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ULMF the Third (RP Thread)


Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Footfall after footfall, the machines made their way down to the door… and stopped outside it. The squad prepared to battle furiously, quietly and quickly as the bots turned towards the sliding panel. They had to be standing not much more than a meter away from the two silent ULMFers waiting to ambush them on the other side. …and then Host looked up – and grinned.

The bot opened the door, into a room with a distinct oddity in it – there was a bot lying half-destroyed on the floor. Other than that, nothing was out of place in the room.

“Phew,” Host said, the furthest forward in the vent, flat against the ground of the cramped space; “It certainly was lucky that I managed to find a person-sized air vent, which we all managed to enter just in the nick of time.” Behind him in the crawlspace, the other squad members were having a little trouble believing his explanation; their memories between 'waiting for the bots' and 'being here' were indistinct. The demon continued speaking, quietly, his behaviour not unlike a character in some poorly-thought-out televised drama, stating the obvious for an audience that had not been there to see what had happened. Despite the unusual bent of his dialogue, as he looked at each person - as well as he could manage in the confined conditions - he spoke with the severity of someone trying to convey an extremely important message. “Still, we’re safe now, so I suggest we only go forwards, and do not waste one second of thought on the past. …well then, let’s see where this goes…” Without giving any opportunity for questions, the Lurker continued forwards, leaving at a very slow pace. Shade and Suri shared a look, shrugged, and continued after him. Given the way he was acting, the reptile quite probably had something to do with the squad ending up lined head-to-foot on their stomachs, surrounded by claustrophobia-inducing walls of metal.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave was tense, readying himself for the incoming battle. He could hear the sound of metal feet stepping inside the corridor. Every fiber of his body was like a bomb, waiting for a chance to unleash Hell upon anyone stupid enough to approach. And then, suddenly, the mage found himself in an air vent at the back of the group, hidden away from prying eyes. The mage blinked twice, trying to figure out what happened. Host's explanation was... Vague, but the darkling was genre savvy enough to understand the gist of things. Somehow, all of this was the reptile's doing. Grave recalled the illusion used by the Lurkers to capture the squad a few weeks ago, before the battle with Toonpimp. With a sigh, he decided to take Host's advice and began to follow the group, though he swore to beat the details of this trick out of the demon later. He was a mage, after all, and good human mages were always curious about new nifty magics they could acquire.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Shrike had much the same reaction as Grave did, but instinctually checked the watch as soon as she realized what had happened. She didn't know exactly what time it had been before the 'skip', but it may provide a clue, especially later, once she can check against Rapture's watch. She had some previous experience with those who could alter the flow of time, and some of the problems that entailed.

Deciding to add this peculiarity to the list to ask Host about later, she simply started moving as well.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

(Damn, and I was on something of a streak, too.
As you might have guessed, this post gave me hell - mainly, trying to find a good point to end it. I probably had another post or two written up before I decided to cut it back to here.)

It didn’t take Host long to stop in the vent, holding up everyone behind him. He appeared to be doing nothing but staring at his hand for a brief few seconds; he followed the act up by pinching himself. “Alright, looks like causality has settled down; there’s no chance of this all just becoming a dream. It should be safe to think about what just happened.”

“What, exactly, just happened?” sinful asked, at the back of the group and feeling about as out of the loop as anyone else who was not Host. “Oh, that’s quite simple, really.” The Lurker says, matter-of-fact-ly.“…well alright, it’s not simple at all, but it looks like we’ll be in here a while, so I might as well explain.”

His explanation continued while the demon himself did, following the so-far only available path – none of the turns in the vent were large enough for a person, or even Suri, to fit through. “Presumably you’re aware of the existence of the universe’s ‘moods’ - though you might not call them that. Putting it simply, the laws of reality change depending on where and when you are; the odd thing is that they vary in an unusually consistent way. There are identifiable patterns in the way reality changes, for those who have the skill to see them… and they seem to focus largely around omissions – as if reality just sort of lost track of a few elements, forgetting that, say, there was no way for us to get into that vent in time. There’s also something of a period in which, if an omission is identified quickly, reality will snap back to a state just before the impossible event happened, with the undone events seemingly a daydream. A scientist would try to explain it using this clumsy rippling wall metaphor… to avoid the simpler and more worrying idea that it’s like the universe is alive, and is either forgetful, or toying with us for kicks.”

A turn in the vent seemed noteworthy in what was otherwise an absolutely boring journey.
”Anyone with the barest knowledge on the situation could tell you that the universe’s mood is unpredictable in the literal sense; there is absolutely no way to predict how or when the universe’s mood is going to change. Figuring out what the current mood is, though, that’s quite possible - if you’re trained in it. And, when you know what kind of mood reality is in, and know enough about each mood, you can work within the changes each one makes to pull off things that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. I.E., what I just did.” Anyone not listening to the reptile prattle could note that the rivet count for the left side of the vent was now at 649, counting the things being the only other available activity. In comparison, Host was... riveting.

The reptile, having a captive audience in at least one sense of the word, was more than happy to continue bragging about the extent of his abilities. “Of course, it has its downsides, too. The net’s mood will not usually match the situation you’re in, by any means – we got lucky with this infiltration mood matching our current situation. And if I had judged the mood wrong, say if there was a little whimsical alongside the infiltration… well, that scene-cut could have left us anywhere; a few meters further up than this on the surface, on a firing line, tied up in someone’s basement… and even if we’d ended up in the vent, it could have had something like periodic buzzsaw traps through it to carve up anyone doingwhat we’re doing. ‘Don’t try this at home’, 'trained professionals only', etc. …aaand here we are…”


The factory operator moved between consoles in a room that had an overabundance of the things. He checked the state of his bots, of the network, of the few cameras the recycling plant’s constructors had deigned to provide. He checked the monitor showing the view from his only controllable bots where they stood at the door, missing the flash of a humanoid form across one of his cameras as he turned away. He wore a lab coat that had once been white, but was now quite marred; his own physical appearance was not much better, and the man hadn’t been handsome at the best of times. He had been down here for far too long, and down here alone; nervous hand twitches had developed quite quickly, and he currently had reason to display them in abundance.
He was terrified. There had been those gaslighting events earlier, and now the seal on the door had broken – more than enough to freak a lone paranoid human. The only thing keeping him from curling into a whimpering ball under the nearest table was the belief that his anticipated intruder would have been making more noise; certainly enough for him to definitively notice.

The kind of loud noise he had been expecting happened immediately behind the man. He very nearly hit the roof, turning enough that he was facing the scaled wall when it grabbed him. “Don’t try anything stupid, there’s a good captive.” The man just stared up in horror, at least until Host continued. “Or else, I’m going to start pulling off non-vital limbs…” Mutely, the man’s head bobbed about as vigorously as it was able, and the demon set him down and patted his head in mock affection – also almost knocking the nerd over in the process. “Like I thought, the vent ends up where the person who needs air is.” Host quipped to the line of ULMFers falling from the vent into the room.

The fairly small space they had entered was filled with more little lights than a cockpit. Each wall had at least one monitor, and what wasn’t a light was a switch or, rarely, a label; there was no such thing as a bare space, with the exception of the single, reinforced door out of the room. There was enough ground space to stand comfortably, though one would have to watch out for the thick cabling leading to the large slab taking up the middle of the room. Like everything else, the lump of metal was covered in buttons and had at least one screen on each face – with the exception of the top. That was bare, giving the impression that it might be made to move aside, making the waist-high slab some kind of container - probably for some bot-related experiment, given the rest of the facility.

It only takes a moment for someone to knock at the door into the room. Some felt her approach with supernatural senses. Host simply saw her sneaking up, while Sinful had been tracking her with the GPS on her watch. Regardless of how they knew about her approach, only a few were surprised by Rapture’s unimpressed eyes appearing at the window’s door, the captive bot technician being one of them. Their current commander struggled to keep a straight face as she was let in. “Well, this is surprising. All of the trackers on my team - which had been advised to stay put unless an alarm was triggered - suddenly made off in a straight line towards what turned out to be our objective… and arrived there before me. Someone, explain that one to me… and, let me guess; the demon is at fault?”
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave followed the group, nearly bumping into the person in front of him - Shrike, or maybe Sin - when Host stopped everyone. The reptile's statement was confusing, but before the mage managed to ask, his commander beat him to the punch. Having nothing else to do as he crawled and being genuinely curious, he listened to the explanation, frowning as he processed the info and compared it with what he already knew. He knew a little about how the universe worked, considering his job involved altering reality through non-conventional means, and understood the explanation fairly easily. Host's method was a less-known and usually scorned way of manipulating space and time to one's needs without interfering with the reality directly - one worked with it, rather than against it. Grave had heard of something similiar once, but never tried the method, mainly because it was notoriously unreliable and potentially lethal at best. The demon's apparent mastery of the skill was a testament to his ability and will. Begrudgingly, the darkling found himself admitting that perhaps a quantum of respect was in order.

Grave stopped his musings as the group reached the room, leaving the vent as soon as others cleared the passage. He gave the techie an appraising look before turning his attention to the room at large. The overabundance of computers and other equipment was rather confusing - it'd take someone comfortable and skilled with this stuff to keep an eye on everything at once. Altough it appeared that the man in charge did so at the expense of his nerves and appearance. Though in case of latter issue, perhaps he didn't care - he lived here alone, as far as Grave could tell. As he idly walked around, checking out some of the more curious bits of of this electric wonder, he suddenly caught sight of Rapture, staring at the group through the window. With a sigh, the darkling moved to open the door of the room. He almost forgot about the boss, or the fact that she went to sneak around. He could also easily tell that she was not amused by the situation. "Well, it sorta is." Perhaps an abridged version of the events would suffice for now. "Scalehead found a secret room with bot corpses hanging from the ceiling like some kind of collection. We didn't find out much, except for the fact that there's a lot of different kinds of bots here. Then a patrol of bots came by, and Host pulled something that basically amounts to warping reality to get us into an air vent. We just crawled in here." Finishing his explanation, the darkling glanced at the techie. "So, do we beat the information out of him now or later?"
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

“…Well, I suppose that’s about as good as a result as I could have hoped for.”
Rapture replied, her exasperation fading. “As for the man, I think it’s time the Lurker did what he supposedly does best. Shrike, if you would oversee the exchange…?”
Host glanced briefly at the assembled group, shrugged, and took on the responsibility of asking the questions. He was, after all, supposed to be a diplomat.
“Oy. Mate. Where’s Toonpimp?”
“N-No idea!” NO IDEA! The human squealed, externally and internally, quite expecting a painful interrogation.
His exectation turned out to be wrong, at least initially, as Host was unusually easily placated.
“Fair enough. More importantly, what’s this base for?”
“I don’t know!” Shit, even if I wanted to tell them, I don’t really know what Toonpimp was doing here…. recycling scrap bots obviously wasn’t this place’s main intention, but I don’t have any idea about the other functions Toonpimp was using it for! I know nothing and they’re going to kill me for it! This, at least, the demon is more willing to pursue, raising a non-existent eyebrow.
“Oh, come on now. You’re in a lab, in a lab coat, you’re the only person working here,and you’re trying to tell me you don’t know what the facility is for? Are you trying to annoy me? What did you do, then? You do know that, at least, right?”

“I… can’t say!”

Host smiled the kind of smile that could only exist on the face of one who enjoys inflicting pain, and would be soon getting the chance to do so. “Kid, do you know why I can’t be called a cannibal?” With all the swiftness a body like Host’s could muster, the demon’s hand was at the tech’s throat, his face barely an inch from the coward’s own. Host’s voice, when he spoke, suddenly sounded wrong; too deep, and it made the ears of everyone who heard it itch. “Because Humans aren’t my own kind.” The reptile leered at the look of absolute horror on the tech’s face, though Host does get a confused look for a brief moment. Man, this guy scares easy. “If you don’t want me to start biting off fingers, spill your guts.”

“I’m just a hardware tech, I ran tests on scrap! I compared the properties of some parts to others, but there wasn’t anything important about it! …If I had to guess I’d say the master was trying to find a way to upgrade the parts of the bots he was digging up, or maybe putting the scrap parts of different bots together and get a whole, functioning bot -I don’t know, I just poked around in things when the master told me to - and didn’t ask questions!”
Host didn’t need to be Shrike to hear the but. “…But you wanted to ask questions. There was a lot going on here, things that downright scared you, and you weren’t being told any of it, despite your necessary contribution. What did you learn?“
“I… there was… there were some dangerous bots, and they weren’t being contained properly – we lost a couple of guards. Understandable… but…I got to inspect the bodies. I’m a robotics specialist, not a doctor, but it didn’t matter – I only needed to see the wounds. They… weren’t wounds the supposed escaped bots should have been able to cause." Basically tore them in half… "...Sometimes they'd lie and tell me one model of bot was some other model, usually one I couldn't recognise. Worst was the one the master brought last week… I know I like robots, and I have no problem cutting into faux-skin, while the bot’s fake eyes look at me – but not when there’s a mind inside it, not when it’s part human, that’s just-“ Host immediately interrupted the tech, grinning hard.

“A cyborg? Really. Where did it end up?” with a look of confusion, the dishevelled nerd points to the middle of the room, and the odd looking vaguely technological container it held. “They left it here when everyone else left and put me in charge.”

“Open it.”

Reluctant, Toonpimp’s factory overseer is nonetheless obedient. With only a few button-pushes, the top of the container slid away. Inside, its skin removed, its body plugged into with numerous wires, was the still identifiable visage of their old commander. “Well, well, khkhkh…” the demon chuckled, face marked by a downright evil grin, like that of a sadist finding a new toy.
 
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Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Shrike nodded, her tall form moving to stand near the tech and Host, crossing her arms and staring at the tech impassively. Mentally, she focused on his thoughts again, much more easily this time, separated by no more that six feet of air this time around. She frowned a bit at what she was getting, but the reptile seemed to have the idea already, so she didn't add anything herself.

It took some effort for her not to twitch when Host grabbed the man by the neck and threatened to chew off fingers. The plan was not to injure anyone if they could help it, after all. He knew that too, of course, though whether he would listen to it was another matter entirely. She'd just have to prepare to tell him off before it came to that, if needed.

Buddy opened the case in the center, and she took a step back and peered over to get a look inside, spotting the form within and frowning. "How long has he been in there?" She asked the technician, returning her gaze to the man, sending a mental line to her former commander at the same time, checking to see if he was active.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave watched the exchange between Host and the techie with mild interest. The guy broke down easily, but this wasn't unexpected. The darkling didn't have much trouble believing that the man didn't know where to look for Toonpimp - leaving this kind of info in the hands of someone so unimportant was usually a Bad Idea. The fact that the guy didn't know the purpose of the facility was more suprising, but still not completely unbelievable. He probably didn't know anything about TP's plan and just did his job without asking questions. As for Host's method of getting further info out of the captive, Grave approved. He'd do something similiar if he was the one interrogating the man. He also had a sense of satisfaction coming from the fact that his suspicions about the nature of the place were probably fairly close to the target.

When the techie mentioned the cyborg, Grave's eyebrows shut up in curiosity. That curiosity was quickly replaced by anger once he saw his former commander's body. The techie was soon introduced to a hate-filled glare as the darkling advanced towards him, grabbing the man's head and turning it in the mage's direction. "You. What the Hell did you do to him?"
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Burrito was mentally inactive. He was alive, that much was clear – for all intents and purposes, he appeared to be dreaming. Shrike could probably rouse him, but it was impossible to know if his body would activate simply because he woke up. The process of subduing Burrito presumably involved something that would stop him from taking control of his body; waking his mind may just leave him in a senseless state, wallowing in his memories.

“…Uh, a wee- aaahh!” The technician’s response was cut off with a terrified squeal as Grave gave him a more pressing question to answer. “Nothing! Nothing I did nothing, took the skin off and had a look at the parts, but I put everything back! Software guys… might have done something, but I don’t think they could crack him in the time they had. If they did, I don’t know about it!”

“Well, I suppose there’s only one question left, then – how do we turn Burrito on?” Wordlessly, the reptile slowly gazed across the more effeminate contingent of the group (and Grave), giving each a look of deliberation.

“Not in your dreams, demon.” Sinful announced, suddenly as clairvoyant as Shrike. She would have probably said more, too, but Rapture cut her off by delivering a rather chillingly threatening, “Host.”

The demon, who had moved to eye up the container for an ‘on’ switch, looked away from the old commander and to the new one. “Too improper for ULMFers?”

“Not the joke. You’re about to activate a killing machine that may or may not have been programmed by the enemy to kill us. Don’t do that.”
The lurker gave her a look of annoyance. “What, you want to leave him here? Because unless you’ve got an invisible heavy-load trolley…”

“Actually, I was thinking more of the visible heavy-load trollies that were in the ground floor section of the building.”

“…Oh. Yeah, that would probably work. Assuming this guy can turn off the patrolling bots while we fetch the thing, and while hauling the old boy?”

“Uh, that’ll just take a moment…” said the sheepish tech, moving away from Burrito’s coffin and to the walls of the room, working on changing the bot protocols.



Not a minute later, Host finally got an answer from his psionic companion.
Host?That bot you wanted to know about, it’s an old one. Pre-addbot, but only just, which explains some of the oddities of its design. Designated an XAR-Revenant-01A by the programmer corporation that put it out, it was supposed to be a combat bot, but never got the chance to be put into production. It had some nasty specs – tracking out the ass, supposedly top-of-the-line combat programming, and it made full use of its processors. Nastiest part, though, is it’sability to regenerate – looks like they were doing some of the first nanobot work, and had the things repairing the machine.

You don’t say. Host answered with unusual brevity, watching the tech.

Well, repair regardless, a good enough thrashing will drop the sucker. It’s a good thing you always take the time to annihilate a bot totally, huh?

…You –can- see this, right? Host thought back as he continued to watch the red, growing spot on the tech’s back, expanding from the embedded metal claws in it, the human falling against a large number of the facility’s controls under the weight of the metal monstrosity that had dropped out of the vent and onto of him. Sirens started wailing, and the lights turned red – all in all, the only thing missing from the cacophony of "something has gone wrong" warnings was some effeminate voice announcing a self-destruct countdown. The Revenant's other claw tore through the human’s neck, breaking his spine and leaving a red trail of gore down the wall.
Yes, Host, I can.
Then you know that I could have done with the information a bit SOONER!

The bot’s yellow eyes moved from the first target - the former master it apparently had no inbuilt exception towards killing – to the next, which was also the next nearest. With speed normal human reflexes couldn’t hope to match, the machine launched off the tech’s warm corpse and at Shrike, attempting to carve holes into the psychic with knifelike claws, and not a thought for its own safety.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave let the techie go, satisfied with the answer. He was still scowling, though, but fortunately for the guy his attention shifted to Host. Meeting the reptile's gaze, the darkling raised his right hand and made a slashing motion across his neck with one finger, displaying what he thought about the joke and what likely awaited Host after the mission. Before he could threaten the demon any further, Rapture once again took control of the discussion, which grounded the mage down somewhat. Still simmering with anger, he silently watched the techie work. But as he began to plan how to torture the demon after this mission, everything went downhill. A bot came crashing down, killing the techie and lunging at Shrike. Grave didn't see this coming. However, he wasn't the type to be caught off-guard, even when suprised. He was already moving into position, right arm outstretched as he took aim. He wasn't fast enough to save the poor man, but he didn't let that stop him. Kill the enemy first, worry later - that was his rule. Even the fact that the bot appeared to be insanely fast didn't give him a pause as the darkling charged a spell - a lance of dark magic, meant to pierce through it's defenses and skewer the bloody thing.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

One of the downsides of Shrike's latent precognition was the fact that every time it warned her of imminent danger, she got to watch herself get shot, stabbed, beaten, mauled, and generally messed up, an instant before it may happen. She learned to push the images away in order to act in time to avoid such unpleasantness, but the images are always there.

The machine turned to track it's next target, and something flashed in the back of her mind once again. She was already halfway down into a roll by the time it lunged, and was already pushing the image of herself impaled and beheaded by the time it landed and she finished her roll. She caught Grave starting something out of the corner of her eye, so remained in the defensive, throwing up a large shield with one hand and aiming a shot across the bot's midsection to try and force it off balance, or back a bit. Since the bot's care for it's own safety was somewhere between slim and none, that wouldn't work, and she'd be forced to fall back further, bringing her shield with her.

"If this is the same bot as before, and it can regenerate, I'm not going to be of much use dismantling it!" She calls out to the group.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

The bot had been designed to make the most of the advantages of being robotic – the best and most powerful motors, attacking and moving as fast as its mechanical body was physically able to. However, for that to happen, the machine’s programming also needed to move with incredible speed – and while a program could run quickly, it already had to co-ordinate the machine’s limbs in real-time. To take full advantage of the bot’s hardware, its software had been left minimalistic, giving it only enough fighting ability to find gaps in an opponent’s defence and attack them. As such, the machine was locked onto Shrike as its current target; it slammed into her shield, was shot to little effect – and almost slipped in before the shield reformed in front of her, certainly knocking her back with its ferocity, if nothing else. The telepath might have been in a bind… if she had been the only one present. As it was, Rapture, Suri, and Host were all aiming at the bot, taking shots when they felt they could get away with them without hitting anything that wasn’t a psychopathically attacking machine. Sinful tore into it from the left with a rathat nasty looking sword; one that wasn’t too pleased about getting oil instead of blood, but the complaint was trivial given the situation. Even if Grave hadn’t torn a hole through its chest with a dark lance for the second time, the firing squad would have probably been able to deal with the bot before Shrike was killed.

“Oh, I get the feeling it’s the same bot.” Host said, kicking said creature. “My intel informed me that that particular model of bot regenerates, and can track like a mother… all of six seconds after the information would have been helpful. I think we can finish this thing off if we put our backs into it, but I’m not sure we have the liberty…” He continues, quietening down as he looks through the little window that all doors are obligated to have –and at the bots that were now periodically walking past, not twenty meters away, though so far without locating the group. Whatever the buttons were for, at least one of them had been some kind of bot-release command, because now the facility was swarming with the things. At least they seemed designed to ignore the control station – presumably, so that the techs weren’t killed by the very bots they had unleashed.

“You have inte- no, more importantly, how are you communicating through the shield?” Rapture is obligated to ask, though quietly given the danger outside.

“It’s a psionic transmission through a spatial rift; I’m not going through the shield so much as bypassing it. Before you ask, it only works with our specialised equipment, and no, despite all of the myriad things I can do with the tools I have, people can’t be teleported through anything I have on me.”

“You… don’t have anything on you… though.” Sinful manages, though she has difficulty managing to string the words together, as if something in her head simply doesn’t want her speak them.

“A good deal of my equipment is quantumly-entangled with both existing and non-existing states, triggered solely by my need for its existence or non-existence. My things don’t just disappear - they literally don’t exist unless I want them to. If you’re finding it hard to think about that, don’t worry; mortal minds seem to be designed to overlook the phenomena. My guns are also further entangled with keys, but I have the trigger for that change disabled, as it has proven… hard to control.”

Host moved to one of the screens displaying data; like the terminal they had found before, the machine was pre-desktop and only worked with the keyboard. “Lets see if I cant find the procedure for activating Burrito – given the bots running around outside, I don’t think we can take the leisure of keeping him inactive now, right, Rapture?”
Tapping the up key, the demon runs through a list of recently executed commands. One of them, he enters. Host looks over the words that the screen produces, which soon cause him to whistle in awe. “Ooh boy, this is not the procedure I was looking for. I found a record of recent events our still-warm friend has apparently been keeping – and man was this guy nuts. ‘To whoever reads this, blah blahblah, some nasty shit is hiding just outside of sight – I’m paraphrasing… there’s some stuff about hearing constant whispering that said nasty shit wants him… he doesn’t want to die - bit late, there. …Looks like your Op’s with v-Bulletin really did a number on this poor sunavabitch, Rapture.” The demon says, with a worrying hint of admiration.

“Bah, alright, I’ve exhausted all my computer expertise.“ Host announces, barely thirty seconds later. “Anybody else know what they’re doing? No? Alright, plan C – wing it.”

No challenged by Rapture, the Lurker mused over Burritos’ coffins’ controls. “Alright, I think I understand what to do…” He pushed a button, flicked a switch off, flicked two other switches on – then off, quickly – before pushing a rather large button. Several things inside the coffin began humming, something else whirred, the smoke machine (strictly speaking, it was probably some sort of cooling system) in the capsule turned off… and a mechanical voice added to the alarms:

“Self Destruct Activated; Factory will self destruct in 30 minutes.”

Host gives the world in general an incredulous look, his jaw slack and eyes wide. “But… Why would you even… What?”

Before anyone really had a chance to berate him for the event, Host headdesked onto the console. With a whirr, and to the demon’s surprise, the bottom of the container rose, taking Burrito up with it; unseen, jumper cables poured electricity into the cyborg’s mechanical body. A nearby terminal lit up a blue ‘Activated’, although Host seemed less than happy about the whole series of events.

“Oh, great. Now, if that kind of luck holds out, he’s going to try to kill us all.”
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave eyed the bot carefully, channeling more power in preparation to deliver another blow. It seemed he was too lax when dealing with the bot last time. He should have reduced it into shreds of metal no bigger than a coin. Unfortunately, this could be risky. While the partols that suddenly began to swarm the corridors ignored the control room for now, perhaps they'd be attracted by the ruckus if he began to dismantle it. He was soon distracted by Host's explanation of his tricks. His method of communicating with the outside was quite ingenious, he had to give the reptile that much. What really left the darkling shocked, staring at the demon with his mouth open, was his method of storing equipment. Sure, it probably was a bitch to prepare all of his junk to work like this and it sounded that the method was far from perfect, but he was essentially making something out of nothing at will. This was a feat approaching True Sorcery - it was like saying "F*** you" to the laws of physics.

The darkling missed the discoveries his team made in the meantime as he hastily composed himself and considered the implications. It seemed the Lurker was far more resourceful than he gave him credit for. Though how did he achieve this? He was a demon, sure, but to achieve such skill with manipulating space and time was no small feat! Who could have taught him that? Grave resolved to learn this at all costs. Any mage worth his salt would kill to know that kind of secret, and he wasn't any different in this regard. He snapped out of coming up with tortures for Host the moment he heard a rather worrying phrase repeated through the speakers. "Say what?" The mage looked around, noticing Host near the console. "What the Hell did you..." Before he finished his sentence, he noticed that Burrito's "coffin" was starting to move. Sharing the demon's sentiment about this development, Grave prepared himself for a fight, magic flaring between his fingertips.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Shrike Just kept retreating and hiding behind her shield for the remainder of the fight, dancing backwards across the room while the others in the group dealt with it. Once the bot was down, she'd keep an eye on it until it was permanently destroyed, in case it decided to get back up again.

She listened carefully to the reptile's explanation, nodding when he was done. "Think of it like hammer space, he's just a crazy Japanese reptile." She comments with a shrug, shaking her head when he asked if anyone had computer expertise. She quickly regretted her decision when the alarms started going off, however. Positioning herself by the door in case the bots outside decided to check in, she'd look back in time to see Burrito's coffin starting to spit their former leader out. "Can anybody carry the lug if he doesn't walk on his own? We have a bit of an imposed time limit now, after all..."
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

The figure of Burrito begins to rip away the wires binding him and feeding him electricity with an almost yawning roar of anger, before he sits up, his right eye glowing a bright red as he stares ahead at his former teammates. "Where is that bastard....WHERE IS HE?!" he yells in a booming mechanical voice as he begins to stand to his full stance with a lot of mechanical whirring and clicking. He then looks down at his hands, devoid of flesh, and assumes the worst. "WHERE IS THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT SKINNED ME ALIVE?!" he roars again, this time with less room-shaking anger, more with a tinge of sadness.

Of course, he knew all of his teammates were preparing to kill him right now, but his instinct had taken over. He was ready to start smashing limbs and tearing off jaws, if any of the people surrounding him read his body language.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

"Nevermind..." Shrike mutters to herself, before moving to stand in front of Burrito. "Hey, you're too late, a bot got him." She said directly, drawing his attention to the tech on the floor. "Now we have about twenty-five minutes to get out of this place before it blows up around us, can we chat about this later?"
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

"Oh for..." Grave shook his head. He had a nagging feeling that Burrito wouldn't listen to Shrike that easily. Rather than waste time considering that, though, he moved to a position from which he could intercept a charge if it turned out to be necessary. He had some experience with this particular state of mind, some very personal experience. It usually involved a lot of pain and suffering and damage being inflicted upon whatever's in front of him. "There are bots in the corridor, man, take them out if you really need to kill someone."
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

“Exactly like hammerspace, except where hammerspace behaves like a narratively-linked portable hole, this involves an item entering a superstate. So, as I said, absolutely nothing like hammerspace, even though the end effects are similar.”

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Host, following Shrike’s anticlimactic lead, pointed Burrito to the corpse of the hardware tech sharing the small space. He couldn’t pay too much attention to the old commander, as several mechanical humanoids were approaching the control room after his outburst. “Down!” Rapture advises, beating out the demon’s own warning out by a fraction of a moment; both hit the deck - and at least Shade and Suri follow, as the lead starts flying. The walls of the control room were fairly solid metal, and generally held up against the bullets quite well. The door, while also metal, was considerably thinner – and unfortunately, the bots outside didn’t mind shooting at it until the bullets went through.

Host, having just activated Burrito, had at least been standing behind the container, keeping him covered as the bullets made their way in. Of course, he was also next to the former tech; to anyone else, it might be a morbid position… butto Host, it was a useful one. Had Burrito already decided to defile the corpse in some way, the demon barked a request over the gunfire; “Leave the head intact! Leave me the head, Burrito!”
Otherwise, those with astute hearing would hear Host biting chunks out of the corpse’s neck, and those unfortunate enough to be in the right position would see the lizard tearing away pieces of flesh, and cracking through the human’s spine.

Rapture had managed to reach the side of the door, pulling out a hand mirror. Confounding the potential dunces who expected her to start fixing her appearance, Rapture used it to look through the window in the door without exposing herself– for the brief few seconds before it got shot. Her Kevlar protected her from getting more than light cuts from the splintered glass, but she had seen what she needed to see. “About twenty bots gathering, looks mostly like the junk ones from outside the complex. Grave, if you can race through and tear apart some of them, and Shrike, if you can shield usfrom the remainder, we should be able to cut through. Get ready; we’ll have to move soon, before too many more arrive.” She scanned the room, looking for her squad, ascertaining their state of readiness.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Burrito had raised his right fist, and was about to smash Shrike and pretty much anyone who stood in his way, before the bullets started flying, and his head snapped towards the door.

It was then that his mind began to come back. Slowly but surely. The killing instinct against bots, his hatred for them, at least. A mechanical, almost monstrous roar escapes his metal lips, before he takes off towards the door, smashing it open and charging down the hall, pretty much ignoring the bullets that were leaving pock marks on his metal body.

It was about five seconds after he had bust the door down before his right fist impacted one bot in the face, and everything else went from there. Soon enough he was swinging wildly at any bot near him, screaming out in anger in intervals.
 
Re: ULMF the Third (RP Thread)

Grave muttered a few choice curses under his breath, incomprehensible to anyone not familiar with the language of beings of darkness. Things were rapidly devolving from bad to worse. The base was crawling with bots, about to blow up and no one could tell exactly how big an area would get zogged once everything went sky high and on top of that, Burrito seemed to be a few wires short of a full circuit. Not that the darkling minded that last bit - it certainly meant there'd be less work for him. Ignoring the rather gruesome display of Host's method of... Gathering intelligence, the mage quickly began to focus, shrouding himself and his sword in a pitch-black aura. "Bots I can deal with... You keep the other scrap-man off my back and I'll be fine." Black flames blazing along the edge of his weapon, body clad in an armor of darkness, Grave dashed past what's left of the door and straight at the bots, yelling a battlecry and hacking at everything hostile within sword's reach, sending blasts of magic at everything without.
 
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