The Will to Fight: Conclusion

[voidtreckermods]

The battles rage loud and ferocious at the gates of the city and off in the ruined wastelands of Erda, and on the walls a struggle of a different kind occurs. The team who stayed behind at the towers are small but determined as they move stoically across the walls to right the stones that have become misaligned, even as their friends battle not too far away.

The city begins to hum. It's a quiet hum, not loud enough to be heard out where the others are fighting but it vibrates even through stone. The recovering monks assure them that it is done, the wards are back up and no demon will be able to enter the city.

Eventually the battle is won, all three battles. The demons fought back and killed, a major blow to their gate system that will keep them back for hopefully a long time. Those waiting in the caverns return to the city and by the time they get there the illusions are gone. Everyone can see the world for what it really is.

But despite the ruins of their world the people are relieved, the adrenaline of the fight coursing through their veins and the mood is one of hope. They will build again, their people will survive.

All Voidtreckers please return to the Voidtrecker Express. Departure will be in a few hours

It has landed not too far from the city, cloaked to make it unnoticeable to the citizens, for all the good that does. No one has been particularly subtle this last week. People can begin regrouping, packing up the camp and getting any wounded not already healed to the train.

However roughly half an hour later another message appears on their SCA.

Passenger Persephone has requested we remain on system System #86525656412355 for an additional day to further assist the people of Erda. The Voidtrecker Express will depart on the morning of Day Fifteen of the month of Kazoo.

The train remains where it is, so the voidtreckers can use its facilities. There is definitely a lot that can be done to assist those of this world and the citizens will welcome any helping hands.

After an extra day they finally depart, returning to the void once more.

(OOC Note: Once the wards are up any characters who are demonic in nature will not be able to enter the city either!)

Comments

[voidtreckernpcs]

As people begin the task of packing down the camp, folding tents, gathering equipment and returning everything they might see a figure approach. It is one of the citizens of the city, one who returned from the caverns with the fighters of blue team to fight in the final gate battle.

She's wearing simple leathers and has her cloak hood pulled up over her head, she looks dazed, rather confused and a little unsteady on her feet.

"Excuse m..."

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Some of the purple and red team came across a small droid in their camp earlier in the week. Some of them may have thought they had contained the tiny saboteur but apparently it is an escape artist because here it is, skittering through the camp, potentially tripping people up.

It makes a beeline for her, clambering up her leg and back until it is sat on her head under the hood, metal limbs holding her face.

She staggers slightly, if anything looking even more confused. But now there is a woman with a droid hat, walking through camp.

(OOC: Anyone is welcome here, you don't have to have met beep boop before to join in here. Forming groups is helpful but feel free to approach alone as well!)

Siebren will be along later

[thawed_pride]

Vexen is, honestly, not at all surprised at the machine's escape. It seemed a stubborn little thing, but harmless enough that he hadn't bothered contributing to its detainment. What he'd been more interested in was locating its missing person, which it seems to have finally done.

She's not the only one who's seen better days, as Vexen is visibly tired. His black coat hides the damage done to his uniform in the final battle, but fatigue is written into his movements as he approaches the woman with her electronic hat.

"Would you be our new friend's missing companion, then?"

[voidtreckernpcs]

She looked up in surprise at him, instinctively pulling her cloak further over her head as if to hide the small droid. But then her hands fall to her side.

"Yes, it seems so." She sounds confused mostly. "Did they cause much trouble?"

Boop beep
boop boop boop

[thawed_pride]

The reflexive response isn't too surprising, she'd be used to having to hide the droid from the locals. At least until the illusion went up...presumably that would have made those under its influence unable to recognize the oddity of the foreign technology.

He quirks a faint smile at the question and shakes his head.

"They moved some things around in our camp while searching for your missing equipment, but nothing significant. Speaking of which, one of my teammates did locate your bag. I gave the atmospheric scanner back to your friend, and someone should be along shortly with the rest of it."

He gestures toward the doused remains of a campfire.

"You might as well have a seat while you wait. Do you know how long you might have been trapped here?"

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Oh." The droid on her head opened what seemed to be a small storage space in its main body and metal limbs passed down the scanner to her.

"Thank you." She moved towards the campfire at his gesture and sat down, the droid vibrated softly on her head.

"I'm unsure... A week perhaps..."

Beep boop boop boop boop
boop boop boop boop boop
boop beep beep
beep boop
boop beep boop boop
beep beep beep

"Ten days. Apparently."

[thawed_pride]

That was consistent with Siegbren's assessment of her equipment. Certainly not long enough for it to have fallen into disrepair. Still, he had to worry for the condition of those under the illusion. To say nothing of how long they might have been hidden under the city.

"Hopefully the worst you've endured as a result is some disorientation. We've some things we'd like to ask, and I wouldn't want to subject you to questioning if you're not in a fit state to be giving explanations."

[voidtreckernpcs]

She nodded, picking up the bot from her head and placing it on her knee. It immediately reached metal limbs over to Vexen, before clambering over to him, beeping softly.

"Disorientation seems to be the worst of it. A headache that's probably not going to shift without sleep." She smiled at him, "I'll answer your questions if you answer mine."

group of ( roland + inigo + tidus )

[adregem]

At first, there was some apprehension with allowing Inigo to keep the droid bot so close. There were a lot of things they didn't know about it, and it was essentially looking for something in their tent that they hadn't yet quite figured out. Needless to say, Roland was apprehensive...though he mostly kept this to himself, seeing Inigo take to it like a papa duck to a brood. He'd linger close, make sure it wasn't going to activate when they least expected it with more surprises in morse or otherwise. Anyway, if Roland wasn't around, Tidus would be and that felt like they were each taking rounds to ensure nothing was going to pop up out of that bot, worse comes to worst.

But as the days rolled on, the fighting reaching their peak, and the denouement of the story now in full effect, it seemed that there would be no downside after all to having Inigo treat the bot as essentially, his new pet. Certainly, the higgledies around him constantly ride upon it, playing with their mechanical sibling in total approval. It eased Roland's concerns greatly; there was no better moral scryer than those little ones.

Walking around now, the teens following suit to try and aid as many of the world's remaining citizens as best as they could, the relative peace is broken when Roland's attentions are torn from trying to help dismantle a tent to a fuss happening nearby. He turns and there it is, the bot in Inigo's arms throwing...a robot tantrum?

"What, is it hungry?" He says, walking briskly back, the joke made in the slight worry that suddenly returns. Roland has obviously not spotted the cloaked woman somewhere in the crowd, the true target of this now domesticated droid bot, property of Twin Teens.

[flatteries]

Honestly, Inigo isn't too sure what to consider the thing. It's not really something people keep as a pet, right? (He's not quite in the know about all these modern customs, and he knows for a fact that the thing he's holding is so much more modern than anything that could be found in his own world.) But just leaving it by itself didn't feel right either, especially with all the violence going on out there. What if the demons got a hold of it? What if someone accidentally stepped on it or tripped over it in battle? Even if it couldn't say anything Inigo can directly understand, it still responded to things. That's enough for it to mean to Inigo that the thing is alive, at least in some way.

Hence why he's carrying it around now, even after everything. Sure, there's the inevitable decision to make about whether something like this could even come along on their train journey, but Inigo is trying to not think too hard about it--

Especially when he has something new to think about when the thing starts moving in his arms.

.. and then jumps right out of them.

"Hey!" Inigo calls out, not even answering Roland's question. Instead he immediately starts dashing after the thing, not even thinking about anything else as he goes.

Might want to make sure to not lose him in the crowd, huh. Though Inigo grinds to a halt the moment he sees the droid perched on top of a woman's (!!!! ALARM!!!) head like that.

[blitzcheer]

He wants it to do something.

Something, anything -- it can't just be a random bot dropped from space and left to defend itself. There had been the woman on Nion, the Captain, but nobody on any of the teams had reported seeing any wreckage. Or bumping into anything invisible? The train did that sometimes, and how far could a voidcraft be from here?

But, you know, the fact that Inigo took to it was...a plus, he guesses. Whatever, when's it gonna do something interesting?!

Suffice to say, while the three of them were travelling the city, in search of work and how to help out, and the droid just booped and beeped and took off as it did, with one Inigo following after it? Oh, was Tidus breaking into a run too to follow the pair with a call ("Hey!"), leading to the inevitable sight of one droid perching on a...woman's? head?

Tidus slows to a stop by Inigo, surprised in his own way, but not into silence. Did the droid recognise them? Was this its owner? Sorry Inigo, looks like you lost your new best friend.

He holds up a hand in greeting, not satisfied with just standing around.

"Hey! That thing yours? It's been looking for someone!"

[voidtreckernpcs]

She looks a bit startled to see the droid followed by the three men but she gives them a slightly nervous seeming smile as the droid clambers up onto her head and vibrates softly.

"Yes, I'm sorry if they were a nuisance." The droid beeped, one of its limbs poking her in the ear, making her laugh slightly under her breath.

"This is Chiff. Thank you for looking after them for me..."

Boop
Beep Beep
Boop Beep Beep
Beep Beep Boop
Beep Beep Beep

"Tidus." She looked between them, as if trying to guess which one of them that was.

ruins tag order

[blitzcheer]

Oh, that's--!

"Me!" He raises his hand again, finger out but then turning to point at himself. He then looks to the other pair, gesturing to each as he says in introduction.

"This is Inigo, and this is Roland. He's the guy who... wait," wait, "You know what it's saying? Just like that?"

Roland sure wasn't translating that bot thing just like that!

huzzah

[adregem]

He watches the entire exchange in silence, thoughts and sight immediately locked on to the woman where the bot attaches itself to. He hums when he's pointed to, introduced, then at the dip in the conversation, Roland finally speaks. Careful and quiet, but not lacking in any particular certainty about things. Especially when he hears it - the bot communicating in morse - so this couldn't be anyone else other than...

"...Someone other than Chiff here was looking for you, Anan." He offers, a hand up to his chin. "Are you well?"

He'll say this first, before jumping into the gory details of the transmission. She looks like she's been through the worst of it on Erda too, after all.

Masumi's on her own here

[tactlesstantei]

[Masumi's almost tripped up by the little droid, barely avoiding falling over as it rushes towards one of the people from the planet.

It's then that she remembers hearing a message on the comms about a droid and a missing pilot, and she decides to go talk to the woman in question.]

Hey, I assume that the droid is yours? I heard some chatter about it on the comms.

[voidtreckernpcs]

Hello. [She nods at her with a polite smile.] This is Chiff, it seems they caused some disturbances in your camp. I apologise for that.

[The droid beeped at that, a light shining over Masumi.

[tactlesstantei]

It’s fine, I didn’t really run into Chiff until now so I can’t say what they got up to.

[She smiles back, blinking a bit at the light but not doing anything to stop Chiff from doing their little light thing.]

My name’s Masumi, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.

[voidtreckernpcs]

Behave. [That to the droid, before she smiles at Masumi.]

Nice to meet you, Masumi. I'm Anan. Chiff won't hurt you, they are just curious.

[The droid beeps.]

[tactlesstantei]

They seem like a nice droid, I don't mind. [She doesn't really mind Chiff scanning (?, she's not quite sure) her, but is quick to get to the questions she has on her mind.]

Anyway, what happened? From what I heard, it sounded like you got stuck here.

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Yes, I got trapped in the illusion here."

She frowned, "Or rather, I should say I was forced under the illusion here."

Chiff beeped a few times in rapid succession.

Koumyou's next!

[subcircuits]

As interested as he was in the drone that had been found several days before, Devero hasn't really had a chance to do more than peek at it. He's been kept too busy supervising camp (and now, camp's breakdown).

That doesn't mean he's just going to let the little thing go scrabbling by unheeded, though. As far as he's concerned, that little booger is coming back on the train with them; he's been counting on having time to let it play with his beep boop poke at it to his heart's content once they'd departed Erda. So he shoves the big wad of canvas he'd been folding into Koumyou's arms-- sorry, Koumyou-- and automatically gives chase, shouting, "Hey! Get back here, where do you think you're going?!"

He skids to a stop as the drone latches on to the stranger, clambering rapidly up to perch on her head. Assuming she's one of this world's natives, he blurts quickly, "Please don't be alarmed, it's harmless!"

Not that she... actually looks all that alarmed....

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I don't think she looks alarmed, Dev-chan."

That's right, Koumyou dropped the stuff Devero shoved into his arms and followed to see what's going on! Of course he did!

[voidtreckernpcs]

She looked up at him with a small, slightly confused, smile as the droid beeped happily from its position as her hat.

"I hope they have not been making mischief." She nodded at them both. "It seems they have been quiet worried about me, but their way of helping is... Not always that efficient."

[subcircuits]

Koumyou. Not that he's remotely surprised, and he just looks between the priest and the stranger.

"They're yours!" GASP. He's delighted. He laughs and grins at her reassuringly. "Don't worry, mischief was the least of anyone's worries the past few days. Once we realized they were harmless, I don't think anyone really minded."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou, however, hadn't met the little robot at all before now. He'd been out fighting with the red team the whole mission, only now coming back to base camp to keep an eye on Devero and help with cleanup.

So this is something others have probably already realized, but...

"You must not be from this world? I haven't seen any other little robots running around."

[voidtreckernpcs]

She nodded, understanding that. There had been a lot of chaos. She grinned back. "They are, we got separated for a while but I am glad to find them safe and sound. Please thank all of your people who kept an eye on them."

Her gaze turned to Koumyou and she shook her head. "I'm not. I am a void scout, I was sent to investigate some strange energy readings coming from this world."