V M Kia Maia, Kia Manawanui!

[Mad Maggie]

The turbulence had risen through the storm clouds, Maggie leaning against the prisoner transport bench as the shuttle tried to break free of the cosmic squall that had enveloped it. "Oi, where'd you lot learn ta fly?" She spat, watching the two pilots as they struggled to maintain control of the ship. "They so bored with me they sent the kids instead?"

"Quiet, prisoner!" The co-pilot barked without turning his head. Good. He didn't see that the woman had slipped her ankle lock during the last bump, the energy battering their ship sapping secondary power. She stayed quiet as they focused on the purple swell filling the viewscreen, before another heavy jolt rent the hull. Maggie flew forward, crashing chest first into the co-pilot's seat before taking her chance to slip her manacles over his head and PULL.

"Ghak!"

Alarms and sparks filled the cabin, the pilot struggling to split his attention between their prisoner and the fact that his telemetry had just been wiped, his engines had gone down, and the cabin pressure had been compromised. "You fucking psycho! You'll get us all killed!" He screamed, slamming the controls downwards and aiming for the only celestial body in view. A blue-green planet surrounded by clouds and atmosphere. Lovely, really, until the ship pitched and rolled crazily, Maggie and the pilot wrestling with each other as they were thrown about the cockpit.

Her elbow went viciously into the man's neck, crushing his windpipe and causing him to grasp for his throat. The woman pinning him down against the wall forgotten until the ship lurched again, throwing her off as he gasped, vision fading as the lack of proper aspiration and the leaking oxygen slowly forced him to his knees. Maggie winced as she was tossed into the airlock, clouds and squawking wildlife zipped past the rotating viewscreen. "This waka better be able to take it!" She screamed to herself, kicking the jammed flight wheel with her boot as the thing snapped off with a plastic crunch. With the controls disabled, the emergency stabilizers activated, the void of space too empty to be used as a means of descent arresting. Her eyes widened as the ship dropped straight downwards, at least not rotating anymore. She tripped over the body of the pilot, grasping for the emergency void-breathers stored next to the airlock, remembering to grab the manual release and break the door seal.

They still hit hard enough for her to lose consciousness for a second or two, the massive splash of water instantly dousing the flaming trail of the ship.

--------------

"Oi. You see that, right? Look, halfway across the coast, near the Marlowe coast. Ship just splashed down." An old man pointed, one hand holding a spyglass and the other pointing towards a plume of smoke. "That's good salvage right there...and it doesn't look like a Skylander ship, so it's fair game! Eee hee hee! Get the sail down, my boy!"

 

[Mad Maggie]

Water rushed in with a gushing spray, Maggie backing up from the seat she'd been slumped over. What little she saw of the world didn't bode very well, vast oceans dotted with small islands making up the majority of the terrain. Stomping purposefully towards the back of the ship, she scoured her brains back to her childhood for some memory or prayer that would aid her. "Tangaroa, the ocean...aid me on this journey." She muttered to herself, slamming the airlock open and looking down at the waves lapping at the bottom of the ship.

Saltwater washed over her boots as she grabbed the upper lip of the doorframe and hoisted herself up onto the outer hull. The rate the ship was sinking, she'd be underwater in the next ten minutes. Best enough to catch some breath now before she had to tread water. Maggie opened the rucksack of her equipment that they allowed her to have for the Apex Games. She strapped her gauntlet on and aimed high above her location, triggering a Riot Drill to go sparking and smoking into the air. The fire and smoke trail would serve enough as a flare, even if the actual missile blooped uselessly to fizzle in the drink.

The ship shuddered and lurched to a grinding halt as Maggie felt something puncture it from below. Standing up and trying to keep her balance, she actually looked down in the water for the first time since she'd escaped the vessel. It was....crystal clear, but that only added to the deep foreboding that filled you when you looked at it. Clear enough to see it was at least a few dozen meters in the deeper spots. But what had actually stopped the ship was the huge reef of coral, stones, and wrecks that littered this area of the sea. Dozens of rusted hulks all fused together and piled up haphazardly by the tides to tip over the caverns below every so often. So she was stable....for now. Another big shift could send the entire stack she was perched on into one of those deeper blue holes, and she fancied she could see glinting teeth down there. Gritting her teeth, all she could do for now was sit on top of the shuttle like a Kiwi weathervane and shoot off the last of her drills as flares in the next couple hours.

------------------

"Grandad, I can see her. She's sitting on the top of it, looks like they hit the rust reef." The small boy called up to the rickety crow's nest the old man called his captain's chair. Lowering the spyglass, he grabbed a wooden beam and shifted the single sail, the raft like pontoon gliding on the tips of the waves and cutting an impressive turn of speed at almost no volume. Quiet enough that when the old man screeched at her from few meters away, she almost whipped out her Wrecking Ball. "Ah, yew croakin' bullhorn! I didn't go deaf in the crash like you, yannow!" She glared, fuming, trying to keep her temper in check as her rescuer giggled and waved a broken harpoon. "Great! Standard salvage and rescue contract, then? I get full claim to the ship, you get passage to a safe port and a small cut of the profit once I've sold off the bits I don't want?"

Maggie frowned heavily. Fair enough deal, considering she didn't know anything about this planet. Besides, she could always just cack this munt...

The boy came out wielding a set of hooks that he threw expertly over the sides of the shuttle, securing the line for towing. He looked barely older than ten, but was burned and weathered like his grandfather. So they were hard working people, and it showed.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Agree. Just make sure you got a bed for me, I ain't sleeping on no hay bale."

 

[Mad Maggie]

The journey was slow going across the sea now, towing the half sunken wreck of the prison transport ship behind it and forcing the old man's grandson (who she'd learned was named Shad), to drag out a large chest from a hidden hatch in the main cabin. Maggie picked her nails and watched with interest over the foam tipped crests, while behind her Shad busied himself with whatever he was doing to the back of the boat. Salvo was a ruined world, destroyed time and time again through the ongoing eternal civil war, and Maggie hadn't seen scenery half as beautiful as this since she was a very small girl. There were islands dappled with greens and pinpricks of vibrant color, huge mountainous volcanoes, and up in the air, what seemed to be floating islands as well. Something vaguely occurred to her as she spotted what looked like a massive port coming into view just off the horizon. "Oh! Uh....just wanted ta remind you of something that might come up. Couple bodies back there, unless the sea beasties stole in while I was waiting."

The old man (who'd demanded to be addressed as Captain) leaned down and put his finger over his lips. "Don't know, don't care. They'll be chum far as you're concerned." He went back to gripping his raftship's wheel, and added "You might wanna grab something too."

VWOMP

She'd instinctively clutched onto the mast as the craft started to charge forward like there was a rocket underneath it. Desperately, she looked across the deck to see that Shad had already patiently secured himself to some netting and was watching her curiously. The air was vibrating and Maggie could taste tinfoil on her tongue. The boy must have noticed her expression, and called over the vibrating thrum. "It's a magic booster. From up there." He points towards one of the floating islands, and something started to click into place.

"Wait wait wait...so....you lot live down here.....and there's a buncha magic waving noncy lads up there floating above ya?" Shad blushed and looked away as Captain cut him off. "Yes! The Skylanders, those haughty gits! Magic and properness and lording it over us sailing folks!" The old man was frothing, spittle dribbling over his lip as he searches around him for something to throw, hucking a piece of dried fish impotently towards the nearest island, thousands of feet in the sky. "We bleed and drown and sink and all they do is come down to screw with us and throw their garbage away....take what they want...." The old man trailed off and glanced at Shad. So there was the reason such an old man and such a young boy were out here alone.


Maggie's tone softened a bit and she looked up at Captain on his perch. "Did they?..." She jerked her head at Shad, and his stony gaze back was the only answer she needed. "Roight. There's things that need fixin' here then. ..Seems like you two lucky buckos just fished up the best thing you could find in the sea." She let go of the mast, used to the pace of the boat now as they sailed towards the huge wooden mess piled sloppily together, surrounded by craft and people. Maggie climbed up to the front of the ship and turned back towards her rescuers. "I'm Mad Fuckin' Maggie, and I'm a bloody warlord. Back home, they call me "Salvo's Middle Finger." She grins, and pulls out her chain lash, whipping it threateningly around her head. "What is the most important part of any planet, aye? He tangata, he tangata. It is the people! You wanna fight? I'll fight! I'll fight!" Her voice was getting louder now, ragged emotion bleeding through ever so slightly as she worked herself up. "I don't know where I am, and I don't feckin' care, because you people need a revolution! I know the type that live above you, and I've been fighting against them my entire life!" She spits on the deck, panting. "Syndicate. Skylanders. All the same drongos."

Letting go felt good. It was going to feel even better once she was doing what she knew how to do.

Raise Hell.