The Pirate-Infested Wanderlust Cruise Ship

"This is a very dangerous place for you to be without your operator's knowledge. Please be more careful," Cutlass sighed quietly, before disappearing for her half of the deal. Lyn moved on for her part of the of the plan, organizing her expectations for Captain Jolly as she did. She reached the door, gave a knock, and requested the presence of the captain, politely but meeker than was safe for one to be while on a ship crawling with swarthy pirates.

Some of said pirates looked up from their game, both eager for a distraction as both had the distinct aura of holding losing hands. One of the pirates got up and called out "Get outta here, Power!" before the other informed him that was not, in fact, Power. "Oh, yeah... too much orange. Who is she?" At this point they were really just talking to each other, thankfully, because the captain responded to Lyn soon enough by throwing open the door which, thankfully, opened inwards.

The girl standing there looked a little older than Lyn, but only by a little, although better filled out. Like Power, she seemed to think pirate accessories coupled with a swimsuit made for proper captain's attire. Jolly had a swimmer's figure, very lightly tanned with, bright blue eyes and a big, constant smile on her face. Her hair was long, black, and curly, falling in twisting strands from her wide-brimmed black pirate's hat. The fact that it was a pirate's hat was, of course, made clear by the skull and crossbones emblem on its front. Her bathing suit was slick and blue, crossed on the back like a competition swimsuit. Beyond that she wore black short boots and gloves, as well as a black leather belt, pinned with another silver skull. Her smile momentarily faltered when she saw Lyn standing in the darkness. "Power?! What the heck are you-?" she asked, reaching for her side and realizing she had no weapon there. She rubbed her eyes, then looked again. "Oh... Oh! You're not Power. Who are you? Are you Jack?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Oooh, snap! Cutlass might even crack a smile when she hears I found you! Hee hee hee!"

Soon after, she seemed to realize that didn't make sense, regardless of whether she was corrected or not. "Wait, no... Jack was a maid, not a school-girl. Okay! So then... I... have no idea who you are! Who are you? What are you doing here?" she asked, tilting her head curiously. "Also... oh, right! Have you seen somebody that looks like a maid or a waitress anywhere on this ship? I'm... very thirsty!" she asked, smiling slyly at her own supposed ability to keep the true reason she was searching for Jack a secret. Of the pirates that Lyn had met so far, including Jolly's own crew, she seemed to be the least threatening.

The inside of the room looked pretty; notably, it was organized with only one bed, but both Cutlass and Jolly's equipment seemed to be lying around. It might lead to certain speculations. A table had been brought in, roughly, as evidenced by the scratches on the door frame, and cards were strewn across it randomly. In fact, the whole room was pretty messy. That was presumably the work of the captain rather than the first mate, as it was hard to imagine Cutlass showing such a lack of military discipline. The best place to sit would probably be the over-sized couch against the left wall, near the card table. There was also the bed, but that might be overly familiar... It was worth noting, the whole room was covered in hearts, with heart-shaped pillows and so forth. No matter where she sat, she'd likely be mildly uncomfortable due to the decor. Jolly had stepped aside, however, so she presumably intended for Lyn to come inside the room.

It was an uncomfortable few seconds while Lyntael looked determinedly at the door in front of her, and resisted the urge to tug the back of her skirt down further, waiting for someone, anyone, to answer her knock and distract her from the pointed chatter of the pirates nearby. She wasn't watching them, but a part of her felt sure she could feel their eyes fixed on her from behind. It was thus with as much relief as it was with a small start of shock that Lyntael drew a breath when the door opened to reveal the supposed captain of this deck's pirates.

Compared to Cutlass, the swimsuit was less than expected, as was the almost clichéd costume pirate hat. Lyntael was half expecting the other woman to reveal a stuffed green parrot with a squeeze box recording somewhere. There was something vaguely off that caught Lyntael's eye about the woman, and she realised what is was after only a moment of the captain greeting her. She was wearing a swimsuit, with gloves and boots. It was like it was a uniform for day to day activity, and not actually for swimming in at all. The greeting itself was about what she'd come to expect on this level of the ship, and Lyntael immediately raised her hands somewhere between defensive and calming.

"No- no, I'm..." Jolly went on, chattering away at her for a few more seconds before she could get an introduction in. "Hey, I'm not... Um, listen, please, can I come inside quickly?" she ducked her head and shoulders as she made the request, but darted through quickly when Jolly stepped aside, taking refuge in the Captain's room from the more worrisome pirates behind.

Inside, Lyntael had a few extra moments to take in the room before Jolly joined her again, but she wrote off most of the decore as being a result of the decorations for the room long before the pirates arrived. the fact that gear from both Cutlass, and presumably Captain Jolly, did catch the girl's eye as unexpected — surely there were more than enough rooms on this ship for the captain and her first mate to each have separate luxury quarters.... she set the thought aside as Jolly returned and the door was closed behind them at last.

"No, I'm not miss Jack. No-one knows where she is exactly. I'm..." she paused and took a longer breath, then started over, looking up to the other woman with a soft smile and an earnest expression, folding her hands in front of her at her waist.

"My name is Lyntael. I'm a messenger, from Cutlass." She didn't sit anywhere unless invited to, and would likely hesitate even then, but instead took a place in the most open part of the room where she cold face Jolly clearly. "She sent me to tell you that there's been a change of plans, and that she needs you to get the crew ready to leave the ship quickly, as soon as possible. She believes that Jack might be in Clipper's hands, now, but that, because of some new information, the most important thing that the crew needs to do right now, is get back to their ships and make for their native waters as soon as possible. She sent me to tell you, and said that you'd be able to get the word out to the whole crew quickly." Lyntael paused, looking away and resisting the urge to fidget slightly with the hem of her skirt.

"I, um, I was originally here as a helper for Tango, and she wanted me to make sure everyone was happy and content, but I'm not sure she's really understanding what's going on here. When Cutlass found me on this deck, she, um, got all the information she could out of me, then sent me to you with the message." She looked up towards Jolly with a nervous smile, hopeful that her explanation would be enough to satisfy the swim-suit wearing captain.

"Not Jack? Darn it! I thought my good luck was kicking in again. You know what they say: fortune smiles upon the happy," Jolly sighed, though she was still smiling, even while expressing her disappointment. She did, however, adopt a confused frown for a moment as Lyntael described her real purpose. "Cutlass sent you? You're not playing a trick on me, are you? I feel like trusting that Cutlass sent you is one of those tests Cutlass would give me!" Still, she waited through the rest of Lyn's exposition after that interruption. She screwed up her eyes for a moment and rubbed a fist against her head, making a show of thinking deeply, before grinning and nodding. That seemed like a good sign...

... But wasn't, exactly. "This has got test written aaaaall over it! I see how it is!" she winked knowingly, then thumbed her nose. "Cutlass gave you all these messages and then told you to deliver them to me, huh? The message says we're supposed to abandon the ship? Sounds a lot like something one of our enemies would try to trick me to do! Well, sorry, Charlie, but I'm not dumb! Cutlass is just pulling another of her tests! Well, I fail them 90% of the time, but not this time! I'm on top of it, this time!" The pirate captain congratulated herself by clasping both hands and shaking them to either side of her head in a show of self-adulation. "Well? Admit it! I saw through your trick, didn't I?! I've been reading all about it in The Pirate Captain's Guide to Putting One Over!"

Before Lyn could protest, she raised one finger, still grinning, and grabbed hold of a large remote control. It had three buttons on it: yellow on top, blue in the middle, red on bottom. A large antenna protruded from the top of the box. "This is the intercom control! If I was tricked right now, I'd press this middle button and announce to my whooole crew that it's time to leave, by projecting my voice across the second floor, then we sail off, yo-ho-ho, none the wiser that there's still tons'a booty to get our hands on!"

"Somebody say booty?" a voice came from the doorway.

"Did'yer say we're shovin' off?" a second came. If Lyn turned around, she'd see it was the two card-playing pirates from earlier.

"Ooooh, yeah! We're shovin' off, boys! Got all we needed here. We're about to leave! Gonna leave the cruise ship! Ha ha ha!" Jolly chuckled, giving another unhelpful wink to Lyn and continuing to ignore whatever protest she might be making. "Ha ha ha ha!"

The two navis laughed for a moment, then trailed off before their captain was done, staring blankly at one another. "So... we are leavin', or are you...?"

"Sounded kinda sarcastic," the other one murmured, scratching his helmet dumbly.

Jolly grinned, then patted Lyn on the shoulder with one glove. "Dear golly, Cap'n Jolly! You guys remember how Cutlass is always puttin' one over on me? Go ahead and tell 'em, Lyntael!" she sighed cheerfully, closing her eyes and smirking, evidently awaiting the good report that she'd correctly seen through the test and things were now going to continue as normal.

Despite some initially hopeful prospects, Lyntale found her expression shifting into small frown the more Jolly counter-logiced herself around in a circle. ultimately, the smaller woman winced as the captained seemed to convince herself that the message was false. What had cutlass said about this? she tried to go over the earlier meeting in her mind again as quickly as she could. Her naturally thoughtful and unassuming nature left her standing silent while Jolly ranted on, but her breath caught in surprise when the conversation extended to the two other pirates outside and Jolly asked her to confirm the story. Rather than do so, she moved quickly back tot he door, offering a quick and very restrained smile for the two card-players, then swiftly shut the door on them and turned the latch, if she could find one to lock. That done, she turned her back to the door and leaned on it slightly, looking towards Jolly again.

"Please listen... I don't know any of you, and I don't know what sorts of games, or tests, or anything else that you play. I really did come here originally to help Tango, and I was sent with a message from Cutlass." She glanced around the room again and folded her arms across her middle, drawing in on herself slightly. "If you don't believe that if came to you from Cutlass, then ow could it possibly be a test set by her for you? If you do believe that I came from her, then you must think I'm lying to you. I'm not." Lyntael was keenly aware that the clock was ticking and that Cutlass herself had already headed down to give her message to the lower deck captain.

"I don't know what I can do to prove to you that I'm telling the truth; tell me if you know. I'm just here to pass on the message; I'm not even going to question why you're the captain and she's the first mate, but she's the one making plans and giving orders. It's none of my business..." She shook her head, trying to get back on track. "I can't stay long either way. Cutlass gave me more to do than just deliver a message to you, and time matters, she said, so I can't stay long. I've passed on the message, that's what I was told to do. I have to take messages to the other captains as well now, and it you don't want t o do as she asked, that's between you and her, but it seemed really important." Despite her best efforts to be firmer, Lyntael had drifted into pleading again somewhere along the way, and her hands had unfolded to clasp together at her chest instead, while her shoulders wilted. small stress sparks had started to occasionally snap in her hair, but they were minor and not overly noticeable yet.

The two pirates stared back blankly as Lyn smiled at them, but whatever other reaction they had was quickly cut off by the door swinging shut. The door didn't latch, but none the less, the two navis beating on it seemed unable to get inside. "Woah!" Jolly complained, but she let Lyn talk anyways. Her bright, simple, unpirate-like eyes watched with obvious strain as she tried to decide whether she was being given legitimate information or some sort of tricky test. "No... there you go, trying to trick me!" she pointed out excitedly, jabbing her index fingers at Lyn repeatedly, while backing against the wall like she expected Lyn to attack her. "See, Cutlass did send you, but only as a test, and I'm supposed to say that I don't believe you, like I'm doing now! So, like, at some point, when I prove that we're not really supposed to sail off and abandon this ship, you're going to say, 'good job, you passed!'"

Lyn did not indicate that was the case, instead pointing out that Jolly didn't appear very captain-like, especially next to her first mate. Jolly looked momentarily stunned, then lost her trademark happy-go-luckiness, seeming genuinely offended now. It was probably a sore spot for her. "Look, I'm the captain, not Cutlass! That was the old-" she started, before crossing her arms and exhaling. "Nevermind! But I know Cutlass didn't tell you to say that, so either you're really sent by her... or you never came from Cutlass, because you're a real enemy, come to make us sail off and leave the treasure!" The warped logic seemed inescapable. "Wait... hm... You wouldn't just leave without confirming I was going to take off first. Fine! Okay, you're a girl who was hired by Tango and got roped into the rest of this. I guess I'll believe you for now... Besides, if Cutlass really did tell you to do that, she's going to be suuuuper mad when she realizes I didn't do it!"

That seemed to have lit a fire under Jolly's swimsuit-clad bottom, as she jumped past Lyntael to throw open the door. She seemed to have forgotten the intercom control as well. "Everybody, everybody! Hurry hurry hurry!" she shouted, waving both hands in the air.

The two navis that had been waiting outside jumped back, startled. "Aaaar! What the crap are ye-?!"

"No time! Everybody, we're leaving! Pack light and loot light, we gotta moooove!" she warned, running to the next set of rooms to recite a similar, no less frantic warning. Hopefully, that would keep everything under control here. It looked like Lyntael was off the hook this time. She'd need to go deliver the message to Power and then, presumably, let Tango know what was going on. The two pirates looked at each other with confusion, before stumbling off in different directions.

One more came out, however. It was likely to be hard for Lyn to remember one from another, but his creepy voice rang a bell once he started talking. "Aaarr, the Cap'n said loot light, and you look pretty light! Nothin' else worth pickin' up in this blasted galley, so you're coming with me!" he menaced her, approaching while stooping forward, reaching out both hands. Lyn would probably want to take off as quick as she could, though it'd mean she'd have to get past the guy somehow; he was now standing on the side of the hallway leading to the stairs up.

It seemed to take a while for Jolly to work her own way around to the proper conclusion, and Lyntael had begun to despair that there was any proper way to make herself believed; it was only with the realisation that the girl would leave to take care of her other tasks regardless that Jolly finally seemed to accept matters and Lyntael released a slow breath, wilting slightly in relief and nodding to her. In truth, she'd seen the other woman's reaction to being called out on her distinctly un-pirate mannerisms, and she felt a bit bad about what had obviously upset the captain-apparent. Even so, though, she wasn't about to apologise for the remark. In her own mind, being a horrid, ruthless pirate was not something to strive for in any way, and it was only really to the better that Jolly didn't seem cut out for it.

She darted aside as the other woman opened the door again, beginning to shout her orders and completely neglecting what she'd said earlier about the intercom she had access to, but at the very least she seemed to be rousing the crew in some fashion. One of the other pirates would probably remind her that she had the announcer in her room, sooner or later; for now Lyntael herself didn't have the time to spend chasing the swim-suite captain down and reminding her, so she let her go with a small shake of her head and followed out into the corridor a moment or two after her. With that done, all she had to do now was tell Power that Jolly's crew had found the device, and were taking it away with them... and make it look suitably convincing, in some way. How was she going to do that? Unconsciously, she straightened her clothing, even though it didn't need it, and began to make her way back.

About to turn for the stairs up again, and make her way back, however, Lyntael found her way suddenly blocked by one of the pirates who did not seem to be making immediate tracks to carry out his captain's orders. Her first steps were towards ducking past him down the corridor, but she hesitated with one foot off the ground, staying where she was; the pirate wasn't just blocking the way, he was also looking at her, quite specifically, mask or not, and when he spoke, a shock of very sudden, very sharp fear raced through her, setting her heat beating apace and eliciting an immediate crackle of sparks in her hair and dancing over her skin. Unconsciously, she shook her head, cascading more sparks, and backed off an extra step, eyes wide and chest beginning to heave quickly as her breathing grew sharp and shallow. Not this again, please... why did the world have to be so full of— Her thought cut away as the pirate's hands reached for her and a small gasp escaped before she could stop it. Her head was shaking still as she took another step away, not even really connecting that this direction was the opposite of where she needed to go; most other thoughts had been dashed from her mind as the first edges of a triggering panic attack began to well up inside her.

"No... I— I'm, I'm n-not..." Her hands rose over her chest, defensive and palms out, as though to fend off the would-be looter. "Don't touch me... please, just.. j-just go away!" Her steps backed off further as the words came, and Lyntael tried to keep her mind focused on the present, and not think about the memories that threatened to fill her mind. This wasn't then. That was somewhere else, in the past, and not here and now. She hadn't been able to stop Him, but this wasn't Him... it was just some creep... Internally she repeated the thoughts, but her frightened breaths had still risen to a short, quick panting.

What the handsy pirate would see, primarily, would be that his suggestion seemed to have evoked thoughts of the most direct kind in the girl about his intentions for her, and she was quite clearly terrified of what he presumably wanted to do with her body; small trembles were visible in her hands and the faltering of her backward steps, and a dancing pattern of light played under the surface of her skin everywhere it was visible. If anything, her reaction was rather more extreme and immediate than one might expect for being just the initial suggestion of kidnap and hands-on time, but perhaps she was just overly timid by nature?

"Where you gettin' the sparks from, little gull? You sure you ain't one of Power's?" the skull-headed pirate asked, momentarily drawing back as though worried about the imminent possibility he'd be struck by kightning. Lyntael's attitude, however, seemed to reassure him to continue his earlier advance.

When light began shining under her skin, however, that gave him pause. He was, after all, presumably an aqua element navi. He'd probably seen Power's, er, powers before and had no desire to get zapped off the net. "Rrrgh... turn it off! Before I abduct ya, ye gotta turn off the bloody electric fence! How am I supposed to throw ya over my shoulder if ya pop me head the moment yer over?!" he asked, seeming to blame Lyn for making him look cowardly over the matter. "There's a certain way of doin' things, gull! I don't care if those other bastards say you're too little, I call you snack sized! So turn off the sodding electricity!"

That was really Lynn's choice. The guy was still standing in the hallway, hunched like a football player preparing to forward tackle, but he wasn't making the first move. Breaking up the stalemate, a loud voice came over the intercom.

"Everybody abandon ship, by orders of Cap'n Jolly! Abandon ship! Abandon ship and return to our ship! Our original ship, that is! All hands, abandon ship and re-board original ship!"

On one hand, it was good the message was getting out. On the other hand it sounded like it was being protected to the lower floor as well. Hopefully Cutlass had already delivered her message, or there was ample room for misinterpretation.

"Bloody 'ell! Come on, gull, hop up on me shoulder like a parrot!" the perhaps confused pirate urged Lyn, gesturing by patting said shoulder. This was clearly his first attempted abduction, if he hadn't learned the rules of captive / captor yet.

For the first few moments of his continued advance, Lyntael was only distantly aware of the pirate and his uncertain attitude; her mind and senses were mostly focused on shutting out her panic and the echoing sensations of memories she would rather forget. The more she repeated the mantra to herself the more she managed to forcefully sow her own breathing, however, and the short, shallow gasps became longer, more laboured breaths. Not there. She had to get a hold of herself; this wasn't then, but it was still bad.

At last she managed to focus properly, somewhat at least, just as her steps backed her up against something solid that she didn't bother to check. Bare feet curled in the plush carpets when she couldn't back up any more, and she wished the hall was wider, so that she could jsut dart past him without being touched. What the pirate was actually saying began to get through to her now, and the strangeness of it made her eyelids blink and flutter a few times; the mutual confusion de-threaded her panic and made her expression draw down, uncertain. She was still fighting to breath long and deeply, resulting in an obvious heaving of her chest, but the trembling began to subside.

"You... you're not...? But..." The way he spoke, it sounded like it was a game of some kind. Almost like what he meant by abduction was supposed to be some kind of play that both agreed on, or.. something? But it still sounded like he hoped to do... things, to her. It didn't make any sense. The confusion of his words had put her off guard enough to let her body begin to calm down, but primed as it was by her earlier shock, the tracer patterns of light beneath her skin didn't fade away completely. They hummed and tingled though, and Lyntael was calm enough now to be aware that it would begin to burn before long if she didn't release it or calm herself right down.

"I..." she raised her hands somewhere between a defensive pose and a calming gesture, both palms out towards him and fingers raised. She wasn't exactly sure what to say though, not entirely. "I don't want to... to do any of that. I can't stay... please, I need to go. I have... um... I have other messages to deliver, and I can't leave this ship, or I won't be able to go home.... I'm... I'm sorry I can't stay and, um... Ahh... play, I think? I have more things to do still. Please let me pass... I'm too afraid, and my body is... If I touch you while I'm like this, I might hurt you... I can't stop it."

Despite how he looked, and the things he was saying, the way the pirate said things sounded oddly friendly, in an almost out of place way, to her. He was still talking about abducting her, and things after that, but like he was expecting her to consent to it in the first place, and wasn't really forcing it if she didn't. The whole matter was unexpectedly confusing and the sparks in her hair settled further and faded more as she puzzled over it. Mostly she just wanted the pirate to leave her alone so she could get on with her job, but she wasn't going to risk trying to push past him, not while she could feel the way her body might retaliate at the slightest touch if he tried to put a hand on her.

"Whaddya mean I'm not? That's bloody stupid! What self respectin' pirate would see a girl runnin' around a pirate ship and wouldn't even think about abductin' 'er?" the big pirate argued, shaking a fist angrily. He wasn't calming down, but he also wasn't confident enough to reach out and grab her as long as he felt there was a danger he was going to take an electric shock for doing so. "You can stay and play if I damn' well say!" he triple-rhymed, stamping his feet. "Grr... Yer askin' for it! Don't think I won't menace ya' with me Jolly bomb!"

That statement might be a little hard to digest without some visual aid, but luckily enough, he was ready to provide one: he summoned a black, spherical bomb into one hand with a skull emblem attached to the front of it. He tossed it up and down in his hand a few times, then narrowed his eyes. "Her her her... ya feelin' scared now, gull? This thing goes off, it explodes into a high-pow'urred blast of pressurized water! We normally load 'em into cannons, but if I chuck it, that's just as good. So you even think about hurtin' me while I'm playin', and I'm just crazy enough to pop this balloon..."

Was he though? Would he really blow up a bomb within his own range to discourage Lyn? And had he missed the part where she couldn't really turn off the electricity? The navi looked like he was finally ready to try his luck and reach out for her, when a voice from down the hall addressed him. "You there! Play nice, why don't you? Or I'll give you a zap myself!" The voice wasn't Power's... rather, it was an elderly voice belonging to someone Lyn hadn't met yet. He didn't look like a pirate at all, on inspection. The man was a hunched, elderly navi with a white clergyman's robe and tall hat, attached to his dark red navisuit by a chin strap. A tremendous, white curtain of hair flowed from the back of the hat, covering him like a cape. A red cloth was draped over his shoulders and his hands, clad in the gloves of his undersuit, appeared very thin as he pointed towards the pirate. A giant staff was in the other hand, gold and topped with a cross. Perhaps he was involved with pairing couples together before the pirate takeover? Still, the expression on his face didn't look "all there" either... he was very gaunt, with sunken eyes and wide mouth, making him look like some sort of puppet.

"Play nice? Ah'm a pirate!" the gruff pirate protested, seeming to decide this was as good a way as any to make good on his bomb threat. Like a pitcher winding up, he prepared to throw the bomb down the hall, literally adopting a pitcher's stance.

Before he could get it out, the navi shot a tremendous lightning bolt out from his staff, causing the navi to explode into sparks and EJO immediately. Part of the hallway was set on fire, where ashes remained, in the spot where the navi had been standing earlier. The navi's robe waved wildly as he raised his staff into the air. "Praise and glory be!" he announced, then turned his eyes to Lyn. He adopted a face that looked somewhat kindly and shy, highly unfitting of someone who just vaporized a relative stranger, and pressed one finger to his lips. He narrowed his eyes slightly while releasing a long "shhhhhh." Slowly, he tip-toed upstairs.

It stood to reason he might be the one behind the lightning storms. The navi seemed unhinged and significantly more dangerous than the one who'd been threatening her with a water bomb. The question was, did she even want to give anyone that information, or would it be better if the pirates could avoid the navi altogether? She might be able to follow him upstairs (carefully), give the message to Power, and just be done with it all. Or she might even want to chat with him and see if he could shed some more light on the events of the day.

The momentary confusion dropped swiftly back into fear as the pirate before Lyntael grew more irate at her. his mannerisms and way of talking about it might be strange, but by this point he was making it far more abundantly clear what he wanted her for, on pain of violence if she resists. Lyntael found herself gritting her teeth. Why did it have to come back to this kind of thing, again? Did every male everywhere harbour thoughts like this somewhere? urges to just take, and do, whatever they wanted to someone, without caring who they hurt? Why did it keep happening, every time she tried to leave home for anything?

At this point, she wasn't even really paying much attention to what, exactly, he was threatening to hurt her with; did it really matter, in the end? It wasn't fair, and she was tired of always being a victim of this, but any time she tried to fight back... Memories flashed back to the room, with the cold metal table and Lyntael felt her knees about to give in. She wasn't there. That was in the past.

She didn't have anywhere to run, backed up against whatever the obstruction was that she'd found herself against, but she drew her hands back sharply anyway, pulling away from the pirate and flinching away when he reached for her. It was more natural reaction this time, than her previous desire not to hurt him; at this point, if hurting him made the pirate back off and leave her alone, that would be fine with her... the young girl just didn't really believe that she could do enough to dissuade a person intent on her body. It hadn't gone so well, the last time.

Her eyes shut tight as she shrank down as tight as she could, knees buckling for her to slide to the ground and preparing herself for the inevitable shock and pain of her body's electrical release; internally she was telling herself to start running as soon as he touched her, and not look back, but her legs didn't seem to want to listen or obey. What came next, however, was not the burning recoil of her own charge releasing, but an interruption from someone else, intervening with timely precision.

Lyntael didn't hear the initial exchange clearly, but she looked up when the pirate close to her turned and began to talk back to the newcomer. Hesitantly, while his back was turned, she pushed herself back up to her feet, eyes flicking between the two. She braced for the conflict when it looked like the pirate navi was about to attack, but the immediate response from the other still managed to startle a shocked squeak from her lips as he answered with what was potentially excessive force and damage to surrounding ship interiors. There was a moment, just briefly, as the smoke and sparks cleared, and the other navi's eyes turned to her, that Lyntael feared he would simply blast her as well, but the comforting change in his expression, strange as it was, made her release the breath she'd been holding.

Some might have hesitated in following after a navi that had, by all accounts, simply shown up and annihilated someone else, but in Lyntael's sphere of thoughts, he'd shown up and neutralised a man who had been making no bones about his intention to rape her, so, he was perfectly fine in her book. It still took her an extra moment or two to catch her breath and steady her nerves, but the elderly, religious-looking navi had headed up the stairs in the same direction she needed to go anyway, so she moved after him as swiftly as she could, moving light on her feet and unconsciously trying not to make any sound that might draw more pirates from Jolly's floor.

She didn't really have time to formulate much in the way of thoughts for what to say as she slipped back up the stairs towards the upper deck where Power waited, and thoughts about how she'd spin the story to Power had mostly been dashed from her mind, and so it was with a good deal of nervous hesitation, and softly, that the girl spoke when she caught up to her coincidental rescuer. She drew alongside him, if she could, or a little way behind and to the side if they were still in a narrow passage; The immediate danger had passed, and she had settled a bit, but it would take a little while yet before she could make herself safe again, and she didn't want to risk it. She bit her lip for a moment, grasping for words.

"E-excuse me... Ah, thank you. Um, for stopping that man. He wasn't going to let me go, so, thank you." She wasn't sure what else to say right away, or whether she should introduce herself properly, until she'd seen how he reacted to her presence; for now she just focused on taking long, slow breaths and calming herself down. Things would get difficult enough when she had to deal with Power, and she wanted to be calm as she could for that. For now, the thought that this navi might be the storm-bringer hadn't occurred to the girl yet; moving past the uncomfortable moment was a higher priority just at the moment.

The elderly navi had been all energy a moment ago, but now, climbing the staircase, he looked his age. He felt along each step with his long cane, holding both bony hands along the length to use it as a walking stick. "Oh dear... Lord give me strength... oh boy..." he murmured, breathing heavily. He might have a lot of power in his staff (or from the big guy in the sky, perhaps), but it was clear his physical self really was of an advanced age.

He started a bit when Lyntael popped up nearby him, then smiled nervously. "Oh, child... Any godly person would have done the same. 'Love your neighbor as yourself'. The good book says as much," he gasped, still making his way up the staircase as he talked. "I wish I could rest my legs and chat for a bit, but mmmm... I have the Lord's work to do... Oh, there's quite a bit of work to do here. These pirates, one of them has a lead on Jack-Of-All-Trades, one of my fellow Blessers, and where she's gone off to. I though the storm would drive them away, but well, some of them are attracted to it... like a lightning rod, funnily enough. At any rate, I'll get the answers I need out of these pirates, that I will..."

They were up top now (it was a steep set of stairs, as this was a boat for young people, but it still wasn't that long of a set), where a lightning cloud overhead was still routinely blasting the gray, lumbering plug-men all around. "Fiddle-faddle - oh, Lord forgive me, language around children," he murmured, shaking his head slowly. "My power may not be much good against this one up here. Hopefully it won't come to that. I'll just get Jack's location from her and get on my way..." Lyn might be able to save the old man some trouble if she had any useful info for him, but she might also want to keep him out of the room in general so she could discuss her own business with Power. The old man's mission was particularly distracting from her own and it might be hard to get her own ruse across, convincing Power that she needed to chase the Jolly Pirates, if the man behind the targeted bad weather walked in along with her.

As she followed along with the older man, Lyntael had to fight the urge to dart in and help support him on the stairs; she knew her body wasn't safe to touch yet, but after the previous display he seemed to be struggling more than she'd expected. She kept close, but not too close to risk accidental contact.

She held her thoughts as he explained his reasons for being here, but couldn't cover a small start of shock when he mentioned the storm, and other pieces dropped into place. The realisation that is was almost certainly an actual navi responsible for the storm changed a few things in her mind, but only a few, really. More than ever it was important that none of the pirates gain control of his power, especially not Power herself. As they came out onto the upper deck and the open air, Lyntael herself hesitated and hung back from the sight of the grey plug-head creatures, and instead turned to face her temporary companion properly.

"Um, I'm not really, um, religious, myself, I don't think... but thank you all the same." Despite her best efforts, her body language was distinctly under-confident now, with one hand gripping her opposite elbow in front of her as she struggled to make eye contact. As she wondered how to sort out the situation, though, another idea occurred to her.

"Oh! You said... Jack? Um, I might know something, I think..." She bit her lip, pulling together the little bits and pieces she'd gleaned.

"I was, uh, originally brought here to help miss Tango, who runs the ship, because she said her normal help, Jack, had gone missing. Oh! My name is Lyntael, it's nice to meet you." Remembering to introduce herself, she nevertheless kept at least a step away from him, and her hands to herself. "I can't, um, shake your hand or anything, my skin... I'm not safe right now, I can't touch anyone." In fact, as much as she was trying to relax, the regular crash of lighting on deck was setting her on edge, and the buzzing of current in her body was developing into the tingling burn that said she'd been filled with the current for too long without release. She rushed on quickly. "But never mind... Listen... I was supposed to just be serving the pirates drinks and things... I don't think tango understands that the ship has been invaded... But I've ended up speaking to a lot of the pirates here!" Now she brought her hands together in front of her chest, vaguely hopeful as she thought things through, glancing towards the religious navi every now and then.

"If I tell you what I know, you might not need to tire yourself out with the others? I know that, there's usually four pirate captains, and that one of them, Clipper, used to be guarding this cruise ship, and none of the others knew why. Then, when the others came to capture the ship, Clipper and her crew disappeared, and fled back to their old seas, and that that was at about the same time that Jack herself went missing." She paused, swallowing, and looked about the deck again, fighting the urge to duck back under cover and shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

"One of the others, when she learned, guessed that Jack must have been what Clipper was after the whole time, and has kidnapped her, to use her abilities for her own fleet, or something like that... She's making ready to leave the ship and give chase now." Lyntael turned to look across the deck to where she knew she'd need to go to talk to Power again, eventually. Unconsciously, the fingers on her left hand rose to trace small circles, nervously, around her emblem. She was still watching the door, in between the lightning rod navis, and didn't look back as she continued.

"I spoke to Power, the Captain up here, before. She didn't seem to know, or care, about Jack at all. She just wanted to stay here as long as the storm did, giving her more power, and wanted me to find out what was making it, and bring it to her... If she finds out it's you, then she won't want to leave the ship at all... and she might make it harder for you to go after Jack... the electricity just seems to make her stronger." Her fingers tapped on the centre of her emblem once or twice in between the small circular motions and she caught herself biting her lower lip again.

"I, um... I'm supposed to try and convince her to leave the ship as well, and there was a plan, but, I would have had to lie about some things. I really don't want to tell lies if I don't need to, but, if you went after Clipper, and Jack, now, then I wouldn't actually be lying when I spoke to her. Would that work for what you need to do?" She did look back towards the older navi now, glancing up at him with an uncertain, hopeful expression. She was dreading speaking to Power again, and telling her that she didn't have a way to give her the storm... but it would be much easier on her nerves if she wasn't being dishonest about it as well.

"God loves all his children, little one, and there is time yet for you to learn to love him," the holy man reassured Lyn. "My name is MiracleMan. My operator, Buddy, was not a religious man in his youth. However, with a troubled past and a need to change, he was called by the Lord to serve, helping troubled youths to-" This sounded like it was going to go into a long story, but he sputtered off when he realized Lyn had things to say that were important in the here and now. "What do you know about Jack?" he asked curiously, leaning on his cane and bending over a little more than usual, as if to listen better. He lowered his eyebrows seriously as she discussed why she couldn't touch others, why she was here on the ship, the possible dangers of going to speak to Powers, and everything in between.

The old man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then switched to pinching the wrinkled furrow of his brow, thinking hard. "Hmmm... All of these pirates need a good, stern talking to and a healthy does of sermon, but the important part is finding Jack. That poor lost girl... she came here to this ship to get away from the Blessers, with all of the hoop-de-doo we're dealing with. That pirate made a deal with us, to think she'd go back on it! When I find her, she'll face righteous fury, that she will," he responded angrily, a frown spreading across his thin face. "Child, I must leave now to track down Jack. Thank you very much for this good deed. I know you're worried about lying, but you should know that the Lord's ninth commandment, 'thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, was meant to apply primarily to testimony in a religious trial. A little white lie made in God-fearing service is no sin at all. Still, I'm about to go, so hopefully that will make it a little easier on you."

He gave her another nice smile, then additionally produced a thin data packet. "I have one more thing for you. If you find yourself in danger, use this to escape," he recommended, although he probably didn't realize that Lyn couldn't use chips right now if she wanted to. "Now, I am away, with God's speed, as they say!" From there, he made his way quickly across the deck, still huffing a bit from exertion. He had apparently been on the ship long enough to know that the gray men weren't going to spot him or interfere with him. It wasn't immediately apparent where he was going, but when he started turning a wench at deck-side, it became apparent that he was going for a motorboat that was hanging over the side. It also became apparent he was going to be at that a while, given how tough the winch was for him.

If Lyn was ready, she could head back to Power, either directly through the kitchen or first passing through the room where Tango had danced earlier. If she needed anything from MiracleMan, she'd need to catch him before he set sail, which, to be fair, seemed like it might be a good quarter of an hour at this rate. Jolly pirates were also starting to come up the stairs Lyn had just come up through, many of them carrying whatever loot they could comfortably. On one hand, it probably wasn't great for her employer if they did that, but on the other hand, it would take some serious thinking to come up with a way to get them all to drop it.

*Lyntael got SkyShoes battlechip!*

Mostly out of nerves and an effort to keep track of everything that was happening at once, and all the extra little bits of information she was being given, Lyntael could only really listen and nod her head at the appropriate points as MiracleMan commiserated over the state of things. A part of her was relieved that he agreed with her assessment of the facts, and planned to go after Jack; it was a consideration that was moving off the board, albeit slowly, but another thread of emotion that was coiled about her heart was still a bit sad that he was going so immediately; it didn't really seem like too much to ask, to surround herself with friends and companionship, but everyone she met seemed so much better at doing so than her, and no matter how considerate or friendly a person she found, each new situation she found herself in never seemed to let it last for very long. she murmured a thanks to MiracleMan for his gift, inclining her head to him; she didn't have the heart to tell him she couldn't use it. the data packet converted to a simple string as she took it, tracing away up her arm and reappearing from the other side of her vest's shoulder strap to form a slim ring about her emblem, pending until she could reconnect.

She watched him begin working to free his craft from the side of the ship, painfully slowly, and was about to assist him, but hesitated as a the burn in her skin reached a point of making her wince. she'd been holding off the instinctive equalising pulses for a while now, and hadn't been able to cool off the current, or her nerves, without them. And as she debated how to sort this out, another crash of lightning made her jump, and resettled her eyes on the lower stairs as more of the Jolly pirates began to emerge from below. In turn, this sent another flinch of worry through the small girl, and she backed away instead, threading between the large grey figures and generally trying to move out of sight amongst them. To be quite frank, Lyntael didn't care either way if the pirates were carrying off other valuables from the ship; it really seemed like the least concerning feature of the situation at this point in time. Mostly she just didn't want to get caught up with the skull-faced crew again.

When she had put enough of the large, grey men between herself and the pirates, Lyntael paused and looked around. As long as there was no-one else about, she closed her eyes and too a few long, deep breaths, pushing them out slowly and filling her lungs completely each time. She shut as much as she could out as she tried to focus, doing her best to ignore the lighting strikes and the entire worry about her situation. A tickle in the back of her mind was reassuring too; she was only a very short distance from her link emulation point, right now, so if she really had to flee for any reason ,the escape was right there. If anything she was in less danger now than she had been, but the knowledge itself went a good way towards reassuring her emotions a bit. Each long breath that she took was accompanied now by a small rolling pulse of electricity that expanded from her body in each direction. It was probably striking several of the grey figures around her in the process, but they were absorbing lightning bolts, so her own little sparks were probably nothing major to them.

The immediate recoil current faded from her skin eventually, though the hum of energy in her body was still running hot and ready to respond; Lyntael opened her eyes and looked about; If any of the pirates had actually seen her while she was calming herself, there was the hope that they'd simply have decided to keep their distance. If any had called out, of course, it would bring her eyes open early, but for now she was a little bit less jittery and felt less like she was about to burst into a shower of sparks. She peered through the cluster of plug men to see if there was a clear path she could take to get to the door she needed, to reach Power. She still hadn't worked out any extra way to appease the woman without delivering MiracleMan to her, but she would—

Without really thinking about what she was doing, Lyntael had moved forward slightly, and put her hand on the back of one of the grey figures, to look around it like some sort of hulking cover object; it was only as she did so that she recalled, very suddenly, Power's other request, and the warning that it contained. She'd said that all she needed to do was touch the plug figures to gather up their charge and bring it to her, but the thought itself didn't even have enough time to fully pass through Lyntael's mind before, presumably, the repercussions of laying her hand on the figure took place.

Sure enough, a little bit of electricity from Lyn didn't seem to gather even a cursory glance from Power's henchmen, who continued standing around waiting for rain (or lightning, as it were). Similarly, as she'd figured, the pirates didn't want to so much as look at the gray men, let alone approach them. Instead, they all began lining up on the back side of the deck, behind the kitchen and away from the robots and the dingy. MiracleMan began climbing into his boat and then painstakingly lowering it down. From Lyntael's spot, she could watch his tall hat disappear slowly below the ship's railing. In the mean time, another ship, a large boat flying black, skull-marked sails, began to appear on the horizon, coming from the side of the boat opposite the dingy, perhaps to pick up Jolly's crew. Jolly herself had come up with her men, though there was no sign of Cutlass yet.

Lyntael's aforementioned hiding spot itself, however, was a bit problematic. She'd feel her hair begin to stand on end when she touched the plug-faced man, and he, in turn, slowly inclined his head downward, no longer seeming interested in the lightning storm overhead when there was a closer source of electricity nearby. With surprising speed, he reached down and grabbed hold of Lyn gracelessly, clutching one hand to her head and the other to one thin shoulder. The creature pulled itself inward, essentially burying her in its abdomen and groin, though thankfully, it didn't appear to be articulate down there. If Lyntael had managed to get rid of her own static current, she'd find that, upsettingly, it was now being replaced with the other figure's, as he off-loaded the charge. Whether she stored it, shot it off everywhere, or just exploded, remained to be seen. With any luck, Power was right that she could simply transfer the charge, but that had probably only been a guess.

The other plug men began to sense what was happening and approach, though slowly, thankfully not showing the same speed that the one in her near proximity had. Power had heard some of the commotion and came out onto the deck, inspecting her men, who were no longer in their proper positions. Notably, she didn't appear to be in her boosted form at the moment either. "You dummies! If you don't stand up perfectly straight, you're going to miss some of it!" she complained, waving her fists in an animated display. She managed to spot Lyn, being clutched by one of the creatures and on the fast track to be dogpiled on by more, and laughed. "Ha! That was you I heard, huh? Decided you'd gather up the energy for me after all? Well, what are you waiting for, let's plug in!" It wasn't clear what she meant by that, but she was brandishing in one hand, wrapped around her wrist, one of the large plug ends that dragged off the back of her cape. Of course, Lyn couldn't really plug in if she wanted to, being she didn't have a plug slot for a face and that she'd have a hard time even getting free of the creature holding her.

For now, her number one priority would probably be just that: finding a way to get the big, unfeeling lug off of her. Asking Power might be the easiest way, but that would probably exclude the possibility of getting out of getting plugged.

The brief sight Lyntael had of the various pieces on the board, going over-board, in a manner of speaking, would have been a small relief to her; they were going on their way, getting off the ship, and, just as importantly, leaving her alone. She didn't have much chance to actually think anything of that nature, however, as she realised her mistake. There was only really enough time for a shocked gasp as she drew back from the figure, or tried to, but before she could actually get away, it had already taken hold. A half-cut off scream was mostly muffed by the hand that covered her face and she began to thrash as viciously as she could to get away from the suddenly aware plug-man. Another pulse of electricity rolled off her and her strikers began to glow sharply, but neither had any effect on the determined hug that held her tightly; given what Power had told her, and their behaviour already, anything she did was just going to fed them more.

Still struggling to wriggle free as her body released another, stronger wave of electricity, Lyntael didn't notice at first as power started to flow from the grey creature, back through her body; her strikers wouldn't receive it, but the contact from the creature seemed like it was everywhere, and the flow of current lanced across her skin, channelling inwards to the emblem at her chest, where it was accepted rapidly. It wasn't the same has her natural charge, but as the current passed into her, it began filling her senses all the same. She grit her teeth, gripping its wrist back and pushing her free hand against its chest before unloading the wash of excess current through her strikers, just for the sake of getting rid of it before it could overwhelm her. For a creature designed to soak up lightning bolts, however, it was dubious whether even a full arc from the small girl would do any more — though at the same time, as much as it was beyond Lyntael's notice, it had to be said that having channelled its collected energy into her, the return blast of her sending it all back had only amounted to a single burst from her, and her head was still mostly clear, for now.

The other problem, of course, was that expending all the received energy straight back into the grey goon, while it was still trying to give energy to her, was only going to cause a dangerous loop. In the moments when Lyntael's charge was drained off, before he flood came back to her in full, her own body responded to the expend as well, beginning to cycle up and charge. An uncomfortable, slightly strangled sound of panic managed to make its way past Lyntael's lips — not exactly a shout or a scream, but definitely not a good sound. Her thoughts had only moved forward a second or two since she'd touched the plug-man, and right now her head was filled purely with the desperate need to separate herself from it, right away. As long as the circuit was made, though, and as long as it held her tight in its own grip, her thrashing and struggling against the creature didn't seem to be getting her any closer to slipping free of its grasp.

Another wave of electricity crashed out from her, far stronger this time, and washed over the nearest of the other grey figures — it came with a gasp and a cry, but Lyntael's eyes were shut as she struggled, and she hadn't seen the others beginning to close in yet. Each time her body reached a limit, another wave of energy passed outwards, and her strikers began to blaze and glow with the constant activity; much of it was going to the figures that hadn't reached her yet, but a good portion went straight back into the one holding her, and each time, her own body added more and more to the rapid charge. A small thread in her mind realised that this had been the source of her uncertainty about interacting with the creatures; one touch, to take charge up when she was calm, might have been ok, but a closed circuit like this was only going to cycle up further and further, building more and more electricity each loop while bleeding more of it off all around. If any of the other figures reached her and joined in, the path towards a full overload would be very short indeed.

Dimly, she heard Power's voice calling out, and she struggled to turn her head in that direction, forcing her eyes open. She was already beginning to feel the sting as she tried to push the shape into letting her go, and what Power would see if she looked at the girl would be a very faint glow of energy starting to haze over her eyes while sparks crackled from her skin and hair.

"Help! Please!" It really was about as articulate as she could manage to be right now; the words came between rough breaths that carried discomfited exclamations while she tried to deal with the interaction between her body's natural responses, and the plug-creature's automatic functions. Instinctively she knew that each cycle only made the charge build up worse and stronger, and she tried to hold off each time it swelled past her ability to control, but with the added charge from her captor being funnelled back into her consistently as well, each time it just kept building until she had to expend everything, and start the cycle again, and more fiercely than ever.

Power's intervention would probably easily be able to save her from a critical overload of some kind, but the question that hadn't occurred to Lyntael in the last few moments of panic was, if Power learned about how Lyntael's charge actually worked, would the pirate actually be content to let her go?

The electricity, sure enough, seemed to have no effect on the rubber-like skin of the creature holding Lyntael. It might be different if she was able to target her attack or perhaps shoot or slash him, but absorbing electricity in this manner was exactly what this being was designed to do. Even so, after a few "cycles", smoke began to rise out of the plug opening where its face ought to be. She might remember, in retrospect, that lightning hadn't really been striking any of them so persistently or so constantly; handling Lyntael, on the other hand, was like being hit by several miniature lightning strikes all in quick succession. The other navi's body actually began trembling. It was questionable as to whether want to hold her actually factored into this at all, or if it was even capable of separating itself at this point.

Power seemed to lose some of her enthusiasm at hearing Lyntael's piteous cry from inside the clump of her servants. "Fine, fine... Everybody back off," she barked, pushing aside the gray men. When she finally reached Lyn, she realized that one of her guys was getting toasted. "Woah! The frick are you made of?!" she asked, reaching out to yank the gray man off. "Oh shiiiiii-" she cried out, as suddenly her hair stood on end and her proportions increased to her powered size. "That's some spicy stuff right there!" Lyn probably wouldn't appreciate the commentary, but would probably be happy at least when Power was able to pull the man off and fling him aside, using her increased strength. "Good news: no plug for now. I think that was enough boost to keep me powered for a while. God, you're like a... whiny little battery! But a really good battery," she mused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Lucky for you, my operation's strictly a one girl, many robot crew, or else I'd probably abduct you myself." She gave Lyn another noogie, then ended up rubbing the girls head again. "Mmm... Good stuff."

The Jolly pirates seemed to be picking up the pace a bit as it was clear some kind of electrical hazard was happening on the opposite deck. They'd all gathered on the other side, such that they would be just barely hidden behind the combo kitchen / dining room. The ship was getting closer now and Power wouldn't fail to see it soon.

Still stroking Lyn's head quite inappropriately, the newly enlarged Power smiled downward. "Well? Did you find the power source I was looking for?" she asked. "Something that won't fry all of my men, preferably."

There was no way that Tango hadn't heard the commotion outside just now, but unlike Power, she seemed to feel no impetus to investigate. It was likely she'd only managed to stay so blissfully ignorant thus far my willfully ignoring anything that seemed like trouble.

The release and resurgence of power had mostly begun to white out the rest of Lyntael's senses by the time Power intervened and pulled broke the circuit; dimly and distantly, she was aware that the other woman was speaking, but she was well past being able to process it at a reasonable rate. Once she was apart from the plug man and the circuit was broken, this still left Lyntael herself to expel another round of electricity into the surrounding area as she collapsed to her hands and knees, but it likely wouldn't surprise Power as long as she'd seen it happening already as she had approached. On her own, Lyntael gasped for air and grit her teeth in between, trying to force the charge cycle of her body under control; there was nothing extra feeding it now, but the bad encounter had still wound her up fairly high. It was a series of painful exclamations and smaller ripples of balancing static that accompanied her trek towards intelligent capabilities; they were much lighter ripples, like the very first one that Power had seen, back in the kitchen, light enough to reduce some of her build up without triggering her body's natural charge response. It was a potentially awkward minute ro two before the smaller girl was able to push herself back to resting just on her knees and lift her head. Her eyes still leaked a small cascade of sparks, and there remained a faint haze of glowing energy over them; her hair still crackled and arced, and the dance of electrical light under the surface of her skin remained bright, but between roughly panted breaths Lyntael seemed to at least be able to talk again, partially. The small ripples of electricity continued to spill off her as she tried to balance herself out.

"I... sorry, I... I thought..." she hugged herself for a moment, hands clutching her upper arms and flinching as her body pulsed again. "I couldn't... It happens, and I can't control it... when it gets that bad..." Her slender form was heaving as she drew longer, deeper breaths; the effort broke up her speech, but it was working to get her back to something normal, at least gradually. She didn't begin talking about the energy course just yet; unconsciously, her mind was putting that on the back burner until she was able to pick her words more cautiously. Instead she struggled to explain what had just happened, since that seemed both important, and like safer territory.

"It builds up, when I get... um.. emotional... and it starts to hurt, if I don't... ah, expend it all. But when I do, my body.... when I spend all my energy, in a large amount... it responds, and the charge builds up inside me faster and more powerfully. If I don't manage to calm down... or the cycle doesn't stop, it's... it's really bad for me. I thought I could... just, you know.. maybe take the energy from one of them, and bring it to you, before I lost control of it, but... but then he grabbed me, and it just... like, feedback.. it went around and around, and got worse and worse. I'm sorry, I hope I didn't damage anything... I didn't mean to..."

After a few more breaths and swallows, Lyntael closed her eyes and rubbed hands through her hair. Her body had stopped pulsing regularly now and her eyes didn't hurt any more, though the echo of the stinging feeling remained. Her hair was still rampant with sparks, but on the whole, the worst seemed to have passed. She looked up to Power properly now and gradually made the effort to stand up. To her credit, she was only a little bit unsteady.

"When I was on the other decks, I heard the other pirates talking. I listened to Jolly and Cutlass, too. They didn't seem interested in whatever was making the storm initially, but I did hear them saying things about something powerful not falling into the wrong hands." Internally, she nodded to herself; this wasn't actually a lie, after all; she had heard them saying those things, albeit because she had partially brought them around to the conversation herself. She pressed on. "I didn't find any thing that was the source of the storm... but, they seemed to think that Clipper had captured something really important, and had fled back to her own waters with it, and they were going to give chase." Also true, in Lyntael's mind; she hadn't found any 'thing' that was the source of the storm, because it had been a navi, and the rest was completely true as well, if not as necessarily related as her words might make it seem. She took a breath focused more an calming herself. "I... um, I didn't want to stay around any longer than I had to there... those skull pirate are creeps, and one of them wanted to... um..." At this point her head dropped and she looked uncomfortably to the side, one hand clutching her opposite arm nervously. "They... they weren't very nice." After a moment she shook it off and looked up again.

"A-anyway, I couldn't bring you whatever made it, and it sounds like Clipper already took something of particular importance off the ship and fled before I got here, so, I thought I'd try and do the first thing you asked, to make it up to you... but it got a bit out of control. I'm sorry." Any time Power made further efforts to touch or stroke Lyntael's hair, she'd be rewarded with more static, which was probably vaguely positive for Power; Lyntael herself, however, tended to flinch slightly and shy away from the touches. It was clear she wasn't accustomed to be touched at all, but was mostly worried about hurting anyone that did, rather than actually be averse to it. She relaxed a bit once it was clear that Power wasn't hurt by doing so.

In her own thoughts, Lyntael was relying on the idea that the Jolly pirates were probably going to just want to avoid Power and her goons, and that their ship picking them up would probably support what she was saying. If Power accepted that Clipper was probably the one with what she wanted, then she wouldn't really have any reason to bother the other pirates as they left, short of potentially heading after the wood-element pirate herself. That was the hope, anyway. She wasn't going to do anything about reporting back to Tango until all of the pirates were dealt with, or at least until she was alone again.

Power raised her eyebrows, showing curiosity in Lyntael's predicament, but unlike Cutlass or MiracleMan, there seemed to be no immediate impetus to help her out there; her face relaxed back into a cool, distant smirk. "Well, we can't all be geniuses like me who have learned to harness our electric powers to their fullest extent. Keep at it, kiddo, I'm sure you'll get it," she responded. "Or maybe you just need to grow up a little so you stop being so emotional, geez." As Lyn continued to speak, the electric pirate captain moved over to inspect her kneeling minion, who was now spitting smoke out of his face like a malfunctioning toaster about to start a fire. "Yeah, looks like he's fine. You can't do any real damage to these things," she chuckled, placing a hand onto the rubber man's chest, then driving the plug-end of her cape into its face. Drawing power from it didn't seem like a safe idea, but that appeared to be what she was doing. "Nice! You let off a lot of juice, huh?"

Her ears perked up when she heard Lyn mention Jolly and Cutlass on the deck below. Her face fell into a grimace like a child forced to eat vegetables at the mention of Clipper, a face that looked amusing along with her more mature body. "Clipper!? Dammit! I thought I wasn't going to run into her, uuuuuuugh!" Power complained. "I can't believe I've got to go after Clipper now... that freaky lesbo model-ship-enthusiast with her tea and her tea cups and her little white gloves. I'd blast it all with my lightning if... if she wasn't such a cheater," the captain whined, crossing her arms and pouting. She glossed over the negative review of Jolly's pirates altogether.

"Well, you got me some good info, so whatever. I'll give you this thing... it's something, right?" she asked, handing over a data packet with chip data that, once again, Lyntael had no way of utilizing. "I guess I'm off. I'll call my ship and get outta here. Don't work too hard, mkay? And don't get too close to these guys unless you want another hug. They're just hungry, is all," she laughed again, even as the robots seemed to be tentatively edging towards Lyn again, as though they'd forgotten what happened to the last one that touched her.

*Lyn got RemotePlug1*

Power narrowed her eyes as she realized, finally, that Jolly's main ship had ridden up alongside the cruise ship, as evidenced by the sails now poking up above the kitchen area. "What the... Ah! They know and they're going after Clipper too. Those dumbasses... I'll intercept them on the water and blow up all of their stupid ships, like I always do... He he he he!" Now, further off, a silver-colored, metallic ship began to appear on the horizon. Wherever MiracleMan's tiny ship was, it had already disappeared completely. It didn't seem like Bomba's ships had approached yet, nor had Clipper shown up. The conversation below deck must be running long.

At any rate, Lyn was free to quickly exit the group of gray men through the parting Power had made when she came through, then report to Tango, if she was ready. Of course, not all of the pirates were guaranteed to leave the ship yet, but it ought to just be a matter of time.

Lyntael tried to listen carefully to Power's chatter as she reacted to the information, but mostly she was focused on using the time to make sure she was under control again; from the corners of her eyes, she was quite aware of the way the grey figures hadn't quite given up edging towards her, and she was eager to get away from the deck until Power 's ship collected them all. At least, she hoped it would collect them all and take them away once it got here. She jumped with surprise when Power decided to give her something in thanks, but she smiled as she accepted it, ducking her head with a nervous grin as the data flowed to her, and wound itself into a second tiny string circling her emblem.

"Oh! Thank you! I'm trying to be braver, and to not panic so much. I'll get better at it one day." she hesitated, then shuffled a foot for a moment before continuing. "Um, thank you for being kind. Good luck finding the thing you're looking for; I hope clipper doesn't give you too much trouble!" She raised her head and smiled again, making a better attempt of it this time, then gave a small wave with one hand and quickly backed out and away from the plug men before they could get any more ideas.

In her head, Lyntael quickly make another check-list both to focus herself and to help with the calming down. Power was going to be heading on her way as soon as her ship showed up, Jolly's crew were already assembling to go and her ship was here. They needed to get a head start on Power though, surely... and Bomba... Lyntael looked around, eyes darting as her thoughts hit on the problem. Cutlass and Bomba hadn't shown up, and there was no way Jolly was going to leave without her first mate, especially when that first mate seemed like she was the one who was actually in charge. That could be a problem if they still hadn't departed by the time Power's ship was here. Cutlass had said she had some leverage, and the plan had been... what had the plan been? She grasped for the details in her mind again, struggling to recall them through the haze that had recently scrambled most of her thoughts.

Regardless, she needed to make sure that Jolly's ship got going, before an altercation happened on the deck of the ship and everything turned into war. Tango could wait a little longer, if she wanted her ship as intact as possible once the pirates left. As she threaded away between the grey figures, Lyntael made as quickly as she could for one of the ways down, trying to move cautiously and, if she could, without being seen. If that wasn't an option she'd just have to dash for it and hope no-one got in her way. Most, if not all of Jolly's crew, as far as she could tell, seemed to be on deck or boarding already, so if she was lucky she'd not run into any of them once she got below deck.

The goal, as much as she was dreading it after Cutlass' warning, was to make her way down to the lowermost deck, and find out what was taking so long. She vaguely wanted to talk to Jolly herself as well, and ask if she'd seen Cutlass, but the supposed Captain was up on the deck and surrounded by her crew, and there'd be no way to talk to her without Power seeing her do it, she was fairly sure, at least. She'd need to head down along, and try and help Cutlass convince Bomba of... whatever it was the first mate planned to tell her.