themusemanor | PSL - Nepeta | Helen --> Chasing the fires of war

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PSL - Nepeta | Helen --> Chasing the fires of war

The planet wasn't much to look at, from above. Admittedly, the same could have be said of any planet, but it wasn't like it mattered. The reach of Alternia was long, and this planet was but one of many to fall under the sights of Her Imperial Condescension.

It was also the first one that what might have been called a resistance - if any of the members had so much as dared to say the word - had been able to do something about. It wasn't easy to to lay down enough of a groundwork to exchange the orders enough to give the proper amount of leeway despite the orders of Her Tyranny. They've had practice, but working within the framework of another tended to be a lot harder when traitors are shot first and questioned later. Worse when psychics were, in fact, very much a thing. Still, they've managed to work what some would call a miracle and that will do. Now all they have to do is hope that it's not a wasted effort. Either way, most would have been hard-pressed to spot the shuttle that slipped its way into Earth's atmosphere, even if the design was most distinctly alien. (That no one seemed to have managed anti-psychic technology on this particular world probably helped.)

It was probably only by a stroke of like that the little shuttle ended up making its way to subterranean tunnel that leads out to not far from the Sanctuary. Nepeta knew far better to assume that the inhabitants of every world were nocturnal.

That said, she also wasn't above exploring the tunnels of the cave she'd landed in. There had to be something of interest down here, after all.

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Helen hadn't expected to see anyone down in the tunnels. Mostly, teenagers were the ones to get stuck down there or want to explore simply because it existed and they were curious. Even so, she never quite expected it each time. Regardless, this didn't appear to be a SCIU flunkie so she supposed she could be civil.

For the moment, though, she kept her distance and simply watched around a corner. Even with the calm that came from pretending to have killed herself to take out the insurgents and protect the world, she wasn't taking chances. A simple "hello" might be met with hostility, especially if whoever this was did indeed know who she was.

Thankfully for Helen, Nepeta had no idea what separated her from any of the other sentient lifeforms on the planet. Less fortunately, keeping her distance was no great guarantee of not being noticed. Nepeta certainly wasn't a psychic or otherwise possessed of what might be considered a natural advantage. Not, of course, that she was about to let this stop her. She was a mighty huntress, and anyway, it looked bad for a troll to be outwitted by a native inhabitant of any planet.

Civil, meanwhile, was a matter of opinion. Not that Nepeta any intent to be rude, of course, but things were different when someone had grown up in a culture that was quite literally worlds away. As such, the first real indication Helen would have that her vantage point wasn't quite as safe a hiding point was the soft whisper of moving fabric, a snatch of words in an alien language (all full of clicks and guttural sounds), and then the fact that someone was very literally leaping at her with claws drawn.

The force behind it wasn't enough to truly injure - Nepeta rather expected the attempt to be blocked, as was customary among troll of roughly-equal blood standing - but all the same it probably wasn't really something Helen wanted to see coming at her out of the dark.

Helen caught the whisper of fabric, knowing it quite well after so many decades. Fortunately, the attack wasn't entirely unexpected. She would have been stupid to think herself completely safe considering the work she did, after all. Her reaction to the sudden leap was instantaneous: she brought her gun upwards in a wide sweep as her other arm protected her face. Either Nepeta would be met with a simple block or she would soon find herself being backhanded with a very solid weapon.

Whatever the result, Helen's next move would be to put distance between them and aim her gun at whatever or whoever this was.

It's the gun that makes contact, and by the sound of it, it's a fairly decent blow at that. It doesn't seem to terrible inconvenience her attacker, however. In fact, for all that she's just been all but knocked out of the air, Nepeta is back on her feet within a matter of moments. At close range she looks a little less human as well, for what it may be worth. True, the dim light may make her horns look like ears, but they're certainly nothing that belong on any human, to say nothing of the nasty looking claws she still has extended - four per hand.

(These are, in truth, not actually her claws, but rather clawed gloves, but it's probably hard to tell in the dim light of the cave.)

Perhaps better yet is the fact that no further attacks are forthcoming. Nepeta's not actually interested in a proper strife, and thus the opening strikes are there will be (barring any offer of violence from Helen herself). Instead, she offers a grin before speaking again, this time in (somewhat accented) English.

"Is efurryone here like you?" There's no accusation her voice. Just honest curiosity and a certain amount of what might possibly be enthusiasm.

Impressive. Helen eyes her attacker, not entirely sure what to make of it, though she chooses to treat this as a new Abnormal she needs to figure out. At least that was the only attack that seems to be headed her way for the moment. She doesn't lower her weapon, however, preferring to keep herself protected rather than leave herself open to being hurt.

Her answer is careful and guarded when it finally comes. "Not exactly." The question could be referring to a multitude of things -- Helen herself was quite different from a normal human -- but she had a feeling the Abnormal meant her ability to protect herself like she had. "Proficiency with weapons and ability to protect oneself is rather varied among us. My people, however, are more than capable of both." To varying degrees.

Abnormal is entirely correct in this case. Alien would be more apt, perhaps, but either way, Nepeta is so far from anything that is normal for Earth as to be in a whole other league to her own, or just about. Conveniently, this means that she doesn't see anything out of the ordinary about Helen not lower her weapon. When hostility is the greater part of your life, threat displays are simply... normal.

She listens patiently though, even as she's carefully filtering away the most useful bits. The people in charge still think she's a proper field agent, even if she's no advancerator. So, the information will pass from her, to those who need to know, and then be distilled down into exactly enough to send on the fleets still waiting to hear back what to expect from this small and initially unimpressive world.

"Your people?" It's an innocuous question, really, or at least it's intended as such. Helen is the first human Nepeta's really seen, and so which people are 'hers' could encompass anything! Of course, that might not be how the question is read, but that's not anything Nepeta can help.

Helen's still too wary to say much, especially where her Sanctuary and staff are concerned, but she'll offer at least enough to keep them safe. "That's right," she answers cautiously. "Those of us who live around here are more than capable of defending ourselves. We simply prefer not being caught off guard." And by 'living around here' she means, of course, her staff in the Underground Sanctuary. The police in Old City might also count -- they at least know how to use guns -- but the citizens of the city would be unprotected. If Nepeta wants a different answer, she'll have to phrase it better.

Wariness isn't surprising. Much like aggression, it too is more than common on Alternia. She certainly doesn't know how Helen fits into whatever social scale this world runs on, for all that it doesn't make too much of an immediate difference. After all, Helen's already said exactly what Nepeta needs to hear to make her own decisions on the matter.

"Then you need to hear what I have to say. It's impurrtant!"

Helen just eyes the woman for a moment longer before she lowers her weapon, pointing the barrel of the gun towards the ground between them. Her body language is still entirely tense, ready to move at a second's notice, and her voice is cautious at best. "All right. What is it?"

Of course it is! Nepeta would have expected nothing less from Helen, and so this too is taken in stride. She can still defend herself if she needs to, and it's not like people don't know generally where she is, on the off chance that things go badly. But for now, none of these factors need to come up. She has about as attentive an audience as she could want, and she isn't going to simply leave the other woman waiting!

"I need you to tell whoefur's in charge down here that there are warfleets coming."

"Warfleets?" Helen's tone sounds as though she doesn't quite believe what she's hearing. Oh that raises a lot of questions. "What sort, where are they coming from, and how do you know this?"

Also, why she's warning Helen is a matter of interest, but that can wait for the moment. The other questions are more important.

"Because they sent me, of course," Nepeta answers, without even so much as missing a beat. Admittedly, that only raises more questions, particularly in the category of why Nepeta's even bringing it up in the first place, if she's something like a scout, but presumably this can be answered later. "And they're coming from very fur away, but that doesn't mean anything."

If there's one thing that can be said of Alternian fleets, it's that they can be surprisingly fast, even without a proper helmsman. And surprisingly deadly, for that matter, but that's the whole point of having a warfleet in the first place, and so Nepeta doesn't bother to mention that little detail.

That certainly doesn't help, raising more questions than it answers. For the moment, she focuses on what she's a little more certain Nepeta might be willing to answer. "May I ask why you've decided to warn me if these so-called warfleets sent you here?"

The questions about the fleets themselves would come later. Helen has to be sure first.

By way of answer, Nepeta only raises a finger to her mouth in the universal sign for silence. "They aren't supurrsed to know."

Needless to say, not everyone is entirely happy with Her Condescension's rule. It's simply that out and out rebellion is something that would almost never work on Alternia. Even this is a risk, if it gets back to those in charge, but it isn't as if their rebellion (such as it is) hasn't already faced a certain amount of challenges already.

Helen considers it for a moment. This could be an outright lie, a chance to gain information on her new Sanctuary or to find out how she'd survived the blast that took out the Old City Sanctuary. If SCIU found out she was still alive... Then again, maybe it was real, maybe this woman was telling the truth. Helen would be a fool to write it off entirely.

Her decision is made in a matter of minutes, eyes narrowing as her gaze takes in the woman before her. "Say I believe you, for a moment. Would you be willing to give me information on these fleets, something I can use to help stop whatever they're trying to attempt? And if so, do you expect anything in return? Is this a negotiation table?"

Of course, that doesn't even brush the question of whether or not she can trust these words.

Were Nepeta anyone else, it could well be. As things stand, she barely has any idea that Helen is in charge, much less that the Sanctuary used to be above ground. She does know that there's something out here that's drawing a lot of power, and in ways that most people wouldn't be able to notice, but what it is and why, she hasn't the slightest idea.

"Of course," Nepeta answers, all honesty despite Helen's suspicion. "If you help us, then we'll give you the infurmation you need."

"All right," Helen relents after a moment to consider. It doesn't sound like a bad trade-off and if something goes wrong, plenty of security systems exist in the new Sanctuary to ensure that no one can find them or destroy what she spent so long building up. She may not show Nepeta everything right away, but at least they can talk things out like reasonable adults -- or so she hopes. "What do you need from me?"

Nepeta wouldn't expect to be shown everything. She knows she wouldn't, if Helen had been some strange new arrival to Alternia, and that was assuming she was of sufficient interest to not simply be culled straight off the bat. Regardless, she takes what she can get.

"We need to know what you can do in a strife. The fleet will all be state of the art. Also I suppurrse it would be good to know if you have psionics."

"If you don't mind a bit of a walk, I'll take you somewhere we can talk a little easier." She had rooms that would work and not show too much too soon. Turning, she begins to make her way down the pathway, ears and every muscle strained for the sound of someone moving to strike while her back is turned. Her gun is still in hand and she's more than ready to react if necessary.

"I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that word. Could you describe it to me? We might have something similar under another name."

Unfortunately, the various terms and general gist of human language that Nepeta has picked up from any of the multitude of broadcasts that humanity seems so willing to share don't cover things quite like the supernatural. Even what she's offering now is only the closest literal translation that she can manage, and one picked up from some obscure website at that.

"Purrsons that can move things with their minds," she offers finally, as she follows along in Helen's wake. It's not the most accurate of descriptions, but it's the most relevant of a psionic's abilities just at the moment. Well, apart from the fact that sometime mind-control is a thing, but that isn't going to start being a major problem until the fleets actually begin to arrive.

It's enough to get the point across. Helen can make the connections from that. "Telekinesis, then," she supplies, thinking through what she knows of that sort of ability. It isn't much, as most have some sort of other ability to go with it. Nikola, for instance, is electromagnetic. Less random lifting of things and more magnetism.

"That would indeed be something to be wary of." Especially if it's really as powerful as the name would suggest.

Nepeta nods at the word, for all that she's probably not going to use it over the word that she already has. Not unless someone is really in need of of the explanation anyway, but that's something that can be dealt with later. For now, she'll be just fine with Helen having an understanding of what she means.

"I don't know how many the fleets will have, though."

"We can worry about that once we've figured out what to do about them."

Helen's concern is protection, certainly, but she's more worried about what to do with them once they arrive. How to deal with even one is a start, the stepping stone they'll need before they deal with numbers. For now, she's content to work from the ground up, as normal, and she isn't very worried. A little concerned, yes, but not afraid. They've dealt with a lot of crazy things in her lifetime. They can deal with this as well.

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PSL - Nepeta | Helen --> Chasing the fires of war

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