Khellendrosiic

Unforetunately unless Trisys tried something besides just talking, Toy wouldn't be able to hear her. He had made the assumption that she'd be able to control what was happening to herself and it would take a little while before he started to doubt. This didn't mean he wouldn't spread the knowledge around a little, though.

"You might want to keep the little guy out of her head," he said, chuckling about Cerelassion's complaint about his color scheme. "There's literally nothing in there, just an empty shell with some rudimentary motive programming."

He turned to face Trisys and Jade, holding up a finger toward Cerelassion so as to wait a moment.

"I was able to interface with her... soul, for lack of a better word," he told the Drokar, moving to stand next to him over the inert shell. "She seemed to be stuck in her head, thinking everything that happened to her was an illusion. I left her a link to my sensors to keep that problem at bay, but that was all I could do."

"Yes, emotions," Toy snapped at Cerelassion as he stepped away from Trisys, giving Jade room. "I'm an android, not a dumb robot."

Letting out a burst of static that might have been akin to a sigh, the mastermind watched as the dragon shifted forms to something more bipedal. He nodded at this useful skill and then turned to face the elf.

"Right, sorry. Just a little high strung at the moment," he said. "Judging from the smoke I guess that Tafari guy is still around, but I don't know the specifics. Is he contained or still at la-large?"

Toy's voice caught for a moment, but then resumed as though nothing was wrong. Inwardly he had detected the aborted 'download' and was wondering exactly what that meant. Shrugging almost imperceptibly, he coded something and fired it back down the line.

Download into your own body, read the text that suddenly appeared on the PDA in Trisys' mindscape. It's a robot now, just imagine you're a program. Remember: You're in your own head, so you're the boss.

At Trisys' reaction to the shadows, Toy had turned to give them all an inquisitive look. Normally this would have been impossible for someone without an actual face, but the feeling persisted. In response the bonked shadow simply shrugged and Toy mimicked the gesture before refocusing. Even when he wasn't here, Mini Bot managed to do something useful.

Then the images began and the android didn't seem to take that very well, going as quiet and still as he was on the outside until she had finished. He seemed to pull into himself and Trisys would be able to sense a furious internal debate going on, though the topic illuded her. After an interminable length of time (which was likely only a few seconds), Toy's mental image extended what looked like a notebook sized PDA, but was actually a piggy-backed connection into his still active sensors.

"I'm not quite sure what to do here, you know," he said conversationally. "I've only done this mind scape thing a couple times before and I've never encountered a genie going through a mid-life crisis before. So I'm not entirely sure what to do..."

The shadows arranged behind him did an about-face and started walking off, slowly fading away as Toy began to withdraw from the link.

"Try thinking of this as a new opportunity. You've shucked off the luggage of all your past deals and now it's time for a new game. Except this time you have all the experience and power you gained from the past," he laughed a bit and shook his head, slowly turning to walk away. "I'd give you a pep talk about self-determination, but that can always be saved for another time. Check the connection, see that your Jade is still alive and well, and come on out of your head. I have the feeling that out of the lot of us, you're the best chance we all have of getting home."

And then he was gone, his soul withdrawing completely to leave behind the electronic PDA, temporary access to his sight and hearing so that she could see for herself what was out there.

Back in the real world, Toy's formerly still form jerked once, the fingers that had rested on Trisys' chest curling into a fist before he turned his head to face the dragon.

"Quit lolly-gagging about, Smaug," he said to Jade as he lurched to his feet, stumbling drunkenly and leaning heavily against the tree he had placed the robot genie under. "You can smell the roses later. Right now your genie is mentally traumitized and probably needs her master to snap her out of it. Or maybe not. God knows how the **** this is supposed to work."

Toy sounded awfully frustrated about something.

Ah man, that was a good read. And I only succumbed to the temptation to click on the trope links whose names I didn't understand! Go me!

Toy was a bit distracted, unable to answer Akat even though he heard the question. Still as immobile as a statue and with his subtle lightning aura even dimmer than usual, she might notice something was up.

"Whoa, talkative, aren't you?" he thought into Tyrsis' mind scape. "As too who I am... Reasonable question. Let's see if I can apply some conjecture here..."

Focusing, he called to mind what he looked like, leavened with feelings and concepts of just who and what he was. Gradually it built up, first his body, all green and red and blue with its blank white faceplate and diamond pattern cape fluttering in the theoretical wind. Concepts came next, how he was 'born' a simple machine, gained his sentience through happenstance, and grew into a successful and esoteric mercenary. Associations flashed by, numbering almost as many heroes as villains, and six vague robot-shadows formed behind his mental image. They seemed to be personalities there so often as too become background, but now altogether too noticable in their current absence.

Feelings came next, mostly curiosity directed at Trysis and annoyance at the conflict Tafari was generating. A strong undercurrent of amusement ran in the background as if he found just about everything laughable on some level or another. Then a distinct memory; a bank robbery, so routine as to be almost painful, then disorientation and the sensation of falling, then pain and injury and annoyance and curiosity and reaching forward to try something he'd never tried just for the hell of it.

Spreading his imaginary arms wide he stared right toward the 'location' of Trysis' voices, the shadows of his henchemen staying back, being as non-threatening as possible.

"I think I got that right. Fairly sure you can recognize the truth of all that, direct soul to soul link after all. Now how about you? What exactly is Trysis?"

Behind him the largest of the shadows hit one of the smallest ones on the head. It felt appropriate.

Out in the real world, Toy suddenly went silent and still, hand resting lightly on Trysis' chest as he focused his attention inwardly.

"Well you see, that's the problem when you run into your own head. There ends up being nobody around except yourself. Name's Toy Dispenser, kid, you look like you could use a hand."

Toy snickered a bit at Cerelassion's comment, especially because it seemed the elf has missed the fact that he had actually pulled the interface cable from a port on the back of his neck. He did hold the plug-in really close to protect it and the guy probably used to such technology, so no biggie.

"I'm sure several artists would disagree with you, buddy, but we're not all perfect," he replied as he withdrew the plug, snapping it back behind its armor covering and turning to glace at the pair who had followed. "And nevermind that then, I'll assume you know him better. Any clue why he's comatose despite Happy McBlow Things Up back there?"

While he waited for Akat's response and watched the brewing fight, his fingers idley tapped against Trysis' hull. The flickering red lightning that crackled over his form, almost a perfect mirror of what the genie had had a moment before, started to creep off his fingers and onto her body. While not very noticeable to those watching from outside, anyone with supernatural vision (or indeed Trysis herself) would notice that he was probing at the other android with what was quite literally the physical manifistation of his soul.

Good question how he got that, but weirder things have happened.

Let's see where you ran off too, eh?, he thought as he tried to extend his perception after her. He had never tried this before, but figured it wouldn't hurt given the similarity of their auras. If worse came to worse he could survive losing a bit of his soul, the thing grew back.

"Looks like the rumble is starting," he added off-handidly.

Toy quit running after he had gotten about fifty meters from the brewing fight, long experience letting him judge that this was far enough to stay out of the fight. Either that or no amount of running would get him out of range, so he decided to err on the side of still being able to monitor events.

"I am so glad I'm not an overly arrogant villain," muttered the android as he set Trysis down under a particularly large tree, several roots having formed a natural chair. "Now let's see what we have here..."

Tilting the transformed genie's head around, Toy performed a series of perfunctory checks, scanning for any damage of irregularities. With his experience in robotic matters and lack of distractions, he'd probably find out why the woman was unconscious in a fairly short amount of time. Then there'd be nothing to do except try to wake her up. Or interface directly with her mind, whichever.

"I think he needs a surfboard," Toy would call out once Akat and her elemental entourage got close enough for a normal conversation. "You sure he isn't going to wake up and try to eat people?"

Cackling, Toy flashed Tafari the peace sign and folded his rifle back up, attatching it to some magnetic clamps at the small of his back, under his cape.

"Dude, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have used something bigger," he said disparagingly. "As it is, I think you need to go back to Supervillains 101. You're supposed to kill the guards or other inhabitants before you start stealing their ****. Good luck, big guy."

Not sparing a moment to watch Ildela's throw (well, technically he watched it too, but wasn't looking at it), Toy shifted position. He patted Kethara on the shoulder as he passed her with a muttered "Good idea" until he reached the Khelari and the shifting dragon.

"Let's give the angry elves, general forest creatures, and the big nasty dragon a wide berth, yeah?" he said as he tugged Akat's shoulder and directed her toward Kethara. Guessing that the lizard-woman had some common sense, Toy trusted she'd get moving and instead turned to regard Trisys for a moment.

Looks like a bot, glows like an elemental, gives off more 'Unknowns' than a dimensional vortex. Five gets you one she'll be important.

With that minor internal dialogue out of the way, Toy bent down to scoop the comatose robot up into his arms and started moving away from the waking dragon and the suicidal metahuman.

"All aboard who's getting aboard!" he shouted as he jogged away, hopping over the occasional tree root in his way.

"A pleasure," Toy said rather gravely as he half-bowed at Lady Aineruda, taking the chance to give her a more thorough look. "So, Patches, huh?"

Warning: Local magic flux detected.

The android suddenly lurched in Tafari's direction, the lightning crackling over his form distending and flickering wildly in the metahuman's direction. Sensors temporarily a-whirl he stumbled a step before recovering and turning in the direction of the magical drain. Twitching a glance at Ildela and Kethara, Toy held up a placating hand while his left dropped down to flip open a pocket-like slot on his outer left thigh. Sticking his hand in, he pulled out a blue and red pulse rifle which technically should not have been able to fit inside the pocket.

"Hold on a second," he explained, unfolding the stock and popping up a scope on the rifle. "The guy the elf lady's yelling at isn't going to stop with just words. And whatever he's doing stings."

Flipping a small switch from 'lethal' to 'non-lethal', Toy sidestepped to get a clearer view of Tafari (or his side, at any rate) through the trees and took quick aim before blasting out a trio of stun rounds at the man. Each was about as powerful and annoying as a taser, so hopefully they would phase him enough to break his concentration.

...well, anonymity didn't last long.

The android slumped in an almost perfect rendition of an anime 'sweatdrop' maneuver when Idella called out his name. A bit of red electricity flickered across his faceplate as he warily looked over at the girl.

"That would be me, yes," he said slowly, taking the time to scan Idella more in-depth. Without access to Earth's metahuman databases he couldn't find out exactly who she was, but he had enough experience and scanning power to at least guess at her powers.

He shrugged one shoulder at the Khelari, "Toy Dispenser isn't that odd a name. Well, it is, but for it to make sense I'd have to explain the joke and that's never any fun.

"But I seem to be at something of a disadvantage now. You ladies would be called...?" he continued, looking from one woman to the other. "Oh, and my dimension is normal. Same as hers, to be exact."

He indicated Idella while seemingly looking over her shoulder at Trysis, Kethara, and the dragon.

"Less elves, though. Smaller trees. And no bored higher dimensional beings as I'm sure this place has in abundance. At least we're not being told to fight to the death, that's a nice change of pace."

((http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y18...spensernew.jpg Damned if I can remember how to embed this in text.))

Thankfully for all involved the android's only similarity to a meteor was the speed of its landing and swath of devastation left behind in its wake. There might have been a few small fires started among the branches it shot through, but nothing as major as a giant fireball. Well, not yet anyway, considering that this was a forest and all and still highly flammable.

Servos audibly whining, the android gripped a chunk of rock that had been holding it in a more or less sitting position and levered itself to its feet. The blank, reflective faceplate simply stared at the Khelari for several moments before a different, more automated voice crackled out from its hidden speakers.

"Please hold, all operators are busy at this time. Every call is important to us here at LMOUSVEV and we apoligize for any inconvenience. An operator will see to you as soon as a line is cleared. Thank you, and have a pleasant wait."

Corny, mildly irritating elevator music then started playing, but the android had not been sitting still while its apparently automated message went off, hands reaching down to its belt to click open a small compartment filled with a dozen glowing vials of liquid. Removing a green and a blue and shutting the compartment, the android transferred one vial to its free hand and then squeezed, shattering them both. Curiously, not a single drop of the liquid fell free, instead the entirety of the contents seemed to seep into its armor.

The android stood still for several moments, then adruptly flicked both hands in a movement a lot more graceful its earlier jerkiness would not have foretold, brushing remnants of glass off its hands.

"A hijink is exactly what just happened to me," it finally said in a fairly pleasant, yet slightly synthesized masculine voice. "Namely popping up a mile in the air above a super-sized forest and plummeting almost to my death with only enough time to discover that I'm in a completely different dimension. Again."

*************************************

Of course, what everyone saw wasn't exactly everything that was going on.

Primary systems at 26% functionality. Secondary systems at 45%. Tertiary at 74%.
Anti-grav, offline.
Force field generators, offline.
Quantum communications, jammed.
Electro-static field, unknown.
Senso-

Yeah yeah, I get it. I'm broken as all ****. Well, at least I'm not getting shot at yet. Enough time to break out the nanites.

Scanning targets.
Species: Khelari(?), female(?)
Enhancements: None.
Weapons: Natural.
Hostility: Nil.
Threat: Suspected low.

And that's not even mentioning the crowd of elves, supers, and... a dragon? Well melt me down and turn me into a toaster, at least it isn't one of the brothers.

Nanites integrated.
Primary systems: 40%
Secondary sytems: 82%
Tertiary systems: 99%
Anti-grav, offline.

...well, no running even if I wanted too. Let's hope none of those supers recognize me.

"A hijink is exactly what just happened to me. Namely popping up a mile in the air above a super-sized forest and plummeting almost to my death with only enough time to discover that I'm in a completely different dimension. Again."

Warning! Local space/time anomaly detected!

"Say what!? Aw hell, grab the last of the loot and book it!"

Unknown energy signature closing. Anomaly stabilizing. Local dimensional flow de-synced.

"****! No time! Emergency teleport, now!"

Error. Destination cannot be found.

"...****."

*******************************

It was a very annoyed little dot in the sky that suddenly appeared about a mile above the giant forest the elves called home. A very annoyed little dot that was not only falling, but being bombarded by error messages and pleas of non-functionality.

"Anti-grav not working my shiny metal ***!"

Unable to do anything to halt its fall, the dot couldn't do much more than orient itself and try to find a soft spot to land. Thankfully trees could do a lot to slow its velocity without taking too much damage from the collision. Unfortunately, surviving a fall from terminal velocity was always a *****.

"This is one of those times I wish I had old fashioned rocket boots. That kind of primitive junk wouldn't be messed up by a freaking dimensional yank."

Oh well. Full power to the force fields, overcharge the buffer. Can deal with overloads and fried circuits after I'm down safely. Heh. 'Safely'.

The black dot suddenly burst into a pearlescent dot as it neared the tree tops. Like a meteor, it blew through the upper canopy, shattering branches and scattering indigenous animals. A tree got in the way, but it all it got was a man-sized hole blown clear through the trunk as the falling person barreled right through it. Then another, and another, not to mention the progressively larger branches that were sheered through.

Eventually the shielded ball hit the ground, bounced once, went through another tree (a really ancient one this time), and finally came to a stop at the end up a fifty meter trench that it had dug in its last few seconds of flight. The shield flickered once, then collapsed with an almost pathetic fizzle and crack.

Systems at 25% and holding steady. Repair protocols initiated.

"I hate dimensional hijinks," groaned the recumbent multi-colored android to nothing in particular.

*points at Deebs*

And this is why there is a stigma around the Pocket D.

User T0yD15p3s3r logged on.

Free will to be good or evil as one chooses? Hell yeah I'm on that side. Screw the money, screw the payday, sometimes even a villain has to take a stand. When the time comes, I'll be right there defacing statues with the rest of you.

Besides? Since when has any sort of awesomeness come from ignoring the words of Optimus Prime? Self-determination forall living beings, people.

User T0yD15p3ns3r logged off.

((...ah geez, this is going to entail more writing than I've done in months. Well then... *pulls up sleeves* Let's get to work.))

"Foolish Statesman! My plan is perfect! With almost every hero trapped within the Shadow Shard there is no one to stand in my way any longer!" bellowed Lord Recluse from his perch atop the Atlas Park city council building.

He looked quite imposing up there, actually, surrounded by a cadre of Bane Spiders who were slowly lowering the flag - his old cape - from the flagpole in preperation for replacing it with an Arachnos rag. The legions of black and red clad soldiers fanning out from the building like an ocean of evil also helped, seeing as how they filled every street as far as he could see. The hulking forms of Toxic Tarantulas rose above the mass of men like small hills, joined by their equally sized Arachnos Heavies and the swooping flights of Arachnos fliers in the air.

"No one except for me," chuckled Statesman as he cracked his knuckles, getting a little into character at the sight of the challenging sim before him. It would feel nice to cut loose for a bit, his real reason for being here notwithstanding.

"And you shall be little more than a speed bump on my road to victory!" countered Lord Recluse (Statesman couldn't bring himself to think of the simulated villain as Stefan). "Now destroy him, my minions!"

Grinning in a manner most unlike himself, Statesman dashed forward to greet the leading wave of blood widows and wolf spiders, ploughing through them like a juggernaught as he dove right into the middle of the mass and called the lightning of Zeus to him. The massive bolts slammed down just like they did in real life, scattering burned and battered soldiers exactly as he thought it would.

"I wonder how it figures powers out," he ruminized to himself before the hole he had opened in the ranks closed as he started laying about with thunderous blows of his fists.

He might be here for business, but he'd be damned if he didn't have a little fun along the way.

**********************

"Gragh!" gurgled a hapless zombie as it tried to swipe at Alex and instead got neatly obliterated by an energized punch to it's torso.

More zombies converged on her, moving with a peculiar shuffling gait that looked slow but was actually quite a bit faster. But they fell as easily as all the others. Looked like there wasn't much but cannon fodder around.

This would have been an entirely correct deduction, the endless horde of weak zombies little more than a way to gauge the powers and abilities of any combatants. The program, or rather the zombie master that the program was pretending to be, was holding back the more effective undead till the meddling heroes seemed to become complacent. He had an entire city of corpses, after all, not like he'd miss a few hundred.

Lurking under piles of rubble and corpses, hidden inside craters and blasted out buildings, and concealed among the endless ranks of their lesser bretheren were heavily armored zombies, each of them a former hero or villain with the powers to match. Sure their powers had diminished, but they were capable of coordinating in death in ways they wouldn't have imagined in life.

"New player connected: Alessandra Morrigan. Current players: M221, M221E. Team up established, difficulty modified," came the toneless female voice again, heard as though she were standing next to each person.

Once the three linked up and made it about half way to the city hall, something interesting would happen.

((So basically go wild with whatever I've listed out here. Have the Master send the hero zombies at your guys whenever you want in however many numbers and defeat them with whatever. But once you get to the halfway point like I mentioned, hold up and wait for me to post. This'll be basically how I do things in this thread.))

****************************

"Hey Vern," came a mildly annoyed voice from almost directly behind the Krayten, due left from where he came down the stairs.

Turning, Vern shook his head in bemusement at how he could have missed the speaker. Toy Dispenser, the person who had invited the lizard-like alien over, was a lightly armored and caped command and control android as told by the long ear-like projections on either side of his head and the blank white visor protecting the sensitive sensors on the front of his 'face'. But the real deal was just how bright the guy was. A bright blue dominated the color scheme, from his chest to his overlarge gauntlets to the diamond patterned cape. Red came next, doubling up on the cape and making slight inroads on the boots which was almost eclipsed by the neon green on his leg armor and the bright yellow of his segmented bet. All in all it was amazing someone hadn't invented the fashion police just to get him off the streets.

As it was the color-blind android was irritably tapping away at one of the Architect consoles, mumbling in annoyance at it. Moving closer Vern could see that Toy was struggling to get the system to accept changes to a pre-loaded list of Council soldier classes.

Hitting the close button with a sound of disgust, Toy turned toward to look down at the small Krayten and paused for a moment.

"You know, I think you got shorter."

((Oh god too much to write in one sitting. Will Edit this in a little bit with further responses.))

"...tutorial."

The endless flat green landscape that made up the 'default' mode of the datastream he had stepped into just a few seconds earlier seemed to revolve and spin as if the bit he was standing on moved elsewhere. It was somewhat disorienting.

"The Random Simulation Generator is a new addition to the Architect system's various operational modes!" picked up the young, but bland sounding female narrator as images began to float up from the green landscape.

"The average user just isn't looking for all the hastle of hunting through dozens or hundreds of entries! Even with the advanced search engine utilized here at Architect Entertainment the number of avaliable scenarios is just so vast that finding exactly what you're looking for can be a chore!"

He chuckled in amusement at the cartoony figure of a spandex and cape clad hero being bombarded by names of various stories and modules before throwing his hands up in a soundless cry of dismay. But then an equally cartoony wire-frame woman poked her head into the scene and cleared all the clutter away, presenting the hero with a single title.

"That's why we've come up with the Random Simulation Generator! Why hunt and pick when you can let our highly advanced search programs find just what you want for you? It's as easy as saying exactly what you want!"

The cartoony hero seemed to examine the title the wire woman held out for him, then shook his head and a word bubble, an actual to goodness straight-out-of-a-Sunday-comic word bubble appeared over his head with the words: "New search. Lots of action, comedy, Dr. Aeon!"

An eyebrow found it's way sliding upward under his mask as he watched the wire-woman exclaim in surprise then dive back under the green ground. A moment later she popped back out from the ceiling and dropped another title on the hero's head. The "Life and Times of Dr Aeon, Action Hero!" seemed o be just what the cartoon hero was looking for as he picked he title up and slotted it into a convenient hole in the background.

"You can choose either to examine what module is provided to you and compare it to your own desires like good old Architect Hero did here or you can dive right into the action, trusting our tried and proven systems to pick what's right just for you!"

Pumping his fist, the cartoony hero, Architect Hero, jumped into a hole in the ground and the whole scene faded back into green.

"This concludes our tutorial! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask one of our lisenced Architect Entertainment employees! But if you'd like to continue, please say 'Continue'!"

It didn't look that bad so far. And he had come here to try this out, in any matter.

"Continue."

"Excellent! Welcome to the Random Simulation Generator, Insert Name Here!"

There was a short pause before he started and grimaced a little.

"Statesman."

"Welcome Statesman! List your keywords now and let's get your adventure started!"

"Dive me into the first choice. Something simple, but difficult, with... hmmm... Arachnos."

There was another sensation of movement as the voice chimed in once more.

"Simulation starting in three... two... one... Have a pleasant trip!"

The world dissolved.

((Probably should have added this sooner. <_< So hi people! I'm going to try to run this a lot more free-form than usual but it's been a while since I've tried running an RP thread, so bear with me. Bring a character or two, set up your own Architect module, and I'll pick things up from there. You've got all the control at the moment, but I'll let you know when things start to go... 'wonky' for everyone. ))