middleofsomewhere | Not with a Bang: Finale

Entry tags:

Not with a Bang: Finale

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh. Well, she probably should have expected that.

"Oh for the love of-"

Yuume rather unfortunately gained the advantage the minute this woman was successfully pulled under. Loathe as she is to admit it the shadows are technically her domain- she has 'footing' here, unhindered by the dark, where the other is undoubtedly feeling its cling.

Of course- "You're certainly strong at least, if you have enough to try this!" She snaps, engaging in hand to hand herself, "But unfortunately it won't change the truth! You can't leave here unless I say as much, and if I'm dead there won't be any say for it at all! So determined of you!" she mocks, weaving back and aiming a kick to the pirate's jaw- "So 'brave', after coming to land the first strike against a team with children involved! And no words to say even! Truly," Yuume sneers, hissing behind her mask, "Pride will be the downfall of all of you..."

Perhaps the pirate notices it in the dark, perhaps not- Yuume has not avoided all the strikes up above, not at all. When the fight is over she will allow herself to collapse, to wheeze, and tend to the singed wounds. For now-

For now there are more important things. If this pirate has nothing but fight, no words even now, she'll dart away as far as possible and then leave those shadows- and leave the pirate trapped inside them while she's at it.

Even if it Does likely mean she'll open herself to everyone else's attacks in those moments.

Did they know how easy it was for a giant sentry robot to his right to sneak up on him, when he couldn't hear it?

Kind of easy, actually. The first blast grazed Yoite's shoulder and he moved all too quickly out of the way, sending two Kira blasts in the direction of the robot that wouldn't even dent its armor.

It wasn't really meant for objects.

That was it, though, Yoite had nothing left in the tank and he doubled over, coughing hard into his hands as he ducked behind a tree, coughing harder as he found blood staining his new gloves.

He couldn't give in though, could he? With blood staining his lips, and dribbling down the side of his mouth he poked his head out to send another blast in the way of that shield, in the hopes that he could so something, anything to help.

Glorfindel could feel the machine starting to shake around him and knew it was time to get out. However, he wasn't sure he had a way out.

His hands were up, though, so he reached up and grabbed the edge of the hole, pulling himsef up and out. "Watch out!" he yelled, projecting his voice. "It's going to blow!"

Of course he would be fired at. It was his luck, his cowl couldn't both move him and cover him at the same time. So the best idea was to quickly drop himself from the rather high spot, unlatching at where parts of it had gripped before and quickly fall to the ground.

As soon as he landed he looked over to see what he could possible do to help and soon noticed someone was in need. It was someone he knew well enough and that knew of what his own capabilities were, but instead of using his abilities Allen simply looked at his golem which had been attached to his hair this whole time.

"Go see if you can help, okay buddy?" he stated with a smile as the little golem nodded and went on over, as soon as he reached the size of the golem had grown considerably.

Mouth open the golem was going to go about getting the other out and away by using it's tail. Grab on if you want. it's better than being eaten and carried at least.

Allen himself was soon focused on the fight at hand and this time he was going to focus on the sentries, using his claw in an attempt to cut them down.

"Ow!"

Zetta's main defense against laser beams was being high-level and having ridiculous defense and HP stats. That didn't mean they didn't sting though.

"Oh, that's it! You're gonna get me involved directly?!" The book drew itself up to its full height, a vicious gleam literally in its eyes.

"ZETTA BEAM!"

Yotsuyu was well aware of what the sentry bot was attempting to do--clever of it to elude her spinning fans, indeed, but that was not going to save it.

A glowing, deep-purple katana materializes in one hand as she casts Dark Blade at the sentry unit, driving the sword at it.

"Reaping Crescent! A sweeping doom, striking from darkness!"

There is a certain amount of damage she can take in this form, so she is not about to let the robot separate her from her defense of the girl. Wounds? She'll worry about that later.

The SCA's of anyone within ten feet of the large teraforming robot starts to beep, the train symbol flashing red. Even in an area of another five feet their SCA's beep with the slightly less terrible amber train symbol, still a bad sign. If Yoite is within that range he will learn that his SCA vibrates when the warning is flashing.

His blasts might have not dented the robots armour but they seem to have distracted them at least and he is not shot at again whilst he hides behind a tree.

In the realm of shadows the woman hissed back, "Fool." As she matched blow for blow,. But she said no more as Yuume rejoined the battle field and herself quickly surrounded by robots, four, then five, then six, all pointing lasers at her though they do not shoot yet.

Allen's attacks were taking down sentries efficiently, the woman aimed a shot at the, now large, golem.

Zetta's beam takes out the sentry firing on him, and most of a line of robots nearby. It attracts the woman's attention and she fires her gun at the book once and then twice.

Yotsuyu's sweeping blow takes out the robot seeking to separate her from Enna. Two more robots have approached behind her and begin shooting, the man remains focused on Enna.

BOOM

The terraforming robot explodes in a flash of fire and molton, a ten foot sphere of heat and fire, fire and shrapnel fire out of the dome, hitting anyone who is still too close.

Edited 2020-11-25 20:15 (UTC)

Nita kneels, extending her own shield out with a bang of displaced air. Anyone within twenty feet who is not already shielding themselves can consider themselves covered.

More importantly, those within that range - or who have their SCA comm functions on, can hear her call:

/Their shields are finite! Powerful, but finite! Keep hitting them straight on, and they'll drain!/

Leaving the plants to join in that part of the fray, she closes her eyes and sets her mind out, searching for any invisible actors at play.

Where are the rest of the saboteurs? Where is their ride? With the peridexis there to feed her energy, she steadily pushes her search out as far as she can.

Xue Yang was definitely too close to the robot when it exploded, even though he had heard the warning. He wasn't one to just retreat..but now he wishes he had. He tries to block some of the fire and shrapnel with the swords but he can feel the searing pain as some of it lodges into his body.

Now he is really pissed off. He lunges at any of the robot battalions that are still trying to attack people in the vicinity, one blade ablaze with fire while the other is crackling with electricity, long range shooting of the elements at robots further away while slicing through those within reach. Blood drips down his sides and stains his robes but he doesn't care. It's not the first time he's had to battle through injury.

The initial flashing and vibrating of the SCA was perplexing, and Yoite wasn’t sure what to make of it, partly due to his lack of understanding of technology, which extended to the SCA itself. He wasn’t even sure he would know how to call for help if he needed to.

Glorfindel’s yell was probably very helpful, but he couldn’t hear that. When his SCA changed from yellow to red and the vibrating became more insistent...even he knew red was a bad colour. Yoite moved away from where he was, with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn’t a lot when he’d expended so much energy already, coughing into his hands as he did.

The explosion that came from the robot was something he did hear, only moments before the blast knocked him off his feet. He was just barely clear the molten fire itself, but that didn’t protect him from a sizeable piece of shrapnel impaling into his hip. The tumble did nothing to get him to stop coughing, especially with the smoke now in the area.

Miharu was going to be disappointed if he didn’t make it back to his side, but wouldn’t he be more disappointed if he didn’t help his allies? There were people here he wanted to protect, people who had shown him kindness he didn’t deserve.

Yoite got up on his hands and knees, coughing up more blood harshly into the dirt and then used a tree to get to his feet, unsteady, hurt and with a piece of metal digging out of him but he could and did yank that out, cutting into his gloves in the process and letting the blood flow.

It didn’t matter. Whatever Yoite was, it was expendable.

It's lucky, really, that the spider has been returning to base camp between teleports, because this time she arrives in time to be briefly confused as to why the beacon she followed is a giant robot instead of a sparkly elf. She skitters against its chassis, bewildered, but it's made clear when she sees golden hair caught in the molten edges of its body. He's inside it, huh? Pretty cool!

Oh, hey, it's all the cute but weird guys. Hi!

Also, her SCA is beeping--?

Ah, shit!

She reacts fast, yanking Glorfindel out and wrapping her spider body around him, but it's not enough to avoid harm for either herself or him; her frantic short-distance teleport has them both landing a little ways away, scorched and coated in melted machinery.

Did she say it was lucky? She was wrong! It's excruciating, actually. She really misses having a pain reduction skill, okay?! But despite her body burning and most of her spider body having disintegrated in the explosion, she still has one working brain and enough energy to begin casting healing spells. Their bodies start to regenerate. They'll be okay, but it's gonna take a little while!

Actually, let's put some of those spells on all of these guys, huh? Magical Girl Kumoko-chan: Mass Holy Webandages!

She was far enough away to only somewhat feel the heat; also, being large does have some advantage to it...she can see Yoite, and all the weird light and flashes make it obvious he is bleeding profusely.

"Spider, there is one to your left who may need your attentions--after you serve yourself!" Because the wound Kumoko has endured is somewhat gruesome. Poor girl!

She turns to the robots, attempting to dispatch them with a bright blade that is the shining twin to the dark one, before a pistol materializes in her hand and she aims it at the man who is targeting Enna.

"Struggle all you wish! I encourage it," Tsukuyomi snarls. "Your death will be all the sweeter!"

Allen being as unlucky as he was unfortunate to be within the range of the blast and not having enough time to actually protect himself. So in the end he had managed to be hit with a few bits of shrapnel causing the poor young man to flinch, but... that wasn't the worst he has ever had to deal with either.

Timcampy having tried his best to be a body shield to anyone close enough to him to hide behind the giant golem, he did not appreciate being shot at. So rude. He is just going to open his mouth and bare his teeth. he had other things to do.

Allen collapsed to the floor, the shrapnel still embedded in his torso, but he wasn't planning on removing any of it anytime soon. Instead, he slowly moved his hand to his left and turned his claw into a sword. He had an attack he figured he could use but at the cost of making him tired a lot quicker.

Raising his sword orbs started to appear around any robots, shields or anyone he deemed a threat, which was those he didn't know. Once he was sure there was enough he called out the attack, swinging his sword down

"Death orbs!" And with that, he is able to cause a bunch of his own explosions from thew orbs.

Enna's shield, while powerful, only points one way. Which means that with her attention on the man she was trying to crush, the blast behind her blasts her, and....

That hurt. A lot.

But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Even though it hurt, that was a hefty explosion. And that means it pushes Enna forward, adding the force of the explosion to her own weight, to continue to slam into the man.

Kumoko's bandages are the only thing keeping her conscious now, after taking that explosion.

"Hmmm." Well, that's certainly something. "So the signal goes through shadow? That's new." But, on the flipside, that woman won't be able to see shit in there- so while she's certainly attracted robots, she'll be the only one who has, at least if the one in the shadows is indeed controlling them.

But at least she's not the main target- not when the terraformer goes anyway- and they haven't shot...well. "You've shown some restraint. That's smart. Unfortunately..."

She doesn't finish that statement- instead she moves. Will she take laser fire? undoubtedly. But she knows where the lasers come from and that's where her sword aims. It wasn't so long ago that she cleaved through a rogue robot with a single strike during the mission- heck, one of the team-mates was even upset about the loss of an opponent- dodging lasers will be hell and she's definitely going to get clipped on something but that's what the cloak is for ultimately.

To make it look like what's gotten hit is more substantial than the skin off her back.

"Tch!" Isn't she just so lucky that monster swarms back home would sometimes be mechanical ones. She can't imagine how overwhelming this would be otherwise.

(It already is, if she's honest)

THAT was a pain he hadn't felt in a while. He was very fortunate that Amra had rescued him, or he might be on his third life now.

He turned to thank her, his own wounds healing all the faster for her magic, only to see the dire straits she herself was in.

He'd been working on trying to amp up his own healing effects, but wasn't quite there yet...but using his powers to amp up another's magic? Glorfindel was completely up for that. Switching his focus, he started radiating a warm and gentle light, that even in the dark storm seemed to creep everywhere. Any current healing spells within that light just got twice as powerful.

Second thing he did was pull his sword back out to protect his gracious spider friend and any others in the area who needed the help.

Robots fell under Xue Yang's sword, those that aren't blown up by the Allen's explosions. Still more come, three larger robots blocking Xue Yang's path to the two saboteurs, firing steadily at him.

Another spider-legged automaton enters the fray to clash with Allen and Timcampy.

Yoite will feel his SCA vibrating again as a sentry robot moves over to him, shooting steadily and attempting to further cut him off from the others whilst he is injured. The woman however has taken her attention off him at least, distracted by the arrival of Kumoko and her irritatingly timely rescue of Glorfindel. The two will find a group of robots trying to surround them and the woman herself shoots at Kumoko with her blaster, once and again.

Yuume does indeed take fire, once she moves there are no holds barred as the robots fire on her, clearly trying to overwhelm her with firepower, more join the fray even as she cuts others down.

The shield around the man glows blue when he and Enna are hit with the blast. Enna might notice her next blow with the shield makes him stumble, just that little bit more.

But that doesn't stop him pointing his own gun at Yotsuyu and then shooting even as he slams forward to try and overpower Enna and her shield.

Nita's scanning goes over the battlefield and out into the jungle, not picking up any further miners but more immediately she finds herself with friends, three of them, beginning to fire at her, trying to overwhelm her shields much like she suggested in return.

The more the merrier was it? Nothing has changed about her speed and agility, and while she's certainly at least as injured now as she was facing off the god of earth (and wasn't that fun, getting pocked full of seeds and vines), she isn't bound.

And for that matter, a robot is a robot. Fun new strategy- if a robot is shooting her, get behind another. Meatshields are ever so handy when they're neither alive and functioning on brain power, nor made of actual meat. Her feral cries fill the air, blood pumping and blade swinging.

Just where on earth are they even getting this many robots?

Hell for that matter, this better be taking the heat off the others!

Xue Yang is getting really tired of robots and even more tired of having to defend from their attacks. He can't really count how many times he has been hit at this point but has somehow managed to avoid anything fatal.

He dives behind a tree to try and avoid some of the attack while he uses that moment to prep a couple talismans, setting the swords on the ground while he works.

Once he has them prepared, he makes a quick movement from behind his cover to toss the barrage of talisman's at the two saboteurs. If he can't get in, maybe these pieces of paper can. Set to explode upon impact.

The robot’s move is effective. Yoite was already getting isolated from the others with the attack in the first place and the way it was charging at him was putting him apart from the others.

There was little he could do against a robot, not with his powers.

He didn’t want to die.

Yoite ducked and weaved and dodged a few shots as he closed the distance, relying instead on hand to hand combat, and he’s tired. His limbs are heavy, he’s bleeding and he’s exhausted.

It was inevitable a strike would knock him aside, his back hitting the tree this time, collapsing in a heap at the base of the tree.

He looked at the robot with a blurry eye, raised his arm slightly and it fell as he lost consciousness, leaving him at its mercy. Yoite had done everything he could, and still it had been a failure.

Adrenaline spiked through Enna's system. This man was pushing her back.. And shooting at her teammates. Her crew.

She growls.

Remembering the power of Hercules, she begins to push. Harder, and harder. She's got an unbreakable shield on her side, so all that's missing is power. And if she can pray for a miracle... If the stars' power remains with her, even a little, if she can channel Hercules even for a moment...

She steps forward. And again.

It's not the strength of Hercules, of course. It's not even superhuman strength, not truly. But it's the strength of someone putting their all into their action, the same way someone might lift a car when in danger. She can heal afterwards. For now, she just has to push this man until he falls.

"I am.... Captain Enna!" She chokes out as she pushes. "I am the Captain of the Argo Minor, and as of now, I declare myself captain of the Voidtrecker Express!" It seems like an odd time for a power grab, and of course it is- Because that's not why Enna's saying it. A captain is a lot more than just power, after all.

"This is your only warning! You will turn off your machines and stand down... Or... You will be sunk!"

She gives one more great heave, pushing with her entire weight and being behind this shove at the man- As though the weight of her words and the weight of responsibility add to her own, forming an unstoppable push.

Glorfindel sees Yoite go down, but there are now robots threatening him and Amra, He spots the blaster aimimg at her as well. He moved to intercept the blast, absorbing the blast into his light, barely feeling a thing.

If Yoite had a black armband...but he didn't. Glorfindel call for someone to help Yoite, even as he flicked his fingers at the robot threating him, trying to blow it back with an explosive flame ball.

The robots on him, he distracted them with his sword, stricking them repeatedly and lightning quick, trying to find a chink in their armor.

Edited 2020-11-26 07:02 (UTC)

It was harder to ignore the sensation of her body regenerating without any kind of pain-numbing skill, but she was used to it, after all. She kept casting, and the introduction of what felt like pure, glorious sunlight to her magic was... weird? OP as all hell? Yeah, for sure-- hey, were they shooting at her?

Oh, right. She was a priest class right now. Okay, that was fair. Annoying, but she'd do the same. Luckily, she'd just teamed up with a paladin, so, they could suck it. Still needed to reach Yoite, because that stupid treeline was blocking-- ah, wait. Spatial magic. Right. She could afford one more short-range teleport.

"Brace!" With only two hands at the moment, it wasn't ideal, but enough that she could grab one of her severed front leg scythes with one and Glorfindel's ankle in the other as she lunged. They, plus two of the robots the elf was tangled with, disappeared in a haze of particles, and reappeared beside Yoite.

The scythe was used to unceremoniously bat away the smaller robots to save her rapidly depleting mana, and the runes of her magic flared up around them again as she directed it into Yoite's wounds.

And still they persisted! And the one was even shooting at him! As their attacks thudded into his cover, Zetta -- surprisingly didn't catch on fire, or collapse, or go tumbling into a river or something. Because this battle was actually serious.

To the contrary.

Zetta might talk a big game, but who could blame anyone for doubting he really was the most Badass Freaking Overlord in the Entire Cosmos? He was, after all, a book. But on the other hand, he didn't really feel like exerting himself much. Right now, however, he'd decided that he really didn't give a crap about celestial body collateral damage.

As the terraforming robot blew, the Prinnies trying to board it arced wildly through the air, tumbling down onto the lines of enemies to explode . Prinny life is suffering, after all. But in the moment after that explosion, an absolutely terrible weight of power descended on the battlefield, a swirling, crackling aura around the book.

"ZETTA BEAM."

Allen had made his way over to his giant golem friend for cover after the attack, clearly more exhausted than he had been a moment ago and not really dealing with the injuries he had.

In his mind he was perfectly fine. Just a few things stuck in his torso and maybe legs, he coukdn't tell. But with the spider robot coming towards them he knew he had to carry on. At least until Timcampy opened his mouth in an attempt to actually eating the robot.

Well that was at least an idea and gave the young man enough time to figure out his next moves.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject