Gizmo Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 Even with Hronos' warning it seemed as if the computronium beasts were well in hand, with only a single compu-jackal left to snap its jaws at Teriffica on the glassy, green ground. The self-professed genius leaped nimbly out of the way, careful not to allow any bare skin to touch the transformed material. Before her feet had even touched back down, however, eight more of the creatures cracked free from the central mound, looking more refined than the earlier iterations, their edges more rounded and either features more uniform. Spreading their wings the inorganic chimera rocketed toward the robotic champions in the air above them with harsh, electronic growls. It was difficult to say if they were simply attacking the most obvious threats or if they were somehow aware of Citizen's plan and intended to prevent its success.
Avenger Assembled Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Citizen threw off the chimera as their fangs blunted against his armored body, glad for Miss Americana's solid construction. He didn't know if his plan had worked - but the important thing was that the monsters were paying attention to him and not his much more fragile teammates. Is this how Cobalt Templar used to feel? he wondered as he flew out over the central mass of the nanites. OK, sometimes you start out by hitting it with the gravhammer and see if that fixes it... He concentrated on the writhing hillock below him as he hovered some fifty feet in the air, redirecting the internal energies of the powerful reactor that powered the robot. As he did so, triple beams of red, white, and blue shot out of his eyes, lasers wrapped up in EM radiation that lit the air up like the Fourth of July as they struck the nanite swarm beneath him, lighting up the metallic surface below with a brilliant sheen!
EternalPhoenix Posted January 25, 2015 Posted January 25, 2015 This was growing more and more unnecessarily complicated by the second. Terrifica frowned, irritated. Honestly. What did any of them expect me to do down here? Punch these things? Or perhaps talk the nanites into giving up or going home? I don’t have the firepower to deal with this sort of thing. For heaven’s sake, most of my battles are against humans. This is…a bit out of my area of combat expertise. Still, it would be better if I was closer to that mound. She took off running, almost as fast as she could. “Citizen? If you and your friend would hurry up and open this thing. They’re trying to eat me, down here. It’s exactly as unpleasant as it sounds.†She had the presence of mind to stop running just short of where the mound was writhing around. “The sooner we finish this, the less of a cyborg I get to be.â€
Vahnyu Posted January 25, 2015 Posted January 25, 2015 More and more Compu-Jackals were showing up. This was slowly getting out of hand, and Hronos knew that he didn't have the time to pick each one up seperately. As Citizen dispatched the cybermorph under a searing ray of heat, and Terrifica sped through the toxic surface, Hronos reconfigured his cannon back into an arm, and swiftly opened up his chest, revealing once more the Essence of Time. "You should allow me to dispose these creatures." The Purple colored spark pulsated once more at his command, and as soon as it was finished charging up, Hronos unleashed a massive wave of chronal energy, harmlessly passing by the heroes, while engulfing almost all of the still active Compu-Jackals. All but one of the mechanical abominations that were hit with the wave were frozen in place, as if unable to experience time. This would have been a cause to rejoice, if not for the fresh batch of Compu-Jackals that appeared, ready to take their fallen comrades' place. "Our actions do not seem to completely stop the advancement of the hostiles. If my calculations thus far are correct, not only do these creatures adapt to our means of dispatching their predecessors, but they also increase the numbers of them in a progressive rate. The sequence of the appearance of the enemy reinforcements that I have recorded so far is the following: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. The expected progression of the sequence is the following: 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610. My conclusion is that we should strive to halt their method of increasing reinforcements in the following time period of 30 Earth Seconds." Hronos said, informing his allies of their predicament.
Gizmo Posted January 26, 2015 Author Posted January 26, 2015 Hronos' calculations proved to be exactly right as more than a dozen new computronium jackals broke free from the growing mound, the even increasing outpouring of creatures barely seeming to slow the nanobots' greedy transformation of materials. The glassy green mountain heated to a glowing red where Citizen's beams struck it but the energy quickly dissipated, leaving only a scorched patch on its surface. It seemed for a moment as though the attack had had no effect at all but Terrifica's analytical acumen allowed her to notice the ribbons of gold tracing throughout the computronium rerouting to avoid the blackened sector. She was given precious little time to dwell on the information as the lone flightless guard beast doggedly sprinted after her, jaws snapping at her shins! Similarly the sole winged jackal to avoid Hronos' release of chronal power raked its claws across the mechanical man's back, the scrape of computronium on blue and white alloys screeching through the air. A number of the newest beasts circled around Citizen, seeming to recognize him as the most immediate threat. Where the previous generation had been stymied by the hardened shell worn by the artificial teen this batch sported filament thin talons that seemed to have lost none of their hardness as they attacked without mercy or hesitation! A second squadron zoomed past the group of heroes with shocking speed, making a beeline for Maxima, still hanging in the air after her titanic leap!
Avenger Assembled Posted February 2, 2015 Posted February 2, 2015 With direct assault failing, Sharl thought fast, dipping so low that he flew right past the curtain of compu-jackals and hovered just a few feet above the ground, directly over the heart of the nanite infestation. Retuning the X-ray generators that let him fire lasers out his eyes, Citizen peered right through the thick layer of computronium beneath his feet. Of course! A substance that transmits electrical impulses so efficiently would have to be nearly transparent on the high-EM band! "I can see the main processor," he called over the radio, his robotic voice deep and urgent. "It's dispersed through the whole nano-structure. There's some right under the mound, but I don't have the power to get through this much computronium. I'm going to try assuming remote control! If this doesn't work, direct interface is next." He stared at the processor network beneath his feet and let his consciousness unfocus, reaching out with his mind to intersect with the machinery below the same way Gina intersected with the Miss Americana processors. Come on you murdering bastards, see how a thinking machine does it! As he did so, blue fire began to ripple across the outside of the 'lake' of nanites, the systems that had been reconstituting deeper and deeper layers of sand into compu-jackals now being commanded to glow in the triple half-circle of Citizen, matching the clearly visible symbol on the robot's chest.
Geez3r Posted February 4, 2015 Posted February 4, 2015 Not touching the ground for a very long time was a very odd sensation. It wasn't flying by any stretch of the imagination, and falling with style was pushing it to be sure. The closest analogy that seemed accurate to the current way of things was that she was being catapulted through the air, her trajectory having been set the instant she was airborne. So seeing some of the computronium defense robots take actual flight towards her in a squadron attack pattern was disconcerting to say the least. Thankfully, her speed and mass made it quite unlikely that they were going to be able to divert her from her current course. The compu-jackals didn't know that of course, so when they got in dog-fighting range, likely expecting some sort of maneuvers from Maxima, she just barreled over top of them, punting the squad leader when it got close enough to her. Given her lack of aerial maneuvers, she hoped this first jackal would be the one to set off a domino effect.
Vahnyu Posted February 14, 2015 Posted February 14, 2015 Hronos fervently gathered his strength once more. While Citizen braved the seemingly harsh surface of the techno-mould, it fell to him and the rest of the heroes to provide cover. Maxima, for her part, demolished every Compu-Jackal that made a line for her, with little effort, a fact that Hronos was greatly appreciative of. "That is understood Citizen. We will attempt to keep the hostiles away from you, while you focus on establishing contact with the processor." He replied to Citizen, as the later proceeded to task. Pushing the Essence of Time to its limits, the robotic guardian once more made another attempt at freezing the ever growing population of hostile Compu-Jackals, unleashing another chronal wave at them. The Essence of Time channeled chronal energy into reality, creating multiple temporal paradoxes, each stacking one layer on top of the other, and then immediately reconciling them all together, to the point that reality and possibility became indistinguishable. Hronos was concentrating his efforts into actualising this new reality, and the more he put himself in this effort, the more he strainned and struggled to maintain it.
Gizmo Posted February 16, 2015 Author Posted February 16, 2015 Two of the drones Hronos was targeting immediately froze up and tipped over with a clang of computronium hitting computronium while another pair slowed down to a barely perceptible crawl before their formidable processing power began compensating for the altered laws of causality assaulting them. In the distance a series of small explosions one after another heralded Maxima's arcing flight through the remains of the winged beasts who had thought it a good idea to harry her mid-leap. The remainder continued their vicious attacks on the temporal manipulating robot and Citizen but for the first time since the heroes had arrived there was a pause where no new compu-jackals emerged from the mound. Whatever Tronik's favourite son was doing, it was working!
TheAbsurdist Posted February 17, 2015 Posted February 17, 2015 Fine. Fine. FINE! Pushing away, he rocketed over to Citizen, "So, in meat speak, 'Hey Asad, cover me.' Response: affirmative!" And then he started to glow, the containment suit, the core of it in his chest starting to spin and blaze out light. "I hope you don't mind Citizen, but in high stress situations I banter. Much like now. But you are more familiar with physics than I am, have to be. So tell me where you aware there is a loophole in the Newtonian model?" Maybe it was the blazing sun, the light of it. Or those accursed fission chips in his body. The stored friction from the flight over here. Or the hard landing he had taken to charge up. It could have been all of them, and none of them. He didn't know. "It's me." Then the lion roared, and Asad released out that power. A shockwave that boomed out of him, crashing out against the swarming computronium jackals.
Avenger Assembled Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 "Of course it is, Isacc Newton was a primitive superstitionist who believed in alchemical mumbo-jumbo! 400 years ago this planet was nothing but woodframed buildings and people voiding their bowels into holes in the ground." The robot sounded as animated about that as he had selling Miss A's wares at the tech expo - and Sharl was happy to admit he was scared, too. "You might as well...oh, no!" Gradually the Citizen-flame burning on the computronium began to shrink down; it was clear the robotic hero was losing control of the nanites before them. "I can't...I can't do this alone! I need someone who can help me tap into the system!" he called at his maximum volume, taking advantage of the speakers built into the system to shout across the battlefield.
EternalPhoenix Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 Terrifica was all over it. She began tapping at her wrist computer…only for the screen to freeze. She wanted to bang on it, but suddenly she couldn’t move. A grayish film had slid over her battlesuit. Well. At least I know Citizen wasn’t exaggerating. “I’d be delighted to assist, but it seems my suit is beginning to be compromised. Perhaps if I wasn’t, I don’t know, right next to the source of the danger, this wouldn’t be a problem.†That came out harsher than she intended, but the faint edge of fear underlying her statement justified it some.
Geez3r Posted February 27, 2015 Posted February 27, 2015 "INCOMING~!" roared Maxima as she made the last leg of her trip at a rather unhealthy velocity, smashing down in the very heart of the computronium territory. Frankly it wasn't the smartest decision she's ever made, but she had made her bed and now she had to lie in it. But from what she had seen on the jump over, they were rapidly running out of time as the computronium seemed to be ramping up its production of its defenders. Maxima landed with the force of an artillery shell, sending a shockwave through the entire mass of computronium, even as parts of it buckled under the force of her impact. But Maxima wasn't satisfied with that impact alone, and she used the momentum of her fall to slam to her hands into the ground, buckling it with her force of her blows. She acted like a woman possessed, lashing out at pretty much the world itself, hammering on everything with reckless abandon, heedless of the gray film that slowly started to crawl up her boots. "I'm going to try to dig up an access point for you to interface with." called Maxima over the comms between tearing chunks of computronium out of the ground.
Vahnyu Posted February 27, 2015 Posted February 27, 2015 Hronos was getting tired by the constant overtaxing of the Essence of Time. There appeared to be no end to the Compu-Jackals. Worse, it looked like even Citizen was struggling with keeping the mound's spawning system under control. Looking at Maxima's timely arrival, he was releaved to see another hero assisting them. So, this time, he decided that he should prepare an ambush instead. If my calculations are correct, the next number of the sequence the mound is using in order to employ reinforcements is 21. He relentlessly focused his energy in maintaining the Essence of Time sparking and pulsating in the exposed inner compartment of his chest. However, even the guardian of Time knew that they were running out of it. If something didn't change soon, he'd have to get really desperate!
Gizmo Posted February 27, 2015 Author Posted February 27, 2015 The mound of computronium shuddered under Maxima's assault, then cracked with a sound like sheering glass, the peak fracturing and falling to the smooth ground layer that surrounded it. Exposed by the damage were dark plates of metal, blackened by the heat of passing through the layers of the planet's atmosphere but unconverted by the nanite swarm. The scientist heroes each quickly deduced that they represented the remains of the bomb itself, the casing that had carried the ravenous payload to the surface. Whether the nanites had simply been programed to ignore the metal or if it was somehow immune to their microscopic restructuring was less obvious. Just as Hronos had calculated, nearly two down new drones emerged from all around the broken mound, unhindered by the damage and perhaps even spurned on now that an even greater threat to their mission had presented herself. The guardian of time was prepared however and bubbles of temporal paradox ripped through the wave of bestial robots as they headed for Maxima, reducing their number by more then three quarters and disposing of the previous waves' stragglers while he was at it. The remainder reevaluated their priorities in the wave of the counterattack, ignoring the towering powerhouse in favour of taking to the skies to surround the Mechanodynamis in a flurry of raking claws and snapping jaws!
TheAbsurdist Posted March 3, 2015 Posted March 3, 2015 "These..." He trailed off into series of loud swears that really had no bearing. But there was so many of them. He kept in close circuit by Citizen, trying to intercept anyone that was going after him. Though the numbers game was such that he was having a hard time telling who was who and what was going on. He started to understand the the whole thing. So he let off another burst raw force. Sending it hammering out again, trying to batter away more of the little bastards. "I am flailing a little here guys, give me some damned direction because all this fly swatting isn't doing much!"
Avenger Assembled Posted March 6, 2015 Posted March 6, 2015 Citizen bent down and put his bare steel hand within inches of the mound, exerting his will over the intellect inside the mound by dint of great mental effort. Or no, he realized, not an intellect at all. "Just a bunch of farking commands about eating and consuming," he muttered, "no brain here at all. You're just a pitiful, mindless, MACHINE," he declared, the robot's eyes glowing an ominous shade of red as he pressed his attack even further, his radio signals bombarding the distributed processors beneath the mound. As Miss A had explained it to him, it wasn't like he was actually controlling them the way some cyberkinetics did - with the way his powers worked, it was like he was taking the units he was signal-jacking and making them part of his brain. "C'mon...yes! Got it!"
EternalPhoenix Posted March 18, 2015 Posted March 18, 2015 (edited) Terrifica moved. Feet slid deftly over cracked metal as she approached the sole untouched thing in all this computronium. She pulled up next to it, knelt down, and examined the chunk of metal. Remarkable. I’ve never heard of anything quite like it. It’s scrap now, after physics has had its say, however…the strength it must have just to still exist is phenomenal. It’s certainly not something made on Earth. We simply don’t have the technology level. It doesn’t match anything from my studies of the galatic stage, either. She glanced at where the piece of metal met the ground. “Maxima, dear? You’re very strong. Could you pull this out of the ground for me? I want to see what that will do.†Edited March 19, 2015 by EternalPhoenix
Geez3r Posted March 18, 2015 Posted March 18, 2015 There was one thing scientists loved seeing more than anything else, and that was progress. Sometimes it was seeing the decreased spread of a bacteria in a culture, sometimes it was finally solving an annoying equation that you had been stumped on for weeks and sometimes, it was when you saw alien wreckage in the midst of a malicious nano-bot swarm. Maxima was relieved to see the computronium breaking underneath her fingers, and was quite overjoyed to see that even though she was starting to build up a gray film on her skin, it was flaking off just as easily. Her dense cells seemed to be more difficult for the nanomachines to break down. "One hunk of space metal coming up." called Maxima to Terrifica as she tore into the ground with renewed vigor.
Vahnyu Posted March 20, 2015 Posted March 20, 2015 "Grraahgghhkk!!" Hronos screamed, as his pain receptors savagely assaulted his neuro-cortex. Hronos felt the Compu-Jackals shred his body, limb for limb, and even found his robotic head severed from the rest of his body. To make matters worse, the Essense of Time seemed to be spiralling out of control, as if lashing out to reality and the events that had transpired. The severed head fell to the mechanized ground, where the Computronium had been, near Citizen's feet, before rebounding a few times, and eventually rolling towards Terrifica. "... My head... has been seperated... from... my body..." he noted, with some difficulty, as he felt his energy drainning, and the systems in his head preparing to go into shutdown mode. With considerable effort, he forced his head to turn towards the sky, where the rest of his body still floated. Seeing the Essense of Time fluctuate uncontrollably gave Hronos cause for concern. "This... occurance... may prove... catastrophic..."
Gizmo Posted March 25, 2015 Author Posted March 25, 2015 The remaining pair of compu-jackals, conversely, seemed to consider the threat posed by Hronos to be dealt with in full even as Citizen's renewed barrage of cyber-warfare deprived them of reinforcements and seemed to hamper their ability to coordinate their attacks. The constructs tilted their heads like real animals for a moment, trying to decide what to make of Maxima's show of titanic strength as she tore the alien metal free of the crater exposed beneath the shattered computronium mound, even pawing the ground uncertainly. A beat later their prioritization algorithms had run their core and their attention snapped back to Tronik's favourite son, propelling themselves at the distracted robot shell with renewed determination. That didn't get them past the watchful guard of Asad, however, even if their impossibly deadly claws proved enough to dig into even his durable form.
Avenger Assembled Posted March 28, 2015 Posted March 28, 2015 "Come on! Come on!" From the perspective of an outside observer, the fight was undramatic. First the robot went silent, its eyepieces turning black. Then the compu-jackals, winged and otherwise, suddenly fell to the ground, splashing apart like Jello sculptures made of liquid computronium that was either absorbed by the silvery medium beneath their feet or sank into the sand that still lay all around. After a moment while the heroes wondered exactly what was going on, the mound and the surrounding layer of computronium began glowing again: a brilliant, electric blue that spread and warped until it matched the glowing blue wi-fi symbol on Citizen's chest! The robot, at that moment, sprang to life again, leaping in the air and exulting with a wild exclamation. "-not this planet! Not these people!" And after that, he collapsed, falling backwards with a heavy thud as his rounded posterior made contact with the metal floor beneath them. Laughing almost hysterically, he put his round head in his big hands. "We did it! Hahaha, we did it! You stopped the constructs and I crushed the node interlinks! With my mind! With my mighty brain! I..." He tilted over onto his side. "Oh man, I think I'm hurt." He rolled over onto his back, hands on his fat robot belly. "We did it. They don't get this planet, damn them. We did it."
Geez3r Posted March 29, 2015 Posted March 29, 2015 The immediate crisis having passed, Maxima was able to turn her attention to the next one, and that was of course the fact that one of the other heroes had lost their head in the midst of the battle, quite literally. Maxima jumped high into the air, grabbing the robot's body that was still hanging in the air, and cradled it gently in her arms as she came back to earth. She called out over her comms "If any of you are mechanically inclined, we're going to need your help over here right now. I can set bones and staunch bleeding, but wiring and circuitry is a bit beyond my purview." Maxima was not used to being helpless at the sign of injury. She had quite the history with technology of course, but her training up until this point had always assumed whatever gizmo she was working with was functional. She could tell you how circuits worked, but hand her a soldering iron and asking her to fix one was out of the question. She placed the robot's body down next to its head, before stepping back and looking around anxiously, visibly uncertain of what to do next. "You're going to be alright. Everything's going to be fine." she said aloud to Hronos and partially to herself. She didn't know how repairable the damage was, but imagined "severed head" ranked pretty high on the scale.
EternalPhoenix Posted April 5, 2015 Posted April 5, 2015 Terrifica was by Maxima’s side faster than seemed possible. She even had a tool kit out and ready. A quick exam revealed much. “I’m everything inclined. Please stand back. I don’t want anyone else to be affected if†I get this wrong because I don’t know a blessed thing about time robots “something goes wrong.†She knelt down and set to work. “Let’s see what I can do for you, hmm?†Her voice was calm enough, but her heartrate, which had spiked when her battlesuit had locked up earlier Which had never, ever, EVER happened before was only just starting to relax. She had to work fast, soon her hands would begin to shake. Terrifica outsmarted criminals and the odd supervillan. Sometimes, she fought them, too. She did not have any experience with trying to save the entire world and finding that your powers and skills didn’t amount to the proverbial fart in a windstorm. No. Focus, little girl. You are not eight years old. You are NOT. The very least she could do was repair this robot so it didn’t explode…or worse.
Avenger Assembled Posted April 9, 2015 Posted April 9, 2015 This hurts, thought Citizen, but I can't exactly complain with Hronos' head over there! Instead he sat up, carefully working metal fingers into cunningly implanted grooves where his 'ribs' should be. He was silent as he felt around for connections, only slowly making connections to the global satellite network. (After all, there wasn't much in the way of service, here in this shockingly-empty stretch of land!) "This is happening all over the planetary system," he finally said. "There was something on Luna, something in Europe, on the west coast of North America...but we're actually winning this. I need to try and reach Miss Americana - maybe she'll have some idea what to do with all this computronium." Sure enough, said semi-mythical substance wasn't going away with the battle ended - instead the gigantic chunk of silvery metal lay like a mirror dropped on the desert's surface, for all that it still faintly glowed with Citizen's chest symbol.
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