Exiled From Their Homeworld -

Salvo had been looking around for some generic work after her departure from the Novas - her coffers were hardly empty, but it was never good to be spending more money than one was making. So, she had begun frequenting her old haunts, looking for jobs, re-establishing connections, and had caught wind of a job asking specifically for Herans. Seemed like it was some generic bodyguard gig, but the client was, notably, a King. And if Salvo knew one thing about Kings, it was that their coffers were overflowing with wealth of all kinds.

So, of course she accepted the job!

She had arrived on Planet Jog not long after she took the job, and after getting into a brief fight with one of the guards over something trivial, she was ordered to join the rest of the Herans and head to some meeting room with the King. Among her fellow Herans, Salvo didn't stand out a whole lot, aside from her power level; it was significant, to say the least. Appearance-wise, though, the Herans around her more or less all looked like her: cyan skin, bright orange hair, rugged clothing, and a chip on their shoulders.

So, when the lot of them filtered into the meeting room, Salvo didn't immediately stick out as the King introduced his squad to this... Alien squad. She raised her brow. "Wot do ye need these jokers for if ye got a squad 'a Herans over 'ere, anyway?" she asked the King, generally unimpressed with what she was seeing from this other group.

Salvo still wasn't too sure about the presence of these, as she'd put it, 'jokers,' but if the King was still paying her well, she could put up with any incompetent teammates he threw at her. It wasn't like her life would be at risk with how strong she was, after all. And it was no skin off her back if any of these weaklings bit the dust on the job, either - if anything, that might mean a bigger share for her!

And, apparently, their mission was on a different planet? But the King had a portal to take them there? Salvo briefly wondered why this random planet had portal technology far beyond any other major world she had seen, but just went along with it and stepped inside with all the other hires. And then... She was on Planet Nem! It was a cozy little spot, wasn't it? Looked a bit scorched, though. 

They walked a bit until they reached a building, and once inside, the interior was rather massive: a bustling bar with all sorts of different kinds of aliens abound. Most of the Herans seemed to split off and conduct their own little searches and questionings, though Salvo elected to follow the jokers up to the bartender, just to see what they were all about. They questioned the bartender about 'purple Brenchians,' and he seemed nervous as he dodged the question. Salvo raised her brow at this, though.

"Purple Brenchians?" she asked, "That's wot we're lookin' for? Me pilot's a purple Brenchian! She's a real sweet lass named Pare. Flies me ship smoother 'n butter no matter wot the weather's like." Were purple Brenchians rare, or something? Salvo admittedly hadn't paid much attention to the job description...

Hmm, so purple Brenchians being evil was a stereotype across the galaxy? Salvo couldn't say she'd quite heard that one, but she'd have to ask Pare later if there was some truth to what this bartender was saying. Maybe there was a reason a smart gal like her hung out with a group of pirates without much complaining after all! And if it turned out Pare had used to be part of a revolutionist movement that had sought to overthrow a royal family, that actually would only increase Salvo's level of respect towards her!

For now, though, they had a clue about where these terrorists were at, and the joker gang was off. Salvo, not having any different leads of her own, decided to simply follow them down into the lower city, while the rest of the Herans seemed to be stuck back at the bar, not making all that much progress of their own. Turned out Salvo was the strongest and smartest of the bunch!

As Salvo walked with the aliens, who were all very self-contained and quiet, she rolled her eyes. "So, ye lot known each other for long?" she asked them to break the silence of the walk to their destination. "Ye all do seem rather close knit. How long ye been runnin' wit' each other? Few years? Months? Or are ye a brand new bunch on the scene?"

Salvo listened as the apparent leader of the bunch - Ryugan - introduced everyone and explained their roles and histories. She had to stifle a snort when she discovered that one of their names actually was Joker, though other than that, they were a mostly stock standard alien mercenary crew. The kind you'd find dozens of in any space outpost where the legally mischievous frequented.

"Me? I be th' captain of a pirate crew meself! Salvo's the name! Ye may have heard of me, but if ye haven't, ye'll not soon forget me!" she proudly declared when one of them inquired about her own business. "Me crew is mostly fer logistics and ferrying me and me things around, though. Love those sea dogs, but they're a tad too squishy t' be goin' out 'n doin' th' things I do." She didn't want her own crew to get hurt, of course - though she also wasn't really keen on having to replace them all the time if they started dropping like flies. It was just economical to do everything herself.

Introductions aside, it certainly didn't take long to find one of their purple Brenchians once they got to their destination - Ryugan snagged one almost immediately. Got him to squeal pretty fast, too! "Pyramids, eh?" Salvo confirmed. Well, she wasn't exactly a native to this planet, so... "Yer gonna have t' be a tad more specific there, laddie," she stated as she walked up to the Brenchian and leaned in close. "So, which pyramids 'n where? And if there're any sorts'a traps or other things we ought t' know about before we git there, ye best be tellin' us about 'em now."

Only pyramids on the planet, huh? Well, that made things easier. And they were directly to the South! Swell. 

Ryugan knocked the Brenchian out and dumped his body before all of them took off to the skies down South, each of them on the lookout for these fabled pyramids. It didn't take a whole lot of searching to find them, luckily - it would've been pretty difficult to hide gigantic pyramids on a planet as barren as this. Salvo never understood how anyone could spend their entire life on a wasteland planet like the one they were currently flying over. The galaxy was such a massive place, why not just go somewhere else? Idiots.

They quickly arrived at the pyramids, though before Ryugan could attack, Aoi warned him not to, as a magical barrier guarded the place. Aoi then lamented the choices of these Brenchians, and how they could have worked together instead of resorting to betrayal, though at this, Salvo simply rolled her eyes. "Yea, yea," she grumbled, "Shoulda woulda coula. Now they're gonna pay th' price fer their mistakes, aye? Let's not git all sentimental 'bout 'em." She didn't want this Aoi fella having second thoughts at the wrong moment, after all.

Salvo then descended to the ground just outside the barrier, since the only way through it was to walk, apparently. "Why don't you gentlemen try it first?" she suggested, gesturing for them to go on ahead of her - she wanted to make sure Aoi's hypothesis about the barrier was correct before proceeding.

When Ryugan and his crew walked through the barrier unharmed, Salvo nodded and followed suit, right behind them as they proceeded towards the pyramids. However, before they could arrive, a trap was triggered! All of them were sent falling down through trap doors that each had them tumbling through a tube until they landed in separate prison cells - Salvo swore and cursed like a sailor the entire way down, until she finally landed on her rear end. "Gah, wot the 'ell?!" she further cursed as she scampered to her feet. The tunnel closed itself off above her, so flying back up wasn't an option. 

As for the cell itself, it seemed to be in a stock standard old-fashioned prison cell, carved out of a cavern that likely already existed here. And Salvo wasn't alone: two other aliens stood in the room with her, looking awfully smug at their new capture. "Well, well, well," one of them gloated as they approached Salvo's cage. "Look what the cat dropped in! You're gonna be stuck here a long, long ti-" before he could finish, a laser bolt blasted through his skull, killing him instantly.

Salvo stood with her gun in her hand, unimpressed with the prison she'd found herself in. "Ye didn't take our weapons, ye bleedin' blige suckers!" she grumbled as she took aim at the other guard. The other guard scrambled to get out of the room, though Salvo shot him in the back twice for good measure, sending him crumbling to the ground. "Morons." 

The Heran gripped the bars of her cell and ripped them from their positions with ease, then stepped free of the cage and dusted herself off. Now, how the heck was she going to navigate herself through this tunnel system...?

As Salvo got her bearings, she began to work her way through the tunnels of the pyramids, occasionally running into weak grunts who would either try and stop her - and die in the process - or would attempt to flee from her when they realized how far her power outclassed theirs. These fellows also died in the process, however. Salvo was, to say the least, not particularly sympathetic to these Brenchians, even if she had one of them has her own pilot.

It was when Salvo had killed a Brenchian wearing a scouter that she got an idea. The pirate captain bent down, snatched it off of the dead woman's face, and then affixed it to her own ear and over her eye. "Lessee here," she mumbled as she fiddled with it. She was pretty sure those guys in Ryugan's gang had scouters of their own, so if she could just figure out how to reach them on the communicator, they might just be able to coordinate something. If she tried navigating this place entirely on her own, it could take hours before she got out.

After a bit of messing around, Salvo was pretty sure she'd managed to open a channel that anyone nearby with a scouter would have been able to pick up on. She didn't really care if the Brenchians were able to listen in - they were all too weak to stop her, anyway. "Oi! Ryugan and co. You lot there?" her voice went out onto the scouter channel. "Tis me, Salvo! I'm in some kinda cave system 'neath th' pyramids. Where'd ye all end up? Think we ought t' track one another down, 'ere."