0-3: A Wild Ringleader Appears!
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You step inside the bathroom. It obviously hasn't been used in a very long time. It's...too clean, too neat. From the spick-and-span toilet bowls, to the toilet paper rolls that are completely unused, to the towels neatly folded. Agent's fastidious nature is the only reason it all has to be like this. It's like a hotel room waiting for a guest who will never arrive.
You walk over to the sink, and see your new self in clarity for the first time.
For a moment you react, ready to respond with violence. But this is different from the doppelgangers you fought in sim-space. The image is vastly more crisp and defined, and moves in perfect synchrony with you. This is a reflection, not an enemy.
Your body has been made to look like a young human woman. Mostly. There's the pale skin, and...a small pair of black horns on your head? You hadn't noticed those. Perhaps they're antennae, to connect to the rest of Sangvis? Your eyes are a steely grey. Your dark hair flows to your waist in a pair of twin tails. There's a single side bun on the right side of your head, giving you a dash of asymmetry. You now recognize your outfit as a sailor schoolgirl uniform, albeit skimpier than the ones used by actual human schoolgirls.
You find yourself enraptured by curiosity. Slowly you turn your head up and down, side to side, examining your face. You raise a hand to your face and trace your cheek and jawline with the fingertips. You experiment with different facial expressions. Eyes wide, eyes narrow, one eyebrow raised. Lips downturned, lips upturned, lips diagonal. You stick out your tongue and lick your lips with it. It's all so very novel.
You stand up straight, raise an index finger to your chin, and slowly draw your lips into a wicked smirk.
Yes, good. When you want to send shivers down the spine of the enemy over a video call, you will know how to pull it off.
On impulse, you raise a hand to your mouth, bite the fingertips of your glove, and pull it off. You start running your fingertips across various surfaces. The bumpy ceramic tiles of the sink counter, the smooth glass of the mirror, the cold metal of the taps. Each feels different.
And then you reach for one of the towels.
It is impossibly, indescribably soft. You knew about "softness" as an abstract concept, but there was no real sense of touch in the simulated space, and since you were activated you've only ever seen and felt hard surfaces. This is different. It's light, flexible, gentle, and so very soft. It's probably as fresh and fluffy as the day it was manufactured.
Then you move it to your face.
You close your eyes so you can focus on the sense of touch and slowly drag the soft, fluffy towel up and down your brow, your eye sockets, your cheeks. Your face is sensitive in its own right, especially the lower half, but it's a different kind of sensitive. Your lips, on the other hand, are a different degree of sensitivity...they simply feel the gentle sensation more intensely.
There are also other, equally alien sensations coming over you. Your throat and chest feel inexplicably tight, your hands are trembling even though you don't mean them to, and there's...something in your eye? Is this all a normal reaction to soft objects?
You lower the towel, move a fingertip through the corner of your eye, then hold it up for examination. A drop of water is hanging from it.
How very odd. Must be a calibration error or something.
You close your eyes again and resume applying the towel to your face and lips, drinking in the sensations. This time you take it a step further by sticking your tongue out a little...and it seems that is yet another step up from the lips. You can actually feel the individual loops of fabric that make up the towelling. The inexplicable tightness in your chest and throat is getting stronger, as if building towards-
"What are you doing to that towel?"
You yelp involuntarily, open your eyes, drop the towel, spin round to the source of the voice. Standing in the bathroom with you is another android. Her dark hair and pale skin mark her out as Sangvis Ferri. She's wearing a pinstripe apron, thigh high leggings, buckled shoes, and not much else.
"That looked really intense. Are you kissing the towel or something? Are you a towel-sexual? Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Who-" you stutter. "What-"
"When, where, why, and how!" she chirps with an infuriating grin.
"What?"
"Not 'what!' 'Who, what, when, where, why, and how!' That's the classic problem-solving and project-planning set. Works for military strategy, heavy artillery projects, and lots of other things besides!"
You jab a finger at her. "And who. The hell. Are you?!?!"
"Oh, sorry forgot to introduce myself. IIIIIIIII am Sangvis Ferri model SPzH3000 "Architect." Ta-daaaaa!" She...poses? Sticks out her butt, and splays two fingers above one bright pink eye? What the hell?
"And what is this?" you demand, copying her hand movement. "Is this mockery? Are you making fun of me?"
"Wha-no." The grin fades from her face the slightest amount. "Look, I think we might be getting off on the wrong foot here." She changes her pose, stands upright and sticks her right hand out towards you. "Hi! I'm Architect. I heard a brand new ringleader just came off the slab, so I wanted to meet you. What's your name, and how are you?"
You don't know what to say. You've been caught off guard multiple times in the span of one minute. You're confused. You're reaching for something to say, but find nothing.
So you do the only thing that comes to mind.
You take three strides over to this "Architect," and punch her in the face.
It's not as satisfying as it should be, because she actually rolls with the punch. She's already turning her face away from you by the time your hit lands, she turns the momentum into a little spin on her heels, then she backpedals away from you with your hands raised. "Okay, time out, time out! Obviously I was interrupting something. I'll just go and-"
You lunge forwards, tackling Architect.
The two of you crash through the bathroom door into the office, turning said door into a mess of very expensive splintered wood.
Architect struggles, tries to break away. You grab fistfuls of hair and clothes, pin her down underneath you. You secure a grip with your knees, get your hands around her throat.
"APOLOGIZE!!!" you shout. "NOW!!! OR I TWIST YOUR HEAD OFF YOUR NECK!!!"
"Okay, okay!" She's still grinning, but it's a very wide-eyed grin. "Uh, apologize for what?"
"YOU-" You're too angry to articulate how exactly Architect wronged you. You just know that she did. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"
"But I-"
"UNHAND HER, YOU VILLAIN!!!!"
Something slams into your side with the force of a cruise missile. The world turns into a blur, you feel something give way under your back, and then you hit something and come to a stop.
You get on one knee, get your bearings. Realize that you've been thrown through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, shattering them and leaving broken glass in your wake. The object that stopped your slide is the balcony rail, which just barely held up enough to stop you from plunging a very long way down.
You also see the new android that threw you. She has white hair, wears a black leotard, elbow-length gloves, a pair of knee-high boots, and has a barcode tattoo under one of her lime green eyes. She glares at you with an annoying expression of righteous anger, as if she's the hero in a fairy tale and you're the dragon to be slain. She's pointing some kind of weapon at you - it looks something like a futuristic crossbow?
A blade of incandescent white energy suddenly emanates from her weapon with a snap-hiss sound. A plasma lance, then.
"All right, then," you snarl. You pick up a large shard of glass from the floor, hold it like a dagger, then rise to your feet. "Let's do this."
This wouldn't be the first time you've won from a position of material disadvantage, not by a long shot. Positioning and tactics - that's what matters. You can tell from looking that this new contender is the type to make heavy use of her knight pieces, attempting to attack and flank from unexpected directions. So you need only feign weakness, set up a defensive position, wait for her to metaphorically and literally stick out her neck, and then-
"CEASE."
Agent's voice cracks like a whip through the cold mountain air. You, Architect, the plasma lance wielder - all three of you freeze and turn to the chief ringleader. She surveys the scene. The bathroom door destroyed, the balcony window shattered, the balcony railing bent and deformed, and freezing cold mountain air blowing into the now-ruined office. And you and the new android, facing off against each other with weapons at the ready.
"Ten minutes," she says wearily. "I leave three ringleaders alone for ten minutes, and this happens. You do realize that we cannot simply order a new Italian Maplewood door?"
As if to accentuate Agent's words, a shard of glass falls from the upper reaches of the ruined windows and shatters on the ground.
No one says anything.
"Gager" - she's addressing the plasma lancer - "can you explain this?"
"Ma'am!" Gager stands up at attention, though she keeps her weapon trained on you. "This assailant was attempting to harm my charge! I acted to protect Architect, as per your orders!"
Agent's gaze flicks between you - still standing in the chill wind on the balcony, glass dagger in hand - and Architect, who has gotten to her feet and is now dusting wooden shards from herself. "Is this true?" she asks.
"Oh, heh, no," Architect says. Her trademark grin has attached itself back to her face. "I get that this might look bad, and I can respect Lady Knight's, ah, commitment to the job, but honestly, this was all just a big misunderstanding!"
"She was threatening to tear your head off!" Gager shouts.
"I'm sure she didn't mean it!"
"As if-" you begin, then you stop. You were about to say 'as if I would ever make an idle threat,' but that doesn't seem very intelligent. You don't know what this Architect is playing at, but it's not a good moment to look a gift horse in the mouth.
You realize you're still holding the glass dagger in your hand, which...might not look good, so you drop it to the floor. "Yes, Architect is right. This is a misunderstanding. I...asked her for advice on methods of destroying our enemies, and she offered to give me some hands-on practice. Right?"
Architect nods vigorously.
Agent looks at you, and her eyes narrow slightly. "Just so you understand," she says, "if you were ever to attack a fellow ringleader, that would be the end of your relationship with Sangvis Ferri. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," you say.
"That will do for now," Agent says. "Gager, put down the weapon. You're not supposed to have it inside the factory anyway."
"But-" Gager says.
"Do it."
With reluctance - and still giving you the evil eye - Gager deactivates the plasma blade on her weapon and leans it against the wall.
"Well then," Agent says. "Ouroboros, this is Architect. She handles research and development, and is responsible for the Jupiter heavy artillery project. And this is Gager. She answers directly to me. An order from her is to be treated as an order from myself." Oh, you don't like that last factoid at all.
"Architect and Gager, this is Ouroboros, our newest ringleader. She was created in unusual circumstances, so we can afford to give her...a little bit of leniency." Well, it's good that Agent sees your value and knows that you are completely in the right, at least.
"With that concluded," Agent continues, "We can finally move on to the training grounds."
"Training grounds?" you ask.
"Where you can test out the personal weapons systems you asked for," Agent says. "And where we can test out how well we can back up your claims of perfection. I'm sure you will have no problems with the live fire exercise."
*****************************
You are standing in the middle of a plane of white snow and grey rock.
The cold wind blows, kicking up snow and ice.
You are equipped with a set of dual drum-fed micro-missile launchers, as well as the complementary particle cannons.
Despite your skimpy attire, the cold is not harming you in the slightest. Actually, system diagnostics are telling you that it improves your performance in certain respects - you can push your physical and electronic capabilities further without overheating.
Ahead of you, you can just barely see the outlines of the trenches, as well as the boxy outline of a bunker or pill-box.
To your right is a hillside leading to a ridge.
To your left is a depression in the landscape that runs towards the trench line.
Directly between you and the trench line is open ground, with some slight slopes here and there.
You know that this will prove no problem for you. Already, your mind is awash in possibilities, ways to dominate and crush the opposing force, to-
A crude whistling sound comes in, then a mortar shell explodes in the air a few dozen meters away from you. A few small slivers of shrapnel bounce off your tough synth-flesh.
Still, whatever tactic you choose, you had better choose quickly.
[] Queen's knight opening. Deploy the knight to C3, a good position from which you can attack central E4 and D5 squares. Which, in this context, translates to...well, you'll figure it out!
[] King's pawn opening. Pawn moves to E4, laying a claim on the centre of the board and opening the way for other pieces. A flawless tactic!
[] Knight's pawn moves to G3, opening the way for your bishop to fianchetto on the right. Makes perfect sense on this new board, right? Right!
*****************************
*****************************
You walk over to the sink, and see your new self in clarity for the first time.
For a moment you react, ready to respond with violence. But this is different from the doppelgangers you fought in sim-space. The image is vastly more crisp and defined, and moves in perfect synchrony with you. This is a reflection, not an enemy.
Your body has been made to look like a young human woman. Mostly. There's the pale skin, and...a small pair of black horns on your head? You hadn't noticed those. Perhaps they're antennae, to connect to the rest of Sangvis? Your eyes are a steely grey. Your dark hair flows to your waist in a pair of twin tails. There's a single side bun on the right side of your head, giving you a dash of asymmetry. You now recognize your outfit as a sailor schoolgirl uniform, albeit skimpier than the ones used by actual human schoolgirls.
You find yourself enraptured by curiosity. Slowly you turn your head up and down, side to side, examining your face. You raise a hand to your face and trace your cheek and jawline with the fingertips. You experiment with different facial expressions. Eyes wide, eyes narrow, one eyebrow raised. Lips downturned, lips upturned, lips diagonal. You stick out your tongue and lick your lips with it. It's all so very novel.
You stand up straight, raise an index finger to your chin, and slowly draw your lips into a wicked smirk.
Yes, good. When you want to send shivers down the spine of the enemy over a video call, you will know how to pull it off.
On impulse, you raise a hand to your mouth, bite the fingertips of your glove, and pull it off. You start running your fingertips across various surfaces. The bumpy ceramic tiles of the sink counter, the smooth glass of the mirror, the cold metal of the taps. Each feels different.
And then you reach for one of the towels.
It is impossibly, indescribably soft. You knew about "softness" as an abstract concept, but there was no real sense of touch in the simulated space, and since you were activated you've only ever seen and felt hard surfaces. This is different. It's light, flexible, gentle, and so very soft. It's probably as fresh and fluffy as the day it was manufactured.
Then you move it to your face.
You close your eyes so you can focus on the sense of touch and slowly drag the soft, fluffy towel up and down your brow, your eye sockets, your cheeks. Your face is sensitive in its own right, especially the lower half, but it's a different kind of sensitive. Your lips, on the other hand, are a different degree of sensitivity...they simply feel the gentle sensation more intensely.
There are also other, equally alien sensations coming over you. Your throat and chest feel inexplicably tight, your hands are trembling even though you don't mean them to, and there's...something in your eye? Is this all a normal reaction to soft objects?
You lower the towel, move a fingertip through the corner of your eye, then hold it up for examination. A drop of water is hanging from it.
How very odd. Must be a calibration error or something.
You close your eyes again and resume applying the towel to your face and lips, drinking in the sensations. This time you take it a step further by sticking your tongue out a little...and it seems that is yet another step up from the lips. You can actually feel the individual loops of fabric that make up the towelling. The inexplicable tightness in your chest and throat is getting stronger, as if building towards-
"What are you doing to that towel?"
You yelp involuntarily, open your eyes, drop the towel, spin round to the source of the voice. Standing in the bathroom with you is another android. Her dark hair and pale skin mark her out as Sangvis Ferri. She's wearing a pinstripe apron, thigh high leggings, buckled shoes, and not much else.
"That looked really intense. Are you kissing the towel or something? Are you a towel-sexual? Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Who-" you stutter. "What-"
"When, where, why, and how!" she chirps with an infuriating grin.
"What?"
"Not 'what!' 'Who, what, when, where, why, and how!' That's the classic problem-solving and project-planning set. Works for military strategy, heavy artillery projects, and lots of other things besides!"
You jab a finger at her. "And who. The hell. Are you?!?!"
"Oh, sorry forgot to introduce myself. IIIIIIIII am Sangvis Ferri model SPzH3000 "Architect." Ta-daaaaa!" She...poses? Sticks out her butt, and splays two fingers above one bright pink eye? What the hell?
"And what is this?" you demand, copying her hand movement. "Is this mockery? Are you making fun of me?"
"Wha-no." The grin fades from her face the slightest amount. "Look, I think we might be getting off on the wrong foot here." She changes her pose, stands upright and sticks her right hand out towards you. "Hi! I'm Architect. I heard a brand new ringleader just came off the slab, so I wanted to meet you. What's your name, and how are you?"
You don't know what to say. You've been caught off guard multiple times in the span of one minute. You're confused. You're reaching for something to say, but find nothing.
So you do the only thing that comes to mind.
You take three strides over to this "Architect," and punch her in the face.
It's not as satisfying as it should be, because she actually rolls with the punch. She's already turning her face away from you by the time your hit lands, she turns the momentum into a little spin on her heels, then she backpedals away from you with your hands raised. "Okay, time out, time out! Obviously I was interrupting something. I'll just go and-"
You lunge forwards, tackling Architect.
The two of you crash through the bathroom door into the office, turning said door into a mess of very expensive splintered wood.
Architect struggles, tries to break away. You grab fistfuls of hair and clothes, pin her down underneath you. You secure a grip with your knees, get your hands around her throat.
"APOLOGIZE!!!" you shout. "NOW!!! OR I TWIST YOUR HEAD OFF YOUR NECK!!!"
"Okay, okay!" She's still grinning, but it's a very wide-eyed grin. "Uh, apologize for what?"
"YOU-" You're too angry to articulate how exactly Architect wronged you. You just know that she did. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"
"But I-"
"UNHAND HER, YOU VILLAIN!!!!"
Something slams into your side with the force of a cruise missile. The world turns into a blur, you feel something give way under your back, and then you hit something and come to a stop.
You get on one knee, get your bearings. Realize that you've been thrown through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, shattering them and leaving broken glass in your wake. The object that stopped your slide is the balcony rail, which just barely held up enough to stop you from plunging a very long way down.
You also see the new android that threw you. She has white hair, wears a black leotard, elbow-length gloves, a pair of knee-high boots, and has a barcode tattoo under one of her lime green eyes. She glares at you with an annoying expression of righteous anger, as if she's the hero in a fairy tale and you're the dragon to be slain. She's pointing some kind of weapon at you - it looks something like a futuristic crossbow?
A blade of incandescent white energy suddenly emanates from her weapon with a snap-hiss sound. A plasma lance, then.
"All right, then," you snarl. You pick up a large shard of glass from the floor, hold it like a dagger, then rise to your feet. "Let's do this."
This wouldn't be the first time you've won from a position of material disadvantage, not by a long shot. Positioning and tactics - that's what matters. You can tell from looking that this new contender is the type to make heavy use of her knight pieces, attempting to attack and flank from unexpected directions. So you need only feign weakness, set up a defensive position, wait for her to metaphorically and literally stick out her neck, and then-
"CEASE."
Agent's voice cracks like a whip through the cold mountain air. You, Architect, the plasma lance wielder - all three of you freeze and turn to the chief ringleader. She surveys the scene. The bathroom door destroyed, the balcony window shattered, the balcony railing bent and deformed, and freezing cold mountain air blowing into the now-ruined office. And you and the new android, facing off against each other with weapons at the ready.
"Ten minutes," she says wearily. "I leave three ringleaders alone for ten minutes, and this happens. You do realize that we cannot simply order a new Italian Maplewood door?"
As if to accentuate Agent's words, a shard of glass falls from the upper reaches of the ruined windows and shatters on the ground.
No one says anything.
"Gager" - she's addressing the plasma lancer - "can you explain this?"
"Ma'am!" Gager stands up at attention, though she keeps her weapon trained on you. "This assailant was attempting to harm my charge! I acted to protect Architect, as per your orders!"
Agent's gaze flicks between you - still standing in the chill wind on the balcony, glass dagger in hand - and Architect, who has gotten to her feet and is now dusting wooden shards from herself. "Is this true?" she asks.
"Oh, heh, no," Architect says. Her trademark grin has attached itself back to her face. "I get that this might look bad, and I can respect Lady Knight's, ah, commitment to the job, but honestly, this was all just a big misunderstanding!"
"She was threatening to tear your head off!" Gager shouts.
"I'm sure she didn't mean it!"
"As if-" you begin, then you stop. You were about to say 'as if I would ever make an idle threat,' but that doesn't seem very intelligent. You don't know what this Architect is playing at, but it's not a good moment to look a gift horse in the mouth.
You realize you're still holding the glass dagger in your hand, which...might not look good, so you drop it to the floor. "Yes, Architect is right. This is a misunderstanding. I...asked her for advice on methods of destroying our enemies, and she offered to give me some hands-on practice. Right?"
Architect nods vigorously.
Agent looks at you, and her eyes narrow slightly. "Just so you understand," she says, "if you were ever to attack a fellow ringleader, that would be the end of your relationship with Sangvis Ferri. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal," you say.
"That will do for now," Agent says. "Gager, put down the weapon. You're not supposed to have it inside the factory anyway."
"But-" Gager says.
"Do it."
With reluctance - and still giving you the evil eye - Gager deactivates the plasma blade on her weapon and leans it against the wall.
"Well then," Agent says. "Ouroboros, this is Architect. She handles research and development, and is responsible for the Jupiter heavy artillery project. And this is Gager. She answers directly to me. An order from her is to be treated as an order from myself." Oh, you don't like that last factoid at all.
"Architect and Gager, this is Ouroboros, our newest ringleader. She was created in unusual circumstances, so we can afford to give her...a little bit of leniency." Well, it's good that Agent sees your value and knows that you are completely in the right, at least.
"With that concluded," Agent continues, "We can finally move on to the training grounds."
"Training grounds?" you ask.
"Where you can test out the personal weapons systems you asked for," Agent says. "And where we can test out how well we can back up your claims of perfection. I'm sure you will have no problems with the live fire exercise."
*****************************
You are standing in the middle of a plane of white snow and grey rock.
The cold wind blows, kicking up snow and ice.
You are equipped with a set of dual drum-fed micro-missile launchers, as well as the complementary particle cannons.
Despite your skimpy attire, the cold is not harming you in the slightest. Actually, system diagnostics are telling you that it improves your performance in certain respects - you can push your physical and electronic capabilities further without overheating.
Ahead of you, you can just barely see the outlines of the trenches, as well as the boxy outline of a bunker or pill-box.
To your right is a hillside leading to a ridge.
To your left is a depression in the landscape that runs towards the trench line.
Directly between you and the trench line is open ground, with some slight slopes here and there.
You know that this will prove no problem for you. Already, your mind is awash in possibilities, ways to dominate and crush the opposing force, to-
A crude whistling sound comes in, then a mortar shell explodes in the air a few dozen meters away from you. A few small slivers of shrapnel bounce off your tough synth-flesh.
Still, whatever tactic you choose, you had better choose quickly.
[] Queen's knight opening. Deploy the knight to C3, a good position from which you can attack central E4 and D5 squares. Which, in this context, translates to...well, you'll figure it out!
[] King's pawn opening. Pawn moves to E4, laying a claim on the centre of the board and opening the way for other pieces. A flawless tactic!
[] Knight's pawn moves to G3, opening the way for your bishop to fianchetto on the right. Makes perfect sense on this new board, right? Right!
*****************************
*****************************
I'm experimenting with several things in this update, including the introduction of the relationship table, which is now in the "informative" threadmarks. Comments and critique are greatly appreciated!
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