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Lily     A snowy day like any other snowy day. Bright sun in the sky, fresh snow on the ground and Lily's up in a small tower, a sniper rifle in hand. "All's clear, Rei?" she radios to her partner. The red-haired AI is pacing around the outside of the village, scouting for the sniper in the 'nest', "All's clear so far, Lily! How long did we agree to this for? It's a bit chilly, don't you think?"

    "Yea, but just a couple more days, shouldn't be too long now! If nothing shows up, then nothing shows up, they're gearing up for a festival you know, got to make sure nothing interrupts it!"

    "Okay! I'll keep a lookout!"

    At least, the cold may be the least bit of their worries soon enough.
Mortimer Balman      Something.. Strange, in the distance. The sound of wild animals having a bit of a freakout from the northern forests. A massive flock of birds suddenly all flies from the trees, screeching as they tear hell bent for the horizon as hard as they can. Other animals are heard and occasionally seen in distance fleeing from some unknown aggressor. Mountain lions, deer, a couple of wolves and various small tree-bound creatures.

     A strange, green glow, far behind the treeline. Distant and cold as the freshly fallen snow, with a malevolence that is difficult to put one's finger on..
Staren     A blob of red light shoots down out of the sky at incredibly speed, colliding with the snow... and then resolving into Staren, armored up like a soldier out of a science fiction movie. He looks around until he hears noise from the forest, then looks that way, and... Cait Sith wings appear on his back as he takes flight to try and get above the treeline for a better look.
Silica     Silica comes flying in astride a Wyvern, silvery scales, small plates of armour where scales are thin. Silica herself is wearing a dark purple robe with a silvery breastplate, small pieces of metal in strategic places and a grim expression... "Newbies... it just had to be newbies." she murmurs to herself, guiding her mount down to hover above the village, giving a wave of greeting to Lily in the tower... She's a Cait Sith. Literally a catgirl, ears and tail and everything.
Tomoe Tomoe was quick to send out party invites to those who would take them, after that? Tomoe was on the move now to reach Lily's location and thankfully Silica is also responding she knows Staren is too. She is keeping to the skies as she exits the nearest warp gate. She's flying at high speed with her bright red wings out.

<<Kirito and I have been trying to keep tabs on her since she made herself known. Just remember she's not a cargo-shipment of baggage like say we are.>>

That last bit is meant in good humour but it does hammer a point that Lily didn't get mixed up in the death game as they had been.
Lily     Silica and Tomoe would see not only Lily's health bar but Rei's too! "Okay, I see you two." there's a pause, "Who's the other guy with wings and armor, a friend?" she trains the sniper on the forest and hmms. She trains the scope onto Staren and she tilts her head, "Wonder who that is." she mutters before going back to the forest.

    Meanwhile, Rei's down there, looking up towards the wyvern, "Oh, that's Silica!" the red-headed AI starts waving towards the Wyvern, signaling the landing point... "Now, where's the Tomoe?" she mutters, "Hey, Tomoe, rally on me!" and suddenly, in any mapping software, there's a rally point indicator. "Get ready to try and fight the one thing that might come out of that forest. At least, it should only be one...."
Silica     "Don't start Tomoe, that was one time. Floor Fifteen, wasn't even the boss." says Silica to Tomoe's reference to 'Healing Shivs'. She doesn't seem to be coming in to land, though she does wave back to Rei.

    With a breath, the young looking Cait Sith starts to speak, Words of Power appearing and rotating around her as she starts to cast a spell. False Norse comes from her lips, and each set of runes locks into place, until the spell is complete and a bubble of hexagonal energy panels appears around herself and her mount, Tomoe, Lily and Rei. The field fades away after a moment, but the Status bar would show a defensive buff for each party member.

    Staren is too far away, unfortunately, but she does aside to Lily. "A man wearing high-tech armour? That's probably Mister Staren. He's a friend to our Guild."
Tomoe Tomoe says "That would be Staren. He helped the GU out a lot."

She notes to Lily and she keeps on moving for rally point.

"Understood I'm moving to the marker now."

She picks up speed a bit more as she heads towards it. "Just wounds sounds like it's going to be a hard fight."

If that is the case it's better than fighting a horde of creatures. She makes ready to intercept.

"Whatever it is I'll attempt to draw its primary attention and keep it on me."

With that she'll fly ahead intending to intercept whatever is waiting for them.
Mortimer Balman      Something is definitely very wrong out there.. An ugly noise is heard. It's like a dull humming at first, but swiftly becomes an incessant chattering and buzzing. Trees begin to fall in quick succession- but something is wrong. They make no sound of hitting the ground, as though they were being caught or otherwise destroyed before they can meet the floor. Within only a minute or so's time, the edge of the forest closest to civilization collapses, revealing that the forest is being *consumed* at a terrifying pace.

     Hundreds, if not thousands, of small skittering spider-like insectoid machines. Each with a single glowing green eye, tearing down trees and consuming them with some sort of particle laser before they can hit the ground. Those animals not fortunate enough to get away can also be seen being dismantled; the few capable of fighting back do so feebly and futiley before disappearing into the swarm. Most of which is now moving like a small river of steel toward the village.. The next largest source of 'food' as it were. Some of them seem to be staying behind, using their particle lasers to begin constructing some sort of edifice. And.. There are shadows lurking just past effective vision, hidden by snowy fog.. They're starting to follow the swarm, though.
Staren     Well. That doesn't look good. Staren buzzes over to the sniper tower and offers Lily what looks like a futuristic assault rifle. "Here. Lily right? If you want something besides a newbie gun..." If she takes it, it's a railgun with an underbarrel HEIAP-without-the-I micromissile launcher. He also hands over a pair of AR glasses. "So you can see enemies we've detected around obstacles and such." It would provide things like targeting reticle and ammo count if she didn't already have them...

    He doesn't stay to chat, though. He flies out over the group of tiny robots and adresses them. "Hey! If anyone can understand me... you're headed straight for a village! If you do not respond, we WILL defend it with lethal force!"

    If he DOESN'T get a response, missile racks pop up behind his shoulders and rain tiny explosives down on the swarm!
Lily     With the forest being consumed, Lily makes a surprised sound from the sight in her scope... with the animals running being dismantled before her eyes... she almost starts to cry, letting out a few shots with her optical sniper rifle towards the scarab group before dropping down. "Hey... hey leader... umm. Run. Something's devouring that forest and animals, Rei's looking into it and some allies have made a very timely appearance."

    Cue the panic from the town. "No no no no panic! No panic at all! Run that way, run south! We'll hold them off, I promise you'll get to do your festival!" ... as people start running towards the south to leave, Lily points her UFG up into the air and fires, pulling herself back up to the nest. ... And an airdrop of a new gun. "Oh. Oh neat."

    Back at the grouping, Rei's on the move and is starting to run parallel towards the scarab swarm, firing at them with a basic optical assault rifle, bullets of hard light fire rapidly outside the gun and towards the scarab groupings, trying to disperse some of them at least, "Ahhhhh! What are these!?!" she shouts, at least... health bars aren't going down yet....
Tomoe Oh Tomoe was wrong it's a bunch of little things damn it, she's not happy about that but she sees the strange machines are devouring everything, plants, animals, likely people if they are able to. The good news is Lily is in the village and can get people moving. Staren has concord connections she can try to lean on later to help them if they are displaced but for now she starts barking a few tactics, she keeps top the air and will start chanting runes dance about her body and then light rais will rain down upon the devouring horde namely focused on trying to thin out the ones who are leaving the building ones are ominous but they are not actively eating things.

Tomoe will not sit still and she will keep moving about changing spell types, changing between fire, light and lightning blasts.
Silica     Silica is about to wheel her mount around midair, but then Lily starts evacuating the village and the others engage the swarm. She pats her mount on the neck. "Lets go. Hellfire!" she guides the flying monster toward the swarm, and as she dives down, the Wyvern opens its mouth and unleashes a torrent of red flame, strafing the Scarabs with the superhot fire.
Mortimer Balman      Staren will see the true face of the enemy first, with his fancy technology. Or rather.. He'll see the face of the enemy, wearing someone else's face. A human face that has been stretched over a metal skull. Dessicated eyes hanging from the sockets, leaving only the green glowing lights of some mechanical entity. There are no responses to his threats. When the missiles strike the swarm, they do not seem to care. Some merely stop to harvest the dead and scurry back, while the swarm continues to surge forward.

     Then the rest will see them, as they emerge from the banks of fog.. A small legion of robots of some sort. They are skeletal and horrific in design. Their fingers are meter-long talons that clack together, their legs have a subtle third joint that gives them an awkward loping gait- though someone like Staren would be able to determine quickly, they can likely jump and climb like Hell with that joint for mobility- and their eyes all glow that same malevolent green that Lily saw earlier. Their stance is hunched and their heads wobble about as though loose, twitching in a maniacal fashion that speaks to some sort of madness, which might be less unnerving if they were not all as silent as the grave.

     All of them wear the stretched skins of various humanoid races like people might wear clothes, and most of them drip with fresh or old blood that stains the snow. The rotting flesh that clings and sometimes flakes off of their steely carapace can be smelled long before they can get close enough to fight and it is an unpleasant smell indeed. The cold is not helping as much as one would hope, and indeed the abominations seem to be unhappy that they are in such a cold place. Those who wear the oldest, most rotten chunks of flesh clutch at their 'garments' as if fearful the cold will destroy them.

     But they are nonetheless marching, shambling, toward the village..
Kirito     "The heck are these things? Some kind of zombie robots?! ... Zombots?" Kirito can't help but squish the words together for brevity. Hearing the commotion over the radio, he flew over as quickly as he could... and is now swooping high above the battlefield, keeping the element of surprisewhile he studies the battlefield situation. The smell, though... the smell...

    Awful, buried memories float to the surface of his thoughts and his face dizzies with nausea. He briefly looks about ready to hurl!

    For various reasons, he simply does -NOT- like zombies of the realistic sort. Cartoonish or Monster Zombies are one thing, but this? Oh no. No no no no.

    "There's no winning this fight. We can only hope to slow them down and buy time..."

    And there's no helping it. He'll have to take his chances with those strange energy weapons.

    Down below, those fighting the horrible swarm see something DARK COLORED plunge like a bolt of black lightning right into the middle of the pack. An engulfing wave of snow's kicked up from the point of impact, and the sounds of battle instantly erupt. Metal on metal, accompanied by brilliant flashes of various color-coded elemental energies scattering this way and that.

    For Kirito has plunged into the thick of things, hoping to sow a little chaos and draw attention, then thrum up his wings and SWOOP UP HIGH again to harass and distract the swarm. If it just stops advancing for five seconds, that's a minor victory in his book!
Lily     Lily swaps over to that new weapon Staren's letting her use... she examines it and frowns, this isn't one of the two weapons she knows, but... it's simple. Aim bullet eject point towards enemy, press trigger, right? Slipping the other goggles on, she gets this overconfident grin upon her face... then a click. The rail-shot launches out of the gun towards whatever it's aimed at, the head of one of the robot people down there that isn't Staren. "Hmm, what's this button do?"

    Click

    Shortly after, the micromissile barrage launches from the underslung launcher, streaking towards the group.... shortly after Kirito arrives. "crap..." beat "Incoming missiles!" she shouts over the raido, with an immediate party invite shot towards Kirito.

    Rei swaps over to her pistol... it glows green and she starts firing at ... allies?! Those it hits would find themselves refreshed, from the cure bullet technique. "Hey, I'm Rei, swapping over to curative support for a moment!"
Tomoe Tomoe is doing her damnest to thin them out with her magic trying to buy Lily as much time as she can do so. Well, that's the plan at least on her end of it, she'll keep to the skies raining spells. Then the ones covered in flesh arrive? She will end up raining fire on them, just as much fire as she can.

She does not want to engage them up close she can but then she sees Kirito whom she's managed to call in for help.

She's keenly away that and she'll end up giving him what support fire she can, damn it she got to do something stupid now.

She'll summon her Naginata Mooncutter and then drops down into the fray aiming to ad her own attacks to help Kirito and keep him from being totally overwhelmed, maybe with her help they can slow them down for like eight seconds.

In the back of her mind she's still feeing this fear of dearth these machines were clearly made to mimic the dead of some species or another and dear god it's working just the silent mechanical undead keep coming.
Staren     The scarabs Staren blows apart become food for those remaining. Staren frowns, but even when Kirito says the fight is unwinnable, Staren replies with <"I wouldn't call it just yet, Kirito!">

    He does switch over to his armor's internal air supply to avoid the stink, though. <"Flyers, be careful -- those things look like they can probably jump pretty high!"> He's trying to decide how best to fight the swarm. His particle beams and laser rifles are great for shooting a few targets, but there are just so many... ultimately, despite the lackluster effect of the missiles, he pulls a missile launcher out of his bag and starts firing down on the scarabs from high above. They can cannibilize eachother... but each explosion still means fewer of them, so eventually there will be none left, right?

    He hopes so...
Mortimer Balman      The strange mechanical horrors are.. About as durable as they look, really. They are thin skeletal frames and their only protection is the stolen flesh they wear, that and the metallic nature of their bones. There's just one teeny, tiny problem. And that problem is that Staren's hopes are not only to be dashed, but further stabbed and their wounds salted as they are trampled.

     It's hard to notice at first, but it becomes readily apparent in scant seconds. The bodies of the fallen robots are not touched by the strange scarabs, who crawl past or over them. Their bodies simply... Put themselves back together. Metal joints and chunks of circuitry are drawn back to their constitution bodies and stitch themselves up in seconds. And then they pick themselves up, and continue marching.

     Their movements are hard to predict but for someone as fast as Kirito, they don't even seem to bother trying to go after him. They're still marching for the village.. Or, more accurately, the people. The scarabs are simply heading for the village, but the 'zombots' are heading for the villagers.. Either they can see or sense the living and desire fresh victims. They break into a disturbingly fast run, upon realizing where their quarry is.

     Holy crap they're quick.
Silica     Silica gags as the Pariahs start coming into range. She pulls up and away, wheeling around. <Okay Mister Staren... but I can't hit them from this distance... not that I really want to get any closer.> she radios back, wincing as she watches the melee and the inexorable march of the swarm. "They're robots... right? They have to have some kind of central control if they swarm like this... maybe some kind of mainframe?" she looks over to Kirito, "No, we can't try that. NOt enough time, and I doubt these things are compatable with a smart phone..."

    And then the pariahs start running. "NO!" Silica tosses caution to the wind, and wheels her wyvern around, diving down on the charging 'zombots' and, using her Wyverns razor sharp talons, tries to scoop a few of them up and pull them apart, scattering parts all over so it takes longer for them to reassemble themselves... of course she has to get faaaar too close to do this.
Lily     Lily's not happy to see this, the bodies of the fallen putting themselves back together like freaky legos... "WHY!?" she shouts, looking back towards the town. With it sufficiently empty, Lily nods and starts to grapple gun her way towards the frontline, swapping to her trusty assault rifle. "I'm coming in! Town's fine, it's empty!" a pause, "Mostly, they should be fine."

    Running across the snow-fields, "Rei, back me up! Swap to assault rifle, follow me on my command!"

    "Aye! Swapping in three... two... one..." there's a bit of a flash as Rei's pistol swaps over to the same model of assault rifle that Lily has.

    "NOW!" Lily shouts and both the AI and the Augma user just /RUN RIGHT INTO THE GROUP!/ spraying and (mostly) praying optical ammunition at anything and everything that isn't an ally. Scarabs, metal monsters... if it wasn't green on her radar, then it was getting shot! "RAAAAAAAAAA!"

    Click...clickclickclick.. "Reload. Quickly."
Staren     Staren blows bots apart but... they pull themselves together? <"No way. Energy's not free. They must have SOME limit."> He stops blowing up scarabs though, switching to his laser rifle and flying after the flayed ones. Let's try energy weapons! With the laser rifle and the particle beam cannons built into his armor, he starts focus firing them one at a time. If they're melted enough, even if they can pull parts together their functioning should be impaired, right?

    Well, at any rate, the answer will tell him /something/.
Kirito     After knocking down some of the things and seeing them self-repair on him, Kirito abaondons his strategy and takes to the air again, swoping towards the Zombots - the things most threatening his interests here!

    How to kill them though? Once again, the fact that he's mainly a damage dealer is turning ugly! "It's not like I can just DISINTEGRATE these things..."

    Oh well. If brute force doesn't work, he'll just get clever! And he does this by swooping in at the leading Zombots... and aiming to CHOP THEM IN HALF at the waist, then kick the tops far from their bottoms!
Tomoe Tomoe makes note the fallen robots are not touched by the scrab like ones and they are getting back up. Tomoe is still in the thick of thing and trying to help cut them down to make them stay down. The ones charging the village get Tomoe's attention and she will fly for them breaking off and taking hits in the process it hurts her HP bar is dropping and she having to make for the intercept.

She'll use her size speed and mass to barrel into the machines going after the villagers. She will attack them take hits and also quickly pop her defence debuff on any of the bystanders she can. She's just putting herself in extream harm's way to try and keep the horrors on her or give the people a better chance to get away at the very least.
Mortimer Balman      Fortunately, the heroic party realizes quickly that they robots are smart enough to not bother with them, because they're either too fast or too strong. And they had some clever ideas of their own, like scattering pieces! That definitely slows the robots down. And the scarab swarm is.. Pretty thin now. Only a handful get to the walls of the village and begin chewing down said walls. They need more mass and energy for whatever construction they've been building- it's some kind of.. Archway, back in the heart of where the forest used to be. That forest is gone, by the way.

     As for the robots.. Well, being picked apart so rapidly and scattered so far apart means they need to try and deal with the heroes. The wyvern is the largest target. During one of Silica's passes overhead, several long claws catch the beast by the feet and legs.. And then more of them latch on. More, and more, and more.. The beast will be pulled down in short order, leaving Silica very little time to jump to safety. And she will get a firsthand look at what the machines do- they are flensing and shredding her valiant steed, meticulously and methodically. They leave not a scrap of flesh on the bone.. Some of them are adding its hide to their skin-robes. Others are rubbing chunks of flesh against their unmoving mouths, as if trying to eat but completely unable to. Only one of them is not 'feeding' on the beast, and that one.. Is looking at Silica, slowly shambling toward her. This one seems.. Aware somehow, it's /studying/ her. It's different from the others. Some of its 'bones' are lined with bits of faded gold.
Silica     Silica is fortunate to have wings of her own, and also doubly fortunate that her mount is not made of meat. It's HP bar plummets rapidly, but instead of being torn asunder as one may expect, the beast just shatters into voxels, a single scale floats up to the little Cait Sith, and she frowns at the sheer brutality of it all. Silica doesn't stay in range for too long, seeing what they just did to her mount, she doesn't want the same fate to befall her... or the villagers.

    The villagers... Silica turns and darts off toward the gate, making sure people are through, and anyone that falls behind, gets rather unceremoniously scooped up and thrown through. Then the Cait Sith turns and draws her dagger, blocking the entrance to the warpgate.
Lily     Lily stops... Rei blinks and looks towards her Master with a glint... "What's wrong?"

    "They're not attacking me."
    "Well, yea... I think they're attacking Silica's mount."

    "That... that's bad. Come, let's go deeper in, maybe we can find something to destroy them from the inside!"
Tomoe Tomoe is forcing the machine horrors to deal with her, that's the best she can do they will get up, the thing the attackers are building worries her but the first job is to get the people out. She sees Silica is making her break for it going to aid the villagers. She's going to hold the warp gate, good she'll be in a good spot to escape. When the time comes, for now, Tomoe will try to bumbrush the ones attacking Silica's mount.

They are distracted and she will attempt to get them while they are busy she will do what she can to break them up harass them and keep them from going after the few remaining villagers it won't be long. She keeps attacking using the range her spear gives her, to try to keep from being too close to these things.

If she happens to behead one of the robots she will punt the head as hard and far from its body as she can.
Kirito     Finally, some progress! Kirito winces when he sees the fate that befalls Silica's pet.... but Silica herself is doing well, he can tell, so he keeps his composure.

    He would probably LOSE IT if one of his friends got seriouisly hurt to these things.

    That doesn't mean he's having an easy time of it, though. It takes a fair amount of effort to strike these things down while moving swiftly enough to not get dogpiled by the swarm! Eventually Kirito has to take to the air again to get his bearings!

    Once he has it though... the warrior grins. Angles his blade. It howls with violet lightning... and he DIVES down into a group of these strange metal foes!

    Lightning bolts splay in all directions from where his sword impacts the ground!
Staren     Okay. It seems that slowing them down really IS all they can do here. Staren takes the opportunity provided by Silica to melt some of those ones REAL well. But when the wyvern explodes into voxels... he calls over the radio to check how the town is looking. He's not sure he can save it today.

    They're safe. Hopefully.

    What he CAN do, is study these things for next time. He seeks out a flayed one that isn't clustered with the rest, blasts it apart, and takes a piece. Then he blows a scarab apart and scoops up as many pieces as he can into his bag.

    He'll study them. And maybe next time he'll be able to stop them.
Mortimer Balman      Staren will find that this is a terrible idea, because the scarabs may not repair themselves as fast.. But they are capable of doing so just as well. His bag will suddenly explode and one of the scarabs will begin chomping violently into his arm, trying to saw it off with particle laser mandibles. This is exceptionally painful! Because the lasers aren't simply trying to cut it off, they're working to rend his entire molecular structure down to its consituent atomic particulate.

     The robots, upon realizing that their prey is nothing but a living digital thing, seem.. Angry? They ALL turn toward the various party members. The green glow in their eyes becomes brighter and somehow more hostile. Claws are raised, and they begin trying to mob the heroes to shred them to pieces- oddly enough, still without a single sound beyond those made by their bodies. The villagers, for their part, will at least be safe.

     You, of course, are not.
Staren     Boom.

    Staren's bag explodes, and suddenly all his stuff is spilling out of the cover and he's standing in a pile of stuff with a scarab trying to chew his arm off. His /armored/ arm that will take some time to chew. He fires the beam cannons point blank inside its mouth to blow it away, and then grabs a few things, stuffing them into another bag. A couple of revolvers, an armband, something that looks like a flip-phone, a couple of energy pistols, a scrap of cloth with a clear crystal on it, and another clear crystal. Then he stuffs the new, ordinary bag into the somewhat-damaged cover, picks up an energy rifle and a piece of necron and flies up into the air on his broom.

    The pile below him still has: Several guns of varying sizes with a magazine or two of spare ammo for each, tablets, spacesuits, food rations, shards of glass, herbs, rope, a multitool, a medical kit, several small quadrotor drones, several tiny spy drones, and probably some other stuff in varying degrees of 'damaged'.
Lily     Welp, with a bunch of eyes on her and her partner, Lily makes one... desperate call. "Time to run!" and with this there's a bunch of gunfire noises coming from the middle of the Necron pack surrounding her as her and Rei try to book it away, scratches and cuts showing upon the digital frame wrapping around the 'player'. "Running's not going to help much...."

    "Use your Ultimate Fiber Gun, Lily! It's made for movement!" ... "I forgot, okay."

    A quick fire up into a hanging branch if one remains, it drags both Lily and Rei up and then launches them out... "Kyaaaaah, catch us!" she calls out!
Tomoe Tomoe is in the thick of things but the last of the villagers are clear she calls to her friend it's time to run. She would b the last one out but she sees Lily and Rei need some help. She hears her call out and takes off the Necrons get a hit in and it's painful she forces her way through it.

Now airborne she'll banish her weapon back to her inventory as she closes in on Rei and Lily she will move to catch them both, it's clearly straining but she's got them both.

"I got you...."

She will then make a beeline for the gate with her two companions she isn't sticking around.

"SILICA! KIRITO! STAREN WE ARE LEAVING!"

the Necrons might get some parting shots at her, but she will take them if it comes ot it, should ot mean keeping Lily and Rei save from futher harm.
Mortimer Balman      Fortunately for the party, their desperate counter-attack to being mobbed.. Does something. So many of the wretched robots collapse and clatter to the ground, that the 'smart' one pauses in its charge and then looks around at its broken fellows. It makes a shrugging, slumping motion for some reason..

     And then all of them begin.. Phasing out of reality. They just *vanish*, even the scarabs, their construction only half-finished. They're all.. Gone.

     As if they were never there at all.
Staren     The stolen piece of necron DISAPPEARS. He got exploded for nothing! <"Oh COME ON!">

    Once he's safe, Staren beams up, then sends some robots down to collect the rest of his stuff and double-check if there are ANY pieces of their mysterious enemies left behind.