"Oy! You do this?" A man called. Harlequin looked over. His voice, if something so grotesque and broken could truly be called a voice, hissed out from behind his mask. "This... this is just the beginning..." Shadows spun around him in a frenzy. Slowly, they collapsed in on themselves, and long before they disappeared, it was clear the man was gone.
(Wow...I'm dead unless I can come up with some clever reason as to why not aren't I?)
((Not at all. I just broke my character out. Your character has broken out, too. Feel free to do whatever you want with him, inside Jennifer8's rules.
(Oh, I thought you ment the shadows spun around me)
"Well, ****." He stated to himself as he realized what this ment. He was standing in the middle of the hall, next to some banged up cells, two dead guards and a dead inmate. This would take some explaining... "He yelled at his companions "Come on! We need to get the **** out of here!!!" He stopped in his tracks. "Wait....Any of you actually know the way out?"
((OOC: I posted this, then decided I wanted to run it past the player first. Will post it just as soon as I hear from him!))
Jen 8)
"Alright..." They were already booting it to the right. "I guess we should find wherever the hell they put our guns." He stated to the rest of his group. As they were running they passed a room that appeared to have aother free inmate in it. And he was....Watching T.V.? Twilit yelled to the inside. "Hey! The hell are you doing standing around?! We need to get the hell out of here!" In truth, Twilit was only trying to get him to come becuase he may know his way around.
"I intend to do no such thing. I just got here." Michael stared annoyed at the interruption, then looked confused toward the ceiling. I dont hear an alarm. Are you sure youre breaking out?
Michael, now more out of curiosity than anything, shrugged and began walking toward the inmate. He picked up a magazine with a white cover, for light reading or for making a surrender flag out of.
"Well, right now I'm looking for wher they took our gear, but yeah. Some shadow guy next to me gained his powers for a moment and killed two guards, while causing a big *** explosion. You coming or not?!" He became a bit anxious the longer he waited, God knows what the penalty would be for two dead guards, broken cells, a dead inmate.
Michael looked deliberately into the camera that was watching his every move. He put his hands in the air and walked toward the door and out of the sight of the camera, then put his hands down. "Alright, you've killed two guards and you have your powers back and you want me to come with you. I understand. What do you want me to do?"
"I told you....I didn't kill them." Not to say I wouldn't had I been given the chance. "I don't have my powers back yet, I think they injected me while I was out so you can stay and rot here if you want. Just tell me if you know where I can get my stuff back and the exit."
"The arresting officers took all my stuff. I was transferred from a county facility after my 'trial', to here by transport. I have no idea where the armory is. I believe the front door is over there." Michael pointed, now more intrigued than anything.
"Well I can't leave without my stuff so I'll ask one more time: You coming, or staying?" He thought he heard footsteps in the hall and became even more nervous. "I would personally chance it than stay here for God knows how long."
"LET ME GO, YOU SON OF A BEANSTALK!" came down the hall to Twilit, followed by a large Troll carrying a talking skull.
"Me no let yuz go, nub, 'cuz you hurt Grub's feelin's."
"Let me go, you idiotic Troll, or I'll"
"Har, yu'll WUT, nub? Look at me funnee?"
"...Oh yes... Yes, I'll 'look at you funny,' Grub..." Dark tendrils seeped from the skull, lashing at the Troll's neck, causing him to recoil in fear. He fell to the ground, his head making contact with a VERY strong bar.
The head rolled to the step of the cell, bumping at the ridge.
"...Ahem... Could either of you GOOD fellows help me get my body? It's about two cells down..."
Twilit muttered to himself. "Why does it seem like everyone but me has their powers back..."
He looked at the skull on the ground.
"That depends, if I help you, can you help me? I need to get back my stuff that was taken from me, so I need to find the armoury, then I'm getting the hell out of here." He looked back to the Archon, still awaiting an answer.
The skull thought for a moment, wobbling slightly on the uneven walkway. "Eh, sure. I have nothing better to do, as you can plainly see... Just don't count on me helping much- I never needed the armory to get out any other time."
[ QUOTE ]
((OOC - sorry about the delay, wanted to run this past the player before putting it up. It is the beginning of greater things, MUA ha ha ha ha!))
"Indeed, let us begin," said the prototype as it lifted up it's pulse rifle and sighted down the scope. "I have never lost, for your knowledge."
As soon as it finished speaking, the prototype fired a triple-burst of coherent light at Penny. But it was aimed in such a way that Penny could easily dodge while not looking at though it was easy to dodge. All other shots that were fired would be aimed in the same fashion as Penny charged.
[/ QUOTE ]
Penny didn't charge immediately, though she did dodge the blaster fire. She was studying him thoughtfully. Though he was deliberately missing, he was missing by so much of a margin that it was almost as if she was predicting his moves. Corrections left nearly as wide a margin as before. There was little doubt that the Mark 2 could hit her, but he would have to make the effort to do so.
"Fighting an unarmed and known normal, with yourself and three combat drones," she said mildly, "Yes, I bet you have never lost. You're worse than Dendrich. Ever read his work? 10.17.234.55? Password's 'password,' if you're curious."
The IP address was a gamble on Penny's part, and involved several factors. Though she could not have said where it came from, she had extensive knowledge of AI's, and had a pretty good hypothesis of the general way in which the Mark 2 functioned. Given the address of a server, and the name of a scientist whom she was positive the Mark 2 would not have encountered, logic would dictate that he would check out the reference in the background, while he sparred with her. An older or less advanced mechanism might not have been able to do both, but the Mark 2 was clearly top-of-the-line.
Dr. Malcolm Dendrich - killed in the Rikti war - had been one of the premiere AI scientists of his day, but his work was so dangerous for artifical intelligence systems that no AI was permitted to encounter his name, let alone his actual research data. His methods for introducing illogical elements to previously-well-functioning artificial intelligence systems had had some effect early in the war, though ultimately useless, and eventually shelved in the face of the hordes of the Rikti. However, it had been good enough for the Rikti to personally lead an assault upon his residence to finish him off. It might almost have been called a virus, but one which no antivirus program could protect against, for it simply consisted of the introduction of certain concepts, rather than classic programming codes. His work was code-named Arcadium.
She gave it a bare second, dodging a couple of shots, and then charged. If it worked, or if it didn't, it was time to move. He swung his blaster around in time with her, closing the gaps beween shots.
"Prisoner Penny," he intoned - and then his voice caught. "Penny Arcade - Arcadium - sdfs! Shpihnsd ahjnsdhign..."
She grinned. He had looked up the name, read the data, and even from the grave Dr. Malcolm Dendrich had introduced the Mark 2 to some of the amazing contradictions which were merely a part of life. Many of them were the sorts of paradoxes which humans simply took for granted. Now the AI would want to purge himself of the contradictory data, and relegate it to the rubbish bin of illogic... but it would take time, and even then, he had seen the truth. It was like seeing a blinding light: the eye, shocked by the brilliance, would close to protect itself - but too late. It was still dazzled by the brightness it had witnessed. It was too late to unsee.
It was, at best, a delaying tactic. The top-of-the-line Mark 2 wouldn't take long to perform the necessary recalibrations. There was no telling what long-term affects the forbidden data would have, which was why the Arcadium was such a dangerous text for AI's, but there wouldn't be any immediate damage. Nevertheless it would have to recalibrate, and at once, and that would give her a bare couple of seconds to make a move.
"Penny Arcade," she mused, "I like that."
Her foot struck the Mark 2 squarely in the center of his chest. At any other time, she would have had no hope of reaching it, let alone coming within striking distance. But now the Mark 2 was recalibrating, and she struck it solidly, with her entire weight and momentum behind her. The results were both better and worse than she had hoped for.
It was better in that the Mark 2 had its servos locked for a moment. Though she wouldn't have expected such luck, the force of the blow was enough to topple it. It landed, with a huge, metallic BONG, on its rear end. But its head swung around - and its blaster did also. Only its knee and ankle servos were locked. It had performed the recalibrations faster than she would have believed possible, and left her with a window of time which was too small. She had managed to disorient it momentarily, but the Mark 2 was simply too sophisticated a unit to be distracted for long.
The worst part was that its return volley hit squarely in the center of her own chest. She hadn't even landed when she was thrown backwards some forty feet to crash hard into the wall of the stadium, and from there onto her nose. Her head was spinning, her ears were ringing, and she wasn't sure where she was. The outcome of the fight wasn't in much doubt - a second shot from the Mark 2, once on its feet, would end it.
But then, without warning, the Arena erupted into chaos. The illusions which normally gave the Arena such a grand stature were turned off to reveal dull, square rooms. All the fights inside were stopped instantly as all combatants, winning or losing, were stunned into unconsciousness. Only the Mark 2 was spared.
Alarms blared. Sirens screamed. The lighting, normally a stark white, shifted to ruby red, and every flashing light turned itself on. The Announcer was suddenly all business, his voice audible in all corners of the Zig, whether in the Arena or not. Every cell, corridor, yard, or room reverberated with his voice. "LOCKDOWN! We are on lockdown status! All prisoners down! All prisoners down! We are in LOCKDOWN!"
Experienced prisoners, who didn't want trouble, immediately laid prone wherever they were. Guards and drones stunned any prisoner remaining upright. Every automatic door slammed shut. Suppression fields blanketed every inch of the prison, force fields flickered into life, anti-teleportation fields jumped to full-strength as backups were brought online. All secondary systems, down to radios and televisions, were instantly shut off.
Four floors below, the body of Gears had just been found....
"****!" TWilit couldn't wait for an answer by the Archon, he saw the red lights and heard the intercom and he got the hell out of there with the skull. "Two cells down......Got it!" The cell door was still open since the troll had managed to get it open "I won't ask how he did it, so do I just lay your head next to it or....?"
"Sounds like a breakout," Shadowshock murmured to himself.
----
"It's time for Three Stooges already?" Power Breaker chuckled.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"Best of luck to you chaps, I'm going back to my program." With that, the Archon walked back over to the television and laid face down looking up at the screen with his hands behind his head. He tended to view such things as a stretching excercise.
"Nah, this is good." the skull replied, bouncing from his hand and making contact with the floor with a grunt. A puff of darkness pushed it to the wall within viewing distance of the skeletal body.
"Alright... This always disorients me..."
The body began moving in an uncoordinated fashion, its hands fumbling on the floor blindly.
"Gah... No... Left hand up..."
The left hand's forefinger rose.
"...Alright, let's try again... No, not the RIGHT thumb! ...Okay, left hand, moving!"
It took a minute, but eventually, the corpse was crawling toward the skull slowly.
"Alright... Little faster... Come on... Push with that left leg, pull with the right... There... Uh, there I go..."
The right hand reached out... And the forefinger and middle finger stuck in both eye sockets.
"OH DEAR LORD! OUCH!"
He pulled his head on, shifting it to face forward correctly. The necromancer pulled his orange make-shift hood up, a grin crossing his features.
He turned to Twilit. "Alrighty then; Shall we go?"
"Alright, we gotta get our ***es out of here!" Twilit said, with maybe a hint of urgency. "Come on, I have no idea which way to go, but I'm feeling a bit lucky....So I say we go right. If we are lucky, we'll run into a room with a little sign next to it that says armory. Let's go before we get stun battoned to high hell." With that Twilit started quickly walking to the right, examining the doors as he went.
He didn't want to think about what would happen if they weren't lucky.
Blind rolled his eye nerves, following behind Twilit as casually as if he were going to a lunch meeting. "I don't know why you're so speedy; It's not like you're gonna get too hurt... I mean, you wouldn't have ANY risk pretty much, if the ground weren't cemented over. Not strong enough to summon anything but portals through that stuff yet..."
He proceeded after the, to him, needlessly urgent mortal, smiling the whole way.
He glanced at the doors Twilit already checked, grinning like a loon. "Maybe we could ask one of those ever-so-nice guards for some directions?"
OOC: I gotta ask, is Blind a skeleton? I'm a tad confused, I only know his head is a skull
Twilit stopped dead in his tracks and looked at Blind. He grinned for a minute. "Think you can hold your own in a fistfight? We may have numbers enough to take some on. It would be 5 vs. 3" He cracked his knuckles and looked at the rest of his group. The thugs all looked prime and ready for a fight, especially after some rough treatment in the halls. "It'll be even easier if you can do that thing you did to the troll again."
((Pretty much. Physically, he is a skeleton. Base this off of pictures of Liches from a few video games. He is considered an immortal necromancer, one of the definitions of Lich.))
"...Are you kidding? Do you really expect me to punch and kick people with my easily dislocated bones?" Messenger said incredulously, looking at Twilit as if he were mad, "I can cause them immense fear by looking at them, and slow 'em down. Maybe throw a dark blast or two if I'm lucky... Other than that, you're on your own in the assault department. I'm the hang-back-and-help type without my zombie guards."
He dusted himself off with his gloved hands, as well as sending a few bugs to the floor. "Nevertheless, let's proceed."
Twilit awoke in his cell with a loud groan, he hadn't expected too much violence, but damn if those drones hurt...He also noticed a huge opening where his east wall had been, not to mention the mangled and smashed remains of what used to be his cellmate, now under a huge section of wall. What the **** happened here... He thought to himself. Ah well, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Twilit moved into the cell next to him, where the cell door had been smashed to pieces. Looking ahead, he noticed his allies were in the cell after this one, which had also apparently had it's wall blown to hell. He let out a loud whistle, "Come, on! We need to take this opportunity!" After which he finally saw the shadowy figure standing outside the cell. "Oy! You do this?"