The Big Damn Fight

The ‘commander’ screeched, struggling to cover her eyes: “FFFFFFUUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!” Under the searing light, her flesh began to bubble and burn.

“Holy [bleep]!” Geraldine tried to swat the projector from Raime’s hands, but the Executive effortlessly held her at arms’ length. “No! That’s the commander! That’s the [bleep]ing commander!”

“Listen to the bitch! Listen to the bitch!” shrieked the morass of ostensible commander flesh. “I’ll have you put out the airlock for this!” The smell of burning fat began to fill the room.

Raime glanced at the struggling Geraldine. “Private Cole, please listen to me and follow this instruction.” There was no mirth in her eyes. “Say ‘bitch’. That’s an order.”

“[Bleep].” Geraldine’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, [bleep]...”

“Pffft.”

“Seriously?!”

By now, the projector had done some serious work. Patches of unhealthy grey, then purple, began to bubble through the false commander’s flesh. Frankly, it looked about to explode, and the eerie burbling sound once again began to fill the room. Triumph over the imposter was at hand!

Then the projector, pushed far beyond its limits, burned the fuck out. The half-dissolved commander pushed herself upright with one sagging arm, half her face still intact. The rest was blue-gray goop, with neon purple and metal parts shining through from underneath. One bright blue eye stared Raime in the face. Painfully, it drew itself up back onto the commander’s chair, reforming as it went. Horrifically, it burbled, and from the burbles came a few terrifying words:

“ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.”

Show Content

Spoiler“What does that even mean? It’s not as if that’s grammatically correct…”

“SHUT UP AND RUN”

Peppi, in the interim, had found friends in high places.

A desperate gaggle of civilians had encamped themselves on the flat-topped roof of a multi-storey data centre, led by some mouthbreather or another who knew in his edgelord gut that shit was going down. His name was Clancy Splinterson, to everyone's embarrassment save his own. His Freedom™-loving military-industrial-complex-boner-induced headcanons made real and shoving him in position of Prime Protagonist, like the worst kind of fanboy he'd Totally Fuckin Called It and was pretty insufferable for it.

Clancy had scrounged up anyone civ-side who'd hear him out, rigged some firecrackers and a remote detonator in the centre's lobby, and tried not to act too excited when they bagged themselves an alien. He got his now-fearfully-admiring underlings to pepper the sagging slag-replicant with bullets until it stopped moving.

They weren't quite anticipating Peppi, who scrambled effortlessly up the five floors in two highly dramatic leaps and knocked out a guy's teeth with a dozen rings on a string. Done with fleeing aliens for five goddamn minutes, the Cloak blossomed about the collar into something very Stéphane Rolland.

"Morrows t'yehs! Ah'm yer princess-royal Peppi and ah'm lookin' fer some rugged-strong leggers to do that, uh, thing." She raised an arm in what she hoped was the universal lasers-for-hands gesture, accenting it with sound effects. "Zyoop-pew-vyooo."

"... Guns?" guessed an IT guy, hefting his rifle.

"Spare m'the technicals, handsome. I got three of 'em down dirtways guilty of pesterin' royalty." Peppi beamed at the nonplussed crowd, twirling her string-of-rings and making the guy she'd socked in the teeth whimper. "One bitta digit-glim, fresh off Mon Sango's jewellerin' district to the man who bags m'ssailants. Hop to it!"

Sergeant Chult, generally speaking, didn’t care about what anyone else had to say. This made him uniquely qualified to wield the Gigablaster 1. Whereas most modern weaponry had long since been made reliant on the relative quiet of lasers to shoot the things that need shooting, the Gigablaster 1 marked an experimental step in the opposite direction - what if we had a gun that managed to contain really big explosions in its chamber? They never made a Gigablaster 2.

Two alien infantry stood watch in front of the neatly printed sign denoting 'Civilian Power Control.' Though even untrained humans had proven to be able to take down these lowest-tier invaders, the only real duty that the pair had was to provide warning for the larger group inside should anyone defending the station arrive. They performed their duty admirably, since the two shots from Chult's hand-cannon each sent out an ear-rending roar of the high explosive shells being fired. The squad of aliens within started spilling out of the entrance, leaving the pair of infiltrators within to finish their investigation.

“You can't shoot with your hands over your ears, you coward!”
“Sorry, sir!”
“Less shouting, more shooting, Private!”
“C-can't we fall back to better cover, sir?”
“Potted plants are impeccable cover!”

“Oh good,” Tamatoa sighed. “We found them.”
“That is good! I had expected long hours of travel.” Also Willhelm beamed at her and loaded his sling.
“Why would you - nevermind, let's just go.” She unslung her own rifle in turn, and crouch-ran in a zig-zag down the hall.
“That is an unusual way to charge.” Also Wilhelm frowned, then ran directly down the corridor while twirling his swing at his side. “Battle is joined!”

A trio of stones whizzed out towards the aliens. One of the shots struck a soldier in its head between the many metallic protrusions jutting out of it, sending out a burst of purple blood before it dropped backwards. The remaining soldiers began to train their weaponized hands on the charging man, who had since let go of his sling. The gold weapon hung loose from its strap on his wrist, as an ancient metal axe had replaced it. His left hand held his cape out in front of him, and the beams fired from the formation of aliens deflected off of its glittering scales.
"No sorcery shall burn a gift of the Carp!" The invaders were allowed only a few attempts to shoot around his cloak-turned-shield before he was inside of their formation. When he pulled his left arm out from behind the cape, he revealed his sword already in hand and began laying about with both weapons amidst the mass of enemies.

Chult was, of course, delighted by the valor of this unknown airman.
“Now that's the stuff!” He clapped the Private on his shoulder and gave the soldier a shake. “See what you can do with a little guts?”
There were, at that moment, a great deal of guts being brought into plain sight.
“Yes sir. I think I'm going to be sick, sir.”
"If this doesn't inspire you to new heights of bravery, why are you even on the security team?" Chult's pistol let out another ear rupturing burst as he took out an alien to Also Wilhelm's right.
“Failed flight school.” The private's rifle let out a decidedly more modest 'pew' as he fired it in the general direction of the alien mob.
A matching trio of 'pew pew pew' sounded from the thin cover on the far side of the hallway from the pair as Tamatoa made her own contribution to the battle.
“Bah! Flyboys almost never get to have this kind of fun.”
“Aha! Private Tomato! Glad you could join us.”
“Tam-Ah-To-Ah.”
“Gesundheit.”

The fight, though brutal, didn't last much longer. The detachment of aliens was clearly unused to melee combat. Though their purple blood covered Also Wilhelm's weapons, gloves, and boots, it slid right off of his cape, leaving the silver scales pristine.
“Excellent work, pilot. Glad you could join us. We really showed those breakfast-stealing [Bleep]s.”
“Breakfast stealing? Are you hungered? I have found some rations earlier this day.” Also Wilhelm retrieved two of the flimsily wrapped packages that he had looted from the cage room that morning.
"Enernut! Walnut flavored Enernut! These are my favorite!"
“Oh no.”
"These are just like ones I had stolen!"
“Oh no.”
"Airman..."
“OH NO.”
"How can I ever thank you?"
Tamatoa and the other private sighed audibly.
“Your thanks are not required, my friend. It is ever a pleasure to aid the warriors that fight alongside me.”

A pair of overall wearing techs crept cautiously out of the control room. Looking around nervously, they walked up to their four saviors.
"Oh, thank you for rescuing us. We were just there to check on what happened with the power when..."
Sergeant Chult paused stuffing his face and raised his pistol at the one that had started speaking. "Pffwrd?"
"What?"
“He was asking for the password.” Tamatoa explained, raising her own rifle to cover the other.
"Oh, well of course. It's, uh, 'Seeming Sanctuary,' or at least it was -"
Chult shot him, sending a splatter of purple goo flying out behind his exploding head. The private, upon seeing the purple blood, shot the second tech as well, and was relieved to see a similar purple font erupt from his chest.
“But... that was the password.” Tamatoa turned to the sergeant with an arched eyebrow.
Chult finished chewing, swallowed, then said "Exactly. Only infiltrators can remember the [Bleep]ing things."

This creature - he supposed it was a she - offered its hand. He took a tentacle out of its slot, and wrapped it around her hand, out of either a gesture of alliance or because he wanted to feel her skin.

"It's III☆. Where I'm from, a proffered limb indicates that you want to have sex with me."

She withdrew her hand quickly.

"Aaaaaahahahaha! I got you good! Nah, nah, I get what you were doing. Alliance is a good idea, at least for the moment. Intel sounds good too. But, can I ask you a question? Have you seen a big yellowish Multitech? It should be in Prone Form, so... like a ground vehicle I suppose."

"I just got here, same as you, so no. Should we start looking?"

"Huh? No, I know where it is. I just wanted to know if you thought it was cool. You'll see when you see it. Well, let's go! I don't know about whatever plans you had in mind, but this is priority number one for me. My Multitech is my body, my soul."

The Multitech, as it happened, was one floor above them and slightly aftwards. Zaiza's sensor chip told him this. Of course, he was a bit concerned about how he would get it out of here to begin with. These hallways were ridiculously cramped. It seemed like a miracle that nobody came to investigate the brawl. Right on cue, a small cleaning robot turned the corner, and scooted towards them. It paused for a minute. Then it went on, ignoring them. Zaiza took his remaining mecha-foot and set it on top of the robot, preventing it from moving.

"Hey Nova. There's a computer connected to this robot. Might be a good idea to hack into it, see what's up with the invaders?"

"Yes. If we want to gain the upper edge in this competition, we should scope out the battlefield. From what I can gather, it seems we've arrived in the middle of an ongoing battle between humans and aliens. Uh, other aliens. These invaders."

Nova then grasped the small robot and picked it up.

It squeaked. "Hey, put me down! Have you no respect for vacuumbots?"

She did.

"Shit. Um. INITIATING CLEANING PROTOCOL #420. PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB VACUUMBOT W-W-W. THANK YOU."

It started rolling away.

"Ohhhh no you don't. I need your computer."

He leapt on top of it, gripped the top part, and pulled. Wires snapped, and the robot went slack. Sure enough, there was a laptop hidden just underneath the top. The screen was dark. Zaiza inspected it, and was about to turn it back on, when it did on its own. An angry face displayed on the screen.

"Okay, that is rude. I don't go around ripping you flesh-puppets out of your mechs."

"Please, like you even could. Now, be quiet. You're coming with us."

Nova pretended she didn’t recognize the laptop from the Margot thing’s lair. If she could avoid her drones’ cameras from focusing on it in any amount of detail, Nova could still bank on the fact that nobody would care much if she needed to 'murder' it in this bloodsport she had found herself in. But if it got any decent screen-time, that plan would be botched. Anthropomorphic things had a way of worming their way into the hearts of the American public, and Nova couldn’t be having any of that.

“Interesting, how did you know there was a computer in that machine?”

“It’s complicated... I guess you can say I can interface with them, but it’s really more like an innate ability of mine.”

“Yes, quite the ability. Manhandling me when you could just ask.”

Nova quickly made smalltalk to keep III☆ from engaging with the laptop. “That’s really useful. I wish I knew more of that kind of stuff, but I have a hard time updating my band website by myself. It’s not really my scene.”

“Well this specific machine is pretty weird...”

“Who are you calling weird you oversize-” Nova deliberately coughed, cutting him off.

“Weird how?”

“The thing’s got some very advanced specs, some of them might even have an edge on Linkwyrm technology, but it's exterior design and organizational structure is very primitive.”

“Primitive!" WWW scoffed, "I have three PHD’s from UoX! THREE!”

That was an unsettling specifically human response. She had encountered a few AI’s in her time and they didn’t typically attend higher education. This was likely no AI, Nova surmised. Even so, she continued her scheme of ignoring it. “It’s a current human model if that helps.”

“It doesn’t, but it’s interesting I guess. You're a human I take it?”

Nova didn’t skip a beat. She’d told this lie a million times. “Yes. You're a.. Linkworm?”

Zaiza nodded. “How can you tell that this is a battle between humans and... that other race?” He gestured down the hall to the bodies.

“Deduction. Us being in a battle is obvious enough, I don’t know of a lot of armed foot-soldiers that just walk around in formation during peace-time. As for there being humans, that’s really more of a gut feeling, but the whole place screams human construction and architecture. The weird thing is that there aren't a lot of human space ships so I assume we’re either in the future or some kind of simulation..”

Zaiza looked up from the computer. “Well I don't know about a simulation, but I just connected to the ship network’s database and it seems you’re right on the money as far as most things. What year are you from?”

“30XX”

“2016”

“Oh of course you are talking to the girl. My bad. Who cares about the poor ‘machine’ you’re abusing.”

Zaiza ignored WWW, “Well, This is apparently 200 years after your time, Nova. ”

Nova was relieved that Zaiza didn't seem to have much reverence for the Laptop. The fact that he didn't seem to think twice about it's apparent personality made her assume this kind of thing was probably a usual occurrence on the Linkwyrm homeworld. It certainly helped to sell her intentions to her audience regarding the thing.

“To paraphrase what you said earlier; that’s very interesting but doesn’t help us much.””

“Helps me even less, I have no idea how your time syncs up to the galactic standard, if it even does. There’s more information here though, schematics of the whole place, historical logs of humans dealing with the creatively named ‘Menace’, and... give me a second..” Zaiza clicked a couple times and calmly typed in a number of input commands. His relaxed demeanor portrayed that he was clearly in his element doing this kind of thing. “I even cracked into the ship’s feeds in real-time, it’s all networked! God the security sucks here, no wonder they’re losing.”

“That all sounds very useful. Download the information and let’s double time it to your vehicle, now that we know how to get there. Let’s leave the poor roomba here, the thing’s glitching out.” Her spirit lifted, she’d finally get rid of the thing. If she was lucky, it might even die in the hallway off camera. One less contestant to worry about.

“Download the information to what exactly?” Zaiza asked, puzzled.

“Can't you like... technopath it? You dont have a brain chip or some computer screen in that robot suit of yours ”

“Not really. I was dropped into this place with this thing and it’s capabilities are absolute shit. Honestly i’d be surprised if it was able to make it to my Multitech without overheating. We’re going to have to bring the computer with us.”

“Now I’m being kidnapped! Again! This day keeps getting better and better.”

“Hmm. Alright”

Nova wasn’t happy about the development but she supposed she could work with the optics. Her adjusted plan figured that the camera-man would probably focus on the more active and interesting looking members participating in this competition. She would subtly "encourage" them to kill each-other, and leave her and the laptop to duke it out at the end with Nova subsequently demolishing it without anyone shedding as much as a single tear.

Zaiza looked intently at the computer. “Hold on, there’s something that just appeared over the ship’s long range scanners. Multiple somethings.”

“What are they?”

“I’m not sure. They almost look like some of the larger Multitech models' battle form.. But significantly larger.”

Nova stuck her head around to look at the screen. Sure enough there were five blips coming around a large asteroid. Something was unsettling about their movements, it wasn't like any ship she had seen before, instead displaying a motion much more organic in nature.

“Whatever those are, they can’t be any any good. Let’s pick up the pace to your Multitech, see if you can find out what those are in the historical logs on the way.”

Show Content

SpoilerOne more week left!

Show Content

SpoilerThis round will end after July 2nd. I'll be accepting nominations for eliminees until this time, so feel free to PM me your suggestions. Finish up your plans for this round- we'll be moving on soon!

~~~

"SHIT."

That was all Zaiza could say, as his piece-of-shit mech struggled to get away from the horde of invaders. Wait... there it is! His Multitech should be in that room. The door was closed, and it seemed locked electronically. Locks? This should be a piece of cake. Of course, there was the matter of the... yeah.

An invader shot at him, and it hit its mark, crippling his mech's arm. Nova swiftly dealt retribution in punch form to the invader, along with several others in her blast zone. But more just cropped up.

"Fuck. No choice. Hey, cover me!"

Zaiza abandoned ship, so to speak, and ended up plopped on the floor under the door. The now-useless mech crumpled, and was swiftly trampled over by the ever-growing invader horde. He HATED being vulnerable like this, but he didn't have much of a choice. Truthfully, he liked the challenge of maintaining what was apparently a laborer mech. It was refreshing at first, but it started falling apart at the first sign of battle. And the invaders, they just kept coming and coming. It was something of a miracle that he even made it here.

She was whirling around, punches and kicks thrown everywhere into the amorphous blobs. But every time she killed one, its corpse just got absorbed by the rest and made them more powerful. It seemed futile.

"How are you doing?!"

"Just fine! Real fucking fine. Weather is great today!"

He had his tentacles plugged into the middle seam, and the door was glitching out. With a final whir, the door finally opened a crack. Suddenly, he could feel something flying towards him. It was Nova, apparently launched by the invaders' simultaneous lunge.

"Oh fuck."

The two of them crashed through the door, followed by the rest of the sentient slime.

"Alright, go go go! Big, yellow, beautiful!"

Nova wasted no time at all. Picking III☆ up in a bridal carry, she ran forth into the rest of the room. It was similar to a warehouse, and it was surprisingly spacious, considering the hallways they just came in from. There were small flight pods everywhere, of varying designs. In the back, there were some mechs of different sizes and colors. One of them was pink.

"There!"

Sure enough, his Multitech was sitting among the rest of the flight pods. It was powered on already, his seat exposed and waiting for him. But there were steel shackles holding it down.

"Nova, do you think you could...?"

She put III☆ down in the cockpit, and started ripping at the steel shackles. It was tough going, and she had to use all of her inhuman strength. But, she didn't have a lot of time. The horde wildly shooting at them made sure of that.

Zaiza immediately got to work, plugging himself into the Multitech. It started rumbling, trying to transform. He had to control only the front part. It opened up, and a big gun barrel poked out, already gathering energy from the air. A small sphere of pure white energy was glowing inside.

"You might want to cover your ears."

Nova took the cue and jumped back, covering her ears. Suddenly, a loud BOOM shook the very air, as a gigantic laser beam tore through the invaders, vaporizing them instantly. The recoil from this, combined with what Nova had already done, freed the Multitech from the shackles. He could sense that its surface was damaged, but it was working perfectly fine otherwise. Well, other than the significant energy loss from the Sonic Cannon. He immediately started transforming into a more suitable bipedal form. Armor plating rearranged itself, and Nova could briefly see, through a sonic haze, the internal workings of the Multitech. It was more complicated that she could ever understand. But it didn't last for long, as the armor settled in place, covering a big and surprisingly humanoid form. It stood tall, towering over her at 15 feet. Then it started dancing and posing, the thuds echoing throughout the now invader-free chamber.

"HELL YEAH! We are back in action!"

Nova just stood there, flabbergsted by the outrageous display III☆ was putting on. Then she realized that her camera drones were missing. Did the horde get them, or did III☆ shoot them out of the air? To her immense relief, she saw them hovering in the air, well above the chaos. She realized one more thing then. She was being one-upped by III☆.

"Ahem. Well, that was quite the blast! Haha. But look at what you've done!"

The laser fire left a clean path of charred flight pods, no doubt made of the same cheap materials as the laborer pods. It continued on until it hit the wall. Where it ended, the wall was currently blown up, metal warped out of shape. They could see through it, and a human was looking at them through the hole, in sheer fright.

"Oh, shit."

When Peppi arrived with her entourage of alternatively bribed, scared, or simply stunned civilian security personnel, the fight that they had expected was being finished for them by the actual security team and one enthusiastic new 'pilot.' They were still a story up when they saw the silver-caped man charge into the thick of things and promptly set to hacking at the block of alien infantry, supplemented by a stream of rifle fire from the far side of the engagement and the occasional explosive blast from the security sergeant's oversized pistol.

“Now tha’ss a loud mess to be botherin’ with. If’n they don’t need us interlopin’ in their altercatin’ then, well, yer princess will be hangin’ back safeside, reckonin’ yeh to the same.”
“Uh…”
“She’s saying we can choose to not get shot right now.”
“Oh. Good.”
Clancy, who figured that his recently acquired semblance of authority would be undermined if he wasn’t leading the way, was less enthusiastic.
“Hey, we’re here to bag some alien scum-sacks, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Peppi blinked her overlarge eyes at him in a manner that landed somewhere between ‘creepy’ and ‘charming.’ “Well, if’n you can land some killy-shots in edgewise, be yer own guest.”
Clancy puffed up his chest, then crouched down and lined up a shot down his heavily modified scope. After some twisting of knobs and turning of dials, he soon was able to see the battle with only slightly less clarity than before. It was, of course, a mess, and he quickly resolved that he wasn’t much more likely to actually hit an alien at this range than he was to hit the human-looking person in the middle of them.
“They, uh, seem to be doing fine.”
“Yer sure? Would’n' be wantin' ter step on yer anythin's now."
"Yeah, uh, maybe we should just get a closer look?"

The small band made it down to the level that the fight had taken place just in time to see a pair of people in the tech uniforms that everyone except Peppi and Clancy wore talking with the sergeant. That was when Chult and the private shot the infiltrators.
"Sweet [BLEEP]ing [BLEEP]!"
"Uh, did anyone write down the passwords?"
"I thought they changed them this morning."
While the mood of her volunteers switched over from 'nervous' to 'panic,' Peppi bounded over to give her thanks to the brave warriors that had dispatched with those guilty of her harassing her royal personage.

“Is that another alien?”
“Doesn’t look like the rest.”
“I’m shooting it.”
“Can you, um, maybe wait?”
“It’s wearing a flight uniform.”
“Ah, right. One of the weirdos.”
Also Willhelm gave a cheery wave with his ooze dripping axe. “Hello then. How have your own battles fared?”
Peppi’s mouth broadened even further into a smile. “Ain’t been rightly divin’ inter the fray-like. Some fine folks in the huddle yonder bid me beat some o’ these ale-bein’s for em, so I set off ter do jus’ that. Been bothered mightily by some o’ the merr-ded louts you trounced just there. As such, yer own royal highness hopped on over ter give yeh such thanks and gratitudes as ye’ve earned.”
“Pardon - are you drunk?”
“Impossible! They said we were all out!”
The princess’s smile receded. “Drunk? If m’regal parlance sounds like drunken-talk to yeh then yeh kin jus’ clean yer own overdry ears right out.”
“I am sorry. I meant no offense.”
“Well an’ good then. Offenders oft to lose their offendin’ tongues and tidbits when insultin’ royalty, y’mind.”

Peppi’s temporary retainers finally managed to agree that the actual security troops weren’t going to shoot them and came slinking up.
“So, uh, yeah, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Chult beamed at them.
“Aren’t you going to ask them the password?”
“Nope.”
“These ‘uns been following yer’s truthfully from atop the tippity tall bit yonder, where they’d been hidin’ out with the pewmagiggers yeh all keen to kill wit’.”
“See? Safe as can be.”
“Right. So you think you can fix the power?”
“I mean, it’s not broken. It’s just that when we were isolating the data complex, we probably just accidentally tripped the –”
Clancy elbowed the technician in the side, then explained, “What he means is yes. Yes, we can fix it. Because that’s what we skilled professionals can do.”
“Well hop to it then.”

“Ah, these li’l legged land-lingerers are sorely lackin’ in just that. Seems all you native-lookin’ dwellers are missin’ the jump to get you from here to thither.”
Also Willhelm set to cleaning his weapons, wiping the alien blood from their blades with a cloth that somehow proved to be almost a match for the mess. “You know if you were drunk, of course, it would be perfectly all right. I have known many competent warriors who saw fit to fortify their courage with –“
“We just finished clarifyin’ that yer only princess ain’t had a merr-drop o’ booze in her! Yeh’d be better not even thinkin’ that of it if’n yeh know her language is right natural.”
“Of course. Regardless, I suppose that introductions are due. I am Also Willhelm.”
“Also what?”
“Also Willhelm.”
“Princess Royale Peppi, alongside all titles comin’ with such royal descendin’.” She, at least, either had no confusion regarding the blond's name or simply didn't care to clarify.
“I’m Sergeant Chult. This is Tomato.”
“Tam-ah-to-ah”
“Bless you.”
“And I’m – “
“Power’s back!” One of the technicians poked his head out from the Civilian Power Control room. The lights overhead flickered briefly, then brightened to the stark white light that they had produced before being limited to emergency power. “Seems it really was just flipping a switch.”

Chult sighed contentedly, stood up even straighter, and began to pace in front of the group. “We’ve won a great battle today, soldiers. I want you all to remember this day. No matter how dark things get, no matter who dies,” he paused to pat the private’s shoulder. “You should all be proud of the work you’ve done to secure this station. You see, little things matter, people. Civilian power may not seem like the biggest deal, but the lights in your home, the alarm by your bed – these things are all important. These things are the comforts that make us human. You could even say that by rescuing this building, you’ve rescued Draconis-II itself.”
Everyone clapped politely.
“Thank you, thank you. Now, how about we –“


A series of massive crashes echoed through the station. The hallway floor shuddered, and after the third metal-shaking impact, the lights dimmed once again to their dull, orange state.
It didn’t take long for a report to come from the control room. “Seems we’ve been hit. And hard. Whatever that was, it damaged the power distribution directly.” Now that there was action involved, it was Clancy delivering the report.
Chult gritted his teeth, then turned in place until he was facing the excited technician. “And… can you fix it?”
“Not from in here. We’d need to suit up and go outside, and that’d be suicide with whatever it was that shot the station still out there. Nah, if we’re going to get up and running, the flyboys will need to fight those things off first.”
Chult made a fist, and a single tear trickled down his face. “I hate these aliens. I hate them so much.”

Geraldine stared up at the many-limbed orb before her, squinting in the orange emergency light. The hulking sphere reflected the cage lamps oddly, twisting light this way and that, and the shaking was rapidly permeating the station didn’t help in the slightest. “This is your mech.”

“Absolutely.” The word was oddly-shaped, coming from Raime, but all in all it summed up all the Executive knew about the polished chrome sphere with the levitating, weapons-bristling arms - it was flashy, overpowered and probably the least efficient thing to come into her sight since the last time she blinked, but it was resolutely absolute, and ever so wonderfully beautiful.

Raime began to admit to herself, not for the first time, that she might have a weakness for sleekness.

“This is your mech.”

“I’ve never seen it before in my life. Ohh, look at that finish…”

“This is your… mech?” Geraldine tilted her head quizzically. “It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. How do you even get in?”

“I think…” Carefully, Raime laid a hand on the sphere, and a hatch hissed open. “Yes. It’s compatible - no, it’s been configured to my systems. Magic hands!” She wiggled the aforementioned magic hand at an astonished Geraldine, and ducked into the hatch.

The private glanced around nervously. The shaking was getting worse, and it sounded like the aliens had begun their full-on invasion. This was it, she knew, this was the moment they’d all been trained for. It was her duty to report to Chult, pompous bastard or no, and do her bit in defending Draconis-II… nay, civilization itself, against the Menace.

Instead, she opened her big fat mouth and asked, “Have you got room for two in there?”

Raime waved at Geraldine as the private ducked her way into the mech’s interior chamber.

Or rather, her body did.

Her head, freshly detached, lay spinning lazily on a turntable, situated somewhere roughly approximating the dashboard.

“Come in, come in! Mind your head,” Raime’s head began, but her greeting dissolved rapidly into a fit of giggles. “‘Mind your head’. Snrk. That’s a good one.”

Geraldine just stared for a bit. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. Her eyes were going to dry out at this pace.

“Wh,” she tried, somewhat unsuccessfully.

“Wha,” she tried again.

She made it as far as “What the [bleep],” but at that point the whole mech started rolling and she was too busy throwing up into a handy paper bag to pursue that line of thought, and she wouldn’t get back to it until much later, when they were in space.

The human was a young woman, about two years younger than Nova. She backed away slowly from the large hole that had been ripped between the hangar and the hallway. She had on some sort of army uniform.

“Hey, girl it’s ok. We’re friendly!” Nova paused for a second, “...Shit that’s something someone evil would say.”

Zaiza agreed with her, talking through his Multitech,“Yeah, you definitely sounded a little creepy there.”

The girl started to take off running and nova followed her to the hole in the wall. She leaned through to try to calm her down one last time.

“Wait!” She yelled, the girl halfway down a metal corridor. To her surprise the girl stopped and turned around.

Suddenly the entire ship shook. Nova could feel the hull taking fire, and extrapolated that it was from those things she had seen on the scanners. Without warning, the end of the hallway opened up into the vacuum of space. The girl was ripped out with the atmosphere. Nova grabbed onto the edge of the hole, her hand digging into the sharp metal of the warped wall siding as the oxygen was being pulled from all around her. One of her drones was pulled into space through the holes.

Her training as a superhero took over and she thought about the rest of the base. She looked out the hallway in the opposite direction of the breach into space. A blast door was closing to partition this section from the rest of the ship, but Nova knew it wouldn’t help. With the hangar's interior door opened because of Zaiza’s little stunt, the oxygen would be pulled out of the inner halls through the two successive breaches, which could endanger a greater population.

“III☆! You need to seal the door!” Nova screamed, hoping her voice carry through the whooshing atmosphere rushing past her in the opposite direction.

He heard her and complied. Nova was astonished at how smooth his ship moved even with all the wind resistance.

She looked the other direction, past the hole into the void where the girl spun farther and farther away from the ship. Ok, she thought, how long can a human survive in the vacuum of space? She knew it was possible, and she knew that you shouldn’t hold your breath lest your lungs explode, but the girl might have a chance if Nova was capable of retrieving her.

There were a multitude of problems in the way of this rescue mission. One problem was that she wasn’t capable of flight and therefore the return trip would be tricky. Another was that she had never been in space without a suit, so she had no way of knowing what the effects would on her. But there was one really big problem. One of the titanic amalgamous creatures that had fired upon the ship, was floating behind the girl.

But Nova could feel the weight of a hundred million american eyes on her. There was no time to think. She had to look like a hero.

“III☆! Can that thing fight in space?”

“Yeah but-”

“Good! Cover me!”

Nova let go of the wall, and was sucked into space, getting one last burst of momentum as she pushed off the ship.

Step one. Pretend like space has no effect on you. If the audience believes it, it’s true.

Technically, vampires didn’t need to breathe. For the most part that didn’t really factor into the general belief system surrounding vampirism, so they tended to work with it. Nova knew of some vampires that had spent most of their un-lives underwater. However, the rules worked somewhat differently for Nova. Nobody knew she was a vampire, in fact her publicists had constructed a careful campaign, seeding rumors of vampirism into the zeitgeist as “conspiracy theories” so most people believed she wasn’t one. This allowed her to transcend the beliefs of having to drink blood or not be in the sun because of this one precarious lie.

Unfortunately, she felt like she was going to implode. Clearly survival in space was not one such belief that her followers generally held. It was too late to go back now, she either had to convince everyone or suffer the consequences of a brash decision. She caught up to one of her drones and grabbed it, slowing down her momentum a little. She was almost in reach of the girl when she noticed shots from the titan incoming.

Step Two. Don’t get shot in the vacuum of space. She didn’t much have a plan for this except to hope that she was lucky. She crossed her fingers.

Zaiza zoomed past her, the multitech in the form of a spaceship. A flurry of missiles released from two outlets on it’s sides, barreling into the giant, and unleashing a number of explosions.

The explosions sent Nova hurtling back to the ship. Undamaged by the blasts, she had a split decision to make, go back now or get the girl. She opted for the second option. She jumped off the ship with all her might and sent herself flying directly towards the girl amidst a galactic dogfight.

For a second it seemed as if Zaiza had defeated the space giant, as it’s body was covered in holes from the blasts, but after a moment they slowly regenerated. Zaiza and the titan engaged in a dance of firing and dodging as Nova rocketed ever closer to the girl.

It seemed like her stunt had paid off. The pressure from space slowly normalized as she reached the girl. She smiled upon realizing that this must have meant that no one thought Nova was stupid enough to jump into space without a means to deal with it. Superheroes were meant to have battles in space anyways, so perhaps it was an obvious conclusion for the people at home. The press would have a field day with this new power of hers, they always did when a new one “emerged.”

She grabbed the girl and now it was time for Step Three. Return back.. She had no idea how she was going to do this one. She couldn’t ride the drone back because it functioned on propelling air, of which there was none. Usually at this point, when Nova was at the precipice of death or failure, everyone at home watching her would will her some new sort of power or second wind and she’d swoop in and save the day.. But she had just gotten a new power, and it seemed like the folks at home were all out of hope.

She and the girl drifted through the void. Nova stared at the stars as they slowly rotated around her. She watched the battle between Zaiza and the titan, and saw the immense colony ship which she now knew was called “Draconis-II”, as it was printed in huge bold letters along the hull.

An orb-like ship with many arms floated right up along-side them. It scooped them up, and put them into a small holding pod, repressurizing the atmosphere before letting them enter the interior. This interior area was not constructed for two people, and a third human woman was already there covered in puke.

A disembodied head spoke to Nova, “Hello there! You two look like you could use a ride!”

Round elimination notice:

Show Content

SpoilerThis round's elimination has been decided- unfortunately, bigro and WWW are going home. It was a very tough decision on my part; there was no clear candidate for a long time and I'm real bummed to see one of our players go. This round will continue for a day or two until bigro or someone else makes a deathpost, and then we'll move on.

The Menace was on the best of days a collective entity, which lived and worked in accord with a greater purpose: victory. They crafted the stars in their image in their wake, a testament to their glory - defeat was inconceivable to a race that produced no deviants, created no monuments, and took no prisoners. To them, war was not a means to an end, but rather an end to all other means.

On the worst of days - that would be this one, for context - the Menace was a disconnected and roiling mess of interconnected factions, all vying for supremacy in the actions of the overmind. And the attack was not going well. Keyboards were being flung, monitors were being smashed, and whole new families of invective were being invented on the spot. The new units fighting for the humans were steadily crushing the Menace vanguard, and to add insult in injury, they were proving too versatile to outwit, outfight, or outmaneuver.

It wasn’t fair.

Geraldine’s first reaction was to stare, but at this point her eyes rebelled against drying out any further and watered madly. “P-princess,” she managed to sputter amidst the tears, “Princess!”

“Oh my [bleep],” the evidently royal young girl sighed, and this was a sigh that went all the way up to the ceiling, down the the floor, and round the capsule interior a couple of times, “why are you people so emotional? Aren’t you supposed to be soldiers?”

“What were you doing, floating in space?” Geraldine almost screamed. “You could have been killed! The colony needs you!”

Hearing this, the supermodel superhero stood up and struck a pose, which would have been more impressive if she hadn’t nearly cracked her head on a low-hanging bracket. “It’s a good thing I was here, then: Nova saves the day again!” She winked at the nearest camera drone.

“Not to burst your bubble but I’m pretty sure that we’re the ones who saved the day… if we hadn’t shown up, you’d have both exploded.”

Nova blinked momentarily, but recovered in a flash: “Ah,” she squeezed as much patronizing condescension into the syllable as she could, “but you see, I’m a superhero, and I’ve got superpowers to help me with that.”

“Yeah,” Geraldine pointed her chin at the princess, “but does she?”

Fuck. She had her there. Nova longed to just reach over and snap the troublesome private’s neck, but the cameras were rolling and the American public, to say the least, would probably not like that very much.

“Did you put my princess in danger?” The indictment came in a monotone barely above a whisper, an accusation pregnant with anger.

Not good. Not good - wait a second: “Actually, Miss Quick-to-judge, I saved her. She was sucked out into space when that thing attacked.” Nova nodded at an image of the space titan on-screen. “She would have died if it weren’t for me.”

“Well,” Raime spoke up, “I wouldn’t revise that projection just yet.” She stretched the ‘just’ out into an elongated syllable, as her seated body fiddled with some controls. The screen view panned around, locking onto a large, rapidly approaching asteroid.

As the four of them looked on in silence, the dark side of the asteroid rotated into view. Behind it hung an awful sight: another colony ship, still smeared with battle scars and open, jagged wounds from which whole battalions of alien warriors spewed. The whole mass was festooned with sickly purple strands of pulsating flesh, intertwined with blue-grey metallic protuberances that jutted out into space, radiating heat, light and commands to the invaders below.

On one gashed, bleeding flank, the ship’s name could still be made out: the Draconis-I.

“We’ve got company, girls.” The executive squinted out into the horror before them, then spun right the fuck back around, a bright grin on her face. Her body swiveled in the pilot’s seat, too, and stuck out a hand.

“Hi! I’m Raime. It’s nice to meet you both!”

CREDIT: 1
SCORE: 65535
SPECIAL: MAX SPECIAL

Raime giggled. “I can’t believe that worked.” She wiggled her upraised fingers. “Magic hands!”

Geraldine tried to squint up at the CREDIT and succeeded only at bashing her head on her seat’s headrest. “Why only one life?”

“I don’t think the meter goes above one. Guess we’re in this, hardcore mode! Not a time to lose one’s head. Snrk.”

“Wait a minute, I never did get a chance to ask you about-”

“All buckled up in the back?”

Nova nodded. Next to her, the princess gave a rather nervous thumbs-up.

The nearest drone wittered, and the voice of Eyes came tweeting out: “Can we run over the plan one more time, please? For the audience.”

“Not a problem! At the present moment, we want to take on the alien menace, as I’m sure all of us watching at home do. To do that, we’re going to take them on at their own game:” and at this, her voice rose to a triumphant roar, “MECH BATTLES!”

“Here we go, girls!” The silver sphere sped up and began to spin, tearing a hole clean through the nearest titan and making a beeline into a slightly better beeline back to base.

“I’m here for you, Princess.”

“Ugh.”

William William William, first of his name, first ever human mind to travel between dimensions and universes and all that other shit, not actually the first ever person to have their mind uploaded into a laptop (hey, your kink is not my kink and that’s okay), was in fact right now formulating four hundred billion new ways to be angry.

He deserved more than this.

He’d figured it wouldn’t be too much trouble, to be poured across realms, and it would be fairly simple to bring him back, chock full of information and accolade-winning papers. Being a laptop wasn’t actually all that bad. He could think several orders of magnitude faster than most other intelligent beings, and plus, he had games installed.

But this? This was humiliation. This was being lost in space. This was having his life threatened by random pus monsters, random lizard monsters, and random supermodel monsters. That’s right, supermodel monsters. His Magic-Eye^™ saw everything. But it’s not as if anyone would listen to poor William, noooo. He would have bet his motherboard most of his fellow ‘fighters’ were even aware that he was something more than just a mere appliance. Unappreciated, that’s what he was, unappreciated in his time.

These were the motivations that ran through William’s processors as a remote-controlled droid lashed him to his own mech - a monstrosity strapped inside of a scavenged alien scoutship. With a series of squeaks and grunts, the half-wrecked launcher tilted itself towards the hulking alien mothership, a harpoon aimed at the heart of the whale.

“I will be remembered for this,” WWW began, but his speech was tragically cut short by the launch, or at least it was stretched out into unintelligible strings. Not that anyone was around to hear or read or anything. For perhaps the first time in his life, he was alone.

William had always been popular. This combined with a brilliant mind for historical research and a sense of overpowering self-confidence made him the ideal candidate amongst the faculty when it came to the past-viewing project. His colleagues smothered him in accolades and praises, rewarded him for his work, and there had never been a shortage of friends.

But now as he sailed across the empty spaces, he began to realize how false those smiles had been. How sarcastic the prizes, how enthusiastically they had buttered him up for this assignment. How much they had wanted him out of their lives, how much they hated him. He had never wanted to believe - no! He would save them all, and he would show them all how amazing he was. He would save this simulated human race, and he would bring them glory and power and joy! They would flourish under his name, and he would be William, King Laptop the First!

To chase the thoughts away, he pulled up his most cherished artifact from the late 20th century: a recovered clip from a blockbuster movie - one of only six that they could rescue from a refurbished LaserDisc found in the ruins of Old Dallas. He recited the words from memory as the low-resolution ‘President’ spoke them out loud:

“...Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom…”

Out the corner of his Magic-Eye^™ he saw a hail of gunfire dissolve against the mothership’s force fields, even as his pirated ship effortlessly slipped through them.

“...Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation.”

Behind him, a titanic alien beast swatted a swathe of shitty mechs out of the sky. They shattered against each other, tumbling into the titan’s maw.

“We are fighting for our right to live.”

A minor asteroid imploded, forming a tiny, momentary black hole that swallowed another titan whole.

“To exist.”

As it went screaming into the void, sickly purple tentacles lashed out and pulled in a fleeing civilian ship. In another second, the black hole was gone.

“And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice:”

To describe the state of affairs in the shortest, most succinct way possible: the mothership was advancing. The humans were losing.

“‘We will not go quietly into the night!’”

The darkness rose like bile in humanity’s doomed, collective throat: a guillotine of screams as the alien vanguard pushed on, pushing the defenders back, back, back.

“We will not vanish without a fight!”

William looked back at the last minute and saw, far behind him, the frantic maneuvers of the other battlers trying to stop the advance. Pink mech. Silver mech. Yellow monstrosity of a mech. Some other ones he couldn’t quite place. Maybe they would remember him. Or would his be the Tomb of the Unknown Laptop?

“We're going to live on!”

A docking port came snaking out towards him. Now or never.

“We're going to survive!”

He synthesized a deadly computer virus. Just like the movie. Let it run through him, waves of pain and pleasure. Force fed it into the mothership’s systems, even when it ran like fire through his own.

“Today we celebrate…”

With the last scrap of his consciousness, he triggered the mech’s self-destruct.

“Our Independence Day!”

A great booming whoosh of tortured air swept past all of the contestants, and like babes from their mothers’ arms they were ripped away from the Draconis-II and thrown before the Abhorrent.

The monstrosity stared down at them. Its tentacled mass quivered in confusion. “Wh- whggh- what?? You barely even got in the robots! Whgh! Idgh- I put them there! So you would use them!” it bellowed, whale-like.

It fished out a clipboard from under its horseish mane. It tapped it with a claw.

“'Round One: Humanity’s Only Hope!:’”, it read aloud, demonstrating that it could, in fact, read, JESSICA. “‘Draconis-II, a far-flung starship colony in the outer reaches of known space, has been cut off from all support following a devastating attack by a mysterious alien force. The colony’s only weapons are a series of mech prototypes designed and built before the attack- highly experimental, their capabilities can only be guessed at. Only with the arrival of a shipment of pilots’ - that’s you - the only beings capable of using these machines,’ - that’s YOU - ‘does the colony stand any chance of defense... ‘“

“You were the only ones who could drive those! What are they supposed to do with them now??” it whined. It threw its clipboard at III☆’s head.

“I don’t get it! Why didn’t anybody drive the robots?? I’m tryyyyyiiiiing! I’m doing my best!” The Abhorrent had gone hot pink in distress. It was trying. It was doing its best.

“Didn’t you like them?? I thought everybody liked robots!” it shrieked like a burning bat. “Weren’t they cool enough? Wh-gnmn-why didn’t you get into the robots??” It toppled over like a deflated bouncy house. “OHHHHHHHH. OOOOHGGHH MY GOD. OOOUUHGH. NNnngghhHH.” It clawed at its face. “Will the colony be okay?? OHH LORD.”

It coughed up a slug despondently and waved a pedipalp at the contestants. “Leave me. Leave me to my misery. Go,” and they were off again.

Show Content

SpoilerRound Two: Multiverse's Got Talent! A star-studded pageant of talent claiming entrants from across the known multiverse, each contender here is primed and ready to impress the Judges and fight their way through the qualifying rounds to reach the top! Underhanded methods of victory are of course expressly forbidden. Who could dream of such a thing? And of course, the programmers promise no harm will come to the losers. Remember to smile- the cameras are watching!

The same constrictions apply this round as in the last- two weeks to finish, about 500 words per post. Two days before the deadline I'll decide on the eliminated party, and the rest of you will have those final days to finish up your plans and kill off who needs to be killed. Good luck!

"Ah've always been a real free spirit, y'gotta be when destiny's resurfin' it's barbdiest quills fer yeh."

Peppi grinned wide enough to filter-feed on crawdads. The cameras, after all, are watching. Peppi had no damn clue what, exactly, a camera was, but rest assured they were eating her up. She lounged in the interview chair with utmost confidence, partway propped up by the ever-shifting cut of her cloak. The capital-P producer but-let's-not-shit-this-up-just-yet-not-like-a-the-Producer-producer, whoever they were supposed to be in the grand scheme of things, had given it the same polite interest he accorded for every other would-be star's garish routine prop.

It had thrown the producer fuck it let's call him Call-me-Cadel Cadel, it had thrown Call-me-Cadel for a loop when he asked if that was her talent and Peppi frankly looked insulted, like ugh no this Preyshit cursecloth was not what she had to offer the primetime'd masses. His aides had gently taken her aside from the waiting room to figure out if her brand of show-up-unannounced-and-holler warranted screentime or security. The "ah'm here on some like glad-yatorial gulemuck care a right ugly slug went by Margot" angle could definitely be played up, though they would've rather heard from the Battle in question's organisers beforehand.

And now, here she was, gallantly unaware of and symbiotic with the cameras glued onto her like a ray with its remorae. She drawled a richly-accented and probably-fictitious tale of kidnapping and bested gods and lesbian romance, and Call-me-Cadel prayed to Serisque (patron deity of reality TV around these parts) that this hick-frog would survive the prelims and let him work this narrative gold into a behind-the-scenes content.

The audition-centre Host (species: Host) arched its salacious spine and smiled its winningest smile, its blink-and-it's-a-microphone limb jabbing quickly between Peppi's deluge of ancedotes.

"So, your majesty," asked Host, "We're wrapping this segment up for now, would you care to give anyone a shout-out?"

"Y'passin on missives fer me? Righteous. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh I reckon thanks to y'all fineries of Multiversers Gott-Talent fer takin' me in, does a harangued little royal like meself good to find some proper civility. Speaknawhich, All-Souls Willim. If yeh's in the market fer more talent than even I can wrangle, there's a legger'd provide right nicely."

Peppi beamed, actually at the camera this time with pointed direction courtesy of Host. She leered at the teleprompter a moment, managing to pass it off as a confident smirk.

"Thank yehs, annnnnnd God Bless.... Mmmerica!"