotin'! And then you and dad can figure out what to do top stop the explosion from happenin' again, right?" Leigh grinned expectantly.

A light groan from the base of a nearby tree diverted the dark twin's attention to her golden brother's "Oh, right! Lev!" she hopped over to where her brother's prone form rested, and lay her hand lightly over the data port at his wrist. "Dang... he's only at sixty-eight per cent..." she looked up Entropy "Think ya can help me carry him?" she asked, not realizing the vast gulf in strength between a teenage human-based cyborg and a demonic overlord created to be an ideal soldier. To put it numerically, it would be like a 35 to an 8, maybe a 9.

Leigh, oblivious to this fact, wrapped her rebooting brother's arm around her shoulder and gestured for Entropy to take the other side.

Well, one did have to sink before one learns to swim...

[Luxon Cobrat]

It looked like Entropy's suggestion calmed Leigh down somewhat, or at least turned her panic into something more hopeful and less fearful. Then something seemed to catch her attention. Whatever it was, Entropy tried to listen for it too, but she couldn't make anything out.

Just as Entropy was about to ask what she heard, Leigh jumped and grabbed her excitedly, squealing loudly. The succubus could take the force of the jump, but the squeal right beside her ear made her cringe and fall back with a start. After the experiment finished explaining herself, Entropy still wasn't sure what she had heard, but she at least gathered that Norad would be able to find them if they got closer to the city she had just spotted.

"Sounds like... a good idea, I think?" the succubus tentatively answered. "Let's give it a try, anyway."

Then Leigh asked for help with Lev. The female experiment went over to help her brother stand, taking one shoulder and requesting that Entropy take the other. Following, Entropy nodded in agreement, then absently put an arm under the other shoulder and lifted him up, looking off in the direction of their destination the whole time.

"Ready to go now?" she asked. No answer. "Hey, you listeni--"

She looked back and the twins weren't even there. Wondering where they could be, she glanced around, then saw them flying up into the treetops.

Letting out a sigh, she took off, flying up and catching them both. "Come on now, if we're going, let's stop goofing around." And with that, she tore off through the air towards the city at high speed, weaving between tree trunks with death-defying agility, the twins trailing behind her like the tail of a kite.

[Luxon Cobrat]

Entropy eventually rose above the treetops again to get a better visual on her destination. However, mere moments after Entropy rose above the sea of leaves, the world went haywire. Everything seemed to swirl into a spinning blur around her, and some force too strong for even her to resist pulled both of the twins right out of her grasp. Before the notion to go after them could even form in her brain, she suddenly had no idea where they had gone. Direction itself was quickly becoming meaningless.

Rather than let herself panic, Entropy forced herself to think what the smart thing to do would be. Not taking long to decide, she reached out with her arcane sense to take an astral scan of the area around her. What she found was... a weak planar boundary, and a convergence of multiple realities. A portal.

She had flown directly into a portal.

Not but a moment after she realized this, the world suddenly started returning to normal. But it quickly became apparent that she was... not where she had been before.

((On Viz's advice, pulling Entropy out of this thread so she can get back to the plot. Where Lev and Leigh show up is up to Viz.))