Patches (Open RP)

Bisys docilely followed Jade following Akat reverently into the range runner. To her it was holy ground deserving of respect and humility.

As Akat manipulated the controls like an orchestra conductor, Bisys did her best to gape quietly. Not hard since her static features could not reflect the internal astoundment. To her the technological/biological wonder was akin to a child's first visit to a planetarium. Everything was big an amazing, no less so for having touched the intelligence behind it.

Everything seemed self-explanatory, yet Bisys carefully kept her hands, hooves, and rest of herself away from all controls. There was little she felt she could do to assist in the tactical evaluation. Instead she turned most of her attention inward, mourning with the Heart Tree at its loss. How many iterations, would they be called siblings?, had similarly seen destruction before she, Prosopopoeiasys, had successfully been created? Was that the real origin of the stone Token, and the reason its flaws were slowly poisoning her - because it was a previous attempt? Originally she had thought it was from another world Patches had pulled. No way for her to know for certain unless she could commune with EarthMother. While Akat's connection allowed her access to the entire cosmos, Bisys's more primitive form required a physical touch between EarthChild and EarthMother for an exchange of thoughts. Regardless, Bisys conveyed the Heart Tree she would ponder any alternatives to help its need for propagation.

At the least she could put the Token's function to answer Jade's question about what happened on hold until he declared the present tasks complete. Speaking of which... the window prompt shunted to the side of her vision was answered 'No' and disappeared, discontinuing the pending transformation.

((back!!))

Quote:

Originally Posted by RottenLuck "Where are my Manors Ladies first of course."

Aside of the two usual zombies who where moving too slow to actually keep up not Elizabeth or the Shopkeeper had any problems following Rotten Luck. Not that it mattered as Theo and Rachel where still homing in on their mistress and just arrived slightly later.

Elizabeth watched Rotten open the door... marvelling at his strength but not letting him on too much. She was sure to remember it though. In case a struggle was unavoidable...

While the Shopkeeper was reforming his body from the bat shape it had taken and Theo and Rachel where still a block away... Elizabeth her sexy pumps touched the ground in front of the door. Slowly she walked in... her senses piercing the darkness... listening for unusual sounds or traces of magic.

"Why thank you... you seem to be able to act like a gentleman I see...", she answered him.

((Welcome back. Seen Mechano around anywhere? >_>))

The hunter-killer wasn't too smart, but even its programming had been given knowledge of something called an aeromine, which was the classification it gave to Paxtera's photon seekers once she'd left them a large enough distance behind her. As a result, they weren't given enough priority to shoot down, but certainly listed as things to be avoided.

The missiles didn't change targets either, nor did they veer out of the way of her energy blasts. They may have been smart enough to track (and lead) a moving target, but they certainly weren't clever enough to avoid incoming fire. They were fast though, and relatively small at a distance. A large enough barrage of energy blasts in their direction was liable to take them out however, as their lack of armor made them very susceptible to such fire.

"Okay." Jade meanwhile nodded to the Khelari indicating the wireframes on the holodisplay, "Can we do anything from here? Or do we need to go there to help?"

"Yes." Akat answered curtly, reaching her hand toward the controls of her chair's right armrest, "It's in range."

"Weapons system activated." the voice of the autopilot spoke almost the moment her fingers touched the metal, the model that indicated the H-K turning green in hue, "Missile armed. Acquiring target lock."

"It's designed to take out asteroids and debris." the Khelari commented, "But I'm pretty sure it can handle this. Can anyone tell her to not get close to it? I've never actually seen what a gravity missile does..."

Steel Canyon

"I can when I want to be. I haven't seen you about when did you arrive in town?" He went in after her glancing around. The best thing would be if there were clockworks in the place. No one gets hurt and he can see the countess in action.

Elven forest

Aineruda looked to the sky "Archers ready! Don't fire till your sure you hit we don't have many of those EMP Arrows. Fey hear me wait till my signal to bring on the storms!"

((sorry peeps, thanks for the reminder ))
Edward looked up...seeing the HK he wasn't exactly happy. Sighing and flexing his wings he took to the skies, it seemed like these machines were well protected against your basic kinetic damage.

He wondered just what he was going to do now, he was out of options, Mr Fluffers couldn't hurt it, he couldn't hurt it and Steve while powerful wasn't exactly accurate with his radiation blasts, hitting a high speed moving target wasn't going to be easy.

Edward sighed, "what to do, what to do...I've got nothing that can stop it, all my nanites are used up, unless I choose to bleed all over the thing in the hopes the ones in my blood do something but I'm really not in the mood for that..."

Edward remained airborne and waited.

The woman knelt, out of sight of the two officers that were outside of the clothing store. Obviously, they were there to find out who, or indeed what, had broken the doors of the shop. This one would require some fine acting on her part.

'Observation: Two officers outside, probable two to four inside given the presence of two police vehicles'
"Noted. Chances of killing all six before the alarm is raised?"
'18%'

Not good odds. Have to go with plan B then. Lure one of them away. Pulling her hand out of the coat's pocket, she noted that some of it was still fresh enough to pass for her own wound, but not nearly enough. She would need a far more convincing cut.

'Distraction plan requires additional information to formulate chances of success'
"Simple. I'm gonna cut myself, go over there and request assistance. Keep nanite levels as low as possable"
'Understood. Chances of success at 71%. Will the plan repeat?'
"Nope. Gonna take her clothes" The woman looked toward one of the two officers, a young woman with a curvey figure and long black hair
'We are shedding the April persona. Confirm?'
"Confirm"

With a swift motion, April slammed her hand down on a sharp piece of rock, and felt it tear through her skin, rupture blood vessels, and scrape against bone. She gritted her teeth, cursing the fact that painkillers wern't included in her genetic reconfiguration. Staggaring out from behind her hiding place, she stumbled toward the two officers.

"Help.... help me... Please..."

She deliberatly staggared toward the woman, cradling her hand, from which her blood dribbled. The two officers rushed up to her and the woman reached out, holding April's shoulder. "What happened? Are you alright?"

April held her hand even more tightly. "A man... attacked me. Stabbed my hand.... Oh god it hurts! I need.... a doctor"

The male officer looked to the female and nodded. "It's alright Veronica. Take her to Bell Medical. We should be fine on our own." Veronica nodded back and helped April into the passenger seat of one of the police cars, climbed into the drivers seat herself, and started the engine.

So far so good...

"Um, I'm not..." Jade looked about those assembled, his gaze coming to rest on Bisys, "Hey uh, can you let her know to get some distance? Send her a message or something?"

The hunter-killer meanwhile, knowing nothing of any of this, kept on its course toward Paxtera. Noting its first missile volley had been destroyed, it launched a second, then a third, and finally a fourth for good measure. It seemed to have been programmed with utterly no concept of overkill, and indeed it wasn't. So long as it had ammunition and a target, that was all that mattered.

Still, it wasn't exactly stupid. On the chance that the 'human' in its sights did away with these missiles as well, it deployed a pair of 24 mm chain guns and brought the barrels up to speed, preparing them to fire as soon as Paxtera came into range...

Steel Canyon

Quote:

Originally Posted by RottenLuck "I can when I want to be. I haven't seen you about when did you arrive in town?" The best thing would be if there were clockworks in the place.

Suddenly Elizabeth was struck by a huge electrical effect acting much alike a tazer. Her body shocked and she was unable to move... for a few seconds. She saw the point of origin appear... A small toy-like creature appeared. It reminded her of the copper and brass inventions that could be seen at the world fair. She hated to be incapacitated... and that hatred fueled her powers. She regained her mobility and her hand struck forth like a vice crushing what appears to be the neck of the toy soldier. The effect immediatly ended.

"Watch it... we are not alone!", she called out. "Rachel... Theo... action!"

A large group of Clockwork powered up in the dark corner of the hall, their electrical light giving their position away. Elizabeth raised her hands and called upon her dark powers. A large Sa'Ar pool opend and N'Garai demons raised their tentacles to the crack opened to them. Everything above they grabbed ((Soul Tentacles)). A second spell made the ground ooze blood... and not only the ground... it was like the building itself was bleeding. The material was think and hard to escape effectivly stopping all of the creatures that escaped the demons ((Tar Patch)). Then Rachel and Theo moved in, led by the Shopkeeper... They ripped apart the clockwork in only a few seconds.

The blood countess approiced the wrecked creatures and picked up a still moving head. "What are these creatures? Are they alive?!", she asked herself out loud. Her steel like nails ripped open the top of the head finding a small brain, then tore it out. Immediatly the moving stopped.

She turned to wards Rotten Luck... and threw him the head. "As an answer to your question before we where so rudly interrupted... I just arrived in this strange stone city! And I intent to leave it as soon as possible. What are these creatures? I never layed eyes on such technological wonders..."

Bisys began to shake her head, well flop her head, in negative response. Then she paused. While beyond her ability as an EarthChild, a new communications window had formed in her vision as an ability of the metaloid shell. "I... I'm not sure. I'll try."

The options were varied more than she would have expected from the basic programming Toy Dispenser had unlocked. Vocal, text, direct, area, subsonic, telepathic?? There wasn't time to dig through help files to figure out where the options had come from, how they worked, or other details for finesse. Instead she tried them all as quickly as possible. In five seconds flat the message spammed over a dozen channels:

Warning! Incoming friendly fire. Please vacate from Hunter-Killer proximity immediately.

When vocal, the tone was a monotone mechanical completely unrecognizable as coming from Bisys. Those present inside the range runner would be subjected to it at least three times in increasing volume. The Heart Tree, fey, and others probably heard it on the telepathic frequency. The range runner and Toy likely had the message scroll across their displays. And it crackled across radios, eardrums, and/or message devices as far Paragon, maybe farther. Though what they would make of it would be anyone's guess.

As Bisys had not known the frequency that the Hunter-Killer communicated on, the message had not been sent directly to it or its kind. Though if it had the capacity to intercept general transmissions, the universal translation feature of Patches would allow it to know the message as well.

In the midst it all at least one iteration was directly sent to Paxtera, in addition to all the general announcements. There was a chance Paxtera still didn't hear all the racket if she was too focused on what she was doing. Or, like with trying to teleport Toy Dispenser, Paxtera might choose to ignore the request even if she did hear it.

A pause after the flooding, Bisys spoke a small, "Oh!" once more in her normal double-tone. "Is that what those do?"

((OOC - It would be the same as in-game posting the message to every chat channel, including: Local, Broadcast, Team, Super Group, Request, Friends, Coalition, AE, Arena, a /tell to Paxtera, Leveling Pact, the Help channel, several Global Channels, and possibly as a Hero Zone Event Message. It is dependent on Rebel_Scum if Paxtera had the equivalent of her chat window open and was reading it to hear the message.))

The moment Paxtera assumed her Kurukt form, the hunter-killer did something rather strange, though probably not unexpected - at least for her.

It stopped firing.

The missiles veered off, not sharply, but still with noticeable course changes, as if their target had suddenly vanished. In a way, this was true. Like the artillery at the active of the Twin Cities, neither the hunter-killer nor its 'smart' munitions had any protocol in their programming to deal with a Kurukt. As a result, they did what they always did in regard to things that didn't fall into their known parameters.

They ignored it.

Granted, had Paxtera actually started assaulting the machine, the new form would've been classed as 'general threat' and received an 'avoid and defend' protocol, but seeing as how she didn't, that dubious honor fell instead to an incoming missile.

Half a second before it struck.

"Target destroyed." the smooth, neutral tone of the range runner's autopilot echoed casually through the cabin as the H-K came apart in a ball of temporarily distorted space and time, then hailed to the ground in pieces.

"That was fast." Jade remarked with a blink of impression, wondering just how the projectile had gotten from here to there so fast, not to mention without a sonic boom. That the weapon had been designed to operate with targets that often moved anywhere from a few thousand to several million kilometers per hour, as most asteroids did, didn't really cross his mind. Of course, the finger still digging around in his presently very widely fanned right ear, a result of Bisys all-waves broadcast, was somewhat of a distraction too, as was the ringing in his head it sought to combat, "Uhh, you got any more of those?"

"Seven." Akat gave a nod as she scrutinized the holographic overlay, which by now zoomed out and panned about, "I don't see any more right now, though."

"Okay." the Dragon returned with a like gesture, then turned and headed back down the ramp in search of the elven leaders, "Hey, guys - I think we're safe for the time being. You were talking something about seeds that was important, right? What's going on?"

The Khelari of course didn't stay where she was either, also curious as to just what was going on...

"A portal? Are you sure?", Elizabeth answered him with some hope sounding in her voice. "That would make it so much easier... of course I will have to check if it will send me to the right time and space. But that can be done easily..."

"But we will have to wait untill it is dark again... I don't expect you to be inconspicious during daytime!" She looked over him again... partly curious as a witch/necromancer and partly disgusted. Although she couldn't point out what disgusted her about him. She never had that feeling with 'normal' zombies or corpses.

((time to move our selves to join the others? ))

Bisys, of course, followed Jade. As she exited the range runner, she gently place a palm against its side even though through that contact all she could feel was a bit of pressure. She send it a feeling of being impressed by its targeting accuracy, then humility at the privileged to be aboard.

Lady Aineruda's comments confused her, for Bisys did not yet understand that while appearing fey, the elfin folk were more human in that they did not know the will of the Heart Tree. For now Bisys kept quiet, waiting for an opportunity to ask Aineruda in case it was meant to be a secret.

Edward landed and folded his wings, "well...that was interesting...so we have our own little hunter killer now..." he sighed, "shame you had to vaporizer the other one though...I could have used that for study, learn how this machine mind works...still it's good that it has been defeated and I can still look upon your beautiful face Akat.."

He chuckled and let out a whistle...everything oh his coming out of hiding, Steve and Mr Fluffers, "Now while this has been a most interesting of diversions I should probably continue my journey of discovery, I do not have all the time in the world...I'm scheduled to auto-return in under a month."

((I've lost track of what time of day it is, but I think I remember describing the sun starting to set sometime back - so if you feel like it, feel free to delcare it nightfall and hop over. ))

"Flatterer." Akat grinned back to Dr. Mechano, curling the tip of her tail about Dr. Mechano's right leg and letting it slide down and away as she passed him. Following to the Heart Tree, she turned her attention to one of the elves walking with them, "Hey, you don't have any more of those robes, do you? It's still cold here."

Jade's attention, on the other hand, had latched onto the scientist the moment he'd spoken that last sentence and remained there all the way to the tree.

"Auto-return?" he questioned with great interest, "Wait, so you mean you have a way home? How? Can we use it to bring Paragon City back to Earth? Or this forest back to where it belongs?"

Meanwhile, the Khelari's chief interest had shifted to the Heart Tree, Akat having never seen something that big made out of wood. It thus took her a few moments to realize she'd even been asked a question, finally turning to Lady Aineruda, "Huh? Oh. Um...I don't know. We don't have trees made out of wood on Khelaris..."

((I'll see about joining you all out there, too. Just might take a little longer than just nightfall 8) ))

The policecar sped through the streets of Steel Canyon, Veroinca concentrating on the road while driving, and April cradling her hand and whimpering in the passenger seat. The journey was quite short, having been mostly limited to one long road, but before they could reach their destination Veronica drew the car to a stop. "I'm sorry, but I need to get out for a second. I can see someone trying to break through a door over there. I'll just scare them off, then be right back"

April nodded, and Veronica stepped out of the car, jogging toward a hunched figure in a nearby doorway.

"Ninites back to full"
[i]'Confirmed'[/u]

She felt the tiny machines get to work, knitting the flesh of her hand back together. It only took a few seconds, and was complete by the time Veroinca got back into the car. The officer looked over at April. "Sorry about that. Are you still ok?"

April nodded. "Perfectly". Her elbow shot up, connecting with Veronica's neck, crushing her windpipe. The other woman's eyes went wide in shock as she grasped at her throat, desperatly trying to draw breath. Reaching over, April grabbed Veronica's head and gave it a violent twist, hearing the vertebrae snap. The officer slumped forward, lifeless.

"Computer. New identity. Officer Veronica Chambers. Utilise visual data and begin operation"
'Confirmed'
Skin cells started to darken, and a thin waxy flim formed on her scalp. Soon she would have the same skin tone and hair colour as the deceased woman. Not a perfect disguise, but enough to pass at a glance

He sighed as he looked to Jade, "unfortunately it's not powerful enough to return large chunks of land and it only returns things to a set designated place, so I could end up ripping massive hole in the fabric of multiverse by trying to return your Paragon City and end up merging it with the one in my dimension, or worse just dropping one ontop of the other..."

"I can 'tag' things to be returned with me but you're looking at a couple of specimens at the most...I do not believe I'm from the same dimension as the rest of those trapped here but one that runs alongside your own."

"We might be able to do something about that if I can wake up a few architects." Akat remarked to Dr. Mechano's elaboration, "They'd probably jump at the chance to throw a city to another universe."

"Erm..." Jade regarded her with a tad of trepidation, the mental image those words had produced just a little frightening, "I...guess it's worth a shot, right? Where can we find them?"

"Oh, you wouldn't survive there." the Khelari smiled with a shake of her head, "It's past the transition zone. I'll go get some. Shouldn't take long."

As she started to guide her steps back toward the range runner, Jade passed the thoughts through his head again. The people of Paragon, or at least the city government, would have to know about this. He'd have to go back and tell them...
__________________

OOC:

Okay, here's the deal: starting tomorrow, I have no idea if I'll have internet access for the next 6 months. If I do, feel free to join my characters where they're going, hold them back from doing so, etc. If I don't, Akat will return to the Khelaris patch and encounter something that prevents her from returning, and Yydr, please have Jade do whatever he'd need to in order for you to keep playing Bisys with the rest of the guys. I really hope I can make it back here soon, but if not...well, it's been fun, I had a great time writing with yalls, and I'll see ya when I see ya.