Growing up on the floating island, Themyscira, you were taught of warlords who got their kicks targeting the Amazons. It was better to be killed than captured, you were told in no uncertain terms.
Fortunately for your generation, Queen Hippo had fortified the island. Invasions were thwarted easily, and only those gifted with immortality were permitted to set sail, and even then, in squads with fairy scouts and nymph diplomats. The Queen’s plan was to simply search for a land where her people would not be hunted, challenged to duels, or mistreated.
Perhaps there was a squad that succeeded in this mission. But not your squad.
Yours was captured easily. Many men died at your hands, yet all of you were taken alive. You awaken, thankfully, still clad in your gear. All that stands between you and your weapons are some iron bars. Things could be worse, but still, you can’t help but recall the warning repeated by many an Amazon princess:
’…better to be killed than captured.’
You come to, Dear Heroines, in a ten-by-ten room with bars on one wall, concrete on the other three. You find yourselves on filthy cots that smell of a staleness not known on Themyscira.
There are vague memories of battle, but recalling exactly how you ended up in captivity is difficult to remember.
What is certain: you’re alive. It was just the four off you on that ship. And you’re fully clothed. Zindarel’s sword is missing, but what was concealed in her ninja garb still is.
Snores can be heard in the darkness throughout the prison. You can all chat without waking anyone. Fairy dust glows at a fairy’s will, if you need a night light.
Or, if you’ve not much to say, you can hit the pillow and perhaps dream of a better time…
Zindarel groans softly as consciousness returns. The fairy sits upright on her cot and blinks to get her bearings. She is quiet. Looking. Listening.
Once she is confident there is no immediate danger, she flutters over to inspect her companions. "Wakey wakey. Good news. We're not dead. Bad news. We may end up wishing we were."
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Illuria lies still, but one of her snakes stirs to life. Silently, it lifts its head up, tasting the air and looking around. Then the snake arches back down and hisses softly in her ear.
The medusan pirate slaps it away and groans.
The snake hisses more insistently as several others wake up and look around. A chorus of louder hisses forces Illuria to acknowledge them. She pushes herself up and winces at the variety of bruises and sore muscles.
"Ughhh. That's it. No more rum. Ever. I'm done, I'm--"
She blinks at her surroundings and touches her eyepatch to make sure it's still there. Her mind finally catches up to her and hazy memories of battle return. "Oh, thank the gods we've been captured. I don't have to swear off rum."
With a big yawn, Betty wakes up. She looks around. A bed, three meals a day and enough people around to be sure there's always some drama to keep her entertained. On top of that, she doesn't have to worry about bills or getting to office on time. This isn't so bad. What were those amazons talking about? Betty lays back down, turns over and adds to the snoring.
As you awaken—or perhaps return to your slumber—there is a man’s voice.
“Hey… they’re awake, I think.”
Two men’s voices, in fact.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, how the f%%! would I know? It’s dark in there.”
“So it is.” The second voice then, apparently, addresses our littlest heroine: “Hey, you, in the bread basket. Mind doing that thing? All can glow, right?”
”We ninja prefer to remain unseen,” Zindarel says snarkily. She obliges, though, causing her body to glow with violet light as she hovers near her friends.
In the course of the battle, the swordmistress Castra reverted to her petite "human" Cassi form, causing her swords to disappear. Knocking her unconscious was very simple for the invaders and she remains out cold, but breathing easily.
The sudden light pulls Betty awake. Startled, she sits up. For the briefest moment, those paying closest attention, could see her change into a green dragon for a fraction of a second. It lasts just long enough for the weight to collapse the bunk before she turns back into human form. Everyone who didn't pay specific, close attention, just sees the chubby girl break her bed.
In slight embarrassment, Betty looks down at what's left of her cot.
"Uhhmmm... Good thing I was bottom bunk, huh..."
She then looks around, for the first time actually seeing the cell.
Our littlest heroine complies, alighting the room and the women in it.
“Hey boss, what about the big one?”
“Stay just as you are. Skinny girl, ya think you could you help your friend do her snakes in dangly pigtails. It takes five years off the face. Audiences respond to youth.”
“Big ladies! Big prizes! Iiiiiiii love it!”
A handsome dark-haired face appears on the wall opposite the bars. On the adjacent wall, there is a fairy, a skinny lady, a lady with rainbow dreadlocks that move like snakes but aren’t snakes, and a chubby lady. All resemble our heroines except they are dressed in togas and gold jewelry, and instead of filthy/broken furniture they lounge on sofas fit for a goddess. (Or a goddess and a half, in Betty’s case.)
“It is my pleasure to introduce to my studio audience—and all you folks watching the hearthvision—my guest cohost, Bixby Snider!”
If our heroines hang out by the barred wall of their cell, they can get a better view of all three walls at once. The wall by the broken bed shows the balding moustached face of Guest Cohost Bixby Snider.
“Yeah yeah, Mr. Badtardom, thanks for having me. But who are these ladies camera one’s gawking at. You’re not putting girls on SMASH R.P.G., are ya? The whole point’s to smash really powerful guys. The acronym loses all meaning if ya—“
“No, nooooo, Mr. Snider—“
“Bixby, please.”
M.C. Bastardom smiles devilishly. “Somebody will be pleased, Bixby. These ladies are the prizes.”
“I’d buy THAT for a silver!”
“Well, the going rate for a female slave is a platinum and five gold. But first our Really Powerful Guys need to SMASH or BE SMASHED!”
All three walls show the silhouettes of four warriors slow-walking out of billowing red smoke. The shapes are that of a barbarian with a spiked club, a samurai with seven swords on his back, a man in a top hat with an odd hook-ended staff, and a stout pikeman in a horned helm.
The studio audience cheers wildly. (You’re not sure how the folks at home watching hearthvision are reacting, but Betty might guess correctly.)
Illuria's eyes narrow. "How about no? Do audiences respond to being turned to stone?"
”I agree. Pass. Hard pass,” Zindarel says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Petrifying gaze, hard pass,” Bixby ponders, “there’s a perverted joke, but I’m just too flustered Mr. Bastardom.”
“Re – spect,” the M.C. says with a condescending guffaw.
Onscreen, the party of four is already beating ten men to death. One screams as his intestines spill out.
“Too much pizza will do that!” the M.C. quips loudly over the screams as a sniper puts a bullet in the suffering man’s head to end his misery. The rest die relatively painlessly and Bixby makes a fart joke.
As for the contestants, they approach two doors. The blue door has a stick figure, the pink door has a stick figure in a skirt.
They contemplate which door to open.
It takes quite some time.
Camera 3 on Bixby: “I mean… if ya can’t tell, just go in your pants.”
Camera 1 on Bastardom. He makes a gesture: forefinger and thumb an inch apart.
Camera 2 on the barbarian’s boots: a bullet hole appears between them.
The barbarian steps toward the pink door. “Our prize awaits…”
They open the door. Camera 2 shows a room of canopy beds. The four men walk in slowly…
You all see a sign appear onscreen:
You all see the trap. The four contestants do not—not until a fully armored knight in a blonde wig and pink nightie impales the fat pikeman. The samurai cuts him down, but the pikeman is too gravely wounded to handle the next two.
Blood splashes upon the pink veils, until the entire room is awash and dripping vermilion.
“Awwww,” says the audience.
“Those guys sucked,” says Bixby. “I better get my full fee.”
“Of course, of course, Mr. Snider,” says the M.C. “Until next time, folks!”
Silly music plays as the camera zooms in on the faces of the contestants. All are dead except the barbarian who is trying to talk, but all that comes out is coughs of blood.
Over the intercom, you hear the M.C. say ‘Gotham,’ or something akin to that.
The male voice that spoke to you earlier says, “Yes sir.”
From the metal grate next is not a voice. It is a green vapor.
Zindarel coughs as the vapor wafts over her. ”I feel asleep!” she announces before abruptly falling to the floor, eyes closed, snoring softly...
Illuria rolls her eyes as she waves away the green vapors. "Stop with this. You're embarrassing yourselves."
The still-groggy Cassi hasn't really clued into what's happening, holding her hand to the egg on her temple, when her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses once more.
Betty feels a sudden tiredness wash over her. She lays on her side, pulls the blanket over her, and starts to snore.
Illuria looks around as her cellmates all succumb to the gas. Her mouth twists in irritation, then she yawns exaggeratedly. She lies back down on her cot and closes her eyes.
[Dice=Fortitude]Illuria rolls her eyes as she waves away the green vapors. "Stop with this. You're embarrassing yourselves."
“Oh, I’m embarrassed alright,” Bixby says over the comm. “When I said just go in your pants, I should’ve added, ‘like your victims!’ Oh, why do I always think of the best lines after the show?”
M.C. Bastardom waits until he thinks Illuria has finally succumbed to the gas. “Another of your dumb lines was about the acronym. Why can’t SMASH R.P.G. be about smashing really powerful gals?”
Bixby replies, “If you do, I wouldn’t mind being the prize. I had my shots!”
Bixby laughs at his own joke and farts into the comm.
Violet Femme and I danced, the coins on our scarves jingling to the movement of our midriffs! Do you recall, Zindarel? We trained together! I have faith in you, our littlest assassin!
And you, Captain! Your ship was strong enough to take your crew to Westedge alive, despite what happened!
You lift off from the floating island, along the Celestial Sea.
Betty Long from HR is the diplomat, Zindarel is the scout, Cassie is the deceptively waifish bodyguard and Illuria is the captain of the airship! You all know your place on this mission of peace. And perhaps two or three of you expected trouble before it arrived…
And so the trouble begins with a ship. It approaches. It has as much right to sail the Celestial Sea as you do. No one has done wrong yet, for no shot has yet been fired…
Zindarel does indeed remember training with Slash Rose. Indeed, besides learning the skills of a ninja, she is also quite the accomplished belly dancer, a fact she doesn't advertise.
She is thinking of her mentor when she spots the ship sailing towards their own. Her eyes narrow as she flutters over to Captain Illuria. "Watch that one. I don't know... I have a bad feeling about this..."
Captain Illuria nods once in agreement with Zindarel. Several of her snakes lift their heads and also eye the ship in the distance. "We should keep our distance. But not look like we're keeping our distance."
"Look alive!" she shouts to the rest of the ladies on board. Better for everyone to be alert and ready even if it's nothing, than it be something and everyone's caught unawares.
Cassi’s role is to be aware and expecting trouble. She stands aboard the Captain’s ship, watching the other ship’s approach for anything unusual. It need not pass closely. What can she tell about who is aboard? Is it flying colors she recognizes?
Many questions float in her mind while she waits, Castra waiting to emerge and protect those around her…
A voice bellows across space, forcing itself through your communication system.
“Captain Euryale! You don’t know the name, Jaeger Stonefist, but your freakish gaze changed me for the better! I’ll paint my fist with your blood—assuming my men don’t blast you to smithereens!”
With those words, the one ship splits into three. Rockets are fired—
Cassi morphs into her fighting form. It's an interesting transformation that the others have seen before - her omnipresent hat changes into a tiara sporting a symbol of two crossed swords, her blouse-and-breeches become a sleek and bright-colored bodysuit with twin blades on the hips, and she physically grows in size.
When it works. Sometimes her mind wanders and the transformation just ... doesn't transform.
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"Break off and turn about, Jaeger!" Illuria shouts back, "Lest your crew call you Stoneface!"
As the rockets fire, she spins the airship's wheel and sends her vessel in a frantic maneuver to avoid the missiles.
Zindarel grabs a handful of shuriken from her robe, ready to hurl them at a missile if it gets too close!
With a big sigh, Betty shakes her head. "The paperwork for this is gonna be the death of me..." She looks around, searching for a secluded spot that gives her some privacy. Closest thing to hide behind, turns out to be a crate. Betty shuffles aside til she's behind the crate and crouches down. There's the sound of a slimy bubble bursting and a green dragon appears from behind the crate, roaring with the fury of someone who's forced to get up from their butt.
You are quick to retaliate! Cassie fires a cannon at one of the ships, breaching its hull. While Zindarel is quite capable of hurling her little stars at a close target, the masterful piloting of her captain negates the need! The odds of a balloon ship dodging both missiles are against her! Illuria veers toward the closer one, makes a sharp turn to sway aside—and you all see the rocket’s red glare portside! The second missile is headed toward the balloon itself, but the maneuver causes the ship to descend suddenly.
And so Bettty, in her winged dragon form, is capable of taking on a one-or-two-man ship! She may fly out to meet them!
One ship is disabled. Its engine fire dies. It is unclear whether the pilot (and copilot) are alive.
The other two ships come closer and they are not aiming for your hull or the big obvious target: the balloon! Bullets rain down upon the deck!
Fortunately, Betty is in her dragon form drawing fire from one ship!
After defending, TAKE ACTION!
Zindarel nimbly dodges away from the bullets aimed at her. She hurls her shuriken across the space in between ships, using her ki to guide them to likely targets!
"Cannon reload!" Castra looks up in time to see one of the cowards taking aim. In the blink of an eye, a sword is in her left hand and the bullets coming her way are deflected over the side of the ship.
In addition to the whisper, you hear a metal clanking from the direction of your cell door.
Illuria stands firm as bullets whiz by her. Her head snaps to the side to let one buzz past her ear like an angry hornet.
She spins the wheel once more and hauls on the lever to burn more gas into the balloon, causing a quick jump in altitude to further confound their attackers.
Illuria resumes breathing softly and cracks an eye open to surreptitously observe whatever's happening in the cell.
While Betty keeps one ship busy, Illuria confounds the other. Unable to get a clear shot from his guns, Captain Stonefist has his men uncloak their grappler ships.
“Prepare to be boarded!”
“Oh, hey… you’re awake.”
The man is kneeling by a low shelf that has been moved close to the bars. He just placed a tiny sword there. It’s Zindarel’s.
“I guess she can fly to any shelf. But I thought if I put the sword at the bottom shelf, she could walk. Is walking easier than flying? I’ve never seen a real fairy before.”
The man is obviously nervous. Yes, you COULD reach through the bars and strangle him. But to what end? He doesn’t have a key on him, and he’s probably about to place your weapons on one of the shelves. There’s a cart with Cassie’s swords on it nearby, but out of your reach.
”Uh oh! Ninja—vanish!” Zindarel declares, calling on her magic to obscure the ship with mists!
Castra frowns at the numbers and adjusts her aim, trying to ricochet the cannon ball from one of the attackers to its neighbor.
"Prepare to be ballast!!" Captain Euryale shouts in defiance. She lifts her eyepatch and unleashes her gaze, sweeping her eye across the boarders.
Illuria lifts her head. "You're asking me if it's easier to walk than fly. Clearly, they consider you expendable. But I'm not going to kill you, or turn you to stone. I'm nice like that." Her snakes rise up and hiss.
Betty has no trouble taking out the lone ship. As for the many grapplers, they fire their hooks as soon as the ship poofs into nothing.
And so the chaos commences.
On the portside, Cassie blasts away! She is just shy of the perfect bank shot, but still, one exploding ship’s debris collided with its nearest neighbor, who in turn shoots its hook into another ship whose pilot is one of five turned to stone. He and his fellow statues all lean heavily onto the thrusters as the survivors fire their hooks. None hit your ship’s hull. Those that hit anything hit the balloon!
And so what is there to do but steer toward the Western Edge of the World and land?
The stone pilots’ ships drag one still-of-flesh pilot’s grappler somewhere in space. His hull is breached. Even if he frees his grappler, he will not survive. The stone ones may be better off.
The two intact ships who grappled nothing are too focused on the chaos to see the great green dragon swimming the Celestial Sea. And their cockpits are open because they were planning to board. You can trust Betty will do as she must to prevent pursuit.
As for the men who DID grapple your ship, they have been yanked from their cockpits and are clinging to their ropes for dear life, screaming like crazed chipmunks!
Captain Stonefist makes the grave mistake of taunting Captain Euryale, in his weenily high pitch: “You’ll never control the landing, Euryale! The leak will spiral you outta control and you got nothing to weigh down your balloon!”
Illuria knows damn well half a dozen statues on ropes would do the trick.
Since the helium makes parting words undignified, Illuria opts for a rude gesture.
And a parting pistol shot at Stonefist's stone fist.
Zindarel wraps her wings around her body protectively and braces for impact!
Illuria takes careful aim. Her parting shot takes the middle finger off of the stone fist, and the impact causes Jaeger to punch himself in the face. He squeaks a high pitched oof and his unconscious body is kited along by the grappler’s harness.
…
After the crash, you are all weak, but in a better state than the men who attached themselves to your leaking balloon. On one harness, Illuria notes mangled meat with a stone fist missing a finger.
That is the last thing she sees before she awakens in a dark cell.
The rest of you awaken now, and see that Illuria is talking to a chunky man in an argyle sweater with thick glasses.
[b]“Expendable? Heh, I guess you could say that. Aw, but it’s not just me I gotta worry about. I got a wife and three daughters, y’know.
“I was thinking about them when they said you’d be slaves.” “But now they’re gonna have you as contestants. You could die, but… sometimes people win and that’s good. If you win, you’re free.”
He is definitely nervous. He checks a handheld device. “Seventeen more minutes. I set a timer so the cameras would be off here. In case, y’know.” He awkwardly gestures toward the toilet in your cell.
“Listen… you were captured yesterday. Yesterday sucks, so don’t go there. Got it?” He winks. He nods. He looks pale and might need a toilet or bucket to throw up in. But he has to finish placing weapons in your reach, which he does as he blurts, “Sixteen minutes! Yesterday sucks!”
“Testing, testing, mic 3,” says a familiar nerdy voice. “I think the ladies in the cell can hear ya, boss.”
“Excellent,” the M.C. replies. “Now where’s my cohost?”
“Well, Mr. Bastardom, it’s Mr. Snider’s birthday…”
One of the cell walls displays Bixby in a room full of women.
The M.C. grumbles, “If it really is his birthday, how old is he? All the bimbos’ ages added together?”
“Good one, sir.”
“No it’s not a good one. He’s getting his full fee.”
“True sir, but Mr. Snider only had to host one full game, according to the contract he signed yesterday. Yesterday sucks, isn’t that right sir?”
There’s an uncomfortable silence as the map on your back wall displays the word JAIL over the cell where you now are.
“SMASH fans! I hope you folks at home enjoyed that 45-minute barrage of words from our sponsors. To reward your patience, we’re giving you a Double Deal!”
The wall to your left displays M.C. Bastardom. The wall to you’re right displays YOU, as you are now!
“These really powerful gals are gonna SMASH they’re way outta here, or GET SMASHED trying!”
There is a loud pounding on the back wall of the cell. And another. And another…
Suddenly the wall bursts open!
Seeing no other recourse but to participate in this twisted game show, Zindarel spends the downtime meditating, cross-legged on the floor. She stands when the pounding begins and spreads her wings, fluttering away as the wall explodes!
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Illuria takes her weapons, checks the shot in her pistol, and starts pacing as the time ticks down to the start of the "competition." Her snakes show her agitation by sliding over her shoulders and tasting the air.
When the sound comes on, Illuria scowls but doesn't say anything. Part of her wants to not play their game in any way to defy their captors. But she can't deny the part of her that wants to do battle. She draws a cutlass with a flourish and gets ready.
She anticipates the moment the wall bursts inward and sidesteps the shrapnel. She takes advantage of the rubble and dust, setting herself in a position for ambush.
Zindarel darts to a far corner of the cell as chunks of concrete bigger than her entire body shoot by her! Illuria sidesteps the brunt of it, and is barely touched by harmless pebbles. As the dust settles, she can see men in striped uniforms. The carry hammers and other blunt objects, including dumbbells and heavy iron balls on chains. Trios of men appear to be chained together at the ankles and writsts.
A silhouette in a cowboy hat shouts, “Jail break!” He cocks his boom stick…