Patches (Open RP)

((Oookay, I can see where this is going. >_> In that case, it's probably better for everyone if I just suspend the Twin City partition for now. At least until more people arrive there.))

Elven Forest

"Damn it, don't you run!" Jade screamed at the fading Tafari as his fists made contact with nothing but 'jello', "Don't you run from me! Don't you dare run from me!!!"

It was all for naught, of course. No matter how loudly he roared out his pain at the collapsing mass, no matter how many more times he pounded his fists into the stuff with all the strength he could manage, it didn't make a difference. Tafari was beyond all that now. Tears in his eyes, the Dragon's knees eventually touched earth, fists ever more slowly and weakly digging into the ground before him.

"...don't...don't you run..." his screams had become whispers between sobs, and his eyes had long since closed. He didn't notice the statue, didn't notice anything or anyone else around. All he felt, all he knew right now was the pain of losing yet another friend. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.

Eventually he stopped, kneeling there in sadness' silence, knuckles resting still on the beaten earth beneath him. Not fair at all...
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VFSSR ERIKA
Tar System, Andromeda

She lumbered her way steadily into the system, engines on standby. Control had given the clear, and now she was on approach, coasting in. The distant sun's light glinted brightly off her silver-gray hull, reflected in a myriad of angles and directions by the thick armor of the massive vessel.

And then came the shadow.

It passed over her like a silent specter, the sun's light robbed away by a shroud of darkness. It didn't take long to run down her length, and soon she was completely in the shadow of what lay ahead.



VFSSR KAGO
Current Assignment: 3rd Fleet Command Ship

If the ERIKA was massive, the KAGO was sheerly enormous, the command ship easily capable of fitting her and her present sister ships into its volume and still having some to spare. That came at the cost of acceleration of course, the four central, oversized engines of the smaller ships not helping the KAGO's case, but when one needed a mobile command center and materials depot out in deep space, far beyond and independent of supply lines, the practicality of the superlative was hard to beat.

Still it was the crew that made it all work, the personnel that manned the stations, maintained the ship, carried out their tasks. Even now, with the ship docked and resupplying, in the rest period designated 'night' in a place that lacked any such thing as a true day or night, the crew's shift on duty kept attention high, desiring to be ready for whatever might've come their way.

But it was in a dark cabin in the depths of the vessel that the transmission came to final stop, a small screen beside a low, simple bunk blipping to life with flashing green text.

This in turn caused a stir in the sheets, and a hooded wraith arose against the faint green light, swaying gradually to and fro as tired eyes brought into focus what the rude little luminance wanted to convey. It took a while, but thereafter events passed in snaps. A pair of heavy boots hit the floor with report, a thick, flowing cape was whisked from the back of a chair with a rapid flap, and a pair of guardsmen in full power armor jumped to attention with all the speed they could muster when those cabin doors hissed open and out strode the jet-black boots with deft, purposeful steps, the like-hued cape that followed not receiving the slightest hint of a chance to touch the ground.

The bridge doors came open with suddenness much the same, and the boots' thick soles kept their stride toward the large transparent panels that formed the forward windows of the deck, the distant starscape twinkling in the vacuum outside, surrounded by the light and metal of the dock on all sides.

And with the sweep of a cape, they began to recede. The KAGO had come under motion...

The pile Paxtera muttered over was just that: a pile of rubble. The thousands of scales were the tragic remains of a discarded shell, no longer a defining part of Bisys. Indeed, there was nothing left that made Bisys, Bisys. Her spirit had been caught up by Voices, destroyed in their whirlwind or carried off to some unknown location.

The humanoid skull nestled within, however, held more promise. It appeared to an untrained eye to be an ancient bone or unearthed relic. Depending on Paxtera's abilities she might be able to discern that inside the calcium phosphate of the osseous tissue was the positronic matrix that Toy Dispenser had built. The matrix, even if it had had power, was inert making it effectively as dead as Bisys. Still, Paxtera would gain further clues should she examine the lifelines of its departed owner again. Even here she might sense that something beyond the embedded technology connected the skull to something else externally - the stone acorn in Jade's possession.

A stone that was one warm point on Jade in a soul gone cold. Its warmth was more than Jade's generated body heat could account for. When Jade's sorrow had run its course enough to recognize this phenomenon, the unbonded Token too had a message to tell.

((Is that chunk of rock an [Animated Stone Golem]? Cute.))
The Mutated Forest

The fiery visage of Akat filled the visual perception of Graxitica's new found sight. The animated stone golem barrelling towards him was of no consequence to the fiendish incarnation, yet it also registered in his vision.

The mutated shell of his new body perceived Akat and the stone thing to be a threat. The cyclonic personality of Shortoth/Graxus viewed Akat to be ... a potential new host. The being calling itself Graxitica simply saw Akat for what she was - dangerous. The entirety of Graxus wanted this new-found opponent to be an ally. Any further interaction with any of these beings would have to wait, however.

Her words were lost on Graxitica. Turning his back to her with a twist of his head to keep his eyes on her, the entire form of Graxitica simply vanished, immediately dashing away.

'A chaotic world, indeed, one appropriately suitable for me to - CONQUER!' the thought echoed, rumbling through the very core of his true being. 'Not yet, though ... not yet!'

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At

Nev'oroxis would appear to be somewhat awestruck, even given the lack of complete expression imbued to the internal demon known as Negative Rise.

"This...all this allows you to communicate beyond this world?" he asked of Vetdjat. "Simply amazing...we have nothing of the like on Ag'xis."

Indeed, what Negative Rise spoke of while taking the form of Nev'oroxis was in fact truth. The people of Ag'xis were locked in an age of mysticism and magic, divine powers flowing through the priests of the planet while mages made names for themselves practicing all forms of magic - light, dark, offensive, defensive, chrono-magic, gating...of course, he knew of all this because the form he took was in fact OF the High General Nev'oroxis, as he had been sent to collect the man's soul and spread a little hellfire around on the isolated planet in the process. As Negative Rise, he planted seeds of anarachy and chaos amongst the populace of the planet, and as Nev'oroxis, he inherited a shell that had sworn to defend that very same populace. It was also in this very shell he single-handedly laid to rest one of the many Heavenly Angels that had foolishly attempted to send him back to the depths of Hell. Of course, THAT battle took place on an uninhabited, neighboring planet in the same system as Ag'xis. Negative Rise was SUPPOSED to return to Ag'xis to continue the facade, to continue portraying one of the greatest generals the Tevron Reaches had ever produced, a man that was so stalwart and dedicated to protecting his people that he exchanged his soul for the power to do so. Of course, only one other knew of such a contract, that being of Him Below, the very one Nev'oroxis gave his soul to.

((Um, actually it was a more coherent form of Stone Spears. >_> Y'know, I think I can work with that, though. And alrighty, let's thy this again then...))

'Twin City'

Follow her? Right now, the Reaver was practically glued to Ildela. It didn't give her the chance to gain distance, sticking around at arm's reach and continuing to pound its raging limbs against her shield. It didn't really care that it was doing even less harm to her than she was to it. It was betting on the power of probability. Sooner or later, one of them would make it through somewhere, and then she'd go from pristine condition to blood-coughing heap...
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The Sudden Clearing

He didn't. At least not immediately. Paxtera's voice cut through air, crashes, and chaos alike, but the pain it only barely managed to push through. Oh, Jade heard her alright...but it was faint and distant, like a star on the horizon. His attention was nowhere to be found, not even on the earth on which his fists had come to rest.

Why her? Why her?! All she'd done for him, all her past sacrifice, and now...

The Dragon's eyes snapped open.

Past!

He whirled around to Paxtera. Time traveler! Could go back! Undo this!

No.

When she told him what had happened last time, his fervor evaporated. He couldn't ask her to do that. Not someone else for someone else. That wasn't right.

But when she reminded him of the Token, a glimmer of hope returned to his eyes. He nodded, taking the little thing from where it was and holding it before his nose, wondering just how he should 'use' it.

"Can you?" he finally opted to just try and talk to it, "Can you tell us any answers...?"
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The Mutated Forest

No. No, you're not going anywhere.

Akat reacted almost instantly, shifting her weight to the sole of her left foot in its step forward, making solid contact with the earth. Virtually in the same moment, Graxitica's feet began treading goop instead of ground. The forest floor had transmuted itself to a sticky, viscous fluid with properties not unlike those of quicksand.

But what quicksand! Unlike the stuff usually called so, this gunk really put the quick into it, like it had been boosted with a great deal of additional power. In addition, the area encompassed was respectably large, making the chances that Graxitica could run his way to the edge before the stuff sucked him down rather low indeed. But either way, it dropped his speed catastrophically...
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At

"No, this is just..." Vetdjat answered Negative Rise with a casual shrug, then caught himself before he could continue the misinformation in light of the demon's last words, "I mean yes. Well...yes and no. We've many ways to talk to other worlds. This is just the quickest. I could've just sat down and tried to make direct contact, but that always takes ages."

"And I'm sure you will one day." he added with a smile, "Probably soon too. I've noticed that people who use spells very much don't usually take long to make one that does what they want it to once they've seen it somewhere else. I imagine that once your people know there are many other places around, not much time will pass before someone on Ag'xis writes a spell to talk to them..."

((OOOH! Stone spears, duh. Even better! Well I can roll with it either way. We can just continue with the whole quicksand bit here.))
The Mutated Forest

Graxitica felt himself ... falling. The [phase shift] his shell experienced allowed him to fall below the quicksand-like goop. He kept moving forward as soon as he felt his phased feet hit solid earth - there was NO WAY he was going to allow himself to get stuck, imprisoned WITHIN an entire planet, not like this.

He burst out of the ground, away from the quicksand-goop, and away from the fiery looking reptilian/lizard-like creature, continuing his high speed escape.

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At

Negative Rise took note of Vetdjat's - catch. Something wasn't meshing right with the demon here due to that, but he didn't care. His demonic nature not-withstanding, the High General Nev'oroxis was well versed in detecting deception, as well. Yet he only appeared to stand before Vetdjat, a much more sinister mind residing within this carnal shell.

"Well, it's still impressive, never-the-less," he replied. "Not sure about my own planet's advancements in an area such as this. Councils after councils, all kinds of government meetings and discussions ... it took my planet 10,000 years just to decide to build itself around the current magicracy."

Elven Forest

Akat's eyes narrowed, and her claws swept through the air toward the fleeing Graxitica, earth and stone bursting forth from the ground beneath him in simultaneous motion. It didn't make a difference of course, the material of this plane passing right through the being partially on another, but that didn't deter the Khelari. She may not have been able to feel him in this state, but he'd have to come out of it again at some point.

And she had a direction.

Releasing her stance as well as the air in her lungs (which gave her a weird, shuddery sensation; this stuff was entirely too foreign and thin), she stepped over to a tree and began to climb - at pace, but not hurried. She knew she wouldn't be able to catch him by speed. He far outmatched her in that. But that wouldn't stop her from giving chase. No. She was determined to catch him. Fortunately, Khelari were fairly decent trackers. It'd take her a while, but eventually she'd catch up to Graxitica, that much was certain...
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At

"That's...quite a long time." Vetdjat couldn't help but remark in surprise, eyes wide toward Negative Rise, "I've heard of cultures where people have to agree on something for it to happen and then they can't, but I didn't think it could be that severe. Or are you saying your planet decided it would assume a different state and just took that long to reshape itself...?"
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'Twin City'

Ildela's hopes were answered. well, sort of anyway. The machine did indeed have no idea in which direction to turn. So it didn't. It just stood there. Scanning. Waiting. Of course, if she simply stayed away from it, the Reaver probably wouldn't do anything else until it received further orders, giving her a relatively clean getaway...

"Can you?" [Jade] finally opted to just try and talk to [the Token], "Can you tell us any answers...?"

An 'answer' came, with more questions.

The new shine on the stone acorn contained a message for Jade. At his inquiry it transferred directly to his thoughts, like a psychic email opened. Only he, or someone with telepathic abilities deliberately listening to Jade's thoughts, would know its contents.

The message was the final moments of Bisys. While this included the entire flashback of her life and the resulting revelations, certain memories were emphasized. Every happy moment, especially wisdom and caring with Jade, were extra bright like a silent 'Thank You'. Once more 'Be happy, Jade. Live a fullness of joy.' echoed round, then the message ended. An afterthought, so faint it might have been imagined, whispered "I wish to see you again, Jade..."

Physically the stone acorn shone slightly brighter as if it had caught a reflection of moonlight, then the shine faded away to leave the acorn Token again a dull gray stone. Even from Jade further inquiries would evoke no response.

Meanwhile if Paxtera's examination of the timelines included the where and when she was current located at and variants caused by those present, one factor would stick out like a sore thumb. The thread of the acorn still paralleled Jade, but without Bisys they were no longer twined in a Bond. In the near future the Token thread veered then faded off suspiciously like the original token when Trisys had been pulled to Patches, as if it could not or would not reveal its destiny.

At present, however, it had a peculiar twist that appeared to snag another timeline thread near. It was just like the relocation of Patches on a much smaller scale.





Elsewhere a small glow, only four inches tall with faint blue and purple halos swirling about a foot out, seemed to walk out of a similarly sized portal. It froze, not at all where it had expected to be, turning too late to return back through the closed portal. Immediately it focused, creating another portal which it quickly drifted through only to reappear two inches to the left. The light shuttered with the tantrum of the creature hidden within its glow, then it summoned a bright golden glow around itself. This accomplished another two inches displacement in a triangle with its previous locations, plus another tantrum.

Once the thing had ranted itself out, it looked around properly. Dust covered everything. Apparently a sandstorm had recently rampaged here. A tangle of vines reached out and touched the earth, probing. Nothing! The landscape was more than ruins. It was DEAD!

Hovering back up, it started towards the nearby Steel Canyon gate through which it sensed green life. Then it hesitated. True, the green this direction was nearest, but in that direction there was a tug from an even greater source of green.

Decided on this latter destination, the small light began flying briskly towards the forest of the Heart Tree.

At

"Let's just say it was 10,000 years of wars, struggle, strife, debate after debate, all riddled with excessive abuses amongst the common folk...finally, the current magicracy won out. A semblance of peace settled over Ag'xis for about a century, and then new trouble broke out. Isn't that how it always goes?"

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Meanwhile, on the actual planet of Ag'xis...
Tevron High Council Chambers, the City of Tevron:
The Five Ascended Generals had gathered in the council chambers, awaiting a meeting with the Temporal Archness, Jerzal. They had all received reports from the battle between High General Nev'oroxis' forces and the armies of the Mad Archness Lonad: Something had gone terribly wrong, somehow, and there were no apparent survivors.

Nearly a century had passed since the advent of chronomagery. The newest of the magic arts had only been constantly refined, nearing perfection like the rest of the magic arts. On all of Ag'xis, the Chronomage Jerzal was the greatest practitioner of the temporal magic arts, and was thus given the Archness in the Tevron Reaches. Today, the good chronomage was running late with a meeting with the Ascended Generals.

Bursting into the council chambers, causing the ten foot tall, solid mallevium doors to collide against the walls, the resounding echo inside the chambers nearly deafening all 6 men now inside, Jerzal shook his head to overcome the deafening effect. The Ascended Generals simply stood their ground, motionless, as the sonic effects simply passed nearly as quickly as they had been inflicted.

"'Bout time, Jerzal!" Ascended General Wro'chel hollered over the echoing, which still permeated the chambers. "Since it's obvious you received our messages, shall we proceed?"

Jerzal nodded his confirmation. "Yes, we must proceed, and with all due haste," he replied to Wro'chel. It had been four days since the fateful battle between Nev'oroxis' forces and Lodan's armies. There would be temporal traces left over, but they would soon fade. And at a hard pace, it would take them all 3 days to get to the location. Which would be too late.

Jerzal planted his open, right palm against the floor in the middle of the council chambers. With a quick chant, runic symbols and strange lines appeared, a gating circle being opened up. The brilliant flash of light washed over the Ascended Generals as they stared at Jerzal, unaffected by the man's magics. "Generals, this is the fastest way," he informed them. "If you'll attune yourselves to the gate, we can get this investigation under way within the next ten minutes," pointing at each General, the five men began magics of their own ... attuneuating themselves to the magic of Jerzal's gate.

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The Mutated Forest

Graxitica kept running, of course. He had no clue he was going nowhere ... until...

'This is pointless. This forest ... keeps going! I should've been out of it by now...' he stopped. Something was shining, a bright light inside his head, or inside the shell which appeared as a head to others. It was a portion of the powers locked inside the meshed minds of Shortoth/Graxus.

He shouted out to noone in particular. "You want me THAT badly! TOUGH! You're not getting me!"

The being deep inside Graxitica split open a fold of space, right in front of Graxitica. There was a brilliant flash of light, plainly giving away his location. Graxitica stepped within the tear as the light dissipated, the fold in space closing behind the monstrous form. He repeated this process, until he returned himself to the mountainous range his prison had landed in.

((Rotten, did your wolf appear BEFORE or AFTER Graxitica teleported away?))

'Twin City'

Ildela found no such thing, regrettably. The entire central sector was indeed hermetically sealed by those blast doors, and the scanners that presumably opened them were next to impossible to get past without the correct hand along - and not just because they called down Reavers on those who tried otherwise.

Now, if Ildela's shadow form could become like an electrical impulse or such, then she could just travel through the cables that connected the sectors in this fashion. Otherwise however, she'd likely have no option other than finding a Dragon's hand somewhere...
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Eleven Forest

Jade just crouched there in silence for a while, working to absorb all this information. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He should be happy, the message had said...but how could he when those he cared for still kept dying, even now that he wasn't a machine anymore? Was this some kind of mark on him? A curse? A curse for whom? Him or those around him?

He didn't say anything as suggestions were voiced, but he did look to those putting them forward, as if to tell them to please try. Hopefully, something would work...
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At

"Ah, you meant social, not physical." Vetdjat gave an understanding nod with a smile, once more having to remind himself that this was a very different being than he, "Though actually...no. There are very many social systems around and about, some of which I have to admit I'll never be able to understand, that are stable and satisfying to their creators."

"Not here of course." the elder Khelari remarked with a shrug, "We probably couldn't exist around anything even resembling real stability. But I've seen some and hard of others, so no, not always..."

The Mutated Tree Ship alighted into the sky with its tainted cargo. It was time to sow every land in Patches until it ran out of seeds and had to come back for more. It lazily turned toward the horizon and let out a tremendous bellowing noise, like a foghorn, and set out.

It passed the boundary of the forest and was over the desert. Its first target would be the desert itself, since it was already right over it. About halfway through, the mutated tree ship would drop its cargo in an organic nutrient chamber (a bit like a really large egg, really) which would bury itself deep in the ground where it would start to slowly spread and adapt to the terrain before begining to flourish. The tree ship would not waste much time beyond that brief pause, immediately continuing on to its primary destination of interest.

Paragon City...

Those addressing the mournful remains of Bisys would find them safe to move. Indeed, they seemed inactive. Though trying to locate each and every scale that had been scattered by the whirlwind of departing spirits was probably an exercise in futility.

While the acorn, skull, and people (and whatever scales they choose to recover) relocated to a safer, quiet place for further efforts, answers were nearing.

The small haloed light paused at the tremendous gate which marked the entrance to the canyon containing the forest it was seeking. Momentarily still, the inches-high fey within was momentarily revealed - one of the winged fairy variety.

The fairy contemplated her choices. She had already skirted an ear-deafening foghorn ship and a group of beasts that looked to be in exodus, among other things. Should she simply go above this barrier? Knock? Surely the local fey she could feel knew of her presence by now too; but would they welcome her or try to chase a so-distant-cousin-as-to-be-a-stranger off?

The Desert

Paragon City may have been the ship's next target, but getting there by air was easier said than done. The cragged, rocky, lifleless expanse that now surrounded the city had been named the Desert for a reason: nothing would grow here. It was a harsh, dangerous, and just generally unpleasant place to be, harboring a great number of hostilities.

Like the dust storms.

One such cloudalanche of dirt and grit rolled across the jagged landscape and toward the vessel even now, sandpapering anything and everything it came across with wind speeds of several hundred meters per second - and that was just the fine stuff. Coarser and larger debris whipped up by this thing could literally put a number of projectile weapons to shame. If the Heart Tree (or the mutation) hadn't endowed the craft with some decent resilience, it may well have been a fatal mistake to enter this area...
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Eleven Forest

If the wolf was still there by the time Akat passed the area from which Graxitica had jaunted, it would no doubt see the Khelari pass by in the forest canopy. She didn't pay it any mind just on the virtue of being there though, her intent focused ahead. After all, she had a very long way to go. True, she could've just called the Range Runner and use it to span the distance, but right now that didn't even occur to her. She was hunting. Khelari hunted on foot. That was the way it had always been...

((Hello? Anybody still around? >_>))