World Tree MUSH

    On the outskirts of Bonne Bon, in contrast to the pastoral architecture something of a tent town has accumulated itself, all sitting in the shadow of the Eschaton Machine.

    https://i.imgur.com/oHM8Y98.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqwxBnNxWU
    Eternal Sanctity - Flashygoodness
    Tower of Heaven - 2009

    The huge, tron-lined rectangular object continues to hover just above ground level, never doing all that much except being hit by the occasional lightning strike, but for some reason the shanty town sees much more regular movement. Here the Roshtonari are busy moving among the people who have ... well, 'accumulated' seems to be the best word for it, and who have traded a life of milling about aimlessly in town for milling about aimlessly on the outskirts of town. Nobody quite seems to know what goes on over here, least of all Iron Lotus, who has decided to come here to explore a short time after meeting up with Astra.

    "It's not the most salubrious of places, but I'd hardly consider it a step up or down from what was going on in town honestly," she says, with her hands in her pockets. She takes a glance back at Astra, wondering what it is exactly she wants them to do here.

Emily crosses her arms, looking up at the monolith with a the-bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall expression; she's back in the form of a silvery-haired woman who looks vaguely like Dante except with her hair in a ponytail and with glowing purple eyes, dressed in a green trench coat, a black bandeau bikini top, black jeans, and combat boots.

"I 'unno," she says. "I'm more inclined to move as fast as we can towards putting an end to all of this for the better." She shoots Lotus a thin-lipped smile. "Also, 'salubrious' is a good word," she adds. "But anyway, releasing capacitor seals three and two. Just in case."

She's surrounded by three distinct auras, gold, silver, and pearlescent; the first two shatter, and the third fades. Then, in a swirl of what appears to be silvery glitter, a silver falchion with an ornate handle materializes on her back.

    Luke seems to have a knack for hearing about the weirdest things, includnig the rumours about the town and... even stranger things!. Being the bold kid explorer he is, of course he had to take a look at it, makign his way around flanked by Dynamo, just for safety, one never knows what might happen!. He makes his way close enough to spot the monolith, and after gawking (and snapping a few pictures), he tries to slowly move closer, likely making his way near Emily and company, if they are paying attention they might spot the young teen and the weird 'tiger'.

"Well, we need to get inside if we're going to stop Roshtonari!" Of course the fact that it's floating above the ground makes it a bit difficult for Astra to get inside. "I tried using a step ladder before but they wouldn't let me any further then the entrance!" She explains why she hasn't gone inside on her own. "Hopefully you have enough firepower to take them apart!" She's not above using violence to get rid of them if that's what's going to take.

Iron Lotus acknowledges that we have a couple of new people in the group, she makes no comment about the people who have left since we were last here because she's not really a judgemental or even very opinionated sort of person but she does at least gesture that she's happy to see Luke again, him being one of the other people who first helped her out upon her arrival to the multiverse. 

    "Now hold on," she says to Astra, "Are we really going in there guns blazing? I don't think that the ... three of us could make a dent in that thing even if we brought our A-game, it's practically the size of a skyscraper-" Possibly not really the reference she was making, but multiversal translation convention does wonders in this situation- "You might be expecting a little too much of us." 

    She could say 'maybe if that Broly guy was still here', but she holds her tongue.

    She takes a look over the situation. Many of the Roshtonari seem to mostly be standing around and talking with people- admittedly those people are very much enthralled by what's being said to them and look quite stupefied but some of them are talking back at least, and of those people who are putting up tents and stalls it doesn't seem obvious whether they're being made to do it or not.

    Luke is not sure he can take a whole skyscrapper, but he thinks he can knock down a two story house at least, maybe a couple of them!, especially if he had time to prepare!. In any case, he is glad to see a couple familiar faces... assuming Emily is in a familiar shape, at the very least, Dynamo might recognize her by some electric/energy signature, being an electrically attuned kitty. The pair approaches the others with a grin, "Hey!" he offers in a greeting, noticing the fact Emily had a Fachion on, and catching the last bit, "Wait, are we goign to try to take down something?" he asks, while Dynamo pauses to stare at the aliens, tilting it's head, before moving to nuzzle Emily, friendly zap tiger thing.

"It's huge, but there has to be a way to bring it down from the inside. We don't have a choice if we don't stop them, Bon Bonne is going to get destroy like the rest of the world!" Astra looks like she's almost ready to try and storm regardless if she has to go inside alone or not. Her attention turns towards Luke, "Hello, I'm sorry I must have missed you earlier." Her attention turns towards the tiger wondering if its claws are sharp enough to cut through metal.

Emily's form is more likely to be familiar if you've seen Dante or Vergil, but she has the same voice and glowing purple eyes she usually does. "Hey, Luke!" she says, and she chuckles, scritching the tiger.

She pauses, though, as Lotus and Astra talk about forcing the issue. "Mm. If I turned off capacitor seal 1 ..." She still isn't saying who won her little spar with Broly. But then she just shrugs noncommittally, seeming oddly reluctant. "Eh."

She rises up off the ground slightly, and looks over at the nearest Roshtonari. "I 'unno ... they are messing with people's heads, which is generally a quick ticket to my antipathy ..." One hand hesitantly reaches up to grasp the handle of her sword.

    Lotus gives Luke a confused, noncommital look- she's not entirely sure about this. Unlike the others, she at least has a passing familiarity with the Roshtonari, seeing as they are ostensibly aliens from her reality- although all she really knows about them is their undeniable urge to proselytize about their ancient faith and about their gods, whom they claim were ancient when the universe was young.

    Astra's passion is certainly hard to deny though, and there's something sinister about this whole situation that she can't deny either. She gives Astra another critical look, as if trying to find something within the girl standing in front of her- but her gaze doesn't linger for too long, as she turns back to the milling crowd.

    Emily seems to be willing to make the decision for all of them, and Lotus says awkwardly "Can't deny that something about this really doesn't feel right," trying to search for an answer that doesn't seem evitable given the resources they currently have. 

    Her circuit-enhanced brain quickly tries to go over the data they currently have, trying her best to calculate an answer, and at the very least Lotus can agree that it seems like having all of these people undergoing dereliction of their duty to the community is a bad thing as they all gather under this Roshtonari flag. So maybe trying to break this up, violently or not, might be the best idea under the circumstances and it'll make Astra feel happy, and thus more inclined to help give them answers. So...

    Since none of them are making an effort to hide themselves, they've attracted the attention of at least one of the Roshtonari, who lopes over towards them with that strange almost wading-like motion. It cranes its head down to look at them, the single red eye swivelling to scan each of them.

    "Hello there, it is good to see you. I hope you're having a good daycycle. Would you have the time for some discussion with me? Would you like to hear the good word of the gods today?"

    ...seems reasonable enough?

Emily notices the approaching figure well in advance, and immediately lowers her hand and settles back onto the ground. "Just gonna say," she says quietly to Astra. "I'm not ... well-versed in the ways of the World Tree. But one thing that's always true everywhere is that killing is a line you can't un-cross."

And then she turns her amused and faintly smug smile on the approaching figure. "Gods?" she says, sounding amused. "We never found any gods where I'm from." She shrugs. "Or maybe they just went extinct along with the humans. Buuuuuut I suppose we can at least listen for a moment."

    Luke smiles and waves to Emily, moving closer, one hand on his belt, as if preparing to do something, but is distracted by the greeting from Astra, "Hi!, I'm Luke Grey, nice to meet you." he says, noticing the curiosity, "That's Dynamo, my Electiger, he is quite fearsome in battle." he tries. Dynamo certainly does not look like the kind of creature built for physical combat, it is basically a fluffy ball with tiger features! not really inspiring confidence, at least on a glance. The fact it purrs and brushes happily when petted by Emily also does not scream 'fighter'. 

     All that chatter pauses as the alien makes its way close to them, Dynamo pausing the purring and standing on attention, ears splaying a bit, while Emily might get a small burst of static from it, the round tiger tense and ready to jump, if the alien seems to threaten Luke, even if right now it looks fairly friendly.

    The boy tries a wave and a grin, "Hello!, I appreciate the offer but..." he pauses as Emily seems to consider the offer.

Well, the tiger certainly is large but it doesn't look very fierce to Astra. Maybe it could short circuit them at least? "I certainly would like an explanation why no one except me cares about the world being destroyed!" Her friendly tone that she had towards Luke earlier vanishes. "What did you to them and how could your gods justify it!" She's certainly not as imposing as the alien but she wants some answer from them.

    The Roshtonari leans its head and body back a little as Astra tears into it, seemingly a little taken aback by her aggressiveness. For her part Lotus says nothing but remains on guard- unlike the others she knows that there's something a little dangerous about engaging a Roshtonari in conversation, you can always find it a little too easy to listen to them for too long, so she's going to just hang back here and see how things pan out.

    "We have accumulated a small following so far who are eager to hear the stories of Alinix, Tobashri and the Gom-Jabbar," it explains as it indicates the people nearby. "It provides some solace in these trying times to people who appear to be lost and confused. If you'd like to stay a while we can certainly entertain you with a parable if that is something you would like. The Roshtonari are currently doing their best to care about the current situation- the Eschaton Machine is hard at work calculating how much time is left before the end of the world."

    For all of its menacing nature it doesn't seem as if anything the Roshtonari says is /evil/ necessarily. But just as you may begin to think things are too easy here, you may begin to notice something mysterious tickle your sixth sense- Emily might recognize this as similar to what she needed to do in order to recognize the Eschaton Machine's presence in the first place- and take note that there is certainly something overly soothing and potentially even hypnotic about every word the Roshtonari says. 

    Can you really trust it?

    Luke is certainly a bit curious about the alien, quite a new sight for him, and while he si not necessarily looking to be converted into a religion... what's the harm in listening them, right?. There is that nagging sense of something being off, but maybe they are being misunderstood?. He is the least familiar with the situation here in any case!. Dynamo perks his ears for a moment as the alien speaks and lets out a growl, having been in the receiving end of mental and hypnotic attacks in teh past, it can certainly notice something is weird on the way these things talk, and marches towards Luke, headbumping the boy's side, vocalizing softly. "Hey Dynamo, calm down." comes the reply from the boy.

Emily just smiles as Luke and then Astra speaks. Astra is asking the good questions here.

But the instant she feels that prickle in the back of her mind? Her entire expression looks forced and strained, and she balls her hands into fists, digging her fingers deep enough into her palms that it slightly damages the nanomachines making up her skin, leaving minuscule silvery scars. And when she notices that Luke seems completely taken in? Her fists start to shake.

She suddenly draws her sword, and points it at the figure in front of them. "Pass," she says. "If your words were sweet enough on their own, you wouldn't need to mess with peoples' heads. Rel--"

And then she stops herself from releasing her last capacitor seal, once again glancing at Luke, Astra, and Lotus. But she doesn't lower her sword.

Astra on the other hand isn't persuaded at all by the Roshtonari. "All your technology can do is calculate the end of the world? It can't do anything all to stop it! Don't listen them or you'll end up not caring about anything like the other villagers!" She wraps her hands the alien as she tries to silence it. "Just leave Bon Bonne already if you're not going to help us!" The teenager is visibly red at this point. She's not capable of doing any real harm to the Roshtonari but maybe she can get the others to stop listening at least.

    Luke doesn't seem to be all that perturbed by what's going on but Emily certainly is, which causes the Roshtonari to take a step back in surprise. It didn't expect to be confronted with a weapon like this, especially not so suddenly. It's confused momentarily. 

    Sensing that violence may break out, Lotus does her best to try and interject. "We're being led to believe that these people are not in their right minds, which means it's unfair for you to accumulate so many of them here in this tent town. They're derelicting their duty towards the community and their fellow citizens, and should return to their regular lives."

    "But they are hardly doing very much of anything with their lives as it stands, are they?" the Roshtonari fires back, seemingly a little incensed. To Astra, it turns to look at her and replies, quite earnestly but also blunt, "We are helping. The people appreciate what we are doing for them."

    "They wouldn't if they were in their right minds," Lotus fires back.

    "How can you be so sure what is and isn't their right minds?" the Roshtonari replies.

    The air between everyone is tense. The next few moments will need to be handled very carefully.

    Luke seems a bit taken aback by the ferocity from Astra and Emily, blinking a few times, "Is something wrong?" he asks, apparently quite well into the effect of the words. The pokemon is growling louder and bumping against the boy again and again, more forceful each time, until it suddenly gets fed up and shocks the stubborn teen, who yelps and jumps back, shaking his head, "Hey!, what was that for!... wait... what were we talking about?" he mumbles, "Did something happen?".

Emily glances at Luke. "He's mind-controlling you, kiddo," she says, in what sounds eerily similar to her usual lackadaisical tone, but there's something slightly ... off. Almost threatening, even.

She smiles sweetly at the Roshtonari, and pauses for a moment. "Y'know, strange though some people might find it," she says. "I do, in fact, have a single solitary ethical injunction." Her grin widens. "And that is that I fight fair. Directly altering the throw of other peoples' thoughts ... isn't." She gestures with her sword. "Now, here's what's going to happen: at the end of the next ten seconds, one of two things will cease. It's your choice whether it's your attempts to control the three of us ... or several of your vital systems, which I imagine aren't supposed to have ... blades inside of them." Her grin turns positively nasty. "So which'll it be? Nine ... eight ..."

>> SUMMARY[Emily Nyx] >> Emily goes full-on supervillain-threatening.

"Shut up, just shut up!" Astra is crying at this point as she struggles to slam the Roshtonari into the ground. "Everyone was happy before you arrived! They do this to everyone they talk to. I don't know why I'm not affected!" She tries to explain to the others despite the rage. Her attention then turns towards Emily wondering if she'll actually go through with the threat.

    The young teen is quick to put pieces together, shaking his head and glancing back at Dynamo, who was back to gently bumping against the boy, "Thank you." he says, blinking afew times, "You... were messing with my head!" he calls. 

     Dynamo glances back to Luke and the others before apparently deciding Emily has the right idea, growling loudly as electric sparks begin to fly from it's round shape, power clearly building on the big round cat as it glares at the weird alien, moving a bit closer, standing right between the trainer and the other creature. "I... think you should stop." Luke tells the Alien, before glancing back at his pokemon, it certainly looks angry.

    The Roshtonari is not violent, but mostly just confused- it's doing its best to fend off Astra, with all the mannerisms of someone who is entirely unconfident and genuinely taken by surprise- which makes Lotus pause as maybe, just maybe, it's possible that the Roshtonari here are just...

    "Astra," she says cautiously, "What if it's not the Roshtonari? What if it's something else and they're just as confused by all of this as us?"

    She puts a hand on Luke's shoulder. "Ugh, this is too complicated a platform to argue on. The Roshtonari naturally hypnotise people. They can't even help doing it. I don't even expect their language has a word for 'hypnotise'... this argument is way too complicated."

    Emily presses the issue, and Lotus turns around and addresses her again, louder this time. "Emily I don't think they can help it. I know about the Roshtonari, they're from my universe. They don't mean to do it, they just... talk to people and put them under their thumb naturally."

    She slumps. "Shit, this is complicated. Astra, I don't think that these guys are as bad as you think they are, like I mean I know you don't like them but I don't think they're malicious. But on the other hand they do have this big group of people all here which shouldn't really be here, and I don't know how to deal with them..."

    Lotus remembers a time when she was an excellent public speaker, but the memories are dead and dry in her mind and nothing really inflames a passion for oratory any more. 

    "Guys, what are we going to do? How are we going to get these people to go back to their homes? I mean should they even? Maybe they /are/ happy here right now. I don't know whether what the Roshtonari are doing is wrong or not."

Emily stops counting down when Lotus interrupts her. She keeps her sword pointed at the Roshtonari for another moment ... and then slowly lowers it. Only halfway, though. "I feel that this piece of information should have come up sooner, Iron Lotus," she says, her smile never wavering. "And in any event, I find myself ... not wholly convinced that 'it's in their nature' is a justification for not getting in their way." She looks to Astra and Luke, as if hoping they have a more solid word on the subject.

Astra releases the Roshtonari but it's clear she's still quite upset as she turn towards Lotus. "If they can't control it then they should certainly leave, since they're not helping by being around! Well, everyone here ignores me so I don't think I can get them to return home..." She's quite frustrated right now. "Maybe, they'll listen to you.

 For now her attention turns to doing something about the storm, "Um Luke, can Dynamo control lightning?" Maybe they could redirect it so it doesn't hit Bon Bonne. Her attention turns back towards Roshtonari, "Maybe you can do something useful and tell us how long until the storm hits?" Of course she doesn't trust the alien to tell the truth but it's not like they have anything else to go on.

Luke Gray slowly snaps his fingers, "Dynamo, stop please.". The electric pokemon seems a bit hesitant to stop, but calms down for the most part, still a bit tense, but moving back to the boy's side, letting out a growling noise. "Just because... it's natural for them to do that it doesn't mean it's fine for them to go around hypnotising everyone." he says softly, "There are pokemon that do that back home, but that does not excuse them from abusing that on people... or other pokemon, outside of actual battling or self defense." he grumbles a bit, "Sorry, Dynamo is a bit over protective.". 

     Astra's question gets Luke and Dynamo's attention, "Dynamo can channel electricity from teh storm, but... he'd need somewhere to send it, he is not quite as good at holding energy as most electric types... he is less of a battery and more of a generator." he says softly. He reaches to pet the nervous electric type. "But, wth a proper lighting rod or something for him to send the power to, I think he can potentially drain all the energy from the storm, or at least redirect most of it."

"Sorry," is all Lotus can say to Emily, again rubbing her forehead. "I guess the Roshtonari's dialogue interfered with my processors long enough to make me forget to mention it sooner rather than later." 

    She's a little confused as Emily goes on, so Lotus listens carefully to what Luke has to say as he explains. She makes a whirring sound of discontent, "Can't deny that you're right."

    She looks back at the Roshtonari, which has gone silent now as it just stands and watches them for the moment. "Just because this comes as natural to you as breathing does to us, doesn't make what you're doing to these people right either." 

    Astra talks up to the Roshtonari again. 

    "You are Astra Alexander, correct? The exile. It's likely that people do not listen to you because they hate you, more than as a product of anything we have done. We've said nothing to exacerbate or correct any interpretations of you by the people." Ouch. That's kinda harsh, Mr. Alien man.

    "But the next storm will be approaching in a matter of..."

    Close up on peoples' faces for a moment as it explains when, how and why, with the obvious OOC conceit of not actually specifying when it will actually be!

    "If you are willing to do something to mitigate the effects of the storm then we would appreciate the new data, as it may cause the amount of time before the end of the world to increase. However, if you do wish to combat the storms we feel as if you should concentrate more upon the nanoprobes than the wind and lightning."

    Lotus raises an eyebrow, surprised to get some actual genuine help out of these mysterious aliens, "But that still doesn't solve the fact of what we should do about these people. I mean are we just going to take them back by force right now, or what? That still doesn't feel right to me even if what they're doing here is wrong."

Emily hmms. "There used to be weather-control devices in the halcyon remnant, but I haven't seen a functioning one in four hundred years," she says. "They aren't exactly portable as far as taking 'em through Vines, either."

She raises her eyebrows at the Roshtonari. "The subject of nanoprobes are definitely something we should have heard about sooner," she says flatly. "But that does sound like an important priority, yes. Can you tell us anything else about them? Simple, direct statements only, please."

She side-eyes Lotus. "I'm gonna level with you, kiddo, just letting these assholes stay here and continue to pull their bull-hockey doesn't sit right with me at all, 'in their nature' or no." She shrugs. "Of course, I'm also not the best person to go to for solutions that don't involve swords and directed-energy weapons, or threats of suchlike. Natch."

"Well, how would we able to stop the nanoprobes if they're resistant to wind and lightning? Wouldn't we need to destroy them at the microscopic level in order to stop them completely?" Astra assumes they can't just short them out. She still doesn't trust the aliens but she doesn't have any other ideas at the moment.

 It's true they hate me but would they be willing to listen to someone else?" She has a feeling they're still ot telling her anything. "I can show you the effects first hand but I would like to hear their solution first."

Luke Gray rubs the back of his head, "I... admit I dont' know much about nano...things, I am mostly just a fighter." he says softly, while Dynamo just looks at the group in confusion. "I'm not really... sure I can help on that area of the storm."

"The nanoprobes are the primary element of the storms we've identified," the Roshtonari replies haltingly. "They are primarily what is destroying the world."

    It doesn't offer much more than that- its halting voice suggests that this particular guy is more or less fed up of being pumped for information at spearpoint and is just about ready to brush these guys off and go back to his workstation to do something more profitable with his time. 

    He takes a few more steps back. "Find out for yourself," he replies to Astra, now obviously grumpy about the situation and sure that he won't be able to get anything good out of it.

    "Well," Lotus replies, looking at the three of them. "Like he said. I guess the best thing we can do is try and go among all of these people as three of us and try and convince as many of them as possible to return to their homes. Sorry Astra, I guess you won't be able to do very much to help us here."

    She gives a noncommital shrug- it seems to be the best idea they have going, even if they're not particularly suited for it (and they all admit it)- and Lotus turns her head upward to look at the sky and the next brewing storm.

    They'll have to be ready for it.

Emily ... grumbles. She's still smiling, but she clearly doesn't like this at all. "All right, fine," she says, dematerializing her sword. "Reapplying capacitor seals three and two. For now." The pearlescent aura rematerializes, the gold and silver auras seem to reconstruct themselves, and then all three fade. "I'll probably be back in time for the storm. Might be able to help catch the nanoprobes in the act. Eh." Without another word, she turns to head away from the area.

    "Hey," Lotus calls back to Emily, "We managed to get through this whole thing without any violence. That's something we should be happy about, isn't it?"

    Luke just feels a bit bad, being of so little help. "I mean... if I can do something to help, please let me know... but I don't think I can do more than offer Dynamo to assist as a lighting rod." he mumbles, petting the poor electric tiger. "I'll give oyu a hand with that, Lotus." he adds, returning the tiger to a pokeball, and chosing one of the cuter pokemon on his team to assist instead, figuring it won't hurt, a small kitten now perched on his shoulder, helping people get shelter while they consider their next move.

"We can meet back at my house, I have a few things I need to get ready." Astra knows its best if she stays clear of the others for now. If she can only get her hands on all the data that the Roshtonari had. Taking one apart would likely attract more atttention.