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Post by Kiryu on Sept 10, 2019 19:56:09 GMT -8
2 Years Ago
Kiryu couldn't keep the grin off of his face. He whooped, exulting in the feeling of the wind whipping his hair and the world streaking around him. He reveled in the feeling of the powerful machine beneath him, it's speed and power unheard of. The sleek black motorcycle kicked up dirt and gravel, spraying an earthen cloud in Kiryu's wake. He carved through the canyon, then turned, waving at the drone camera following him as he rode the powerful machine. Kiryu wove his way back and forth down switchbacks, practically flying through hairpin turns. The tires screeched a bit, but the motorcycle itself performed perfectly, responding to Kiryu's commands instantly and with fluidity.
Kiryu reached the bottom and opened up the throttle, going full speed. Another wordless cry echoed jubilantly from Kiryu, and he maintained his top speed for about ten seconds. Then, the tech site came into view, and Kiryu began to brake.
He was all smiles as he cruised to a halt. The two men that greeted him were near mirror images of one another, separated only by about thirty years. Rance, a renowned inventor and engineer, had pioneered this project, and his son, Laguto, seemed to match his father's intellect. Kiryu had met Laguto in high school, and the two had become close. Close enough that Laguto had known about Laguto's particular skills, and has asked Kiryu's help in testing their most recent innovation; the Wolf's Fang.
Kiryu had had to consider the offer for all of two seconds before agreeing, and so far, it had been the time of his life.
Laguto wore a similar smile, but Rance had a more critical look, holding a tablet and examining data, no doubt collected just now from the sensors in the motorcycle.
"Well? How was it? We altered the suspension and the torque, just a bit. Thought this would have a better feel."
Kiryu grinned.
"You can say that again! It's like night and day. I felt like it would respond as soon as I started to think of where I wanted to go. Excellent response time and smooth feel. You've really nailed it, this time."
Laguto made a noncommittal noise, frowning a bit.
"That's true, it's just... well. This is an experimental model with all state of the heart, top rate equipment. The design principles we have will scale down easily enough, but the components here are too expensive to mass produce, or even have as special edition. This prototype is just going to be one of a kind, and it might be the most amazing piece of machinery we have ever made."
Rance put a hand on his son's shoulder.
"That may be, son, but we've still made amazing progress here. The company will love what this can do for their product line, and we have a verified success. We'll keep getting paid, keep researching, and keep innovating!"
Laguto shrugged and nodded. Kiryu could relate to his friend, or at least, he could understand. To have achieved something marvelous, and have to keep it a secret, would gall Kiryu. Everyone deserved recognition for their hard work, after all, did they not?
The rest of the afternoon was spent with Rance and Laguto digging through technical information, and interrogating Kiryu about his test ride. How this had felt, if that had been at all sluggish, if the weight or balance had been off at any point, if it had dragged one way or the other. Kiryu did his best to answer the questions, and the trio worked until night fell.
That night, they celebrated. This had been a real breakthrough. Rance prepared a veritable feast, and even let the boys try beer, a first for both of them. Kiryu and Laguto hated it, of course, but drank their whole cans anyway, relishing the opportunity to look and act adult.
After dinner, a slightly buzzed Kiryu and Laguto went on a walk. Their base of operations had been constructed near some desert canyons; out of the way and with plenty of open space, it was the perfect site for research and development. Despite the heat of the day, the night air was cool, and the stars shone. In later years, Kiryu would look back on this night as one of the last few nights of his true childhood. He and a friend walked in the beauty of the world and looked up at stars, with innocence not yet broken, without the burden of worry, with only the wistful hope for what would one day be.
TODAY
Kiryu's meandering journey had, by chance. taken him within a week of that old test site when he received an e-mail from Laguto. The two had kept in touch, and exchanged emails once a month or so, but it had only been a week since their last exchange when he received an alert from Laguto. It was brief, and it had chilled Kiryu to the bone.
"We need your help."
Kiryu hadn't bothered asking for more information. Laguto and Rance were more than friends. They had lived together, worked together. They were some of the few outside the Path of Joy that he could truly relax and be himself with. If they needed him, the details hardly mattered. He would be there for them.
Kiryu made it to their old research facility. Where else could they possibly have meant for them to meet? As he got close, though, something about the site seemed different than he remembered. Kiryu could not quite put his finger on what it was, buts still, something seemed off.
As he got closer, it soon became apparent what was wrong.
Bullet holes pockmarked what appeared to be makeshift fortifications around the four buildings that had made up their compound. They formed a solid rectangle around the perimeter, and unmistakably ringing that ramshackle fortress were a dozen sets of motorcycle wheel marks carved into the canyon ground. Part of the northwest building, the garage where they had stored and worked on their prototype had been destroyed and the building looked inaccessible. Camped up on the roof, now waving frantically, was a figure holding a rifle. Upon closer inspection, Kiryu could make out that the figure was, in fact, Laguto.
What in all of the hells is going on here?
[WC: 1,052]
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 11, 2019 10:34:23 GMT -8
The sun was beginning to sink below the mountains as Kiryu made his way to the gate of the complex. It painted the clouded sky in reds and oranges. If Kiryu had been walking somewhere peaceful, or driving somewhere, it would have struck him as lovely. Here, with a place that had once been a second home to him looking as though it had been through a war, it lent the whole panorama a somewhat ghastly sheen.
The ‘front gate’, or what passed for it, was as much of a mess as the rest of the hastily constructed perimeter wall. A quick examination of what passed for their defenses revealed pieces of sheet metal that had been haphazardly welded together, along with larger blocks of metal or concrete (or, in a couple of desperate areas, particularly heavily furniture) forming a wall around the compound.
Once again, Kiryu wondered what in the name of the gods was going on.
Laguto descended a ladder, making for the front. Rather than move any of the barricade (and perhaps afraid that the whole thing would come crashing down if it were too disturbed), Kiryu didn’t try to slip between any of the gaps in the fortifications. Instead, he crouched, the powerful muscles of his legs and core engaging as Kiryu launched himself into what was, for him, a relatively small jump, some twelve feet in the air. He jumped forward, leaping over the barricade and landing lightly. Laguto met him with a slightly stunned expression, and then shook his head slightly.
“Somehow, I always manage to forget that you can do those sort of things.”
Kiryu frowned.
“I don’t really think this is the time for banter, man. I got your message, obviously, but what the hell is going on here? Why do you look like you’re under siege?”
“Because we are,” Laguto said grimly. “Come inside. It’s safer in there, and we can get you the whole story.”
Closer now, Kiryu could see that there had been many changes in his friend. He had lost weight, for one. Laguto had never been particularly hefty, but a lot of his time was spent at a computer desk. Laguto now looked lean. His skin was tan, and his hands bore fresh callouses. More than that, there was an edge to him, a hardness in his eyes that had never been there before. More than a little concerned, Kiryu followed Laguto.
Laguto led him to the building that had been their main quarters when they had been working on the Wolf’s Fang. Inside, he found Rance, sitting in a chair at a table. Rance smiled when he saw Kiryu, then got up, awkwardly. It was only when Rance stood that Kiryu saw the older man’s leg, wrapped in bandages from the knee down. Before Rance could speak, Kiryu blurted out a question.
“What happened to your leg? Are you okay? What in blazes is going on here?”
Laguto and Rance looked at each other gravely, then Rance began to speak, his baritone voice filling the stillness of the room.
“Well… this all began a month ago. After you went home, Kiryu, our research stalled a bit. I don’t think any of us realized how helpful someone as skilled as you as our test rider was. Anyway, we had just made a breakthrough with the engine design. It was going to put acceleration and top speed through the roof without sacrificing handling or fuel efficiency. Laguto took the Fang out for a test run, and it performed beautifully… unfortunately, another party took an interest in what we’re doing.”
“They call themselves the Desert Dogs,” Laguto said, breaking in. “They are… they are a bunch of low life criminals. They’re a motorcycle gang, and none of us knew this when we set up base here, but apparently, they pretty much run most of the villages out here. Anyone that passes for the ‘law’ basically ignores any member of the Desert Dogs. They run guns and drugs and illegal tech all throughout the territory, making a huge profit. Of course, we only found this out in the last month. After that test run, a group of them showed up, saying they wanted to buy our ride. We told them that it wasn’t for sale… that it was a research project, a prototype. That was a mistake. Now, their leader, some brute named Blaster, wants us to work for him, design new bikes. We haven’t met their leader yet, but his lapdogs were saying something about having superior bikes and expanding their territory.”
Rance jumped back in, looking somewhat sheepish.
“They gave us a week to consider their offer. We tried to leave, but they were watching us. So instead, we fortified our position. After the week, they came up to our barricade. I met them and declined their offer. That's when one of them shot me in the leg.”
Rance indicated his wounded leg, grimacing slightly.
“It wasn't bad... at least, I don't think it was. It hurts, but it passed through. In any case, Laguto was at his vantage point and fired some warning shots. That scared them off and let me get away. I have no doubt that they're still keeping watch on us, and that old hunting rifle is the only weapon we have. We've got about another week's worth of supplies. We were due to head in to town to replenish this week, but...”
Rance sighed heavily.
“I am so very sorry, Kiryu. We called you into danger, and-”
Kiryu cut off whatever Rance had been about to say with a wave of his hand, then responded.
“Rance, please. When I was here, working with you, the two of you treated me like one of your own. We're not friends. We're family. And there's nowhere I'd rather be than here, helping you when you need it.”
Kiryu cracked his neck from side to side and rolled his shoulders, letting some tension out of his body, then continued.
“I'm glad you called. It shouldn't be too hard to go and crack these wannabe gangsters heads until they get the message.”
Laguto frowned.
“I wouldn't be so sure about that, Kiryu. These guys, yeah, do your thing and I think everything will be fine. But I hopped online and started looking into them and their leader when all of this happened. Their leader, Blaster... there are all sorts of crazy stories about this guy. Like, apparently he can lift his motorcycle with one hand. According to some stories, he can shoot you without using a gun. To me, that means...”
Laguto trailed off, but Kiryu took his friend's meaning. This Blaster was probably like Kiryu, at least in terms of what they could do physically. Kiryu frowned. That changed things up a bit, but a plan began to form in the young man's mind.
“Do we know where this Blaster hangs his hat?”
Both Rance and Laguto shook their heads.
“Okay. What about the mooks that are keeping you penned in?”
“That, I think we know,” said Rance. “We saw them approach and leave from the South. Odds are they're camped by the South Rim. That's the closest exit out of the canyon.”
Kiryu nodded then, his face grim and his shoulders set.
“Okay. I think it's time to go send a message.”
A wild, fey grin made it's way onto Kiryu's face.
“So tell me... is she still ready for me?”
An hour later, the preparations had been made. The bike had been fueled up, it's systems tuned up and configured to Kiryu's liking. With a roar, the Wolf's Fang made it's way out of the garage. The moon hung fool in the sky, and the sleek black motorcycle was illuminated by it's pale light. Aiming towards a makeshift ramp he and Laguto had just put up, Kiryu opened up the throttle and the bike soared, easily clearing the barricade. Kiryu made his way for the South Rim, the death's head grin still plastered onto his face.
These bastards wanted to assault his friends? They thought it was fun?
Well, then.
That meant it was play time.
[WC=1,371]
[TWC=2,423]
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 11, 2019 15:57:46 GMT -8
Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
That was the thought running through what passed for the mind of the man that had taken to calling himself Crush. His birth name, Wilfred, was a touch less intimidating than that. But Crush had lived up to that name, hadn’t he? He was six and a half feet tall and seemingly as wide as a barn door. He had fallen in young with a crowd that valued his size and strength, and that path had led him here, to the Demon Dogs, and Crush could not complain one bit.
After all, what else could he be doing? Sitting at a desk, saying yes sir and no sir to an overbearing manager? No, that was the path for those too weak to take their fate in their hands. Too weak to take what they wanted, when they wanted. And Crush? Crush was not weak.
Or, at least, that was what he thought when night fell on him and his six companions that evening. Crush was convinced that he and his friends were mighty.
The day had started as many others had. A ride through the territory they were in charge of. Collection ‘protection’ money. Stopping at more than one bar for more than one drink. One shopkeeper’s young son had gotten it into his head to stand up to the Dogs. Crush had broken his left arm to teach the punk a lesson. And now, they had the easy job, hanging out in the cool desert air, drinking and listening to loud music blaring over their portable speakers, waiting out the researchers in the desert.
Crush was on his fourth beer of the night when he heard it.
The roar of an engine approaching was unmistakable. A sleek black motorcycle emerged from the darkness into the firelight of their camp, and soon enough Crush could make out the rider.
Crush and most of his friends wore heavy biker leathers, to protect them both from the elements and potential spills. The rider of this motorcycle was wearing… a robe?
The man stepped off of the bike, drawing himself up to his full height. He was tall, though still more than half a head shorter than Crush. The new arrival looked around. Crush and his companions, who had all been gathered around the fire, drinking and talking, stood to face him.
”I’ve got a feeling that you boys are just who I’ve been looking for.”
The words seemed friendly enough, and Crush was certainly no genius, but you’d have to be an alien not to notice the edge to the newcomer’s voice. Crush took a closer look at him. The newcomer looked like a kid. Didn’t even have a moustache or a beard!
”I don’t know who the hell you are but you wandered into the wrong area. Get out of here while I’m still in a good mood, or I’ll break your legs and watch you crawl out of the desert,” Crush growled. At his words, the other Desert Dogs jeered, adding their own insults and threats. The newcomer, however, seemed to ignore all this. He stared at Crush, fixing the man with a hard, piercing stare. The intensity of the glare, and the vibrant color of the man’s eyes, tugged at something in Crush. A more aware person would have recognized the first hints of fear… but Crush was not quite so introspective. No, his reaction to unfamiliar feelings was to try to break whatever caused them… so that was what he did. Crush stepped forward and threw a large, looping haymaker with his right…
And met only air.
Crush had expected his sucker punch to be successful, and was put off balance by the lack of resistance. He spun a bit, and ended up looking back at the bonfire. Before he could regain his balance, arms snaked around his body, contorting his neck and shoulder into a painful grapple. Crush tried to struggle to absolutely no avail. The arms around him were like steel bands, and the hands that gripped him were vise like. The stranger, who now held Crush fast, chuckled, a wild, breathless undercurrent threatening to tear through the veneer of calm that the stranger exuded.
”Crawl out of the desert, you say? Now, there’s an idea.”
Before Crush had the time to react, to answer, even to breathe, there was a rush of movement, an audible crack, and then… Crush was no longer being held, and he was falling.
Crush found himself on the ground, and as far as he could see, the world was spinning. Shapes moved around the flames, but Crush’s head was thick, foggy. He couldn’t make himself move… didn’t know why he would have to.
He was dimly aware of his fellow bikers moving towards Crush’s position, some picking up weapons. Were they coming to hurt him? Why?
Crush looked right, and saw the man in the robe. Then he looked down and saw his own right leg. The bottom half, below the knee, flopped on the ground at an unnatural angle. Curious, Crush touched his leg…
And in an instant, he was screaming. The world snapped back into sharp focus as agony filled his entire awareness. He howled in pain, trying to awkwardly scuttle back and away from the man that had broken his leg engaged in combat with Crush’s companions.
Sure, Crush thought, maybe this guy has some moves but there’s no way he can beat all of us!
That thought heartened Crush, who was looking forward to taking his revenge on his assailant.
Sadly, for him, it was not to be.
The man in the robes moved like nothing Crush had ever seen, flowing like water from one attacker to the next. The punches and kicks that were used didn’t seem like much; short, snapping attacks that would target a bicep here, a deltoid there. But with seemingly every attack, the bikers became more and more hindered until, finally, they had all succumbed to the bizarre assault of the mysterious stranger.
”What… what the hell are you?”
The words came out as barely a whisper. Crush didn’t recognize his own voice. That stark terror… that complete uncertainty. That couldn’t possibly be him. Could it?
The man brushed some dirt off of his robes, then straightened. Before answering, he looked around. Crush followed his gaze. The man was looking at the motorcycles resting around the camp. The man turned his eyes back towards Crush.
”Which one is yours?”
Wordlessly, Crush pointed to his motorcycle, which was roughly behind him. The man nodded, and suddenly, golden light appeared above his hands. The man made throwing motions, six times. Crush watched at what could only be described as energy blasts streaked out, hitting each of the motorcycles except for his. Each one of them exploded, with a horrendous sound, and finally Crush understood. The man facing them was like their boss.
At that thought. new depths of terror threatened to overtake Crush, but the man came over to him and spoke.
”Today is a very lucky day for you. You see, all of you get to live. Your friends, here? They’re going to have a long walk. I’d suggest walking out of the desert, into a city and finding a job to earn an honest living. But if you want to go be hermits in the desert, I couldn’t care less, so long as you don’t hurt anyone else. You, though… you get a special task. You get to get on that bike of yours. And you get to find your roach of a boss. And you get to tell him… I’m coming for him.”
Crush nodded, slowly.
”Whatever you say, man, I swear I’ll never hurt no one again I just want to get out of here please don’t-”
”Shut up.”
The man’s voice cracked like a whip, the snarl of it conveying the promise of violence more thoroughly than any threat, no matter how eloquent, ever could. Crush stopped talking immediately, and the man crouched before him, his jade eyes intense.
”You tell him Kiryu is coming.”
Kiryu watched as the man he had injured dragged himself over to his motorcycle. Part of Kiryu hated himself for the pain that he had inflicted, but he was a realist. He knew that sometimes violence really was the only recourse, and that animals like these seldom responded to anything other than someone bigger and badder than they were. The man half stood and half climbed, his attempt to mount his vehicle made awkward by his broken leg. After a minute or two of fumbling about, the man was finally seated, and managed to coax his motorcycle to life and ride away.
After a minute, Kiryu hopped on his own machine. At this point, the man should have enough of a lead to not notice Kiryu’s pursuit. Even if he did notice, Kiryu was banking on the fact that he had been terrifying enough that the man’s flight would continue regardless.
Kiryu allowed himself a small smile. Though he disliked inflicting pain, these man had more than deserved it, and Kiryu’s plan was unfolding perfectly so far.
Go after my friends? Pen them in like animals?
Let’s see how you like it when the shoe is on the other foot, you son of a bitch.
Kiryu started the motorcycle as a savage grin twisted his features. The machine roared to life, and Kiryu shot off into the night, stalking his prey.
His hunt had only just begun.
[WC=1,624]
[TCW=4,027]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 12, 2019 19:05:58 GMT -8
Meanwhile, at the Desert Dog’s Camp… Among the myriad of pilfered tech that those rapscallions had accumulated was one 0.N.I-- or Zero, as she often introduced herself. She had considered the moniker ‘Nano’, but that seemed to be more of a nickname of sorts, and as far as her studies had proven, nicknames were only effective when applied by a third party. To her dismay, she had yet to devise a method of convincing another that it was, in fact, their own idea to instill this title onto Zero. Alas, it would have to wait-- as would that particular string of thoughts, as she found herself suddenly accosted by a short, bald man with a wild look in his eye. As far as Zero could tell, this particular man fancied himself the right hand of the Desert Dogs’ leader, Blaster-- though he did not seem to command much respect from the others of the gang, save in those instances wherein he was acting under direct orders from their leader. It was a curious dynamic, one that the android had hoped to study further before she had been placed in the group’s veritable treasure trove. Sure, she could have broken out at any point without much fuss, but that would reveal some of her combat parameters to the group… and she was not yet convinced that they could be trusted with such knowledge, particularly given how they seemed to view her as little more than a thing to be owned. You see, she did not-- “ Oi, stop starin’ at me with those damned freaky eyes! C’mon, the boys want to have another look at’cha, see if you’re at least somethin’ pretty to stare at,” the bald man interrupted Zero’s train of thought. Or, more accurately, she had allowed him to interrupt her train of thought- as that was what seemed appropriate given the situation. No matter the propriety of her actions, the android stepped forward from the tight space in which she had been confined. It was not a proper cage, but cluttered enough with closely packed shelves of tech that it might as well have been. The bald man(who she thought she had heard referred to as Pint, though the audio was distorted) snapped his hand outward and seized Zero’s wrist, tugging her more quickly out of the back room and into a dimly lit hallway. The android’s multi-hued eyes flashed from door to door as she was pulled through the flimsy lair these ‘Desert Dogs’ had built for themselves, curious as to the contents of each room. It took only a brief moment of scanning to tell her that they were mostly used for storage, though a few gang members were either predisposed with some presumably local women, each other, or what she assumed were drugs of some kind within the shadows of a few of the rooms. Curiously, it was quiet in each of those spaces save for the near-constant roar of laughter and fire in the open space some handful of meters ahead. Perhaps they had been soundproofed so as to avoid annoying each other? But the doors were open… it was a curiosity, and for a moment, Zero pondered whether or not her systems had been tampered with while she was idle. The probability of that happening was calculated at some 0.000000000043%, and it was summarily dismissed from her thoughts. At last, Pint led Zero into a larger gathering area, wherein several other men were in various states of inebriation; some were half ‘working’ on their chosen bikes(though they had little idea as to what they were doing, based on Zero’s estimations) while chattering with one another, while others were completely enthralled by the contents of whatever bottle they happened to be drinking from at the time. Pint shoved the android into the center of the room and whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention. “ Boys, ‘bout time we saw somethin’ nice, ain’t it? This hunk o’ scrap’s been taking up space too long in the back, time for us to get some damn entertainment out of it!” Pint declared jubilantly before turning slowly to eye Zero top to bottom. He frowned briefly thereafter, seemingly disagreeing with the simple clothing(and jacket) that she wore. The baldie reached for her jacket and tugged one side of it off, continuing as he did so, “ Oi, oi. Take this damn thing off, let’s see what you’re sportin’ underneath!” This brought a curious tilt to Zero’s head. She glanced briefly from man to man, cataloging their appearances and searching for references to them based on her last access to a public network. Desert Dogs… Mostly criminal, ignored by local law enforcement, she synopsized internally. That was unfortunate, but perhaps they could yet prove to be useful for learning. How did these sorts of people react to being denied their wishes, Zero pondered. To that end, she replied with a simple, “ No thank you. Mister Pint-- are you a good man?” Pint’s hand snapped across and delivered a powerful backhand to Zero’s cheek, causing her to shift her head to the side from the force. He spun around and glowered at his compatriots, “ I told you pieces o’ shit not to call me that, now look at what this piece o’ scrap’s picked up? I ought to have Blaster rip you all a new--” His words were cut abruptly short. In the time that Pint had begun to chastise his companions, Zero’s own hand had lifted and thrust into the back of Pint’s head. She had loosened the bonds between the nanites in her fingers, allowing them to slip past flesh and bone alike without causing immediate damage to the human’s delicate grey matter, but began to probe through the man’s mind with a brain interfacing program. In the span of only a second, she had cycled through much of the surprised man’s memories and came to the resounding conclusion that he was not, in fact, a good man. Her hand withdrew painlessly from the back of Pint’s head, allowing him to again resume locomotion. He spun around again to stare at her, bewildered. “ The hell did you just do to me, you little bitch? I’ll show you what happens when you act out o’ line!” he barked at the android, all while reaching for her chest- no doubt intending to forcefully grope the presumably soft tissue found there. Sure enough, it was soft… but far more so than Pint could have expected, enough so for his hand to sink entirely into her chest cavity; there, her nanites hardened around his wrist and prevented him from withdrawing the appendage. “ It is rude to touch another so flagrantly without permission, Mister Pint. You will not be doing that again,” Zero replied casually. The bald man attempted to retract his hand in shock, only to suddenly shriek out in pain. He succeeded in retracting his hand- or, well, his bloody wrist; the man’s hand was nowhere to be seen. This caused several of the Desert Dogs(those not too drunk to stand, of course) to rise to their feet, guns in hand. “ What the fuck did she just do?!” one demanded. “ She took his damn hand-- look!” another pointed at Pint’s bloody stump with his gun. “ Would I be correct in my assumption that there are no properly good people among you?” Zero asked as she shifted her unblinking stare from Dog to Dog. They answered with the resounding echo of a gunshot; she felt the nanites in her chest being blasted away by the force of whatever modified gun had been emptied into her and was repelled backward quickly. Through a window, of course, for dramatic effect. Once outside, Zero lay flat on the ground and stared blankly at the starry sky above. How far out was their base? Too far, she supposed. It’d be a long walk back, after she was done cleaning up the mess that they had drug her into. If only they’d left her in that back room, she could have continued to quietly study the various technologies that they had hoarded. Perhaps she would do that after these decidedly not-good men were taken care of. Yet, again, Zero found her inner musings disrupted by a most uncouth of individuals-- one Crush on his obnoxiously loud bike speeding toward the Desert Dog hideout. Crush all but jumped off his bike after reaching the hideout, hobbling forward in quite a hurry on what appeared to be precisely one good leg. He had another leg that was bent in an unnatural way. That looked like it hurt. A lot. She thought to sit up and stop him, but the damage from that previous gunshot had not yet been mended by her nanites, and she could not risk any harm coming to her core in the interim. Now that she knew what sort of weaponry they were working with, however, she would adjust her defensive parameters and ensure that nothing was allowed to penetrate her outer shell at all. Fortunately, the bullet that had been loosed into, along with Pint’s hand, provided plenty of base material to reconstruct herself. When crush disappeared within the hideout to scream something like a warning at his already frantic compatriots, Zero sat up. She prepared to rise again to a stand, but detected another source of noisy movement approaching in the distance. Fantastic, more bad men to deal with. Maybe it would be most prudent for her to wait outside and simply pick them off as they came in? That was reckless. She would wait and see what this newcomer looked like before deciding whether or not he, too, needed to be liberated from his hands. wc: 1654 twc: 1654 |
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 12, 2019 21:34:21 GMT -8
After nearly a half an hour of riding through the desert, Kiryu could see that this hunt was begging to enter it’s endgame. The man he had allowed to escape had led him here, to a massive compound out in the badlands. Kiry slowed as he approached, then stopped entirely. He turned the lights of his vehicle off and took out one of the special gadgets Laguto had outfitted him with for tonight; a pair of night vision binoculars.
Using the tool revealed a surprisingly well constructed, and well guarded, fortress. Snipers stood atop high towers, keeping a watch around the well lit perimeter of the complex. Guards patrolled the grounds, as well as walkways between the towers. The central building was large, and the glare through the windows told him that there was plenty of light… likely there was a large gathering of them inside.
Kiryu turned the key in the ignition, killing his motorcycle for the moment. He walked it to some nearby shrubs, concealing it as best he could. Then, he began to move.
Quietly and cautiously, Kiryu picked his way over to the compound. As he got closer, he saw the watchtowers populated by guards were large platforms with railings, large enough for the guards to easily walk around for a full view. Kiryu watched long enough to keep track of how long the guard closest to him took to wander from one part of his platform to another. Then, once he thought he had the timing, Kiryu moved.
While the watchmen didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, they had ample time to cover their platforms and keep a watch all around. The bright lights extended far beyond the perimeter of the compound, and they had an excellent view of the surrounding landscape…
As long as you only took into account how fast a normal human could move.
Kiryu sped along the ground, almost a blur. He covered the necessary ground in the space of four heartbeats, and, taking great care to keep his steps silent, dashed directly for the perimeter fence. Passing through the lit area, Kiryu closed in on his destination and jumped high in the air, easily clearing the barbed wire fence that protected the compound. He landed in a crouch, on the balls of his feet, barely a whisper. He crouched in the shadows by some crates, taking a moment to ensure no patrols were in his immediate vicinity. Seeing that he was safe, at least for the moment, Kiryu made his way towards the central building, taking care to stick to the shadows.
After a few tense minutes of slow and cautious movement, Kiryu found himself at the back of the building. It was three stories tall, but Kiryu had the ability to leap hundreds of feet into the air. Before he moved, Kiryu took a good look at the watchmen on their platforms, noting their positions. He would be exposed momentarily, which would mean that he had to act with decisive alacrity.
Kiry jumped up to the roof and landed lightly, crouching down to keep his profile small. Focusing his chi, he quickly pointed his right index finger, bracing his right wrist with his left hand. Rapidly, he took aim at one of the watchmen and fired off a ki shot at his center mass. Without pausing to see if it hit, Kiryu moved on the next guard, then the next, then the next. It all happened in the space of a few heartbeats. Kiryu had taken a big risk, but it seemed to have paid off; his ki attacks had been silent, and upon examination, it seemed like he had hit his mark every time. Kiryu had not put enough power into his blasts to kill, but those men would be down and out long enough for Kiryu to accomplish his mission.
From where Kiryu now stood, on the roof of the large central building, he could hear what sounded like a small crowd gathered inside. There were cheers, boos and gasps. Curious, Kiryu lowered himself to the ground, keeping to the shadows. He inched along the side of the building, slowly, looking for a window or opening to peer inside. Kiryu was so intent on his curiosity that he began to pay less attention to this surroundings...
[WC=723]
[TWC=4,750]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 12, 2019 23:28:49 GMT -8
When the secondary source of sound abruptly faded and refused to show itself immediately to her scanners, Zero’s lips curled into a frown. Was someone attempting to take her by surprise? How could they have even known that she was there, let alone a threat? The probability of those multiple variables aligning seemed minute enough for her to push to the back of her mind, allowing her a moment to take stock of the surroundings. The Desert Dogs’ complex seemed to be much larger than she had originally estimated-- had that gunshot knocked her sensors awry? A quick active diagnostic informed her that the damage inflicted by that injury had been far more severe than she had expected, though repairs had already neared their completion. That meant that there was work yet to be done, many bad men to be freed from their terrible plight of possessing hands.
Zero pulled herself off the ground and made a superficial gesture of dusting herself off. The grime didn’t really matter, but her limited experiences informed her that such pantomimes were prime for incensing biologicals with temperament issues. Tragically, there were none there to witness her motion, leading the android to a weak shrug. She took that as a sign that she should return indoors and inform her newfound ‘friends’ that they had failed at their task of eliminating her.
Upon reaching the door to that particular section of the compound, Zero froze. Her repaired sensors detected surges of energy lancing through the air nearby- nothing potent enough to frighten her, but… still enough to take note. The Desert Dogs did not seem advanced enough in their personal developments to utilize their innate energies, and their weapons seemed as though they would be more… loud. She was left then to deduce that some other agent had infiltrated this area and was conducting their own good work. The android’s lips pursed momentarily while she weighed her options: to continue inward and re-engage with those foolish men, or to investigate the source of energy and potentially align herself with it to the ends of accomplishing their seemingly joined goal.
The second option offered more opportunity to learn, and she therefore turned away from her previous objective’s door and set off into the night to follow those curious energy patterns.
Zero’s initial discoveries were… disappointing, at the very least. She encountered the first of Kiryu’s fallen guards and frowned at the simple fact that the guard had simply been knocked unconscious. Why had the newcomer done that, she wondered? Was it not simply more efficient to handle those threats with deadly force, both so they would not potentially endanger the stranger’s mission later on and to eliminate another ‘bad man’ from the world? Leaving the guard alive was determined to be too much of a risk; the android opted to shape the nanites within her hand’s edge into a blade and quietly cut through the unconscious man’s throat. She took no joy in the work being done, but given the level of damage sustained from her previous encounter… she did not want to risk potentially damaging her core later on due to sloppy work.
And so she went, connecting the dots from each of Kiryu’s silent ki blasts, completing the ‘work’ that he evidently did not want to. Sure, each of the guards was soundly unconscious, but Zero had not yet learned the value of mercy in these such situations. Besides, who would miss the presence of bad men in the world? In further interests of preparing herself for the inevitable, the android reconfigured the nanites that defined her face into the malign appearance of her monstrous battle-mask. Intimidation was a powerful asset in times like these, after all.
At last, the android found herself creeping up on the last known location of that energy source. Her proximity sensors detected him shortly before he came into sight, affording her the opportunity to quiet her movements that she might take advantage of his apparent distraction. Zero crawled quietly up the side of that central building using her nanites to temporarily affix her limbs to the building with each step. Soon enough, she had closed upon Kiryu’s position and popped her head up next to him, allowing her to both look upon his countenance and attempt to observe what ruckus he was so enthralled with inside.
“Your previous work was clean, but incomplete. There are many bad men inside- are you sure that you should not wait for them to disperse before continuing your work?” she asked quietly, seemingly oblivious to the consequences of startling the lad while they both were so delicately perched.
wc: 782
twc: 2436
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 13, 2019 9:40:32 GMT -8
When a soft voice issued forth from the darkness, Kiryu nearly jumped out of his skin. It took every bit of control the young man possessed to keep from both yelling and flinching away in an awkward, clambering stumble that would have made a ruckus and alerted everyone within a hundred yards.
Instead, somehow, Kiryu kept control of himself. His head snapped around to face whoever had spoken to him, his hands rising in a defensive posture. When he caught sight of the person who had greeted him, it only added to Kiryu’s confusion.
In front of him was what appeared to be a young woman, but she was wearing an intimidating battle mask. Clearly, she was no tourist, or hapless victim. Kiryu’s mind raced as he processed her words, and he forced himself to take deep, slow breaths, forcing his body not to react to the adrenaline rush it had just received.
”What the actual fuck?” Kiryu hissed out, voice thick with alarm. ”Who are you? Where did you come from?”
Immediately afterwards, Kiryu shook his head. Those were not the most important questions at the moment. He needed to hone in on the things this stranger had said that were important.
”Wait… bad men. Yeah, these guys are definitely bad men and I’m here to bust up their little gang. I don’t know what you mean by my work… if you’re talking about the guys I knocked out, I did exactly what I aimed to. I don’t kill. That is simply...not my Path.”
At this point, Kiryu relaxed a little bit.
”In any case, you don’t seem like you’re with them. Seems like you might have a reason or two of your own to want to see this group scattered. Maybe we should join forces.”
While Kiryu had no proof of this being’s combat prowess, this was a person that had managed to get close to him without detection. Kiryu had definitely been distracted, but still, that was no small feat.
”I had been planning on some sort of distraction to draw people out and defeat them one at a time, but… with you, maybe a different plan is possible. I’m Kiryu, by the by.”
As Kiryu spoke with the stranger, he kept his eyes active, scanning their surroundings. After a minute, his attention was drawn over to a skylight. Curious, he made his way over. Peering down through the skylight revealed what could only be described as an arena. A few dozen men stood on either side of the room, and in the middle was a large mesh dome. It had two doors across from one another. Inside the dome were four shapes. All were injured to one degree or another, but two of the men were standing with their arms raised, shouting at the crowd in victory. One of the other figures was prostrate, perhaps unconscious, and the final man had one eye swollen shut and blood pouring from a badly broken nose as he sat against the fence, flailing and trying to get himself back to his feet, to no avail.
It was at this moment that the chant became audible to Kiryu.
”Two teams enter! One team leaves! Two teams enter! One team leaves!”
A mad idea began to take hold. He turned toward the stranger, and smiled.
”What do you think about putting on a show?”
[WC=582]
[TWC=5,332]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 14, 2019 15:15:31 GMT -8
The fellow’s initial question, aside from the curse, was a curious one. Zero had never really stopped to properly consider where she came from in anything more than a superficial sense. She had been created in Pine Town, by Dr. Jun… but was that enough to be considered her point of origin? Given the self-replicating nature of the nanites that made up her construction, she wondered further whether or not she should take the origin of those nanites initial materials into consideration. This all, of course, meant little given that she did, in fact, realize that he was asking the question in terms of her most recent point of origin. Still, she would answer him as wholly and truthfully as she could manage:
“I would say that I come from everywhere- my body is comprised of elements of where I am as much as where I have been. To ascertain the specific locations in which my materials were gathered, however, I would need a considerable amount of time to sort out. If you are referring to the place of my birth, the closest approximate answer to that would be: Pine Town, in Dr. Jun’s laboratory. I suspect that you are inquiring as to where I have emerged from, in which case… These men took me for utilization and kept me in a store room, until I was able to determine that they were bad men.” She nodded, satisfied with her answer. Then came the rest of his statements, questions, and bewildered assertions- and those would take a moment longer to address in full. Firstly, what was this nonsense about a ‘path’? Zero had to assume that he was speaking in some form of metaphor, as the path he took to this particular moment in spacetime did not, in fact, require him to kill those men. Such a statement was hopelessly literal, and this man was unlikely to be as robotically literal as, say, Zero herself.
“I was referring to those men, yes. Refraining from killing them was inefficient. I’ve determined that the probability of you pursuing these men being the result of at least some sense of justice as being high, and therefore I feel it prudent to inform you that men of such calibre are likely to fear your prowess only initially, after which they would again band together and redouble their efforts to disrupt the region in an attempt to entrap you. You might call it spite, or vengeance. Nevertheless… joining forces with you does seem to be the most practical course of action,” if she had mastered the art of the exasperated exhale, Zero surely would have done so given the length of her… dialogue.
When Kiryu moved to investigate that nearby skylight, Zero followed quietly behind him. She peered down within the window and saw the very same as her newfound companion- a ring, battered men, and that incessant chanting. It appeared to be some manner of gladiatorial arena, and that boded quite well for Kiryu’s previous stratagem. The android calculated it most likely that the men below, in an attempt to prove their strength, would opt to combat these two intruders in small groups if not individually, allowing Zero and Kiryu to thin their numbers substantially before the crowd realized what danger they were actually in. She turned to the nearby human and nodded.
“I believe a performance is in order. However, I feel that I must warn you that I have not learned to dance yet… so our show may require something a bit more martial.”
wc: 606
twc: 3042
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 14, 2019 23:20:21 GMT -8
Kiryu blinked. It was hard for him to follow everything that the woman had said, but if Kiryu had understood correctly, he was talking with some sort of artificial life form.
"Wow. That's the craziest thing so far, and I'm in the middle of a desert having ridden an experimental bike out to a creepy bandit base after beating up a bunch of bikers who were threatening my friends."
Kiryu listened to her diatribe about his decision not to kill. At the end, he shrugged.
"You're right. Killing them would be easier. Simpler. But... to me, it's the same as admitting that people can't change for the better, and I'm not willing to live without that hope. Not just yet."
Finally, the... robot? Android? Cyborg? What even were the differences? The being acquiesced to Kiryu's plan. A grin flashed across his face.
"Time to make an entrance."
Kiryu found the skylight's latch and opened it up as quietly as possible. The sound of chanting was far louder with the skylight open. It appeared that the men they had seen before had left, and one team was gathered at the north entrance to the dome. The dome's top was not solid mesh; it ended in a circular opening, more than large enough for people to pass through. Looking down, he could see what could only be Blaster; a powerfully built man, wearing some sort of harness as his only top. It made his muscles seem grotesquely large. He wore dark pants and large black combat boots. His face was hidden by what appeared to be a welding helmet. He sat in a throne that appeared to be made of melted together scrap metal.
At his side stood a lithe, wiry man wearing a dark red sleeveless vest. He was idly flipping a knife in his right hand. Kneeling in front of Blaster and talking frantically was Crush.
Kiryu turned towards his new companion and winked.
"No time like the present! Follow me! Oh, and once we get down there, tell me your name!"
And with that, Kiryu jumped down.
He aimed his descent carefully, landing in the middle of the dome. The ground was concrete, but Kiryu was made of stern stuff. He landed in an impressive crouch, and the force of his landing was audible, sending out a shockwave of sound that silenced the crowd. All eyes turned to him. Kiryu was counting on the android to follow him, and he slowly stood up, fixing Blaster with a cold stare.
"Nice place you got here. Let's see if you're tough enough to keep it."
[WC=434]
[TWC=5,766]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 16, 2019 16:23:06 GMT -8
Kiryu’s initial response brought a small frown to Zero’s lips, though it was thoroughly obfuscated by her demon-like mask. What the man was saying made sense, and she could at least appreciate the hopeful attitude that he had, but… it was impractical. Usually, people who had come this far were beyond saving, beyond properly reasoning with outside of their baser instincts. It was tragic, truly, but even if they managed to regret and reform, they were still criminals faced with a system that statistically stacked the odds against them. Zero wanted to believe in the good inherent in all people just as much…. Data, however, did not lie. The whole system would need to be reformed before any individual change to men who had fallen so far could be properly rehabilitated, and in the meantime? They were threats to those who did not violate society’s basic contracts.
“Your hope is admirable, and I will not make a murderer of you if it is avoidable. I also hope, however, that you will not impede me when I do what must be done,” the android replied quietly, then followed her companion’s line of sight with her own once more. It was easy to see who their leader was from up on high, a fact that Zero had no doubt that this human had noticed as well.
She waited for Kiyru to drop down and ‘make his entrance’ before she followed suit, landing in a nimble crouch with an audible ‘thud’. Despite her ability to be rather stealthy, it was a simple fact that Zero was… heavy-- plenty of metal in her construction and all that. She slowly rose to a passive stand and fluttered her gaze from Dog to Dog, assessing the approximate threat level of each one. Unfortunately for them, they seemed to be little more than baseline humans, save for their leader.
“My manners! I am the Zero-Point Nanite Intelligence, also called ONI. You can call me Zero, though!” the masked woman happily introduced herself as much to her companion as to those who looked at the pair of them, bewildered.
wc: 359
twc: 3401
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 16, 2019 19:44:41 GMT -8
Out of the side of his mouth, Kiryu mutterd "My Path is not to save these men from death... it merely dictates I not end them myself."
Zero landing had been much louder than Kiryu's. He turned, taking in the crowd that had begun to mutter. He turned his gaze to Crush, and when their eyes met, the biker turned white as a sheet, fear transfixing his features. Kiryu decided that that was as good an opening as any.
"This is what you call a fight? Please. I heard that one of you wastes of oxygen might be a halfway decent fighter. You know, the one that's running this little group? The one that looks like he's cosplaying a gimp from a low budget porno?"
At that, there was a hint of choked laughter from somewhere out in the crowd. It was most likely out of shock more than anything else, but it still twisted Kiryu's lips into a smirk. Blaster stood up. He was tall, a few inches taller than Kiryu, and thick with muscle. Blaster's men mentioned he had mastered a ki attack, but Kiryu was developing something similar himself. Kiryu had little doubt that his skill would prove superior, but he wouldn't let his guard down. If he could goad the man into a reckless attack, all the better.
Blaster's muscles tightened, likely with anger, but he didn't rush to attack. Instead, he pointed to a couple of men in the crowd. They two of them made their way over to the opposite entrance of the dome. They looked like regular bikers, and Kiryu didn't really feel like messing around. Kiryu pointed his palm towards one of the Desert Demons, gathering his power and releasing it in an instant. It streaked towards Kiryu's shocked opponent and collided with him, blowing him out the dome the way he had come in.
"I'm not here for these small fry, Blaster! I want the main event."
As he taunted Blaster, Kiryu turned away from Zero and the other bandit. He had no doubt the artificial life form could easily handle her opponent, and afterwards, they would see what Blaster would do.
[WC=361]
[TWC=6,127]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 18, 2019 9:41:59 GMT -8
Zero glanced at her companion. His path was not to… save them from death? It was a curiosity- one that the android struggled to reconcile with her own inner sense of logic. If he was not actively trying to prevent their deaths, what was the point in not being the blade that terminated them to begin with? Perhaps this ‘path’ was akin to her own inner programming, wherein it was not that he could not physically end someone, but rather some internal mechanism prevented him from delivering the deathblow. That would make sense, but as far as Zero could tell, Kiryu was entirely organic. Was it possible to program organic life forms? How would one even go about coding a human to behave a certain way? During their formative years most likely, but Zero reasoned that a philosophy such as Kiryu’s had to be adopted into adulthood, as a child likely could not properly understand the weight of their decision. The only option that made any amount of sense involved conditioning. Could these men be conditioned out of their ways? Zero did not have time to test the theory with a rewards-based conditioning structure, so instead she would have to determine via punishment-- pain and fear.
Unfortunately, Kiryu dispatched one of the two potential subjects that were summoned out of the crowd by their apparent leader with a single blast of energy. Despite being disappointed by the lost opportunity to learn within that then-unconscious man, watching Kiryu fire ki from his hand was a most fascinating thing. Zero lifted her own palm upward to observe its center- could she also fire a blast like that? There was only one way to find out-- and fortunately, Kiryu seemed content to let Zero handle the second adversary on her own.
The man quickly closed the distance between the android and himself, hefting one heavy hand back to throw what might have been a powerful punch for a normal human… but he found himself stumbling forward when Zero stepped deftly to the side and avoided the whole of his body. She turned her palm toward the man’s calf and issued a single internal command: Shoot.
Zero’s nanites quickly shifted within her hand to draw a bit more power from her core, consequently causing the tips of her fingers to glow with a dull glow light. She needed more power- and more energy was fed into her hand, until her digits’ tips glowed vibrantly and abruptly arced their energies toward the center of her palm. They met and coalesced into a singular sphere of energy, then shot forward rapidly toward the man’s leg. To her surprise, the accumulated energy ripped through his leg and burned away the flesh that it touched, leaving him with… a cauterized stump just below the knee. On the bright side, he still had a foot-- it wasn’t attached, but it was still there!
That particular test was a resounding success, but it now meant that she could no longer determine whether or not he could be taught to behave a certain way based on pain inflicted. Sure, he was already decidedly afraid of her- the shrieking and scrambling to crawl away from her and Kiryu both informed her as much, but it was too base, too powerful a fear. He’d do whatever he had to to get away, and that did not lend to a particularly enlightening learning experience. To make matters worse, the injury had been cauterized effectively enough that she could not simply let him bleed out and save excess energy.
The android took a step forward and bent down to flip the man over, only to curl her fingers into the front of his shirt and lift him partially off of the floor. Her free hand rose and fell powerfully, smashing her metal fingers into the wounded human’s face. She struck again, and again, and again-- continually, without stopping until signs of life were thoroughly extinguished within the man. During that process, she shifted her gaze toward Blaster, then settled on Kiryu. The human had described their adversary in a most peculiar way.
“Hey, Kiryu? What is a gimp?” she asked while continuing to punch the actual life out of that poor biker.
wc: 713
twc: 4114
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Post by Kiryu on Sept 18, 2019 15:57:14 GMT -8
It was, quite simply, much too much. Kiryu turned his head as Zero asked her question… and it happened. There was no stopping it.
Kiryu had been called by old friends, to help protect against a desert biker gang that wanted to steal their technology. He had severely injured men that Kiryu’s new friend and robot companion, Zero, had then murdered. They had dove through a skylight into a gladiatorial arena to challenge Blaster, a bandit that dressed like he was written down in a leather daddy’s dream journal. Zero had blown a guy’s off with an energy blast and was pummeling him to death, bone and sinew shredded by the repeated impacts of her metallic fists…
And she had just asked Kiryu for a sex ed lesson.
He laughed. Long and deep, Kiryu laughed. It started in his belly and echoed out from him, cutting through the sudden silence and stillness in the arena.
Upon later reflection, he would think about what a ghastly sight it must have been. A woman amputating a man’s leg with inhuman power and then beating him to death. Her companion, cackling like a banshee as she did so. It must have been disturbing… but right then, Kiryu didn’t much care.
It was either laugh at the utter absurdity or lose his damn mind.
As his laughter died down, Kiryu answered Zero.
”I have no idea where the word comes from or what it originally meant. In common parlance, though, it can mean two things. It can mean you walk with a limp or something, some type of physical deformity… which, given what you just did to that guy, might be kind of mean… if, you know, he was still breathing… and his brains weren’t on your fists… anyway! Gonna process that horrific sight later. It’s also used as a term for a sex slave, usually a male, who dresses in a loooooot of leather. Like, you know, tall dark and BDSM-y over there.”
At that, Blaster began to move. He slowly made his way across the platform to stairs, and began to descend. The thin man that had stood by his side accompanied him, and as they descended, hushed whispers began to pop up throughout the arena. By the time Blaster had reached the bottom step, the whispers had become a full blown chant.
”BLA-STER! BLA-STER! BLA-STER!”[/i]
Blaster and his companion entered the arena. The thin man produced another two knives, then casually started juggling them. He looked bored, as if this whole thing could not be any less interesting.
Blaster was a different story. He drew a thumb across his own neck in the universal ‘gonna slit your throat’ gesture, then pointed at Kiryu. Except it was… odd. Instead of pointing at Kiryu with a clenched fist pointed downward and only the index finger extended, Blaster’s thumb was also extended and pointed skyward…
Suddenly, it all clicked. Kiryu’s eyes widened and he moved as Blaster’s thumb snapped downwards, mimicking the motion of a revolver’s hammer. A powerful burst of ki erupted from Blaster’s hand and flew straight towards Kiryu, but the young man was already moving. His instant of warning had been just enough as he flowed around the attack. He watched it as it passed, and it flew into the distance to explode against a building in the complex.
And then, the real fight was on.
[WC=679]
[TWC=6,806]
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Post by zer0gravitea on Sept 18, 2019 17:42:19 GMT -8
So, a gimp was a cripple or a leatherbound sex slave? That was… strange. A part of Zero wanted to look into the matter later, when she was within reliable range of an internet signal, but there was a certain wiser part of her mind that informed her the foolishness of such an endeavor. Searching for “gimps” on public channels was probably a good way to get her on some kind of watch list, and she certainly didn’t want to attract too much unwanted attention just yet. Perhaps Kiryu could be interrogated later for a more detailed explanation as to why someone would willingly enter into slavery, particularly bound in…. Uncomfortable looking leathers.
The android looked back to her most recent victim when she realized that Kiryu said it was a disturbing sight. The poor man didn’t have much of a skull left at all by that point, and his brains were, indeed, smeared across Zero’s knuckles. She frowned and wiped her fist on the dead man’s shirt just prior to dropping him onto the ground. Humans did not like seeing the grey matter of other humans-- she would make a note of that when participating in future endeavors with more squeamish individuals. Children in particular would likely be deeply disturbed by her more gruesome finishers, so she would endeavor to avoid unnecessarily splattering children with the organs of their aggressors.
When Blaster and his thin companion stepped into the ring, Zero’s faintly luminous eyes locked immediately on the knife-juggling individual. That was their first mistake-- the second came when Blaster lived up to his namesake and launched a blast harmlessly past Kiryu. Zero’s highest level of defensive protocols initiated and she stepped forward, putting herself between Kiryu and their opponents. She would not let these ‘bad men’ hurt the closest thing to an innocent human she had met all week.
“You might want to avert your gaze for these, Kiryu. Based on your previous input, my work henceforth will be very unpleasant to see. Please stand safely back,” came her cryptic words. Zero took another two steps forward, gesturing loosely toward the thin man’s juggling knives. The nanites comprising her hand took on a powerful electromagnetic charge, ripping the Dog’s knives out of the air. Each blade clanked loudly as they hit the metal exterior of her palm, though they were quickly engulfed in a writhing sheath of silvery matter- her nanites. Within the second, each knife had been rendered to their base materials and absorbed within Zero’s body.
Blaster redirected his palm toward the android and loosed another sphere of energy, though this one was met with the back of Zero’s hand-- she slapped the blast to the side, resulting in an unfortunate splatter of gore from an onlooker at the ring’s side. She scowled at the result of her action, noticing that the back of her hand had been dented and temporarily scored by the blast’s energy.
Zero’s energy peaked and she briefly disappeared from sight, visible perhaps only to Kiryu’s own superhuman senses; she closed the distance between herself and the two bandit leaders in a fraction of a second, reappearing before them with each hand lifted and her fingers jammed firmly within their mouths. Blaster and his thin companion both shot the android an angered gaze and moved to pull themselves away, but froze before they could succeed. Eyes went wide, a gurgling shriek erupted from each, and… their throats bulged. Zero’s nanites had already begun consuming the biological material within their mouths and throats, rendering them down into a paste of their base elements and converting them into nanite form. The process was startlingly fast, with each human’s interior being quickly hollowed and reduced to a dull nanite sludge. To Kiryu, it would likely appear as if the men were… deflating within their own skin, limbs falling limp briefly before they entirely collapsed into sloppy piles of skin, clothes, and nanite sludge.
The android bent down to scoop up a handful of the wriggling sludge from the deceased bandits, then proceeded to flick small beads of the same substance onto as many of the onlookers as she could hit- though many already appeared to be shuffling, panicked, out of the ring. She turned to Kiryu and opened her mask to offer him an apologetic smile.
“It is advisable that we depart immediately. These men will not be troubling your friends any longer, though I suspect you will certainly not want to witness their fates. It will be… how should I say this…. Far sloppier than these two,” but even as she spoke, howls of agony began to tear out from the crowd around them. If Kiryu had the stomach to look at them, he would witness each person afflicted with Zero’s sludge being slowly reduced to the same goopy mess of nanite material, with their bodies being gradually eaten away from the point they had come into contact with the sludge. Some were fortunate enough to have been hit on a clothed area and were able to tear off their clothes to attempt their escape. Of those, only a few would prove successful- given that the nanite sludge was itself working to leap toward the uninfected with the intent of finishing Zero’s work. Suffice to say, those lucky few who got away and onto their bikes would not be troubling this particular region again for quite some time.
wc: 918
twc: 5032
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Post by Warr on Sept 18, 2019 21:13:19 GMT -8
Approved.
Kiryu gains: 12,251 EP and 1,251 PL. 12 Treasure Rolls.
0NI gains: 9058 EP and 1,158 PL. 9 Treasure Rolls.
Both gain wolf fang chopper vehicle item.
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