CLOSED PARALOGUE The Evrensel Conflict: Paralogue 2 -- Mystery in the Steel Belly

[Wade Von Doom]

~~GM~~

"Nah, it's more... your thing now, anyway," Columbo quietly told Reegan when she asked about the cigar she transformed. It... didn't quite look safe to smoke for him anymore... well, more so than a usual cigar, at least.

"No, I wouldn't advise that," Columbo told Ryan when suggesting he split up, "this whole place is a giant deathtrap, even for the likes of you. We have better chances together than apart, no matter what." With that said, they still needed a direction to go, "Let's.... head for where its going," he told everyone, pointing down to where the liquid was going, "that might lead us back up top." He took it upon himself then to take the lead, keeping himself dead center of the pipe. "Keep to the middle here, and try staying in single file. Long way down if you slip," he told everyone.

In following the pipe, it would lead them to a series of platforms that would only take them down further, but would continue to follow along with the pipes themselves. Eventually, they would find an opening between the walls and one of the larger pipes, easy enough to squeeze through. Once on the other side, however, they would finally see what exactly the pipes were connected to.

A lot of pods like the ones Kanna and Zoe were in.



The main pipe splintered off into several dozen, each connected to a different pod within the rows. It was filled with the blue liquid Kanna and Zoe were in, but like the other pods next to theirs, the beings inside these were starting to 'decompose.' The corridor they all found themselves in seemed to go on and on with each turn of the corner, with the pipes themselves continuing through the walls, ceilings and floors. There may be more sections like this aboard the station.

Closer inspection of the systems showed that the blue fluid within the pods was a preservative for the organic beings inside. But, when the station's network went down after Wheatley took over, the system in charge of the pods stopped working. Maybe it froze once the station rebooted, or crashed, or went on standby mode. Either way, the liquid keeping the organics alive was now eating away at them.

That wasn't all, however. Another set of tubes, ones underneath each pod, funneled off into a different direction from the other pipes, moving inward to the center of the station. A quick trip across another set of platforms would lead them to where the new pipes went to. Another chamber full of pods, but much different from the others.

Besides these were monitors, indication of fluid levels, pod temperatures, growth measurements, and fertilization processes. The monitors looked like they could be accessed digitally, allowing for more information to be gathered from them. If any of them chose to open up a pod to see inside through the glass, they would likely be in for a shock as to what was actually inside.

Embryos. Each pod contained a single one, and each were in a different stage of development. And each was of a different organic species from the other section. A quick scan of the fluid inside these pods would also show a different kind of liquid being used.

Raw genetic material. The organic beings in the first section were preserved in the blue fluid, then liquified into genetic material and channeled into this secondary section to make embryos of whatever organic being they were remaking. Add to it that there were fewer pods in this secondary section than the first, and the massive size of the station to house thousands of kidnapped 'scattered' from across the multiverse, they may have already killed many before the heroes took over.

​

 

[PopcornPie]

In her shock, Kanna didn't really comprehend what the adults were talking about. She hadn't even had much time to comprehend her predicament. Kidnapped? Pods? Deadly floors? Were they subjects in an experiment? She circled Columbo, then Batman. Tohru would make sense of this, Kanna just had to find her.

Kanna trotted into the room with all these pods, identical to the one that nearly killed her. Her little body hairs stood up and crackled. Some of these poor people had been dissolved so badly that she couldn't even make out their species anymore! She held back vomit. No dragon would ever do this to a human, and no human would do this to a dragon.

Not all were dead, however. It looked like some of these pods were housing new life. She started to look around for an embryo that looked like a dragon, not that she really knew what a dragon's fetus would look like. "Have I been cloned?" She asked herself.

 

[LenxKaitoYaoi]

Luer looked to Ryan when he suggested he go off alone. He did not like the idea at all, naturally, and if anything he should be the one to go. It was safer for him… But he trusted Ryan, so he decided he would not argue. With a heavy internal breath, he nodded in agreement instead. "Right. I can relay anything he says he sees." He added. With Ryan's request though he turned to Kanna. He could probably do that.

Columbo also seemed against the idea though, much to Luer's relief. So when he took the lead, told them to line up and stay in the middle, the archer took Ryan's hand and followed behind him closely. The path was not overly long, and before much time had passed they had made it to the other side. Much to everyone's horror, he was sure. It was awful. While Luer had no true understanding of its purpose, he knew enough. People were dying, a lot of them and in a horrible way. On top of that, this place seemed to be trying to create new life and he dared not even try to imagine what the end goal was. If he had not already seen so much death at Retora, this may have been enough to make him vomit in disgust. He wanted to, but he could not afford that right now.

When Kanna spoke up, his brows creased. She should not have seen this… He shook his head though, moving to give her head a light pat. "I doubt it, since we got you out of that pod. You are still one of a kind, I am sure." He assured, giving a small smile. Still, it was unsettling a thought. Much more so… a scary one to ponder. How many have they killed? And how many more would they try to? Would they have been among them if they had simply not opted to fight back? He dared not think what that might have been like. "This is beyond inhumane…"

 

[The Wanderer]

Ed

When Ed first awoke, he was beyond confused. His vision was hazy and stung like he had some fluids in his eyes, which is when he realized that his flash-resistant goggles actually had fluids in them. The bluish liquid smelled funny, and if he didn't have his Bone'ead implant. Ed would've definitely tried to lick said fluid. But thankfully it instilled just enough intelligence in his head to remember Commissar Bob's wise words. "Don't eat strange things, Ed." He liked Commissar Bob and despite the funny hat wearing man wasn't here, Ed would follow his words. His eyes now freed of the strange liquid, and after a few blinks would be clear to see where he was.

He was inside of a strange pod. It was large to fit his Ogryn body, a drain at the bottom of his pod that sloshed and bubbled as if something was flowing beneath him. But he didn't particularly care what that meant, what he was more concerned with was the fact he was in an enclosed space and that he wanted out badly. So, bracing his large hands on the glass, Ed began to push.

And push.

And push.

Until he felt a creak in the pod give way. His efforts being doubled and thanks to his immense strength, the pod buckled slightly but still didn't open. Which is when Ed got angry. So he began to punch and lay into the glass until the door sprung forward after he had essentially launched himself using the back of the pod as a base. His large form breaking the door and would smash into the adjacent pod. Unfortunately turning the occupant into a pile of mangled flesh from Ed smashing into the metal. For a moment he felt bad but that was quickly forgotten as he looked around. Not at all recognizing where he was and that no one was around. He would wander the area for a bit. Calling down corridors for hours, calling for some of the "Sahs" or the funny hat men or women or even the weird Metal parts having people. His booming voice echoing down the empty corridors until Ed was positive that he was alone.

So, he did what any Ogryn would do. He began to wander. Ambling down walkways and past pods filled with people, strange Xenos and all manner of lil'uns. Displays next to them had words far too big for even his implant boosted brain to comprehend. He stuttered on a big word and gave up midway through the fourth attempt at saying it. He would eventually begin to try and find his gear, a task that took hours to do as he couldn't really figure out how to open things, so he resorted to breaking a piece of metal off his old pod's door thing to then whack at what he thought was lockers. He found some gear and there but not his trusty stubber or shield. Plus, some of the gear he found was outright useless at his size. Until he eventually busted the right locker open, and he found his Stubber and Shield. The mace was connected to the shield so all he had to do was put the stubber on its sling and he felt calmer. Not because he was armed again, but because he could now avoid being talked to for having lost his assigned weapons, yet again.

But he was still lost.

So, Ed went and found what could have been a door at the end of a walkway. And he tried to open it. Several times.

First thing he tried to do was find the button to open it. But nothing stood out to him, so he tried to open him by force. But his giant fingers couldn't find any purchase on the metal, which led to him bashing the door with his mace. Denting the metal very slightly. Not enough to actually punch through if he kept it up. Nor really to even look like any real damage. Even surface wise it was minor. If you looked at the door from certain angles, the dents didn't show up. This frustrated Ed to no end as now he was trapped in the strange pod room with the other sleeping lil'uns and the outright scary room with the strange pods with floating blobs of flesh. So, Ed went back to another word of advice from his favorite Commissar.

"If you're lost or stuck, just sit down until I come and get you."

As a result, Ed went back to his pod and sat down. And waited for what felt like hours but must've actually been minutes before his stomach grumbled and Ed quickly realized he didn't have any rations on him. He then got up and began to look for food. In this case, he immediately went looking in the pods for anything that looked fresh. Unfortunately, most of the occupants were taking on signs of rot. All except the poor soul he had basically smashed into when he had escaped from his pod. They were mangled but didn't look as bad off as the other pods' occupants. Scaley flesh that was mangled from the metal pod crushing them greeted Ed when he pried the door open, and he picked up an arm and dug in for a test bite. It wasn't great whatever it was but would serve as food for the time being until fellow Guardsmen would find him. Grabbing the mangled heap of flesh, he would go back to his body and shut the door and began to eat from the mangled pile of scaley flesh.

Crunching on meat and scales, Ed would be satisfied for hours until he got hungry at which point, he'd eat from the pile again. And again until he was left with a tail and a pile of bones in front of him. He had been sleeping again when he heard a noise, waking up and rubbing his eyes, Ed would dismiss the noise as an idle noise of the complex machinery around him. Feeling the tinge of hunger, he'd reach down to grab the remaining tail and began to take bites out of it. Crunching on the scales with each bite he took. Unaware he was being watched, as he'd finish the tail and wipe his mouth of the blood and viscera from the meat.

@Wade Von Doom @LenxKaitoYaoi @PopcornPie @Valkan @littlekreen @NewWaveOldie

 

[littlekreen]

The long walk through the piping was still somewhat arduous for Reegan with her limbs cracked against the fall downward but keeper Lorne helped her walk with her arm around his shoulder. The faintly flaming skeletal head continued to jaw at her and she nodded understanding, "Slowly, yes. There's no dirt or soil here. It's deeply wrong. I don't know exactly, no. I don't know what that means. Oh."

She looked to Ryan and Batman, "Lorne says 'Trust but Verify'" @Valkan @Apothecary Bruce

Though she tapped the front of his spine amid the flames as the skeleton balked alarmingly at the sensation to grab for a throat he didn't have until gently pinching his own spine. She smirked at him, "You don't have vocal cords, Lorne. You need to think of the sound of your voice not the movements to make it." There was some irritable gesticulating from Lorne as she answered, "Like singing, just not with a tune."

The tone was off for a while as he worked through it by a few scant whistles then garbled croaks for bits of words until he realized something then the metal walls echoed with an air force cadence as they walked arm in arm centered on the top of the pipe as best they could.

Through the desert, across the plains,
Steaming jungles, and tropic rains.
No mortal foe can stop me now —
This is gonna be my solemn vow.

The skull without eyes peered over to Zoe as they moved around the platforms to the edge,"Though practical decisions never do seem to survive the battle plan, miss Zoe. Embrace the suck!" @NewWaveOldie

When they got to the platforms it was easier and could keep better pace with the rest of them without worrying about falling over into the dark as Colombo had helpfully gestured. While Lorne's voice was somewhat rather like a four pack a day smoker it was still perceptibly his as he entered into the small gap before Reegan,"They never mentioned in basic becoming a skeleton but I got the lucky straw for a posting with all the weird shit. Now it's just piled higher and deeper. I'll go first, Ma'am."

The ragged voiced skeleton ambled sideways through the gap as they emerged into the hallway and continued as he looked about before taking Reegan's arm again, "Because it sure sucks a whole lot in here." @NewWaveOldie

Reegan hobbled with Lorne over to the tubes beside Kanna as the beings inside rotted away and some deep and cold fury rolled off of her for a moment as she came to the new growth. She stopped and looked back for a moment seeming someone altogether differently threatening with the pale yellow of her interior light darkening to a deep red sunset, "Not a clone. No, it's something much worse. I think they're tampering with the nature of life and free will. Creating new creatures from the old that are unable to ever resist their autocracy over the cycle. kill one, a murderer; kill millions, a conquerer; kill them all, a god. This is evidence of a very dire faith."

Batman's scanner might complain of the red tone, the rise of a greater psychopomp and reaper, but it would subside after a moment as the red light faded back her normal noontime pale yellow. @Apothecary Bruce

Her midsection flared for a moment as she looked down the rows and rows of horrific canisters, "We're not alone here. A soul was freed from the control of the tubes."

 

[PopcornPie]

"New life? Then why use you and me? Couldn't they make their own?" Kanna shrugged and looked down at her wings. The feathertips that were nibbled off could very well have been enough material to clone her, or at least give the new creature wings like hers. She began to ponder if her clone would know magic from birth. "If we've been cloned, I hope my clone is nice." She licked her wingtips. "Or maybe she won't be, but...We don't have to destroy these hatchlings, do we?" She ran a hand down the pod she was facing, admiring the delicate embryo inside. As a Spectator class, she was not prone to violence. Even if it was created through inhumane means, it was still a living thing. Probably would be smart enough to realize it was going to be hurt. "They're just babies. Like me."

After the moment of peace, Kanna heard someone thudding against glass. Someone big. She started to yelp and spiral around Reegan. "Is that the one who took us? Is it? I don't want to be put back in the pod!" She decided to hide beneath Batman's cape and not come out until the noises softened. The thudding was over as quickly as it began, however, so she poked a little eye out. Then, a new sound. It was chewing, flesh ripping, and the unmistakeable sound of a dragon's scales being crunched. "It-It eats dragons!" She cried. "Please don't let it eat me!"

 

[NewWaveOldie]

Zoe.

Zoe followed the party through the facility, and decided to calmly ignore the talking skeleton thing. If she gave it more attention, she was afraid she might overlap the image of a monster back 'home' and attempt to dismantle the thing. After a bit of traveling, the party ran into more pods. More pods.. an entire hallway filled with pods. Intrigued, she decided to lean closer to one, only to discover a small... thing. Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it would've survived whatever process she went through before being put into one of the pods. Then the only reasonable answer was that it was formed within the pod. And through her experience, whatever small things born where other kidnapped things were stored...
"The hell..."
She muttered before backing off to join the party again. After all the mess she went through, she was about to experience metallic demons now. At least flesh ones let her get free upgrades and nourishments.

And then, a heavy thud rang from somewhere nearby. Blades ejected out of Zoe's arms and legs by instinct as her head turned toward the direction of the noise. She listened carefully, hopefully to identify if it was anything she knew. A heavy hitting demon was hard to deal with, especially without her weapons. But maybe, teamwork would minimize the casualties.
"That is..."
After the thuds quieted down, she could hear the crunching and chomping of flesh and some hard skin.
"...."
She had no idea. There were a lot of things that could do that.
"Let's hope it's friendly."

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Batman saw the rows upon rows of embryos and genetic material, and couldn't help but show a little shock. It was obvious they were killing people in an industrial manner, given the pods of skeletons and fluids they had found prior. If somebody could fill the pipes they had come through in with enough processed fluid, that would mean likely hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people could've been processed like this. If Clark were here, he would've been enraged, sickened, and while Bruce felt many of these things, he forced himself to remain calm.

Maybe that should scare him, that he wasn't looking to tear this place apart by its seams. Yet, if anything could have prepared him for horror on such a scale, it had been Apokolips. He wouldn't be surprised if Desaad was behind this, typing away at some infernal computer in eternal fealty to his lord of evil, Darkseid. "I've seen things like this," he revealed. "The people capable of this sort of cruelty...they're usually of two sorts. Sadists of the most extreme sense, who take pleasure in all aspects of their role. Or, they're criminals who lack all humanity, who see a logical, clean reason for this industrialized horror. Whatever they were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people for cannot be good. I'd expect to fight off whatever the results look like by today's end...or we'll have to stop them from being unleashed. Usually, the only thing monsters create...are other monsters."

He thought about what Reegan had said to Lorne, about resurrecting a body. About how they needed to grow a full body from the ground up to act as a proper corporal replacement. Given the rows and rows of embryos and the mass death around them, as well as the capabilities of the station's builders and their interest in all the people aboard it, he wondered if they were seeking new organic bodies to inhabit, to transcend past that final barrier of death. It was a loose theory, but he added it to his notepad, along with all the other details he wrote down.

Then, the stomping. The crunching. His legs shifted a little wider, his arms got a little looser. The dragon girl ran behind him, terrified. It wasn't often little children took to him - he had made himself to appear scary, after all. The terror she felt was verbally echoed by the others, and since no one else offered themselves... "I'll go ahead. No sudden moves from any of you. It could be an escapee from the pods, and they'll be a lot more frightened of us than you are of them."

Batman turned the corner, following the noise, letting his footsteps be audible. That way, the being would know he was coming, a forewarning so they could feel like they were in control, to reassure them of their security. If it was a monster, he'd just have to hope he would be faster. His cowl scanners worked to try and find the person before he turned the final corner.

Large humanoid. Light cybernetic implants, muscle and bone growth beyond the limits of unaltered human physiology. Similar to humans afflicted by the Venom compound. The being it was consuming was lizard-like...perhaps the little girl wasn't far off. Could be related to the experiments occurring here, but shows no signs of mutation beyond size. If they are related, its likely they're an early test product. Could explain why they awoke in their pod. The beings who created this place could have put the creature back in hopes of adding their traits to the genetic mixture.

Batman turned the corner, casting a shadow upon the ogryn. "We're not here to hurt you," he said calmly, a little softer than how he had spoken with the others. "What's your name?"

@The Wanderer

 

[littlekreen]

Reegan looked to Lorne though a darker rumble of an agent of ending rolled through her at the great death offended by this misuse of life, "Stay with the little Kanna and break these things open as you go. The souls are trapped inside. It's probably better I go if it's an escapee."

"You got it, bosslady." He gave finger guns to the grim reaper... reaperess? "Things could have gone worse than becoming a creepy skeleton guy," He looked up at the tubes with bones and scraps of flesh, "like these poor folks."

The softly flaming skeleton head looked down to Zoe for Lorne's distorted voice to try and say softly, "As much as Dr Mckay would love to hear me say this, Batman is checking it out. Stick with me, kid. I won't let anyone eat you. If they're cloning us then the evil bastards are trying to cheat the rules so they can rule everything. I don't want to hurt the ah, hatchlings, but I may have to."

He flexed the gauntleted fist and peered at the strange markings and its similarity to his combat gloves, "Apparently I can actually punch things into the afterlife now." He remarked with some resigned anger, "This Darkseid, the wraith, I wonder what punchable face is responsible for this. Let's see what this fist can do."

He took his time as he went and put a fist to the glass of a pod that cracked and seemed to age under it. With a few more quick strikes a hole crumbled through pouring goo all over the floor as ruined remains settled to the bottom. He could see the blur of a soul escaping and nodded with purpose to continue beating a hole into the pods.

Reegan however had been limping behind Batman's direction as he went as her leg still hurt too much to move quickly. At least with the noises she hear what direction he went as he turned the corner. Clearly Batman had escaped death so many times that a reaper had written 'cheater' on his soul in bubbly teenager script but as a result what life he had faded into the shadows just like the rest of him. She started rummaging around in the carin as pantheons started spawning gates with her midriff pulsing slightly when souls arrived as Lorne popped tubes. She stopped and her eyes turned black from her normal sunrise glow in turning her senses inward.

in the carin

Three in particular she immediately banned when demon-thing outsiders tried to enter unbidden and they turned back to ether, dispersed back to their plane. An ostentatious gold one with human iconography an odd blue door with labyrinthine patterns remained among a host of utterly obliterated ones that made her wary of the other two. A dark haired woman led with a sword and peered with some acrimony toward the blue door until whipping upward to look at her sensory apparatus.

There was a certain formality of it that came from the great reaper as she partly repeated its words, "A great reaper of the cycle greets a broken hub of the orrery. State your faith that your souls be known and rightfully directed."

A visible sliver of the huge one hanging so tenuous to life that peered far above the smaller winged woman got her notice.

One of her eyes lit up to see both places as she resumed her limping to have a short whisper conversation with someone, "I've never heard of that place I'm a waystation conductor for souls to you. No, I'm not with them, prisons keep things in. No idea yet, a creation of machines. My exits are not barred but to keep out soulless demons. I'm loyal to free souls not just humankind so for the good of the cycle a great reaper must remain neutral. Did demons kill all yours? Is the big one yours? Out there. Alive. I can grow them, yes. I will keep that in mind with the behavior of the other three already barred."

The huge Ogryn stood out as the glowing spriggan limped her way closer, though an ozone smell from the carin activity made her senses tingle as she shuffled behind batman. She sniffled, desperately trying not to sneeze from the sensation.

 

[The Wanderer]

Batman saw the rows upon rows of embryos and genetic material, and couldn't help but show a little shock. It was obvious they were killing people in an industrial manner, given the pods of skeletons and fluids they had found prior. If somebody could fill the pipes they had come through in with enough processed fluid, that would mean likely hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people could've been processed like this. If Clark were here, he would've been enraged, sickened, and while Bruce felt many of these things, he forced himself to remain calm.

Maybe that should scare him, that he wasn't looking to tear this place apart by its seams. Yet, if anything could have prepared him for horror on such a scale, it had been Apokolips. He wouldn't be surprised if Desaad was behind this, typing away at some infernal computer in eternal fealty to his lord of evil, Darkseid. "I've seen things like this," he revealed. "The people capable of this sort of cruelty...they're usually of two sorts. Sadists of the most extreme sense, who take pleasure in all aspects of their role. Or, they're criminals who lack all humanity, who see a logical, clean reason for this industrialized horror. Whatever they were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people for cannot be good. I'd expect to fight off whatever the results look like by today's end...or we'll have to stop them from being unleashed. Usually, the only thing monsters create...are other monsters."

He thought about what Reegan had said to Lorne, about resurrecting a body. About how they needed to grow a full body from the ground up to act as a proper corporal replacement. Given the rows and rows of embryos and the mass death around them, as well as the capabilities of the station's builders and their interest in all the people aboard it, he wondered if they were seeking new organic bodies to inhabit, to transcend past that final barrier of death. It was a loose theory, but he added it to his notepad, along with all the other details he wrote down.

Then, the stomping. The crunching. His legs shifted a little wider, his arms got a little looser. The dragon girl ran behind him, terrified. It wasn't often little children took to him - he had made himself to appear scary, after all. The terror she felt was verbally echoed by the others, and since no one else offered themselves... "I'll go ahead. No sudden moves from any of you. It could be an escapee from the pods, and they'll be a lot more frightened of us than you are of them."

Batman turned the corner, following the noise, letting his footsteps be audible. That way, the being would know he was coming, a forewarning so they could feel like they were in control, to reassure them of their security. If it was a monster, he'd just have to hope he would be faster. His cowl scanners worked to try and find the person before he turned the final corner.

Large humanoid. Light cybernetic implants, muscle and bone growth beyond the limits of unaltered human physiology. Similar to humans afflicted by the Venom compound. The being it was consuming was lizard-like...perhaps the little girl wasn't far off. Could be related to the experiments occurring here, but shows no signs of mutation beyond size. If they are related, its likely they're an early test product. Could explain why they awoke in their pod. The beings who created this place could have put the creature back in hopes of adding their traits to the genetic mixture.

Batman turned the corner, casting a shadow upon the ogryn. "We're not here to hurt you," he said calmly, a little softer than how he had spoken with the others. "What's your name?"

@The Wanderer

Reegan looked to Lorne though a darker rumble of an agent of ending rolled through her at the great death offended by this misuse of life, "Stay with the little Kanna and break these things open as you go. The souls are trapped inside. It's probably better I go if it's an escapee."

"You got it, bosslady." He gave finger guns to the grim reaper... reaperess? "Things could have gone worse than becoming a creepy skeleton guy," He looked up at the tubes with bones and scraps of flesh, "like these poor folks."

The softly flaming skeleton head looked down to Zoe for Lorne's distorted voice to try and say softly, "As much as Dr Mckay would love to hear me say this, Batman is checking it out. Stick with me, kid. I won't let anyone eat you. If they're cloning us then the evil bastards are trying to cheat the rules so they can rule everything. I don't want to hurt the ah, hatchlings, but I may have to."

He flexed the gauntleted fist and peered at the strange markings and its similarity to his combat gloves, "Apparently I can actually punch things into the afterlife now." He remarked with some resigned anger, "This Darkseid, the wraith, I wonder what punchable face is responsible for this. Let's see what this fist can do."

He took his time as he went and put a fist to the glass of a pod that cracked and seemed to age under it. With a few more quick strikes a hole crumbled through pouring goo all over the floor as ruined remains settled to the bottom. He could see the blur of a soul escaping and nodded with purpose to continue beating a hole into the pods.

Reegan however had been limping behind Batman's direction as he went as her leg still hurt too much to move quickly. At least with the noises she hear what direction he went as he turned the corner. Clearly Batman had escaped death so many times that a reaper had written 'cheater' on his soul in bubbly teenager script but as a result what life he had faded into the shadows just like the rest of him. She started rummaging around in the carin as pantheons started spawning gates with her midriff pulsing slightly when souls arrived as Lorne popped tubes. She stopped and her eyes turned black from her normal sunrise glow in turning her senses inward.

in the carin

Three in particular she immediately banned when demon-thing outsiders tried to enter unbidden and they turned back to ether, dispersed back to their plane. An ostentatious gold one with human iconography an odd blue door with labyrinthine patterns remained among a host of utterly obliterated ones that made her wary of the other two. A dark haired woman led with a sword and peered with some acrimony toward the blue door until whipping upward to look at her sensory apparatus.

There was a certain formality of it that came from the great reaper as she partly repeated its words, "A great reaper of the cycle greets a broken hub of the orrery. State your faith that your souls be known and rightfully directed."

A visible sliver of the huge one hanging so tenuous to life that peered far above the smaller winged woman got her notice.

One of her eyes lit up to see both places as she resumed her limping to have a short whisper conversation with someone, "I've never heard of that place I'm a waystation conductor for souls to you. No, I'm not with them, prisons keep things in. No idea yet, a creation of machines. My exits are not barred but to keep out soulless demons. I'm loyal to free souls not just humankind so for the good of the cycle a great reaper must remain neutral. Did demons kill all yours? Is the big one yours? Out there. Alive. I can grow them, yes. I will keep that in mind with the behavior of the other three already barred."

The huge Ogryn stood out as the glowing spriggan limped her way closer, though an ozone smell from the carin activity made her senses tingle as she shuffled behind batman. She sniffled, desperately trying not to sneeze from the sensation.

Ed

Finishing his gruesome meal, Ed heard the words of people getting closer before loud footsteps got even closer to his pod until he saw a funny dressed man walk around the corner. Picking up his gun and slinging it but keeping his mace in his other hand, Ed would stand up and walk out of the pod after pushing it open. He stood taller than most in the group but amidst their ranks, he didn't see anything familiar from the Guards or Metal'uns, But they didn't match any stuff from the Bad'uns. Not even the odd looking ones like the weird tree-lady.

He would rub his head as he wondered what he was going to do, if there was a Commissar around, he would know what to do. But he didn't have one around so he was going to have to decide what to do. So he thought long and hard about what to do. They didn't look like bad'uns and didn't try to hurt him. So he wasn't going to smash them. For now at least.

Taking a knee since he learned that made lil'uns feel more comfortable around him. 'Eye level' they called it.

"My name is Ed." His accent was thick, like he was Russian and German and something else thrown in. "I's an Ogryn of the Astr-er...Astra Mili-The Guard. Who are you?" His manner of speaking and the way he carried himself and the fact he messed up a word made it very clear he wasn't that smart.

@Apothecary Bruce @littlekreen @Wade Von Doom @NewWaveOldie

 

[Valkan]

Ryan Morganyag

The Lieutentant was clear enough on sticking together, which Ryan respected by following the group through the piping system, wondering what was this fluid running so abundantly beneath his feet. After some simple platforming, The group came across more dissolving pods, which by the looks of it, there were plenty more of them across the station. Ryan was confused as for its purpose. Surely the AI would have more practical ways to commit genocide, so this wasn't just about killing. Following the piping system further along took him to an entirely different section. The pods here were different, he could even gather some information about the residents of these pods. Though the further he saw the information, a more disturbing fact became more apparent in his head. Upon reading about the genetic material absorption, he decided to confirm it with his eyes, so he opened the door of the pod he was investigating, and sure enough, an embryo was floating in a different colored fluid. "This is messed up..." he closed the door and went back to the group.

"Our enemy is the latter" Ryan added as he caught up to the Bat "...As a machine, she has no regard for any life that doesn't fit into her twisted plans, and even then it's just for them to meet their purpose in her schemes" He threw a grim smile Luer's way as he did pick up on him trying to comfort Kanna, who was understandably scared. Kanna did say something that admittedly Ryan thought of as well, but picked to remain quiet about it, but still returned to his head. What exactly would they do with all these embryos? The question brought plenty of unpleasant answers to his head that he'd rather ignore for now. And yet he was so lost in thought, that the loud thing approaching them didn't even raise an alarm on his head until the stoic mask pointed it out and went to assess that. Then again, he has heard worse.

 

[PopcornPie]

Batman saw the rows upon rows of embryos and genetic material, and couldn't help but show a little shock. It was obvious they were killing people in an industrial manner, given the pods of skeletons and fluids they had found prior. If somebody could fill the pipes they had come through in with enough processed fluid, that would mean likely hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people could've been processed like this. If Clark were here, he would've been enraged, sickened, and while Bruce felt many of these things, he forced himself to remain calm.

Maybe that should scare him, that he wasn't looking to tear this place apart by its seams. Yet, if anything could have prepared him for horror on such a scale, it had been Apokolips. He wouldn't be surprised if Desaad was behind this, typing away at some infernal computer in eternal fealty to his lord of evil, Darkseid. "I've seen things like this," he revealed. "The people capable of this sort of cruelty...they're usually of two sorts. Sadists of the most extreme sense, who take pleasure in all aspects of their role. Or, they're criminals who lack all humanity, who see a logical, clean reason for this industrialized horror. Whatever they were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people for cannot be good. I'd expect to fight off whatever the results look like by today's end...or we'll have to stop them from being unleashed. Usually, the only thing monsters create...are other monsters."

He thought about what Reegan had said to Lorne, about resurrecting a body. About how they needed to grow a full body from the ground up to act as a proper corporal replacement. Given the rows and rows of embryos and the mass death around them, as well as the capabilities of the station's builders and their interest in all the people aboard it, he wondered if they were seeking new organic bodies to inhabit, to transcend past that final barrier of death. It was a loose theory, but he added it to his notepad, along with all the other details he wrote down.

Then, the stomping. The crunching. His legs shifted a little wider, his arms got a little looser. The dragon girl ran behind him, terrified. It wasn't often little children took to him - he had made himself to appear scary, after all. The terror she felt was verbally echoed by the others, and since no one else offered themselves... "I'll go ahead. No sudden moves from any of you. It could be an escapee from the pods, and they'll be a lot more frightened of us than you are of them."

Batman turned the corner, following the noise, letting his footsteps be audible. That way, the being would know he was coming, a forewarning so they could feel like they were in control, to reassure them of their security. If it was a monster, he'd just have to hope he would be faster. His cowl scanners worked to try and find the person before he turned the final corner.

Large humanoid. Light cybernetic implants, muscle and bone growth beyond the limits of unaltered human physiology. Similar to humans afflicted by the Venom compound. The being it was consuming was lizard-like...perhaps the little girl wasn't far off. Could be related to the experiments occurring here, but shows no signs of mutation beyond size. If they are related, its likely they're an early test product. Could explain why they awoke in their pod. The beings who created this place could have put the creature back in hopes of adding their traits to the genetic mixture.

Batman turned the corner, casting a shadow upon the ogryn. "We're not here to hurt you," he said calmly, a little softer than how he had spoken with the others. "What's your name?"

@The Wanderer

Reegan looked to Lorne though a darker rumble of an agent of ending rolled through her at the great death offended by this misuse of life, "Stay with the little Kanna and break these things open as you go. The souls are trapped inside. It's probably better I go if it's an escapee."

"You got it, bosslady." He gave finger guns to the grim reaper... reaperess? "Things could have gone worse than becoming a creepy skeleton guy," He looked up at the tubes with bones and scraps of flesh, "like these poor folks."

The softly flaming skeleton head looked down to Zoe for Lorne's distorted voice to try and say softly, "As much as Dr Mckay would love to hear me say this, Batman is checking it out. Stick with me, kid. I won't let anyone eat you. If they're cloning us then the evil bastards are trying to cheat the rules so they can rule everything. I don't want to hurt the ah, hatchlings, but I may have to."

He flexed the gauntleted fist and peered at the strange markings and its similarity to his combat gloves, "Apparently I can actually punch things into the afterlife now." He remarked with some resigned anger, "This Darkseid, the wraith, I wonder what punchable face is responsible for this. Let's see what this fist can do."

He took his time as he went and put a fist to the glass of a pod that cracked and seemed to age under it. With a few more quick strikes a hole crumbled through pouring goo all over the floor as ruined remains settled to the bottom. He could see the blur of a soul escaping and nodded with purpose to continue beating a hole into the pods.

Reegan however had been limping behind Batman's direction as he went as her leg still hurt too much to move quickly. At least with the noises she hear what direction he went as he turned the corner. Clearly Batman had escaped death so many times that a reaper had written 'cheater' on his soul in bubbly teenager script but as a result what life he had faded into the shadows just like the rest of him. She started rummaging around in the carin as pantheons started spawning gates with her midriff pulsing slightly when souls arrived as Lorne popped tubes. She stopped and her eyes turned black from her normal sunrise glow in turning her senses inward.

in the carin

Three in particular she immediately banned when demon-thing outsiders tried to enter unbidden and they turned back to ether, dispersed back to their plane. An ostentatious gold one with human iconography an odd blue door with labyrinthine patterns remained among a host of utterly obliterated ones that made her wary of the other two. A dark haired woman led with a sword and peered with some acrimony toward the blue door until whipping upward to look at her sensory apparatus.

There was a certain formality of it that came from the great reaper as she partly repeated its words, "A great reaper of the cycle greets a broken hub of the orrery. State your faith that your souls be known and rightfully directed."

A visible sliver of the huge one hanging so tenuous to life that peered far above the smaller winged woman got her notice.

One of her eyes lit up to see both places as she resumed her limping to have a short whisper conversation with someone, "I've never heard of that place I'm a waystation conductor for souls to you. No, I'm not with them, prisons keep things in. No idea yet, a creation of machines. My exits are not barred but to keep out soulless demons. I'm loyal to free souls not just humankind so for the good of the cycle a great reaper must remain neutral. Did demons kill all yours? Is the big one yours? Out there. Alive. I can grow them, yes. I will keep that in mind with the behavior of the other three already barred."

The huge Ogryn stood out as the glowing spriggan limped her way closer, though an ozone smell from the carin activity made her senses tingle as she shuffled behind batman. She sniffled, desperately trying not to sneeze from the sensation.

Ed

Finishing his gruesome meal, Ed heard the words of people getting closer before loud footsteps got even closer to his pod until he saw a funny dressed man walk around the corner. Picking up his gun and slinging it but keeping his mace in his other hand, Ed would stand up and walk out of the pod after pushing it open. He stood taller than most in the group but amidst their ranks, he didn't see anything familiar from the Guards or Metal'uns, But they didn't match any stuff from the Bad'uns. Not even the odd looking ones like the weird tree-lady.

He would rub his head as he wondered what he was going to do, if there was a Commissar around, he would know what to do. But he didn't have one around so he was going to have to decide what to do. So he thought long and hard about what to do. They didn't look like bad'uns and didn't try to hurt him. So he wasn't going to smash them. For now at least.

Taking a knee since he learned that made lil'uns feel more comfortable around him. 'Eye level' they called it.

"My name is Ed." His accent was thick, like he was Russian and German and something else thrown in. "I's an Ogryn of the Astr-er...Astra Mili-The Guard. Who are you?" His manner of speaking and the way he carried himself and the fact he messed up a word made it very clear he wasn't that smart.

@Apothecary Bruce @littlekreen @Wade Von Doom @NewWaveOldie

Kanna followed orders and didn't twitch from her position. If she stayed still, maybe the beast wouldn't see her. Nope, her saw her. He was getting down on one knee, looking her dead on before speaking. So he was intelligent enough to speak. Good. But that didn't mean he wasn't above predatory instincts.

"Um...My name is Kanna Kamui..." She tucked away her dragon parts. "I'm a Kamui of Japan. And I like eating bugs." The sight of Ed's mace was making her nauseous. Maces were for turning dragons' heads into soup bowls. She'd better play this carefully.

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Bruce gave the small dragon a light smile, and a small head pat. He admired her courage, not a few moments ago she was so wrapped up in fear she clutched his leg, and now she was talking with the shadowed, monstrous man. Though, clearly, this person was not a mindless beast. He had a name, didn't react harshly. It was a start, a pleasant surprise. "Hello Ed..." the dark knight smiled with a degree of self-indulgence he rarely granted himself. "...I'm Batman."

His helmet clicked and whirred, releasing his cowl, revealing a weathered but still handsome face, and a jaw of steel. He had sharp, blue eyes, but they were not emanating a chilled resentment, but a genuine warmth. A far cry from the glaring and glowing white eyes of his cowl. With a human face, Bruce approached Ed, and stretched out his hand. "This is a dangerous place to be. Either you were working for the machines that built this place, or you were captured and put here, against your will. Even if you didn't know it. I'm willing to bet you're a survivor like us, and not one of the bad guys."

Batman noticed Ed wasn't very good with words, and was likely quite simple. He was used to dealing with meathead thugs, used for their muscle but in the end being misguided children put in bulky boxer bodies. He saw enough similarities, even though Ed was clearly more special than that.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

~~GM~~

Because there were hundreds of pods lined up against the never ending walls, finding a particular embryo would be difficult without access to the station mainframe. Attempts to access it had been fruitless, as Wheatley, the little core that helped in taking over control from the AI behind all this, was still recovering after nearly killing himself in the process. For now, Kanna's search would lead to no signs of dragons or dragon embryos in the pods and tubes.

"Yeah, he's not with them," a familiar voice echoed out from behind one of the tubes. It was the same one that told them all to head down once the walls above tried to crush them. Once everyone looked down the massive corridor, a hand would be thrown up behind a pod several feet away. Then, out popped the man's head, followed by his other hand also reaching up high into the air to show he wasn't a threat.

The man was actually a familiar species. Quarian. Same as Ami. Except this was a male, with his suit dark white and visor deep turquoise. "Hi, uh... Nice to meet you... Are you the folks who took the station over?" He asked them with a nervous tone. Considering how tight and compact Quarian suits were, one look at this Quarian showed how malnourished he was. His stomach was a crater, and his arms shook slightly while keeping them raised. Not just from nerves, but how much force it took him to do something so basic.

He looked ready to keel over at any minute.

 

[littlekreen]

Reegan - Character Sheet

The tired stoop straightened away as the new Quarian stepped closer but introduced herself to the seeming gentle giant as the itch in her nose coincided with a flare of her midsection and a sneeze, "I'm Ree--ee- EEGAN!"

Top half jerking at the quantity of dead imbuing her with a more meaty sound that echoed in the place made filthy by tube ichor and metalwork just for ferns to erupt from the tube Ed had been snacking in. The meaty bits turned to a sort of rotten dirt with its cursed aquifer of tube fluid. A shake of her head sprinkled sugary white goo from one of her horns and blinked the yellow eye glow before continuing, "Sorry, I'm Reegan. I'm.. a tree fort to keep souls safe from predators until they return to their cycle. There so little green here I think they're making me allergic. Though I'm weak too, I have better options for you than the tubes."

Her braided white root tongue stuck out then kept going as she grabbed it by the middle with some hanging down. Red specks started to emerge then grow into dull orange tubers as small sweet potatoes took shape on it. Those at least one could eat raw. Muffled by holding her own tongue she looked to the new person, "Thomone in dold thaid ou like potatos? bon't eat deesth dead."

She looked to the Quarian as the yellow flowers of her hair started enveloping and growing into blueberries. Exhausted and in dire need of healthy soil, water, and sunlight, the tubers and fruits were a bit scraggly but did her best to make food for the starving two.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

"Uh.... thank you," The Quarian was grateful for Reegan's offerings of... 'organic' food, but there was a slight problem that Reegan, even after all this time with Ami, seemingly didn't notice.

He can't open his suit. If he did, he would die. Especially in this state. And he didn't have the ports sanitized recently, so even the blueberries could be potentially dangerous for him. Still, he didn't want to be rude, so he took the potato and berries and... Well, kinda just stood there with a blank gaze in his glowing eyes, wondering what to do now. "I, uh.... I-I'll have them later.... When I can clean them... And my suit." While it wasn't particularly filthy, there were several smudges and scrapes around it.

"My name is Mela'tiah. I-I was hoping you'd all find your way down here soon enough after everything shut down. Kinda got worried I'd starve before help finally arrived," he chuckled nervously as he finished speaking, before beginning to fiddle with his hands. His voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

 

[The Wanderer]

Ryan Morganyag

The Lieutentant was clear enough on sticking together, which Ryan respected by following the group through the piping system, wondering what was this fluid running so abundantly beneath his feet. After some simple platforming, The group came across more dissolving pods, which by the looks of it, there were plenty more of them across the station. Ryan was confused as for its purpose. Surely the AI would have more practical ways to commit genocide, so this wasn't just about killing. Following the piping system further along took him to an entirely different section. The pods here were different, he could even gather some information about the residents of these pods. Though the further he saw the information, a more disturbing fact became more apparent in his head. Upon reading about the genetic material absorption, he decided to confirm it with his eyes, so he opened the door of the pod he was investigating, and sure enough, an embryo was floating in a different colored fluid. "This is messed up..." he closed the door and went back to the group.

"Our enemy is the latter" Ryan added as he caught up to the Bat "...As a machine, she has no regard for any life that doesn't fit into her twisted plans, and even then it's just for them to meet their purpose in her schemes" He threw a grim smile Luer's way as he did pick up on him trying to comfort Kanna, who was understandably scared. Kanna did say something that admittedly Ryan thought of as well, but picked to remain quiet about it, but still returned to his head. What exactly would they do with all these embryos? The question brought plenty of unpleasant answers to his head that he'd rather ignore for now. And yet he was so lost in thought, that the loud thing approaching them didn't even raise an alarm on his head until the stoic mask pointed it out and went to assess that. Then again, he has heard worse.

Batman saw the rows upon rows of embryos and genetic material, and couldn't help but show a little shock. It was obvious they were killing people in an industrial manner, given the pods of skeletons and fluids they had found prior. If somebody could fill the pipes they had come through in with enough processed fluid, that would mean likely hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people could've been processed like this. If Clark were here, he would've been enraged, sickened, and while Bruce felt many of these things, he forced himself to remain calm.

Maybe that should scare him, that he wasn't looking to tear this place apart by its seams. Yet, if anything could have prepared him for horror on such a scale, it had been Apokolips. He wouldn't be surprised if Desaad was behind this, typing away at some infernal computer in eternal fealty to his lord of evil, Darkseid. "I've seen things like this," he revealed. "The people capable of this sort of cruelty...they're usually of two sorts. Sadists of the most extreme sense, who take pleasure in all aspects of their role. Or, they're criminals who lack all humanity, who see a logical, clean reason for this industrialized horror. Whatever they were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of people for cannot be good. I'd expect to fight off whatever the results look like by today's end...or we'll have to stop them from being unleashed. Usually, the only thing monsters create...are other monsters."

He thought about what Reegan had said to Lorne, about resurrecting a body. About how they needed to grow a full body from the ground up to act as a proper corporal replacement. Given the rows and rows of embryos and the mass death around them, as well as the capabilities of the station's builders and their interest in all the people aboard it, he wondered if they were seeking new organic bodies to inhabit, to transcend past that final barrier of death. It was a loose theory, but he added it to his notepad, along with all the other details he wrote down.

Then, the stomping. The crunching. His legs shifted a little wider, his arms got a little looser. The dragon girl ran behind him, terrified. It wasn't often little children took to him - he had made himself to appear scary, after all. The terror she felt was verbally echoed by the others, and since no one else offered themselves... "I'll go ahead. No sudden moves from any of you. It could be an escapee from the pods, and they'll be a lot more frightened of us than you are of them."

Batman turned the corner, following the noise, letting his footsteps be audible. That way, the being would know he was coming, a forewarning so they could feel like they were in control, to reassure them of their security. If it was a monster, he'd just have to hope he would be faster. His cowl scanners worked to try and find the person before he turned the final corner.

Large humanoid. Light cybernetic implants, muscle and bone growth beyond the limits of unaltered human physiology. Similar to humans afflicted by the Venom compound. The being it was consuming was lizard-like...perhaps the little girl wasn't far off. Could be related to the experiments occurring here, but shows no signs of mutation beyond size. If they are related, its likely they're an early test product. Could explain why they awoke in their pod. The beings who created this place could have put the creature back in hopes of adding their traits to the genetic mixture.

Batman turned the corner, casting a shadow upon the ogryn. "We're not here to hurt you," he said calmly, a little softer than how he had spoken with the others. "What's your name?"

@The Wanderer

Reegan looked to Lorne though a darker rumble of an agent of ending rolled through her at the great death offended by this misuse of life, "Stay with the little Kanna and break these things open as you go. The souls are trapped inside. It's probably better I go if it's an escapee."

"You got it, bosslady." He gave finger guns to the grim reaper... reaperess? "Things could have gone worse than becoming a creepy skeleton guy," He looked up at the tubes with bones and scraps of flesh, "like these poor folks."

The softly flaming skeleton head looked down to Zoe for Lorne's distorted voice to try and say softly, "As much as Dr Mckay would love to hear me say this, Batman is checking it out. Stick with me, kid. I won't let anyone eat you. If they're cloning us then the evil bastards are trying to cheat the rules so they can rule everything. I don't want to hurt the ah, hatchlings, but I may have to."

He flexed the gauntleted fist and peered at the strange markings and its similarity to his combat gloves, "Apparently I can actually punch things into the afterlife now." He remarked with some resigned anger, "This Darkseid, the wraith, I wonder what punchable face is responsible for this. Let's see what this fist can do."

He took his time as he went and put a fist to the glass of a pod that cracked and seemed to age under it. With a few more quick strikes a hole crumbled through pouring goo all over the floor as ruined remains settled to the bottom. He could see the blur of a soul escaping and nodded with purpose to continue beating a hole into the pods.

Reegan however had been limping behind Batman's direction as he went as her leg still hurt too much to move quickly. At least with the noises she hear what direction he went as he turned the corner. Clearly Batman had escaped death so many times that a reaper had written 'cheater' on his soul in bubbly teenager script but as a result what life he had faded into the shadows just like the rest of him. She started rummaging around in the carin as pantheons started spawning gates with her midriff pulsing slightly when souls arrived as Lorne popped tubes. She stopped and her eyes turned black from her normal sunrise glow in turning her senses inward.

in the carin

Three in particular she immediately banned when demon-thing outsiders tried to enter unbidden and they turned back to ether, dispersed back to their plane. An ostentatious gold one with human iconography an odd blue door with labyrinthine patterns remained among a host of utterly obliterated ones that made her wary of the other two. A dark haired woman led with a sword and peered with some acrimony toward the blue door until whipping upward to look at her sensory apparatus.

There was a certain formality of it that came from the great reaper as she partly repeated its words, "A great reaper of the cycle greets a broken hub of the orrery. State your faith that your souls be known and rightfully directed."

A visible sliver of the huge one hanging so tenuous to life that peered far above the smaller winged woman got her notice.

One of her eyes lit up to see both places as she resumed her limping to have a short whisper conversation with someone, "I've never heard of that place I'm a waystation conductor for souls to you. No, I'm not with them, prisons keep things in. No idea yet, a creation of machines. My exits are not barred but to keep out soulless demons. I'm loyal to free souls not just humankind so for the good of the cycle a great reaper must remain neutral. Did demons kill all yours? Is the big one yours? Out there. Alive. I can grow them, yes. I will keep that in mind with the behavior of the other three already barred."

The huge Ogryn stood out as the glowing spriggan limped her way closer, though an ozone smell from the carin activity made her senses tingle as she shuffled behind batman. She sniffled, desperately trying not to sneeze from the sensation.

Ed

Finishing his gruesome meal, Ed heard the words of people getting closer before loud footsteps got even closer to his pod until he saw a funny dressed man walk around the corner. Picking up his gun and slinging it but keeping his mace in his other hand, Ed would stand up and walk out of the pod after pushing it open. He stood taller than most in the group but amidst their ranks, he didn't see anything familiar from the Guards or Metal'uns, But they didn't match any stuff from the Bad'uns. Not even the odd looking ones like the weird tree-lady.

He would rub his head as he wondered what he was going to do, if there was a Commissar around, he would know what to do. But he didn't have one around so he was going to have to decide what to do. So he thought long and hard about what to do. They didn't look like bad'uns and didn't try to hurt him. So he wasn't going to smash them. For now at least.

Taking a knee since he learned that made lil'uns feel more comfortable around him. 'Eye level' they called it.

"My name is Ed." His accent was thick, like he was Russian and German and something else thrown in. "I's an Ogryn of the Astr-er...Astra Mili-The Guard. Who are you?" His manner of speaking and the way he carried himself and the fact he messed up a word made it very clear he wasn't that smart.

@Apothecary Bruce @littlekreen @Wade Von Doom @NewWaveOldie

Kanna followed orders and didn't twitch from her position. If she stayed still, maybe the beast wouldn't see her. Nope, her saw her. He was getting down on one knee, looking her dead on before speaking. So he was intelligent enough to speak. Good. But that didn't mean he wasn't above predatory instincts.

"Um...My name is Kanna Kamui..." She tucked away her dragon parts. "I'm a Kamui of Japan. And I like eating bugs." The sight of Ed's mace was making her nauseous. Maces were for turning dragons' heads into soup bowls. She'd better play this carefully.

Bruce gave the small dragon a light smile, and a small head pat. He admired her courage, not a few moments ago she was so wrapped up in fear she clutched his leg, and now she was talking with the shadowed, monstrous man. Though, clearly, this person was not a mindless beast. He had a name, didn't react harshly. It was a start, a pleasant surprise. "Hello Ed..." the dark knight smiled with a degree of self-indulgence he rarely granted himself. "...I'm Batman."

His helmet clicked and whirred, releasing his cowl, revealing a weathered but still handsome face, and a jaw of steel. He had sharp, blue eyes, but they were not emanating a chilled resentment, but a genuine warmth. A far cry from the glaring and glowing white eyes of his cowl. With a human face, Bruce approached Ed, and stretched out his hand. "This is a dangerous place to be. Either you were working for the machines that built this place, or you were captured and put here, against your will. Even if you didn't know it. I'm willing to bet you're a survivor like us, and not one of the bad guys."

Batman noticed Ed wasn't very good with words, and was likely quite simple. He was used to dealing with meathead thugs, used for their muscle but in the end being misguided children put in bulky boxer bodies. He saw enough similarities, even though Ed was clearly more special than that.

~~GM~~

Because there were hundreds of pods lined up against the never ending walls, finding a particular embryo would be difficult without access to the station mainframe. Attempts to access it had been fruitless, as Wheatley, the little core that helped in taking over control from the AI behind all this, was still recovering after nearly killing himself in the process. For now, Kanna's search would lead to no signs of dragons or dragon embryos in the pods and tubes.

"Yeah, he's not with them," a familiar voice echoed out from behind one of the tubes. It was the same one that told them all to head down once the walls above tried to crush them. Once everyone looked down the massive corridor, a hand would be thrown up behind a pod several feet away. Then, out popped the man's head, followed by his other hand also reaching up high into the air to show he wasn't a threat.

The man was actually a familiar species. Quarian. Same as Ami. Except this was a male, with his suit dark white and visor deep turquoise. "Hi, uh... Nice to meet you... Are you the folks who took the station over?" He asked them with a nervous tone. Considering how tight and compact Quarian suits were, one look at this Quarian showed how malnourished he was. His stomach was a crater, and his arms shook slightly while keeping them raised. Not just from nerves, but how much force it took him to do something so basic.

He looked ready to keel over at any minute.

Reegan - Character Sheet

The tired stoop straightened away as the new Quarian stepped closer but introduced herself to the seeming gentle giant as the itch in her nose coincided with a flare of her midsection and a sneeze, "I'm Ree--ee- EEGAN!"

Top half jerking at the quantity of dead imbuing her with a more meaty sound that echoed in the place made filthy by tube ichor and metalwork just for ferns to erupt from the tube Ed had been snacking in. The meaty bits turned to a sort of rotten dirt with its cursed aquifer of tube fluid. A shake of her head sprinkled sugary white goo from one of her horns and blinked the yellow eye glow before continuing, "Sorry, I'm Reegan. I'm.. a tree fort to keep souls safe from predators until they return to their cycle. There so little green here I think they're making me allergic. Though I'm weak too, I have better options for you than the tubes."

Her braided white root tongue stuck out then kept going as she grabbed it by the middle with some hanging down. Red specks started to emerge then grow into dull orange tubers as small sweet potatoes took shape on it. Those at least one could eat raw. Muffled by holding her own tongue she looked to the new person, "Thomone in dold thaid ou like potatos? bon't eat deesth dead."

She looked to the Quarian as the yellow flowers of her hair started enveloping and growing into blueberries. Exhausted and in dire need of healthy soil, water, and sunlight, the tubers and fruits were a bit scraggly but did her best to make food for the starving two.

"Uh.... thank you," The Quarian was grateful for Reegan's offerings of... 'organic' food, but there was a slight problem that Reegan, even after all this time with Ami, seemingly didn't notice.

He can't open his suit. If he did, he would die. Especially in this state. And he didn't have the ports sanitized recently, so even the blueberries could be potentially dangerous for him. Still, he didn't want to be rude, so he took the potato and berries and... Well, kinda just stood there with a blank gaze in his glowing eyes, wondering what to do now. "I, uh.... I-I'll have them later.... When I can clean them... And my suit." While it wasn't particularly filthy, there were several smudges and scrapes around it.

"My name is Mela'tiah. I-I was hoping you'd all find your way down here soon enough after everything shut down. Kinda got worried I'd starve before help finally arrived," he chuckled nervously as he finished speaking, before beginning to fiddle with his hands. His voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

Ed

Watching as the funny-dressed man approached him, Ed would be confused by the name that he gave. 'Batman? He's all dressed up funny but he doesn't have any signs of being half bat.' But his attention quickly shifted to the strange mask that clicked and made strange noises before Batman took it off. The face reminded Ed of a Commissar. The intense eyes, the weathered but strong face, the power in the man's overall form made Ed want to salute.

Which is when the Little Lil'un spoke up, introducing herself as Kamui. Although Ed would have no idea how to even approach that. He kept trying to say it in his head but so far he only got as far as 'Kayna Kamooee' before Batman extended his hand, speaking to Ed, This got him even more confused. Robots? Machines? "I's with the Imperial Guard. Not the Metal'uns. I woke up in that pod. We Ogryns don't like cramped spaces so I smash my way out. Smashed the lil'un in that pod with me chargin', didn't mean to smash 'im." He'd point to the pod the scaley being was in that he had accidentally killed. "Commi...Commissar Bob says not to waste things so I had to eats the remains. I prefer potatoes and Grox." He explained before continuing. "But since you're no Bad'uns. I will stay with you, smash the bad'uns that try to smash us."

Which is when the frail Xeno in the funny suit made himself known, Ed turning around and seeing the Quarian, he put a hand on his Stubber's grip but stopped when he got a good look at the Quarian. "He's skin and bones, need to get him to the Mess. Get food in him. Mama says you can get sicks from not eating." He said, nodding to his words.

Hearing Reegan's offer of potatoes, he would look at them but turn her down. "I's not hungry."

@Wade Von Doom @Apothecary Bruce @NewWaveOldie @littlekreen @PopcornPie @Valkan @LenxKaitoYaoi

 

[Valkan]

Ryan Morganyag

Batman... Well then, ain't that a shocker. Ryan thought as the caped man stated his identity. Considering he remained masked for so long, though, he likely had his reasons for picking anonymity back in his home world. Which made him wonder why he forfeited it so easily now with them. He doubted he trusted them. Batman was certainly not his name, after all. Oh well, at least he seemed to be sided with them, and decided to not take the passive approach of simply living in the Pathfinder. That's a start. Batman aside, Ryan thought it would be good to introduce himself as well to that mass of muscle. It seemed... simple minded, so Ryan just skipped his title, as much as that saddened him "Hello Ed. My name is Ryan. Nice having you."

Now then, there was the starved quarian, or so he looked seemed. His voice was definitively the one that sent them down. Which led Ryan to ask "How did you get from up there to down here in that state, if at all?" as he turned to Mela'tiah.

 

[Wade Von Doom]

~~GM~~

With a few taps on his omni-tool, the metal plate under his feet that made up the floor rose up several feet above the others. "Like this," he told Ryan, speaking into his omni-tool microphone. His voice would echo once more over the open comms, to prove his point he was the same person who tried helping them up above. "When the station went down, there was a small window of time when the security systems restarted," he began to explaining, moving his platform back down to the floor, "hacked my way in before it finished. I can move small parts of the station just for myself, but the mainframe is still scrambled, so I couldn't break the lockdown of these sections." It would explain why many parts of the station were inaccessible.

Perhaps they were under this lockdown to protect all their kidnapped victims in case they escaped their pods like Ed and Mela did. "Also let's me see through the cameras on each level. Didn't need to move too much once I saw the walls trying to crush you, and I just needed to open up the right gaps between the floors to let you all slid through. I'm glad you all made it." It was a close call for sure. "The lockdown probably sensed the smoke coming from his cigar and tried to just crush the fire before it spread any further," Mela pointed to Reegan's transformed cigar. "But, uh... I don't know how to break it. Like I said, the systems are all scrambled after the shutdown, and I only have limited access. Not enough to lift the lockdown for good."

Mela went silent after speaking, trying to think up any possible ideas for how to escape their confinement, but all it ended up doing was making him more nervous. The group could see him twitch his fingers together, tap his foot against the steel floor, and look around to the endless pods full of harvested souls and half-made embryos. The man had a look of paranoia about him, afraid to die in this 'factory' of lives. "... You're the ones who fought them, right? The Machines?" Mela then asked the group, referring to any that did actually fight to take the station.

 

[Apothecary Bruce]

Batman examined the alien newcomer as he retracted his hand and put back on his cowl. It clicked into place, automated metal parts securing it over his head. His sensors quickly informed him about her suit, how it was air-tight. Though it probably provided some protection, it was more of an environmental hazard protection suit than anything like armor. Considering her reaction to the blossoming nymph and her summoned potatoes, he figured the alien couldn't inhabit biologically active - non-sterile - zones, or at least couldn't handle human-compatible biospheres.

A little rare by his experience, but not impossible. He looked back to Ed. "Happy to hear it, Ed. Come with us. We'll find the bad ones."

Hearing Mela's story, Bruce pondered his options, and what had happened. He was right, to a degree. Mela was the benefactor-entity, and the security lockdown was the aggressor-entity during their escape. The station might be inhabited by people, like himself, but it still belonged to the machines.
"If we're ever going to be safe onboard, we'll need to take control of the station," he announced to the group. It might have a central artificial intelligence, given who built it, or it might be running just off a wide network of algorithms all working in unison." If only Mister Terrific were here.
"I don't know if I can help with the hacking. But if this station does have a central intelligence unit, active or dormant, then we should prioritize finding that. From there we can take control of the station, and be safe onboard."

He turned to Mela. "Did you find anything like what I'm talking about? Or do you know of other vital parts of the station, where we might find an advantage?"