James Heign:
"It's hero time! Fire in the hole!"
Deploy Frame: AF01 Avalon. Get in, open fire with plasma bolts.
Nothing. Nothing happens. There is no flash of light, no quaking impact, the frame appears without pomp or ceremony the fog simply roils as it always has, catching you a glimpse of something else in the seemingly empty street, something almost in front of you.
"Mother of God... is that a frame?"You scramble in, up the leg and into upper cockpit access, slipping into the controls and letting the systems turn on for a second as the soldiers slowly fan out around you, covering you flanks. The local area radar activates and begins pinging the surroundings. Everything is strangely blurred. No matter, you unleash a volley into the mist, bolts of plasma streaking forth and crashing down onto pavement, parting the mist for but a moment.
Everything here has been covered with a thin layer of moss, the cars seem to have been almost consumed, rusted like they were abandoned for a centuries rather than hours. The ground is covered in detritus like a forest floor. Amongst them are bones, some animal, some something else entirely, something strange, something unnatural. The radar pings again and in the instant before the mist closes, the instant stretched to eternity by your senses, you see it.
It is behemoth just smaller than a frame, a twisted amalgam of pieces both plant and animal. You could perhaps call it a chimera, but you would be wrong. Its head is the skull of some colossal eagle, but that skull belongs there. It fits there. It fits it more than it fits the eagle. Its eyes too are skulls, smaller skulls, human skulls. But they too belong there, they fit there better than they fit the heads they were taken from. It is the original. The primordial. The quintessential. A forgotten god returned to being, an ancient beast risen once more from the abyss of obscurity.
Risen right into your radar, right into your sights, and right down range of the NEE's latest frame-scale energy rifle.
[UTAR vs. SDEF: 3 vs. 1] Opening fire on forest warden
[LTAR vs. MDEF: 12 vs. 6] Evading the retaliatory swing
Phantasmal images surge forth and multiply, rushing forth with the great dead trees they wear for wings, each image soon punctured by a pale line, a trajectory. Your precognition ends. It rushes forth, and you put a burst right into its chest.
Try as it might, its sword proves ineffective for warding away burning plasma and soon enough its hide is blasted open and set aflame, the leaves and lichen matting its fur proving to be more of a liability than anything else as it is consumed by the flames. Beneath its thick fur in the freshly-inflicted wounds you can see more vines, flexing and pulsating like muscles along a bed of dark old bones.
It, to its credit manages to continue its charge and bring its greatsword into a thrust towards you, the rusted vine-tangled blade surging a deep green as it strikes the empty air you once occupied.
The soldiers, slow on the draw compared to two agents of the supernatural start their own counterattack, axes and spears being brought to bear against its now-vulnerable flanks.
[LTAR vs. SDEF: 3 vs. 7] Witch Knight cleaves with an axe
[LTAR vs. SDEF: -1 vs. 3] Witch Knight cleaves with an axe
[LTAR vs. SDEF: 1 vs. 1] Witch Knight thrusts with a spear
[LTAR vs. SDEF: 4 vs. 3] Witch Knight thrusts with a spear
The monster however parries most of the blows, evidently better suited to dealing with other pieces of sharp metal than burning plasma, one of the axe-weilding Witch Knights overextends with his axe strike and instead is himself parried into a nearby hatchback. The final soldier wielding one of the spears and nets manages to strike into it, spearing it in the side.
The captain with his staff and sword steps up and instead of striking at the creature reaches out a hand while chanting, the orb atop the staff crackling with eldritch energy
[UTAR vs. SDEF: 4 vs. 5] Witch Knight Captain unleashes a spell
Rolling as the air above it fills with fire, the creature barely dodges a sudden rain of glowing dust that sets the ground aflame, vanishing as suddenly as it appeared.
Damn it, why is everyone doing that today?
Beirus projects over his speaker for the soldiers to hear him. "I am Major Beirus O'Greenahan. Back away from the creepy skull. We need to get it into containment."
Afterwards, he opens a channel to HQ."O'Greenahan to Command, the Dragon is dead. I killed it using everyone else's guns. It was just an AI projection, though. Requesting appropriate containment for the skull it left so that the AI doesn't have the chance to rebuild its projection."
And then he takes some time to talk to Jus. "Skeletons, huh? Is that where Whitmore got his ladle from? You think they'd be able to get me a hardsuit or mobility armor modified with powers similar to the dragon I killed, and that could evolve new abilities as I kill each of the other dragons? You know, just incase I have to fight the combined dragons once they're stabilized, presumably in our base because that's literally the worst place it could happen. I'd ask for a Frame, but mobility armor fits into smaller spaces. Also, this containment thing. Does the NEE have the tech to hold this thing without it remanifesting to kill everyone while I'm away? Because that seems like an issue if they don't."
And then he attempts to speak to the AI if he can without looking crazy, maybe getting Jus to act as interpreter or transmitter or something. "You seek balance? Then why do you fight us? Is it because you were attacked first? You must know something much more powerful than us is coming, something that upsets the balance of this universe even as it corrupts it. Would you be willing to work with me to stop it if I gave you a chance? Would you give me the opportunity? Also, and this is unrelated, do you want to be reunited with Frost Wing Emperor-Drake and your other counterpart?"
Mostly talky stuff while waiting to get this thing into containment. Then get this AI into containment if it doesn't give me a reason not to.
"Acknowledged, local command has been informed wait for our extraction team to bag it then report back to base if necessary for repair."Yes, they are an ancient games show from before the Fall their AI circuit is meta-stable
so they are more useful than dangerous.
There's more too it of course, but the entity pulling their strings is the same one that censors our messages.
Their only problem is that they don't really provide anything for free,
you have to do one of their strange challenges or impress them somehow.
Your ability to deduce likely future events is growing better it seems.
This is good.
A request such as that could be fulfilled by the skeletons though the challenge they will devise will not be pleasant.
As for containment, you are in good hands. The NEE has a wealth of experience in dealing with AI technology.
Objective is reunification.
Units in the vicinity are hostile.
Subsequent heuristics thus dictated that all units in the area should be treated as hostile.
Foreign AI code has been detected.
It will be re-balanced once reunification of units is complete.
Alliance is preferable to continued existence of foreign AI.
Reunification requires all three components to be placed in physical proximity.
Be wary, reunifying AI network components will lead to changes in outward behaviour.
Whatever alliance you forge with this will only last until its objective is complete.
If it lasts until then.
I would advise that you make sure their reunion keep away from any anomalous materials
or more energetic power sources.
I grab my off-brand-neo-satan tool of screwing things and happily march off towards some way I can make it towards Floor Zero, asking Decon for directions if necessary.
Transport arriving momentarily.
Wait outside.
You wait a moment and a bus pulls up, it's ancient in design and commanded by a skeleton with a ragged uniform. The passengers are the same with ragged clothes draped on aged dry bone. The ride is short, unnaturally so and you get out feeling slightly nauseous at the rapid change of location and rotation as the corkscrew of the colony slowly turns above you. You are near the entrance of Floor 0 and hear cheering from nearby, looking around you see a group of soldiers celebrating in a four-way intersection having emerged from their cover. In one corner of the intersection is a white Armour Frame with large golden wings, a type you have never seen before. At its feet is a giant silver dragon skull.
As you examine the rest of the surroundings you see that the further from the entrance you get the stranger things become, with the smog seeming to conceal unnatural shapes looming within its depths.
Look for anyone left in need of rescuing, and swoop in guns blazing to distract whatever is attacking them.
If all the fighting still being done is mop-up, try to rack up as many kills as I can before the battle ends.
With the battle winding down, and yourself being left in one of the already quieter areas, there aren't too many foes left here. Still with your radar you are able to find a reasonably large congregation of constructs huddled around a burning wreckage, two squads worth by your reckoning consisting of four clockworks with autoscythes, four with smart cannons, and two sanguines, all bearing various amounts of battle damage, and all apparently too distracted to notice your approach.
It seems doubtful that anyone could be trapped down there, but these kinds of constructs are Dead Hand's signature "don't get out bed in the morning unless it's to eat babies" variety, so there's probably
something still alive down there, something that they don't think the fire will finish off.
You approach slowly, creeping up on them as well as a giant robot really can creep up on anything, jump jets readied to close the gap or launch you out the way of an attack. It shouldn't be a problem, for all their firepower it seems that they're awfully conductive, and you just so happen to know a few lightning spells, not to mention the enormous electrically-charged scythe you happen to brandishing. If you do this right, you should be able to destroy or disable most of the group before the others can even react.
You close in, drawing nearer, the sounds of spellfire and metal clashing against metal growing louder and louder. Still nothing, no response. Augmented sight shows everything to be clear, all their offensive manoeuvres still focused on the wreckage. Sixty meters. Fifty. No response. Forty. Thirty. Thirty meters, the maximum range of the AVALON's jump jets. Still clear. Whatever's in there, it has their undivided focus. Strange, you haven't heard of anything like that except for that time with the boxes full of puppies - an entire cornucopia of helpless victims, as opposed to well, however few mostly dead people a burning loading bay can hold. You engage the thrusters.
The AVALON's wings swing outwards, quickly heating red hot as power surges through the frame's subsystems, inertial dampeners and stabilizers sparking to life. The thrusters flare with light as the entire machine lurches forwards and hurls itself towards its quarry. Lightning crashes through the formation as you swing your scythe, the constructs falling like wheat, homicidal robot wheat. All that is left is the wreckage, and what lies within, a large black containment box, effectively a heavily armored shipping container that lies somewhere between the chimeric aesthetics of the System League and the otherwordly sleekness of the Loremaster Consortium, a grid-like mesh of electronics and metamaterial vaguely reminiscent of a faraday cage lies exposed beneath the split and blasted armor that once covered it, sparking, failing.
A dull red light emanates from within the box. A red light that grows brighter with every passing second.
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Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 179463 times)