"Good shooting, Leila-san!" Fi does her best to roll past the obstacle granting cover to the beasties, firing from the hip as she does so.
Unfortunately all she achieves is a lot of activity to no effect.
Round 3
Astrianna gets great footage of the Akata being shocked by Leila's pulscaster. Its spasming tentacles would be hilarious if it hadn't been trying to kill her a few moments before.
Leveling her pistol over her wrist, she calls out to the others over their private comm channel. "Great shot Leila, now do that on my target!"
ueezing the trigger
Synthetic as he may be, Prospero-4's pain receptors are unfortunately fully functional. He almost cries out in the sudden pain when the akata's teeth dig into his arm. Luckily, the armor seems to protect him from any serious damage. The dog-like beast attached into his arm, the android lashes out with his knife while the exocortex locks into the new target.
With Leia shot dropping the second Akata, Fianh dives in to take a shot at the Akata she has a clear shot it which is deeper in the bridge.
Again her attempts to confuse the beast don't work while her marksman ship does and her bullet hits the void creature.
Astrianna's shot on the same beast hits also wounding it further.
Meanwhile Prospero-4's knife slashes at the beast that has been attacking him all this while. It was the first through the door, but the last to be damaged.
It continues to attack Prospero and once again, the beast gets through the android's defenses causing real damage to the syntehetic flesh it is biting into.
Meanwhile the last Akata fixates on the human in front of it that caused it pain and it leaps at her, passing by Prospero, who is able to slash at it as it passes by.
Prospero-4's knife swipe wounds the beast and throws off its attack. It's bite passes harmless by Fianh.
Yeah! Leila thinks to herself as she downs the first beast (and is even complimented!). Just like in the trids!
Maybe she could do it again? But this time the one trying to chew up Fi. It was the closest after all...
Fi is having problems adapting to the peculiarities of fighting in a hard vacuum. For one thing, there's no sound: the muzzle flash of her gun, and the recoil, are occurring in perfect, absolute silence. It's disconcerting.
More importantly, in the absence of noise, she's not getting the stimulus she needs for the adrenaline that fuels her usual performance. Without that, her coordination and timing are off.
Case in point: she goes to backflip away from the beast that's threatening her, but can't time it properly.
Round 4
"All right! Clean up this last one! Say, Leila, can you eat these things? Maybe they could toss these onto the ship and sell them to a food stand in the Spire...
In a rare moment of patience Astrianna holds her pistol steady until she can get a clear shot at the Akata's flank. She pulls the trigger and sends a bullet right by Prospero's arm.
Leila keeps racking up her killcount tally of KOed beasts as her pulsecaster scores a damaging hit on the very wounded and confused Akata and it slumps onto the dingy floor of the mining vessel.
This allows Fianh to switch her target and fire at the last remaining beast, the one threatening Prospero-4. It jerks as two bullets ram home silently into its blue hide. One from her and one from Astrianna.
"I congratulate Leila for her accurate shooting. I appreciate it if we can get rid of the final beast soon. I do not think I am meant for close combat."
Prospero-4's vision turns red, as the exocortex is displaying damage reports from the Akata's savage attack. Wishing for a bigger weapon, he continues slashing the beast with his knife.
Prospero-4's knife flashes at the exact moment the Akata leaps at him again dealing the creature a fatal wound. Its jaws clamp down one last time on the android though, dealing Prospero-4 one last bit of spiteful damage before it collapses.
Stillness descends on the ship once more as the chaotic close quarters fight in vaccuum ends. Two of the beasts can be seen to be twitching. Leia's pulsecaster drove them into unconsciousness it seems like, but it didn't kill them.
Beyond the beasts a wide transparent aluminum window stretches across the forward wall of the control room; twinkling lights in the distance are all that can be seen of Absalom Station and the ships of the Armada surrounding it.
You've made it to the bridge of The Aceron. You can see four control consoles here facing the window. The controls and logs of the ship should be open to you from here. There's also these weird resinous shards scattered across the face of the consoles and on the floor. They look out of place against the very functional and mundane plastics and metals that the Aceron is made of.
"Yeah! Did you see that?!" Leila asks over the comms despite the astronomically low odds that anyone had missed the fire/tentacle fight. But she didn't care - her heart must be beating three times as fast as usual. "That was awesome. Pew-pew and zap! Hah!"
"*Uhum* Also how are you feeling Prospero?" She adds after a few more hardly appropriate cheers. Maybe it was a bit insensitive to sound too happy when someone was clearly gnawed on. Probably. "Let's take some chill-time while we look over the bridge."
With that announcement Leila reloads her gun and heads inside the bridge to explore. This place was a bit bigger then the bridges of the ships usually entrusted to her ... "Hey what's with all these weird shards? Some sort of miner rations maybe ... But why are they scattered all over the place? Oh there's a console! Let's see what we can find!"
"Whew!" Astrianna breathes out an excited sigh of relief, looking down at the twitching Akata nearby. "Hey is this thing still alive? It's kind of moving... uh, I'm assuming they don't breathe."
Assuming someone else would finish it off if it was still alive (not her job!), the half-elf steps over them and towards the bridge. She takes one look at the shards scattered everywhere before giving one a casual kick.
A thought crosses her mind, and she begins to frantically shake her foot. "Ugggggh! What if it's Akata poop?! I just touched it!"
The attacking beast makes Prospero-4 budge, but he keeps his balance as he drives the short knife into the Akata's heart. The Akata's jaws loose the hold on the androids arm, and the beast slides to the floor. Blue drops of blood drip down from the blade Prospero-4 is holding.
"I have several bite wounds, but I am still fully functional. I thank you for your concern for my well-being, Leila."
"Still, I believe I am due for a full medical check, if the our knowledge on Akata's is accurate. I have little wish to act as a host for Akata's parasitic young."
While Prospero-4 is fully functional, it doesn't mean he doesn't hurt like hell. He grabs a healing serum from his belt and gulps it down. Then he sits down, and waits for the healing to take effect, content to watch while the others work.
"If it is Akata poop, Astrianna, then I hope you have learned not to touch everything you see. It could also be something dangerous."
As Prospero-4 slumps back to recover in one of the chairs that belonged to the former crew of the Aceron Leila quickly accesses the mining vessel's computer.
She encounters a firewall but a little more work allows her to get past it and into the secure data storage and control modules of the ship's systems. In chronological order
Log
Heading back from The Vast, Contract done. Encountered a strange Asteroid in the Drift though. With these strange geodes on them. Noqual! Worth a fair bit too. Good thing our contract with those AE jerks was allow for prospecting information. Noqual is worth some good credits and Triune knows we could use 'em. Brought 'em aboard.
Does us good to see our hard work rewarded with these shiny valuable rocks.
****
Devourer take me! Something hatched from the noqual! Blue cat things! We've managed to barricade 'em but their damn bites hurt!
****
Something else attacked! It came from the rock itself! Can go through doors! Opening aft doors to try and end it! What the hell else could go wrong?
****
The last log was recorded from engineering and not the bridge.
Purging air didn't work. I've set the autopilot to continue on to Absalom Station, but we're abandoning ship. We'll fall back to the rock and try to regoup there. Aceron out.
There are no further entries.
Leia slaps her head. Of course! Akatas cocoon themselves and enter hibernation when they have no sustenance. Their cocoons are made of noqual! The miners brought them onboard and sensing food nearby the Akatas hatched. That's what the shards are
While the others busy themselves with the computer and the rock shards, Fi takes out her combat knife and silently dispatches the two beasts that are still breathing.
She wipes the blade clean with a spare bit of cloth (well, Fi sees it as spare. Astri might disagree) while she listens to the log from the doomed ship. "Sounds like the real trouble is on the rock. Let's go find it."
The half-elf ignores Prospero's warning about touching things, instead focusing on his comment concerning "parasitic young". "Whaat? I felt something wiggling around when I got bit... Don't tell me I'm going to turn into a blue-tentacled freak!"
As the logs start playing Astrianna starts pacing back and forth. "So these crystals are not poop. Good. Well, in any case I'm not touching them again. I've had my fill of Akata."
She spreads her arms out in a searching gesture. "Something that can go through walls? What in the nine hells? Was ths drift rock some kind of vaction home for Akata and ghosts? Perhaps... Ghost Akatas?!"
In any case, she agrees with Fi that they should head to the rock and investigate the crew's fate. "That necroglider pilot is going to be down there as well. Hopefully they already met this thing that "goes through walls" and one took care of the other."
"Ooooh of course! The shards are Noqual cocoon parts!" Leila looks at the shards again when the recording mentions that part. "See? It almost looks like egg-shells! ... Valuable egg-shells that is. Hmm maybe we should salvage that? It's lightweight enough and I'm sure the miners would pay a nice finders-fee. Oooh and maybe even make some Noqual swords! That would be awesome..."
"Ghosts? Oh-oh or something from an alternate dimension! Like in 'Nightmare on Elm Station'!! Now that would be something to see briefly. Very very briefly... Hmm. Could a Ghost even kill *uh* re-kill another undead like the necroglider pilot?"
"Anyhow!" Leila grins encouragingly as she notices that both Astri and Mr 4 seems a bit uncomfortable by the fact that the Akata has bitten them. "Don't you remember what I said? They usually have to actually *kill* you for their life-cycle to work. So no worries right?"
"But I agree, we should probably check out the rock. If the crew went there they might still be around! Though I had assumed that Station Security would have at least scanned the place for lifesigns ... On the other hand the rock did mess with our sensors too... But let's clear the ship first! Just so there's nothing lurking around that just cuts the cables and leave us drifting on the *uh* drift-rock."
Within seconds from the application of the serum, Prospero-4 feels the nanites starting to work on his wounds, and soon he is as good as new.
"I believe Leila is correct. The larva need their host dead in order to grow. Should you have died, they would have taken control of you dead body and animated the corpse. And maybe later hatched from that zombie?"
"This would lead to the assumption, that our own immune systems should be able to take care of the parasites. But how long the larvae can survive in our bodies, I do not know. So please refrain from dying in the next few days."
The android gets up, feeling he has rested enough. He wipes his blade clean of the Akata blood, puts it back to its sheath, hoping he will not have to use it anytime soon. Then he joins Leila by the ship computer. Accessing the computer, he tries to see if there are any on-board cameras or maybe heat sensors that could be used to detect if there is anyone or anything still in the ship.
Leia and Prosporo-4 estimate that the scattered shards of noqual on the bridge will take up 3 bulk and be worth 1500 credits overall.
Prospero-4 isn't able to find anything as fancy as onboard cameras or heat sensors. But he is able to download a schematic of the ship showing the areas the group hasn't visited yet.
Fianh, the most experienced of the group, knows that either spacewalking to the asteroid via tow cables, or bringing The Hippocampus closer to the rock and spacewalking from there, would both be fine ways of getting onto the Drift Rock.
Never one to pass up the opportunity of extra pay, Fi will ensure that the group carries the noqual shards. She travels light and can carry them herself if need be, without undue encumbrance.
"Once we're done with this ship, we can use the Hippocampus to get to the rock."
Leila starts stuffing the shards into her pack. "Mm let's dump these first! Just in case we need to leave in a hurry later ..."
The group heads out of the bridge and turns towards starboard, away from the area they had entered from.
They enter an incredibly claustrophobic corridor and are forced to enter it single file. Towards their left is a single door while to their right are two doors leading to one of the crew quarters. As they go to to open it, only Astrianna is aware enough to discover and point out that there is a motion sensor jury rigged to the door.
Leia and Prospero-4, working together have no trouble disabling the trap and the door slides open. Beyond likes a storage room.
Within they find another bulk worth of the noqual (worth 500 credits). In addtion there are two mk1 serums of healing, three medpatches. Tucked away deep in one locker is a 5th level holy fusion seal.
This room cleared out the group turns towards the doors leading to what seem from the schematics to be the crew quarters. As soon as they open they're met with bursts of laser fire!
While one of the bursts of fire goes wild the other hits the person who opened the door right in the face!
Ah MORE BLUE DOGS!
Kill Kill Kill Kill Kill!
Beyond the laser fire the group can make out some very makeshift barricades and two goblins in junksuits peeking out from behind them shouting. Somehow they've set their makeshift communicators to broadcast their voices to EVERY comm in the vicinity and you can hear their panicked yells very very clearly through your suit headsets.
"Goblins..?"
It shouldn't be a surprise. The one dead goblin before told about the presence of those critters. But why they are here?
But time to worry about is later. The goblin's shot takes Prospero-4 by surprise, and he almost cries out. Luckily, his armor absorbs most of the blow, leaving him mostly unharmed. The android presses against the wall for better cover, and takes aim at the goblins.
Leila quickly dives for cover and draws her gun, but not quite poking up to fire. Goblins?! "Hey! We're not the least blue! Can't you even tell us apart from the tentacly things? Besides lasers are reeealy poor against them ... So why don't you stop shooting just a moment!"
Astrianna whistles over their comms as she stuffs the serums, medpatches, and other goodies into her backpack. "From the evidence I've seen so far, the HSC should get the rights to the drift rock. They'll be able to sell it for waaay more than what this paltry bit of noqual is worth, right?" It wasn't hard for her to justify their unceremonious looting of the ship.
She hadn't relaxed quite yet given that the last door was trapped and there could easily be more Akata around... which is why she only jumped and squealed a little bit when Prospero opened the door and was immediately shot.
Pressing herself against a wall, Astrianna flinches as the goblin's terrified chatter assaults her sensitive elven ears. Pissed, she touch-types a command into her wrist comm and matches their frequency.
"STOP SHOOTING YOU LITTLE S~#*S, WE'RE STARFINDERS SENT TO HELP YOU! HOLD YOUR FIRE OR WE'LL GUT YOU LIKE WE DID THE "BLUE DOGS"!" More yelling ensues. Astrianna quickly proves she can somehow yell even louder than terrified goblins.
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The goblin's wild firing immediately ceases as Prospero-4's return fire pings off their makeshift barricade and Leila's appeal to reason is drowned out by Astrianna's yells.
Dogs, learn how to use lazer! one of them hisses to the other.
No no silly, now they talking!
Dogs learn how to TALK!
Shut up! Shut up! They NOT DOGS! Lady sounds angrier than dogs
Oh NO!
Shut up! the two goblins stop hissing at each other before one of them raises their voice No kill goblins scary lady! We sorry for shoot shoot. You kill blue dogs? You help us ecscape spooky ship?
"Yes!" Astrianna exclaims, clearly exasperated with their chatter. She lowers her pistol though, poking her head around the corner where they can see her.
"See? I'm not a blue dog. We've killed four of them, but we don't know how many are left. We're sweeping the ship for the rest." If no more laser fire bursts from the excited (is there anything but?) goblins, she moves to stand in the doorway with hands placed on her hips.
"I'm Astrianna Sparacello, Starfinder. We were sent to investigate the disappearance of the crew on this ship. You're lucky we came along. We already went through the ship logs so we know about the blue dogs, but can you tell us about this "thing that goes through walls" that attacked your crew?" She inquires over their public channel.
While the goblin's banter goes through one of her ears and out the other, Astrianna ponders what to do with them. There is no way putting unsupervised goblins on our ship would end well. I don't think Fi, Prospero, of Liela would allow it anyway. I guess we can stuff them in the cargo hold? No, the Ambassador's package is in there, they'll tear it up. They need to stay here until we're ready to leave. But we have to rescue them! Being a hero will be great for my view count and reputation!
When she manages to fit in a sentence between their blabbering, Astrianna lays out a plan for them to follow, calmly gesturing with her hands. "Okay listen. We still have to land on the drift rock and scout it. You're in a great spot. You stay here until we come back for you. If anyone but me talks to you on this channel or opens up this door, you shoot them until they're dead all right? We will come back for you. Starfinder's honor."
Fi stands impassively to one side as Astri does her best to negotiate with the goblins. She'd just as soon shoot the little green beggars, but they're probably not worth the cost of a bullet. She waits to see how the diplomatic option pans out.
"Oh oh! Leila starts over the party's private channel. "Ask them for a passcode or something - just in case the ones on the rock is just as trigger happy!"
The goblins clamber over the barricade, relief obvious on their faces as they grin wide, showing off their razor sharp teeth in stark relief to their bright green skin and eyes that are completely red both iris and pupil.
Thank you scary lady. We do as you say, YES! the one who missed says.
Sorry for shooting metal man! Please don't kill Poog! I make it better! Let me fix fancy armor. the other says wandering up to Prospero-4 putting away its junk pistol to take out a terrible looking wrench.
What thing that go through wall? The one that is not Poog says Murch killed by blue dog when we come in. I went to SLICE it but Poog was scaredy and ran here. We come with. Kill more blue dogs! she waves around a very very rusty looking cleaver of some sort.
Vutra only use slicer 'cause she very bad at shooting. Not like Poog Poog says proudly before glancing at Prospero-4 Sorry metal man!
"Ooh I think they might be scavengers!" Leila continues over the private comms. Then she flips to the public channel and greets the goblins, obviously enthusiastic to meet other 'space adventurers'! "Hello! I'm Leila! Nice to meet you both!"
Yes Scavenge is best. You scavenge too? Poog nods enthusiastically at Liea while poking the burn marks on Prospero's armor with the wrench Scavenge and tinker and fix and burn and break and scavenge and tinker and fix and burn and break and scavenge..
Vutra ignores Poog's descent into muttering and waves her slicer and junk pistol around. We go? Kill dogs? Leave ship?
When the goblin approaches Prospero-4, it finds itself staring directly into the still warm muzzle of the android's laser rifle. Prospero-4 motions for the goblin to back off, almost hitting the small scavenger in the head with his rifle.
"We are neither blue or walking on three legs. It should have been obvious we are not Akata." Once there is enough space between himself, the android lower his weapon slightly - aiming now only in the general direction of the goblin instead of its head.
Switching to private channel: "Can we lock them here, while we go down to investigate the rock? It'll be risky to have them running around free."
Then, he switches back to public communications to address the goblins. "How did you come here? Do you have a ship?"
Ship? HAH! Poog says, not put out by Prospoero's prodding at all. We hear of ship and stowaway on patrol ship. Spacewalk here after it pass by. Easy Peasy, until blue dogs.
SLICE THEM! Vutra suggests.
The group moves on, now with two goblin hanger ons nattering at them as they move on through the ship. Either they didn't understand Astrianna's order to stay in the room, or they are pretending not to.
The next room they open turns out to be the starboard airlock, they move on to the small door right next to it and, in there, they find a large room, a converted cargo hold, which contains a small sciene lab, compact ining equipment, and collected rock samples. The results of the Aceron's prospecting mission for Astral Excavations.
Poog darts in to one of the corners and pulls something out. It's a flame pistol. He waves it about excitedly. Look, it shoot fire. FIRE! I think I loves it!
There's nothing else in the room so the group moves on.
There's only one door left on this half of the ship.
"Nah we are Starfinders!" Leila beams proudly at the 'scavenger' question. She had to resist the urge to blabber on though and add "now". Wehw that might be awkward.
"Stow-aways? That's pretty clever... How were you planning on going back to the station?" the halfling tries to bring up some casual conversation with the gobilns as they explore the ship. Always handy to hear about other people's adventures!
---
"Last door on this side!" Leila announces cheerfully. "Let's go!"
The goblins blink at Leia's question, they look at each other, then they shrug. Some way. Murch was one with bigly ideas. Vutra says.
The group opens the door to see the large housing for the power core of the ship. The deep thrum of it can be felt through the soles of your feet as it continues to drip feed a maintenance level of power into the moribund vessel. There are doors on both sides of it and they lead to engineering.
This long chamber stretches across the width of the ship and all of it's main engineering functions can be operated from this room just as it could from the bridge. There's also a tech workshop expansion bay and a maintenance panel that allows access to the power core and a door leading to the emptiness of the void. It's the opened air lock at the back of the Aceron. The crew's first attempt at repelling the invaders and then their means of escape onto the Drift Rock.
Also there are two Akatas angered at your intrusion. They leap snarling at Fianh, who had opened the door from the power core room to Engineering and their vicious serrated teeth tears through Fianh's defenses. The second Akata's bite is so hard that Fianh can feel her rib *crack* just a bit.
Leila jump a bit when she realizes there's more blue meanies onboard. But that meant that there was time to be a space-hero again. Come on Leila you can do this! she thought and flung herself at the other door, hoping that the surprise of her sudden appearance would let her get a clean shot.
Caught flat-footed by the sheer speed and ferocity of the akatas, Fi cries out in pain and alarm as they bite into her, breaking most of her ribs in the process.
Taking a hasty guarded step back, she opens fire with her pistol. Her aim is unaffected by the fact that she's using one arm to hold most of her abdomen together.
"Sayonara, mitzu-sukuryu!"
Astrianna sighs as the goblins come tumbling out of the room, clearly not making any effort to listen to her. This may have been a mistake. Maybe we should have just shot them. They're not even part of the original crew! Well, they could soak up some bullets I guess.
The little rascals running around, looting everything in sight seem to reinforce her previous thought. Her trigger finger twitches when Poog takes a clearly expensive and highly useful firearm without any provacation or respect for the fact that her group is saving their lives. That's ours! Wait. No. I can use this as comedic relief. The more exasperated I am with them, the funnier it will be. Especially if I can get the stoics like Fi and Prospero to get annoyed along with me.
"Oh come on Poog, everyone knows you can't start a fire in space! You need to get to know your new lover better than that if you're going to have a hot, long-burning relationship." She says with a exaggerated sigh, mentally adding a laugh track into her future video. Astrianna waves everywhere on when there is nothing else to be found.
"Shelyn's T*&&!" Is loudly exclaimed over their comms when an Akata suddenly slams into Fi with incredible force. If it wasn't for the artificial gravity, she's pretty sure Fi would have been orbiting around the drift rock by now.
"Shake it off, Fi! You saw me get launched across a room like a kick ball and I still kept going!" She taunts the Tian combatant as the attacking Akata is put down. "Yeah good show! Goblins, get in there and kill the last one! SLICE IT! FOR MURCH!" It wasn't hard to rile up the goblins. But could they be weaponized?
"How many of these beasts there can be...!"
Now, Prospero-4 is hardly surprised of finding more Akata, but damn they have quick reflexes. There wasn't much he could do before the beast was almost killing Fianh.
Knowing now their resistance against lasers, Prospero-4 decides against trying to use his azimuth rifle, and instead draws the autotarget rifle the group found from the nightclub. Quick aim, pull of the trigger, and the rifle shoots with a satisfying boom.
As Fianh stumbles back from the Akatas, Leia emerges from the other door and with a quick flick on her handheld makes one of the doorlights overload so it sparks. The sudden flash spooks the Akata allowing Leia to land a damaging shot from her pulsecaster.
The shock of the pulsecaster allows Fianh to disengage from the beast and shoot the wounded one right in the head. It dies; appropriate payback for cracking the human woman's rib.
Prospero-4 emerges from the same door as Leia and fires a well aimed bullet at the remaining beast. The beast flinches as it gets hurt
AHhhhhhhhhh! Vurt screams as she charges ahead of Fianh to get at the Akata. Her swipe goes wide
Fire fire fire! Poog, from the other side joins in as he rushes in from the other door to spray the last beast with his flashy new fire pistol. The flames flick over the beast but, it of course being resistant to fire, is unbothered by it. It does seem panicked by suddenly being swarmed at all sides though and its retaliatory bite on Vutra doesn't kill the goblin.
This is quite surprising as goblins are really quite fragile beings.
Leila continues to advance and flank the beast, keeping her eyes peeled for something to exploit. And once she finds an opening: fire fire! Well actually zap zap but that didn't quite flow so well...
Astrianna cackles with mad glee as the goblins ruh in to attack the Akkata. Yes! Go my minions! "COME ON VURT THAT'S A DOGSLICER NOT AN AIRSLICER! SLICE IT!" She shouts what could be considered some form of encouragement if they all hated one another.
Noticing Prospero was looking quite photogenic firing his automatic rifle, she turns her head to capture his next shot. "Beautiful! You really look like an action trid hero Prospero. Maybe we can make some posters of you to pass out...?"
Whether it is Astrianna's encouraging words, or the strange satisfaction of witnessing the goblin being the one bitten for once, Prospero-4 finds some new vigor to keep fighting.
The android is aware of the switch to put his gun into autofire mode, and for a moment he is tempted to use it. But perhaps he will need to save the bullets, so spraying the target zone with projectiles isn't the best course of action at this point. Instead, he takes careful aim, and pulls the trigger. But he makes the mistake of trying to avoid shooting the goblin, and thus his shot goes wide.
Leia's interference with the lighting systems of the derelict ships throws everyone off except for her own self and Vutra. The halfling scores another shot while the slicing goblin lands a hit on the Akata. The beast misses in its retaliatory bite on Vutra while both Fianh and Prospero miss their shots.
Everybody lives to fight another round. Poog delights in wasting yet another portion of his new flame pistol's fuel on the Akata.
Astri's words have an effect on Fi: they invigorate her with anger as her system floods with adrenaline and her aim is affected as a result. She turns swiftly, her black hair swishing round in a wild mane as she does so, and gives the half-elf a venomous glare: "Save your words for other gaijin - I take care of myself."