ZippyWharrgarbl

IC: Armani - External Entrails

Her eyes lit up with realisation. "Ah! You simply don't know the term? That explains things. You see, pilot, the term 'fake Agori' is considered offensive by some, as it implies that they aren't real people. Which, I understand, was not your intention, but it is important to know the implications of your words! As for our friend here, he is a Matoran, I believe."

She turned to Ailun. "Oh, and how rude of me not to ask! Would you like me to join you in speaking with Branar? If such a thing makes you uncomfortable, or the option is otherwise disagreeable to you, that is perfectly fine."

~

IC: Rorohiko - Xaril's Friend Ship

He glanced at Karanta settling down in her chair, and then his gaze drifted to Xaril's new friend momentarily before going back to his work, buckled into a chair. Without looking up, he asked the Steltian, "So, uh. What are you in for? Or, well, being brought in for. I think. I don't mean to jump to conclusions, but Xaril didn't seem all too happy with you."

IC: Rorohiko - Xaril's Friend Ship

Rorohiko smiled. "Thanks for the advice, but I slept yesterday. I'm good. Besides, I have work to do with me."

He took a seat near Xaril's prisoner- not too close, he knew the guy had to be some kind of criminal, the way they were strapped down- and flipped open the covering on his arm. There was a self-replicating loop that had been bothering him all day, and he was pretty happy to spend the flight over trying to puzzle it out.

~

OOC: Just editing in an Armani reply, don't mind me

~

IC: Armani - Goopy Guts

She replied to Threiaa, "I would be glad to join you, pilot! Your noble sacrifice deserves to be acknowledged by New Atero."

She paired this statement with a wide, warm grin.

IC: Kororia - BOOKS

Kororia gasped in wild, bewildered wonder at the room beyond. Books! There were so, so many books! Her parents had books, and they had a lot, but this was just incredible! She could sit in here for hours and still not have read them all. She made a tiny, high pitched squeak, shaking with excitement as she took it all in.

OOC: I gotta start writing reminders for myself to post here or something, I've been terrible. Also, thanks for the update, TIN!

~

IC: Cracked Screen

The sentence on this one was, presumably, a movie reference, from the context provided by the security guard's door. Depending on how keen Shard was on old robot movies from other cultures, he might have even seen or heard of this one.

"JOHNNY 5 IS ____ !!!"

~

OOC: Earth, while it likely won't appear in HF RPG, is a canon place in the Hero Factory universe. Presumably this means that they'd have access to our goofy robot movies. Well, that's the justification I'm using for not having actual puzzles here because I forgot that those were kind of required for puzzle japery.

~

IC: Security Datapad

The open log was a half-finished report of some kind, written by a Lochlan Keye, who presumably owned these living quarters. The gist of the document was that Keye had suspicions relating to a crew member who stepped down from his position on the ship at the last minute, and was interrupted mid-sentence by something.

IC: Kororia - Library Doors

"Those are really big doors," Kororia commented eagerly. "Does that mean it's a really big library? With lots of books?!"

OOC: I'm not sure if the doors are open or closed, but I'm assuming closed to stop noise from the hallways getting in. And also to give a more grand reveal of the library.

IC: Kororia - Hug Central

"That's okay." She noted the Rahkshi's arms wrapping around herself, and thought it a very novel idea. "Oh, I get it! You hug yourself! That's so smart! That way you can get hugs even if no one else is around!"

She hugged herself, too, feeling very warm and comforted. She was very good at hugs, even when hugging herself.

IC: Armani - Goopy Guts

Armani was going to offer to tag along with the group again, but stopped at the newcomer's comment. "Hold on a moment, pilot. What you just said to our companion can very easily be seen as impolite and hurtful! But, it seems you were unaware of the implications of your statement. I am sure any offense was accidental. Just keep it in mind for next time!"

~

IC: Rorohiko - Cliffside

He looked between Xaril and his new companion, and then nodded. "Um, sure. We're done at the markets, anyway."

IC: Armani - Goopy Guts

At the greeting, Armani turned and grinned. "Hello, pilot! Thank you very much for your assistance in felling this beast. I was just discussing the matter of payment with my cohorts here. I understand your ship was damaged in the battle?"

~

IC: Rorohiko - Cliffside

"Yeah, I think-"

He stopped as he reached Xaril and an injured Steltian, and it seemed like they had stopped fighting. Rorohiko scuffed at the dirt, a little embarrassed. "Oh. I guess we didn't need to help after all. Guess that's for the best, really."

Not wanting to waste the trip he led all the way out here, he called out to the taller pair, "Um, hey Xaril... You okay?"

IC: Kororia - Friend Tour

"Do you want a hug?" Kororia offered helpfully. "You seem really sad. Hugs make me feel better when I'm sad!"

OOC: I'm a bit confused as to whether you guys split up or not. Either way, I'll give out this puzzle door japery.

IC: The Puzzle Doors

The door screens had sentences on them along with lines for the answers. Each sentence was some kind of hint. The one next to the sheriff star-spangled door had the following clue:

THOSE MOVIE NERDS CAN CHOOSE WHATEVER GOOFY SECURITY QUESTIONS THEY WANT BUT I'M TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY AND CHOOSING A GOOD AND SAFE SECURITY QUESTION.

'Sheriff' was accepted. Perhaps it was not such a good and safe security question after all. The door slid open, revealing a clean and prim living space. It was small, which was typical, but a glance around would probably tell the average Hero they were looking at the quarters of a member of security; a hat with 'SECURITY' was resting on the desk, along with a blaster holster. The blaster was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the rest of the uniform. Evidently, the guard left in a hurry from what was presumably their break.

There was a datapad resting on the desk, with some kind of log open. There were no signs of a struggle in here. The drawers were closed and locked, but they were small locks. The shelves were largely stacked with electronic books about different kinds of safety-oriented devices. There was a framed picture of a complex laser grid's inner workings magnetically attached to the wall.

IC: Kororia - Unable to Register True Meaning of Dull, Down Tone

"A few days? You must be a newbie like us! Yay!" This Rahkshi sounded sad. Kororia's eyes lighted up with understanding as she realised why. "Are you homesick? You sound sad. I thought it sounded really scary to be away from home, too! But with so many nice people here, I'm sure it's all going to be okay!"

IC: Nathaniel Zib and Quadal - Hero Factory

"Then stop making such a fuss and slowing everyone down. You could have been in your ship by now."

Quadal scanned Plume, and twittered in confirmation of Plume's claims. Zib gave Plume a look. "See? That wasn't that hard."

~

OOC: to make up for my sporadic posts I hope you are all ready for some PUZZLE JAPERY

Villains will get puzzle japery once there are villain posts

~

IC: Starwhale, Hero Side

Bliss would find no open doors to peer into. This was a spaceship. Fancy sliding space doors were pretty much mandatory. He would, however, find three doors that had lit screens next to them. Each screen appeared to have a sentence, and a line underneath to type in an answer. One of these doors, the nearest one, had a crack in the screen. The second had a sticker on the door that kind of looked like a sheriff's star, and the third's door was dented.

Ferro would see signs of some sort of struggle- scratches and laser burns on the walls- but not an awful lot.

Nex leaned over to Bulk. "I guess these kids don't get the concept of fanning out in pairs..."

"It's fine," Bulk reassured him. "This might be for the best. We don't know what we're up against here."

"But we're not going to cover ground as fast like this, and we might have hostages to deal with!"

"Relax. Why would they decide to suddenly start threatening hostages for no reason?"

"Because they're the bad guys?"

Bulk shook his head. "Things aren't always like that, Nex. Now come on, looks like we might have some clues here."

~

IC: Ken Render, Assorted Police Officers, and Corroder - Police Station

"Right here, pardner," Render said, waving Gorn down. A few officers came to take Corroder inside, much to her obvious displeasure. Render said to Gorn, "They found th' ship, summa us are stayin' ta look out fer trouble, everyone else is goin' to th' ship. Y'all wrapped up over there, since y'all took that there villain over? Stormer's marchin' over in a right tussle, ayuh."

I really would like a GM post as Blackbristle singing a sea shanty.

IC: Kororia - Friend Tour

Kororia bounced after her guide happily, making sure Hammer Friend was following with a glance over her shoulder. To her guide, she asked, "How long have you been at this school? Is it nice?"

OOC: Apologies to everyone, completely forgot I had to post D:

IC: Nathaniel Zib and Quadal - Hero Factory

"That's not how it works, Plume."

Quadal was setting about scanning Scarlet for power level. Zib checked the results. "Head down to the core charge chamber, Scarlet. Thank you for cooperating."

Quadal floated over to Plume, waving the scanner questioningly.

~

IC: XPlode and GyRotor - Villain Friend Ship

Gyro tried not to draw any attention to himself from Whipcrack's remark.

XPlode opened the entryway. "Indeed. This way, friends. Including you, Rotor. I've had you on guard duty long enough, don't you think?"

Gyro stood and, with a moment's hesitation, followed XPlode. "Was almost starting to get comfortable in there."

The interior of the ship, at the Villain entryway, was near deserted. There were doors, but many of them appeared to lead into storerooms for janitorial supplies or other such boring commodities. The hallway they stood in extended on either side some way.

~

IC: Hero Ships - Connected to Starwhale

On the Hero side, the ship was similarly deserted. However, they appeared to be in a hall containing crew quarters. It was eerily quiet.

~

IC: Preston Stormer, Chief Drax, Ken Render, Mara Quiver - Mekron City

Stormer checked his messages, cursed, and said, "They've found the Starwhale. What are those kids doing over there...?"

He started to stalk towards the direction the other Heroes had disappeared to. To Jade, he said, "Good work. Wrap it up, we have a place to be."

Drax motioned to some of his fellow officers, who followed him. "What's going on?"

"They found the runaway ship. We'll clean up here and act as backup. Seems like there are some criminals on the same course."

"What about my city? There's criminals prowling around the place, and there's no way they're just dropping in for no reason."

Stormer turned to the Heroes gathered around the Police Station. "Stay here and help Chief Drax with any other trouble that comes his way."

Render nodded, having found a place to sit and was doing some idle work on some doodad in his pocket, and Quiver mumbled "Y-Yes" from where she was watching his work.

Stormer turned back to Drax. "Problem solved."

"... Right."

~

IC: Black Phantom - Mass Post Grand Whamma Slam

He listened to Corroder, and sighed softly to himself. If he wanted something done right...

"Very well. I'll see what I can do."

He had had no intention of revealing himself, of course. He had better things to do than to dance around in front of a group of Heroes. But, he did need Corroder back. If anything else, he needed to ensure she wouldn't be spilling all the details of his plans at the first opportunity. He sighed again, and started the trek towards the fight.

OOC: I can't remember where Black Phantom was or what he was doing, admittedly, but gosh darn it I will post >:U

~

IC: Quark Qrew - Meanwhile

Quark looked into the smoking, screeching wreck that was her engine. She cursed a few times, clicked her helmet over her head, and then unleashed the more colourful end of her vocabulary into the confines of the transparent dome.

Thumper leaned down to Flood. "Do you think we're in trouble?"

"Well, rationally, no. We didn't intentionally upset the balance of the ship when Quark was trying to do a complicated manoeuvre around an asteroid belt, and it wouldn't have done so if not for that gravity stabiliser snapping. And, we weren't the ones to hit the ship itself."

"Mostly."

"Yes, mostly, though I doubt you could have helped being thrown forwards by the ship spinning. So, technically, we're not in trouble. But, I think it would be best to stay out of Quark's way for now, nonetheless."

Thumper watched Quark throw a wrench at a nearby rock, still cursing up a storm from the muffled sound that emanated from her helmet. "I guess. I feel bad, though. What an unlucky break."

"Nice pun."

"Huh?"

Flood glanced at her. "You know, you said 'unlucky break'. And something had broken."

"Yeah," Thumper replied, confused. "It wasn't lucky that it broke, so it can't be a lucky break."

"No, the saying... Never mind." He stepped backwards to inspect her back plating where she'd flown into the console. "Do you want some help with your back? I can see some shards sticking in the seams."

"Huh? Oh, I hadn't noticed. Yes, please. I'm sure Quark will be happy to have pieces of it returned to her! She might even be able to fix it."

Flood's gaze fixated on what looked to be a very complex component of something, bent and mangled by the movements of Thumper's plating. "... Maybe..."

I'm getting to both of those things. I'll try to do them later in the day- it's an incredible pain to do long GM posts on a mobile device, which is what I make most of my posts on. That's why I sometimes only post as Zib or some other character that only needs a short post.

IC: Nathaniel Zib - Hero Factory

"Now just hold on!" Zib said quickly. "Scarlet is right. Both of you need to be fully charged before going on any sort of mission. Gyro has a whole ship full of Heroes after him- well, after the ship, but still. He'll be just as fine with you two turning up a few minutes later compared to you two turning up low on charge."

IC: Armani - Goopy Guts

Armani considered this briefly. "Well, the best place to find him would likely be the Tower. I would try there first. At the very least, there would be someone to point you in the right direction. He is very busy, being Captain and such. I would be glad to accompany you, if you would like, to lend further credibility to your story. Or, you could simply show him your incredibly tasteful badge, though he may still require some manner of proof of your actions, if he hadn't witnessed them himself."

~

IC: Rorohiko - NERD CREW Expedition

He followed behind, but in front of Karanta. "Look, sorry for insisting, but I just don't think we should leave him out there by himself if he's in trouble. And I don't know if it's a good idea for any of us to go back alone, so we all have to go."

OOC: I asked this in the Discussion topic already, but to answer Klanadack's question: what GM posts are the Mekron group waiting on? I thought they were waiting on other players. Or were you looking for a timeskip?

IC: Hero Ships

Bulk and Nex initialised docking procedures on the Starwhale, magnetising to the larger ship. They opened communication between the two ships.

"All right, Heroes, here's the plan," said Bulk. "We're going to fan out in pairs and search the ship. Report back with anything you find, and try and get any hostages out of harm's way."

"And no more posing as villains," added Nex. "Seriously, I'm pretty sure it's not going to work twice. I'm honestly surprised it worked once."

~

IC: Villain Friend Ship

On the other side of the ship, the villains were also docking. XPlode stood beside the pilot's seat.

"Well, here we are," he said nonchalantly. "I suppose the smartest thing to do, with Heroes on the way, is attempt to sneak off with as much loot as we can, and leave whoever took over the ship for the Heroes to sort out."

~

OOC: The Above Two ICs: In Which I Reveal I Have No Idea How The Docking Situation Would Work So Just Pretend It's Working

Apparently self-healing hulls are a thing in some ships in Hero Factory lore, so I'm guessing cutting into a wall is probably fine. Probably.

~

IC: Nathaniel Zib - Hero Factory

Zib flagged Plume down immediately. "Plume! There you are. It looks like the other Heroes have reached the Starwhale, which also seems to be the target of the villains Gyro climbed on board with. With any luck, he'll still be with them."

IC: Kororia - Tour Group

"Isn't there a big library here? A really big one, with lots of books?" She bounced on her heels, grinning. "I like books!"

IC: Kororia - Making Friends Like No One's Business

"Yay!" She'd made so many friends already! This seemed like a very nice school. "We should explore the WHOLE school!"

OOC: Sorry for the wait! I did a really quick post- I keep remembering to post when I don't have the time to do so >:v

IC: Villain Friend Ship and Hero Factory Ships

When the ships drew close to the Starwhale, the first thing that was apparent was that it was aptly named. Like a metal, cosmic Cetacean, the craft drifted with fins and rudders idling in the void, engines fired but not at full throttle. Whether it was because the hijackers thought they had successfully fled, or because of some other reason, no one could tell.

If there were any way to carry sound in space, one might hear the frustrated sigh of a fellow GM witnessing the shape of the ship.

IC: Kororia - Arranging A Tour

"Really?! That would be so cool, thank you!!!" She turned to her Hammer Friend. "Do you wanna come? We can all look around together!"

IC: Rorohiko - Uh

"That's, uh, not what I said," Rorohiko said, giving her a confused look. "I said I heard him yelling from that direction, and maybe we should go see if he's okay. I mean, I'm no fighter, but we can't just leave him there if he's in trouble, right?"

I went to post last night and realised I was the last to post. So next post will wait until someone else has posted. I don't really like editing in new posts because it doesn't alert people who follow the topic to new posts, so it's more likely to go unnoticed.

EDIT: I have to edit this in but @ the question about Mekron in the IC topic: who are you guys waiting on? To my understanding, all the GM-owned NPCs are either arrested or not there at the fight. Or are you looking for a timeskip?