Golden Towers

Pricket looked up, opening his mouth to say something when he quickly closed it. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut for the time being.

He began to hear shouting voices outside. Scrambling to the window, he peered down at the alley to see a whole other shift of guards running towards the ship - and thye were armed. In the distance, he could also see two particularly tall shadows being led by a few choice slave drivers. Biting his lip, he returned to inside.

"L-let me go, let me go!" She screamed, thrashing back and forth again and again. "Let. Me. Go!" Her eyes faded from purple to black and glared at the figures around her. "Let. Me. Go!" She screamed again, shaking the ship.

Tandra was ever so slightly worried. The situation was quickly getting out of hand. The girl's eyes had changed colour and she was making the whole ship rock. That was no easy feat.
She bent down and grabbed the bulb at the end of the net. She began to drag the girl into the passenger hold that was now a prison cell. It wasn't easy - Tandra was only a couple of inches taller than the girl.

Dem clawed and screamed but to no avail and was thrown into a cold prison cell.

Tandra felt no remorse or guilt at the girl's cries. There would be worse in store for her any way...
But she had other things on her mind.
Tandra returned to the pilot's seat. With a few taps of some buttons, the broken screen was replaced with a new one. This process would only work a few times, but it would do for now.
There were more people rushing towards them. Gah, this had been so much easier when she had worked for Miyuki...
She turned to Pricket. "Now, what am I to do for you?" she asked him.

"Your employer said to guide me thru to whatever I was trying to do, right?"

"Yes. That's what I've been told to do. Allow you to achieve your goal without you getting killed. Just what is your goal?" Tandra asked Pricket.

'They aren't exactly the brightest bunch now are they?' MIR thought to herself, sitting on the floor. But intsead of actually saying that to their faces she screamed, "You stoopid!" She then laughed and broke the door to the room holding her master.

"Yes, MIR," Dem whispered, "they have made a big mistake!"

Pricket listened in on a breaking sound. He assumed it was the girl throwing a fit. "My goal is to get to the Tallest. That's all for now."

Tandra nodded. "I'll get you there."
She heard something from the prisoner hold. The girl.

"I will make your task as difficult as possible!" Dem vowed to herself and the Irken Empire. "But..., how do I-," She held out her hands and an explosion erupted.

Pricket, alarmed, made way for the back of the ship anyway.

"Ah!" Dem screamed, loosing her balance and falling over only to shoot more beams of purple light. "S-stop!"

"What the hell is going on?!" Tandra shouted visciously. She reached under her seat and pulled out a medical set. From this she extracted a syringe. Sedative.
Tandra jumped out of her seat and leaped toward the girl she had captured, brandishing the sedative like a sword.

Pricket bit his lower lip. Considering from what was going on, this girl was no ordinary Irken. Would the sedative really work?

Only one way to find out....
"S-stop....," Dem whispered, drifting off into a deep slumber.

Tandra felt slightly satisfied. At least she had achieved something today.
She turned to Pricket once more as she began to tie resraints around the unconscious girl. "Tell me once more what it is you need me to do?" she asked him. Her mind had been on several things at once and she needed to focus.

Dem's eyes snapped open. Instincts took over, and her powers took control. She said nothing but broke all restraints with no force what so ever. Standing, she gave them a masochistic smile.
Her hands glowed purple and in less than a second she had sliced Tandra's arm off.
"You're flesh is slightly harder than those who regularly appose me..., what are you?" She asked.

"What am I? I am something that shouldn't exist. I am the worst nightmare of many, and the thing that lurks in the shadows. I am similar to you, girl, but rely more on skill than on brute strength. I do not wish for a conflict between our two forces for we shall surely both be destroyed."
These were the words that whistled through the modified Vortian ship as Tandra's arm regenerated itself. Her mouth did not move as she spoke. It sounded similar to her voice, but there was a dangerous, almost insane edge to it.
Tandra herself did not seem to notice it. If she did, she pretended not too. She just met Dem's gaze, staring into her eyes.

Pricket backed up in panic, rushing back to the cockpit. What was going on? Who -what- was he exactly dealing with here? Tandra's appearence into his life seemed more like a larger obstacle than what he already had to face to reach The Tallest.

Speaking of which...

"You think me stupid?" Dem spat. "I will show you smarts!"
She disappeared only to hit all pressure points on Tandra's body causing her limbs to become immobile.
"Brute strength is useless when you don't know how to use it towards your advantage."

Pricket bit his lip upon hearing the commotion from the back of the ship, as well as seeing another unit of Irken Slave Drivers approaching. He jumped into the pilot's seat, pushing buttons here and there to get the ship going. It jerked violently forward.

"F-," Dem said and fell backwards, knocking herself out.

Pricket paniked as he tried to regain control of the ship. But it continued to jerk back and forth. He bit his lip, pressing random buttons here and there; pretty sure the ship would soon implode if he kept at it.

Tandra shook herself out of it.
"Press the red button, Pricket," she ordered. That was auto-pilot, and it would help alot with Pricket at the wheel.

He blinked. Forcing a little nervous laugh, he followed. Pressing the button, he scratched the back of his head, laughing quite hard.

"What's so funny?" Tandra asked as she came up behind Pricket, seeming to have regained control of her limbs.

"Uhg, where am I?" Dem asked, rubbing her head.
"Massssssaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!" MIR screeched and flew into the wall.
Dem blinked, dazed.
"W-Wait. You aren't sup post to be here! Um... Am I even sup post to be here?" She asked the others, obviously not remembering a thing.

"No, you're not. But we had a little conflict of spirits or whatever you call them, and now I'm reluctant to have you leave," Tandra answered, not even turing to look at Dem.

"Whaaaa?" Dem asked, titling her head ever so slightly.

"It's something I'd rather not get into right now, thank you," Tandra answered curtly. She took the whell from Pricket and began to steer the modified Vortian ship into the sky.

Seeing as Tandra was busy now, Pricket heaved a heavy sigh, making his way to the other Irken in the back.

"Um.. Hi?" Dem said, smiling shyly. She wasn't exactly a social person back then. "Do you know where my Dad is?" She asked and sat down with Mir in her arms.

Tandra rubbed her forehead with one finger, a habit she had had for a long time. This girl had brought something out of her. Something Tandra had managed to keep in submission for a mercifully long time...
That was very bad. Now they'd be on her trail again. They'd probably already have her location.
For the love of Irk...
Tandra steered her ship to the palace.

Pricket displayed a rather confused look back at Dem. "No," he answered, "I don't know where your father is..."

A shot was fired at their ship. It grazed the surface but didn't puncture the actual structure. A warning shot.
"Watch the paintwork," growled Tandra. "You-" she pionted at Pricket. "Come here and fly the ship. Try not to get killed. For once, I'd like to be around people who aren't killed by a little exploded head." She glared at Dem. "Don't try anything funny, love, because I hold a grudge you wouldn't believe."
Tandra startd up an escape pod. "I'll be back, don't worry. I've just got to take care of a little problem," she said before she left. Then she was gone.

"Don't you know who my dad is?" She asked. "You know, Dr.Dooms?" She was trying her best to impress him even in the slightest way. 'Please say you know who he isss,' she thought.

Pricket made his way to the cockpit. Trying his best to pilot the ship, he waved a hand at Dem. "Dr. Dooms? No, never heard of him. I've been away from the planet for a long time now, so I wouldn't know anything recent."

There were three ships. And the people in them wanted her.
She dodged the shots they fired at her in her nimble little ship.
The intercom button flashed. Tandra answered.
"What do you want, you..." she trailed off, choosing to simply glare at the Irken eilte soldier on the other end of the line.
"You know whaty we want. Surrender peacefully. You can't run forever."
"Oh yeah? Well, I've been doing a pretty damn good job of it so far, haven't I," she snapped, her mind racing. She had limited weaponry and fuel. this stupid pod was not meant to be carrying the kind of equipment she had loaded on to it and it was badly balanced.
Tandra hacked into the first ship's system and retrieved its singnature. She set a missile on it. One down.

Dem pouted a little and bowed her head in defeat. "What are you suppost to be doing anyways? By the looks of it, you guys really aren't that good at..., whatever you're doing." She stated. She brightened a little. "Can I help?!" She asked.
Poor thing didn't exactly know where her loyalties were suppost to lie.

Pricket allowed himself a confused squeak. "Well, if you really ought to know," he said, keeping his voice low, "She came into my life because she was supposed to help me along the paths to reach my goals. I'm a fugitive. And from the looks of it," he leaned forward in his seat to get a better look at what was going on around them, "She's wanted." He didn't bother to answer Dem's second question, due to not having an answer he didn't think she would accept.

A little while later Tandra came returned as she had promised.
"I've slowed them down some, but they'll be back," she said calmly as she entered.

Dem nodded. "They probably only retreated after tagging you." She replied, leaning back a little. "It's common battle tactics. They do it way too often." She grinned at her knowledge.
She turned to gaze at Tandra. "Do you know who my father is?"

"Maybe," she answered cryptically.
Tandra knew that they hadn't tagged her - at least, not in the way Dem thought. But they would find her again. It was only a matter of time.

Pricket activated a few control here and there, and before pulling the final lever, he swung his head around to the others. "Where to, then?"

"Oo! Oh! I know, let's go someplace to eat!" She yelled and started clicking the keys not sure what each one would do. "I'm starvinnnnn!" She whined.
Meanwhile, MIR had found an odd looking robot standing vacant and started to poke it.

The fugitive tweaked an eyebrow. This girl was acting rather... strange. One moment she was in a seemingly unstoppable fury, the next she seemed quite sad, and finally hungry and innocent. How many personalities/egos harbored this girl's body? With a heavy sigh, he turned his head towards Tandra for some input.

Dem smiled again, happy that she had finally found the right keys for their next destination. She blinked and noticed something strange. A buzzing noise, loud and strange..., odd.
Dem glanced around, trying to see if anyone else heard it.

Pricket perked up his antenna, also hearing the noise. Faint, yes, but he managed to pick it up.

(Sorry I was gone for so long guys! My internet's been on the blink lately and real life got in the way of this preffered one. Grr.)


Tandra also heard the buzzing noise. "Pricket, Darling," she said, pointing to Pricket and Dem resectively, "ideas?"
She didn't know what that noise was, but she wanted to find out. She couldn't kill something if she didn't know what it was, could she?