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+--- Thread: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] (/showthread.php?tid=3009)
Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Nebula - 07-17-2017
"Well...looks like things are goin' well for us out here..." The lazy drawl of one of the co-commanders of the naval force harassing and corrupting the Vasty Deep drifted up from where its owner sat in the captain's cabin of one of their myriad warships. "Makin' all kinds of progress..."
"What are you saying, Bola?" A swirling cloud of smoke filled the room with an echoing thrum of energy, and under the hazy screen the bulky, metallic form of the other co-commander thunked down, the boards creaking dangerously under his immense weight. "We're barely keeping momentum out there. The Empire finally took notice, and they're putting up more of a fight than we can handle."
"Relax, Klaymoor. Look, we got all those punks over at the island we introduced to our boss's gifts, right? They're keeping us pretty well-supplied, and keeping ol' Admiral Lightfingers occupied pretty well." Bola reclined in his chair, lifting a leg to stomp on the table with a boot, indicating the scattering of maps and charts there. "Besides, progress might have slowed down...but it is still progressing." He flicked a wrist, and his arm erupted in dark fire, a scattering of dark chips hovering over his upturned palm. "And besides...with these bad boys? We can't lose."
"Hmph. Damnable fool...you're half right," the towering tank rumbled. "But don't get complacent, Bola. You've heard what happened. General Laserman was defeated, Coruscant has been freed from our attempts to control it. We've just lost contact with Desertman, in the Endless Dunes. Communications are shaky with Doctor Psyche and the Black Knight, and Plant Man has just informed us that there's some unwanted company that breached his doorstep."
"I know, I know, Klaymoor...I know," Bola said slowly, the haze of dark power around his arm dying down. "Look, we've got the strongest position out of all those schmucks. Sure, anyone who's strong enough to take on Laserman and come out alive is nothing to overlook, but he was pretty sedentary. Had all those robots and Cybermen to do his fighting for him. Probably didn't even make it to the fight himself."
"Just be on your guard, Bola. You and I both know if the Empire's Navy manages to get much more help, what little progress we do have will grind to a halt." The massive hulk of metal and weapons was engulfed in a swirling plume of smoke, and vanished as suddenly as he'd come. "I'm going to make my daily report to Metal Shark Player. Go do something useful with yourself."
"Pleasure talkin' to ya as always, Klaymoor..." Bola mumbled, before heaving a sigh. He let his chair fall forward, boots hitting the ground, and he stood up with all the grace and poise of a man with both legs asleep on him. One hand went to his back, and he leaned this way and that, eliciting a sharp rhythm of sickening pops, cracks and other unsightly noises. "Man...gotta thank big boss Nebula for one thing. Dark power sure does make you forget about the aches and pains of gettin' old."
He lazily strolled across the room, to a shuttered window. Flicking it open, he peered out, just in time to catch sight of something entirely absurd. Several of his subordinates, and many more denizens of the deeps itself driven mad by exposure to dark power, crawling down the barrels of oversized cannons. Launching themselves at distant warships bearing Empire colors. "...well, I think that qualifies for my overseeing duties for the day. They've got it handled."
And he turned around, letting the shutters fall back into place, and went back to have a seat. "Maybe I should just head back to headquarters and guard the portal or something...I don't even think I'm needed out here."
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Proto Man - 07-17-2017
Proto Man rushed toward to locations now marked on his GPS. As he traveled, his CPU worked overtime to download as many reports on the darkling attacks as it could. From how things sounded, the attacks had been going on for a while, affecting all of the verses to some extent. Everywhere except for the Ashen Steppes and the Vasty Deep, groups of heroes and mercenaries had banded together to try and stem the tide.
Did the size of this place prevent such actions? Was the Ashen Steppes so inhospitable that people had just let these creatures go unchecked?
The email from Doctor Regal laid out all the information on the creatures. Supposedly, they originated from hidden verses, and they were gradually corrupting the Omniverse through use of some power that stemmed from something called darkchips. The information wasn’t overly detailed, which made sense since the email appeared to be sent out in mass. What was important, however, was that it provided a few coordinates to lead interested parties to recruiters. With those coordinates punched into his system, Proto Man and Rush sped toward the location.
After a few hours and a pair of pitstops to recalibrate some of his subsystems, Proto Man and Rush found themselves descending onto a small fishing vehicle gently swaying in the ocean. Even at this distance from the warzone, the water seemed strange. While there was certainly a large amount of diluted oil and other fuels, a quick scan also showed materials that weren’t commonly associated with the industrial byproduct of the Empire. Whatever this infection was, it seemed to affect everything, much like the Blight.
With a dull thud, Proto Man hopped down from the Rush Jet and steadied himself as the little boat rocked beneath the weight of his metal body. A small vessel, the people manning it rushed from the helm and drew weapons, prompting Proto Man to lift his hands into the air. When Rush dropped onto a boat a few minutes later, he likewise sat on his haunches and raised his front paws in an attempt to show their non-hostile intentions.
“Identify yourselves,” one of the men shouted.
“My name is Proto Man, and this is my dog, Rush.” The answer caused the man to furrow his brow and slightly relax his grip on the weapon. Did his name still carry some value in this day and age? “I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but I received one of those emails from a Mister Doctor Regal. It mentioned something about darklings?”
“You haven’t heard?” Another of the sailors asked. “The fucking things are running rampant in this place. There’s a whole massive chunk of this verse that’s under siege by the creatures… villages and islands crumbling as we speak. The Empire’s engaged in a massive naval engagement near Blue Flame Island. The whole situation is spiraling out of control.”
“I’m here to help… do you guys work for Mister Regal or what?”
“Yes,” the first speaker replied as he set down his gun and vanished into the helm of the ship. He returned a moment later with what seemed to be a wristband. “Doctor Regal had these fabricated for anyone who sought to fight the darklings. It will help you, we promise.”
Proto Man stepped forward and retrieved the wristband from the captain of the vessel. The machine slipped it over his hand and watched as the device constricted so it fit snuggly against his wrist. A few lights flickered before a handful of notifications popped up on the android’s visual display. Although it seemed relatively mundane, the accessory was most certainly an aide—it was generated a light protective field around his body. Further integration into his own systems showed that the device would allow him to read and decipher the dark chips.
“How do I help?” Proto Man asked. “Where should I go?”
“You need to find the stronghold,” the captain said as he produced a rolled-up piece of paper from his belt. He unfurled it to reveal a map of the surrounding regions. While it had perhaps once been a very nice image, it was now marred with dozens of marks denoting points of interest, ‘bad zones,’ and question marks. “We tried to scout some of the outer lying areas before the attacks got too heavy. Blue Flame Island, as we mentioned, is essentially lost. The place has become a factory of sorts...” the man moved his finger to another marker. “We fear Sabaody Archipelago will likewise be overrun by the darklings.”
“So, do you have a guess as to where they coming from?”
The captain shrugged his shoulders as he gestured to a large region at the center of the map. “Based on where the first large-scale attacks originated, it could very well be somewhere here, but the region is too violent for anyone to scout. If we can’t blunt the attacks, the darklings will steadily keep pouring into the Deep.”
“Then we blunt the attacks,” Proto Man stated matter-of-factly as he pressed a thumb against Sabaody Archipelago. “Save these people.” He slid his finger over the Blue Flame Island. “Shatter the factory… then the Empire can help pacify the region.”
“You think they’ll help?”
Proto Man smiled. “Gosh, they better, unless they want to waste more lives and materiel out here.”
“Good point,” the captain muttered as he rolled up the map. Proto Man, who had already scanned the contents and uploaded it to his own files, set a location marker on his HUD and turned to Rush.
“Let’s go, Boy. I hope you’re ready.”
Rush, who had a small language dictionary, opted instead to let out a sturdy bark as he shifted into his Jet mode. Hopping onboard, Proto Man smiled to the crew of the little anchored ship. “Be safe, fellas!” He shouted as Rush and he zipped off into the thick of combat.
As Proto Man left, the sailors exchanged worried expressions. “That was the Proto Man, wasn’t it? The one that hung around with the Mouse?” One of them asked to a fellow crewman.
“Sounds like the Mouse, that’s for sure.” Another sailor snickered. “You remember when that looney in the red suit fed the Mouse his pet and then chopped his hand off to wear as a jockstrap?”
“This ain’t the time!” The captain barked, silencing the two crewmen for the time being.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Cloud Strife - 07-18-2017
The salty ocean breeze berated the blonde as small droplets of water painted his face. When he was told that he’d have transportation from Costa Del Sol with the marines, he’d imagined a grand navy ship. Not a two person sailing boat.
‘I imagined a navy ship...’ Cloud sighed as he let a couple of his fingers skim the surface of the water.
The marine captain took a deep breath and then gave the young mercenary a sturdy chuckle. ‘That’s your fault. Quit complaining.’
Cloud let out another, obviously disappointed, sigh. A short vibration bringing his attention to his pockets. Reaching into his right pocket, Cloud pulled out his phone. He’d forgotten about it during the confusion of arriving in the Omniverse.
‘Huh, so this still works here?’ he asked himself as he flipped the phone open. The screen flicked on, displaying his home screen with a little mail icon flashing in the top right corner. Curiosity killed the cat, and apparently Cloud as well. He navigated to his mail and clicked the little green button to open it. A small window popped up on the screen.
‘You have connected to the dataverse, would you like to browse the news?’ The message read. He didn’t have anything else to do on this boat trip, so he tapped the button again and began reading.
“Tragedy has struck at the heart of The Vasty Deeps. Unknown creatures have been causing mayhem at the center of the verse. The Empire’s forces are doing their best to quell the chaos but they have only been able to halt the horde, not push it back, so far. Blue Flame Island has already been overrun and the Sabaody Archipelago looks to be next. With the Empire’s forces completely preoccupied with naval battles, it seems as if they won’t be able to do anything to help the citizens of the Archipelago.”
‘This will help boost my reputation.’ He thought as he scanned through several other articles. All of them said the same thing, just a different set of dramatic flares due to varying writers. The blonde closed his phone and returned it to his pocket as he caught sight of some kind of pollution in the water. The blonde reached down and, using the boat’s momentum, scooped a handful of dark water from the ocean. It wasn’t normal pollution, something about it seemed off.
‘You noticed huh?’ The marine spoke, his voice now filled with a tone of seriousness.
‘Yeah. What is it?’ The blonde responded.
‘I don’t know, but it’s not good.’ the only answer the marine gave before going silent.
Cloud thought for a moment, letting go of the water and letting it fall back into the ocean. A slight smile spreading across the mercenary’s face. ‘Take me to Sabaody Archipelago.’
The marine captain shook his head in response. It wasn’t a smart idea, but they needed help and he needed reputation. It wasn’t an altruistic action but, then again, nothing in life really is.
‘Look, I know that the Empire needs help with this, you can’t deny it.’ He argued, without so much as a peep from his companion.
Cloud sighed, angrily, as he sat forward, formulating an argument. ‘Look, it’s a win win situation here. You guys get the help you need, and I get the reputation I need to become a successful mercenary.’ The young man made a compelling argument, but the marine captain saw naivety in his actions.
‘Maybe this will be a good life experience for the boy…’ he thought to himself, wondering if the skill the blonde displayed earlier would be enough to keep him safe.
The two stared each other down, both of them thinking the situation over carefully. ‘Fine.’ The aged man relented as he spun the wheel. The ship turned, violently, knocking the unexpecting blonde onto his ass. His naval companion letting out an audible snicker.
‘It’s not going to be easy, kid.’ he spoke, after getting over his amusement at the young man’s comical fall.
‘I know. But I can handle it.’ Cloud nodded. His words reflecting his cocky attitude and an overconfident belief in his abilities. The Blonde stood at the bow of the vessel, arms crossed and blade fixed to his back. His golden locks moved rhythmically with the wind as it rushed through them. He was ready for whatever threat waited at the Archipelago.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Freeza - 07-18-2017
Riding upon waves of fluffy white cloud, a spaceship hovercraft zoomed, trailing wisps of skimming sky behind the rocket's scorching boosters.
"That was the worst!" the young galactic patrolman frowned, "I can't believe I got roped into this one. If only the commander wasn't so scary I wouldn't have to do any of this... But I really don't wanna be killed by her..."
Jaco would rather face a million "Darklings" than the commander's fists alone. Plus he could run away from the battle and tell her the mission failed, he couldn't do that if he was being strangled to death by her. Ahhh yeah, super elite logic was good when it saved your life.
On the radio was the feed of information, which continued, "The forefront of the invading brigade has just decimated Blue Flame Island. If this keeps up, Sabaody Archipelago will be next... Information, like aid, is limited. Please if anyone is able..."
Jaco cut off the human reporter with a quick tap of his high-tech glowing buttons. It sounded really bad. Jaco felt the jitterbug of nerves and desperate grasp for hope squeeze his inside with fear.
"There!" His yellow eyes didn't miss a thing despite the galactic speed he was traveling at, the jets on his craft immediately ceased to a sputtering halt and the tiny-framed alien was held from the glass dome by the ribbons of his seatbelt.
"Whew!" He exclaimed as he survived the violent hurdle of dangerously stopping mid-flight.
Adjusting the modules and controls of the ship. He plunged from the sky, rocketing toward the ground with his super elite navigating skills!
With his supremely awesome landing which spar wind and dirt from the boosters. But just what had he spied that had made him cease his flight toward the ruthless massacre he was approaching so swiftly?
Really, any type of excuse to get him out of this battle or procrastinate his joining was something he would've leapt at. But this one was one of his best ideas yet.
A prime meat shield would double the cowardly alien's chances of survival. He'd spotted the male human-looking prime speaking to a storm trooper. Plus recruiting another for the cause would make him look great to the commander. Increasing their forces against evil and helping, basically, the entire Omniverse Galaxy. He didn't even care if it helped his side's chances. Not that they needed it, with a super elite on their side. Still, logic, self-preservation, and the desire for survival overwhelmed him.
The unabashed Jaco raised the tightly sealed dome overhead with a press of a button and boinked out like a toy on a spring.
"I am Jaco! Super Elite Galactic Patrolman! Hero of the Galaxy!" Jaco felt himself going into his classic, stunning pose and had to hold off, "Ah I forgot I can't do the hero's pose anymore, it's too epic for your human eyes! Ahaha!"
Jaco boasted a smile and did a different pose, one that also pointed to the stars while the two humanoids looked at the alien who was about half as short as them, had purple skin and was super skinny. The puny alien didn't look like it meant to be a threat so the storm trooper lowered his rifle.
"You there, human prime!" The alien exclaimed in his funny-sounding voice, "I have a proposition for you!"
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Koehler - 07-18-2017
”A synergy of past and future. Quite interesting…” Fumetsu commented as Cole emerged from the gateway into the town that lay beyond. Colonial Mediterranean architecture, with its colorful style and brightness, was melded together with complex machinery, pipes, and modern technology.
Though behind the gate, it seemed like it was late into the evening, upon stepping through Cole noticed that it was mid-day at the latest, with the sun bearing down from above. All around, the town was busy with pedestrians milling about and groups of white-armored soldiers and officers marching towards the docks, it seemed.
Cole took in the beautiful, albeit unusual surroundings for a moment before stepping forward. The guards at the gate questioned him lightly before allowing him to proceed. Cole lingered a moment longer, however, to ask a few questions.
“Is there an inn or hotel around here?” Cole inquired one of the white-armored soldiers that stood vigil over the gateway.
“There’s a small tavern and inn further down the street,” the Stormtrooper replied, motioning with his rifle in the general direction he indicated, “but it’s not the best time for a vacation, not with the Darklings out in force.”
”That’s… concerning,” Alex mused.
“Darklings…?”
“Some kind of creatures of darkness, or so Dr. Regal put it. They are invading verses all around, but they’re hitting here and the Ashen Steppes the hardest so far.”
”Funny how some things never change even across universes,” Fumetsu noted with a chuckle.
“Is anyone stopping them?” Cole asked, but the Stormtrooper simply shook his head.
“There’s an Imperial fleet out fighting them, but the best they’ve managed to do is slow them down.”
“… Maybe I can-“ before Cole could finish his sentence, a saucer-like vehicle plunged downward from above near the two, prompting the Stormtrooper to raise his rifle in alarm.
Stopping just short of the ground, the tall dome atop the red and white saucer popped open, and from it sprung a short, blue-skinned humanoid in a purple and white body suit proclaiming to be the hero of the galaxy.
”I’m sorry, what?” Alex exclaimed, while Fumetsu was largely speechless. Cole was also taken aback at the suddenness of Jaco’s appearance and introduction, and that wasn’t even mentioning the heroic pose.
It was surprising that the Stormtrooper regarded this as commonplace enough to lower his guard.
“You there, human Prime!” The alien exclaimed in his child-like voice towards Cole, prompting him to stand at alert out of reflex, “I have a proposition for you!”
Cole blinked.
“… What?”
“Hey you can’t park there, and we were just in the middle of a conv-“ The Stormtrooper started, but was interrupted by Jaco glaring at him and shouting over him.
“While you were talking, Blue Flame Island got overrun!” Jaco shouted at the soldier, and then addressed Cole once more, “So how would you like to help me, a Super Elite Galactic Hero, save the Omniverse from the dark menace?”
“Well, we were just talking about th-“
“Come on, we don’t have time to waste!” Jaco continued pressuring Cole, “Every moment counts.”
“I.. uhm…” Cole stammered, “Do… Does that thing even have room for two people? And do you even know where to go?”
“Of course!” Jaco replied with a huff, “This is a super elite galactic patrol car, after all.”
“Alright, uhm… Jacko?”
“It’s Jaco, a super elite galactic patrolman!” Jaco offendedly countered.
“Jaco then. You can take me to the Darklings?” Cole asked the alien, and he nodded enthusiastically.
”You can’t be serious? You’re willingly getting abducted by an alien?” Alex admonished Cole, bewildered by the turn of events.
”This isn’t the weirdest thing we’ve done.” Cole retorted, “Alright, I guess I’m off to war again.”
Cole hopped up into the saucer, managing to squeeze his way into the only passenger seat next to the blue alien.
“Say, what’s your name human?” Jaco asked, as he pressed a series of buttons on the front panel, closing the dome and spinning up the engine on the strange vessel.
“Aloysius Koehler. Just Cole will do though,”
“Alright Cole, buckle up!” Jaco seemed enthused that he had ‘recruited’ a Prime so easily as he pushed the controls forward on his vessel and sped away at a blinding speed.
Leaving the Stormtrooper stunned at what had just transpired.
“I don’t get paid enough for this…”
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Proto Man - 07-19-2017
After taking some time to recalibrate his systems and ensure that everything would remain functional for the battle ahead, Proto Man had Rush bring him below the cloud layer. From this height, he could see a great deal of the Sabaody Archipelago. While he had looked over Dataverse posts on the island, he was still amazed when he confirmed with his own eyes that it truly was a large forest jutting up out of the ocean. Each of the giant trees was domed with a giant, translucent bubble. Reports told Proto Man that he was actually looking at giant amalgams of tree sap.
Under normal circumstances, Proto Man was certain that this place would be a wonderful spot to spend some free time. On top of the glut of beautiful natural flora, there was a little society among the massive mangrove trees. The place even had its own amusement park! Back before Mickey and Minnie fell into the recluse life, there had been talking about sailing the seas and visiting all the various amusement parks in the Vasty Deep. While he genuinely had no idea why people like attractions designed to nauseate and frighten them, Proto Man enjoyed the spectacle and how silly people acted at these places.
Unfortunately, the images from the Dataverse didn’t match the situation on the ground, and even from his height, Proto Man could spot the various fires amongst the trees. The sound of gunshots and heavy munitions drifted up on the wind, along with a mixture of human and not-so-human noises. If this was a contested zone, the android wondered what the situation was like in areas where the darklings had claimed victory.
“Take us down, Boy.”
Rush let out a bark of affirmation as the roar of the thrusters dropped to a nearly silent purr. As the pair descended, the din of combat grew to cacophonous heights, until they found themselves under fire from the island.
“I’ll take it from here.” Proto Man grimaced as Rush banked to avoid a condensed beam of black energy. “Stay within range of communications, and if you spot any friendlies, send them this way!”
The dog barked once more to convey its understanding as the preteen machine adjusted his helmet and glanced down at the wristband. One of the sub-systems mentioned replication, so Proto Man quickly executed that query. A few beats later, another band appeared and dropped down onto the recessed stabilizing platform on Rush’s back.
“If anyone comes, give them copies of that!”
After a spin to avoid a few more errant attacks, Proto Man launched himself from the Rush Jet. As he descended toward the edge of the island, the Proto Buster flashed to life, and its owner released a torrent of energy blasts. While he couldn’t physically see the creatures trying to welcome him to the Archipelago, the machine’s sensors painted the path of his projectiles down into the dense brush. A few bursts of fire and burnt plant matter sprayed out from down below as Proto Man’s boot thrusters popped on to deaccelerate his descent.
Dropping safely through the brush, Proto Man landed on a dense root with a dull thud. His balance stabilizers kicked in as his scanners immediately went to work on the surrounding region. With the range boosted, he was able to pick up what was around him far better than he could in the past. Unfortunately, none of it was good news, as his HUD rapidly started to spawn red blips in his periphery.
Even worse, they were below him as well.
Proto Man jumped just as a gnarled claw erupted through the root and slashed at his ankle. Punching his hand into the building-sized tree to serve as an impromptu anchor, the robot aimed the Proto Buster and charged a blast. He didn’t wait for the darkling to show itself. As the explosion tore through the network of roots, the blip vanished—an indication that the target was destroyed or incapacitated. Either way, he had to shift his focus as more of the creatures swarmed in from his flanks.
Grimacing, the robot kicked away from the tree, tearing away a chunk of it with him as he dropped back down toward the crisscrossing network of roots above the ocean. Overhead, he saw one of the darklings landed where he had been perched and dive for him. Proto Man swung his buster cannon around, but before he could blast apart the monster, it was slashed in half by a massive gray blade. Two perfectly bisected halves crashed into the roots as the man with the spiky blonde hair landed nimbly on an upturned root. He glanced down at the small robot.
“Name’s Cloud. You look like you could use a hand.” He muttered as more darklings started to descend from branches overhead. Proto Man took aim and blasted on apart, much to the clear amusement of the swordsman. “All right, I guess I could use a hand too.” He grinned as the two primes readied themselves for their amassing adversaries.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Blink - 07-19-2017
A bright pink circle suddenly appeared on the coast of an island in the Sabaody Archipelago. It glowed for a moment and then expanded out to form a floating oval, shaped like an old mirror. It formed a picture frame, and inside that frame was an image of the forecastle of a boat. A feminine figure in green was walking towards the frame, and then stepped through it onto the sandy beach. The glowing lights disappeared behind her.
The woman was Clarice Ferguson, and she had just stepped out of a portal of her own making, and onto a battlefield.
Immediately after stepping foot on the sand, she could a flash of movement to the right. She lept backwards and then slid to a stop a few feet behind where she was standing. In front of her was a strange, grey-ish creature of considerable size but apparently not much speed. It had glowing veins going along its torso and limbs, and turned its head to expose a similarly colored plum-shaded set of eyes. It didn't stop to think about its next action, instead just moving straight towards her. Assuming this meant it had limited intelligence, she took the chance to teleport away from its line of sight and appeared behind it, in the air. As she came down, she summoned some of her emerald-colored energy into the shape of a single dagger, slamming it down onto the monster's head from behind. It stumbled at first, so she raised her energy blade up and then brought it back down. With her strength, it took three more stabs onto the thick dome. She put her feet on its shoulders from behind to steady herself, and then back-flipped off of it. By the time she landed on the sand, the dark creature had dropped and disintegrated into the beach.
Blink had actually expected to see such a monster, but granted not that quickly after getting on the island. The monster was called a Darkspawn. She knew as much from the information she gathered from her boat trip out to this place, and from the strange canine robot she had encountered earlier after discovering land. The dog itself didn't talk of course (that would be silly, right?), but it did give her a strange device that explained via text what she was likely to encounter here.
Though she had no personal stake in The Vasty Deeps, a natural curiousity for the dangerous unknown led her here. That, and the fact that people that couldn't defend themselves were dying. Admittedly, that bothered her a little bit.
The fuchsia woman stepped into another portal and came out onto a tree beach. It was a tall tree, probably the largest (or close to it) on what she could see of the island. There was one other tree that might have rivaled the height of this one, and it had some strange sounds and lights coming from around it. Whatever was going on was happening somewhere near it. That was to be destination.
Blink jumped forward and deliberately disappeared into a portal, coming out on the other side over the ground. She rolled onto her feet and sprinted forward, into another portal and out about thirty feet forward. She continued this trend for about a minute, in and out of time-space until something caught her attention. She came to a slow in a field, right near a small patch of flowers. As she paused to examine the white lilies, she squinted when something seemed strange. There was some strange kind of glow coming from the roots, which trailed up through a single 'vein' in the stem of the otherwise-cute blossoms. It looked like straight up evil was pulsing into the flower. It looked like it was corruption.
Whatever this was, it was real danger. This wasn't just some bandits or a small monster. This was real life-threatening stuff. Not just her life. All life.
As if right on cue, as that thought crossed her mind, another one of those hulking monsters burst from underneath the bed of herbs and screamed a low, dark roar. Blink yelped (thankfully no one was there that could hear her) and rolled backwards. Before the darkspawn creature could land on her, she jumped forward and teleported away. She appeared further away from it just as it landed where she was once standing. It immediately caught her new location and looked up at her.
"What in the world?" she asked out loud to no one in particular. She was able to get a real good look at this one as it studied her right back. It began to slowly move towards her, almost in a challenging, territorial kind of way. She conjured up two long spears that floated next to her, glowing green in the usual tint of her strange energy. Just as the monster began to run at her, she moved put the floating javelins up to block the way by swinging at it. It easily deflected one, but the other stabbed into its knee and brought it down onto the other one. "Whoa there, buddy..." she backed up to put some distance between her and it. "What are you?"
She wasn't expecting one, but she got no answer. Instead, she was greeted to some noise from back the way she came. She turned to look and was greeted with a smaller, slender version of this glowing corruption, jumping towards her. She barely jumped side-ways, onto her hands and then back to her feet in a clumsy kind of flip. This new creature screamed at her, much more high-pitched, like a shriek. It lunged at her, but this time she had the wits to put a shield up between her and it, blocking the claw from hitting her. It was deceptively strong, given its size. She grunted as she backed up and prepared an offense move, but then the big monster was back.
As it didn't care that a giant green javelin had stabbed into its kneecap, the hulking Darkspawn trucked its way towards Blink, who was once again her quickness to jump backwards. She now found herself facing both the big one and the skinner-but-still-kinda-tall one.
She quickly realized she had gotten very lucky with the initial monster she faced. "This is not fun," she admitted to no one.
"Its fun to me!"
The excited voice was followed up by the sound of a loud boom, almost like a canon. It blew the bigger monster away (literally), causing it to erupt in a flash of light. The smaller one had lept forward to avoid the blast (very Blink-like), but was quick down by a giant blade that slammed down over it, slicing it clear in half.
The wielder of the giant blade looked at Blink and gave what she had to assume was his best effort at a smile. She turned behind her to see what she could only describe as a robot show up behind her. "Thanks," she said meakly, not really sure how else to greet them.
"Don't thank us yet," the spikey blonde swordsman warned her. He nodded his head towards the direction they both came from.
"Hope you can fight," the robot told her.
Blink did her best to appear tough as the three primes stood in the line of several marching, mindless dark monsters. "No problem."
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Freeza - 07-20-2017
Jaco's pale, leathery looking hands rested on his steering stems while he felt his inner self glow with pride. This had been his best plan yet. Recruiting a Prime to fight by his side to secure their victory? It had to be something only a super elite Galactic Patrolman of his caliber would've been able to handle with such swift haste and flawless execution.
"Now, according to my super-elite calculations," his nasally voice chimed, "We're almost to the checkpoint where we need to make a pitstop before finally encountering the Darklings. There, we will acquire a wristband that'll help us beat them."
"So what are we up against? What are Darklings exactly? And how will the wristband help?" Cole inquired, any information that would help him picture what they were up against that could help him slay them would be helpful. Jaco thought Cole was a daring human, albeit lacking common sense, the elite alien deduced, since he had been so willing to jump on the death train and rocket toward battle. Primes. Jaco scoffed to himself.
Or maybe... Cole had an ace up his sleeve and that was the true source of the man's power. What if he was more powerful than Frieza?! No, no Jaco don't panic, this guy hasn't killed anyone yet. But I better search the Dataverse for any extra information on this Koehler just in case. Seeing how he's my passenger... Despite Jaco's cautious skepticism it seemed like his shotgun was a nice guy and had so far proven easy for an opportunist like Jaco to manipulate.
The super elite Galactic Patrolman nodded, "These are all valid questions Earthling. Darklings are creatures invading this land who threaten the lives of all its inhabitants. I have been informed they hold a plague of darkness that could end life here as we know it. Horrible monsters, I'm told. Not sure how the wristband will help, I assume even if I knew it would include something so technologically advanced that it would be above your human comprehension," The pilot quickly slowed his ship to avoid making a very explosively howling road kill.
Cole looked out the dome window as the frisbee shaped jet swivled, "I don't see any Darkli-"
"Wristbands! They shall ensure our success!" Jaco declared before muttering under his breath, "I hope."
Before them was a robotic dog with an inquisitive prerogative. Jaco's keen eyes spotted their first objective hanging out of the dog's mouth. "Ha!"
"Right, wristbands then monsters," Cole nodded as Jaco pressed the airtight seal to be released. The scent and spray of the ocean filled their nostrils.
"YOU THERE!" Jaco's tangy voice warred against the tremendous gusts of wind.
"I, super elite Galactic Patrolman Jaco, and guest am here for the wristbands in your mouth!" The spunky alien offered a glittering smile and then his attention was completely kidnapped by the fact that it was an adorable robot dog doing the delivery.
"Oh. My. ALL!" Jaco exclaimed as his yellow eyes hinged on the mechanic dog and his Galactic heart melted. The spry alien jumped from his hovering ship and stood steadily on the rims.
"Do you want a -eh hem-" Jaco coughed into his hand and began a series of woofing barks. Cole's expression was phased only by a surprised blink as the strange alien began to speak dog. Today was chock-full of surprises.
Meanwhile, Rush replied with one jovial bark.
"Hah! I bet you do!" Jaco had asked the pup's permission before going for the classic scratching behind the ear. The gears and circuits of the dog's machinery quickly sparked coiled together as the dog responded to the rubs as he was programmed to: Tail wagging, grin forming, Jaco even managed to hit the spot that made his hind leg flag with a kick.
After Jaco had absorbed his dog-loving fun, he turned to Cole with a big grin. "Dogs with no fleas are the best kind," he pointed out. "Where was I... Wristbands?"
The dog muffled another woof.
Jaco gasped loudly. THE Protoman?! Suddenly it was all worth it. Together, the Galactic Justice would be delivered by the two super elite who had scaled the stars! Glitter formed in Jaco's eyes at the thought. "Really?! Protoman was here? Prime hero and defender of all that is just in the universe?"
Woof.
"What did he say? Who's Protoman?" Cole asked. One thing after another, this alien continued his zany antics.
"How could you say that Earthling?! Protoman is the most heroic Prime in the Omniverse! Don't taint his own dog's ears with such words, I shall enlighten you! He's saved the day more than I have fingers! He waged war on the Blight which spread across the land of Tangled Green, set out to stop it, completely abolished it! He-" Jaco caught himself getting carried away and checked the time, "I'll have to tell you more on the way. We have to get going this minute! I have to get my camera ready, pen and paper..." Jaco quickly did a mental tally of all he would need to christen the moment when he would meet Protoman and ask for his autograph. Though there were more important things...
"Aren't you forgetting the all important wristbands?" Cole pointed out with an amused smirk. Jaco was certainly one of a kind.
"Ah! Yes. Anoint us o' captain!" the little alien secured the band as far as it would go, yet it still dangled loosely off the Galactic alien's wrist.
The Patrolman didn't want his perfect moment ruined and looked over to find the Quincy was pulling his snugly tight (causing a slight eye twitch on the puny alien), Jaco had pulled out his camera and took taking a selfie with Protoman's pup and woofing questions.
"Woof woof," Jaco said with a smile, confirming Rush's request that Jaco would help back up Protoman in the battle. "You got it."
"What's he saying now?" It was kind of unique that Jaco was a translator and that lead to the Quincy wondering just how many other absurd languages his pilot could speak.
"I was asking him details on how Protoman likes to be addressed, and then I asked him if it was better to get his autograph before battle or after." Jaco's shoulders had sulked, "Unfortunately he didn't see the value in needing a signed piece of paper to commemorate the moment. Perhaps it is for the better, I'd rather leave a good impression and it just means I'll have to settle for some action shots with my super-elite photography skills."
"Hmm, so are we all set and ready to face them?" Cole's eyes shifted from electronic dog to the alien pilot who could talk to the electronic dog.
"I'd say so. Wo-Woof!" Jaco said with a charismatic wave and sprung back into his podlike ship with precision and ease, "That will be all human! Let us go!"
Cole followed, his feet were a little slippery against the ocean-spattered exterior and quickly he landed into the sanctum that was the ship.
"Now, prepare yourself." As they traveled further into the unknown abyss, the darkness unyieldingly stared back into their souls.
"Oh, I'm ready," Cole said with a confident expression settling into the curves of his face as Jaco's ship raced toward Protoman and the danger at full-throttle.
"What is that?!" Cole exclaimed as his eyes hinged on a dark being that gave off the same vibration as a Hollow. They were headed right for it and while Jaco had keen reflexes there was nearly no time to stop.
"That, young human, appears to be why we're here." Jaco said in a matter-of-fact tone, "And I'm gonna shoot it out of the sky!"
A volley of laser blasts sprouted from his ship in a vicious molten stream as it sliced into the creature of darkness! The stray Darkling fell from its flight with an explosive splash.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Koehler - 07-21-2017
This Jaco fellow certainly had more at his disposal than Cole imagined at first. He wasn’t used to seeing such a small vessel display raw firepower such as the brilliant streams of fire and light that sliced into the gargantuan Darkling ahead of them that dared to bar the alien vessel’s way.
Though such a display of brilliance and power did not distract Cole from his goal, or from noticing the sudden shift in their environment upon their arrival to the archipelago. All around them were more dark creatures, and each one was a different size and variety than the others, both flying and not. The dark and corrupted landscape held little in the way of hospitality, and what once was surely beautiful and serene was now barren and harsh, where the once tall trees were withered away to empty husks, and where inky black clouds barred the sun from casting its warm radiance upon the land. The salty-brine smell and taste of the ocean air was turned sour and bitter from the blight that spread slowly from the shadows.
It reminded Cole far too much of Hueco Mundo, the land of the Hollows, with its never-ending desert and persistent nightfall. And yet for its similarities, this curse seemed ever worse and depressing for every moment Cole spent observing it, as if it were reaching out to snuff the flame within his very soul.
It was disgusting, and such disgust showed clearly on the young Quincy’s face. Despite this, Cole noticed one final detail, a light of color against the bleak, corrupted wasteland. Several Darklings appeared to be swarming around a group of humans next to a corpse of a similar hulking beast Jaco had just lanced with fire moments earlier. Despite the height and speed at which they were circling, Cole could make out some details. One wore an armor that was a particularly vibrant red and seemed to be shorter of stature compared to the other two. Another wielded a sword that seemed impossibly large for him to carry, given his slender physique, and the third was, at this distance, fuchsia-skinned woman standing defiant against the shadows with javelins at the ready.
Those were probably the people they were looking for.
“Up ahead, Jaco. That’s them, open the hatch and let me out.” Cole instructed Jaco with an uncharacteristic curtness.
Jaco shrugged off the rudeness of his recently ‘acquired’ comrade in arms, apparently too distracted by the idea of seeing The Protoman in action, distributing swift justice to the many enemies that now surrounded them. When he spotted the red-colored armored robot, he almost leapt with joy and excitement.
“Oh, I can’t believe it! It really is The Protoman!” Jaco started with his gleeful oration, but was quickly stopped when Cole laid his hand on the alien’s shoulder.
“Jaco…” Cole started with a amused smile. At least someone was having fun…
“Right.” Jaco corrected himself, pulling the craft closer to the dark swarm surrounding his self-professed idol and his comrades. Slowing to a hover over the trio. Jaco pressed a series of buttons to put the craft into neutral and released the dome, the stench of corruption and rankness quickly swelling into the craft.
Cole quickly shot up and leapt from the craft, twin chains of golden fire sprouting from his back shoulders in a shower of sparks and cinder as they twirled up along his arms and ended in his hands. Markings glowed beneath his simple clothing, as fire erupted in his palms. Upon his rolling landing, the flames coalesced into twin handguns of energy and swirling flame, and the Quincy shot back up with ease and took aim at the nearest enemy, now standing alongside the trio.
“Hope you don’t mind if I crash the party.” Cole joked, taking aim at one of the many Darklings.
Cloud merely glanced at the newcomer before focusing his attention back on the enemies in front of him. The spikey-haired blonde swordsman stood at the ready, Buster Sword in hand.
The preteen robot, however, seemed more than eager for the addition of another helping hand.
“There’s plenty to go around,” the robot replied, weapon trained on the enemies.
As the Darklings launched another attack at the party, the Quincy laid into one of them with a hail of fire, while Proto unleashed a volley of his own bursts of energy from his arm-cannon, and the stoic swordsman deftly sliced his way through the incoming enemies.
Blink, although apprehensive at first at the sudden new arrivals, quickly switched her focus back to the threat at hand and nimbly dodged and wove her way around like a needle through the small battlefield, consistently outflanking the weaker Darklings and avoiding the stronger ones’ reprisals through efficient use of acrobatics and her portals.
“Jaco, stay in the ship and provide support if you can!” Cole shouted back at the alien, narrowly dodging an incoming attacker with a leap as it was mercilessly cut down by an enormous guillotine of a sword.
Jaco opened his mouth to protest the rudeness that just came from his companion, but stopped before the words could leave him, realizing that Proto Man was right there in the middle of a battle. Stifling the urge to take a picture of the great hero in action, he closed the dome of his ship and set to work, grumbling to himself while doing so.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Proto Man - 07-21-2017
The din of combat.
It does many things to the individuals involved. Chiefly, it can forge quick bonds between individuals under fire. In a matter of minutes, Proto Man and Cloud had been joined by two others and a third providing aerial support. Although they’d only had a short time together, the robot and the mercenary had managed to mesh their combat styles in an efficient manner. Quick bursts of low-intensity fire would often be followed by the blade of the executioner.
A woman with purple skin had joined the fracas. Proto Man’s systems had grabbed a few quick scans, enough to properly identify her name and a loose affiliation with some factions in the Vasty Deep. When she started to teleport around the forest, releasing rapid dagger strikes and the occasional javelin as she evaded direct combat with the more hulking variations of the monsters. Cole, the other arrival, fought with a pair of handguns.
Every now and again, a ship idling just outside the trees would releases lances of energy into the trees. While mostly ineffective, the intermittent flashes of light and the chunks of wooden shrapnel they spread everywhere provided a nice backdrop for the frantic struggle against the darklings.
An island of trees growing straight up from the surface of the ocean, Sabaody didn’t seem like the sturdiest of places. Already, there were small fires dancing around in the canopy that stretched hundreds of feet above their heads. Around them, a few of the trees had already crumbled into the ocean. Proto Man feared that even if they were able to fend off these creatures, Sabaody would be shattered beyond repair in the process.
Who does these things? Who would willing destroy something so wonderful?
Although Scylla—the mastermind of the Blight—was what popped into his head, Proto Man couldn’t help but recall the remorse that Mickey experienced when the subject of Nippur was brought up in conversations between the two of them. For some reason that the robot still struggled to understand, the mouse continued to regret their decision to join in the Battle of Nippur. They hadn’t killed anyone. They hadn’t purposefully or deliberately destroyed anything. They had simply sent a tyrant to the Omniverse’s equivalent of jail. They had even returned to Nippur to try and make things better! How were they supposed to know that the people of Nippur would turn against one another?
Proto Man shook his head. Maybe Mickey just understood people better than he ever would.
Boom!
A concentrated burst of ‘aerial support’ smashed into a tree just a few yards north of Proto Man’s skull. The red robot dove down into the water as a vehicle-sized chunk of bark came crashing down on top of a pair of encroaching darklings.
As he vanished into the defiled ocean, the preteen machine’s low light scanners immediately kicked on and the world was overlaid with various shades of orange and red. The thrusters in his boots activated a moment later, and the water became a frothy mess as the robot rocketed up out of the ocean and landed awkwardly on a tangled mass of roots. Vision switching back as he shifted his torso, Proto Man activated his energy sword and leaned back as the oncoming darkling inadvertently skewered itself on his weapon.
Its life—or whatever semblance of life it had—rapidly draining away, the feral monster slashed at Proto Man’s face with its clawed fingers. An errant swipe scratched across the surface of his visor before a massive blur of gray cleaved away its skull.
Hopping over to Proto Man’s tree, Cloud held out his mighty weapon and grimaced as a larger darkling turned its slobbering, bloodshot eyes upon them. In the periphery, Blink and Cole were preoccupied with small detachments of the creatures.
“Go low,” Proto Man whispered as the darkling stalked toward them with all the patience of a big cat eying some wounded gazelles. “It’s top heavy… go low.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Cloud said with a grin as he launched off the roots toward their foe.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Blink - 07-21-2017
Fighting on solid ground was where a battle might favor the larger, more powerful warriors. Hulking darkspawn could move in any direction and determine the flow of battle by where they shifted their weight. But on this sunken island, where all of the combat was being contested in the trees jutting out from the ocean; the smaller, nimbler fighter had the true advantage. That was the case with Blink, whose acrobatic abilities made her a force to be reckoned with in the canopy.
Blink kept a floating emerald javelin at her side as she jumped from branch to portal to branch. There were smaller darklings attempting to chase her, but the larger ones were forced to stay under the surface of the water until they could find a moment to strike. Now, Blink found herself face to face on a thick branch with three of the veiny, glowing monsters. She had her back to the tree's trunk, but thanks to the surface they were fighting on, they would have to go after her one on one. She readied herself as she grasped the energy spear in her hands.
The first darkling lunged forward, but couldn't close the distance fast enough before taking the blade right on its cheek, sending it sideways into the ocean. "Ha!" She let out a victorious grunt as the second one jumped at her, but this time she spun the javelin and hit it with the handle, causing it to drop back down. The third one moved forward too, now, and Blink panicked when she realized she set them up for a two-on-one. Her spear came up and blocked an attack from both beasts, but it send her backwards, cornering her against the tree trunk.
"Get down!" She heard, and without thinking about it she did the split right there. A blondish blur was jumping from tree to tree, two pistols in its palms and just began to unload the clips onto the unsuspecting darklings. When the guns fired, it sounded like a typical firearm except when it hit the torsos of their targets, they lit up like fiery sparklers. The bullets blasted through the darklings and into the tree. As the corpses dropped in either direction, off of the tree's branch and into the water, the gunslinger flipped sideways and easily landed in front of Blink. "You good?"
Blink, who wasn't a fan of being saved, quickly stood up and brushed herself off. "I'm fine. I had it," she spat at him, perhaps a bit more rudely then he deserved. She recoiled her own words with a, "Thanks, though."
"No problem. I'm Cole." He looked like a child to Blink, which might have been hypocritical to think since she wasn't exactly an elderly lady herself.
"Blink," she said, opting to keep her real name off her lips. She nudged her head forward, nodding him towards the sight in front of them. The robot and the spikey swordsman were fighting a hulking monster about half a football field away from them. She pointed at them, and then moved her finger to the right to show him a handful of sneaky-looking darklings that were watching the fray. "Leave the big one to them, but lets hold off the group." She looked at Cole for a response, and he nodded. "You've got a pretty neat trick," she said, her green eyes glancing at his guns. It was a little condesending, and she could tell he was slightly bothered by his weapons being called a trick. She cut him off from having a chance to retort. "But check my trick out."
With that, she put both of her hands down towards the ocean, shooting a lime-green energy blast downwards. It suddenly exploded into a pink oval underneath them, forming a portal that led to behind the group of darklings.
"Try to keep up," she told him with a playful grin.
Claire jumped down off of the branch and onto the portal. The group of darklings numbered four, but it was one less as soon as she landed and slammed a glowing dagger into the back of its neck. The others were on separate branches or clinging to the trees themselves, so Blink had to jump sideways to close the distance. Once she landed, she could see that Cole followed her through the portal and swung via his legs over to an opposite branch.
The darkspawn in front of Blink came at her, but she 'blinked' behind it and kicked it forward so its head landed against the tree's bark. She turned to see Cole jumping from branch to branch, firing his pistols along the way. She opened a portal in front of him and allowed him to quickly transport from one target to another. He seemed to get the hang of portal-hopping quickly, as once he had dispatched his two goons he used another portal to kick Blink last's target back into the water for good.
"Not bad," she smirked at him.
"That's what I was just thinking about you," she teased back at her.
The sound of splashing came from below them, causing both Blink and Cole to leap upwards to higher ground. They rolled up onto another branch, heavy enough to support their weight, and looked down. Sure enough, more monsters had jumped from the water and were climbing up towards them, as if an endless supply awaited them under the water's surface. The two fighters, who had just met and knew nothing about each other, exchanging knowing glances. They were in it together, and neither seemed to mind.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Cloud Strife - 07-21-2017
As the duo reached the large beast Cloud, with a horizontal swing of his weapon, cleaved at its flesh. But the darkling was faster than it looked and grabbed onto the mercenary’s blade, halting the blonde’s attack. Cloud, fighting with all his strength to take back control of his blade, did not leave himself the opportunity to avoid the creature’s incoming fist. Proto Man, however, had other plans. Using the buster sword as a platform, Proto launched himself at the creature’s free arm and pierced its thick hide with his energy blade. A momentary lapse in strength was all the mercenary needed to free his blade. With one smooth motion, the mercenary ripped his blade free from the twisted being’s grip. The creature cried out in anger and pain as the small robot removed his weapon from the darkling and leapt backwards, landing next to Cloud.
‘Thanks.’ The spiky haired mercenary breathed.
‘You’re welcome.’ the red robot responded as the duo, once again, stared down the oversized darkling.
This time it was angrier and opted to charge instead of stalk. Proto, acting quick, lept to the left and let of a couple of energy blasts. The blasts of energy made contact with the darkling’s upper chest and neck area, searing its flesh but not halting its charge. This one was much stronger than the smaller ones. Cloud had opted for a less graceful approach, using the length of his blade as a barricade in an attempt to halt the beast. The creature slammed into the blonde’s blade, pushing the man, backwards, across the small, mangrove, battlefield.
The ogre-sized darkling stared at the blonde with its bloodshot eyes. After letting out a thunderous roar, it began pushing again. Cloud struggled with all of his strength to halt the beast, but was only able to slow it. If things continued the way they were going, he’d be pushed into the corrupted ocean.
‘Blues-’ he began, but his companion was way ahead of him. Dashing up the creature’s backside, Proto Man raked his blade up the darkling’s back before plunging it into its shoulder blade. It reared back, letting out another pain filled scream. This was his chance. Cloud ducked down and transitioned into a spin. His massive grey blade sweeping across both of the creature’s legs. First making contact with its upper thighs, then the knees, and finally its shins. Coming out of the spin, slightly dizzy, Cloud dived to the right as their oversized enemy lost its footing and came crashing down onto its hands and knees. Leaving no time for the monster to recover, Proto retrieved his blade and plunged it through the darkling’s skull. Ending it’s life.
The blonde mercenary let out an exhausted sigh as his robot associate dropped down from the corpse. This place was a lot more treacherous than the few news articles he’d been able to read on the way here had depicted. Proto deactivated his blade as he marched back to Cloud.
‘What was that thing?’ The young man asked the small robot, assuming that Blues was more informed than he was.
‘A darkling. It’s similar to those,’ he explained as he pointed a finger to one of the bisected bodies that the mercenary had left behind earlier. ‘which are called Darkspawn.’
‘And they are?’ the blonde questioned.
‘Creatures that only destroy and spread corruption.’ Proto Man explained as he shifted his focus and entered a command into his armband. Cloud watched as the device replicated itself in the young robot’s hands. ‘Here take this, you’ll need it.’
‘Uh, thanks.’ Cloud mumbled as he took the device and attached it to his wrist. As if it had a mind of it’s own, it’s screen instantly synced up with his body. Giving him a rather simple display of his health conditions. His health status seemed normal for someone who’d just come out of battle, so he wasn’t worried.
‘Well they seem to go down easily enough.’ the mercenary noted as he examined the corpse. Its twisted, grey, flesh seemed as if it had already started to rot. Though, that wouldn’t surprise the man with the climate that surrounded the archipelago.
‘Alone or small groups aren’t a problem.’ the red robot spoke as he, too, examined the creature they had just felled. ‘But as a horde, that’s when they are a problem.’
Cloud noted the seriousness in the bot’s words. Clearly he’d fought against these things before. If that was the case, then sticking with him was the best option. Plus he was a pretty skilled fighter, and that’s always a plus.
‘Anyway,’ Cloud began as he turned around to look for the other group of people that had shown up. ‘We should probably help them out.’ he finished, pointing a finger at the group of combatants. Proto Man gave him a nod as the duo rushed across the mangroves to rejoin the group.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Nebula - 07-22-2017
The battle against the darkling menace in the mangrove forest-island of Sabaody was messy. Fires had sprung up in places. Trees were collapsing, limbs falling into the befouled waters. Countless corpses littered the branches and small islands clustered at the surface of the water, around the trees. Residents of the island, some of the few Imperial forces who'd gotten through to help, and other enterprising or unlucky sorts. But above all, the most numerous were the bodies of darklings. Nebula's soldiers, both the ones they had summoned themselves as well many corrupted residents of the Vasty Deep itself, lay sprawled and broken, the corrupted sludge that had taken the place of their blood littering everything about them.
Despite all of them that had fallen, more of them continued to come. Crawling out of the woodwork, slinking out of the shadows. From deeper in the archipelago, further 'inland', toward the forest-island's center. In small groups and clusters, a dozen at a time at most, but emerging constantly. Splashing up out of the water, leaping from the branches above, skittering around and along the trunks of trees, or darting among the intervening space in blurs of motion. Different forms, many different forms, but all bearing one thing in common: they were lost to madness and corruption and had only one thing in mind. Whatever Nebula's intentions were, only the higher ups and officers, the ones who could keep some sanity and rationale about them under such heavy corruption, were privy to it. The rank and file soldiers, the darkspawn and darklings beyond number, cared not for such plans. They only wanted to use their new power. Wreak as much havoc as they could, and spill some blood.
Not that they would articulate as much. All they had to say on the subject amounted to wordless screeching, screams and roars of rage and nonsensical battle cries and shouts.
A heavy droning, buzzing sounded through the canopy of trees overhead. Foliage burst apart, and a grating reverberation of sound tore apart the screen of plant matter. Hovering there, wings a silver blur at his back, was a creature that looked very much like a humanoid hornet. Composed all in shades of silver and gray, gleaming metallic steel. Eyes gleamed red, and viscous toxins dripped from wickedly-sharp needles, emerging over his forearms.
At the same time, several more figures burst out of the foliage to hover at metallic hornet's side. They were likewise composed all of gleaming, silvery steel, a glare of red filtering out through the eyeholes of helmets. Imperial Stormtrooper equipment, a jetpack on each of their backs and a blaster in hand. Six of them in total. With a wordless screech from their hornet commander, the group scattered. Seven steely, silver blurs zipping among the trees, joining the chaos of the horde that continued to pour out, and leaping in to make their own strikes. Flyby attacks, swift and distracting. Not meant to damage, but to hamper and impede proper combat. They didn't care if they hit their 'allies'; indeed, the jet troopers would now and then drop grenades and explosives, tearing huge chunks out of the trees and roots, and blowing their own forces away in the blasts. They were there solely to add an element of chaos to the mix.
Quote:And so, it begins! You are facing a virtually endless horde of darkling forces. Individually, they are weak enough, but they have a horde mentality -- the more of them there are, the more intelligently and savagely they will fight, and the stronger they will get, so take them out quickly.
A recycled clone of Hornet Man.EXE (abilities here: http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?tid=7927&pid=106014#pid106014 ) leading a small group of recycled Jet Troopers has also entered the fray. They are every bit as powerful, agile and skilled as their real counterparts, but they are incredibly fragile. A few well-placed blows will take them out, if you can manage to catch them. Hornet Man has his full arsenal at his disposal, and the Jet Troopers have blaster rifles, as well as thermal and fragmentation grenades in (apparently) limitless supply.
The primary objective is to push toward the center of the island, where they appear to be coming from. Be wary, as getting closer will make the attacks intensify as you draw closer to their source, and the numbers will only increase.
Everyone has until Friday, July 28th, 11:59 PM EST to make one post, which may be up to 1200 words.
Knock yourselves out.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Proto Man - 07-25-2017
The skies were alive with the shrieks of skittering insects made of twisted steel and warped flesh. The massive hornet led the charge—its wings flickering with enough speed that they looked like little more than silver blurs behind the seemingly mechanized warrior.
Before Proto Man’s system could put two and two together, the insectoid released a dazzling burst of energy from its wings. The preteen machine dove to the wayside—his eyes wide behind his visor as the attack sliced effortlessly through a pair of nearby trees. At the end of his leap, Proto Man’s found himself once more under water. Overhead, he heard the muffled sound of laser blasts and jetpacks. Reticles popped up outside his current field of vision, informing him that the aerial soldiers had swooped down to attack.
You don’t say?! Swinging his feet underneath him, Proto Man gave a quick one-two thrust to get himself clear of the water. He grabbed hold of the closest stable tree and skittered up it with all the grace of a heavy metal robot. Blaster bolts peppered the space around him as he grabbed at the nearest tree.
Beneath the preteen machine, Cloud angled his massive sword in front of his body to act as an impromptu shield. Blaster fire sizzled and sparked across the surface of the weapon, leaving the soldier time to focus his thoughts. After a short delay, the palm of his hand started to glow a vibrant shade of crimson.
“Cover me!” He shouted just moments before Proto Man released a charged blast against the entrenched jet troopers. With the way clear, Cloud swung out and threw his palm forward. A few beats later, the momentarily scattered jet troopers found themselves at the mercy of a roaring pillar of flames. Although not immediately dispatched by the swordsman’s magic, the scattered troopers’ were easy pickings for a few well-aimed shots from Cole.
With his initial troopers dispatched, the floating monster—Hornet.exe, so Proto Man’s analytics reported—threw back his head and let out a high-pitched screech. “He’s calling in reinforcements!” The red robot shouted. “Fall back!”
Already, the hum of approaching jetpacks could be heard in the canopy above the foursome. While Proto Man picked up the louder rapport of Cole’s aerial support, it was quickly drowned out by the blaster bolts that tore down through the canopy onto the heads of the primes. “Keep going, we need to find a more defensible point!” The machine barked as he stopped long enough to fire up into the trees. A beat later, a shadow fell over him as Cole narrowed his eyes steadied his magnums. Before Proto Man could protest, the man squeezed the triggers and released a pair of energy beams that literally screamed from the barrel of his large handguns.
The beams were followed shortly thereafter by a second salvo, and somewhere up in the trees, there was a shriek of rage as a pair of jet troopers dropped down from the canopy and crashed into the tangle of roots.
“That person had a ship, right?” The preteen machine asked the man as they started to retreat amidst a retaliatory outburst from the growing horde of jet troopers in the canopy-clouded skies above them. “Can you call him to give us aerial support?”
Cole shook his head. “I, uh, don’t have anything to call him with.”
“Maybe I can have Rush find him…” Proto Man went to pull up his comm interface, but he suddenly caught sight of a small metal sphere bouncing off a tree to their left. A flare on his HUD told him to dive, and he obeyed, dragging a startled Cole down with him into the waters beneath the island. The fragmentation grenade erupted a moment later, sending out a shockwave that sent a few hundred pounds of tree down on top of the pair of primes.
Cloud and Blink were a few dozen yards away when they heard the distant boom of the fragmentation grenade. The explosion stopped them dead in their tracks as they turned to glance through the mangrove forest to see where the blast had occurred. “You think they’re okay?” Cloud asked as he reached behind his back for the Buster Sword.
“I think we have some more pressing concerns,” Blink whispered as a few jet troopers dropped down around them. The area light up with blaster fire, and Cloud managed to parry two blasts before a third and a four struck him in the back of his leg and shoulder. As the soldier fell down, Blink had sidestepped through a portal. The woman stepped out of a second just behind one of the idle jet troopers, and in a swift motion, she plunged her energy dagger through the gap between its helmet and chest armor. Swinging her blade around to make sure there was nothing important left intact, she wrenched it out and jumped backwards into a portal as the other troopers turned to fire on her.
Blink popped out just above a second trooper and crashed down on top of him. She wound up with his blaster rifle and fired a quick burst through his helmet. With the weapon in her hands, she turned and winced as she saw the jet troopers had her already lined up in their crosshairs. Instead of mowing down the mutant, they lost their arms when Cloud swung down his enormous, handheld guillotine. Arms spurting blood, the jet troopers only had a few agonized moments before a second swipe cleaved away both their heads.
The victory was short-lived, because more of the jet troopers were amassing to the south.
Reaching down for the dead trooper’s belt, Blink yanked off one of the fragmentation grenades. After glancing it over for a few minutes, she mashed the button and gently lofted it into a portal that opened up next to her. Twenty yards back, a portal opened up next to a trio of jet troopers and spat out a primed fragmentation grenade.
With that fresh explosion buying them some time, Cloud Strife and Blink pressed onward. Up ahead, they could see that the trees were a little lighter, and the ground was covered in a dense layer of moss. If anything, the sturdier ground would let them better steel themselves against the troopers and the terrifying buzzing that stalked closer to them with each passing second.
The concussive force had knocked out his gyro-sensors for a few moments. When they came online again, Proto Man quickly reoriented himself and grabbed hold of the nearest submerged root. He scanned quickly for Cole but found no trace of the man—had he been caught in the explosion after all? A second blast had gone off nearby, which meant the he could waste no time. He dragged his waterlogged body up out from the ocean and shook out the water as his sensors tried to grab hold of any familiar signatures in the area. He caught two, fleeing toward the north, and a third within arm’s re—
“Duck!” Cole barked as Proto Man obediently dropped his head. A glimmering silver stinger punched clean through the tree just above the robot’s cranium.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Cloud Strife - 07-26-2017
Both Blink and Cloud made it to the mossy clearing, leaving themselves just enough time to dodge the incoming blaster fire from behind them. Without thinking, the mercenary dashed in front of his purple companion and plunged his blade into the moss-ridden floor. Two energy blast shot out from behind the trees and slammed into his blade.
‘That was a close one.’ The blonde spoke as he lifted his blade from the floor. Two jet troopers hovered into the clearing, staring down at the pair from the sky. They were two high for him to reach, for the moment, so he'd have to come up with another plan. While cloud had taken a couple of seconds to consider his options, blink had already taken action. A portal had opened up above one of the troopers and had allowed blink to take up a position on it’s backside. It wasn’t how he’d like to have handled things, but he’d let her do her thing. Besides, it seemed he had another problem to deal with now.
In an instant, as if the jet troopers were some sort of beacon, a small group of darkspawn and darkling alike had poured into their new setting. A dozen or so of the twisted beings had scattered themselves across the field of moss. Each one letting out a low pitched cackle as they edged closer towards the blonde. A few seconds passed, before one of the creatures launched themselves at Cloud. With a single diagonal swipe of his massive blade the man cleaved it in two, rendering it lifeless and the blade partially embedded in the ground. However his victory was short, as he soon found himself under attack by a trio of the humanoids. Claws and jagged metal swiped at the spiky haired man, forcing him to dodge backwards and leave his blade behind. He was being backed into a, metaphorical, corner.
It was a gamble, but it was the only shot he had. Taking a few seconds to focus on his materia as his enemies pushed forward towards his position, Cloud put his risky plan into action. The creatures, only wanting to tear him apart, hurried their advance. With only inches to spare, a lightning bolt struck the creature closest to him. The electricity engulfed the creature and tore into the moss, kicking sediment and dust up into the air. This worked in his favor, he’d accidentally creates a kind of smoke screen for himself. Using this advantageous opportunity to strike, the man dashed in to the dust cloud.
Emerging from the haze, he slammed, shoulder first, into one of the grey-skinned combatants. Knocking it off it’s feet, he took the opportunity to relieve it of its weapon. The one handed blade felt light, really light, compared to what he was used to. But it would have to do. Cloud plunged the blade into the being’s skull. Springing forth, one of the accursed creatures lashed out at the blonde with razor sharp claws, ripping through his clothing and gouging flesh from his left shoulder. Cloud winced as the air brushed past his open wound.
‘There’s too many.’ He panted, as he looked around at the squadron of creatures that lay before him. ‘Alone they are nothing, but together they are too dangerous.’
The same creature that had caused the open wounds on his shoulder, this time joined by several others, launched another attack. Traveling as a pack, the combatants swarmed the mercenary, swiping and swinging at the man as they forced him further backwards across their battlefield. He did his best to parry each and every incoming attack, the light weight of his temporary weapon allowing him to barely scrape by. With his buster sword, he would have been able to use the weight of the blade to easily overpower them, but all he could do now was defend.
Backed into a corner, and wielding a weapon that left a lot to be desired, Cloud watched as things seemed to move in slow motion. The swings of the creature’s arms seemed so slow in that moment. But then the sound of a blaster snapped him back to his senses, and things moved at a normal pace again. Several well placed blaster shots dropped the group of darklings.
‘Need a hand?’ Blink asked, but she already knew the answer. The blonde nodded as she pulled out one of the, now disposed of, jet trooper’s fragmentation grenades and tossed it in amongst the remaining group of enemies. The pair hit the deck as the grenade went off in mid air, the explosion blowing away what remained of their enemies.
Cloud stumbled to his feet, ringing in his ears and slightly disoriented. While the grenade had been an effective tool for ridding them of their opposition, they had also been too close to the explosion. The shockwave had also had an effect on them. Cloud, noticing the path to his weapon was now clear, stumbled towards his blade. But before he could reach it, another creature burst out from underneath him. It’s twisted howling told him it was after his flesh. Before the creature could land the finishing blow though, Cloud’s buster sword tore through its midsection and skewered it in place. It’s lifeless body falling limp on his bade
Cloud was glad to see Blues and Cole appear behind it. The were a sight for sore eyes. Cloud, no longer disoriented, retrieved his blade and removed the creature from it. It felt good to have his weapon back.
‘Where’s that other one, with the ship?’ Cloud queried. Cole just shook his head, he honestly didn’t know.
‘There’s no time to talk. Hornet.exe is right on our tail.’ The red robot spoke. But before cloud could even question what kind of name that was, two cone shaped projectiles shot towards them. Instinctively, Cloud thrust his Buster sword in front of Proto Man, deflecting one of the projectiles. However, his previous battle had exhausted him more than he’d initially thought. The second stinger embedded itself into his left arm, almost knocking him over as it did so. Cloud quickly removed the cone, but something didn’t feel right. The odd projectile was covered in a weird viscous substance and his arm had quickly begun to feel numb.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Freeza - 07-26-2017
“Thanks guys,” he complained, sarcasm twisting his sassy tone, “Way to leave all the FLYING ones to me. Tch, they’re just lucky I have unrivaled super-elite piloting skills.”
Jaco flittered across the sky on his red whirling spacecraft, more visible than his own speeding ship was the trail of stardust fuel drizzled from his tailpipe as he streaked across the sky. The shadows were hot on his tail, flocking like flesh-hungry seagulls. Manipulating the condensed swarm’s own mass against themselves, Jaco performed a barrel roll, looping around the fleet of enemies that rivaled a train with several cars. He had continuously dodged their energy barrages, but now they'd crossed into the realm of friendly-fire and the shadow-warped creatures fell to the sharks after being hit with their own attacks.
Next Jaco executed a lag roll, creating distance between his enemies and causing several of them to slam into one another, next he was forced into yo-yoing loops in the air, activating his advanced evasion tactics. Alone in the sky, faced with mortal danger, Jaco felt the deepest temptation to turn tail and run.
The super elite patrolman hated being on the frontlines where tactical calculations were at their slowest. He was already in overdrive, his mind and eyes darting from the blaring scanners to the one-eighty view from the glass half sphere; Jaco’s stomach was in his throat and not from motion sickness, he was nauseous from fear.
The risk of death and mortal danger riddled his alien bones, making them chatter with shivering terror as he clutched at the steering grips for his life. A glimpse of Protoman down there, his charisma blazing in battle, gave Jaco a logical reason to continue, it wasn’t to fight the Darklings, it wasn’t to nobly save the verse, it wasn’t even to avoid being strangled by his scarier commander. It was simply to not let his idol down. The noble android would never even spare Jaco another look if he fled mid-fight.
In that defining moment, Jaco proved cowards could be brave, and on the flipside it had to be true that even the courageous could fall to their knees in fear. Not Protoman.
Coward no longer, Jaco adjusted the drift that was weighing on his mid-air acrobatics and a sheen glossed over the wingless jet. Jaco’s red bullseye in the sky had accumulated quite the swarm of flying black pests. Quickly, his galactic eyes appraised his surroundings, doing a quick twist in the air to calibrate his calculations. He caught sight of Protoman and Kohler’s struggle and newfound rage surged within him.
“You dare gang up on the Omniverse’s greatest hero? Oh, now you’re dead!” Jaco narrowed his eyes and while layers of trepidation coated his tingling body, a single jerk to the wheel caused the jet to spiral down through the sky like a corkscrew. In a vehement tornadoing spin, Jaco’s aircraft plunged dangerously close to slamming into the horizon, where trees had been lit like torches and the ocean was scattered with ugly-looking insectoid monsters.
His stomach wrenched more than his lithe ship when Jaco cranked the entire craft up, grazing inches from the surface speckled with small trees and shrubbery that darted from sight while the flying swarm of locusts were carried by their own momentum into the ground; steamrolling one another, at least a third of their fleet had crashed into the splintering, flaming branches. Hearing the howls of burning pain, Jaco felt himself encouraged by his momentary victory, “Take that, suckazzz!”
Rolling in front of him was a massive cliff with a single crevasse no wider than his own ship. Quickly, Jaco twisted in the air, angling his saucer vertically and taking down his glass protection. Windshield-less, the alien felt the whirl of a hurricane collide with his face as he grappled with the graveness of reality, Jaco braced for his fiery tomb if his precise execution had not been within a needle’s length.
The voracious beasts blindly followed, their vicious claws had nearly scraped holes through the metal of his ship. But none reached them, Jaco rocketed through the narrow corridor while Darklings found their skulls crushed into the rock, piles of them began to litter the ground like crumpled black garbage bags.
One alone was able to rival Jaco’s finesse in flight. Behind him, a tar-colored feathered beast closely followed Jaco’s ship. The corrupted Staraptor had also been able to slide vertically through the crevasse, it couldn’t quite flap its wings more than a few inches but it keenly followed its prey, waiting for the mouth of the tunneling cliffs to open up, so that the aerial predator could chomp down.
“Oh don’t make me do this…” Jaco’s lip quivered as his finger dangled over the glowing square button on his control panel.
The Staraptor was unrelenting, unyielding, and it was gaining speed, sailing the freshly funneled wind through the widening tunnel as the air around the flying-type transformed into a powerful molten aura.
“Ahhhh!” Jaco’s bug-like eyes widened as he hit into overdrive, wondering if this was sufficient enough reason to eject or flee. The Poke-ling’s aura had changed color into an azure hue and its speed defied the constraints of the narrow hollow.
“Time for my super-elite getaway!!!!” Jaco slammed his foot on the boosters and aimed his lasers at the ceiling of the widening cavern. The cacophony of a wrathful thunder roared as the ceiling began to fall.
Jinking from left to right, swerving around the crumbling ceiling of fallen hunks of stone in zooming jolts, while evading the now much wider room’s walls was all Jaco could do as incoming boulders tumbled from the ceiling, the alien’s eyes caught on it amid the fallout from his vaguely kamikaze-esque attack.
The one.
Given his current momentum and trajectory, he and emo-hair over there would avoid it. That wasn’t an option, shadow-charged lightning was already crackling from the creature’s wings. Jaco throttled back, cranking the steering vines and catapulted downward. The birdbrain immediately followed. The apartment-sized boulder was looming over both, all while Jaco’s ship was rocketing awfully fast toward the cave’s jagged crystalline stalagmite.
“Don’t die, don’t die!” He coached himself while the wind filled his ears, “NOW!”
Orange thrusters created a shockwave of monumental power, it was enough to stop Jaco from plummeting into the stone blades and launch him ninety degrees jousting a complete mid-momentum turn.
The beast of a bird was completely crushed, a cascade of black lightning filled the cave while Jaco looked up to find pebbles and particles of dust filling the innards of his ship. He rocketed out and free of the tunnel, cleaning off his dashboard, being a distracted driver, and still at mega-speed, his boosters perpetuated the spacecraft into a large yellow, glossy rock. Also known as Hornet.exe’s head.
Skittering out of his control, Jaco was jolted from his mid-battle cleaning session and while his precious baby was dented, he had two other problems. His pod spiraled like an out of control boomerang and there was a horrifically large hornet pissed at him, apparently it didn’t like being being reduced to the othered splattered bug guts that had accumulated on Jaco’s aircraft.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Blink - 07-27-2017
It had been a long time since Blink had seen real, life-threatening against-the-odds combat. She had been in some scuffles here and there, mainly one on one fist fights or quick chases, but nothing like this. Nothing like surviving against an endless horde of corrupted darkspawn and a giant humanoid bug. It really tested the limits of her teleportation energy, as she had to pull from reserves she didn't know she had. It was easy enough to zip through her portals, but she found it difficult to correctly place the gates to where she could have the advantage coming out. More often then not, she would open a portal and then have to immediately close it because the monsters were so close to going through it already. Thus far, she had successfully avoided serious injury, but it came at the cost of wearing down her stamina. She wouldn't admit it aloud, but she was feeling the fatigue.
Blink was currently standing with the men she was fighting alongside. There was the spikey-haired blonde swordsman, Cloud Strife, whose blade was about as big as his body. There was Cole, the young man who had proven himself to Blink already earlier with his acrobatics and excellent use of two energy-pumped handguns. Then there was a child robot. That description, Blink had mused, might be considered rude or condescending, as it did nothing to explain just how lethal that 'child robot' had proven to be. He was by far the strongest of the foursome, even if he looked the least threatening.
All four of them stood side by side, staring at the monster that someone referred to as 'Hornet.exe'. Most of the soldiers that it came with had been dispatched, leaving only a couple plus the endless supply of the darkspawn this island seemed to generate. The further inland they had gone, the more thick it was. This hornet creature had been shot a stringer at that, but Cloud seem to brush off whatever he was hit with. Blink thought he might have been wounded, but he seemed okay, so she didn't think anything else of it. Instead, she prepared for another confrontation with the bug.
Unknown to Blink, though, there was a fifth warrior in the scuffle. Apparently, others had known about him but she was genuinely surprised to see a vehicle zipping through the air above the horde in front of them. She wasn't totally sure what its intentions were, but it was heading directly for the insectoid. Sure enough, without budging its course, it slammed right into the hornet and spiraled sideways, off course. Hornet.exe didn't make any audible noise, but it looked pissed. It turned towards the recovering aircraft and began to fly towards it. Whoever was in the vehicle must have been a damn good (or lucky) driver, because they just narrowly avoided slamming into the rocky meadow by pulling up just in the nick of time.
"We have to save him!" the robot exclaimed. He took a couple steps forward as he scanned the skies, his face following the direction of where the big Hornet was going. He hesitated a moment as he realized there was still another wave of darklings coming at them.
Blink put an arm up to the side and opened up a portal next to them. On the other side of the green gate was the very island they were on, except from a high viewpoint. "I got it!" She told them, and without really thinking things through she jumped through it. She probably could have consulted with her companions first, but teamwork was never her strong suit.
She was now falling through the sky, but with a plan in mind. She could clearly see the aircraft zipping through the sky, being chased by the huge bug. Her dark hair blew through the sky as she worked up some speed, and prepared to strike.
"You shouldn't go alone!" she heard. Her eyes shot left. The metallic pre-teen waved at her as he felt next to her. She awkwardly waved back, mid-fall. Being heavier then she was, he fell a bit in front of her and then aimed himself at the monster.
First Proto Man landed on the shoulder of the bug, followed by Blink slamming into its back. Neither one had an exact plan of attack other then to intercept it and send it off course, which they did successfully. It had to caught itself from sending all three of them into some trees, and then recovered before hitting the ground all-together. The ship in front of them had made a sudden sharp turn, and seemed to be heading back towards them.
"He's going to fire at us!" Blink shouted, clinging super tight to Hornet.exe's ankle. Proto Man was propped up the flying creature's shoulder-blades, keeping his balance as he planned his next move. He looked up when Blink warned him. "He doesn't see us!"
"Jump!" Proto-Man called out.
Blaster fire erupted from the aircraft towards the corrupted giant inspect. Proto Man lept up into the sky, his boots suddenly turning into a little rockets, giving an extra boost. Blink dropped off of the leg of the creature was riding. The energy blast hit the bug with a loud explosion that left a bundle of smoke. Blink disappeared into a portal under her.
She came out just over the flightcraft, sending just behind its windshield. Proto Man had given himself enough push to time his landing so he plopped right next to her. The weight of the two extra bodies caused a slight shift in the flight pattern, but it quickly recovered. "Hey!" came an angry voice underneath them. "What's the big idea!? Don't you any decency!? You don't just jump on super-elite pilot's windshields like that!" With a whirring sound, the protective glass opened, revealing an alien figure inside. His face was angry, but dropped into shock immediately upon realizing who was above him. "Ohmy--are you Proto Man? The Proto Man? Its an honor!"
"He's back," the robot said, very monotone. Blink looked up, as did the pilot who had to turn back around, to see Hornet.exe once again flying along. This time, he was soaring near them as they heard back towards the grove they were earlier. "Can you fly us lower, towards our companions?"
"C-can I fly?" the pilot stammered, but then quickly gathered himself. "Of course I can fly! I'm a super-elite pilot! Just watch this!"
Blink tensed a moment as the spacecraft started to move towards the ground. Her eyes never left Hornet.exe, who seemed like he took no damage at all. It seemed to match altitude, following them as they moved back to where they left Cloud and Cole, ever closer to the dangerous center of the island.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Koehler - 07-28-2017
With the temporary loss of two companions to aid Jaco in what could be best described as an aerial stunt show against one particularly irritated Hornet Man, Cloud and Cole were left to largely fend for themselves against a tidal wave of Darklings and what Jet Troopers remained that tried to harass the two groups.
Through the ever-thickening trees and fire, the remaining blonde duo continued their trudge through the ceaseless horde of Darklings and the constant barrage of blasters and grenades by the Jet Troopers, managing to react and fight as a team.
“There’s no end to them, is there?” Cole complained, his blonde hair muddied, his face covered in the black blood of the Darklings from the constant fighting, and panting from exertion. He unleashed a barrage of fire that lit up the sky around one of the jet troopers that tried to buzz by, dissuading him from approaching any closer. He then leapt to one of the nearby tree branches, avoiding another one of the Darklings that tried to claw him from behind with claws that shimmered in the light of the many rampant flames that sprouted. It was promptly sundered in half by a large metal razor of a sword in response, as Cloud flourished the hefty sword back around with one arm and blocked two more of the Darklings claws, as they clinked and bounced off the blade, pushed back, and then were scorched from a hail of return fire from Cole.
“Just keep moving.” Cloud reminded the reckless youth, hoisting the bloodied cleaver of a sword and pushing onwards at a relentless pace. He seemed more collected and focused despite the claw wound constantly stinging and aching with every effort, and the numbness of his arm only exacerbated the issue. Though Cloud was largely forced to using his weapon with one hand, his lethality didn’t diminish. His attacks were more sluggish, but thanks to the weight of the sword, the power behind his swings were still lethal, he needed only to measure his attacks aptly to avoid over swinging excessively, something which wasn’t easy, but he had managed using one arm before.
Cole wished he had that level of perseverance and strength.
Ahead was one of the larger Darklings that they had fought earlier, intermixed amongst the mob, and towering over its feral, animalistic counterparts. They had seemed to be waiting for their prey to arrive, as to halt their advance with a tide of darkness. Alongside the giant were two more Jet Troopers who began to unleash a torrent of blaster fire against the blonde-haired duo.
Cole immediately dodged and countered with two more radiant beams that screamed forth from the barrels of his gun. One went wide as the first Jet Trooper nimbly dodged, but the second hit its mark and struck the dark, corrupted soldier’s jetpack and ignited it. He began spiraling and screaming into the ground, a swirling trail of smoke following him, and then was engulfed in a blazing detonation, further complimented with a series of smaller shockwaves from the grenades going off. All that remained of the downed enemy was a deep crater that quickly filled up with muddy water.
The first Jet trooper was soon to join his fallen comrade as he was eviscerated under a fusillade of plasma and light emerging from Jaco’s ship as it zoomed by, other Jet troopers attempting in vain to give chase to the domed craft, with Hornet Man the only one able to give effective chase, but constantly being harassed by the jade portals from which Blink struck at him from.
From behind the saucer-like ship, Proto leapt off above the giant as it slowly lumbered forward with the Darklings underfoot. High above the giant, Protoman charged the blaster that encompassed his arm, energy gathering at the end of the barrel as it began to radiate outward like a falling star, hurtling towards its target. Cloud, eyeing his chance, surged forth and leapt out toward the giant, and in one sequence, the energy beam surged forth from the red robot’s blaster and struck its target dead on. The explosion from the beam’s impact sent the giant reeling, as Cloud swept under it, slicing one of the legs off to further unbalance it and cause the black titan to plunge to the ground, squashing several Darklings unfortunate enough to be caught under its weight.
Protoman slowed his descent through the rockets built into his metal boots, landing on the ground with a soft thud nearby to Cloud. Cole leapt in to join the duo, as the belligerent Darklings once more began massing around them, never ceasing for even a moment.
“Took you guys long enough.” Cole quipped with a grin, guns at the ready and glowing brightly as he charged energy into them.
Up ahead, Jaco flew by, with Hornet Man still giving chase and Blink attempting to fend him off while striking the Jet Troopers down, picking them off one by one and coordinating maneuvers using Jaco’s impressive flying skills and Blink’s increasingly sparse, but efficient use of portals to outflank the flying opponents.
“We need to deal with him.” Cloud stated matter-of-factly, hefting his sword again with one arm. He was thankful that feeling was slowly returning in his numbed and injured arm, a side-effect of some poison in the stingers he surmised. “And we need to be careful of those stingers.”
“He’s tough, but if we can hit the wings,” Protoman started, charging his blaster of an arm once more, “we can bring him down to ground.”
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Nebula - 07-31-2017
The recycled facsimile of Hornet Man buzzed and darted swiftly through the air, pursuing the spacecraft that the super-elite Jaco still piloted. The replica of the darkling commander was still a powerful foe, able to keep up its strength despite its reduced durability thanks to pushing its regenerative capabilities into overdrive. But already, it was starting to wear thin. Precision and grace was leaving it, leaving it to do little more than fire wildly and batter at the craft, even as Blink fended it off from committing to an actual, earnest attack. But the sole focus of the overgrown insect's attention on the airborne due did leave the rest of the group free to plot an attack against him.
And in short order, a plan came together.
Waiting for the right time to strike, they bided their time, fending off the continuing attacks of the clusters of darklings pouring out of the island's center. When Jaco did another fly-by, the great big insect buzzing alongside him, the group struck. A swift, raking stream of gunfire from the twin handguns of the quincy, not scoring any hits on the nimble hornet but forcing him to break off to avoid flying right into the stream of gunfire. Wings buzzed angrily, and in a silver blur the insect shot down from his lofty perch in a diving attack at the gunman. The singleminded focus of the less than perfect replica was its undoing, as it was left wide open to the attack of the preteen machine, leaping from a root and crossing paths with the overgrown insect, buster cannon leveled off and glowing with gathered charge.
The impact produced an explosion, shredding the hornet's wings and sending it spiraling in a smoking, charred trail toward the roots and sludge-filled waters below. It hit with a surprisingly heavy thud, hitting the tree root and bouncing along it, rolling several times. The blackened stumps of what was left of its wings buzzed and fluttered, trying to do their intended function, but the battered and burned machine barely had time to regain its senses before it was pelted by another onslaught of gunfire, forcing it to scramble madly, blindly, along the limb of the tree.
And right into the waiting path of the buster sword, wielded by the spikey-headed soldier. It came around in a blurred arc, cleaving through the fragile, battered metal of the recycled darkling commander. It did as much cutting as smashing, sending a hail of shrapnel as the far from cleanly bisected soldier went down, tumbling to pieces and dropping off the side of the root. The red glare in its eyes went out as the life left it, and it sank below the waters, dissolving into a mess of silver-gray goop.
"Boy...you guys sure are puttin' up a fight..." A lazy voice drawled out, drifting down from higher up. Reclining on one of the branches, looking down at the disposal of the recycled fighter, sat a man who was at least partially mechanical. "I know these recycled guys are fragile, but you sure took 'em apart like they were nothing. Guess we're gonna have to get serious to handle this if we've got a bunch like you knockin' on our door." He shrugged, as if disinterested in this whole affair. "But hey...that's not my business. Unless you actually get to the portal, I get to sit back and just watch." He hopped up, sliding down from his perch and dropping through the air. A dozen feet down, he vanished into a swirling pillar of smoke. His voice echoed behind him, even after he was gone. "That said, I think it's time we got serious here. I'll be calling in a bombardment from our ships, so...find some cover. And happy trails."
Only moments later, all of the darklings still pouring out from the island's center stopped as one, turning to look up toward the sky. Like a great herd of animals sensing danger coming, they all as one let out a high-pitched scream, whether of fright or as a signal of some kind, and broke rank. Diving into the water, scrambling up and leaping among the trees, turning and retreating back toward the island's center. They were no longer paying the liberators any mind.
For almost a full minute, it was silent, and nothing happened. But slowly, a dull whining sound took hold in the air, growing steadily louder. It grew to an almost painfully loud pitch before someone among the group realized what it was. "MOVE!" came the shouted warning of the massive sword-bearing soldier. And almost at the same time, one of the massive trees above was torn to splinters with a deafening, earth-shaking impact and burst of noise and force, burst asunder as cleanly as if a portion of it was just...removed. The upper portion slowly came toppling down, raising an almighty cacophony of its own.
More troubling, though, was the series of other impacts crashing into the trees and water. Smaller shells, not doing anywhere near as much damage, but...which broke open seconds after impact. From within, humanoid forms clambered out, brandishing weapons. Pirates, corrupted citizenry, pokemon, all manner of creatures from across the verse. Each and every one of them with the sinister, glowing red eyes of nebula's corruption. Covered in pulsing, purple veins, and all with a look of delight at the destruction they'd been dropped into.
Quote:The struggle continues. One of the darkling commanders of this verse, Bola, has revealed himself, and perhaps foolishly warned about an incoming bombardment. Said bombardment has now commenced, bringing in stronger, more crazed soldiers to deal with, as well as raining destruction on the island -- specifically targeting your group.
The objective remains the same: get to the center of the island, and take out their command structure there. Should you make it there, there is also a portal that will lead you to the ship doing the bombardment, which you should probably destroy in whatever manner you deem appropriate.
Everyone has until Monday, August 7th, at 11:59 PM EST to make up to two posts, each of which may be up to 1000 words.
Go raise some hell.
RE: Dark on the Waters [Dark Data] - Freeza - 08-01-2017
Out came commander Bola, in his bulky hands were blades as long as Jaco which gleamed with a similar purple tint. This armor-wearing lug-nut was definitely a bad guy, but he was also a bad guy who was warning them about the oncoming attack?
Jaco felt himself shrivel. Within his red dented tin can he considered fleeing once more, but… If there were bombs about to lay waste them all, this threw a sizable wrench into his evacuation plan, and well… That was a dead-end plan with a capital DEAD.
It was time to cover his ass and it just so happened the cowardly space alien knew all about finding the best places to take cover, it was in his nature and he was small enough to fit between most miscellaneous items. But other partner themed realities were setting in, Jaco couldn’t just hang the Protoman out to dry with the incoming assault of explosions. He thought of the android's shattered carcass and the promise he’d made to his pooch who would show no mercy when ripping Jaco’s teeny head off in Rush’s massive mechanical maw. Quickly, Jaco’s super elite sight scanned the terrain from his bird’s eye vantage point.
First, he analyzed the incoming enemy parachuters. They were of all sorts of shapes and sizes, some were unmistakably pirates carrying rusted, jagged swords and armed with single-fire pistols, as well as some hefty looking iron-forged muskets. The galactic patrolman’s sworn enemy just happened to be space pirates and Jaco narrowed his bulbous eyes with newly kindled determination as his itchy finger boldly fell on the trigger, with a molten swarm of sputtering laser blasts all aimed at the reinforcements that had just arrived, still stumbling from their withering parachutes and struggling for a foothold.
Dust and bits of rock splashed at their feet and sprayed around them in the air in a shroud of the alien’s decimating wrath. Jaco had aimed for the fiery tree stumps and managed to saw a few down, no one had the time to yell TIMBER! which left various members of the invading forces pinned underneath flaming branches. Those in the vicinity of Jaco’s assault range stopped, knelt behind rocks and the fallen trees, crouched low, in a feeble attempt to make themselves smaller targets but for someone with amazing eyesight, not even their nose hairs were safe. They took aim, hoping to reciprocate heavy fire blasting at them aerially but their weapons were rather short-sighted, the primitive lead balls missed his ascending spaceship by a mile. With that, Jaco continued his mental chart of the land, not knowing he’d caught the attention of more bloodthirsty, disturbed Poke-lings but they were not eager to jump in the air and chase Jaco during an air incursion. He had bought them only a few short minutes with his terrain-eviscerating attack. Moments that could be used to ensure his own survival.
Ding! It was memorized by his super-elite mind with a scaling ratio to the height of the terrain, plus he had some insight on the land he’d already whizzed by. Judging from the sheltering Darklings, they didn’t know the geography very well, instinct had told them to take cover, but their fear-penetrated minds had not calculated their best hope. The lowest geographical point nearby was zero point two kilometers south and the highest cliff scaled just above it, Jaco envisioned a mighty rockslide and aimed to make it happen.
It was but a small trek for a being in a spaceship, but for those on the ground? Jaco had just enough time to inform them and directed his chugging ship forward to do so before his radar blared at him and the interior of his ship strobed with the final scarlet he was to see if he didn’t MOVE!
Without the chance to fearfully gulp, Jaco threw all his weight into the steering wheel and swooshed across the sky, veering left and dodging the missile that had trained on his previous location by just a few seconds. “Phe-ew! That was way too close!”
Zooming in closer to the ground he pressed a button which caused his glass sphere to recede like a convertible car’s canvas top and shouted down to those who were either calibrating their weapons, blasting, or otherwise trying to figure out which was better: To seize the opportunity to fight through it or flee from the certain cremation that would be delivered to them from the bombs above. “See if you can draw them closer to that cliff! I can blast away the loose rocks from above and it would really send them rolling-”
Jaco rolled his eyes as he was interrupted by the blaring alarm of his radar. “Why is it always up to me?” he narrated to himself and felt the oppressive burden of responsibility weighing on his terror before facing the incoming missile head-on. The galactic patrolman quickly spun his ship around and waited a brief second, one full of calculations, before firing his ship's laser beams accurately at the moving target, they detonated from the premature collision and he and his allies felt the immediate blast of the inferno that would’ve been laden in their robotic armor or stretchy flesh a moment later.
“I can’t just shoot them all out of the sky!” Jaco yelped down to his weaponized homies.
“Why not?” Protoman replied with a challenge, “You seem to have practiced aim.” Perhaps he’d noticed Jaco’s strange eagerness about the preteen robot, or perhaps he sought to further strategize the best way to take out the new hordes under the safety net of his ally's marksmanship.
Purpose gripped in Jaco’s stomach, he was petrified when the Protoman had asked him for a favor, but torn by his own cowardly nature. Tides of nausea strummed in the alien's stomach like a familiar tune from the strings of a guitar, yet Jaco sealed his glass globe once more and took the mission he had been given with unmatched zeal.