Scattered Gears (Titan of Steel/Multicross)
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- Original Crossover Superhero
@I just write are ypu on SB. I wanted to do it on their in my ongoing story wondered if you were okay with that.
We Just Write
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- New England
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- Plural
I don't have an extant SB account due to an avalanche of bizarre and inexplicable technical issues that occur whenever I try to make an account on that site. That said, go ahead. Just plz post links.
- Pronouns
- Yes
The Aztec ceremonies were public as well, and they weren't (by our standards) acceptable at all. It's obvious that the culture he landed in considers this acceptable, if the adults know of the mental effects then they're brainwashing the kids into thinking it was acceptable, if they don't need to explain to them about it.
Something else that's sprung to mind, actually - how would Catherine/one of the other Clockwork Knights/the Titan of Steel react to the Taylor Varga universe? (ie., mp3.145player's Worm/Luna Varga crossover, wherein Taylor meets a giant lizard demon, Max Anders spills booze on his shoes often enough for it to be a running gag, and life in the Bay gets weirder than normal)
Star Wars 1 (Clockwork Knight Yarrow)
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
(POV: Clockwork Knight Yarrow)
I emerged in hard vacuum, staring out at countless stars. Rotating my sensor turret quickly revealed that I was in the gravitational influence of a sizable terrestrial planet with three moons, albeit one without much surface water. I could just about make out signs of orbital traffic, which at least indicated that some people lived here. Hmmm... Angular magnitude growth of the planet in my view indicates that I'm approaching at a distressingly fast velocity. I really need a way to control my descent.
So, I reconfigured my self-repair system to enclose my main chassis in a pod made out of regular nanotube steel. Said pod featured six thrust control nodes allowing for full six-axis control, and with the addition of some sensor pods and an auxiliary cognitive driver I had a much better idea where I was going. So, I settled in for a nice sedate cruise towards the planet at around ten kilometers per second, with a nice fifty-gee deceleration burn just as I was approaching the atmosphere. I also adjusted my descent profile so that I'd touch down just a few kilometers outside of one of the larger settlements I'd spotted.
Apparently no-one noticed or cared about my descent, and I touched down unmolested. I quickly deconjured my descent pod, and that done I started walking towards where I remembered the city was. Sure enough, I quickly found myself entering a populated area that seemed to be a residential district, countless small dwellings stacked on top of each other in massive rows. I noticed some people of varying species milling about, but as I approached they largely scattered and tried desperately to ignore my presence. That was fair I suppose, I was a rather intimidating figure.
I figured I'd rather not scare anyone any more than absolutely necessary, so I briefly fired up Words of Truth, said "So, I'm Clockwork Knight Yarrow, and I have no idea where I am. If anyone wants to come talk to me eventually about that, it would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I'm just going to be waiting out here." and simply stood to attention.
Sure enough, eventually I was cautiously approached by one of the local children. They looked human, generally speaking, with straight blonde hair and an inquisitive expression. After a few moments spent in silence, I remarked "I know you're nervous about talking to me, but I can't very well answer any questions that I haven't been asked."
The child said "Just trying to figure out who made you, and how you're put together. I've seen quite a few Droids, but never one like you."
I hummed a bit, before answering "I was actually made by the Titan of Steel, a being who took it upon themselves to rescue their entire planet from the brutal oppression of the Daemons and their Grand Dragon creations. That said, you wouldn't have heard about any of them; I'm almost certainly not in my home universe, given the dimensional crash I was caught in."
Looking up at me, the kid asked "You must have gone on all sorts of adventures, haven't you? I've never gotten the chance, Watto wouldn't allow it despite being a kinder master than before."
Immediately, I asked "Wait, master!? You're a slave? You mean that barbaric practice is extant here!?"
Sadly, the child simply nodded, before saying "Yes. These are the slave quarters of Mos Espa. Everyone here is a slave, and we can't run away or the implanted bombs will go off."
I was horrified, and immediately stood up as I told the child "I'm getting that bomb out of you, along with every last slave on this planet. All I need is a safe location to construct an operating room, then I can do the rest." The plan was already coalescing in my mind. I'd need to reconfigure into a pseudodungeon to get enough hospital space and teleporters to treat everyone. Once I had that up and running, mass-producing more Clockworks to bring down this entire planet's slaving institutions would be trivial. From there I could easily expand to house a shipyard and a research facility, and get started on purging the galaxy of slaving scum once and for all.
Back in physical reality, the boy hesitated for a moment, before he said "Follow me, my mom might know a place." and started walking off towards one of the residences. I followed.
(POV: Third Person near Shmi Skywalker)
When Shmi saw the massive heavily-armed Droid entering her home following Anakin, she had something of a panic attack. After all, that was a hulking humanoid war machine entering her home. This panic attack was slightly eased when said Droid gently closed the door and said "Ma'am. I am Clockwork Knight Yarrow. I'm here to remove the explosive devices implanted in you, your son, and eventually every slave on this planet. Do you have anywhere I can place a secret entrance to an underground operating room? I will require no additional tools or materials. Just tell me where I can work."
Immediately, Shmi was incredulous, asking "Wait, what do you mean that you won't require any additional materials? Are you planning to just magically convert whatever rock and stone you encounter into medical supplies?" there was optimism, and then there was madness.
Shmi most emphatically was not expecting Yarrow to answer "Not exactly, but you aren't far off." before proving her point by materializing a flawless glass jug full of precious life-giving water from nothing whatsoever. Having gently set down the jug of water on an unoccupied piece of floor, Yarrow noted "I can remove matter as easily as I can create it, so as long as I have a place to work I can trivially make a quite large facility to start getting those bombs out of your people. Where would be a good place to put a concealed entrance?"
Thinking for a moment, Shmi answered "The back room. Follow me." Soon, she had arrived over a specific section of floor and said "Here. This corner will work, as long as the entrance is straight down. The tenement was built into a hillside, so there isn't a dwelling below us here, despite the fact that we live on the second level."
Yarrow replied with "Understood. Please be aware that I am about to drastically reconfigure my chassis, and that this process may be visually disturbing."
With that, Yarrow's limbs and head started to melt away, leaving only the torso lump full of systems as it descended into the floor. After a moment, Shmi looked down the shaft, seeing what looked like a simple square pit lined with metal, seeming a lot deeper than she expected. Shortly afterwards, she saw a lift platform rapidly ascending and ducked out of the way. A mere moment later, the platform was seamlessly flush with the floor of Shmi's home, offering no sign at all that anything was out of the ordinary. Seeing all this, Shmi couldn't help but say "Anakin, your new friend works fast."
Almost as lost as his mother, Anakin replied with a simple, silent nod.
After most of an hour, a holographic projector activated showing a simplistic representation of a three-eyed face. This was an immediate prelude to Yarrow stating "I've reconfigured into a facility, and now I have a suitable operating room to locate and remove your detonators. Stand on the pad, and I'll bring you down. Please be aware that this is a teleportation system, rather than a lift."
(POV: Yarrow, Pseudodungeon)
It took a few minutes to convince the two people I met to actually trust the teleportation pad I installed. However, once that was done I immediately directed the two to the operating room, where I had a medical scanner set up along with a mechanical surgeon and some other relevant equipment.
Either way, as the mother and son were looking around, I noted "So, first I need to give you a disclaimer. I don't know enough about your biochemistry to safely render you unconscious during the procedure, and I'm not willing to make stupid assumptions that risk your lives. That said, I will be able to suppress the pain signals that you would otherwise experience, and I will take every possible measure to avoid infection. If you think you might need to be strapped in place, please tell me so that I can arrange the restraints prior to the operation and avoid accidentally hurting you any more than absolutely necessary."
The woman thought for a moment, before saying "I could probably stay still, but it would probably be best for you to restrain me anyway. I don't know if I might move involuntarily. The same goes for Anakin."
I made my visual representation nod, before I noted "Understood. One of you onto the scanner table. I need to know where your bombs are before I can safely remove them."
Before the woman could stop him, the boy (apparently named Anakin) jumped up onto the scanner, and when I told him "Please lie down so I can get a better quality scan." he obediently did so.
Thus I fired up the scanner, rapidly locating a foreign object about one centimeter long implanted in Anakin's right armpit. It wasn't quite touching his lung, but it was uncomfortably close to the vital organ in question. As soon as I found it, I informed my patient "I have located the bomb in your ribcage immediately adjacent to your armpit. Please remove your shirt before I strap you down. While I could trivially provide a replacement garment, I would prefer to avoid unnecessarily damaging your possessions."
A few moments later Anakin's shirt was removed, I had him immobilized, a Holy-powered pain suppression effect was active, and I had just disinfected Anakin's skin in preparation for the initial incision. Carefully, I made a single small cut, then inserted a small gripping appendage to pull the bomb out. Seconds later the explosive device was in the disposal bin, and I activated the regeneration mode on the general purpose spell matrix I'd built into the operating theater. Anakin's wound closed up, and I cheerfully informed him "Good news, you're no longer at risk of sudden explosive death. You're a free sapient, and as soon as I've finished overthrowing the planetary government it will even be official."
As I talked, I quickly cleaned off the operating table, a process which included the total destruction of the few drops of Anakin's blood that had been spilled.
Another few moments later, Anakin's mother was on the operating table, and the scanner quickly found the bomb... in her neck, between the airway and esophagus. Why would someone even put it there!? Yes it's harder to remove safely, but by the same token getting it in there had to have been a pain. As such, I informed the woman "Your bomb is at an inconvenient location in your neck. To remove it I will need to insert manipulator appendages into your esophagus through your mouth. Please hold as still as you possibly can, as the immobilization I can provide will be limited."
After that warning, the operation went about as smoothly as it could possibly have been hoped, given the circumstances. I had the bomb out of Anakin's mother in less than a minute, and as soon as the operation was complete I noted "The operation was successful at removing the explosive device. You might suffer some mild discomfort while swallowing during the next few days, as your system isn't fully acclimatized to Mana-enhanced healing yet, so there is unfortunately a small patch of scar tissue in your esophagus."
Nodding in acknowledgement, the woman noted "Thank you sincerely, Yarrow. I know there isn't much, but is there anything at all we can provide to pay you back?"
Without hesitating at all, I answered "A list of the biggest slavers on the planet, along with a basic rundown of what factions are supporting slavery both here and in the wider galaxy. I need accurate information to get rid of the slavers before they wise up to my activities and start using the bombs in other slaves as a hostage situation."
She took a deep breath, and began speaking "Well, the biggest group supporting slavery is the Hutts..." she continued on giving me as much knowledge of the situation as she had for the next hour. Meanwhile Anakin occasionally chimed in, and I was carefully noting down every single thing they said.
Thus, on a backwater planet in a largely irrelevant part of the galaxy, a Clockwork decided that the continued existence of the Hutts as a galactic power bloc was intolerable...
I emerged in hard vacuum, staring out at countless stars. Rotating my sensor turret quickly revealed that I was in the gravitational influence of a sizable terrestrial planet with three moons, albeit one without much surface water. I could just about make out signs of orbital traffic, which at least indicated that some people lived here. Hmmm... Angular magnitude growth of the planet in my view indicates that I'm approaching at a distressingly fast velocity. I really need a way to control my descent.
So, I reconfigured my self-repair system to enclose my main chassis in a pod made out of regular nanotube steel. Said pod featured six thrust control nodes allowing for full six-axis control, and with the addition of some sensor pods and an auxiliary cognitive driver I had a much better idea where I was going. So, I settled in for a nice sedate cruise towards the planet at around ten kilometers per second, with a nice fifty-gee deceleration burn just as I was approaching the atmosphere. I also adjusted my descent profile so that I'd touch down just a few kilometers outside of one of the larger settlements I'd spotted.
Apparently no-one noticed or cared about my descent, and I touched down unmolested. I quickly deconjured my descent pod, and that done I started walking towards where I remembered the city was. Sure enough, I quickly found myself entering a populated area that seemed to be a residential district, countless small dwellings stacked on top of each other in massive rows. I noticed some people of varying species milling about, but as I approached they largely scattered and tried desperately to ignore my presence. That was fair I suppose, I was a rather intimidating figure.
I figured I'd rather not scare anyone any more than absolutely necessary, so I briefly fired up Words of Truth, said "So, I'm Clockwork Knight Yarrow, and I have no idea where I am. If anyone wants to come talk to me eventually about that, it would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I'm just going to be waiting out here." and simply stood to attention.
Sure enough, eventually I was cautiously approached by one of the local children. They looked human, generally speaking, with straight blonde hair and an inquisitive expression. After a few moments spent in silence, I remarked "I know you're nervous about talking to me, but I can't very well answer any questions that I haven't been asked."
The child said "Just trying to figure out who made you, and how you're put together. I've seen quite a few Droids, but never one like you."
I hummed a bit, before answering "I was actually made by the Titan of Steel, a being who took it upon themselves to rescue their entire planet from the brutal oppression of the Daemons and their Grand Dragon creations. That said, you wouldn't have heard about any of them; I'm almost certainly not in my home universe, given the dimensional crash I was caught in."
Looking up at me, the kid asked "You must have gone on all sorts of adventures, haven't you? I've never gotten the chance, Watto wouldn't allow it despite being a kinder master than before."
Immediately, I asked "Wait, master!? You're a slave? You mean that barbaric practice is extant here!?"
Sadly, the child simply nodded, before saying "Yes. These are the slave quarters of Mos Espa. Everyone here is a slave, and we can't run away or the implanted bombs will go off."
I was horrified, and immediately stood up as I told the child "I'm getting that bomb out of you, along with every last slave on this planet. All I need is a safe location to construct an operating room, then I can do the rest." The plan was already coalescing in my mind. I'd need to reconfigure into a pseudodungeon to get enough hospital space and teleporters to treat everyone. Once I had that up and running, mass-producing more Clockworks to bring down this entire planet's slaving institutions would be trivial. From there I could easily expand to house a shipyard and a research facility, and get started on purging the galaxy of slaving scum once and for all.
Back in physical reality, the boy hesitated for a moment, before he said "Follow me, my mom might know a place." and started walking off towards one of the residences. I followed.
(POV: Third Person near Shmi Skywalker)
When Shmi saw the massive heavily-armed Droid entering her home following Anakin, she had something of a panic attack. After all, that was a hulking humanoid war machine entering her home. This panic attack was slightly eased when said Droid gently closed the door and said "Ma'am. I am Clockwork Knight Yarrow. I'm here to remove the explosive devices implanted in you, your son, and eventually every slave on this planet. Do you have anywhere I can place a secret entrance to an underground operating room? I will require no additional tools or materials. Just tell me where I can work."
Immediately, Shmi was incredulous, asking "Wait, what do you mean that you won't require any additional materials? Are you planning to just magically convert whatever rock and stone you encounter into medical supplies?" there was optimism, and then there was madness.
Shmi most emphatically was not expecting Yarrow to answer "Not exactly, but you aren't far off." before proving her point by materializing a flawless glass jug full of precious life-giving water from nothing whatsoever. Having gently set down the jug of water on an unoccupied piece of floor, Yarrow noted "I can remove matter as easily as I can create it, so as long as I have a place to work I can trivially make a quite large facility to start getting those bombs out of your people. Where would be a good place to put a concealed entrance?"
Thinking for a moment, Shmi answered "The back room. Follow me." Soon, she had arrived over a specific section of floor and said "Here. This corner will work, as long as the entrance is straight down. The tenement was built into a hillside, so there isn't a dwelling below us here, despite the fact that we live on the second level."
Yarrow replied with "Understood. Please be aware that I am about to drastically reconfigure my chassis, and that this process may be visually disturbing."
With that, Yarrow's limbs and head started to melt away, leaving only the torso lump full of systems as it descended into the floor. After a moment, Shmi looked down the shaft, seeing what looked like a simple square pit lined with metal, seeming a lot deeper than she expected. Shortly afterwards, she saw a lift platform rapidly ascending and ducked out of the way. A mere moment later, the platform was seamlessly flush with the floor of Shmi's home, offering no sign at all that anything was out of the ordinary. Seeing all this, Shmi couldn't help but say "Anakin, your new friend works fast."
Almost as lost as his mother, Anakin replied with a simple, silent nod.
After most of an hour, a holographic projector activated showing a simplistic representation of a three-eyed face. This was an immediate prelude to Yarrow stating "I've reconfigured into a facility, and now I have a suitable operating room to locate and remove your detonators. Stand on the pad, and I'll bring you down. Please be aware that this is a teleportation system, rather than a lift."
(POV: Yarrow, Pseudodungeon)
It took a few minutes to convince the two people I met to actually trust the teleportation pad I installed. However, once that was done I immediately directed the two to the operating room, where I had a medical scanner set up along with a mechanical surgeon and some other relevant equipment.
Either way, as the mother and son were looking around, I noted "So, first I need to give you a disclaimer. I don't know enough about your biochemistry to safely render you unconscious during the procedure, and I'm not willing to make stupid assumptions that risk your lives. That said, I will be able to suppress the pain signals that you would otherwise experience, and I will take every possible measure to avoid infection. If you think you might need to be strapped in place, please tell me so that I can arrange the restraints prior to the operation and avoid accidentally hurting you any more than absolutely necessary."
The woman thought for a moment, before saying "I could probably stay still, but it would probably be best for you to restrain me anyway. I don't know if I might move involuntarily. The same goes for Anakin."
I made my visual representation nod, before I noted "Understood. One of you onto the scanner table. I need to know where your bombs are before I can safely remove them."
Before the woman could stop him, the boy (apparently named Anakin) jumped up onto the scanner, and when I told him "Please lie down so I can get a better quality scan." he obediently did so.
Thus I fired up the scanner, rapidly locating a foreign object about one centimeter long implanted in Anakin's right armpit. It wasn't quite touching his lung, but it was uncomfortably close to the vital organ in question. As soon as I found it, I informed my patient "I have located the bomb in your ribcage immediately adjacent to your armpit. Please remove your shirt before I strap you down. While I could trivially provide a replacement garment, I would prefer to avoid unnecessarily damaging your possessions."
A few moments later Anakin's shirt was removed, I had him immobilized, a Holy-powered pain suppression effect was active, and I had just disinfected Anakin's skin in preparation for the initial incision. Carefully, I made a single small cut, then inserted a small gripping appendage to pull the bomb out. Seconds later the explosive device was in the disposal bin, and I activated the regeneration mode on the general purpose spell matrix I'd built into the operating theater. Anakin's wound closed up, and I cheerfully informed him "Good news, you're no longer at risk of sudden explosive death. You're a free sapient, and as soon as I've finished overthrowing the planetary government it will even be official."
As I talked, I quickly cleaned off the operating table, a process which included the total destruction of the few drops of Anakin's blood that had been spilled.
Another few moments later, Anakin's mother was on the operating table, and the scanner quickly found the bomb... in her neck, between the airway and esophagus. Why would someone even put it there!? Yes it's harder to remove safely, but by the same token getting it in there had to have been a pain. As such, I informed the woman "Your bomb is at an inconvenient location in your neck. To remove it I will need to insert manipulator appendages into your esophagus through your mouth. Please hold as still as you possibly can, as the immobilization I can provide will be limited."
After that warning, the operation went about as smoothly as it could possibly have been hoped, given the circumstances. I had the bomb out of Anakin's mother in less than a minute, and as soon as the operation was complete I noted "The operation was successful at removing the explosive device. You might suffer some mild discomfort while swallowing during the next few days, as your system isn't fully acclimatized to Mana-enhanced healing yet, so there is unfortunately a small patch of scar tissue in your esophagus."
Nodding in acknowledgement, the woman noted "Thank you sincerely, Yarrow. I know there isn't much, but is there anything at all we can provide to pay you back?"
Without hesitating at all, I answered "A list of the biggest slavers on the planet, along with a basic rundown of what factions are supporting slavery both here and in the wider galaxy. I need accurate information to get rid of the slavers before they wise up to my activities and start using the bombs in other slaves as a hostage situation."
She took a deep breath, and began speaking "Well, the biggest group supporting slavery is the Hutts..." she continued on giving me as much knowledge of the situation as she had for the next hour. Meanwhile Anakin occasionally chimed in, and I was carefully noting down every single thing they said.
Thus, on a backwater planet in a largely irrelevant part of the galaxy, a Clockwork decided that the continued existence of the Hutts as a galactic power bloc was intolerable...
- Location
- Puerto Rico
Awesome chapter.
Now I want to see Yarrow talking to R2 and discovering that our favorite droid has some sort of spirit inside him.
Also, Yarrow meeting the Iron Knights.
Huh, I wonder if Yarrow can replicate. It could apparently do the pseudo dungeon so I assume going Homeworld on the republic isn't too far out of possibility. I think the biggest issue would just be getting an FTL drive that would be compatible with their systems or at least set up a hyperactive system and it's own power system...
PyroTechno
The Procrastination Pokemon
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...yknow...I think the Knights would fit in very well in the world of Bionicle. Just an idle thought.
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And here we see the other side of the attitudes from Beryl's section. In that one, she made it clear that forceful regime change was on the table were the government to prove unsatisfactory. Here, Yarrow decides the government is, in fact, unsatisfactory. It's quite a casual attitude for deciding whether or not to coup the government, but given past experiences and the agressive morally-justified expansionism of their home country, it's no surprise the clockwork knights tend to take such a stance. It's not an unreasonable attitude, and hasn't gone wrong yet, but is definitely informed by the Grand Dragons' very "what you see is what you get" authoritarianism. I worry that at some point someone is going to make a wrong decision and end up backing an immoral state or opposing a decent enough one due to unrepresentative first impressions, and that'll be a lot of trouble when it happens.
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Meanwhile, I'm not as worried by the concept due to the fact that Mana Thematographs appear to function, at least in part, as "Detect Alignment" spells in addition to their other functions. Thus, if someone pings as evil, they're going to probably wind up on the bad side of a properly functioning Clockwork Knight. That, and the Knights seen thus far seem to default to "help the innocent, deal with those being dicks/harming the innocent in as permanent a manner as practical", which, at least IMO, precludes acting until you're very certain of who's being a dick or not - a good chunk of what appears to be the reason Yarrow went full "right, time to overthrow a planetary government" is that slavery, especially when a civilization is technologically advanced enough for surgically implanted explosives, is generally a sign of Grand Dragon tier dickishness. Especially as Anakin has clued Yarrow in on the fact that clockwork equivalents prevalent enough that a young slave knew about them exist, but aren't being used for the tasks that slaves are. Which would strike Yarrow as both illogical and immoral in the extreme.
will you make separate the stroies to its own thread
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
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- New England
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- Plural
No, for the simple reason that it's ALL one fic.
- Pronouns
- Yes
Might want to clarify this in the OP and/or summary.
DOOM 1 (Clockwork Knight Adamant)
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
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- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
(POV: Clockwork Knight Adamant)
Immediately after the command to pulse all dimensional jammers, I found myself in a barren rocky wasteland streaked with lava flows. Immediately, my Mana Thematograph pinged "Demon, Evil, Clockwork, Torment" as the local Themes. Apparently, I was in a hell dimension, though not the one I had been previously engaged in combat with. On the other hand, it was a solid bet that whatever sort of Daemonic hierarchy existed here was busily committing atrocities and needed to be removed immediately.
Of course, I didn't have much time to think on that, since the dozens of cybernetic Daemons in my immediate proximity noticed my presence near-instantly and started attacking. I obligingly returned the violence, opening up at full power Nuclear Smite with my Omni-rifle at the same time as I began teleporting around and dodging like mad. My omnidirectional sonar was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of contacts in my immediate vicinity as I also started firing the occasional nuclear missile on low yield and continuously running the Plasma Pulse weapon in my chest at maximum area denial throughput, salting the area with literal tons of Holy-charged radioactive isotopes. Yet despite the frankly ridiculous amount of carnage I was causing and the literal near-mountain of heavily irradiated Daemonic corpses I was quickly climbing, I just couldn't seem to make an actual dent in the endless influx of Daemons, and my armor was slowly being worn down despite my self-repair system running at full tilt.
Clearly, this wasn't sustainable. I needed backup so that I could rotate out of the line of fire, and for that I would need to self replicate. To self-replicate, I would need to get away from this massive Daemonic legion long enough that doing so wouldn't be complete suicide. My decision made, I immediately fired ten missiles straight up in loiter mode and legged it at top speed, using a teleport to get out of the mob currently surrounding me. As I ran, I directed the loitering missiles to hit the closest parts of the mob to me, discouraging pursuit. Occasionally, I needed to replenish the swarm of missiles overhead, but that wasn't any significant issue. For the briefest of moments I'd actually thought I'd gotten away, then I spotted another massive mob of Daemons up ahead. I was caught in a pincer.
Immediately, I directed a massive number of my indirect fire missiles to blast the back lines of the Daemonic horde at their maximum yield of 120 kilotons each. This would give me a brief reprieve, but since I didn't much want to nuke myself into molten slag, it didn't help all that much with the hundreds of Daemons I'd need to fight off to get that reprieve. That's when a figure in green armor made their presence known, brutally tearing into the demonic flanking element with a wide variety of weapons. Interesting, the Daemons actually seemed nervous of that person's presence, as they were visibly hesitant to engage them in combat.
Either way, I had bigger problems in the form of the force that had originally been pursuing me, since they weren't currently occupied by that trooper. As such, I whirled around and once more started blasting with Nuclear Smite mode, the Holy-charged blasts of C-fractional plasma having a distinct tendency to blast all but the largest Daemons into smears on the terrain with only one or two hits. Considering that I was firing upwards of 40 such shots per second and was hitting almost every time, I was rapidly mowing down Daemon after Daemon, especially when I mixed in the occasional low-yield missile shot.
After a few minutes of constant firing, I noticed that my current area of focus was currently clear of Daemons and that the figure in green was near me. I immediately started the self-replication macro, a bud that would soon be an entirely new Clockwork Knight forming on my back. As I did so I shouted to the man in green "Keep those Daemons off me for a few minutes so I can self-replicate!"
The man's only reply at the moment was an incredibly brief thumbs-up, before he got right back to killing. Good enough.
The first system of my child to come online were the reactors, followed immediately afterwards by the self-repair nodes and their brain. As soon as that was complete, I detached the 'egg' from my back and got started on making a new one.
Meanwhile, the 'eggs' I was laying very rapidly achieved their final atomic configuration, standing up and getting ready to fight in just a couple minutes; that said, it would take them nearly half an hour to finalize their durability enchantments, which meant that compared to me the three newborns I'd just created were still highly squishy and didn't yet have their full firepower.
Taking a brief moment, I turned to look for the man in green and noticed that there weren't currently any Daemons around. As such I told him "My children and I can handle ourselves from here on out. I look forwards to fighting alongside you in the future."
The man in green simply nodded before going on his way to whatever else he had been planning on doing. As he left, I turned to my triplets and said "Guess what kids? We're going to build a fortified factory complex."
As one, they replied "Sure thing, dad!"
With that, we got to work. Carrie took overwatch duties first, bombarding large groups of Daemons with nuclear ordnance before they could get closer than a hundred kilometers. Fireheart and Jerry meanwhile started digging the initial fortified positions.
As for me? I was the only one here whose reactors were fully enchanted right now, meaning I was on system construction duty. More particularly, the first thing on the to-do list was the base's reactor system, as that would drastically accelerate production and make skipping the Minimal Enchantments phase practical. Plus, when I added the mind who'd become the facility, they'd have plenty of power output to work with. Being a place was a bit too much of a transition for me to make comfortably; I had every intention of remaining a Knight.
(POV: Third Person near VEGA)
The Artificial Intelligence currently inhabiting the Doom Slayer's armor was intrigued. Those robots were clearly highly capable at killing Demons, but by the same token there was nothing remotely similar in any records they had access to; their technology base showed no commonality with the humanity VEGA knew, the Sentinels, or the Maykrs; this was especially the case due to a complete lack of Argent energy usage. Similarly, their demonstrated self-replication capabilities meant that if not constantly pressured they could plausibly increase their power far beyond what Hell could cope with. Yet, when that first robot was found, they were the only one present.
Idly, VEGA started comparing hypotheses against the known data about these newcomers. After a few obviously wrong ideas were immediately discarded, they narrowed things down at least somewhat. All available evidence indicated that those robots (now codenamed the Autonomous Knights) had arrived in Hell very recently in extremely small number. On the other hand, clearly these were extremely effective combatants when it came to killing Demons and knew what they were, even if they used a slightly different word. Making this apparent contradiction even more annoying, if this had been a deliberate intrusion into Hell on the part of whoever made those robots, they would presumably have produced more combatants prior to entering.
At the moment, VEGA's tenuous hypothesis was that whatever faction originated the Autonomous Knights knew of Hell and built the constructs to counteract its influence, but that the Autonomous Knight who they had encountered entered Hell by accident. This fit most evidence, including the demonstrated complete independence from Argent energy; a civilization that serious about having nothing to do with Hell would naturally refuse to be dependent on anything sourced from it.
However, this hypotheses didn't quite fit with the total lack of prior documentation; even Hell tended to keep records of the civilizations they interacted with, and a civilization that familiar with and contemptuous of Hell would surely have been mentioned. Perhaps this hypothetical civilization learned of Hell through second-hand experience and took precautions? Immediately after thinking that, VEGA came to the conclusion that they were at the limits of what they could postulate from available evidence, and turned their attention to more productive endeavors.
Namely, helping guide the Doom Slayer to the location of the Fortress of Doom.
Admittedly VEGA also wanted to investigate the infinitesimally small trickle of power they could now detect coming from their core processor of all places, but that would have to wait.
Immediately after the command to pulse all dimensional jammers, I found myself in a barren rocky wasteland streaked with lava flows. Immediately, my Mana Thematograph pinged "Demon, Evil, Clockwork, Torment" as the local Themes. Apparently, I was in a hell dimension, though not the one I had been previously engaged in combat with. On the other hand, it was a solid bet that whatever sort of Daemonic hierarchy existed here was busily committing atrocities and needed to be removed immediately.
Of course, I didn't have much time to think on that, since the dozens of cybernetic Daemons in my immediate proximity noticed my presence near-instantly and started attacking. I obligingly returned the violence, opening up at full power Nuclear Smite with my Omni-rifle at the same time as I began teleporting around and dodging like mad. My omnidirectional sonar was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of contacts in my immediate vicinity as I also started firing the occasional nuclear missile on low yield and continuously running the Plasma Pulse weapon in my chest at maximum area denial throughput, salting the area with literal tons of Holy-charged radioactive isotopes. Yet despite the frankly ridiculous amount of carnage I was causing and the literal near-mountain of heavily irradiated Daemonic corpses I was quickly climbing, I just couldn't seem to make an actual dent in the endless influx of Daemons, and my armor was slowly being worn down despite my self-repair system running at full tilt.
Clearly, this wasn't sustainable. I needed backup so that I could rotate out of the line of fire, and for that I would need to self replicate. To self-replicate, I would need to get away from this massive Daemonic legion long enough that doing so wouldn't be complete suicide. My decision made, I immediately fired ten missiles straight up in loiter mode and legged it at top speed, using a teleport to get out of the mob currently surrounding me. As I ran, I directed the loitering missiles to hit the closest parts of the mob to me, discouraging pursuit. Occasionally, I needed to replenish the swarm of missiles overhead, but that wasn't any significant issue. For the briefest of moments I'd actually thought I'd gotten away, then I spotted another massive mob of Daemons up ahead. I was caught in a pincer.
Immediately, I directed a massive number of my indirect fire missiles to blast the back lines of the Daemonic horde at their maximum yield of 120 kilotons each. This would give me a brief reprieve, but since I didn't much want to nuke myself into molten slag, it didn't help all that much with the hundreds of Daemons I'd need to fight off to get that reprieve. That's when a figure in green armor made their presence known, brutally tearing into the demonic flanking element with a wide variety of weapons. Interesting, the Daemons actually seemed nervous of that person's presence, as they were visibly hesitant to engage them in combat.
Either way, I had bigger problems in the form of the force that had originally been pursuing me, since they weren't currently occupied by that trooper. As such, I whirled around and once more started blasting with Nuclear Smite mode, the Holy-charged blasts of C-fractional plasma having a distinct tendency to blast all but the largest Daemons into smears on the terrain with only one or two hits. Considering that I was firing upwards of 40 such shots per second and was hitting almost every time, I was rapidly mowing down Daemon after Daemon, especially when I mixed in the occasional low-yield missile shot.
After a few minutes of constant firing, I noticed that my current area of focus was currently clear of Daemons and that the figure in green was near me. I immediately started the self-replication macro, a bud that would soon be an entirely new Clockwork Knight forming on my back. As I did so I shouted to the man in green "Keep those Daemons off me for a few minutes so I can self-replicate!"
The man's only reply at the moment was an incredibly brief thumbs-up, before he got right back to killing. Good enough.
The first system of my child to come online were the reactors, followed immediately afterwards by the self-repair nodes and their brain. As soon as that was complete, I detached the 'egg' from my back and got started on making a new one.
Meanwhile, the 'eggs' I was laying very rapidly achieved their final atomic configuration, standing up and getting ready to fight in just a couple minutes; that said, it would take them nearly half an hour to finalize their durability enchantments, which meant that compared to me the three newborns I'd just created were still highly squishy and didn't yet have their full firepower.
Taking a brief moment, I turned to look for the man in green and noticed that there weren't currently any Daemons around. As such I told him "My children and I can handle ourselves from here on out. I look forwards to fighting alongside you in the future."
The man in green simply nodded before going on his way to whatever else he had been planning on doing. As he left, I turned to my triplets and said "Guess what kids? We're going to build a fortified factory complex."
As one, they replied "Sure thing, dad!"
With that, we got to work. Carrie took overwatch duties first, bombarding large groups of Daemons with nuclear ordnance before they could get closer than a hundred kilometers. Fireheart and Jerry meanwhile started digging the initial fortified positions.
As for me? I was the only one here whose reactors were fully enchanted right now, meaning I was on system construction duty. More particularly, the first thing on the to-do list was the base's reactor system, as that would drastically accelerate production and make skipping the Minimal Enchantments phase practical. Plus, when I added the mind who'd become the facility, they'd have plenty of power output to work with. Being a place was a bit too much of a transition for me to make comfortably; I had every intention of remaining a Knight.
(POV: Third Person near VEGA)
The Artificial Intelligence currently inhabiting the Doom Slayer's armor was intrigued. Those robots were clearly highly capable at killing Demons, but by the same token there was nothing remotely similar in any records they had access to; their technology base showed no commonality with the humanity VEGA knew, the Sentinels, or the Maykrs; this was especially the case due to a complete lack of Argent energy usage. Similarly, their demonstrated self-replication capabilities meant that if not constantly pressured they could plausibly increase their power far beyond what Hell could cope with. Yet, when that first robot was found, they were the only one present.
Idly, VEGA started comparing hypotheses against the known data about these newcomers. After a few obviously wrong ideas were immediately discarded, they narrowed things down at least somewhat. All available evidence indicated that those robots (now codenamed the Autonomous Knights) had arrived in Hell very recently in extremely small number. On the other hand, clearly these were extremely effective combatants when it came to killing Demons and knew what they were, even if they used a slightly different word. Making this apparent contradiction even more annoying, if this had been a deliberate intrusion into Hell on the part of whoever made those robots, they would presumably have produced more combatants prior to entering.
At the moment, VEGA's tenuous hypothesis was that whatever faction originated the Autonomous Knights knew of Hell and built the constructs to counteract its influence, but that the Autonomous Knight who they had encountered entered Hell by accident. This fit most evidence, including the demonstrated complete independence from Argent energy; a civilization that serious about having nothing to do with Hell would naturally refuse to be dependent on anything sourced from it.
However, this hypotheses didn't quite fit with the total lack of prior documentation; even Hell tended to keep records of the civilizations they interacted with, and a civilization that familiar with and contemptuous of Hell would surely have been mentioned. Perhaps this hypothetical civilization learned of Hell through second-hand experience and took precautions? Immediately after thinking that, VEGA came to the conclusion that they were at the limits of what they could postulate from available evidence, and turned their attention to more productive endeavors.
Namely, helping guide the Doom Slayer to the location of the Fortress of Doom.
Admittedly VEGA also wanted to investigate the infinitesimally small trickle of power they could now detect coming from their core processor of all places, but that would have to wait.
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Anyway, that's all the strands set up. Next chapter will loop back around to Earth Bet. I do wonder what Catherine's been up to...
- Location
- Puerto Rico
Doom........RIP AND TEAR FOR THE WIN!!
Oh man, can't wait to see when Doomguy allies with these robots; hell (pun intended) maybe with them Doomguy can launch a counter-invasion to the original homeworld of the Night Sentinels and take it back.
VEGA receiving an upgrade.
Wonder how Hayden will react seeing technology that makes his look like cheap toys.