Re: Mini-Grand 5107 [Round 1: Macbeth]
08-14-2011, 05:05 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.
Macbeth and Dahlia exited the stage together as the scene came to a close. Banquo remained just out of sight on-stage, still struggling out from under a badly-timed sandbag, while Ross and Angus's actors continued the argument-come-fistfight that had caused them to miss their cue, using the chaos wrought by METAL and Joseph's romp behind the set as additional evidence of the vague grievances the longtime boyfriends had established against each other.
Macbeth's actor spent a couple minutes querying the staff (ignoring Dahlia as she waved her PDA in his face), then brought her to the side. "That was an excellent cover for my lazy support actors, young miss. Oh, you're just the cutest thing! But you clearly don't know the lines. I'm sorry my dear, but I just can't have dead weight holding back my performance! Especially not with all this unforeseen chaos onstage. Speaking of dead weight, WERE YOU GUYS PLANNING TO GET ME THAT COFFEE I ORDERED GODDAMNIT?!"
As Dahlia fervently hammered out a line or two in protest on her PDA, Beth stomped up and roundly smacked the prima donna-ish actor across the head. "David, you are dead to me if you get that way with all this chaos around. The night's already dead; I'm considering pretending one of the backstage crew died and caused this clusterfuck, to get some sympathy from our disappointed audience. Now, you are going to act, and you are going to improvise just well enough that the audience doesn't ask for their money back or I swear to god you will NEVER work in this town again!"
"Thank god. I was looking for an excuse to get out of Pittsburg."
"STOP QUIPPING AND WAIT FOR YOUR CUE!"
"STAND AS1DE, FEMALE C1T1ZEN! TH1S 1S A MATTER 0F JUST1CE!"
Beth swung around startled at the metal golem, but eventually just threw up her hands and stormed off to keep coordinating this disaster. Dahlia fled behind David, away from the intimidating golem's blank gaze.
"So... they're making robot actors now, are they? I always had a feeling no man could outdo me. But know this, you mechanical understudy: you will never upstage me, the up-and-coming David Whitcome! You understand me, you metallic brute?"
"AFF1RMAT1VE. EXCELLENT SUGGEST10N, UN1T <DAV1D WH1TC0ME>!"
Suddenly, METAL splashed an armful of himself around the actor. David screamed girlishly as globs of steel crawled up his neck and around his face, metal underneath hardening into strands, then wrapped cords, then a mesh, and finally a cloth-like steel gag around his mouth, loosely tied for easy release by another. His hands and legs were dragged together and bound with similar material, connecting together with what resolved into a large keyed padlock. METAL locked these bindings permanently in this arrangement, the nanobots in the involved 0.5% of his total material self-destructing in an organized manner; this avoided the 5-minute timer before auto-return typical of his unlocked creations.
David's scream caught the attention of Sunspot and Nightowl, who had still been debating 'themself' onstage. In the direction of the feminine scream, they saw METAL assaulting an actor while Dahlia backpedaled into a corner in horror. Naturally, they sprung into action without a word, flying through the air in a blur to apprehend METAL by the neck and lift him into the air.
When METAL's neck simply flowed around their hand like water, ignoring it entirely, they were also quite naturally surprised.
"AH, GREET1NGS, FELL0W HER0!" METAL turned to the duo, assuming a pose with his hands(?) at his hips(?).
"What in blazes are you doing," and "Untie that man at once," shouted Sunspot then Nightowl respectively.
"AP0L0G1ES! TH1S UN1T 1S PERM1TTED T0 RESTRA1N C1V1L1ANS F0R THE PR0TECT10N 0F 0THERS AS DETA1L3D 1N THE HER0ES AND HER0 GR0UPS LAWS 0F 2036." METAL morphed and locked the key to David's padlock, handing it to <Sunspot Nightowl> as they descended to the ground. "TRUST TH1S T0 A C1V1L1AN WH0 W1LL RELEASE UN1T <DAV1D WH1TC0ME> FR0M H1S RESTRA1NTS AFTER WE HAVE D1SABLED THE SM0KE MACH1NE TRAPS."
"Oh... so you're some sort of police robot, or?" asked Sunspot. "How do you expect us to disable the smoke machines?" asked Nightowl.
"AFF1RMAT1VE! TH1S UN1T HAS DELEGATED THE TASK T0 UN1T <J0SEPH BANKS>, SUPER SC1ENT1ST."
Nightowl recalled the introduction. "Wait, you mean that bum on his couch?"
"C0RRECT. UN1T <J0SEPH BANKS> EXH1B1TS ERRAT1C BEHAV10R, D1SREGARD F0R REAL1TY, REFERENCES FUTUR1ST1C TECHN0L0GY, AND P0SSESSES UNKN0WN DEV1CES 0N H1S PERS0N. C0MB1NED W1TH H1S SELECT10N F0R TH1S BATTLE AND THUS L1KELY C0MPETENCE, TH1S UN1T HAS DETERM1NED THE L1KEL1H00D 0F H1M P0SSESS1NG AB1L1T1ES C0NS1STENT W1TH A SUPER SC1ENT1ST AS R0UGHLY 59%."
If Sunspot and Nightowl were capable of giving each other a skeptical glance, they would have.
"I don't think this is going to stall the play for long, uh, Robocop," Sunspot considered. "The guy who put us here gave me the impression that these people are... brainwashed to continue this play!"
"AFF1RMAT1VE," agreed METAL.
Then he started shifting.
The smooth details of his bulbous body became more defined, sharper. He developed armor, a loose-fitting metal-cloth costume, even facial features to match the restrained actor gazing outraged at his replacement. The golem resolved himself as an oversized replica of the thespian, identical save for his obviously metallic appearance and the round eagle logo on his chest.
MACBETH grabbed a copy of the script from a terrified stagehand, leaving <Dahlia Finch> to his fellow hero(es) as he speed-read.
Several stagehands continued rearranging the set into Macbeth's castle, struggling to reverse the mayhem Joseph wrought on the stage at the beginning of the round. Two of them encountered his clearly out-of-place couch, and moved it to the side of the stage next to a bound and gagged David; some combination of disdain for the actor and the 'improvisation' field covering the rest of the stage kept them from assisting him.
As they set the couch down roughly, a device Joseph long thought lost fell out from underneath it, next to David. A dangerous and functional device.
Macbeth and Dahlia exited the stage together as the scene came to a close. Banquo remained just out of sight on-stage, still struggling out from under a badly-timed sandbag, while Ross and Angus's actors continued the argument-come-fistfight that had caused them to miss their cue, using the chaos wrought by METAL and Joseph's romp behind the set as additional evidence of the vague grievances the longtime boyfriends had established against each other.
Macbeth's actor spent a couple minutes querying the staff (ignoring Dahlia as she waved her PDA in his face), then brought her to the side. "That was an excellent cover for my lazy support actors, young miss. Oh, you're just the cutest thing! But you clearly don't know the lines. I'm sorry my dear, but I just can't have dead weight holding back my performance! Especially not with all this unforeseen chaos onstage. Speaking of dead weight, WERE YOU GUYS PLANNING TO GET ME THAT COFFEE I ORDERED GODDAMNIT?!"
As Dahlia fervently hammered out a line or two in protest on her PDA, Beth stomped up and roundly smacked the prima donna-ish actor across the head. "David, you are dead to me if you get that way with all this chaos around. The night's already dead; I'm considering pretending one of the backstage crew died and caused this clusterfuck, to get some sympathy from our disappointed audience. Now, you are going to act, and you are going to improvise just well enough that the audience doesn't ask for their money back or I swear to god you will NEVER work in this town again!"
"Thank god. I was looking for an excuse to get out of Pittsburg."
"STOP QUIPPING AND WAIT FOR YOUR CUE!"
"STAND AS1DE, FEMALE C1T1ZEN! TH1S 1S A MATTER 0F JUST1CE!"
Beth swung around startled at the metal golem, but eventually just threw up her hands and stormed off to keep coordinating this disaster. Dahlia fled behind David, away from the intimidating golem's blank gaze.
"So... they're making robot actors now, are they? I always had a feeling no man could outdo me. But know this, you mechanical understudy: you will never upstage me, the up-and-coming David Whitcome! You understand me, you metallic brute?"
"AFF1RMAT1VE. EXCELLENT SUGGEST10N, UN1T <DAV1D WH1TC0ME>!"
Suddenly, METAL splashed an armful of himself around the actor. David screamed girlishly as globs of steel crawled up his neck and around his face, metal underneath hardening into strands, then wrapped cords, then a mesh, and finally a cloth-like steel gag around his mouth, loosely tied for easy release by another. His hands and legs were dragged together and bound with similar material, connecting together with what resolved into a large keyed padlock. METAL locked these bindings permanently in this arrangement, the nanobots in the involved 0.5% of his total material self-destructing in an organized manner; this avoided the 5-minute timer before auto-return typical of his unlocked creations.
David's scream caught the attention of Sunspot and Nightowl, who had still been debating 'themself' onstage. In the direction of the feminine scream, they saw METAL assaulting an actor while Dahlia backpedaled into a corner in horror. Naturally, they sprung into action without a word, flying through the air in a blur to apprehend METAL by the neck and lift him into the air.
When METAL's neck simply flowed around their hand like water, ignoring it entirely, they were also quite naturally surprised.
"AH, GREET1NGS, FELL0W HER0!" METAL turned to the duo, assuming a pose with his hands(?) at his hips(?).
"What in blazes are you doing," and "Untie that man at once," shouted Sunspot then Nightowl respectively.
"AP0L0G1ES! TH1S UN1T 1S PERM1TTED T0 RESTRA1N C1V1L1ANS F0R THE PR0TECT10N 0F 0THERS AS DETA1L3D 1N THE HER0ES AND HER0 GR0UPS LAWS 0F 2036." METAL morphed and locked the key to David's padlock, handing it to <Sunspot Nightowl> as they descended to the ground. "TRUST TH1S T0 A C1V1L1AN WH0 W1LL RELEASE UN1T <DAV1D WH1TC0ME> FR0M H1S RESTRA1NTS AFTER WE HAVE D1SABLED THE SM0KE MACH1NE TRAPS."
"Oh... so you're some sort of police robot, or?" asked Sunspot. "How do you expect us to disable the smoke machines?" asked Nightowl.
"AFF1RMAT1VE! TH1S UN1T HAS DELEGATED THE TASK T0 UN1T <J0SEPH BANKS>, SUPER SC1ENT1ST."
Nightowl recalled the introduction. "Wait, you mean that bum on his couch?"
"C0RRECT. UN1T <J0SEPH BANKS> EXH1B1TS ERRAT1C BEHAV10R, D1SREGARD F0R REAL1TY, REFERENCES FUTUR1ST1C TECHN0L0GY, AND P0SSESSES UNKN0WN DEV1CES 0N H1S PERS0N. C0MB1NED W1TH H1S SELECT10N F0R TH1S BATTLE AND THUS L1KELY C0MPETENCE, TH1S UN1T HAS DETERM1NED THE L1KEL1H00D 0F H1M P0SSESS1NG AB1L1T1ES C0NS1STENT W1TH A SUPER SC1ENT1ST AS R0UGHLY 59%."
If Sunspot and Nightowl were capable of giving each other a skeptical glance, they would have.
"I don't think this is going to stall the play for long, uh, Robocop," Sunspot considered. "The guy who put us here gave me the impression that these people are... brainwashed to continue this play!"
"AFF1RMAT1VE," agreed METAL.
Then he started shifting.
The smooth details of his bulbous body became more defined, sharper. He developed armor, a loose-fitting metal-cloth costume, even facial features to match the restrained actor gazing outraged at his replacement. The golem resolved himself as an oversized replica of the thespian, identical save for his obviously metallic appearance and the round eagle logo on his chest.
MACBETH grabbed a copy of the script from a terrified stagehand, leaving <Dahlia Finch> to his fellow hero(es) as he speed-read.
Several stagehands continued rearranging the set into Macbeth's castle, struggling to reverse the mayhem Joseph wrought on the stage at the beginning of the round. Two of them encountered his clearly out-of-place couch, and moved it to the side of the stage next to a bound and gagged David; some combination of disdain for the actor and the 'improvisation' field covering the rest of the stage kept them from assisting him.
As they set the couch down roughly, a device Joseph long thought lost fell out from underneath it, next to David. A dangerous and functional device.