voidtreckermods: (voidtrain)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2020-11-13 04:28 am
Entry tags:

Not with a Bang Start and Ongoing

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day seven of the month of Imagination." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation

They have about an hour to prepare, a little less than usual but perhaps expected, given the urgency of the task.

The cupboards in the dressing room are open to reveal rows of tents, in all four team colours as well as some basic camp cooking equipment. They are in bags that should be easy enough to carry.

"Shortly arriving on System #6416. All passengers get ready to disembark. Next stop world 6416. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train rocks and lurches, bright colours of the void filling the space and then fading as they fly downwards towards a very green landscape.

Arrival and Initial Task

The train lands in a clearing, curving round in an attempt to fit. Once everyone who wishes to disembark has done it flies back into the air, vanishing from sight.

The air is heavy and humid, though it is not currently raining. The clearing is open to the sky and looking up will reveal a worrying sight. The sky is an angry red colour, colours shifting as if the clouds themselves were on fire. It's an unnerving sight.

Their SCA's show three points, one Orange, One purple and one that is half blue and half red. The three control centres. Each are a few hours treck through the jungle and it certainly feels like there is no time to waste.

Those that don't want to treck through the forest can start setting up camp, though the darkening sky might be a little distracting. As time goes on flecks of fire drift down, though they extinguish before hitting the forest floor.

Orange are to travel to the north, Purple to the south and Blue and Red must travel together to the west. Each route takes them through thick and unrelenting jungle. Flying is difficult here unless you can get up past the canopy layer, which means vision of the ground is severely hampered.

The control stations themselves are half buried in vines and require cutting into. If voidtreckers are unlucky they will meet their first security robots here, firing on the intruders. They might even meet their first giant Armadillos, the creatures are curious and may wish to investigate. They are not helpful or constructive to trying to power up the stations and prevent the destruction of the planet.

The control stations are simple enough to operate, but there's quite a lot that needs to be done in way of repairs and clearing. It will take a team effort to get it in working enough order to activate the shield.

The shield itself, when it is activated, is mostly invisible but there is a loud humming sound. The meteor, which has gotten more visible throughout the five hours, hits the shield and splinters, fire enveloping the whole sky. It is visibly terrifying, but no fire falls to earth, no rocks get through, the planet is safe.

Ongoing

Once the planet is safe the voidtreckers deserve a rest. But once the next morning dawns it is time to start with their next tasks, to make sure that this planet stays safe from future threats.

Red

The robots at the control stations are not the only malfunctioning security robots around. They roam the jungle, or are more often stranded in the jungle, powering up only when faced with a new threat.

Some are benign, terraforming machines whose only crime is using up precious power. These need to be dismantled so that power can be saved for the shield system. Others are security robots that will attack the intruders to the planet.

Though the machines are scattered they are often obvious, emitting warning alarms or flashing lights. Their SCA's will show some areas where there are larger clusters but machines can be found anywhere.

Purple

Their SCA's are filled with hundreds of purple dots, each a solar stations that needs cleared and brought back online. It's not the most glamourous job, the stations are deep in the jungle, the treck is difficult and most of the work needed is weed clearing.

But once the weeds have been cut away they will need to patch up the station, doing basic maintenance to get it back online. In some cases wires need to be patched back together but it shouldn't take any great feats of engineering to get the stations up and running.

They may run into some of the security automatons, needing to fight their way into the stations before they can begin the clean up operations.

Orange

Like the red team their SCA will show areas where there are clusters of the small insectoid automatons that need to be rescued and restored. However they can be found anywhere throughout the jungle, they are not too suited for the terrain outside of the stations and so they have gotten tangled in vines. They can be found powered down, stranded and in dire need of maintenance.

Tools and spare parts can be found in many of the solar stations that purple team have been locating. Actually repairing the robots takes some engineering knowledge but once they are restored they will go about their tasks in the stations. They will need help getting to the further flung stations as well as the main control centres.

They are very basic in design and follow pre programmed instructions rather than being able to hear and listen to orders. But once in the correct place they are very effective at their job.

Blue

Once the shield is up there is a faint humming that can be heard throughout the jungle if they listen closely and find it among the sound of rain and insects. But once they hear it, it is obvious where it is louder and more prominent.

Their SCA will pin point some of the larger control boxes but there are truthfully too many to show on a map. Not all of them have attracted Violet Pandas, but many of them have.

They are curious creatures, both of the power boxes and the voidtreckers. They are protective of each other but not so much of territory and therefore it is not difficult to move them on. Keeping them away is another matter, the power humming is interesting and they will unearth wires and chew through them. It doesn't seem to do them much harm, there is clearly safety stops in the system for such eventualities. It does however cut power off to entire solar stations and require a lot of patch work.

Good luck voidtreckers!
happyends: (better than the rest)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-11-23 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"You don't want.."

Her voice trails off, and she gasps at the realisation. Because Piccolo doesn't want her to stress, but.. it's too late.

She's already stressing.


Madoka's jaw drops at that a little, but then she quickly closes her mouth again as she tries her darnest to look more determined.

"O-Okay! Got it! I.. I'm not stressing!" Or so she says, clearly with the voice of someone stressed right this very moment..

(At least she is still moving and therefore focusing on their current task?)
shutupnail: (Default)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-11-25 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
Piccolo deigned to pretend he didn't notice her initial panic or newfound determination to not let him see her stressing. At least she was focused on getting through everything.

"Good. Keep it up, Madoka." I believe in you, he didn't add out loud.
happyends: (lies in the palm)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-11-26 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
If he wants her to keep it up, then she'll try! She'll try to somehow.. keep up.. not stressing even though she's actually stressing.

Okay, maybe that's a little hard. But she'll try!

"Mister Piccolo, can you see how much further we have left to go..?" She figures she might as well ask that, just so she has something else to think about other than her own worries. See, she's already trying to not stress out too much!
shutupnail: (Default)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-11-26 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Piccolo considered her question as he looked ahead and looked above at the canopy. He certainly couldn't see much through the foliage on the ground. Too many obstructions in the way. And he couldn't see at all through the canopy. But if he flew up above and took a look, if the place they were going was visible from the sky then he could give her a better answer.

Perhaps it was worth looking into. It couldn't really hurt. It's not like he would be going very far and he would be right back.

"Not from here. Give me a moment." He started to lift off the ground but a thought occurred to him and he paused with just his feet off the ground, hovering in place. He looked down at her. "...Do you want to see for yourself?"
happyends: (lies in the palm)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-11-28 05:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, Piccolo. You go up there and take a good look, watch out that you don't bump your head against that meteor, buddy--

Granted, the thought that flying up meaning he's at least a tad closer to the meteor, even with as far away as it still is, is making Madoka a little antsy about letting Piccolo do it. What if something happens to him? He's like their fearless leader, they can't lose him-- and even if he wasn't, he's still a good friend, and Madoka wouldn't want to let anything happen to a friend!

".. huh?"

Though any and all thoughts about that are stopped the moment he asks that question. Madoka has an idea of where he's going with this, and yet rather than answering, the only thing she can ask is: "What.. do you mean..?"

As if she wants to make sure she's got the right idea here, even before she knows how to feel about said idea.
shutupnail: (Default)

oh no. those inner thoughts are SO CUTE

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-11-29 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
Had Piccolo known what she was thinking he would have assured her it was all right. He wouldn't get that close to the meteor itself. And even if he did, he'd just destroy the bits and pieces that got in his way--or dodge the bigger ones that might actually hurt.

"I mean, do you want to come with me and look around?" he clarified for her. He stared down at her steadily. His patience was hard to notice though with a face like his.
happyends: (better than the rest)

it's my personal mission to give piccolo cavities from the sweetness!!

[personal profile] happyends 2020-11-29 10:52 am (UTC)(link)
"I, um.."

Madoka knows she has to make a quick decision here. They don't really have time to waste while they're on this ticking meteor timer. So while she usually would have thought about this for longer or generally hesitated, right now, with no time to think about it, she just nods.

She doesn't want to seem like a coward, after all! Not to mention this is all about the buddy system. As a good, responsible team member, she can't let Piccolo go off on his own, no matter how amazing he is.

"O-Okay! If I can come with you, I will..!"
shutupnail: (Default)

if anyone can do it, it's Madoka!

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-11-29 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
That was all Piccolo needed. He grabbed her hand and lifted off slowly. Madoka rose with him. He didn't use ki to move her but instead a form of telekinesis. That way she could just float through the air next to him instead of being carried by him.

Though, if it looked like she was too scared of the experience he could and would always take hold of her and wrap her up in his big arms to hold her tight, keep her safe. Till then though he'd see how she reacted.

He rose slowly by his standards but they still were up and out of the canopy in a few seconds, then higher so they had a vantage point from a few dozen feet above the highest treetops. Piccolo didn't look up at the sky and hopefully Madoka didn't either. Instead he looked down at the treetops to look for where they were going.
happyends: (my feelings are all i can rely on)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-12-01 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
It's a little much all of a sudden.

There's a huge gap between the idea of going up here and actually being up there, after all. And while Madoka has experienced many things she never ever thought she'd get to do ever since showing up on the train, this goes above and beyond maybe all of them. It's an unnerving feeling that she's just floating there, no solid ground under her feet, the feeling that she could fall down anytime - more instinctive than logical, since she knows Piccolo would never drop her, and yet.

Although the state of the sky sure doesn't help either. It's so unnerving, having all this red as their backdrop, even when Madoka really, really tries to not look.

The girl squeezes Piccolo's hand as tightly as a 14 year old can, not even able to get out a single word from the antsiness.
shutupnail: (Default)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-12-02 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
He could feel her tense state but he wanted to give her a moment to adjust on her own before doing or saying anything to snap her out of it. But when the grip on his hand just kept getting tighter and tighter Piccolo began to fear the worst. She wasn't adjusting too well on her own.

After a quiet moment up in the air, Piccolo finally moved. He tugged her closer and wrapped his other arm around her in what probably would have constituted as a hug from anyone else. Instead though the Namekian adjusted his hold until he could finally support her as if he was simply carrying her rather than just levitating her through the air. He let her keep his other hand tight in her grip though. Whatever helped.

"Better?" he asked. "I won't let you fall." He assured her in a low rumble, the closest to soft his voice got.
happyends: (the ancient magic i dreamed of)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-12-04 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
".. I know," she says, fairly quickly, though quietly. The last thing Madoka wants to do here is make Piccolo feel like she's doubting him, after all. She trusts him, and knows he wouldn't just let her fall, but even that knowledge isn't enough to soothe all her worries that easily.

Though this is starting to help a little. Still holding onto Piccolo's hand, but having his arm around her too now. Even though she may not have any ground to stand on, it still gives her something to hold her steady.

"I'm sorry. I've just never done anything like this before, so it's a little.." New. Scary. Fill in the blanks, really, since there are a lot of words you could put there right now and they'd all fit.

The girl leans into the hold a little, at least starting to look a bit less nervous now.

"And the sky really looks so scary right now too.. Like the meteor could hit us any moment now."
shutupnail: (Default)

[personal profile] shutupnail 2020-12-10 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
"It won't," he assured her. "We're here to prevent that. We still have plenty of time."

Not that he really was certain how much time that was, it didn't matter so much as simply reassuring her of it. They did have some time. The train wouldn't have brought them here if they didn't. And he could tell without even looking that there was still some time left before all hope was lost. Call it instinct, or experience, whatever it was he was certain.

They could prevent this disaster. They would.

Now he just had to assure Madoka of that.

"It's all right. Now, let's see if we can find what we came up here to look for." No looking up at the sky, only down at the ground. Which...in hindsight wasn't much better at this height probably but it was all Piccolo had at the moment. Oops.
happyends: (better than the rest)

[personal profile] happyends 2020-12-11 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
At least that keeps Madoka from looking further at the sky. She's an obedient girl, after all, so she's ready to look down and find what they were looking for the moment Piccolo says so. He put in all the effort of taking her up here, and even reassuring her, so she knows she's got to play her part in turn.

Madoka frowns as she tries to look.. it's hard to spot much among all the greenery that seems to cover everything, really. But by the time she's lightly biting her lower lip in thought, she seems to spot something between the trees.

"Um.. Over there, mister Piccolo. Couldn't that be what we're looking for? It's hard to see under the trees, but it looks pretty big.."