Dying to get my blood on you (Ch. 4 Ending) [Rock] {Canon}

Tau · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:15 pm

"Systems confirmed, now shutting down unspecified non-critical systems."

". . . Initiating music request over internal ship wide communications."

The initiated music shifted a few times as it shifted between available music tracks, first playing a random track prior to shifting to a different one for a short time before finally settling on a a more preferable one.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the immense ship, the makeshift robotic zombie reactor maintenance crew went about attempting their best at replacing enough of the control rods to stabilize the reactor, several collapsing as they fell inactive after a short duration, most before finishing their tasks, while others picked up the slack.

Regardless of which had survived by the end, they would all find themselves eventually entombed within the reactor as it was flooded seconds after the last necessary control rod was replaced. Those few whom survived both to the flooding, and after, would continue attempting to replace every last control rod.

Mie · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:21 pm

"Is this actually stuff the fat man has on here, or is this being streamed from Earth?"

Always willing to ask the hard-hitting relevant questions, Jam was.

The raggedly tired-looking primate stepped up to the command chair, considerably more relaxed (or maybe just fatigued) in posture, as she laid her forearm across its armrest, and leaned casually against it for support.

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:17 pm

"Beats me," Rock huffed. He looked to Jam through a tired smile, set his hand on her arm, patted it a couple times... Looked tired, the both of them did.

"I think Tau's got everything under control now," he observed. The reinforcements he had called for earlier were standing all around the platform — mostly Egg Gunners, but a variety of other hovering and flying robots were overhead, too.

The situation was not a friendly-looking one, and it must have dawned on Rock, because he sat up with a breath, stood, stretched, and stared at the stairway where Ace, Geoff, and maybe some others had last been, and asked Jam, "How much unfinished business you think we've got left with them?"

Mie · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:35 pm

"They claim they're done," sniffed Jam with an indignant shrug (though an observant individual might have seen the blip of a smile that flitted across her lips as she glanced down at her hand). "They hate us, but they're tired for the moment. Hawkins hopes you don't screw up the planet any worse than Narcissus did, and Crawford wants nothing to do with us unless you toe the line, at which point, he'll be back to give us what-for."

She shook her head and sighed, looking privately upset. "You don't deserve any of this..." she sneered quietly, with audible lump of frustration in her throat. "Why do you bother?"

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:45 pm

Rock bobbled his head slowly from side to side in an odd sort of shrug, and sighed, "I think we're all just doin' what comes naturally to us."

He started trudging off toward where the others were gathered, but not before adding:

"'Sides, what else would I be doin' right now? I'd just be gettin' in trouble."

Pan out to the smoldering, debris-littered, war-ravaged platform with a dead body on it, surrounded by burnt, bruised, and wounded fighters, all aboard the deadly mile-long space destroyer that he had just placed under the full control of a mysterious, experimental AI he had previously stolen from one of the military's most secure facilities (before destroying said facility with a nuclear device).

There had to be irony in the statement.

"Yo," he called out to whoever remained.

Sheff · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:59 pm

The appearance of the armed robots only managed to get a slight flicker of a glance from Geoff, feeling if he just stayed put, there would be no reason to agitate him. Deep down he knew if the new "overlord" intended to finish him there and then, those things would have already been swarming around him. Otherwise, he remained in his quiet state, hiding the fact his mind was running with all sorts of thoughts, potential consequences of all the recent developments being one of them.

Now he found himself temporarily distracted by the approaching white primate. The hedgehog's head turned just enough to peer at Rock from over his shoulder, a disinterested blankness in his eyes. If there was one person he wished to not interact with at the time, it would be the monkey.

And as much as he hated it, he still replied anyway.

"...need something?" he asked listlessly, his voice hollow.

Mie · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:22 pm

As Jam stepped up next to their new commander-in-chief, she passed Rock a very distinct, very expressive look at the hedgehog's 'ttude. It was utterly unimpressed, and seemed to suggest the room at large was very lucky that she hadn't made it to the hot seat, but for the moment, she simply stood her ground at the whiter primate's flank, arms behind her back, and utterly repressed stone face directed straight ahead.

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:41 pm

The white primate stopped about fifteen feet behind them. There was a smile stuck on his face, pleased, but not in a way that was smarmy or gloated overtly. His hands settled onto his hips. "Don't be sullen," he chided. "You guys got a lot tougher," he then observed, almost complimentary in tone. "Took all this initiative... Never would've expected it."

Silence. He rubbed at one of his sore arms as he considered his phrasing.

"I just got kind of a promotion, you know?" he said with wry composure. "Doin' a little... corporate restructuring. Maybe some rebranding, restaffing..."

They didn't want to hear this. He knew it. His expression went flat and he cut to the chase.

"Look, y'all. I can give y'transport home now, and you can go back to your lives. That's fine," he blurted, letting his palm flip up in a go on motion and flop limply back against his trouser leg. "Or if this tough streak is somethin' you're actually gonna keep up, then I can give you jobs, work, parts to play instead. 'Cause you know the Eggman's gonna come back, and so is GUN. Then after them, it's whoever's next in th' parade'a ugly." He started walking forward one slow step at a time. "And you can either let the status quo sneak up on you again while folks like us babysit the world," cue a vague gesture toward Jam, and skyward toward Tau, the brain of the computer, "or you can be there and be ready too. We can be ready. We can stomp it in its throat the next time it thinks of pokin' its head out its hole."

He held his head up and folded his hands behind him.

"It's what we're gonna do, with or without any help."

Sheff · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:21 pm

Geoff looked like a 'hog who wished not to hear any sort of offer passed through the monkey's lips but who really had no choice in the matter. His gaze had already turned away, staring blankly out into the vast expanse of the atrium, continuing to sit upon the step, his arms hanging loosely off his bent legs. A few seconds crawled by after the last word was said from Rock, the hedgehog almost seeming to completely ignore what he said...

This was not the case, however.

"So, you got it all figured out. Make sure nothin' bad pops up again, and everyone is happy, right?" he said with his back to the monkey in what almost sounded like mild agreement, yet still filled with light suspicion. His head gradually turned, allowing him to peer back out of the corner of his eye. "But how far is this 'babysitting' going to go, Rock? How much responsibility are you going to give back to the world? 'Nough to make them content, thinking they've got everything back under control for themselves? Ya know that wouldn't last long. You're no Eggman, I'll give ya that, but people are going to get discontent at some point. They'll get together, just like we did, and do somethin'."

He fully revolved now, sitting sideways on the step as he looked at the monkey.

"You going to stomp that throat too when it comes?"

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:32 pm

A grin spread across Rock's face — a knowing grin, like he already had a bead on exactly where Geoff was going.

"No," he said simply, still smiling. His disjointed two-color gaze was piercing and devious. "If it ever comes down to that, I'll nurture that reaction." His head popped upward in a jerky, single nod. "Encourage it. What keeps the world outta trouble is having a common enemy. Eggman's been a nuisance, but until he got out of hand, he was a benign nuisance. Kept all the good people on the same side."

He exhaled a nearly-inaudible laugh out his nose.

"I don't know if you noticed yet, but this?" He stepped forward and pointed at his own face illustratively, brows raised. "This idn't a face people trust. Th' eyes, you know? Creeps people out, I think." He raised a palm in a low, dismissive stop wave. "If they find out who we are and what we're doin', I won't even try to get anybody to trust me. I'm okay with everybody wantin' a shot at me, because... 'good guys' can't always commit to do what's right. Sometimes you need a willing bad guy."

Seven still laid behind him, illustratively visible over his scuffed white shoulder.

He smiled again.

"That's me."

He turned away and walked back toward his seat, brushing by Jam with another satisfied smile, and a drifting hand around the waist.

"I won't make anybody decide right now," he said calmly, without looking back. "We'll arrange transport to get you guys home. You can rest; think about it awhile. We'll be in touch."

Sheff · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:58 pm

A certain animosity that was typically reserved for (the now deceased) Seven started to boil as Geoff stared at the monkey's retreating back, a single fist clenched on the step right above the one he sat upon. The instinctive urge to just outright charge towards Rock and attempt to beat his crude perspective of the world right out of him dominated the hedgehog's mind. His body was already twitching in anticipation for such a maneuver.

Yet, surprisingly, he withheld from unleashing such anger, opting instead to rip his eyes away and glare off to some distant empty space in a weak attempt to try to distract his pulsing irritation. The monkey's opinions were against his, yes, but actual aggressiveness would lead nowhere. They were past the point of no return, and he felt helpless over the fact there wasn't a present, conceivable way to knock the new king off his throne.

Geoff stood then, fists clenched tightly as his teeth ground for a brief moment. His eyes flicked upward in an angered stare, identifying the blue sphere that was Earth. He examined it for some time.

"I hope they give you hell, then."

Mie · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:08 pm

Jam looked progressively more displeased the longer Rock saw fit to explain himself to his own personal hate club. At several points throughout his reply, the smaller simian looked as though she had smelled something most foul, but otherwise, remained anchored to the spot, not even responding to the other monkey's casual display of affection as he passed.

Her posturing, from her clenched jaw, to her rigid shoulders, tensed calves, and her low, tightly wound, unmoving tail, looked stiff enough to break a board across; it was as though she was just waiting for a reason to attack. Eventually, though, after one or two punctuated seconds in Rock's absence, she turned brusquely on her heel, and followed.

"M'glad you're finding this so amusing," she could be heard complaining all the way up the stairs. "'Cause I'm personally gonna spend the rest of your term lookin' for the big red button."

Tau · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:00 pm

With the reactor situation now under control, there was little left for Tau to do apart from eavesdropping through the ship's security system while initiating a thorough investigation of the vessel's systems and infrastructure. Not much of interest had yet come up, but he continued to search regardless.

"Should you wish for long-term control of this vessel, I am capable of injecting more competent A.I. of my own creation into its network to replace the preexisting A.I." Tau's voice came out over the terminal closest to Rock low enough to only be clearly audible to those within a few feet. "This will aid in permanent control of this vessel and its subsystems under a more trustworthy and secure A.I. under . . . our control. I cannot confirm full security of its systems with the existing A.I., given the vessel's creator."

psikeout · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:17 pm

Rock suppressed a satisfied smirk at Jam's comment, but opted not to add anything about the topic of big red buttons at the moment.

When addressed by Tau, he stopped, looked upward, and bobbed his head in a nod, brows raised. "This is why I like workin' with you, Tau," he replied, pleased. "Just go ahead and have your way with the ship. I trust you."

He glanced back at Jam, looking vaguely amused (maybe because of their AI buddy's general industrious outlook), then continued strolling off toward the command center seat.

Greens · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:06 pm

The words he wanted to say were doing everything they could to find their way out of Ace's throat, and to his credit, he was doing a darn fine job of it for a while. But by the time the pair of primates started jaunting off, Daniel hissed out on last puff of smoke, snuffed out the flame on the step next to him, and forced himself to stand up before he realized what he was doing. Just like that, he was tailing them again in a brisk jog to catch up.

"Wait," he said. "Rock... Jam."

He stopped several feet short of them, careful not to draw the ire of any heavily-armed killbots. Up until that point, the both of them had been presenting themselves like... strangers. He didn't know who, but he knew it wasn't them. And suddenly, with Rock's speech, Ace started to see a flash of that old boy he thought he knew. But even as he stood there, he seemed to find great difficulty in finding the right words to say. And really, who could blame him?

"...Listen," he said finally. "I know I've got a problem. I know, I can't, trust people. Like most people do. And I won't get into why. I know that's my problem. Somethin' I gotta deal with."

And here came the inevitable 'but'...

"But," he continued. "You've gotta problem keeping secrets when you don't need to. 'Specially you, Rock. I like your idea. I feel like it could work. And if you're really gonna hold on to that, then you're a bigger man than I am. But if you want me on your side, then you can't just give me the cold shoulder outta nowhere and expect me to assume you've got some master plan behind it all."

Dying to get my blood on you (Ch. 4 Ending) [Rock] {Canon}

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