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Zwei     When told that a trio of alien races had united under a common political banner, one might expect a group of green and blue people with forehead makeup gathering together on a single, joint ship in the interests of peaceful exploration. Instead, all three species that had miraculously evolved in the Gliese arm of the Milky Way, seem to have arrived on their own individual craft, all of which are ostensibly warships from the first glance, which number in the dozens. As they call themselves, the Glied, Gliec, and Glief, are about as 'starfish alien' as it gets, including hulking amphibious creatures with multiple elephantine legs, knifelike heads,and multi jointed arms; floating, pulsing sacs of gas trailing tendrils and cilia like a jellyfish with tiny heads bristling with plankton-like fronds and gills; and squat, vaguely reptilian humanoids without eyes or mouths and covered in bioluminescent nodules. It's a freak show all around, and only the former communicate on a spectrum audible to humans without speech computers translating everything for them, which means everyone is surrounded by a never ending cascade of microsoft family voices until the fleet reaches its destination.

    Said destination, being a supermassive black hole, never actually comes into view (unless someone else has a ship with the capability of entering a black hole of course), leaving the only indicators of arrival the sudden frenzy of intercom activity as personnel and power is diverted to some kind of 'counter rotation field' generated between the whole fleet to get in safely, and the point where the stars visible outside are suddenly swallowed in utter blackness. The dark period, both visually and communications-wise, only lasts for a few, short minutes, before the bow of each ship emerges into a 'eye' stabilized at the very centre that allows the facility to exist. The briefing had called it a 'temple', but the structure in question looks more like a small city, bristling vertical construction in every axis, and surrounded by a series of slowly rotating rings. Looking back towards where everyone came only provides the decidedly trippy sights of light entering the event horizon (http://puu.sh/c8LKa/85be37e449.jpg).

    Shortly enough, everyone is given a set of coordinates designating a meeting point, and access to a landing craft if they don't have any means to arrive themselves, shared with members of all three species clad in armour exosuits, and what appear to be small, quadrupedal mechs in the case of the floaty Gliec. The voyage is of course, totally silent, as sound doesn't carry in a vacuum. Unnervingly so. What's worse, when the hatches pop open into a massive, hexagonal corridor, it's just as quiet. And dark. The walls are featureless grey slabs, save for the scintillating patterns traced into them by slow moving, and extremely faint pulses of light, reminescent of an omnidirectional circuit board. The first couple of squads move off the landing craft, stomping into the oddly shaped hallway, and positioning themselves on each of the six walls, leaving half of them upside down, indicating that somehow gravity is present in every direction at once. The squad leader radios simply: "Are you ready to proceed?"
Mantigora The entire trip Mantigora has pretty much stood in silence, trying to shake off the tremendous feelings of 'deja vu' as the Cassians would call it. Bizarre forgotten facility in a secluded seemingly inaccessable portion of space supposedly left behind by a prognator race that 'accended' to another existance in theory but left no solid evidence? Yeah, the similarities would be making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, if she actually had hair there.

Then again, the strange coincidences in situation was precisely why she was asked to take the mission, being rather familiar with the scenerio on Nexus. Let's hope this facility isn't as full of ancient scrap trying to kill everything or extremely biopolar AIs.

Skuzzler on the other hand was practically vibrating with anticipation. New discoveries, new science, new technologies! ... and if necessary new things to blow up to get to them. Really, that he's better with the whole strange ancient technology thing is about the only reason Mantigora agreed to let the space-hamster tag along on this job.

Needless to say the Draken perked up when there was word it was time to actually hit the surface and get on with this operation. "Been ready the whole bloody trip," she muttered under her breath, borrowing a bit of vocabulary she'd heard from many a Cassian noble when they wanted to cuss without it sounding undignified.
Flint Hawke Flint Hawke bears allegiance to no man, be they Union, Confederacy, or Syndicate. His allegiance is to his heart, to his money, and to a lesser extent the two girls he is currently giving a space tour to. This makes him an excellent candidate for a mission like this. The Captain stands on the bridge of his ship and for the second time in twenty four hours says, "Mister Blade!"

His second in command stands before him moments later, white hair done neatly and blue eyes shining, "Yessir?" Flint says simply, "I am going on a mission. Set up the telemetry to give the girls a wonderful view of this place. And if I do not return in 12 hours with riches and women, I need you to gather the crew..." He puts a hand on his friend's shoulder, "And shoot them. I will not have them leave me behind again." Mister Blade nods several times.

Shortly after this exchange, and with the Black Sun anchored safely with the fleet so as to observe galactic phenomena and still be out of harm's way, a small landing craft hovers to a stop and sets down. There's the standard ramp drop and the doors carefully sliding open. It hits the floor with a THUNK and the doors open.

                      Hoist the skull and crossbones flag                      
                           In a sea without tomorrow                            
                               Those voices sing                                
                             'Go and live freely!'                              
With a serious look on his face, coat and hair flowing behind him, Flint steps off the landing craft and down to the ground with the weight of a Captain taking the deck of this operation. Hands come up, adjusting the white gloves he wears before he sweeps a hand cleanly down to his side, red eyes narrowing, "Oh I'm ready, you just see that you prepare my payment."
Arthur Lowell     Arthur Lowell is very familiar with Microsoft Sam and his dulcet tones. It's kind of nostalgic. He does everything he can to bait one of the handlers for this expedition into saying "John Madden" at some point, but no dice. Reaching the destination within the black hole, Arthur's SPACE SENSE is going wild and gives him wonderous sorts of insight into what's going on. He's been inside a black hole before, but you know, the wonderous appeal inherent to the sights of warping light don't really lose their fascinating luster.

    Arthur can also breath in space, because fuck vacuums, so the dude just flies off from the fleet and to the meeting point when they get the coordinates, meeting up with the group alongside the others with a brief bit of depressurization(?) of the interior when he gets through without a docking craft. When he speaks, it's actually just magic transmitting over the radio. "HELL YEAH I'm ready." He says, eagerly, slamming a fist into the opposite palm and grinning widely. "We got any idea where the GODHOOD SECRETS be up in this TEMPLE, or we just EXPLORING?" Because Arthur is immediately trying to recall the tallest and most important-looking vertical construction on the structure, and where they might be relative to it, just in case it's the latter, with his plan being to set off in that direction unless otherwise directed.
Yagami Hayate "Ooooh..." Two young voices are saying that in unison, viewing the light vanishing into the singularity. Hayate and Chikade are remaining on the ship, where it's supposedly safe, and enjoying the view of that strange sight. With them are Vita and Zafira, guarding them from any unexpected boarders... and no doubt helping to make sure that another mutiny does not occur.

Meanwhile, the other Wolkenritter have gone with Flint. Flanking the Captain of the Black Sun are two females, wearing... no atmospheric armor or spacesuits at all. Nothing of note but the normal, archaic armor/clothing they normally wear. One carries a sword at her side, with long pink hair in a ponytail, while the other is a gentle-looking blonde with no visible weapons at all. For reference she has placed a nurse's cap upon her head, to make her position obvious.
Jonothon Starsmore Jono's actually just here because he might be able to help with communication. Though that he can blast things is just an added bonus. After hearing very minor details about it he did some digging and realized this coalition might have communication issues. It took some doing but eventually he found the right ear to buzz into. His telepathy works with anything that's able to receive telepathy. There've been a few exceptions but it wouldn't hurt to try right?

He's always wearing black and now is no exception. Though now he has a uniform on. Sort of. He's not exactly an X-Man but recognizing that Jono was helping to do something that was dangerous he got a uniform. It lacks the 'X' though. It looks like a leather bodysuit but he's wearing his long coat over it. Fingerless gloves and sturdy boots-- both black-- finish the look. And of course his face and chest are both wrapped up to hide the not-fire emanating from his chest.

Yes he does feel quite stupid in all this. But he nods to the question of being ready. "As I'll ever be," he returns.
Megatron     Outside of orbit, a space-bridge opens up to warp time and space itself. Emerging forth is a massive warship, the Nemesis, and seated at its CIC is Megatron himself. His new optic, replacing the one Beelzebumon took, has needed some time getting used to, but he has idled long enough for one warlord of the decepticons.

    "Lord Megatron, you're sure you can handle this after the surgery?" Starscream asks, hovering over his lord as usual, the simpering oppertunist he is. "After all, you've been out of the game so long..."

    This conversation's been had a thousand times over, and Megatron's certain he'll be hearing that groveling another thousand times before the end of time itself. Such is existence, when you have this kind of help around. "Enough simpering, I am no mere worker drone." He barks, before standing to his feet. "Prepare the airlocks for my disembarkation. You have the bridge until I return...do /not/ make me regret that, Starscream." He warns, optics staring at his Sky Commander with a sharklike intensity before storming out.

    His entry into atmosphere amounts to a swan dive of sorts, before Megatron converts into starship mode, taking flight and making his way towards the signal itself. It's a short flight for him, and he converts in mid-air before making landfall with the impact of a bomb, a small crater made just from the force of his landing alone.

    He rises to his feet from a crouch, and Megatron heads towards the facility itself.

    A deep rumble escapes the Decepticon, sounding like the growl of a demonic entity filtered through a massive bass speaker system when he hears a familiar tone of voice from one of the Elites ahead.

    ".../You./" He recognizes Arthur Lowell without error, but the others he's only barely known of through scuttlebutt and listening towards idle chitchat on radio frequencies.

    He restrains himself for now, seeing how there's a more important thing at hand to deal with.
Arthur Lowell     "ME!" Arthur puts hands up, thumbs pointing to himself in an over-the-top bit of lightly obnoxious stylishness in response to Megatron, greeting him. Very casual, looks like the sort of thing you'd do among friends.
Megatron     Megatron just...stares at the space-teen flatly, before shaking his head. "I can already tell this is off to an exemplary start." He deadpans, before glancing towards the alien squad leader. "Let us be quick with it then, if we are to investigate this structure." Megatron is not a 'bot known for patience, whatsoever.
Zwei     "Good, because we're operating on a time limit here. We have a few hours before we need to bug out, because if we wait too long, the fleet will leave without us so that they won't get stuck in here once the field runs out." The telepathy is helpful since nobody has to feel the weird, reptillian, subsonic burbling coming from the squad leader, being the biggest of his particular group, meaning only just barely the size of the average human. A couple of the Glied move to the far end of the corridor, flanking what appears to be a dead end, before placing some sort of bulky device to opposite walls. For a second, it looks as if they're wiring charges to blow a passage in, but after a short while, the circuits pulsing along the drab, greyish material increase several lumens in brightness, and the dead end splits from the center and silently retracts into the walls like a bursting bubble. There is a dull hiss and a hefty backdraft as atmosphere floods into the chamber, but the hall beyond is just as dark, if far, far longer.

    "We've already found a few constructs like these, but they were all about to fall apart. The airlock code took us over a decade to figure out, but it seems to work on any of them. It's something we keep secret so that we're the only ones who can easily get in to a holy site." Waving his squaddies on, the (suddenly present) air is filled with the sounds of clomping boots, whirring servos, and stomping exo-feet. The corridor begins to split the further it goes along, but the paths that run perpendicular to it are bored into the walls in all directions, implying some kind of three dimensional honeycomb without a concrete up or down. Whoever used to live here, they clearly didn't have hangups over directional orientation. Is that even possible for anything that evolved on a planet? "This temple is identical to another one we found fifty years ago. We have a basic idea of its layout, but the other one was already nearly destroyed by centuries old battle damage. This one is just about out of power, but it's intact. We know where we're headed."

    It's a good thing too, because after an hour of walking, it really begins to sink in just how huge this place is. It's obvious that it must have hosted a permanent population at one point, but there aren't any obvious signs of habitation. At no point does the group run into anything that might seem like a public space, living quarters, hydroponics, or transport ways. The walls themselves appear to be radiating heat and producing atmosphere, so it's curious what exactly could be taking up so much space in the guts of the temple. Most of the trek is a hivelike maze of corridors, but the route does take them through a few rooms. Some sort of gargantuan, grand hall flanked with never ending rows of arch shaped constructions, whirring faintly as they perform some ancient task. A massive, spherical chamber where what look like elongated balconies stretch from every wall towards some sort of podium at the very middle, though if it was meant for a crowd to gather to watch something, it's a good question of where they could have actually stood. Some sort of low, flat room filled with pillars that stretches further than the eye can see in every direction, which hosts numerous, unrecognizeable sculptures made of some silvery metal. It's a nice change when the group finally breaks into something that isn't inexplicably alien.
Zwei     Specifically, what looks like the surface of a planet. At some point, one of the dark, confusing corridors opens up into blinding sunlight and blue sky, part of some kind of chamber that doesn't have visible walls or a ceiling. Clearly miles in diameter, the space is filled with what looks like some kind of forest or jungle, all of natural greens and browns like one would find on an earth-like planet, but as if designed by someone who had only heard descriptions of what an earth-like planet is. None of the vegetation seems like it could grow in the same climate, there are tiny trees, massive flowers, giant mushrooms, and sprawling shrubs, and some of it grows straight out of solid rock rather than loamy soil. The centre of the forest is dominated by a towering structure made of something a little too shiny to be rock, that resembles a sort of three storey stonehenge, set up in concentrical tiers like an ampitheatre. The rings surround an utterly monolithic statue of what is clearly a blank, featureless human, head tilted skyward and arms out to its sides. Around its head orbits a holographic solar system of roughly 180 planets, but all but two dozen have been crossed out. Some sort of indicator floats over one planet that is clearly earth, though none of the alien escort seems to recognize the blue green planet. In fact, they're much more taken in with nervously admiring the scenery, looking every which way as they wind their way through the tropical forest to its center.
Mantigora He's not the one Megatron is snarling at but all the same Skuzzler hides behind his taller partner, peering up at the Decepticon with a mix of trepidation and awestruck. And not just because the 30+ foot space robot is more than ten times his size. It was like a Warbot that could think for itself, and was in a constant state of being pissed off at everything else. There's Dominion engineers that wish they could make anything even close to being that instantly terrifying on sight to destroy their enemies with.

Mantigora on the other hand just gives Megatron a curt, polite nod, from one Confederate to another. Nothing more, nothing less, this is all professional to her. Other than the subtle slap she gives the Chua upside the head with her tail as she starts to walk after the alien commander so he actually follows her. Little surprise that, being mostly reptilian herself, she'd prefer staying closer to him than his other strange companions.

Walking, walking, walking, more walking... and then the alien infrastructure gives away to something that's much more natural in appearances.

Mantigora pauses again, expression scowling more as again the similarities strike her. "Like a Bio-Dome in here," she grunts under her breath. Gives Skuzzler another swat with her tail to get his attention, and nods her head in the direction of the holographic display above the statue.

"What? She-Draken always hitting Skuzzler for -- oooooh." The furball taps a command into his personal data unit, and in a fizzle of matrix-like gridwork imagery a metallic sphere is summoned just over his head, held aloft by the anti-grav discs mounted on its sides. A few more command taps at the Scanbot flits off to live up to its name, rising up to deploy it's sensor unit to scan/record the holographic map.
Flint Hawke "Ah, perfect you two. Just as rehearsed~," Flint Hawke croons, seeming very happy to have Signum and Shamal hanging out with him today. In fact, the pirate Captain is so happy that he rubs his hands together and then proceeds to (attempt to) put his arms around both their waists! Why not enjoy the company, after all, of two such beautiful ladies? This may earn him glares and smacking.

And then he takes off walking after the group as they're led along the paths. He's idly chatting to Signum and Shamal as he goes, "So I rarely see you lot on my ship, I've been so busy. How have you been enjoying yourselves?" He inquires with a tilt of his head before looking around at the massive structure of the temple.

He doesn't seem to tire from the walking, having a limitless physical endurance. So he simply takes in the view while walking along and looks around. Red eyes squint heavily when they finally emerge into what appears to be a planet's surface. He looks around and then says, "Impressive, to say the least. I hope we're nearing our goal, because this agriculture is very non-standard. Honestly, the soil can't support this mushroom and these shrubs plus trees. This is all simulated. Perhaps an illusion?"
Jonothon Starsmore Jono is amongst the 'clomping boots' crowd since he doesn't have any way to float or any device to carry him. He doesn't mind. But even though he doesn't breathe he feels a little better when there's air. He can hear so he can listen for trouble. He keeps quiet as they advance through the facility, his attention is mainly on offering to translate for anyone who needs/wants it.

When they reach the sudden 'sunlight' he winces and closes his eyes until he gets accustomed to it. Once he can see again he realizes it's... an environment. Life? Here in space? After this long? Particularly when it looks like they've had to reactivate the facility after God only knows how long inactive? That smells funny. Figuratively speaking since he can't actually smell anything. But he resumes the trip.

And then pauses when he sees the statue. That holographic solar system... yeah he recognizes Earth. Then again it's not his world so it's probably not the Sol Galaxy he knows. Still, it's a bit unnerving to see all those planets 'crossed out'. Like they weren't there anymore...
Megatron     Megatron's heavy footfalls give a metallic thud that manages to slightly drown out those of the exo troopers, the massive Decepticon clearly giving off an air of 'I cannot at all be assed to pay attention to half of you people' as he continues along the pathway, only stopping when he observes the Glied soldiers plant those devices on the wall.

    "Hnn." He cannot at all be bothered to really take note of this stuff himself, but he keeps a running log going for Shockwave's future benefit, confident the scientist will have much more to benefit from with this research.

    These structures, this massive hall, it's not unlike that of some alien civilizations his people have ocme across, either alive or long extinct with only their constructions left behind as a sign of peoples long past.

    The biodome itself, as Mantigora puts it, definitely is worth more than just a glance as Megatron continues to scan, his recordings running the whole while as he allows on-board analytical systems go to work when the Decepticon approaches one of the massive fungi.
Yagami Hayate A light swat from Shamal and a death glare from Signum are what Flint earn. The two aren't unfriendly, just very aloof from that sort of flirtation. Shamal handles it better than Signum, though, and at least walks alongside Flint anyway. "Now, you know we're dedicated to our Mistress," she murmurs lighly in a chiding voice.

Then the two are walking along with him, contemplating the scenery. Signum is the one who speaks, surprisingly. "This is like a Belkan research station. I'm a little fuzzy on those memories but they all look similar."

Not exactly like, of course. Those two don't recognize Earth, simply because their universe works off of a different navigation system. Also, Earth is kind of a backwater ass-end world in their universe anyway.

"Klarwind, monitor these and analyze," Shamal says softly, her ring glowing green for a moment. It isn't an Intelligent Device, but it can handle basic orders like that. She opens up a regular scanning to feed into her own telepathic link.

Curiously, both Wolkenritter are more interested in the very alien ALIENS, since in their universe they're almost always humans on other worlds.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur rambles something irreverently for a solid five minutes about how most of the holy sites he's had the chance to bust his way into have been unlocked with hastily-assembled fragments of ancient artifacts, but is just sort of walking along for now. Looks like he doesn't need to puzzle out anything, he's just going to follow along. "ANYWAY," He says after that lengthy spiel, "RAD, we got this MAPPED? Should be EASY then. Anything we gotta LOOK OUT FOR?"

    Then, a fucking forest. "WHAT." Arthur says. "Man, I didn't feel us hittin' a GATE or gettin' to ANY fuckin' NEW PLACES, did they build this INSIDE the thing? God DAMN yo." He resumes his striding. "We headed for the BIG IMPORTANT-LOOKING THING? The thing that looks like some kinda SUPER STONEHENGE?" While looking all around in a wonderous sort of way, he's almost entirely without care as he sets off towards the structure eagerly ready to get to their objective.
Zwei     One of the Glief burbles to another about how the scenery here is completely different from the last one, while a Glied takes the time to look back at Flint, gesture towards the statue with the arm that isn't integrated into a weapon mount, and say "Looks like you, doesn't it?" The two Gliec in their mecha suits smash their way through a couple of trees and begin clearing foliage around the base of the structure to make room to set up, using judicious application of plasma in the form of steady torches. For being just as obviously impossible as Flint says, the plants sure burn realistically. Those without helmets can quickly smell the smoke. "Alpha, Charlie, left and right flanks. Establish a perimeter and check for other active systems. Bravo, Delta, start climbing. Echo, get out the keys." The leader's squad callsigns even translate to something more earth military standard. How useful. "These spheres are what we believe to be the true place of worship inside each temple. Every one of them we've found so far has been dedicated to a different species and a different planet. We've actually discovered previously unknown races by following the coordinates found in these sites. Some of them weren't even to the point of space travel yet. It's probable that those who built this place had already catalogued every sentient species in the galaxy."

    However, it seems Skuzzler is beating them to the scan. Even with the drone's advanced sensors, it's impossible to tell where the hologram is being projected from. In fact, it appears as if there is simply a collection of photons hanging completely starionary in mid-air, reflecting light rather than giving it off. Obviously, all the script is completely alien and impossible to read, but simply by watching which characters repeat and comparing them to known data of the planets that are recognizeable, the numerical ones at least can be figured out. Most of it is fairly standard measures of gravity, rotation, density, orbital path and period, surface temperature, mass and radius. Every single one of them however, have what appears to be a population counter, which is steadily ticking up. Though all of the two dozen highlighted planets are populated, the other 156 that have been crossed out have a population of 0. More importantly, each one of them has physical readings that imply they have been subject to cataclysmic galactic events, including surface temperatures in the billions of degrees, mass values that mean most of the planet has been blown to pieces, or orbital paths that indicate they've been knocked out of their own solar system. It seems unusual that so many planets would host sapient life, and yet so many of them would be destroyed within the lifespan of the species that built this place.

    Klarwind is able to ascertain much the same information if it focuses on the orrery, but scans of the surrounding area are possibly more interesting. The air here is already the same type of quantum gas that allows multiversals to breathe on each other's worlds, despite the fact that there should be no way for it to penetrate a black hole, even after unification. The air temperature, humidity and pressure are consistent with a habitable planet, but not with the grand majority of the vegetation. The plants themselves give off all the convincing lifesigns one would hope for, except for being completely bereft of any kind of life energy whatsoever. The whole thing is less like a biosphere and more like . . . artwork. Some kind of stylized tribute to the currently selected Earth. Would the scenery change if another planet was chosen?
Zwei     The two Glied from before move up to one of the giant "stones" that support the ringed structure, slapping their big computers to the surface, which then begins to pulse with that same circuit pattern as the halls outside. They're halfway into the process of wirelessly mashing key combos when a razor thin beam of light slashes out of the foliage, lances through the armour of one, and explodes into blue, bloody mist out the exit hole. Instantly, the escort leaps into action, diving behind rocks, trees, and the pair of mechs, powering weapons, and scanning into the dense surrounding foliage. A strange, echoing shriek reverberates throughout the clearing, and then a trio of airborne shapes scream overhead, moving so fast as to be nothing more than a silvery blur. One of the mechs opens its gunpods and fires a stream of missiles after the rearmost shape, which corkscrews effortlessly through the barrage. The next moment, the edges of the clearing come alive with rustling flora and glittering metal as humanoid shapes burst from the shade into the sunlight. Skeletal figures with reverse jointed legs, seemingly sculpted out of solid mercury, with every limb so razor thin that they look almost two dimensional when at the right angle, and swept, spear shaped heads with only a single sensor stud as a feature. They don't even have feet, simply gouging into the rocks beneath them with bladelike points at the ends of their legs, and leaping along like what one would imagine to be a satyr on crack. Every one of them has a right arm sculpted into the shape of what is clearly a sword, and a left arm that must be some kind of cannon, because within moments, they are spraying the clearing with streaking bolts of energy, blasting trees into flaming pieces and smashing rocks into flying fragments of molten lava. None of it appears random or suppressive in nature. Every shot is aimed either for cover that the aliens hide behind, or for one of the Elites present.
Flint Hawke "Now, now!~" Flint responds to Shamal (and by Proxy, Signum's glare) with an innocent wave of his hand, "I have no intention of taking you from the young lass! I am merely enjoying your joint company while time permits! Surely she won't object to that. After all, how could I resist two lovely ladies?" He clucks his tongue a bit while walking, looking around and then up at the statue that is said to resemble him.

"Why sir, I believe that is racist. While his jawline is much more chiseled," He snickers to himself, "I have features such as a face. A feature of mine which I am very proud of." He points out, wagging his finger a bit and then taking some time to listen to Signum. He looks genuinely curious, hand adjusting the brim of his fancy hat, "Really? It looks familiar to you?" He hmms to himself curiously.

Flint claps his hands in front of himself and then wags them a bit, trying to keep smoke away from himself, lest his coat get a smell that won't come out for weeks. But then they're being attacked by aliens! And he scowls a bit, "Well, my darlings. Seems like we've found the welcome party. I had hoped our first date would be an uneventful and romantic stroll."

    Flint reaches under his jacket and pulls out a pair of twin revolvers. While many people in his universe use laser weaponry, and so does Flint, he still keeps physical weapons around as well for just occasions like these. And revolver designs don't have much to change in the hundreds of years since man left Terra. He pulls both triggers and sends a pair of .454 rounds at the advancing creatures. For now, errant shots at him crackle and snap against a portable shield he wears.
Mantigora Once it has finished it's scanning of the map the Scanbot floats back to Skuzzler, it's probe retracting and the entire front surface of the sphere splitting down the middle to open into a holographic projector of its own, which it uses to play back the various readings. While Skuzzler keeps tapping at his control interface at seemingly random intervals, having to hit the command at certain times to keep the decrypting code in process.

After a few moments of such the Chua lets out what can only be a sharp squeal of pleasure. "Surface temperature boiling? Planetary disalignment? Depressurization core combustion?" Skuzzler strokes his whiskery goatee with one hand in a cliche 'evil scientist' fashion. "Skuzzler liking these mystery aliens more and more, nyehehe...Hmm. Though..." He squints one eye almost comically at the still decrypting readouts. "Must find out if they actually caused or just observed. Morbid sense of humor only go so far for interplanetary desimilation..."

Mantigora is, on the other hand, not the least bit distracted by the findings. The feline side of her traits is showing, in the way she glances around constantly and her tail keeps twitching from side to side. They said this place still had power.. and if this display is important there is no way it cannot be unguarded... dormant, maybe, but that is true it's not going to last. She's been on enough alien investigation missions to know... Hell, she's been on them for Artemis Zin, whom is intergalactically famous back home as much for her capacity to get into trouble in such things and not leave 'big red buttons' alone as she is for making a reality holo-vision show out of it all.

Her experiences, alas, prove to be true. Or maybe not so alas, as she was getting as bored as she was on edge. Either way her response is almost split-second thanks to the accelerated threat processing and reflexes her nanotechnology gives her. She unceremoniously boots Skuzzler and his Scanbot out of the line of fire in one direction and back-rolls in the other to avoid the line of fire down their position. Even as she's coming back onto her feet its in a crouch, a circuitboard like pattern of energy briefly playing across her form as the nano-suit shifts from passive to defensive modes, longcoat seeming to meld away with the process into the lightweight body armor that takes form instead.

Followed by her nanotronic claws extending as Mantigora leaps at the defense construct(?) that fired at them, deconstructive nanite energy radiating along the length of the blades as she brings it slashing down at the assailant with her lunging impact. "Keep them away from the researchers and door openers!"
Megatron     Megatron makes a face as the Glied explains, before nodding. "No doubt some sort of documentation and preversation effort, I assume." He's not entirely lazy with this stuff, evidently, as he continues to scan.

    Even when unwelcome guests arrive, he's unflappable. Megatron turns his gaze towards the alien enemies, narrowing his optics as he first takes a moment to scan for details ranging from physical appearance to armaments, before he pops his neck with a feral grin.

    Next comes the fun part; Testing out combat effectiveness personally.

    He cocks and levels his fusion cannon, bringing the weapon to bear upon one of the aline machines with a casual blast at their feet. Cover is for other people, as he barely even seems to make an effort to evade enemy fire given his massive size and armor.
Jonothon Starsmore And then suddenly HOLY CRAP someone's SHOOTING at them! A LOT of someones! Or rather there are some... things shooting at them. Jono's paying attention to the hologram when the bolts come flying at them. He looks up just in time to get one right in the chest. Or so it seems. He flies back with a surprised mental cry as the blast seems to go right through him. He bounces a few times on the ground and then comes to rest on the ground.

His eyes are still open though. And from the perforated area on his chest, small flames seem to emanate. And then... he scowls. It takes him a few moments but he gets back to his feet. As he does he reaches up and undoes the wrapping from his face. No sooner does he do that than red-orange flames seem to flare up around his head. And he sends a blast of not-fire at the things shooting at them.

Jono's fire isn't actually fire and doesn't burn conventionally. Getting hit with a blast of his fire feels roughly like being struck by a very hard physical blow. With the added sensation of someone applying a rotary sander with the lowest grit sandpaper possible to the place where the blast hits.
Yagami Hayate "Not so much familiar, just reminds me of a vague flash," Signum says to Flint. "Our memories past a few centuries are muddled and dim. I've never seen anything close to this, but the overall feel seems like one that I should know." She's a warrior, though, not a scientist. This really isn't her sort of specialty, she just happened to be the one who remembered a brief flash.

Shamal states softly, "They aren't alive, but they're exact replicas. If I didn't know better I'd call them mana constructs, but I'm not sure where the power source is." This isn't magic, or even technomagic, so Shamal's having trouble getting a full bead on it. Thus a little guesswork, basically.

That's when the shooting starts. Signum is IMMEDIATELY on the move, stepping in front of Shamal to protect the more fragile Wolkenritter while her Barrier flares to life in a triangular shield to soak up any stray shots. Her sword is out, and she's wordlessly guarding Shamal while... watching. Just watching for now, analyzing the attack pattern while defending her comrade. Flint seems to have things under control for his part.

Shamal is being much more aggressive. This might sound strange, for the medic, but her method of attack is fairly strange. Thrusting her hand into a glowing green circle, it emerges somewhere behind the attackers, and Klarwind begins stringing an intricate lattice of mana-constructed 'razor wire' throughout the area, away from the allies.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur wastes no time at all. "ALRIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS." The boy says, immediately ready and leaping into action! One of his large steel brooms is suddenly in his hands! He suffers several blasts that sear damage along his body, but his physical form has been hardened by Sburb's echeladder and he primarily winds up suffering some severe bruising!

    "Let's see how the LAST FUCKIN' TEMPLE got its SHIT TORN UP." If the alien things aren't caring about cover, Arthur will make them care about it more. He does this by making a GIANT upward sweep with his broom. He's actually thought about this, though. A lot of people here are using ranged weapons! So he attempts to blast many of them up with a huge burst of AoE gravity! So as to prevent them from using any of the environment for cover!
Zwei     The bizarre defense drones are ludicrously quick. Probably due to the fact they're made of so little material, they dance across the ground without ever actually seeming to sink into it, as if bouncing rather than leaping under their own power. Not one of them stays still to try and gun down the group with superior firepower in numbers, rather charging all as a unit while they're surrounded. The first one Mantigora leaps for reacts ridiculously fast, spinning around 180 degrees and swinging at her with its bladed arm, only for the silvery material to split under the energy claws instead, which cleave right through its torso unit, being the only part of it aside from its head that isn't as thin as a razor blade. The lack of effort it takes her to dispatch one indicates that the fact it would take a cubic foot of material to make their whole body must be intentional, because there's no way any advanced alien species would make something so fragile unless it was meant to be cheap and disposable. Flint's primitive ballistic rounds actually have little difficulty punching through the paper thin metal, but there seems to be nothing in the way of wires or servos inside to damage, meaning that one bullet passes harmlessly through an arm, while another strikes something actually hardened in the chest. Perhaps something vital?Megatron's fusion cannon makes a complete mockery of the one he airs for, turning it into glittering vapour and a puddle of molten quicksilver. Jonothon's kinetic blast hurls one off the ground as if it weighed about as much as a candy wrapper, sending it crashing into one of its fellows and directly through the cutting mana wire erected by Shamal which neatly dices them to pieces.

    Taking lead from the Elites, the Tripartite soldiers begin to open fire, rattling off sizzling bursts of plasma fire from heavy rifles carried by the Glief, and sprays of gatling laser and missile fire from the heavier weapons carried by the stockier Glied. Despite their lack of Eliteness, the rounds fired by the troopers still seem faily effective, taking out enemies after a couple of direct hits despite their lack of internal anatomy. The fusion rockets quickly churn the surrounding area into a series of smouldering craters, levelling the forest to provide a longer line of sight, and thus more time to shoot back. Their level of accuracy and utter fearlessness means that they must have been picked out as elite troops, as they manage to steadily whittle through the enemy's numbers. It seems like they'd be able to keep this up indefinitely if the enemy came at them only ten at a time, but the increased visibility only shows that more of the silvery constructs are swarming into the battle zone from god knows where. The mechs piloted by the Gliecs appear to be energy shielded, as the laser fire coming at them is refracted around them in a dome rather than striking dead on, and their weapons are by far the heaviest, but rather than massacreing the enemy infantry, they swivel to track the flying targets banking around for another pass. Swarms of micromissiles and batteries of particle beams fill the air with fire and sound, but the fliers appear to be both far more agile, and far more durable than the groundpounders. One of them survives several direct missile hits before going down, before the other two break off, streaking over the clearing and dropping what must be bombs judging by the catastrophic explosion; momentarily blinding anyone unfortunate enough to be looking. The blast shatters the spherical shields surrounding the mechs in a single strike, at which the infantry suddenly begins refocusing their fire; drowning the heavy machines in so much fire that their armour begins to glow cherry red and melt off its frame; aiming to take out the easy targets now without cover or shielding.
Zwei     

    Moments before it looks as if the mechs will go down, Arthur's gravity trick interrupts the enemy fusillade, and more importantly, robs the razor-men of their mobility by giving them no ground to leap off of. The shooting doesn't actually stop, but at least diverts to the Elites rather than their escort. Despite being cheaply mass produced, the weapons used by the constructs are comparatively powerful; indicating use as a 'glass cannon' shock troop. Standing around means personal shields will be swiftly overloaded by the increasing number of hostiles, but it's difficult to escape their absurd level of accuracy. The mechs turn to ignore the aerial targets in time to decimate the infantry left hovering by Arthur with horizontally sweeping streams of fire, but that only allows the two airborne enemies time to dive once more and strafe a group of Glief with their cannons, leaving nothing behind but molten craters.
Megatron     Megatron cackles as he finds success, wading into combat as he sprints towards another of the drones to punt it like a soccer ball. He lashes out with a vicious kick, before he finds himself under fire from the flying units attacking overhead. "You think you can take ME by surprise? You aim to strike MEGATRON in the back? What nonsense..."

    Then he takes off, converting into starfighter mode as he flies off towards a group of the fliers. He's no Starscream, but Megatron knows a thing or two about arial engagements and it shows with how he pursues his targets.

    Letting his targeting software handle the math and such, he spools up his fusion battery before taking a few shots, then nimbly banking to make another pass at the fliers.
Flint Hawke "Signum, love. Be a doll and make with the slashes for the chest," Flint says with a twirl of his twin revolvers. He feeds the information to Shamal directly, "The slugs only seem to work when you peg em square in the chest, m'dear. Best to aim there, or help people do the same." He spins the two guns and blows smoke from the barrels before they vanish under his jacket, "These toys won't do too well. Best to change my game up."

Flint reaches under his jacket in a different direction and pulls out what looks like a dinner plate with a trigger welded onto it and a 9-Volt Battery on the side. He grips the weapon and then says, "Please don't stand directly in front of me with any sensitive electronics." He says, mostly to the two girls standing next to him since they're the only two he actually cares about.

He then pulls the trigger and... the gun doesn't move at all. Of course it doesn't! Instead, the dish begins to emit a hum and the gun vibrates a little. The air starts to ripple as powerful waves of directed microwave energy seek to both cook the metal assailants and fry their systems in the chest, too.

A few errant shots clip through his shield during moments where it flickers from repeated impacts. These shots leave shallow marks along his side and shoulder, causing a grunt of pain.
Mantigora Mantigora doesn't even spare the time to disregard how quickly the drone or whatever it is crumpled. One fallen matters little when you're starting a Holdout battle against waves of dozens more marauding upon your position. At least the sheer numbers make up for them being so frail to strike down. Though she does offer her allies a quick, "Aim for the bodies, it's the only damage that stops them!"

She manages to evade the bomb drops, but the constant fire from the drones, even as they're being thrown in the air by Arthur and blown up by others, is quickly whittling away at her energy shields, a few already managing to strike through and scorch her armor as well. Not that it keeps her from continuing her hit-and-run frenzy of claw slashing through the ranks, but she knows enough tactics to know having to deal with ground and airborn targets at the same time is going to turn to a bloodbath soon enough. Inbetween strikes she barks over their personal datacomm link to her partner in trouble. <<Skuzzler, anti-air support, now!>>

The Chua pops his head out of the brush he'd been kicked into. "Oooh, I LOVE live fire field testing. Best part of developement process!" He draws the weapon from his back, which is already as big as he is. Which makes it something when the launcher expands farther to produce a longer set of barrels on the end of it's already comical size. You would think it would be rediculous for someone of his size to lift up, but his bodysuit has secondary actuators built into it specifically for handling the heavy weaponry Engineers prefer. "Calculate trajectory.. timing ally passage... carry the four... AND EAT FLAMING HOT CHUA WAR SCIENCE WAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!" Admist the manic laughter Skuzzler opens fire, barely waiting for Megatron to finish his pass before filling the air with scatterblasts of highly volatile energy beams with little discretion other than avoiding hitting ally units.
Jonothon Starsmore Since the kinetic blasts seem fairly effective Jono keeps up with those. Lacking a personal shield or any other such protection from laser fire Jono resorts instead to dodging. His coat quickly ends up getting the trailing edge tattered. Which he's going to be upset about later. Like when he's not in danger of getting his head shot off of his shoulders.

But since these things appear to be made of the equivalent of tissue paper-- or whatever passes for it in these things' world-- he gets an idea. Admittedly a rather stupid one. He heads directly into a mass of the robots and tries to bait them into hitting each other. Both with shots and with blades.
Yagami Hayate So things are pretty serious, it would seem. Signum's Barrier is strong, but isn't actually meant to hold back fire for longer than a few seconds. It's already starting to crack. She nods curtly as she watches the movements of the incoming drones... and settles on her attack.

The pink-haired Knight dashes forward with a soft 'mn' and whips her sword out. <EXPLOSION! SCHLANGEBEISSEN!> The ping from the blade is loud, announcing the attack, which translates to 'Biting Snake' in more common languages. With a flare of fiery mana along her blade, the sword splits into a segmented whip with sharp flanges, snaking about the battlefield and targeting the chests in a series of strangely-angled strikes. This sort of attack does bring her in closer, and it costs her two deep gashes along the Barrier Jacket, one of which should be deep enough to draw blood. And does, as Signum currently bleeds.

Shamal vanishes in a flash of green light, reappearing in the sky. These flying drones rely on mobility, she thinks... so the teleporting blonde whips both hands in close. "Klarwind..."

<COMMANDMENT CHAIN.>

The air is filled with numerous thin threads, the mana-reinforced and constructed tendrils whipping out in a wild splay across the air to wrap around and bind anything that comes near.
Arthur Lowell     "HAHAHAHAHA!" Arthur shouts. "LOOK how MANY OF THEM there are! Holy shit this hurts a lot." His grin is wide and intense as the group is charged by the vicious, inhuman razor-drones. Not previously mentioned in this pose is that Arthur Lowell is WEARING SUNGLASSES, which renders him immune to flash effects because of DRAMA! It shouldn't, but it does, somehow.

    The flying enemies come back around. Arthur darts up, into the air, blasting off with antigravity magic. He tries to ID the location of Megatron, the fire from Skuzzler, and other suchlike. His genius mind races with stylish options for exploiting the current tactical setup.

    He knows what he has to do.

    Still blasting up, he darts to where he predicts Megatron and Mantigora's combined anti-air efforts are occurring, and, likely while still sustaining intense bruising and even several vicious cuts on his body from the drone fire, attempts to form a loop with his broom.

    He attempts to do it where the nose of one of the remaining flying enemies is, whichever one seems less damaged.

    Then, tanking whatever intense, horrible shearing damage comes to his joints, he attempts to GRAVITY PILEDRIVE a FUTURE JET through SHAMAL'S THREADS and right into a cluster of RAZOR DRONES, wher he hopes it will explode and damage them. And him, but that's acceptable.
Zwei     Apparently, the drones aren't radiation shielded either, because Flint has far more success frying fluid crystal cores than trying to shoot them. Wherever he points the 'gun', they spasm, spark, and fall over, dropping like grass under a mower, externally untouched, but with their cheap little processors on the inside compltely ruined, effectively covering an entire flank and allowing the troopers to move and refill the one where their comrades had been annihilated. Mantigora is in a lot of danger being surrounded by so many enemies, but also in a very target rich environment, as she can barely swing without hitting something, slashing her way through the hordes like a scissors through paper. As she breaks into the back ranks however, the constructs cease shooting at her entirely, and instead lunge on her from several different directions at once, striking her from multiple angles with their close combat blades, which better put to use their insane speed. Unfortunately for Jonothon, as flimsy as the drones are, AI must be really cheap, because not once does one of them fire and hit another one. The blasts of !fire from his chest have little trouble wrecking them when he applies enough force, more snapping and mangling their limbs to the point of uselessness than outright destroying them. Being directly 'in the mess' presents a unique problem in that there is suddenly nowhere left to dodge when the reinforcements leap over the wrecks of their predecessors and begin spraying gunfire on him. Signum's wire-sword maneuver is actually a perfect way to take care of the horde surrounding her, scything through rows of them at a time.

    Megatron, after having his fun smashing up the ground troops, is the first to actually see the fliers as more than a passing blurr, taking the form of something that looks vaguely like some kind of stingray, trailing a row of silvery tendrils that sweep behind them with every turn. The one he aims at is actually quite deft at avoiding his fire, spiralling through the air with tiny plumes of thrust from all over its swept wings, but after running straight into Shamal's net, several hits do manage to strike solidly, tearing away chunks of its exterior, before it is caught dead on in Skuzzler's area barrage, and goes down flaming at an incredible velocity. The last remaining flier pulls a ridiculous turn to loops behind Megatron, now doing exactly what he had dared it to, and opening fire directly into his 6 o'clock. It manages to chase him just such that it can drop another bomb directly on top of Skuzzler, but the radius of the explosion is such that Flint and Signum are caught in it as well. Before it can do any kind of fatal damage to the decepticon however, Arthur blindsides it from out of nowhere, dropping it out of the sky like a burning meteor and, indeed, smashing it into a million pieces.

    In the momentary period of distraction caused by the bomb going off, a handful of drones vault twenty meters into the air over the line of fire, landing straight in the middle of the clearing, and charging into the troopers' rear flank. They turn, they shoot, they gun down about half of them, and then they are immediately and messily butchered in a frenzied five seconds of hand to hand combat. Though they may be superior in a firefight, there's simply no way a normal being of flesh and blood, covered in that much armour and without a real melee weapon of their own, could compete at close quarters combat with so many lightning fast enemies. Just like that, the right flank collapses, and the remainder of the drones along it are free to charge in unimpeded. Swarming like ants, they bound across the landscape and straight into the mechs, cutting them to pieces even as their guns continue to blaze up 'till the very last second. The train of reinforcements appears to have been stopped, but the remaining drones are now right in the middle of the Elites, shooting at Megatron, Shamal and Arthur in the air, and otherwise dogpiling on Flint, Mantigora, Skuzzler, Signum and Jonothon on the ground.
Flint Hawke Flint actually takes a stupidly unnecessary risk when the dogpile begins. Rather than simply handle the troops as they come, the showman that he is would rather try to impress his two companions. And so Flint sprints forward, the gun in his hands disappearing right into the jacket and instead being replaced by a cutlass in his hand. He rolls under the explosion, the force of it sending him rolling and tumbling across the ground and leaving him more than a little scorched. His shield flickers and finally shuts off for the night, leaving him more vulnerable.

There's a crack and a hum as the power field crackles to life to enhance its cutting edge. Flint wants to switch to a sword, just to try to impress Signum a bit. So he goes from on the fringes at range into melee, using his enhanced athleticism to get him there as quickly as possible.

Once in the middle of the fray, he shows that he is skilled, but certainly more experienced at range. He hacks and slashes with the power sword, trying to cut his way through the oncoming forces with heavy blows of his blade. He's willing to trade attacks, but it looks pretty nasty. And a few manage to land either shots or melee blows on him that open up deep cuts along his side and chest that stain his white shirt a deep red... and also an ichorous black.
Yagami Hayate While Signum doesn't escape unscathed from this mess of blasts and attacks toward her, she really isn't hindered much. A shimmering barrier surrounds her, and she falls back briefly when the blast wave of the bomb washes over her. YEt she doesn't rely on that for fighting and tanking hits; she's very fast as well. Almost a blur, she's dashing this way and that, her blade striking in alternately wirelike snake strikes like before, and focused explosions of flame from normal strikes, sending waves of flaming and concussive mana outward to clear away the drones. "They really don't know when to give up, do they?" More gashes and burns are in her Knight Clothes, leaving her looking battered but otherwise not particularly injured. Signum is an S-class rank, just about as high as they get. She doesn't go down easily.

Shamal, however, is considerably weaker in the grand scheme of things. She's still sending out wires to wrap around anything in the air, but she's just now turned her attention to the other drones swarming in, setting up another intricate net of razor-sharp wire spread across the incoming wave. It's a problem that they can still shoot, because she lets out a short cry as one beam lances right through her midriff, sending her into a convulsion of pain despite her nonhuman nature, tumbling backward several meters before she instinctively opens a portal to somewhere less swarmed. Unfortunately she isn't particularly accurate in the last case, ending up several meters above the ground still and falling the rest of the way.

It isn't a fatal hit, actually, but it HURT and it's at least temporarily taken Shamal out until she can get her wits about her and heal herself.
Mantigora Mantigora has managed to dice her way through to the back lines of the drone enforcers and leave a wake of broken units in her wake, but now she's pretty much surrounded and her foes are moving into melee range with their weird rapid spike-foot strides. What terrible, terrible odds.

For them, that is. Outflanked and outnumbered was hardly a determent as far as Mantigora was concerned, as close-quarters was her specialty. Just more of a challenge.

The first drones to descend on the Draken, if they have any self-awareness of feeling or injury, would notice the proximity in itself starting to slowly eat away at them from a nanotech field being projected from her position. Mantigora uses her own claw-blades to deflect one of the attackers, and then spins to gash through their ranks with the Decimate counterstrike. And then there were -two- of her fighting back, as her Clone technique activates, and the nanotech backed hard-like hologram has a nasty bite to it even if doesn't have her repitore of techniques to use other than slashing and stabbing.

Skuzzler cackles with glee as the fighter goes down in a blaze. But the victory is short-lived as a bomb is dropped in the vicinity and the explosion sends the space-rat skidding across the ground. ".. Explosions less fun when on you.." He notes as he gets up. Only to find a lot of the drones have ripped up their alien allies. Thus now nearby. And ready to give chase.

Which is exactly what they get when Skuzzler turns and barrels off in the other direction. Surprisingly fast for those stubby legs, and probably some sort of accelerator in the boots. Then again, being only three feet tall, he can just duck, swerve and roll through most of the alien vegetation. And while the drones can likely just cut through it, doing so still gives him a decent lead on the matter. "This part of field work Skuzzler REALLY HATE!"
Jonothon Starsmore Well that didn't go as planned. On the bright side if the things aren't shooting at him while he's in their midst he might be able to get behind them. Maybe. Or maybe not since they suddenly pile on him. Literally. There are too many of them for him to fight off and they end up rather literally making a dogpile on him. Well maybe more 'robot-pile'.

It really does look like they're all going to crush him. Or trample him with those pointy feet. Or shoot him to death. Or... well any number of unpleasant things. Looks bad...

It takes him a few moments but he does eventually get himself where he can attack his attackers. And emits a large blast! It's not a focused beam either. It's just a very large explosion. Like a bomb went off.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur magically suplexes a future jet into more future magic.

    The impact is major enough that he's slammed away from it, rolling and bouncing like a ragdoll before, at the height of one arc, he flips in mid-air while screaming some shounen battlecry, landing on the soles of his feet and sliding before he launches himself back up! Just in time to get shot to shit by the remaining drones as they get into the group directly.

    Arthur has suffered major wounds to his shoulder, his torso, all of his head, but despite bleeding all over, he's still going at one hundred percent activity, maxing out his gravity in a brief burst! His metal broom blooms widely, baring a cluster of rockets. The bristle end goes up and he blasts right back down!

    The ensuing shockwave of gravity magic is intended to be destabilizing, taking advantage of how everyone on the ground is probably heavier than the drones by flashing the entire area with a quick burst of gravity magic! It's intended as an AoE stun and stagger to interrupt their momentum. Of course, Arthur doesn't stop there. Out-rush the rushing drones is his plan here, which means blasting forward with rocket power and immediately trying to bear down on them, doing HUGE gravity-powered smashes as he dashes back and forth over the combat area, making huge swings and trying to crush as many torsos - he was watching Flint Hawke earlier, apparently - as he can!
Megatron     Megatron continues his flight, blasting away at several of the fliers before he spots drones on the ground once more. He nimbly performs an airlieron roll until he converts to robot form again, raising his arm out to unsheath his blade as he lands amid the remainder of the drones.

    With him slicing and dicing that huge-ass blade of his, it'll be prudent to get out of the way of his swings if you don't wish to join the drones in death.

    "Yessss, I've /needed/ this workout!" Megatron cackles, impaling one of the drones with the armblade before ripping it in two.
Zwei     Showing off in this situation is probably a bad idea, since there are simply too many foes for Flint to cut down before they can strike him, but he does have an enormous advantage in that his sword is of a massively higher level of lethality than a simple monoblade, which leaves the drones with no adequate way to defend themselves as he lashes out. His pure's passive abilities also put his physical ability more or less on their level as well, meaning that he is able to effectively carve through the swarm that surrounds him despite suffering several injuries along the way. After a minute's fighting, he is suddenly back in the sweltering sunshine, surrounded by bits of gleaming robot littering the ground around him, bleeding, but free. Signum, being the specialized close combatant, manages to chew through her portion more easily, as her strikes more or less blow the constructs to pieces where they land. With her level of speed, the gunfire is actually more threatening than the blades, since the drones have to chase her just to try and catch up and deliver a swing. Shamal is luckily ignored in favour of attacking the targets that can still fight back, but her wires manage to take out a few more enemies before they simply start jumping over it. With the number piling on Mantigora, she might have actually been killed were it not for the well timed clone, as the drones can't seem to tell the difference. Now left facing half as many opponents each, it's a simple matter of maintaining focus until the last of them are in pieces at her feet. The nano field is absurdly effective against them since there is so little material for it to have to eat through. They fall to bits within seconds.

    Jonothon is likewise apparently extremely well equipped to deal with a dogpile, because just as the glittering, razor edged horde is leaping through the air onto him, his omnidirectional blast sends them all flying easily, smashing into trees and through Shamal's razor wire, leaving only a couple able to get back to their feet for him to simply gun down with more blasts. Those chasing Scuzzler are just about to catch up before Arthur's gravity pulse takes them off their feet, after which they are shortly turned to pieces of flying shrapnel as the exuberent god-youth smashes through them like a freight train; ploughing into the drones not currently engaged with any particular target, until barely any are left. The last of them are swiftly mopped up as Megatron crashes down into the middle of them, cleaving them apart with a sword easily as big as they are. As the sounds of combat finally cease, leaving the wasted clearing back in its previous condition of eerie science, the pair of 'keys' affixed to the monolith suddenly chime, having completed the inputs they had started before their users were gunned down. It's equal parts comical and sad, seeing them succeed while splattered in the blood of their original bearers, but nevertheless, the pulsing lights trailing down the grey slate congeal into a hexagonal shape, and a door opens in the sheer face, leading into one last, dark tunnel. Too bad nobody is left alive to explain what lies on the other side.
Yagami Hayate Signum's sword snaps back into blade-form, and she sheaths it with a low sigh at the carnage. She isn't the sort who hates to fight, but the senseless waste of life is something she knows her Master would disapprove of. "Is everyone all right?" She's already walking slowly toward the entrance, to investigate this matter that got so many killed.

Shamal quietly heals her injury, at least partly. She doesn't want to expend too much energy, so she doesn't try to be thorough about it. After all, she runs on the same mana she uses to heal, so it would be bad to heal her physical body only to use up her motive force. Besides, there are other uses for it, as she sweeps over the troops and the aliens to see if there are any she can save. "Does anyone need healing?" She'll provide that if need be.
Flint Hawke Flint is running after Signum, ignoring his own injuries that look pretty harsh for the moment, "Hey wait up!" He says before falling into a walk next to her. He flicks off the power blade and sheaths it before he takes out a rag to dab at the black and red blood running from a couple of his wounds.

He doesn't have much to say to the pink-haired knight and he used up most of his flirtations earlier, so he simply silently strides next to her while he waits for his wounds to close up, "What about you? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Megatron     Megatron's arm-sword retracts as quickly as it deploys when the last drone falls, the Decepticon standing triumphant and no worse for wear, sporting some nifty new battle scars to boast about later but otherwise unharmed in any real way. "Tch." He doesn't seem to pay the others much mind, instead he glances towards the massive tunnel passage, staring as deeply as he can from his current position.

    "We should come to a decision immediately, whether you lot are brave enough or not to continue with this venture." He 'suggests', rather bluntly no less.

    He does notice something 'off' about Flint's wounds. Humans don't bleed BLACK, after all...
Jonothon Starsmore It's a good thing the lot of them finally managed to carve through the robots. Jono had about exhausted his energy reserves with that blast and would have needed a few moments to recharge. As it is once he notices they're free of them he sort of slumps to a knee. He'd be panting if he still had lungs. Signum's words get his attention and he 'speaks' up, "Yeah. Cut up a little but otherwise fine." It's actually much worse than he's saying but he's used to downplaying injuries. "Are yer alright?" he asks in return.

Shamal gets a nod. "Can yer?" he asks. He won't strain her too much but if she's got the spare energy he won't turn down the healing. He's cut up pretty bad... much worse than he made it seem. Somehow even though he doesn't actually have a beating heart, he has circulation. And he's bleeding pretty bad. Enough to be pale.

He takes a moment to look at the members of the expedition that got killed. There's a noticeable frown on what remains of his face. He's upset he couldn't do anything to help them. There were just too many enemies. Not only that but will they be able to go on? He looks at the tunnel. What do they do now?
Mantigora Truth of the matter is the very lethal potential of this battle is exactly what keeps pushing Mantigora to keep fighting, this was the sort of conflict Drakens lived for or died from. This is why their race was known across their galaxies as one of the reasons the Dominion armies were such an inspiring or terrorfying presence depending on which side you were on.

The energy drain of keeping both the nano field and the clone running at the same time is tremendous, but it's just long enough to leave a pile of broken drones lying at her feet before both finally fizzle out. Mantigora pants heavily from the exhertion, and having to take a few moments to struggle back her bloodthirst with no targets left to inflict it on. A heavy snarl that almost sounds more like pleasure than pain from how badly she's been roughed up hisses between her fanged teeth, and she pushes herself upright and retracts her arm-blades.

Skuzzler is panting even more than she is as he staggers up and collapses on his back on the pile of drone chunks. "Why we always end up running so much? Chua only have tiny legs!" He kicks his stubby appendages a few times half-heartedly to demonstrate. "Stupid drones." He picks up a severed arm and weakly throws it away. "Dumb, flimsy design. Fortunate for us, but still very stupid design flaw being so fragile!"

"Stop pouting like a baby dagun and give me a medishot," Mantigore hisses at him. Skuzzler wobbles up to sitting and pulls one of the tubes from his belt, which turns out to be a large hypospray type injector that he hands up to Mantigora. Then fishes one out for himself. The Draken stabs it into her neck and hisses softly as it both starts healing some of her wounds and has just enough relaxant to take the edge off her bloodlust for the time being.

"We'll be fine." Mantigora discards the spent medishot over her shoulder, grabs Skuzzler by the collar of his bodysuit, and marches towards the now open entrance. "It would be a dishonor to our extinguished allies to depart without finishing the mission." Snort. Tail lash. "Or get paid for it."

While being carted off by her Skuzzler whistles shrilly and his scanbot hovers out of the trees it had hidden in when the attacks started. Valuable data, after all. Can't lose that... even if everything is backed up to the point the scanbots never realize how much they've been blown up in the name of science and regenerated later.
Arthur Lowell     "OKAY! So what now?" Arthur calls out, to the expedition that was leading them before. He then stares around at all the craters, and takes a moment to frown. "Hmmm. WELL." Then he swaggers his way over to Signum. "HI! I'm not." He says frankly. He's really not. Bleeding and bruised all over, and accepting only a little bit of healing from Shamal.

    Then there's a harsh hand leveled at Megatron. "I think we already made the decision when we JUMPED into a BLACK HOLE, let's get this shit FINISHED, yo." He says, grinning widely! He's intending to stride RIGHT ON THROUGH to the area that was unlocked by their dead allies. Though he's giving a wide berth to the craters. Corpses make him... Intensely uneasy. Even if a lot of them are disintegrated or melted, essentially.
Yagami Hayate Shamal presses a hand on Jonothon and concentrates, letting a gentle and soothing glow rush into the mutant. "You'll still need rest," she advises. "Fully healing someone is prohibitively complex, but you won't bleed to death now." Indeed, she closes the injuries pretty well!

Signum nods to Arthur, then smiles to Flint. "Don't worry about me," she states as Shamal moves to the others. "I'm made for this. We'd best be careful, however. Shamal's healing can't replace rest, and that took a lot out of some of us."
Zwei     After entering the tunnel, it doesn't take long to reach its destination. The branches to either side are easy to ignore, as the straightaway continues down a steady slope with a barely visible end. It opens up into a space so vast that calling it a room would be absurd. The same slate grey as before vanishes away in every direction, leaving only what seems like an endless plain; one that starts to curve upward ever so slightly in the distance, indicating that it might wrap around the entire inner facility. The entire place is jam-packed full, stacked floor to ceiling with drones of every description, all folded up into compact waiting positions, as if ready to be dropped from a plane. The bladed humanoids from before number among them, but are only a tiny fraction of the weapons on display. From the skeletal to the hulking, the organic looking to the obviously mechanized, the sleek and sophisticated to the brutally practical, air, land, and space; legs, tails, hoverers, thrusters; and ranging in size from recon drones the size of an eagle, to the dim shapes of colossal tanks the size of entire buildings looming in the distance. There must be millions, if not billions of these things packed into this one ring, which suddenly answers what all the space is used for inside this 'temple'. It's an army capable of conquering a world.

    Apparently, though most of the station has lost power, this unimaginably vast hangar must be considered a core facility, because the sudden presence of lifesigns causes the floor and ceiling to go from grey to solid white light, illuminating the surroundings in such a way that not a single shadow is cast anywhere. The circuit patterns are now traced out in gold, rushing along the ground to guide visitors through the straight lines to whatever place might lie at its end. Rather than simply indicating where to go however, a section of the pathway simply starts to move on its own; carrying those standing on it at a swiftly accelerating pace, until the rows dormant machines are whipping past too quickly to count, though for some reason, there is a lack of wind on the face to go with it. It's a good thing too, because walking, even straight across the narrow part of the ring, would have taken half the day judging by the distance covered.

    The feeling of decceleration settles in after ten minutes of blurring speed, indicating when the 'elevator' comes to a halt. The opposite wall opens up in much the same way the entrance had, and the group is carted into a much smaller, dimmer, circular room; dominated by a ring of forlorn looking observation decks, dark and empty as everything else, and some sort of gigantic pylon descending from the ceiling in the middle, trailing hundreds of thousands of cables wrapped around each other, most of which appear to be made of pure energy judging by the way they glow in the shadows. Every last one of them are plugged into a humanoid silhouette kneeling at the center of the platform, more than twice the size of everyone but Megatron. It's difficult to make out any features with such low light, but one can just barely glimpse a smaller shape cradled in the massive figure's arms, the latter much more humanly proportioned than the monstrous former. For the first time since entering, there is an audible cue. A voice that emenates from nowhere. It doesn't sound like anything ever produced by vocal chords, sounding more like some distorted, electronic rumbling that varies between extremes of pitch, but which sounds 'languagey' enough for the translation effect to work.

    "Last visit by Licht bearing S class or higher: five thousand five hundred and fifty two rotational cycles. Service overdue. Primary power: spent. Secondary power: spent. Auxiliary power: spent. Tertiary batteries: critical levels. Releasing lockdown to divert power to vital areas. All A class staff, begin preparation for Armiger transport to another Exodus class facility."
Flint Hawke Flint got a smile, which is a rare thing from Signum. He practically beams back at her in return, "I shall attempt not to worry, then," He says, carefully closing his coat via sticking his hands in its outer pockets and pulling it shut while he walks. Can't let prying eyes see that too much longer.

He happily stands next to Signum (And may even try to sneak that arm around her again), though gets slightly startled when the walkway starts to move, but eventually settling down into that to rock back and forth on his feet. When the walkway comes to a stop, he looks even more startled at the voice out of nowhere. He draws one of his guns with one hand and pulls back the hammer.

"Releasing a lockdown tends to be a rather major thing. The existence of the lockdown means something required a lockdown to be contained. Meaning it's valuable or dangerous. Don't like those odds!"
Megatron     Megatron has no real worry with fitting through the massive tunnels, each step he takes unconcerned with squishing a corpse here and there as he continues on his way. He has no sympathy for the fallen, unlike Optimus Prime. He sees not fallen victims or martyrs, but weaklings who fell to the law of survival; that only the strong will prosper.

    He certainly won't be shedding tears for /humans./

    Arthur's boasting does elicit a wry chuckle from the Decepticon, "Your resolve is admirable for a human, child. Pray it is not all you have to show for beyond your magic."

    He listens to the reports given, which definitely is enough reason for Megatron to take this seriously. "Make sure you are the hunter, humans." He comments grimly, his fusion cannon giving a loud hum as it cocks once more. "I won't stand to be made prey for some lab accident."
Yagami Hayate Signum gives Flint an odd look, but then she just continues walking, moving with Shamal alongside the Captain. The army gets a twitch of her brow, but she says nothing. For now.

Shamal states, "If another battle breaks out, I will raise a Barrier to preserve the facility." She... doesn't bother to explain what that MEANS though. It's something she wanted to do in the earlier fight, but was a little busy at the time, and it wouldn't have helped much.

Signum nods silently and rests one hand on the hilt of her sword, eying the structure before her. "Exodus facility... I have a feeling we've stumbled onto some sort of weapon."

... like the drones /aren't/?

Shamal lifts Klarwind again, whispering softly, "Scan what you can, make sure that these aren't going to activate."
Jonothon Starsmore Jonothon nods to Shamal. "Thank yer. I appreciate it," he responds as she heals him. Even if not completely he's healed enough. And once his energy recharges he should at least be good to continue on. The recharge is visible too. His !fire burns a little brighter around him as the energy behind it recharges when the healing is offered. And continue on he does.

He tenses a little when he notices the drones though he can see they're 'waiting'. But when the floor lights up he starts to look around to avoid getting surprised again. And then the floor starts to move! Jono wobbles a bit but stays on his feet. He frowns. What in the hell is all this? Besides 'bad news'! Though this massive humanoid figure is a strange thing to look at. And is it... holding a person? That voice though... what's all this? 'Licht'? 'S Class'? 'Armiger'? 'Exodus class'? What does that mean?

Flint has a point. Jono nods in agreement and focuses his attention on the thing in the center of the room. To say he's cautious is an understatement. Yet still he approaches it. At least that way if it attacks he can try to stop or delay it. Hopefully.
Mantigora Upon stepping into the hanger Mantigora stops in her tracks, eyes actually widening a bit. This was something even she had not seen before. Sure, the Dominion used robots for industrial and even several military purposes. But the combat bots were limited at best, and warbots were tremendously expensive to build and deploy, thus only used for the most important of assaults. But this? Combat units for farther than the mind could comprehend.

"Gears of Bezgelor!" Skuzzler belts out in enough expression of amazement for the both of them. "It like Skuzzler died in that last fight and went to exhalted plane of machine escatsy." He utterly ignores the glare for the strange phrasing that Mantigora gives him, instead pulling out a tablet computer and tapping a few things into it while the platform is whisking them along. "Taking new data into consideration, it is most probabilital that this prognator race -caused- those planetaru destructions in either conquest or elimination of foes." His large ears lay back practically flat to his head. "Considering what seen, probably the latter."

Mantigora lifted her free hand to rub her temples, a gesture that often came after her sidekick started getting technobabbly. "Conquerers then. Destroyers." There's somewhat of an irony in there. Or whatever term it was that fit. Cassians have too many fanciful literary phrases for such simple concepts. "Not the kind that do so to protect themselves, or to rule over others weaker... but to destroy and leave only ruin..."

The Dominion blockaded and nearly nuked the Mordesh homeworld to try and eliminate a space zombie plague. Sure, the Chua reduced Aboria to a desolate wasteland for its mineral and biomatter wealth. And who knows how many military victories before those came from the desolation of entire worlds... but even the dirties, sickest parts of the Dominion did not lay waste to entire worlds simply because -they could-... The Chua come close sometimes, but at least it's usually in the pursuit of knowledge or economic industries, so it's not like they WASTE planets...
Arthur Lowell     "THANKS BUNCHES." Arthur says, simply, to Shamal, giving a thumbs-up partway through and still really kinda fucked up a little. Not that that's any fault of Shamal's of course, he just got really wounded there.

    Continuing in, he makes sure to give a wide grin and a sweep of the eyes to the entire environment... And makes sure to take a few pictures of those drones and other weapons with a strange little camera he has. Odd. Well, it shouldn't ever really come up, probably.

    As they arrive, Arthur swaggers forward. "SHIT YEAH, call me CLASS A, motherfucker, you best be preppin' a payload for THIS DUDE." He gives a headshake to Flint. "Well OBVIOUSLY it's WHATEVER'S INTERESTING 'round here. Don't you know how SPACE DUNGEONS work?" And then to Megatron, he gives a fistpump. "I'M made of ONE HUNDRED PERCENT RESOLVE." And then he approaches, and... Knocks on Megatron's knees or something, rather loudly, as if knocking on a door, expecting either a dramatic wakeup or a comical lack thereof. "ANYONE HOME?"

    Arthur is actually impressed out of his mind, as is the case in many situations involving COOL ROBOTS. He just doesn't have any way of properly responding to this situation that isn't acting like this.
Zwei     What else could releasing a lockdown mean with only one thing of note in the room? The pylon begins to retract into the ceiling, and with it go the cables, either fizzling out of existence, or disengaging with gouts of steam in the case of the few physical ones, snapping away in clumps like dense vines. The platform supporting it begins to lower, slowly retracting until it is level with the walkway. The golden lines on the floor all pulse inwards at once, streaming from all directions straight into the pair of figures at their epicenter, finally providing some manner of illumination. Though still cast in shadow, the larger silhouette resolves into something out of a soldier's nightmare. A titanic mass of carbon black armour contoured to the shape of something more predator than man, as if someone had clad a demon in a knight's suit of mail. The smaller silhouette clutched to its chest is like some kind of doll, completely blank, featureless, expressionless, made of the same matte black material all over. The instant the lines converge, the room is filled with the kind of static pressure of a brewing storm, and the implaceable feeling of some vast power source churning to life. A slit in the larger figure's helm suddenly blazes with bloody red light. Slowly, as if grinding through a millenium of rust, it begins to rise from its kneeling position, and as it does, it lowers the doll to the ground. The smaller, human figure, seems to awaken a moment after, regaining consciousness just in time for it to gain its balance as it is set down on the floor. In short order, both of them are at full height, and staring straight at the assembled Elites. After a moment of tense silence, the smaller one begins to speak in the same electronic language as the comms.

    "Undocumented alien species. You do not have clearance to access Collective holdings of any form. You will be-" The distorted, artificial noises suddenly cut short, and then begin cycling through the languages and exact voices of Flint, Megatron, Shamal, Signum, Mantigora, and then Arthur, before turning into a garbled mess, before apparently deciding on something that sounds eerily like ancient Belkan, but not quite the same, with a young, female tone. "-wait no, that's not right. None of you are on the list of permissable sapient existences, but half of you aren't even possible within the bounds of this galaxy. How long was I asleep? I though the first anchorship wasn't supposed to arrive in Andromeda until 2956." Touching its fingers to its face, the black exterior of the human figure is swiftly rolled over by what looks like skin, but so blank and white that it looks like unfinished synthetic. The blank, glassy eyes are suddenly filled in with irises, but they glow such a lurid green that it's clear they're just a display. "Five thousand five hundred and fifty two cycles? Where did everybody go? No wonder there are unsanctioned sentients in here. The rotational energy of this singularity was predicted to run out after four thousand and twelve." Apparently female judging by its still featureless figure, it begins running its fingers over its face as if applying makeup, creating a nose, lips, ears, and eyelashes with little strokes, and then flourishing a full head of nickel-coloured hair behind it with a flick of its hand. "So I've missed over six hundred exercises, and nobody is around to give me today's drone control key. What am I supposed to do with an army I can't even boot up?" Her gaze settles on Signum, and then the next instant, she is wearing an exact duplicate of her clothes, though there's no actual barrier reading that Shamal can pick up on.
Zwei     Finally, the larger figure speaks up. The sound of its voice is distinctly male, bass, rumbling, and so smokey it sounds as if could set fire to something. "Unsanctioned sapients. You are not welcome here. As there are no staff present to handle my transfer to a new facility, I will make the journey independantly. This facility will enter automatic defense mode as soon as I leave. You will be killed if you are still within when such transpires." The two of them begin to move, quickly getting close enough to the platform that they could easily attack if they wanted to. The girl speaks up again. "If you want to register your civilization with the Collective database and feel comfortable representing your species, you're certainly welcome to come along. If not, please wait until a first contact vessel arrives and establishes your civilization's level of progress."
Flint Hawke "Okay, first of all, that's /CAPTAIN/ Undocumented Alien Species. /Captain/ Permissable Sapient Existence. The Captain is very important to me. See I have the hat," Flint says, pointing to the hat on his hat, "Fancy hat. Ship. Captain." He holds up both hands towards the two figures, seeming much more focused on correcting this error than being amazed. That will come later.

"Secondly, it's Captain /Flint Hawke/," He helpfully points out, pointing at his hat again, "Freelance Privateer of the Stars. A man who follows the dream of men to see what lays beyond the horizon of the stars. A man born to space, bred from space, and whom will die in space."

He's even let go of Signum, "But above all, that man is one thing. A Captain." Again, pointing at the hat with the barrel of his gun. He whispers to the girl almost conspiratorially loud, "Captain."
Yagami Hayate Signum frowns, largely at the choice of copying. Then again she does like the style, so she can't disapprove very much. She steps forward to meet the constructs, and relaxes her grip on the hilt of her sword. "If this facility is any indication, your creators are long gone, much like my own. It would better serve your purpose to investigate the immediate area and the political situation within. We haven't heard of any 'Collective,' not in the past few centuries at least. I doubt you will find a facility."
Megatron     "And they dare call me boastful." MEgatron deadpans towards Flint.

    He observes the alien life-form as she...it...continues to jabber on and on in the meantime. "How curious, an adaptive being not of flesh but...something else." He remarks, before approaching the being. "You and I may have something in common after all."

    The Decepticon cants his head towards Signum calmly, before he stares at the...whatever it is. "Megatron goes as he sees fit," He growls at the larger being, fusion cannon charging up as he then..statres at the girl. "...hm."

    Primus help us, he may be considering it.
Mantigora "Uh." If they weren't in the company of others right now Skuzzler would probably be having a Code Brown in his space drawers right now.. "I am starting to think now would be good time to be leaving, yes?" And by the way Mantigora wrinkles her nose and uncermoniously drops him on the ground, he must of at least fear-tooted or something.

That or because she needed the hand to appropriately facepalm at Flint's response. He's more full of himself than some of the Highborne officers she's had to deal with. "Known plenty of captains without stupid hat obsessions," she grumbles under her breath. That bigger unit reminds her way too much of the Eldan built Erradicators. Even moreso than Megatron did. "Your 'Collective' is gone. Likely dead or finally destroyed for their hurbis. Have fun with that pointless excursion."

In the end she gives a disgusted snort and turns to walk to the edge of the platform as if to leave, tail lashing like a whip. "The Draken already serve one collective empire, by honor and by blood. You're just going to have to wait." At the edge she pauses, turning her head just enough to glare over her shoulder. "And when you do come to meet, it best not be by the point of blade or with your pathetic toys outside. It won't be taken kindly. Com'n Skuzzler, there is nothing else for us here."

Last thing he wants is to be left alone here with THOSE things along with everyone else, so the Chua is quick to get to his feet and scuffle after her. "Not even one broken killer security drone?"
Mantigora rolls her eyes. "Your robots are already defective as it is."
"Hey, pathing AI very tricky! Not fault Assaultbot still not know it can jump -over- obstacles."
"And the Repairbot that keeps getting stuck in corners when it could just rototate it's head unit and hover the other direction?"
Skuzzler pauses briefly. Then his ears lay back. "Okay, that one is just plain dum-dum."
Jonothon Starsmore     Oh boy. Not good. For a moment it sounds like things are about to turn into another fight. But then something seems to change. Jono backs up and watches as events unfold before them. He just keeps quiet until the mention of 'registering' his species is mentioned. This makes him bristle a little. Mutant Registration Act talk and all. Besides that?

"I don't feel comfortable puttin' my home world's name on a list somewhere. How do I know it's not a hit list?" he finally says. He's trying to stay polite though. Notably his speech is telepathic in nature. It's not a mindlink. It's a 'broadcast' message. Like he's a telepathic radio. "I'm human. From Earth." Pause. "Even if I don't look it." Hopefully these guys aren't immune to telepathic communication. That would prove inconvenient. Though he does have a workaround if it becomes necessary.

He doesn't say it but he's also not comfortable being the representative of the whole human race on Earth. That's a big job and someone like Miss Grey or Professor Xavier needs to do that. He's a really bad person for that. That is if there IS a Collective anymore (as Signum points out).
Arthur Lowell     "CAPTAIN Needs to Get Off This Station Because That Was The Last Power." Arthur says, correcting Flint. "Remember how this place is suspended in a big ol' fuckin' SPACE BUBBLE and all." Arthur then strides forward, crossing his arms. Dang, these guys have STYLISH entries. He summarizes, quick as he can. "Your MAKERS apparently went to GODHOOD, bro." He says, fixing his vision on the larger entity. "I was TOLD we could find a lil' GODHOOD here ourselves. You guys already took the SHARE of that, yeah?" He doesn't sound disapointed, he more sounds like he was actually intending to do something about Free Space Godhood himself in the first place.

    And then his eyes are on the smaller one. "And YOU, LADY, you can talk t'ME about that." He grins widely. "LATER, in PRIVATE, and not NOW, 'cause I think I've got SCHEMES." He gives her a double-finger-gun gesture and a wink. There was a reason he got captcharoids of that army. Then to both of them, he stamps one foot and his hood flares out, fluttering behind him as if in wind. It's a perfect dramatic accompaniment to the simple dramatic pound to his chest that he does.

    "As for our RACES, you best get out your SPACE PEN for jotting shit the FUCK DOWN, 'cause here's the BUSINESS. I'm a HUMAN, and I've got ALL the power I need vested up in this shit to get the civlization of the SYNDICATE OF INDEPENDENT WORLDS registered. You guys want to know WHAT'S UP, you drop me a fuckin' line, 'cause I'm the goddamn PURVEYOR of what's up and I can drop the SCIENCE on your shit. So!" He grins. "I'll get out, however YOU do it. But BRO, you're gonna be SAD KNOWIN' that apparently this is one of the LAST installations in one piece anyone's FOUND these days, way I heard it."
Arthur Lowell     Additionally, IF SITUATIONALLY REQUIRED OR PROMPTED, Arthur will attempt to summon a glowing green spirographic GATE by warping potentially already-vulnerable local space and linking it to a nice safe transit hub out elsewhere, or maybe somewhere out at the fleet, hopefully bypassing the awful need to deal with a violent rushing escape sequence. But maybe that might not work due to local space stabilization. But for those with a need for CONVENIENT IMMEDIATE ESCAPE this may be relevant.
Flint Hawke Flint points a finger at Arthur, "Acceptable. I'll take it. Good enough for now, no need to correct you," He doesn't seem to mind the playful jab from Arthur, giving him a wide grin in response to it. He waves his hand a few times, "Don't wanna piss ya off, you're basically Poseidon in my book, and I don't need ya bein' a salty bitch."

To the girl, he reintroduces, "Captain Flint Hawke. Human. No Home Planet, it was destroyed by space ninjas, thus reinforcing my life of space privateering to stop them."
Zwei "Captain Flint Hawke then. Got it." The girl flashes him a winning smile at the honestly somewhat amusing tirade that follows. "It's important to recognize authority, even if that authority only counts among the members of another species. You look a lot like a human, but deep tissue scans make it pretty clear that you're not. Are you some kind of rogue technophile? Or has human civilization changed that much in the last one thousand and sixteen Terran years? Humans were complete luddites before, but still our favourite client race." She stops just short of walking past Arthur. "Actually, are any of you human?" She points towards him, and then Signum, Shamal, and Jonothon. "I'm getting nothing but the most bizarre readings from all of you. It'd make sense if humans just all went crazy and started modifying themselves in weird ways in the last few hundred years." She stops in front of Mantigora, looking her up and down quickly. "Honestly I have no idea what you're supposed to be." Then she cranes her neck to look up at Megatron. "You on the other hand, are pretty obviously some kind of metal based organic. That's pretty neat if you evolved that way."

    The male entity responds to Signum instead. "With how long it has been, it is entirely possible the Collective has already moved on to new galaxies. There is no indiciation that Schwarzchild Orbital Facility 16875 has experienced violence of any significant scale. If this is the case, we will be securing Alcubierre capable travel and following the anchor trail to Andromeda immediately. There is no point in staying within the Milky Way at this point." Scooping up the girl, he places her on his shoulder so she can more easily look at Megatron, seemingly totally unphased if she can detect the energy spike from his cannon. "Of course, I can't order you to do anything. You'll just be stuck here with six point five two billion Arma and a steadily collapsing singularity should you choose to stay." She then frowns at Mantigora. "Well excuse me miss Draken. If you wanted to fight something other than the units from the last exercise someone apparently left without deactivating after five thousand five hundred cycles, it's not my fault. I'm sure your coalition will pass, so there's no need to get all hostile about it. You can keep the pattern-6-bleed units if you want. A facility this big can churn them out in the millions." She doesn't even stop to entertain the idea that her creators could have possibly died.

    She does however, pause a little at Jonothon. "Considering Terra was relocated from the Sol system to the galactic core five hundred, sorry, one thousand five hundred Terran years ago, I find this highly doubtful. The only humans who go there do so on religious pilgrimage. You can't re-settle that place anymore." Arthur actually manages to get a good natured laugh from her, perfectly mimicking the normal human range. It's kind of eerie how naturally a featureless robot is able to seamlessly interact with a race of people who are really good at picking out the uncanny valley. The giant replies to him instead. "I assume godhood equates to the immortal existence shared by the Collective. That would require S class Licht to approve and affect. It is, at least, good to know that one other noteworthy civilization has sprung up in my absence." The girl suddenly stops as if she'd remembered something. "Oh that's right! You've told us your names. Mostly. It's only fair I give you my designation."

    Both she and her companion unit speak at the same time with perfect synchronization. "I am an Exodus class planetary subjugation Armiger, designation: Zwei."
Flint Hawke "Human. Space-faring human." Flint agrees with her, smiling back and actually seeming genuinely happy at her recognition, "Thank you very much for that, too! I appreciate the courtesy of using my title. I worked very hard for it when my ship was gifted to me by space faring god beings not unlike the ones that built you!" He explains in a questionably true story.

"What you're reading otherwise is just my life support system. Caught a really nasty case of 'Knife To the Heart'. Proved near-lethal." He explains with a wave of his hand, tapping his chest, "Long story otherwise. Boring one. Most residents of the Multiverse know it."

He looks over to Signum, "If the obnoxiously loud one is right, we should move soon. I don't want to endanger your Mistress." He furrows his brow and scratches his head.
Yagami Hayate Arthur has already offered to do the gate thing, but it isn't needed for Signum and Flint and Shamal. Signum looks toward Shamal. "Prepare a gate back to Captain Hawke's ship. We don't want to linger much longer." Shamal nods and turns around to gesture, opening up a green portal large enough for one man to step through. To Arthur, "We would like to hear more about this Syndicate. Our Mistress may benefit from a neutral territory."

Shamal speaks softly, "Whenever you're ready, Captain."

But Signum does have the manners to speak a little longer. "You're right, Captain. We've lingered too long." She still looks to Zwei. "Signum, and my companion Shamal of the Wolkenritter. We are mana constructs, but our Mistress is human. Our purpose is to protect her." One long pause, and she suggests, "From your statements, you are a purely spacefaring race. Our creators are dimensional spacefarers, instead. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the in-depth knowledge to explain your current situation. Expect to encounter many unknowns, including habitable Earths. That is the name of our Mistress's home as well, though the Mariage forced us to abandon it. I wish you luck."

Zwei doesn't have a Linker Core, so her interest is purely one of helpfulness from one warrior to another. Unless stopped, she's going to head into the portal Shamal has opened.
Arthur Lowell     "ARTHUR LOWELL! ROCKET-POWERED JERK, INTERGALACTIC HOOLIGAN." Arthur says, jamming his thumb square on his chest with a grin so big it's threatening to escape the boundaries of his face. You can tell he enjoys any chance to say the whole thing. "Nice t'meetcha, ZWEI. You come see AFTERUS and I will start the WHOLE POCESS of BLOWING YOUR MIND. Like this:" He jams a thumb at Flint. "His HEART is made of MULTIVERSAL SPACE SATAN."

    "SCIENCE FACT."

    Then he steps up, grinning. He's refused, of course, to explain what he is, though plenty know anyway. "ANYWAY," He snaps his fingers doing the aforementioned Gate summoning now if possible. "We OLLIES OUTIE. Who needs a RIDE OUT? Jump in the SPACE THING for FREE NOT GETTING SHOT and SPAGHETTIFIED."
Jonothon Starsmore Jono nods. "I'm human," he assures her. "I'm what we call a 'mutant'. This--" He indicates his !fire-- "wasn't somethin' I did ter meself. Sometimes people from my world just... develop powers. This's mine."

Oh boy... if there's scans of him being done they are INCREDIBLY weird. His body temperature's lower than a human's by about ten degrees. No internal organs-- heart, lungs, stomach or digestive organs. Missing his lower jaw and most of his mouth. But somehow his blood's still circulating through what remains of his body. The flame-like energy itself is psionic in nature and gives off no heat signature. It does however give of a HELL of a psionic aura.

The mention of the relocation of Earth gets a raised eyebrow. "This isn't my world," he explains. "Er... dimension. Plane of existence. My Earth's just fine. I was just on my Earth before comin' 'ere."

Even if Flint wasn't talking to him the Captain has a point. He nods. Jono will probably have to utilize the portal Arthur made. Looking to Arthur he asks, "Oi. Yer takin' passengers? I don't 'ave a ride. An' I probably don't 'ave the time ter call up the Professor's Shiar girlfriend."
Arthur Lowell     Arthur gives a quick thumbs up to Jonothon. "ONE HUNDRED PERCENT GRADE A NON-DISINTEGRATING TELEPORTATION." He says. "Just jump at the floaty green thingy."
Zwei     "Whaaaaat? Multiverse? That stupid old theory? Don't tell me you actually believe that, Captain Flint Hawke!" The female half of Zwei looks to him as if she were incredibly disappointed in such an otherwise upstanding gentleman. Having that dumb theory be reinforced by Signum's insistence on there being other earths makes her frown more deeply. "It's not nice to say 'creators' you know. These bodies were created, but I was a Licht of the Collective as well. We started conquering higher dimensional territory only twenty years before I was reborn as an Armiger, but by now the Collective should be thoroughly entrenched in higher dimensional space. If they ran into a whole lot of parallel universes, I'll . . . I don't know whether that's stupid or exciting. I'm sure we'll run into each other pretty quickly if you're really from some freaky parallel earth where humans no longer use flesh and blood bodies." The male half of Zwei inclines its head towards Arthur at so boldly declaring himself an outlaw. "Perhaps not unexpected. Leave contact information and I will endeavour to catalogue Afterus shortly." And then Jonothon. "Clearly, as a normal human would not be able to survive in your badly mutilated state. Alternate Earths will of course, be of great priority." That said, the two of them begin to move towards the door, delaying just long enough for anyone to say any last words. Are they space capable? Maybe even black hole capable? Who knows. "Bye Arthur! Captain Flint! Megatron! The rest of you! Maybe see you later!" The girl waves back.
Arthur Lowell     Arthur raises an eyebrow. "You guys just, uh, jumpin' out? We're in a BLACK HOLE you know. Nice GATE here if you wanna not SPAGHETTIFY. Yeah? Nah? ...'Kay, SEEYA." Heheheh. "Definitely see you later." He says, more quietly, grinning. Well, whatever, they seem cool. Arthur's doing his damndest to hide his secret geekiness about robots, of course.

    "SO YEAH. That was cool I guess. I mean, asside from the HORRIBLE SLAUGHTER." He takes a moment to zone out and wince. "Alright let's BLOW this BOTSICLE STAND before we get OUR shit spaghettified and shot." And then he swaggers his way through his gate with big, confident strides!
Flint Hawke "Oh, it's real, love," Flint says with a finger-gun gesture at her, "I was surprised too, but not too surprised. What with the whole travelling spacefarer and all. I'm sure you'll adjust," He says, wiggling his fingers at her before following towards Shamal's portal.

"Come on, ladies! That's enough excitement for one day. We should get back to the ship! I'll have the galley prepare Raw Man to celebrate this." He notes, dusting his hands off.