fh_npcs | Above and Under the Island

Above and Under the Island

The battle raged on above Fandom, fighters and ships whistling through the air-- and through space. The bigger ships had canons that thundered. Most of the time, their aim ran true.

But not always.

One colossal volley broke atmosphere, pierced the sky, and came down hard on Ingvar's shore, scorching trees and sending dolls scattering around like ash. It caused a thunderous noise, an unearthly crash... and the quiet, shrill ring of a mother's siren, pulsing deep underneath the earth, where no one could see.

That was all.

Until Fandom itself started to rumble, the earth trembling and tearing off underneath it. One moment, it was sitting snuggly in its usual bay - the next, it was tearing itself free from it, pulling up into the sky... and up. And even further up.

Well. That was certainly something.

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Nothing so useful as a shrill mommy-siren hit the actual school. Instead, a screen flickered on in Fandom's security office, completely of its own accord. It pulsed with a series of images, jumping from one to the other after a few seconds, before cycling back to the first.

It was not terribly intelligible. In fact, it was barely legible. In as far as it was comprehensible at all, it went, more or less, like this:

...before shoving a map, stolen from the former Mayor Summers's offices, documenting various routes through the upper dungeons underneath Fandom itself, smack-dab in the viewer's face.

And back again.

It certainly meant... something.

[[ for one, then another. ]]

The hallways underneath Fandom proper had always been something of a maze, but the map the island had provided itself was uncannily accurate. They twisted and turned, moving deeper and deeper into the clump of earth that still clung to the town above. It got narrow. It wasn't fun.

Until suddenly, it split right open into a gigantic control room, providing several consoles with controls that might be familiar to anyone who'd flown a spaceship before.

All the lights were coming online at once.

The controls of the Good Ship Fandom work like a dream, but that's not going to help much if it gets hit in outer space. It's up to you, dear pilots, to steer it safely - and to take out a few of these gorram Brood ships while you're at it.

Edited 2016-04-19 19:21 (UTC)

Fandom needs to spend less time on Tumblr.

"The hell? I was watching that!" Despite it being the same thing she'd say if that had been a Wheel of Fortune re-run, in this case it was a legitimate gripe, since Bo'd been monitoring the overhead video feed from the camera atop Fandom's tower. If she could do jack-all to help now that they weren't clobbering monsters hand to hand, she could at least keep an eye on how the fight was going up there while she nursed a bad case of acid reflux and a worse-than-useless bottle of Pepto. "This is not the day to mess with me, Fandom."

She switched to another feed, but that just started the image loop over again. Aaaaand again. Her tried and true repair method of smacking the crap out of it -- in this case with the Pepto bottle -- didn't help either. Frustrated, she stared at the series of images again, trying to make more sense out of them than Much Cheezburgr, Very Internet Wow. Long enough that this time, it played through to the map.

"Huh. Hunh." Bo picked up the her phone and pulled up her speed dials, still staring at the security screen. "Hey boss-lady, I think you need to see this..."

Edited 2016-04-19 19:38 (UTC)

Zoe had been counting ammo when the phone rang, and the tone of Bo's voice wasn't suggesting her mood was going to improve any. "Please tell me I'm not going to end up wanting to shoot someone I normally like."

"Probably." Bo grabbed the edge of the desk as another rumble shook the --- probably not just the school, huh. I r securitay officer. I R smert. "But firing at the island seems like a waste of bullets, especially since the bad guys already have that covered."

Zoe gripped the phone as everything shook, and sighed. "I'll be there in a minute," she said, and Bo would just have to forgive her for hanging up quickly.

When she got to Bo's office, she looked at the pictures scrolling on the feed and stared. "What the hell is that now?"

Zoe made sure she went in first, since she still wasn't entirely certain what would be waiting for them. Her eyes adjusted to the light as she looked around, and then she let out a quiet laugh.

"This place is never going to stop surprising me. Get inside," she said, making room for the others. "It looks like there's enough seats for everyone."

"Did you happen to look out a window on the way here?" Bo had, while she waited, since that seemed to be the only way to get any idea of what was going on out there with her cameras shanghai'd as they were. "I think this is Fandom's subtle way of pointing out we're not in Kansas anymore."

Face whistled as he looked around the room. "Astral." He slid into a seat and started looking over the controls. "Hey, I think I found a pilot's station.".

Possibly this was when a normal person might bring up the fact that all their previous flight training was focused on snubfighters, or that said training was still mostly theoretical. But hey, it was going to turn out that two of Face's greatest skills would be piloting and being involved in plans that operated on completely sideways logic, so this would either work out great...or they were all going to die.

Mara was glancing around too, with more knowledge on her face than she'd normally allow to show. She was pretty sure she could explain that an alien invasion was worth breaking her cover over.

Pretty sure. Not positive.

She slid into a seat as well. "So will this move the entire island?"

She didn't sound surprised. She'd been in Fandom long enough not to be that surprised.

This surprised no one. Seriously.

"This place has a hidden spaceship," Washington muttered, going to strap himself in without any fuss. Man did it make him miss Four Seven Niner, though. "Of course it does."

Alana slid into a seat across from Mara and eyed the console. Like everyone else, she was thoroughly unsurprised by this development.

"So the whole island is a weapon," she observed. "Trippy."

"I'm only surprised the island was able to keep this from us for so long!" Momoko was pretty much starry-eyed as she headed for a chair and began looking over her section. Invading aliens killing people or not, this was beyond cool and totally made up for a lot of stuff Fandom had done to her over the years. "Is there a function to transform into a mecha?"

"At this point, I think the island could turn into just about anything, and we'd all nod and roll with it," Zoe said.

She took a seat at the center, so she could monitor what was happening, and it didn't take much more than that for her to slip into calm Captain mode. "I have a feeling this is going to involve moving the whole island, but the island... well, it took itself out of the damn ground and essentially told us to blow these things out of the sky, so I'm taking that as permission for a little moving and shaking. I'm glad you all came, and if you're willing, I say we see what these controls do."

Edited 2016-04-21 03:42 (UTC)

"There is not enough booze on this island, I swear," Zoe said, leaning in to stare at the map. "All right, I'm going recruiting, and then we can try to figure out exactly what the hell we're being led to."

One bracing walk later, the PA system whined itself to life, and Zoe's voice could be heard throughout the dorms and the town. "Attention everyone, this is Zoe Winchester. If there's anyone listening to this who knows anything about flying, and isn't currently in the middle of flying something, please report to the school's security office immediately. And safely."

Seriously, the administration was not getting paid enough for days like today.

Edited 2016-04-21 03:47 (UTC)

"I'm not seeing a 'transform into a giant droid' button over here." Face, that hadn't been an invitation to start looking for one. "Just the usual."

"Weapons, navigation, propulsion...that looks like hyperspace, maybe?" Mara said, pointing to a button that was not very helpfully labeled.

Well, maybe it was helpful to gremlins.

Gremlins in spaaaace. Terrifying concept.

"Let's not try that button," Wash said quickly.

He didn't want to go into hyperspace and end up on the ass end of the universe when they were trying to get something done here. But mostly because he didn't want to end up on the ass end of the universe.

"We just need to break atmosphere and shoot some alien ships."

"And try not to freak out everyone on the mainland by having a giant space battle where they can see it," Alana concurred, already poking at an onscreen atlas. "Hey, cool, it knows where my galaxy is."

Not that they were going there.

Edited 2016-04-21 13:31 (UTC)

"It's Fandom; it totally knows where everywhere is. Probably can get there better than Portalocity." Momoko was checking her own panels and instruments. "It looks like I have a pilot station too. I totally doubt the island separates into multiple ships... Ah! I see. There's a lot of navigation and monitoring equipment over here, too. I guess that makes this a co-pilot station."

She looked at the others. "What are the other seats? Someone said there were weapons?"

"Those look like weapon controls, on the panels over there," Zoe said, gesturing. "I think we should get as high up as we can, and see how the fight is going. We can test the weapons on some of the smaller ships, to see how they work and hopefully get those things off the backs of our people who are already up there."

There was a lot of optimism to the idea - what if nothing actually worked? - but they had to do something.

"Does anyone want to try navigating this thing?" she asked, looking around.

"Well, since I've got the controls right here," Face said, looking for the altitude controls. It shouldn't be too hard to handle, he'd picked up X-Wing controls quickly enough. In sims.

Face, no.

"That one," Mara murmured to him as she walked over to settle in in front of a weapons array. "Um. Everyone strapped in?"

No that she didn't trust Face's abilities here, but she didn't. At all.

"Try not to crash," Wash suggested dryly. He was already running his hands over the weapons controls in front of him to get used to the feel.

"Good first step," Alana agreed, and glanced down at her screen again. "Oh, okay, the weapons panel is a lot like the ones on ships back home. I can make it work."

"We won't crash as long as I have breath and a pilot chair." Momoko ran her hands over her console. She flipped a few switches and her screens came alive with flight systems status information, lots of flight stabilizer meters... and an ad for JGOB. There was also a whole screen dedicated to the location of all other objects in nearby flight-space.

"So you've flown an X-wing?" She looked over at her co-pilot. "Aren't they fun? Though TIE fighters are a better ride, over all. More like you're flying on your own. Hmm... Definitely looks like I am secondary pilot."

"All systems are good, Captain." She grinned back to Principal Winchester. "Ready when you are."

Edited 2016-04-23 02:41 (UTC)

Zoe settled back in her seat, relaxing just a little at how competent everyone seemed. "All right, hold on and take her up. Let's see how this goes."

Mara's fingers flew across her weapons array as she figured out what everything did. "Okay, the green ships are our friendlies, and the red ones are....all of the rest of them."

She noted with some relief that the Fandom people with ships of their own were making pretty good progress against the little ones, but the main ship still remained mostly undamaged.

"Here goes nothing..." she murmured, looking to the pilots.

[OOC: Feel free to skip/mod Mara through the rest if my timezone interferes with battling!]

Edited 2016-04-23 14:14 (UTC)

Mara's narrative could have a bit more faith in Face's piloting skills, he was going to be a great pilot, he was only going to need to be surgically separated from the wreckage of his X-Wing once.

"Here we go, initiating attack run," Face said, directing the island towards the main ship. "At least she handles smoothly."

That or the island had some amazing inertial dampeners.

Alana watched the smaller ships surrounding theirs show up on her radar, a grim expression on her face as she kept track of which ones Fandomites were already battling.

She saw an opening that let her fire on the big ship, took careful aim, and smiled in relief as the missile crashed into a wing.

"BAM," she said, and then went right back to watching for the next opportunity.

"Good shot!"

"Ah! Someone hit one of our starboard thrusters. As much as the island has a starboard side..." Momoko flicked a switch and adjusted power to maintain that smooth flying that Face was so happy about. It cut down speed just a fraction, but that was better than spinning.

She began running through the screens checking other damage and making various adjustments to keep Face able to fly. "Looks like there's an auto-repair function. Can someone keep a weapons-eye on that section? It's going to be vulnerable for a while."

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Above and Under the Island

Fandom High School, Offices

Underneath Fandom

Piloting The Ship

OOC

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