Eileen gave Paxtera a look. "I'm going to guess you haven't been super-ing for too long, hon? Because an island full of tiny dragon-people is barely page three news these days." A thoughtful pause. "At least, not been super-ing too long in the present. Honestly, you powered types have the oddest lives."
A soft laugh. "There's so much crazy already in this city that even acknowledging the lesser oddities of the outside world would mean you had a good chance of missing something vital. Last I heard, there were at least three entirely separate societies living underneath the city, four different dimensions actively invading and at least two others trying to, an undeclared secret war by an ancient cult on something close on to three-quarters the population of the planet Earth..."
Mrs. Troy paused for breath, then continued "Another ancient cult trying to raise undead gods to derail the modern age back into the era of mists and necromancy, alien beings hunting one another across the vastnesses of space... of course, you'd know about that last one, Pax... at least three major paramilitary conspiracies, two with extant ties to multiple governments including the US, and the third in the middle of its own internal war across time with and against the aliens I mentioned... oh, and all the usual gangs and idiots."
Another laugh. "If you want to make the city officials all twitchy, go down to City Hall and ask for a dossier on Operation World-Wide Red under the Freedom of Information act. It's quite funny, especially when all the men in dark suits realize you don't have any agenda they can find. Ever see twenty-eight NSA agents running in tiny circles arguing about trying to figure a way to tell you to get lost without violating any laws or arousing suspicion?"
She sat back and took another sip of her water, noting with approval the bat, but not bothering to move as the Peacebringer got the door.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
"True, I suppose just because I haven't come across it yet in my travels doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I can't keep track of the whole planet in every time period, after all...", Pax called back over her shoulder to Eileen, trailing off and smiling slightly as she remembered something particularly amusing. "Not even Dippy or Tempus can do that I think... Well Dippy can maybe but he has help so it doesn't count..."
She turned back to the man standing on the doorstep. "Well? Are you incapable of speaking?", she asked a little impatiently.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
(( *pokes thread* Anyone? Anyone alive at all? ))
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
((Sorry Rebel, I can't move people unless Khell posts a response or someone slams the door. 
))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
((We're all jammed until Khell posts...if no one else can think of a way to fix this up and get past it, we're probably going to have to skip out of this thread.))
City of Heroes taught me that when the world is burning, you don't just stand by and watch, you grab a fire extinguisher and do whatever you can to stop it-even if it's not much at all. Sign the petition to keep City of Heroes alive HERE.
@MissKyo, Leader of the Teamsters coalition on Protector
((Noooooooooooooooooo! ))
Self-Proclaimed Number one Fanboi of the RP Forums and it's writers.
Me: How about "Zeus, The Pimp God"?
A friend: It'd be too hard to dress him up like a bull
((I really don't have any ideas. 
Khell's guy basically started a 'main plot' with his arrival, so short of getting him to go away - which I really don't want to do - I can't think of any way to get this unstuck without having Khell post.))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
((we could just have him spontaneously combust/randomly teleport out of there so we can get on with things... this IS Paragon City, after all >.>
)
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((How about someone just yoink the guy into Sam's house? I have no reason WHY they would, but you guys could think of something :P))
Self-Proclaimed Number one Fanboi of the RP Forums and it's writers.
Me: How about "Zeus, The Pimp God"?
A friend: It'd be too hard to dress him up like a bull
((Idea. 
))
When the man still didn't speak, the islanders grew a bit uneasy as well, looking to the door with increasing concern. What was going on here? Was this man some kind of authority figure, wanting something from Mr. Winston?
No, apparently not - for outside, a very grumpy-looking police officer had made his way to beside the hood of the man's car, and was in the process of scribbling something down on a pad of yellow paper.
"I don't know what this guy's deal is," Johnny remarked from his vantage point on the coffee table, out of view directly from the door, "but if he doesn't get back over there, he's gonna have the fuzz on his tail."
This of course drew Paxtera's attention as well, the peacebringer turning the man's focus to just that, to which the newcomer of course responded stante pede by dashing back to his car to ward off the policeman whom Pax had just informed him was infamous for just this sort of thing.
Luckily, he was also fairly easy to deal with, so it probably wouldn't take long before the man came back.
"What an odd fellow." Kia couldn't help but comment as the Kheldian closed the door again and returned to the living room. She looked to Sam, the man with the bat, wanting to know, "Does he come around here often?"
"Definetely." Sarah agreed neutrally, not really sure what all that had been about. Seeing as her friend already had that covered though, the Tornado resumed the conversation she'd been having with Pax, a sly smirk on her face, "So, you're one of those 'seeing is believing' types, huh?"
"Or just a little conceited." Johnny added with a frown, though a glare from the larger dragons caused a twitch and a gesture toward the peacebringer, "Whaaat? You gotta admit, what she said was really high-and-mighty-like."
"Johnny." the mountain dragon kept the insistent look, "behave. We're guests here."
"Right." Sarah agreed with a nod to the little man, then looked to Pax again, though she remained polite, "I can't say he doesn't have a point, though. I feel just a little offended. Was that really necessary...?"
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
((Yay Devious!))
"That was...weird. I wonder who that guy was?" Akemi said, thinking out loud. "Generally when people knock on the door they don't just stand around staring at people until some policeman or something distracts them...maybe he was afraid of us?" She looked around at the group. "There are three draconians and at least one hero of the city in here, after all..."
City of Heroes taught me that when the world is burning, you don't just stand by and watch, you grab a fire extinguisher and do whatever you can to stop it-even if it's not much at all. Sign the petition to keep City of Heroes alive HERE.
@MissKyo, Leader of the Teamsters coalition on Protector
Out in the street the man was still talking with the police officer, looking as though he were getting increasingly frustrated with things. Finally he threw his hands up in the air and accepted the ticket. As the officer walked off in a satisfied manner the man tromped back up to the front door.
"This is what happens when he cuts corners on manufactoring, you know," he said conversationally to Paxtera before pausing and scratching the back of his head.
Just before anyone could say something, he shouted out, "Lord Nemesis is watching you Akemi!" and tried to dash off to the nearest sewer grate.
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 ]
"Lord Nemesis is watching you Akemi!" and tried to dash off to the nearest sewer grate.
[/ QUOTE ]
Before the strange man had finished the first syllable of "Nemesis", Eileen had a hefty-looking screwdriver out of her purse and a dangerous glint in her eye. By the time he managed to get out "is", she was on her feet, and by the second syllable of "watching", she was vaulting the couch facing away from the door in a remarkably impressive leap, at least given her general appearance, age and lack of superpowers.
If nobody faster than her intervened, the erstwhile Mrs. Troy was going to bring this guy down with a flying rugby tackle to the back of the knees and sit on his chest. And if he didn't say something very convincing, very quickly, dismantling would follow soon after.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Sam reconginzed the guy, instantly, before he even said anything. He moved before Mrs. Troy did, his bat connecting off the man's skull with a very sastifying crack. "Hey, if you can hear me, I told you to get away from my house, nut job. I 'don't take kindly to intruders....specially ones who spout nonsense about Nemesis.."
((Very tired, lat night post, deal with it :P))
Self-Proclaimed Number one Fanboi of the RP Forums and it's writers.
Me: How about "Zeus, The Pimp God"?
A friend: It'd be too hard to dress him up like a bull
Pax had been about to ask exactly what she'd said that was apparently so high and mighty, but the man's mention of Nemesis cut her off. "Bloody automatons, I'm sick of destroying these things", she muttered in the tone of someone in no hurry despite how possibly urgent the task was. The reason for that of course became clear as one looked over to the car, where a second Paxtera appeared in a golden flash to halt the man's escape, several moments before she'd actually disappeared with a similar flash inside the house.
Not that she needed to, given Eileen's and Sam's swift reactions. "And here I though I was the hero here", she grinned at the pair as she walked over to the now subdued man. "So, you feel like talking or do we pull you apart and read everything you know off a lifeless hard drive?", she asked in a pleasant tone.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
Johnny fell flat on his rear when Eileen veritably bounded from her seat like that, his startled stare following her while he remained there in surprise, sitting with hands behind and to the side of him.
Kia and Sarah had jumped up as well, though more in reaction to the first than anything else, no less taken aback than the little thief. They quickly made their way around the sofa, looking on curiously as things transpired, then gave one another a glance and stormed forward again.
"Wait!" the Tornado exclaimed with hasty tone and an outstretched palm, the notion of just dismantling the automaton (which she interpreted simply as a robot) not sitting right with either of them - somewhat illogical here, but fairly understandable from their point of view, "What's going on? Why do you want to take him apart...?"
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Eileen tucked the screwdriver away, with a significant glance at the presumed automaton that said very plainly that it wasn't gone, just out of sight. Straightening her hair, she glanced at the three draconians, and sighed a little.
"That's not a 'he', hon. That's an 'it'. A non-sapient automaton run on steam power for some daft reason. At least, assuming that he is who that shout made him out to be- an automaton from the Nemesis Army.." she told them. "The Nemesis Army is a nasty bunch... the idiot leading them styles himself 'The Prussian Prince of Automatons'- he's very long-lived, and apparently wishes to become truly immortal; he seems to have achieved some sort of consciousness transfer for that, although no-one is certain."
She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Of course, that wouldn't bother me that much if that were all he wanted. But he also seems to want to rule the world, or the universe, or the multiverse, or some such... it seems to change from day to day. He was the one behind Brass Monday- a rather nasty all-out surprise war, right here in Paragon, along with poisoning a good chunk of this country in the process so they'd crown him emperor for the antidote... he's tried to take control of the weather to blackmail the world into setting him up as ruler... all kinds of mad things. There's even rumours out of Vanguard that he was responsible for starting the first Rikti War!"
Eileen walked back around the couch and sat down, arranging herself. "So you see why his little clockwork spies aren't particularly welcome... although I have to admit, with a little rewiring and some solder, they make excellent teapots."
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
The man went down like a sack of metal potatoes, all unpleasantly lumpy and managing to poke somewhere uncomfortable no matter where one was sitting. His eyes moved about independantly of one another after the hit from the baseball bat and he made a gurgling noise at Mrs. Troy's comments. It might have been a "For Lord Nemesis!" or it could have been an "Oh god my head."
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.
"Oh come on!" Akemi Ai exclaimed, on her feet and armed as soon as her name was mentioned. She walked over to the already-subdued automaton and poked it in the head with her foot. "I already told your Lord Nemesis that I'm not interested! Really, how stupid can you get? No means no, you metal madman, and I know you have a camera or something on this guy, or at least a wire. I am not going to help you! Besides, why would anyone want to kill Professor Winthrop? He's just a harmless inventor, leave the poor guy alone!" With that, she kicked the automaton again, her booted toes connecting to his chin with a satisfying clanging noise. The head popped right off and rolled to a stop in the yard. Akemi moved to sit back down, shaking her head. "Honestly..." Turning back to the rest of the group, she added, "Thanks for jumping him. This Nemesis bonehead is getting really annoying..."
City of Heroes taught me that when the world is burning, you don't just stand by and watch, you grab a fire extinguisher and do whatever you can to stop it-even if it's not much at all. Sign the petition to keep City of Heroes alive HERE.
@MissKyo, Leader of the Teamsters coalition on Protector
OOC: Awwwwwww.... You kicked his head off....
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.
"I don't know..." Sarah shifted about uncertainly, not really sure how to proceed here, but when Kia reached for her shoulder to inform her that these people probably knew what they were talking about, she straightened up with a firm, "No."
"I'm sorry," the Tornado told them while retrieving the head from the yard, inspecting the neck joint on her way back, "please don't take it as me not believing you, but something like this just goes against my principles. This ma...machine seemed at least partially intelligent, which means I can't just leave it alone. Okay, this looks like...Kia, get me the forty-two please."
Moving to the large blue bag while her friend set first the head, then body of the mechanoid onto the floor before the coffee table, the mountain dragon retrieved from one of its larger side pockets a compact, high-volume tool belt, looking uncertainly over the set of slots hat held wrenches of various sizes with a distinct, "Uhhh..."
The Tornado couldn't help but smile at this, already sitting on the floor beside the robot's pieces, and looked to the little dragon still on the table with the request, "Johnny, help her out, would you?"
"Right." the thief gave a smirk and winged himself over onto the belt, trying to point otu to Kia which wrench Sarah had meant - though his snickers only got her to bring the whole thing over instead.
"How am I supposed to know that?" she huffed at Johnny while hading the belt to the Tornado, "To me, a wrench is a wrench, that's it."
Sarah chuckled, but didn't pay the mock-argument any more mind after that, setting to work on putting the machine back together. The technology really was a fascinating ensemble, but not something she couldn't cope with. She even kept an eye out for just such things as transmitters, making sure to disable any she could find to account for Akemi's concerns.
The final stroke she executed with a compact spark-torch of some sort, barely the size of a soldering gun, yet clearly capable of welding even high-strength alloys. It didn't produce much of a flash either, quite safe to the naked eye...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
There wasn't really that much damage, just a weak seal having given way when Akemi kicked the automaton's head. It had come off fairly neatly overall, implying that at some point it could have been put together maybe limb by limb with little instruction, perhaps after someone removed the various pieces from a concealing box or crate. Regrettably, there wasn't much Sarah could make sense of other than that. Sure there was a skeleton and that steam valve probably assisted articulation and that complex doohickey might have been the brain, but otherwise the technology used to build the machine was both amazingly primitive and refined that there was very little connection to modern technologies.
Thankfully the radio transmitter in the back of the head was relatively normal looking, but it would take at least a few hours of comphrehensive study to make sense of how the rest of it worked.
"Gurk..." said the automaton after his head got welded back on.
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.
Eileen Troy gave the whole operation a look that wavered between pity and irritation. "Hon, it's an infiltrator bot. Of course it's going to seem intelligent, that's the whole point." she told the reptilians in general.
She paused as a thought hit her. "Of course, if they really are intelligent, that makes this even more horrifying... not only is Nemesis kidnapping, and presumably killing, people to replace them with these things, the poor things think they are people... right up until the point where their programming takes over and forces them to work for him, killing their personality."
She shuddered a little. "If he is doing that, I think I'm going to have a word with my brother about this. Two or three hundred super-types smashing every member of that armed cult of his that they can find to get at him should give him a thing or two to think about."
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
[ QUOTE ]
"So you see why his little clockwork spies aren't particularly welcome... although I have to admit, with a little rewiring and some solder, they make excellent teapots."
[/ QUOTE ]
"Are you sure you're not a hero?" Pax asked with a grin. "You certainly have the attitude to match. And yeah, those rumors are true. Don't tell anyone I told you that though, I'm pretty sure it's still 'highly classified' or some such silliness."
[ QUOTE ]
"Thanks for jumping him. This Nemesis bonehead is getting really annoying..."
[/ QUOTE ]
"Yeah, the old man's good at that if nothing else", Pax laughed, watching as one of the dragons came over and fiddled with the thing. "Not to- wait, Winthrop? Not Charles Winthrop AKA Steampunk Charlie, by chance?", she asked in a curious tone.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: STOP!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WAIT ONE SECOND!
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: WHAT IS A SEAGULL DOING ON MY THRONE!?!?
Sam instinctly grabbed a bat that had been laying beside the chair, more than a little concealed. He almost grunted in relief when he saw the Peacebringer open the door, but did nto lay the bat down.
Self-Proclaimed Number one Fanboi of the RP Forums and it's writers.
Me: How about "Zeus, The Pimp God"?
A friend: It'd be too hard to dress him up like a bull