CS Task 17 Chameleon and Dorado written portion

      Veronika scooped one of her cats up into her lap and rubbed behind his ears, shushing its protests at having been removed from trying to climb onto her guest’s lap while she was trying to draw. “Moni can’t get my portrait done if you’re laying across her paper.” The cat stared at her indignantly, in the way that felines do sometimes, at the implication that drawing could possibly be of higher priority than petting him for twenty minutes straight. She set him next to her and peeked over Moni’s shoulder, watching her work. Moni saw she was looking before she was allowed, so she casually started drawing additions to her face in the drawing. V realized she now had a walrus tusk, and was getting a second added.
    “Hey! No, you’re screwing up my portrait!”
    Moni stuck out her tongue, and started adding a uni-brow as well. “What do you think, should I give you sideburns too, or show off your beard?” V smacked her with a pillow for her snarking. “Fiiiine!” Moni erased the extra features, and continued her illustration, and V promised not to sneak any more glances at it. They chatted for a while, trading recent work stories and joking back and forth like usual. Finally, Moni was finished and turned the drawing around to show the close resemblance to its subject.
    “You’ve drawn me too pretty.” V knew she was beautiful, but this was from Moni’s perspective, and she had captured the liveliness that she admired in the brunette. Her smile reflected her wild and free streak that came out sometimes, and her eyes were colored in a perfect match to life.
    “Stop fishing for compliments, V; you’re stunning and you know it.” The redhead looked down at the drawing, shifting her gaze. She had quickly developed a colossal crush on her friend shortly after meeting her, but had mostly not acted on it, as the girl had recently gotten out of a relationship and Moni was a little uncomfortable with what the origins of the attachment were; hers or her predecessor’s. She was still drawn to her, and aside from a little early flirting and a memorable stolen kiss, the two had become easy friends, and would practice together, hang out, and V wasn’t put off by the contents of her sketchbooks. She even insisted on seeing more of her art, of all types. So they dropped in on each other like today and generally made sure everything was okay as the Senshi were involved in more and more scary situations.
    “Says the fish herself.” V snorted, amused at the phrase.
    “Oh no, don’t you start… I get enough puns from Catori and Tim at the ranch. Don’t make me smother you with this pillow.” As she brandished the pillow in a hollow threat, she felt her Brooch pendant grow warm and looked down.
    “Lady Dorado, please respond. Lady Dorado, please report.” Dagger’s slightly flanging voice was heard coming in quietly, and she fished the pendant out of her top, where it had slipped in earlier. Moni lowered the pillow, and V came to sit beside her on the floor.
    “Go ahead, Dagger, it’s just V and myself here, you can speak freely.”
    “Excellent, the Dorado-Chameleon team up has always been an especially successful one.” Dagger still often thought of the Constellations in terms of their prior versions, though he was aware of the difference. It was just a quirk she seemed to run across with him. “Cloak and I have detected multiple Rifters across the globe simultaneously. One particular threat is a Rifter who appeared in the middle of a local event at a cavern temple… Batu caves in Malaysia. It appears there are thousands of attendees, although no confirmed casualties. The enemy appears to be mostly causing panic.”
    “Okay, Dagger, we’ll be there.” Moni looked up at her companion and received a confirmation nod as they got to their feet.
    “Affirmative, I’ll encode instructions to your platforms to send you there together.” The two warrior women disappeared from V’s room, and the cat stretched out over the sketch pad, no one there to stop it.

   A quick jump onto the Cloaked World to allow them to transform safely and then a guided teleportation back down to Earth had them in the midst of thousands of fleeing people, on a gigantic set of steps. Moni landed wrong, and started to fall back, but V reached out and steadied the other girl. They fought against the crowd, taking in the magnificent cave above them, as well as the colossal statue of what they assumed was a Hindu deity or other figure. Moni found herself thankful for years of swimming to help her out with the stamina needed to climbed up. Finally, the people had thinned out, and they reached a landing, and got a look at the opponent. He was pale, sallow-skinned, and wore a Rifter insignia hanging from his waist. Two sets of pure black eyes, sharp claws on his three-fingered hands, and blades protruding from wrist to elbow definitely clenched the alien factor. Moni recognized him as the Rifter who had accompanied the spider woman (she fought a shudder at the memory of that one), but he had only spoken in response to what she assumed was his leader, so he knew nothing about him.
   Ka’ah’lani was pleased to see the first part of his mission was a success; while he was not there to lower himself to attack random humans, he had succeeded in attracting not one but two Constellations. Admittedly, they didn’t look like much, a couple of females that were not among the ones he fought recently. After a moment, he realized that under that uniform, the smaller one was their former captive. He rotated a shoulder to stretch it and decided that he was fortunate that he would be able to bring two Senshi in, one of them their escapee. White Spider would be honored by his success, and hopefully the fight would be entertaining enough. While usually fairly stoic, he smiled just a bit at the thought.
   “Don’t know why the fool has such a shit-eating grin… I’ve been itching for some payback for my prison time, and Cephy’s idea of a practical joke right after New Years. Really, Holidays were crap this year all around and I’m more than ready to kick some Rifter ass.” Moni puffed her cheeks out and narrowed her eyes. What she really wanted was to break Zayn or Null’s neck but she did need to get some aggression out, and here was as good a target as any.
   “I’m with you on that one.” V summoned her weapon and leaned on it for a moment, flicking her eyes from Ka’ah’lani to Moni, then back. “Let’s wipe that toothy grin off that ugly face.” With that, Chameleon charged her target, and Moni moved to the side slowly and materializing her own weapon, looking down the sight of her Golden Bazooka and ready to provide ranged support.
   V was quick, closing the gap and swinging her Greatsword at waist height. He effortlessly blocked with his arm blade, before bringing his other hand’s claw down towards her. She shrugged and smiled, before dodging back out of range. As soon as she cleared his reach, Ka’ah’lani was hit with a mild blast of water in his face, the cold shocking him for a moment, and had him clearing his vision. It seemed he was quite savvy though, as he recognized the distraction immediately and turned, throwing his arm as a block and narrowly missing being struck by V’s swing from behind. Her expression registered a moment of surprise that he was able to block again right away, and she fell back to where Moni was, a bit inside the cave by now.
   His vision cleared, Ka’ah’lani attempted a little psychological warfare as neither seemed very experienced so far. “Predictable swordplay and water pistols... if you are frightened and would like to surrender, there is no reason to continue. I can assure you safe passage to my Ka’So and… the Ket’So.“ He pronounced the word as if it tasted bad, but he finished his statement anyway. He found little pleasure in an unbalanced fight, but he would proceed with it anyway, as he assumed they would continue to struggle against the natural outcome.
   V blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Smug asshole. Thinks a couple of blocks means anything. He may be quick, but that just makes it more fun.”
   Moni laughed at V’s being insulted, and looked forward to watching her take it out on him. “Well, just leave some for me, okay?”
   “No promises… we’ll see what’s left after Sharky’s done with him.” She feigned left, looking about to strike, and Moni shot at his feet (again leaving it light blasts in case V cross her aim), and then attacked with a swing from the right. He moved under her sword and opened his mouth and blasted her with an echoing sound point-blank to her face.
V felt as if the ground had been turned into a wall instead and as if everything were made of jello. Overwhelmed by vertigo from his Disorienting Voice, she stumbled backwards, swinging blindly as he sustained the sound. A few yards away, Moni swore violently, unsure of what happened, but knowing that her partner was in bad shape. She moved in closer, and fired a medium shot at the Rifter, to keep him back from his target. Then, in an unfortunate decision, V made the mistake of activating her Chameleon eye, resulting in making the situation far, far worse. She could no longer judge distance, direction, or movement as well as before. Suddenly desperate, she began to swing as hard as she could at her assailant, but her horribly doubled vision meant that what she thought was Ka’ah’lani’s red uniform was Moni’s long ponytail.
Moni scrambled back as fast as she could, not wanting to test her Fish Scale Armor against her friend’s huge sword. Moni could tell that he was still using some sort of attack on her, a spell or sound, as his mouth was open and moving some, and he kept his head trained on her. She tried to shout at V, but she didn’t think she could hear her. As V stumbled after her swing and the alien had weaved away to avoid her green blade, Moni took a chance and used her Bazooka at high pressure. She succeeded in striking him in the left rib area, and she was rewarded by an audible crack; she seemed to have broken a rib. Immediately, this cut his disarming voice, and he  faltered in his stance, eyes closed for a brief minute. Then, with a glare at the redhead, he retreated behind an altar building a bit. Moni fired another, lower-level shot from her weapon to encourage him out, and then ran to V. She warned her partner it was her, and the brunette lowered her weapon, still fighting the waves of nausea. Moni kept an eye on the area where the opponent went, but she rubbed V’s back while waiting for her friend’s world to stop spinning.
    After a couple minutes, in which Ka’ah’lani still did not appear (Moni mused she must have really scored a solid tag on him) Veronika began to feel decent again. She concentrated, and reactivated her Chameleon eye ability as she stood. This time, it was working properly. After taking a couple successful steps, she leans down and whispered into Moni’s ear. Knowing they needed to get serious since the Rifter was definitely fighting dirty, she proposed sneaking up on him in stealth mode. Moni whispered back that she’ll be the distraction, but warns her to be careful to stay out of her attacks as she won’t be able to see her. V found herself hoping that her camouflage would work properly the whole time and promised herself she wasn’t going to get to hit by that sound attack twice. No thanks, once was enough. She have a quick salute to her partner, and cloaked herself.
Moni was the first to walk out of the cave mouth. She was going for conspicuous, and she knew how to make a scene. She cleared her throat and then tapped her foot. “She keeps Moet et Chandon/ In her pretty cabinet/'Let them eat cake' she says/ Just like Marie Antoinette” She belted out Queen at the top of her lungs, and for some reason she got the lyrics right for once… perhaps it was the adrenaline. “A built-in remedy/ For Kruschev and Kennedy/ At anytime an invitation/ You can't decline.” Their enemy had been halfway to their cave hiding spot when she made it out to the stairs where the sun caught her uniform, glinting all over her scale armor. She felt like a battle-ready disco ball, and owned it, beginning to do some moves on the stairs. As she danced across the way, her voice reverberated around the cave, completely muffling any sounds V might make that would have also been amplified. She had gotten that idea from the Rifter’s own sound-based attack. “Caviar and cigarettes/ Well versed in etiquette/ Extraordinarily nice/ She's a Killer Queen.” She belted out the last part, actually enjoying herself quite a bit as her fabric train floated about after her.
    Ka’ah’lani was angry. Angry that he allowed one of the Constellations to get a good hit in so fast, and extremely annoyed by Dorado’s taunting. He felt ridiculed and he didn’t like it. He noticed the other Senshi was gone, and while it was entirely likely she was still in the cave, out of the fight due to his Disorienting Voice ability, he still scanned the area for her. He suspected a ruse, but his attention was snapped back to the girl as, still singing, she began firing water blast with her Golden Bazooka, and he had to move as fast as he could with his broken ribs to keep most of them from hitting him. He decided to shut her up and take her attack away in one swoop, and rushed forward, ducking and weaving to avoid her water. Looking up, he watched her dismiss her weapon, and she ceased singing with a look of sudden panic, as if she realized that she was in real danger. Putting her hands up in a “defensive” position as if to cover her face, he decided to end this quickly and knock her out with a blow to her head so he was down one nuisance. He was just drawing back his fist when she pushed her hands forward and released another attack, her mouth a wry grin. He was just barely able to turn his face away from her hands, but he felt his back take the brunt of the metal scale shrapnel. He howled in pain and shock at her feining in a way he didn’t anticipate. Growling, he whipped back around with his eyes shielded and hit her with both his Disorienting Voice and a solid slash her across her chest. He was frustrated yet again that the scales protected her from damage from his blade. It did, however, combine with her balance being affected by his power and to put her off balance. She toppled over and down the stairs, where she rolled and bounced for a while before she was able to slow her tumbling and finally stop. This would have severely injured or killed most, but he saw her still moving, though barely. She attempted to regain her feet, but became tangled in the fish tail of her uniform before she could raise herself to her knees. He prepared to go down and finish subduing her, just in case.
    By his side, V materialized and hissed into his ear. “If she’s hurt, Baldy, I’m shoving this down your throat and out the other end.” She had come out of her camouflage, angry. She shoved him, and then attempted to cleave into his lowered shoulder. He wasn’t able to move fast enough with two injuries, and he sustained a shallow gash to his upper left arm. Furious that these two had managed to cause him this much trouble, as well as the taunt he was getting tired of hearing from everyone, he spun around to deliver a vicious round-house. He only caught thin air as V was already gone. Well, moved slightly and re-cloaked. She appeared again to his left, and he dodged her as she stabbed forward. This initiated a blade-to blade-fight, the veteran Ka’ah’lani, who was already injured versus the one with the longer weapon range, chameleon-eyed but less experienced Veronika. V succeeded in getting some hits in, though shallow, wearing him down some, before he redoubled his efforts and started beating her back. He landed a few in himself on her forearms, none of them too deep, but all of them painful. She was getting pissed at not gaining the upper hand, not to mention worried about Moni, knowing she was durable enough, but a gnawing feeling reminded her that it had been quite the fall.
    Behind them, Moni had managed to make it up the stairs, attempting to clear her vision by shaking her head. She felt sicker than she ever had, walked a few steps, and vomited on the pavement. She hadn’t broken anything, but she was sure it wasn’t good to hit her head so many times. She focused enough to watch V being pushed back by her opponent, though her partner was still managing to defend herself better than she knows many Constellations would. Moni was beyond shaky, and fell again to knees, her vision starting to turn blue. Fuck, she thought, blue was not good, blue was trouble. Panic rising, she knew this was the sign she was slipping into Leviathan Mode. It didn’t matter that she trained weekly with the Lady to be better at using it, this was the first time in an actual, live fight and she dreaded what could happen. She had never had an ally at risk, let alone someone as important to her a V. She can feel the rage of the idea of someone hurting V boil over in her gut, her deep need to protect any of her Constellation Family giving way to instincts that had burned into her soul thousands of years ago by a dead woman. Dorado would protect this particular Constellation with her life, and kill, without a drop of remorse, anyone who threatened them. The problem was, would she know who was friend or foe when she could barely think? Knowing that she had seconds of rational thought, she raised her head and shouted to V to get out the hell out of the way or she’ll end up getting hurt.
    V was happy to hear her friend, but she wasn’t ready to retreat from the fight just yet. “Hey, you better believe I’m not backing down, I can hold my own at least as well as you,  Goldfish!” She glanced where Moni’s voice came from in impatience, but quickly knew she had better follow the other girl’s shouted direction. Moni’s eyes had from their regular happy blue to pure white. V felt it as instinct that her partner was much more dangerous now, and probably dangerous to herself as well. V kicked at Ka’ah’lani’s feet and fell back as he dodged. She frowned, worried about her friend. Another instinct, an odd nagging feeling of needing to protect Moni from herself was scratching at her. Having to trust that her fishy friend knew what she was talking about, she cloaked herself for a moment to get away from Ka’ah’lani.
    Almost immediately, he was knocked off his feet by a Dorado’s water cannon, and as he sprung back from the fall, he found himself jumping away again as Dorado used the cannon as a blunt weapon, before swinging it back up like a weightless but massive baton. He tried using the Disorienting Voice again, planning on sustaining it, but while she rocked slightly on her feet, her face didn’t change at all as she struck him again. Taking the hard metal edge in his wounded rib, he grappled with the small soldier almost a foot smaller than himself, and bared his teeth at her. She gave no indication of being intimidated in the slightest, or even seeing his face at all, instead twisting to get one of her hands aimed at his face to use her 1000 Scales again.
    Trying to stay close so as to assist, V dodged a stray water blast  a couple of times before making up her mind. She moved her hand over to her arm band and pulled out one of her energy cubes. She took a deep breath, hoping that both of them would make it out of this in one piece, and used it.  Right away, Veronika felt energy spreading through her veins, and her heart rate escalated rapidly. Her vision became even clearer that it usually was with Chameleon Eye activated, and she felt recklessly strong. She shook her arms out one at a time, and while she felt her camouflage drop away, her Chameleon Eye seemed to be even sharper as she focused on that ability. She questioned if it was enough to make sure she didn’t hit Moni, as the smaller girl pulled free from the Ka’ah’lani and pursued the alien warrior across the landing and down the steps with no regard to her own safety. Hoping for the best, V shrugged, and popped in a second energy cube. Might as well take that challenge too. It had been that kind of day.
    Ka’ah’lani delivered two solid punches right into the orange-haired Senshi’s stomach, but while she doubled over, she proceeded to headbutt him with another blank stare, before attempting to shred him with shrapnel again. He got away with just a few pieces in his leg, but they stung like hell. He was going to need the healing services at the base after this, and that was humiliating. He didn’t have much time to contemplate this though, as his peripheral vision told him the Senshi with the black and green uniform was also outright charging him, though now she sported a focused expression that was just as concerning as her counterpart’s blank mask of an face. He knew what smaller one was; the Purple team leader Zayn had berserker abilities, and the dossier on the former prisoner Dorado had presented the possibility, as it was the signature move of the Dorado Cepheus has known. He hadn’t read up on Chameleon and wished he had. He recognized the name on the list, but it was obvious that this one had some other boosting ability, as her speed appeared to have doubled, and her eyes tracked his every movement without fail. He now found himself against two fighters that in their current state would have been dangerous on their own; first a frenzied fighter, who seemed to just absorb his attacks, oblivious to pain, only his seasoned reflexes keeping her cannon and hands engaged or pointing away to avoid being pulverized and shredded in quick succession, and now Chameleon reached him and began delivering flawless timing and dodging that allowed her to avoid harming her comrade while slashing at him. He had to made a decision. As much as it absolutely galled him to admit it, he was not going to win against both. He could stay and risk killing one (and he knew that it was Cepheus’s absolute order that they not be killed, just incapacitated), or flee and report on the developments.
    V jerked her body to the side as the Rifter deflected Moni’s water gun towards her, deftly avoiding the water which took out small chunk of the cave wall behind. Ka’ah’lani pushed Moni away hard, and turned to run. V engaged him, unwilling to let the enemy get away. She swung her sword several times, each far more precise, her stance agile and adaptable. She cut him twice more, despite his expert deflections. Finally, he managed to kick her away, and in a sudden flash, he was gone. V blinked for a moment, scanning everywhere, expecting him to pop back up. She was breathing heavy, her heart pounding, both from the exertion and the artificial energy buzzing within her. Then she remembered Moni and her trance, and checked her position to dodge if needed… was it possible the girl might attack her now that the enemy was gone? She saw her, about fifteen feet away, her bazooka dismissed again, staring straight at her. Her white eyes seemed to be trained on her but they wete without feature, her hands resting at her sides. V took a deep breath; she was starting to feel weird. She felt as if the ground was uneven as she slowly approached her friend. “Moni… it’s me, V.” It was weird seeing her normally lively and loving friend like this. Then again, she was sure the blood she was now splattered with was odd on her as well. She couldn’t help but let a tired chuckle out, feeling light headed. She slowly approached, also dismissing her own weapon, just in case. Dorado raised her hand a little, and V paused, realizing that she could be hit with sharp scales at any point. She swallowed, but something told her that wasn’t going to happen. “Moni, hon, I’m just coming over there, for a hug. You like hugs, remember?” She watched as Moni’s eyes seemed to actually focus for a minute, the tranced girl’s gaze moving from her face down to her right hip, where her green Chameleon Brooch sat. Dorado’s eyes closed slowly, and her head tilted forward a moment, before they blinked open again slowly. The white orbs were gone, and the eyes that met V’s were the normal blue she was used to. V felt so relieved that she grinned from ear to ear and gathered Moni up into a tight embrace before moving back.
   “You're freezing, girl!” She raised a hand to the goldfish’s forehead, below the armor.
Moni seemed to lean into it for a moment before catching herself and scooting back a bit. Her voice was a bit heavy when she responded. “Yeah, that always seems to be a side effect now, it’ll pass. Better than the “burn out” I was having before…” She watched V’s hand, which was shaking worse than hers. She wished she could cheer that they were both safe, and celebrate that this was the first time she had come out of her trance without either magical intervention, exhaustion, or severe pain induced by major damage; she had been been having the snot beaten out of her weekly by Dagger and while there was major progress, this was the first big success. She wanted to perform a victory dance with V and then run off and tell the Lady, to analyze this and figure out how to use this information, but her her memory was blasting a warning in her head. She watched V’s erratic movements and closed her eyes. She remembered a battlefield where another Chameleon had fought too hard, too long taken too much energy, and the prior Dorado witnessed what came next. Her attention snapped back to the present and she grabbed V’s arm to examine her energy cubes. Veronika was about to protest, but she was suddenly too tired.
“V.. V babe, look at me.” Moni grabbed her friend’s face and made her focus. “How many of these did you take?”
   Veronika was excellent with math, but suddenly she didn't seem to be able to add one plus one, she just wanted to fall over. She watched Moni take her hand in her smaller one, and place it over her green Constellation Brooch, before resting her own hand over her midnight blue one. “Think of the Starlit Palace, Sweetie. Just focus on it.” She did, and Moni activated both the Brooches, assisting V with her own, and they were gone.

   V woke in her bed in the Starlit palace and glanced over to an armchair in the corner, where Moni was sketching. She looked down at her arms, where she had been cut up before, but they were now fine. She had reverted back to her civilian clothes, as had Moni. “What are you drawing?”
   Moni slipped off the chair and then climbed up onto the bed to show her. “Us, looking badass in battle. I wanted to sketch the Rifter so that the Lady and Dagger had an idea of these guys (in fact, this gave me the idea of drawing all the ones I know in case it helps), and I figured, we’re awesome and dead sexy in a fight, why not get us in there too?”
   V had to give her a light shove at her cheekiness, but she agreed. “You know we are. Hey, sorry for passing out down there.” She was frustrated about that… it was not good for her ego.
   Moni shrugged. “Sorry for going… battle mode on you…” She chewed her lip before shrugging. “We both got back okay and not too banged up. The Lady called out Dagger to get you to a pod as there’s pretty much no one around today, and after your wounds healed, which weren’t too bad. The Lady said you just had to sleep the energy exhaustion off and had you brought here.  I hung around, because you know, you saved my ass a few times already today, couldn’t leave you here alone. That and, well, I wanted to make sure you were okay after the overdose.”  She waved an arm vaguely in the air.
   “Great, make me sound like a drug addict.” Veronika joked, and hugged Moni with one arm while looking at her drawing. “We do look really badass here. We were awesome today. Thanks for the backup.”
   “Thanks for watching out for me, and staying safe. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I ended up hurting you while I was tranced.” Moni puffed her cheeks a bit, blushing bright pink and looking off into the other room to avoid the other woman’s gaze. It was true… even if their lives were different than the first Chameleon-Dorado set, Moni’s need to protect V was built-in, deeply rooted, and wasn’t going to go away.
   “I know, you goofy goldfish.” V gave her a peck on the cheek and then looked down at the sketchbook. “I need bigger boobs in this though, and Sharky is at LEAST a few inches longer,” she declared.
   Moni made to grab it out of her hands. “What are you, a dude, squabbling over inches? Give that back and I will give you utters and a toothpick to fight with!” V laughed and the teasing and play arguing went on for some time, both girls feeling relieved and extraordinarily lucky to have the other as backup and as a friend.

Chameleon/Veronika "V" LotusLumino
Dorado/ Moni nickyflamingo
Ka’ah’lani BishiLover16