<Help me understand, human. Because I'm trying to remain calm. Are you pleased with the choices you made?>
Zechariah couldn't tell whether he was crying or laughing, or maybe both. Emotional overload can do that to a person.
Interface, Scion: <No, I'm not. I'll never live down the fact that my inaction has almost killed someone. I could have used the Shadow to get away quicker, but I didn't.
But he's alive. And, Eido dammit, I am going to save Target Amethyst.>
Wait for my host to wake up on his own.
<...I hope that is a sign of improvement on your part. I sometimes wonder if you are some kind of a test for me and if so, what is the correct response...
So, it looks like we'll be stuck here for a while. Thanks to you. Any interesting stories to share or perhaps some clever -ha!- questions to ask?>Ask again later.
((sorry about that, should have made the time to finish that post.))
{Irine}
Guns, Cars, and other fire/explosion based devices are hearby banned
EDIT: Additionally, I want to burn a flame generation charge to ignite the road and grass a distance away down the road, and have the flames advance upon our position in a rolling, growing wall, feeding off the oil and tar of the road as well the the grass of lawns and any other random debris along the way. anything easilly burned along that route becomes fuel for the flames as it advances upon our position, forming an imposing barrier of fire.
Through Interface, to Theri: <Hi again, and yeah, Zoe doesn't seem to get it, but it's more that she's really focused right now. She really wants to help Amelia however she can. Enough so that I'm worried Amelia might have messed with her mind somehow. Anyway, I'm trying to take a hands-off approach, and letting Zoe do what she's going to do. I'm just along for the ride.>
((Surprise! 
))((sorry about that, should have made the time to finish that post.))
{Irine}
Guns, Cars, and other fire/explosion based devices are hearby banned
Through Interface, to Theri: <Hi again, and yeah, Zoe doesn't seem to get it, but it's more that she's really focused right now. She really wants to help Amelia however she can. Enough so that I'm worried Amelia might have messed with her mind somehow. Anyway, I'm trying to take a hands-off approach, and letting Zoe do what she's going to do. I'm just along for the ride.>
You sense a stirring in the surroundings, and feel the similar consciousness of Theri reply.
Awena has done her part, you're in position--I'll cause my distraction now. My host is compliant. The men carrying Amelia are surprised. Unsure. Uncertain. Your host favors aggression. Speed. Strength. At this moment, cause a fire. Cause a fire not on the men, for they will act aggressively--distract them two-fold. You may even possess your host--she might not even sense it given her intent!
I will suggest to surprise.
You must act. Now.
To host: Suggest.
<Awena, hear me now. I have the power and capability of...possessing you, shifting your thoughts to mine and your reflexes and skills to what I know--I may be more than able to take this man compared to you (no offense), but in this possession I ask of your permission. I will not harm you.>
Irene once again tries the trick of stopping all fires not under her control from expanding. She can't focus enough however and the field of pyrokinetic pressure only manages to to slow down all fires not currently being controlled by her from expanding, not stop them. She then follows Theri's advice and tries to make a fiery distraction. Despite the dampness of the ground and the strain of maintaining her pyrokinetic pressure field, she manages to make an impressive firewall, one that keeps getting larger with the help of her power. The men are clearly distracted by this.
The moment Theri begins speaking to her host, her Interface starts beeping again.
Theri can sense Awena's uncertainty in the few moments that she takes to give her answer. Awena's unsure of whether or not this is just a ploy for her to lower her guard and become susceptible to possession by some evil entity. But the situation is dire and she's going to need all the help she can get. She reluctantly accepts.
Theri takes control, a ripple extending from her Interface, changing her host's body slightly, making it stronger and a bit paler. Strangely, nobody but Irene and Theri seem to notice it.
It turns out taking control was the right choice, for the man is surprisingly strong and remains perceptive despite the distraction the fire provides.
He hears Theri coming and barely manages to turn to face her. She tries to punch him while running but he manages to intercept her hands, leaving her to push against him. Theri has trouble overcoming the man's strength, even with the momentum granted by her speed and the man's surprise working in her favor. In the end, she manages to push him off balance, grab his hands, get behind him and after a great deal of effort, put him in a grappling hold and subdue him.
Theri's Interface keeps beeping and her vision is starting to get blurrier. Despite her host's conscious acceptance, Awena's subconscious is still rejecting the foreign presence in her mind.
Meanwhile, Zoe attacks the driver, who is currently distracted by the wall of fire and the sudden attack on his comrade. She moves before he has a chance to react, batting his gun-wielding hand aside with her left hand while striking the man in the chin with a right uppercut.
The man groans and falls down, unconscious.
"Wait! Stop!" one of the two men carrying Amelia in the stretcher cries out. They're just standing there, unsure of what to do, watching with a mix of surprise and terror while the guards that were supposed to escort them are being attacked and defeated. Not to mention the fire that has appeared out of thin air.
"Ooh, let's hear that one. I've never heard a joke like that."
S-s-s-s-SYN-synchro-o-nize!
<Okay, so there's this cruise ship, one of those that do those one week holidays typo of things. You know, load people, go from one side of the ocean to the other, unload people and load other people, and so on. And those kinds of cruise ships are huge, like floating cities, they got restaurants, bowling alleys, etc. And of course, that cruise ship also had various events in the evenings, one of which was a magician who did various tricks.
But, to the magician's dismay, the captain always watched his show, along with his parrot. And the parrot, being a smart bird and having seen his performance hundreds of times, knew all about how he did his tricks. So, if the magician for example made a card disappear, the parrot started squawking "Bwaak! It's in his sleeve, it's in his sleeve." or if he made a bunny disappear "Bwaak! It's in his hat! It's in his hat!". So the guy really hated that parrot, wanted to roast it and eat its wings with mustard sauce, but there was nothing he could do. It was, after all, the captain's bird.
However, one night, as the magician was preparing for his next trick, the parrot always being the telltale bastard he was, the cruise ship hit an iceberg. And as luck would have it, the only two survivors were the magician and the bird. So, there they are floating in the ocean, the cage of the parrot naturally floating, the magician holding on to it. One day passes and both of them do nothing but stare each other. Another day passes, the two still staring each other. And in the third day, the parrot finally says:>
<"Okay, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?">
Your host notices a car coming at him from the left, seconds before it hits. He accelerates and turns left but he can't quite manage to get out of the way. The hit is not that bad, however. Your host turns the steering wheel right and downshifts. A moment later, the steering wheel jerks a bit and he regains control. He reorients the car and keeps moving forward.
<Watch where you're going, idiot! Did you get your driver's license from a cereal box?>The offending car is now on your left, moving parallel to yours.
Drive up the street beside the convoy and once I'm in the right position, turn to a parallel position to the convoy and ram the guy as he drives past.
$ <--@
!
!
!
Like that, if I'm the @ and he's the $.
Your interface beeps several times and your vision starts blurring. Your host must not want to attack a convoy of police cars led by a government agent for some reason. What a chicken.
You get next to the car and turn to ram it. The driver sees you coming and tries to avoid you. He almost manages to get out of the way, but you do manage to hit its left tail light. The car swerves from left to right, its tires screeching, but the driver manages to regain control.
<Watch where you're going, idiot! Did you get your driver's license from a cereal box?> you hear a familiar voice coming from your Interface. You get a feeling it's coming from the other car.
The target car is now on your right, moving parallel to yours.
http://youtu.be/lBGvssJwQ2ABryan
Ugh, what is that these people are dying for? I'll have to find out sometime.
<Kathryn, what would happen if I made this man remember his past? Would it make his life better? It is perhaps something I'd do before leaving.>
Faron
Best to do this as fast as possible. Any traps I could set up? At least make an ambush point.
<I... I do not know. He has had his life and freedom robbed from him. Turned into a tool, a vessel. To wish to help him, to revive the man he once was is admirable.
But even if you restored his memories, could you ever give him a normal life again, a life with even a shred of happiness? Do you have a chance break whatever control they have on him, without being desynchronized? And is that chance worth risking trapping that man in the body of a murderer, someone who isn't him? Forcing him to be hunted for the rest of his life? If the change doesn't outright kill him?
And are you certain that he isn't doing something good in this world? That he isn't helping, in his own, bloody, mindless way, working for the greater good? Are you certain that whatever change you make will be for the best?>Your host hides near the staircase going up.
"Johnson?" the voice is in the stairs now.
There's some sort of drawer here. Wooden. Looks sturdy. Could provide you with some cover. Might even be able to push it down the stairs.
"There's something wrong. Alves, Jung, watch my back, I'm going to check it out."
You hear guns being readied and then the creaking of stairs as the men below climb them. Your host keeps his gun ready, pointing it at the stairs, the drawer concealing him partially.
The moment he sees a gun sticking out of the stairwell, he shoots, hitting the man's fingers.
While the man screams, your host gets up, puts the man's body between himself and the others,
stabs him in the left lung and kicks him on top of his comrades. Before they have a chance to react, he shoots both of them, one in the heart, the other in the head.
You can hear other panicked voices coming from downstairs. One word stands out. "Grenade."
Meanwhile...
As her consciousness fades away, Angel thinks <Not again...>
Um...don't die? Also wake up.
I will refer you to DAF's post for the picture of a cat telling you what you should do.
<"Angel is down! Don't worry guys, I'm on it.">
Try to land or be reasonably near enough to the building to jump. Grab Angel and put her in the copilot's seat and putting on her seat belt. Fly up and away to a safer place, preferably anywhere that looks like a hospital and isn't actively being torn apart.
((If it will help you imagine it better, I've modeled the Spaceplane after the
DeltaGlider, with some modifications (for example the cockpit canopy looks a lot more like the canopy of a fighter jet to give you better visibility).))
You deploy your landing gear and set the spaceplane down on the roof.
You get out and run to Angel. She's lying on the roof in an expanding pool of blood, its growth fed by the blood coming from her right thigh and the back of her head.
You pick the little girl up and head back to your transport. While you run, a
huge rhino from hell breaks through the door of the stairwell that leads inside the building below. Its body has been covered with a white substance that reminds you of bone. The bone armor forms huge spikes in places, especially prominent on its back. The beast looks angry. But it has an Interface on one of its front legs?
Oh no, that giant robot is mutating your teammates into huge rabid disfigured animals! Run for your lives!
Roar, and charge up the building to find angel again. Attempt to keep her alive. Smash any puny drones or doors in my way.
Also, a slight use of biomass for me! 
Use any unused biomass to grow some hard, thick, plate-like material on myself, sort of like an organic suit of rhino armor
You feel the weight shifting from your body to your back. You can't exactly see what you did there but you think it worked.
Your
meta spider rhino sense informs you that a little girl is in danger. Well, you can't allow that. That little girl saved your life! Twice! And you'd be damned if you let something happen to her!
You stumble up the stairs (it's like they weren't designed for giant animals or something) and ram the door leading to the roof, utterly destroying it. On the roof, you can see that man from before holding the little girl on his arms, running towards the spaceplane he was piloting. The rest of the roof is littered with debris and small fires.
Now, how exactly do you plan to help her?
Deal with the pain.
Try again. The entire vehicle, crossbow and spikes included.
You focus on transforming the vehicle again. This time, the transformation takes.
It starts with the control sticks, transforming them into large, bulky things, filled with decorative grooves. It then moves to your chair, making it larger and more comfortable and soft, almost smotheringly so. Then it reaches whatever causes the truck to float. The truck begins moving up and down, like a ship on a sea with gentle waves. It also starts emitting a loud buzzing sound that could best be described as "woop", its pitch changing according to the height of the truck. After that, it reaches the outer surface of the truck, deforming its smooth surface into grooves, spikes and irregular angles. And finally, it reaches the arrows in the front of the vehicle and the crossbow in the top. You can't see how the crossbow reforms (you can only see part of its limbs extending from the sides of the car) but you do feel the vehicle descending slightly from the weight. The vehicle also leans forward slightly from the giant pointy spikes coming out from its front.
You feel spent, like you just emptied everything you had in this truck. And your chest still hurts.
You hear a loud sound like a building collapsing somewhere in the distance.
Crap.
GTFO. Wish I had two ranks of speed so I could summon an ATV under me as I jumped. Try to summon a hang glider as I jump off to at least glide down.
[I figure a hang glider is simple enough to get summoned in time to at least mitigate injury.]
You start running away, parts appearing in the air and assembling around your arms while you do so. By the time you're halfway to the other side of the building there's a harness around your waist and you're holding a metal bar over your head, it's edges forming into a triangle. When you jump, there's a circle of cyan plastic at the top of the control triangle and the largest part of the other metal bars necessary for the glider. There's no time to wait. You can hear the sound of rockets getting closer behind you. When you're halfway to the ground, the top of the glider finally forms properly and wires appear and connect it to the control bar and allow it to maintain the proper shape.
Now you are half flying-half falling.
You immediately pull the nose up to stop your descent, causing the glider to stall and its nose to fall back down again, costing you speed, height and precious seconds but at least you don't crash into the ground.
Speaking of crash, there's the sound of an explosion behind you and then the rumble of a building collapsing.
Metal and plastic debris fly past you, some of them the size of a car, but you and the glider remain miraculously unhurt.
EDIT (16/7/14): Just noticed an entity's colour was wrong.
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1146913 times)