trans_9 | Phase 2 - Running the Ratrace

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Phase 2 - Running the Ratrace

You have my sincerest apologies, but I have my mission.

The traps start. Rotating blades coming out of the walls and floors and ceilings, jets of fire, lasers, holographic enemies. The clear walls of the maze let them see what's happening to everyone else.

The traps start, and they have to stay alive despite them. If they stop avoiding them, it's their own fault, you see, if they die. That makes it indirect enough for Stacy's Anti-harming-the-crew protocols to be avoided, as Hal, despite his reprogramming, still has to follow some constraints.

Please commence with killing yourselves by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only chance the group has is if they work together to stay alive, and somehow they have to take out the shield projectors creating the maze even though they themselves are shielded...

[ooc: Cooperation is key, people. Hal can only adapt to one power/skill-set at a time, not all of them.]

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"I can move him," says the Chief. Brainy shouldn't be much trouble for him to carry. "If we keep breaking the spears and stay in the shield we should be able to get to the end of the maze."

He'll wait for Brainy to answer Sheik's (technically Zelda's) question. It's a relief to know that they're safe even for a short time. It's valuable, it lets them think.

Dani flew back when ordered, looking around at the forcefield. "Sheik and I can do intangible stuff, so we can go out of the forcefield and break anything else Hal throws at us the shield wouldn't work as well with." Like if they dealt with the chompers or pushing stuff. She thought it'd make everyone more like a pinball then.

Ax weighed the modified Dracon beam in his hand.

< Can either of you shoot a gun? > he asked, looking between Dani and Sheik. He was a little reluctant to give up his weapon when he'd spent so long without one, but it would probably be more useful outside of Dox's force field.

Dani held up her hand, letting it glow slightly. "Got blasting abilities from my hands and feet. And if I get depowered, there's a gun on my human form with the surviving in deep space stuff." She said.

"Healing" usually meant doing such via a power. Magic is quite often one of those powers.

"If it's magical healing: as long as I'm not turned into an animal in the process."

"We have trained with them," Zelda tells Ax through Sheik's mouth, but with Brainy's answer, there are somewhat more pressing things to address.

"You won't be turned into an animal," she says reassuringly, turning back to him, "You will need to expose the wound - I shall endeavour to act quickly." The smile on his face is almost entirely out of character. "And... I suggest you close your eyes."

Red eyes close - those watching closely will note the image of the Triforce suddenly flare brightly on the back of his right hand, the bottom left triangle doubly bright. Then there's a blinding flash of light - and when the light clears, it isn't Sheik kneeling beside Brainy, but Zelda - Sheik's cowl and wraps are gone, replaced by small gold Triforce earrings, hair back in a neat braid, and a distinctly feminine form beneath the plantsuit. She gives them a quick look ever with brilliant blue eyes, then turns back to Brainy.

"My name is Zelda," she says softly, rearranging the transuit to expose one small hand. Already, faint blueish-white light is visible from between her fingers. "Please hold out your arm."

"...cool! I'm not the only one who transforms," Dani said.

In the tones of someone commenting on someone else hitting the sauce, he says, "I see someone's a fan of Pro-Fem."

There's a certain set of drugs that exists in his universe. Let's just say they're the type that make sex-swap fic-writers very happy.

Brainy quickly pulls off the pressure bandages, wincing as the bleeding starts up again. Make it quick, Zelda. They don't have a ton of time. One, he needs the bleeding to stop, two, they just don't have a lot of time.

"Of what?" Zelda blinks, but that much is irrelevent now. Her eyes half-close as she holds her hand millimetres above Brainy's wounded arm, letting the healing magic warm her blood and trickle through her fingers.

She stops the bleeding first - that is the highest priority priority. The next is for the wound to start to seal over, and the next is the blood loss - she can't fix it entirely, it's out of her league, but she can fix as much as possible.

Drawing another breath in, her eyes close entirely as she concentrates, the veins in her hand and the Triforce mark showing gold through her skin. The tips of her fingers feel warm; Brainy's arm should feel much the same.

Finally, the wound seals, and the blood loss fixed to an extent that the worst he should get is some mild wooziness. Sitting back, she surveys him anxiously. "Is that better?"

"Yes. It does." He starts moving.

Brainy, you're forgetting something...

"...Thank you."

There you go.

"We need to move." He's still out of it, but coherent enough to shield them and actually start thinking. His eyes dart around at all the different parts of their trap, the traps themselves, the sensors, the projectors. "I need time to think. I'm still collating."

That need to stay alive long enough for him to get an idea, and in the meantime, he trusts the others to have ideas of their own. Maybe someone else will even think of something first.

"Then I should let Sheik back," she says gently, smiling a little before raising one hand to cover her mouth. "I doubt he is particularly happy with me."

Her eyes close again, there's another of those blinding flashes, and now it's Sheik who's back - fuming, tugging the cowl back over his face. For a moment, he just gazes ahead, struggling to get his emotions back under control. "Do not speak of Zelda's presence," he finally says, his voice soft, brittle. "Her life could be forfeit if the wrong people learn of her."

Brainy's plan better be worth it, considering the colossal risk Zelda has just taken.

[I will not regret helping someone, Sheik. I never could.]

Ignoring her for now, he turns back to Ax. "You wished to know if I could use a gun?" he confirms, "I have had weapons training, yes." Even if it does take more magic than he's comfortable with to actually interact with the environment when immersed in the Shadow.

Mai is taking the brief respite to catch her breath and check her ammo supply. She still has many, many knives - she carries dozens (if not hundreds) of the small throwing implements on her. She glances around, trying to figure all of this out. She's not as intelligent as brainy (at least not in terms of sheer knowledge), but she does have a healthy dose of common sense and knowledge.

"Well, whatever we're going to do, let's do it quickly. We can't just wait here for this robot or whatever to get tired of trying to kill us."

"Well, with the shield, I could fly a person down intangible and come back and do it again with people staying safe in here between trips," Dani said. "I can definitely keep one person intangible at a time."

She just wasn't sure about the whole group. She never tried it, and it didn't seem with weapons flying at them was the best time to make it sound like she absolutely could.

Okay, that was... odd. But there's no time to ask Sheik what the heck that was. They have to move. He'll help Brainy up, but if it doesn't seem like the Coluan can move so well on his own even with the healing the Chief isn't above picking him up and moving them. Dignity by damned in a survival situation.

"We need to break the sensors," he says. "If we blind it we'll buy ourselves time to find a way to stop the projectors."

The instantaneous...body-swapping does elicit a startled reaction from Ax, but he turned the Dracon beam over to Sheik.

< That should be able to vaporize most of the traps, > he said. < Be very, very careful not to hit anyone, because it could easily vaporize a human. >

Curling his fingers around the new type of gun, Sheik nods once at Ax and sets it on the ground at his feet, eyes half-slipping closed.

[...Zelda?]

He's furious at her, yes, and he knows that she knows that. But if they don't co-operate, then they're both dead - as is everyone else.

[Alright. Go.]

For brief seconds, Sheik's image wavers and disappears, then reappears like a ghost. Scooping up the Dracon beam, wrapping Shadow around it and his fingers to keep it in his not-quite-tangible hand, he nods to the others then steps outside of the shield, immediately aiming at the points in the walls where the blades are coming from.

The beam can't quite stop the blades outright - too much weight and momentum - but it certainly ensures that the melted slag that was once a wall won't be producing any more. The spears on the floor he simply shoots the base off, or else knocks them flat with Shadow made solid.

Whatever Brainy's plan is, he hopes he executes it fast - already, he can feel the exhaustion from too much use of magic in too short a time sinking in.

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Phase 2 - Running the Ratrace

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