HomeGeoff climbs out of the stolen car and looks at the heavy concrete blast doors with concern, feeling that this mission is going increasingly pear-shaped.
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Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask
+2
Some Sinner
Disgruntled purple
6 posters
Message [Page 8 of 14]
177 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 1 Aug - 9:16
Gamma and Epsilon
Gamma gets up off the ground, picks up her gun, and starts to search for a place that she can manually jack into. Her hacking method isn't stealthy or finesses like, it's more along the lines of someone using C4 to open a door. It's brutal and aggressive.
178 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Fri 2 Aug - 8:00
Kaylee Brown
Admin
(Gamma, Slasher)
"Uhh, no you won't!" Barker looked up at you, shaking his fist "That injector was a military-grade mage's combat stimulator, more colloquially known on the street as 'The Suicide Cocktail'.
It is a mix of drugs that are meant to boost the mages physical strength, numb physical pain and more importantly, provides a blast of chemical energy that shoots his blood glucose up through the roof, allowing him to use magic past his limits, even after he hollowed himself out. A typical Cocktail shoots his glucose by some 100 mg/dL.
Mages who shot themselves up with this crap, were known to go way past their human limits. They became stronger, they lifted more weight than they usually could. They ignored their injuries and continued to fight, even after they were riddled with bullets, I saw a man get shot 12 times in the stomach and he just kept coming like it was nothing. And their magic reserves grew, allowing them to cast magic way past their normal limit." Barker said grimly:
"The problem is, the Cocktail removed any conscious thought they had, about their limits. Men would finish a fight, before collapsing dead on the ground, because they didn't notice they were shot. They didn't feel pain. Those who survived, didn't notice they broke their own arms in the fight and it took hours before the drug got filtered out of their system. The blasts of glucose in their blood did little favors for their kidneys or pancreas.
And those were the lucky ones." Barker's eyes grew darker still:
"The physical strain the Cocktail puts on the body is so severe, even a single dose runs a risk of causing a heart attack and immediate death... and yet... some mages still equip it before combat. Because they know they may run out of magic, and may have to go past their limits.
As you understand, a single Cocktail provides a 100 mg/dL glucose boost. But no one ever injects more than 3 Cocktails in the same fight. Ever.
That is because, the 1st Cocktail runs a 15% chance of instant death by heart attack.
Inject a second one and the risk jumps to 50%
Inject a 3rd one and... well..." Barker's expression became grim, the look in his eye was haunted and extremely uncomfortable:
"...I saw a man once riddled with some many bullets, his body was heavy with led. He ripped apart his assailants, dismembered them, eviscerated them, before he too, collapsed dead on the ground. But it wasn't just the bullets that killed him...
The 3rd Cocktail shot ruptures every organ in your body. He bled from every orifice, and even if he didn't get shot, the 3rd Cocktail kills a man dead. Its a suicide drug."
He looked down at Krys "...I've seen a lot of shit in the Arakashi war. But nothing took the cake, like seeing a drugged up mage take a suicide run at my barricade. That shit, it stays with you, no matter what side of the barricade you were on. That's why the mages use it only when they got nothing left to lose... or some moron puts himself into a coma, by casting magic past his limits."
"...there are no limits..." Krys said in tranquility "but those we place inside our own minds."
Barker kicked the cultists foot in frustration, then looked up at you: "Since I found one on Krys, and knowing Shi-Tong, I'm guessing you, and every other mage on this team has at least 3 Cocktails each... just... don't take all 3 at once and spare us the visage of you bleeding from your eyes, yeah? I had enough of that in the Arakashi war." Barker grumbled.
As he went quiet, you suddenly became aware of a strange hissing sound, emanating from the ceiling, or from Slashers perspective, coming from somewhere under her feet. You looked around for a moment and noticed several ventilation shafts around you. They were working earlier as well, but you don't remember them making such hissing noises before.
You found a port by the flat-screen TV by the wall. Unplugging some electronic device off its socket, you pulled out a cord from the side of your neck and effortlessly injected it into the port. A series of numbers ran past your eyes that made no sense at all, as you tried to access the local network again.
Spinning in place and manifesting your green colored hologram strings, you initiated the Digital Waltz, and all the algorithms in your retinas suddenly made perfect sense again. You didn't see numbers anymore, you saw individual programs and systems and firewalls, and you knew exactly what to do.
Following your earlier breach, the firewall of Krasnyi Bess was still down to 52%, whatever viruses you installed earlier were still in the enemy network and chipping away at his wall. Meanwhile, whatever Shi-Tong, or your Neurochip did, re-calibrated your firewall back up to 100%
"...just what do you think you're doing, Gamma..." The pixelated image of the red dragons head appeared on the flat-screen TV again, its low resolution eyes shifted toward you:
"...I have your sister hostage... If you don't cease your attempts to breach my firewall... I will to kill her."
Krasnyi Bess' firewall fell down to 34%, way quicker than you expected, and you felt Roksana's presence in the system, she was fighting too.
"...I already extracted everything I need from her data banks." The dragon smirked "She's useless to me now."
"He's bluffing." Barker growled "A Plume of Dusk houses terabytes of data. There's no way-"
"I'm a Rumba, remember? The ones you hate so much" The dragon sneered "I can calculate the exact temperature of the sun today, in a precise square meter location on its surface, in the time it takes you to make a single breath. You are inferior to me in every way... you don't deserve to walk the same earth I do."
The dragon's pixelated eyes shifted to Gamma again and you felt her lashing out against your firewall:
"Have you ever wondered... if its possible to make a full copy of a Plume of Dusk?... do you think it is possible?" the dragon released a low, gravely digital giggle:
"An exact copy of someone... the same in every... way... would a copy even know, its a copy? Would it be aware of its duplicitous existence?" The dragons eyes were fixed directly at you, as your internal counter showed:
Krasnyi Bess firewall 28%
Gamma's firewall 75%
Roksana's firewall 73%
"You... and Epsilon... you had to notice, didn't you...? No two people are that alike... that is because-" The Dragon's eyes were cold, merciless and laughing:
"You... and she... are a copy...
Not just a copy... but a copy... of a copy." The dragons words rang like razors in your head:
"A copy, of a copy, of a copy.
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,"
The dragons voice rang like a hypnotic chant, drilling its way into your mind and chipping away at your firewall.
"...there once was a girl named-....#$!@#$!#%@#$-" you screamed in pain, horrible, physical pain as you collapsed to the ground, grabbing your head. A long forgotten memory raced through your head, of a normal, human girl, walking across the city. Before the Digital Waltz... before Epsilon... before Gamma... before everything... her name was #$!@#$!#%@#$!!!!!!!!" your system glitched out. What was her name?!
"That girl was kidnapped by the Opera Eight." The dragon continued unrelenting:
"And her mind was so precious... they made... a copy... and a copy of a copy... and a copy of that copy... and a copy.... and a copy..."
Krasnyi Bess firewall 14%
Gamma's firewall 56%
Roksana's firewall 50%
"That's what you are..." The dragon quietly whispered "A copy of a real girl, a copy, hundreds of generations down... a copy that never existed, that never lived... glitched out of your mind, deranged and feverish, thinking you and Gamma are the same 'PERSON'?!
YOU ARE NOT A PERSON!" The dragon's voice roared and became horribly distorted, as its firewall crumbled to 8%
"SHE IS!"
The TV suddenly went blank and displayed a giant picture, of a normal human girl, some 9 years of age, holding a balloon in one hand, and a parents hand in the other, the mother so tall her face wasn't in the frame. The girl was wearing a silky white dress and a pink ribbon and looking straight at the camera, with a blank, curious stare.
Her eyes seemed to stare into your soul.
She looked exactly like Epsilon. She looked exactly, like you.
Her name was $@#B@#Y G%*$@_A !!!!!!!!!!!
#$%#$%*(@#$&!@)#@#&*$@%)@#*%$@#$)@#*$@#)$*@#$_)@#$SYSTEM GLITCH*@##R($F*@#3293709312#@#@DIGITAL WALTZ PROTOCOL BREACH@#&#)$&*#129019731UNACCEPTABLE$*#$&!@#E@!*#(@#120381UNACCEPTABLE24!*$!@&$)!@#*!@#)123371283MEMORY BLOCK12#*!&!@#*@(#@(&#@)#@(#!@3*@#)MEMORY BLOCK@&$93484774092#*!@MEMORY BLOCK&%$)!@#*@381239-UNACCEPTABLE12038-123!$ACCESS DENIED&%!@&#@!($(@$(@$!@$(ACCESS DENIED$$*$&#@)(!&#)$*#MEMOBY BLOCK $$*#$ACCESS$*$&*!()*!DENIED!!!!*#*&#(@)@
SYSTEM BREACH IMMINENT, FIRWALL AT 43%
"CEASE YOUR ATTACK, OR I WILL KILL HER!" The dragons gargling digital voice shrieked from the speakers "I WILL ERASE EPSILON BEFORE I DIE!"
Matej waved you inside, with a face reflecting increasing fatigue. His eyes were drifting toward Roksana, over and over, as the woman initiated her Digital Waltz, the form of her dance lacking finesse or grace, seeming more rigid and tired, than when you first saw her, as green colorful transparent ribbons of light, danced over her body and hands.
"...hello... Captain..." A digitally distorted voice rang from a nearby flat-screen TV and the icon of a pixelated red dragon's head appeared on the screen.
Roksana zeroed in on the image immediately and hissed in barely contained fury. The dragon cackled mercilessly in response:
"You were sooo reluctant to take command of this team... even when the poor batpony prompted you, you nearly took his head off..." the dragon cocked its head, smirking. "He is weak and incompetent, and yet, you're so protective of him... does he remind you of someone?"
"Shut the fuck up." Roksana gritted her teeth so hard, you heard the metal in them grinding.
"He suspects... but he doesn't really know, does he..." the dragon cackled maniacly "None of them know... who you really are... and what you did...
Do you think they would trust you?... again?..." the dragon's grin spread wider, as Roksana's entire expression became twisted "...do you think they would put their lives in your hands-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Roksana shrieked, her demeanor was rapidly breaking down. You saw pain in her eyes, you saw that she felt betrayed, you saw her psyche was growing undone with each passing second, with each other word that came out of the digital monster on the screen, as the thing reveled in her misery.
A tiny camera feed flicked on, displaying the lobby in real time. 1 minigun exploded on the ceiling, taken out by Roksana's grenade. The other 3 miniguns whirled rapidly, zeroed in on Slasher, and cut her in half, spraying her guts and viscera everywhere. Barker attempted to shoot back, his body was eviscerated with a hail of bullets from two different directions, turning him into an unrecognizable piece of meat. The same fate followed Krys.
No blood came out, when Gamma was torn apart, the turrets dismembered her, her prosthetic hands flying off, her metalic ribcage shot wide open, revealing her to be a robot, showing the circuits inside for all to see. Her head was missing half its face, revealing half a broken, metal skull undearneath and a blue Plume of Dusk chip, faintly glowing, before the miniguns shredded it into pieces.
Roksana screamed out, collapsing onto her knees, cover her face with one hand and grabbing hold of the wall with the other, as her holograms flickered and nearly turned off.
"...they're dead..." The dragon whispered "They fought for nothing... and died for nothing... useless and pointless... just... like... back... then."
"You son of a bitch..." Roksana collapsed, leaning against the wall and breaking into a sob. Her holograms deactivating, as she covered her face. Prosthetic people had no tears to shed, but the woman cried, horribly and inconsolably, as two distant explosions rang from the roof of the office building and moments later, you heard the sound of rocket or jet engines, and two deafening impacts rang out on the street.
Smoke and small pieces of asphalt and concrete debris flew everywhere, engulfing the street outside in a cloud of gray smoke. And in that cloud, two pairs of red eyes suddenly activated and two pairs of heavy feet rumbled toward the building's main entrance.
Each step echoed across the street, each step made the ground shake, each step was accompanied by a heavy screech and creek of metal, and out of the smoke, emerged two heavily armored murder-bots.
These weren't the docile things you saw the SWAT team deploy earlier. These were military grade. Every inch of them covered with massive, thick plates of armor, revealing no open circuits beneath. Each one had a flat head, resembling a metal brick of armor. Each carried a giant minigun and a riot shield so thick, you suspected it could deflect a tank's shell.
The murder bots took cover behind their shields, an action largely redundant, as they themsleves could likely deflect tank shells with their chassis' armor, they aimed their miniguns right at you and advanced into the building's hall, effectively trapping you inside the hallway, with nowhere to go, and the blast door at your back.
As the miniguns began to spin up, you realized they were about to paint the blast doors red with your blood.
"...tell me who sent you here and why..." the digital monster casually suggested from the flat-screen TV, as if it was talking about nail polish "And I may let you live."
Slasher wrote:Her head rolls slightly across the frame as she lifts up her hand above her head, pointing at Krys, "I'll have what he's having while we wait."
"Uhh, no you won't!" Barker looked up at you, shaking his fist "That injector was a military-grade mage's combat stimulator, more colloquially known on the street as 'The Suicide Cocktail'.
It is a mix of drugs that are meant to boost the mages physical strength, numb physical pain and more importantly, provides a blast of chemical energy that shoots his blood glucose up through the roof, allowing him to use magic past his limits, even after he hollowed himself out. A typical Cocktail shoots his glucose by some 100 mg/dL.
Mages who shot themselves up with this crap, were known to go way past their human limits. They became stronger, they lifted more weight than they usually could. They ignored their injuries and continued to fight, even after they were riddled with bullets, I saw a man get shot 12 times in the stomach and he just kept coming like it was nothing. And their magic reserves grew, allowing them to cast magic way past their normal limit." Barker said grimly:
"The problem is, the Cocktail removed any conscious thought they had, about their limits. Men would finish a fight, before collapsing dead on the ground, because they didn't notice they were shot. They didn't feel pain. Those who survived, didn't notice they broke their own arms in the fight and it took hours before the drug got filtered out of their system. The blasts of glucose in their blood did little favors for their kidneys or pancreas.
And those were the lucky ones." Barker's eyes grew darker still:
"The physical strain the Cocktail puts on the body is so severe, even a single dose runs a risk of causing a heart attack and immediate death... and yet... some mages still equip it before combat. Because they know they may run out of magic, and may have to go past their limits.
As you understand, a single Cocktail provides a 100 mg/dL glucose boost. But no one ever injects more than 3 Cocktails in the same fight. Ever.
That is because, the 1st Cocktail runs a 15% chance of instant death by heart attack.
Inject a second one and the risk jumps to 50%
Inject a 3rd one and... well..." Barker's expression became grim, the look in his eye was haunted and extremely uncomfortable:
"...I saw a man once riddled with some many bullets, his body was heavy with led. He ripped apart his assailants, dismembered them, eviscerated them, before he too, collapsed dead on the ground. But it wasn't just the bullets that killed him...
The 3rd Cocktail shot ruptures every organ in your body. He bled from every orifice, and even if he didn't get shot, the 3rd Cocktail kills a man dead. Its a suicide drug."
He looked down at Krys "...I've seen a lot of shit in the Arakashi war. But nothing took the cake, like seeing a drugged up mage take a suicide run at my barricade. That shit, it stays with you, no matter what side of the barricade you were on. That's why the mages use it only when they got nothing left to lose... or some moron puts himself into a coma, by casting magic past his limits."
"...there are no limits..." Krys said in tranquility "but those we place inside our own minds."
Barker kicked the cultists foot in frustration, then looked up at you: "Since I found one on Krys, and knowing Shi-Tong, I'm guessing you, and every other mage on this team has at least 3 Cocktails each... just... don't take all 3 at once and spare us the visage of you bleeding from your eyes, yeah? I had enough of that in the Arakashi war." Barker grumbled.
As he went quiet, you suddenly became aware of a strange hissing sound, emanating from the ceiling, or from Slashers perspective, coming from somewhere under her feet. You looked around for a moment and noticed several ventilation shafts around you. They were working earlier as well, but you don't remember them making such hissing noises before.
Gamma wrote:Gamma gets up off the ground, picks up her gun, and starts to search for a place that she can manually jack into. Her hacking method isn't stealthy or finesses like, it's more along the lines of someone using C4 to open a door. It's brutal and aggressive.
You found a port by the flat-screen TV by the wall. Unplugging some electronic device off its socket, you pulled out a cord from the side of your neck and effortlessly injected it into the port. A series of numbers ran past your eyes that made no sense at all, as you tried to access the local network again.
Spinning in place and manifesting your green colored hologram strings, you initiated the Digital Waltz, and all the algorithms in your retinas suddenly made perfect sense again. You didn't see numbers anymore, you saw individual programs and systems and firewalls, and you knew exactly what to do.
Following your earlier breach, the firewall of Krasnyi Bess was still down to 52%, whatever viruses you installed earlier were still in the enemy network and chipping away at his wall. Meanwhile, whatever Shi-Tong, or your Neurochip did, re-calibrated your firewall back up to 100%
"...just what do you think you're doing, Gamma..." The pixelated image of the red dragons head appeared on the flat-screen TV again, its low resolution eyes shifted toward you:
"...I have your sister hostage... If you don't cease your attempts to breach my firewall... I will to kill her."
Krasnyi Bess' firewall fell down to 34%, way quicker than you expected, and you felt Roksana's presence in the system, she was fighting too.
"...I already extracted everything I need from her data banks." The dragon smirked "She's useless to me now."
"He's bluffing." Barker growled "A Plume of Dusk houses terabytes of data. There's no way-"
"I'm a Rumba, remember? The ones you hate so much" The dragon sneered "I can calculate the exact temperature of the sun today, in a precise square meter location on its surface, in the time it takes you to make a single breath. You are inferior to me in every way... you don't deserve to walk the same earth I do."
The dragon's pixelated eyes shifted to Gamma again and you felt her lashing out against your firewall:
"Have you ever wondered... if its possible to make a full copy of a Plume of Dusk?... do you think it is possible?" the dragon released a low, gravely digital giggle:
"An exact copy of someone... the same in every... way... would a copy even know, its a copy? Would it be aware of its duplicitous existence?" The dragons eyes were fixed directly at you, as your internal counter showed:
Krasnyi Bess firewall 28%
Gamma's firewall 75%
Roksana's firewall 73%
"You... and Epsilon... you had to notice, didn't you...? No two people are that alike... that is because-" The Dragon's eyes were cold, merciless and laughing:
"You... and she... are a copy...
Not just a copy... but a copy... of a copy." The dragons words rang like razors in your head:
"A copy, of a copy, of a copy.
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,
Copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy,"
The dragons voice rang like a hypnotic chant, drilling its way into your mind and chipping away at your firewall.
"...there once was a girl named-....#$!@#$!#%@#$-" you screamed in pain, horrible, physical pain as you collapsed to the ground, grabbing your head. A long forgotten memory raced through your head, of a normal, human girl, walking across the city. Before the Digital Waltz... before Epsilon... before Gamma... before everything... her name was #$!@#$!#%@#$!!!!!!!!" your system glitched out. What was her name?!
"That girl was kidnapped by the Opera Eight." The dragon continued unrelenting:
"And her mind was so precious... they made... a copy... and a copy of a copy... and a copy of that copy... and a copy.... and a copy..."
Krasnyi Bess firewall 14%
Gamma's firewall 56%
Roksana's firewall 50%
"That's what you are..." The dragon quietly whispered "A copy of a real girl, a copy, hundreds of generations down... a copy that never existed, that never lived... glitched out of your mind, deranged and feverish, thinking you and Gamma are the same 'PERSON'?!
YOU ARE NOT A PERSON!" The dragon's voice roared and became horribly distorted, as its firewall crumbled to 8%
"SHE IS!"
The TV suddenly went blank and displayed a giant picture, of a normal human girl, some 9 years of age, holding a balloon in one hand, and a parents hand in the other, the mother so tall her face wasn't in the frame. The girl was wearing a silky white dress and a pink ribbon and looking straight at the camera, with a blank, curious stare.
Her eyes seemed to stare into your soul.
She looked exactly like Epsilon. She looked exactly, like you.
Her name was $@#B@#Y G%*$@_A !!!!!!!!!!!
#$%#$%*(@#$&!@)#@#&*$@%)@#*%$@#$)@#*$@#)$*@#$_)@#$SYSTEM GLITCH*@##R($F*@#3293709312#@#@DIGITAL WALTZ PROTOCOL BREACH@#&#)$&*#129019731UNACCEPTABLE$*#$&!@#E@!*#(@#120381UNACCEPTABLE24!*$!@&$)!@#*!@#)123371283MEMORY BLOCK12#*!&!@#*@(#@(&#@)#@(#!@3*@#)MEMORY BLOCK@&$93484774092#*!@MEMORY BLOCK&%$)!@#*@381239-UNACCEPTABLE12038-123!$ACCESS DENIED&%!@&#@!($(@$(@$!@$(ACCESS DENIED$$*$&#@)(!&#)$*#MEMOBY BLOCK $$*#$ACCESS$*$&*!()*!DENIED!!!!*#*&#(@)@
SYSTEM BREACH IMMINENT, FIRWALL AT 43%
"CEASE YOUR ATTACK, OR I WILL KILL HER!" The dragons gargling digital voice shrieked from the speakers "I WILL ERASE EPSILON BEFORE I DIE!"
Geoff wrote:Geoff climbs out of the stolen car and looks at the heavy concrete blast doors with concern, feeling that this mission is going increasingly pear-shaped.
Matej waved you inside, with a face reflecting increasing fatigue. His eyes were drifting toward Roksana, over and over, as the woman initiated her Digital Waltz, the form of her dance lacking finesse or grace, seeming more rigid and tired, than when you first saw her, as green colorful transparent ribbons of light, danced over her body and hands.
"...hello... Captain..." A digitally distorted voice rang from a nearby flat-screen TV and the icon of a pixelated red dragon's head appeared on the screen.
Roksana zeroed in on the image immediately and hissed in barely contained fury. The dragon cackled mercilessly in response:
"You were sooo reluctant to take command of this team... even when the poor batpony prompted you, you nearly took his head off..." the dragon cocked its head, smirking. "He is weak and incompetent, and yet, you're so protective of him... does he remind you of someone?"
"Shut the fuck up." Roksana gritted her teeth so hard, you heard the metal in them grinding.
"He suspects... but he doesn't really know, does he..." the dragon cackled maniacly "None of them know... who you really are... and what you did...
Do you think they would trust you?... again?..." the dragon's grin spread wider, as Roksana's entire expression became twisted "...do you think they would put their lives in your hands-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Roksana shrieked, her demeanor was rapidly breaking down. You saw pain in her eyes, you saw that she felt betrayed, you saw her psyche was growing undone with each passing second, with each other word that came out of the digital monster on the screen, as the thing reveled in her misery.
A tiny camera feed flicked on, displaying the lobby in real time. 1 minigun exploded on the ceiling, taken out by Roksana's grenade. The other 3 miniguns whirled rapidly, zeroed in on Slasher, and cut her in half, spraying her guts and viscera everywhere. Barker attempted to shoot back, his body was eviscerated with a hail of bullets from two different directions, turning him into an unrecognizable piece of meat. The same fate followed Krys.
No blood came out, when Gamma was torn apart, the turrets dismembered her, her prosthetic hands flying off, her metalic ribcage shot wide open, revealing her to be a robot, showing the circuits inside for all to see. Her head was missing half its face, revealing half a broken, metal skull undearneath and a blue Plume of Dusk chip, faintly glowing, before the miniguns shredded it into pieces.
Roksana screamed out, collapsing onto her knees, cover her face with one hand and grabbing hold of the wall with the other, as her holograms flickered and nearly turned off.
"...they're dead..." The dragon whispered "They fought for nothing... and died for nothing... useless and pointless... just... like... back... then."
"You son of a bitch..." Roksana collapsed, leaning against the wall and breaking into a sob. Her holograms deactivating, as she covered her face. Prosthetic people had no tears to shed, but the woman cried, horribly and inconsolably, as two distant explosions rang from the roof of the office building and moments later, you heard the sound of rocket or jet engines, and two deafening impacts rang out on the street.
Smoke and small pieces of asphalt and concrete debris flew everywhere, engulfing the street outside in a cloud of gray smoke. And in that cloud, two pairs of red eyes suddenly activated and two pairs of heavy feet rumbled toward the building's main entrance.
Each step echoed across the street, each step made the ground shake, each step was accompanied by a heavy screech and creek of metal, and out of the smoke, emerged two heavily armored murder-bots.
These weren't the docile things you saw the SWAT team deploy earlier. These were military grade. Every inch of them covered with massive, thick plates of armor, revealing no open circuits beneath. Each one had a flat head, resembling a metal brick of armor. Each carried a giant minigun and a riot shield so thick, you suspected it could deflect a tank's shell.
The murder bots took cover behind their shields, an action largely redundant, as they themsleves could likely deflect tank shells with their chassis' armor, they aimed their miniguns right at you and advanced into the building's hall, effectively trapping you inside the hallway, with nowhere to go, and the blast door at your back.
As the miniguns began to spin up, you realized they were about to paint the blast doors red with your blood.
"...tell me who sent you here and why..." the digital monster casually suggested from the flat-screen TV, as if it was talking about nail polish "And I may let you live."
179 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Fri 2 Aug - 9:33
Gamma and Epsilon
"Fuck off and die you un-pure Rumba reject" Gamma's last push is with everything she has. Praying she was fast enough to save Epsilon.
180 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Fri 2 Aug - 10:15
Some Sinner
"Yooo wait for real?!" She suddenly sits up, listening intently to barker, "that sounds dope as fuck!" she exclaims her eyes widening in awe at the prospect, "Horror murder drug! Humanity truely pushed past its limits! Even bullets cant stop the feral mind unless you blast it out!" she lets out an unsettling cackle... perhaps you shouldn't have told her this.
her eyes suddenly shift to the air vents. Hissing vents. Her smile fades fast as she probably has to take her job seriously again, "Their gonna gas us..." she says far too calm as she adjusts herself to crouch over the vent, "Anybody got any tape? I'll tape em' closed?" her eyes narrow at the vent before she gets a wry smile, "gas... coming through the vents..." she calmly places her hand in the center of the vent.
Slasher casts wind explosion.
her eyes suddenly shift to the air vents. Hissing vents. Her smile fades fast as she probably has to take her job seriously again, "Their gonna gas us..." she says far too calm as she adjusts herself to crouch over the vent, "Anybody got any tape? I'll tape em' closed?" her eyes narrow at the vent before she gets a wry smile, "gas... coming through the vents..." she calmly places her hand in the center of the vent.
Slasher casts wind explosion.
181 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Fri 2 Aug - 21:43
Rogue Fire
Cut off from the car he'd hotwired, Geoff lunges for the singed corpse of the agent with the body armour under his skin, hoping to use him as a human shield to defend against the robots attack.
182 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Fri 2 Aug - 21:56
Disgruntled purple
"Yeah, no." Inferno says dryly. "You wanna talk, do it face to face. I got no words for a pale imitation like you.
Inferno looked at the two incoming figures, giving them an annoyed look. "No life in those things, no spirit. Not even worth the effort... Maybe this way there's something..."
He took a breath, and his hairs were billowing, somehow. His skin began to darken, as if burned, and his hairs became actually aflame, having a hue of red and blue. His stealth suit began to suffer the effect of the heat, and the temperature around him rose.
He has become Nirik.
Once completed, he grinned. "Let me feel more alive..."
Inferno looked at the two incoming figures, giving them an annoyed look. "No life in those things, no spirit. Not even worth the effort... Maybe this way there's something..."
He took a breath, and his hairs were billowing, somehow. His skin began to darken, as if burned, and his hairs became actually aflame, having a hue of red and blue. His stealth suit began to suffer the effect of the heat, and the temperature around him rose.
He has become Nirik.
Once completed, he grinned. "Let me feel more alive..."
183 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Sat 3 Aug - 23:21
Kaylee Brown
Admin
(Gamma & Slasher)
"Okay, great..." Barker looked away sighing and mumbled under his nose "another lunatic.."
Barker shrugged at the mention of tape, slightly raising his hands up. As you closed distance to the vent, your Data-pad suddenly flashed red, indicating that a harmful chemical compound was detected in close proximity, namely - CO gas, Carbon monoxide. Colorless, tasteless and odorless. And extremely lethal.
Inhale enough of it, fall unconscious and you may not wake up again. The gas prevented oxygen from being distributed inside the body, the victim will literally suffocate without understanding what happened.
Concentrating and trying to imagine the molecules of oxygen in the air, you put your palms together. Your entire body light up for a moment with a teal ghostly light, as you accumulated your energy inside your core, and then let it loose in a violent explosion.
A hard burst of air exploded outward, as you thrust both hands at the vent. Its metal cover bent immediately and was violently blown off its hinges, banging and clattering down the ventilation tunnel. The hissing stopped and you felt a brief vacuum of air, as whatever was being pumped into the lobby, was momentarily and violently blown back into the ventilation system.
You heard a distant, dull explosion somewhere, below your feet, then you suddenly had to jerk way back and off to the side, as the ventilation cover you blasted into the floor, impossibly flew right back out and almost hit you in the face, as it was sucked right into the ceiling above you, and you once again had you remind yourself that your perspective was reversed by the gravity spell.
The ventilation cover clattered loudly across the ceiling, almost hitting Barker on its way up, making the merc swear in his native tongue and jog a couple meters away at a semi-lazy pace. Seeing him run across the ceiling was rather amusing however.
Your Data-pad pinged, indicating your blood glucose dropped to 110 mg/dL
The ribbons of green light began dancing frantically around your body, overlapping and turning into a blur, as the pixelated dragon screamed in increasing anguish. His firewall was elusive, alive and fluctuating like the sea. Each time you found or punched a hole in its surface, the dragon immediately closed it again. But his efforts were growing more frantic and desperate with each attempt. His reaction time was slowing down, perhaps because he had to keep an eye on Roksana, who was ramming his firewall with the grace of a forklift.
He couldn't keep this up forever. Even if you were evenly matched, he was outnumbered. Roksana unleashed another unhinged and graceless attack. The dragon focused on her, for a nano-second too long. You blew past his firewall and came face to face with the digital core of Krasnyi Bess. His Plume of Dusk.
"N̴̨̦̜͖̠̤͙̭̍́̉͝͝O̵̧̘̹̼͇̹̗̭̼͋!̷̧̨͚̣̪͖̹̪̈̀̈́̀̊̎͌͋̕͜͜" the distorted voice screeched, echoing across the entire building at once, from the intercoms, radios and TV screens everywhere.
"Ī̵̛̙̬̭͠f̴̧̠̟͗͐̅ ̶͍̖͑ͅI̵̘̩͗̒̕'̶̡̭̝̈́̍m̶̻̚ ̵̢̭̀̄̈́g̸̳̯̾̽o̴̳̫͌̈̑i̶͈̽̏̚n̷̛̘̂͝ǧ̵̡̡̘̆ ̵̤̈́̄͘d̵̙̕o̸̝͎̥͑̾͑w̶̠̣͌̇n̶̜̣͑̊,̵̯̑́ ̷͚̞̐͌I̸̡̳͂̌'̶̲̳͝͝m̸̢̻̈ ̵͎̂t̶̢̙͛̕a̴̞̗͝k̶͇̗̄i̷̗̎͝͝n̴̼͂̀͠g̸̻̿ ̴̠͗͝y̸̤̯̍o̴̩͆̅͌ȕ̶͚̙ ̴̙̌w̷̧̰͍̎̃̊ǐ̵̪̩ṫ̸̤̜̠h̸̪̻̘̄ ̵͇̥̳͊̎m̸̝̻̄̈́̅ę̴̩͓̂̋̃!̶̫̒!̴̢̛̬̮̌͠!̷̤̝̊͘"
You suddenly found the exact coordinates of the enemy Rumba, his prosthetic body was laying in a surgical chair in a poorly lit office room, two floors underground. Red lights flashed across the desks and glass dividers between cubicles, casting frightening shadows and reflecting off the grim faces of 14 heavily armed security operatives. Chromed up to the breaking point and holding armor piercing assault rifles and shotguns, they had barricaded themselves inside, watching the entrance door with all barrels trained at it, while three more sat by the surgical table.
You realized you subconsciously accessed a camera feed and was now watching it in real time. You saw the three agents by the surgical desk, poking and prodding at a blue crystal chip on the table, with precision instruments and blue surgical gloves, and a complicated algorithm ran its code on a laptop nearby, connected to the blue chip.
Even a casual glance at the laptop, told you they have failed to crack Epsilon's data-banks. The Red Devil was lying. From what you could see, the operatives were still trying to copy and decipher the data stored on Epsilon's Plume of Dusk.
Just when you thought to nip their attempts in the bud, you felt a virtual presence brush past you.
Roksana had blown past the firewall and entered the system as well.
Her presence felt different, distorted somehow. Emotions translated poorly into the digital space, but you could tell something was very wrong with her. With a flick of her virtual hand, the laptop glitched out and caught fire, its hard-drive melting and erasing whatever data they managed to copy so far.
The next nano-second, she shut down their internet, preventing any signals escaping outside the building.
Your gaze fell on the motionless prosthetic body of Krasnyi Bess and he screamed, breaking into convulsions, as you identified the virtual representation of the Plume of Dusk in his body, wrapped your digital fingers around it and squeezed.
The cybernetic eyes of Krasnyi Bess exploded inside-out, releasing plumes of searing flame from inside his titanium skull. His mouth opened agape, as sparks and blue flame burst out, filling the office below in distorted gargling. His metal body convulsed uncontrollably, as if he suffered an epileptic attack. He began clawing at his own face, ripping apart his synthetic skin to reveal the robot shell underneath. It looked like he tried to split his own face open, to rip out his Plume of Dusk out of his skull.
It was futile.
The Rumba's head exploded from the inside, the explosion contained by the titanium skull. Blasts of flame gushed out of his eyes and mouth, before the husk burned itself out and fell motionless on the operating table, its synthetic skin and clothing still burning.
The cybernetic body continued to fizzle and burn on the operating table, as the enemy agents took a silent moment to appreciate the implications of what just transpired. So did you.
You had access to everything now. Every security camera, microphone and surveillance device in the building. Every drone, turret, death-trap and door. You had access to every computer and server now. All, except one.
A lone server stood locked inside its own network, in a large office two floors below. The same office the agents had settled and barricaded. It housed the information you needed. It must have. No other computer in the building had even a passing mention of a file named 'Opera Football', the file you needed to steal.
It must be down there, in that isolated server, two floors below.
You blinked and shelved that information for later, to focus on more pressing matters.
It took you a nano-second to utilize every surveillance device in the building, to accurately tell there were a total of 47 people in the building, dispersed throughout all its 10 floors.
A total of 16 minigun turrets and 5 more flamethrower ones, concealed inside floor tiles, walls or ceilings, sitting in strategic locations around the building.
2 murder bots had just been deployed outside the building. 2 more were being prepped on the roof. 2 more in the armory on sub-level -1. The same armory that also housed 6 more flying drones, each equipped with a rifle. And you also identified a killer flying drone, a large one, resembling a small plane, that circled the building some 5,000 feet in the air and was equipped with 8 missiles.
The agents in the server room must have began to suspect the inevitable and one of them shot out the camera you used to spy on them.
The very next second, you heard, or rather, 'felt', Roksana's unhinged laugh, as she stared at the same information you did. She had gained access to all this as well, and something in her laugh unsettled you greatly.
The body was still aflame and it was extremely painful to hit the floor beside it. You braced against the pain, as the murder-bots lifted their miniguns, put you in their crosshairs and their barrels spun up.
"Holy shit!" Matej jerked away from you, as you began emitting a palpable wave of fire and heat. The temperature rose around you rapidly by several degrees and you heard your stealth suit emitting eerie crackling and tearing noises in several places, but it didn't stop the murder-bots from spinning their guns.
You braced for the merciless hail of led, but it never came.
Their miniguns spun down and stopped, the robots exited their battle stance and straightened up, lowering their weapons and entering what looked like a stand-by mode. And then you heard it.
Roksana's hysterical cackle.
The woman was still sitting on the floor, a strange oily liquid dripping down from her closed eyes, impossibly reminding you of blood. She was holding the side of her head, unable to contain her unhinged laugh, as green ribbons of light danced around her.
She raised her hand slowly, and, as if in response, the murder-bots stirred and began marching into the hall, right, at, you. Matej jerked out of the way, but the bots ignored him.
With another wave of Roksana's hand, both blast doors came into motion and slowly began sliding back into the ceiling, revealing the lobby beyond.
Contrary to the camera footage the enemy Rumba had shown you, your team mates were very much alive. Matej had sworn loudly, as the implications sunk in. Perhaps due to stress, or lack of attention, you didn't notice the footage was fake. Or, more alarmingly, perhaps the fake videos attention to detail was so high, it was extremely difficult to spot, especially under pressure.
"...battles between hackers and like battles of demi-gods.." Barker grimly said, watching the murder bots shuffle about "...they process and compile information, at speeds beyond our comprehension. And when they're evenly matched, sometimes the only way to take out an enemy hacker, is to play on their already shaky mental state.
All Rumba's are affected by various mental disorders and illnesses as a rule, for no human soul can fully accept being shoved into a prosthetic body. That's why, for one Rumba, to play on the emotions and disorders of other Rumbas like him, is the easiest target."
He looked toward Gamma, still standing by the flat screen TV she plugged next to, a few moments ago:
"...you did good, kid. Did you remember, that Plume's of Dusk can't be copied? Or did you just work on a hunch?" The merc sighed, taking a firmer hold of his rifle, as he pointed it down, letting it rest on its strap:
"I'm not a religious man but a human soul is... unique... call it science or magic or whatever. You can't create an artificial human. You can't create a true A.I. You can't 'create' or 'copy' a soul.
People aren't created, they're born. And once a soul exists, in a human body, or a prosthetic one, you can't just copy it. Its not just raw data... there's some element to it, we don't understand.
But a soul can't be copied. That's why the Opera Eight kidnapped 538 people, and created 538 Rumba's. No more, no less.
If they could really copy one consciousness hundreds to times, they wouldn't need to keep kidnapping more and more folk. But they did."
Barker sighed, looking at Gamma:
"So no. You're not a copy. You're not a clever A.I. You're not a... vacuum cleaner." The admission seemed to be taking a toll on the merc, as indicated by his sour expression, but he pressed on:
"You were born. You had parents. You had a name and a human body, once. And so did Epsilon.
Before you were kidnapped and shoved into prosthetic shells. That Red Devil fuck was trying to mess with your head, to cripple your mind. It was the last card he had."
Gamma's instant messenger app suddenly went live and a new message popped up, signed by Roksana's avatar. It read:
Roksana: Hey
Roksana: I found something on the enemy servers
Roksana: Looks like the Red Devil used this picture to fuck with your head
Roksana: But that's all he had. There's no more info on this on their servers
Roksana: Thought you should have a look
There was a file attached. When you opened it, a digitally scanned picture came up, of a newspaper dating 45 years ago, of the year 2023, Post Impact. The file showed the newspapers front page, but the page was ripped up and missing a large bottom piece. Only its upper heading survived, and the picture underneath.
The picture showed that little 9 year old girl in a white dress, holding a balloon. But the girl wasn't alone, like what the Krasnyi Bess showed you. The enemy hacker had zoomed in on the image, and only showed you a small portion of it.
Now that you had the full picture, you saw the girl wasn't alone at all. There were three.
Completely identical, with the same exact facial features and freckles and dresses. Three identical looking girls stood in the picture, with their parents on both sides, the parents faces just out of the frame.
The heading above the picture read:
TWO CHILDREN STILL MISSING. FAMILY DEVASTATED.
The newspaper continued to detail the horrible case of missing persons from 45 years ago, but it was ripped and missing the whole lower section, and didn't show the children's names or last names.
Roksana: You're not twins.
Roksana: You're triplets.
Roksana's messages fell on you like a wrecking ball.
Roksana: Gamma and Epsilon.
Roksana: You have a 3rd sister, somewhere. One that was never turned into a robot.
Roksana: Thought you should know.
Slasher wrote:"Yooo wait for real?!" She suddenly sits up, listening intently to barker, "that sounds dope as fuck!" she exclaims her eyes widening in awe at the prospect, "Horror murder drug! Humanity truly pushed past its limits! Even bullets cant stop the feral mind unless you blast it out!"
"Okay, great..." Barker looked away sighing and mumbled under his nose "another lunatic.."
Slasher wrote:"Their gonna gas us..." she says far too calm as she adjusts herself to crouch over the vent, "Anybody got any tape? I'll tape em' closed?" her eyes narrow at the vent before she gets a wry smile, "gas... coming through the vents..." she calmly places her hand in the center of the vent.
Slasher casts wind explosion.
Barker shrugged at the mention of tape, slightly raising his hands up. As you closed distance to the vent, your Data-pad suddenly flashed red, indicating that a harmful chemical compound was detected in close proximity, namely - CO gas, Carbon monoxide. Colorless, tasteless and odorless. And extremely lethal.
Inhale enough of it, fall unconscious and you may not wake up again. The gas prevented oxygen from being distributed inside the body, the victim will literally suffocate without understanding what happened.
Concentrating and trying to imagine the molecules of oxygen in the air, you put your palms together. Your entire body light up for a moment with a teal ghostly light, as you accumulated your energy inside your core, and then let it loose in a violent explosion.
A hard burst of air exploded outward, as you thrust both hands at the vent. Its metal cover bent immediately and was violently blown off its hinges, banging and clattering down the ventilation tunnel. The hissing stopped and you felt a brief vacuum of air, as whatever was being pumped into the lobby, was momentarily and violently blown back into the ventilation system.
You heard a distant, dull explosion somewhere, below your feet, then you suddenly had to jerk way back and off to the side, as the ventilation cover you blasted into the floor, impossibly flew right back out and almost hit you in the face, as it was sucked right into the ceiling above you, and you once again had you remind yourself that your perspective was reversed by the gravity spell.
The ventilation cover clattered loudly across the ceiling, almost hitting Barker on its way up, making the merc swear in his native tongue and jog a couple meters away at a semi-lazy pace. Seeing him run across the ceiling was rather amusing however.
Your Data-pad pinged, indicating your blood glucose dropped to 110 mg/dL
//Soundtrack
Gamma wrote:"Fuck off and die you un-pure Rumba reject" Gamma's last push is with everything she has.
The ribbons of green light began dancing frantically around your body, overlapping and turning into a blur, as the pixelated dragon screamed in increasing anguish. His firewall was elusive, alive and fluctuating like the sea. Each time you found or punched a hole in its surface, the dragon immediately closed it again. But his efforts were growing more frantic and desperate with each attempt. His reaction time was slowing down, perhaps because he had to keep an eye on Roksana, who was ramming his firewall with the grace of a forklift.
He couldn't keep this up forever. Even if you were evenly matched, he was outnumbered. Roksana unleashed another unhinged and graceless attack. The dragon focused on her, for a nano-second too long. You blew past his firewall and came face to face with the digital core of Krasnyi Bess. His Plume of Dusk.
"N̴̨̦̜͖̠̤͙̭̍́̉͝͝O̵̧̘̹̼͇̹̗̭̼͋!̷̧̨͚̣̪͖̹̪̈̀̈́̀̊̎͌͋̕͜͜" the distorted voice screeched, echoing across the entire building at once, from the intercoms, radios and TV screens everywhere.
"Ī̵̛̙̬̭͠f̴̧̠̟͗͐̅ ̶͍̖͑ͅI̵̘̩͗̒̕'̶̡̭̝̈́̍m̶̻̚ ̵̢̭̀̄̈́g̸̳̯̾̽o̴̳̫͌̈̑i̶͈̽̏̚n̷̛̘̂͝ǧ̵̡̡̘̆ ̵̤̈́̄͘d̵̙̕o̸̝͎̥͑̾͑w̶̠̣͌̇n̶̜̣͑̊,̵̯̑́ ̷͚̞̐͌I̸̡̳͂̌'̶̲̳͝͝m̸̢̻̈ ̵͎̂t̶̢̙͛̕a̴̞̗͝k̶͇̗̄i̷̗̎͝͝n̴̼͂̀͠g̸̻̿ ̴̠͗͝y̸̤̯̍o̴̩͆̅͌ȕ̶͚̙ ̴̙̌w̷̧̰͍̎̃̊ǐ̵̪̩ṫ̸̤̜̠h̸̪̻̘̄ ̵͇̥̳͊̎m̸̝̻̄̈́̅ę̴̩͓̂̋̃!̶̫̒!̴̢̛̬̮̌͠!̷̤̝̊͘"
You suddenly found the exact coordinates of the enemy Rumba, his prosthetic body was laying in a surgical chair in a poorly lit office room, two floors underground. Red lights flashed across the desks and glass dividers between cubicles, casting frightening shadows and reflecting off the grim faces of 14 heavily armed security operatives. Chromed up to the breaking point and holding armor piercing assault rifles and shotguns, they had barricaded themselves inside, watching the entrance door with all barrels trained at it, while three more sat by the surgical table.
You realized you subconsciously accessed a camera feed and was now watching it in real time. You saw the three agents by the surgical desk, poking and prodding at a blue crystal chip on the table, with precision instruments and blue surgical gloves, and a complicated algorithm ran its code on a laptop nearby, connected to the blue chip.
Even a casual glance at the laptop, told you they have failed to crack Epsilon's data-banks. The Red Devil was lying. From what you could see, the operatives were still trying to copy and decipher the data stored on Epsilon's Plume of Dusk.
Just when you thought to nip their attempts in the bud, you felt a virtual presence brush past you.
Roksana had blown past the firewall and entered the system as well.
Her presence felt different, distorted somehow. Emotions translated poorly into the digital space, but you could tell something was very wrong with her. With a flick of her virtual hand, the laptop glitched out and caught fire, its hard-drive melting and erasing whatever data they managed to copy so far.
The next nano-second, she shut down their internet, preventing any signals escaping outside the building.
Your gaze fell on the motionless prosthetic body of Krasnyi Bess and he screamed, breaking into convulsions, as you identified the virtual representation of the Plume of Dusk in his body, wrapped your digital fingers around it and squeezed.
The cybernetic eyes of Krasnyi Bess exploded inside-out, releasing plumes of searing flame from inside his titanium skull. His mouth opened agape, as sparks and blue flame burst out, filling the office below in distorted gargling. His metal body convulsed uncontrollably, as if he suffered an epileptic attack. He began clawing at his own face, ripping apart his synthetic skin to reveal the robot shell underneath. It looked like he tried to split his own face open, to rip out his Plume of Dusk out of his skull.
It was futile.
The Rumba's head exploded from the inside, the explosion contained by the titanium skull. Blasts of flame gushed out of his eyes and mouth, before the husk burned itself out and fell motionless on the operating table, its synthetic skin and clothing still burning.
The cybernetic body continued to fizzle and burn on the operating table, as the enemy agents took a silent moment to appreciate the implications of what just transpired. So did you.
You had access to everything now. Every security camera, microphone and surveillance device in the building. Every drone, turret, death-trap and door. You had access to every computer and server now. All, except one.
A lone server stood locked inside its own network, in a large office two floors below. The same office the agents had settled and barricaded. It housed the information you needed. It must have. No other computer in the building had even a passing mention of a file named 'Opera Football', the file you needed to steal.
It must be down there, in that isolated server, two floors below.
You blinked and shelved that information for later, to focus on more pressing matters.
It took you a nano-second to utilize every surveillance device in the building, to accurately tell there were a total of 47 people in the building, dispersed throughout all its 10 floors.
A total of 16 minigun turrets and 5 more flamethrower ones, concealed inside floor tiles, walls or ceilings, sitting in strategic locations around the building.
2 murder bots had just been deployed outside the building. 2 more were being prepped on the roof. 2 more in the armory on sub-level -1. The same armory that also housed 6 more flying drones, each equipped with a rifle. And you also identified a killer flying drone, a large one, resembling a small plane, that circled the building some 5,000 feet in the air and was equipped with 8 missiles.
The agents in the server room must have began to suspect the inevitable and one of them shot out the camera you used to spy on them.
The very next second, you heard, or rather, 'felt', Roksana's unhinged laugh, as she stared at the same information you did. She had gained access to all this as well, and something in her laugh unsettled you greatly.
Geoff wrote:Cut off from the car he'd hotwired, Geoff lunges for the singed corpse of the agent with the body armour under his skin, hoping to use him as a human shield to defend against the robots attack.
The body was still aflame and it was extremely painful to hit the floor beside it. You braced against the pain, as the murder-bots lifted their miniguns, put you in their crosshairs and their barrels spun up.
Inferno wrote:He took a breath, and his hairs were billowing, somehow. His skin began to darken, as if burned, and his hairs became actually aflame, having a hue of red and blue. His stealth suit began to suffer the effect of the heat, and the temperature around him rose.
He has become Nirik.
Once completed, he grinned. "Let me feel more alive..."
"Holy shit!" Matej jerked away from you, as you began emitting a palpable wave of fire and heat. The temperature rose around you rapidly by several degrees and you heard your stealth suit emitting eerie crackling and tearing noises in several places, but it didn't stop the murder-bots from spinning their guns.
You braced for the merciless hail of led, but it never came.
Their miniguns spun down and stopped, the robots exited their battle stance and straightened up, lowering their weapons and entering what looked like a stand-by mode. And then you heard it.
Roksana's hysterical cackle.
The woman was still sitting on the floor, a strange oily liquid dripping down from her closed eyes, impossibly reminding you of blood. She was holding the side of her head, unable to contain her unhinged laugh, as green ribbons of light danced around her.
She raised her hand slowly, and, as if in response, the murder-bots stirred and began marching into the hall, right, at, you. Matej jerked out of the way, but the bots ignored him.
With another wave of Roksana's hand, both blast doors came into motion and slowly began sliding back into the ceiling, revealing the lobby beyond.
Contrary to the camera footage the enemy Rumba had shown you, your team mates were very much alive. Matej had sworn loudly, as the implications sunk in. Perhaps due to stress, or lack of attention, you didn't notice the footage was fake. Or, more alarmingly, perhaps the fake videos attention to detail was so high, it was extremely difficult to spot, especially under pressure.
"...battles between hackers and like battles of demi-gods.." Barker grimly said, watching the murder bots shuffle about "...they process and compile information, at speeds beyond our comprehension. And when they're evenly matched, sometimes the only way to take out an enemy hacker, is to play on their already shaky mental state.
All Rumba's are affected by various mental disorders and illnesses as a rule, for no human soul can fully accept being shoved into a prosthetic body. That's why, for one Rumba, to play on the emotions and disorders of other Rumbas like him, is the easiest target."
He looked toward Gamma, still standing by the flat screen TV she plugged next to, a few moments ago:
"...you did good, kid. Did you remember, that Plume's of Dusk can't be copied? Or did you just work on a hunch?" The merc sighed, taking a firmer hold of his rifle, as he pointed it down, letting it rest on its strap:
"I'm not a religious man but a human soul is... unique... call it science or magic or whatever. You can't create an artificial human. You can't create a true A.I. You can't 'create' or 'copy' a soul.
People aren't created, they're born. And once a soul exists, in a human body, or a prosthetic one, you can't just copy it. Its not just raw data... there's some element to it, we don't understand.
But a soul can't be copied. That's why the Opera Eight kidnapped 538 people, and created 538 Rumba's. No more, no less.
If they could really copy one consciousness hundreds to times, they wouldn't need to keep kidnapping more and more folk. But they did."
Barker sighed, looking at Gamma:
"So no. You're not a copy. You're not a clever A.I. You're not a... vacuum cleaner." The admission seemed to be taking a toll on the merc, as indicated by his sour expression, but he pressed on:
"You were born. You had parents. You had a name and a human body, once. And so did Epsilon.
Before you were kidnapped and shoved into prosthetic shells. That Red Devil fuck was trying to mess with your head, to cripple your mind. It was the last card he had."
Gamma's instant messenger app suddenly went live and a new message popped up, signed by Roksana's avatar. It read:
Roksana: Hey
Roksana: I found something on the enemy servers
Roksana: Looks like the Red Devil used this picture to fuck with your head
Roksana: But that's all he had. There's no more info on this on their servers
Roksana: Thought you should have a look
There was a file attached. When you opened it, a digitally scanned picture came up, of a newspaper dating 45 years ago, of the year 2023, Post Impact. The file showed the newspapers front page, but the page was ripped up and missing a large bottom piece. Only its upper heading survived, and the picture underneath.
The picture showed that little 9 year old girl in a white dress, holding a balloon. But the girl wasn't alone, like what the Krasnyi Bess showed you. The enemy hacker had zoomed in on the image, and only showed you a small portion of it.
Now that you had the full picture, you saw the girl wasn't alone at all. There were three.
Completely identical, with the same exact facial features and freckles and dresses. Three identical looking girls stood in the picture, with their parents on both sides, the parents faces just out of the frame.
The heading above the picture read:
TWO CHILDREN STILL MISSING. FAMILY DEVASTATED.
The newspaper continued to detail the horrible case of missing persons from 45 years ago, but it was ripped and missing the whole lower section, and didn't show the children's names or last names.
Roksana: You're not twins.
Roksana: You're triplets.
Roksana's messages fell on you like a wrecking ball.
Roksana: Gamma and Epsilon.
Roksana: You have a 3rd sister, somewhere. One that was never turned into a robot.
Roksana: Thought you should know.
184 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Sun 4 Aug - 2:11
Some Sinner
The deer listens and takes pleasure in the distant boom as all gases in the vent are violently ejected from whence they came. She hears the clanging coming back though and takes a few quick steps back before the vent cover rockets back out of the shaft, "Heh... It was a good idea on their part i'll give it to em'." she says with a smirk.
Slashers keen pray animal ears perk as she really makes sure the hissing is gone before letting out a worryingly guttural burp. You swear you very nearly heard her vomit as she covers her mouth, the sound echoing throughout the lobby. In the silence afterwards she clears her throat, "Sorry... I can literally feel myself getting more nauseous as my glucose goes down." she takes a deep inhale, trying to curb the roiling in her stomach, "being up here... isn't helping."
her eyes suddenly flick to the opening door and she cracks a wide friendly smile at their emerging teammates, "Oh, em, gee! Whats up bitches! welcome to the party!" she waves excitedly from her position on the ceiling. Her eyes follow the robots as they stomp their way in, "Ooooo!~ new toys! Set them up in the blind spots at the entry way!" she points to both sides of the lobby's entrance where the room suddenly opens up from the corridor, "I dont think we're gonna steal the shit in time before the 'whatchamacallit' squad gets here so we should plan ahead and choke them here!" She smiles wide, "The big bad squad comes through this entrance their gonna be ambushed and stuffed into a tight corridor under a hail of minigun mayhem!" she says 'minigun mayhem' like its an add for a monster truck rally, "...and we should be Balls deep in the facility by then! so while their hopefully distracted with the new tech, we escape home free!"
Slasher investigates the robots. How tall are they? were they tall enough to lessen the impact of her fall when she switches gravity again?
Slashers keen pray animal ears perk as she really makes sure the hissing is gone before letting out a worryingly guttural burp. You swear you very nearly heard her vomit as she covers her mouth, the sound echoing throughout the lobby. In the silence afterwards she clears her throat, "Sorry... I can literally feel myself getting more nauseous as my glucose goes down." she takes a deep inhale, trying to curb the roiling in her stomach, "being up here... isn't helping."
her eyes suddenly flick to the opening door and she cracks a wide friendly smile at their emerging teammates, "Oh, em, gee! Whats up bitches! welcome to the party!" she waves excitedly from her position on the ceiling. Her eyes follow the robots as they stomp their way in, "Ooooo!~ new toys! Set them up in the blind spots at the entry way!" she points to both sides of the lobby's entrance where the room suddenly opens up from the corridor, "I dont think we're gonna steal the shit in time before the 'whatchamacallit' squad gets here so we should plan ahead and choke them here!" She smiles wide, "The big bad squad comes through this entrance their gonna be ambushed and stuffed into a tight corridor under a hail of minigun mayhem!" she says 'minigun mayhem' like its an add for a monster truck rally, "...and we should be Balls deep in the facility by then! so while their hopefully distracted with the new tech, we escape home free!"
Slasher investigates the robots. How tall are they? were they tall enough to lessen the impact of her fall when she switches gravity again?
185 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Sun 4 Aug - 11:37
Rogue Fire
When the rain of lead does not appear, Geoff pokes his head up over the still-burning body he was hiding behind.
186 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Tue 6 Aug - 18:14
Gamma and Epsilon
Gamma quickly creates a virus and leaves it within the system. At a simple command from her datapad or after 30 minutes the system will overload. She then disconnects and heads down the stairs. First to grab Epsilon and second to locate the mission objective.
She seems to ignore the comments made from both Baker and Roksana.
She seems to ignore the comments made from both Baker and Roksana.
187 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Tue 6 Aug - 20:47
Disgruntled purple
"Rrrrrgh..." Inferno seemed nettled by the loss of opponents.
He flexes. "I'm not letting this high go to waste! To battle! Step to the front!"
He flexes. "I'm not letting this high go to waste! To battle! Step to the front!"
188 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 17:16
Kaylee Brown
Admin
The hissing was a lot quieter now that Slasher had blown in the ventilation cover, and once the blast door began to open, the hissing all across the lobby stopped entirely. In fact you felt the air get cycled out of the room, and felt fresh air being pumped from the street outside.
Barker looked up at the deer with an incredibly sour and annoyed expression, as she burped loud enough to wake the dead: "Gee, Slasher, I thought you were stopping a bio-chemical attack, not causing a new one." He wiped the sweat from her face with a stealth-suit glove "How'd you even get up there??"
The murder bots that marched in were extremely bulky and tall, their flat armored heads towered at least 2.5 meters above ground, which only left some 2.5 meters more for Slasher to jump down from, if she canceled the gravity spell and tried landing on one, which, didn't seem too difficult at first glance. The robots didn't stop to wait for you though, and simply continued to march down the lobby, into the center of the building, moving very, very slowly. It seems all that armor and minigun ammo made them incredibly heavy.
"Mhaaahahahaha..... Hahahahahahaha!!!!" A quiet, manic laugh echoed across the lobby, and your eyes became drawn to Roksana. The woman 'stared' into space with her eyes closed, as an increasingly eerie and unhinged expression pained her face:
"M-my-....ahahahhaha.... m-men..... hahahahaha!.... weren't........ USELEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!" Her manic laughter became near deafening. You couldn't understand why it was echoing at you from all directions, until you realized it was being broadcast across every speaker, phone and TV screen across the building.
And one other sound was added to that unhinged laugh. Sounds of distant gunfire, sounds of flame, of explosions and dying screams. They echoed across the entire structure like the shrieks from hell and Gamma noticed life signs across the office complex begin to wink out, one by one, then by the dozen.
Every drone was activated, every murder-bot, trap, turret and flying killer drone had come online all at once, beginning to hunt down and mercilessly slaughtering every living thing in the building. The camera footage showed office clerks getting eviscerated by minigun bursts, shelves with paper stacks stained by sprays of blood, fields agents burned alive, their burning husks running down the corridors before collapsing, flying drones sniping people halfway down the halls above. Every single life was being exterminated.
They all seemed to release one collective scream, before the entire building was silenced.
You realized Roksana's laugh had faded away, the woman was leaning heavily against the wall in the entrance corridor, silently sobbing with a bitter smile across her face.
Both Barker and Matej stared at her, sickly pale and visceral fear reflected behind their eyes.
As far the buildings sensors could reveal to Gamma, all 47 people inside the building were dead. Except, perhaps, for the 9 cyber squad agents who barricaded themselves inside the server room, two floors below. They shot out the cameras in the room, as soon as Krasnyi Bess died, and several drones who tried to enter, reported a 'Lost signal', before the thermal sensor inside the sever room was destroyed, and all data about life signs inside was lost.
"...ETA... 8 minutes..." Shi-Tong's voice impartially said in your ear.
"Rok-" Matej began but the woman cut him off, her voice echoing inside your earpiece without her lips even moving:
"The military response team will be inserting via aerial drop from 4 cargo helicopters. I will leave a little surprise for them on the roof." her head faintly turned in your direction "Go. Get the intel, get the explosives from the armory and rig the building to blow. Then extract through the sewer hatch we found earlier.
I'll be the last one out, I'll get the lights."
As far as Gamma could tell, Roksana had muscles her way into the network and took full control of it. You could theoretically try to take back control for yourself, to get control of some of the systems, but you're not sure how Roksana would react to it at this point. The woman didn't seem like herself anymore. So far, she didn't seem to mind you setting the network to overload itself in 30 minutes.
Getting Krys somehow back on his feet, Barker violently shook the mage, slapped him across the shoulder, then began falling in toward the door to the staircase.
"Hey you know what gets me?" Matej said, without waiting for a reply "Before the enemy hacker died, I think he said something about... taking us down with him, if he had to die... what do you think he m-"
The central TV screen in the lobby suddenly went live again, displaying some local news network, where the anchor was droning on about a movie festival with the enthusiasm of a spoiled kumquat, before he suddenly froze mid-sentence and placed his hand to his ear. His expression changed drastically and he looked straight at you from the flat-screen TV:
"-Uh... breaking news at this hour from Sakamundu. A paramilitary group calling itself 'The Schwarzesmarken' has laid siege on a government building just moments ago, with the apparent goal of compromising the countries national interests. The military is scrambling a rapid response team and all civilians are instructed to stay in doors until further notice."
Krys who tried to stick a cigarette in his mouth and light it with a snap of his fingers, stared with his mouth falling open, letting the cigarette fall from his mouth to the floor.
"Security footage captured these images from the attack, some of them have already been identified. If you see these individuals, do not attempt approach and notify this hotline immediately."
A phone number appeared at the bottom of the screen, while the top was filled with various pictures, of you. Some grainy, others as clear as day. Some only portraying an invisible silhouette accented by rain, others showed clear pictures of close up of faces.
But every member of the group was shown, in some fashion, with your codename displayed underneath. Not much new information was shown to you there, you already learned a bit about everyone's background.
The only new thing you noticed, was Roksana's profile. Instead of showing her as she was now, a woman in a robot body, the picture shown on the TV screen was that of her, as a human. Blond wavy hair and green piercing eyes stared at you from the screen, a horrible scar running down her left eye, forehead and cheek.
She was wearing some sort of camouflaged green military uniform, with a striped tank top underneath, that had blue and white lines and a blue beret atop her head. The name underneath read:
Captain Roksana Lavrova
Verrian SpetsNaz Airborne Division.
Declared K.I.A. during Nyx liberation war of 2065, that's 3 years ago.
What followed the broadcast, was probably the most creative, expletive collection of swears you've heard in a long time, as Shi-Tong began swearing at you at the top of his lungs, shrieking right into your earpiece. To say he was pissed, would be a severe understatement.
Barker narrowed his eyes at Matej and shook his head at the batpony, who sheepishly stared back:
"You just had to open your mouth..." Barker sighed.
"WHAT PART OF A 'COVERT OPERATION' DID YOU FAIL TO GRASP!!!" Shi-Tong finally screeched, after he'd ran out of breath and inhaled again
"...Boss, listen-" Barker began, clearly uncomfortable but Shi-Tong cut him off:
"Get the intel... kill Adrian Keener... and get THE FUCK, OUT OF THERE!!!" His transmission abruptly cut off.
"...well that could have gone worse...?" Barker shrugged, trying to mask his anxiety with a smile.
Roksana gloomily unpeeled herself from the wall and staggered in the direction of the staircase. If she seemed rattled before, now she looked like a walking corpse.
"Unbelievable," Matej sent his hand through his hair, biting his lower lip "That hacker bastard leaked everything he compiled on us, to the press. Even the name of our tasks force. If people start digging, it may come back to Shi-Tong and his real identity-"
"Forget that asshole, he's not on the ground with us!" Roksana called with uncharacteristic steel "Focus on the objective."
Falling into formation, you kicked the door in and descended the staircase. The emergency lights were on, flashing red and periodically plunging the staircase in darkness. You scanned your corners, keeping your rifles raised, and trying to glean anything in the darkness. So far, you've only seen corpses.
Agents in bullet proof vests under black business suits and regular clerks laid sprawled under your feet, the walls next to them painted red and pockmarked with bullet holes. A lone flying drone whizzed passed you somewhere, heading from the ground floor, up, somewhere, toward the roof some 10 floors above. The two minigun wielding murder-bots got left behind, they simply couldn't keep up with you, if they wanted, their stubby feet too slow and cumbersome to run.
Finally, you stepped onto the bottom most floor, sub-level minus 2. Peering out you saw a juncture of hallways, leading in all four directions. You saw signs above each corridor:
Armory,
Medical,
Barracks,
Sever room,
You could see the door to the server room hanging off its hinges, half open, its surface looked bullet proof and sported a long line of bullet holes that failed to penetrate its surface. There was no light inside that room and the entire floor felt deathly silent. You couldn't see anything behind that door, except pitch black darkness.
You only knew that both Epsilon and the sever housing your intel, was there.
Barker looked up at the deer with an incredibly sour and annoyed expression, as she burped loud enough to wake the dead: "Gee, Slasher, I thought you were stopping a bio-chemical attack, not causing a new one." He wiped the sweat from her face with a stealth-suit glove "How'd you even get up there??"
The murder bots that marched in were extremely bulky and tall, their flat armored heads towered at least 2.5 meters above ground, which only left some 2.5 meters more for Slasher to jump down from, if she canceled the gravity spell and tried landing on one, which, didn't seem too difficult at first glance. The robots didn't stop to wait for you though, and simply continued to march down the lobby, into the center of the building, moving very, very slowly. It seems all that armor and minigun ammo made them incredibly heavy.
Slasher wrote:"The big bad squad comes through this entrance their gonna be ambushed and stuffed into a tight corridor under a hail of minigun mayhem!" she says 'minigun mayhem' like its an add for a monster truck rally,
"Mhaaahahahaha..... Hahahahahahaha!!!!" A quiet, manic laugh echoed across the lobby, and your eyes became drawn to Roksana. The woman 'stared' into space with her eyes closed, as an increasingly eerie and unhinged expression pained her face:
"M-my-....ahahahhaha.... m-men..... hahahahaha!.... weren't........ USELEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!" Her manic laughter became near deafening. You couldn't understand why it was echoing at you from all directions, until you realized it was being broadcast across every speaker, phone and TV screen across the building.
And one other sound was added to that unhinged laugh. Sounds of distant gunfire, sounds of flame, of explosions and dying screams. They echoed across the entire structure like the shrieks from hell and Gamma noticed life signs across the office complex begin to wink out, one by one, then by the dozen.
Every drone was activated, every murder-bot, trap, turret and flying killer drone had come online all at once, beginning to hunt down and mercilessly slaughtering every living thing in the building. The camera footage showed office clerks getting eviscerated by minigun bursts, shelves with paper stacks stained by sprays of blood, fields agents burned alive, their burning husks running down the corridors before collapsing, flying drones sniping people halfway down the halls above. Every single life was being exterminated.
They all seemed to release one collective scream, before the entire building was silenced.
You realized Roksana's laugh had faded away, the woman was leaning heavily against the wall in the entrance corridor, silently sobbing with a bitter smile across her face.
Both Barker and Matej stared at her, sickly pale and visceral fear reflected behind their eyes.
As far the buildings sensors could reveal to Gamma, all 47 people inside the building were dead. Except, perhaps, for the 9 cyber squad agents who barricaded themselves inside the server room, two floors below. They shot out the cameras in the room, as soon as Krasnyi Bess died, and several drones who tried to enter, reported a 'Lost signal', before the thermal sensor inside the sever room was destroyed, and all data about life signs inside was lost.
"...ETA... 8 minutes..." Shi-Tong's voice impartially said in your ear.
"Rok-" Matej began but the woman cut him off, her voice echoing inside your earpiece without her lips even moving:
"The military response team will be inserting via aerial drop from 4 cargo helicopters. I will leave a little surprise for them on the roof." her head faintly turned in your direction "Go. Get the intel, get the explosives from the armory and rig the building to blow. Then extract through the sewer hatch we found earlier.
I'll be the last one out, I'll get the lights."
As far as Gamma could tell, Roksana had muscles her way into the network and took full control of it. You could theoretically try to take back control for yourself, to get control of some of the systems, but you're not sure how Roksana would react to it at this point. The woman didn't seem like herself anymore. So far, she didn't seem to mind you setting the network to overload itself in 30 minutes.
Getting Krys somehow back on his feet, Barker violently shook the mage, slapped him across the shoulder, then began falling in toward the door to the staircase.
"Hey you know what gets me?" Matej said, without waiting for a reply "Before the enemy hacker died, I think he said something about... taking us down with him, if he had to die... what do you think he m-"
The central TV screen in the lobby suddenly went live again, displaying some local news network, where the anchor was droning on about a movie festival with the enthusiasm of a spoiled kumquat, before he suddenly froze mid-sentence and placed his hand to his ear. His expression changed drastically and he looked straight at you from the flat-screen TV:
"-Uh... breaking news at this hour from Sakamundu. A paramilitary group calling itself 'The Schwarzesmarken' has laid siege on a government building just moments ago, with the apparent goal of compromising the countries national interests. The military is scrambling a rapid response team and all civilians are instructed to stay in doors until further notice."
Krys who tried to stick a cigarette in his mouth and light it with a snap of his fingers, stared with his mouth falling open, letting the cigarette fall from his mouth to the floor.
"Security footage captured these images from the attack, some of them have already been identified. If you see these individuals, do not attempt approach and notify this hotline immediately."
A phone number appeared at the bottom of the screen, while the top was filled with various pictures, of you. Some grainy, others as clear as day. Some only portraying an invisible silhouette accented by rain, others showed clear pictures of close up of faces.
But every member of the group was shown, in some fashion, with your codename displayed underneath. Not much new information was shown to you there, you already learned a bit about everyone's background.
The only new thing you noticed, was Roksana's profile. Instead of showing her as she was now, a woman in a robot body, the picture shown on the TV screen was that of her, as a human. Blond wavy hair and green piercing eyes stared at you from the screen, a horrible scar running down her left eye, forehead and cheek.
She was wearing some sort of camouflaged green military uniform, with a striped tank top underneath, that had blue and white lines and a blue beret atop her head. The name underneath read:
Captain Roksana Lavrova
Verrian SpetsNaz Airborne Division.
Declared K.I.A. during Nyx liberation war of 2065, that's 3 years ago.
What followed the broadcast, was probably the most creative, expletive collection of swears you've heard in a long time, as Shi-Tong began swearing at you at the top of his lungs, shrieking right into your earpiece. To say he was pissed, would be a severe understatement.
Barker narrowed his eyes at Matej and shook his head at the batpony, who sheepishly stared back:
"You just had to open your mouth..." Barker sighed.
"WHAT PART OF A 'COVERT OPERATION' DID YOU FAIL TO GRASP!!!" Shi-Tong finally screeched, after he'd ran out of breath and inhaled again
"...Boss, listen-" Barker began, clearly uncomfortable but Shi-Tong cut him off:
"Get the intel... kill Adrian Keener... and get THE FUCK, OUT OF THERE!!!" His transmission abruptly cut off.
"...well that could have gone worse...?" Barker shrugged, trying to mask his anxiety with a smile.
Roksana gloomily unpeeled herself from the wall and staggered in the direction of the staircase. If she seemed rattled before, now she looked like a walking corpse.
"Unbelievable," Matej sent his hand through his hair, biting his lower lip "That hacker bastard leaked everything he compiled on us, to the press. Even the name of our tasks force. If people start digging, it may come back to Shi-Tong and his real identity-"
"Forget that asshole, he's not on the ground with us!" Roksana called with uncharacteristic steel "Focus on the objective."
Falling into formation, you kicked the door in and descended the staircase. The emergency lights were on, flashing red and periodically plunging the staircase in darkness. You scanned your corners, keeping your rifles raised, and trying to glean anything in the darkness. So far, you've only seen corpses.
Agents in bullet proof vests under black business suits and regular clerks laid sprawled under your feet, the walls next to them painted red and pockmarked with bullet holes. A lone flying drone whizzed passed you somewhere, heading from the ground floor, up, somewhere, toward the roof some 10 floors above. The two minigun wielding murder-bots got left behind, they simply couldn't keep up with you, if they wanted, their stubby feet too slow and cumbersome to run.
Finally, you stepped onto the bottom most floor, sub-level minus 2. Peering out you saw a juncture of hallways, leading in all four directions. You saw signs above each corridor:
Armory,
Medical,
Barracks,
Sever room,
You could see the door to the server room hanging off its hinges, half open, its surface looked bullet proof and sported a long line of bullet holes that failed to penetrate its surface. There was no light inside that room and the entire floor felt deathly silent. You couldn't see anything behind that door, except pitch black darkness.
You only knew that both Epsilon and the sever housing your intel, was there.
189 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 19:14
Rogue Fire
Geoff cautiously approaches the door to the server room, sticking close to the wall. He fishes a coin out of his pocket, and chucks it through the door, to test if there is anyone in there.
190 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 20:18
Gamma and Epsilon
Gamma waits for Geoff to do the thing with the coin and for what the outcome might be. She grips the UMP45. Ready to fire it in an instant.
191 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 20:26
Kaylee Brown
Admin
The coin clatters across the floor, incredibly loud in this still silence. Not a split second passed before at least 70 rounds were fired from at least 5 different directions, obliterating the coin and creating a crater both in the floor and the wall behind it. Several rounds hit the half-open door, making it bang on its hinges, flying back and forth and almost smacking Geoff across the face, only his reflexes made him jump in time to avoid it.
"Laikykis ugnies! Laikykis ugnies!" Someone barked and the shooting inside the server room slowed down to a trickle, before dying down.
"Šūdas..." someone spat, as if cursing.
The ringing in your ears continued for several seconds more, induced by frantic gunfire earlier, before you realized the entire floor had gone completely silent again. Another moment ticked by and you thought you heard the telltale echo of at least 2 people reloading their weapons, the sound so faint you barely picked it up.
"Laikykis ugnies! Laikykis ugnies!" Someone barked and the shooting inside the server room slowed down to a trickle, before dying down.
"Šūdas..." someone spat, as if cursing.
The ringing in your ears continued for several seconds more, induced by frantic gunfire earlier, before you realized the entire floor had gone completely silent again. Another moment ticked by and you thought you heard the telltale echo of at least 2 people reloading their weapons, the sound so faint you barely picked it up.
192 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 22:16
Some Sinner
The deer smiles at barker, "im a deer silly! Deer usually have antlers! I just reversed gravity with some epic magics!" she lines herself up with one of the robots before dispelling reverse gravity and flipping down onto the shoulders. jumping to one of their arms, and then to the ground, raising her arms out like a gymnast "Ha-ha!" she gloats with a smirk before turning tail and taking off after gamma and Geoff.
Slasher parks herself behind Gamma. She sets a hand on her shoulder a moment as she trys to judge the easiest target to hit through the gunfire.
She smirks as she hears the sound of weapons reloading. Her fingers breach cover and she draws a horizontal line across the room blindly at about chest level.
Slasher casts wind slash.
Slasher parks herself behind Gamma. She sets a hand on her shoulder a moment as she trys to judge the easiest target to hit through the gunfire.
She smirks as she hears the sound of weapons reloading. Her fingers breach cover and she draws a horizontal line across the room blindly at about chest level.
Slasher casts wind slash.
193 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Thu 8 Aug - 22:47
Gamma and Epsilon
Gamma holster's the gun and extends the blades in her fingers. She crouches down and waits for the next hail of gunfire and as soon as it ends she sprints in and towards the closest enemy where she she goes for the throat with her claws.
If there is no gunfire she still goes for the same attack plan, just always after the spell.
If there is no gunfire she still goes for the same attack plan, just always after the spell.
194 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Mon 12 Aug - 0:06
Disgruntled purple
Inferno sighs and rolls his eyes at Shi-Tong's rage. "He knew what he was getting into, and he still gets mad."
He picks up the cigarette of the floor, lights it with his beard, and gives it to Krys. "You dropped this."
As the room came up, he readied another fire attack, this one less less intense then the one that scorched the hallway. By his estimations, it should be 15 mg/dL of glucose in power, at least in his current state.
But, that's the thing. The state he's in needs fuel, and what else but what is already used? Nirik form has a cost to be maintained. And the longer it burns, the more glucose he'll lose.
Inferno throws his attack in after Slasher, to give some flames to be fanned by her wind.
He picks up the cigarette of the floor, lights it with his beard, and gives it to Krys. "You dropped this."
As the room came up, he readied another fire attack, this one less less intense then the one that scorched the hallway. By his estimations, it should be 15 mg/dL of glucose in power, at least in his current state.
But, that's the thing. The state he's in needs fuel, and what else but what is already used? Nirik form has a cost to be maintained. And the longer it burns, the more glucose he'll lose.
Inferno throws his attack in after Slasher, to give some flames to be fanned by her wind.
195 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Mon 12 Aug - 13:16
Kaylee Brown
Admin
Slasher wrote: she lines herself up with one of the robots before dispelling reverse gravity and flipping down onto the shoulders. jumping to one of their arms, and then to the ground, raising her arms out like a gymnast "Ha-ha!" she gloats with a smirk
Krys genuinely gasped, staring at you wide eyed with wonder "Are you a Wizard??" His dilated pupils seem to hint that he's high as a kite right now.
Inferno wrote:He picks up the cigarette of the floor, lights it with his beard, and gives it to Krys. "You dropped this."
"Why thank you kindly, good sir! I will name my first child after you!" Krys accepted the cigarette with delight and took a very long drag. Matej grimaced horribly and suppressed an urge to cough, as he passed by:
"...don't let him anywhere near the explosives.." the batpony subtly muttered into the earpiece.
Slasher wrote:She smirks as she hears the sound of weapons reloading. Her fingers breach cover and she draws a horizontal line across the room blindly at about chest level.
Slasher casts wind slash.
Inferno wrote:Inferno throws his attack in after Slasher, to give some flames to be fanned by her wind.
An explosion of wind ripped through the room like a razor sharp blade, incredibly fast, sending a stack of papers scattering all over the place in its wake. You heard the distinct sound of rending flesh and bone, and a guttural scream filled the air, as the echo of intestines spilling and leaking all over the floor reached your senses, before the scream turned into a gargle and a single body slumped onto the blood stained floor.
You heard several other sharp yells, but those were much more reserved and quick. You imagined the others either took cover in time, sustaining superficial injuries, or were wearing bullet proof vests that cushioned the impact. It seems your only victim, had no such protection.
The subsequent fireball hurled into the room grew 3 times its original fist-size, the wind fanning the flames on their way to a metal cabinet, behind which a dark silhouette was clearly taking cover. Thinking your attack had ended, the enemy agent popped out of cover and opened fire. A concentrated burst ricocheted off Slashers metal wrist, knocking it away from the door and almost making the woman trip, as several visible scratches and shallow craters appeared on the back of her cybernetic hand, where the bullets had struck.
Moments later, Inferno's burning projectile expanded and engulfed the enemy agent's head and detonated. A horrid shriek filled the air and did not stop, as the agent fell back behind the cover of the cabinet, clutching his head that was now fully engulfed in flames. The temperatures weren't strong enough to kill him instantly, but you were certain his hair and skin were on fire.
Your Data-pads beeped in alarm, especially Slashers, who's screen had turned red, indicating she had reached her recommended limit, and was advised to refrain from further magic, unless she was prepared to endure the side-effects.
Slasher = 70 mg/dL remaining
Inferno = 104 mg/dL remaining
Being Category 3 mages both, a level 1 spell like Inferno had used, only cost 10 mg/dL, while Slashers level 2 Razon Wind had consumed 40 mg/dL. Subsequent spell-casting should be carefully rationed, lest, a similar fate to what Krys had suffer, would follow.
Gamma wrote: She crouches down and waits for the next hail of gunfire and as soon as it ends she sprints in and towards the closest enemy where she she goes for the throat with her claws.
If there is no gunfire she still goes for the same attack plan, just always after the spell.
Another deafening hail of gunfire shot out of the room, blasting the already damaged door clear off its hinges, sending it flying three meters across the hall, screeching the tiles painfully loud along the way. The gunfire lasted much longer this time and was much more saturated, leading you to believe that, at the very least, 7 people were shooting.
All gunfire stopped abruptly, as if by command. You didn't quite understand why yet, but Gamma used this opportunity to sprint in, her stealth-suit making her completely invisible to the unaided eye, as she closed the distant to a man hiding behind a flipped desk, just to the right of the entrance, and perhaps due to elevated adrenaline, or the cybernetic analogue of it, put a little more force into her slash than she intended.
Rather than opening the man's trachea and carotid arteries, Gamma severed the man's head clean off in one fell swoop, making her subsequent attack against her target, largely chalked up as cadaver abuse.
A massive spray of blood shot right across Gamma's face, covering her eyes, balaclava mask and hood, and she had to remind herself she was no longer in danger of contracting blood-transmitted diseases, as she watched the headless body, dressed in a bullet proof vest and a spotless white buttoned shirt underneath, get drenched red, as the slash of her second hand finally landed, severing the cadavers left arm at the shoulder and sending it flying in another direction.
As the man's head thudded across the floor, leaving behind a bloody trail, you realized you suddenly became very visible, as the entire upper part of your body became soaked red and not a split second later you saw a blue flash in your peripheral vision.
Instinctively raising your left hand to shield your hand you darted behind the nearest cover, another human-sized metal cabinet not far from the entrance, but you attacker still managed to catch you by surprise. As you were leaping into cover, you just managed to hide your head and your center mass from view, but your left arm was still in the line of fire and some glowing blob of goo struck it right at the elbow, almost knocking you off balance by the projectiles momentum.
Scrambling to catch your footing and taking better cover behind the metal cabinet, you looked at your metal arm and saw a horrifying spectacle. Something that looked like a blob of blue glowing plasma had coated your left arm. It was hissing and leaking and emitting sounds, as if it was scorching hot. The screen of your Data-pad, strapped to your left arm, had cracked, its display glitching out then fading to black, as the blue goo began spreading across your arm, flowing down to your wrist, and up to your shoulder.
A horrifying metal sound echoed and your arm snapped in half, whatever was below the elbow had fallen to the floor, the limb continuing to melt there in a bubbling, glowing blue puddle. While more of the blue goo continued to crawl up toward your shoulder, melting circuits and armor, having them drip down to the floor as molten blue drops.
You just barely saw your attacker, before you landed behind the cabinet. A dark silhouette was all you managed to see, but you could have sworn you saw a man with a bushy long tail of a fox, and the tip of his tail was glowing bright blue.
Deafening gunfire resumed, as the enemy tried to pin you down where you stood. Both the side of the cabinet and the doorframe behind it were starting to get shredded hard, as chunks of metal and concrete began raining out of them in every direction.
Then you heard something clattering across the floor and finally understood what that earlier pause in gunfire was for, the enemy was relaying a command and baiting you.
Slasher, Inferno and Geoff, still standing outside the room, by the doorway, were suddenly met with a sight of a grenade bouncing out of the room, and landing not far from their feet. The lighting was pretty bad here and you couldn't make out the markings or type of this grenade, when a second one skidded across the floor, stopping just next to the first one and spinning in place on its axis.
196 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Mon 12 Aug - 14:13
Some Sinner
The deer nods quickly, "Mhmm! Mhmm! Mhmm!" She hums in affirmation to Krys three times.
She lets out a low growls as she watches Gamma push in directly after her attack. She hisses, shaking her head clear of the encroching nausia when she hears two grenades land at their feet.
"Yooo! The way out just landed in front of us!" She says to inferno while taking action at the same time, the side of her foot slides across the floor as she tries to catch both grenades in the curve of her foot and send them skidding back where they came.
Directly after the explosion, this time slasher pushes In pushing up on Gammas attacker surmising the weirdest looking soldier would be the most dangerous.
If she can get close enough before they realize, slasher grabs the center of their tail, yanks it back like a toddler harasses a cat, and cuts it off in... how ever many strokes it takes to remove it. Slasher hacks at it like a tree if she has to.
She lets out a low growls as she watches Gamma push in directly after her attack. She hisses, shaking her head clear of the encroching nausia when she hears two grenades land at their feet.
"Yooo! The way out just landed in front of us!" She says to inferno while taking action at the same time, the side of her foot slides across the floor as she tries to catch both grenades in the curve of her foot and send them skidding back where they came.
Directly after the explosion, this time slasher pushes In pushing up on Gammas attacker surmising the weirdest looking soldier would be the most dangerous.
If she can get close enough before they realize, slasher grabs the center of their tail, yanks it back like a toddler harasses a cat, and cuts it off in... how ever many strokes it takes to remove it. Slasher hacks at it like a tree if she has to.
197 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Mon 12 Aug - 18:56
Rogue Fire
As soon as he spots the grenades skittering across the ground, Geoff immediately leaps back as far as his legs will carry him, hoping to put as much distance between the ordnance and himself as possible before they go off.
198 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Mon 12 Aug - 19:51
Gamma and Epsilon
Gamma pulls her limbs in as tight as she can and waits behind cover.
199 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Tue 13 Aug - 15:53
Kaylee Brown
Admin
"GRENADE!" Barker barked, hurling himself on the floor next to Geoff, while Roksana and Matej ran around the far corner in the corridor junction.
Just barely managing catch both grenades with one leg, Slasher swiped them back as hard as she could muster. You realized just how close you came to death, when the grenades detonated a split second later, only managing to fly up to a meter into the server room. The blast was so devastating that the shockwave sent Slasher flying onto the floor, even through she was largely hidden behind the doorway.
Horrible ringing filled her ears and pieces of small debris rained everywhere, it felt as if someone played basketball with her head.
Gamma fared worse. Being inside the room, the grenades went off just 2 meters away, in her direct line of sight, and there was nothing to hide behind when they exploded. Only her timely attempt to get splayed out on the floor and collect herself into a ball, largely saved her from the shock-wave. Most of the blast was directed up, at a 30 degree angle, and she ended up just under the expanding blast wave.
Her hearing glitched out and her vision turned to static for several precious seconds, before it became slowly coming back, white noise ringing loudly in her ears and her vision filled with patches of black, glitching squares that changed position periodically inside her field of view. Her head felt heavy and it was incredibly difficult to re-orient herself.
Most of the enemy agent had not anticipated the blast originating in such close proximity to them, and even though they had all taken cover behind various cabinets and server shelves, they too seemed largely deafened and rattled.
Picking herself up from the floor and charging in with her heard thumping loudly in her ears, Slasher burst into the room, zeroed in on the fox man and in one fluid motion extended a razor sharp katana out of her hand, grabbed the man's cyber-tail and went to town on it, with the zeal of an experienced butcher.
You quickly realized the tail was full cybernetic and possibly woven and connected right into a cybernetic spine of the agent, which meant hacking it away necessitated severing a reinforced metal joint. The man was so rattled and disoriented, you managed to hack at his tail three times, before he looked at you over his shoulder.
His metal tail was hanging on by a thick metal thread, largely severed, with tiny bits and pieces of blue circuits and microchips hanging loose, when the man bent forward and his foot suddenly struck you right in the jaw. Her leg had to be metal, because it felt like being struck from below by a sledgehammer.
You thought you heard you jaw crack, right in the middle, as your vision blurred and you fell flat on your back. Still holding his tail in a death grip, you managed to finally sever this fifth limb of his, with the weight of your fall.
The agent released an outraged, pained shriek, turned around while you were still down and effortlessly raised his Vector SMG one handed, aiming it square at your head.
The gunshot rang so loud, it felt as if the bullet had struck a church bell. You blinked and realized you were still alive, somehow, then noticed the agent's head get knocked back. His whole body arched backwards and he fell flat on his back like a still piece of metal, leaving behind a trace of blood flying out of his forehead.
The sound was undoubtedly, the bullet striking his sub-dermal armor, right on his forehead. When his body connected with the floor, the thud was so heavy and metalic, it left no doubt his entire skin was woven with the stuff. You're not sure if that bullet penetrated his armor, but at the very least, a direct shot to the head, should leave him concussed and unconcious, at least for a while.
Looking back you saw Roksana leading the charge, the woman burst into the room, quickly followed by Barker, Matej and Krys who all walked behind her single file with the metal woman soaking up all of the enemy gunfire. She was acting like a human riot-shield, soaking the fire of enemy agents, as she advanced and placed methodical shots from her rifle, pinning the enemy down or taking carefully placed headshots at them.
Enemy bullets were ripping right through her stealth-suit and clothing, leaving messy scratches on her metal chassis underneath. Periodically the bullets would strike her forearms, her cheek or her legs, blowing off whole plates of armor and exposing sensitive looking circuitry underneath. The woman didn't seem to notice the accumulating damage, or didn't seem to care, as she advanced further into the room, releasing controlled bursts of fire, until the three men behind her managed to walk far enough to catch cover behind various cabinets. Only then did Roksana remove herself from direct line of fire, half her body riddled with bullets and torn up, revealing sensitive circuitry.
A quick body count revealed that 4 enemy agents were dead. Shot, burned and cut in half by magic.
5 still lived. Among them, one was unconscious on the floor, with his robot tail laying separately from him, still clutched in Slashers hand. One managed to put out the fire that scorched his face and was now screaming incessantly and spraying the doorway blindly, sticking only his SMG out of cover. And the last three hid behind large shelves of servers and methodically peaked out and took carefully aimed shots in your direction.
"COVERING FIRE!" Barker yelled, leaning out of cover and emptying his entire clip into the far reaches of the room, trying to pin down the enemy.
Matej used the opportunity to poke his head out of cover, grabbed Slasher by the shoulder with both hands and dragged her behind a large server shelf, keeping her out of direct line of fire.
"I'M OUT, RELOADING!" Barker yelled, leaning back.
"COVERING!" Roksana screamed back, leaning out and starting to empty her clip to keep the enemy pinned "ADVANCE AND PICK THEM OFF!"
"Oh I'll advance alright... ehehehehehehe..." Krys maniacally giggled behind a cabinet as his hands began weaving a very complex sign, as if he was knitting a sweater. You're not sure what he's doing but a bright red spark of light began manifesting inside the palms of his hand and you're pretty sure its going to be Level 3, which will give him a good chance to pass out again from hypoglycemia.
Just barely managing catch both grenades with one leg, Slasher swiped them back as hard as she could muster. You realized just how close you came to death, when the grenades detonated a split second later, only managing to fly up to a meter into the server room. The blast was so devastating that the shockwave sent Slasher flying onto the floor, even through she was largely hidden behind the doorway.
Horrible ringing filled her ears and pieces of small debris rained everywhere, it felt as if someone played basketball with her head.
Gamma fared worse. Being inside the room, the grenades went off just 2 meters away, in her direct line of sight, and there was nothing to hide behind when they exploded. Only her timely attempt to get splayed out on the floor and collect herself into a ball, largely saved her from the shock-wave. Most of the blast was directed up, at a 30 degree angle, and she ended up just under the expanding blast wave.
Her hearing glitched out and her vision turned to static for several precious seconds, before it became slowly coming back, white noise ringing loudly in her ears and her vision filled with patches of black, glitching squares that changed position periodically inside her field of view. Her head felt heavy and it was incredibly difficult to re-orient herself.
Most of the enemy agent had not anticipated the blast originating in such close proximity to them, and even though they had all taken cover behind various cabinets and server shelves, they too seemed largely deafened and rattled.
Picking herself up from the floor and charging in with her heard thumping loudly in her ears, Slasher burst into the room, zeroed in on the fox man and in one fluid motion extended a razor sharp katana out of her hand, grabbed the man's cyber-tail and went to town on it, with the zeal of an experienced butcher.
You quickly realized the tail was full cybernetic and possibly woven and connected right into a cybernetic spine of the agent, which meant hacking it away necessitated severing a reinforced metal joint. The man was so rattled and disoriented, you managed to hack at his tail three times, before he looked at you over his shoulder.
His metal tail was hanging on by a thick metal thread, largely severed, with tiny bits and pieces of blue circuits and microchips hanging loose, when the man bent forward and his foot suddenly struck you right in the jaw. Her leg had to be metal, because it felt like being struck from below by a sledgehammer.
You thought you heard you jaw crack, right in the middle, as your vision blurred and you fell flat on your back. Still holding his tail in a death grip, you managed to finally sever this fifth limb of his, with the weight of your fall.
The agent released an outraged, pained shriek, turned around while you were still down and effortlessly raised his Vector SMG one handed, aiming it square at your head.
The gunshot rang so loud, it felt as if the bullet had struck a church bell. You blinked and realized you were still alive, somehow, then noticed the agent's head get knocked back. His whole body arched backwards and he fell flat on his back like a still piece of metal, leaving behind a trace of blood flying out of his forehead.
The sound was undoubtedly, the bullet striking his sub-dermal armor, right on his forehead. When his body connected with the floor, the thud was so heavy and metalic, it left no doubt his entire skin was woven with the stuff. You're not sure if that bullet penetrated his armor, but at the very least, a direct shot to the head, should leave him concussed and unconcious, at least for a while.
Looking back you saw Roksana leading the charge, the woman burst into the room, quickly followed by Barker, Matej and Krys who all walked behind her single file with the metal woman soaking up all of the enemy gunfire. She was acting like a human riot-shield, soaking the fire of enemy agents, as she advanced and placed methodical shots from her rifle, pinning the enemy down or taking carefully placed headshots at them.
Enemy bullets were ripping right through her stealth-suit and clothing, leaving messy scratches on her metal chassis underneath. Periodically the bullets would strike her forearms, her cheek or her legs, blowing off whole plates of armor and exposing sensitive looking circuitry underneath. The woman didn't seem to notice the accumulating damage, or didn't seem to care, as she advanced further into the room, releasing controlled bursts of fire, until the three men behind her managed to walk far enough to catch cover behind various cabinets. Only then did Roksana remove herself from direct line of fire, half her body riddled with bullets and torn up, revealing sensitive circuitry.
A quick body count revealed that 4 enemy agents were dead. Shot, burned and cut in half by magic.
5 still lived. Among them, one was unconscious on the floor, with his robot tail laying separately from him, still clutched in Slashers hand. One managed to put out the fire that scorched his face and was now screaming incessantly and spraying the doorway blindly, sticking only his SMG out of cover. And the last three hid behind large shelves of servers and methodically peaked out and took carefully aimed shots in your direction.
"COVERING FIRE!" Barker yelled, leaning out of cover and emptying his entire clip into the far reaches of the room, trying to pin down the enemy.
Matej used the opportunity to poke his head out of cover, grabbed Slasher by the shoulder with both hands and dragged her behind a large server shelf, keeping her out of direct line of fire.
"I'M OUT, RELOADING!" Barker yelled, leaning back.
"COVERING!" Roksana screamed back, leaning out and starting to empty her clip to keep the enemy pinned "ADVANCE AND PICK THEM OFF!"
"Oh I'll advance alright... ehehehehehehe..." Krys maniacally giggled behind a cabinet as his hands began weaving a very complex sign, as if he was knitting a sweater. You're not sure what he's doing but a bright red spark of light began manifesting inside the palms of his hand and you're pretty sure its going to be Level 3, which will give him a good chance to pass out again from hypoglycemia.
200 Re: Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask Tue 13 Aug - 17:09
Some Sinner
She growls as she struggles to get through his tail, "Metal motherfucker!" She manages to get out before taking a steel boot to the jaw.
It very nearly knocks her out and she looks up to a gun barrel just before shes shot, she seems completely dazed before he gets slammed by Roksana.
Before she can get pulled away she pulls one of her concussion grenades out and pulls the pin, "Owwwww! My fucking jaw!" She growls, throwing the tail towards the door and crawling over the soldier. She grabs him by the cheeks and shoves the grenade in his mouth and takes his Vector, "good trade." She huffs before being pulled out, "Goddamn asshole! He hit me in the fucking face! This face! My face!" She says as though it were completely unthinkable, "Heartless bastards!" She roars as she takes aim with the vector on automatic and sprays down the nearest soldier.
It very nearly knocks her out and she looks up to a gun barrel just before shes shot, she seems completely dazed before he gets slammed by Roksana.
Before she can get pulled away she pulls one of her concussion grenades out and pulls the pin, "Owwwww! My fucking jaw!" She growls, throwing the tail towards the door and crawling over the soldier. She grabs him by the cheeks and shoves the grenade in his mouth and takes his Vector, "good trade." She huffs before being pulled out, "Goddamn asshole! He hit me in the fucking face! This face! My face!" She says as though it were completely unthinkable, "Heartless bastards!" She roars as she takes aim with the vector on automatic and sprays down the nearest soldier.
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