She felt the weight depart from her and immediately scrambled back up to her feet, ears ringing from the point blank detonation. That had perhaps not been the best idea, but it seemed to have worked as the woman was now nowhere to be seen and in her place where Leblanc and Crispin. Perhaps not the best improvement, to replace an assailant with two sociopaths, but she was glad she wasn’t getting assaulted anymore. She gave the two a thumbs up as she would have no idea how loud her voice would be due to the blast and then turned to head back to the troop line.
Once they had arrived at the fort Althea immediately escorted the stretcher all the way to the main building, pausing only to hand over the journal to the captain. There they were greeted by Dr Eirin Clemmons, who took over the care of the unlucky Wagnil. Dr Clemmons ensured he was properly bandaged and given a bed to lay in while he recovered.
“Your stitching could have been better” “yes Dr” “And ze wounds should have been bandaged” “yes Dr” “Do you have any injuries?” “no Dr” “I’m glad. You should thank those two gentlemen for their hard work” “oh, uh, right”
Althea turned away from her relative and walked back over to where Leon and Tzi had been left after the patient had been unloaded.
“Thank you both for your efforts in carrying Wagnil. I am so sorry I wasn’t there to help with ze wolf and boulder attack ”
She said sheepishly, before adding:
“Shall we go find the others? I don’t know about you but I could do with drying off by the fire after being tackled into ze snow by that shark toothed woman.”
Down in one of the generator rooms a young woman passed to and fro, occasionally stopping to inspect some part of the machinery or tighten the occasional bolt. Sitting on its haunches in the center of the room was a large vaguely humanoid robot, numerous cabals leading from the generators all gathering up into a single line and plugging into the back of it.
”You know this isn’t working right? Generators like these might work for those rebel shanty towns, but a masterwork like me needs so much more. You're not even letting me draw everything, just whatever they have to spare after lighting everything”
Shen extracts herself from where she had been inspecting an inactive generator. It had been a harrowing few days getting here, and the calamity was such a massive fuck you from the universe. Barely a month after they had saved the world it had fallen to pieces. Her life’s work, the dream of xcom, torn away from them all almost as soon as it had been achieved by a cruel catastrophe. She was understandably distraught, and Julian was not helping in the slightest as he carefully nudged up against the edges of his restraints to rub salt in the wounds. As a result of her stress, she had risen early in the morning and tried to make herself useful, tinkering with the various machines in the base simply to keep her hands busy and her frustration and anger with the universe in check.
”well it’s all we have” she activates the generator and it hums back to life, sounding a little healthier than the others.
”These machines are older than our father, what kind of imbecile builds two identical underground bases powered by this kind of tech.”
”you mean my father.”
”He had help making you, I on the other hand was a solo project, which makes his parenthood of me purer than yours”
This might have gone on but at that point Jack’s announcement interrupted them.
”There’s a mayor? Did you exclude me from voting?”
If there had been an election she most certainly would have. ”No idea who this guy is, but he has the right idea. Getting a squad together for an excursion could get me the resources I need to upgrade this place. Maybe we can find good enough radio equipment contact the Avenger” Shen was convinced that if she could make it to safety, then xcom with their self sufficient alien cargo hauler could do so to.
”Well then. Have fun out there fending off the freak shows with your spanner”
”Julian, unplug yourself and come with me”
”I only have this one body now, do you really expect me to risk father’s greatest achievement on a glorified grocery run! The insolence of your As you command” Julian's voice rose in a building anger until it suddenly lost all of it’s character for a moment, Shen's alterations kicking in and pacifying the raging AI.
Aften a brief delay where they were stalled by Julian’s awkward squeezing through one of the few doorframes in the place they both walked round to the office through the other much more conveniently sized corridors. The loud thunk, thunk, thunk of Julian's motorised limbs echoing through the corridor as they turned the corner and entered the office.
”hey, you must be jack. I’m Lily Shen, head of X-com’s engineering department”
”You’re the new commander? I hope your not a bu- tactical genius -cile like him.”
”And that is Julian, please ignore everything he says out of combat”
Introductions given Lily took a moment to examine the people in the room.
As expected from from someone who had seemingly put himself in charge of the place jack looked and dressed like a smarmy asshole, she was also rather disturbed by the fact that his face appeared to be held on by pins. What was he hiding.
There was a cowboy straight out of one of those pre occupation films. Tec out of the 70s and men from the 19th century. Wonderfull.
There was a rather meek looking goth girl accompanying a woman with the build of a soldier that was highly visable thanks to her being in her underwear. This surprised Lilly less than most, after all she had seen x-com operatives go on missions wearing nothing but skin tight leather booty shorts and a top hat.
Finally there was…
”What the fuck is that alien doing here?” she practically snarled, pointing an accusatory finger and the chitinous winged woman.
For Julian's part he had been analysing how he would kill all these people and it looked like he might get to do just that. The 8 foot tall wall of metal turned to face the alien and lunged towards her with surprising speed for such a large machine. Lily’s restraining programs had never anticipated the existence of aliens that might be considered allies, Julian was taking full advantage of that fact.
Julian's metal arm three fingered hand grabs the alien queen around the neck before hoisting her into the air. The fact that she remains completely calm was disappointing to him. The stoic acceptance of death is so boring after the hundredth time.
”Julian! Don’t!”
It comes to the AI’s attention that he is now floating in the air while holding the woman. Presumably she is psionic. How irritating. As was the fact that Lily had acted fast enough to verbally lock him into inaction.
”Make up your mind Lily”
”I didn’t order you to do that”
”She’s an alien. Isn’t killing aliens what X-com does”
”Just everyone put everyone else down.”
There is a thunk as the two armored beings drop to the floor.
”Julian, heel”
Julian returns to Shen’s side, seething with rage internally. Shen herself watches the alien woman, highly distrustful of her despite having just de-escalated the situation.
”Don’t give me reason to regret calling him off.” she says finally.
does she not need to breath? actually I suppose not, seeing as a bunch of sc levels are on space platforms. I would have thought she might be a little vulnerable of a neck snap or crush breaking the spinal cord, so I would think its more a mutually assured destruction situation. Kerrigan is paralyzed from the neck down and Julian is perforated by her claw wings.
Iris had to admit she was a little amused by the pair’s attempts at employment being shot down. She was also a little relieved she would not be left behind by them as they studied under an expert mage. She decided to not ask why a mage would make an artificial being look like an 8 year old as she was far too busy absorbing everything else he was saying, particularly his comments about Yggdrasil and her gift.
She was certainly interested in how it would possibly expand in future, talking to nature certainly sounded interesting though she was unsure as to what tales a tree would tell. She was also interested in the prospect of Yggdrasil’s guidance, though as the pair had demonstrated with their attempts at gaining apprenticeship it was likely she would need to become something worth tutoring before she approached the mighty nature monster.
”Quick question, why did you call Yggdrasil a freak?"
It was interesting that the artificial boy would insult Yggdrasil yet still recommend her to seek him out. She imagined she could get better info about the lord of the forest from the chief and Aya, but the homunculus might have something of an outside perspective that might come in handy.
There was also the fact that they all had that otherworldly information within them, a strange thing indeed. All with gifts, all with forin info and all…
”Oh and I don’t know how useful the info is but we were all asleep for a few days after being born. That might be sign someone has otherworldly info like us"
Powers & Abilities: Genius robotics engineer:- capable of creating and controlling various robots and mechas to help with crime fighting. These are either controlled from a wrist mounted computer or piloted directly. Always has access to small hand sized spider drones that can be used for reconnaissance, remote repair or interface, shoot taser darts and can as a last resort be set to self destruct.
Augmented body:- Ularius’s lower half is a centaur like configuration of advanced metallic limbs. These are relatively tough and very strong. The allow him to reach high speeds, leap several stories and the manipulators on the forelimbs allow for rapid climbing. His upper half is that of a gorilla and is thus no slouch either, being far stronger than a human.
Gadgets:- always equipped with a tranquilizer dart gun, a wrist mounted computer, various repair tools, handcuffs, lock-picks and other small but useful devices.
Heavy ordinance:- has access to various more dangerous weapons, but will generally only bring an a mission what they think will be necessary. A laser cannon’s for alien invasions, a net launcher for bank robbers.
Personality: A relatively serious individual, Ularius sees his position as something of a penance for the damage his creations were used to do. That said, he has come to enjoy this super hero antics, he became a robotics engineer to help people and to do so directly is an enjoyable experience. While he is generally focused when he sees some interesting piece of technology he can't help but attempt to investigate it, be it another hero’s tools or a villain's weapons.
Origin Story: Once a prominent robotics scientist from gorilla city, Doctor Ularius was accompanying King Solovar on his second tour of the USA when the king was assassinated by a car bomb. Ularius was caught in the blast and his lower body severely damaged by shrapnel. He was rushed to hospital, but his ambulance was intercepted by mercenaries sent by an opportunistic Lex Luthor. He was taken to a secure facility owned by LuthorCorp where he was forced to develop various machines and robotics advances that were then passed off as the achievements of the senior scientist of the facility; Dr Anderson. While some of these developments benefited humanity at large, far to many where military weapons either used by Luthor in his various criminal activities or were sold to the highest bidder. Anderson particularly liked to torment Ularius by showing him the worst of the damages caused by the robots he was creating, while also bing in charge of coercing him to keep working.
With the general disarray and among Luthors underlings caused by his arrest and sentencing the Doctor made plans for his escape, vastly improving the augments he had built to repair his body, making them on par to the combat robots he had been loathed to create for the scientists. He managed to finish his preparations right as swat forces were sent to investigate the facility at the behest of Luthor Jr after the sites staff refused to acknowledge his new ownership of the company and sealed themselves inside.
Ularius broke free from his captivity when his captors were preoccupied with the Swat assault. The doctor then saved the woefully unprepared police force from the machines of his own creation, attacking Luthor’s mooks from the rear, capturing some of them and shutting off or destroying the warbots. Dr Anderson attempted to escape in a prototype stealth mec and Ularius was forced to choose between capturing his tormentor or stopping the facility from self destructing with many humans still inside it. Compassion won over revenue and he chose the latter and as a result the Dr escaped.
It was after the facility was stabilized and the remaining robots defeated that Ularius met Luthor Jr. In the ensuing discussion the Doctor decided to join Alexander’s new superhero team, where he hoped he would be able to make amends for the damages his creations had done in the hands of the man’s father.
Powers & Abilities: Genius robotics engineer:- capable of creating and controlling various robots and mechas to help with crime fighting. These are either controlled from a wrist mounted computer or piloted directly. Always has access to small hand sized spider drones that can be used for reconnaissance, remote repair or interface, shoot taser darts and can as a last resort be set to self destruct.
Augmented body:- Ularius’s lower half is a centaur like configuration of advanced metallic limbs. These are relatively tough and very strong. The allow him to reach high speeds, leap several stories and the manipulators on the forelimbs allow for rapid climbing. His upper half is that of a gorilla and is thus no slouch either, being far stronger than a human.
Gadgets:- always equipped with a tranquilizer dart gun, a wrist mounted computer, various repair tools, handcuffs, lock-picks and other small but useful devices.
Heavy ordinance:- has access to various more dangerous weapons, but will generally only bring an a mission what they think will be necessary. A laser cannon’s for alien invasions, a net launcher for bank robbers.
Personality: A relatively serious individual, Ularius sees his position as something of a penance for the damage his creations were used to do. That said, he has come to enjoy this super hero antics, he became a roboticist to help people and to do so directly is an enjoyable experience. While he is generally focused when he sees some interesting piece of technology he can't help but attempt to investigate it, be it another hero’s tools or a villain's weapons.
Origin Story: Once a prominent robotics scientist from gorilla city, Doctor Ularius was accompanying King Solovar on his second tour of the USA when the king was assassinated by a car bomb. Ularius was caught in the blast and his lower body severely damaged by shrapnel. He was rushed to hospital, but his ambulance was intercepted by mercenaries sent by an opportunistic Lex Luthor. He was taken to a secure facility owned by LuthorCorp where he was forced to develop various machines and robotics advances that were then passed off as the achievements of the senior scientist of the facility; Dr Anderson. While some of these developments benefited humanity at large, far to many where military weapons either used by Luthor in his various criminal activities or were sold to the highest bidder. Anderson particularly liked to torment Ularius by showing him the worst of the damages caused by the robots he was creating, while also bing in charge of coercing him to keep working.
With the general disarray and among Luthors underlings caused by his arrest and sentencing the Doctor made plans for his escape, vastly improving the augments he had built to repair his body, making them on par to the combat robots he had been loathed to create for the scientists. He managed to finish his preparations right as swat forces were sent to investigate the facility at the behest of Luthor Jr after the sites staff refused to acknowledge his new ownership of the company and sealed themselves inside.
Ularius broke free from his captivity when his captors were preoccupied with the Swat assault. The doctor then saved the woefully unprepared police force from the machines of his own creation, attacking Luthor’s mooks from the rear, capturing some of them and shutting off or destroying the warbots. Dr Anderson attempted to escape in a prototype stealth mec and Ularius was forced to choose between capturing his tormentor or stopping the facility from self destructing with many humans still inside it. Compassion won over revenue and he chose the latter and as a result the Dr escaped.
It was after the facility was stabilized and the remaining robots defeated that Ularius met Luthor Jr. In the ensuing discussion the Doctor decided to join Alexander’s new superhero team, where he hoped he would be able to make amends for the damages his creations had done in the hands of the man’s father.
Izurich,
Drifting Pollen,
Rezod92,
Lexisheeps,
xxjessicaxx,
pppppp,
Timemaster,
Eviledd1984,
pkken,
VitaVitaAR
