HARK! How the bells, sweet silver bells...

[piper90npcs]

Who: Everyone
What: Holiday Events
Where: Piper 90 - The Rig
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Holiday cheer, smooches, tactical snowball action

It's the Holiday Season in the Gone Away World and on the Rig in particular! Though they claim to be open to any cultural celebration of this time of year, the dominance of Santa Claus, reindeer, and elves in decorating really kind of blunt that claim. But the PA system, when not blaring alarms or fuzzy announcements for working party C to show up at the maintenance bay, play Christmas tunes of all sorts at inconvenient volumes. Decorations hang limply from the walls. And every worker with children has been issued a shotgun and a bandoleer of shells loaded with pellets of cold iron.

Just in case.

Comments

[zerg_rush]

"That's cute." Even in her own head, Kerrigan's not sure which part she means. Maybe all of it. She can't remember meeting anyone so guileless since Somo.

[greyerrant]

"I do not follow." He cocks his head her like a large, confused dog, which honestly isn't a terrible comparison.

[zerg_rush]

Unfortunately for Loken's dignity, that's cute too. Kerrigan has no intention of explaining why an enormous, battle-scarred warrior being so earnest is adorable, so she just shakes her head with a good-natured laugh.

"Look, unless you want me to do a pull-up on your shoulders, lean over a bit."

[greyerrant]

Loken, still not sure of what's going on exactly, but realizing that she's talking about exercise, decides to do his best at cracking a joke. "Well, we are soldiers here, consider this a form of physical training." He smiles in his best attempt at a friendly, joking grin. With all the scar tissue and his general demeanor it might be unnerving to anyone who isn't a psychic.

[zerg_rush]

"Jerk," Kerrigan says, laughing. She plants a hand on either of Loken's shoulders and, with no apparent effort, pulls herself up to his eye level. Most people wouldn't appreciate the pressure her fingers and elbows are applying, but hey, he asked for it.

"See if I ever do you a favor again." She pecks him lightly on the cheek, unwilling to subject him to something that clearly makes him uncomfortable. Well, both of them, if she's being honest. She doesn't know the first thing about magic, but hopes the symbolic effort is good enough.

[greyerrant]

Loken blinks and says, "I am in your debt." and tries to step forwards. " It doesn't work, and he frowns. "It would appear the sorcery is a bit more complex than we had first imagined." Loken considers for a moment and says "I heard once an Astartes was able to shift a large caved-in pillar off himself by detonating a grenade, but I think that blowing myself up without armor might be a singularly fatal way of escaping this predicament."

[zerg_rush]

"Dammit." Kerrigan huffs out a frustrated breath and drops back to the floor so she doesn't have to have this conversation quite so face-to-face.

"Sounds like something a marine would do," she says, with a hint of some sort of inter-service rivalry to it. A ghost wouldn't get stuck under some stupid pillar.

[greyerrant]

"That is what civilians tend to call us, though we prefer to be called the Astartes amongst ourselves or in the order of battle. Space Marines is such a... vulgar term. It makes us sounds like holodrama actors instead of a serious military force." He pauses for a moment, then says "It did work, according to battle records, though it breached his armor." He pats his barely-fitting overalls a bit exaggeratedly.

"Sadly, I am out of explosives and armor with which to test this particular method of getting myself unstuck." He looks down "Maybe we could cut through the floor?"

[zerg_rush]

"What other kind of marine is there?" Kerrigan asks, not quite following, Loken's surface thoughts no real help because they're full of things she's not familiar with. "A marine that can't operate in space is pretty useless."

[greyerrant]

"Well, not every soldier that fights in space, or even functions as a naval armsman is a Space Marine, as they are commonly known." Garviel frowns, "Astartes are genetically modified soldiers who have been created to ensure mankind's survival against the darkest terrors of old-night, and the xeno-breeds that threaten us. We're not simply square-jawed warriors in armor, committing dramatic heroics on a stage."

[zerg_rush]

"...Uh-huh." Rest assured, Kerrigan never once thought of marines as square-jawed heroes. "Marines are mostly your baseline idiots in power armor where I'm from."

[greyerrant]

"We hold our shock assault troops to a high standard." He strains against the mistletoe's heretical field again.

[zerg_rush]

"Can't say the Confederacy ever did." Of course, when your job is oppressing people who aren't wearing power armor, you don't have to be particularly good.

Whatever. The Confederacy and her checkered past are a universe away, and Loken's still stuck.

"You don't have grenades and I don't have a cutting torch," Kerrigan says, scuffing at the decking with her heel. "And if you can't break out physically, I don't think I can manage enough of a TK shove to get you out, either."

[greyerrant]

"TK shove?" Loken's complete unfamiliarity with psyker terminology comes into play here. Just because he hangs out with a few librarians doesn't mean they've cut him in on the trade terminology they use.

[zerg_rush]

"Telekinesis?" Kerrigan prompts, as though she thinks he ought to have been able to figure it out, because she does. "Do you not have psychics where you're from?"

Weird.

[greyerrant]

"You are a psyker." Loken stiffens considerably, standing up even more straight than he was before. "I'm going to assume from your general demeanor and behavior you have training and aren't a wild talent or otherwise cursed, then."

[zerg_rush]

Oh, there's the suspicious reaction she's used to. Kerrigan sighs and folds her arms. "I don't lose control of it, if that's what you're asking."

Not anymore, anyway. And whether or not she's cursed is a matter of opinion. Kerrigan herself thinks that would explain her life.

[greyerrant]

"Well, that is good to know. It is not as though I do not know any of them... I just have not had good experiences with some of the less common psychic phenomena that I have been witness to." He grunts, "Are you powerful enough to extricate me using those skills?"

[zerg_rush]

That's more of an apology than she usually gets, and Kerrigan relaxes a little. Looks like he's not going to be any worse than the Sons of Korhal, and she put up with them for a decade.

"I don't know." She bites her lip, concentrating, and the mistletoe jerks suddenly, as if being yanked by an invisible hand, but stays...rooted? as whatever force that caused it to grow out of the ceiling in the first place also resists it being pulled. "It's in there good," Kerrigan says, continuing to half-heartedly twist at it telekinetically, hoping that the roots might give if she keeps at it, "and...I can't believe this is something I'm saying, but--" she looks at the mistletoe with narrowed eyes "--it doesn't have a will to override."

Kerrigan's composed, not twitching even a little, and her use of psychic power is invisible, its effect on the world the only sign she's doing anything. Up to Garv whether that's more or less disturbing than being haloed in the unholy light of the Warp and having a frothing seizure on the floor.

[greyerrant]

"Your abilities seem more subtle than my companions were. THat makes sense, I suppose. They were like me, only psychically gifted, and their powers were generally ones that were used in direct combat of Warp Entities and the like." He narrows his eyes, "To do anything at all without any overt manifestations you either have great power or great control, or both."

Might as well make it into a compliment.

[zerg_rush]

"Both," Kerrigan says, but she doesn't sound pleased. Just tired. "I'm a ghost. A stealth operative. 'Overt manifestations' would defeat the purpose."

She gives up on the mistletoe, which stops moving. "The hell is a 'Warp entity?'"

[greyerrant]

"A warp entity is a thoughtform, or an emotion given physical form and manifest, typically negative in nature. We perceive them as demons. They... corrupt the world around them, and the older ones amongst them have recurred in history, though most often cloaked in myth. I was tasked with fighting them when I went from a line officer of the Astartes to ..."

He smiles, though there is no humor in it, "A stealth operative. A ghost of sorts, you might say."

[zerg_rush]

Kerrigan listens to the explanation without so much as a flicker of recognition. Sounds rough, and also not her problem.

She snorts at his comparison, though. "Sorry, you can only join the club if you've got the skills." She taps a temple to indicate she means psychic powers. "The gear wouldn't work for you...or fit you, for that matter."

[greyerrant]

"I am certain that you could not fit in Mark VI power armor either, for that matter. I am curious if you could heft a bolter. Some unaugmented people can, though the recoil has been known to cause injuries if they're not prepared for it."

He strains against the force field again. "But for all that, I cannot escape this field."

[zerg_rush]

"Right, right." The actual problem at hand. "Hang on, I'm going to give you a push."

Her eyes crinkle slightly around the corners, but that's the only indication she's doing anything. Well, that and the sudden pressure on Loken's chest, hard and fast but distributed evenly across his rib cage. Kerrigan's TK is stronger than she is, and the shove is powerful enough to stagger or even knock Loken over if he weren't stuck in the magical trap.