[Nexus] Riverside 13

[Shadowcaller]

Malchenar Castle

Celestel suddenly stops in her steps. From where they can see a literal jungle of vegetation with a paved path through it. There is a myriad of colorful flowers, some of an rather unusual size. "He instructed me to take you to him whenever you wished." Celestel replies. "He is in the laboratory in the top section of the castle. If you want I could take you directly there instead, your apprentice might want to appreciate what the castle has to offer however." She gives Jim a quick glance.

Club Pulse

Dena smiles. "To try something new?" She shrugs a bit. "Honestly, it was more of Tina's idea, I'm just going along with the ride. I have heard of people trying to sleep with as many different races as possible though. Kind of like a collection ya know? I don't do that though, do you?"

Demon Hunting

"Erm... well, maybe we could like look up information? There got to be something about this demon right? From what I'm told it holds sway over the entire hospital and that's a pretty large area. People ought to know something about it. That's at least how I figure it." She clears her voice nervously. "Or maybe we should just look for help, it feels like I'm over my head here..."

[Devixer]

Club Pulse

"Eh. I've slept with people from different metatypes. I mean, I don't try for it, but it's not like I'm picky," Cassidy says. "Still, though, vampires. Where I'm from, they're not exactly pretty."

[Deathkeeper]

Malchenar Castle

Blast! Discovered! Jim's ears drop a little, embarrassed.
"Well, I mean, Sticks probably needs me to be there and get the rundown of the whole project so it really isn't proper for me to skip out on it..."
But you know, cool plants!

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

"Brooklyn, actually. I just spend a lot of time in Manhattan because it's a better place to hang out. No way my family could afford to live there. Yet." She does have a slight brooklyn accent. "I want to move into Manhattan someday, but-oh wait, that's dependent on getting back home." She sighs and rubs her hands on her face. "And I thought the battle of new york was the weirdest thing I'd live through..."

[Devixer]

Westside

Despite saying he's from Queens, Shark doesn't seem to have any particular accent. "We'll figure that out later. Right now, we should probably find a spot for you to make camp."

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

"Sounds good. Wait, I should check..." She pulls out her wallet and tallies up her cash. "I guess cards and checks are useless here, huh?" She muses aloud.

[Devixer]

Westside

"Not unless the stores can somehow connect to your bank," Shark says. "Just about any kind of cash is good, though. Currency's weird here."

[Arkhosia]

Westside

"Sounds good. Wait, I should check..." She pulls out her wallet and tallies up her cash. "I guess cards and checks are useless here, huh?" She muses aloud.

Westside

A cat with cyborg parts on it's left walks up.
Hi, my name's CatTok, what's yours?
He asks Mira cheerfully.

Club Pulse

Actually, it does.
Caelynn replies, as she sits down, smiling slightly.
The petals disappear if they come in contact to something.

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

"That's good, I guess. Okay... It's like camping, right? I'll need... a sleeping bag, some kind of shelter, food, and clothes. That's the basics for survival, right?" From the way she's acting, it's easy to guess that she's never been camping.

Then she is approached by a cybernetic cat and just kind of... stares at it. Confused.

[Darkcomet]

[Evolution Industries Riverside Branch Headquarters]

At first glance, it's Magtok. Almost all of the memories check out; this individual has definitely been indoctrinated to consider himself another one of the cyborgs. Just a few weeks back there's a small bundle of memories concerning Thanksmas dinner with a family that obviously isn't Magtok's, though. Memories this one is actively going out of his way to suppress.

I've only just started, DC. This was me testing your defenses, seeing your equipment in action. Honestly, have you been paying attention to a single thing I've said? I don't need any credibility in this *****y, insignificant backwater town, I just need to survive.

The Magbots do their best to resist the guardians, trying to break through the forcefields with concentrated fire from their lasgeese, as opposed to wasting their time on the slippery beamer drones. Magtok, on the other hand, just does his best to try to outmaneuver the whole lot of them, running away for that basement he heard mentioned earlier, smearing some really gross goey stuff on the walls and ceilings as he goes.

Your weapon's presence interferes with that, and you're far too mentally unstable to reason with, so I'm doing the best I can with what I have. I'm acting in self-defense here, I-

Magtok winces, staggering momentarily as he tries to overwhelm DC with an old memory, Magtok's very worst. He's exploiting the gruesome incident, weaponizing his own deep-seated trauma to try to get the psychic to back off.

"Blind me!" Tumasi curses again and grabs his communicator. "Rollo here. We need backup at the Evolution Industries building. Magtok is gassing the place and I don't know what to expect."

Testing the defenses of a building that has been evacuated of all personnel, security included. How unproductive. DC...seems remarkably unaffected by the memory attack there. Didn't I tell you I've been in the cat's brain? That would probably explain it. Most of what he's trying to dig up is a name: Investigating further through other channels is to come later. He'd like to fix the poor brainwashed bastard, but that level of mental shenanigans isn't exactly practical in the middle of a situation like this.

As for what DC does in the real world, that's much simpler. He goes inside, dual pistols readied. I certainly hope he's not planning to aim very precisely with those things. Though at least with his style of tech, the reloading problem is a non-issue. As for what he's doing...well, for one, any Magtoks he sees are going to get shot at, and it seems those pistols are something else indeed, because they appear to be...

Beam shotguns. Guess he really isn't concerned about accuracy. For what it's worth, he seems unhindered by the gas, probably thanks to fancy vision stuff in the helmet or something. (Correct me if it impedes that.) But mostly, DC is going to go to the stairs and wait for Magtok to reach him, as the Guardians and Magbots battle. Said Guardians will, surprisingly, not impede Magtok that much, aside from trying to force him to slow down to avoid them where possible.

As for the robot battles, the Guardians prove hideously resistant to small arms level fire and will take a bit to take down even with concentrated fire. There's a reason there aren't that many of the things, and there's also a reason they require those beamer drones in the first place. But that part's the dull part, anyway. We can probably say those are off fighting each other for a while. Although, for a highlight, one of them decides, for what value of deciding it has, to see what happens when it launches an electrical blast from its head towards...a lasgoose.

[Devixer]

Westside

"You'll probably need more than that, at least later on. I can come up with a decent list," Shark says, apparently not having noticed the cyborg cat yet.

[Arkhosia]

Westside

"You'll probably need more than that, at least later on. I can come up with a decent list," Shark says, apparently not having noticed the cyborg cat yet.

So, what iz your name?
It should be noted that he sounds just like Catbug.

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

"Yeah, yeah, a list would be nice. Uh, can you see the... cybercat, or am I hallucinating?" She does not deem it necessary to respond to what may be a hallucination.

[Devixer]

Westside

I'm glad I know exactly what a catbug sounds like and that the reference didn't fly right by me.

"Yeah, I see the cat," Shark says. "Just trying to figure out what the metal's for.:

[Arkhosia]

Westside

I'm glad I know exactly what a catbug sounds like and that the reference didn't fly right by me.

"Yeah, I see the cat," Shark says. "Just trying to figure out what the metal's for.:

I don't really remember. Where I come from, everyone's a cat cyborg!
... do you two have any cheezburgers?

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

Did the cat really just... "No. I don't. I do not have any cheeseburgers." She seems to be seriously considering leaving the area. This is weirding her out.

[Devixer]

Westside

"What? No, I don't." Shark reaches for the pistol on his hip. This cat was really weird and he got the feeling it would only get weirder.

[Arkhosia]

Westside

"What? No, I don't." Shark reaches for the pistol on his hip. This cat was really weird and he got the feeling it would only get weirder.

CatTok looks crestfallen.
oh.

[Lost_Deep]

Westside

Mira looks between the Cattok, Shark, the sky, an down the road she came from a few times.

"So. About that list..."

[Devixer]

Westside

Shark sighs and looks away from the cat. "Well, you'll need a few basic toolkits for survival. Probably wouldn't hurt to have a weapon of some kind. Food's a given, but you'll need to be able to catch and prepare more," he says. "How much cash do you have?"

[Earl of Purple]

Lotus Gardens

"Whilst I'm sure I would enjoy such a life, I have duties and responsibilities at the Hermitage and elsewhere in the Nexus." What she's not saying is that she would also enjoy a life like this more if she wasn't paranoid and worrying that it was an external influence altering her thoughts- and the moment she stopped thinking that, it would be too late as far as she's concerned.

[Murkus]

Club Pulse

Actually, it does.
Caelynn replies, as she sits down, smiling slightly.
The petals disappear if they come in contact to something.

[Club Pulse]

"Uh, no problem. Have a seat." The tall one answers. They recover their cool pretty quickly and exchange a look. Yes, this is good. "So what brings you two ladies over here?" He favours them with a toothy smile. Those canines look pretty pointy.

"It doesn't have anything to do with us, does it?" The shorter man says with lightly joking tone.

"Yeah, Riverside's pretty dead. Me and my friends thought you looked like the night-life types," Tina says, leaning back on the bar and crossing one leg over the other. She's still appraising the pair of them, but she gestures toward Dena and Cassidy when she mentions friends. "How do you have fun around here?"

Malchenar Castle

Blast! Discovered! Jim's ears drop a little, embarrassed.
"Well, I mean, Sticks probably needs me to be there and get the rundown of the whole project so it really isn't proper for me to skip out on it..."
But you know, cool plants!

Malchenar Castle

Celestel suddenly stops in her steps. From where they can see a literal jungle of vegetation with a paved path through it. There is a myriad of colorful flowers, some of an rather unusual size. "He instructed me to take you to him whenever you wished." Celestel replies. "He is in the laboratory in the top section of the castle. If you want I could take you directly there instead, your apprentice might want to appreciate what the castle has to offer however." She gives Jim a quick glance.

Sticks can tell very easily that Jim's interested. And while he's extremely curious to see what Lord Ryhe's planning, it couldn't hurt to enjoy the luxuries of the castle for a few minutes. "No, no. I think we ought to look around. Please, the grand tour." Sticks requests, since she seems willing to give it to them.

[Lord Magtok]

[Evolution Industries Riverside Branch Headquarters]

As for the robot battles, the Guardians prove hideously resistant to small arms level fire and will take a bit to take down even with concentrated fire. There's a reason there aren't that many of the things, and there's also a reason they require those beamer drones in the first place. But that part's the dull part, anyway. We can probably say those are off fighting each other for a while. Although, for a highlight, one of them decides, for what value of deciding it has, to see what happens when it launches an electrical blast from its head towards...a lasgoose.

Explosions happen. The bladder responsible for laser beams is set off, and a big, fiery, superheated inferno results, which is more than capable of tearing right through metal if it needs to in its violent spread across the space around it.

Beam shotguns. Guess he really isn't concerned about accuracy. For what it's worth, he seems unhindered by the gas, probably thanks to fancy vision stuff in the helmet or something. (Correct me if it impedes that.) But mostly, DC is going to go to the stairs and wait for Magtok to reach him, as the Guardians and Magbots battle. Said Guardians will, surprisingly, not impede Magtok that much, aside from trying to force him to slow down to avoid them where possible.

The gas won't do anything to impede DC's vision, but it doesn't need to be inhaled, either. Contact with one's skin is enough, so exactly how airtight is that suit of his?

Meanwhile, upon reaching DC at the stairwell, Magtok does the one thing he hopes is stupid enough to catch the psychic off-guard. He doesn't even bother talking, he just jumps right over the railing. Throws himself off the edge and plunges straight down towards the very bottom, without slowing his descent even a little to try to make the inevitable impact with the ground a tad more survivable.

[Shadowcaller]

Malchenar Castle

"Of course." Celestel says with a curt nod and then continues towards the door. Inside is a enormous hall lit up by some kind of artificial sun in at the very center of the ceiling. It's rather unlike the painted sun the saw in the entrance hall.

The artificial sun is hard to make out as it's glow is too strong to really look upon it for too long. It's purpose it's clear however, the sea of vegetation in front of them is feeding of it's life-living light. The flora around here is rather exotic, bluebells the size of trees, so called "corpse flowers" but unlike their real-life counter parts they smell good, very sweet, which must be the smell they picked up in the corridor.

There are a myriad of smaller species of flowers, some shaped like little orange human skulls while others like symbolic little hearts. Compared to the fauna the bumblebees going between the plants look very normal.

"This is the garden, we mostly use it for medical purposes. There used to be bee hives here too but we couldn't keep it up. The bees were swarming all over the castle." She explains as they walk forward down the paved path. "Up head are our farms which the gardens more and more have to make way for as the population up here has grown." She gestures ahead where they can see farm lands which should you an idea of just how large this chamber and the castle itself is. "We wouldn't be able to keep this up without some help from plant spirits of course, it would be impossible to do with earth, water and sun alone." She continues to explain. "One could say this is the heart of Malechenar while the upper sections are the brain."

Club Pulse

"Yeah, vampires around here look mostly human for some reason. I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to be so special about them, besides not liking the sun for some reason. In northside where we got an office it's always cloudy due the the vampires living there, can't be good for the environment." She shakes her head. "Those vampires I heard don't look very human so they must be different from the ones in westside." Vampires sounded confusing really. What really made a vampire? Weakness to the sun?

[Deathkeeper]

Malchenar Castle

Jim is a little creeped out by the skull flowers, but everything else is extremely cool. His tail waves a bit, unbeknownst to him. In the back of his mind Jim can feel the presence of something besides simple, natural plants. Of course, the fact that their guide said there were spirits makes that easy to identify, but the fact that he could feel that they're not purely natural is very interesting.
"Yeah, bees can be nasty little buggers. Hard to deal with raising them near populated areas." he says, more to himself than anyone else.

[Devixer]

Club Pulse

"I don't know, I guess there's more than one type of vampire?" Cassidy asks. These vampires sounded nothing like the HMHVV victims back home. She looks back towards Tina, Caelynn, and the vampires in time to catch the gesturing. "Think she'll signal us, or something like that?"

[happyturtle]

Evolution Industries - Outside

[Evolution Industries Riverside Branch Headquarters]

"Blind me!" Tumasi curses again and grabs his communicator. "Rollo here. We need backup at the Evolution Industries building. Magtok is gassing the place and I don't know what to expect."

Spoiler: Inside EI

Show

[Evolution Industries Riverside Branch Headquarters]





Testing the defenses of a building that has been evacuated of all personnel, security included. How unproductive. DC...seems remarkably unaffected by the memory attack there. Didn't I tell you I've been in the cat's brain? That would probably explain it. Most of what he's trying to dig up is a name: Investigating further through other channels is to come later. He'd like to fix the poor brainwashed bastard, but that level of mental shenanigans isn't exactly practical in the middle of a situation like this.

As for what DC does in the real world, that's much simpler. He goes inside, dual pistols readied. I certainly hope he's not planning to aim very precisely with those things. Though at least with his style of tech, the reloading problem is a non-issue. As for what he's doing...well, for one, any Magtoks he sees are going to get shot at, and it seems those pistols are something else indeed, because they appear to be...

Beam shotguns. Guess he really isn't concerned about accuracy. For what it's worth, he seems unhindered by the gas, probably thanks to fancy vision stuff in the helmet or something. (Correct me if it impedes that.) But mostly, DC is going to go to the stairs and wait for Magtok to reach him, as the Guardians and Magbots battle. Said Guardians will, surprisingly, not impede Magtok that much, aside from trying to force him to slow down to avoid them where possible.

As for the robot battles, the Guardians prove hideously resistant to small arms level fire and will take a bit to take down even with concentrated fire. There's a reason there aren't that many of the things, and there's also a reason they require those beamer drones in the first place. But that part's the dull part, anyway. We can probably say those are off fighting each other for a while. Although, for a highlight, one of them decides, for what value of deciding it has, to see what happens when it launches an electrical blast from its head towards...a lasgoose.

Explosions happen. The bladder responsible for laser beams is set off, and a big, fiery, superheated inferno results, which is more than capable of tearing right through metal if it needs to in its violent spread across the space around it.



The gas won't do anything to impede DC's vision, but it doesn't need to be inhaled, either. Contact with one's skin is enough, so exactly how airtight is that suit of his?

Meanwhile, upon reaching DC at the stairwell, Magtok does the one thing he hopes is stupid enough to catch the psychic off-guard. He doesn't even bother talking, he just jumps right over the railing. Throws himself off the edge and plunges straight down towards the very bottom, without slowing his descent even a little to try to make the inevitable impact with the ground a tad more survivable.

Not the backup that was called for, but backup of a sort. A woman in a labcoat and wearing a Remnant ID badge telewarps in, accompanied by a floating drone the size of a basketball. Of course Sunny isn't here as a representative of Remnant - she just rushed to get here when she saw events unfolding on television, and didn't think to take her badge off. She also doesn't think to check with the local authorities before acting.

Since she came in outside the building, she doesn't see DC or Magtok anywhere. She speaks, and the drone amplifies her voice.

"Magtok?.... "

She flinches after the first word is amplified, hearing her voice like that. She really really doesn't like being noticed by strangers, and this pretty much guarantees it. But she can't let this go on. Not if it's about The Cat. So she takes a deep breath and goes on.

"DeeCee? It's Sunny. We have to talk."

[Gullara]

Club Pulse

Actually, it does.
Caelynn replies, as she sits down, smiling slightly.
The petals disappear if they come in contact to something.

"Yeah, Riverside's pretty dead. We thought you two looked like the night-life types," Tina says, leaning back on the bar and crossing one leg over the other. She's still appraising the pair of them. "How do you have fun around here?"

[Club Pulse]

"You're looking at it. This club is the place to have a good time. Dancing, drinking, you name it." The shorter of the two says.

"And now that you two are here, I think the fun can really begin." The other says with a waggle of his eyebrows. "I don't think we got your names. I'm Bello, and this is Lorenzo." He gestures between himself and his friend.

[Evolution Industries - Outside]

Here are the sound of sirens approaching. Looks like the actual backup is going to be here any second. In the meantime, though, Tumasi blinks in surprise at Sunny for a moment. What is going on now?

"Hey. Hey stop. You can't be here. It's dangerous." Rollo steps toward Sunny, going to try and grab her arm. He notes the Remnant badge and curses in the back of his mind, but he doesn't let that stop him.

[ThirdEmperor]

[Malechenar Fortress]

The woman stands from examining the dog. Well that certainly doesn't look right. She looks around the room again, looking for anything else out of place. The Cat hasn't left anything out of place that she notices, though. She walks deeper into the room, closer to the closet, but not directly toward it.

Malechenar Fortress

She might hear a faint exhalation, or notice the shadows under the closet door shift slightly. Maybe. It's a very small thing to catch, although the breath sounds as loud as a gunshot to the panicking Cat.

[Arkhosia]

[Club Pulse]

"You're looking at it. This club is the place to have a good time. Dancing, drinking, you name it." The shorter of the two says.

"And now that you two are here, I think the fun can really begin." The other says with a waggle of his eyebrows. "I don't think we got your names. I'm Bello, and this is Lorenzo." He gestures between himself and his friend.

[Evolution Industries - Outside]

Here are the sound of sirens approaching. Looks like the actual backup is going to be here any second. In the meantime, though, Tumasi blinks in surprise at Sunny for a moment. What is going on now?

"Hey. Hey stop. You can't be here. It's dangerous." Rollo steps toward Sunny, going to try and grab her arm. He notes the Remnant badge and curses in the back of his mind, but he doesn't let that stop him.

Westside
Bye then
CatTok walks away, forlorn.

Club Pulse

Caelynn Turath, Huntress.
Caelynn replies, smiling.