Not with a Bang: Finale

[voidtreckermods]

It's been a strange few days, between trying to complete all of the tasks needed to stabilise the solar stations and keep the shield going, keep the pandas and armadillos away and fix robots whilst smashing other robots. That's not even counting the strange events that kept happening.

They might have heard the news from those who had found themselves on a small adventure of their own that there were potentially dangerous saboteurs on the planet and indeed once they were aware there were more signs, things moved, pandas far more frightened than they should have been, robots back in areas that had been cleared.

But no sign of the saboteurs themselves as the days go on. Until the evening of the twelfth day of Imagination, the sixth day of the mission.

Everyone's SCA alerts them to an exclamation mark, the Western Control Station, where red and blue had initially went to initialise shields. Clicking on the exclamation mark will show the message. Danger: Control Station unstable. Attempt stabilisation. Situation critical.

A few seconds later there is another exclamation mark, this time on a solar station about an hours walk to the south. A herd of Violet Pandas are loose in Solar station #13, clear the station and minimise damage.

And a few moments after that there is a third exclamation mark, right where they are in the camp. Robot activity approaching. Any red team members who check will see many red rots approaching their camp.

Control Station

For those that decide to tackle this one it is clear the moment they arrive that things are not as they should be. A tree has fallen, or been felled and though it seems the station is designed to withstand falling trees it makes getting into it difficult.

Every alarm is blaring, and indeed when they get inisde their own alarms on their SCA start to flash amber. It's dangerous in here!

Something they will quickly have learned anyways. It looks like someone pressed every button, flicked every switch. Every guage is showing too high, every warning light is flashing.

It's going to take some very quick fixing before this place overloads and explodes. Hopefully their work on the stations in the last few days has taught them enough that with some very quick and diligent work they should get the situation under control.

Solar Station #13

To the south in one of the solar stations a very different situation is unfolding. Those that arrive here will find pandas... everywhere. Somehow they have gotten into the station itself and are busy chewing on wires, exploring machines they really shouldn't be exploring. Some are trying to climb the solar tower and others are just lying on the monitors, seemingly enjoying the lights.

Luckily it seems less damage can be done to the solar stations than a control station, but still, there are alarms and flashing lights and far too many pandas. It will be some work to clear them all out.

Base Camp

It doesn't take long for the robots to arrive. There are a lot, some seem very patched together, as if someone had gone around scavenging parts and remaking them. Some are large terraforming machines, others the smaller security drones. Some are even the automatons that were used for maintenance, yet here they were being put to another purpose.

As they approach the permitted of the camp they stop and six human figures step forward. All are armed with large rifle type weapons and a tall woman speaks in a loud, clear voice.

"You are trespassing on our land. You will leave this place or you will die."

She casually waves the robots forward, they attack.

Comments

[zechs_isonfire]

The grenade seemed to be aimed at Curufin, and Zechs cursed himself for not moving quickly enough. But at least he was clearly undetected.

He tackled the saboteur, hoping to subdue him without fatal injury - again, thankful that he had taken the time to improve his hand-to-hand combat skills, at the least.

Once pinned, Zechs would finally call over his earpiece that he had subdued one of the targets. Which really only took care of a sixth of their problems, but he was only a single man.

(Next mission, hopefully, he would be better prepared.)

[enthunder]

Defence could only go so far, and now was the moment Odin judged that it was time to switch. Perhaps encouraged by Tidus's spell-- Up came the shield, metal arm sweeping up and across, and a Thundaga, a huge blast of lightning like the trunk of a tree, struck Sabo Bot. And another, and a roar, a magical provocation that rang out as if saying behold, your foe is I and no other.

The bot's damage was building up on the eidolon, however; Lightning's power tethering him on the physical plane was draining quickly as blue lights smashed into his body. Nevertheless, he was determined, as was she, to fight until the end.

The call from Zechs was a relief. Lightning managed a, "Thanks for the good news," into her own earpiece, before she continued engaging with the Spider.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin felt the shockwave as the grenade exploded, the electrical pressure wave. It lit him up as his own energy would have done when he was half-disembodied, silver light sparkling and radiating from his body as he hit the forest floor. He rolled and lay still for a moment, absorbing that experience, but not dead and not unconscious. And then he scrambled to his feet and shook off the dizziness, and finally picked up his sword.

He ran through the the trees and arrived in time to witness Zechs tackling the saboteur and successfully pinning him to the ground. Cheers for Zechs!

Curufin stood guard in case the downed saboteur had a trick or two up his sleeve. He looked around and opened all his arcane senses to try to detect any other saboteurs or robots who might be coming to the aid of the subdued saboteur on the ground, now at Zechs' mercy.

[nutkrusher]

Sometimes, Cassie's got a lot to say. A few pithy comments here and there on the condition she finds herself in. Other times, not so much.

"Shit."

Her plan to smash it with a physical strike from above is on hold for now. Everything about the giant forest-destroying killbot screams "stay the fuck away."

Lucky for her, she still has soul fireballs to throw at it.

[seacub]

Well he's....

Up here again. Weather was quick- quick to get him as far up as possible, and even create a small bit of cloud cover without it seeming inconspicuous. Nothing that clouds up the whole sky- if anything it just looks like a typical sunny day- but enough to keep him hidden, at least a little.

It gives him a view at least, as he watches the bots.

Uh Oh.

[redarrowqueen]

Thea fires another volley as she grabs more unguarded arrows. She adds a round towards the bots to bide the others time. But as she fires she ducks whatever comes flying, being hit but nothing serious at the moment.

[only_one_wei]

The ground trembling beneath them is what worries Wei Wuxian the most. That is never a good sign where he was from. But, what technology can break, maybe cultivation can fix. He redoubles his playing, pulling the Resentful Energy in from the area, now bolstered by the dead saboteurs, and throwing it into tying the earth down.

Gold threads, hazy with black fog, start to appear, lacing over the openings being created by the Terra Bot. This is creative cultivation at its finest.

[adregem]

The path was finally clear for Roland to move further into the coordinates sent out before. Aware that the battlefield was growing hotter by the second; warnings and beeps from compromised robots and shields, his legs carry him faithfully to the lone saboteur and those dealing with him. A flurry of activity catches him off-guard, but he is level-headed enough to notice the sequence of events that follow Zechs and Curufin. The grenade that doesn't damage the elf, and Zechs who has tackled the man into submission.

But it's not enough, for the beeping continues and some shields remain online. Sharp eyes travel to the arc that the tablet flying towards the ground makes, a thump in an otherwise chaotic jungle. He runs to its direction and makes for a barrel roll for speed, hoping he gets the tablet in time to disconnect every shield that hinders them from a total victory.

[voidtreckernpcs]

The Sabo Bot's full attention is knocked into the eidolon, quite literally. The lightning raining down on it with all the righteous anger of nature itself, the shield that protects it - if just half - turning a sky blue, and in the pause of Odin's action, spurting of smoke from the damaged portion of its framing.

It attempts nevertheless, a machine without a sense of self-preservation programmed into it, to confront the being than to run or change tactics. The rapid fire laser begins a volley of as it has plenty before, but it doesn't take long for the cut made before by the swathe cutter attack to take effect, popping off the steel making its barrel, jamming anything further. It switches to its one claw, the blue light building - but surely, Odin is faster than this machine that has become noisier than a stampede as everything that keeps it together also attempts to keep it attacking.

The saboteur in the forest's story, however, is less as impressive. Distracted by the approaching trouble south of them, the saboteur doesn't realise his real problem in Zechs, as he jumps on top of them, knocking them straight to the ground. Whatever shielding worked for magic and steel doesn't appear to acknowledge the potential threat of a tackle. Technology - or the people who apply the settings - is dumb.

Curufin's earlier work on the sentries and bots has cleared the area, while Thea works to keep anything from entering into the forest with her arrows. The tablet, flung from the saboteur's grasp as they knocked down, can be found by Roland Crane. The data on the screen may be confusing for him, no giant 'OFF' button to simply press - but with the three of them there to help each other, they will manage to find not only the shields for the Terra Spider and Sabo Bot, but also to switch off the demolition countdown.

"B-bastards!" is spat out by the squirming individual beneath Zechs. They can feel the tremor of the ground beneath their feet even this far, though Wei Wuxian's cultivation magic does its best to suppress what it can.

But.

As the ground surrounding the Terra Spider starts to crack and rumble, a miniature earthquake threatening to spread into the camp, the countdown of the barrier's power still being chipped at - 9, 8, 7... - if viewed, with the sound of hinges being broken as the legs presumably give in under Sigma's gravitational weight -

The barrier vanishes, nothing but the Terra Spider to be seen. The beeping has stopped. The tremors come to a spot.

Something like a twitch runs through the Terra Spider. Did it move? Is it offline?

The voidtreckers could just leave it alone...

Or they can finish it off.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin has absorbed a fair amount of the dark energy that Wei Wuxian has accessed and sent Curufin's way. Curufin knows he might need it, if there is anything left for him to do. He lounges against a tree, sword still drawn, and remarks to the saboteur that Zechs is controlling, "Listen to yourself! You came here to rob this planet and to kill anyone who got in your way, and you consider us bastards?" He smiles and shakes his head.

He watches as Roland dives for the tablet and grabs it.

"Can you make any sense of that thing?" he asks, hopefully.

[zechs_isonfire]

“You’ll have plenty of time to talk later,” Zechs promised his prisoner a bit ominously, and he was particularly good at intimidation, eyes narrowed and intense.

He’d do his best to pat the saboteur down for weapons as he continued to pin them, but it’s not really his best since the captured prisoner, clearly, did not want to be captured.

Zechs glanced up at Curufin and Roland. “If you’ve got anything to secure our prisoner with, I can help take a look at that.”

Because Zechs didn’t have anything.

[redarrowqueen]

Thea meanwhile is shooting away in the woods. She scans for arrows unguarded, a massive restock looms!

[enthunder]

Leaving the Terra Spider alone is an option, to be sure. But not knowing how many saboteurs wait in the wings, Lightning isn't risking it. Her next steps have her close the distance to the robot, then two hops have her astride the joints of its leg, and finally her saber, white-hot with a Flamestrike, swings to cleave through the antennae. She's not an engineer, but she can at least set about dismantling anything that looks like it might be able to receive a signal.

Odin's attacks are rather less precise. As the Sabo Bot closes with him, he abandons his casting and switches to great swings of his double-bladed sword, moving his shield to have the robot's attacks grind against it instead of him - or, indeed, instead of the humans he is charged to guard. If he can crush it between shield and sword, he will.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin replied to Zechs, "Yes, I've got some rope in my pack. Just a moment." He pulled the rucksack off his back, rummaged in it, and pulled out a coil of rope. It was of the narrow nylon variety, the type he always brought with him on missions these days. He had used it earlier to tie together the makeshift stretcher for Halo, which wasn't needed, since she had died.

"Here," he said, bringing the rope to Zechs. He'd help tie the saboteur up if Zechs needed help.

[seacub]

Finishing it off certainly seems like the wisest option. But in the same vein, they should probably make sure that robot isn't beyond repair. What happens after all, if its functions are necessary for the planet itself?

Well. Floating from his glider, he nods to weather.

"One last go..!" A collection of water from the clouds- condensed, formed, compressed- frozen into a large, massive icicle-

And then launched downward, a spearing bullet from above.

[adregem]

"Exchange with me."

Among the three of them handling the saboteur displaced, he walks over to Curufin and Zechs and asks for the rope. The tablet that he catches is then switched over to Zechs, who might have a better chance at cracking the code than Roland will. So as the long-haired man tinkers with the device, Roland assists in tying up the saboteur...perhaps a little too tightly than he would have had it been anyone else.

"Let's keep quiet while we look at your toy, yeah?" Roland says with a low breath, emphasizing it with an extra knot behind his back, immobilizing his hands completely.

[namethattune]

The shield falls. The beeping stops. For a moment, the spider is inert, save for the noise of metal buckling - a sign that his gravitic pull is working.

There is an option to leave it as it is, certainly.

Any survivor of the Omnic Crisis can testify that a deactivated hostile robot, if left intact, can potentially be reactivated. Sigma has not lived this long to die from carelessness. Leaving the spider alone is, as it turns out, not much of an option at all.

So he continues to exert as much pull as he can on the terra spider's gravity, ignoring the beginnings of exhaustion dragging at his limbs. He refuses to fall until after the battle is over.

[wizard_redfive]

Dairine's stomach had churned just a little when her attack hit a moment after the shield dropped. It's hardly the first time she had killed a person in combat, especially given how widely she had come to define the term as a wizard, but humanoids still left a nasty punch to the gut.

She held her breath, ready to steady the shield as a bubble if needed, until the beeping stopped. She exhales, but her relief is short-lived. Suddenly the other Voidtreckers start piling on the Terra Spider, and her stomach clenches again.

"HEY!!" she yells at the others, shrill with indignation and desperation. "At least let me check it for hostility first!"

Spot has already begun to scan the Spider from where he sits.

[nutkrusher]

It's too late in Cassie's case - she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. She starts hurtling down the moment she sees an opening, aiming as close as possible to its joints.

Green sparks fly as she hits her target. And her tonfas are out as she follows up with more blows.

If she hears Dairine, Cassie gives no indication.

apologies for the wait, and congratulations! hope y'all enjoyed

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Eat shit!" seethes the saboteur with Curufin, Zechs, and Roland - to whom specifically, who knows. Likely them all. They thrash and try to get out of their hold, but it's impossible. The saboteur has been, you could say....sabudued.

As for the Terra Spider, the work to it now is surprising quick. Spot's analysis will not have time for the onslaught brought upon it. Its legs buckle under the slashes from Lightning's blade, crushed down like a foot pressing down on a drink can from Sigma's gravitational expertise. Icicles slam down, a torrent of spears that collect in its back from Emporio and Weather Report's joined efforts. Cassie may want to be careful with how close she's getting to such a chaos. The insides of the machine can be heard erupting, crushed, becoming no more than a flattened wreckage.

Once they think to pause, there will be nothing from the Terra Spider than smoke, a flattened corpse of steel. It has been destroyed.

As for the Sabo Bot, there is even less to say despite its more active movements. With the shielding brought down, Odin's weaponry bashes into the metalwork of its frame, splitting, any stray shots it manages to get out possibly even missing. It is decimated, becoming nothing more than a corpse, innards exposed, gutted.

All machines are down. Two saboteurs captured. One dead. The few stray automatons on the field have stopped moving, and the sentries can be easily stopped, whether with force or other methods.