World Tree MUSH

The Halcyon Remnant:

    Two Eudaemons are sitting around in Cid Harley's settlement.

    "Hey, did someone finally blow up that ConstruXor Thirty-Three Point Nine that was stomping all over South Brighton's industrial area?"

    "Oh, you mean the one that android from the Bud was checking out, uh, however long ago it was? I don't think so, why?"

    "Well, it seems to be gone as of this afternoon."

    "... I heard from Cid that a Vine just opened in South Brighton."

    "Uh-oh."



Devil May Cry's world:

    A giant industrial machine is stomping its way through a suburban area, looking nothing so much like a large flat boxcar on pneumatic stilts. (Except they have no air hoses, or indeed any apparent actual mechanism for moving.) A brand-logo is printed on the side: "ConstruXor 33.9 - Manhattan Transfer Technologies (est. 2499)". As it walks, a mechanical claw-arm reaches down, ripping up dirt rocks and pavement, and puts together very crude walls and building-foundations, before proceeding forward and stomping on whatever it just half-created. "Error: raw materials missing," a robotic, auto-tuned voice repeats endlessly. "Locating nearest supply. Error: raw materials missing. Locating nearest supply."

    It hasn't destroyed any actual houses yet, but it keeps making course corrections that are starting to point it directly towards the city -- and houses are in its path.

    In Devil May Cry, the phone rings. Meanwhile, Vines are starting to redirect themselves into the area ...

    Dante had a long night out drinking. Into the office he stumbles, just in time to hear the phone. He slams his fist onto the desk and knocks the phone into his hands, catching and holding it to his ear. "Devil Never Cry...Wait, no. That's not it, Devil MAY Cry. Yeah. What is it?" Oh boy.

    The stomping causes the ground to vibrate. Too subtle for most humans to feel but it gets Uni's hackles up. She glances to her partner Shinki, then wordlessly redirects herself from heading into the city, turning 180 degrees and heading back out towards the... oh yeah, that's a giant robot coming right this way. "Bravette, dispatch to local law enforcement, they need to get people out to the east suburbs and evacuate people... Find out if there's any other offworlders or local supers coming to intercept and coordinate them into our TacNet."

    The Goddess shifts from a brisk walk to a flat sprint, Bravette lofting into the air and trailing behind, her visor snapping into place as she starts running simultaneous radio conversations with law enforcement and emergency services, as well as tracking other non-local modes of communication.

>> SUMMARY[Uni] >> Wandering Ronin Goddess can feel that stomping. Oh hey, giant robot, great. Get the local normies to clear the civvies, talk to any other Supers coming to respond.

    Luke already happened to be in Dante's world, he was simply on another of his excursions, trying to improve his knowledge of the different places, a bit curious about what Dante's home was like!, maybe there were other cool people like him?!. Regardless of the reason, he happens to be close enough to the giant lost machine when it appears!.

    The boy stares at the giant thing... destroying buildings, and building other stuff, and his first reaction is to try to help herd people away from the danger, and recalling a couple of his pokemon. "Bewear!, Dynamo!, we have to clear the area before someone gets hurt!". The large pink, black and white 'bear' rushes, helping folks out of harm's way, being the more humanlike of Luke's pokemon, while the boy Rides the electric cat around, even carrying people, trying to listen on his pokegear any news or info on what happened, and send messages requesting for help, before trying to engage.

There's a loud banging that can be heard from inside of the robot and a sparking sound. It seems like there was someoned trapped inside of it. The pilot had both tried to repair and disable the machine from the inside but it seemed to be stuck in a half-functiong do while loop. The armor was quite thick leaving her tangled inside of it. Still, there was a visible mark from someone trying to open it from the inside.

    "Oh thank friggin' god, your phone bill's paid this week!" says the voice of Enzo Ferino. "Hey, uh, there's a giant goddamn robot stompin' its way right towards us from the suburbs, yammerin' somethin' about needin' raw materials!"

    The local law enforcement and emergency-response was in a bit of a tizzy trying to figure out how to deal with the situation when they get the message from Bravette; at first, it's one more bit of noise amid all the other phone calls they're getting, but soon enough, someone manages to get back to her, and soon enough, with Bravette's help, they have a much easier time organizing the evacuation. For that matter, the news reports become a bit more coherent, with a newscaster on Luke's pokegear announcing that the machine is from "another Vine."

    At first, the machine doesn't acknowledge the people currently approaching it. However, shortly after the banging sound, the machine comes to a momentary stop. "Error: attempt-tempt-tempted vandalism detect-- damage detected. Shifting to anti-vandalism pr-pr-pr-pr-procedures. Procedures." The plating on that side of the machine shifts from what was supposedly solid metal, rearranging itself to form thicker armor plating. ... With some flagrantly-obvious gaps in it, though nothing quite big enough for a person to fit through.

    And then, with that, the machine foregoes its abortive constructive projects, and begins simply stomping forward at an uneven pace; its (average) velocity hasn't changed, but there are no longer any pauses in its approach.

    Dante stares at the phone. Did Morrison cover his debts again? He looks out the window, just in time to see a massive robot trundling downtown. "...huh. Yeah, I better deal with that." He mumbles, before he hangs up on Enzo mid-tirade.

    First, he splashes water on his face and chugs a Red Bull. Then, he grabs his stuff and takes off.

    Riding his motorcycle, the devil slayer speeds off towards the massive robot. Tipsy as he is, this might be a terrible idea. But screw it. He makes himself a ramp and FLINGS himself into the air, aiming the bike towards the massive robot's leg as he hurls it.

    Luke is very relieved when proper emergency people arrive to help with the evacuation, he and his pokemon can only do so much!. That frees him to focus on the rampaging giant thing!. The small group approach the seemingly lost giant device, and while they can't 'tell' there is someone trapped inside, the sudden, and extremely clear change in 'attitude' from the machine is caught by the trainer and his pokemon!. He looks around, hoping the area is deserted, or at least, empty, "Bewear!, try to get that thing's attention while me and Dynamo get a good angle to shoot at it.". 

    The bear pokemon replies with a surprisingly sharp cry, and looks around for a suitable projectile, since tehre is likely quite a lot from the previous 'construction' attempts. The pokemon rushes closer to the robot and reaches for the biggest rock it can find (how does it even hold things with those stubby paws?) and growls loudly, the pokemon's arms suddenly starting to glow white, it suddenly, and seemingly effortlessly, raises with both arms and tosses it towards the side of the machine, roaring loudly at it in challenge.

    Uni sprints until she's clear of some buildings, in one of those open areas set aside for children to play in. She then takes a knee, summons a long rifle and aims down the sights... "Oh great it's a /transformer/ too..." She spots the motorcycle being hurled by a familiar white-haired man, then shifts her sights back to the robot as it aproaches.

    The barrel of her rifle splits open, and begins to spin around a central axis, before she squeezes the trigger, loosing off pulsed beams of blue-white energy from her EX Multiblaster.

    Bravette, meanwhile, hangs back and coordinates with the others. Luke's Pokegear would receive an alert from the Shinki, offering access to her sensors to help coordinate what he's doing. Dante's phone pings an alert message, Bravette's offering to help coordinate his efforts. Bravette also picks up the fact someone's inside the bot, and attemps to establish contact.

Demi had repeatedly tried Spark on the robot, but given the size of the machine and it's ability to adapt she hasn't had much success. At best she's only managed to shut down portions of it for a time. She tried interfacing it with it directly, but she could only make out bits and fragments of the code certainly not enough to reprogram it.

 The android noticed the gaps that suddenly appeared but there was no way she could fit through any of them. At best she might be able to disassemble a few of her smaller parts and slide them through but that would like just make things worse. She receives the signal but has no way to transmit back, there's way too interference. She knows there's someone outside at least. "Hello, can you hear me!" It was doubtful given the amount of noise but she has try something at least.

    One would expect that one person on foot would have a difficult time damaging a robot the size of a small city block using the very motorcycle they were just riding. Dante, however, accomplishes the explosion of the motorcycle's impact, leaving a visible dent and a few holes exposing the high-tech circuitry underneath.

    The rock thrown by Bewear, meanwhile, actually staggers the machine, and Uni's blaster tears holes in it. "Error. Error. Error. Reconfiguring." The leg retracts into the air and the armor shifts around, and the robot begins drunkenly staggering in a very wide circle as it starts reconfiguring its armor plating again -- not in any meaningful manner; it's simply rearranging things meaninglessly; for a moment, the gaps in the armor-plating are wider, before closing into its previous too-narrow size. And then, it starts swinging wildly with its manipulator arms -- not the strongest attack anyone has ever seen, but still capable of causing hurt to anyone who got hit.

    "User acknowledged," it answers Demi, but then immediately adds, "Authorization failed. Unable to comply."

    Dante notices Luke and his pokemon, quirking a brow as the motorcycle explodes on contact with the robot's leg. He points at the dent, dodging strikes from the robot's arms. While this is going on, his flip-phone, a crappy old brick, buzzes in his coat pocket. Checking it, he sees a message, from...Bravette? Wait, that's Uni's shinki isn't it?

    Geez, lots of unexpected visitors here today.

    Luke receives messages from Bravette!, his pokegear/dex is pretty high tech, can share video calls, and even has info on his own pokemon, for Bravette to read, if it wants to coordinate any kind of assault, or strategy with the boy. He tries to ask for any concrete 'any idea what might hurt this thing more?', even as he dismounts Dynamo and tries to decide how to approach the stumbling machine. 

    Bewear, being closer to the machine as it staggers around, seems to catch Demi's call for help, letting out a distressed sharp noise and waving its arms at Luke's direction. Dynamo, having better senses than Luke, also catches on it, and starts trying to 'talk' to the young trainer as well. "What is it?" he asks to the pokemon, looking between the two of them. Finally in a fashion one might relate to movies like Lassie, the message seems to come through clearly enough for him to ask, "Wait, you hear someone in there?, try to get closer and see if you can help!." The pokemon does just that, charging to the drunken machine and attempting to climb on it, attempting to reach the source of the call, while 'texting' to Bravette about the potential trapped person.

    "Master, there is someone inside... I can detect their signal but there is too much interference to establish contact." remarks Bravette as she flits out of the arc of those flailing limbs.

    Uni shifts from knelt and starts moving as that manipulator arm comes slamming down where she was just camped, cracking the concrete and disrupting the basketball court. "Got it, what about the others? I can see Dante over near it, you get him on the horn yet?" she asks, mantling over a parked car, skidding around a corner and coming up to another open area. She lifts her rifle again and opens up once more, shifting to try and blast off those flailing arms and reduce the amount of damage it can put out... "What I wouldn't give for a snowspeeder right about now."

    Bravette opens a video call with Luke, but can't provide much direction in actual combat approaches.she does suggest aiming for the limbs to limit mobility, or disable the manipulators to restrict its offensive abilities. The message about the trapped person is responded to by the Shinki with a: "Understood, I detected them and attempted contact... too much interference."

Well, at least Demi is able to get a response from the machine. She then has an idea. "If I'm unauthorized then why haven't I've been removed from my piloting duties? I've repeatedly damaged and tampered with your systems. Are you trying to protect me from being harmed?" Maybe she can get it to eject her willingly. Granted, the fall would likely damage her but she could always repair herself if it not taking offline.

 She noticed there was a brief opening when attacked, if she could position herself correctly she might be to slip out of it before it had a chance to reseal her inside. Then again it would have to be somewhere she could currently reach.

    Uni's shots do considerable damage to the manipulator-arms; most of them start hanging limply, and a few of them fall off altogether. The machine slows to a stop, completely unaware of Luke's Bewear for the moment. "Warning: damage to primary systems," it says; either it didn't notice the other damage it was sustaining, or it only noticed it now, or its manipulator-arms are considered more important than its legs. "Bystanders are advised to stand back."

    In the momentarily lessened noise, Demi's voice might be audible to those on the ground. "Authorization error," the machine responds. "Error in -- error in -- error in -- error in -- Bystanders are advised to stand back. GPS error." On its remaining legs, it rotates about fifteen degrees, then resumes its uneven staggering -- noticeably even more unstable this time -- and starts making a beeline for the nearest taller building downtown.

    "Returning to central -- returning to central -- Reconfiguring. Reconfiguring." It starts randomly trying to rearrange its armor again; this time, a large square of plating begins swinging around its entire circumference, sticking to the side with no apparent means of support, smashing into the ground and vehicles and buildings around it -- in one of its circuits, it seems aimed with unerring accuracy directly towards Dante, Uni, and Bewear in turn.

    Drawing his greatsword, Dante rushes towards the giant robot's leg, with the dent exposing machinery. He leaps from car to car, nimbly sprinting to make his way up to the robot's leg. THen he lunges, driving his sword into the robot's damaged panel, trying to pry it open and empty several rounds into the robot's machinery with one of his pistols!

    Bewear is thankfully not scared of large piece of metal! The large pokemon simply clambers out of the way, still searching for the distressed voice, growling loudly, as if calling back to it, even punching the darn stubborn alloy out of the way, before grabbing the gap nearest to Demi and starting to pry the barrier aside. 
    Luke takes the idea of attacking the legs of the machine, and after taking a few steps closer, reaches for his pokeball belt. "Agni!, come out!". There is a flash of red light, and the cream and orange/red fire pokemon emerges, looking around for a moment to orient itself. "We need to destroy those limbs!, try destroying the other leg!". The lumbering pokemon grunts and charges towards the robot, a glowing red aura starting to surround it as it reaches the limb. 
    It begins to climb on it using it's sharp, long claws, reaching for a spot with damaged armor/missing plating, before it suddenly glows bright white and detonates, explosive bear!.

    Uni grunts, that plate of metal coming down at her faster than she can move. She shifts her stance and pours out her Share Energy into a shield, a dome of blue hexagons forming and taking the brunt of the impact, though some 'break loose' and get flung aside, a few others shatter. The metal strikes, far slower and less powerfully than it initially began, giving the Goddess enough time to juke to one side, getting pelted by shrapnel. "We're just not doing enough damage fast enough..." The Goddess moves out once that metal plate unburies itself from the ground and goes after someone else, striding out into the open and pressing a button on her rifle. The barrel splits again into four-tines and the blue glow within shifts yellow-gold. She can see Dante and Luke's Bewear attacking two of the legs, so she takes aim at a third one. "Load cartridge. All energy lines connected." she spreads her stance brading her rifle at the hip as the prongs of its railcannon end begin to spin. "Engage recoil dampeners. Blastcore pressure rising normally. Empress Coil has started revolving... ready." She squeezes the trigger a golden ball building within the spinning prongs, before unleashing a gout of golden energy at her target. "EX Multiblaster: Mode Empress!"

Demi notices the gap being pulled open wider and climbs out before it has a chance to close again, "Look out below!" She leaps through the opening and onto the ground, hopefully she doesn't land on anyone. She's short, but she's heavier than she looks. "That was quite impressive piece of technology, but I spent a lot longer than I expected. Thank you for rescuing me, I was having trouble getting out on my own." She looks up at the mech now that she's outside of it. "It's a bit of shame, but I suppose we should disable it before it can cause more damage."

    Dante's sword and guns disable the robot's leg handily. Agni's detonation knocks another leg clean off, and Uni's blaster fire utterly destroys the targeted leg.

    The machine stops walking.

    "Warning," says the machine, as it begins ponderously tilting over onto its side. "Critical damage to --" CRASH. "-- shutting down. Have a nice day." The various mechanical hums begin to shut down and go silent, one by one, then suddenly all at once.

    At that moment, Emily flies over at top speed from the direction of the Vine, in the form of a lavender-skinned demoness with Vantablack hair and a dark purple leotard. "Ahhhhh releasing Capacitor Seal --" She comes to an abrupt stop in midair, her feet playing the sound effect of a cartoonish screeching-to-a-halt noise. "... oh. Never mind!" She shrugs grandiosely, then materializes a second pair of arms in order to add more shrug. "Looks like you guys got it handled, whoops!"

    "Target destroyed, cancelling Empress Mode." the rifle collapses back into a 'normal' gun, then flashes away into Inventory. She watches the thing topple over, shielding her face from the windblast of such a large thing striking the ground... "At least it's finally down," she muses as Bravette lands on her shoulder, pointing up at the approaching form of Emily. "You just missed the party... at least that wasn't a military model, construction equipment is tough enough."

    Dante, with no time wasted, swings to chop the leg off right then and there, resulting in it tilting over. Emily seems to appear just in time, and Dante laughs. "Nice timin', babe!" He says with a grin, stowing Rebellion on his back, staggering towards her. "I uh...fuck, I need a new bike." He says, as he kicks aside the handlebars that used to belong to a pretty nice motorcycle.

    Bewear follows Demi, just to make sure the 'person' was ok, concerned big fluffy beast!. Meanwhile, Agni appears from the explosion looking simply a bit singed, if quite smug about having being able to take out that leg!. It shakes vigorously and trots back to Luke's side, receiving congratulations and some scrictches for a job well done, even as Luke joins the others!. There is some happy waves to Emily, Dante adn the others, "Hi!." before noticing Dante's issue, "Sorry about that bike." he mumbles.

"Tell me about it, I was trapped in there for over a year...I really have to get back to Nurvus. Without periodic maintence the enviroment systems will begin to malfunction and cause damage to Motabia. I guess, we'll have to catch up another time." As much as Demi would like to stay and chat, her primary function takes priority over everything.

 She smiles back at Bewear and everyone else before speaking up again, "I'm sorry as well, it was my fault. I'll have to see what I can do about getting it replaced. It might take me some time but I'll try to find the schematics and parts to rebuild it."

    Emily actually laughs in response to Uni's comment about missing the party. "Yeahhhh, a military model ..." She shakes her head. "Let's just say the Eudaemons wouldn't have waited two years to shut down this piece of shit." She pauses. "... shut this piece of shit down." She shakes her head. "You know what, both ways around sound equally correct OH HI LUKE."

    She pauses, and regards Dante. "You're drunk, aren't you?" she asks dryly. "Certainly drunk enough to call me 'babe' in cold blood." She grins. "Man. If only I could fight a rampaging industrial machine while drunk. That's, like, probably some kind of ideal state."

    She does a bit of a double-take at Demi. "Oh! So that's what happened!" she says. "Wondered why I hadn't heard anything since you went off to examine it." She hadn't personally spoken to Demi about it, but word travels fast in Cid's village. She shrugs. "Yeah, uh, next time, you should probably bring a Eudaemon with you. Or someone to stay outside and make sure you don't get trapped or anything."

    She shrugs, regarding the ruined machine, then the trail of destruction that led to its current location -- thankfully, due to Bravette's assistance with the evacuation, without any lives lost. "Well, all's well that ends well!" she announces cheerfully. "That's what I say!"

T"Maybe." Dante grins cheekily as he passes Luke, patting him on the head. "I mean, it's DOWN isn't it? 's fiiiiine." Hic.

    He also shoots Demi a big grin too. "Th-that sounds nice. I'll...uh, I'll take that."

"Yes, I certainly won't make that mistake again. I guess my curiosity got the best of me. I've ran into adaptive technology before, but nothing like that. It would be useful to be able to change form to interface with different technology, but it might cause problems when interfacing with the machines on Motabia." Demi's not upset with Emily or anything after all she had no idea that would happen.

 "Is anybody hurt?" She carefully scans the others for possible signs of injury.

    Emily glances down at herself, then looks at everyone else. "No damage here!" she quips.