trans_9 | PART FOUR: Chell objects greatly to purity and love and hopes you do too. [OPEN]

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PART FOUR: Chell objects greatly to purity and love and hopes you do too. [OPEN]

This Princess Frou Frou Sparklepants Peace Love and Harmony Ne-Whatsherface had messed with the wrong girl.

Obviously this lady had no idea what Chell was capable of--which was fine by her, because it gave her the element of surprise--and as a result, Princess Frou Frou Sparklepants Peace Love and Harmony Ne-Whatsherface was going down in the worst possible way.

Her ace-in-the-hole was simple. What the self-proclaimed body-meddling deity did not know was that the woman she'd invited to her palace was at her most determined, most ruthless, most unstoppable, most lethal under duress. This was duress. It was the same feeling as facing off with GLaDOS, or hunting down the AI that currently resided in her head, driving her slowly insane--she didn't know how she'd do it, but she knew with all certainty that goddess or no goddess, her opponent would be completely and utterly wrecked by the time she was finished. That was just what Chell did.

Despite the nagging feeling that her sanity was slipping as a result of Wheatley's constant babbling, she at least had enough sense to call for assistance and agree to an organizational meeting before she led a crusade on the ridiculousness that plagued them all.

In accordance with her message, she'd staked out with this strange palace in sight, waiting for backup.

[OOC: Feel free to tag in! We'll start with a little IC organizing, but then they are off to confront Nezaitben. After that, WHO KNOWS.]

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Chell wasn't the only one that did best under duress. He wasn't sharing a body with someone, but Simon was ticked off that it was happening. This lady was trying to impose her will on the ship as a whole, messing with people's futures, and forcing them into situations they didn't want. And that just wasn't right.

Shortly after Chell had arrived, a small, red robot walked up. The cockpit was open, and Simon was inside, steering the thing.

Despite what Jamie had said on the comms earlier to Nezaitben and his resolve not to get Victoria involved in what could potentially be a dangerous situation, she winds up coming up to join the others all the same.

That's the problem with them being in this situation - her determination to talk with the goddess coupled with the fact that it's her body means that he doesn't really stand a chance at preventing it. Then again, he's never been very good at stopping her from going places she wants to go anyway. Some things never change.

"Och," says a very un-Scottish sounding voice out loud, before he switches to a more private means of communication. Look, Victoria, I still don't think this is a good idea. What if something goes wrong?

We must try talking to her, Victoria insists, as her figure stands there, the arms unsure if they should be moving according to Jamie or herself. Especially without having that...thing talking for her! She was getting tired of speaking to the so-called 'Royal Scribe Prinny Minion Summoned and Employed by of the Overkind Zetta with a Fair Salary and Good Compensation' person.

We can stay in the back, if you like, she offers as a way to compromise. Perhaps after everyone else has err...talked with her, she'll be willing to listen to us.

"Any sign of her yet?" Sakura more less appeared near the gathered group so far, outwardly determined, face a relatively pleasant mask. Marco was getting a front row seat to calculating central, as she shuffled through information and scenarios while taking stock of those gathered here, the castle over that way, and the like.

Chell remained largely unresponsive as the group arrived, her gaze fixed on the palace before them, analyzing every door and window as she would a test chamber. Obviously they wouldn't have to do any sneaking in--Nezaitben had invited her, after all, but hell if she was entering any building without making note of the exits, first.

Sakura was ultimately the one to bring her out of her reverie, and she turned to face the assembled group, carefully considering the next course of action.

It was times like these she really wished she carried around a pad and pen or something, but they had a castle to crash and she wasn't going to let a thing like her not speaking stop her.

Shaking her head in response to Sakura's question, she turned her thoughts inward. Chell might not have wanted to verbalize anything, but she certainly knew someone who would.

Wheatley, I need you to tell them the plan.

All right, just leave it to ol' Wheatley!

Chell cleared her throat. "Hello!" she said, in a voice that sounded decidedly masculine, and British. "Um, glad to see everyone here, ready to hopefully NOT throw your lives away fighting a goddess, but with these things you just never know, eh? Anyway, I thought it might just be a good idea to barge in there and make our demands, and just hope for the best? Maybe grab a couple of pitchforks? Maybe a mashy spike plate or two would make our point? Something like that? Gotta make a persuasive argument."

Okay, so Wheatley wasn't the best strategist.

If Chell hadn't willingly relinquished control of her body (probably her first mistake) so that she could attempt to get her message across to the group in front of her, she most certainly would have slammed both palms to her forehead. Her unwillingness to speak had left her with little choice, of course, so she'd have to make the best of it.

Trying to ignore the fact that her voice sounded COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS with Wheatley's stupid accent overlaid on top of it, she was quick to correct him. There would be no mashy spike plates today. Or ever.

That's not the plan. We're going to try and talk to her first. Tell them that.

"Aye, that's what I thought," says Victoria - or rather Jamie, through her. There are times he'd be all for charging in and taking charge of the situation, but his protectiveness is overriding his impulsiveness, in this case. See, what did I tell ye? Now come away back.

Leaving now is a fine thing, in his opinion. Maybe if they go back to the house they can try and think about some other plan, instead. In an effort to do that, he tries to get her body to turn and head back the way they came.

"Really? Try to talk to her?" Wheatley said, still forgetting this was supposed to be inner monologue and appearing to be talking to himself. "I don't know, talking usually doesn't do much. I mean, talking didn't go over too well with HER, you know."

Although they were still struggling with some of the logistics associated with sharing a body, Elisa and Goliath – currently in the body of the former – managed to make it to the meeting shortly after spotting Chell’s message.

“I hope you were joking about the pitchforks.”

The people who had been affected by the goddess were understandably eager to talk to her and get her to fix what she’d done, but storming her palace as an angry mob wasn’t going to help anyone. If anything, it would make things worse.

"Talking is a good start, but I see no harm in being prepared to deal with the worst. This so-called goddess has already shown a complete disregard for what we think, given what she's done - who knows what else she can do, or is willing to do, to get her point across." Simon folds his arms, scowling. "Besides, someone who's been jerking around with people's souls and bodies like this has kind of lost their shot at a perfectly reasonable discussion."

I...don't think there will be pitchforks Jamie, Victoria replies to him as she looks at everyone else. Don't think about trying to turn this body around! she adds with her usual stubbornness. The same one that gets him to open doors even after the Doctor tells them to stay put. She stubbornly doesn't allow herself to move either, as her body looks strange half on one side, the other just being there.

"She seems...nice," Victoria adds to the rest of the people with them. "Naive maybe? Perhaps she doesn't really understand the implications of what she is doing." So really, no need for pitchforks.

Och, fine. The half of Victoria that he's been trying to get to move away abruptly goes back to coordinating with the rest of her body - which may cut down rather significantly on how odd her stance appears to everyone.

Victoria also gets a mental image of Jamie folding his arms against his chest and pulling a face at her, but apart from a brief twitch of her mouth it doesn't really translate to the others. Seems like he's going to settle down and go along with the plan. Mostly. "The man in the wee robot's right, though. What do we want to do if she's not willing to listen?"

"Research ways to take down apparent gods," Sakura said, tone flat. She looked at the castle with grim determination on her face. One way or another...

"She's already proved that she's powerful," Elisa pointed out, "What makes you think that weapons are going to do anything?"

A goddess - a goddess powerful enough to move souls between bodies - wouldn't be affected by pitchforks or guns or anything else that they could try to throw at her.

"We'll deal with that if we have to. For now, we'll try and talk to her face to face."

And there she was! Nezatiben was busy plucking her harp, as some of their bodies moved around, surrounded by flowers. It smelled, really, really good.

There was even the aroma of freshly baked goods in the air. Cakes of all kinds, chocolate, vanilla, double, caramel, walnut....how she had made those was anyone's guess.

Nezaitben was so preoccupied by the harp plucking she didn't notice anyone coming at her palace.

"Okay, so the plan is we get ourselves a pile of pitchforks and torches and ask nicely while waving them at her," Wheatley announced, making Chell clap her hands together. "It can't fail!"

"No." Sakura just walked on by. "Empty threats have a way of annoying the people you toss them at. Besides," she hedged, "Better to come with open palms at first. More open to connecting that way."

"She's right," Simon added, guiding Lagann to follow after Sakura. "We ask nicely, and if it proves useless, then we get persuasive."

"No, that isn't the plan," said Elisa, with marked annoyance and understandable exasperation. "No pitchforks. No flaming torches. No weapons at all until we've spoken to her."

And not just because empty threats tended to upset people. Because, as she'd said, there was no way of knowing if the weapons would do anything other than annoy the goddess. She was powerful. They had to tread carefully.

"Is it me or...is there the smell of vanilla cake in the air?" Of all the things she had expected, that was quite a new one.

Red Robin had been trailing along (in his own body, for reasons of convenience, mostly), sticking largely to shadows and out of sight, listening to the others formulate their 'plan' while he walked along. He didn't offer any input, at first, though Ellyn would be privy to the feeling of annoyance he wasn't quite repressing.

Finally, he broke habit and stepped out of the shadow to offer his own comments. "We can't confront her if we don't have a plan of action and a cohesive goal," he said flatly. "And what's been said doesn't suffice. Without a unison as a team we come off as disorganized and inconclusive, and won't be able to make any arguments we present hold any weight. No matter how likely she is to actually listen," and Red Robin wasn't an optimist, "We shatter any effectiveness this could hold if we can't even come to a unanimous conclusion first."

((ooc: oh my god I am so late sorry!!))

Aye, I smell it too. And, somewhat predictably, that starts Jamie off in thinking about food again. Fortunately for Victoria, Red Robin's arrival does manage to neatly distract him from it - even if it does mean he needs to borrow her vocal cords again.

"I thought the plan was to talk to her - without pitchforks, mind you - and see what happens. Do you have a better idea, then?"

"Most of us seem to be in accordance with the general plan, yes, though something more specific to present would strengthen it. Still, even one dissenting voice," Red Robin turned his head slightly to make it clear he's looking at Wheatley here, "could be detrimental to us."

"She seems to think she's helping us," Elisa noted, remembering the post that the goddess - or her scribe, at least - had made on the communicators. It hadn't been particularly clear, but it had made that much obvious, at least. "We need to make her realise that she's doing the opposite."

Now that they were actually going to reason to this crazy woman, Chell needed to make sure that there would be no more talk of pitchforks and other such things, and she needed to make sure that the others in the group knew that the AI currently speaking for her wasn't going to ruin everything (with talk of pitchforks, of course).

Unclasping her hands, she drew a finger across her lips in a zipping motion, indicating that she was the one back in charge. With that, she began to walk towards the palace, waving the group on to follow her.

Talk and walk was easily on Sakura's agenda. Ninjas talked while running at top speeds, when they needed to. "Did you want to head discussions?" she asked, aiming her question at Elisa. "I'm not a diplomat," she continued, making it a rather unaffected, blunt statement of her own capacity.

Don't elect her to do the speaking. With Marco regularly mouthing off in her head, she wasn't absolutely certain she could keep outwardly cool.

Elisa caught Chell's gesture and, though she didn't know who was behind it, she was satisfied enough to nod.

"Neither am I," Elisa admitted, "But I am a cop. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with conflict negotiation. I don't mind starting things off."

Besides, the sooner someone started the process, the sooner it would be over. Hopefully.

"Sounds like as good a start as any," Simon added, regarding Elisa's comments. "Though the cake smell is odd..."

After a few moments, Chell suddenly stopped. Wheatley was back in control. For he just had a horrible realization that he immediately needed to voice.

"Hang on a tick!" Chell said in Wheatley's british accent. Then he pointed her hand at herself.

"You don't have brain damage at all!"

"Brain damage?" repeated Elisa, stopping in her tracks when she realised that the people backing her up had also stopped. She turned to face Wheatley and Chell, one hand on her hip. "We don’t have time for this."

Edited 2011-12-24 22:00 (UTC)

"I can assist," Red Robin said to Elisa. "I'm not geared toward public relations but I have experience." He preferred avoiding spotlights, but this was something he could help with.

"Elisa's right," he added, though, looking sternly at Chell/Wheatley. "You can deal with your personal conflicts at a later time."

Leave it to that idiot of an AI to only realize she was, in fact, not physically mute after ten solid minutes of talking in her voice.

Luckily, she had just the solution.

Chell punched herself in the face, staggered backward a step or two, shook it off, and then offered the assembled group a thumbs-up. GOOD TO GO.

"...that was odd," Simon muttered a few beats after Chell apparently corrected the lack of brain damage, then shrugged as he turned his attention back to steering Lagann.

"... Everyone's insane," Sakura muttered to herself, shaking her head and keeping toward the side fringe of the group. Taking charge? Nope, she passed that bill for now.

Time for Princess Whateverhernamewas.

It was more than odd, but they’d wasted enough time and they couldn’t afford to waste any more. With nobody else willing to take charge, Elisa led the way over to the goddess at the centre of the current chaos.

Here goes.

Wheatley managed enough control to get Chell to shout "Tally-ho!" in a very british way.

"Oh, aye, this'll go well," mutters Jamie, having half a mind to take control of the body back and get them out of here anyway.

As long as Victoria keeps them more or less in the back of the group, however, he doesn't interfere with her moving them forward. She's got enough sense to keep out of the way here...he hopes.

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PART FOUR: Chell objects greatly to purity and love and hopes you do too. [OPEN]

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