nofileext | A Wretched Hub of Scum and Villainy

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daemonplot

A Wretched Hub of Scum and Villainy

It's a simple enough plan: go to a system the Guardians haven't taken control of yet, explain the situation to its citizenry, and recruit volunteers to aid in the fight against Daemon.

The tricky part is finding a system with a decent-sized population that hasn't attracted the Guardians' attention yet.

Fortunately, the Crimson Binome believes he may know of just such a place.

"Can ye open a portal to these coordinates, lass?"

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"Sewers?" YT asks, looking vaguely disgusted. But when a stray shot from one of the Guardian ships hits a nearby pile of crates, she loses her reluctance. "Okay. Lead on," she says.

* * *

Digital sewers aren't much more pleasant than organic ones. Fortunately, Lucinda knows the layout well, and within a few nanos they're lifting up a manhole (spritehole?) cover mere pixels away from the port control tower.

"Blast it!" curses Capacitor when he sees the blasted-open doors of the building. "They're already inside!"

"Better hurry then," YT says. She can't rise out of the hole on her plank - not enough room for that - so she makes it fly out, then hauls her humanoid half out through the opening. Then she jumps on the plank, pulling her minimized 'poon off her belt as she does. With the magnetic cup reeled in and the thing held in her hand, it looks like some wide-angle intergalactic death ray.

And here, it is kind of a death ray. Or a death something. Magnets can do a lot of damage in the virtual world.

Capacitor, Lucinda, and three other binomes are close at hand, weapons drawn and ready.

Just as a half-dozen heavily armed sprites come out of the building.

This could be interesting.

They're spotted before they can get back under cover: one of the Guardians barks orders to the rest, who lift their rifles and start firing away. YT jerks sideways and up, releases the reel on her 'poon, and starts swinging the cup around like a lasso. After a couple of rotations she throws it, then hits the switch to engage the magnetic charge.

The jumps at one of the Guardians like a striking cobra and hits his chest, causing him to jerk spasmodically. YT disengages the magnet and reels in the 'poon cup as the Guardian topples over, flickering.

Unfortunately, this move results in quite a lot of rifle fire being concentrated on her.

Lucinda and her hench-nomes rush in to defend YT, returning fire on the remaining Guardians.

"That's some 'secret weapon' ye have, lass!" Lucinda calls over her shoulder as she reloads.

...but where's Capacitor gone?

"Hey! Captain!" YT calls, swooping in on a Guardian and knocking her out cold with the baud.

They seem to have a handle on the ground troops now, but a couple of the fighters seem to have taken notice and are headed in their direction.

Three of the remaining guardians suddenly stop firing.

Mainly because they're trapped inside three translucent green file-lock cubes.

Capacitor steps out from behind them, brandishing his 'sword' proudly. "Right behind ye, lass!"

"Awesome! Um, I think we'd better get back in the sewers before those ships get us. Or maybe in the control t-"

Just then, there's a bright flash of light and a deafening boom accompanied by a wash of heat and ground-shaking vibrations. YT's almost knocked out of the air by the blast.

Two other things are happening almost simultaneously:

First, a wide beam of orange light lances out of the port control tower and blasts a jagged-edged hole in the sky of the system.

Second, the control tower trembles, tilts, and, almost in slow motion, topples to the ground.

Unfortunately, it happens to be toppling in the general direction of our heroes.

At this point, the person closest to YT is Capacitor's mom. Acting on instinct, she swoops down, grabs the swearing and struggling binome woman, and pulls her out of the way just as the control tower collapses.

The companion she came in with isn't so lucky.

"Captain? You okay?" He's flat on his face and the lower half of him is trapped under a pile of rubble.

"I've--nnf--I've been worse," he grunts, propping himself up on one arm.

Then his eye goes wide. "Look out!"

YT whips her head around and yells "Whoaholyshit!" as she narrowly dodges a cannon barrage from two Guardian fighters. She descends to the ground and frantically starts pulling rubble off Capacitor while the ships pass over and start turning around for another attempted shot.

Capacitor tries to push her away. "Forget about me, lass! Get out of here!"

"No way," YT says simply, still pulling off bits of rubble. She's interrupted when one of the motley ships of the system's defense force, hit by a shot from the invading Guardians, goes down in a burning tailspin and crashes not far from her. There's a bunch of Guardian fighters closing in on her and the beleaguered binomes too. That only motivates her to try and work faster.

"Ye have to get back to Mainframe, lass! Ye have to tell them what happened here, how they took control, so it won't happen again!"

He's right. Dammit, he's right. There's no way the system's gonna hold out against this, and no way she can free Capacitor without getting herself busted or worse. "Okay," she says, trying not to choke up. "Okay. I'll do it. I'll tell them." YT wants to say goodbye or something, but there's really nothing she can think to say. So she just gives his hand a squeeze before ascending, looking for an escape route. She has to think about getting back to Mainframe with this intel.

YT figures that she'll have the best chance if she goes for the hole the Guardians have made. They don't seem to be actively keeping a watch on it. Of course, she has to get through a whole aerial battle to reach it.

At some point, the system's own rag-tag fleet has come out to engage the enemy in the air. There's everything from tall ships to sleek battle cruisers. The only things they all have in common are that they're heavily armed, and that they're currently beating the stuffing out of the invading Guardians.

In all this chaos, no one should notice a single sprite making a break for the open port, right?

It's like surfing in the wrong lane on the freeway, which is something YT has never been dumb enough to try. Operating almost purely on instinct, she swerves around ships, weaves through various dogfights and tries to avoid explosions. She gets close to the hole in the sky and thinks she's home free - basically - but one of the Guardian ships sees her and is promptly on her tail.

"You are not authorized to leave this system," the ship's loudspeaker blares. "Stand down or you will be deleted."

The guns being pointed at YT suggest that they might not wait for her to comply.

YT doesn't think she can make it out of the hole before the guns start blazing. But she's not going to surrender. With a battle cry of "Screw you!" she dips beneath the fighter, swinging her 'poon again, and sending that magnet straight for the ship's underbelly.

It makes contact, and the ship crackles with energy. Smoking and flickering, it drops like a rock toward the energy sea below.

There's barely time for YT to dodge out of the way before the ship can fall on her and take her down with it. Then she heads through the hole and out into the Net. She doesn't know how to get to Mainframe from here, but she has the system's IP address, and she knows there are free-floating tears around. She can make a portal there if she finds one.

She's not happy about leaving Capacitor behind, but she's going to make sure he won't go down for nothing. She'll tell Dot and Bob about the Guardians' strategy so they can find a way to stop it.

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A Wretched Hub of Scum and Villainy

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