Re: The Savage Brawl [Round 3: Abandoned Park]
07-13-2010, 03:12 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.
An outside observer may find it odd that the sovereign ruler of a massive star nation would deign meet a mere intelligence agent in the field, and in hostile territory, no less. But this was a special case.
Special enough to make the Emperor rather agitated when his agent failed to show. She'd never been late before, never in the twenty thousand years since he'd formed the Empire. He began to pace. Her failure to make the appointment was more important than a failure to deliver and receive valuable information and resources. Something must have happened. Something...
He paused. He was getting a serious sense of deja-vu. He'd been here before, perturbed by the same issue, he was sure of it. But that was impossible; he'd never encountered a situation like this before; he'd never been on this planet before. There was no way he could-
The loud whine of several speederbikes approaching from a distance interrupted his thoughts. His head flicked towards the noise; he'd viewed the detailed intelligence reports from this world before landing, and the bikes' engines carried the particular frequency used by several of this planet's gangs. But they shouldn't be anywhere near here...
The whole situation was quickly becoming... unfavorable. He would have to extricate himself immediately lest it worsen.
As he pinged his massive private wormhole network to prepare for a transit back to the Empire, several things happened. One, the ping failed. There was no wormhole network. Two, the biker gang, which had been at least half a kilometer away, was suddenly surrounding him. Three, they were not a biker gang.
They wore the uniforms of the local Resistance movement, though the Emperor didn't remember the green of their emblem look quite so... sickly. One of them removed his goggles to grin nastily at the "repairman" that was the Emperor's disguise.
"It's over, Solly. We know who you are."
---------
Back in the real world, a pool of green acid burbled and swayed across the ground, belaying little of the battle raging inside. A bubble formed and swelled across its surface, bursting to reveal what, at first glance, appeared to be a rotting corpse. Skin hung off its face in melting lumps. Torn, tattered and partially-dissolved clothes did little to hide massive portions of flesh flapping limply against a metallic torso. Indeed, the increasingly-exposed metal of the cyborg's body was the only thing to shatter the illusion of a horrendously decayed undead monster, as its battle inside Ekelhaft had done a number on its externals. Sentient acid can be insidious in its violation of any nook or cranny, and the scars opened by Ekelhaft Its jaw opened as it burst from the frothing slime, and an inhuman screech, like tearing aluminium, ripped through the air. Its single remaining arm flicked between multiple weapons configurations, never settling, most of them completely useless without newmatter fabricators or the multitude of other missing or disabled technological gizmo's. It dove back into the seething surface, eager to meet the grinding maw of teeth which had formed beneath it.
---------
"We know you work for the Sollies. To think one of our own citizens would ally themselves with those xenophobes!" The man looked around at his allies, who all scowled accordingly. He looked back at the "repairman". "Shallow degenerates, they are. The filth of the human race has always migrated inwards. But we're not going to give you that chance." The grin was back, and the man dismounted his bike, the rest of his group followed suit. "We know you're here waiting for your Solly contact. So you're gonna help us ambush them. And, just as ah... insurance... to keep you from running..." he motioned towards another of his men, whom hefted a rather deadly-looking weapon, "keep in mind that we'll be watching." The man grinned again.
The Emperor considered. The massive propaganda machine of his Empire's Directorate of Information did more than simply indoctrinate his citizens to hate and fear the worlds beyond the border. It also, much more surreptitiously, infiltrated and guided the political and cultural norms of the portions of humanity which had not yet been absorbed into the Star Empire of Sol. For as long as the Empire had existed, its main tenant had been to protect humanity against alien incursions. The fact that no evidence for alien life had ever been found did not invalidate this goal; indeed, the early version of the DOI used that fact to its advantage. By fabricating shreds of evidence to hint at a secretive alien conspiracy to take over the worlds beyond the Empire's border, aliens that were forever beyond the reach of humanity's influence, the citizens of the Empire remained convinced that their nation's steadily expanding borders for for the best. They were saving these helpless border worlds from the aliens that lurked just out of sight.
On the flipside, the border worlds knew the story to be a complete farce. The aliens were out there, yes, and they were trying to reach us. They were kind and benevolent, and only had humanity's best interests at heart. Stories abound of contact with strange ships with superior technology at the edge of human space kept the population of the Outer Worlds continually reaching outwards, both running from the Evil Empire and running to their Omnipotent Benefactors.
It did not matter that aliens simply did not exist, and that both ideologies were based wholly on fabrications from the DOI. The outcome remained the same: humanity expanded, much faster than they would have if every nation felt at ease and complacent. Fear and nigh-religious love were powerful motivators, and the Emperor utilized both with extreme prejudice to achieve his goals.
Which brought him back to the matter at hand. This man was likely a leader of the local resistance cell; a dangerous group, whom supported fighting the growing Empire, rather than running from them. This, the Emperor simply could not abide. These groups popped up every now and then, and while their overall impact was negligible, it was still annoying. He would have to put them down.
Right as the thought pushed him towards action, something changed in the men around him. It was as if their breathing suddenly came in hisses and pops, or their skin took on a sickly green sheen, or their teeth became razors and their hands became claws, or all at once. Or none at all. The change seemed both imperceptible and glaringly obvious, but the Emperor couldn't work out which, or what it was. All he knew was that it had happened, and this was no ordinary fight. He lowered the disguise, revealing himself in all his Imperial glory, hoping to at least startle the men.
Their reaction was not as expected. Snarling, they charged.
The Emperor brought up his right hand, pointing at the nearest man, ready to unleash-
What right hand? The Emperor stared. How could have forgotten his right arm was gone? Thinking, he had trouble remembering how he'd lost it. It seemed recent, but...
Shaking himself, he stared again. At his right hand. Which was definitely attached to his right arm, which was definitely attached to him. Of course he hadn't lost his arm. That was silly.
Unfortunately, the moment had cost him, and the nearest man was upon him. The Emperor was not overly worried; his shields would repel-
The man swung, and punched the Emperor straight in the nose. He was shocked. His shields should have blasted the man away, and... pain?! He was feeling pain from where the fist had impacted! He brought his hand up to his face, and looked down in amazement at the red blood which his palm brought away. Pain, blood, malfunctioning shields, unreachable wormhole network... something was definitely wrong.
But the Emperor was never one to hold back. And hold back he didn't.
His left arm reconfigured itself into its particle beam setting. He raised it. It fired.
------
The cyborg thrashed futilely inside the crushing ooze cocoon, barely fending off what physical weapons would form to assault it. Then, quite suddenly, it went stock-still, and raised its only arm before it. The arm reconfigured to a setting it hadn't used yet, and fired. Kind of.
The configuration, of course, mirrored the goings-on of the imaginary crazy-world Hoss's mind had run away to. Unfortunately, the cyborg was in no position to properly fire a particle beam; it needed the endless supply of raw material from its now-defunct wormhole links and the limitless power from its black-hole "heart" to fire correctly. As such, fired under less-than-ideal circumstances, what happened was rather... unfortunate. For everyone.
The cyborg had been in a more-or-less upright position inside Ekelhaft when it fired, aimed (luckily) away from the distracted Konka Rar and instead towards the nearest edge of the park's enclosure. With too-low power reserves and sub-optimal internal conditions, it was impossible for the arm to fire a true particle beam. Instead, the vast reserves of the cyborg's new gluon reactor were drawn upon, both for power and for raw material. Given that the original weapon was not made to handle gluons, a recursive loop formed from the conflicting exotic energies and took shape as a bubble at the mouth of the weapon. An iridescent sphere grew at the end of the cyborg's arm, radiant energies sparking multi-colored lightning throughout its interior. Its surface was a roiling, not-quite-opaque, fluid-like storm; as if one were looking at the surface of a gas giant sped up by a factor of twenty. As the sphere continued to grow, the play of lightning inside began to escape the confines of its edge. Each tendril of energy began to stutter outwards, flicking in and out of existence as they expanded. There were not many; less than ten, more than seven, which managed to escape. As each one extended, their color began to settle, and their form to thicken. The seven-to-ten now blueish-red shafts of lightning flickered more slowly as they extended beyond the expanding sphere. With each flicker into existence, the portions of Ekelhaft which they intersected burned and exploded outwards.
After almost a minute, the shafts of lightning were now long enough to break the Ekelhaft's surface, and as they were exposed to the air, thunder rang through the park with each flicker, as superheated air rushed away from the apparitions. They continued to expand, their flickering now once every few seconds instead of once every few microseconds. If the thunder wasn't enough, their size and brightness had alerted every contestant in the arena to their presence, and the inevitable explosion they represented.
An outside observer may find it odd that the sovereign ruler of a massive star nation would deign meet a mere intelligence agent in the field, and in hostile territory, no less. But this was a special case.
Special enough to make the Emperor rather agitated when his agent failed to show. She'd never been late before, never in the twenty thousand years since he'd formed the Empire. He began to pace. Her failure to make the appointment was more important than a failure to deliver and receive valuable information and resources. Something must have happened. Something...
He paused. He was getting a serious sense of deja-vu. He'd been here before, perturbed by the same issue, he was sure of it. But that was impossible; he'd never encountered a situation like this before; he'd never been on this planet before. There was no way he could-
The loud whine of several speederbikes approaching from a distance interrupted his thoughts. His head flicked towards the noise; he'd viewed the detailed intelligence reports from this world before landing, and the bikes' engines carried the particular frequency used by several of this planet's gangs. But they shouldn't be anywhere near here...
The whole situation was quickly becoming... unfavorable. He would have to extricate himself immediately lest it worsen.
As he pinged his massive private wormhole network to prepare for a transit back to the Empire, several things happened. One, the ping failed. There was no wormhole network. Two, the biker gang, which had been at least half a kilometer away, was suddenly surrounding him. Three, they were not a biker gang.
They wore the uniforms of the local Resistance movement, though the Emperor didn't remember the green of their emblem look quite so... sickly. One of them removed his goggles to grin nastily at the "repairman" that was the Emperor's disguise.
"It's over, Solly. We know who you are."
---------
Back in the real world, a pool of green acid burbled and swayed across the ground, belaying little of the battle raging inside. A bubble formed and swelled across its surface, bursting to reveal what, at first glance, appeared to be a rotting corpse. Skin hung off its face in melting lumps. Torn, tattered and partially-dissolved clothes did little to hide massive portions of flesh flapping limply against a metallic torso. Indeed, the increasingly-exposed metal of the cyborg's body was the only thing to shatter the illusion of a horrendously decayed undead monster, as its battle inside Ekelhaft had done a number on its externals. Sentient acid can be insidious in its violation of any nook or cranny, and the scars opened by Ekelhaft Its jaw opened as it burst from the frothing slime, and an inhuman screech, like tearing aluminium, ripped through the air. Its single remaining arm flicked between multiple weapons configurations, never settling, most of them completely useless without newmatter fabricators or the multitude of other missing or disabled technological gizmo's. It dove back into the seething surface, eager to meet the grinding maw of teeth which had formed beneath it.
---------
"We know you work for the Sollies. To think one of our own citizens would ally themselves with those xenophobes!" The man looked around at his allies, who all scowled accordingly. He looked back at the "repairman". "Shallow degenerates, they are. The filth of the human race has always migrated inwards. But we're not going to give you that chance." The grin was back, and the man dismounted his bike, the rest of his group followed suit. "We know you're here waiting for your Solly contact. So you're gonna help us ambush them. And, just as ah... insurance... to keep you from running..." he motioned towards another of his men, whom hefted a rather deadly-looking weapon, "keep in mind that we'll be watching." The man grinned again.
The Emperor considered. The massive propaganda machine of his Empire's Directorate of Information did more than simply indoctrinate his citizens to hate and fear the worlds beyond the border. It also, much more surreptitiously, infiltrated and guided the political and cultural norms of the portions of humanity which had not yet been absorbed into the Star Empire of Sol. For as long as the Empire had existed, its main tenant had been to protect humanity against alien incursions. The fact that no evidence for alien life had ever been found did not invalidate this goal; indeed, the early version of the DOI used that fact to its advantage. By fabricating shreds of evidence to hint at a secretive alien conspiracy to take over the worlds beyond the Empire's border, aliens that were forever beyond the reach of humanity's influence, the citizens of the Empire remained convinced that their nation's steadily expanding borders for for the best. They were saving these helpless border worlds from the aliens that lurked just out of sight.
On the flipside, the border worlds knew the story to be a complete farce. The aliens were out there, yes, and they were trying to reach us. They were kind and benevolent, and only had humanity's best interests at heart. Stories abound of contact with strange ships with superior technology at the edge of human space kept the population of the Outer Worlds continually reaching outwards, both running from the Evil Empire and running to their Omnipotent Benefactors.
It did not matter that aliens simply did not exist, and that both ideologies were based wholly on fabrications from the DOI. The outcome remained the same: humanity expanded, much faster than they would have if every nation felt at ease and complacent. Fear and nigh-religious love were powerful motivators, and the Emperor utilized both with extreme prejudice to achieve his goals.
Which brought him back to the matter at hand. This man was likely a leader of the local resistance cell; a dangerous group, whom supported fighting the growing Empire, rather than running from them. This, the Emperor simply could not abide. These groups popped up every now and then, and while their overall impact was negligible, it was still annoying. He would have to put them down.
Right as the thought pushed him towards action, something changed in the men around him. It was as if their breathing suddenly came in hisses and pops, or their skin took on a sickly green sheen, or their teeth became razors and their hands became claws, or all at once. Or none at all. The change seemed both imperceptible and glaringly obvious, but the Emperor couldn't work out which, or what it was. All he knew was that it had happened, and this was no ordinary fight. He lowered the disguise, revealing himself in all his Imperial glory, hoping to at least startle the men.
Their reaction was not as expected. Snarling, they charged.
The Emperor brought up his right hand, pointing at the nearest man, ready to unleash-
What right hand? The Emperor stared. How could have forgotten his right arm was gone? Thinking, he had trouble remembering how he'd lost it. It seemed recent, but...
Shaking himself, he stared again. At his right hand. Which was definitely attached to his right arm, which was definitely attached to him. Of course he hadn't lost his arm. That was silly.
Unfortunately, the moment had cost him, and the nearest man was upon him. The Emperor was not overly worried; his shields would repel-
The man swung, and punched the Emperor straight in the nose. He was shocked. His shields should have blasted the man away, and... pain?! He was feeling pain from where the fist had impacted! He brought his hand up to his face, and looked down in amazement at the red blood which his palm brought away. Pain, blood, malfunctioning shields, unreachable wormhole network... something was definitely wrong.
But the Emperor was never one to hold back. And hold back he didn't.
His left arm reconfigured itself into its particle beam setting. He raised it. It fired.
------
The cyborg thrashed futilely inside the crushing ooze cocoon, barely fending off what physical weapons would form to assault it. Then, quite suddenly, it went stock-still, and raised its only arm before it. The arm reconfigured to a setting it hadn't used yet, and fired. Kind of.
The configuration, of course, mirrored the goings-on of the imaginary crazy-world Hoss's mind had run away to. Unfortunately, the cyborg was in no position to properly fire a particle beam; it needed the endless supply of raw material from its now-defunct wormhole links and the limitless power from its black-hole "heart" to fire correctly. As such, fired under less-than-ideal circumstances, what happened was rather... unfortunate. For everyone.
The cyborg had been in a more-or-less upright position inside Ekelhaft when it fired, aimed (luckily) away from the distracted Konka Rar and instead towards the nearest edge of the park's enclosure. With too-low power reserves and sub-optimal internal conditions, it was impossible for the arm to fire a true particle beam. Instead, the vast reserves of the cyborg's new gluon reactor were drawn upon, both for power and for raw material. Given that the original weapon was not made to handle gluons, a recursive loop formed from the conflicting exotic energies and took shape as a bubble at the mouth of the weapon. An iridescent sphere grew at the end of the cyborg's arm, radiant energies sparking multi-colored lightning throughout its interior. Its surface was a roiling, not-quite-opaque, fluid-like storm; as if one were looking at the surface of a gas giant sped up by a factor of twenty. As the sphere continued to grow, the play of lightning inside began to escape the confines of its edge. Each tendril of energy began to stutter outwards, flicking in and out of existence as they expanded. There were not many; less than ten, more than seven, which managed to escape. As each one extended, their color began to settle, and their form to thicken. The seven-to-ten now blueish-red shafts of lightning flickered more slowly as they extended beyond the expanding sphere. With each flicker into existence, the portions of Ekelhaft which they intersected burned and exploded outwards.
After almost a minute, the shafts of lightning were now long enough to break the Ekelhaft's surface, and as they were exposed to the air, thunder rang through the park with each flicker, as superheated air rushed away from the apparitions. They continued to expand, their flickering now once every few seconds instead of once every few microseconds. If the thunder wasn't enough, their size and brightness had alerted every contestant in the arena to their presence, and the inevitable explosion they represented.