The Conventional Way

Blizzard

Lord of the Pies
Inactive
Aug 30, 2016
27
Earth's Moon...

Addaiel stood with his arms crossed on the dusty surface of the moon and... stared. Stared with the wonder and amazement of an explorer at the blue/green marble in the distance, a shining gem in the dark void.

Finally, after all this time, he'd found Earth.

"AVA, launch nav-scan." he drawled quietly, not removing his eyes from his prize.

[Yes, Mr. Himalya.] Responded the almost monotone, female voice from his helmet's speakers. It was smooth, and slightly mechanical if one listened closely. Addaiel waited patiently. Then, one after another, destination markers began to appear on his HUD. [Points of interest discovered: New York City, Chicago, Mount Everest, Taj Mahal, Las Vegas, Manta Carlos Island...]

Addaiel's lips curved into a triumphant smile. With one goal in mind, large, blue, glowing wings materialized on the back of his armor, and with a single beat, he rocketed towards Earth's atmosphere...

Manta Carlos Island, 24 Hrs Later...

Addaiel flew high over the Pacific Ocean, having come from Las Vegas. Turns out, when party goers were drunk, they didn't seem to care if one of their guests was uninvited... or had fur and a tail.

He flew just below supersonic levels, feeling no need to rush. The sun was shining, and the waves several miles below were calm. Up ahead was a thick screen of dark, oily clouds, but he wasn't worried, for he knew they shrouded the island from prying eyes.

[Mr. Himalya, I've followed you into questionable places before, but once more I'll ask: If they don't want to be found, shouldn't there be a reason?]

"The best treasures are guarded, AVA."

[Of course, sir.]

But, as they neared the hellish mass, the AI spoke again.

[Mr. Himalya, I would advise against entering that storm,] AVA warned with some urgency as the skies began to darken and the winds grew stronger. [It does not read like a normal storm. I believe it may be supernatural in nature.]

"Oh, relax! What's the worst that coul- WHOA MY GOD!" Addaiel yelped as a massive gust rocked him several hundred feet to the right. He cursed as he began fighting the torrents, diving down closer to the sea. It helped... barely.

[There it is!] AVA informed as the dark mass of Manta Carlos came up over the horizon. Just then, a lightning bolt struck the armor, and shut off power. Addaiel yelled in terror as he plummeted towards the unforgiving sea. About twenty feet from impact, AVA managed to activate emergency power, and he continued flying. [Addaiel, we need to reach that island!]

"Yeah, no shit!" Addaiel grunted and pushed his speed as fast as he dared, breaking the sound barrier and tucking his wings tight to his back. The island loomed closer and closer, becoming larger by the second as he fought winds and dodged lightning strikes.

[Be advised: At this rate of power usage, we will run out of emergency power in thirty seconds!] AVA nearly shouted. Addaiel grit his teeth and pushed his speed further, his gaze locked on the nearest landmass.

"Come on, you bastard, come on!" he snarled. He was so close!

Then, the power cut out completely.

[Brace for impact!]

"Eight hundred thousand years, huh? Pretty good run." Addaiel sighed tiredly as the sands rushed up to meet him.

Darkness.

Manta Carlos Island, 2 Hrs Later...

The impact had sent the snow leopard straight into the sand, creating a small crater that had eventually refilled, leaving only his feet sticking up and out of the ground.

@Marcello Sly
 

Marcello Sly

Well-Known Member
Inactive
Feb 12, 2016
151
It was a very pissed-off Elizabeth that awoke from her slumber, to the sound of a huge, resounding thump. She thought little of it at first, not wanting to glance out into the sunlight. And then, what sounded like rain. That was fairly odd, as there wasn't a cloud in the sky today. Elizabeth merely rolled back over. She drifted back to sleep, and the hours of daylight began to fly by.

Knock Knock Knock

The signature, polite knock of her head of staff, Justus, came lightly across the door. Annoyed, Elizabeth sat bolt upright.

"Come in."

The old, dark-skinned man entered the bedroom gracefully, though his posture was something less then aloof at the moment.

"Miss Carnegie, you'll want to see this. I suggest you dress for warm weather." He told her, and she nodded in understanding. That had been the phrase they used to describe the need for journeys out in the daylight. She sat up slowly, reaching for a pair of glasses.

"What exactly is going on, Justus?"

"One of the servants found something on the beach. Quite advanced technology. I'm unsure of the details, but Carnegie science is in the process of recovering it. Elizabeth groaned. At present, her departments were all headed by walking corpses, and while a little undeath never heart anybody, her servants weren't really cutting it for handling things like this on their own. She would have to look into replacements.

She dressed quickly, darkening her glasses before peering out the window. The sun was still high, and she could see what appeared to be a set of feet sticking out of the beach, and sand lying positively everywhere.
"Huh."


Several Hours Later


The sun had just begun to set over Carnegie Science, and the advanced technology they recovered had finally been successfully dug out. A suit of sorts, and it had been going quite fast to have breached the storm. Elizabeth didn't know too much about the situation, as her technical knowledge was admittedly limited. Business and magic were her true areas of expertise, and she was admittedly uneducated in the area of technology.

Still, the occasion was important enough that Elizabeth herself had tagged along, watching the suit of armor lying there, inanimate. Her sunglasses still sat upon her face, complemented by a smart black suit, her dark brown hair dune up in a bun.

"So what exactly is it? A robot or something?" She asked. One of the corpses on staff shook their heads.

"We think it's a suit of armor. It might even still be occupied." Said the pale-skinned man.

As such, security measures were in place. The two sets of double doors were each manned by two body-armored guards carrying assault rifles. Still, Elizabeth felt a little uneasy. Her company had always been one to take risks, but bringing such an unknown entity so deep into what amounted to their lair seemed a bit too much.

As if just to reassure herself, Elizabeth stepped back from the group, her eyes glazing over beneath the sunglasses, as she muttered a short incantation under her breath. As she did so, the scientists in the lab appeared to discover that the suit could be powered, and so proceeded to immediately attempt to jack into it with an electrical output.

As Elizabeth left her body to glance ahead, she worried about what exactly she might see. The scene flickered forwards, and she saw the suit flickering back to life, awaking and wreaking havoc upon the lab. The thing inside the suit was still alive

Elizabeth tried to come out of her trance as fast as she could, but in her wooziness from exiting the trance (This one had been particularly difficult, for some reason), the most she could get out was;

"S-Stop!"
 

Blizzard

Lord of the Pies
Inactive
Aug 30, 2016
27
Carnegie Labs...

Alive? Yes. Conscious? No.

[Mr. Himalya, please wake up! You are in danger!] AVA pleaded silently within the suit, desperately trying to rouse her boss. For the last few hours, she'd remained silent, intent on not revealing herself to their captors. Instead, she'd spent the time combing through any sources she could find on the identity of the woman who'd taken them here to this fortified cell. What she'd found seemed pretty legit, but it was when one dug deeper and began to find the rumors and hearsay about Elizabeth's other dealings that the digital hairs on the back of her neck began to rise.

AVA watched the proceedings through the lab's own security cameras, and found herself becoming nervous. Many a time they'd been captured on a strange planet, the natives curious, and narrowly avoided dissection.

It was when she saw the suit's eyes and external lights flicker on that she felt true dread. She had to do something! Who knew what the researchers would do?! Who knew what Elizabeth Carnegie would do?!

[I'm sorry, sir.] She muttered quietly to the snow leopard, who hadn't even so much as twitched since impact. She used her hacking protocols to take control of the suit, and began running full combat simulations. Her voice turned cold and inhuman.

Code:
Rules of Engagement: All personnel considered hostile
Objective: Escape
Slowly, the armor began to sit itself up, now under control of the AI. The suit's mechanical servos whined lowly with exertion as it pushed itself into a standing position. AVA began prioritizing targets and coming up with firing solutions. The suit's right arm raised, and a small opening on the forearm began to ominously glow blue. A low, electrical whine began to slowly rise in both volume and pitch.

[Unauthorized tampering detected,] came the monotone voice of AVA over the suit's external speakers. [Offensive measure activated: Photon RPG.]

She aimed right for the first door and the two armed guards. There was a deafening shriek, like a firework, as a glowing blue comet screamed towards its target. There was a massive boom, a blinding flash of light, and then nothing. all that remained of the guards and the first door was a giant hole in the wall dripping molten material.

A few bullets harmlessly pinged off the metal plating of the Einherjar, and within seconds, the second door was gone as well.
 

Marcello Sly

Well-Known Member
Inactive
Feb 12, 2016
151
The suit whirred to life just as Elizabeth let out her warning, which seemed redundant now. The four researchers who had been crowding the table all stepped back in amazement. The machine's voice was cold and hostile, announcing that it was about to start blowing things up. Elizabeth didn't need to know what a "Photon RPG" was to gather that much, nor did she need the power of premonition, although that ability certainly helped.

About the time the thing started speaking, Elizabeth received a vision of the machine turning towards the doors and destroying them effortlessly, blowing up her guards in the process. Cold and calculating as she was, she allowed the doors to act as a distraction, so that she could close the distance unnoticed. She acted now, stepping forwards with supernatural speed, acting upon her premonition.

Elizabeth attempted to flip the table that the faceless being behind the armor had been sitting on, lifting it up and forwards with such force that it sent the armor and the table flying against the wall hard enough to crack the white stone of the wall across from the doors. The researchers scattered from the room, stepping over the remains of the guards, who were grasping for their limbs across the cold ground.

Elizabeth herself remained, advancing towards the place where the suit would lie, reaching for the table and thrusting it out of the way, so that she and the suit, which would likely be leaned up against the wall, were face to face, or face to mask, as it were.

"Please, don't make me damage your suit. It's quite remarkable." She cooed, her tone both hostile and coercive at once.
 

Blizzard

Lord of the Pies
Inactive
Aug 30, 2016
27
[As if you could.] AVA replied dangerously, the suit's unblinking eyes making her seem that much more menacing. She pushed the suit out of its new crevice in the wall, causing little showers of dust, as chunks of rock clattered to the ground.

AVA readjusted her protocols. She had not accounted for Elizabeth's speed and strength. A frontal assault would most likely result in termination.

Without warning, there was a small flash, and the Einherjar was no longer there. A split-second later it blinked back into existence behind Elizabeth, with a hardlight forearm blade hurling for her heart.
 

Marcello Sly

Well-Known Member
Inactive
Feb 12, 2016
151
The machine voice's threat registered upon Elizabeth's ears just as her foresight warned her of what was about to happen. She took the bait.

"Darling, don't test me." Elizabeth cooed, just as menacingly, as the machine vanished into nothingness.

The blade of light pierced her back, impaling her heart. Elizabeth's arms were drawn back behind her head as she let out a scream of agony, that seemed to go on an on forever... She screamed and screamed, until she was coughing and choking, and then... Cackling hysterically.

By now, her hands would have reached the suit's head, where they clamped down upon it like a bear trap. She attempted to pull the suit up and over her, in such a way that the blade would be pulled out before the figure could move up. Spinning on her heels, she would hurl the figure down, head first, onto the cold tiles of the floor, once again causing it to crack.

Her foot would then draw back, attempting to kick the armor's center of mass, sending it flying into the opposite wall. Perhaps unfortunately for her, Elizabeth was not terribly used to combat, and so was not using the best form in her attacks. As such, countering or dodging her strikes would have been trivial to anyone with any real combat experience.
 

Blizzard

Lord of the Pies
Inactive
Aug 30, 2016
27
AVA gritted her digital teeth as the Einherjar was slammed into the floor. She felt a strange, tingling sensation that she rarely felt as a computer program. It was... fear. The knowledge that it was up to her to save herself and Addaiel, coupled with the fact that she was running out of options against an opponent who, from the looks of it, couldn't die, caused a chill to race through her systems.

As the suit lay on the floor, she watched as Elizabeth brought her foot back. For AVA, it took about ten minutes, but to organics, it was a millisecond of normal time. In that time, she scoured the combat logs within the suit's systems, desperately trying to find a similar situation so she could counter. She found it.

While Elizabeth was on one leg, she threw a sweep kick which would devastate if it contacted. Then, she would use the armor's telekenetic abilities to hurl a table into her while she was still airborne, and send her through several walls and into another part of the building.
 

Marcello Sly

Well-Known Member
Inactive
Feb 12, 2016
151
Elizabeth realized her mistake too late. She saw the sweep that would knock her off of her feet, and then the table, crashing her through the wall. At this point, she had already committed fully to the kick, and so had no option but to brace herself. The sweep knocked her foot free of its embrace with the tile, and the table came flying at her with force even she had not expected.

Elizabeth found herself crashing through the wall, her bones crushing under the force of the impact, making a sickening *Crack* sound each time she broke through the brick walls. She came to a stop three walls later, her form colliding with the fourth wall, and damaging it, although the fourth wall remained unbroken.

Sitting limply against the cracked wall, Elizabeth's form already mending itself, Elizabeth sent an order to her minions.

"Don't let him leave!" Came the voice of the Lich, menacing and horrible. As if at once, five more guards poured through the doors of the room they had first fought in. They each carried shotguns, and while it was likely not to be enough to take down her adversary, Elizabeth hoped that it would be enough to stall him as her bones knitted themselves back together.
 

Blizzard

Lord of the Pies
Inactive
Aug 30, 2016
27
AVA smiled devilishly in her virtual world. The suit began to casually stroll forward through the carnage towards her adversary, stepping through the holes, and not reacting a bit to the pellets bouncing uselessly off of the highly advance space armor. One guard tried to grab the suit in a rush, but was casually flung away like a toy. In the machine's hands formed a glowing, blue hardlight sword that looked like it could slice cleanly through reinforced steel.

It could.

At last, the Einherjar stood above Elizabeth, sword in hand and raised, ready to deliver what she thought was the final blow. Down it raced, sure to vertically bisect the undead woman.

"Ugh... my head! AVA, are we still in Vegas? Why didn't you set an alarm- JESUS. FUCKING. CHRIST!"

The sword stopped, but not before slicing a few fine hairs from Elizabeth's head. This new voice was male, and slightly hungover. The armor suit stepped back from Elizabeth as if she'd caught fire, its sword disappearing, and it's tail lashing madly in confusion.
 

Marcello Sly

Well-Known Member
Inactive
Feb 12, 2016
151
Beth could not will herself to heal any faster. In the minute or so that the suit took to walk her way, her ribs slid back into place, and the hole in her chest sealed itself shut, her heart reforming. Her bones, which had been crushed into powder, were beginning to mend, so that she could sit herself up easier against the wall, and even move her arms.

"Heh..." She muttered to herself. The suit's inhabitant was just gloating, now. Wasting time attempting to secure a kill on an adversary who was already dead. Though her guards were largely ineffectual in actually defeating their opponent, Elizabeth, chancing herself a peek into the beyond as her adversary advanced, caught glimpses of her staff locking down the building, blast doors confining them to the insides of this building. More guards waited outside the building, armor piercing rifles aimed down towards the exits of the building.

As the machine reached her, it lifted the blade, about to strike, and Elizabeth finally found that her bones had returned to their rightful places. She prepared herself to stop the blade, likely entangling their feet to knock the armor down to her level, where she felt confident she could win a grapple.

And then, something strange happened. She caught a glimpse of the armor's form stop mid swing. Curious, she didn't move. A new voice resonated from the figure, this one male, and much more confused. It backed away as if Elizabeth had the plague, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, are we friends now?" Beth inquired, her right arm now flexing. It was only now that she noticed that her left arm was not present, and had in fact been pinned under the rubble, several feet away. She flexed the arm experimentally, struggling under the weight of the boulder.
 
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