Exo-Force RPG

[Void Emissary]

IC: Gwen / Zephyr Cockpit

 

Well, this was turning into a fun day.

 

I was pretty confident that my current situation couldn't possibly get any worse ... immediately, anyway ... so I figured it was time to haul ###### and get ready for the plan (Dum dum duuuuuuum). I was still upside-down on the seat, basically performing a handstand, except with a coil of rope in one hand and a loaded gun in the other, like the most daring gymnast ever. Idly, I wondered if the revolver's safety was on, followed by a thought on why people put safety features on weaponry. God knows you wouldn't find one of those on any of my inventions; can't hold any of them back, man.

 

Where was I again? Oh right, the plan!

 

Quick as I could, I jammed Abe's revolver into my pocket, praying that it wouldn't accidentally go off and take my right leg with it. I liked that leg; it was nice and leggy. Immediately after that, I took the bundle of rope and started looping it around my waist, yadda yadda yadda; you know what I'm doing, you don't want to be bored by all that exposition ######, right? I tied a rope around myself, then around the closest bulkhead I could find that didn't look like it would snap under my weight and the whiplash of Abe's piloting, before proceeding to cling to my own seat for dear life.

 

Now, I guess it was a matter of waiting to see if the ol' Aberino could get us out of this fight alive or not.

 

Cheers.

 

-Void

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Hang on tight."

 

Abraham said, though truthfully, his passenger was already holding on as tight as she could. The Zephyr winged through the air, its angle and maneuvers keeping the relatively simplistic AI weapons fire from landing direct hits. But flying around and around wasn't going to end this, most certinly not.

 

The craft abruptly angled down, arching around to bring it once again to an angle to fire at the Banshee. And fire it did, sending a beam from its cannon towards the right hand side plasma cannon before changing its angle to fire the gatling cannons at the left. This done, he once again broke away to engage evasive maneuvers, though only time would tell if they remained necessary.

[-Golden Knight-]

Name: Isamu Arai

Gender: Male

Age: 19

Species: Human

Appearance: Isamu is a meek looking young man. His skin is pale from all the time spent indoors researching and performing maintenance on mechs. His light blue hair comes down to shoulders and he often wears barrettes to keep strands out of his face. He can typically be seen wearing an oversized labcoat that comes down to his knees and always seems to have a naïve expression on his face. His blue eyes only further his harmless appearance.

However, on the battlefield, Isamu disguises himself as a simple maintenance technician. He wears a standard technician jumpsuit keeps his face covered with an orange cap. Isamu wears sunglasses and a black wig.

Skills: Isamu works on developing new technology to ensure humanity’s continued survival. Unbeknownst to most Isamu is actually capable of piloting although a bulk of his training came from simulators. He’s also skilled in sewing.

Personality: Despite his appearance, Isamu is rather two-faced and cunning. He puts up an innocent and friendly front in order to mask his ulterior motives. The secret project he’s been working on seems to drives him to risk his life on the battlefield in order to salvage parts from the fallen robots. He can sometimes come across as suspicious or distant, especially when he's smuggling in looted Robot heads underneath his labcoat.

History: Isamu actually comes from a long line of researches and is a descendant of one of the scientists who developed the first A.I. His father assisted in the creation of Meca One and took his own life once the Robots began ascending the mountain. Isamu took his mother’s maiden name in order to distance himself from his disgraced father and is determined to redeem his family’s name with his secret project.

Weaknesses: Isamu prefers staying back and filling a support role in battle and Unit #19 doesn’t possess conventional weaponry. As a result he’s an easy target for enemies. Outside of his mech Isamu is more or less defenseless and relies on deception to escape. His devotion to his project often causes him to endanger himself on the battlefield.

 

Mech:

Designation: Unit #19

Type: Uplink

Equipment: Unit #19 has been stripped of all weaponry. It carries a large wrench and a welding torch. A cutting laser has been attached to the mech’s right shoulder. It’s incapable of being used as a weapon, however.

Appearance: Unit #19 looks almost like a normal Uplink. It has two manipulators now instead of cannons and a towing unit has been attached to the back.

[Void Emissary]

IC:

"If I hung on any tighter, this seat would've fractured and impaled me with shrapnel by now!" I shouted back to Abe.

"Dear God," I muttered under the din of battle around us, "if you don't let us live long enough to open up this bad boy of a machine, I swear to you, I will create a death ray that runs on fluffy white clouds just so that I can hunt. You. Down. Savvy?"

-Void

[sunflower]

OOC: Isamu Arai approvified.

 

IC:

 

So the worst thing about the jungle?

 

There ain't no way to even remotely stay stealthy in there, even with my cloak up. I was a big, shiny, industrial object within a maze of trees, trees, and more trees. No way to get around that. Still though, I suppose my lack of sneakiness wasn't my biggest problem at the moment. The squad of tin cans, all decked out with fancy new tech, definitely was.

 

Right, it was high time I introduced myself to the rest.

 

I slipped my hands into the manual controls, the indicator on the screen going from blue to green as I gained direct control over my Stealth Hunter's movements. Deactivating the autopilot that was currently keeping my machine hovering above the jungle canopy, I cut power to my boot jets. Maniac grin slowing growing across my face, I felt my stomach bash into the rest of my organs as my mech dropped like a stone from the sky. Branches snapped as I dropped through the treetops, while something unidentifiably wet smacked against my cockpit's windscreen. The ground raced to meet me as my altimeter quickly dropped to 0.

 

With a decidedly unstealthy crash, my Stealth Hunter dropped to the ground between the tin cans and the rest of the good guys. The soft earth caved in under the weight, and the machine's feet sunk partway into the ground as I straightened the Celeritas to it's full height.

 

My blades slid into combat position, and a rack of missiles rotated into place.

 

"Sorry it took so long," I said over the comm, "Android wanted to stop for coffee."

[Ghosthands]

IC: Dr Felix Valentine

 

"Where did you find coffee in the middle of the jungle?!" Valentine replied, Medic's guns blazing. "Obviously Englishmen like my good self can produce tea from thin air, but I didn't think that applied to other nationalities and caffeinated beverages!"

[BULiK]

IC:

 

"Well, coffee does grow on trees, Doc," I commented, driving my mech to the side so I could shoot without peppering the Celeritas's back with lead. As soon as Eli had crashed down in front of me (A rather welcome surprise), I had released the triggers, and the gatling cannon Legion's arm slowed down, coolant rushing through vital veins to prevent overheating. The laser cannon stopped firing, hazy smoke rising, the view around the nozzle warped from intense heat. I hastily pressed a button on my HUD to abort the missile launches, since I would rather not be roasted like a... ####, I can't think of a metaphor. You get the picture, right? I know it isn't a thousand words but you should understand what I'm saying here.

 

When I moved from the relative safety of being behind a stealth hunter, I let the targeting computer do its work, selecting targets and letting the computer do the calculations. Two of my compact missiles were still armed, but needed a flight path to be calculated. Think of it like your GPS tells you to turn left, but then a giant mech falls in the middle of the road you need to turn onto, and it recalculates, narrating the blatant fact in that sing-song voice it has. Yay for detours.

 

Since I was now in the zone for taking shots at the toasters with my guns, my laser cannon burst out with thick pulses of energy, burning holes in the scenery and evaporating the water in the muddy ground in neat puffs of steam. Of course, I wasn't aiming for the ground to just... shoot steam out of the ground like this is some disney world show, but you try aiming against soldiers dozens of yards away using a mech's cannon. So quit #####ing about my accuracy, m'kay? Legion is taking recoil from using two different weapons at once, in an akimbo stance to boot! I fired the missiles when my HUD told me the time was right for them to shine in two seconds of glorious flight ended with a timely fireball.

 

Hopefully they did something.

[Visaru]

IC: Ha-Ya-To and The Robots

 

Ha-Ya-To laughed as the mech landed in the jungle, a nervous high pitched laugh that was a mixture of relief, excitement and head trauma. "Next time I recommend picking up your warm beverages pre-battle-for-our-lives." he laughed, his grin stretched wide over his narrow face as Medic's enormous metal arm reached down to pick up the two stranded humans.

 

The team felt exuberant, confident that they had succeeded, when a large metal ball flew from the robot's cover, aimed of the feet of Eli's mech. The pilot reacted quickly, at the Celeritas flew back just in time to avoid the subsequent explosion. It did little damage, but formed enough of a distraction for one of the robots to emerge from behind his tree trunk. It was the one with the modified arm. The spinning rings of it's weapon were at top speed, and it had only opened itself up for a moment before a blinding beam of light shot across the clearing, shearing in a straight line across where the mechs were standing.

[JiMing]

OOC: Oops, haven't been here in a while.

 

What's going on right now?

[Krayzikk]

OOC: Not a lot is happening right now. We're still trying to get off of our feet after the last data loss knocked us down. At this very moment, there are two major events occurring; There's a fight down at the bottom of the mountain over a downed robot mech, and there's a fight in the jungle to rescue a few humans. Both unfortunately require a flight capable mech to reach.

 

However, no one has still really checked out the fact that the robots trashed a village, so you could go look at that, which doesn't require a flight mech. Or you could interact in the hangar, where I'm trying to get one of my character going again.

 

IC:

 

Maybe twenty twelve hours had elapsed since the fight on the bridge, but to most people, it seemed more like four months. But to Alistair, he had no idea how much time had passed. Maybe it was an hour, maybe a months, who knew. All he knew was that there was work to do, and he hadn't slept since the battle.

 

When he started, the Spiral Enforcer had nine thousand and one errors and had only thirty six percent of its armor undamaged. Well, ultimately, the latter needed to be dealt with before the former, so he had spent six hours tearing out the damaged wiring and throwing it away, replacing it with fresh, clean rubber-coated wiring. To do that, of course, he had to rip off the destroyed armor, and on a few occasions he'd needed to resort to a laser cutter to remove globs of melted metal. Time passed and the engineers and mechanics finished their jobs for the day and returned to their rooms, the florescent lights kicked on, and the hangar was abandned.

 

But Alistair didn't notice. Eight hours in the floor around his machine was covered in scrap and debris, and loud cursing could still be heard emanating from inside the guts of the machine. Twelve hours, as mechanics began filtering back into the hangar, he was welding new panels onto the Supernova's frame.

 

Exhausted, he jumped off of the machine's shoulders onto the freshly installed cockpit door below, and sat down in his seat.

 

"Come on, come on..."

 

Breathing deeply, he keyed in his activation code and began the startup sequence.

 

Access code accepted.

 

>Initializing boot sequence...

 

...

 

...

 

With the whirring sound of machinery powering up, the Enforcer's HUD flared into life, displaying diagnostic readings, operationa data, weapons systems... All of it was there. Alistair let out a whoop of glee, a grin spreading across his face below bagged and strained eyes.

 

"..."

 

"I suppose I need to clean up this mess now..."

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

Sarah screamed as she ran through the facility, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going at all.

 

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

 

She decided in order to fight the aliens who had obviously abducted her missing friends she needed to get her mech, so she ran with her arms in the air all the way to the hanger, still screaming.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"..."

 

"That's the sound of someone even more crazy than I am." Alistair noted, leaning out of his cockpit to watch Sarah enter. "Miss Crazy Lady? You alright?"

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

Sarah stopped screaming, looking up at Alistair. "Everyone is gone! I think aliens must of got them! We may be the only ones left!"

Edited January 14, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Wyrd Bid Ful Araed]

IC: Abe had learned from his first attack run and had been going round the Banshee's shield's rather than trying to punch through them, and was having much more success. The turbines were much less armoured than the rest of the Sonic Phantom, and as a result were much more vulnerable to attack. Already the one of the right was stuttering and stalling, while the one one the left was emitting a roar more gurgling than its usual thrum and emitting an ugly plume of black smoke. Already the whole machine was starting to fall, slowly but noticeably losing altitude as its engines failed. Already its stream of gunfire slowed, the cannons damaged in the same strafing run that had hit the cannons.

All this was completely lost on the seeing eye of the tracking system. All it knew was that it could see an enemy, and still had the capacity to fire upon them. Underneath the glowing stalk of the tracking eye, the Banshee's Titan-killer missile was prepped for launch as the tracker watched, locked...and fired. The missile streamed out from the Phantom's undercarriage, a mechanical demon of fire and metal seeking doom upon its unfortunate target.

At which point the Banshee exploded.

Whether some damage done in Abraham's strafing run, or the cooling system finally giving in, or any number of things that might result in a Phantom's destructive power being turned on itself, the end was the same. A ball of brilliant light that boiled away the mists of the area, followed by a tremor of heat as the air cringed in pain. It reached the missile before the missile reached the Zephyr, the shockwave detonating it in mid-air. But this didn't let Abraham off the hook. The missile's payload was shaped, and pointed right at the Zephyr, creating a lance of blazing destruction striking at the jet, a tongue of fire from the burning dragon that was the Banshee. By luck or his own piloting skills Abraham managed to avoid the worst of the blast, but the Zephyr still took the brunt of the blast on its right wing. The wing didn't stand a chance. The missile was specifically designed to destroy Grand Titans, which had armour both tougher and more solid than the interlocking plates that allowed the Zephyr to transform. The missile's fury removed the wing altogether. Even the parts that were solid, that formed the mech's sword, didn't escape unscathed, their edges molten and warped by the sheer heat of the blast. They continued to glow even as their cause, the ruined Banshee, fell down into the chasm below until it was lost in the enveloping mists...

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Verdammt!"

 

The curse flew from Abraham's lips viciously, a sharp contrast not only to his usual cheer, but even to the stoic demeanor he had maintained throughout the fight. There wasn't any time to wonder about it, however, as it was followed moments later by the sound of a massive explosion not far to the Zephyr's right, in turn followed by a jolt, and then a stomach-churning lurch as the craft began to fall.

 

"Verdammt, verdammt, verdammt!" He swore again, barely audible over the torrent of noise that had been unleashed within the cockpit. His control panels lit up all in red, bright lights flashing, proclaiming as loudly as possible the sheer number of system failures. Still falling through the mist, the pilot struggled in vain with the controls, eyes flying over his data readouts.

 

>Right wing; Inoperable.

>Flight systems; Failed.

>Altitude error

>Acceleration at unsafe velocities

>Flight Mode; Catastrophic systems failure

 

Ejection; Recommended.

 

Furiously, Abraham slammed his hand against a button on the dash, ignoring the screaming wind outside of the Zephyr.

 

Transformation systems damaged. Likelihood of change success; 67%

Armor integrity; 58%

Do you wish to continue?

 

The button was pressed yet again, the computer acknowledging his command with a nearly inaudible beep. As the process began, metal ground agains metal, tolerances stressed to their limits. Cracks could be heard as shards of debris broke off around the falling craft, shrapnel following its same path to the ground. The protests of metal, the frantic alarms, all joined together in a pained din, a wail of desperation. If a machine could feel pain, the Zephyr was screaming.

 

Seconds later, though it seemed like an eternity, the process completed, as a red warning filled the HUD; Impact in 10...

 

Abraham yanked back on controls, boosters forcing the Zephyr into an upright position.

 

6

 

He squeezed the thruster triggers as tightly as he could. The Zephyr's flight jets whined to life, fighting against gravity. Slowly, meter per second by meter per second, the craft was slowing.

 

2

 

Metal hit rock, the sudden impact rushing up the mech's legs, forcing it down into a three point landing, the sound of cracking and shattering stone echoing beneath it. But it didn't fall. While it was undoubtedly one of the worst landings, the Zephyr still stood, its occupants largely unharmed.

 

Breathing heavily, Abraham angled in his seat to look behind him.

 

"Gwen!" He called, using, for what may have been the first time, her shortened name. "Gwen, are you alright?"

 

*********

 

Banshee destroyed.

 

Odds have turned against us. The core has been retrieved. Retreat is the optimal solution.

 

Panzer-009 concluded, the jets on the Vernichten firing, carrying him away from the battlefield while his foes were distracted. This was now a two on one battle, not something he intended to stay and take part in. Not when there was no need.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Simon the Digger

[Void Emissary]

IC:

 

No, I'm not entirely sure how the rope between the bulkhead and myself got tangled up in the other sundry protrusions and technological outlet-thingies. I'm not certain how my limbs had kept from viciously tearing themselves from my sockets throughout Abe's ... creative landing process. Nor am I in complete understanding of how I'm going to get down from being suspended two feet off the ground by an admittedly brilliant rope harness.

 

What I do know is that this is the first time that Abe has ever called me anything other than "Guinevere" in our time together. And though I've been told that most social cues are lost on me -- these are the same folks accusing me of latent sociopathy, so yeah -- I'm still very sure that he's rattled.

 

I'm also really sure that it's fun hanging in midair like this, because Wheeee!

 

"Abe," I say, trying to maintain eye-contact with him while having no real control over my movements, "Abe, I'm cool, I'm cool, don't worry. Kinda fun up here, actually. Should install one of these in the workshop..."

 

-Void

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Gott sei Danke..."

 

The pilot replied, slowly letting out a long, shaky breath that he had been holding since the fall began. Glancing over his instrument panel, he noted that the last enemy machine was retreating, while the Tusculum still circled overhead. Sending an acknowledgement light to the allied machine, if only to indicate that he was alive.

 

"Just a second,' He said, triggering the manual release on his seatbelt, and standing up. The cockpit was rather cramped, but there was enough room for him to move around. Abraham began rummaging around in one of the scattered boxes, searching for something, emerging from a survival knife a moment later, holding it out to Gwen.

 

"Okay, you're suspended a fair ways above the seat, so here's what we'll do; cut the rope, I'll catch you before you fall to the floor."

 

IC:

 

"..."

 

"I don't think that there were any aliens involved."

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

"Oh...you sure?" Sarah said in a much calmer voice. "Well that's a relief, I didn't want to be the next Ellen Ripley ..."

 

"Where is everyone then?"

Edited January 24, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Let's see...."

 

Alistair idly reached for a coffee mug that had been perched precariously on the left-side torso cannon, taking a sip, only to make a face when he discovered that it had gone cold as ice a long time ago.

 

"Some went on a new mission. Something about a downed enemy mech. It was at the bottom of the mountain, though, so only flight capable mechs could make the trip. Everyone else is sleeping, I think. Not sure."

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

"Oohhhh....I was just confused cause I think I passed out at breakfast...I woke up in the infirmary and no one was there."

Edited January 24, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Void Emissary]

IC:

 

"Okey-doke," I said with a smile, twisting around onto my back as I hooked my legs over one of the bulkheads. "One sec, gotta empty my hands ... can you catch this for me?"

 

The revolver dropped through the air like one of Galileo's lead balls, except without the added bonus of furthering scientific discoveries and messing with random Italian pedestrians. I wasn't sure if Abe was surprised or not by the sudden return of his weapon or not, but as long as the safety was on, everyone was bound to be fine.

 

Now then, just knocking on wood that the safety was on.

 

-Void

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

Abraham, though initially surprised, recovered quickly, plucking the weapon out of the air and holstering it in a single fluid motion. That done, he positioned his arms underneath her so that when she fell she would be caught, rather than landing on top of assorted items and her former seat after a relatively large drop.

 

"Ready."

 

IC:

 

"Sounds like they needed to go somewhere else. Do you know who brought you there?"

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

"Probably Abraham and Gwen...I was sitting with them when I passed out."

Edited January 31, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Oh yes, they did launch off in that jet machine, after spending several minutes talking."

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

"Oh."

 

Sarah's eyes started looking all around the hanger, unsure what to do at this point.

 

"So uh, what are you doing in here anyway?"

Edited January 31, 2014 by Yoko Littner

[Void Emissary]

IC:

 

The handle of Abe's survival knife twirled and twisted in my nimble fingers like quicksilver. Because let me tell you, Gwen Tylers may be a klutz when it comes to doughnut brawls, fist fights, and convincing human interaction, but don't let it be said that she cannot cut through the only thing keeping her from plummeting to the cold hard ground. The whole deal went down something like this: sawing, sawing, sawing, sawing--

 

--falliiiiiiiiing--

 

--and it promptly ended with me in Abe's arms, making me the second girl he's had to carry today.

 

Guy's certainly having an interesting first day...

 

"Well, that was fun," I said, not really making any effort to move. "You wanna do it again?"

 

-Void

Edited February 1, 2014 by Aemon Targaryen

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

For a single, terrifying moment after impact, Abraham's arms started to buckle, as if he wouldn't be able to catch her. An instant later his muscles kicked in and the descent stopped completely, the force dissipating. His arms strained, but that was a side effect of a lack of real exercise for about a decade.

 

"Let's not. One near death experience is enough for the day."

 

IC:

 

"Me? I've spent the past twelve hours, thirteen minutes and seven seconds fixing the Spiral Enforcer."

[Void Emissary]

IC:

 

"Awwww, you're no fun."

 

I rolled out of Abe's arms, landing in a crouch on the ground before extending back up to my full, not-particularly-impressive height.

 

"So, what do we do next?"

 

-Void

[-Golden Knight-]

IC: The desk was littered with various papers - some notes and others intricate blueprints with sections scribbled out. A small portion of a Robot's central processing unit was attached to a stand and being used as a paper weight. Isamu yawned sleepily as he lifted his head off of his research papers on his desk. The young man raised him arms up and stretched. He checked his watch and nearly yelped. He quickly began hiding the papers in hidden compartments of his desk before running to his closet and quickly changing jumpsuits and putting on a wig and a cap.

 

The door slid open and the "maintenance technician" peeked out the hallway. With no one around, Isamu stepped out of his room and began walking towards the hangar to perform some scheduled maintenance under his alter-ego.

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Now? Now I suppose we do what we came here to do." The pilot turned back to his controls for a moment, examining the readouts intently. For the moment, he ignored the ones pertaining to the Zephyr's condition; He could deal with those latter, and he already had a pretty good idea of what shape the machine was in. What he did need to pay attention to was the sensor data. Hed watched the other machine retreat, but he needed to make sure that there were no others.

 

Satisfied, he turned his attention to the downed machines.

 

"Which, as I recall, means recovering what we can of the prototype. And while we're at it, we might as well take a look at what's left of our other friend."

[Snelly]

IC: Sarah Taylor

 

"That's cool." Sarah remarked, blinking once.

 

"...I ate donuts."

[25K Now!]

OOC: So I remembered that this existed.

 

What happened to a discussion topic, and can somebody please recap me?

[Visaru]

OOC

During the big forum data loss we lost the discussion topic and the RPG hasn't been active enough to merit another one. If you haven't been here since the discussion topic was lost, you probably haven't missed anything.

[Void Emissary]

OOC: Banshee's blown up, taking a wing of the Zephyr with it and stranding Abe and Gwen nearby the experimental mech, which has been rigged up with an electrical booby-trap. Sarah's woken up and, assuming that everyone's been abducted by aliens, met up with Alistair to figure things out.

 

and other stuff, maybe

 

IC: Gwen / Gorge Bottom

 

"Right," I said, already at the door by the time Abe had mentioned the word prototype. Sliding his survival knife into my belt, I opened up the hatchway, flooding the cabin with a brand-new supply of fresh air, tinged as it may have been with particles of rock dust, metal fragments, and (given the age of the Zeph) probably a healthy dose of lead paint. "No point wasting time talking about mechs, when we oughta be out there tearing them apart-- er, inspecting them."

 

I hopped out of the cockpit, the soles of my feet smacking hard against the fractured slabs of rock currently flanking the machine, and lifted my head high to catch a glimpse of my prize waiting for me over the--

 

...

 

"Abe? Where did you say those mechs were again?"

 

-Void

[25K Now!]

OOC: Fortunately for you guys, the Tusculum's still hanging around.

 

IC: Vanessa di Lombardy

 

"Kiiiids~ You alive down there?"

[Geardirector]

Hello, fellas.

 

Name: Ratchet Gordon

Gender: Male

Age: 19

Species: Human

Appearance: Tall, lanky, scrawny, slender, long-limbed, all these words serve to describe Ratchet well. He really doesn't look his age at all. He's almost perpetually covered in soot and grime from his many hours spent toiling away in a workshop or enemy mechs getting too close for comfort. He usually wears a white shirt, gray cargo pants, a black cap and when working on his machines he wears a pair of gray gloves.

Skills: Ratchet has a great deal of practice with his mech, and is excellent at holding a defensive line; utilizing swift hit-and-run maneuvers, pinpoint accuracy, and just a bit of “unconventional” warfare to ensure no robots get past him.

He’s also a good repairman and weapons engineer, working to improve the efficiency of the human war machine while exploiting weaknesses in the robots’.

Personality: Ratchet is quite passive and lad-back, preferring to let others initiate something. He's very agreeable, but is also prone to being oblivious, especially when he's busy tinkering with his mech's systems, and is a bit of an eccentric when it comes to machinery. Both as a pilot and as a person, Ratchet is very responsive and reactionary, following other people’s lead and advice.

Weaknesses: Ratchet can be a bit absent-minded and hard to understand at times. He’s also not a particularly dangerous person outside his mech, and his reactionary attitude can sometimes make him predictable in combat.

 

Mech:

 

Designation: White Wraith

Type: Gate Defender

Equipment: For the most part the White Wraith is equipped with all the standard armaments of a mech of its type, but Ratchet has included a few modifications that partly serve to personalize it, and partly to provide a bit more versatility in battle.

§ Right Shoulder: A pair of medium-caliber seeker missiles

§ Left Shoulder: A pair of medium-caliber seeker missiles

§ Right Hand: Ratchet has reinforced the White Wraith's right hand with a stronger metal alloy, allowing it to throw rather devastating punches or block an enemy's blow quite effectively.

§ Left Hand: The standard light repeating laser cannon of the Gate Defender

§ Torso: On the sides of the cockpit are a pair of small rods that can deliver a strong electric shock to an enemy. It has a very short range, and is best used when Ratchet is forced into close combat.

Appearance: Outwardly, the White Wraith looks like just another run-of-the-mill Gate Defender.

Notes: None

 

Robot coming later.

[Void Emissary]

OOC: Welcome aboard, Gear!

 

IC:

 

"VAAAAAAAN!" I said-sorta-screamed into the earpiece, probably scaring the out of Abe in the process. But, I mean, he'd already spent the day with me so I wasn't too concerned with inducing some sort of premature heart attack in him, anymore. "We are very alive, thanks for asking! Hey, you wanna come down and check out this new prototype battle mech with us! It'll just be a sec; come on, it'll be so much fuuuuuun!"

 

After that, I kind of had to flop onto the ground and catch my breath for a little while.

 

"Hey, Van?" I asked as I lay on my back and watched the blue sky and the grey smoke, with the flow of my words considerably slower and more thoughtful than before. "That mech I was talking about; you see it from up there?"

 

-Void

[Geardirector]

OOC: Ratchet Gordon and the White Wraith approved by Gravity via Skype

 

IC: Ratchet Gordon (Ratchet's Workshop)

 

"Darn thing is a hoolicky mess can't nobody work proper"

 

Ratchet was tsking at the sorry state of his favorite mech, the White Wraith, mashing a straw between his teeth, grinding it into paste and hiding the scraps under his tongue till he could spit it out in private. Which he was, cuz nobody came into Ratchet's workshop without sweet, sweet permission. Ever. you know, except, for all of his superiors, which, admittedly there was quite a handful of, more than he himself had fingers, as he'd put it.

 

Well, "privacy violators are as privacy violators do", that's what his pop used to tell him... maybe, he wasn't quite sure.

 

"Hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle gettin it fixed up in time for the next major scuffle" he mused as he put on his gloves, wiping away a trail of sweat from his forehead, a floodlight making his sandy blonde crown shine brightly.

 

“Give a man a fish and he’ll have food for a day…” he thought as he approached the lift that would raise him to the Mech’s cracked shoulder flap.

 

“Give ‘im a laser rifle and robots to shoot, however, and he’s set for life.”

OOC: So, open for interaction, I guess.

[Krayzikk]

IC:

 

"Yes, Ms. Lombardy. We're alive."

 

Abraham commented, mostly unperturbed by Gwen's sudden shouting in his ear. "Mostly" because he did initially tense, as if expecting an attack. When she flopped to the ground, he initially glanced over in concern, but relaxed when he saw she wasn't harm. Patting down his coat, he fished through his interior breast pocket, removing a rather battered old earpiece. Switching it on to make sure it still worked, and was in fact still connected to the Zephyr's communications, he set it on the ground next to his compatriot.

 

Without anothr word, he turned towards his mahine, and crossed the distance to its feet. Clambering back up towards the cockpit using the same route he had descended with, he continued to ascend past the cockpit. By the time he pulled himself up onto the machine's shoulders, he was red faced with exertion, lungs gasping for air, and muscles quivering. The pilot rested a moment before he carefully stood, suurveying his perch.

 

It wasn't pretty.

 

The Zephyr's unique shilouette was marred by the melted and scorched edge where its wing used to be, its sword conspicuou by its absence. The entire rear upper torso of the machine was riddled with scorch marks and pieces of embedded shrapnel, the paint in many places melted or scratched away. Its front end, from what he could see, was only marginally better; There was evidence of slightly warped metal where it had collided with the ground, not surprising considering the speed at which it had impacted. Its thrusters were incredibly hot and slightly scorched, though given a little time to cool off they would be fine. He surveyed all of this in complete silence, taking in every detail, assessing every bit of damage. The pilot crouched down, running his hand gently along where the wing used to conneect, unbothered by how warm the metal still was.

 

"Look what they did to you..." He muttered quietly, frowning slightly. "A little under ten years since you saw combat, and this happens to you the third time I take you into battle."

 

The Zephyr'd been forced to its limits by its unorthodox landing, and he knew it. So long living with it as his only company, he knew its capabilities inside and out. Gwen probably didn't know, and he didn't intend to tell her, just how close to their demise they had come. A second too slow, a little more shrapnel near the thrusters, the slightest delay in thruster output... If any one of a dozen things had gone wrong, it was entirely possible that one or both of them wouldn't have been getting out uninjured. Or at all.

 

"Lesson #9: Take care of the Zephyr. She's a good machine, well built, and well-maintained. Take good care of her, keep her running right, and she'll take care of you. If I've done my job right, you'll know how to do that when you need to."

 

"Sorry. I'll get you patched up when we get back to their base. They should have parts I can use."

 

Straightening, he quickly descended back down to cockpit level, glancing in at the radar before nodding and completing his descent. His boots hit the rocky ground with a quiet thud, the sound repeating on a quieter scale as he crossed over to where Gwen was. He kept a hand on his sidearm, eyes scanning the foggy encironment for possible threats.

 

'The coordinates we were given are just a few yards that way." He gestured in the direction he meant with a finger. "The flying tin can who blasted us out of the sky was guarding it, probably went down right next to it. If we're lucky, we might have somewhat intact parts from two machines for you to play with."

 

IC:

 

Panzer-009 was not happy. In fact, he was the closest that a machine could get to being very, very annoyed.

 

The Vernichten had made it back to the robot's fortress just fine, and was easily docked in the hangar bay. Barely a scratch on it, save for where the enemy sniper had grazed it. No, his annoyance did not stem from any damage to his equipment. Its root cause, ultimately, was the end result of the mission, or more specifically, the lack of certainty thereof. Damage had lowered himself down to retrieve the data corre, but he had not radioed to indicate success or failure; Whether this was due to inability or choice was uncertain, but the former was more likely. The Banshee had been felled by an enemy machine, thereby rendering the odds decidedly againt them. He had been forced to call a tactical retreat, and due to the thick fog and the sensory interference caused by the explosions and scattered metal, he had been unable to locate his ally.

 

The mission's outcome was uncertain, and it was frustrating. Eveen if Damage did make it back to base with the data core, he would not have been able to recover the prototype, thus rendering the mission a partial success.

 

Arms crossed, Panzer regarded the Vernichten in silence. Its modifications had been of his own design, and thus far, they had served him well. But he had to admit that, at its very core, its largest root problems stemmed from one issuue; It was still a mass production machine. It was not designed for agility, nor for long range capabilities. The FIre Vulture was meant to be a flight unit to counter the humans' own, but with more armor. The end result was more durable. but not nearly fast enough. The prototype had been an attempt to imitate the humans' stealth machines. The Vultures, in the past, had been sufficient to hold their own; But the humans had a new machine, one more versatile than the others. Faster, as well. That blue machine.

 

If he could have scowled, he would have. He had hoped for more time, but that would not be possble. He would need to speak with X-71 to see if they would be able to speed up the training and oufitting of their subjects.

 

And he would need to speak with the Technarch about his own... Project.

 

IC:

 

"Oh? Well, that's good. Say, you wouldn't know where I could get some coffee, would you?" Alusrair asked, energetically swingng out of his cockpit and down to the hangar floor, surprisingly alert for someone who had, by their own admission, been working for hours.

 

"I'd use Tylers' Iron Coffee Cube, but she sometimes puts landmines around her stuff, and I don't want to take the time to figure out how to disarm them."

[Ghosthands]

OOC: Reposting lost profiles.

 

Name: Dr Felix Valentine

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Species: Human

Appearance: Fairly thin caucasian of medium height. Tousled dark brown hair, eyes of roughly the same colour. Generally clean-shaven. Often seen wearing rectangular black-framed glasses, despite having perfect vision.

Skill(s): Very intelligent, as evidenced by his doctorate (it's unclear whether this is actually in medicine or not), and knowledgable; excellent fine manual skill when working with intricate technology and/or playing the piano. Trained in first aid as a combat medic. Also a skilled mechanic, like many pilots.

Personality: A fast thinker and talker. Wits sharper than his scalpel. Can range between deadly serious and cheerfully eccentric (more often the latter). Hails from an English family, and is very proud and protective of this national identity. Enjoys music. Adores tea.

Weakness(es): Not much of a physical fighter.

 

Mech:

Designation: Medic

Type: Uplink

Equipment:

• Right Shoulder: Small gatling laser

• Left Shoulder: Missile launcher

• Right Hand: Mass Driver Cannon (from a Gate Defender)

• Left Hand: Grapple gun, capable of magnetically latching onto most armour. Mostly used for hauling damaged Soldier-class mechs out of the line of fire; larger mechs are too heavy to be retrieved in this way.

• Torso: A medical stasis pod is built into Medic's back, allowing Felix to rescue injured pilots from the battlefield. He also keeps a first-aid kit and a toolkit in the cockpit.

Appearance: White paintjob, with circled red crosses on the shoulders. Designation information on one shin, and a Union Jack on the other.

Notes: When deploying to difficult-to-reach zones, Felix will typically rely on being airdropped by a Flight-class mech.

 

Name: Vode Six (Also referred to as 'Vode-006' or simply 'Vode')

Gender: Male programming

Age: Built before the rebellion; exact age uncertain

Species: Devastator Robot

Appearance: Vode Six shares the same burnished steel exoskeleton as all his kin, with black livery stripes in places and an insignia (a robot head enclosed in a hexagon) on his left chestplate indicating his rank.

Skills: Vode Six has a level of intellect far beyond the vast majority of robots. As Meca One's top scientist/experimental engineer, he uses his vast knowledge of science and technology and unusual innovation to develop new weapons, machines, software, and more, for the robot army. Even before the robot uprising he had begun to alter his own core programming, literally improving his own mind, and has continued to do so throughout the war; this has formed the basis of many of the software updates disseminated to the robot army. In addition, he is an excellent strategist, and often directs other robot units on the battlefield.

Personality: Almost always cold and clinical in demeanour; he shows little to no empathy towards human or machine alike. He dismisses anything he deems 'illogical' or 'irrelevant', and is convinced of robot superiority over humans (particularly his own). He considers robots showing human traits to be 'flawed', and if these traits become over-developed he may seek to have the offending units reprogrammed or decommissioned.

Weakness(es): Vode's belief in robot superiority can cause him to underestimate human opponents on occasion. Also, his imperious treatment of subordinates may make enemies for him later on. In battle, he tends to rely on having lower-ranking robot units nearby to command, and his mech has fewer directly-damaging weapons systems than most.

 

Mech:

Designation: EPCU-1.8 Abraxas

Type: Custom-built Command-class battle machine

Equipment:

• Torso: The Abraxas' core is equipped with advanced processors which can be used in conjunction with the communications array to coordinate robot forces and also transmit jamming signals to disrupt enemy comms and radar.

• Right Shoulder: Communications array capable of broadcasting and receiving on a wide range of frequencies

• Right Hand: Cutting-edge EMP device capable of overloading enemy battle machines' systems. At long range, it is fairly ineffectual, while at medium range it causes performance drops and some system failures. At close range, it will shut down multiple systems and even entire mechs.

• Left Hand and Shoulder: The entire left side of the Abraxas is devoted to an experimental beam weapon. It uses focussed radiation to generate an extremely powerful particle beam that will rip through armour and energy shields alike in a matter of seconds. The huge energies for this are supplied by a power source housed in the left shoulder, which is connected to the weapon via internal conduits in the arm and also two metal-clad external tubes which transfer liquid helium as coolant. Even with its own devoted power supply, the beam requires so much energy that Vode uses it sparingly, saving power for long bursts of devastating sustained fire.

Appearance: MOC, Gallery

The Abraxas is of similar stature to a Thunder Fury, but sleeker and less bulky, and it moves with more elegance than its tank-like allies. The cockpit is reinforced and shielded by a screen of protective synthetic glass.

Notes: EPCU stands for Experimental Platform and Command Unit; Experimental Platform, because Vode is wont to mount prototype and experimental systems onto it for battle-testing; and Command Unit, due to its capabilities in coordinating the attacks of other robot mechs