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Cobalt Greywalker · 03-12-2013, 10:57 PM

http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/top ... e-Gauntlet]Old thread is old.

Posted story is wikified http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... Greywalker]here (It'll need to be broken up to be actually posted.), with all the numbers so people who haven't contributed but wish to can put things in the right place. (And attributions to scenes contributed.)
You wan't to contribute, right? PLEASE???

Setting Info:
After 9 AM Sunday 14th September 2014 if you didn't record the video stream at the time you will have had to track it down over the Fen-net as it won't be on the normal servers.

As noted above, the sections of story have numbers to them, so people can match up what's been written to what they've written. It least, I hope that people (including those who have already contributed) will do so.

I'm posting again because I feel I have the next chunk of story done. I'll be posting at a week apart, hopefully so I can keep what remains of my muse at the moment.

So, here's the next segment.

"…" – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**17**

In a dark corner, A.C. began consolidating her weapons and ammunition while she plotted her next move. Power levels were increasing far too rapidly for her liking, and she hadn’t had time to check the black boxes she’d salvaged. She could have guided Phobos or Deimos through it, but they were scouting.

Upgraden empfohlen. [Upgrading Recommended.] Laevatein put in.

Deimos added.

A.C replied.

Phobos asked.

A.C. told her, mentally noting but ignoring the JRPG-like inventory window her tactical processor had created for her HUD. She knew she wasn’t making best use of Laevatein’s pocket-dimension storage system, having to store weapons and ammo in separate pockets. It wasn’t his fault that the openings were large enough to spill magazines when she needed to get at a gun.

Sabotageakt? [Sabotage?] Laevatein wondered, as he fed sensor data to the map window provided by the cyber-senshi’s tactical processor where it was collated with feeds from the two guardians and put in a 3-D display.

A.C. was proceeding with her consolidation far faster than would have been assumed even for a combat robot, let alone a cyborg. Mainly because she was using her hair to hold loose items, or move the empty and full magazines to their respective pockets (it wouldn’t do to litter after all. That it’d give away a hiding spot was another reason).

Deimos called excitedly.

The raven-haired warrior mentally sighed as the blue clad mini-senshi projected what she’d found. The map updated with her position, an annoying treasure chest icon showing the item she’d found.

The inventory management sub-process running in her cyberbrain informed her that consolidation was complete, so the cyberneticist cracked the tools and stripped down one of the landmate data recorders. Although her tactical processor thought it was getting dangerous to stay here, and her neural interface was picking up increased wireless transmissions.

A.C. resolved to work on some sort of inter-implant communications structure, as the sheer amount of data passing through her mind was making it like being a crowd where everyone was yelling.

Phobos called.

The Belkan Senshi mentally growled.

Deimos replied with a mental wink.

A.C. rolled her eyes as she put away her project and left cover. This was getting annoying.

***

Blue-9 acknowledged as the rest of his team set themselves.

At the inbound heat signature, Blue-12 (the team mage) threw an ice lance downrange cancelling the inbound fireball. Blue-7 (Spartan) and Blue-19 (Knight Saber, A3-Type) started firing plasma bolts across the corridor, covering from roof to floor. Blue-9 (Silver Sentinel, as he considered the Landmates to be clunky) readied repulsars and uni-beam while going to full power on his sensors while Blue-14 grumbled and set himself to shield with the Goa’uld hand devices he held. Just in time too, as something slammed into it hard. Blue-14 grunted as some of the momentum bled through, making him feel as though he’d just got hit by a heavy beach ball.

The projectile ricocheted from the now rippling shield and smashed into the floor. It looked like a knife with something round attached-

Blue-7 yelled just before it exploded.

The shield held long enough to protect them, but Blue-14 paid the price as his arms shattered under the strain and he lost concentration.

A.C. shot through the smoke both feet first like the tip of a spear, arms crossed over her body but holding both her swords edge front. As Blue-12 and Blue-14 were standing, they found themselves sliced in half as Blue-9 felt his chest armour collapse inward from the Scarlet Angel’s flying kick before the momentum blew him off his feet.

The Senshi cyborg seemed to absorb some of her momentum by bending her legs slightly before she pushed off Blue-9, throwing him further down the corridor and turning to face the reacting Spartan and Knight Saber. Her armoured heels screeched loudly as her feet touched floor, friction throwing sparks and smoke as she crouched to absorb more momentum.

The partially turned Knight Saber suddenly exploded as Phobos launched a Burning Mandala at her unprotected power pack. The Spartan jerked in surprise, as sudden indecision as to the greatest threat caused him to turn towards the darting Phobos. A.C. took advantage to throw a Fire Soul down Laevatein, blowing the green armoured warrior to smithereens with the violet edged fireball.

Detecting the other forces inbound, the cybernetic Senshi of Mars span back towards the direction she’d sent the Silver Sentinel and took off running with Phobos in pursuit.

***

“Go Major, go Major, GO!”

Valiantly ignoring the now pompom-wielding holographic Tachkomas planning an acrobatic cheerleading display, Lebia and Eddie were performing a deep analysis of the neural interface system for ways to interrupt it safely while Greenpeace tried working out what items had been placed in the Gauntlet.

***

Tessa Thornton's normal scowl deepened as she noticed the lack of work being done. Most of the engineers were by the holo-camouflage section half engrossed in a projection as they argued how strong high heels were?

She stalked over to give them a piece of her mind.

**robkelk** · 03-13-2013, 12:52 AM

Chief Inspector Aki kept watching from concealment. Her momentary anger had abated, replaced with a grudging admission that it made sense to use any weapon you had available. "But I still don't like magical girls, Peters." She started going through her loadout one more time, looking for anything that might work against her opponent.

***

Some of the Hacker Underspace had realized what was going on with the game environment.

"Should we help?" asked Takami on the #H_U chat about the Gauntlet.

"Not yet; maybe not at all," answered Fate. "We would have to learn the system, and by the time we knew enough to help, it might be too late. And knowing Lebia, she's too busy working on solving this to teach us how to help. She'll call us if she needs our assistance."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Proginoskes · 03-13-2013, 07:36 PM

Power levels are ludicrous, but you knew that already. I don't have anything meaningful to contribute, but I'm very glad to be seeing more of this.

Cobalt Greywalker · 03-20-2013, 12:32 AM

RE: Power Levels. The problems with the relative power levels (although I try to keep them roughly in sync) are one of the ways A.C. knows something is wrong.

Rob, you may want to keep an eye out for things for our dear Martian cop to use. Oh, and whether or not you're correct as to the reason for the troubles in the game will only be revealed at the end of the story. Hopefully Illl get there.

So, next scene. There's some swearing in this one, so it's under spoiler block.

**18**

Spoiler

Rajvik · 03-20-2013, 12:40 AM

oh goddess i love it

**robkelk** · 03-26-2013, 12:29 AM

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:Rob, you may want to keep an eye out for things for our dear Martian cop to use. Oh, and whether or not you're correct as to the reason for the troubles in the game will only be revealed at the end of the story. Hopefully Illl get there.

Being a Martian cop, Inspector Aki will be carrying something that can put down a Kunstler, and she does have Scott/Peters-series-AI reflexes (GURPS DX 16+) so she can use it effectively - but she doesn't want to kill A.C. She'll eventually remember the "made of handwavium" part of A.C.'s file, though...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Dartz · 03-26-2013, 01:30 AM

There is one solution that comes to mind for achieving a controlled end to the program, what the only winning move might be. But it'd just be idle speculation on my part.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Cobalt Greywalker · 03-27-2013, 12:19 AM

Given A.C.'s own reflexes and speed, the good inspector will have a hard time hitting the Rock Doc.

Here we go for a big part...

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts

**19**

The Senshified Belkan cyborg-knight tensed as she popped out of the tunnels into the cavernous spaces of the underground industrial complex. Here and there rusting machinery moved with inscrutable purpose.

~ Wish I could go back to my regular armour. ~ The Belken Senshi-Knight cyborg thought, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. ~ At least I wouldn’t stick out as much. ~

At least the noise downgraded sonar as a sensing technique, and hid the slight click of her armoured heels. She wasn’t as noisy on them as most would have expected, thanks to stealth training she’d got from Kasumi. Give her half an hour at most and she’d be used enough to them to almost negate the click entirely.

Of course she could fly, but that wouldn’t be sporting now would it?

~ Still… ~ The raven-haired senshi knight looked up at the crisscrossing pipes and tall tanks and leapt into a deeper shadow.

From her new vantage point, she could get a better idea of what the sim had got for her. Cautiously she looked around in hyper-spectral vision, noting thermal signatures and the flickering of lasers scattering in the IR and UV spectrums, while monitoring com frequencies. She’d have taken out the tricorder she’d linked to Laevatein, but even that would have been in passive mode to detect active scans using conventional means. Magical scans did not yet seem to be part of the Op-For’s arsenal, but they did not seem to be suitable for the current environment anyway.
With the major heat sources identified, A.C. moved towards them. Most probably they were smelters or forges, given the apparent purpose of this industrial environment, and she expected her IR signature to be easily spotted at the moment.

Phobos and Deimos flew with great care around the edges of A.C.’s sensory perimeter, scouting and adding to the map being built in the cyberneticist’s tactical processor.

As they moved, they noticed the large cargo elevators reaching into the roof at various points.

Again, A.C. wondered what the A.I. was doing when it created the scenario realm layout. It wasn’t for a few seconds that she noticed the machinery starting and stopping as she passed them.

~ Now the A.I. is annoying me. ~ The raven-locked cyber-senshi grumbled. The only upside was the A.I. was supposed use the environment against the challenger.

A landmate appeared around a tank further down the row of machines the psudo-senshi was currently travelling down, causing her to dodge the snap-fired round from its rifle. Then she was upon it, carving it in half as she passed.

More of the Op-For appeared in front of her, forcing A.C. to call a shield into existence as she sped up, taking the fire as Laevatein lit up and she pulled out her mono-ribbon sword and holding them outstretched to her sides.

Schlangenform.

Sparks flew as the fuku-clad cyberneticist swung her arms forward, the extending swords cutting into the machinery ahead, and through those in reach of the blades.

Her two fairy familiars cried out, causing the speeding cyborg to dig in with her heels and leap to one side.

With a ringing smash, a large chunk of metal dropped on her former path, just as bullets, spells, and grenades roared through where she’d just been to hit it.

Dodging the ricochets and shrapnel, A.C. ducked behind more machines.

The magical cyber-knight sent to her companions, changing course to one of the open cages that held a cargo lift.

Deimos started.

A.C. snapped, seeing her way out and putting on a sprint.

A.C. barely flinched as she smashed through the barrier gates of the large cargo lift, absently noting the efficiency of her fuku’s protective fields, to catch herself on the far wall. Then she pushed herself up as hard as she could.

She shot out of the elevator platform’s hole at speed, immediately corkscrewing to disrupt targeting locks then snapping a loop to aim down at the forces waiting to ambush her.

“Burning Mandala!” She cast, sending blazing discs of fire into the rapidly scattering OpFor. She quickly tried to get the lay of the land, spotting a couple of outlying groups near tunnel entry points she knew about, while dodging enemy fire and avoiding the elevator shaft as much as possible.

~ There! ~ She spotted a small group of three landmates a bit East-North East of her. Then she snapped into a hard right flat scissors.

“Fire soul!” The flame attack burned an ‘S’ into the ground, before she pulled a Split S and turned to her true targets. Pouring on the speed the emerald-eyed cyberneticist aimed directly at the landmates before flipping over for a flying kick.

Blitz Ansturm. [Blitz Rush.]

Her spell-assisted flying kick met unexpected resistance with a crash of interacting fields.

Then the Senshified Cyborg Cyberneticist spotted the larger packs and extended heatsink vanes, narrowing her eyes as she pushed off the field and flew up.

Her emerald gaze hardened further.

One of her few red-band grenades found itself both in her hand and armed.

Blitz Ansturm. [Blitz Rush.]

With a roar of exertion, A.C. threw the now-glowing grenade with all her might at the centre of the ground forces. The purple light streaked like a comet into the formation and exploded with a visible shock front.

Technically called a vibrational implosion device, the grenade was more commonly called an Earthshaker. And shake the earth it did. In the seismically unstable ground of the arena it also ripped open the land beneath the ground-pounders feet.

When the shaking stopped a full thirty seconds later, the entire local landscape had been redrawn with crevices, rubble, uplifted sections and sinkholes everywhere.

Several of the Op-For began to suspect they’d just pissed the Scarlet Angel off.

***

“It would seem the Op-For has managed to irritate the Mistress.” Roberta noted.

“Oh my.” Kasumi sighed. “Time to break out the massage oils.”

“Make sure that cheesecake is ready lass.” Adonis told Roberta.

Proginoskes · 03-28-2013, 05:11 PM

AHAHAhahaha.... Oh, that's marvelous. Swearing by Roddenberry is just the perfect touch. A most fitting thousandth post.

Cobalt Greywalker · 04-02-2013, 10:47 PM

Well my muse is still on a Fenspace kick, which is good news. The bad news is its focusing on background stuff at the moment.

Anyway, short part this time. We get to see some of the trinkets A.C.'s collected but not used. At least, until now. Have fun guessing what's what.

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**20**

A.C. went through her collection of power ups, considering what would be of most use where.

She turned the wing styled ear-stud in her fingers while glancing at the chains and gems in the box. Putting it back she carefully searched through, going past the large fist-ish sized red marble-like sphere, the rose-like sapphire, the seven multi-coloured oblong gems (all cracked), the selection of large pearls, the dull-silver bracelet with a ruby teardrop, assorted chains of various precious metals, pendants, broaches, and rings.

Finishing her mental catalogue, she moved on to the selection of temporary tattoos. The large purple tribal one she doubted would be much use, the hindu-like slashed-circle and dot may be the most useful of them, but the mystical symbols and runes in the selection were probably just as good. Of course, the main problem with the tattoos was the fact she’d have to undress to use the majority of them. Not a particularly wise thing to do at the moment, and sure to fan the flames of the doujinshi crews for MONTHS.

She still had the sealed pouch, the talismans, and Phobos’ latest find in what seemed to be Jack Sparrow’s compass. Which pretty much proved the Babel Fish fallacy in her opinion. Still…

***

“I wonder what the Lady’s up to?” Leonard asked.

“Trying to look everything up now.” Greenpeace replied.

**robkelk** · 04-03-2013, 12:38 AM

Since you didn't say they'd retreated into a prepared position before taking inventory...

Should she or shouldn't she?

Natsuko knew that trying to snipe Peters was a fool's game, even with her own boosted reflexes. But Peters wasn't alone any more - the sword and the two miniatures might not be able to get out of the way of a waved-teflon-coated round. And they weren't even trying to take cover - maybe they had forgotten the rest of the OpFor would respawn shortly. Time to remind Peters she wasn't in a safe place.

~ What the hell. You only live once, or more than once in here. But she hasn't killed me yet, and I want to get through this Gauntlet with that still true. ~

The inspector quickly settled in, aimed very carefully, and took her shot.

Then she grabbed the rifle barrel, rolled to her feet, and ran like hell - maybe before her target could react.

~ Too bad I can't stick around to see what effect the shot has, but I'm not suicidal. ~

I'll leave it your choice who Aki was aiming at.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Proginoskes · 04-03-2013, 05:25 PM

Rainbow Crystals, Collect All Seven?

"rose-like sapphire"... I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with what you're actually referencing, but whatever. Most people are probably aware that rubies and sapphires are the same mineral (the general name is "corundum"). But did you know that there are strict rules on what can be sold as ruby? Gem-quality corundum that is insufficiently red is called pink or rose sapphire.

And unless some pieces of that miscellaneous jewelry are Moxen (bare link because Gatherer uses square brackets in its search form: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Searc ... [Mox]&set=+![%22Unglued%22]+![%22Unhinged%22]) (it's almost a pity that there are so many pearls when A.C. is so much more Blue/Red than White), I don't have any other guesses (or relevant trivia).

Cobalt Greywalker · 04-09-2013, 11:51 PM

OK, I'll admit that my descriptions of the objects isn't exactly up to snuff. I was trying (and apparently failing) for physical descriptions.
I DO have notes on all the significant objects, as well as the story in general. Depending how things go, I'll either post them after the story finishes , or I'll add then as notes to the wiki-fied story.

Next segment...

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**21**

“Here you go Dear.” A.C. said, placing the quickly made necklace around Deimos’ neck.

The blue-clad Guardian Senshi looked at the blue gem fitted in the wing-shaped ear-stud that the inventor had made the centrepiece of the jewellery, then looked up as the cyborg slid the ring containing the matching stone for hers’ and Phobos’ red gem filled necklace onto her right ring finger. The three of them paused as something happened over their link.

“Mistress?” Phobos asked uncertainly. The red-clad twin watched as A.C. spent an instant considering, then held out her hands as platforms for them to land on.

“Last chance Dears.” The raven-haired lady knight-(sorta-)senshi said softly.

“And miss this?” Deimos said full of bravado. “Not on your life Attim-sama.”

A.C. gave the two of them a sultry smile, before raising them and kissing the gems.

Which glowed, bring pleased smiles to all three of them. A.C. cocked an elegant eyebrow at her two companions, who grinned back and said:

“Materialise!”

A massive tingle went through the cyber-senshi’s body as Phobos and Deimos glowed briefly. Fading, the cyberneticist could see little change besides the near-standard neck and belt bands of Robes. No wrist or ankle bands however. Maybe because they could already fly?

“How are you feeling?” A.C. asked.

“Like I could really kick ass Attim-sama.” Deioms grinned. She really wanted to get back at whoever took a shot at her sister.

“I do feel much stronger Mistress.” Phobos confirmed, pirouetting to make sure she could still move normally and letting her Mistress examine her more thoroughly. Even if the near miss had splatted her with shrapnel, her fuku had taken all but some of the impact. Now Enrobed she’d not be as bruised by a similar event, and she gave thanks to the Lady that her Mistress was such a fast healer.

“Your back ribbons look different.” The raven-hared cyborg noted. “Slightly longer, definitely more substantial.”

“Yours too Attim-sama.” Deimos noted.

“Humm…” The Belkan Senshi concentrated, and her rear ribbons went straight. A.C. spent a very quick twenty seconds testing the limits of control and capabilities, trying to match the source material.

“Not as good as hoped, but not bad. You’ll get some defensive capabilities, which will help. Right, next.”

Eingehende. [Incoming.] Laevatein warned.

“After dealing with our guests.” A.C. finished.

***

Purple-12 was extremely tense, gripping his staff like it was the only thing stopping him drifting away. Thus when the call came to open fire, the slight recoil came as a shock. Although, given what he was seeing, not as much as it might have been.

The Scarlet Angel DANCED through the storm of fire with almost sensual ease, gracefully pirouetting and arching her lusciously formed fuku-clad body around spell bolts of every description. Her fire-wreathed blade traced artful patterns in trails of flame as she gently seemed to deflect those few bolts that she could not avoid.

It was then that one of the Martian Angel’s fairy-like companions seemed to appear over her shoulder. Purple-12 watched as a golden ring seemed to appear before the companion in red, spinning and expanding to the fairy’s size, then the red-fuku’d fairy seemed to throw herself into a flying kick through it. At least, that would be what he would describe later, since as she passed through it she became a blazing meteor and shot past his line, smashing into the Silver Sentinel behind them. The explosion threw him forward and into the wall, out of line with the others.

Thus he could see the other of the senshi’s companions braced against the far wall as though she was using it as a springboard, wielding some sort of blue crystal arrow/lance thing at least five times her size. He briefly saw green traceries flowing from the tip when she vanished, leaving a bright white line zigzagging through the rest of his troop with what looked to be slowly dissipating shockwaves before black holes exploded into being in his colleagues sucking them in and vanishing.

“Well then.” A voice purred by his ear as his head was grasped gently but firmly and turned to face the seductive emerald eyes of the lady cyber-knight. “What’s a nice young mage doing in a dungeon like this?”

“Oooh! He’s a cute one, Attim-sama!” The blue-fuku’d fairy squealed in delight as she floated into view.

“And he shows promise of form.” The red-fuku’d fairy added more calmly, doing the same. “Although he does not seem very bright Mistress.”

“Ah, he’s just stunned by Attim-sama’s beauty.” The blue-clad fairy dismissed. “Of course,” she struck a seductive pose, “we aren’t helping.”

“True.” The red-fuku’d fairy agreed.

“Ladies.” The virtual Senshi of Mars purred with amusement. “Much as I would like to become more closely acquainted…”

SNAP.

“…we have bigger things to deal with.” She dropped the body, its neck at a most inappropriate angle.

“You can be so rough on the cute ones Attim-sama.” Deimos pouted.

A.C. just grabbed the staff and collapsed it into its card-like storage form before putting it away and flying off.

As you can see Rob, I did pay attention to your snippet. Unfortunately, A.C. has decided to stop holding back now. How much her holding back has affected things is debatable. Her no longer doing so, not so much.

Proginoskes · 04-12-2013, 06:25 PM

I didn't really expect to get any of them right. A mortal spellcaster (planeswalkers aren't properly immortal, but they are pretty much immune to age and infirmity) tapping that many Moxen would be a serious case of drinking from the firehose anyway: one MUD based on M:tG values one coloured mana at one thousand lesser spell points. And this is a game where spells costing 3 or 4 sp continue to be useful at high levels, so it's not like very many people gain access to that kind of power. (Planeswalkers pay for their vast power, incredible durability, indefinite lifespan, and unique experiences in part by being incredibly inefficient with mana: a coloured mana is the absolute smallest unit they can work with.)

Cobalt Greywalker · 04-16-2013, 11:05 PM

Another segment appears...

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**22**

The pouch felt a little odd, sat against her right knee like that, but she’d finally realised where she’d recognised it from (and ignoring the slight headache she got, after all it wasn’t as if she didn’t already have worse) and had slipped it on. There was a slight urge of satisfaction as her hunch proved correct, and the program of her costume took hold and made the material the same white as the legging.

After all, it wouldn’t be much of a prize to her if she couldn’t actually use it.

A.C. concentrated, and with a brief glow of the gem the flap of the pouch sprung open. With a smooth, near automatic motion (being a cyborg had its benefits after all) she reached in and pulled out a vambrace-like device. With the same motion, she flipped it over to the topside of her arm via the finger hole she’d pulled it out by, causing a line to momentarily appear from the device to the finger hole…

…And watched as her own right vambrace’s armour segments split down the centre and folded outward to let the device in. There was a click as the device fastened onto her arm before the armour segments folded back in, clamping the device in position.

With a flash of energy up the arm the two merged, leaving an armoured device as her right vambrace. All that seemed to be left of the device was its bulk, a wedge-like protrusion at the centre of the top end, and an inlaid orange cylinder set crosswise about half way up it.

Examining it closely the senshi cyborg noted that the front now had a wire launcher nozzle at the front, and a straight-edged D shaped segment inlaid just behind it. With a tiny twitch of her hand, the segment popped its small end out from where it laid flush with the armour.

A.C. smiled and pushed it back flush.

Next she put the dulled-silver bracelet on her left wrist, and frowned when nothing happened. She moved to take it off, and found it clamped down on her wrist as its teardrop-shaped ruby-like gem glinted malevolently. The raven-hared cyberneticist considered it darkly but moved on to the remaining items, semi-consciously extending and using her hair to drop the open flap of the knee-pouch. She’d find something to put in it later.

The Belkan Senshi took one of the grey backed amulets and managed to attach it navel level with thin dulled platinum chains linked together as a belt, the deep red, almost purple gem glittering darkly above the wider semi-circle that seemed to be the bottom, almost like a dark sun rising. With the help of some more dulled platinum chain she fitted another halfway up the neckline of her fuku, and finally slipped one on each of her wrists, just out of the way of everything else.

Satisfied she’d managed to get everything she currently could out of her collection, she put them away again.

It was time to get back to work.

***

The corridor was empty.

Thus A.C. was taking it as though it was trapped to the gills. She had been tracking a group of Op-For down this way for the past few minutes.

The wall to the front of her shattered, filling the corridor with dust and causing her to stop. She didn't have to wait very long as a Pearl Otome charged out of the cloud, staff-like element extended like a spear. A.C. dodged out of the way, bringing Laevatein round when a second and third Otome came out of the dust at her. The emerald-eyed cyborg reversed Laevatein’s swing to parry the right Otome’s element, slipping out of the way of the thrust from the left Otome and swinging a left cross into the right Otome’s face, knocking her into the wall.

Spinning, A.C. caught the two staffs of the other two Otome on Laevatein’s blade, and with a magically enhanced push threw them back down the corridor. Then the Scarlet Angel snapped round again, this time to throw a quickly pulled knife into the head of the Otome she’d smashed into the wall. The Otome’s Robe stopped the knife penetrating, but the force of the blow knocked her onto her back. This cleared the way for A.C. to see three more Otome come through the hole in the wall and charge at her.

The three new Pearl Otome had obviously worked together before, probably a Ninja team, as the Belkan Senshi rapidly parried the thrusts and swings of the team and was gradually made to give way with a step back. They pressed their advantage, only to find that had been what the lady knight of Mars had wanted.

With a speed almost beyond sight, the combat cyborg slammed a heeled kick into the midsection of the middle Pearl, folding her over the foot before shooting her down the corridor as though hit by a cannon shell. The raven-hared warrior followed through the kick by turning it into a vertical split as she drooped to the floor. Catching herself on her hands she span herself round as if she was on a gymnastics horse, cutting the legs out from under the other two Pearl Otome with violent force. Bringing her legs back in front of her, she arrested her spin and snapped into a full extension backflip. This caught the two Otome she thrown back with Laevatein under the chins from where they’d charged in, before her flip allowed her to wrap her shapely and heavily muscled thighs around the head of the Otome she’d thrown the knife at, who had recovered and tried to catch her unawares. This Otome had a brief moment to consider having her face planted so intimately in the well rounded buttocks of the Belkan Senshi of Mars (experiencing something quite a lot of people would do anything to enjoy) before the seductive cyber flipped forward to pile-drive the Otome’s head into the ground. A.C. then finished her off by slamming Laevatein double handed down through her heart.

The four Otome now in front of her froze as the Scarlet Angel’s vicious smile and bloodlust-filled eyes turned on them. The senshi cyborg sprang forward, leaving her Device impaling the Otome (now dissolving into green sparkles) to the ground, to land crouched between them. The red gem in the dull grey bracelet on her left forearm glinted malevolently…

…And the Otome found themselves stabbed through the heart.

The combat cyborg had struck out at the two Otome in front of her with knife-hand attacks. This was compounded by the 30cm/1 foot long razor-edged talons that had suddenly sprouted from her nails. The two beside/behind her were impaled by the pointed spears formed from the waveborg’s hair, right through their bodies into the walls behind them.

Straightening from her lunge, A.C. pulled the impalements from their respective bodies and walked back to Laevatein leaving the Otome to collapse to the floor and dissolve in green sparkles. Looking at her hands, she noticed that the talons hadn’t sliced their way through her gloves. Her gloves had developed an open lace top to the fingertips, allowing the scarlet coloured fingernails granted by her senshi transformation to be seen and poke through. In fact, her talons were red mostly due to the enamelling that covered them, after she’d flicked the blood off (unconsciously having done the same previous with the hair-spears before they’d returned to being normal hair). With a thought, and just as fast, her talons shrank back to her normal practical yet fashionable length and were covered by her gloves as the lace closed up. The beautiful cyberneticist casually pulled Laevatein from the floor with her right hand as she walked by and brought him up to examine him, leaving her rear ribbons to swat the charging final Otome into the wall, wrap around her neck like a noose, and pull tight. They snapped back to their usual size and shape a couple of steps later.

Seemingly content that Laevatein hadn’t been damaged, the Belkan Senshi stepped into the air and flew off.

Not sure if I got the impression of frantic action over in the last scene. Comments?

Dartz · 04-16-2013, 11:55 PM

My only comment is that the asides in the parentheses can break the flow up, costing the scene a little momentum and energy. Otherwise, the action is clear and easy to follow.

One thought that has occured to me while reading is that, while the program is going beyond control in some ways, it is still running normally in others. The OpFor are dying and respawning reliably, it seems. Ultimately, the program might perform a clean and normal shutdown if one of the prescribed victory conditions was achieved.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Proginoskes · 04-17-2013, 04:41 PM

Refining my guesses:
Skipping the pouch, because I can't even think of superficial resemblances, never mind actual guesses.
Ok, the gauntlet thing: "crosswise orange cylinder" makes me think "keytool", but nothing else in the description fits and I can't think of any other guesses.
The darksilver-and-ruby bracelet: not even I could fail to recognize the Witchblade with that description. (I run "darksilver" together because it evokes darksteel, the nearly-impossible-to-work material from which most of M:tG's indestructible artifacts are forged.)
The gems at wrists, throat, and navel: hmm. The gems of Raven, of the Titans?

Anyway, the action sequence worked for me.

Cobalt Greywalker · 04-23-2013, 11:27 PM

Another short setting scene. I'm pretty much to the end of the chunk I had done when I started this thread, but I do have further scenes completed. I also have ways to end the story at this point, so if anyone wants this to end now speak up.

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**23**

Deimos hadn’t stopped pouting as A.C. came up on her next hidey hole. The emerald eyed knight-senshi ignored it, both knew why and the uselessness of arguing.

A.C. noted,

Phobos cried over their link, interrupting that train of thought. A.C. was surprised to feel Phobos blushing intensely, and mentally blew a kiss at the fairy senshi.

Deimos laughed as they both felt her twin’s pleased reaction.

A.C. asked Deimos, pulling out her collection of power-ups and one of the landmate survival packs.

Deimos whined in a petulant voice.

Her Mistress snapped, digging out the water bottle and one of the temporary tattoos.

A thought had her bow ribbons wrap around her a few times to provide a privacy screen before reaching in through the top of her fuku with the hand holding the temporary tattoo round to her back. Then she got the water and applied it. Then had to try again, a bit closer to the front.

~ I am SO killing someone if this has side effects. ~ The cyborg thought darkly, checking her work. ~ Merlin knows what’s happened to my reputation so far. ~ Satisfied, she sorted out her clothes, packed up, released her ribbons, and left the hidey hole.

***

Greenpeace paused her local copy of the video stream and went back a bit to try and figure out which item A.C.’d applied this time, to go on the list hovering to the side of the big projection they were watching.

~ This idea got the better of me. ~ The green-skinned bioroid thought, digging into the database.

Cobalt Greywalker · 04-30-2013, 10:47 PM

So nobody wants me to stop huh? At least I won't waste the 10 pages of completed material (baring the Epilogue) I still have.

So here's the non-ending version of the next scene. I'll warn you, this is a BIG scene. And because it seems to be the way I'm going further along in the story I'm going to slow down my release schedule from once a week to once every two weeks. Hopefully this'll allow me to keep going on this without grinding to a halt.

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**24**

They’d obviously had the monitoring A.I. give them more stuff A.C. noted, parrying an Element away and using the movement to plant a spinning back axe kick across the Otome’s face. Still, it was logical that they’d upgrade to Meister Otome. She didn’t recognise this one though.

It wasn’t very often that she got to use the Zero-G combat skills Kasumi had forced on her, but high mobility air combat certainly counted as a good place. The Meister Otome obviously didn’t have the same skill set.

What she did have was near equal speed and strength as her, and one heck of a tough Robe. Oh, and support.

Which was why the cyborg psudo-senshi had taken to darting in and smashing the Meister Otome around the arena, disrupting the ability of the supporting forces to gather or assist without getting in the way.

“You know,” A.C. said conversationally as she parried a thrust of the Otome’s sword like Element, before jabbing her elbow into her opponent’s face, “it’s rather impolite not to introduce yourself.”

The Otome scowled, then swung her sword with force. A.C. knew it wouldn’t hit her, so she dodged up and let the shockwave pass underneath her.

“Now that was downright rude.” The raven-haired mage-senshi observed, darting forward with a thrust from Laevatein which the Otome was forced to drop under to dodge, which lead to her getting kicked in the face. A.C. took advantage of the stunning blow to grab the Otome’s left arm and put her in a hold. It also allowed her to see the GEM in the Otome’s ear.

The cyberneticist had to disengage quickly when spell-fire headed her way, unable to quickly pull her opponent into the line of fire.

A quick Burning Mandala scattered the mage group, one being knocked back when a burning disk slammed into their shield, before the Belkan Knight cyborg’s speed brought her into range to slice them apart.

The tactical processor in A.C.’s head noted that she was in danger of being surrounded, and began suggesting ways to escape.

In a quick and smooth move, A.C. thrust Laevatein into her back bow and pulled out the Anti-Materiel rifle.

Deimos snarked as the cyborg cleared a path, five rounds rapid style. (A sub-process in her cyberbrain noted A.C.’s desire to investigate induction interfaces for smartguns, and to pick up a couple of AM rifles for Roberta. With drum magazines.)

The fuku-clad psudo-mage-knight had to pull up short as the Meister Otome slashed through the gap the white and red wearing cyborg had just cleared.

Device and Element clashed as the two duelled for several seconds before the cyber-mage-senshi’s superior speed let her create an opening and snap-fire a silent Fire Soul into the Otome’s gut.

Plasma and Repulsor bolts filled the air in front of her, making her flight path more erratic as she dodged.

Raketenfrühwarnung. [Incoming missile.] Laevatein announced.

A.C. dove to the deck and pushed up her speed, an aura of purple energy forming as she pulled up. The shock front ripped up the ground less than 30cm/a foot below before A.C. yanked herself through a 90 degree turn to port around the corner of a building then slammed her feet into the ground and leapt for the sky.

The crack as she passed the speed of sound sounded loudly in the arena, rattling the senshi-knight’s body as she almost immediately pulled a J-turn and shot back downwards with blade burning like a meteor into a hidden group who seemed to be co-ordinating things.

The missile, desperately trying to reacquire the lock the mage-cyborg had shattered in her practically impossible manoeuvring with the group’s assistance, followed her in.

The explosion as A.C. slammed Laevatein into the ground threw up a dust cloud that partially obscured her and blasted the co-ordinators off their feet, preventing the missile lock for precious fractions of a second and disrupting the guidance signals. Then A.C. leapt skywards once again.

Straight at the missile.

The two flying objects crossed at 2000 kilometres an hour, leaving the missile no time to even attempt to change course before impacting the ground and destroying the hidden post.

A power surge caught Laevatein’s attention, causing the mage-borg to slam on the (air)brakes.

A blast of green energy shot through roughly where she would have been, but A.C. prevented herself from looking back along the shot’s path. She instead did something unexpected and headed directly at the largest group of Op-For.

Landmates, Hardsuits, and Mages opened fire at the rapidly approaching figure, who dodged or deflected with an angled shield before she simply rammed into those who didn’t dodge.

One Mage stayed plastered to the plain of the shield from air pressure before A.C. stopped dead and took off on another direction. The mage continued on for almost a hundred meters before splatting against nothing in mid-air.

The orienteering system in the raven-haired cyborg’s tactical processor delineated one edge of the Arena. Said cyborg ignored it at the moment, as smoke grenades started airbursting around her.

Schlangenform.

Laevatein scythed through the smoke before resetting to Sword Form as the knight-senshi directed her attention back to the grenade shooters. A glint of light had A.C. dodge up, causing the mage bolts to collide below her. Igniting Laevatein she swept him down through them, detonating them as they tried to separate and go after her again.

The blast wave dispersed the smoke enough for the cyberneticist to see she was surrounded. As the smoke cleared way she looked around to fix their positions in her tactical processor. It wasn’t the best of englobments, with the Op-For dangerously close to Blue-on-Blue if she dodged, but they were at a range she couldn’t attack quickly enough to punch a hole. Tricky.

“And what will you do now?” The green GEMed (the Grassland Roaming Peridot she would later learn) Meister Otome asked, almost pitying the flame-wielding senshi in front of her.

A.C. smiled. It wasn’t an evil smile, or a victorious smile, or any of a dozen grins or smirks. It wasn’t even a mocking little half grin, just a smile.

It scared the begeezus out of those who saw it.

“KAGUTSUCHI!”

And the world became flame.

***

“Oh Crap.”

The rest of the Forge Crew just nodded at Kasumi’s deadpan reaction to the latest twist.

***

It rose from the manifested sea of flame like a submarine, calmly and without fuss but with all the former’s deadly purpose. Multiple eyes, green as emeralds, blinked in sequence as the creature rose further out of the raging fire.

To the side, golden rings spun into existence around A.C.’s wrists and ankles.

Finally the huge white beast emerged fully from the torrent, wings of fire and claws trailing ribbons of flame.

To the fright of those around, A.C. turned to face the Phoenix-Dragon Child with a smile. Floating over, she fondly patted the side of its head before rising a bit to scratch tenderly behind a major eye-slit.

Kagutsuchi made a rumbling sort of sound that was pretty much a purr comprised of clicks and whistles, and leaned his head into the scratching.

“Yes my Dear, it’s good to see you too.” The raven-hared cyborg relied in loving tones, continuing to scratch. “I’m sorry we had to meet this way.” She sighed longingly. “But I suppose needs must. Ready to stretch your wings?”

Kagutsuchi clicked in assent, turning his head to face the assembled forces. With a crack and hiss like an airlock opening, the phoenix-dragon revealed the many razor-sharp dagger-like teeth filling his mouth.

“Thank you Dear.” A.C. floated over to kiss his cheek, before rising out of the way.

The domes on his wings popped up and started spinning, igniting a fire in his belly that visibly bulged and glowed. Winds blew up out of nowhere, causing the flyers to suddenly need to focus a bit more on maintaining position.

“As for the rest of you.” The Belkan Senshi of Mars turned cold emerald eyes on the forces surrounding her and her Child. “Shoo.”

Kagutsuchi fired the bolder sized fireball out at the crowd, most of whom dodged.

Most.

The few it did hit were armoured enough for the fireball to explode with huge force.

The golden bands floating around the Senshi-Cyborg’s wrists and ankles span faster, turning into blazing rings of golden energy.

Schlangenform.

A.C. whipped Laevatein around herself and her Child, catching some of the disorganised flyers, before calling forth a stream of flame and setting it writhing snake-like at the Meister Otome.

Said Meister Otome emerged from the torrent singed, scorched, and snarling mad, just in time to catch the newly revealed Fire HiME’s Blazing Meteor Kick in the stomach and be blasted into depths of the underground complex.

Kagutsuchi wasn’t idle either. With a flap of his mighty wings he shot towards a group trying to take cover on the ground and strafed them with his fire-trailing talons, ripping up the ground and leaving a wall of flame in his wake.

Down on the ground, a team tried to launch an anti-aircraft missile, only to be interrupted by Deimos slicing through them.

A sniper in a second team near them tried to track on the blue-clad fairy, but had to yank his weapon off target as Phobos dashed across his line of fire with a Mage and Otome in pursuit.

Phobos twisted over onto her back to fire a Fire Soul at her pursuers, then flipped back over and pushed up her speed. Darting tightly around corners using her small size, she tried to shake them. Given how much she had to jink to avoid spells from the Mage, it didn’t help much.

Suddenly she shot for the sky, obviously intending to use the space to manoeuvre an escape. The Mage and Otome followed, intent on their quarry.

They barely had time to realise their mistake before the jaws snapped down on them.

Kagutsuchi spat out the ruins of bodies as he banked sharply into a Chandelle before sharply flapping his wings to ‘bunny hop’ in midair while braking sharply. There was a terrible screech as his talons tore into the armour of the landmates following him as he dropped onto them. Compromised and aflame from the fire trailing from the talons, the landmates dropped like stones when the phoenix dragon let them go.

The two wrecks smashed down and exploded, blocking the sightline to A.C., who used the gap to dance out of the partially formed trap. Using her ribbons, she snagged the leg of a Silver Sentinel who didn’t get clear fast enough and threw him into the thickest of the cloud of people around her.

Quickly spiralling to get a get a view of her position, she spotted the Meister Otome coming at her at a high rate of knots. Bringing up a shield triangle, she counter-charged before stopping her shield in place and slamming into it as though she’d jumped down from a great height. Muscle bulged along her legs and arms as she soaked up the impact enough to push herself off in another direction.

This redirection forced the Meister Otome to slow down to change direction, which in turn let A.C. block the Otome’s Element without harm to her or Laevatein. Device and Element clashed as the two engaged, broke, and engaged again in a chaotic looping spiral. Suddenly the Otome pushed, light-bands flaring, aiming the two of them into the ground. A.C. spun the two of them, but the Otome rolled with it to put the raven-haired flame-wielder on the bottom of their pile.
A.C. grit her teeth as she rolled the two of them again, pulling in her ribbons as they closed in on the ground, and let the Otome counter again as she got her feet into the Otome’s middle.
The fuku’s back ribbon’s snapped down into the ground in a double helix, forming a spring shape that soaked up all the speed of impact for the cyber-mage but driving the armoured heels of the barrier fuku into the Otome’s stomach through her Robe.
Then the ribbon spring rebounded and A.C. pushed off with her legs.

It was only luck that the out of control Otome only scraped the surface of Kagutsuchi’s photonic fireball.

The phoenix-dragon snorted in frustration as he flashed through the empty space behind his attack, jinking to prevent his own opponents from getting a good shot at him.

The landmate just got tone when Phobos shot straight down through their formation, causing them and her tails to break off before they crashed into one another.

The red clad Guardian Fairy wreathed herself in flame and smashed into the middle of a group in the ground, blowing them all off their feet.

Deimos flashed through, trailing a zigzagging line, before smashing into the chest plate of a Silver Sentinel and cratering it so deeply the figure folded around the impact point.

As the Blue Sky Sapphire dashed away from the explosion of the power armour, his companions got a surprise of their own as the Martian HiME smashed through a nearby wall, Elements blazing like rings of sunlight over the purple aurora of a Panzer Geist, skipped with her next step, and leapt into a 1080 helicopter kick with feet and ribbons sheathed in flaming plasma.

Now past the group, the Belkan psudo-senshi pulled out an assault rifle with underslung grenade launcher and dropped into a forward split as she touched down, letting two 40mm grenades to pass over her head. As the shock of impact with the ground ripped through her, she let off a quick three round burst followed by her own 40mm grenade and rolled sideward to spring herself up with a single arm.

Kagutsuchi streaked overhead, talons outstretched as he tore up another formation (and the ground) before launching himself off in another direction.

Two missiles roared up after him, before exploding under a barrage of Burning Mandala’s from Deimos. In return, a grenade airburst nearby, knocking the lively fairy out of the sky in a tumble.

That position was summarily reduced by a scowling Phobos, avenging her twin.

Deimos growled as she picked herself up and shot back into the air. she interrupted herself as the decidedly singed Meister Otome came back at the combat cyborg.

This time A.C. interrupted the Meister Otome’s charge by swatting her into a building with her ribbons. Snarling as she pulled herself out of the rubble, the Otome lunged at the emerald-eyed HiME-Senshi with her sword like Element thrust ahead.

Stepping inside her attempted strike and trapping the Otome’s leading arm under her own, A.C. yanked her opponent towards her and head-butted the Meister Otome in the face.

“Greenpeace always said I had a hard head.” A.C. grinned savagely at the bloody face of the Otome as she grabbed the other arm and with a hard pull dislocated the Otome’s shoulders.

Barely letting her opponent cope with the savaging, the HiME-fied Belkan Senshi leapt and dropped her full weight on the Meister Otome’s head as she slammed a kick into the face of an incoming Pearl Otome. Using the Otome’s head like a pommel horse she flared her legs around gymnastically, swinging round to hit another Otome. She swung around a couple more times to keep the area around her clear, then she pulled a handstand and a leg split, using the momentum to snap the Meister Otome’s neck before throwing herself clear. With a thought, her back ribbons extended as she finished her ‘spinning dismount’, turning the area around her into a deadly bundle of blades.

~ This has been going on far too long. ~ The Raven-haired cyberneticist thought. She considered several options her tactical processor suggested.

She sent, taking off.

Kagutsuchi banked around, belly already glowing, then fired one of his boulder sized photonic fireballs into the ground near the freight elevator to blow a large chunk of the roof in with a huge explosion.

In the quiet of the explosion’s aftermath A.C. got into position, ignoring the nervous Op-For coming out of cover. Taking a deep breath, the floating senshi cyborg began. She lined up the grey-backed half-sun amulets vertically.

"Lord of the Darkness and the Four Worlds, I call upon you, grant me all the power that you possess!"

The stones glowed a purplish red. The raven-hared woman noted the surge, transferred Laevatein to one of her ribbons, and moved on to cast the spell she wanted.

“O Spirit of Thunder, swift in the sky. You who make the Earth and Air tremble with your voice. I, your servant, call upon your awesome power.”

The ash-filled sky rumbled. Then again, the clouds gathering over the spot A.C. was floating at.

“Power that smashes, I call upon you now! Become thunderbolts in my hands!”

Raising her hands above her head, a magical array flickered into being. Most of those watching didn’t immediately recognise the form of the array, a great circle with subordinate circles arranged around the edge.

Then the array lit up…

…And the lightning came.

Bolt after bolt struck the array, the vast charges created by the simulated eruption increasing the number of strikes to hundreds, then thousands, then a continuous series of strikes writhing like snakes as the array brought in the power from the clouds.

Silhouetted against the glare of the array, its blue-white lines turned photo-negative, the Scarlet Angel looked down on her enemies. Then she swung an arm down to point at them.

“DESTRUCTIVE THUNDER!”

From the sub-arrays, huge bolts of power ripped through the air to lance through the formation to score the ground.

Those few elements that had managed to raise some sort of shielding remained behind said protections, most in a poor state as they’d barely survived. There had been no doubt some had succumbed to the raging torrent of power the sorceress had called down from the volcanic clouds.

“Karyu…Issen!” A.C. went for the kill, sweeping the line of white hot fire across the remaining groups she could see, the respawn timer ticking away. Seconds past as the HiME Senshi of Fire scored the landscape with her element, Fire Souls and Burning Mandalas eating into every hidey hole she suspected might have a group of Op-For sheltering. Ravaging streams of flame stormed into buildings to ignite fire-storms, Phobos and Deimos added their own flames to the mix, and Kagutsuchi finished his earlier job by blasting the opening of the cargo elevator with a large fireball.

The respawn timer expired, and the sim wasn’t over.

With a growl, the cyborg-mage called her Child to her, where with a flash of light he vanished, and headed into the underground.

***

***ALERT*** - New Record!: Most Kills in a Re-spawn period at 93. - ***ALERT***

“Damnit.” Lebia said as the banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “This close to an end.”

“Aye.” Adonis sighed. “You ken that things will get worse now.”

“If it wasn’t for the fact cutting the Interwave link would be outside the safeties’ reaction limits and cause a hundred cases of severe dump shock, I’d have done it already and stopped this.” The blonde muttered.

“Any chance of triggering the safeties anyway?” Greenpeace asked.

“No.” Eddie replied. “They’re hardwired into the interface hardware with no way to access from outside.” He paused. “At least not without an 87% chance of feedback because we’d have to break the sensory dampener.”

“That’d be bad.” Greenpeace noted drily. “Important safety tip there, thanks Egon.”

Oh Rob? Natsuko made her luck roll here. She still hasn't been killed yet.

Proginoskes · 05-01-2013, 01:21 AM

"Lord of the Darkness and the Four Worlds..." Ohcrap. Isn't that rather reckless, calling on L-Sama like that?

Well, it's a relief that the Lady smiled on Natsuko: until your note to Rob, I was thinking, "oh crap, the wincons aren't working". Of course, I should've realised that AC failed to achieve a Total OpFor Kill at the "New Record" line, since the OpFor is 100-strong.

**robkelk** · 05-01-2013, 02:19 AM

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:She sent, taking off.

There are plenty of space people around here...

Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:Oh Rob? Natsuko made her luck roll here. She still hasn't been killed yet.

Yay! Here's hoping her luck holds.

(Oh, and a bit for the epilogue, before I forget again: A.C. relaxes in front of her computer and gets an IM/email/whatever from Natsuko: "That was more grueling than I expected. Same time next year?")
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Cobalt Greywalker · 05-14-2013, 10:36 PM

My muse has apparently taken a break, so I'm not progressing as I would like with further scenes. Still, I soldier on...

“…” – Normal Speech
- Radio communications
… […] - Foreign language [Translation]
… – Device Speech
~ … ~ - Thoughts
… – Spell casting

**25**

A.C. idly wondered just how much the scenario would end up resembling the source materials for the objects appearing. Cynically, it had probably already started so she'd best be on the lookout for hints. As if she didn't have enough to worry about.

Ghosting around a corner (as much as someone wearing brilliant white and red could ghost, which was a surprising amount), the widely-believed Double-O spotted the cautious wave of Phobos and quickly joined her.

“Here Mistress.” The red-clad fairy pointed at a slightly mismatched portion of the wall. Quite frankly, it would have been obvious that something was here if you paid even the slightest bit of attention. Only the fact that she (and through her the two Guardian Senshi) was the challenger actually allowed her to see it, due to the rules of the game.

With a shrug, A.C. pushed around the edges until the top moved inward. Once the bottom lip of the panel cleared the edge of the hole it slid down, allowing the cyberneticist to reach in and pull out the long and heavy cloth covered bundle.

Pulling off the dusty cloth, stuffing it back in the hole and closing the hidden panel, she then looked at the object that had been wrapped in it.

She groaned as she took in the sheathed sword. Both were blue and gold in colour, with the scabbard’s throat being almost as wide as the guard for the sword. Unsheathing it slightly to examine the blade, the gleam of golden light confirmed the raven-haired warrior’s suspicions.

“Mistress!” Phobos’ call snapped the psudo-senshi’s head round to see an array finish drawing itself and flare to light, with an accompanying sting to the back of her right hand.

Through the glare, the two saw a figure rise through the glowing array before the glare faded.

A.C. looked from the sword she’d been examining, to the fading glow of the magical array that had etched itself rapidly into the floor, to the golden-blonde woman in armoured blue dress standing before her looking up into her eyes.

“I ask of you, are you my master?” The severe faced woman asked in a formal tone.

~ Damn, ~ The currently-magical cyborg thought, ~ I never realised just how short she is. ~ However, she put on a slight smile and replied. “That I appear to be. Apologies for disturbing your rest, but it seems circumstances are against me.” With a quick movement she presented the golden sword and its blue-ribboned sheath hilt first to her new companion. “I believe these belong to you Saber.”

The Servant narrowed her eyes as she took the proffered weapon.

“Yes, I know precisely who you are Dear.” A.C. shrugged. “But given the situation, detailed explanations must wait. Are you getting enough Mana from me?”

Saber considered her Master then focused. To her and A.C.’s surprise, she flushed. “Y-yes, Master.” The slightly embarrassed Servant replied. “More than enough.”

“Good.” And to Saber’s puzzlement stepped forward, turning to aim her white gloved palms down both ends of the corridor she’d been summoned in. Triangular arrays, glowing bright purple with power, span into existence.

Just in time to deflect a worrying combination of spells and bullets.

“O.K.” A.C. said in a tone Saber knew well, given she had used it regularly in her life. “Take care of the mages to my left, but watch for other weapons.”

“Understood.” Saber nodded, and sprang to the attack with Invisible Air manifesting around the sword in her hands.

The group was an interesting contradiction in Saber’s eyes. They worked as though they’d been fighting together for a while, or at least had trained together. On the other hand their magic was…inconsistent. It was the work of few moments to cut down the group, allowing her to turn…

…To see her master flick the blood from her own blade, having walked back to her starting point from the bloody slaughter.

“Right then.” A.C. said in a business like tone. “Saber, can you go to spirit form?”

Saber blinked, then blinked again when she couldn’t.

“Figures.” The raven-haired Senshi sighed. She thought for a few moments, then pulled out a card of silver metal with a blue gem set into it. “Laevatein, reset this for a new user.”

Jawohl. The voice caused Saber to start slightly. A.C.’s eyes went distant. Getan. [Ready.]

“Saber.” A.C. held out the object. “You will have to name this for it to take effect. I need to upgrade your capabilities anyway, and this will make a good start.”

“What is it?” The Servant asked, taking the proffered object.

“A Mage Device. It will allow such things as flight and some protection against bullets, as well as secure communication.”

Saber took this in. “Then I name thee Vivian, who granted me my holy sword.”

Name acknowledged My Lord. Stand By. Ready. Set Up. The device said in a female voice.

With a flash, Vivian activated.

A.C. blinked. The transformation hadn’t done much to Saber’s armour except add embellishment to the plain armour plates protecting her skirts. Vivian itself however had transformed completely. A.C. had suspected it simply wouldn’t extend into its staff form. Instead the Device had become an armoured belt wrapping around Saber’s slim waist.

“Huh. Interesting.” A.C. shook herself from considering the meaning and reasons behind THAT. “Right, flight?”

Vivian’s core flashed with a chime where it sat in the centre of the buckle, and Saber looked a bit disconcerted as she levitated.

“Good. Good.” A.C. nodded. She sent telepathically, causing Saber to start in shock. The emerald-eyed beauty rolled said eyes at Saber’s startled look.

Came the uncertain reply.

A.C. sighed over the link. The cyborg senshi of Mars also lifted from the ground.

Saber nodded, and the two of them flew down the corridor.

***

“Oh, as if A.C. didn’t already have enough to be mad about.” Lebia muttered audibly, multitasking the video stream and deep examination on the Forge’s KoFen system.

Proginoskes · 05-15-2013, 02:51 AM

I want to blame this further escalation on A.C.'s invocation of L-Sama, but it's probably just the original hacker continuing to muck about. KoFen Holy Grail War? Yeesh...

**robkelk** · 05-15-2013, 03:32 AM

While continuing to appear to pay full attention to Noah and the others in Stellvia's boardroom, Takami quietly pinged Fate.

"Are you sure we shouldn't at least offer to help?"

"If Lebia needs our help, she'll ask."

"Does she know we're willing to help?"

Fate was quiet for a millisecond. "I'll let her know we're standing by."

Inside the Gauntlet, Natsuko was at the end of her option list. Then she considered all of the power-ups that Peters and the various OpFor members had been getting. All the ones she had seen had come out of various anime.

~ I really hate magical girls... but I don't have much choice. And who better than me to try this power-up? After all, I know what she can do. ~

She took a breath, and loudly (and ruefully) said, "Honey Flash!"

(Did it work?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Cobalt Greywalker · 05-29-2013, 11:37 PM

I'd ask if anyone else had one of those lives, but that would be rhetorical.

Sorry about the delay, but RL mugged me. On the one hand being busy at work means the company's doing well, on the other...lack of enthusiasm.

It doesn't help that Rob's above post and the Q&A thread have been teasing my muse. Did you HAVE to do that Rob? I barely get any time with them as it is lately.

OK, now for the nitty-gritty:

Rob, in what spare processing I've had I've been considering Natsuko's little addition to the story. I'm sorry, but no it doesn't work. I wanted it to work, but it boiled down to the following:

A) I tried to do my usual research on things like this, but my search-fu was not strong. As such I can't do justice to both the character and the gizmo.

B) Pondering this has led me to firm up one of the rules I'm using to try and keep this balanced. In essence, the Op-For gets equipment, the challenger gets prizes. By equipment, I mean anything from source that could be given to each member of full 20-man Team. I HAVE read rumours that in one of the Cutey Honey series, the Japanese government tried to produce Honey-class androids. As I've not been able to verify this, I can't allow it for the Op-For.

C) Even if I did let Natsuko have it anyway (and I'm still seriously tempted), my understanding of how it works means it would actually DEGRADE her effectiveness. AFAIK, it involves the equivalent of loading skillsets and transmuting clothing to match. Although I don't know where Biker Honey gets her bike, or Gunbunny Honey gets her guns (not that Natsuko has a problem with that AFAICT), if they were created during the transformation sequence Honey's systems would need highly detailed scans and metallurgical info to construct them. Probably preloaded to speed things up, but I can easily see simple objects being constructed ad-hoc (apparently in one of the manga, she uses her systems to create a fake boulder around her friend to hide her).

As to the next scene, I'm jittering over whether or not it needs spoiler-blocking over something that happens in it.

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