*pictures Essex shooting Reikoff with her dart gun*
...
.......
....
......
*snerk*
*falls over laughing*
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Ehehehe. 
Essex is so cute. Of course, I would say that. 
Anyways, keep it up, other Essex. Or Rosalind now, I guess.
Hooowargh!!!
Soviet is always down as story fodder...err...filler 
Also,
[ QUOTE ]
If we see a mushroom cloud goin' up all the way from the Rogue Isles, we'll know whose fault it is."
"Alpha's." Essex said indignantly
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL
The teleporter hummed to life at exactly 2:00 in the afternoon, not one minute more or less. Malta Tactical Commander Samuel Reikoff stepped into the laboratory of Repliforce Paragon, kicking the dust off his boots and turning down the volume a bit on his radio.
The laboratory was quiet.
Too quiet.
Reikoff shook his head.
"Know you're there, Essex." he called out. "Thought you knew better than to jump out at me. I'm wired to shoot you if you startle me, you know. And Marcus'd get pissed if I had to call him down here on his first day off in two months."
"Awwh..." Essex frumped, peeking between the salvage racks where she'd been hiding. "You always know when I'm planning an ambush."
Skipping out of hiding and giving him a quick hug, the little android smiled up at him. "Essex Blue 4 2 6, reporting for duty!" she chirped with a salute.
Reikoff couldn't help but chuckle. "At ease, Essex Blue." he said. "I thought you were on duty right now. Status of Dr. West and entourage?"
The android looked mortified. "Ah...um....that's right. I'm supposed to be on nav for them...I forgot I was on call." Backing up a little, she scurried off to the navigation/surveillance room she spent so much time in to monitor the position of the other members of Repliforce Paragon.
Shaking his head after her, Reikoff's face turned to a neutral frown. Making sure Essex was all right in the base by herself was not his only purpose for visiting the laboratory.
The TacCom's steps echoed down the metallic hallway, fingers drifting cautiously against the devices mounted on the walls. The switch Dr. West had showed him was somewhere....there! A quick twist of a diode and a door slid open, near-silently, into a dark room.
Illumination.
The room was as it had been left the last time Reikoff had seen it - strewn with papers. His rough jaw was set, however, in the knowledge that the information was now freely his to analyze.
It hadn't been so long ago that he and Essex had stumbled upon this room while West had been stabilizing Marcus and Curtis. The Repliforce had taken a terrible hit that day - a clockwork Paladin, made huge by the integration of several of its own kind into its design, had ruthlessly powered through the handful of Reploids who had been sent to apprehend it. Essex, who had stayed out of melee range and had desperately tried to keep up with the astonishing amount of damage it was capable of, was the last one standing when the Malta command cell made their timely intervention. Reikoff, Curtis, and Marcus had all been injured badly in the conflict, only Alpha One, the Apache Ace, remaining relatively unscathed. The reploids were dreadfully damaged, one even permanently decommissioned - Seawing, one of the marine models and one of Essex's closest brothers.
As West had repaired the others, Reikoff and Essex had stumbled upon this room - full of documents and strange, experimental devices that spoke of blackmail and espionage. Dr. West had been forced into a contract with the KGB for work on a top-secret supersoldier program - part of the reason why the Doctor remained in hiding. After being confronted with the information privately by Reikoff, West agreed to allow him access to all information in regards to the experiments.
And so, it was with an analytical eye that Reikoff surveyed the documents, carefully reading the reports and correspondance. Most of it was written in Russian and needed to be translated - but the blueprints were straightforward enough. A microfilm camera was enough to copy the information for now - the Soviet could translate them at his leisure. West had given permission to take the documents, but such a thing would be difficult outside of Essex's notice. The girl knew very little of the checkered past of her father...
As he continued to explore, Reikoff suddenly noticed a discoloration along the far wall.
"What's this?" he muttered, examining it closely. There was definitely something behind the wall...but...there was no discernable way in, as if it had been perfectly sealed.
"...Odd." the TacCom grunted to himself, eyeing it. His instinct was to immediately investigate...but the soldier hesitated.
Shaking his head, he went back to the documents. Dr. West had been agreeable thus far, and would likely willingly concede information. Besides. There were some doors in a man's life best left closed...
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
"The crowd had run out of patience." Reikoff said quietly, in a storyteller's tone unusual for his gruff voice. "Just after the revolutionary's speech, thousands stormed the narrow cobblestone street leading to the radio station, demanding that their desires be broadcast. In response, the secret police sprayed Kalashnikov bullets into the crowd. At that point, we all said, 'That's enough.' And when 100,000 people think that at the same time, it's a revolution."
He paused.
Essex's eyes were dimmed and half closed in her recharge pod, her head ducked in fatigue. She loosely clung to a stuffed bunny - her favorite toy, given to her by a friend from school. Its ears changed color depending on the mood of its holder, and it was now a mellow, deep blue as she 'slept' contentedly. Pushed up on the rabbit's head were a pair of light blue goggles - Seawing's. She had kept them after his destruction and held them dear.
"...The end." he muttered, carefully standing up and hitting the switches that would begin her recharge sequence. With that, he left the room, going back to his task of research.
---
The process of dreaming in sentient beings was quite similar to the defragmentation of a computer. The events of the day, or even the past few weeks, months, or years, needed sometimes to be sorted into the proper storage areas, the appropriate synapses needed to be triggered to get there, and memories were skimmed over once again. This often culminated in a sometimes humorous, sometimes frightening, and sometimes just plain odd phenomenon commonly known as a dream.
Essex's AI underwent essentially an identical procedure when she entered her recharge phase. Data in short-term memory needed to be sorted into the proper areas. Links needed to be updated, associations and things she had learned needed to be written to hard chip. Faces, words, deeds, feelings, sensations - all committed to memory.
In days past, when the S6 unit was hardly ever allowed out of the laboratory, her dreams were never pleasant ones. Always re-experiencing the horrified sense of dread watching her brothers and sisters on remote...The feeling of helplessness, knowing that she could heal them, if only she was there...but being too frightened. And then the frightening images of the huge android standing over her, which she later discovered were images of the past - the distant past, which her soul cried out to her mind to remember. A soccer uniform. Screams and crying. A woman, whose face was erased in her mind, falling to the ground as if in slow motion, long wavy hair billowing like a wave of gold behind her.
But those dreams had long since passed.
Now her thoughts were colorful and happy. All the friends she knew and had made - From school, from the various strange occurrences she seemed to get herself into, from around the city. Toy Dispenser, who had secured himself in her mind as a sort of mentor, whether he knew it or not. The Malta, who Essex looked upon as a child looked upon her uncles. Her friends from school, a veritable spectrum of colorful personalities and quirks, each of whom she loved dearly. Hallucinogen, the recipient of her shy, childish affection. And not least of all, her father and family.
But that night, her dreams were interrupted by a strange feeling of longing. Her thoughts seemed hazy and disconnected, and a lightly sung lullaby seemed to permeate her thoughts.
"Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me why the sky's so blue,
And then I'll tell you, just why I love you.
Because the stars were meant to shine.
Because the ivy was meant to twine,
Because the sky was painted blue,
That's why I love you, what I was meant to do..."
Selene.
Selene.
Se
le
ne....
-------
Three in the morning.
An orange light began to blink to the side of the recharge pod.
ERROR.
ERROR.
Premature termination of recharge sequence initiated.
Essex's eyes lit up again as the android came groggily back online, still only at roughly 70% charge.
And came face to face with something her sensors couldn't even begin to comprehend.
----------
Reikoff nodded to himself in approval. The paper trail was all there. Now if only they could somehow find more information about the mysterious contact who had --
A piercing shriek horribly disrupted his senses, shredding through the hallway in a cacophany of childish terror and desperation.
Reikoff didn't jump, though his hand twitched only slightly once before his rifle was in hand and the paramilitary commander was sprinting down the hallway. His mind raced with possibilities, each one angering him more. It was impossible to infiltrate this laboratory, between its intrinsic defenses and his expertise. Who could have possibly...
Crey?
Nemesis?
He snorted to himself as his mind immediately dismissed the possibility of Freaks or Clockwork.
Maybe Rikti...
As the lights came back up in the recharge bay, Reikoff glanced around cautiously, his weathered eyes wary in their analyzation of the area. Essex was still in her recharge pod, shaking like a leaf with her eyes tightly closed.
The rest of the room was ominously silent, the only noise the soft beeping and trilling of the various machinery.
Nothing.
All scans showed negative.
There was absolutely no sign that anything had been disturbed...except for the shivering little android, who would have quite possibly been sobbing if she had the capability.
Reikoff let his gun drop.
"Christ." he swore, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "D'ja have a bad dream, Essex?"
"No sir..." she piped up from inside the pod, her voice shaking as she cautiously opened her eyes. Upon seeing it was just the commander in the room, she sat up straight, looking around in bewilderment. "There was someone here...Right here, in front of my face."
Reikoff sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. "Essex..." he said, "Your recharge pod is still locked. It's sensitive material as well, so it would at least have fingerprints on it. Or marks. Or something."
"....I think I'm done recharging for the night." she said despondently. "Could you open the pod? I'll probably just power down in the medbay for a while..."
"Fair enough, kiddo." Reikoff obligingly unlocked the pod, allowing Essex to get out, before closing it behind her. She scurried off down the hall, still clinging to her bunny, the commander a few steps behind her.
As he stopped in the doorway, he paused to look back in the room.
"...Scare the [censored] out of me." he muttered before turning the lights off.
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
[ QUOTE ]
"...Scare the [censored] out of me." he muttered before turning the lights off.
[/ QUOTE ]
And me. Creepy. More!
Solid suggests shooting the entire room with bullets to make sure no stalker is hiding there. Or popping a couple of yellows.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Or you could just let Experiment try to 'fix' a few of his inventions. There would be nowhere to hide.
Vern didn't even get mentioned. He is so sad. 
And so am I.
But great work! 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Eh, neither did I, but Forum Follies 6 definately made up for that. "Unhand her, in the name of Experiment 2.0!" yo.
"Thanks for taking care of me for a little while." Essex said, bowing her head to Reikoff as he strapped his weapons on, readying to leave. "I really appreciate the company."
"Not a problem." the commander said, calibrating the teleporter to take him directly to Peregrine Island. "Sorry you didn't get much rest last night, but in retrospect maybe the Hungarian Uprising wasn't the best choice in bedtime stories for little girls."
"I like hearing about stuff." Essex insisted nonspecifically and rather sullenly.
"Heh." Reikoff smirked down at her through his cowl. "Right then. Take care. And if you see anything else scary, you give me a call, okay? I'll keep my comm on."
"Thank you, sir." she said, nodding her head again and giving him a wave. "Do take care!"
The next moment, he waved to her, and then was gone.
Essex waved a moment more, before sighing.
Alone again.
The android skimmed over to the surveillance module, slumping in the seat a little and scanning over the countless monitors with a practiced eye. Dr. West and the rest of the reploids were safe in the Rogue Isles - well, about as safe as one -could- be in the Rogue Isles. The secondary laboratory in Aeon City was small, but it served as a good temporary base for some of West's more covert operations.
Essex was just wondering idley how the mission was going, when a soft noise alerted her audioreceptors to something in the workshop.
"...Hello?" she called out, hesitantly, getting to her feet. "...Excuse me? ....is anyone there?"
The android quietly stepped towards the workshop.
Another noise, a soft clink of metal.
"....Solid?" she called out. "Are you here already?"
Clink, clink.
"I-if you're trying to scare me, it's not working!!" she cried out. "...D-don't be mean!"
Silence.
"....Sir?"
She edged into the room, eyes wide and alert as she inched forward. The workshop was neat and organized as usual, everything clean and in its place. The soft hum of the machinery was the only noise...
...except a single clink that drew Essex's attention to the worktable itself.
The android made a motion similar to that of a person swallowing nervously. She couldn't see over the worktable, her childish body too small to reach it. Hesitantly, she initiated her thrusters, and slowly hovered upward.
What she saw made her overclock for a brief moment in shock.
Some of Dr. West's tools and some components were neatly laid out on the table. As her eyes followed the line of tools, Essex saw that they were arranged in such a way to form letters.
S E L E N F
"...Selenf?" she murmured despondantly.
Before her eyes, a small wrench slid across the table, neatly finishing the F into an E with a quiet clink.
---------------------------------------------
"Lucy, I'm home!" the tall, grey gunner android called out from the teleport bay. Gun slung over his shoulder and a colorful box under his arm, Solid Shot uncerimoniously sauntered down from the telepad, his targeting eye surveying the area inquisitively.
"Ess, you around?" he called out again. "I brought Monopoly so I can kick your little pink-skirted [censored] again. Maybe this time you'll learn the business world isn't supposed to be nice, eh?"
He chuckled to himself, walking further into the base. "C'mon, kid, come out, come out, wherever you a-"
Solid paused, barely able to make out the terrified form of the little android, clinging tightly to her stuffed bunny, hiding in a corner of the medbay under a white tablecloth.
"....Essex?"
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
You just got yourself a new fan.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
>_> <_< >_>
If it's cause you like Solid, he's mine.
Although she did portray him just about perfectly.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"So let me get this straight."
Solid leaned against the back wall of the medbay, arms crossed as he looked down at Essex. The little pink android was clinging to him quite tenaciously, and he figured he wouldn't kick her off just yet.
"Last night in your recharge, you saw someone in the room with you, but when Reikoff came in to check on you, they were gone. Then today, something was writing words with Doc West's tools."
"Not just words!" Essex said, looking up at Solid, the tablecloth over her head and around her shoulders like a hood. "My name! ...Well not really my name, but..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Selene, Doc West's daughter whose DNA he used to make you and whose spirit you supposedly embody and whatnot, giving you that adorably infuriating little dual identity that I don't want to deal with."
"Ah...yes."
"Right then. So you know what I think?" Solid tapped a steel finger on the top of Essex's head with a thump.
"Ah...Sir?"
Solid crouched down to come face to face with the little android, resting his large hands on her shoulders. His face was mostly expressionless, due to the single optic and the ventilation grate, but there was still an air of grimness around him.
"Essex." he said, his voice dark and serious. "It sounds to me...like you have a ghost problem on your hands."
"G-ghost!?" Essex squeaked.
"Or a poultergeist." Solid said, straightening up and rubbing his chin in thought. "Though it could also be a demon. Did Doc West build the laboratory on an ancient Native American burial ground? Or have you been doing human sacrifices in the lab behind all our backs?"
Solid would have grinned if he had the capability, pinching Essex's cheeks. "Cutest. Satanist. Ever."
"I'm NOT!" Essex wailed. "What do you mean there's a ghost!? I don't know why there'd be a ghost, and it's completely impossible! Nobody's ever died in here, and I'm not even sure that ghosts exist! There's no scientific evidence of anything besides the electrostatic residue of -"
"You're dating a hallucination and you're worried about the scientific proof of ghosts?" Solid asked incredulously.
"Hal-chan is NOT a hallucination!" Essex wailed, stomping her foot in frustration. "Stop trying to change the subject! This is serious!!"
Solid chuckled, straightening back up. "Listen, Essex." he said. "How about this. I'll stay up with you tonight. After all, I've got nothing else to do. And then we'll see about this ghost stuff."
He leaned down, leering over Essex's head like a large, steel vulture.
"Unless you're scared."
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
((Wahahahaha that is so like him. ))
"Ooookay." Solid said, surveying the collection of bits and pieces in front of him. "This'll have to do, since you can't leave the lab and you won't let me leave you here alone."
Essex nodded, her face in a grim little frown, but her lip quivering. Throughout the afternoon, she and Solid had searched around the laboratory for something, anything that would point to the existance of a ghost, when Solid had begun collecting random items from the rooms. Now they stood at the Repliforce Paragon briefing table, and before them lay the myriad - pieces of salvage, the Monopoly gameboard, the tablecloth, all sorts of things.
"We don't have much time." Solid said, beginning to arrange items on the table. "Ghosts like it best at midnight, right? So we gotta get ready for 'em."
--------------
Fifteen minutes later, the two androids stood in pitch blackness. All the lights had been turned off. The light roar of flame sounded as Solid began lighting candles with the pilot light of his flamethrower attachment.
"This is not going to work..." Essex lamented, watching as Solid set the candles around the table in the shape of a pentagon, and used a red crayon to draw a pentacle between them.
"Well, I don't have any goat's blood handy." Solid muttered, arranging a water glass on top of the Monopoly board, which he had scribbled letters on with a dry-erase marker.
"That's not what I mean!" Essex protested, the tablecloth still draped over her shoulders and the stuffed bunny sitting neatly in the seat next to her. "I mean this whole thing is stupid, and scary, and a bad idea, and-"
"Shush, unbeliever." Solid said, raising a finger. "The internet says this is how you talk to ghosts. Who am I to argue? Now shut up. It's almost time."
A soft beep heralded the arrival of midnight.
"Ghoooooooooosts...." Solid's voice emanated from the steel faceplate, as he leaned forward to illuminate himself in the light of the candles. "Spirits from the great beyooooond! ....We are here to talk to youuuuuuuu.....so.... What's uuuuuuuuuup?"
Essex whimpered quietly, and Solid glanced up at her.
"You talk to 'em." he said. "Ghosts like innocent little girls the best. They're always the ones that find all the corpses, but end up living through the whole movie."
This did nothing to reduce the little android's uneasiness as she bit her lip.
"...Hello?" she squeaked tentatively, her eyes tightly closed.
"No, you're doing it wrong." Solid said, shaking his head. "You're calling them from beyoooond the graaaaaaave!"
"Helloooooooooo?" she repeated despondantly.
Silence.
"Oh yeah, I forgot." Solid said, the grey gunner grabbing Essex's pink-bustered hands. "Put your fingertips on this glass and the ghost will talk to us through the board."
"...Through the board?" Essex echoed uncertainly.
"Yeah, it's cool." Solid said. "They'll spell stuff out with the letters, like, D E A T H. Or maybe D E S T R O Y Y O U R S O U L or something cool like that. Though a simple H E L L O would be-"
"Ssh!!" Essex suddenly interrupted, her voice taking a high-pitched tone of panic. "It's moving!!"
It was true. The glass had twitched slightly...and below both the androids' fingertips, had begun to move.
"You're moving it!" Essex harshly whispered. "Stop it, you're scaring me!"
"I'm not!" Solid muttered back. Finally, the glass stopped moving, and the two hunched closer to look at where it had stopped. "What's it say?"
Essex squinted in the light of the candles. "...'Marvin Gardens.'" she read.
"....The hell?" Solid tilted his head, bewildered. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You're the one trying to conduct a seance with a Monopoly board." Essex muttered.
Just then, a noise from down the hall alerted both the androids to activity in the medbay.
"...Did you hear that!?" Essex had to keep herself from shrieking.
Solid only nodded silently, looming in the candlelight as he stood up. "Come on." he said in a hushed tone, grabbing his gun. "Let's check it out."
The two of them stood near-silently, Essex grabbing up her bunny and creeping behind Solid as he slowly made his way towards the medbay.
"Unnnnnhhhh..." a voice moaned, echoing down the hall eerily.
Essex initiated a vicelike grip on Solid's leg, her eyes wide with panic. Solid, in turn, glanced down at her with a sigh.
"I can't move when you do that." he whispered.
Another mournful moan interrupted them, and Essex drew in a breath sharply with a squeak, skittering around behind Solid and instead taking refuge under his cape.
The grey assault drone inched forward, silently, step by step, until they reached the pitch-dark med-bay. Slowly, he raised the flamethrower pilot light...
...Illuminating a body on the floor, a pool of blood rapidly expanding around its form in the darkness.
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
<3 Solid and scared Essex.
On a side note: Essex, your PM box is full. Again. >_> I suggest cleaning it out.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
[ QUOTE ]
"What's it say?"
"...'Marvin Gardens.'"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"You're the one trying to conduct a seance with a Monopoly board."
[/ QUOTE ]
/dies laughing
"I told you it was a terrible idea to dim the power in the medbay, too!" Essex shrieked, nanites flooding out of her hands.
"Oh come on." Solid protested, leaning against the wall next to the reclaimator. "I thought all of RFP was off in the Rogue Isles, besides us. And besides, it's just across the hall from the briefing room - the light from the equipment would have totally screwed up the seance."
"You're lucky the teleporter was hooked to a backup generator and doesn't emit any light!" Essex cried, discarding a spike frantically from the downed form - a boy, just a touch taller than Essex herself, with black, shaggy hair that was messy though it looked as though it had recently been cut. He was wounded dreadfully, spines plunged deeply through his body, though Essex worked diligently to remove them and heal his wounds.
"Poisonous..." she murmured to herself as her fingertips, red with blood, alternately emitted regenerative nanites and cleansing nanoantibodies to rid his system of the poison. Soon, the boy looked better and better, until his wounds were closed and only his clothing was badly torn. He twitched a little.
"Ah, he's waking up..." Essex said, sitting back with a relieved look on her face.
"What. . .?" he groaned, and as his eyes flickered open, green smoke billowed out from seemingly nowhere, obscuring his form. His hair now bright yellow and seemingly much longer, he blinked sheepishly around at his surroundings.
"Hal-chan, I'm so glad you're okay!" Essex cried, nearly tackling him back to the ground again with a hug.
"Agh! Ow. . ." Hallucinogen laughed. "I'm still sore. . ."
"You should be, you had more spikes in you than a porcupine!" Essex fumed worriedly. "It's Schizophrenias again, isn't it? What are you doing fighting him at this hour?"
"He ambushed me, as usual." Hal said, slowly pulling himself back up into a seated position and shaking his head a little to clear his thoughts. "I'll get him, though. . .eventually."
"Well he can't get in here!" Essex crossed her arms defiantly.
"Do you mean you'd turn him away at the door?" Solid finally piped up, pushing his weight off the wall and reslinging his gun over his shoulder. "Because I think if he pulled the little lost kitten act you'd trot him inside for tea without a second thought."
Essex just folded her arms and pouted at that, and Hal laughed a little nervously. "Oh, hey Solid." he said with a nod. "Didn't see you there." Glancing around, Hallucinogen tilted his head slightly in puzzlement. ". . .Why is it so dark in here, anyhow?"
"Essex has a ghost infestation." Solid said in an amused tone of voice. "We were just about to start the sacrifice to appease their neverending thirst for blood."
"What!?" Hal yelled, springing to his feet. "Ghosts!?"
"Solid certainly thinks so..." Essex said, getting to her feet and washing the blood from her hands in the medbay sink. "The reason it's so dark is we're conducting a seance to try to figure out what's going on. Personally, I think it's-"
"-Marvin Gardens." Solid interrupted with a sagely nod. "That's the message the ghost chose to give us."
Hallucinogen was speechless for a moment, and if either of them had been particularly observant they would be able to see a single eyebrow raise inquisitively through the smoke.
"Marvin....Gardens?"
"Solid's using a Monopoly board as a makeshift Ouija board." Essex said with a sigh. "And he turned off all the machines that made any substantial light. Like the medical equipment." she continued with a leer.
"Hey, I wrote letters on the Monopoly board." the grey android protested. "And after all, who needs a sophisticated one-room hospital when they've got a healbot?" Solid said, patting Essex's head in an infuriating manner. "Healplz!"
"Ugh." she muttered with a small twitch. "I'll be back in the briefing room if you need me."
"Uh. . .Wait for me, Essex!" Hal called after, hastening his step to follow her after glancing at Solid. He soon found himself hindered, however, as the large android picked him up by the scruff of his shirt.
"And where do you think you're going?" Solid asked, the single optic on his steel face focusing in and out on Hallucinogen as his limbs pinwheeled a little in midair.
"Uh. . .I'm going with Essex." the illusionist replied cautiously.
"Ah-nu-nu-nu-nu." Solid replied, wagging his finger. "Doc West said specifically that you're not supposed to be here while Essex is alone in the base."
"But you're here, aren't you?" Hal retorted, now resigned to folding his arms angrily as he hung in midair.
"Very true." Solid remarked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Okay then, fair enough." With that, he dropped Hallucinogen uncerimoniously on the floor, where the young hero promptly tumbled onto his rear end with a grimace.
"You know," Hallucinogen grumbled, "You could learn a lot from Essex about-"
He was interrupted by a piercing shriek that caused a shudder to reflexively shoot up Hal's spine, and even caused Solid to start. The two of them turned as one and sprinted back into the briefing room, Hal's hands glowing with energy that illuminated the area around him with crackling brilliance and Solid's gun at the ready.
What they found rendered them both speechless.
The table had been disturbed, two of the candles knocked over and wax spilling liberally over the surface. The water glass that had been on the Marvin Gardens marker had been set aside, and the red crayon that Solid had used to draw the pentacle was end-up on the table.
It was moving of its own volition.
Designs were scribbled on the board, strange illegible cursive writing. Marvin Gardens was circled multiple times in red. Essex stood, frozen in horror, against the far wall of the room, her eyes wide in fear.
The red crayon continued writing on its own, barely illuminated by the three remaining candles, when a loud pop neatly bisected it in midair, causing the two halves to fall to the table where they rolled for a moment...and then were still.
Solid lowered his gun stoically.
"...Boys and girls..." he muttered, "That ghost just ruined my [censored] Monopoly board. It's time to get serious."
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
((Hahah! Keep it up!!))
((*ON- PEREGINE*Alpha: I sense a disturbance in the...
Reikoff: *Backhand*))
[ QUOTE ]
"Healplz!"
[/ QUOTE ]
"A-are you sure this isn't too much trouble?" Essex fretted, wringing her hands. "Dr. West told me not to let anyone into the base..."
She was met by a trio of nonplussed stares.
"Do you want your freakin' ghost problem taken care of or what!?"
"Hehehehehehe. What's a-matter, Dramabot? Baby gonna cry if Daddy gets pissed?"
"You need not worry. We are professionals, after all."
The Dread Trio stood in the entrance lobby of the Repliforce Paragon base, the group looking around impassively. Essex and Hal stood nearby, the little pink robot nervous and twitchy, and Solid stood opposite the newcomers.
"Draaaaaaag." Rosalind muttered, rocking on her heels with her hands shoved in her pockets. The were-human's ears were down and back in mild annoyance and she blew her white bangs out of her face.
Pherelith just nodded to Solid with a jagged grin. "'Ey Solid." she greeted. "Do a barrel roll?"
"NO U." Solid responded in turn, knocking knuckles with the willowy, gaunt zombie girl. "Glad to see you guys could make it on such short notice."
". . .I rarely know what you're talking about." Hal muttered, standing between Rosalind and Essex protectively.
"It's best just to leave them to their idiocy." Emry intoned, his crimson eyes scanning the laboratory with a bored sort of neutrality as the magnolia tree spirit spoke. "Now then...let us get down to business. Please describe the supernatural activity that you witnessed here over the course of the last few nights."
"Well..." Essex said hesitantly, counting off on her fingers. "When the Commander was here, I saw a white figure right in my face while in my recharge pod - like it was half in and half out of the door. But the door was locked and properly sealed, much to my surprise. Then, I watched as a set of tools on my father's workbench spelled my name. Last night, Solid and I conducted a seance...um...of sorts, and-"
"...And they ruined my [censored] Monopoly board." Solid said, holding up the scribbled on game-board with one hand.
Pherelith took the game board and narrowed her eyes, scanning the markings with a practiced gaze. Rosalind's nose was in the air, her eyes closed as she followed trails that were unsensable even by science's greatest instruments. Emry merely regarded Essex, the little android inching uneasily closer to Hallucinogen under his steady, cold gaze.
"Ghost. Definitely a ghost." Rosie muttered, nose in the air. "I can smell the despair."
"...Russian." Pherelith said with a raised eyebrow, still studying the scribblings. "One of the few languages I didn't study in finishing school."
"And by the sound of the encounters..." Emry mused, "Whoever it is, they are attempting to reach you, Essex. ...Or ...Selene."
With that, the magnolia spirit's eyes hardened as he stared at the android. Rosalind's eyes opened and she glanced back, suddenly catching her breath.
"...What exactly are you?" Emry asked Essex as she shrunk under his gaze. "...Because whatever it is, it's unauthorized. You reek of mankind's hubris and of grief-borne desperation. You're not just a mechanical being."
His fingertips twitched towards the blunt, silver pistol that hung at his side.
"...She's fine, Emry." Rosalind said, edging towards the tree spirit. "Ain't her fault her father-"
"The law is the law." Emry said, his gaze cold and unwavering on Essex. "And calling back a soul once it has already fully ascended breaks more laws than I care to describe."
"Emry." Rosie argued. "Leave her be, she's just a kid."
"...The illegitimate child of technology and spiritual energy."
The next moment, Essex found herself staring down the barrel of the Spirit Disruptor. The silver pistol was angled point-blank between her eyes such that the shot would enter her forehead and exit the back of her neck, cleanly firing through her AI chip.
The entire room seemed to freeze. Solid's hand was halfway to his gun, watching warily. Rosie looked lost, not knowing how she was supposed to react. Pherelith just eyed the situation neutrally, distracted from her task of deciphering the marked board. Emry's unblinking gaze was steady on Essex, who was staring up at him in turn with wide, frightened green eyes.
All at once, Essex vanished from sight. Emry's eyes narrowed, but his gun was now pointing down at a different person - Hallucinogen, violet fire hungrily crackling over his form and burning red eyes levelled at the tree spirit.
"I don't care who you are." Hal said coldly, returning Emry's stare with one of his own. ". . .And I don't care about your laws. You came here to help her. If you're going to help, help. Otherwise. . .leave. I'm not a patient person."
There was a stunned silence for a while, before Pherelith and Rosie seemed to sidle up to Emry out of nowhere.
"OooooOOOOOoooooh." they taunted, seemingly in unison.
"Look out, Emry!" Rosie said with a smirk. "It sounds like Hal-chan is calling you out."
"Don't call me that!" Hallucinogen yelled, turning his attention to the were-human.
"'Hal-chan'? You gotta be kiddin' me." Pherelith snickered, folding her arms.
"Ah...Please..." piped up Essex's voice from seemingly nowhere. "...Could we not argue? I ...I'm not sure what I did, but if there's something I could do to fix it, I'd be happy to cooperate....um...Maybe if I-"
There was a soft thump as she invisibly thunked into one of the nearby shelves, and a secondary thud as she lost her balance and fell to the ground.
"...Hal-chan, I can't see myself...." she squeaked despondantly.
Emry watched Hallucinogen as he fumed, and turned his eyes to where he could sense the invisible Essex. He brought a hand to his nose and mouth as if to stifle a cough.
"....*snerk*"
Rosie and Phe stopped in their tracks, looking up at the magnolia spirit in shock.
"Dude, did Emry just laugh?" Pherelith muttered. "Someone [censored]' shoot me."
"No freakin' way." Rosie said, one ear perked, giving her a perplexed expression.
"Heh heh heh..." Solid chuckled. "I guess that means I won't have to shoot his [censored]."
"Dangit!" Hal fretted with a scowl. "What's so funny!?"
Emry shook his head, his serious face now somewhat loosened into a very, very slight smile.
"...We will see what can be done about this situation later. For now, we have a job to do."
He raised his eyes to his partners, once again serious. "Pherelith, we need that Russian translated immediately. Rosalind, I need you on full alert. We need to know the location of any large concentrations of plants in this laboratory."
"Plants?" Essex asked quizzically as she slowly became visible again.
"Of course." Emry said, his eyes resting on her again. "...What else would you expect 'Marvin Gardens' to mean?"
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
[ QUOTE ]
"Of course." Emry said, his eyes resting on her again. "...What else would you expect 'Marvin Gardens' to mean?"
[/ QUOTE ]
Solid: >_> I'unno. Maybe the ghost wanted us to go to Conneticut or where ever.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
((OOC: All characters are (c) their creators and are used with permission. :3 Feel free to comment, as updates will be rather regular.))
"Boom! Headshot!!"
A foam dart bounced off the back of Burner's helmet. The old assault Reploid sighed laboriously, bending down to pick up the tiny projectile. Burner turned to face the direction the offending dart had come from, and shook his head at the barely visible pair of eyes, sheltered from above by an oversized black duster and below from the crate she was hiding behind.
"Y'all best be careful if you're gonna be playin' Malta while we're gone." he cautioned the hidden Essex as she continued to leer at him over the edge of the crate, carefully lining up another shot with her little foam-dart gun. "Some o' the heroes out there would be mighty quick to send you off to the hospital. Where'd you get that thing, anyway?"
"That's classified." she chirped from behind the crate. "Boom! Headshot!!" Another dart ricocheted playfully off Burner's forehead. He sighed.
"You sure this's a good idea, boss?" he said, turning to Dr. West, who was packing a briefcase. "I mean...c'mon, Malta in th' base. I know Ess's made friends with 'em, an' I like 'em myself, but -"
"I have the utmost trust in Commander Reikoff." Dr. West said simply.
"Guess that answers that." Ginstar said wryly as he packed some extra fuel cells in his left buster. "Hey S6, don't blow up the place while we're gone. If we see a mushroom cloud goin' up all the way from the Rogue Isles, we'll know whose fault it is."
"Alpha's." Essex said indignantly, straightening up and folding her arms atop the crate. "Hey Dr. West, why can't Hal-chan come and keep me company this weekend?"
Dr. West stiffened. Delphi, polishing her katana, snickered. "If you gotta ask, shrimp, then maybe you need to get out more. Talk to Solid, he'll clue you in."
"...Speaking of Solid." West said, glad for the subject change. "I've asked him to check in on you every now and again this weekend as well. With the rest of us out of town, I won't have you leaving the base unattended. Commander Reikoff's able to watch you for one night, but he's a busy man and I won't have him wasting what little leave he has holed up in a base babysitting."
"I'm not a baby!" Essex whined, firing another dart at her father's glasses. With a single quick motion, he snatched it out of its mid-air trajectory and studied it.
"No," he mused, "but you're not a grownup either. You do everything Reikoff and Solid tell you to do, you understand me?"
"Yes sir." Essex grumbled.
"That's my girl." Dr. West walked over to her with a small smile, patting her head and disrupting the angle of her duster. "Remember, I'm counting on you to keep the base safe and to support us. Be sure to get your recharge in. And DON'T let any strangers in the base, okay? I don't care if they're Longbow, it took me weeks to get the red tape taken care of from last time those damned nuisance candy canes came poking their philistine noses into my laboratory-"
"Doc, calm down. Yer gonna blow a gasket." Burner quipped. "We oughtta get goin' anyhow."
"Yes, you're right." West sighed. "Have a good weekend, Essex. Reikoff will be here sometime within the next few hours. Take care."
With that, the scientist and his contigent of Reploids stepped into the teleporter and were gone.
Essex pulled down the cowl from her face, watching the teleporters for any incoming teleports, in case anyone had forgotten anything.
But they never came. She was alone.
A smile lit up her face as she tore down the hallway, her jets humming softly as she skimmed.
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace