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Post by Kuma on Jul 23, 2017 5:02:11 GMT
Sidney’s attempt to interface the technology wasn’t successful, as there wasn’t any type of possible connection between the Cyborg eye and the monitors. Still many of the screens were clearly visible, marked with numbers, some loaded with data and others showing broadcasted images from other rooms or hallways. 5 Monitors were in good enough condition to properly read or see whatever they displayed.
Screen 4 - Security Footage A long tiled hallway with brick walls, overgrown with vegetation and with clear exits to the outside, with light coming out from windows.
Screen 5 - Monitor Scrolling text in russian, if asked Wolf can roughly translate it into
“Day 334 The object found in Tunguska has been dormant, no reaction from any input we attempt to give.
Day 365 Minor disturbances on the object’s surface, rippling with minor electro-magnetic phenomenon.
Day 401 The object’s nature still eludes us. More investigation is needed”
Screen 1 - Security Footage A group of Zyborgs patrolling a deeper corridor, overrun by debris and water. A dark wind passes by, blocking the view of the camera, and moments later the abominations are laying on the flooded floor cut to ribbons. It seems Urnas is doing a bit more than just scout ahead, or maybe he was blowing off some steam.
Screen 20 - Monitor Just a single message in Russian, the same phrase repeated again and again, scrolling down. If asked Wolf can translate it to. “We invited Death and it came in”
Screen 8 - Security Footage A large room with hundreds if not thousand, tanks full of liquid. Floating inside the glass tubes are bodies, human, oddities, monsters and more, connected to the sides by cables and tubes, held in place by chains. Surgical instruments, forgotten and covered in cobweb lie in the floor and in some rusted metal tables.
Riku entered and looked around, trying to comprehend all the information, while he hoped the Dolls or Wolf could have better insight. Wolf also looked around, sniffing the consoles and the dusty drawers underneath.
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Post by HungryHunter on Jul 23, 2017 21:57:57 GMT
"Tunguska? I know I've heard that word." Sidney mumbled, slipping her zyborg part back into her pocket after the failed experiment. "It was a meteor strike! At least, that's the mundane explanation. This is way scarier!" Jane piped in. Jane had fed her paranoia with endless tales of mysterious real world happenings. Bigfoot sightings (real, Bigfoot was a real hominin), UFO abductions (fake, those actually kidnapped by the Greys were never returned) and ghost stories (mixed, some were actually ghosts but many were bigfoot and aliens playing pranks) danced constantly in her head. "20 dollars says that's the Heart." Sidney glanced at the others. Nobody took the bet. "Oh well." She shrugged.
Martha watched the destruction on screen one with slight shock. "I hope that's Urnas." She mumbled. "I hope it's not! Urnas hates us!" Jane squeaked, cowering behind Martha. "Better than any other option. He hasn't done anything yet." Martha argued. "Not yet, but his dark heart demands our blood... I can appreciate that." Chelsea gloomily interjected. "We don't have blood." Martha nudged her little sister. Chelsea just shrugged and looked at the 4th monitor, showing an alternate exit. "He'll find a way if he truly is a vampire." Too bad they were missing so many shots. With some context, they could probably figure out which way to go.
Marika was among the dolls, jabbing her finger at the 8th monitor. "There it is! Oh my god, an actual hippocampus! And are those dragomen? I don't even know what that one is! How do we get there!?" Marika bounced up and down like a kid ordering ice cream. "Sidney, see if you can move the cameras or something!" She poked the plump doll while she looked around the room for any sign of controls. "I'm on it, I'm on it." She grumbled, moving slightly faster than usual in response to the poking.
Yuu was hanging back, mulling over short message Wolf had translated. "We invited Death and it came in." She had assumed that this place was discarded because of loss of control over the test subjects, or simply because of a lack of viable results. This was suggesting something much stranger. Again, the Heart came to mind. Death coming in could mean the entrance of something from the portal. "Wolf, do you know why this base was abandoned?" She asked the person who would know best, realizing with suspicion that Kuro-san had not told her.
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Post by Kuma on Jul 27, 2017 2:01:06 GMT
-I do not rrremember, my sleep has been long and my memorrry banks still loading.- Wolf explained, but clearly was making an effort to try and drag any scraps of memory from his head. -I only rrremember zem talking about gate, dangerrrous gate. Said gate vas like other gate zey studied. But other gate lost.- The Cybernetic Canine wasn’t being vague on purpose, he was actually still gathering the pieces of his fractured memories. While he did that, Sidney would find the control panel. For some reason any random button touche would cause the same effect, with several other screens lighted up for a moment, before turning off and with a creaking sound slowly slid out the wall and then to the sides, revealing a large vent, closed off by a sturdy, yet a bit rusty, set of iron bars. The bars had a lock, clearly indicating this might’ve been an escape route. The control panel emitted a digitized voice through a small speaker.
“Initsiirovannyy protokol evakuatsii”
-”Escape Prrrrrotocol Initiated”- Wolf recited the translation for the announcement. -It seems scientist smarrrt, knew dangerrrs and build back doorrr.- He added, nodding in approval. Just as he did the comm links started again, finally regaining their signal. -Bzzztt… Home base to artificial toys, give me a site rep.- Shikishima’s voice seemed more bored than anything else. On the background of the comm they could hear the sound of fire-arms being fired and then the clancking of a can hitting the ground. The Mad Weaponsmith was taking pot-shot at lined up empty rations out of sheer boredom.
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Post by HungryHunter on Jul 28, 2017 2:04:22 GMT
Yuu frowned deeply. That supported her theory of extradimensional invasion being the reason for this base falling. "Thank you Wolf." Her thoughts on the matter were interrupted when the vent creaked open, making her jump. Jane bounced her higher, landing to scramble behind Martha once more. "Calm down, it's just a door." Martha cooly inspected the bars, giving them a light shake and watching the orange dust slither off them in streams. "It doesn't look like it did them much good." She pointed at the lock still on the bars, holding them firmly closed.
"They should be open if they used this." Chelsea agreed. "And they're not helpful for us either." Sidney pointed out Josefina, standing outside for her inability to enter the room, let alone the much smaller vent. Yuu put a hand to her communicator to respond to Shikishima when his voice spilled through. "We've found an escape route but we can't use it. And, as Urnas might have told you, we picked up an ally." "Yuu..." Chelsea looked at Eastern Wolf with worry. "What will Shikishima do to Wolf? He really looked eager to study the things in here." Yuu looked at the cybernetic canine. He was strange, and certainly she didn't fully trust him, but he had offered to help them without prompting.
"Eastern Wolf is not among the pieces you want. We get to keep whatever we find that you didn't specifically request, correct? I believe that was implied in our agreement." Yuu hoped her logic would prove sound enough. Otherwise just bringing it up may anger the mad scientist into doing something to Wolf out of spite. Chelsea's eyes widened and she looked at Yuu with admiration. Adults could be cool, she again realized. It was just rare.
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Post by Kuma on Aug 1, 2017 1:08:29 GMT
-We only want the Heart, I don’t care or know what is an Eastern Wolf and I don’t want to know.- Shikishima was losing his patience. -Just focus on finding the main research room and don’t test my patience.- The Mad Weaponsmith cut the communication, irritated about their lack of explanations and bizarre questions. Even if he knew about Wolf he wouldn’t really care, as he wasn’t into Cyborgs. If the authority on the expedition had been Dr. Kago, that would’ve been a completely different story. As if you excuse my french, Dr. Kago has a hard-on for cybernetics. As the communication ended, Riku started looking around the room, focusing on scavenging the skeletons on the chairs. After a couple of seconds the clinking sound coming from his hands was clear evidence of him finding the keys.
-I think the largest one fits the keyhole in the bars.- The large hoop had several keys, most of them small and bronze, but there was a larger one made out of iron, there was some rust on it, but it didn’t damage the integrity of it. -So what do we do next?- Riku asked, as he weighed the options. -We could explore this passage or turn around and take the other hallway.- As he talked, if somebody was paying attention to the screens, one of them stopped broadcasting as Urnas passed through and one of the Zyborgs flew upwards and smashed the camera. It seems as if the Mysterious Scout, accused of being a Vampire by Wolf, was not just scouting, but also venting some anger on the denizens of this underground laboratory.
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Post by HungryHunter on Aug 1, 2017 6:23:11 GMT
Yuu looked with curiosity at the vent. While it may be an escape route like they theorized, it might also have other uses. Either way, it was worth checking out. "We should check where the vent leads at least. Riku, Martha, Chelsea and... Sidney. You explore the vent. The rest of us should stay here to keep a defensive position." With Josefina blocking the door and the rest in front of the vent, this room was as good as any to hold. "Aw, boss..." Sidney sighed, slithering off her chair to slide along the ground. "Well, unlock it if you want to get on with this." She slouched against the bars, slouching upwards until she stood. All of her movements resembled a slug, and not just in slowness but in her ability to crawl along surfaces without any visible motion of her bod.
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Post by Kuma on Aug 7, 2017 23:00:40 GMT
Riku moved near the vent with the key on his hand, he slowly slid it in, trying to avoid any damage on the key. He turned the iron rod with extreme care, getting a clicking sound from the lock and with the same careful disposition he gradually opened the vent filling the room with the squeaking of unoiled hinges. Finally the bars were completely open, a strange smell coming from them and not far behind the stench a sound.
Drip…
Drip…
DRUPL…
The echoes of drops hitting the cramped escape tunnel’s floor, at first it was too far away to notice, but the closer the sound it got (And it was getting closer fast), the harder the drops sounds, less like water and more like some kind of sludge. The passage had a left turn not too far away from its entrance and suddenly something appeared from out that corner.
It was too dark to properly see, but shining red eyes were enough warning to know that whatever that thing was it wasn’t good. Not to mention that it wasn’t alone, as soon several other pairs of eyes appeared, rushing like a torrent towards the group.
As the investigation team explored the ruins of the Soviet Scientific Complex, sunken under the swamp, someone was thousands of miles away, sitting in a very comfortable chair, one could call it a “gaming” chair while his slender fingers flew over a keyboard, busy reading a screen. DGT was working in an undisclosed location, the current base of operations for Kuro-san’s crew, checking as always several screens at once. He had been keeping an eye on Shikishima’s absent minded updates, but at the moment his main focus, apart from helping program some Artificial Intelligence Modificators, that Kuro-san himself asked for a future endeavor, was to comb through pages and pages of data taken from the JHWAB Mahoureiko. Even after losing the direct connection they managed to copy most of the data.
DGT was checking the event log of April 2014, with information of incidents in Japan and outside. He remembered how stressful that month was for him, working on the field as a “helper” for Aoiminato, the former owner of the Osaka Underground Arena. He didn’t feel like checking the half-guesses and wrong assumptions of the JHWAB analysts about the affair, considering he had a first row seat to it, almost good enough to get something splattered on. So he skipped and jumped to the next month, finding information about an unidentified being leaving Japan by sea and reaching the Russian coast. At first the information didn’t seem too important, as this seemed to happen many times, thanks to the JHWAB usually laxer restrictions against Oddities, partly because of their guilt about their abuse during WWII.
But something got his attention, the energy pattern and the spectrometer analysis of the creature’s tracks. According to the agents investigations the tracks were humanoid or almost human, yet they lacked any kind of magical emission as most Yokai or other similar local oddities had. They only found some readings they couldn’t match up with anything else. But DGT had seen it before. As the information Hub for Kuro-san operation the Shinso of Hacking had a hand in every piece of digital data, including the messages the trio of scientist, who tended to avoid meeting in person if possible, as they greatly disliked each other, send among themselves when collaborating. The readings were too similar to something Kago called Project K-1. DGT kept searching the rest of the JHWAB database using the readings as a cross-referencing item while he looked for the K-1 notes.
As his massive rig kept combing through terabytes of encrypted JHWAB information he found the K-1 notes. Seemingly Dr. Kago was tasked by Kuro-san on mining a strange metal called “Benkeinium”. DGT made a secondary search on the material, once again using the Bureau’s data.
Benkeinium - Restricted Substance Kami - 5
Metallic Substance of xeno-origin. Originally found by the Imperial Army during the onset of WWII, loaded into the “Amaterasu” submarine, lost in sea until late March 2013. During the investigation there was a conflict with organization known as “Mangetsu” and the Amaterasu sunk to the bottom of the sea. There are no traces of Benkeinium to be analyzed through modern means, but notes of the original discovery indicate similarities to Mercury, being liquid on it’s natural state, yet upon being charged with electricity or affected by heat sources the metal hardened to unearthly levels, hence the name Benkeinium was given to it, referring to the Legendary Hero Benkei, known for his inhuman resilience.
DGT knowledge about what Kuro-san wanted to do with it was spotty at best. But while he investigated this, his other search was finished. A large map showed the intel got in exchanged with the Russian Hidden World Organizations, tracking the bloody path of the creature across Russia and the tracks stopping at the swamp where Shikishima currently was. The Hacker had also been checking Dr. Kago’s notes, even the ones he deemed private and placed under a password, “Bio3812”, nothing too hard to breach. When he saw the pictures of K-1 DGT’s jaw dropped several floors and for once his mind stopped racing like a super computer. This moment of silence was more than enough for him to piece the jigsaw on his mind.
Why didn’t the Russian HW Organizations discover the complex before? Why it seemed like the Soviets weren’t interested on it and vacated it? Why was it that old and impossible machinery as the Cyborgs inside was still working? Nothing made sense. Until he saw the picture and realized what Benkeinium was, it made sense, why would they need it and why it would go towards that location. Without a moment to lose he attempted to contact Shikishima, because he was in a great danger.
Masako Hihashi was in Uzhastale.
Riku reacted as quickly as he could, slamming the iron bars and jumping backwards, but something told him that it wouldn’t have much effect. The closer the creatures got the more he could see them, just like other Cyborgs, they were mummified bodies, but instead of having heavy and cumbersome suits of armor making them move a metallic sludge with black patches was covering parts of their bodies like an infection, piercing through the dry skin and sipping into the holes were the armor would usually be grafted into.
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Post by HungryHunter on Aug 8, 2017 21:15:03 GMT
The dolls commanded to enter the room also retreated, Jane reaching past them in an attempt to slam the bars before Riku did it for her. Foam bored holes in the floor, sprayed in her panic. "Thanks!" She squeaked, rushing back out of the door. "We're leaving." Yuu nodded, taking a few steps back as the others moved back, Chelsea taking off to avoid the dangerous ground. "Josefina, we need a wall right in front of the vent. Chelsea, Riku, you stay besides me. Chelsea glared from her lofty viewpoint and landed.
"God, you're stupid. What am I going to do against them?" She snarled. Before Yuu could answer, the floor bounced then gave way, pillars of bedrock wiggling forth like flowers seeking the surface. They hit the ceiling, pushed through with ease, and then shoved on for a few more feet before finally they seemed satisfied, forming a grey wall across the vent's entrance.
"Good work Josefina!" Yuu smiled outside and Josefina waved in appreciation. "Anyway, I chose you because you and Riku can cut. And if they dig through in the next ten minutes, I want blades on their arms. We'll fall back if it doesn't work." She extended her own blade until it nearly touched the coarse surface of their defense. Chelsea glared, but drew her own blade. "I guess it's not that dumb." The others were behind her. Even dark hearts beat for people.
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Post by Kuma on Aug 12, 2017 3:44:32 GMT
Josefina’s wall plugged the hole and a very faint sound of hitting could be heard from the other side of the wall. Josefina’s wall was more than enough to keep them at bay, as the sound was barely audible and the wall wasn’t moving in the least. Riku, who was on the floor after tripping with a downed rusted chair as he back-stepped to avoid Jane’s foam, stood up, for the very first time since he meet the Dolls he was showing clear signs of fear and discomfort, his façade of deadly seriousness dangerously close to being broken. -W-what was that?- It was weird to hear his low and raspy voice breaking, but whatever was coming through the vent really spooked him. And there was a reason for it. Unlike the other Zyborgs they met so far, who were basically inert, the ones in the vent have a very peculiar trait he managed to notice because of his training.
Spirit Boxing focuses on putting Ki through a filter of emotion, making it more unstable than regular Ki but easier to learn and capable of explosive power. Ki would be a Diesel Engine while Fighting Spirit is more akin to an engine being powered by highly volatile yet very inefficient fuel. Their ability to sense Fighting Spirit is also deeply rooted with an intuitive capacity to read the emotions of those around them, not as empathy, but just like an instinct. The Zyborgs, like anything dead or mechanical, lacked any kind of Fighting Spirit signature, but the beings in vent were different. They were a dark spot, like a black hole, totally empty. It was like total lack of Fighting Spirit, which represents the fighting instincts of living beings, their “flight or fly” intuition made power. -Those things… They’re like nothing I’ve seen in my life.- Riku managed to speak as he retreated towards the door with vacillating steps.
From the other side of the hallway, the bifurcating path they didn’t take, the sound of metallic steps echoed against the walls reaching them. But it wasn’t the same sound as they heard half a dozen times, as each heavy metallic sound also left an aftereffect, a disgusting wet sound, as if something was stretching wet clay with their hands. Soon they would reach the group, 4 Zyborgs with the same grey sludge that covered the ones on the vent, but instead of covering their bodies this time around was fused to the implants, like some kind of metallic parasyte.
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Post by HungryHunter on Aug 12, 2017 5:28:51 GMT
Chelsea and Yuu didn't notice Riku's reaction, paying careful attention to the wall. After about 30 seconds, it became very apparent that the zombies on the other side wouldn't get through in 10 days, let alone 10 minutes. Yuu and Chelsea sheathed their swords and turned away. Jane had already taken notice, however. Nobody recognized fear like her. Fear was not a passing emotion in the life of Jane Arachne. Every moment was tainted with unease. When she laughs with her family, in her mind's eye she can't help but think about how one day they would die. When it was late and she was engrossed in a favorite comic, the shadows still whispered loss in her ears.
"It's okay to be afraid." She said to Riku. "You've never seen anything like them either." Jane pointed to her sisters all around her. Hopefully Riku could see her the way she did. Yuu was tall and mighty, fire in her eyes both that of the warming hearth and a defensive ring. Chelsea wasn't a demon at all, her feathered wings ready to carry her to the rescue of mortals. Martha was steel hard all over, a wall of defense. Josefina was almost literally a wall, tall as a mountain, but capable of carrying a butterfly without harm. Even Sidney, underneath her plump, lazy exterior was carrying might within her. She was a black hole, doing what she pleased with gravity. She smiled, a disarming thing. There could be little more harmless and kind looking in the world.
The smile ended when she heard the sludgy thuds of the approaching footsteps. She leaned out the door and saw Josefina already stomping to meet the newcomers. Martha wasted no time and punched a monitor. Her fist easily went right through the glass and her fingers were grasping at wires in an instant. If the monitors were working, there must be a running charge in here. Yuu ran out into the hallway, balking when she saw the mercurial slime on the monsters. The ones in the vent had that as well. It was strange to run into it twice in a row, but perhaps whatever was running this place planned it that way. "Be cautious. We don't know what they can do. Marika, stay here." She ordered as she drew her sword and ran out beside Josefina.
Josefina stomped and the floor cracked. It cracked further as another stone wall rose, much higher than the one blocking the vault. This time the flowers grew nearly to the ceiling before abruptly stopping. Continuing the plant metaphor, it was almost possible to hear an alternate universe lumberjack in a world of stone trees yelling his warning call as the mighty wall toppled right at the cyborgs. Yuu held back and reserved judgement. If this managed to do the trick, so much the better.
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Post by Kuma on Aug 17, 2017 4:10:50 GMT
Riku’s moment of weakness was noticed. He lowered his eyes disappointed on himself. He was sent to this place to get immersed in the Hidden World, Ikari, the teacher he aspired to have, told him to face any kind of enemy, no matter how strange as adaptability was the true weapon of a warrior, the capacity to think on your feet and alter your plans. A regular man might’ve accepted the pity given to him, but the Vengeful Boxer couldn’t do that, he couldn’t just be regular, as if he wanted to fulfill his revenge on his master’s killer he would have to be superlative, he didn’t care if that ended up meaning inhuman.
As the enemies slowly encroached towards them Riku steeled his heart and calmed his mind, his breathing slowing down and his dark red Fighting Spirit slowly sipping out of his body like smoke scrolls coming out a burning log in a fireplace. As he prepared the rest of the Dolls also started getting ready. Martha managed to recharge her gauntlets to a full charge, unless she choose to discharge them in a single blow they would empower half a dozen attacks (with each hand) roughly dishing out enough charge to kill a couple of humans with each charge.
Riku fighting spirit was growing colder and sharper by the second, his face a mask of inhuman calm, with only a flickering flame of anger burning behind his eyes, giving the iris a sinister glow. Some of the monitors nearby suddenly broke, as thin lines appeared on their screens, cracks and cuts caused by the proximity to Riku’s Fighting Spirit. The burning rage inside him not directed to his enemies or to anybody in the room, at least not his companions. His own weakness was sickening him and the armor he had carefully constructed around his heart, that slowly was falling apart during the mission, was reforged by the flames of his self-loathing.
Josefina raised the wall and let it fall down on the creatures. For a moment the satisfying SPLAT, that followed the crashing of stone against concrete, seemed to be a sign of the newcomers demise, yet another sound started echoing on the hallway, a rumbling coming from underneath the slightly slanted wall. The surface of it, facing the ceiling, started to crack as 4 cracks started to form. With an explosion of dust and rock the Zyborgs surfaced, the liquid metal sludge spiralling on their arms like drills. Seemingly whatever that was it could shapeshift and adapt to different situations. Riku, glaring towards them, decided that he needed to fight them, so he charged in, ignoring common sense and tactical precision, the coat of his Fighting Spirit leaving a stream behind him.
The 4 Zyborgs started moving, but unlike his slower counterparts the Benkeiborgs were faster. The metal altering their implants and reinforcing the joints. From heavy and unwielding legs, which seemed more like spare parts from a tank, the liquid sludge shaped them into sleek chromed extremities, condensing all the metal into denser and smaller parts, but giving them elasticity. They looked more like highly advanced running prosthesis and clearly worked as such, as the mummified bodies, also drenched in the substance, were rushing forward at faster than peak speeds. Their arms also changed and upon getting closer the Dolls might notice that the metal seemed to be surging from inside the head, pouring out the orifices.
One of them charged on Riku, another targeted Josefina, still armed with liquid drill hands, a third one grew spikes on the soles and palms of the implants and charged four legged on the wall towards Sidney and the last one jumped, his metallic parts covering his whole body like a tight suit and two winged turbines appearing on its back, clearly reacting to Chelsea and charging towards her with two bladed arms looking for a lunge. It seems that somebody had been monitoring the dolls.
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Post by HungryHunter on Aug 17, 2017 6:20:29 GMT
Yuu lowered her guard when the wall dropped. She had been worried when she saw the extra silvery goo on their bodies. Worry came back when the rumble shook the halls. Her gears ground fast. She had discovered a talent for plots and deception over the past year. She had been forced to. Her abilities were being sorely strained here. Too many factors. Nobody followed orders for more than a few seconds. That just meant she had to try harder. Her body lit up, casting off little flower petals of flame. She watched the monsters drill their way out of the burial trap. They could change the form of their metal. Reminded her of that psychopath Huntsman. Only probably not so easy to light on fire. If it was more liquid, could she melt it?
She lunged for the nearest cyborg, clearly seeking to drill into Josefina. There seemed to be a little more wisdom in their actions as well. A drill was the best weapon they could manifest against Josefina. She wasn't liking this at all. "Josefina, help out Chelsea!" She yelled, intercepting the drilling beast. She swung her short blade in an attempt to deflect the drill hands downwards, using their weight to her advantage. She swept her unarmed hand, attempting to splatter the creature with her sticky tears of fire. She needed to see the results.
Josefina looked at Yuu, pondering whether to stay and help her, but Chelsea's situation drew her to obey. Without footing in the air, she was smacked down by the force of the flying creature's lunge. She fell hard on her back, letting out a harsh grunt. "What the fuck... this is new." She spoke under her breath. It wouldn't do to break her cool facade. She could see even less openings on this thing than the others. Whatever. She was cool. She could do it. She set her footing to block again when Josefina shot a single rock from the floor, aiming to jam up one of the turbines of the monster. "Hey! I had this!" She yelled, covering up a wave of relief. Oh thank god her sister was helping!
Sidney watched the creature approaching her with interest. It was a lot of work to move. But it was a lot more to get stabbed. She hovered away from the wall it climbed, aiming her blaster. She fired at the stilts it dug into the wall. They seemed to be the weakest points. As in it would take her the least effort to do something to them. Now studying this goo? Then she would actually try. She needed to save herself for the exertion.
Martha remained behind for a second, making the glass dance. She moved it effortlessly, like a swarm of insects. She was under no illusions any of this would be useful in the fight. The zyborgs had no arteries to sever, the only real use of her powers. She thought hard about why she was doing it then, when her sisters were outside, facing something down. The answer she liked was that it was a ritual to get her pumped. The answer she didn't was it was her only reminder she had any power at all.
It would be taken away the moment she stepped out and was within earshot of Marika. Marika could demand she crack Jane's head open and she wouldn't have any choice. She growled and looked at her gloves. They were glowy now. She should punch things with them. That was what she understood. That was something she had control over. Images of her nose getting shattered, of being stricken with a whip, of having a hole blown in her leg. She clenched her fist and every monitor in the room exploded outwards. She ignored the shards that rained over her body and the long grey lines they left. Even there she was nothing. She glanced out of the door and saw Riku charging. As shaken as he was, he charged. She didn't see the motivation behind it, just that he was doing it despite inner turmoil.
She followed him, blistering speed carrying her in a wiggling path through the other dolls. She charged the one attacking Riku. She wanted to fight alongside him, like she would absorb his will into herself by doing so. Even if she didn't, maybe there was something else to learn. He had done something creative with his powers, shaped them in ways she didn't think possible. She glanced at her gauntlets and raised one. An entirely new concept rose to the surface of her mind. These gauntlets didn't just let her do what she already did better. They gave her options she didn't have before. She opened her hand and her already spiky hair stood higher. The hallway lit up with the blue glow of lightening, arcing towards the closest monster. Martha was cast in sharp shadows, turned all to angles and facets. Her grin lit up massive and white. "Hey Riku... I just found a new weapon!" She tapped her temple, releasing a jolt of electricity into her cranium. With a look of surprise, she dropped.
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Post by Kuma on Aug 30, 2017 18:12:46 GMT
Yuu reached the front line first, clashing with the arrowhead of the new breed of enemies. The dried up face, fused to the helmet with metallic cobwebs, was the visage nightmares are made off, and it got worse as her flaming tears attached to the liquid metal, propagating through it like a small flame into dry pine needles. For a moment the creature backed off, flames burning every inch of its body, its weapon losing its cohesion. Yet this was just momentary, as the flames quickly died out, as if the sudden combustion was extinguished by unknown means, the strange metal adapted to the threat and forced an instant reduction, expelling any oxygen molecules from its composition stopping the fire from affecting it, that wasn’t all, as as well the surface slowly became misty, as if it suddenly dropped temperature helping the dousing of the flames. Yet the charred marks remained. Something about the attack worked and managed to do so even over physics.
The rock sent flying by Josefina hit the creature’s makeshift device, passing through it like a hammer smashing a watermelon. Droplets of metal expanded outward from the point of impact, not losing connection to the rest, just stretching like bungee cords. With only one propeller the creature’s course, that was already aiming for a second lunge, shifted and it splattered against the nearest wall, besides the boulder thrown by the Golem Doll. The dried husk of a man was cushioned by the puddle of metallic liquid painting the wall, that slowly reformed into backwards legs and arms, raising the body and moving like some kind of grotesque spider climbing up the ceiling and dropping right over Chelsea, turning, with a disgustingly wet screech into a gooey web aiming to trap the Demonic Doll and hinder her movements.
Unlike her sisters’ attacks, Sidney’s blaster did squat against the incoming creature, that without being stunned or damaged, the blast passing through without any complications, jumped directly at the Lazy Doll aiming its arms, shifted into blades, as a gigantic scissor, cutting from up and down, trying to trap and slash Sidney. There was something missing on her attack, something Yuu did have, while the Lazy Doll lacked. As this happened Riku unleashed a veritable storm of fist on the enemy, his eyes gleaming with sinister and desperate intent. Yet his attacks didn’t seem to affect the creature, each blow carved a deep slice into the metal but it reformed, The Vengeful Boxer, even in his current state, knew when to back out and thankfully he did just as the blast of lighting Martha released hit the creature.
Unlike Riku, Martha’s attack was more effective, causing parts of the metal to split apart from the main mass, disintegrating on the air, the rest of it started humming, as if it adapted to resist electrical currents, altering something about it. There was a hidden element in Martha’s and Yuu’s attacks that caused more effect, but what was it? Riku wasn’t in any position to think about it as the enemy stood its ground after the lighting blast and charged forward with an horrible screech, arms turning into large bludgeoning hammers.
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Post by HungryHunter on Aug 30, 2017 21:33:12 GMT
Yuu felt a mixture of surprise and satisfaction when her flames engulfed the creature. It was just as flammable as the regular ones, if not more! The surprise grew and the satisfaction fled when it suddenly extinguished itself. She stepped back, calculating. It looked like they adapted to attacks, but there was only one way to check. "Martha, switch with me!" She had seen the effacity of Martha's attack. At the very least, they should do more damage now.
Martha rose her head off the floor just in time to see a hammer coming down on her. She rolled, narrowly avoiding having her body smashed. She made a mental note to keep the gauntlets far away from her body. She jogged back, still riding high on her revelation. "Fuck yeah! I'll give you a charge!" She thrust out her palm and let forth another blast of electricity. Yuu dove to the ground when she saw the gauntlet being raised, letting the bolt pass overhead. "Be more careful about aiming that thing!" Yuu chided as she scrambled up to rush the hammering abomination facing Riku. She swung her blade right at its weapon, figuring that was an easy target and if it reacted like the other did, she would enflame the whole thing regardless of where she struck.
"Thanks, Josefina! Looks like that won't really work though..." Chelsea looked with sorrow at the creature as it scuttled up the wall. "Why do these ones have to be even cuter!?" She demanded. She admired the strange metallic slime that clung to them. It was like a slug but with mercury slime! There was nothing cuter! The noise it made in its transformation stung her ears, making her cringe. The distraction slowed her reaction to the dropping net and she dove just a fraction of a second too late. The net dropped neatly over her, binding her tightly.
"No no no this is not cute!" She yelled. She hated nets! Nets weren't burnt by hellfire! She shoved her blade against the net, attempting a dragging cut. "I am not being stuck in a net again!" Josefina remained still, wanting to help but unable to grasp the net with her oversized fingers. She looked down at the clumsy appendages and made a low rumble in the earth. There were disadvantages to being so big and strong. "Where's Wolf?" Chelsea yelled. He would be helpful!
"Huh." Sidney said as she put the blaster back into her pocket. "That doesn't work." She dropped sharply, taking a gash across her shoulder but saving the rest of her body. She landed on the ground and looked to Marika, out of the way in the back. She grabbed her shoulder and tilted her head. "Mind if I try your guns?" She asked. "No, but I'll shoot that fucking thing! Now I have to fix your coat, your shirt, and your shoulder! Unacceptable!" Marika fired off her guns with the usual level of aim, making up for it with sheer volume of fire. This stupid fucking thing dared to harm her creations!? She was almost as mad at it as she was at Martha for nearly shocking Yuu!
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Post by Kuma on Sept 4, 2017 21:58:39 GMT
Eastern Wolf was a bit shocked. He had been, in part, lying the whole time. He truly was from another world and he thought the Scientists wanted to copy his designs but across the years, going in and out of stasis to reserve energy, he never saw the Zyborgs move, not even once. He didn’t even lose his weapon to them, like he would do such a dumb thing. The Cybernetic Canine got blackout drunk and lost his weapon, at first, when he saw the Zyborgs moving the decided to blame them, to save face and manage to finally leave the complex with the help of Marika’s team. Now that he was seeing the Benkeinium covered Zyborgs he knew what was forcing them to move and this kind of surprised stopped him from reacting properly. He heard Chelsea’s scream and charged in to help, yet his fangs passed through the net without cutting it.
Marika’s attacks were even less effective as her doll, the blasts not even bothering the creature, that kept moving on the roof towards them. They were less effective because it seemed that each shot not only didn’t wound the creature, but made it bigger. Finally the Benkeiborg dropped from above, a loud crack followed his fall, the concrete underneath it cracking and buckling thanks to the weight of the now engorged being lifting one of its upper extremities, too alien to be called an arm at the moment, which inflated into a massive spike filled hammer, dropping over Marika and Sidney, aiming to crush them beneath them. If Chelsea was paying attention she would start noticing something, maybe first on the enemy attacking Marika and Sidney, and then the ones fighting Yuu and Martha. The creatures had, strangely, start emitting spiritual energy, the same energy Marika, Yuu and Martha had.
In the case of the ones who fought her sisters the energy was focused on the places they hit. While Marika’s target seemingly was controlling whatever transference of energy her attacks caused, increasing her strength. The one Yuu was aiming right now, the one fighting Riku, was also getting an influx of energy, this time from Riku as he was launching several dozens punches per second, hacking and slashing with cold fury, trying to slice off pieces of the creature he was fighting, but to no avail, in fact, the more he attacked the faster the being regenerated. -DIE!- Riku focused his Fighting Spirit and connected his fist in a downward motion, creating a large gash in the creature’s chest, yet lines of goo jumped from side to side of the crevice he sliced open and closed up the wound even faster than it appeared. The being, seemingly recuperated, and better than before, from Martha’s attack went into the offensive.
Riku had overcommitted on his zealous offensive and was most likely about to get his neck chopped apart, but thankfully for him Yuu’s attack managed to stun the monster, giving Riku enough time to jump away. He couldn’t understand what was happening, as his usually inquiring mind was too focused on eliminating the enemy to be open to any other tactic apart from frontal assault. He nodded with a grunt, recognizing her help, as he paced around the creature, trying to look for an opening. A flash of lighting illuminated the hallway as Martha shot her Gauntlets. The creature was pushed back, but it wasn't as effective as the first time, something was missing, some Yuu had in spades while Martha only had sporadically.
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Post by HungryHunter on Sept 6, 2017 18:49:03 GMT
"Argh, what are these things!?" Chelsea wailed. "Have you seen them before, Wolf?" She hopelessly tried to cut the net, blade as useless as Wolf's teeth. She had begun to despair when Jane came running up. "Hold still!" She was staring around in terror of an actively aggressive monster coming near. "What? No! I mean, just... don't ruin my sword!" Chelsea guarded her blade with her body. Jane nodded and with shaky hands sprayed foam to hopefully melt away enough of the net to free Chelsea.
"...Marika, stop." Sidney felt the slightest twitch of emotion at the growing beast. She almost wanted to laugh at how horribly this was going. Who knew her creator could make monsters start growing? It was weird, none of the other monsters seemed to grow, and the ones Martha and Yuu were hitting seemed to actually be getting hurt. She hovered with her legs crossed, pondering what she knew about everybody involved as the hammer came down. "What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Marika screamed, shoving Sidney out of the way. Fortunately for her, the weightless Sidney was easy to move and she too ended up out of the hammer's range, although shrapnel poured down over them.
"Hm? Oh, thanks." Sidney only now seemed to notice she had nearly died. "So I think the problem is you're evil." She said. "Of course, to test that I would need a way to objectively measure evil, which is currently beyond my abilities. For now, we just need to get rid of it. Josefina, is there a pit beneath us anywhere in this hallway?" "Don't you start talking to her! You just said I'm evil, you bitch! You can't just change the subject!" Marika screamed, but she was ignored.
Josefina tilted her head, then shook it. "Well, guess that plan's out. Think about something good and try to be like that." Sidney said to Marika. "Don't you tell me what to do!" Marika yelled, but Yuu and Miles came to mind automatically. Her heart softened just the slightest bit. She raised her guns and shot again at the giant creature, her aim for once true now that her target was phenomenally huge.
Martha noticed her strike didn't do as much as last time. Was it adapting? Was that what it did? What would a smart person do? She looked around, but the smart people weren't really doing anything especially clever. Sidney was standing around, Yuu was defending Riku. She was new to this thinking in battle thing. Maybe try a different attack. "The bolts I've been pumping you with aren't even what I'm good at! Here's my real skill!" She declared, and her feet carried her with lightening swiftness at the beast. She flew off the ground to strike it sneaker first, seeking to smash it right off its feet, the biggest grin she had ever mustered on her face.
Yuu looked at Riku as she raised her sword. "I can tell they frighten you. That's okay. But when you attack with so much rage, I think it hurts you more than them. Hating your opponent... is tempting. But it's so easy to make hate your default. And it's hard to come back. I don't know if you can, sometimes." Yuu didn't appear to be talking about herself, not entirely. She looked back at Marika and saw her save Sidney. She gasped, then smiled. Her tears flowed harder than ever, and her flames went high. "Never mind all that, Riku. I'm just a woman who likes to talk. Of course people can come back from that. You just have to give them a chance. And sometimes, bump them in the right direction." Her smile seemed brighter than her flames as she swung her blade right for the monster's neck.
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Post by Kuma on Sept 11, 2017 2:12:29 GMT
-I’ve never seen zem beforrre damsel.- Wolf was truthful about this, as he had never seen the living metal before. He kept biting and clawing at the net, but it wasn’t working, the substance phased through his body as if he was sinking his claws in water, it never ceased to be connected. The Cybernetic Canine jumped away upon seeing Jane moving forward. The small Doll caustic emission hit the net, slowly corroding it and allowing Chelsea’s freedom. Just like the others, what remained of the creature was infused with the same spiritual wavelength as Jane’s, meaning that somehow her attack sent a portion of energy, in this case while attempting to help and protect her sister, into the creature. Maybe that was where the key of this selective weakness laid.
Marika kept pumping negative vibes into the creature, gone was the husk of a body, lost underneath a veritable cuirass of living metal. The being, that was already large to begin with now matched in size with Josefina and, upon noticing the fact, decided to attack the Golem Doll, throwing a double hammer blow with both hands grasping each other, turning into a gigantic mace of solidified Benkeinium. If anybody apart from Josefina took this they could end turned into a very thin, very bloody, smear of paste in the wall. Meanwhile, Martha was seizing up with another of the beings, this time with a flying kick, but it was less effective than before, she passed through the creature that spun around to follow her, it’s body flowing into a new position instead of just turning around. The bladed arms started moving, at least on the edge, becoming liquid chainsaws, attempting to cut Martha on the legs and side.
Riku’s expression grew sour as Yuu spoke to him, he was gone, swallowed by his anger and sadness, too far away for her words to truly reach him. The only thing they did was make him angrier, remembering the day his master was killed, the pain, the anguish and the burning rage that were trusted into his heart, like a knife, piercing through his flesh and reaching the very core of his soul. Maybe he had been forgetting that, incapable of adapting fast enough to the torrent of new information given to him, but at the moment the last thing he wanted to hear was somebody telling him about what he was feeling. Without waiting for her to end his rushed forward and unleashed a barrage of punches, his red fighting spirit slowly growing darker, sharper and colder. This time around he wasn’t creating small wounds, but large gashes, almost able to see through the monster with each attack.
Yet this wasn’t going to help, as each strike increased the being’s mass, thankfully for him Yuu lunged forward and her own attack caused the being to explode, not without using its last strength to pummel Riku into the ground with a hammer-like arm, that dissipated into particles after leaving the Vengeful Boxer in a small crater, with blood spurting out of his mouth and nostrils.
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Post by HungryHunter on Sept 11, 2017 4:44:47 GMT
"Well, I guess you're still too evil." Sidney said when the monster continued to grow. "Shut up! You're evil! You're a mad scientist!" Marika yelled back. "You cut people up and stick their parts together. That's mad. I once turned the fridge into a giant toaster. That's genius." "That was the stupidest fucking thing anybody's ever done! You toasted all the eggs and milk!" Marika's scream nearly drowned out the noise of Josefina blocking the blow with one arm. The defending arm fell to the floor, smashed in half. Josefina didn't let a little thing like that stop her. She had to keep this thing from crushing her small sisters. They were so fragile. She ducked a little to throw a thunderous body blow, then a shoulder check to shove it down the hallway way from her siblings.
Chelsea lunged free as soon as the gap was large enough, a good portion of her coat and part of her shirt not making the trip, weakened by Jane's acid. "Strip my body, I will not complain, for always I lay my soul bare!" Chelsea wildly gesticulated with her sword. "I only put a few holes in your shirt, you're hardly naked..." Jane mumbled as she sprayed with full force at the net's remnants. I can't let it catch us again! Not with the big one stomping around! "Wolf, stay back! This stuff will melt you!" She warned.
Yuu blinked in surprise. I wasn't expecting it to blow up. She thought, looking down at Riku. Her surprise turned to horror at the extent of the damage. She swallowed her panic and knelt to check his pulse. That was the most important thing, wasn't it? She had never had to do first aid on a human. Dolls could survive pretty much anything so long as their string wasn't destroyed. They usually just needed a stitch or two and they were fine. Humans had all kinds of organs and vessels and stuff.
Her eyes widened at the solution. "Marika! I need you to help Riku!" She yelled over to the seamstress. Marika looked up and ran over past the others to stop near Yuu. "Huh? What do you need me for!?" She hadn't really ever thought about how Yuu never asked her for help, but it was true. Yuu was always the one who helped others, with an aura of omnicompetence to the naive monster she raised. "Riku got hit bad. I need you to make sure he's alright, and if he's not, make him alright." Yuu took Marika's hands. "Can I count on you?" She seemed to plead. "...well, I guess. But if he dies, I'm taking his scalp and eyes." She began overlooking his body. If he seemed at risk of bleeding out, she would inject him with some of her poison to slow down his system.
"I... okay, Marika. That's fair." Yuu stood up and ran away, igniting on her way to Martha. She had figured it out now, at least to an extent. She had done more damage as she grew more positive and pure, defended the others more. Martha was backing away from the one she was fighting, not seeing an opening with its chainsaw arms waving at her. "Martha, flank it!" Yuu yelled, diving in front of Martha to catch one of its arms with her blade. She wasn't so quick to stop the other and it dug into her thigh, slowly carving deeper.
Martha grit her teeth and ran at Yuu's back. "Hey! Get off of her! I'm the one who takes hits around here!" She jumped, springboarding off Yuu's shoulder to go over the monster's head. She did a spinning kick in midair, foot sailing right at the monster's head at the same time as she cast a bolt at its torso. She fully expected it to turn on her again, but that was fine. She was tough.
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Post by Kuma on Sept 14, 2017 3:59:34 GMT
Josefina’s counterattack was successful, whatever she was fighting for seem to be worth it, as her fist connected against the attacking Benkeiborg and splattered against the worn out concrete wall with a sickening SPLASH. The dried up husk exploded into a pile of dust as the implants fell to the floor with a loud clank. The liquid metal attached to it seemed to seize up, maybe the fusion wasn’t as strong as it seemed on the beginning, the glistening gray liquid expanded and contracted without any semblance of rhythm or symmetry with different parts bulging out while others sunk so deep shadows covered the surface. Finally, after a mute scream of a faceless being, the substance exploded, falling apart into smaller bits that slowly leaked dissolved into the cracks of the concrete floor. She didn’t even need the shoulder check, it would be overkill.
Jane’s continued spray managed to do the trick, melting the enemy in front of her, which slowly sipped into the cracks of the floor and the ones created by her foam droplets touching it. The Technological Abomination was no match against her attack. Chelsea, from her current standpoint could see the transfer of warm Spiritual Energy or Aura through her sister’s attack, something inside Jane and the others, was having a definitive effect on the enemies, especially on the metallic parts. While this happened Marika was moving towards Riku. He wasn’t as damaged as Yuu thought, the Spirit Boxer was just dazed after getting hit, every ounce of breath robbed from his lungs by the impact. Most of the blunt force of the attack was cushioned by his quick displacement of Fighting Spirit from Offense to Defense. Apart from a bleeding nose and a couple of very bruised ribs he was more or less okay. His pride and determination were another story altogether.
Yuu’s and Martha’s combo was more than enough to keep the remaining Benkeiborg on the defensive, using his dangerous looking limbs more as limit than an attack, trying to box them in, but the Dolls cooperation was born from battle after battle, tested in combat before, while the Benkeinium moving this body wasn’t smart, it moved by instinct seeking negative emotions to feed off on, like some kind of bad vibes parasite. For a moment it seemed it wanted to attack the incoming Martha, but it stopped seeing her as her resolve crystallized in a brutal combo shocking and kicking it with amazing coordination and speed. The Benkeiborg collapsed, the metal vacating the husk and drilling into the ground. The implants looked weird, as if part of them, what made them work, actually was Benkeinium, maybe this was happening since the start of this journey.
The commline opened again and through some static and interference the sound of automated turrets shooting reached all of them. Moments after this bizarre communication started the voice of Shikishima was shouting over it. -WE FUCKED UP! WE FUCKED THE FUCK UP!- He stopped and shot his flamethrower, the blaze almost causing feedback on the comm out of the sheer noise of it. -WE KICKED A HORNET’S NEST!- More shooting, bullets hitting metal and ricocheting off. -MASAKO HIHASHI IS INSIDE THAT PLACE! FUCKING MASAKO HIHASHI! THINGS ARE BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE! DON'T COME HERE!- Most won’t recognize the name, but if Yuu had frequented enough the Mercenary circles she might have caught the name, as Masako was one of the Top Wanted in the JHWAB Hit List.
Formerly a mundane delinquent, a very impressive one, to the point he was known as the Schoolboy Terrorist, involved in one of the bloodiest incidents in recent Japanese History, something the media decided to call “The Blood Donation from Hell” as Masako took over a school and demanded blood in exchange of releasing hostages. Seemingly he was killed by a sniper and a hard drop from a rooftop, but that didn’t kill him, just kicked in dormant powers he never knew he had, as he was some kind of Genetic Experiment called a “Reitter”. He was dangerous as an Esper, but later he ended up fusing with an Alien Metal and became an extremely dangerous criminal and more frightening a full fledge cannibal, declaring himself the Apex Predator of Earth. If he actually was inside the complex, which evidence pointed to, it was indeed bad news for the group.
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Post by HungryHunter on Sept 14, 2017 6:03:21 GMT
"Interesting. Perhaps it's not based on moral duality after all. There goes the ethiscope." Sidney scrapped her mental plans. Josefina had gone from not hurting the monster at all to demolishing it. I need to do more tests. Sidney picked up a few pieces that could fit together as a container and searched for an intact droplet of the living metal as the remaining zyborgs lost form.
Josefina just straightened up and felt the stump of her arm while she thought about what had changed. Perhaps there was just a difference between helping her sisters and protecting them that made the later hurt monsters? It made sense to her. She was good at defending. She was a mighty wall. She stomped her foot through the floor to begin slurping up mud into her demolished limb, slowly rebuilding it. "Hey, Josefina." She looked down at Sidney, who had paused in her search. "Ah, never mind. You know you did a good job, no need to tell you." She shrugged and smiled. Josefina raised her good arm and gave Sidney a massive thumbs up.
Chelsea felt the twitch of demonic instinct in the back of her head. Something weird was going on, but she couldn't know what with her regular eyes. She blinked and switched her eyes to their demonic form to investigate. In the last droplets of Benkeinium, she saw spiritual traces, unlike before. And stranger than that, they were Jane's. She immediately snapped her eyes to the one Martha and Yuu were working together on and found not only their soul's signatures in it but Riku's as well. It was stealing their souls? No, that wasn't it. She closed her eyes to think. She was on the verge of getting it, she just knew.
Jane noticed none of this, just thrilled she could help. "I did it! Did you see that, Wolf! Are you okay, Chelsea?" She wiped the foam off her hands onto the floor, where it made shallow impressions of her fingers, and hugged Wolf's neck. "I'm fine... coat's ruined though." Chelsea bit back everything else she had to say. Sneering at Jane to stay in the back, telling her she was no help. It was a reaction to being vulnerable. She had to guard that open heart with a wall of hellfire. "Our hearts, never placed in our chests, our greatest weapons, nonetheless." She spoke her thoughts on the substance's reaction to their souls as poetically as she could muster.
Marika snorted after looking Riku over. "Oh, get up you pussy. You're fucking fine besides the ribs, and I can't do anything about those with you lying down." She grabbed his arms and tried to pull him into a sitting position. "Take off your jacket and shirt. I don't have any ice, but I can wrap it in some padding." She ordered, opening up her backpack to pull out a roll of soft bandages. She stopped when she saw Yuu's injury. "Yuu!" She cried. "No, Marika, I'm alright. You patch Riku up, I'll handle myself." Yuu fell against a wall and slid down to rest on the damp floor.
She winced at first glance. Like most doll injuries, it was bloodless, but that just gave her a better look at her shredded muscle. It was like a horrible canyon, with a bit of bone at the bottom like the river. Well, if Riku was going to get patched up in front of others, she didn't get any special preference. She pulled her pants down to her knees and shuddered at the cold of the stone beneath her. She pulled a needle from a nearly invisible pocket on her sweater and threaded it. It stung as she pushed it in and pulled it out of her flesh, but it didn't slow her fingers. Within a minute, she had reunited both ends of the wound.
She pulled her pants up and shakily stood. She hissed through her teeth and nearly collapsed. Only a kunai jabbed into the wall as a hand hold kept her on her feet. "Your pants back on?" Martha asked, facing the other way. "Yes. I'm sorry, I forgot about your issues with that." Yuu was wondering how she would proceed until Martha got under her arm. "I don't have issues, underwear is just weird and nobody wants to see it!" She argued. "How long until you can walk?" The answer was precluded by the comlink going off. Yuu listened, ignoring the unfamiliar name for a second to think about the mad scientist's situation.
They had just figured out the weakness of this new form of zyborg, and it seemed likely that was what he faced. They could help him if they told him how they could be defeated. Yuu's face took on an uncommon hardness when she thought of his behavior. "He couldn't use the answers if he had them." She decided out loud. "Riku, do you know a Masako Hihashi?" Yuu had never used her false identification to seek the company of other bounty hunters and mercenaries. They weren't her kind of people. Most of them, anyway. Not to mention, some certainly would recognize the woman she masqueraded as due to association.
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