2969/Mad Forest

Mad Forest
Date of Scene:	05 September 2015
Location:	The Great Forest
Synopsis:	Monsters are infesting part of the Great Forest. Heroes are required to clear them out!
Cast of Characters:	236, Blurr, 726

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Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    The Great Forest is huge. Gigantically, tremendously, enormously huge. There are all types of forests found here, over incredible distances. But one particular part of the Great Forest is the site where help is needed today. Over the past few weeks, attacks by beasts not native to the area have been increasingly common. Locals want it dealt with. They're willing to pay to keep their lives, but if heroes want to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, so much the better.

    The trees here are tall, dark, unwelcoming. It's the middle of the day beyond their canopies, but down here, it's the middle of the night instead. Strange noises can be heard in the distance occasionally. Rustling in the underbrush. Some of it is normal forest sounds amidst the otherwise quiet surroundings.

    Some of it isn't.

    No birds can be heard. None except the occasional loud hooting of owls. Chittering noises and the beating of leathery wings may also be heard sometimes.

    The path is muddy, with unidentified THINGS crunching under foot (or under wheel). Honestly, this area is just creepy and unpleasant. But somewhere in here, an infestation of giant owls, and blood-sucking bats has been reported. And they'll need to be cleared out or at least reduced in numbers if the locals are going to have any degree of safety.

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr -really- doesn't prefer these muddy, squishy, organic-y places. They're always so dirty and stuff. Especially forests, he's fairly well adapted to a wide range of environments, given his agile nature, but forests of the organic sort tend to always give someone like him trouble.

    But, the call had gone out, and he'd happened to be stationed at an outpost in this particular sector of space, so he was sent to lend Autobot aid to the locals. Therefore, here he is, trudging down the path in search of the source of these people's problems, getting vines and branches caught in his servo cogs every once and a while. Every few seconds he does a quick scan, to see if any unusual lifesigns or energy sigatures pop up.

Auron (236) has posed:
    Auron is comfortable with the wages paid to him by the Union, thus he asks nothing in return for checking out this problem. Though it's not exactly 'out of the goodness of his heart'. He's just not greedy and doesn't see any need to ask for money when lives reasonably comfortably, or items that he could probably ask another member of the Union to attain for him some way.

    Anyway. He's there in the Great Forest, searching for the source of the problem. Muddy paths don't bother him, though the first time something unidentified crunches unde rhis boot, sounding much like a very large, squishy insect, he does sneer a bit. No, he's not going to stop and see what it was.

    His hearing is good, thanks to having have to learn to compensate for his missing eye. So he catches these odd sounds -- hooting and leathery snaps. Owls and bats, probably. Which makes sense, given that's what he's here to deal with.

    Blurr's lifescanners detect Auron! He's immediately recognizable as a human to the scan. Pursuing it will very likely be able to match his lifesigns to records in the Union database. So not to worry! He hasn't gotten where he can see Blurr yet, though the reverse may not necessarily be true.

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    Indeed, giant owls and vampire bats are what the two are here to stop. And Blurr's scans may pick up on plenty of exactly that up in the branches, and high in the air. It's honestly not long at all before both Blurr AND Auron are attacked. A stream of bats comes spiralling down from the darkness above, lone individuals breaking off from swarm to dive bomb Auron, trying to take a bite out of him in passing! Normal vampire bats are parasites who feed primarily on sleeping prey. They don't attack people like this. They don't have the aggression. But these bats never got the memo, it seems because they are not only attacking head-on, but they have very sharp predator-teeth.

    What's up with that!?

    Blurr, meanwhile, faces a different type of attack. The owls perched up in the branches, looking down at him with big, blank white eyes. If he passes by underneath them, they definitely start dive-bombing him as well. Each owl is as big or bigger than an average human male. And with those sharp talons of theirs, and whatever weirdness made them that big, they might at least cause some nasty gouges! But they aren't the main threat, oddly enough.

    No, that comes from the sudden appearance of a human skeleton dashing towards Blurr out of the darkness, and trying to lash him with a whip made of bone! What the heck!? No one said anything about the undead!

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr picks up on Auron's lifesign and cross-references it with the Union's database, quickly IDing him as friendly. Well, good to know he won't be alone. << Auron, right? >> he asks over the comms as he starts to head over to his teammate.

But before he can reach the other Union ally, the two of them are attacked by giant bats and owls! "The slag is -their- problem?!" the Autobot cries out as the birds start dive-bombing him. Okay, they aren't -that- giant compared to him. Their talons cause some nasty scratches in his outer armor, but otherwise don't do much harm. << Uhm are these birds usually this big? I thought they were usually smaller than humans on most versions of Earth. >>

And then a human skeleton comes and attacks. Blurr actually doesn't try to dodge...after all it's not even a full human and lacks the things that make humans strong aka muscles, so it can't possibly do much damage to him, right? Plus that whip looks like it's just made out of organic bones. "Hey, that's not supposed to be moving!" No -duh-.

Auron (236) has posed:
    Auron pauses when the com comes alive and he hears his name. "<<That's right,>>" he confirms. His voice is quiet, because he doesn't have subvocal capabilities, so he has to rely on speaking to respond. "<<Blurr, if I recall?>>" He's heard the voice on the radio, and a name attached to it. Maybe he'll be able to hear the very large feet crunching, so he can head towards it.

    Suddenly there's a swarm of bats dive-bombing Auron! They're likely to make a big enough racket that even if he doesn't see them, he'll hear them. Though that doesn't mean he's going to wait until they get close. His defensive options aren't that numerous as-is. He is made to take large amounts of damage. With airborne foes, hitting them with physical attacks is going to be incredibly hard.

    That's all right though. While he defensive options are limited, he has a few more offensive options. So he turns his offense into a defense. As the swarm swoops down upon him, he raises his Katana, concentrating the ki into it. Aiming at the area just before him, he channels the spirit of the sword Ashura into his own blade. He swings the sword once...

    And a flurry of purple-hued slashes splits the air in front of and slightly above him. If the bats aren't very quick, they'll fly right into a blender of magical slashes! That it's likely that this won't kill the whole swarm; bats are extremely fast and maneuverable. And he won't come through without damage; those that don't fly into the magical purple choppyblendy chaos are likely to be able to latch onto at least his left arm and take a bite. It's left bare, after all.

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    The skeleton is animated by magic, so it can still hurt anyone plenty. It may not be an Elite, but just standing still and letting it hit Blurr will probably not do him any favors. Magic skeletons are magic. The owls and skeleton continue to claw and whip him for as long he fails to defend himself or return fire. And even small damage can accumulate into major damage over time.

    Auron's attack cleaves apart many vampire bats, and they actually die in bursts of flame and blood when slain. Combusting in mid-air and turning into a smoldering puddle by the time they hit the ground. Definitely not normal bats. And with undead in the area now too, it's clear this is not just some random mutation of organisms.

    Case in point, a large red spider descends on a thread from somewhere above, out of reach of a normal sword's strike, and shoots a smaller spider at Auron before attempting to ascend back to its previous perch.

    Owls, bats, skeletons, and spiders. Lovely.

Blurr has posed:
    Lovely, indeed! First bats, then owls, and then magic skeletons, and now a giant spider too! Finally, Blurr decides to actually start defending himself, since there are quite a fair number of these things all assaulting him at once, so even if they are small, they might manage to do some significant damage--especially if they get -inside- of him. He attempts to grab one of owls with one hand and throw it at the big spider, while swatting at the other birds with the other. He eventually transforms and does what he can to maneuver around the trees and get to where Auron is.

Meanwhile, he attempts to continue scanning to see if he can figure out why these things are attacking so relentlessly. Is there any kind of strange signal in the area, or perhaps they've been exposed to something that driving them mad? << Auron, any idea why these things are attacking like this? Anything weird about them? Did anyone tell you how long this has been going on? >>

Auron (236) has posed:
    Not normal bats -- that's good to know. Now Auron feels less hesitant about just murdering them. Of course, this presumes he won't end up as food! The bites from the bats have drawn blood, and that's sure to attract other things that want to eat him.

    He's concerned with trying to field the bats, and the silence of the spider descending from above is not loud enough to pick up with his hearing. And so his first clue that something is wrong is a weird brushing against his neck before...

    CHOMP!

    Auron hisses, raising a hand to the bite and attempting to pull the spider off of him. Likely this will squish it in the process. He doesn't feel any immediate poisoning taking hold, but Fayth that hurt! thankfully he's not allergic to bugs. Though he's going to have to get it looked at afterwards... if he survives this. Infection sucks!

    Blurr will most likely be able to find his way over to Auron easily, even if he can't see im immediately, thanks to his scanners. The question gets a shake of his head. He doesn't, however, have any way to sense magic. "If we had a mage with us, we might be able to tell more certainly," he remarks. Blurr's right there, no sense in using the comm now. "I can assume corrupted energy in the area. Possibly has mutated the creatures here, and brought the dead back." Bats don't burst into flames naturally, after all.

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    Blurr is able to grab and throw the owl! It hits the spider and knocks it off of its web line! His other giant mecha hand swats and destroys other owls, and all of these things are practically exploding into waves of blood when they die! Messy... But no corpses either. It almost makes one wonder if they were already dead, and someone just put them back together in congealed blood form or something. When they die a second time, the magic breaks down.

    Though who the hell went through the trouble of liquefying and then reanimating all these owls, bats, and so on is another matter. Probably someone unpleasant.

    Auron successfully kills the spider, and is skillful sword slashes successfully slaughter the various bats and beasts who come his way. The whipping skeleton is still chasing after Blurr, though the autobot moves much faster than it can. But being dead, and thus tireless, it can also chase him endlessly too. And it might chase him all the way back to Auron when they meet up!

    Scans are picking up lots of weird life signs... Animals, mostly, even if not normal ones. But one particularly large one seems to be coming closer and closer. Heavy wing beats, unlike the far quieter ones of owls, can be heard, and soon, coming into view, is a humanoid figure, dark of skin, with a pair of large horns protruding from its head and sweeping backwards. Cloven hooves, clawed wings, and two grey, owl-like wings protruding from his back/shoulderblades.

    The demon snarls at the sight of Auron and Blurr, and then starts laughing as he throws out a hand and more skeletons arise from the muck. Well, this is probably the one responsible.

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr has noticed the weird way these things die. "Huh, yeah there's definitely something abnormal about these wildlife, they don't seem to have any internal organs! Well, magic is just a weird form of energy right? I should be able to detect it if we get--"

    "--close enough..." He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before the culprit finally showed up, causing more skeletons to appear in front of them. "Never mind!" Photon blasters emerge from arm compartments, and he immediately starts firing at the flying dude who just laughed at them. Hopefully he's within range of the Autobot's weaponry.

Auron (236) has posed:
    When Auron sees an undead show up in the direction Blurr came from, he can guess that the thing was chasing him. He is, however, nothing if not pragmatic. With the wingbeats and other unnatural sounds in the area, Auron has a bad feeling that whatever is making them, it's heading towards them. And it's probably something they need to face with all their strength and not be tangled up with other threats!

    So when he sees the undead thing, he pulls out -- what else? -- a Phoenix Down! He activates it, and then lobs it in the general direction of the undead. Hopefully that works here too. Otherwise it's a waste of a Phoenix Down, but ultimately not too much beyond that.

    Besides, there are suddenly lots more undead rising, with the appearance of that demon. Indeed, this must be the one reponsible. "...Hmf. Corrupted energy indeed," he adds to Blurr's comment. While Blurr aims for the Big Kahuna, Auron heads into the group of skeletons raised from the muddy earth, intending to keep them off of Blurr while he deals with the demon.

    Ordinarily a sharp-edged blade like Auron's would be little use against fleshless skeletons. But his Katana is a large, heavy weapon, with weight on its side too. And he's using the flat of the blade as a bludgeoning weapon more than trying to strike with the sharp edge.

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    Blurr's laser weaponry seems to do plenty of damage to the Lesser Demon, causing him to let out deep, inhuman noises of pain and frustrations, even as he weaves his clawed hands through the air, and unleashes a large fireball upon the autobot. The skeletons seem to be vulnerable enough to a Phoenix Down to be defeated by it, and Auron's sword strikes likewise scatter their bones from his forceful strikes. The beasts in the trees and in the air continue to attack during all of this. Spiders being shot at them, owls swooping down to claw them, bats trying to bite them... The skeletons may not be getting reanimated anymore, but added on top of the one commanding them, it's still a pretty hectic battle.

    The smoldering demon, angered by the damage he has taken, might be the key to ending all of this. With Blurr's and Auron's team work, they can probably finish this mini-boss and shut down the unnatural activity in the area!

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr does what he can to focus on the big dude and ignore the little dudes, though they are certainly annoying. "Frag it, I'm gonna need a new paintjob after this!" he complains as all of the minions continue to attack him. And on top of that, a big fireball is being launched at him! Hmm...he could probably dodge it, but what if he just let it come at him? Maybe it'll drive away all the bats and owls and spiders. Or maybe if they're not smart enough for that, he can force this dude to hit his minions with his own fireball. Since they're a lot smaller than Blurr is, it's bound to do more damage to them than him. This is probably a Bad Idea. But the speedster has never really been the type to do much thinking before acting, and plus he usually thinks he's a lot tougher than he -actually- is.

    Thus, instead of trying to jump out of the way, he stands right in the path of the fiery projectile and focuses on attempting to activate his holomatter avatar and project it -onto- the thing's back. Not that it can do much, but perhaps he can use it to distract and confuse. If successful, the apparently human teen will try to get the demon's attention. "Hey ugly, guess who's riding your tailpipes!"

Auron (236) has posed:
    Avoiding the spiders being fired at him as well as the bats and owls swooping down -- particularly those owls; they're literally as big as he is, so a clawing from them is a vicious wound that knocks him down -- proves to be too great a task. He's a tank, not a rogue! So he's quite battered and clawed by the time he gets enough breathing room in the mass of skeletons. But he is trained to take damage. He is DEFINITELY going to feel this later. But right now he can't afford to let it get the better of him.

    And then Blurr's projection as he stands in the path of the fireball. That gives Auron both a reasonably safe haven AND (hopefully) a few moments to prepare. He darts behind the much larger Blurr and picks up the jug from where it hangs at his side. Then he uncorks it, takes a drink, and re-corks it. But he's not stopping in the middle of battle to booze it up, no. As he puts the recorked jug back where it was, he turns his face towards his sword, and sprays the liquid in a fine mist onto the blade.

    Only then does he step out from behind Blurr, as energy begins to gatehr around the blade, first in runic circles in Old Yevon, then in an orange-black aura. Then as he swings the sword down, purposely hitting the ground and carving a furrow into it, four orange-black orbs come out of the ground. These orbs seek the demon summoner/necromancer, trying to impact with it forcefully.

    And there's an extra little bit of problem here for the demon too. Should these four homing orbs hit the demon, not only will they hurt, but the demon might actually find its supernatural powers sealed, as the spiritual orbs attempt to inflict FULL BREAK!

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    Doesn't work out that way. The enemies swoop in to attack and then continue on their way to prepare for another attack. The fireball comes in when no one is attacking, and since Blurr lets it hit him, the magic flame may well do serious damage! But Blurr is also a giant robot, so he's not going to be incapacitated or anything. Still, probably not something to let happen over and over. The holo-projector does seem to the startle and confuse the enemy as he thrashes and turns, flapping his wings and trying to claw the clinging creep!

    This leaves him too distracted to notice until it's too late, as Auron slams the demon with sealing magic, finishing him off and banishing him back to where he came from, seeming to just... Collapse horizontally and stretch vertically, while roaring, until he becomes so thin there's nothing visibly left of him.

    The skeletons stopped rising, so the one or two remaining aren't going to gain any reinforcements. The beasts have stopped attacking, with only the ones already in the process of doing so continuing. After they've been defeated, nothing else comes for them. The madness that overtook this forest might take awhile to fully leave, but some results are already being observed. It seems the mission is completed!

    ...Even if, hidden in the darkness, a pair of gleaming yellow eyes watch silently, observing who came to deal with the challenge presented for later research.

Blurr has posed:
    "Damn it!" Blurr curses as he fails to get the timing right. He's supposed to be good at that! He always was in the races on Cybertron, but perhaps this time it's because he was partly distracted trying to use the holomatter to distract the demon.

    Which, thankfully that part -is- successful, even though he does take the full brunt of the fireball. It knocks him back, sending him careening into a grove of trees with his paint on fire. The impact does knock out the holomatter emitter though, fortunately enough, so that he doesn't have to also deal with feedback from Auron's hit.

Auron (236) has posed:
    Auron breathes a sigh of relief when the demon folds in on itself. But there are still enemies around, and it seems Blurr is in a state. Nothing he can really do for healing; his Potions probably won't work on artificial lifeforms. And he doesn't want to lead the remaining enemies to Blurr.

    So he reaches into his coat and pulls a shining jewel from it. It's not holy, but... there's no 'holy' element in Spira. This does, however, contain a large amount of energy. And as he activates and drops it, he runs, heading for where Blurr was last seen.

    With luck, the gem should act as a bomb of sorts, catching the enemies that remain in a large, white explosion of energy. It's not fire, it's not holy. But it's 'spiritual' energy.

Walter Bernhard (726) has posed:
    Auron's 'bomb' works! The two of them are free to make their escape as the remaining monsters burst into flame, fall apart, or liquefy into puddles of blood. The silent watcher retreats somewhat from the light, eyes squinting in pain, but no action is taken. Attacking these heroes NOW wasn't the point of infesting the forest, after all.

    Once Auron and Blurr are gone, off to let the locals know it's safe once more and get patched up, a column of gray light and a huge cloud of bats flies up into the canopy on its way back to a different dark forest. A Forest of Eternal Night.

Blurr has posed:
    "Ughhh." Blurr is in no state to take notice of the mysterious presence watching them. The flames finally go out, though they leave his chassis smoking. "Auron, you okay?" he asks as the man approaches. "I'm definitely gonna regret this next cycle...but at least we dealt with the guy, right?"

Auron (236) has posed:
    Auron is visibly injured from bat bites and the claws of the man-sized owls. And there's still a bit of blood trickling from the wound on the back of his neck. But he nods to the question. "I'll be fine once we get to medical. Are you able to move or should I call for evac?" he inquires.

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr nods, getting up a bit slowly. Well slowly by his own standards, anyway. He examines Auron too, but it seems the man will recover soon enough with the appropiate medical attention. "Yeah, you need a ride?" he asks. "Guess we should go let the locals know took care of um...some flying ugly thing. What was it anyway?"

Auron (236) has posed:
    Auron nods. "Good idea. On both counts," he replies. "They'll be glad to know the fiend's gone." He'll wait for Blurr to transform and then get in the passenger's side if possible. He's not driving after all.

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr transforms then, if a bit painfully, and his side doors open to let Auron inside. He finds it a little strange that humans seem to be adverse to sitting in the driver's seat if they aren't driving. It doesn't really bother him nor matter where they sit. "Thanks for coming out here by the way, these forests are always kind of frustrating."