Paid Expedition (Endgame Party)

“Well, that was just rude,” Mercury said, eyeing the golden spear that was pierced through the drake’s hip. She had more than sensed the attack coming, given how in tune she was with all metals, including gold. The existence of the spear had not eluded her, nor did its trajectory over the bow just before she broke the sky above them. Her radars screamed the placement of the projectile at her and, while she hadn’t yet gained enough mastery of remote controlling the drake to dodge it completely, she was at least able to turn the creature enough that it hadn’t received a mortal wound. Really, she didn’t seem too upset, though the drake was Clearly in a lot of pain. She reached down and took hold of the auren shaft and yanked it loose, resulting in an infuriated screech from the creature who wriggled in the air but remained aloft, still forced to obey Mercury’s technological commands.

Twirling the spear carelessly between her fingers, she let the drake’s blood drip all over the deck of the ship, looking Louie directly in the eyes as she let it happen with her small, mischievous smirk on her face. Clearly this guy, whoever he was, was someone that Vandrad had a history with -- and not a good one. He must have come up here to pick on the man, and Mercury was all for that. She laughed openly when Louie called her Vandrad’s girlfriend, betraying how amused she was by that notion. “Trust me, shiny. He tolerates me, but not that much.”

Vandrad seemed to have taken the comment, or the attack, more personally that she had, though. He still had a somewhat amused expression as he retorted, but she could hear the change in his voice that promised to be a precursor to something greater. Time for a show, she thought to herself excitedly, swinging a foot over the drake’s head so she could sit side saddle on the creature, one leg crossed comfortably over the other as she took up her metaphorical bowl of popcorn and used the razor sharp tip of the spear to dig a little dirt out from beneath her nails. She raised her brow with interest as Louie commented that Vandrad could make up for his mistake by scrubbing his deck. The statement caused Mercury to chortle a little in the fashion of someone who had clearly just turned the statement into a sexual innuendo in her head, one she was quite pleased with.

She was practically giddy when Vandrad eyed the ship, imagining what kind of retaliation was surely in store.  Sure enough, the Bellum prince lifted a palm toward the sky and conjured a concentrated sphere of his destructive energy into his hand. With sugary words about wanting to help the pretentious man achieve his goal of getting down to the ground quickly so he could prove himself the conqueror he claimed to be, Vandrad turned the energy toward Louie’s ship and blasted it straight through the hull.

Mercury cackled as the ship began to drop. “You’re so bad,” she told the brawny man, making no effort to hide her satisfaction. But of course, Mercury being who she was, she wasn’t about to sit back and let Vandrad have all the fun. Golden spear still in hand, the daredevil slipped right off the drake. Leaving the creature hovering where she left it, Mercury gracefully twisted her body in the air until she was diving headfirst toward the plummeting airship. Reaching into one of her pouches with her freehand, she withdrew an electronic device of some kind and fixed it to the tip of the spear. It sparked to life immediately, and suddenly lines like blood vessels erupted up the pole of the weapon, infecting the gold and altering it into what was now more an electronic than anything else.

Taking careful aim with a devilish smirk, she hurled the spear ahead of her and it shot from her hand, embedding itself into the deck right next to the steering wheel of the ship. The instant the corrupted weapon made contact with the vessel, it spread the electronic corruption throughout the entire ship, corrupting the gold and putting it under the control of her technology. A split second after the infection had wrapped its way around the deck and the hull, covering the entire ship with veins that pulsed with electrical light like that of a computer, she landed on the deck with a bit of a flourish. Without hesitation, she grabbed onto the wheel and twisted it sharply, turning the vessel’s nose so it was pointed straight down rather than merely listing forward. Snatching her tablet out of her pocket, she punched a code in it that wirelessly locked the now electronic steering wheel in place. Then, she shot a wink at Louie and pressed one more button on the touch screen.

Suddenly, electric powered turbines, fueled by the electrical laylines she’d infected the ship with, burst to life at the rear of the ship sending it hurtling full speed toward the surface much quicker than gravity would accomplish alone. A crash that might have taken most of a minute to reach the ground below had been cut down to a mere handful of seconds as the vessel had been turned more into a space rocket than anything else.

“WOOOOOOO!” Mercury whooped at the top of her lungs as the adrenaline of the nosedive coursed through her body. Then, once she was sure that the ship was stuck in its fatal trajectory, she leapt off the side into the open air where her steel colored hoverdisc swooped out of nowhere to scoop her up and lift her high into the air where she could watch the impending collision.