Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 3: Escheresque!]
02-03-2010, 01:40 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Vyrm'n skimmed along the cliff surface, fleeing from the rampaging Balancer. She nearly took Galus' head clear off as the marine fell out of the window and flipped over to stand on the cliff face. The Urisian's bodysuit prevented Vyrm'n from communicating; but there wasn't much it needed to convey about the present situation. Galus took in the oncoming Faceless; the purple which lit up the remnants of the fountain. He tried to lean out of the Faceless' way, but it purposefully snaked across to intercept him and swirl around his non-gunning arm before latching tight. Vyrm'n dragged him along for a few feet before he stopped trying to reason with the Faceless and pulled himself up onto the shadow.
Riding a Faceless was nothing like riding any animal or imaginable method of transportation. Galus discovered this quickly as the centripetal forces threatened to tear his arm off when Vyrm'n banked to fly at the Sunset again. Uncertain what he was supposed to do, it became slightly clearer to Galus when the Faceless jackknifed out of the way to dodge another swarm of bullets. Galus would've been tossed about like a ragdoll had Vyrm'n not thought to seize his ankles also when it dodged.
Now that Vyrm'n was flying in a more predictable pattern, Galus felt accustomed enough to the Faceless' movement to unholster his pistol and loose a few shots at the unmoving target. There was a low hum that had little on the Nightmare's drone, but was swiftly replaced by the whine of laser fire as the Urisian loosed a round of shots at the Balancer. Four beams struck the celestial being's rising arm as it attempted to block the shots, but one struck the the mess of switches, fuses, and coils on his chest.
The laser fire crackled across the Balancer, leaping in non-violet arcs from coil to coil across the indomitable being, and seemed to momentarily stun it. There was a deep graunching noise from within the suit, and the temporarily immobilised Sunset snapped back into action as the repair function kicked in, rebuilding the components damaged by the blast. A mechanical yowl indicated the Nightmare was recharging; Vyrm'n seized Galus tighter and managed to keep both of them out of coilgun blast. The Urisian replied with another round from his pistol, but this time the Sunset intercepted the pair's approach with a salvo of machinegun bullets. Though Galus was now more used to staying oriented atop Vyrm'n, the swift turn she made to dodge the Balancer sent the laser fire off in a wayward, skybound streak.
Galus' voice, hazy with static, barked from the comm unit on his space suit. Despite his earlier resignation at the thought of dying in battle, his voice currently betrayed none of it. If anything, he sounded furious, but exhilarated. "Vyrm'n? Do you read me?"
The Faceless had no way to respond. The comm hissed with frustration, then added, "Vyrm'n, turn right if you read me!" For a moment nothing happened, then the shadow leaned in and Galus felt the centripetal forces yanking him leftward. He grinned a little beneath his helmet. Slipping his pistol back into the holster while the pair beat a temporary tactical retreat back up the cliff, Galus one-handedly extracted the grapnel hook while Vyrm'n flowed out of the path of machine-gun fire and Nightmare blasts. "I've got a plan."
Maxwell took one final furtive glance round the deserted exhibition room before putting all the necessary pieces to his plan in their respective pockets and places. Taking a deep breath with the intention to calm himself down, Maxwell wrestled with positioning that last piece - intangible as it was, it was certainly the most unwieldy for him to deal with. It took quite a bit of effort on his part; what with most of himself being so reluctant to accept that this had to be done; and even more recalcitrant at the fact that he had to consciously shoot himself in the foot in such a manner. After an age, Maxwell figured that he was as prepared as he could make himself.
He headed, on a whim, for the door he'd entered through, but something at the edge of his vision coerced him to halt, and take another glance around the room. It was the same as before. Frowning, Maxwell walked up to the window and peered this way and that, first up the cliff then towards the fountain. A shadowy streak, with a little crest of blue, blazed past at breakneck speeds away from the fountain. A quick look informed Maxwell why. He only had time to duck back and throw an arm over his face as the Sunset's bullets pursued Vyrm'n and Galus, riddling the bay window and showering Maxwell with glass. Maxwell stayed crouched where he was for a few moments until certain the immediate danger had passed. The window appeared to have been fortified with some sort of energy, as the sounds of the battle were now reaching Maxwell's ears loud and clear - loud enough that he should've heard them before.
Peering out (much more cautiously) this time, the genius saw Vyrm'n, with... Galus? atop her. The pair were about 50 metres straight down from Maxwell's current perspective, with Galus shooting at - oh. This wasn't good. Although he had no clue as to why the Sunset would attack Vyrm'n (and speculating, for perhaps a little too long to not feel guilty; whether it was, in fact, the other way round) the fact it was being a lot more generous with its distribution of gunfire around the courtyard and cliff face indicated a turn in the Balancer's behaviour for the irrationally worse. Maxwell studied the battle as closely as he could considering he kept ducking out of the way. Debating the merits of the ersatz plan his brain had just formulated based on the collated information, the genius took another fortifying deep breath and tossed a piece of glass out the window. As expected (or not, depending on how long you'd been subjected to the physics of this world) the glass did not plummet indefinitely across the cliff face, instead falling onto it.
Holding onto his hat despite how promising this development was, Maxwell negotiated the window and ran for the nearest open one in a crouched run. The Sunset either did not notice him or was more interested in shooting down Vyrm'n; once Maxwell reached the safety of another room to duck into he chanced a look up at the Faceless. The shadow banked steeply, and ran straight at Maxwell's present location before sharply climbing upward. Before it disappeared into the upward yonder, pursued by more gunfire, Maxwell had noticed Galus. It was hard to tell because of the helmet, but Galus had stared right at him; acknowledged him with a little salute of the pistol.
Studying Vyrm'n this time; Maxwell could almost perfectly pinpoint when Galus dropped the bombshell that he was down here. Vyrm'n's formerly elegant aerial dancing to avoid the Balancer broke rhythm, and the whole form aimed for the ground before Galus obviously shouted her down.
I'm safe for now; and will be while the Sunset's fixated on them. To come and greet me now would endanger me - she'll understand that. Recalling his plan at the thought of Vyrm'n and the Balancer, Maxwell made a scrambling dash for the next window to catch his breath in on his approach towards the Balancer and the wreckage he had caused.
Samuel wandered aimlessly through the most twisted regions of the Escherscape, until he reached its hollow heart, its interior carved out to leave a huge chamber where everywhere was down. He was steadily losing control, the demons insinuating themselves in the tattered weave of the meagre cloak - all he had to shield himself from them - even as he wrapped it around him all the futilely tighter. Despite no longer being sensitive to his faculties, the Karmist still felt the abominable ache in his arm - it seemed to travel the length of him. Despite the delusions; despite reality gently loosening his desperate grip on its hem as it slipped away, Samuel knew with a clear, deathly calm comprehension the consequences of action there.
Consequences, after all, were one of the demons' favourite instruments with which to torture him. They whispered in tongues that rasped the inside of Samuel's skull as they detailed, with cruel premonition, what his actions would lead to. The Karmist cared little for this, and listened out for the one voice; his salvation.
Begin.
Samuel began the transaction, fighting to slow the inexorable flow of karma to a pace his tattered mind could handle. The pain in his arm subsided. The demons' insidious murmurs were not extinguished, but overrode by a pounding litany that drowned them out. His senses returned as the sonorous voice scattered most of the demons, though a few persistent ones remained and took the edge off the sound of the firefight he could hear from the far corner of the huge chamber. Sight, smell, sensation, and eventually karmic perception were restored to Samuel; albeit all with a haze of guilt that the overarching rhythm could not stomp away.
Samuel's head rose a little as he looked up and around, though his expression was still glazed over. In a fashion almost independent of the body, his right arm reached out and dragged what shrapnel it could from the surrounding area. The pickings were slim, as only Vyrm'n and the Sunset had walked through this corridor, and they were causing minimal damage then. A little dust and a few chips of stone assembled round the Karmist's arm. It seemed to go unnoticed as Samuel drifted for the courtyard far above him, where the sounds of battle crashed from.
A source of life fairly glowed in Samuel's projected direction. The demons made no compunctions about telling him what, or rather who, the source was; but the Karmist could no longer hear them. All that ran through his mind was the ceaseless pounding beat of:
KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL
Elsewhere, in the painting of the quay, a lonesome spirit returned to a battlefield. This warzone, like many others schrotgolems had participated in over the expansive breadth of history, resembled the aftermath of a tornado hitting a garage sale rather than a fight to the death. Its consciousness slipping tiredly into a piece of glass, then two, then a pen, them some cogs, then a trowel, and so on. If Gestalt had hands to pick up the scattered fragments of its recently realised existence, they would've been trembling. Each trinket, each tool, each fragment of rubbish had to be reinspected; occupied and pondered upon again; to account for the fact it was part of all existence.
There was a lot of existence, Gestalt conceded. A whole lot to catalogue, take apart, understand. Still, everything gave you a lot of scope. You could practically spend all of existence just choosing where to start.
So Gestalt began with what it knew. Patiently, unhurriedly, it filled the boxes with pieces of everything. Uncharacteristically, it even picked up those things which had been broken or damaged beyond repair in the fight with Vyrm'n. Everything went in the box. When this task was done, the golem snapped its lids shut and the convoy slithered off in search of the others.
Vyrm'n skimmed along the cliff surface, fleeing from the rampaging Balancer. She nearly took Galus' head clear off as the marine fell out of the window and flipped over to stand on the cliff face. The Urisian's bodysuit prevented Vyrm'n from communicating; but there wasn't much it needed to convey about the present situation. Galus took in the oncoming Faceless; the purple which lit up the remnants of the fountain. He tried to lean out of the Faceless' way, but it purposefully snaked across to intercept him and swirl around his non-gunning arm before latching tight. Vyrm'n dragged him along for a few feet before he stopped trying to reason with the Faceless and pulled himself up onto the shadow.
Riding a Faceless was nothing like riding any animal or imaginable method of transportation. Galus discovered this quickly as the centripetal forces threatened to tear his arm off when Vyrm'n banked to fly at the Sunset again. Uncertain what he was supposed to do, it became slightly clearer to Galus when the Faceless jackknifed out of the way to dodge another swarm of bullets. Galus would've been tossed about like a ragdoll had Vyrm'n not thought to seize his ankles also when it dodged.
Now that Vyrm'n was flying in a more predictable pattern, Galus felt accustomed enough to the Faceless' movement to unholster his pistol and loose a few shots at the unmoving target. There was a low hum that had little on the Nightmare's drone, but was swiftly replaced by the whine of laser fire as the Urisian loosed a round of shots at the Balancer. Four beams struck the celestial being's rising arm as it attempted to block the shots, but one struck the the mess of switches, fuses, and coils on his chest.
The laser fire crackled across the Balancer, leaping in non-violet arcs from coil to coil across the indomitable being, and seemed to momentarily stun it. There was a deep graunching noise from within the suit, and the temporarily immobilised Sunset snapped back into action as the repair function kicked in, rebuilding the components damaged by the blast. A mechanical yowl indicated the Nightmare was recharging; Vyrm'n seized Galus tighter and managed to keep both of them out of coilgun blast. The Urisian replied with another round from his pistol, but this time the Sunset intercepted the pair's approach with a salvo of machinegun bullets. Though Galus was now more used to staying oriented atop Vyrm'n, the swift turn she made to dodge the Balancer sent the laser fire off in a wayward, skybound streak.
Galus' voice, hazy with static, barked from the comm unit on his space suit. Despite his earlier resignation at the thought of dying in battle, his voice currently betrayed none of it. If anything, he sounded furious, but exhilarated. "Vyrm'n? Do you read me?"
The Faceless had no way to respond. The comm hissed with frustration, then added, "Vyrm'n, turn right if you read me!" For a moment nothing happened, then the shadow leaned in and Galus felt the centripetal forces yanking him leftward. He grinned a little beneath his helmet. Slipping his pistol back into the holster while the pair beat a temporary tactical retreat back up the cliff, Galus one-handedly extracted the grapnel hook while Vyrm'n flowed out of the path of machine-gun fire and Nightmare blasts. "I've got a plan."
Maxwell took one final furtive glance round the deserted exhibition room before putting all the necessary pieces to his plan in their respective pockets and places. Taking a deep breath with the intention to calm himself down, Maxwell wrestled with positioning that last piece - intangible as it was, it was certainly the most unwieldy for him to deal with. It took quite a bit of effort on his part; what with most of himself being so reluctant to accept that this had to be done; and even more recalcitrant at the fact that he had to consciously shoot himself in the foot in such a manner. After an age, Maxwell figured that he was as prepared as he could make himself.
He headed, on a whim, for the door he'd entered through, but something at the edge of his vision coerced him to halt, and take another glance around the room. It was the same as before. Frowning, Maxwell walked up to the window and peered this way and that, first up the cliff then towards the fountain. A shadowy streak, with a little crest of blue, blazed past at breakneck speeds away from the fountain. A quick look informed Maxwell why. He only had time to duck back and throw an arm over his face as the Sunset's bullets pursued Vyrm'n and Galus, riddling the bay window and showering Maxwell with glass. Maxwell stayed crouched where he was for a few moments until certain the immediate danger had passed. The window appeared to have been fortified with some sort of energy, as the sounds of the battle were now reaching Maxwell's ears loud and clear - loud enough that he should've heard them before.
Peering out (much more cautiously) this time, the genius saw Vyrm'n, with... Galus? atop her. The pair were about 50 metres straight down from Maxwell's current perspective, with Galus shooting at - oh. This wasn't good. Although he had no clue as to why the Sunset would attack Vyrm'n (and speculating, for perhaps a little too long to not feel guilty; whether it was, in fact, the other way round) the fact it was being a lot more generous with its distribution of gunfire around the courtyard and cliff face indicated a turn in the Balancer's behaviour for the irrationally worse. Maxwell studied the battle as closely as he could considering he kept ducking out of the way. Debating the merits of the ersatz plan his brain had just formulated based on the collated information, the genius took another fortifying deep breath and tossed a piece of glass out the window. As expected (or not, depending on how long you'd been subjected to the physics of this world) the glass did not plummet indefinitely across the cliff face, instead falling onto it.
Holding onto his hat despite how promising this development was, Maxwell negotiated the window and ran for the nearest open one in a crouched run. The Sunset either did not notice him or was more interested in shooting down Vyrm'n; once Maxwell reached the safety of another room to duck into he chanced a look up at the Faceless. The shadow banked steeply, and ran straight at Maxwell's present location before sharply climbing upward. Before it disappeared into the upward yonder, pursued by more gunfire, Maxwell had noticed Galus. It was hard to tell because of the helmet, but Galus had stared right at him; acknowledged him with a little salute of the pistol.
Studying Vyrm'n this time; Maxwell could almost perfectly pinpoint when Galus dropped the bombshell that he was down here. Vyrm'n's formerly elegant aerial dancing to avoid the Balancer broke rhythm, and the whole form aimed for the ground before Galus obviously shouted her down.
I'm safe for now; and will be while the Sunset's fixated on them. To come and greet me now would endanger me - she'll understand that. Recalling his plan at the thought of Vyrm'n and the Balancer, Maxwell made a scrambling dash for the next window to catch his breath in on his approach towards the Balancer and the wreckage he had caused.
Samuel wandered aimlessly through the most twisted regions of the Escherscape, until he reached its hollow heart, its interior carved out to leave a huge chamber where everywhere was down. He was steadily losing control, the demons insinuating themselves in the tattered weave of the meagre cloak - all he had to shield himself from them - even as he wrapped it around him all the futilely tighter. Despite no longer being sensitive to his faculties, the Karmist still felt the abominable ache in his arm - it seemed to travel the length of him. Despite the delusions; despite reality gently loosening his desperate grip on its hem as it slipped away, Samuel knew with a clear, deathly calm comprehension the consequences of action there.
Consequences, after all, were one of the demons' favourite instruments with which to torture him. They whispered in tongues that rasped the inside of Samuel's skull as they detailed, with cruel premonition, what his actions would lead to. The Karmist cared little for this, and listened out for the one voice; his salvation.
Begin.
Samuel began the transaction, fighting to slow the inexorable flow of karma to a pace his tattered mind could handle. The pain in his arm subsided. The demons' insidious murmurs were not extinguished, but overrode by a pounding litany that drowned them out. His senses returned as the sonorous voice scattered most of the demons, though a few persistent ones remained and took the edge off the sound of the firefight he could hear from the far corner of the huge chamber. Sight, smell, sensation, and eventually karmic perception were restored to Samuel; albeit all with a haze of guilt that the overarching rhythm could not stomp away.
Samuel's head rose a little as he looked up and around, though his expression was still glazed over. In a fashion almost independent of the body, his right arm reached out and dragged what shrapnel it could from the surrounding area. The pickings were slim, as only Vyrm'n and the Sunset had walked through this corridor, and they were causing minimal damage then. A little dust and a few chips of stone assembled round the Karmist's arm. It seemed to go unnoticed as Samuel drifted for the courtyard far above him, where the sounds of battle crashed from.
A source of life fairly glowed in Samuel's projected direction. The demons made no compunctions about telling him what, or rather who, the source was; but the Karmist could no longer hear them. All that ran through his mind was the ceaseless pounding beat of:
KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL
Elsewhere, in the painting of the quay, a lonesome spirit returned to a battlefield. This warzone, like many others schrotgolems had participated in over the expansive breadth of history, resembled the aftermath of a tornado hitting a garage sale rather than a fight to the death. Its consciousness slipping tiredly into a piece of glass, then two, then a pen, them some cogs, then a trowel, and so on. If Gestalt had hands to pick up the scattered fragments of its recently realised existence, they would've been trembling. Each trinket, each tool, each fragment of rubbish had to be reinspected; occupied and pondered upon again; to account for the fact it was part of all existence.
There was a lot of existence, Gestalt conceded. A whole lot to catalogue, take apart, understand. Still, everything gave you a lot of scope. You could practically spend all of existence just choosing where to start.
So Gestalt began with what it knew. Patiently, unhurriedly, it filled the boxes with pieces of everything. Uncharacteristically, it even picked up those things which had been broken or damaged beyond repair in the fight with Vyrm'n. Everything went in the box. When this task was done, the golem snapped its lids shut and the convoy slithered off in search of the others.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow