(Ch. 6: Day 3, pt. II)

Mie · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 11:22 am

Latika cringed away from the robot amid the miniature hail of ricocheting shots, pressing herself as flat to the wall as was possible. Somewhere in the course of all this chaos, it occurred to simple bumpkin of a girl that perhaps she was out of her league. She had no fathomable idea how to deal with something wielding a humongous, space-age riot shield and a ridiculous beam cannon of a weapon.

But when Jack leaned out of her cover to confront the daunting odds, the porter took it as encouragement, and followed the shots up immediately with a fierce, but indiscriminate shot from her meteor hammer. It didn't so much matter where it hit, or even if it was swatted away, or absorbed by the shield, so long as she kept it busy. With a sharp yank of her rearmost arm, she recalled the line, whirled the head once, twice around her wrist and elbow, and then fired it off again without much precision, but plenty of oomph.

Heart · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:57 pm

The grenade - as Avatar anticipated - didn't do much. Except anger it. The robot was now trying to ram the group, and though the fish had never been tackled by a robot, she guessed it would be slightly reminiscent of being ran over by a truck. Not to mention that it was headed straight to the bridge - where everyone else was.

Avatar's first instinct was to run like hell, which - at first - she did. Considering she was near the front of their little 'Attack Force', she was one of the closest to the incoming, rocket-powered threat.

What is with this ship wanting to flatten us? She asked inwardly.

Then, the sound of four gunshots cut into the fish's thoughts, followed quickly by a crashing, tumbling, and scraping sound - which Avatar can only guess was the robot. The piranha now kinda of wished that she had rear view mirrors, but, she didn't. Instead, Avatar slowed and looked back.

Oh hell, it was closer then I thought it was. She thought as the robot skidded across the floor. It amazingly, was able to flip itself back onto it's feet. Avatar stopped, curiously watching the robot, but before the question of 'Is it dead' could even cross her mind, the robot's massive shield sped toward her.

Instinctively, The fish jumped and managed to land on the coffin-shaped appendage. She clung to it tightly, wondering 'now what?' As the robot fired off another pink energy beam, Avatar just hoped that she was close enough to find a OFF switch, or a weak point, or something.

Tony · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:29 pm

Well... he was getting somewhere with this thing, but it wasn't anything great.

One option opened up more options, and further still, there were additional settings and tools that could be applied to the selection Fenn made. Really, it all just seemed a bit too complex for the one thing that he was trying to accomplish, which was just to make the dumb thing stop doing things.

And then, he quirked a brow, as he stared at the little screen for a moment, still biting down on his pencil. There was a pause in his activity before he resumed his work, scrolling back down to the troubleshooting category, highlighting the label Reboot and confirming his selection with the touch of a button. The panda wasn't quite sure why he didn't just choose that route outright, but, surely, partial blame could be applied to getting caught up in the heat of the moment.

He ceased the gnawing of the writing tool as he leaned towards the hallway, trying to pick out any identifiable sounds that would indicate his success in the matter.

NPC · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 6:41 pm

The E-2000 irritably shook its shield a few times, as if bothered by the fact that someone was hanging off of it. The girl actually succeeded in stalling it from firing its weapon for several seconds just owing to this. It must have decided she wasn't worth fussing with, though, because it went back to charging its mammoth attack once more, preparing to fire another beam that would level the hallway...

... only to get smacked with a big, bronze ball square in its torso and stumble a step or two, visibly dropping small fragments of painted armor from its body. It thrashed around to face the loris as it was struck again, this time aiming at her. But yet again, it stopped—but this time to stand perfectly upright with its arms straight out in a T-posture, its eyes lifeless and dull.

It let out a single beep code, like a computer being restarted. It then began rebooting and doing start-up calibrations on all of its sensors, limbs, and control surfaces, which frankly looked like it was very slowly, poorly dancing The Robot. If ever they wanted an opportunity, this was it.

psikeout · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:02 pm

It began to feel like everyone was swaying in place, like the ground was moving—which, obviously, it was, because they were aboard a submarine. The important takeaway here, however, was that the submarine had changed direction and was quickly ascending, surfacing.

Among other things ascending, there was Casey, jostling and jumping his seat and pumping his fist—err, firearm. "Woooo! Blow the ballasts, we're goin' up top!" (That's the sound of happy survival.) "Everybody still alive?!" he shouted back over his shoulder. After all, the sound of the fight had stopped pretty abruptly.

Seafarinhare · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:08 pm

When the robot took to the air, and rammed it's way through their ranks, Ivan thought twice about meeting it head on. Especially when he noticed Jack lining up a shot. He scrambled out of the way and pressed himself to a wall. Everything else happened so quickly that Ivan really didn't have time to contribute. The robot was grounded, clung to, hit with the meteor hammer... And then, when Ivan was ready to deliver a blow of his own, it...stopped.

It's behavior was... Well, frankly, it was weird. It spread it's arms out for a moment, and then started to dance. He looked over at the loris.

"Methinks ya knocked a few screws loose with that last hit, lass," He said with an approving grin. Then Casey could be heard shouting from the bridge, "Aye!" came the confirmation.

Sheff · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:50 pm

Rubble crunched as Geoff tried to right himself from the rock pile that used to be his armor. There was a stumble or two, the passing robot rocketing by being barely noticed as he tried to get back on his feet. The E-2000's beam packed quite the punch, but he could at least find comfort in the fact he hadn't been as exposed as some of the others could. Actually, it probably was best he was the one to take the hit from the get-go; he didn't want to imagine what sort of injuries would be sustained by his companions without a convenient layering of crystal.

It was still a moment before he completely gathered himself, standing idly as he took in the situation, attempting to relight an aggressive fire to take pursuit of the machine. The spark arrived when the robot came to an abrupt halt of motion before going into what looked like a series of controlled spasms. It appeared as if the battle may just be over... but the thing was still moving, and, in Geoff's book, that still qualified as dangerous.

Wincing as he took the first few steps, the hedgehog fell into a run, soon ignoring the ache that encased his entire body. It was only a matter of a couple of seconds before he was outright charging at the enemy, his expression calloused as he went right ahead and leaped onto the robot's back, one hand grasping on tight. The other, crystallized and sharp, proceeded to relentlessly punch into whatever space looked vulnerable, particularly in the spot that could only be described as its neck.

Nuzlocke Griff · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 12:36 am

Luckily the present crew were too distracted by each of their seemingly lifesaving tasks to notice the ferret as he turned around after his little "support" role. Anyone even taking a hint at what Desmond was thinking would find his brave front easily torn down as dread enveloped his entire being.

"Why'd you turn around when you're gonna die? You just don't do that man, turn around and face death head on! I'm not dying here, I got the crew taking care of things! You saw Pax, you're a goner! N...no man, I'm gonna live! I gotta live! Easily enough, the stress was close to overwhelming him until Casey's positive cheer claimed his success over the controls, forcing a heavy sigh of relief from ferret as he thanked whatever gods were out there.

With a smile plastered over his face, Desmond could only muster a good "Oorah!" to affirm the boar of his standings. He then quickly traveled back over to the agent, giving the possibly shaken yet relieved canine a supportive pat on the back to possibly calm his nerves. "Alright Case'!" he cheered, almost a bit too caught up in the moment that he was about to attempt a "high five" with the one armed driver. The lack of noise from the back room also put the ferret in good cheer as he then turned his attention over to the panda. "I think whatever you did worked!" did you get it to dance though?"

That said, he was a bit too relieved to quickly fall back into a state of alertness after their small victory.

Zaka51 · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:05 am

The failure of Tyra's bomb-pitching plan left her with little options. Though she hated to face it, her style of bare-handed brawling was not an effective way to handle a giant robot with laser cannons--a lack of armor-piercing fists was the biggest problem for her. Growling to herself, out of frustration and a lingering stinging pain, she backed off, mentally chiding herself with every step she took, sidling up against the wall yet again to stay out of the way.

Paxton had moved out of the hog's way when he began fiddling with the controls again, and quite literally fell back to the floor into the spreading sea water, watching with a definitely terrified look in his eyes as he watched Casey do his best to bring them back up. The dog's mind raced--was there any intel about the ship's mechanics or controls that he missed earlier? Had he put all of their lives at risk because he hadn't paid enough attention? Every drop of water he saw trickle in through the cracked glass made him feel colder and colder with fear. It was only when the ship began to move differently and Casey began his celebrations that Pax even blinked. "We're gonna be OK?" he said, poor nerves still reflected in his voice. He climbed to his feet, looking somewhat wobbly but steady enough, and let out a truly great sigh of deep relief, cut short by the pat on the back from Desmond. "Oof."

But the sudden jovial attitude rubbed off on him a little; soon enough, he was sheepishly smiling himself.

Heart · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 3:10 am

Avatar was now apparently a contestant in a robotic rodeo as the shield flailed up and down. The piranha gritted her teeth as she started to loose grip, but - luckily for her - the robot lost it's interest first. Avatar let out a sigh of relief - getting violently thrown off a flailing robot (quite posibly into a wall, or the ceiling) wasn't the most pleasurable thing she could think of. The fish looked down to determine how high she actually was, then let go of the shield to let herself drop to the floor.

It seemed to be safe, but at that very same moment, the robot was hit by Latika's meteor hammer - causing it to stumble backwards. Right into Avatar, mid-fall.

With a short 'Oof' the robot's leg impacted the fish in the side of her head - rather hard too. Now, with her landing position obscured, she fell to the floor with a 'smack'. Landing ankle-first on her side.

"Oh.. Felt that.." She muttered, rubbing her head. The pain from the landing hadn't quite registered yet - she was a bit dizzy from the blow to the head earlier.

Then she remembered that she wasn't out of the fire yet.

The fish looked up to the robot, expecting it to be - or about to be - gunning down her allies, or crashing down upon her. Surprisingly though, it wasn't. Instead, it was making a series of jerky, stereo-typical-robot movements.

Then the hedgehog erupted from the rubble and started whacking at the robots neck. It was an odd sight to say the least. So much so the the fish couldn't help but mutter "The hell..?"

To be fair, she was still a bit out-of-it.

Forgot a bit.. so I edited

Rachel · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:02 am

Jack showed some very real fear when that massive cannon was leveled at her. Luck once more stepped in to save her fur and feathers. She walked cautiously towards the robot, as Geoff rushed past and started laying into the things neck she stepped up under it, pointing her gun at the little beady eyes the thing hand.

"Watch out." She cautioned Geoff. Giving him a moment before she raised her weapon and fired her last two rounds into the things eyes. Hoping that might put it out of her misery.

Mie · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:50 am

With a sigh that was far more tired than someone of her limitless energy warranted, the porter visibly deflated some time in between Geoff's brutal assault of the dancing fiend, and Jack's execution of it. She grinned feebly at the pirate, but said nothing, as she wound her rope into a coiled bundle, and hopefully put the weapon away for the night.

After swallowing an arid gulp, she cast a sweeping glance up and down the hall, lingering on each of her coworkers for a moment, as if mentally taking roll.

"Anyone is injury?" she inquired of the group.

NPC · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 11:06 am

Geoff's strikes seemed to be racking up some real damage. Its armor visibly crunched, and there was more of that nasty electrical-fire smell coming from the robot as the servos in its neck buzzed and groaned in response. Jack's own shots also took their toll, punching right through at that close range.

For some reason, it just kept robotting anyway for another good five seconds. Eventually, though, it stopped and just stood there vacantly. Fenn meanwhile got an error message on his screen.

"Some devices are not responding. Would you like to perform hardware diagnostics?"

Well, it looked like they had wrecked it up sufficiently for the time being, at least.

Meanwhile, there came one more lurch as the ship suddenly broke the surface of the waves with a mighty splash that resonated throughout the hull. The water leaks at the bridge promptly ceased completely.

Mission success. They had control of the ship. With communications cut off from Chimera, the ship's manual controls enabled for Casey to pilot, and command of the ship's robots essentially in the palm of Fenn's hand, they had everything they needed to get things set straight.

Tony · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:19 pm

"Yyyyes."

He stared at the screen of his handheld, giving a thumbs-up aimed towards nobody in particular.

"Yesss... Yes yes yes. Yes! Weeee did it..! Eeeee-YES! Uh. Er..." He quickly selected a proper response to the inquiry about running the diagnostics. "Y... nnnnnooooooo..."

He glanced up from the device, all smiles, as he directed a look to Casey. "We did it!" To Pax. "We... did it." Tooo Desmond. "We did... it? T-the dancing? Oh, uh... we'll ask the crew 'bout that later, but I'm sure we got a feed of it somewhere now..." Hopping from his seat, he meandered over to the hog, and pat his shoulder heartily. "So! We have ourselves a nice, wonderful ship, rich with technology and robot minions courtesy of --" Fenn waved the handheld "-- yours truly, and we're all in one piece! Er, relatively.."

...

"But, uh... can't help but wonder if.. whoever was here before us is... still here..."

Zaka51 · Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:49 am

"That thing outta commission?" Tyra asked to no one in particular, giving the still killbot a scrutinizing, wary glare, half-expecting it to twitch back to life even after all that hit it. She moved away from the wall and back into the center of the hall near to the others, a hand still clinging to the minor burn on her side--just an annoyance to her. "I don't wanna see that thing start goin' again and tear my head off."

Paxton overheard Fenn's muttering, but he wasn't surprised. He'd been concerned about the status of the crew himself, unable to let himself relax when there was a chance they weren't finished. Still, seeing the clear night sky through the bridge's wide window brought back a sense of optimism, if tempered by caution. "We may have the ship, but the previous owners may still be lurking around. There's plenty of places they could be hiding, and they could have anything to throw at us, if they're still even around." he began to state, making his way back to Casey at the helm. "Can you land us? Somewhere out of the way and quiet, if you can?"

The dog turned his head to look out the cracked window again.

"Also, do you have a map on that thing? Because...I have no idea where we are."

(Ch. 6: Day 3, pt. II)

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