When Bad Guys Go Mad

#1

In the Encampment, on Ana, the day seemed to be going well. For several hours in fact, where traders, professionals and people who had been pulled in to this world that were just trying to survive went about their business as usual.

Until about midday, that is, when the sound of inane giggling was heard travelling towards the settlement, stopping and starting at apparently random intervals.

The owner of the voice wasn't far behind, as Swix suddenly stepped out from the surrounding plantlife aod into the path of a being who only wanted to get from his house to a friends.

She had a wide grin on her face, like somebody had just told her the funniest joke in the world, her skin glistened in the sunlight, and she wrapped an arm around the stunned person and leant in close as though she was about to tell him a personal secret shared between close friends.

"Know what's so funny?" she whispered "let me tell you. Come closer. Like ships in the clouds. Let me tell you..." she brushed aside the guys hair so she could get at his ear, put her lips very close to it, and yelled "BUTTERFLIES!"

The woman kept a tight hold of him when he tried to jerk away from her and held a hand up to his now probably-damaged ear. "YES THAT'S RIGHT, FLUFFY KITTENS IN A POOL OF GRAVEL!" she yelled some more, then looked at the guy as though he was the one who was yelling nonsense.

"You're no fun" she told him, as she abruptly let go and pushed him away from her "go home to your ancestors and boil your head in egg yolk, it's good for the legs"

The woman then continued on to the centre of the Encampment, either pushing people away at random or giving them the same treatment as the first person she'd encountered with variations that made as little sense as everything else she'd said so far.

"The sky is green" she declared when she got to the centre "and full of moles and hell hath no fury like a panda without it's walking stick. Like you little girl" she pointed at a very large, very muscular feline being who was male and whom she'd left alone up 'til now "cannot stop the pebbles from glowing you can't stop this. You can't stop it"

Swix then turned, and started climbing the walls of the wooden Inn, literally, using nothing but her bare, slick hands.

The guy she had knocked over first held his pounding head as he walked off, then suddenly started giggling lightly too.

((Hope you guys have fun with the cRaZy

))

#2

The electric mouse known as Coolpikaaa had woken up that morning ready to do... well... absolutely nothing at all. Typically, any sort of daily adventure usually fell right into his lap by now, and since he had managed to actually sleep in so far, he had the wonderful feeling that today was going to be different.

Hopping up onto the windowsill of his overly wooden room, the little yellow creature opened his window humming a little tune. Almost immediately, birdsong, the calls of street vendors, and the hum of all the people in the bar below filled his ears. Yup, all the sounds of an average day.

... along with a peculiar scratching sound.

CP sat on the windowsill watching Swix attempt to climb the smooth wood surface of the inn for several minutes before curiosity finally got the best of him.

"Sneaking out just to see little old me? Oh Swix, if I had known you were coming I would have cleaned up... and maybe set up the ladder!" He laughed, content with his friendly jabs, and the fact the woman hadn't smacked him with a tendril yet.

He even briefly entertained the idea of bouncing some balled paper off her head, while she was out of range.

"You know there's a door right? And... well, stairs."

#3

Swix stopped scrabbling at the walls when she heard the electric mouses voice, and first looked down at the ground, then all around her for the source before she finally looked up and set eyes on CP. She raised a hand to point at the pikachu.

"Blue buzzards shouldn't swim so low" she told him, in an unimpressed tone of voice.

At the very edge of hearing another person started giggling, then another, and another.

ES ignored them all however, in favour of looking confused at CP's second sentence, until realisation finally pierced the haze in her mind and her expression cleared.

"No! Walls and ceilings do not exist!" she said happily, before heading for the entrance to the Inn that most people usually used. The woman bumped into a few people on the way inside because she wasn't watching where she was going, even at one point apologising to them for doing so-along with giving unhelpful suggestions of putting thorns in their ears or bats on their noses, generally leaving them bemused enough that she'd weaved through the crowd and got to somebody else before they could react.

ES then headed for the bar, the woman tapped the Innkeeper on the shoulder with a slick, hot hand to get his attention.

"Excuse me, but it's freezing" she said, in all sincerity, making the Innkeeper stare-because not only was it warm in here, the sun was shining outside. "I need something to warm me up. Make it hot and fiery!"

"Ooookay" the mustached man said "one Dragonsfire coming up" he turned and left for the cellar to pick up one of the special brews, before the woman could say anything that made even less sense.

#4

"... Blue?"

Coolpikaaa couldn't do much other than raise an brow. Was she speaking in code?

Really? Code? You're slipping CP.

Of course she wasn't speaking in code. The electric mouse gave his head a shake, and took in a deep breath of "just before noon" air. Thinking vastly more clearly, he leaned back on his perch in thought. Clearly something was off about the woman.

"No! Walls and ceilings do not exist!"

"Eh?" Coolpikaaa poked his head back out the window to dangle above the disturbed woman one more time. "Swix? Hey Sw- "

And she was gone, wandering off into the pub somewhere. The mouse hopped off his windowsill, crossed the room then darted down two steps just to spy on the woman who was now ordering a drink. Did she say she was cold? Swix otherwise looked... damp. Was it sweat?

That made sense actually. If she was delirious from illness, she could have a fever and only be under the impression she was hot. No matter what this was, it was worth further investigation.

"Hey! Swix! It's nice at toasty up here..."

#5

"... Huh?" Swix said, looking up at the electric mouses calling over to her as though it was the first time she'd seen him that day. "It's not?"

The woman left her place at the bar, leaving the top damp where her hands had touched it and started moving the crowd towards CP. The giggling outside the place grew in closeness and intensity, but again it seemed to be nothing too important. ES bumped into quite a few people on the way over seemingly by accident, although it probably had more to do with the fact her walking through the crowd had gotten faster as she'd made her way across the room.

Right up until she cleared the crowd and went sprinting up the stairs two at a time, in order to run past the electric mouse and straight for the rooms. She'd apparently entirely forgotten about the drink, as the Innkeeper returned just as she he disappeared from his sight.

#6

"What's not? He-HEY!" CP questioned, said, then shouted as Swix noticed him, came towards him, and ultimately walked right past him. Whirling, and trotting after the woman, the electric mouse slipped past her legs and back inside his room.

"Mmm, sure is hot in here!" He called, dashing to close his window and dig for supplies. There was an awful lot of lau.ghter outside, (what was up with that, anyway?), which would likely only be a distraction to himself and Swix when there was sciencing to be done.

Plus, it would be great if she didn't... you know... fall out. Lady Swix was far too unpredictable at the moment to have that possibility open.

The Pikachu pushed a pile of materials together, and prepared a syringe, which had been "relieved" of duty, from the local medical center. Proper "sciencing" materials were so hard to cone by when you no longer owned your own orbiting spacestation. More or less ready, he hide beside the door, waiting for his target to stumble in.

'Yep, so very warm... It's like the sun in here!"

#7

The woman had reached the end of the hallway when the electric mouse called that it was hot in his room. ES stood at a window looking down on the crowd outside, she could see so many people grinning and giggling at nothing. Some of them outside were even giggling at their own reflections, though each of them were interrupted by intervals of either apparent camaraderie or suddenly deciding that they didn't like the people next to them and pushing them over.

She stared out the window for a bit, at what was going on outside with narrowed eyes before she heard the electric mouse call again that the room was so very hot, like the sun in fact. Swix turned and started back down the hallway, only instead of turning into the mouses room she went to go past it. The key word being went, as she stopped short of passing it completely with a hand on the wall. She rubbed slick fingers together as though struggling with a decision, then turned back, and went to walk into the now-syringe wielding rodents room.

#8

((Totally talked to Swix about...))

"HIIIYYAAA!" CP bellowed, stabbing forward over dramatically with his syringe.

((.... That.))

Why do anything, if you don't do it with flair? Taking blood samples was all very fine at all, but all in all a boring affair. Plus, CP was tossing around an idea in his head that a good jolt might just shock Swix back to her senses. Failing that, he now had his blood sample to work with.

Ignoring Swix for a minute, (she was probably properly freaked out anyway), the electric mouse hopped over to his desk and prepared a slide. The mouse was no biologist by any standard, but there were steps to be taken if they could confirm that it was biological.

"Hey Swix? You alright?" He asked, mumbling into (what served as) his microscope...

#9

The woman jumped out of her skin, not literally, but the fact she'd just been stabbed in the leg by a just over a foot tall yellow rodent certainly made her jerk backwards into the wall more understandable.

"YOWCH!" she yelled, her mind clearing enough for her to stare at CP with shock and anger "what the hell? I haven't even done anything... wait, how'd I get in here?" She looked around, frowning, and rubbed her damp palms together, apparently only just now truly noticing that she was sweating so badly. Though it was true that CP's jab had snapped her out of the delirium that was making her act so strangely, it wasn't likely to last. The clarity in her eyes was beginning to fade already.

"I don't feel so well..." she told him, rested her back against the wall and breathed to try and cool the fire that was burning her up. It was debatable whether she was answering his question or just stating the obvious.

Swix moved from the wall towards the electric mouse deliberately in order to lean over the desk and point a hot, damp finger at the rodent. "I'll get you for that, rat." she breathed in heavily "You can't... ohhhh" the woman moaned and held up a hand to her wet hair to hold her head. "I can't even threaten properly without losing what I was thinking..."

#10

CP leaned back in his chair, avoiding the jabbing finger of an angry, though focused, Swix. Now that she was up close, he really could see how rough her body was taking whatever this was she had contracted. With wet hair, slippery skin, and sanity returned to her eyes, the woman just looked... defeated rather than the raving lunatic she was a second ago.

"Aww, whatever will I do without your snappy insults?" CP smiled, glad to finally trade insults now that she was better. Better for now. "Swix...." he said slowly, his expression clouding over. "Swix, you're sick... a minute ago you were stumbling around spouting nonsense."

"I need to know what you got into this time. Please Swix."

#11

"I dunno, find someone else to stab and bug?" Swix told him, glaring angrily at the electric rodent as she leant back and folded her arms, then apparently changed her mind and put them back where they were before. Or maybe she didn't realise she was doing it.

The woman frowned, but the sides of her lips appeared to be being tugged upwards in amusement at some secret knowledge even so. "Why would I tell you that?" she asked, almost in her usual manner, until she looked at first, confused, then her expression cleared "The last thing I remember was going outside of the Lair to.. to... " she shook her head, sent her wet hair flying and made her already bedraggled appearance worse "to go... and plant some... toads... in purple lava"

She started giggling again and moved to stare out of CP's window at the ground "The sky isn't low enough, and it's still freezing out there" she mumbled "need to make it hot and toasty"

#12

The electric mouse listened carefully to the madwoman's story, hopeful to pick out any important details that could help cure the insanity she seemed to be spouting. Too engrossed in her short recount, he only noticed far too late that she was slipping back into her old ways.

But at least he had gotten something.

A location, the lair, where a large amount of baddies resided in a cavern system not far from town. Although he could head off immediately, and the trip wouldn't take too long, Coolpikaaa was a bit nervous. If any more evildoers had run into whatever Swix had contracted, they could have much worse problems on their hands. A delirious Furnace rampaging about town was not on anyone's list of favorite things to wake up to.

Also, there could be something else hidden in her short speech. CP wasn't sure how far she had gotten before succumbing to the disease, but Swix had mentioned something about plants. Now it was a bit of a random jump, but a plant based toxin was possible. Bad guys had gardens too, right?

"Hey! Swix! Why don't you... uhh.. Sit down here?" he says alarmed, pointing at his bed when he realizes she had wandered over to the window. It was sure a stroke of luck he had the foresight of closing it. He doubted she was that insane to throw herself from the second floor, but then again, she was found trying to climb a wall. "You can uhm..."

Cp glances quickly around his room looking for something to keep Swix distracted, and therefore not hurting herself.

".... Uh... Play with this!" he says, triumphantly holding up his leather pack before tossing it onto the sheets. Having quickly emptied it's contents onto a nearby available surface, he doubted she could do much harm with some soft material. "The uh.... super awesome bag of... holding things!"

Hopefully now that she was taken care of for the moment, (CP wasn't the best babysitter), the Pikachu once again checked his blood sample, actually taking care to see if anything was amiss. Once that was out of the way, it was off to the caves, and saving the day...

#13

The humanoid looked back at the rodent when she heard her name, then looked towards the bed he'd indicated for her to sit on. She just stared at it at first without blinking, until the familiar clatter of the ceremonial dagger hitting the nearby surface with the rest of the contents of the electric mouses pack drew her attention and she stared at them, though this stare too was interrupted by the little hero throwing his pack onto the bed.

The woman glanced from the bed, to the items that had been emptied and back again. She moved towards the items rather than the bed, and darted a hand out to pick up the bladed weapon.

Then she started screeching. "GENIUS!" she yelled "SMART PINK FELINE, THIS WAS MEANT FOR YOU!" ES held the knife high in the air in both hands, then brought it down on the rest of the contents of CPs bag, making a heavy 'thud' sound when the blade bit into the wood beneath whatever it was she'd just stabbed.

CP would find the blood sample to be inhuman, as ES had pointed out many times, she was humanoid but not homo sapiens. The blood cells were dark red, rather than bright red even under magnification and the plasma that the cells flowed through wasn't yellow either, it was closer to an orange colour. If he looked very carefully he'd see a single light green cell, much larger than the others floating around the rest on it's own power.

#14

That was odd...

The electric mouse was fairly sure Swix wasn't exactly human, but he was also fairly sure she wouldn't have green cells floating in her blood. Of course, not having a whole lot of experience in the matter, he couldn't know for sure. Maybe if-

"GENIUS!"

CP sat back from his microscope to see Swix beside him, wielding a knife. How could he have been so stupid? He had let his guard down for a moment, had gotten to comfortable around Swix, despite her past. As she plunged the blade towards him, the mouse flipped backwards out the side, and kicked the chair towards her. It wasn't't meant to be an attack, and likely only sting for a minute. But it could stop her if she decided to pursue.

Oddly enough, she didn't. The mouse stood there off balance and panting, but she seemed to trying to make a point. Or, you know, she had missed.

"SWIX, WHAT THE HELL?!" He yelled, while also glancing to see what she had stabbed, and if there was anything else she could use against him.

#15

The woman appeared to instinctively wince at CP's yell, but she didn't do anything about it, just scratched the top of her head irritably with one hand whilst the other still gripped the knife tightly. The blade itself was embedded in the table quite deeply, yet of all things she'd managed to hit it was the tainted leaf rested on top of some of the mouses bandages that were now firmly attached to the table.

The withered plantlife itself hadn't much changed apart from one thing-the taint had developed veins of a bright silver colour and, even as he looked twisted in on itself and seemed to melt, leaving an ordinary dead leaf.

"You... " she said, with a finger pointed at his head before apparently forgetting what it was she wanted to say, and turned back to the suddenly very interesting items in front of her.

That's when she caught sight of HollowEyes Final Charm, and the damp, free hand went to grab that as well ..