[IC]TotMG:V2 - Hyperdimension: Return of the Four Felons

[Endlessblaze]

"Im fine! Thanks for asking though"
Punch hops up without any trouble, and starts trying to fix her hair a little, looking over to the rest of the group.
"Well I don't usual fall from the sky and faceplant into the middle of wherever this is. I kinda got grabbed up by a portal or something, I wonder if I made a wrong turn? Aw well. 

 

She looked back to the glaring Mira and chuckled. 
"Is it really so bad for a lovely woman to fall on you?"

[Powder Miner]

Perlita turned towards the antiquated woman, who looked kind of like she could belong to the more formal side of her Persona’s era, and shrugged. ”Um, no, it’s not normal on my home dimension or anything, but it’s just that this kind of... dimension traveling group tends to have to a lot of people and things popping out of nowhere.” Perlita gestured helplessly at Atton. ”Literally his entire military vehicle crashed out of the sky and made a huge noise on the world we just came from so really I guess some random woman falling out of the sky is a lot less weird than THAT.”

[rustytengo]

Bridgett looked over to the new girl who fell from the sky. She looked like some of the familiars she had seen back in her world. Though Bridgett doubted that that was the case "Umm...from the sound of it. It was probably who or whatever gathered all of us that brought you here. Though the falling isn't always what happens. So umm... welcome to the group" Bridgett said quietly with a smile.

[Yours Truly]

Atton turned to stare at the newcomer for a few moments before he said, "Quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if this is a regular occurence on this world, or in some other we have yet to visit, we've allready seen men fly unassisted after all."

 

He straightened out his uniform a little before he said, "My name is Richard Atton by the way, and is throwing yourself through a random portal a regular occurence for you miss..?"

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Mira

 

In response to Punch's question, Mira's eyes narrowed, "When they land on me hard enough to knock me onto the ground, and on stairs, then yes. It is bad" she stated bluntly, crossing her arms. She would admit, it was slightly annoying to see everyone else already welcoming towards this woman, but she was a bit biased at this point. Falling on someone tends to lower their opinion of you, especially as a first impression.

[Endlessblaze]

"Punch!" She proclaims "Punch Bombdottr. And while I wont deny I have thrown myself into a few portals of unsure destination, Its more like one just randomly dragged me in this time. I was going to a shop I heard had Lovely wares, rounded a corner and before you know it Im dragged into a swirling vortex of energy and warped space." 

She pauses, thinking.

"Not the strangest thing that happened all week. But unexpected." 

Then she acknowledges Bridgett 

"Oh? Now this is interesting. Who's gathering who now? Just what adventure have I gotten myself wrapped up in this time?"

She speaks quite animatedly, pairing her sentences with an array of expressive faces and poses. During it all, She subtly gives Mira a wink, though its hard to tell if its an 'Ill make it up to you later' wink, or a 'Oh don't be silly you'll be fine' wink. 

[DragonRage]

"I'm honestly not sure of that myself," Iowa admits, "I arrived, and a partial explanation was presented.  But it quickly degenerated into making up words and insulting moon people, who apparently lost a war with the United States of America.  And now we are either suppressing a violent mob boss who has turned himself into a machine, or supporting a popular uprising against a tyrannical theocracy.  More evidence is needed to decide which course of action is just, but I do hope the rebels are either in the right or back down without trying to fight.  A genuine and motivated popular uprising is nearly impossible to put down, even with atrocities the likes of which I refuse to commit."

[rustytengo]

"Umm..I'm not sure who is actually gathering us. All I remember is some voice asking me to help save the Multiverse and once I agreed to help...well the next thing I remember is waking up in the middle of a strange world with a bunch of people." Bridgett tapped her figure on her face a bit trying to remember things." The gist of what all is going on is we were gathered together to gith things called Trespassers to in order to stop them from devouring worlds and destroying the multiverse," she said with a bit of a smile "This particular world we need to stop some bad guys stirring up trouble well the local goddess is away. In the most basic explanation or at least how I understood it." she finished with a slight laugh and blush.

[StormLord]

Mr. Dark impatiently rapped his claws surprisingly loudly on the stone steps.

"Someone falling from the sky without warning certainly isn't unheard of, though it does usually indicate some higher power pulling strings."

He paused to think for a moment before growing a mischievous smile.

"Well why don't you take her with you?  You've got room in your vehicle, and that way she'll be your...additional asset."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Mira

 

"Fine" Mira suddenly stated, walking past Punch, "The more time we spend here the more we waste on important matters" she stated, heading for Atton's 'half-track'. She assumed that was what they would be using to get around the place, at the very least. She was just annoyed by standing around doing nothing, and the carefree nature of their new 'asset'.

 

But as long as Punch was traveling with them, she would just have to tolerate.

[Endlessblaze]

Punch nods, as if everything that had just been said made perfect sense to her.
"Alright! Sounds fun to me. Im in. Who's driving?"

She starts heading to the vehicle, following Mira to what seemed to be the party's ride.

This sounded like it would be a fun adventure. Mechanical mob bosses and missing local deities huh? With any luck, she would be able to find something worth mimicking. Even if not, It would certainly be good practice.

[DragonRage]

Iowa walks up to the half-track and pauses, quite confused.  She walks around it, fidgeting with her purse and occasionally scratching her head, before she walks over to Atton, looking quite perplexed.  "Okay, I give up.  Where do you hitch the horses?"

[Powder Miner]

"Uh, I think Atton's going to drive the vehicle, it's his, after all. Near gave me a heart attack when it appeared. Um..." Perlita turned to look at Iowa and spent several moments trying to place exactly where she was from -- she'd taken US history classes, but she had to admit that trying to pick out someone clearly from some time ago was kind of difficult. Her Persona was actually her saving grace here; after nearly choking the first time she'd actually gotten a good look at her Persona's appearance without being in a terrifying and alien situation, she had looked the figure her Persona appeared to be based off of up -- Joan Crawford. Not... delving into... whatever that represented... Perlita had still learned a lot about the flappers, and since this lady kind of looked like the people preceding the flappers... what was she, 1900s? 1910s? Maybe a little earlier.

 

...this all had taken a few seconds of clear contemplation on Perlita's part, before she eventually spoken up again. "You don't look older than the combustion engine... though I guess cars were pretty rare back then. But, um, yeah, this doesn't use horses, it uses an engine that propels it on its own. It doesn't burn coal or anything, though, it burns oil, so, um yeah, that's how that works and why there isn't anywhere to hitch horses to it or anything."

[StormLord]

The ride goes about how you'd expect.  Your escort clears the roads and leads you out while most of the party gets a few minutes to take in the sights and sounds of the city.  You pass buildings similar to before, though progressively smaller and more simplistic.  Eventually though, several minutes later, you find yourselves outside the city in an place with more wooded areas, less dense housing, and similar such.  Around this time most of your escort peels off too, leaving only one vehicle lead the Half-track where you all need to be, which as it turns out is some kind of nature trail or park or something.  Whatever it is all the nearby signs refer to it as "Virtua Forest".

 

Whoever is driving the Half-track finds a place to park right near the start of the trail.  The trees here are moderately dense, leaving a few hundred feet of visibility, but not much more without some kind of assistance.  You all can hear distant shouting, see flashes of light above the trees, and hear the occasional gunshot and/or small explosion.  The wildlife has taken notice too and much of it is making its way out of the area, meaning it shouldn't be getting in your way.

 

For a second the shouting is uncharacteristically clear, a male voice somewhat hoarse and pent up with frustration.

"Come on, come on!  Fight like you mean it!"

[Endlessblaze]

Punch climbs out of the half track and looks off in the direction of the combat zone, crossing her arms.
"Sounds like Trouble. What do you guys think? Should we go in for an ambush? If I use my powers, I should be able to slip into the combat zone unnoticed and attack from behind, or I could act as a distraction."

Her ears twitch. Hopefuly this would be a pretty good fight.
From the sound of it, someone was not satisfied.

[DragonRage]

"An ambush only works if we know the local terrain well, and know who to attack.  We don't have any Rules of Engagement, we don't know who the good guys are here, and we're not locals," Iowa points out, "Rushing in guns blazing isn't a good idea here.  Instead, we let them see the guns, realize theirs are smaller, and then invite them to talk.  If they do, great.  If some of them don't, we'll know who our enemies are.  I'll go in first, I think.  Even if they shoot us on sight, I doubt they have anything that can penetrate my belt."

[Endlessblaze]

"Don't we already have a description of our target? The idea is, I can shrink down, get in their unnoticed and either scout out the weaponry and abilities of the target, or get up behind them for a surprise attack. Instead of walking into the fight assumeing we have the bigger guns, I could at least get in their and see what they have, THEN we can plan the attack accordingly."

She seems to be forgetting she never explained her powers and skills to anyone.  

[DragonRage]

"We have a description of the person the cat and the pagan zealot think we should be attacking," Iowa says, "And we have the biggest guns.  I'm here.  Besides, you seem to be assuming that the person we've been told to fight is present.  This could be unrelated.  And if you can change your size somehow, that just makes you more vulnerable to catching a stray bullet.  Or being stepped on.  People get killed for far less risky choices than that in battle.  If there's shooting going on and one's available, let the battleship go first."

 

Not that Iowa has told anyone here anything about what she can do either, though to be fair she isn't entirely sure of her new limits.  Still, anything short of an artillery piece shouldn't be much of a threat to her, and even if they have one of those her armor is proofed against twelve inch guns.

[rustytengo]

Bridgett's face twisted in a bit of confusion as the two new people started arguing over what to do. She has been around since the start and nothing good usually came from one of the group wandering off on there own or at least she hasn't seen anything beneficial from it. "Um...or instead since we don't know anything about the enemy how about we all go together? That way if anything goes wrong we will be able to do something about it. Yes?" Bridgett asked the two quietly while looking down.

[ElfCollaborator]

Gabriel, who'd been silent in thought for what seemed like forever, finally speaks up.

"Yeah, uh. Let's do that. Not that I don't trust that you're a.....battleship or whatever, or that I think the person who literally fell out of the sky shouldn't speak up, but in case you guys haven't noticed, we know buck about what the enemy can do. For all we know, they're packing bigger guns. Though, I'll be honest, I'm not exactly a tactician, but arguing about what we should do certainly doesn't fix this."

 

This was Malachi's job, Gabriel leaves unsaid. 

[Powder Miner]

Perlita winced at the discussion -- she, much like her friend, was not much of a strategist, but she had to admit that the ideas that had been argued over had made her a bit uncomfortable. One of the other members of the party spoke, though, and then did Gabriel, giving her a chance to speak up. "Uh, I really don't want us to split up, yeah. I can heal pretty well when we're all together, but if we end up all apart and I've only got one or two people to help me fight, I think it might end up being pretty bad for me overall... so, yeah, I think it'd be best if we could stay all together and stuff."

[Yours Truly]

Atton waited until the two newcomers would stop bickering with each other before he let out a slight sigh and turned to look at Iowa and Punch, "Right, are the two of you finished arguing for now? Because I'm just going to say, that there is no use arguing about our approach if we don't even know what some of us will be doing after we head inside of the meatgrinder, and that neither of you have told us much, if anything about what you bring to the table, and I find that to be worrying, to say the least." He then leaned back on his seat before he continued with, "And I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't put my life in the hands of someone who would rather argue about what we should do, than tell us about what they can do."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Mira

 

As soon as the Half-Track stopped, Mira had stepped out, scanning the treelines, specifically in the direction of the shouting. They had arrived, and their target was likely here still, judging from the shouting.  And from the sound of it, it seemed that the local militia was fighting as well. Good, they had the advantage of numbers and stamina. Presumably.

 

"Are you all done bickering in there?" Mira suddenly called out to the rest of the party, turning her head ever so slightly, "If you want to stick together, figure out what to do, or whatnot, you can do that. However, we're wasting valuable time sitting here" she added, before turning and marching towards the trees, following the sounds of war. She honestly didn't care what their plans were. If it was important, they could stop her and explain it, but she wasn't going to wait for them to deal with their own problems, when there was another problem right in front of them.

[Endlessblaze]

"Oh my, I did forget to explain myself dident I?"

There is a rustling, whooshing sound, as Punch seems to rapidly spin, wrapped up in a flurry of the movements of her own fluffy tails. It takes only a moment, and once shes visible again, her outfit has completely changed. Now clad in a loose, sleeveless, low cut grey Gi. She seems to have bandages around her torso under her clothes, and around her forearms, though between looking quite thin, and from the fact her arms looked perfectly find before, Its clearly just for show.

On closer inspection, a black cloth belt around her waist is way to long to be reasonable, The fabric going down to nearly her ankles on both sides, trailing just behind her.
Both the main pieces of the outfit, and the belt seem to have been embroidered.

All along the belt is a tangle of flowers and vines, existing wholly as a white threaded silhouette. 
As she turns half way to pose, the decoration on her back becomes visible. A single massive and simplistic rendition of an explosion present. Deep reds, bright oranges, and white, mixed with an oddly placed splash of icy teal blue.

How she makes it not look completely silly is anyone's guess. 

"I am the wandering martial artist, who searches for the greatest fighters! Ever expanding my own repertoire of power and testing my strength!

"In addition to possessing many powerful techniques of my own, I am, with some preparation, able to copy the Attacks and abilities of others!" Her right arm Is wrapped up in red flames, while her left is wrapped up in an icy blue whirlwind, In truth, It was just an illusion created from her bodily energy, but thanks to her powers, It was as good as the real deal.

"Of course, I'm good for more then just punching things. Im a master of disguise, which is only further helped along by clever application of my natural shape shifting abilities."

She brings a hand in front of her face, fingers splayed.

"INDEED! By assuming the form of but a small fox, it would be no trouble for me to slip into and out of the combat zone, and deliver information back to the group! Even were I to be noticed, I would merely be written off as another fleeing animal, and were even my true nature realized, I would simply act as an excellent distraction!"

"Not only that I-"
She starts to strike another pose. At this point, its starting to become increasingly clear that if someone dosent stop her, shes going to continue this sales pitch for quite a while. 
 

[DragonRage]

"You look ridiculous,"  Iowa informs the Kitsune, "There's far too many things in that outfit for someone to grab if you tried to fight them with your fists.  Assuming you didn't trip on the trailing parts.  Not to mention that it shows far too much leg.  How haven't you been arrested for public indecency yet, prancing around in that thing?

 

"My own abilities?  I'm honestly... not sure.  I know what I could do before, but...  I wasn't human then.  I wonder..."  She considers the half-track, and then eases herself onto the ground.  Somehow, she feels like she can go closer to her former state than she is now...  But becoming more like a battleship on a vehicle not designed to support hundreds of tons of steel seems like a good way to total Atton's half-track.  So she sets her feet firmly on the ground and concentrates.

 

One step forward, and a flash of red light leaves rudders and propellers mounted on the back of her heeled shoes.

 

A second step, and a steel corset clamps itself around her waist in a shower of white sparks with reassuring weight, bolts tightening it in place with industrial precision.  Two white slabs of metal, each shaped like half of a ship's stubby hull, slide into place on either side of her hips, carrying two round, stubby turrets each.  Over them, two more turrets extend on heavy, mechanical arms, longer barrels casting an imposing shadow over the rest of the assembly as they rest, not aimed at anything in particular.

 

A third step, and a match finds itself into her hand.  She absently strikes it against the side of her face, and a warm, blue flame blazes at the end.  She touches it to her omnipresent cigarette, and gritty coal smoke billows up from the funnel rising above her back, joining the tobacco smoke as it rises lazily into the air.  The fire seems to breathe life into the machines, as whirring cogs and hissing steam engines bring the turrets into position.  Before the funnel, an American flag is raised on a slender mast, to dance lazily in the breeze generated by the infernal heat of her boilers.

 

"All batteries report ready, magazines are almost full.  A bit low on coal, but plenty for the next few days.  I'll need to refuel soon," Iowa murmurs to herself, taking stock of her condition, "Boilers are hot, and running like they're brand new.  God, I haven't felt this good since I was commissioned!  Morale is high, supplies are sufficient, negligible damage to all systems...  Operating condition: nominal."  Iowa turns back toward the group on her heel, a satisfied smile on her face.

 

"The Iowa class battleship USS Iowa is fully operational.  There's precious few land-bound foes that can equal my eight inch guns, and none that come close to the long twelves.  My foot of belt armor, the finest steel America can produce, should render me immune to all attacks short of gunfire from another battleship.  And on the off chance that something does penetrate my belt, it'll have to get through ten feet of coal bunker to have a chance of hitting something important.  In short, there ain't a thing on land, and precious few at sea, that will even slow me down."  She slams a fist into her chest, producing the CRASH! of steel on steel, before turning back toward the sounds of violence.  "Whoever's over there is in for a world of hurt if they attack us.  So let's go say hi, and see if they're more inclined to play it smart or to give us some justification."