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"description": "Well... that was a LOT to take in.\n\nSo in the original IRON, Doom never really defined the Iron King much. He was supposedly someone 'summoned' as humans usually are into this world, to solve an il-defined problem, and then they're [i]supposed[/i] to leave, but sometimes don't (in the case of the Iron King or Sebastion.)\n\nNeedless to say I'm pretty sure that him being a complete fraud from the start, let alone tied to the Oracle Sea wasn't what they had in mind. Still, it fits well, and hints at other factions mucking about on the world even before the Avali showed up one day.\n\nLet's hope they put it to better use...\n\nAnd speaking of messes made, after this it'll be back to your regularly scheduled war in The Sands.\n\nThe rest of Part 9 can be found [url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dpESEYSpnb9FPjRI9wJHseNfmmeiw0WklTEbb5DBO-M/edit#]here[/url].\n\n[url=https://inkbunny.net/submissionsviewall.php?rid=c6a9fd4348&mode=pool&pool_id=59838&page=1&orderby=pool_order&random=no&success=]Also, obligatory link to the comic itself to which this is a fanfiction of.[/url]",
"description_bbcode_parsed": "Well... that was a LOT to take in.
So in the original IRON, Doom never really defined the Iron King much. He was supposedly someone 'summoned' as humans usually are into this world, to solve an il-defined problem, and then they're supposed to leave, but sometimes don't (in the case of the Iron King or Sebastion.)
Needless to say I'm pretty sure that him being a complete fraud from the start, let alone tied to the Oracle Sea wasn't what they had in mind. Still, it fits well, and hints at other factions mucking about on the world even before the Avali showed up one day.
Let's hope they put it to better use...
And speaking of messes made, after this it'll be back to your regularly scheduled war in The Sands.
The rest of Part 9 can be found here.
Also, obligatory link to the comic itself to which this is a fanfiction of.",
"writing": "[t][center]Act 54: Isle of Darkness[/center][/t]\n\n\"Pos that.\" Taluno replies as the craft comes in, smoke still billowing out of its engine as it comes for a landing. \"There was far more security up there than we anticipated. I'm beginning to think we'd have been better off dealing with the sea hawks instead of those things.\"\nThe craft lands with a slight bump. \nTaluno gets off the comms, and issues his orders.\n\"Alright, everyone out!\"\nThe crew nods, and they exit the craft on both sides. It's only from outside that they can see the damage the drone did to the engine.\n\"Yesh, good thing the Knightfall made this to be a tough old bird.\" Taluno comments to himself, his claws on his hips as he looks up at the engine. He doesn't say it, but he's not sure if the bird could survive a return trip. Especially if they have to fight more of those trifangles again, or worse, another one of those heavy drones.\nEijyu doesn't shut the craft off though.\n\"I'm going to try to maneuver it into that little alcove over there, then shut it off and run maintaince.\" She tells the crew over comms. \"See if I can at least repair enough of the damage for a return trip. Looks like this is another one I'll have to be sitting out on.\"\n\"Pos that.\" Taluno says with a sigh. After last time he'd hoped she'd be able to join them. But he supposes if they want to return home, some repair work will need to be done.\nEIjyu does exactly what she does, she carefully maneuvers the gunship into a small alcove of rocks, using it as a makeshift hangar bay. It's small,but enough to shelter her and at least part of the bird. The part she needs to work on is protected from the downpours by the small cave. If it even is a cave. She shuts the engine off after making another landing, and exits the craft, toolkit in hand. With a sigh, she takes out a wrench, and begins her work.\nAs for Taluno and his crew, they begin looking around. Now that they're on the ground and about, something very unsettling becomes apparent.\nThere are skeletons lying about Human ones. Two of them. One of them is still wearing the tattered remains of what looks like a uniform.\n\"What...\" Taluno goes over to check the skeleton. He reaches up to his helmet, causing a blue light to emit from the helmet and surround the skeleton in question. A readout soon appears on all of their huds. \n[i][b]SCAN: Complete[/b][/i]\n[b][i]Species: Human.[/i][/b]\n[i][b]Faction: USCM.... ???[/b][/i]\n[b][i]Cause of death: Inconclusive.[/i][/b]\n[i][b]Notes: Body is in an advanced state of decay. Bones show possible signs of trauma. Subject is wearing a tattered outfit. Preliminary scans suggest the outfit was part of a military uniform. No insignia detected on clothing.[/b][/i]\n\"What happened here?\" Taluno asks himself.\n\nRaylo and Nesala are pondering about this, humans died here a long time ago, they don't know exactly what happened but it's clear that something must have happened here.\n\"What? What did you find?\" Boris asks through the comms.\n\"Human skeletons from a long time ago, something must have happened here.\" Nesala said to him.\n\"Hhhmhm, I see...what else can you tell from what you see? Are these skeletons close or far from one another?\"\n\n\"They're a bit of a distance away from each other. Hey, wait a minute....\"\nHis hand reaches down to the skeleton, and carefully moves some of the bones aside. Beneath it... there seems to be an object. Rusted from years of neglect and constant rain, and definitely not usable. and definitely not visible at first glance but...\n[i][b]Scan complete[/b][/i]\n[b][i]Object: M2416 Assault Rifle[/i][/b]\n[i][b]Serial Number: Unknown[/b][/i]\n[b][i]Status: Inoperable[/i][/b]\n[i][b]Notes: The USCM M2416 standard assault rifle, modeled in a long line of the 'M16/M4' rifles. Water has seeped into the gun's interior over the course of an indeterminate amount of time, rusting its bolt, magazine, and trigger permanently into position. \nScan indicates that there are currently 5 out of 30 bullets in the magazine. Only 2 of the bullets remain usable. The others are too damaged and decayed for use.[/b][/i]\n\n\"One of the skeletons seems to have been using a gun at the time.\" Raylo updates Boris on this find. \n\"Hhhhmmm...\" The human thinks for a moment. \"Could these two have been in a gunfight with one another, i think?\"\n\n\"Possibly. Or in a gunfight with something else.\" Taluno asks.\n\"I don't mean to alarm you, packie.\" Ranyu taps his boss's shoulder. \"But we should move on, before the trifangles or worse figure out we're down here and attack again.\n\"Oh. You're right.\" Taluno replies. \"We should look for a way inside. I don't know what the security is like there, but better there than out here.\"\n\n\"Yes, I think it's best if you deal with whatever is controlling all these security systems. And I hope it is as easy as pushing an on and off switch.\" Boris said before leaving them to their work.\nWell there is hoping for Raylo and Nesala that it can be that easy, but it's probably going to be a complex system...hopefully that Rotom can help with that too. Now to look for a way in...\n\nAfter a small bit of looking, they spot a door. Closed, but rotting on its hinges. It might be a possible way in...\n\nRaylo approaches this door, looking at it's very old hinges barely holding it in place. \"Hhhmmm. Think we could shoot those off?\"\n\nTaluno goes up to the door, drawing his pistol. When he arrives at the door, he aims at the hinges, firing one round into one, and two into the other. The door falls open, revealing a dimly hit, metallic hallway inside.\n\"Yeah...\" Taluno replies with a flat tone. \"I think that could do the trick.\" \n\nAlright, time to head in. Nesala and Raylo turn on the flashlights on the button of the barrel of their rifles and begin walking in, aiming their guns forward to illuminate the darkness and be ready in case there is something hostile they will need to shoot at.\n\nSo far so good. The halls are too narrow for any of the drones they've seen so far, and there does not seem to be any wall or ceiling mounted turrets.... yet.\nThe corridor houses various doors of their own. About 6 in this hallway Some of them closed. Some of them not so much.\nOne thing they notice is a skeletal hand sticking out of one of the partially open doors.\n\n\"That's another dead human...\" Raylo comments under his breath.\nNesala approach this door with the skeletal hand sticking out. She poked it with the barrel of her gun for a moment. \"Hhhmhmmm...Should we open this one?\"\n\n\"Might as well.\" Taluno very carefully opens the door. \nA rev fills their ears almost immediately.\n\"Back!\" Taluno yells as he hides around the door corner as the rev gets louder...\nOnly for a barrage of clicks to come out of what can only be assumed to be a turret inside the room instead of a hail of bullets.\n\nThe two of them stood right behind Taluno as they expected something to happen, only to hear the clicking of a weapon without ammunition.\n\"Huh? Is it empty?\" Raylo peeks around the corner a bit to see if he can look at the source of this clicking.\n\n\"Seems so.\" Taluno takes a very careful peak around the door and shines his flashlight light inside. \nSure enough, there's a round ceiling turret, pointed right at him, its barrel spinning rapidly as it clicks away, its gun shooting non-existent bullets in an attempt to kill the intruding avali.\n\"Huh.\" Taluno stands up and enters the room proper, simply staring at the still clicking turret. \"I never did understand why they put lasers on the drones, yet insist on still having ballistic ammunition turrets. Ah well.\" He says as he fires a few shots into the turret at point blank range, causing it to fall off the ceiling with a whine, and a medium-loud crash as it hits the floor.\n\"And it appears these turrets are not connected to any sort of alarm system. Typical.\" He comments.\n\n\"Well, this means the hard part was all those Trifangles and that flying monster drone.\" Raylo commented.\nIt looks like it was this turret who was responsible for that skeleton over there it seems. Well, where can they go from here now?\n\"Think Rotom is still in the lower levels?\" Nesala asked.\n\n\"Did the turret shoot that guy?\" Ranyu wonders aloud as he looks at it. This one's uniform, unlike the ones outside that have been exposed to the rain for who knows how long, this one's uniform is quite a bit more intact, if not faded from age. Even so, it's easy to see this uniform was a set of green fatigues.\n\"A USCM soldier?\" He wonders. \"But that can't be right. If the turret shot him...\" \nHe inspects a little further, sure enough there are tell tale signs of bullet holes beneath the skeleton, and on the door itself.\n\"That's odd. Did it malfunction or something? Or was this a rival faction?\"\nHe sees no gun, so it looked like the human didn't have one on them at the time they were attacked. \nA closer look at the room seems to indicate that this was some sort of locker room, if the rusted lockers are of any indication.\nTaluno is transmitting their findings and conversations back to Boris in real-time as they go through all of this.\n\"Possibly.\" Taluno relies to Nesala. \"Remember our mission here is to find out what's going on here though. Not simply to bail him out. Besides, if he transferred out to another body, he should be fine for the time being, if he didn't trip any alarms or anything.\"\n\nShe gives a nod to that.\nSeeing these new findings, Boris made an educated guess over the comms. \"Two dead out here and another one in here, killed by the turret in a locker room and unarmed...he must have not been expecting a fight at all. I'm beginning to think someone modified security's targeting parameters to see the former owners as targets.\"\n\n\"Hmmm. Possibly.\" Taluno agrees. \"But that raises more questions. Who did it? How did they do it under their noses, and most importantly, why did they do it?\"\n\"And where are they now?\" Ranyu chips in.\n\"... That too.\" Taluno replies flatly. \"If Boris's theory is the case, it doesn't appear that they're still here. Else there would have been a more organized response to our arrival.\" \n\n\"...Well there is also the off chance that this is the machines themselves having rebelled against their masters and having killed them.\" This is a very unlikely theory though, Boris thinks so at least. \"Perhaps there are more clues somewhere else...\"\n\n\"We did hear a voice when Rotom infiltrated the sea port just before they switched bodies. So it's possible...\" Taluno thinks on this new theory. \"... But unlikely. The AI in this place doesn't seem too overly intelligent itself, as again, it should have put the base on a higher alert when we started pushing our way past its drones.\" Taluno replies. \"Either way, you're right, this small locker can't hold any more answers. We must press on.\"\nAnd with that they exit the room and proceed further down the hallway. There are more doors on either side, but there is also a door at the very end.\n\nRaylo goes for one of the other doors in the side, hopefully this one doesn't have a working turret in it. Just to be sure he opens it and quickly hides around the corner.\nMeanwhile Nesala goes to check that door at the very end of this Hallway.\n\nRaylo finds a room without a turret in it. Or rather, not a functioning one. There is one, but it appears something shot it up already, as just what Taluno did to the other one. \nThis one appears to be in complete disarray, with a metal table turned over into a makeshift barricade, not really an effective one though as it has a few bullet holes in it and long-dried blood on the ground. Still, whoever fought this turret seems to have lived for at least a while longer. Maybe their skeleton is in another room or they were one of the ones outside?\nThe door in the hallway outside, leads to another hallway, this one forking into two paths. \nFurther inspection reveals a sign on the wall. The contents are faded however, and only a few letters are still legible.\n<- ##ck#n# #a#, ####nd #e###r, \n--> L#####t###, ####s, #e#s####, #ci###st #u#####s\nAnd a sign pointing down, presumably back the way they came reading #ar###k## \n\nNesala stares at the sign on the wall, doing her best to read it but she can't make head or tails of what it says with so little letters.\nRaylo comes over to try and read it too and he is just as puzzled as her. \"Well this sucks...\"\n\n\"Well, Splitting up would be a bad idea. Not that we Avali are really capable of that for very long.\" Taluno says. \"So I guess we have to pick a direction and go with it.\"\n\n\"You can't go wrong with right, I think.\" Boris gives his opinion on the matter through the comm.\nThe two Avali soldiers don't know which way is best, and their human ally already said his mind on that...they are okay with going to the path on the right too.\n\nTaluno nods. And they head east... little knowing that something even more horrifying lies the way they went.\nThe hallway leads to a derelict hallway, and another door. However, this time they hear noises behind the door. beeps, and the buzz of something turning in place.\n\nThese noises, they bring to mind something dangerous, there might be a turret behind this door.\n\"...I think there is trouble behind this door.\" Raylo says.\n\n\"Better open it slowly. Keep those guns trained on the door. Might be a turret.\" Taluno warns.\nIt kind of sounds like one.\n\n\"Right then.\" Slowly, Raylo places a hand on the door and begins pushing it open. What could there be behind this door...?\n\nThey open the door very slowly aaaaand... \n\"Oh... whew.\" Taluno sighs as he lowers his weapon. \"It's just a repairdroid.\" \nThe unmistakable form of one of those unicycling orange garbage-can droids slowly scanning its environment comes into view. Seems the alarm was for not. Still, one can never be too careful.\n\n\"Oh, okay good. Phew...\" No killer robots, Raylor is very fine with that.\nBefore they can head in though, Nesala hears something approaching from behind her and her squad. She quickly turns around and points her flashlight and weapon at it. But turns out it is...another repairbot?\n\"Oh, it's you guys!\" And it speaks?\n\n\"Usually these things don't speak...\" Taluno then realizes the voice sounds familiar. \n\"Oh hey!, it's you again!\" Ranyu is the first to remember the Rotom\n\n\"Huh?\" Raylo tilts his head. \"Rotom?\"\n\"Yeah that's me!\" It speaks from inside of the repair bot. \"It's kind of hard to get around inside this thing, also why are you guys here?\"\n\"After we got those images you sent, we decided to come here to check the place out. And find you too.\" Nesala says to the pokemon. \n\"Ah, you aren't here because I worried you. I thought I could deal with this all by invading all these machines but I am a little lost...and kind of itching to get out of this thing to be honest.\"\n\n\"Well...\" Taluno chuckles. \"We'll keep an eye out for anything better suited. And perhaps a little better armed.\"\n\"Well...\" Ranyu says, stepping into the room. \"Question is... where are we and what is all of this?\"\nThis is a room that sports a lot of computers. Most look inoperable. At least one looks like it might work, keyword, might. Even if it does, there's no telling what it does.\nThere are tables with what appears to be chemistry sets on them, with liquids containing gods-know-what, a layer of dust and bits of mold covering the disused and neglected beakers and glasses.\nThere are more skeletons on the ground. These ones wearing bits of lab coats.\n\n\"Ah, so you found Rotom, yes?\" Boris sounds pleased on the other side of the comms. \"That's one less thing to worry about, now we just need to find what happened here.\"\nAs they go into the new area, Nesala approaches one of the skeletons with bits of lab coats. \"More dead humans here, looks like some scientists...\"\nRotom is more interested in those computers, even if most are broken. Spinning it's body's monowheel, it towards it. \"Ooooh, look! There is computer stuff here!\"\n\n\"Looks to be a lab of some sort.\" Taluno reports back to Boris. \"Though what they were researching here, we have no idea.\n\"Rotom, can you hack it?\" Ranyu asks him. He highly doubts that Rotom wants to permanently shack up with the computer.\n\n\"Yes I can!\" Rotom is all too happy to be useful, and to leave this repairbot body, which he just shuts down and lets fall to the ground as he jumps from it to the computer to do his thing.\n\"I kind of wish we could keep that little guy...\" Raylo comments on Rotom. \"Having someone who can literally go into computers and take over security robots would be pretty handy, you know?\"\n\n\"We'll have to see about getting one of those 'Digital Familiars' on our team once we get back.\" Taulno comments. Those little coon-like things can do similar things from what he's heard. Only problem: They're very very rare and no one's found any reliable way to make them reproduce. \nThey wait for Rotom to do his thing in there in the meantime.\n\n\"I'm surprised that there are pokémon like Digital Familiars, really.\" Nesala puts her two pixels in this conversation.\nRotom's smiling face is all over the screen of that computer now. \"Alright! I got it open! come check out the stuff i found in here!\" Now it gets its face off of the screen so they can see what's on it. They are free to start operating the computer to see what it has, hopefully it's something that will let them know what happened here?\n\n\"Let's see here....\" Taluno goes over to the terminal and see's what's on it.\nThere's some files on chemical mixing. Not all that useful. \nSome logs mention scientists in the 'dissection room'. Mostly how they do not envy them in that job, having to 'chop up the local savages.'\nWhat is interesting is that one scientist questions whether the data they're collecting will serve any relevance, as they've lost all contact with 'command'. Whoever or whatever that is.\nOne mentions 'Johnathan's hair-brained scheme' and completely dismisses it.\nThere are some log files beyond that, but opening them reveals them to be corrupted. \nJust from reading it Taluno begins to get the feeling that there was some rather elicit experimentation going on here. Funny, that's usually more the Miniknog's thing, not the USCM's. \n\"Hmmm... were these base members killed as some sort of cover up?\" Taluno scratches his chin.\n\n\"Hhhhmmm, does remind me a little bit of an incident back in my home world.\" Boris comments. \"But yes that could very well be the case, if we could get someone to autopsy these bodies or maybe further restore these computers for more scraps of data we could potentially find out more, but we would need to shut down the defenses before thinking about doing that.\" If that is even possible to begin with. \"Hhhmmm...you think this place would have closed-circuit television with some footage of the past?\"\n\n\"Maybe, but not from here by the looks of it.\" Taluno asks. \"We must press on.\"\n\n\"Alright then, hopefully in here keeps being easier than out there.\"\nRaylo walks over to the computer to speak with the pokémon that is still in there. \"Well, we gotta move, Rotom. Are going to get back to that Repairbot?\"\n\"Hhhmmm, no.\" It replied flatly, Rotom really didn't like having to move with a single wheel. \"But i got an idea, just don't move a lot okay? Or else this might shock you.\"\nThe Avali soldier is a little confused. \"What do you mean?\" He gets his answer when the Rotom jumps out of the computer and into his armor, causing him to whelp as the ghost in the machine flew out of the screen and right into his face.\n\n\"Woah Raylo are you alright?\" Taluno asks with concern, the others also surround him, just to see if he's ok....\n\n\"I'm alright, I'm alright...\" He says as he touches around his suit, trying to figure out where Rotom is exactly.\n\"I'm here, don't worry!\" Rotom is speaking directly into Raylo's ears now.\nThe Avali soldier shakes his head a little. \"Not too loud, please.\"\n\"Ok, sorry.\"\nWith some relief seeing that her packmate is alright, Nesala looks around for somewhere they can go, perhaps there is another door around here that leads to some part they haven't explored yet?\n\nThere are indeed several doors they haven't explored yet.\nTaluno carefully opens one of them. There is a beeping, and then an alerted sound.\n\"Shit, take cover!\" Taluno yells as he ducks behind the unexposed doorway. \nAnother turret, but this one shoots a stream of lasers through the door and into the room outside. Luckily there is no one else in the way at the moment.\n\nStaying far away from that turrets line of fire, the two Avali soldiers go to Taluno's side, taking cover beside him.\n\"Well THIS turret is not spitting lead at us.\" Raylo growls, he thought there would be some consistency here based on those previous turrets they saw before.\n\n\"Yeah, I was beginning to wonder if there was any active working security in here.\" Ranyu grumbles as he readies his weapon. The turret laser eventually gives up firing as it 'sees' no target. \nRanyu leans around the corner, and takes a shot, his bullets piercing the turret and causing a small explosion as it is put out of commision.\n\nWith the turret down, Raylo and Nesala take point and head in there, with their rifles at the ready.\n\nWhat awaits them inside is... not a pretty sight to say the least. \nThere are gurneys with arm straps on the side, torture beds, eagle spreaders, and in some of them, decayed, non-human skeletons. Rusted scalpels, scissors, etc lie on a counter. A[url=https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/827525145597181993/930585192278679592/Interrogation_Table.png] bed with a rod on the side, branching out into two rotatable metallic arms. One sports a drill on the end of it, the other a saw blade. Both are covered in long-dried blood.[/url]\n\nIf they weren't wearing airtight helmets, the smell would likely be rancid. But then again, the same would be throughout the whole facility. \n\"Ugh... this must have been the 'dissection room' the terminal mentioned.\" Taluno comments. \"That would explain the turret.\"\nThough it looks like there was at least one set of human bones among the rest.\nThere is another terminal at one end of the room, a smaller one. Might be a personal computer of some sort? \n\n\"Oof, creepy...\" Rotom whispers.\n\"As if just the Miniknog doing this stuff was bad enough...\" Raylo is not a fan of what he sees here.\n\"Hhhhmmm can you scan some of those skeletons for me?\" Boris enquiries. \"I can cross-reference with some things here, perhaps find out what they were dissecting.\"\nNesala approached that terminal, noting that it appears perfectly functional. \"There is another active computer here.\"\n\n\"Alright.\" Taluno and Ranyu scan some of the skeletons. \nOn Boris's end, he gets the readouts. One seems to have been a Buizel, the other was a vaporeon by the looks of things, another was a riolu, and the last one was... a sandshrew?\nThe computer is password protected, it seems Rotom will have to do his job again.\n\nThe human back on the sub does some analysis before sharing what he found. \"So they were dissecting local life, no surprise there but also some of these skeletons are not quite 'local' two of them used to live on dry land...they must have taken them from the mainland I think.\"\nNesala tried to access it but it seems to be password protected. \"Rotom? Can you unlock this here too?\"\n\"Got something for me?\" Rotom jumps out of the other Avali's armor and hovers over to the terminal, going inside of it's systems. \n\nTaluno goes over to the systems that Rotom just hacked, and checks the systems.\n\"Let's see here....\" He says to himself as he reads some of the entry.\n[i]\"Subject 24. Physical description: otter-like with yellow 'flotation' device around neck, two tails. Status before termination: Healthy-...\" [/i]He grumbles to himself. \"Yeah yeah we can skip the subject descriptions. Rotom, you can just forward these to Boris. Let's see if there's anything else interesting in here, like personal log files in here... oh. Here we go.\" \n[i]\"We continue to do our dissection work, as ordered. So many subjects, so little time, and very rarely do we have the same type twice. I'm beginning to wonder just how many of these weird creatures are on this planet. Some of them have yielded quite interesting finds. Although I am beginning to doubt if any of it will lead up to anything.[/i]\n[i]I've overheard from the grunts that we've still had no contact with command. Some of the grunts have begun to believe we've been cut off, or that something else has happened and we're on our own. Johnathan certainly seems to think so.[/i]\n[i]Speaking of the good colonel, I'd really wish the overseer would reassign him. I swear if I have to hear any more about his idiotic warlord fantasies one more time, I'm going to pull my hair out. I signed up in this unit to do science for the good of mankind. If I wanted to play court mage to a wannabe king, I'd have ditched this sorry rock and lived in one of those silly Glitch kingdoms.[/i]\n[i]Worse yet, he's got a few people actually agreeing with this idiotic idea. Mostly just his drinking guard buddies for now, but I swore I've seen at least one of the science crew nodding with him. Base commander tells me it's nothing to worry about, but from the way he's looked at me ever since I told him off that one day, I'm beginning to get the smallest hint of worry.[/i]\n[i]Guess there's nothing to do but keep plugging along.\"[/i]\n\n\"Hmm... interesting, but not really helpful without context. Let's see....\"\n[i]\"Notice from Command.[/i] Huh, this looks like it might be interesting.\"\nHe clears his throat as he opens up the announcement and reads. \n[i]\"A reminder to all personnel in and around the dissection labs: dissection subjects are NOT food, and consumption of test subjects is strictly prohibited. I cannot believe I even have to make an announcement of this, but the reports of soldiers sneaking off parts of subjects and cooking them has forced me to crack down. Not only are these subjects crucial scientific assets, consumption of such is extremely distasteful and hazardous. Seriously, do you people even have any idea where they've been, what chemicals they put them under, or what diseases they might have? [/i]\n[i]We are not short on food, so there is no excuse for this. If you are hungry, go to the mess hall. [/i]\n[i]Anyone caught stealing and/or consuming test subjects will be punished. Severely. That is all.[/i]\n[i]PS: No, 'it tastes good' is not an acceptable excuse. And anyone complaining about the quality of the mess hall food will be reassigned to janitorial duty. \" [/i]\n\n\"Yikes...\" Rotom said.\n\"So they ate them too...\" Nesala mumbles in disgust. At least the superior of these humans seem to have had some standards...\nBoris decides to not comment on this, not the time for black comedy or morbid things to say. \"Well... I'm starting to suspect that this Johnathan-person is important. If there is nothing else perhaps we can look for this 'Overseer's' office, a man like that would probably have access to everything, no?\"\n\n\"Yeah this is the second time we've heard that name. And not in a good way.\" Ranyu comments.\n\"Hmmm there's something else here too yet... 'Project Transference?'\"\nTaluno clicks on that, though once he opens it, he shakes his head. \n\"Bahh, figures. It's all corrupted.\" he growls. Indeed, the only thing it shows is a bunch of garbled, glitched text. Honestly, he's surprised he got as much information from this as he did.\n\"Anyway, it doesn't look like there's anything else to learn from this room. Rotom, you can exit the terminal now.\"\nHe gets back up and faces the crew. \n\"Well that would be a good idea Boris. Trouble is, we don't know where the overseer's office is. So for the moment we're just kind of picking doors at random.\" \n\n\"Yes, I'm well aware. But it seems our luck is turning, we found interesting information. Just keep on exploring, we must be getting close.\"\nRotom leaves the terminal and goes to inhabit Taluno's suit for now.\nWherever they are going to head to next, Raylo and Nesala are ready.\n\nBack in the main science room, there are about 3 more doors they could choose. one to their left, one straight ahead of them, and one right next to the one they just came out of.\n\"There are still quite a few options here.\" Taluno tells him in return. \"It would make little sense to go all the way back out in the hallway only to have to come back here anyway.\"\n\n\"Ah.\"\n\"Let's check out this one instead?\" Nesala said as she went to open that one door on their left.\n\n\"Alright. Let's check it out.\" Taluno replies. Upon moving up to the door, they hear beeping, and what sounds like low robotic beeps and blurbs. There seems to be something moving about too.\n\n\"Not this again...\" Raylo can only hope there is nothing dangerous behind this door, just like how it was last time.\nOnce everyone is ready, Nesala begins opening the door...slowly.\n\nWhat she sees... is what appears to be a long hallway with about 3 roof turrets, skeletons on the floor of human types, and more importantly, a pair of robots. [url=https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/827525145597181993/930628250793820190/unknown.png]These robots possess tracks, attached to a body that turns into a narrow body that curves into a serpent-like head with a single, long, red 'eye' at the end of it. They sport two holes on either side that hide cannons when the drone is in combat.[/url]\n\nNesala quickly got away from the doorway and took cover near it. \"... Serpent Droids.\"\n\"Just what we need right now...\" Raylo sighs.\n\n\"Alright. So here's how we do this. We wait till that closest serpent droid has its back turned. Then, Rotom, you do your flying possession thing. You should find two weapons on board. Target the other serpent droid. Once you're in, Nesala and I will enter the hallway. Ranyu and Raylo will cover from this room. Raylo, take the turret closest to us. Ranyu, take the middle one. Nesala and I will target the furthest one, and then once the turrets are toast, we'll help Rotom deal with that serpent droid. If we do this right, Rotom should have a more permanent body to coast around in. One with some actual weapons\"\n\"It's no Sea Hawk or Heavy Drone, but it's a pretty solid choice of body.\" Ranyu comments to Taluno/Rotom. \n\n\"Alright then, i'm goin'!\" Rotom leaves Taluno's hardware prepared for an opportunity to invade one of those Serpent Droids. Meanwhile Raylo and Nesala wait until it's the time to strike.\n\n\"Alright. On my mark...\"\nTaluno keeps an eye through a crack in the door. He waits for the closest serpent droid to turn its back...\nIt reaches the end of its patrol, then it turns in place and starts heading the other direction.\n\"Here's your chance, go!\" He whispers to the Rotom as he shoves the door open quietly.\n\nThe little plasma ghost begins zooming straight for that Serpent Droid, aiming to enter as soon as it touches it from behind.\n\nThe little mon is able to touch the Serpent Droid, and it successfully enters before it could raise its shield.\nHowever, it did not go unnoticed. The turrets all saw it coming, and although they couldn't deploy fast enough to stop the ghost in its sprint, they somehow still detected it inside the possessed serpent droid. They take aim at it, as does the other serpent droid, which raises its own shields.\nHowever, just when it looks like the Rotom will have to fight it all on its own, the crew take their positions. Taluno quickly enters the hall and ducks into the corner hallway, allowing Nesala to enter and do the same on the left side. \nThe front and center turrets try to reprioritize on Taluno, but it is too late. He opens on the turret farthest away from him, just behind the non-possessed serpent droid which is now turning, bringing it down.\nRanyu takes his position just outside of the hallway, aiming at the center one, likewise destroying it with a well placed salvo of bullets fire while he trusts Raylo to take down the current turret in front of him, and Nesala to assist Rotom with the remaining serpent droid.\n\nRaylo took out the last turret, leaving Nesala clear to advance.\nRotom is fumbling a little trying to get the weapons of this new body to come out, but it did manage to get it's shield up, which can serve to help provide cover for them, particularly Nesala.\nThe female Avali soldier takes cover behind the shielded friendly Serpent Drone and shoots at the enemy one. \"Rotom! Shoot at it!\"\n\"I'm trying! I'm trying!\"\n\nWith the turrets clear, the pack turns its attention onto the remaining Serpent drone, firing away at it. While the shield proves stubborn, it's no match for four combatants all firing at it at once. It loses its shield, and less than a second later, it sparks and gitters as bullets pierce its reactor, causing it to shut down with a smoking whine.\n\nIt was then that Rotom managed to bring out his new weapons, but it's a little too late for that. \"Oh...\" If anything, at least he provided cover for Nesala and the others by being the way of that other Serpent Droid with his own shields on.\n\nWith the situation de-escalated, Raylo steps forward. \"Two Serpent Droids and a bunch of turrets...must be something important around here.\" He commented.\n\nAnd it doesn't take long at all for them to find out, as Taluno looks to his right.\n\"Was something important around here?\" Taluno corrects him as the leader points at the scene in front of them.\nCells. Rows and rows of cells with rusted iron bars. Some with non-human skeletons in them. Most empty. None of them are occupied with anything living.\n\n\"Hang on, I can't turn my head.\" Rotom said before turning his whole Serpent Droid body to face the cells. \"Oh...yikes...\"\n\"Honestly there are way better ways to contain pokémon than this...\" Boris is talking on the comms again. \"This is very inhumane and takes a lot of space, not to mention some pokémon could just bypass it easily.\"\n\n\"We're talking about the USCM here.\" Taluno retorts flatly into the comms. \"They weren't really known for being 'humane'.\"\n\"Kind of why the Protectorate gave them the boot the minute they got into power.\" Ranyu adds. \n\"Still, this seems to argue against a rogue AI running things here.\" Taluno thinks aloud. \"If there was a guiding hive intelligence behind these machines, surely they wouldn't have them guarding long-empty cells.\"\n\n\"That confirms this, yes.\" Boris agrees. \"The robots here all still seem to be very glued to their programming. Actually...with the amount of mons having died in such ways in this place, i'm surprised that you have not seem a single ghost haunting the place.\"\n\n\"Actually are ghost pokemon immune to bullets and/or energy weapons?\" Taluno has to wonder. \"I mean, there are 'ghost' like entries in some places we've seen. Some are immune to bullets, some aren't, some just take a shitton of damage. Almost none of them are immune to energy weapons though. Or flamethrowers.\"\n\"We're getting off track.\" Ranyu tells him. \"And I don't see anything else of interest here besides the door on the other end. Let's move on-\"\n\"Just a moment!\" Taluno interrupts him as his eyes fall upon one of the skeletons. One of the human ones. It's sitting on top of something. Something small and somewhat plastic.\n\"What's this?\" He kneels down and carefully moves the skeleton aside and picks the object up. \n\"A holotape? Really old model, but\" The familiar blue light of his scanner shoots out from his visor, surrounding the object as he looks at it further.\n\"Seems to be intact. Audio tape by the scan. Don't have a direct player, but I might be able to ....\" \n\nNesala and Raylo look at the holotape too. It might contain some very useful information. \"Can we play it?\" The former of the two asks.\n\n\"I think I can scan the contents and play them that way, yes.\" Taluno's blue scanning stops, and a voice that isn't his own speaks from his helmet. \n[i]\"The plan was a complete success. The idiot 'overseer' and the sightless numbnuts are no more. Going to miss a few of them, but what can you do? Earth is gone, the USCM command has gone silent, and yet those eggheads and bucketheads would rather have kept at their go-nowhere projects rather than join us in actually making something of ourselves here. Although I will admit, I was beginning to doubt Johnathan, just a little, but here we are. He's headed to the mainland now with a few of his friends, and once he's made contact and set up a forward camp, we'll get this show on the road. Before long we'll be running the show [/i][i]on this[/i][i] backwards ass world.[/i]\n[i]Though... I just wonder what in god's name are we going to do with the rest of these things? Does he really mean for us all to t#8n 1#t0 $@8-\"[/i] The audio devolves into incomprehensible static before cutting out.\n\n\"...That's ominous.\" Rotom said.\nBoris is connecting some dots listening to all of this. \"Hhhmmm...i am beginning to think this must have been where the Iron King was born. But I was wrong about the AIs rebelling so...\"\n\"So someone must have turned the security system against the USCM to kill the overseer and the others before going off to live in the world.\" Nesala speaks out what she thinks she can understand of all of this thus far.\n\n\"Hmmmm... interesting theory.\" Ranyu replies. \"By the way, what's the 'Iron King?'\"\n\"Yes, that seems plausible, Nesala.\" Taluno thinks on this as he rubs the underside of his helmet. \"And I think it's obvious who, too. Well, either he did or someone under him did. But I still feel as if we're missing something here. This guy was obviously on the 'winning side', and yet here he is, dead like the rest of them.\"\nTaluno gets up. \n\"We're starting to piece what happened here together, but we're still missing quite a few pieces of the puzzle.\" He heads towards the door at the end of the hall.\n\n\"Well...how can I put this into small words?\" Boris wonders for a moment. \"He is the one responsible for becoming king of this world, and introducing Iron weaponry all around. He died a long time ago, suffice to say his empire fragmented as a result and the world is what it is.\"\nTaluno is followed by the two Avali soldiers in the Rotom in the Serpent Drone.\n\n\"Hmmm I see.\" Ranyu replies. \n\"Only one hole with this Iron King was here theory.\" Taluno replies as they reach the other door. He doesn't open it right away, instead taking time to carry on this conversation so that he can be on full alert when they enter the next room. \"This base was full of humans. Yet mons don't even know what a human is. Not to mention they had all sorts of tech here. Robots. Guns. You name it. Yet Iron seems to be reduced to swords.\"\n\"Hell I heard from a 'vali who talked to some mons who talked to some other mons say that humans were balls of gas because they had to fit inside of pokemon bodies.\" Ranyu adds in.\nTaluno can't help but chuckle at that notion. That sounds closer to the Rotom controlling the Serpent Droid, not the fleshy monkeys they know them to be.\n\"Like I said, as plausible as that theory is, there's holes in it, and I get the feeling there's more to it than this.\"\nThere's still questions on the mind. If the 'Johnathan coupers' won out in the end, where are they now? Did they leave? If so, why? They had a perfectly serviceable base here. And that guy was one of the coupers. Did he die during the coup? ... No, that can't be it. Then he couldn't have made the tape. What did he mean by 'does he really mean for us all to...' \nAll to what? How did it involve the prisoner mons that were presumably still alive at the time? \nDid something else attack them after the coup? The Miniknog perhaps? ... No, that couldn't be right either. If that was the case, the base would not be in this dilapidated and abandoned state. It'd be shiny and pristine, and crawling with Miniknog. Not to mention they saw no evidence of an attack on the outside when they came in. If something else invaded and killed them, why leave the robots running? What is 'Project Transference?'\nEach answer only gives rise to more questions so far. But now, now is the time to get the head back in the game. He gives a listen on the other side of the door.\nSure enough, he hears the telltale beeping of something robotic on the other side.\n\n\"That's a pretty valid argument. Tell me if you spot something else...or find the overseer's office to see if it has what we need to shut down the defenses.\"\nRaylo grumbles at the noises coming from the other side of the door. \"Again...\"\nLike before, Nesala slowly opens the door to see what's on the other side, if it's dangerous and it sees her she is going to be taking cover behind Rotom again, given how he can probably tank some attacks with his shields.\n\nThere is a loud revving that causes Taluno to grab Nesla and pull her away to the side to avoid....\n... Nothing. It's another clicker.\n\"Oh good. This one's out of ammo too.\" Taluno sighs as he peaks around again. \"Or it's jammed. One of the two.\"\nVERY good thing this one's out of ammo. It's a very heavy minigun turret, that if it was loaded, it would have had bullets big and heavy enough to easily pierce their armor, advanced as it is.\n\"... Again?\" Ranyu sighs as he casually walks into the room. This one... is a bit smaller than one would expect such a powerful gun to be guarding. It's merely two very large machines on either side of the room, with a terminal attached to one of them. In the center of the room are two chairs, with some sort of head covering over them.\n\"How... odd.\" Taluno remarks.\n\nHhhmm, what could this be?\n\"Is this some other sort of torture device?\" Boris enquiries over the comms. \"Electric chairs? Or do they do something with people's minds?\"\n\n\"Only one way to find out.\" Taluno responds as he goes over to the computer.\nThis time he's able to get in without Rotom's help as it's not locked.\n[i]\"Transference Device\" [/i]Taluno reads aloud. \"If this is what I think it is, we might have just hit the jackpot.\"\nHe reads off some of the log files.\n[i]\"Subject 1a: two-tailed otter creature. Subject 1b: Angry Duck. Subject status: Healthy, Conscious.[/i]\n[i]Result: Failure.[/i]\n[i]Notes: I know we don't want to jump into human testing right away, but how were we even supposed to measure success in this scenario?[/i]\n[i]- Dr Simmons[/i]\n[i]Easy. If they point at each other and act really confused. It was a success. If they just run around angry and panicking like they usually do, it's a failure.[/i]\n[i]- Dr Thomsen.[/i]\n[i]Subject 2a&b: Same as subjects 1a and 1b, but both subjects were rendered unconscious before being placed in transference device.[/i]\n[i]Result: Failure.[/i]\n[i]When awoken through stimulant injection, neither subject showed signs of transference. Security returned both to their cells until further testing.[/i]\n[i]Subject 3aAnd3b: Same subjects. Subject A rendered unconscious, subject B fully conscious.[/i]\n[i]Result: Partial success. [/i]\n[i]Subject A awoke, and expressed clear signs of panic upon seeing subject b. Attempts at locomotion were impaired, as if it had to relearn how to use its body. [/i]\n[i]Subject b remains in comatose state.[/i]\n[i]UPDATE: Subject B, or rather the body of subject b, has expired. It's off to the dissection lab with her.\"[/i]\nTaluno is starting to get an idea of what this device does, and what it's meant to do. But he doesn't believe it. If this is true, they've accomplished something here that not even the Miniknog have accomplished. And not for a lack of trying on their part.\nHe skims through a few more logs that play out more or less like these, with them experimenting with this device on captured mons, and only getting results when one is unconscious, with the other soon being left in a coma. One log details an attempt to wake such a comatose subject.\nNothing worked however, and it was found that the comatose subjects were for all intents and purposes, braindead after the procedure.\nIt isn't until the 13th one that the pattern breaks. \n[i]\"Subject 13a: Mermaid-Dog, female. Subject 13b: Janitor Geasely.[/i]\n[i]As per established procedure, subject A was unconscious, subject B was conscious when the machine was turned on.[/i]\n[i]Result: Success[/i]\n[i]As predicted, human subject B's body went limp and remained unresponsive to stimuli.[/i]\n[i]Subject A then addressed the science team and identified itself as Janitor Geasely. Subject A was then asked questions that only Subject A would know, and she was able to answer them correctly. Subject also recalls basic memories of subject A, oddly enough, implying a split personality, but they insist that they are in full control.[/i]\n[i]While 'Fish Janitor' was reluctant to give up their new body, a second transfer was conducted. Subject B awoke, and despite some minor disorientation, seems to be none the worse off. Subject A remains in a coma, however, and it is predicted that without another transfer, they will expire in a matter of days.\"[/i]\nIt seems the pattern goes on from here, with them transfering themselves back and forth between mons and their old bodies. There is mention of a facility somewhere to hold the bodies. However, the text begins to show corruption as he skims on, just like with the last terminal. It's to be expected, these things are close to a century old by now. In fact it's amazing they even function at all.\nJust when he's about to quit reading however, he comes across a very interesting one.\n\"Subject 36a: #$$!@%, Subject B: Colonel A. Johnathan.\nResult: Suc#%s$\nJohnathan was s%!@*#!&#!@#!&\"\nThe rest of it is corrupted. \nThere is however, one more log.\n\n[i]\"It's taken me a while to regain the motor skills needed to write on this thing. It was well worth it though. [/i]\n[i]My plan was a success. That small minded \"overseer\" and his pen pushers are deader than the meat in the dissection department. Hell, he only agreed to let me do this because he planned on kicking me out of the way with this little 'social project' of his. [/i]\n[i]What a waste of fucking time. Just like the rest of the 'experiments' around here. We could have been making something of ourselves here, but instead those morons decided to keep waiting for orders that we all know won't come, to give away pointless data to people who would just sell it to the highest bidder. Most likely the goddamn monkeys.[/i]\n[i]Well, not anymore. From now on, we do things my way. And my way says we get out there and kick ass.[/i]\n[i]We have the technology, the smarts, the manpower, and now, the will to make this world into our own. We'll transfer whoever's left of us into these saps, blow away a few of these backwards ass tribals, and have these fucks worshiping the very ground we walk on by year's end. We'll remake this world in our image, our own little heaven in a universe that has forgotten us. All the power, all the ass, dick, and pussy we could ever want, all the food. No more shitty robot-grown rations. Meat and fine berries for us all![/i]\n[i]... Wait, did I really just write out that I want to fuck these creatures? ... yes, yes I did. Must be some leftover instincts from the gray matter in these creatures. Or maybe it's just the fact that this place has been a sausagefest for so long that any piece of pussy looks tasty. Ah well, at least I don't have to hide it anymore. None of us do.[/i]\n[i]Fuck USCM. Fuck the Protectorate. Fuck the Miniknog. And fuck everyone else out there not worth mentioning, like those stupid pacifist Hylotls or the go-nowhere coldbirds. It's only us now, and soon, we'll own this world.\"[/i]\n\"... How pleasant.\" Ranyu comments. \n\nRotom is going on a bit of a joyride nearby with this Serpent Drone.\nRaylo and Nesala are in silence after reading that ending part. 'How 'pleasant' ' indeed...\nAnd Boris...Boris has something to say alright. \"Crikey.\" He sighs. \"Alright I think this explains very well what this is AND what happened here. Though this 'Transference' is interesting, it's a bit similar to what a very VERY rare pokémon can do to two individuals. But this...this is way cruder let me tell you.\" There is a moment of silence. \"...I'm gonna have to notify the others of this, it is quite the find...not the whole 'transference' thing I mean, that's horrible, I mean where the Iron King possibly came from. And here I thought this Johnathan-fellow was the good guy in this story...\" \n\n\"So let me see if I get this straight.\" Taluno steps away from the terminal. \"This Johnathan guy... who may or may not, but probably is the so-called 'Iron King', got turned into a mon, and he along with some co-conspirators, hacked the drones or their central computers to target anyone on this base not loyal to their group, then conspired to take the guns, drones, etc. and gather an army of mons and steamroll the world, setting up his 'Iron Kingdom' in the process. Does that sound correct so far?\" He asks Boris directly.\n\n\"Yeah, it matches what we have here.\" Boris confirms. \"The lore says that the Iron King united this whole world under his banner. However...i do not understand why there just melee weapons been used, there are no mentions of technological weaponry such as drones...let alone guns or explosives. It is said that Iron work was something that the Iron King brought with him, and when he was gone, so was the knowledge on how to forge Iron apparently.\" \n\n\"Hmm, yes. It appears though he had intended to use guns and drones, but that part didn't quite pan out. Something else must have happened here, causing him to abandon that part of it. My guess is he planned to leave at least some crew behind to manage the base, like that scientist guy who made the holotape. But... they died too. Sometime after the coup.\nIf I am to guess...\" He rubs his chin. \"I'm guessing it had something to do with the very thing he used to accomplish the coup in the first place: the drones. But... What exactly happened? Who caused it to happen? And why?\"\n\n\"That's the last remaining question we have right? Well, perhaps it's not long before we get an answer to that too, eh?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Unfortunately, it seems we've hit a dead end here. The only thing now is to head back until we find a door or corridor to go through that we haven't explored yet.\" Taluno sighs. \"Actually...\" He looks towards Rotom. \"You never did tell us where you came from even, or what happened after you exited out of the Sea Hawk drone.\"\n\nThe Serpent Droid turns to the Avali. \"Oh, well after I jumped into one of those robots with a wheel for legs, I sort of just went around trying to find something else to go into, something like, some big computer that controls everything but I found none of that! I think I was disguised pretty well because none of the security systems gave me any trouble. So I just came up here still searching and I found you guys.\"\n\n\"I'm guessing the turrets only reacted to you because they saw you jump into that serpent droid. They must not have spotted you down in the bay.\" Taluno guesses. \"And you didn't see any humans or anything else alive?\" Ranyu asks. \"Or anything else of interest?\"\n\n\"Nope! nothing alive! Just a mess of skeletons and junk! Did find out where the robots come from though, there it was from this big box thing, I saw it let out some small hockey-puck with antenna robots that scurried along the ground.\"\n\n\"Hmm..\" Taluno thinks to himself. \"I'm guessing those were even less appealing to you than the repairdroid? Or you would have switched to one.\"\n\n\"Well it would have been pretty hard to look for anything if it was that small and limited to just moving on the ground.\"\n\n\"If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, I'll bet it is.\" He and his crew begin the trek back as he continues talking.\nOnce they reach the science room however, they find that the repairbot is gone, and a couple of those robots that Rotom was talking about are scurrying about, cleaning the floors. Though it seems they can't do much about the walls. \n\"Yeah, I'm betting those cleanerbots were what you were talking about?\" He asks.\n\n\"Yes, those things!\" The Serpent Droid would not if it's head could do that. \"They are too small so i just ignored them. What are they doing anyways?\"\n\"I believe they are trying to keep the floor clean.\" Nesala said.\n\"Given how this place is thrashed, I feel sorry for them trying to keep anything clean.\" Raylo added.\n\nRaylo looks upon them. Part of him wants to just shoot them to put them out of their 'misery', but that would be a complete waste of ammo. Ammo they might need if there's more security, which is bound to be the case if they're headed for the command center and/or computer rooms, or any other rooms of importance.\nSoon they're right back at the fork in the road, with the smudged out sign.\n\"Okay, here we are again.\"\n\n\"Ah, so I guess I have to show you guys where I wondered about huh? Hhmmm, alright. This way!\" Rotom in the Serpent Droid begins heading for that path that he came through, but the Avali haven't, the one that goes to the left.\n\nThe Avali crew follow the big serpent droid as it tracks through the halls, keeping an eye out for any security systems that wouldn't have reacted to Rotom, but will react to them. Or any holotapes that might offer any more insight as to what happened here.\n\n\"Wait, wait!\" Rotom says to them as it keeps tracking forward, toward an open door on the side. \"There is one of those turret thingies up ahead.\" He turns around and then fires on board weapons at something at the ceiling, there is the noise of something breaking and falling to the ground. \"There we go.\"\nThe female Avali Soldier takes a look inside that room, she finds what appears to be an armory, but as one might expect from an old place such as this, it's pretty barren. What wasn't taken was in pieces and rusted. She was about to think checking out this room was a bit of a waste of time until she noticed a holotape in one of the gun lockers. \"Look, over there.\" \n\n\"Huh, those thingies are important?\" Rotom asks, noting how they seem interested in these holotapes.\nRaylo nods. \"Yeah, well...they might provide some scraps of information...debatably.\"\n\"Ah, well...in that case I found another one of those when I was wandering around down there.\"\n\n\"Would have been interesting if we hadn't already found out what exactly happened in the lab wing.\" Taluno comments.\n\n\"So you are going to show us where this other one is, Rotom?\" Raylo asks.\n\"No need, I can just play it right now. I went into it thinking it was going to be something useful like a map or a code but I only found this.\" Rotom proceeds to 'play' a copy of the holotape from it's memory.\n[i]\"Doctor Milo here. Day number....i don't know anymore, it's been so long since we have been stuck here. These creatures in this world are quite interesting, they can command fire, ice, water, earth and even the mind itself! Sure we saw such capabilities in creatures like Fennix, but some of the species here can use fire in more powerful and creative ways. And that's not all! With my own eyes I witnessed one of these things fire out something that I can only describe as a 'wave-motion gun'! It was tiring for a moment after using it, but it recovered quicker than I expected from spending energy in such an attack. Though the odd thing I noticed is that...despite how devastating some of these creatures can be with their powers, fights between them never seem to end in a fatality on account of these powers themselves. It's very strange. At first I thought that perhaps we could train these things to obey us, they could be very powerful weapons if conditioned to obey commands but it doesn't look like things might quite pan out that way, and given that they are sentient this is all easier said than done. I think I'm starting to see why Johnathan is obsessed with these things...\" [/i]\n\nBoris has some comments for this. \"Ah, humans getting tempted by the power of pokémon...this is not good. I'm beginning to think they also abandoned their humanity.\"\n\n\"As if they ever had any in the first place.\" Ranyu grumbles.\n\"So at least one of the doctors recognized them as sentient.\" Taluno comments. \"Okay, so on your way here, did you pass any other rooms of interest?\" Ranyu asks the possessed serpent droid.\n\n\"You know I think I'm gonna miss being a Serpent Drone, but I kind of wish I could fly as one.\" Rotom comments. \"Well I think I saw something interesting, you know how when you see signs that if someone doesn't want you going somewhere it means there is something important there? Well I saw a door guarded by some dangerous looking turrets.\"\n\n\"Should have been with us when we fought that heavy drone.\" Taluno jokes. \"You would have loved it.\"\n\"Though he wouldn't have been able to fit inside and would have had to ditch it anyway.\" Ranyu points out.\n\"True enough.\" Taluno replies flatly. \"Anyway, take us to this room with the turrets and stuff. It sounds important.\"\n\n\"If these turrets are as dangerous as you said, I hope they are out of ammo...\" Raylo comments.\nRotom guides the Night Witches out of the room and down the hallway after some walking he stops when there is a corner to turn that seems to lead into another hallway. \"Alright, it's just at the end of this path here, be careful.\"\nNesala peaks around the corner and notices that there are four turrets guarding one door in the end of the hall. Two are on the walls beside it and two are on the ceiling, it's some strong point defense.\n\nTaluno also spots no less than 3 of the serpent drones in there. \n\"Okay, we can't rush in there, or else we're going to get ripped to pieces by ... well... everything.\" Taluno replies. He doesn't know if the turrets are out of ammo or if those are the laser turrets, but he isn't taking any chances. \"So what we'll do is we'll see if we can't get those serpent droids to come to us instead. Rotom, since they don't expect you to be a hostile, you go in, and shoot down one or two of the turrets before they react. Don't try to take on three, because by that time they'll no doubt be onto you. Once you do that, come back out here, and we'll set up a kill zone in this hallway. Ranyu and I will be front and kneeling, the other two standing behind us. Each pair will be on either side of the hallway. Once Rotom comes back, he'll be in the center. Got it?\"\n\nNesala and Raylo nod. Now they just need to wait to see if Rotom is okay with this idea.\n\"Well, it sounds like a plan i guess, just shoot and run back here right?\" Rotom turns around and heads down into that hallway, so far so good. When he is close enough to have a clear shot of the turrets he stops and stared at them for a moment, wondering if they are staring back at him...suspecting that he is an enemy...This should give the Avali ample time to set up for what comes next. Then he fires his Serpent Droid weapons at two of the turrets and begins retreating by making his tracks go on reverse. \"SHOOTTHEMSHOOTTHEMSHOOTTHEM!!!\" He is afraid the possible retaliation that might come his way preeeetty soon.\n\n\"Alright here is.\" Taluno barks as he hears the commotion inside. Indeed, the minute he took down that turret, all the others and the serpent droids turned toward him. Good thing his reverse speed is faster than their turn speeds. None the less one of the turrets gets a few pot shots of heated red laser off at the fleeing 'traitor'. the noise of serpent droids bellowing in their low pitched robotic babble coming along. \n\"Alright. Ready... Aim...\" Taluno orders from the firing line as Rotom comes out like a bat out of hell.\nThe second a pair of second scandroid tracks come into view, he gives the order\n\"FIRE!\"\n\n\"Ow! Ow!\" Rotom whined as it's possessed Serpent Droid body gets some holes from the laser turret. When it came the order to fire, the two Avali soldiers popped out of their cover, and with their weapons aimed over the heads of their other two allies and at the hostile Serpent Droids, they began opening fire on them. \n\nThe shields absorb some of the shots, but they can't hold long enough for them to return fire under this concentrated barrage, and one being behind the other means the one behind can't help until the first one collapses in a pile of smoking metal. With their line of sight blocked, they take a moment to quickly reload their guns, before seeing that the droid has finally maneuvered its way around, its shield still raised and its guns ready to fire, so Taluno and crew concentrate fire on that one too!\n\nRotom raises it's shields to provide more cover for the Avali soldiers and also shoots at the enemy with his own weapons. \"AAAAAAAHH!!\"\nAfter putting fresh magazines on their guns, the two other Avali soldiers resume firing with the others. Five people firing down this hallway at once is making it quite an effective kill zone, just as planned.\n\nThe other one's shields drop when they become overloaded with gunfire, and soon bullets peirce the robot's armor and core, causing it to fizzle and smoke before its light dims and switches off.\nIt's at that point that the third makes its presence known, its weapons firing directly at the robot. Taluno and Ranyu open fire again, upon this newcomer.\n\nTheir ally Serpent Droid takes the brunt of the fire with it's shields, leaving the Night Witches safe to open fire on this last remaining security robot.\n\nJust like with the other two, the combined fire takes the third one down, but this one explodes, sending shrapnel everywhere. Luckily , the crew's armor and helmets are enough to keep the explosion from doing any major damage.\n\nAfter the dust and shrapnel from that explosion settled down, Rotom looked on at the aftermath. \"Did...did we get them all?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Unless the turrets start sprouting legs and walking out here, that seems to be all the bots. Though speaking of...\" He groans. \"Now we have to deal with those.\"\n\n\"Maybe we could use Rotom here as a cover as we advance on those turrets?\" Raylo puts a suggestion forward. \"Since he got shields and all.\"\n\n\"You okay with that?\" Taluno asks the possessed drone.\n\nRotom agrees. \"Yeah, that has been working pretty well so far, right?\"\n\n\"Alright. let's go for it.\" Taluno nods at him, and reloads his weapon again. While not 100% out, he only has about 2 shots in it, not enough to take down anything, and he'd rather not reload during the firefight.\n\nWhen everyone was locked and loaded Rotom began to advance towards that door, with it's shields up. It's a surprise when the laser turrets began shooting at it as soon as it came within their sights, but the attention of the turrets were focused on it and not the Avali.\n\nTaluno is not giving them the chance to damage the Rotom further. \"OPEN FIRE!\" He yells as he takes aim at one of the turrets with his freshly loaded gun, and puts several holes through the thing, including through the base, which causes it to drop to the floor and smash onto the floor.\n\nWith everyone minus the Rotom opening fire on those turrets, they get destroyed swiftly. And with that all the threats are pretty much cleared.\n\"There we go!\" Raylo speaks up. \"Now with so many defenses, it's gotta be something pretty important this time around.\"\n\nIndeed, there's computers, desks, everything around. In fact it almost looks a bit like the command tent back at Sandgun, but much, much bigger and a lot less haphazard. \n\"If this is what I think it is, we have just hit the jackpot.\" Taluno announces as they spread out to look over the various things, looking to see if any of these computers are operational\n\nIn case they need anything hacked, Rotom waits where it is.\n\"Now this looks big and important.\" Boris comments over the comms. \"Seems like a nerve center to me...\"\nRaylo looks at one of the computers, that has many screens, he realizes that this must be the camera system. \"Found the cameras here!\"\n\"This here must be the comms.\" Nesala said regarding what she found.\nAround the center of the room, Taluno or Ranyu mind find something much more vital, it seems like the main terminal used by the overseer, it's sure to have controls of important things around the base, such as the defense systems.\n\nAs Taluno goes over to what appears to be said main terminal, his booted feet fall upon something, producing a loud crunch. He looks down, and sees two skeletons, one lying almost overtop the other. One seems to be in some sort of fatigues, shot to pieces, while the other seems to be a scientist of some sort.\nHe can only take a guess that one of them, presumably the former, was the base's overseer. As for the others... Who knows?\n\"Hmmph.\" Is the only retort he has to that. Truth be told, he has no respect for either side in this little power struggle that took place close to a century ago. Both shitheads in their own way, both examples of the worst humanity had to offer... well, apart from the Occassus, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms altogether.\nSeeing nothing of interest on them, he lightly shoves the two away with his feet, as he makes his way over to the terminal...\n\n\"Let's see what we got here.\"\nAs soon as he opens it up, he is met with a huge wall of individual logs and minutes. There's got to be a hundred, perhaps hundreds in plural here. \n\"Woah...\" he says in surprise. He was expecting a lot, but not THIS much. \"This... is going to take a while. We might as well start at the beginning.\"\nHe begins to read aloud. \n[i]\"USCM Base #1 on planet... corrupted... is complete. All the computer systems are operational, the drones are delivered, and we...\"[/i]\nThis goes on, and on, and on. To the point where the crew begin to get bored. Taluno is half tempted to just send it to Boris for him to sort it out later, but he knows he needs to get the whole story.\nIn summary, this base had been built a couple decades before the incident that would later claim so many lives. It was initially just a lookout post, as orbital scans had determined that the planet had only low-tier mineable resources, not high end ones like durasteel or violinium or the like, and since any old fool could mine those in bulk from asteroids, there was little point to setting up any sort of mining operation .They were set up to determine if the planet had some other use, and perform d-list experiments. In other words, a low-priority base.\nSomething that grew in slightly higher priority once they learned of the extent of the local's powers, something they wouldn't find out till later on when curious locals started trying to land on the island, only to be intercepted by security. It was around then they started experimenting on them. Mostly just dissection and basic testing at first. They found that while their powers could not kill each other, oddly enough, they could kill other things. Like humans. On the flip side, weapons like guns or blades seem to do the same damage to them regardless of 'type'. \nIt wasn't until an unrelated project was imported in by command that things began to get interesting. Project Transference. \nA sort of 'immortality machine,' designed to transfer the minds out of living bodies into clone bodies. \n\"Hmph.\" Taluno chuckles. \"Kind of a janky way to achieve immortality. Then again, I guess this is the best you can do when you don't have access to nanite research.\" He comments before continuing to read the logs aloud.\nThe only problem is that said cloning machine never arrived. \n\"If I have to guess, the whole 'Earth going boom' and 'purple guys wrecking everything' and 'USCM splintering into 20 different warlord factions and going nuts' has something to do with that.\" Ranyu surmises.\nWithout the cloning machine, the Transference Device lay dormant and unused. While the idea of using these locals as bioweapons did cross the overseer's mind, said locals proved too unruly to use effectively, requiring too much in the way of training and brainwashing, a feat made harder by the fact that they didn't know their language, nor cared to learn.\nIt was then that Johnathan pitched the idea of transferring minds to and from the local subjects. While the overseer was against this idea at first, he admits that the scientists were getting bored with the same cutting tables day in and day out while waiting for a cloning machine that never arrived. Wanting to keep them appeased, and to get Johnathan off his case, he gave the greenlight to it. Not only was it a resounding success, it solved their translation problems nicely too.\nThe overseer says that if command ever calls again, they'll be quite pleased with this discovery, as they could use it for infiltration missions. He even briefly entertains the idea of getting in contact with the Miniknog and selling it to them, as he admits, the prospects of ever hearing from command again seems to be growing less and less by the day. \nThis however is where the problems started. Johnathan, as it turned out, wasn't satisfied with merely swapping bodies. He wanted to use it to take over this world and make it their own.\nThe next few minutes and logs were filled with endless arguments back and forth between the colonel and the overseer with the latter flat out refusing him each and every time, and growing more and more frustrated with each encounter. Not only this, but complaints are piling in the rest of the base about him propositioning them with his idea, clearly trying to go over the overseer's head. While he desperately wishes he could dispose of Johnathan, he has to admit with the base in the state that it's in, they can't afford to lose personnel. Near the end, he admitted that Johnathan has something resembling a point, and while he wouldn't admit it to his men, he's lost any hope of being contacted by the USCM again. However, he still holds hope that he might contact the Miniknog instead, and that they might offer them some sort of position in their ranks.\nIn the meantime, he hatches a plan to deal with Johnathan. He has him transferred into a new body, and after he gets used to it, he'll have him sent off on an expedition to interact with the locals to learn what he can from them. Mostly just a waste of time to get him far away from the base without killing him and without getting rid of him entirely. \nAlas, these are plans which never come to fruition.\n\"Hmm... odd...\" Taluno comments. \"These next few are dated differently than the others. Let's see here...\"\nHe opens the next one up.\n[i]\"The overseer is gone, as are those who would not see reason. A shame so many of my fellow humans on a world severely lacking in them had to die, but what had to be done is done. A shame, it looked like the overseer might have even seen the light in a few years, but I wasn't going to wait for him to come around, or for those damnable monkeys to show up and take over everything we worked so hard on for themselves. He should have shown some balls and joined me when he had the chance, asshole.\"[/i]\n\"Oh, so that's why,\" Taluno sighs.\n\n[i]\"This base, and soon, this world is ours now. Not the USCM's, not the Protectorate's, not the Avali's (yeah, like their shitty little Illuminate is ever going to amount to anything)-\"[/i]\n\"I feel insulted.\" Ranyu interrupts with a clear tone of annoyance at that statement.\n[i]\"Not Lethia, and certainly not the damn monkeys.\" [/i]Taluno continues, ignoring his packmate's comment. [i]\"And now that I'm the overseer by right of conquest, I think it's probably better to keep my plans here. Better here than on some holotape, since God or lack thereof knows we aren't getting any new ones any day soon. [/i]\n[i]Better here under lock and key than out in the open. Even though the only ones left are those in on the plan, and I haven't exactly lied to them thus far. I will admit, my plan has come a long way since my early stages. I had always planned on taking over this world, ever since it became apparent that the USCM either stopped giving a shit about us or that there was no USCM to give a shit about anything. After all, eventually we're bound to run out of materials, and we'll need to get more from somewhere. Why settle for being raiders and pirates when you could have them hand it over in the form of tribute? And maybe whip these savages up in the process and make something of them? Maybe not, but something resembling a 'civilization', at least.[/i]\n[i]Originally the plan was just to take the droids and guns and go on a rampage until they bent knee. Though since we have a limited number of those, that might not be the best of ideas, as even with our vast technological advantages, we're still outnumbered who knows how many to one. [/i]\n[i]Then came that Transference project, and my plans changed. I realized we could become those beasts, and... well, I hate to admit it, I've actually started to grow... something for the critters. Don't get me wrong here, they're not equal to us. Not by a longshot. And they know it, conveniently enough. But I'll come back to that.[/i]\n[i]But as we all know by now, it allowed us to talk to them, learn their language, their hopes, dreams, fears, and all that other stuff. And a few legends. Using that tech, I quickly had the eggheads, or what was left of them, including my dear doctor William, transfer quite a few of those grunts under my command into a few of the 'pokey-mans' bodies we plucked from a few raids. While it's taken me a long time to get used to this one, I think I made the right choice here. And a few guards for the time being, at least until we're strong enough that we don't need them around here anymore either. Or at least until we have a bigger selection to choose from. After all, mixed unit tactics are much better than an army full of 'water types'. [/i]\n[i]Of course, there was the issue of the overseer. I've still got to get the bastard out of my office. But, it can wait. So, I had Dr William retarget the automated security system, while giving my followers certain 'badges'. The drones and turrets would target anyone not wearing a Badge. The plan went off without a hitch. He delayed the hack so that the drones would operate when the coot was here in his office, and so it was.[/i]\n[i]Now with him and his useless lackies and whiners out of the way, the real work can begin. Oh, don't worry overseer, we'll do that scouting mission, don't you worry. But we'll take our guns with us, and take some captives. But since we'll need to travel light, we won't be able to take much ammo with us. No matter, some simple iron swords should suffice in case we run out of ammo. Seriously, they haven't even figured out how to make iron swords yet. That's how backwards they are.[/i]\n[i]Good thing I took that blacksmithing class back in the academy. Never thought I'd get my extra credit out of that course. But here we are. [/i]\n[i]We'll take the captives back here, for transference into the remaining humans, and... other purposes. Seriously, it's a sausagefest here. And those born into our service should be easier to control and train than those taken from outside.[/i]\n[i]Once we have sufficient numbers, we'll change tacts. We'll go to another place, the other mainland perhaps. But this time, rather than just randomly raiding, I'll present myself as a 'human summoned hero' to 'save the world from a great evil'. [/i]\n[i]Yes I've heard some of the... Legends about humans the locals have told from time to time. I had to suppress a laugh each time one of them told me that a human would come and save them from the monsters that imprisoned them. Ah, the looks on their faces when I told them that they were staring at one. Never got old. But it'll have to if the plan will work. [/i]\n[i]As for what 'problem' we'll 'save the world' from? Perhaps one will turn up. And if it doesn't, well... if there's one thing I learned from the USCM's [/i][i]plagiaristically[/i][i] named counterpart, the Corporate Military, it's 'If there isn't a problem, cause one and sell the solution.'[/i]\n[i]I'll keep the drone factory running, and hopefully with new materials coming in we can make more instead of just repairing old ones. We'll pass them off as 'mons no one has ever seen before' or some crap. And then...[/i]\n[i]I'll give it about a year, possibly less before we have this world under our thumb.\"[/i]\nTaluno leans back with a sigh. That was a mouthful.\n\nBoris has some words for all of this. \"...Ancestors. This changes everything and yet it doesn't. On one hand we know who the Iron King MOST likely is and where he came from, on the other hand it seems like human legends were a thing even before that. which does little to disprove the divine. And we can't be certain if Johnathan and his friends are already gone, they could have had a transference chair somewhere else in one of the mainlands. I know some people who will be rather shaken by this information too.\" Though he realizes he is getting off topic, with a sigh, he continues. \"What a find, eh...?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Quite\" Taluno says. Not sure what to say on all of this.\n\"Well, there's no indication that there was ever a second one.\" Ranyu does however have something to say on all this. \"And it's not like you can just throw some ingredients into a pot and pull one out of it, something like that is bound to be complicated to make. So I doubt there's a second one.\" \n\"Wait...\" Taluno says. \"There's still one more entry. It says 'William' on it.\" \n\n\"William? Okay that name is new in this whole thing, who could this be now?\"\n\n\"I get the feeling we're about to find out...\"\nHe takes a breath, and opens the file. He prepares to read, but to his surprise, there's nothing on the screen but a line. A line which morphs sharply up and down as a voice eminates from the long neglected speakers. It's the familiar voice, the same one they heard speak on the holotape.\n[i]\"Last testament and will of Dr. William. Before I do this, I have only one thing to say. One thing I've wanted to say to you for years, but never had the bravery to say it. And now, in this final moment, before I do what I'm about to do, I finally have grown the spine to say it.[/i]\n[i]Fuck. [/i]\n[i]You. [/i]\n[i]For all the abuse you've given me over the years, in all of their ugly forms, for the way you manipulated me, pulled on my strings, used me, used everyone else here, used them, fuck you. [/i]\n[i]I have no bigger regret than helping you, ever. Yes, you forced me to go along with them, the way you always did. Always using your rank, your brawn, your acolytes, everything, to make me go along with everything you ever did. Both to me and to them. You made me reprogram the droids to attack everyone not wearing those special badges of yours, even gave me one as a show of 'thanks'. I went along with it, because I knew I couldn't stop you by myself. [/i]\n[i]Although, truth be told, I did try to put a stop to this. That night, when you told me the plan, I was planning on going to the overseer, turning over everything to him, hopefully getting out of this mess I found myself in. But... but I hesitated. I was more scared of you than anything. I was forced to install the hack while you watched. [/i]\n[i]And now that you've been gone for some time, I've had time to think. Think about all that I've done. All that you've done to me. All that you've got planned. I know I'm no match for you by myself. But then again, you were no match for the overseer's men by yourself either. And we both know how that ended. Gods, I'm still standing here, next to the corpse. They still haven't moved it. [/i]\n[i]Ironic, I suppose, that in a few moments I'll soon join him. See, I've figured out that if I could do it once, I could do it again. And this time, there will be no badges to save anyone. I've completely overridden the targeting parameters, they'll target ANYONE now that isn't a robot. You. The mons in the cages. Every follower left on this island. ... And me.[/i]\n[i]I only wish you were still here to face judgement yourself, but who knows? Maybe fate will still smile on me and you'll come back, only to get a very bloody homecoming party. Or maybe someone will tip you off or you'll figure out what happened once you've lost contact.[/i]\n[i]Either way, this will hopefully be the end of it. Your petty 'iron kingdom' will hopefully never rise. Goodbye, Johnathan. I'll see you in hell.\"[/i]\nThere is the sound of lasers firing, and a grunt, and the tape ends.\n\n\"Huh, that must have thrown a wrench in the Iron King's plans eh? Though we don't know if he tried to come back to the island and got killed by the defenses...we would have to check the corpses on the button of the ocean but there are probably quite a number of them down there I wager...or maybe he didn't even died here. Wait, hang one let me check if we have this information in our database.\" There is the sound of Boris running off for a moment, then he comes back after a minute. \"Well, according to some information our people in the mainland do have, he was killed by the Iron Prince...his child, I wager.\" \n\n\"Yes indeed...\"\n\"Honestly...\" Raylo begins, just feeling a little exasperated with everything they uncovered. \"Can this all get even more messed up...? I hope not.\"\n\n\"Let's hope not.\" Ranyu replies. \"This has been a wild ride as it is.\"\n\"Though, that begs the question.\" Taluno asks, \"Now what?\"\n\n\"Well, whatever William did here, you can undo it and more...\" Boris begins to explain. \"You can just disable the defense systems so that no one needs to worry about getting killed out of nowhere by drones. Then i say that's mission accomplished, i will inform your superior in the mainland that the base is secure and they decide what happens to it...i mean they won't just leave this all here, will they?\"\n\n\"Probably not, but I'm not sure what they intend to do with it.\" Taluno replies. \"I'm afraid that's well above our paygrade.\"\n\"Not what it was used for, we know that much.\" Ranyu replies. \n\"Right.\" He replies. \"Probably just another sandgun, if I had to guess.\"\n\n\"Yeah that would be entirely logical. Well there is nothing else to do but just turn off the defense system and go home.........or if you want to stick around a little more with me we still going to have some of that canned food, delicious canned berry salad. Up yo you!\" \n\n\"Alright so let's....\"\nHe suddenly stops.\n\"Does... anyone get the funny feeling like they're being... watched?\"\n\"Erm... kind of? I mean this place is creeping me out as it is, but we destroyed all the turrets in the room. So... I....... Don't.... See......\"\nHis words slow down as something drifts out of the ceiling right behind Taluno's head. \n\".... There's something behind me isn't there?\" Taluno says with a flat tone. \nRanyu just nods. \nTaluno and crew freeze in place for just a moment, just before he turns around, quickly aiming his gun at whatever is behind him, and the rest pull theirs too.\n\"Woah woah stop!\" The creature suddenly squeaks in a female tone, if one could accurately describe this floating dark bluish-green floating dress-like thing with flowing 'hair' of the same color and wide yellow eyes with red iris as being as a 'creature'.\"I mean you no harm!\"\n\n\n\"Ah...I guess this place is indeed haunted.\" Boris said, sounding a little worried about what this might mean for the team, but it seems fine for now.\nNesala is still on alert though. \"Wait...you are a ghost?\" This sure looks like a ghost, does it really mean no harm though?\n\"Uuuhhh...Rotom can you get in here?\" Raylo thinks it's best to have a mediator here if needed, odds are having a ghost friend means they can appear friendly to other ghosts, right?\nHaving left the Serpent Droid, which is now offline, the little plasma ghost comes over to them. \"You called?\"\n\n\"Are... are you the ones destroying all the robots and machines?\" The little ghost asks. \n\"We are. Why? Is there a problem?\" Taluno asks for it, lowering his weapon just a bit now that he knows this is a mon and most likely not some form of base security.\n\"N... No!\" 'she' says nervously. \"W-we've had to live in hiding... because of those things.\" She explains. \"They keep us suppressed, and if we show ourselves to them, they'd kill us. Again.\"\n\"Why?\" Ranyu asks. \"You're ghosts. Certainly the robots shouldn't affect you.\"\n\"Iron still affects us ghost types the same as it affects everything else. And so do the red beams of hot light.\" She says back. \"We can't possess them, and we don't know how to operate the glowing boxes, like the white-coats did.\" She looks to the dead William on the ground. \n\n\"I see...\" Living in hiding from machines in a place like this must not have been pleasant at all, Nesala decides to be friendly with this ghost, since she is being friendly after all. \"You have nothing to fear, we are going to make sure all these robots don't hurt anyone anymore...and did you mention 'we'? There are other ghosts here?\"\n\n\"Y... Yeah.\" The little Misdreavus replies. \"T-the humans... they caused a lot of pain here... and made a lot of ghosts...\"\nShe sniffles a bit before continuing.\n\"We can't move on. We can't take over, and we can't leave, or else the metal beasts will destroy us. Again.\"\n\n\"I...see...\" This feels rather chilling. Nesala doesn't know what is worse, talking with someone that suffered such a fate or the thought of dying and being stuck in the horrible place where the death took place. \"I'm really sorry...\"\n\nThe others lower their weapons. \"Y... You said you were going to get rid of the mean metal things?\" She asks \"That's right.\" Taluno sits back down on the chair. \"I was just about to find a way to do so when you came in.\" \"So... You can use the light boxes?\" She asks. \"Yes we can.\" Taluno replies.\n\nRaylo looks at one of the computer screens, realizing what this ghost means with 'light boxes'. \"Yeah, what Taluno here said, we know how to use these things.\"\n\"How long have you been here?\" Nesala asks.\n\n\"A very long time.\" The ghost replies. \"It almost never stops raining here, and we hide in the rocks whenever we can, so I don't know how long it's been exactly.\" \nTaluno tries to look for an entry that will allow him to control the security. Unfortunately it's buried under tons and tons of logs, reports that went nowhere, profiles, and other useless and corrupted garbage.\nTaluno tries to open it, but...\n\"Shit, it's password protected. Figures William would change the passwords once he made his second coup.\" He sighs.\n\nRotom looks at the terminal Taluno is using. \"Password? Let me see if I can do something about that!\" The little plasma ghost proceeds to do it's usual thing, jumping into the terminal and getting to work.\n\"You know, I wonder how exactly it's like to control machinery like that...\" Nesala thinks out loud.\n\"Well, when it's with something like a card reader I can BECOME the card reader and decide to open it.\" Rotom explained. \"Now a password is a bit more complicated but here I can find some 'probable' passwords, and I know how many digits it is! Now, what would a guy growing balls and willing to die to be a thorn on someone's side use as a password...? It's like remembering a word that is on the tip of your tongue.\"\n\nOh so you're not bruteforcing?\" Taluno asks the Rotom.\n\n\"In this particular instance i'm kind of am, the robots were easier because they didn't have any sort of protection, I guess they weren't expecting them to have to deal with something like me!\" It hums in concentration. \"Aaand there we go. Bypassed that. you can do the honors if you want!\"\n\n\"Alright.\" Taluno checks the options for the security. \n[i]AUTOMATED DYNAMIC ARMED RESPONSE CONTROL[/i] \n[i]STATUS: ONLINE[/i] \n[i]ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING NORMALLY[/i] \n[b][i]PURGE MODE ACTIVE!![/i][/b][i] ADAR IS TARGETING NON-ADAR CONTACTS[/i] \n[i][RETARGET ADAR][/i] \n[i][SHUT DOWN ADAR][/i] \n[i][SCRAMBLE ADAR TARGETING][/i] \n[i][SELF DESTRUCT ADAR][/i] \n\"Hmmm...\" he thinks on this, which to press?\n\nFrom inside of the terminal, Rotom 'looks' at the screen and all the options. \"This is it, right?\"\n\n\"Yes that's it.\" Taluno replies. \"Though which to do here...\"\n\nSeeing options, Boris puts forward his opinion on the matter. \"Alright what i'm about to say is mostly speculation here...So retarget ADAR should let us tell the drones what they shouldn't fire on, it's alright but risky as we do not know if years of lack of maintenance haven't driven some of the robots completely haywire. \nShut Down ADAR sounds entirely risk-free and is what we came here to do right? Scramble ADAR Targeting is just going to make the robots even more insane and trigger happy, even if they start taking each other out we are still going to have to clean up what remains. Self Destruct...that's like the second option but with a waste of potential benefits, now I'm not trying to defend these robots...they have done some bad things to whoever gets close to the island, but if we can reprogram them they could be useful. \nIf it were up to me I would say just shut them down, but what button you press here is entirely up to you.\"\n\n\"Alright, shutting it down it is.\" Taluno hits the shutdown button. Text appears on the screen.\n\n[i]SHUTTING DOWN ALL TURRETS.... DONE.[/i]\n[i]SHUTTING DOWN ALL SERPENT DROIDS.... DONE.[/i]\n[i]RECALLING ALL SEA HAWKS ... IN PROGRESS[/i]\n[i]RECALLING ALL TRIFANGLES ... IN PROGRESS[/i]\n[i]RECALLING ALL HEAVY DRONES ... IN PROGRESS[/i]\n\n\"S-Sir!?\" A voice calls out over the crew's internal intercom. It's Eijyu. \"I don't know what's going on in there, or what you just did, but... Something just happened out here. This big hole opened up not too far from my position, and it looks like a bunch of those trifangles are pouring into it! So far I've managed to stay out of sight, but... By the Nexus, there's so many. Oh crap!!\" She cuts out for a moment, and then returns on audio. \"Oh good, there was another one of those big heavy drone things that went in. I thought it'd noticed me for a moment, but it seems they're all just going into that hole... wait, the holes's closing again.\"\nThe last few lines change.\n[i]RECALLING ALL SEA HAWKS ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.[/i]\n[i]RECALLING ALL TRIFANGLES ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.[/i]\n[i]RECALLING ALL HEAVY DRONES ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.[/i]\n[i]ALL ADAR ROBOTS AND DRONES SHUT DOWN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.[/i]\n\n\"Alright! That is Mission Accomplished!\" Boris is happy to celebrate this job well done. \"The 'Black Isle' has been secured. No more mons are going to get killed for coming here. This is sure to be very useful for the Avali to hold ground...or water...here in the Oracle Sea! Though I'm not quite sure what our finds can mean for the bigger picture, it's certainly something.\" He said over the comms. \"You can fly back home now...or back to the sub, for you know, the canned berries. By the way Rotom can't hear me so can you tell that he will be getting some Deluxe Pokepuffs?\"\n\n\"Uhhh sure. I will I\"\nSuddenly Taluno realizes there is a new message on the terminal. One that wasn't there before. \n\"AUTOMATED MESSAGE\" It says... \n\nNesala and Raylo looked to their Avali packmate, waiting for him to give them the order to move...then they too noticed there was something being displayed on screen. \"Huh? What's that? Automated Message?\" The latter of the two asks, a little confused.\n\n\"Let's see what this is.\" Taluno says aloud as he selects it. It appears to be text. He reads aloud.\n[i]\"If you are reading this, you have either shut off or destroyed the automatic security surrounding the base. Which means one of two things. Either the person behind this screen is Johnathan and/or one of his cronies, or you are someone else entirely, that against all odds have managed to get here. [/i]\n[i]If this is the former, then my final attempt at stopping you has clearly failed, and I fear for what will happen to this world. All I can say in that case is damn you. Then again, I doubt this is the case, as you would have most likely attempted to retarget the drones instead, triggering the scramble protocol I had installed. [/i]\n[i]If this is anyone else however....[/i]\n[i]I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. I don't know how you managed to get here, or what you hoped to find here. If you were expecting some huge pot of pirate gold or something like that, I'm afraid you've wasted your time, as this is all that is. I can only presume that you've figured out at least some of what happened here. Either from the logs on these terminals or from elsewhere. I don't have any reason you'll accept this last request of mine. But...[/i]\n[i]There is still something here in this base. If you've already been made aware of Project Transference... Gods, how many have we killed here?\"[/i]\nThe little ghost looks off to the side when Taluno reads that aloud.\n[i]\"Anyway, while we dumped those first bodies off into the dissection room, and later off into the ocean to rot, that wasn't the case for the humans. They're still being held in this facility, in suspended animation. Alas, I cannot deal with them without raising the alarm, and if I did that, then I could not have stopped Johnathan from returning here. As my last request to you... please, finish this, and let this be the end of it. I have no reason to believe you'll do this, but this is the best I can do.\"[/i]\n\"The message ends there.\" Taluno tells everyone.\n\"I think I know what he's talking about.\" The little ghost says it. \"I managed to find it while traveling through the air ducts...I can take you to it. If you want.\"\n\n\"Woah...so there is a secret in this place?\" Rotom asks.\n\"Well, not exactly a secret, even if it was.\" Raylo says to it. \"But we should really go see to it...\"\n\"I wonder why they just left their bodies behind still alive...well, a 'alive' at least.\" Nesala added. \"I guess it was a backup plan of sorts that became obsolete.\"\nIt's no secret that Boris is listening to everything, yet right now, he is being completely silent. He knows very well that they might go through with what that message is asking them to do, which is, well 'killing' the human bodies that were left alive.\n\n\"Hhhmmm...\" Nesala looks at the bodies in pods, the bodies of the humans that took very drastic measures, literally stole the life of some of the native inhabitants of this planet for their own end and carved a legacy that is affecting things even today. \"...What shall we do with them?\"\n\n\"I know...\" Taluno replies darkly... \"That Boris would probably want us to spare them. Hell, I know that the human protection law is a thing. But... Once they've read everything here. See what we saw...\"\nHe raises his gun, and turns to his side, giving the charging handle a pull in preparation. He nods to Ranyu, who is thinking the exact same thing. He raises his, and aims at the right side as Taluno aims at the left.\n\"...They'll understand why we did this.\"\nAnd with that, the sounds of gunshots and glass breaking fill the room, as Taluno and Ranyu both fire what's left of their bullets straight into the glass, the braindead bodies spilling out onto the ground as does the fluid they were contained in, a mess of blood, broken glass, and stasis fluid pools onto the ground. \nAs soon as one of the pods is pierced, an alarm blares, and red lights fill the room. However, the turrets, of which there were 4 of, remain dormant, and nothing comes for them.\nTaluno looks up the alarms.\n\"Ah shaddap.\" He grumbles as he raises his gun, only for it to click as it is now out of ammo. He holds the blizzard with one hand, while he pulls out his backup pistol instead, and shoots the red lights and the siren, silencing both.\n\nNesala and Raylo watch in silence, so does Rotom who has pretty taken aback with the whole thing; it wishes it didn't have to see that.\nWhen it was all said and done. Raylo speaks up, he expects Boris to shout, perhaps even say something in protest of what just happened...\"Boris, are you alright?\"\n\"Yes.\" He doesn't sound happy having witnessed all of that, but understands. \"I do not like to see humans getting hurt, but these are traitors of the highest caliber when it comes to being human... it's not something I tolerate. If they just left their human bodies behind like this...they deserve no pleasantries.\" \n\n\"Well.... if there's nothing else... I don't think we really need to check out the repair bay where Rotom came from.\" Taluno says. \"I don't think we're going to find much of anything interesting or learn anything new down there. We've basically come here to do what we were assigned to do. Even if we did take a few...\" He looks at the corpses on the ground. \"... liberties with said mission. Any objections to heading back?\"\n\n\"No no...\" Boris sighs. \"The mission is very much complete, unless you got anything else you want to do there, i saw you can go back to Eijyu and extract out of there.\"\n\n\"Well... Let's head back, then.\" \n\"Wait... before you go...\" The crew turn towards the Misdreavus, who promptly gives Taluno a little kiss on the cheek. \"For everything.\"\n\"Erm... um... you're welcome.\"\n\n\"Heh.\" Raylo holds back a giggle at seeing his packmate get a kiss from a ghost. Nesala found it amusing too.\n\n\"So what will you do now?\" Ranyu asks.\n\"I'm not really sure.\" The little ghost replies with a sigh. \"We've been forced into hiding for so long that I'm not exactly sure what we'll do now that we have the whole island to ourselves...\"\n\"Erm... yeah... About that...\" Ranyu starts.\n\nNesala decides to add to what Ranyu is about to say. \"You would mind if...someone else moved in here to live with you?\"\n\n\"If they're like you, I wouldn't mind. The others might take some convincing, but once I tell them about what happened... I'm sure they'll come around.\" The little misdreavus says. \n\"Yeah, they're more of us.\" Taluno confirms.\n\"Oh don't worry, they won't be anything like the humans.\" Ranyu assures her.\n\nRaylo nods. \"Yeah, we promised that we won't be like the last owners of this place.\"\n\nTaluno nods. \"Well, assuming there's no more surprises, let's head back. I'm betterin Eijyu is starting to get bored by herself there.\"\n\nWith the Night Witches squad having finished their mission, the case of the Black Isle and it's mystery has been solved. Everyone regroups back in Boris' submarine for some downtime, and to enjoy some of that canned berries Boris was talking about eating with them to celebrate, hopefully it would have been enough to lighten up the mood after everything, all that action...all the disturbing finds...\nHours later after the detailed reports of the mission were sent to both the Avali higher up and Mattias, the latter makes an appearance in the Sandgun base. Even though there is the convenience of the gadge he gave to the commander here, he still can't get enough of coming here, always fascinated by this base the Avali have set up.\nThe human goes to the commander's tent, pushing aside the flap to gain entry. \"Hello again.\" He sounds calmer this time around, there isn't any urgency after all.\n\n\"Ah, you again. Hello!\" The base commander greets him. \"You're starting to become a regular around here.\" He motions to a chair in front of him. \"Please, make yourself comfortable.\"\n\n\"It gives me good reason to come out and get some fresh air.\" He walks toward the chair, pulls it back a little and then sits on it. From one of his pockets he gets that cube device again, making it fold into it's phone-shape. He is reading something on it or rather re-reading some of the report from the Black Isle case. \"So, you read the report of that mission too, right?\"\n\n\"The Black Isle one? Ah yes.\" He reaches over the table, and 'pulls' up a hologram, containing the files on that. \"Quite the disturbing piece of work over there, no?\"\n\n\"Definitively...\" He sighs and nods. \"Definitively. Mostly all of my coworkers involved in this were giving the Iron King the shadow of a doubt about his malevolence because they thought he was forced to be a pokemon by something out his control like the legends usually dictate, now that they know the truth they are very unhappy, some more than others. They thought he was forced into this, not choosing this...well, the circumstances might have forced him somewhat. But the fact that he so brazenly rather be a pokémon instead of a human was all everyone needed for their opinions on him to hit rock bottom.\"\n\n\"Hmmm. And that's despite the fact that the USCM had that whole 'human supremacy' thing going on, second only to those purple-robed psychos.\" The commander is still not exactly sure why they've chosen to concentrate on that part of it of all things, but he decides not to question it. As what they were doing in that regard was still horrible. \"And stealing lives away from innocents for their schemes. Seriously, I'd expect this sort of thing from the Miniknog. But them? Well...\" He rubs his chin. \"Then again the USCM was kind of known for not being on the level.\"\n\n\"What they did is simply deplorable.\" Mattias agrees wholehearted with that. \"There is talk about opening an investigation deeper into this, to find out who and where the other body snatchers were when the Iron King's reign began. There is suspicion that his most 'trusted followers' were not chosen by mere chance...and we want to be absolutely sure they are not in the background somewhere, possibly preparing to make things difficult for us.\" He raises a finger. \"Yes, I know their bodies could have perished with the passing of time, but the chances of them still having this 'Project Transference' somewhere else besides that old base is not exactly a flat zero, and some species live longer than others...\n\n\"I doubt they built a second one... what would they have built it out of, and how would they have shipped it out?\" The base commander replies back. \"I mean...\" He clicks a button, and one of the audio logs from the team plays for them.\n[i]\"And it's not like you can just throw some ingredients into a pot and pull one out of it, something like that is bound to be complicated to make. So I doubt there's a second one.\"[/i]\n\n\"Well, Khaako's signing the final virtual paperwork to have a team deployed to that place to set up a base camp there. We've already sent a preliminary squad to negotiate with the local ghost types.\"\n\n\"Things sure like getting complicated huh?\" Mattias sighs. \"I hope it doesn't become too much for the Avali, without guidance this planet will never move forward. Anyways...i suppose we should thank the USCM for giving you solid footing in the Oracle Sea.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I guess there is some silver lining for that.\"\n\nHe reads more of the report in the device he has in his hands. \"So, Johnathan, with how many crimes do you think he would be charged with for everything he has done?\"\n\n\"Well, let's see.... Torture, countless rape accusations, especially if him being the iron king is true, and considering the 'Iron King's later ambitions. Which at this point we have no reason not to believe that's the case, conspiracy, countless murder charges, misuse of science. The list goes on and on...\"\n\n\"I see. Must be a long list.\" Now to focus on the present... \"So, the campaign against the Grove, it looks like it's about to take its first leap.\"\n\nThe commander is somewhat glad for this change of topic. \"Yes. From what I've heard, the preparations are almost complete, and they're ready to move out onto the town itself.\"\n\n\"Yes. It would appear that Stic somewhat has a strategy in mind for the whole thing, it seems.\" He says. \"I do hope we taught him well. It looks like he wants to split the force after taking Bleached Bastion.\"\n\n\"Ahhh... I see.\" He replies\n\n\"And from there they will take two more towns and take on the Capital of Sand. Stic believes that the the Grove and the nobles forces will be spent after fighting each other, and in the end they just need to deal with who is left standing.\"\n\n\"Especially if the Grove's supply lines are cut off beforehand.\"\n\n\"Yeah I agree with that, though first we gotta hope they can take the necessary steps to get to that stage...\"\n",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "Act 54: Isle of Darkness
"Pos that." Taluno replies as the craft comes in, smoke still billowing out of its engine as it comes for a landing. "There was far more security up there than we anticipated. I'm beginning to think we'd have been better off dealing with the sea hawks instead of those things."
The craft lands with a slight bump.
Taluno gets off the comms, and issues his orders.
"Alright, everyone out!"
The crew nods, and they exit the craft on both sides. It's only from outside that they can see the damage the drone did to the engine.
"Yesh, good thing the Knightfall made this to be a tough old bird." Taluno comments to himself, his claws on his hips as he looks up at the engine. He doesn't say it, but he's not sure if the bird could survive a return trip. Especially if they have to fight more of those trifangles again, or worse, another one of those heavy drones.
Eijyu doesn't shut the craft off though.
"I'm going to try to maneuver it into that little alcove over there, then shut it off and run maintaince." She tells the crew over comms. "See if I can at least repair enough of the damage for a return trip. Looks like this is another one I'll have to be sitting out on."
"Pos that." Taluno says with a sigh. After last time he'd hoped she'd be able to join them. But he supposes if they want to return home, some repair work will need to be done.
EIjyu does exactly what she does, she carefully maneuvers the gunship into a small alcove of rocks, using it as a makeshift hangar bay. It's small,but enough to shelter her and at least part of the bird. The part she needs to work on is protected from the downpours by the small cave. If it even is a cave. She shuts the engine off after making another landing, and exits the craft, toolkit in hand. With a sigh, she takes out a wrench, and begins her work.
As for Taluno and his crew, they begin looking around. Now that they're on the ground and about, something very unsettling becomes apparent.
There are skeletons lying about Human ones. Two of them. One of them is still wearing the tattered remains of what looks like a uniform.
"What..." Taluno goes over to check the skeleton. He reaches up to his helmet, causing a blue light to emit from the helmet and surround the skeleton in question. A readout soon appears on all of their huds.
SCAN: Complete
Species: Human.
Faction: USCM.... ???
Cause of death: Inconclusive.
Notes: Body is in an advanced state of decay. Bones show possible signs of trauma. Subject is wearing a tattered outfit. Preliminary scans suggest the outfit was part of a military uniform. No insignia detected on clothing.
"What happened here?" Taluno asks himself.
Raylo and Nesala are pondering about this, humans died here a long time ago, they don't know exactly what happened but it's clear that something must have happened here.
"What? What did you find?" Boris asks through the comms.
"Human skeletons from a long time ago, something must have happened here." Nesala said to him.
"Hhhmhm, I see...what else can you tell from what you see? Are these skeletons close or far from one another?"
"They're a bit of a distance away from each other. Hey, wait a minute...."
His hand reaches down to the skeleton, and carefully moves some of the bones aside. Beneath it... there seems to be an object. Rusted from years of neglect and constant rain, and definitely not usable. and definitely not visible at first glance but...
Scan complete
Object: M2416 Assault Rifle
Serial Number: Unknown
Status: Inoperable
Notes: The USCM M2416 standard assault rifle, modeled in a long line of the 'M16/M4' rifles. Water has seeped into the gun's interior over the course of an indeterminate amount of time, rusting its bolt, magazine, and trigger permanently into position.
Scan indicates that there are currently 5 out of 30 bullets in the magazine. Only 2 of the bullets remain usable. The others are too damaged and decayed for use.
"One of the skeletons seems to have been using a gun at the time." Raylo updates Boris on this find.
"Hhhhmmm..." The human thinks for a moment. "Could these two have been in a gunfight with one another, i think?"
"Possibly. Or in a gunfight with something else." Taluno asks.
"I don't mean to alarm you, packie." Ranyu taps his boss's shoulder. "But we should move on, before the trifangles or worse figure out we're down here and attack again.
"Oh. You're right." Taluno replies. "We should look for a way inside. I don't know what the security is like there, but better there than out here."
"Yes, I think it's best if you deal with whatever is controlling all these security systems. And I hope it is as easy as pushing an on and off switch." Boris said before leaving them to their work.
Well there is hoping for Raylo and Nesala that it can be that easy, but it's probably going to be a complex system...hopefully that Rotom can help with that too. Now to look for a way in...
After a small bit of looking, they spot a door. Closed, but rotting on its hinges. It might be a possible way in...
Raylo approaches this door, looking at it's very old hinges barely holding it in place. "Hhhmmm. Think we could shoot those off?"
Taluno goes up to the door, drawing his pistol. When he arrives at the door, he aims at the hinges, firing one round into one, and two into the other. The door falls open, revealing a dimly hit, metallic hallway inside.
"Yeah..." Taluno replies with a flat tone. "I think that could do the trick."
Alright, time to head in. Nesala and Raylo turn on the flashlights on the button of the barrel of their rifles and begin walking in, aiming their guns forward to illuminate the darkness and be ready in case there is something hostile they will need to shoot at.
So far so good. The halls are too narrow for any of the drones they've seen so far, and there does not seem to be any wall or ceiling mounted turrets.... yet.
The corridor houses various doors of their own. About 6 in this hallway Some of them closed. Some of them not so much.
One thing they notice is a skeletal hand sticking out of one of the partially open doors.
"That's another dead human..." Raylo comments under his breath.
Nesala approach this door with the skeletal hand sticking out. She poked it with the barrel of her gun for a moment. "Hhhmhmmm...Should we open this one?"
"Might as well." Taluno very carefully opens the door.
A rev fills their ears almost immediately.
"Back!" Taluno yells as he hides around the door corner as the rev gets louder...
Only for a barrage of clicks to come out of what can only be assumed to be a turret inside the room instead of a hail of bullets.
The two of them stood right behind Taluno as they expected something to happen, only to hear the clicking of a weapon without ammunition.
"Huh? Is it empty?" Raylo peeks around the corner a bit to see if he can look at the source of this clicking.
"Seems so." Taluno takes a very careful peak around the door and shines his flashlight light inside.
Sure enough, there's a round ceiling turret, pointed right at him, its barrel spinning rapidly as it clicks away, its gun shooting non-existent bullets in an attempt to kill the intruding avali.
"Huh." Taluno stands up and enters the room proper, simply staring at the still clicking turret. "I never did understand why they put lasers on the drones, yet insist on still having ballistic ammunition turrets. Ah well." He says as he fires a few shots into the turret at point blank range, causing it to fall off the ceiling with a whine, and a medium-loud crash as it hits the floor.
"And it appears these turrets are not connected to any sort of alarm system. Typical." He comments.
"Well, this means the hard part was all those Trifangles and that flying monster drone." Raylo commented.
It looks like it was this turret who was responsible for that skeleton over there it seems. Well, where can they go from here now?
"Think Rotom is still in the lower levels?" Nesala asked.
"Did the turret shoot that guy?" Ranyu wonders aloud as he looks at it. This one's uniform, unlike the ones outside that have been exposed to the rain for who knows how long, this one's uniform is quite a bit more intact, if not faded from age. Even so, it's easy to see this uniform was a set of green fatigues.
"A USCM soldier?" He wonders. "But that can't be right. If the turret shot him..."
He inspects a little further, sure enough there are tell tale signs of bullet holes beneath the skeleton, and on the door itself.
"That's odd. Did it malfunction or something? Or was this a rival faction?"
He sees no gun, so it looked like the human didn't have one on them at the time they were attacked.
A closer look at the room seems to indicate that this was some sort of locker room, if the rusted lockers are of any indication.
Taluno is transmitting their findings and conversations back to Boris in real-time as they go through all of this.
"Possibly." Taluno relies to Nesala. "Remember our mission here is to find out what's going on here though. Not simply to bail him out. Besides, if he transferred out to another body, he should be fine for the time being, if he didn't trip any alarms or anything."
She gives a nod to that.
Seeing these new findings, Boris made an educated guess over the comms. "Two dead out here and another one in here, killed by the turret in a locker room and unarmed...he must have not been expecting a fight at all. I'm beginning to think someone modified security's targeting parameters to see the former owners as targets."
"Hmmm. Possibly." Taluno agrees. "But that raises more questions. Who did it? How did they do it under their noses, and most importantly, why did they do it?"
"And where are they now?" Ranyu chips in.
"... That too." Taluno replies flatly. "If Boris's theory is the case, it doesn't appear that they're still here. Else there would have been a more organized response to our arrival."
"...Well there is also the off chance that this is the machines themselves having rebelled against their masters and having killed them." This is a very unlikely theory though, Boris thinks so at least. "Perhaps there are more clues somewhere else..."
"We did hear a voice when Rotom infiltrated the sea port just before they switched bodies. So it's possible..." Taluno thinks on this new theory. "... But unlikely. The AI in this place doesn't seem too overly intelligent itself, as again, it should have put the base on a higher alert when we started pushing our way past its drones." Taluno replies. "Either way, you're right, this small locker can't hold any more answers. We must press on."
And with that they exit the room and proceed further down the hallway. There are more doors on either side, but there is also a door at the very end.
Raylo goes for one of the other doors in the side, hopefully this one doesn't have a working turret in it. Just to be sure he opens it and quickly hides around the corner.
Meanwhile Nesala goes to check that door at the very end of this Hallway.
Raylo finds a room without a turret in it. Or rather, not a functioning one. There is one, but it appears something shot it up already, as just what Taluno did to the other one.
This one appears to be in complete disarray, with a metal table turned over into a makeshift barricade, not really an effective one though as it has a few bullet holes in it and long-dried blood on the ground. Still, whoever fought this turret seems to have lived for at least a while longer. Maybe their skeleton is in another room or they were one of the ones outside?
The door in the hallway outside, leads to another hallway, this one forking into two paths.
Further inspection reveals a sign on the wall. The contents are faded however, and only a few letters are still legible.
<- ##ck#n# #a#, ####nd #e###r,
--> L#####t###, ####s, #e#s####, #ci###st #u#####s
And a sign pointing down, presumably back the way they came reading #ar###k##
Nesala stares at the sign on the wall, doing her best to read it but she can't make head or tails of what it says with so little letters.
Raylo comes over to try and read it too and he is just as puzzled as her. "Well this sucks..."
"Well, Splitting up would be a bad idea. Not that we Avali are really capable of that for very long." Taluno says. "So I guess we have to pick a direction and go with it."
"You can't go wrong with right, I think." Boris gives his opinion on the matter through the comm.
The two Avali soldiers don't know which way is best, and their human ally already said his mind on that...they are okay with going to the path on the right too.
Taluno nods. And they head east... little knowing that something even more horrifying lies the way they went.
The hallway leads to a derelict hallway, and another door. However, this time they hear noises behind the door. beeps, and the buzz of something turning in place.
These noises, they bring to mind something dangerous, there might be a turret behind this door.
"...I think there is trouble behind this door." Raylo says.
"Better open it slowly. Keep those guns trained on the door. Might be a turret." Taluno warns.
It kind of sounds like one.
"Right then." Slowly, Raylo places a hand on the door and begins pushing it open. What could there be behind this door...?
They open the door very slowly aaaaand...
"Oh... whew." Taluno sighs as he lowers his weapon. "It's just a repairdroid."
The unmistakable form of one of those unicycling orange garbage-can droids slowly scanning its environment comes into view. Seems the alarm was for not. Still, one can never be too careful.
"Oh, okay good. Phew..." No killer robots, Raylor is very fine with that.
Before they can head in though, Nesala hears something approaching from behind her and her squad. She quickly turns around and points her flashlight and weapon at it. But turns out it is...another repairbot?
"Oh, it's you guys!" And it speaks?
"Usually these things don't speak..." Taluno then realizes the voice sounds familiar.
"Oh hey!, it's you again!" Ranyu is the first to remember the Rotom
"Huh?" Raylo tilts his head. "Rotom?"
"Yeah that's me!" It speaks from inside of the repair bot. "It's kind of hard to get around inside this thing, also why are you guys here?"
"After we got those images you sent, we decided to come here to check the place out. And find you too." Nesala says to the pokemon.
"Ah, you aren't here because I worried you. I thought I could deal with this all by invading all these machines but I am a little lost...and kind of itching to get out of this thing to be honest."
"Well..." Taluno chuckles. "We'll keep an eye out for anything better suited. And perhaps a little better armed."
"Well..." Ranyu says, stepping into the room. "Question is... where are we and what is all of this?"
This is a room that sports a lot of computers. Most look inoperable. At least one looks like it might work, keyword, might. Even if it does, there's no telling what it does.
There are tables with what appears to be chemistry sets on them, with liquids containing gods-know-what, a layer of dust and bits of mold covering the disused and neglected beakers and glasses.
There are more skeletons on the ground. These ones wearing bits of lab coats.
"Ah, so you found Rotom, yes?" Boris sounds pleased on the other side of the comms. "That's one less thing to worry about, now we just need to find what happened here."
As they go into the new area, Nesala approaches one of the skeletons with bits of lab coats. "More dead humans here, looks like some scientists..."
Rotom is more interested in those computers, even if most are broken. Spinning it's body's monowheel, it towards it. "Ooooh, look! There is computer stuff here!"
"Looks to be a lab of some sort." Taluno reports back to Boris. "Though what they were researching here, we have no idea.
"Rotom, can you hack it?" Ranyu asks him. He highly doubts that Rotom wants to permanently shack up with the computer.
"Yes I can!" Rotom is all too happy to be useful, and to leave this repairbot body, which he just shuts down and lets fall to the ground as he jumps from it to the computer to do his thing.
"I kind of wish we could keep that little guy..." Raylo comments on Rotom. "Having someone who can literally go into computers and take over security robots would be pretty handy, you know?"
"We'll have to see about getting one of those 'Digital Familiars' on our team once we get back." Taulno comments. Those little coon-like things can do similar things from what he's heard. Only problem: They're very very rare and no one's found any reliable way to make them reproduce.
They wait for Rotom to do his thing in there in the meantime.
"I'm surprised that there are pokémon like Digital Familiars, really." Nesala puts her two pixels in this conversation.
Rotom's smiling face is all over the screen of that computer now. "Alright! I got it open! come check out the stuff i found in here!" Now it gets its face off of the screen so they can see what's on it. They are free to start operating the computer to see what it has, hopefully it's something that will let them know what happened here?
"Let's see here...." Taluno goes over to the terminal and see's what's on it.
There's some files on chemical mixing. Not all that useful.
Some logs mention scientists in the 'dissection room'. Mostly how they do not envy them in that job, having to 'chop up the local savages.'
What is interesting is that one scientist questions whether the data they're collecting will serve any relevance, as they've lost all contact with 'command'. Whoever or whatever that is.
One mentions 'Johnathan's hair-brained scheme' and completely dismisses it.
There are some log files beyond that, but opening them reveals them to be corrupted.
Just from reading it Taluno begins to get the feeling that there was some rather elicit experimentation going on here. Funny, that's usually more the Miniknog's thing, not the USCM's.
"Hmmm... were these base members killed as some sort of cover up?" Taluno scratches his chin.
"Hhhhmmm, does remind me a little bit of an incident back in my home world." Boris comments. "But yes that could very well be the case, if we could get someone to autopsy these bodies or maybe further restore these computers for more scraps of data we could potentially find out more, but we would need to shut down the defenses before thinking about doing that." If that is even possible to begin with. "Hhhmmm...you think this place would have closed-circuit television with some footage of the past?"
"Maybe, but not from here by the looks of it." Taluno asks. "We must press on."
"Alright then, hopefully in here keeps being easier than out there."
Raylo walks over to the computer to speak with the pokémon that is still in there. "Well, we gotta move, Rotom. Are going to get back to that Repairbot?"
"Hhhmmm, no." It replied flatly, Rotom really didn't like having to move with a single wheel. "But i got an idea, just don't move a lot okay? Or else this might shock you."
The Avali soldier is a little confused. "What do you mean?" He gets his answer when the Rotom jumps out of the computer and into his armor, causing him to whelp as the ghost in the machine flew out of the screen and right into his face.
"Woah Raylo are you alright?" Taluno asks with concern, the others also surround him, just to see if he's ok....
"I'm alright, I'm alright..." He says as he touches around his suit, trying to figure out where Rotom is exactly.
"I'm here, don't worry!" Rotom is speaking directly into Raylo's ears now.
The Avali soldier shakes his head a little. "Not too loud, please."
"Ok, sorry."
With some relief seeing that her packmate is alright, Nesala looks around for somewhere they can go, perhaps there is another door around here that leads to some part they haven't explored yet?
There are indeed several doors they haven't explored yet.
Taluno carefully opens one of them. There is a beeping, and then an alerted sound.
"Shit, take cover!" Taluno yells as he ducks behind the unexposed doorway.
Another turret, but this one shoots a stream of lasers through the door and into the room outside. Luckily there is no one else in the way at the moment.
Staying far away from that turrets line of fire, the two Avali soldiers go to Taluno's side, taking cover beside him.
"Well THIS turret is not spitting lead at us." Raylo growls, he thought there would be some consistency here based on those previous turrets they saw before.
"Yeah, I was beginning to wonder if there was any active working security in here." Ranyu grumbles as he readies his weapon. The turret laser eventually gives up firing as it 'sees' no target.
Ranyu leans around the corner, and takes a shot, his bullets piercing the turret and causing a small explosion as it is put out of commision.
With the turret down, Raylo and Nesala take point and head in there, with their rifles at the ready.
What awaits them inside is... not a pretty sight to say the least.
There are gurneys with arm straps on the side, torture beds, eagle spreaders, and in some of them, decayed, non-human skeletons. Rusted scalpels, scissors, etc lie on a counter. A bed with a rod on the side, branching out into two rotatable metallic arms. One sports a drill on the end of it, the other a saw blade. Both are covered in long-dried blood.
If they weren't wearing airtight helmets, the smell would likely be rancid. But then again, the same would be throughout the whole facility.
"Ugh... this must have been the 'dissection room' the terminal mentioned." Taluno comments. "That would explain the turret."
Though it looks like there was at least one set of human bones among the rest.
There is another terminal at one end of the room, a smaller one. Might be a personal computer of some sort?
"Oof, creepy..." Rotom whispers.
"As if just the Miniknog doing this stuff was bad enough..." Raylo is not a fan of what he sees here.
"Hhhhmmm can you scan some of those skeletons for me?" Boris enquiries. "I can cross-reference with some things here, perhaps find out what they were dissecting."
Nesala approached that terminal, noting that it appears perfectly functional. "There is another active computer here."
"Alright." Taluno and Ranyu scan some of the skeletons.
On Boris's end, he gets the readouts. One seems to have been a Buizel, the other was a vaporeon by the looks of things, another was a riolu, and the last one was... a sandshrew?
The computer is password protected, it seems Rotom will have to do his job again.
The human back on the sub does some analysis before sharing what he found. "So they were dissecting local life, no surprise there but also some of these skeletons are not quite 'local' two of them used to live on dry land...they must have taken them from the mainland I think."
Nesala tried to access it but it seems to be password protected. "Rotom? Can you unlock this here too?"
"Got something for me?" Rotom jumps out of the other Avali's armor and hovers over to the terminal, going inside of it's systems.
Taluno goes over to the systems that Rotom just hacked, and checks the systems.
"Let's see here...." He says to himself as he reads some of the entry.
"Subject 24. Physical description: otter-like with yellow 'flotation' device around neck, two tails. Status before termination: Healthy-..." He grumbles to himself. "Yeah yeah we can skip the subject descriptions. Rotom, you can just forward these to Boris. Let's see if there's anything else interesting in here, like personal log files in here... oh. Here we go."
"We continue to do our dissection work, as ordered. So many subjects, so little time, and very rarely do we have the same type twice. I'm beginning to wonder just how many of these weird creatures are on this planet. Some of them have yielded quite interesting finds. Although I am beginning to doubt if any of it will lead up to anything.
I've overheard from the grunts that we've still had no contact with command. Some of the grunts have begun to believe we've been cut off, or that something else has happened and we're on our own. Johnathan certainly seems to think so.
Speaking of the good colonel, I'd really wish the overseer would reassign him. I swear if I have to hear any more about his idiotic warlord fantasies one more time, I'm going to pull my hair out. I signed up in this unit to do science for the good of mankind. If I wanted to play court mage to a wannabe king, I'd have ditched this sorry rock and lived in one of those silly Glitch kingdoms.
Worse yet, he's got a few people actually agreeing with this idiotic idea. Mostly just his drinking guard buddies for now, but I swore I've seen at least one of the science crew nodding with him. Base commander tells me it's nothing to worry about, but from the way he's looked at me ever since I told him off that one day, I'm beginning to get the smallest hint of worry.
Guess there's nothing to do but keep plugging along."
"Hmm... interesting, but not really helpful without context. Let's see...."
"Notice from Command. Huh, this looks like it might be interesting."
He clears his throat as he opens up the announcement and reads.
"A reminder to all personnel in and around the dissection labs: dissection subjects are NOT food, and consumption of test subjects is strictly prohibited. I cannot believe I even have to make an announcement of this, but the reports of soldiers sneaking off parts of subjects and cooking them has forced me to crack down. Not only are these subjects crucial scientific assets, consumption of such is extremely distasteful and hazardous. Seriously, do you people even have any idea where they've been, what chemicals they put them under, or what diseases they might have?
We are not short on food, so there is no excuse for this. If you are hungry, go to the mess hall.
Anyone caught stealing and/or consuming test subjects will be punished. Severely. That is all.
PS: No, 'it tastes good' is not an acceptable excuse. And anyone complaining about the quality of the mess hall food will be reassigned to janitorial duty. "
"Yikes..." Rotom said.
"So they ate them too..." Nesala mumbles in disgust. At least the superior of these humans seem to have had some standards...
Boris decides to not comment on this, not the time for black comedy or morbid things to say. "Well... I'm starting to suspect that this Johnathan-person is important. If there is nothing else perhaps we can look for this 'Overseer's' office, a man like that would probably have access to everything, no?"
"Yeah this is the second time we've heard that name. And not in a good way." Ranyu comments.
"Hmmm there's something else here too yet... 'Project Transference?'"
Taluno clicks on that, though once he opens it, he shakes his head.
"Bahh, figures. It's all corrupted." he growls. Indeed, the only thing it shows is a bunch of garbled, glitched text. Honestly, he's surprised he got as much information from this as he did.
"Anyway, it doesn't look like there's anything else to learn from this room. Rotom, you can exit the terminal now."
He gets back up and faces the crew.
"Well that would be a good idea Boris. Trouble is, we don't know where the overseer's office is. So for the moment we're just kind of picking doors at random."
"Yes, I'm well aware. But it seems our luck is turning, we found interesting information. Just keep on exploring, we must be getting close."
Rotom leaves the terminal and goes to inhabit Taluno's suit for now.
Wherever they are going to head to next, Raylo and Nesala are ready.
Back in the main science room, there are about 3 more doors they could choose. one to their left, one straight ahead of them, and one right next to the one they just came out of.
"There are still quite a few options here." Taluno tells him in return. "It would make little sense to go all the way back out in the hallway only to have to come back here anyway."
"Ah."
"Let's check out this one instead?" Nesala said as she went to open that one door on their left.
"Alright. Let's check it out." Taluno replies. Upon moving up to the door, they hear beeping, and what sounds like low robotic beeps and blurbs. There seems to be something moving about too.
"Not this again..." Raylo can only hope there is nothing dangerous behind this door, just like how it was last time.
Once everyone is ready, Nesala begins opening the door...slowly.
What she sees... is what appears to be a long hallway with about 3 roof turrets, skeletons on the floor of human types, and more importantly, a pair of robots. These robots possess tracks, attached to a body that turns into a narrow body that curves into a serpent-like head with a single, long, red 'eye' at the end of it. They sport two holes on either side that hide cannons when the drone is in combat.
Nesala quickly got away from the doorway and took cover near it. "... Serpent Droids."
"Just what we need right now..." Raylo sighs.
"Alright. So here's how we do this. We wait till that closest serpent droid has its back turned. Then, Rotom, you do your flying possession thing. You should find two weapons on board. Target the other serpent droid. Once you're in, Nesala and I will enter the hallway. Ranyu and Raylo will cover from this room. Raylo, take the turret closest to us. Ranyu, take the middle one. Nesala and I will target the furthest one, and then once the turrets are toast, we'll help Rotom deal with that serpent droid. If we do this right, Rotom should have a more permanent body to coast around in. One with some actual weapons"
"It's no Sea Hawk or Heavy Drone, but it's a pretty solid choice of body." Ranyu comments to Taluno/Rotom.
"Alright then, i'm goin'!" Rotom leaves Taluno's hardware prepared for an opportunity to invade one of those Serpent Droids. Meanwhile Raylo and Nesala wait until it's the time to strike.
"Alright. On my mark..."
Taluno keeps an eye through a crack in the door. He waits for the closest serpent droid to turn its back...
It reaches the end of its patrol, then it turns in place and starts heading the other direction.
"Here's your chance, go!" He whispers to the Rotom as he shoves the door open quietly.
The little plasma ghost begins zooming straight for that Serpent Droid, aiming to enter as soon as it touches it from behind.
The little mon is able to touch the Serpent Droid, and it successfully enters before it could raise its shield.
However, it did not go unnoticed. The turrets all saw it coming, and although they couldn't deploy fast enough to stop the ghost in its sprint, they somehow still detected it inside the possessed serpent droid. They take aim at it, as does the other serpent droid, which raises its own shields.
However, just when it looks like the Rotom will have to fight it all on its own, the crew take their positions. Taluno quickly enters the hall and ducks into the corner hallway, allowing Nesala to enter and do the same on the left side.
The front and center turrets try to reprioritize on Taluno, but it is too late. He opens on the turret farthest away from him, just behind the non-possessed serpent droid which is now turning, bringing it down.
Ranyu takes his position just outside of the hallway, aiming at the center one, likewise destroying it with a well placed salvo of bullets fire while he trusts Raylo to take down the current turret in front of him, and Nesala to assist Rotom with the remaining serpent droid.
Raylo took out the last turret, leaving Nesala clear to advance.
Rotom is fumbling a little trying to get the weapons of this new body to come out, but it did manage to get it's shield up, which can serve to help provide cover for them, particularly Nesala.
The female Avali soldier takes cover behind the shielded friendly Serpent Drone and shoots at the enemy one. "Rotom! Shoot at it!"
"I'm trying! I'm trying!"
With the turrets clear, the pack turns its attention onto the remaining Serpent drone, firing away at it. While the shield proves stubborn, it's no match for four combatants all firing at it at once. It loses its shield, and less than a second later, it sparks and gitters as bullets pierce its reactor, causing it to shut down with a smoking whine.
It was then that Rotom managed to bring out his new weapons, but it's a little too late for that. "Oh..." If anything, at least he provided cover for Nesala and the others by being the way of that other Serpent Droid with his own shields on.
With the situation de-escalated, Raylo steps forward. "Two Serpent Droids and a bunch of turrets...must be something important around here." He commented.
And it doesn't take long at all for them to find out, as Taluno looks to his right.
"Was something important around here?" Taluno corrects him as the leader points at the scene in front of them.
Cells. Rows and rows of cells with rusted iron bars. Some with non-human skeletons in them. Most empty. None of them are occupied with anything living.
"Hang on, I can't turn my head." Rotom said before turning his whole Serpent Droid body to face the cells. "Oh...yikes..."
"Honestly there are way better ways to contain pokémon than this..." Boris is talking on the comms again. "This is very inhumane and takes a lot of space, not to mention some pokémon could just bypass it easily."
"We're talking about the USCM here." Taluno retorts flatly into the comms. "They weren't really known for being 'humane'."
"Kind of why the Protectorate gave them the boot the minute they got into power." Ranyu adds.
"Still, this seems to argue against a rogue AI running things here." Taluno thinks aloud. "If there was a guiding hive intelligence behind these machines, surely they wouldn't have them guarding long-empty cells."
"That confirms this, yes." Boris agrees. "The robots here all still seem to be very glued to their programming. Actually...with the amount of mons having died in such ways in this place, i'm surprised that you have not seem a single ghost haunting the place."
"Actually are ghost pokemon immune to bullets and/or energy weapons?" Taluno has to wonder. "I mean, there are 'ghost' like entries in some places we've seen. Some are immune to bullets, some aren't, some just take a shitton of damage. Almost none of them are immune to energy weapons though. Or flamethrowers."
"We're getting off track." Ranyu tells him. "And I don't see anything else of interest here besides the door on the other end. Let's move on-"
"Just a moment!" Taluno interrupts him as his eyes fall upon one of the skeletons. One of the human ones. It's sitting on top of something. Something small and somewhat plastic.
"What's this?" He kneels down and carefully moves the skeleton aside and picks the object up.
"A holotape? Really old model, but" The familiar blue light of his scanner shoots out from his visor, surrounding the object as he looks at it further.
"Seems to be intact. Audio tape by the scan. Don't have a direct player, but I might be able to ...."
Nesala and Raylo look at the holotape too. It might contain some very useful information. "Can we play it?" The former of the two asks.
"I think I can scan the contents and play them that way, yes." Taluno's blue scanning stops, and a voice that isn't his own speaks from his helmet.
"The plan was a complete success. The idiot 'overseer' and the sightless numbnuts are no more. Going to miss a few of them, but what can you do? Earth is gone, the USCM command has gone silent, and yet those eggheads and bucketheads would rather have kept at their go-nowhere projects rather than join us in actually making something of ourselves here. Although I will admit, I was beginning to doubt Johnathan, just a little, but here we are. He's headed to the mainland now with a few of his friends, and once he's made contact and set up a forward camp, we'll get this show on the road. Before long we'll be running the show on this backwards ass world.
Though... I just wonder what in god's name are we going to do with the rest of these things? Does he really mean for us all to t#8n 1#t0 $@8-" The audio devolves into incomprehensible static before cutting out.
"...That's ominous." Rotom said.
Boris is connecting some dots listening to all of this. "Hhhmmm...i am beginning to think this must have been where the Iron King was born. But I was wrong about the AIs rebelling so..."
"So someone must have turned the security system against the USCM to kill the overseer and the others before going off to live in the world." Nesala speaks out what she thinks she can understand of all of this thus far.
"Hmmmm... interesting theory." Ranyu replies. "By the way, what's the 'Iron King?'"
"Yes, that seems plausible, Nesala." Taluno thinks on this as he rubs the underside of his helmet. "And I think it's obvious who, too. Well, either he did or someone under him did. But I still feel as if we're missing something here. This guy was obviously on the 'winning side', and yet here he is, dead like the rest of them."
Taluno gets up.
"We're starting to piece what happened here together, but we're still missing quite a few pieces of the puzzle." He heads towards the door at the end of the hall.
"Well...how can I put this into small words?" Boris wonders for a moment. "He is the one responsible for becoming king of this world, and introducing Iron weaponry all around. He died a long time ago, suffice to say his empire fragmented as a result and the world is what it is."
Taluno is followed by the two Avali soldiers in the Rotom in the Serpent Drone.
"Hmmm I see." Ranyu replies.
"Only one hole with this Iron King was here theory." Taluno replies as they reach the other door. He doesn't open it right away, instead taking time to carry on this conversation so that he can be on full alert when they enter the next room. "This base was full of humans. Yet mons don't even know what a human is. Not to mention they had all sorts of tech here. Robots. Guns. You name it. Yet Iron seems to be reduced to swords."
"Hell I heard from a 'vali who talked to some mons who talked to some other mons say that humans were balls of gas because they had to fit inside of pokemon bodies." Ranyu adds in.
Taluno can't help but chuckle at that notion. That sounds closer to the Rotom controlling the Serpent Droid, not the fleshy monkeys they know them to be.
"Like I said, as plausible as that theory is, there's holes in it, and I get the feeling there's more to it than this."
There's still questions on the mind. If the 'Johnathan coupers' won out in the end, where are they now? Did they leave? If so, why? They had a perfectly serviceable base here. And that guy was one of the coupers. Did he die during the coup? ... No, that can't be it. Then he couldn't have made the tape. What did he mean by 'does he really mean for us all to...'
All to what? How did it involve the prisoner mons that were presumably still alive at the time?
Did something else attack them after the coup? The Miniknog perhaps? ... No, that couldn't be right either. If that was the case, the base would not be in this dilapidated and abandoned state. It'd be shiny and pristine, and crawling with Miniknog. Not to mention they saw no evidence of an attack on the outside when they came in. If something else invaded and killed them, why leave the robots running? What is 'Project Transference?'
Each answer only gives rise to more questions so far. But now, now is the time to get the head back in the game. He gives a listen on the other side of the door.
Sure enough, he hears the telltale beeping of something robotic on the other side.
"That's a pretty valid argument. Tell me if you spot something else...or find the overseer's office to see if it has what we need to shut down the defenses."
Raylo grumbles at the noises coming from the other side of the door. "Again..."
Like before, Nesala slowly opens the door to see what's on the other side, if it's dangerous and it sees her she is going to be taking cover behind Rotom again, given how he can probably tank some attacks with his shields.
There is a loud revving that causes Taluno to grab Nesla and pull her away to the side to avoid....
... Nothing. It's another clicker.
"Oh good. This one's out of ammo too." Taluno sighs as he peaks around again. "Or it's jammed. One of the two."
VERY good thing this one's out of ammo. It's a very heavy minigun turret, that if it was loaded, it would have had bullets big and heavy enough to easily pierce their armor, advanced as it is.
"... Again?" Ranyu sighs as he casually walks into the room. This one... is a bit smaller than one would expect such a powerful gun to be guarding. It's merely two very large machines on either side of the room, with a terminal attached to one of them. In the center of the room are two chairs, with some sort of head covering over them.
"How... odd." Taluno remarks.
Hhhmm, what could this be?
"Is this some other sort of torture device?" Boris enquiries over the comms. "Electric chairs? Or do they do something with people's minds?"
"Only one way to find out." Taluno responds as he goes over to the computer.
This time he's able to get in without Rotom's help as it's not locked.
"Transference Device" Taluno reads aloud. "If this is what I think it is, we might have just hit the jackpot."
He reads off some of the log files.
"Subject 1a: two-tailed otter creature. Subject 1b: Angry Duck. Subject status: Healthy, Conscious.
Result: Failure.
Notes: I know we don't want to jump into human testing right away, but how were we even supposed to measure success in this scenario?
- Dr Simmons
Easy. If they point at each other and act really confused. It was a success. If they just run around angry and panicking like they usually do, it's a failure.
- Dr Thomsen.
Subject 2a&b: Same as subjects 1a and 1b, but both subjects were rendered unconscious before being placed in transference device.
Result: Failure.
When awoken through stimulant injection, neither subject showed signs of transference. Security returned both to their cells until further testing.
Subject 3aAnd3b: Same subjects. Subject A rendered unconscious, subject B fully conscious.
Result: Partial success.
Subject A awoke, and expressed clear signs of panic upon seeing subject b. Attempts at locomotion were impaired, as if it had to relearn how to use its body.
Subject b remains in comatose state.
UPDATE: Subject B, or rather the body of subject b, has expired. It's off to the dissection lab with her."
Taluno is starting to get an idea of what this device does, and what it's meant to do. But he doesn't believe it. If this is true, they've accomplished something here that not even the Miniknog have accomplished. And not for a lack of trying on their part.
He skims through a few more logs that play out more or less like these, with them experimenting with this device on captured mons, and only getting results when one is unconscious, with the other soon being left in a coma. One log details an attempt to wake such a comatose subject.
Nothing worked however, and it was found that the comatose subjects were for all intents and purposes, braindead after the procedure.
It isn't until the 13th one that the pattern breaks.
"Subject 13a: Mermaid-Dog, female. Subject 13b: Janitor Geasely.
As per established procedure, subject A was unconscious, subject B was conscious when the machine was turned on.
Result: Success
As predicted, human subject B's body went limp and remained unresponsive to stimuli.
Subject A then addressed the science team and identified itself as Janitor Geasely. Subject A was then asked questions that only Subject A would know, and she was able to answer them correctly. Subject also recalls basic memories of subject A, oddly enough, implying a split personality, but they insist that they are in full control.
While 'Fish Janitor' was reluctant to give up their new body, a second transfer was conducted. Subject B awoke, and despite some minor disorientation, seems to be none the worse off. Subject A remains in a coma, however, and it is predicted that without another transfer, they will expire in a matter of days."
It seems the pattern goes on from here, with them transfering themselves back and forth between mons and their old bodies. There is mention of a facility somewhere to hold the bodies. However, the text begins to show corruption as he skims on, just like with the last terminal. It's to be expected, these things are close to a century old by now. In fact it's amazing they even function at all.
Just when he's about to quit reading however, he comes across a very interesting one.
"Subject 36a: #$$!@%, Subject B: Colonel A. Johnathan.
Result: Suc#%s$
Johnathan was s%!@*#!&#!@#!&"
The rest of it is corrupted.
There is however, one more log.
"It's taken me a while to regain the motor skills needed to write on this thing. It was well worth it though.
My plan was a success. That small minded "overseer" and his pen pushers are deader than the meat in the dissection department. Hell, he only agreed to let me do this because he planned on kicking me out of the way with this little 'social project' of his.
What a waste of fucking time. Just like the rest of the 'experiments' around here. We could have been making something of ourselves here, but instead those morons decided to keep waiting for orders that we all know won't come, to give away pointless data to people who would just sell it to the highest bidder. Most likely the goddamn monkeys.
Well, not anymore. From now on, we do things my way. And my way says we get out there and kick ass.
We have the technology, the smarts, the manpower, and now, the will to make this world into our own. We'll transfer whoever's left of us into these saps, blow away a few of these backwards ass tribals, and have these fucks worshiping the very ground we walk on by year's end. We'll remake this world in our image, our own little heaven in a universe that has forgotten us. All the power, all the ass, dick, and pussy we could ever want, all the food. No more shitty robot-grown rations. Meat and fine berries for us all!
... Wait, did I really just write out that I want to fuck these creatures? ... yes, yes I did. Must be some leftover instincts from the gray matter in these creatures. Or maybe it's just the fact that this place has been a sausagefest for so long that any piece of pussy looks tasty. Ah well, at least I don't have to hide it anymore. None of us do.
Fuck USCM. Fuck the Protectorate. Fuck the Miniknog. And fuck everyone else out there not worth mentioning, like those stupid pacifist Hylotls or the go-nowhere coldbirds. It's only us now, and soon, we'll own this world."
"... How pleasant." Ranyu comments.
Rotom is going on a bit of a joyride nearby with this Serpent Drone.
Raylo and Nesala are in silence after reading that ending part. 'How 'pleasant' ' indeed...
And Boris...Boris has something to say alright. "Crikey." He sighs. "Alright I think this explains very well what this is AND what happened here. Though this 'Transference' is interesting, it's a bit similar to what a very VERY rare pokémon can do to two individuals. But this...this is way cruder let me tell you." There is a moment of silence. "...I'm gonna have to notify the others of this, it is quite the find...not the whole 'transference' thing I mean, that's horrible, I mean where the Iron King possibly came from. And here I thought this Johnathan-fellow was the good guy in this story..."
"So let me see if I get this straight." Taluno steps away from the terminal. "This Johnathan guy... who may or may not, but probably is the so-called 'Iron King', got turned into a mon, and he along with some co-conspirators, hacked the drones or their central computers to target anyone on this base not loyal to their group, then conspired to take the guns, drones, etc. and gather an army of mons and steamroll the world, setting up his 'Iron Kingdom' in the process. Does that sound correct so far?" He asks Boris directly.
"Yeah, it matches what we have here." Boris confirms. "The lore says that the Iron King united this whole world under his banner. However...i do not understand why there just melee weapons been used, there are no mentions of technological weaponry such as drones...let alone guns or explosives. It is said that Iron work was something that the Iron King brought with him, and when he was gone, so was the knowledge on how to forge Iron apparently."
"Hmm, yes. It appears though he had intended to use guns and drones, but that part didn't quite pan out. Something else must have happened here, causing him to abandon that part of it. My guess is he planned to leave at least some crew behind to manage the base, like that scientist guy who made the holotape. But... they died too. Sometime after the coup.
If I am to guess..." He rubs his chin. "I'm guessing it had something to do with the very thing he used to accomplish the coup in the first place: the drones. But... What exactly happened? Who caused it to happen? And why?"
"That's the last remaining question we have right? Well, perhaps it's not long before we get an answer to that too, eh?"
"Yeah. Unfortunately, it seems we've hit a dead end here. The only thing now is to head back until we find a door or corridor to go through that we haven't explored yet." Taluno sighs. "Actually..." He looks towards Rotom. "You never did tell us where you came from even, or what happened after you exited out of the Sea Hawk drone."
The Serpent Droid turns to the Avali. "Oh, well after I jumped into one of those robots with a wheel for legs, I sort of just went around trying to find something else to go into, something like, some big computer that controls everything but I found none of that! I think I was disguised pretty well because none of the security systems gave me any trouble. So I just came up here still searching and I found you guys."
"I'm guessing the turrets only reacted to you because they saw you jump into that serpent droid. They must not have spotted you down in the bay." Taluno guesses. "And you didn't see any humans or anything else alive?" Ranyu asks. "Or anything else of interest?"
"Nope! nothing alive! Just a mess of skeletons and junk! Did find out where the robots come from though, there it was from this big box thing, I saw it let out some small hockey-puck with antenna robots that scurried along the ground."
"Hmm.." Taluno thinks to himself. "I'm guessing those were even less appealing to you than the repairdroid? Or you would have switched to one."
"Well it would have been pretty hard to look for anything if it was that small and limited to just moving on the ground."
"If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, I'll bet it is." He and his crew begin the trek back as he continues talking.
Once they reach the science room however, they find that the repairbot is gone, and a couple of those robots that Rotom was talking about are scurrying about, cleaning the floors. Though it seems they can't do much about the walls.
"Yeah, I'm betting those cleanerbots were what you were talking about?" He asks.
"Yes, those things!" The Serpent Droid would not if it's head could do that. "They are too small so i just ignored them. What are they doing anyways?"
"I believe they are trying to keep the floor clean." Nesala said.
"Given how this place is thrashed, I feel sorry for them trying to keep anything clean." Raylo added.
Raylo looks upon them. Part of him wants to just shoot them to put them out of their 'misery', but that would be a complete waste of ammo. Ammo they might need if there's more security, which is bound to be the case if they're headed for the command center and/or computer rooms, or any other rooms of importance.
Soon they're right back at the fork in the road, with the smudged out sign.
"Okay, here we are again."
"Ah, so I guess I have to show you guys where I wondered about huh? Hhmmm, alright. This way!" Rotom in the Serpent Droid begins heading for that path that he came through, but the Avali haven't, the one that goes to the left.
The Avali crew follow the big serpent droid as it tracks through the halls, keeping an eye out for any security systems that wouldn't have reacted to Rotom, but will react to them. Or any holotapes that might offer any more insight as to what happened here.
"Wait, wait!" Rotom says to them as it keeps tracking forward, toward an open door on the side. "There is one of those turret thingies up ahead." He turns around and then fires on board weapons at something at the ceiling, there is the noise of something breaking and falling to the ground. "There we go."
The female Avali Soldier takes a look inside that room, she finds what appears to be an armory, but as one might expect from an old place such as this, it's pretty barren. What wasn't taken was in pieces and rusted. She was about to think checking out this room was a bit of a waste of time until she noticed a holotape in one of the gun lockers. "Look, over there."
"Huh, those thingies are important?" Rotom asks, noting how they seem interested in these holotapes.
Raylo nods. "Yeah, well...they might provide some scraps of information...debatably."
"Ah, well...in that case I found another one of those when I was wandering around down there."
"Would have been interesting if we hadn't already found out what exactly happened in the lab wing." Taluno comments.
"So you are going to show us where this other one is, Rotom?" Raylo asks.
"No need, I can just play it right now. I went into it thinking it was going to be something useful like a map or a code but I only found this." Rotom proceeds to 'play' a copy of the holotape from it's memory.
"Doctor Milo here. Day number....i don't know anymore, it's been so long since we have been stuck here. These creatures in this world are quite interesting, they can command fire, ice, water, earth and even the mind itself! Sure we saw such capabilities in creatures like Fennix, but some of the species here can use fire in more powerful and creative ways. And that's not all! With my own eyes I witnessed one of these things fire out something that I can only describe as a 'wave-motion gun'! It was tiring for a moment after using it, but it recovered quicker than I expected from spending energy in such an attack. Though the odd thing I noticed is that...despite how devastating some of these creatures can be with their powers, fights between them never seem to end in a fatality on account of these powers themselves. It's very strange. At first I thought that perhaps we could train these things to obey us, they could be very powerful weapons if conditioned to obey commands but it doesn't look like things might quite pan out that way, and given that they are sentient this is all easier said than done. I think I'm starting to see why Johnathan is obsessed with these things..."
Boris has some comments for this. "Ah, humans getting tempted by the power of pokémon...this is not good. I'm beginning to think they also abandoned their humanity."
"As if they ever had any in the first place." Ranyu grumbles.
"So at least one of the doctors recognized them as sentient." Taluno comments. "Okay, so on your way here, did you pass any other rooms of interest?" Ranyu asks the possessed serpent droid.
"You know I think I'm gonna miss being a Serpent Drone, but I kind of wish I could fly as one." Rotom comments. "Well I think I saw something interesting, you know how when you see signs that if someone doesn't want you going somewhere it means there is something important there? Well I saw a door guarded by some dangerous looking turrets."
"Should have been with us when we fought that heavy drone." Taluno jokes. "You would have loved it."
"Though he wouldn't have been able to fit inside and would have had to ditch it anyway." Ranyu points out.
"True enough." Taluno replies flatly. "Anyway, take us to this room with the turrets and stuff. It sounds important."
"If these turrets are as dangerous as you said, I hope they are out of ammo..." Raylo comments.
Rotom guides the Night Witches out of the room and down the hallway after some walking he stops when there is a corner to turn that seems to lead into another hallway. "Alright, it's just at the end of this path here, be careful."
Nesala peaks around the corner and notices that there are four turrets guarding one door in the end of the hall. Two are on the walls beside it and two are on the ceiling, it's some strong point defense.
Taluno also spots no less than 3 of the serpent drones in there.
"Okay, we can't rush in there, or else we're going to get ripped to pieces by ... well... everything." Taluno replies. He doesn't know if the turrets are out of ammo or if those are the laser turrets, but he isn't taking any chances. "So what we'll do is we'll see if we can't get those serpent droids to come to us instead. Rotom, since they don't expect you to be a hostile, you go in, and shoot down one or two of the turrets before they react. Don't try to take on three, because by that time they'll no doubt be onto you. Once you do that, come back out here, and we'll set up a kill zone in this hallway. Ranyu and I will be front and kneeling, the other two standing behind us. Each pair will be on either side of the hallway. Once Rotom comes back, he'll be in the center. Got it?"
Nesala and Raylo nod. Now they just need to wait to see if Rotom is okay with this idea.
"Well, it sounds like a plan i guess, just shoot and run back here right?" Rotom turns around and heads down into that hallway, so far so good. When he is close enough to have a clear shot of the turrets he stops and stared at them for a moment, wondering if they are staring back at him...suspecting that he is an enemy...This should give the Avali ample time to set up for what comes next. Then he fires his Serpent Droid weapons at two of the turrets and begins retreating by making his tracks go on reverse. "SHOOTTHEMSHOOTTHEMSHOOTTHEM!!!" He is afraid the possible retaliation that might come his way preeeetty soon.
"Alright here is." Taluno barks as he hears the commotion inside. Indeed, the minute he took down that turret, all the others and the serpent droids turned toward him. Good thing his reverse speed is faster than their turn speeds. None the less one of the turrets gets a few pot shots of heated red laser off at the fleeing 'traitor'. the noise of serpent droids bellowing in their low pitched robotic babble coming along.
"Alright. Ready... Aim..." Taluno orders from the firing line as Rotom comes out like a bat out of hell.
The second a pair of second scandroid tracks come into view, he gives the order
"FIRE!"
"Ow! Ow!" Rotom whined as it's possessed Serpent Droid body gets some holes from the laser turret. When it came the order to fire, the two Avali soldiers popped out of their cover, and with their weapons aimed over the heads of their other two allies and at the hostile Serpent Droids, they began opening fire on them.
The shields absorb some of the shots, but they can't hold long enough for them to return fire under this concentrated barrage, and one being behind the other means the one behind can't help until the first one collapses in a pile of smoking metal. With their line of sight blocked, they take a moment to quickly reload their guns, before seeing that the droid has finally maneuvered its way around, its shield still raised and its guns ready to fire, so Taluno and crew concentrate fire on that one too!
Rotom raises it's shields to provide more cover for the Avali soldiers and also shoots at the enemy with his own weapons. "AAAAAAAHH!!"
After putting fresh magazines on their guns, the two other Avali soldiers resume firing with the others. Five people firing down this hallway at once is making it quite an effective kill zone, just as planned.
The other one's shields drop when they become overloaded with gunfire, and soon bullets peirce the robot's armor and core, causing it to fizzle and smoke before its light dims and switches off.
It's at that point that the third makes its presence known, its weapons firing directly at the robot. Taluno and Ranyu open fire again, upon this newcomer.
Their ally Serpent Droid takes the brunt of the fire with it's shields, leaving the Night Witches safe to open fire on this last remaining security robot.
Just like with the other two, the combined fire takes the third one down, but this one explodes, sending shrapnel everywhere. Luckily , the crew's armor and helmets are enough to keep the explosion from doing any major damage.
After the dust and shrapnel from that explosion settled down, Rotom looked on at the aftermath. "Did...did we get them all?"
"Yeah. Unless the turrets start sprouting legs and walking out here, that seems to be all the bots. Though speaking of..." He groans. "Now we have to deal with those."
"Maybe we could use Rotom here as a cover as we advance on those turrets?" Raylo puts a suggestion forward. "Since he got shields and all."
"You okay with that?" Taluno asks the possessed drone.
Rotom agrees. "Yeah, that has been working pretty well so far, right?"
"Alright. let's go for it." Taluno nods at him, and reloads his weapon again. While not 100% out, he only has about 2 shots in it, not enough to take down anything, and he'd rather not reload during the firefight.
When everyone was locked and loaded Rotom began to advance towards that door, with it's shields up. It's a surprise when the laser turrets began shooting at it as soon as it came within their sights, but the attention of the turrets were focused on it and not the Avali.
Taluno is not giving them the chance to damage the Rotom further. "OPEN FIRE!" He yells as he takes aim at one of the turrets with his freshly loaded gun, and puts several holes through the thing, including through the base, which causes it to drop to the floor and smash onto the floor.
With everyone minus the Rotom opening fire on those turrets, they get destroyed swiftly. And with that all the threats are pretty much cleared.
"There we go!" Raylo speaks up. "Now with so many defenses, it's gotta be something pretty important this time around."
Indeed, there's computers, desks, everything around. In fact it almost looks a bit like the command tent back at Sandgun, but much, much bigger and a lot less haphazard.
"If this is what I think it is, we have just hit the jackpot." Taluno announces as they spread out to look over the various things, looking to see if any of these computers are operational
In case they need anything hacked, Rotom waits where it is.
"Now this looks big and important." Boris comments over the comms. "Seems like a nerve center to me..."
Raylo looks at one of the computers, that has many screens, he realizes that this must be the camera system. "Found the cameras here!"
"This here must be the comms." Nesala said regarding what she found.
Around the center of the room, Taluno or Ranyu mind find something much more vital, it seems like the main terminal used by the overseer, it's sure to have controls of important things around the base, such as the defense systems.
As Taluno goes over to what appears to be said main terminal, his booted feet fall upon something, producing a loud crunch. He looks down, and sees two skeletons, one lying almost overtop the other. One seems to be in some sort of fatigues, shot to pieces, while the other seems to be a scientist of some sort.
He can only take a guess that one of them, presumably the former, was the base's overseer. As for the others... Who knows?
"Hmmph." Is the only retort he has to that. Truth be told, he has no respect for either side in this little power struggle that took place close to a century ago. Both shitheads in their own way, both examples of the worst humanity had to offer... well, apart from the Occassus, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms altogether.
Seeing nothing of interest on them, he lightly shoves the two away with his feet, as he makes his way over to the terminal...
"Let's see what we got here."
As soon as he opens it up, he is met with a huge wall of individual logs and minutes. There's got to be a hundred, perhaps hundreds in plural here.
"Woah..." he says in surprise. He was expecting a lot, but not THIS much. "This... is going to take a while. We might as well start at the beginning."
He begins to read aloud.
"USCM Base #1 on planet... corrupted... is complete. All the computer systems are operational, the drones are delivered, and we..."
This goes on, and on, and on. To the point where the crew begin to get bored. Taluno is half tempted to just send it to Boris for him to sort it out later, but he knows he needs to get the whole story.
In summary, this base had been built a couple decades before the incident that would later claim so many lives. It was initially just a lookout post, as orbital scans had determined that the planet had only low-tier mineable resources, not high end ones like durasteel or violinium or the like, and since any old fool could mine those in bulk from asteroids, there was little point to setting up any sort of mining operation .They were set up to determine if the planet had some other use, and perform d-list experiments. In other words, a low-priority base.
Something that grew in slightly higher priority once they learned of the extent of the local's powers, something they wouldn't find out till later on when curious locals started trying to land on the island, only to be intercepted by security. It was around then they started experimenting on them. Mostly just dissection and basic testing at first. They found that while their powers could not kill each other, oddly enough, they could kill other things. Like humans. On the flip side, weapons like guns or blades seem to do the same damage to them regardless of 'type'.
It wasn't until an unrelated project was imported in by command that things began to get interesting. Project Transference.
A sort of 'immortality machine,' designed to transfer the minds out of living bodies into clone bodies.
"Hmph." Taluno chuckles. "Kind of a janky way to achieve immortality. Then again, I guess this is the best you can do when you don't have access to nanite research." He comments before continuing to read the logs aloud.
The only problem is that said cloning machine never arrived.
"If I have to guess, the whole 'Earth going boom' and 'purple guys wrecking everything' and 'USCM splintering into 20 different warlord factions and going nuts' has something to do with that." Ranyu surmises.
Without the cloning machine, the Transference Device lay dormant and unused. While the idea of using these locals as bioweapons did cross the overseer's mind, said locals proved too unruly to use effectively, requiring too much in the way of training and brainwashing, a feat made harder by the fact that they didn't know their language, nor cared to learn.
It was then that Johnathan pitched the idea of transferring minds to and from the local subjects. While the overseer was against this idea at first, he admits that the scientists were getting bored with the same cutting tables day in and day out while waiting for a cloning machine that never arrived. Wanting to keep them appeased, and to get Johnathan off his case, he gave the greenlight to it. Not only was it a resounding success, it solved their translation problems nicely too.
The overseer says that if command ever calls again, they'll be quite pleased with this discovery, as they could use it for infiltration missions. He even briefly entertains the idea of getting in contact with the Miniknog and selling it to them, as he admits, the prospects of ever hearing from command again seems to be growing less and less by the day.
This however is where the problems started. Johnathan, as it turned out, wasn't satisfied with merely swapping bodies. He wanted to use it to take over this world and make it their own.
The next few minutes and logs were filled with endless arguments back and forth between the colonel and the overseer with the latter flat out refusing him each and every time, and growing more and more frustrated with each encounter. Not only this, but complaints are piling in the rest of the base about him propositioning them with his idea, clearly trying to go over the overseer's head. While he desperately wishes he could dispose of Johnathan, he has to admit with the base in the state that it's in, they can't afford to lose personnel. Near the end, he admitted that Johnathan has something resembling a point, and while he wouldn't admit it to his men, he's lost any hope of being contacted by the USCM again. However, he still holds hope that he might contact the Miniknog instead, and that they might offer them some sort of position in their ranks.
In the meantime, he hatches a plan to deal with Johnathan. He has him transferred into a new body, and after he gets used to it, he'll have him sent off on an expedition to interact with the locals to learn what he can from them. Mostly just a waste of time to get him far away from the base without killing him and without getting rid of him entirely.
Alas, these are plans which never come to fruition.
"Hmm... odd..." Taluno comments. "These next few are dated differently than the others. Let's see here..."
He opens the next one up.
"The overseer is gone, as are those who would not see reason. A shame so many of my fellow humans on a world severely lacking in them had to die, but what had to be done is done. A shame, it looked like the overseer might have even seen the light in a few years, but I wasn't going to wait for him to come around, or for those damnable monkeys to show up and take over everything we worked so hard on for themselves. He should have shown some balls and joined me when he had the chance, asshole."
"Oh, so that's why," Taluno sighs.
"This base, and soon, this world is ours now. Not the USCM's, not the Protectorate's, not the Avali's (yeah, like their shitty little Illuminate is ever going to amount to anything)-"
"I feel insulted." Ranyu interrupts with a clear tone of annoyance at that statement.
"Not Lethia, and certainly not the damn monkeys." Taluno continues, ignoring his packmate's comment. "And now that I'm the overseer by right of conquest, I think it's probably better to keep my plans here. Better here than on some holotape, since God or lack thereof knows we aren't getting any new ones any day soon.
Better here under lock and key than out in the open. Even though the only ones left are those in on the plan, and I haven't exactly lied to them thus far. I will admit, my plan has come a long way since my early stages. I had always planned on taking over this world, ever since it became apparent that the USCM either stopped giving a shit about us or that there was no USCM to give a shit about anything. After all, eventually we're bound to run out of materials, and we'll need to get more from somewhere. Why settle for being raiders and pirates when you could have them hand it over in the form of tribute? And maybe whip these savages up in the process and make something of them? Maybe not, but something resembling a 'civilization', at least.
Originally the plan was just to take the droids and guns and go on a rampage until they bent knee. Though since we have a limited number of those, that might not be the best of ideas, as even with our vast technological advantages, we're still outnumbered who knows how many to one.
Then came that Transference project, and my plans changed. I realized we could become those beasts, and... well, I hate to admit it, I've actually started to grow... something for the critters. Don't get me wrong here, they're not equal to us. Not by a longshot. And they know it, conveniently enough. But I'll come back to that.
But as we all know by now, it allowed us to talk to them, learn their language, their hopes, dreams, fears, and all that other stuff. And a few legends. Using that tech, I quickly had the eggheads, or what was left of them, including my dear doctor William, transfer quite a few of those grunts under my command into a few of the 'pokey-mans' bodies we plucked from a few raids. While it's taken me a long time to get used to this one, I think I made the right choice here. And a few guards for the time being, at least until we're strong enough that we don't need them around here anymore either. Or at least until we have a bigger selection to choose from. After all, mixed unit tactics are much better than an army full of 'water types'.
Of course, there was the issue of the overseer. I've still got to get the bastard out of my office. But, it can wait. So, I had Dr William retarget the automated security system, while giving my followers certain 'badges'. The drones and turrets would target anyone not wearing a Badge. The plan went off without a hitch. He delayed the hack so that the drones would operate when the coot was here in his office, and so it was.
Now with him and his useless lackies and whiners out of the way, the real work can begin. Oh, don't worry overseer, we'll do that scouting mission, don't you worry. But we'll take our guns with us, and take some captives. But since we'll need to travel light, we won't be able to take much ammo with us. No matter, some simple iron swords should suffice in case we run out of ammo. Seriously, they haven't even figured out how to make iron swords yet. That's how backwards they are.
Good thing I took that blacksmithing class back in the academy. Never thought I'd get my extra credit out of that course. But here we are.
We'll take the captives back here, for transference into the remaining humans, and... other purposes. Seriously, it's a sausagefest here. And those born into our service should be easier to control and train than those taken from outside.
Once we have sufficient numbers, we'll change tacts. We'll go to another place, the other mainland perhaps. But this time, rather than just randomly raiding, I'll present myself as a 'human summoned hero' to 'save the world from a great evil'.
Yes I've heard some of the... Legends about humans the locals have told from time to time. I had to suppress a laugh each time one of them told me that a human would come and save them from the monsters that imprisoned them. Ah, the looks on their faces when I told them that they were staring at one. Never got old. But it'll have to if the plan will work.
As for what 'problem' we'll 'save the world' from? Perhaps one will turn up. And if it doesn't, well... if there's one thing I learned from the USCM's plagiaristically named counterpart, the Corporate Military, it's 'If there isn't a problem, cause one and sell the solution.'
I'll keep the drone factory running, and hopefully with new materials coming in we can make more instead of just repairing old ones. We'll pass them off as 'mons no one has ever seen before' or some crap. And then...
I'll give it about a year, possibly less before we have this world under our thumb."
Taluno leans back with a sigh. That was a mouthful.
Boris has some words for all of this. "...Ancestors. This changes everything and yet it doesn't. On one hand we know who the Iron King MOST likely is and where he came from, on the other hand it seems like human legends were a thing even before that. which does little to disprove the divine. And we can't be certain if Johnathan and his friends are already gone, they could have had a transference chair somewhere else in one of the mainlands. I know some people who will be rather shaken by this information too." Though he realizes he is getting off topic, with a sigh, he continues. "What a find, eh...?"
"Yeah. Quite" Taluno says. Not sure what to say on all of this.
"Well, there's no indication that there was ever a second one." Ranyu does however have something to say on all this. "And it's not like you can just throw some ingredients into a pot and pull one out of it, something like that is bound to be complicated to make. So I doubt there's a second one."
"Wait..." Taluno says. "There's still one more entry. It says 'William' on it."
"William? Okay that name is new in this whole thing, who could this be now?"
"I get the feeling we're about to find out..."
He takes a breath, and opens the file. He prepares to read, but to his surprise, there's nothing on the screen but a line. A line which morphs sharply up and down as a voice eminates from the long neglected speakers. It's the familiar voice, the same one they heard speak on the holotape.
"Last testament and will of Dr. William. Before I do this, I have only one thing to say. One thing I've wanted to say to you for years, but never had the bravery to say it. And now, in this final moment, before I do what I'm about to do, I finally have grown the spine to say it.
Fuck.
You.
For all the abuse you've given me over the years, in all of their ugly forms, for the way you manipulated me, pulled on my strings, used me, used everyone else here, used them, fuck you.
I have no bigger regret than helping you, ever. Yes, you forced me to go along with them, the way you always did. Always using your rank, your brawn, your acolytes, everything, to make me go along with everything you ever did. Both to me and to them. You made me reprogram the droids to attack everyone not wearing those special badges of yours, even gave me one as a show of 'thanks'. I went along with it, because I knew I couldn't stop you by myself.
Although, truth be told, I did try to put a stop to this. That night, when you told me the plan, I was planning on going to the overseer, turning over everything to him, hopefully getting out of this mess I found myself in. But... but I hesitated. I was more scared of you than anything. I was forced to install the hack while you watched.
And now that you've been gone for some time, I've had time to think. Think about all that I've done. All that you've done to me. All that you've got planned. I know I'm no match for you by myself. But then again, you were no match for the overseer's men by yourself either. And we both know how that ended. Gods, I'm still standing here, next to the corpse. They still haven't moved it.
Ironic, I suppose, that in a few moments I'll soon join him. See, I've figured out that if I could do it once, I could do it again. And this time, there will be no badges to save anyone. I've completely overridden the targeting parameters, they'll target ANYONE now that isn't a robot. You. The mons in the cages. Every follower left on this island. ... And me.
I only wish you were still here to face judgement yourself, but who knows? Maybe fate will still smile on me and you'll come back, only to get a very bloody homecoming party. Or maybe someone will tip you off or you'll figure out what happened once you've lost contact.
Either way, this will hopefully be the end of it. Your petty 'iron kingdom' will hopefully never rise. Goodbye, Johnathan. I'll see you in hell."
There is the sound of lasers firing, and a grunt, and the tape ends.
"Huh, that must have thrown a wrench in the Iron King's plans eh? Though we don't know if he tried to come back to the island and got killed by the defenses...we would have to check the corpses on the button of the ocean but there are probably quite a number of them down there I wager...or maybe he didn't even died here. Wait, hang one let me check if we have this information in our database." There is the sound of Boris running off for a moment, then he comes back after a minute. "Well, according to some information our people in the mainland do have, he was killed by the Iron Prince...his child, I wager."
"Yes indeed..."
"Honestly..." Raylo begins, just feeling a little exasperated with everything they uncovered. "Can this all get even more messed up...? I hope not."
"Let's hope not." Ranyu replies. "This has been a wild ride as it is."
"Though, that begs the question." Taluno asks, "Now what?"
"Well, whatever William did here, you can undo it and more..." Boris begins to explain. "You can just disable the defense systems so that no one needs to worry about getting killed out of nowhere by drones. Then i say that's mission accomplished, i will inform your superior in the mainland that the base is secure and they decide what happens to it...i mean they won't just leave this all here, will they?"
"Probably not, but I'm not sure what they intend to do with it." Taluno replies. "I'm afraid that's well above our paygrade."
"Not what it was used for, we know that much." Ranyu replies.
"Right." He replies. "Probably just another sandgun, if I had to guess."
"Yeah that would be entirely logical. Well there is nothing else to do but just turn off the defense system and go home.........or if you want to stick around a little more with me we still going to have some of that canned food, delicious canned berry salad. Up yo you!"
"Alright so let's...."
He suddenly stops.
"Does... anyone get the funny feeling like they're being... watched?"
"Erm... kind of? I mean this place is creeping me out as it is, but we destroyed all the turrets in the room. So... I....... Don't.... See......"
His words slow down as something drifts out of the ceiling right behind Taluno's head.
".... There's something behind me isn't there?" Taluno says with a flat tone.
Ranyu just nods.
Taluno and crew freeze in place for just a moment, just before he turns around, quickly aiming his gun at whatever is behind him, and the rest pull theirs too.
"Woah woah stop!" The creature suddenly squeaks in a female tone, if one could accurately describe this floating dark bluish-green floating dress-like thing with flowing 'hair' of the same color and wide yellow eyes with red iris as being as a 'creature'."I mean you no harm!"
"Ah...I guess this place is indeed haunted." Boris said, sounding a little worried about what this might mean for the team, but it seems fine for now.
Nesala is still on alert though. "Wait...you are a ghost?" This sure looks like a ghost, does it really mean no harm though?
"Uuuhhh...Rotom can you get in here?" Raylo thinks it's best to have a mediator here if needed, odds are having a ghost friend means they can appear friendly to other ghosts, right?
Having left the Serpent Droid, which is now offline, the little plasma ghost comes over to them. "You called?"
"Are... are you the ones destroying all the robots and machines?" The little ghost asks.
"We are. Why? Is there a problem?" Taluno asks for it, lowering his weapon just a bit now that he knows this is a mon and most likely not some form of base security.
"N... No!" 'she' says nervously. "W-we've had to live in hiding... because of those things." She explains. "They keep us suppressed, and if we show ourselves to them, they'd kill us. Again."
"Why?" Ranyu asks. "You're ghosts. Certainly the robots shouldn't affect you."
"Iron still affects us ghost types the same as it affects everything else. And so do the red beams of hot light." She says back. "We can't possess them, and we don't know how to operate the glowing boxes, like the white-coats did." She looks to the dead William on the ground.
"I see..." Living in hiding from machines in a place like this must not have been pleasant at all, Nesala decides to be friendly with this ghost, since she is being friendly after all. "You have nothing to fear, we are going to make sure all these robots don't hurt anyone anymore...and did you mention 'we'? There are other ghosts here?"
"Y... Yeah." The little Misdreavus replies. "T-the humans... they caused a lot of pain here... and made a lot of ghosts..."
She sniffles a bit before continuing.
"We can't move on. We can't take over, and we can't leave, or else the metal beasts will destroy us. Again."
"I...see..." This feels rather chilling. Nesala doesn't know what is worse, talking with someone that suffered such a fate or the thought of dying and being stuck in the horrible place where the death took place. "I'm really sorry..."
The others lower their weapons. "Y... You said you were going to get rid of the mean metal things?" She asks "That's right." Taluno sits back down on the chair. "I was just about to find a way to do so when you came in." "So... You can use the light boxes?" She asks. "Yes we can." Taluno replies.
Raylo looks at one of the computer screens, realizing what this ghost means with 'light boxes'. "Yeah, what Taluno here said, we know how to use these things."
"How long have you been here?" Nesala asks.
"A very long time." The ghost replies. "It almost never stops raining here, and we hide in the rocks whenever we can, so I don't know how long it's been exactly."
Taluno tries to look for an entry that will allow him to control the security. Unfortunately it's buried under tons and tons of logs, reports that went nowhere, profiles, and other useless and corrupted garbage.
Taluno tries to open it, but...
"Shit, it's password protected. Figures William would change the passwords once he made his second coup." He sighs.
Rotom looks at the terminal Taluno is using. "Password? Let me see if I can do something about that!" The little plasma ghost proceeds to do it's usual thing, jumping into the terminal and getting to work.
"You know, I wonder how exactly it's like to control machinery like that..." Nesala thinks out loud.
"Well, when it's with something like a card reader I can BECOME the card reader and decide to open it." Rotom explained. "Now a password is a bit more complicated but here I can find some 'probable' passwords, and I know how many digits it is! Now, what would a guy growing balls and willing to die to be a thorn on someone's side use as a password...? It's like remembering a word that is on the tip of your tongue."
Oh so you're not bruteforcing?" Taluno asks the Rotom.
"In this particular instance i'm kind of am, the robots were easier because they didn't have any sort of protection, I guess they weren't expecting them to have to deal with something like me!" It hums in concentration. "Aaand there we go. Bypassed that. you can do the honors if you want!"
"Alright." Taluno checks the options for the security.
AUTOMATED DYNAMIC ARMED RESPONSE CONTROL
STATUS: ONLINE
ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING NORMALLY
PURGE MODE ACTIVE!! ADAR IS TARGETING NON-ADAR CONTACTS
[RETARGET ADAR]
[SHUT DOWN ADAR]
[SCRAMBLE ADAR TARGETING]
[SELF DESTRUCT ADAR]
"Hmmm..." he thinks on this, which to press?
From inside of the terminal, Rotom 'looks' at the screen and all the options. "This is it, right?"
"Yes that's it." Taluno replies. "Though which to do here..."
Seeing options, Boris puts forward his opinion on the matter. "Alright what i'm about to say is mostly speculation here...So retarget ADAR should let us tell the drones what they shouldn't fire on, it's alright but risky as we do not know if years of lack of maintenance haven't driven some of the robots completely haywire.
Shut Down ADAR sounds entirely risk-free and is what we came here to do right? Scramble ADAR Targeting is just going to make the robots even more insane and trigger happy, even if they start taking each other out we are still going to have to clean up what remains. Self Destruct...that's like the second option but with a waste of potential benefits, now I'm not trying to defend these robots...they have done some bad things to whoever gets close to the island, but if we can reprogram them they could be useful.
If it were up to me I would say just shut them down, but what button you press here is entirely up to you."
"Alright, shutting it down it is." Taluno hits the shutdown button. Text appears on the screen.
SHUTTING DOWN ALL TURRETS.... DONE.
SHUTTING DOWN ALL SERPENT DROIDS.... DONE.
RECALLING ALL SEA HAWKS ... IN PROGRESS
RECALLING ALL TRIFANGLES ... IN PROGRESS
RECALLING ALL HEAVY DRONES ... IN PROGRESS
"S-Sir!?" A voice calls out over the crew's internal intercom. It's Eijyu. "I don't know what's going on in there, or what you just did, but... Something just happened out here. This big hole opened up not too far from my position, and it looks like a bunch of those trifangles are pouring into it! So far I've managed to stay out of sight, but... By the Nexus, there's so many. Oh crap!!" She cuts out for a moment, and then returns on audio. "Oh good, there was another one of those big heavy drone things that went in. I thought it'd noticed me for a moment, but it seems they're all just going into that hole... wait, the holes's closing again."
The last few lines change.
RECALLING ALL SEA HAWKS ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.
RECALLING ALL TRIFANGLES ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.
RECALLING ALL HEAVY DRONES ... DONE. SHUTTING DOWN... DONE.
ALL ADAR ROBOTS AND DRONES SHUT DOWN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
"Alright! That is Mission Accomplished!" Boris is happy to celebrate this job well done. "The 'Black Isle' has been secured. No more mons are going to get killed for coming here. This is sure to be very useful for the Avali to hold ground...or water...here in the Oracle Sea! Though I'm not quite sure what our finds can mean for the bigger picture, it's certainly something." He said over the comms. "You can fly back home now...or back to the sub, for you know, the canned berries. By the way Rotom can't hear me so can you tell that he will be getting some Deluxe Pokepuffs?"
"Uhhh sure. I will I"
Suddenly Taluno realizes there is a new message on the terminal. One that wasn't there before.
"AUTOMATED MESSAGE" It says...
Nesala and Raylo looked to their Avali packmate, waiting for him to give them the order to move...then they too noticed there was something being displayed on screen. "Huh? What's that? Automated Message?" The latter of the two asks, a little confused.
"Let's see what this is." Taluno says aloud as he selects it. It appears to be text. He reads aloud.
"If you are reading this, you have either shut off or destroyed the automatic security surrounding the base. Which means one of two things. Either the person behind this screen is Johnathan and/or one of his cronies, or you are someone else entirely, that against all odds have managed to get here.
If this is the former, then my final attempt at stopping you has clearly failed, and I fear for what will happen to this world. All I can say in that case is damn you. Then again, I doubt this is the case, as you would have most likely attempted to retarget the drones instead, triggering the scramble protocol I had installed.
If this is anyone else however....
I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. I don't know how you managed to get here, or what you hoped to find here. If you were expecting some huge pot of pirate gold or something like that, I'm afraid you've wasted your time, as this is all that is. I can only presume that you've figured out at least some of what happened here. Either from the logs on these terminals or from elsewhere. I don't have any reason you'll accept this last request of mine. But...
There is still something here in this base. If you've already been made aware of Project Transference... Gods, how many have we killed here?"
The little ghost looks off to the side when Taluno reads that aloud.
"Anyway, while we dumped those first bodies off into the dissection room, and later off into the ocean to rot, that wasn't the case for the humans. They're still being held in this facility, in suspended animation. Alas, I cannot deal with them without raising the alarm, and if I did that, then I could not have stopped Johnathan from returning here. As my last request to you... please, finish this, and let this be the end of it. I have no reason to believe you'll do this, but this is the best I can do."
"The message ends there." Taluno tells everyone.
"I think I know what he's talking about." The little ghost says it. "I managed to find it while traveling through the air ducts...I can take you to it. If you want."
"Woah...so there is a secret in this place?" Rotom asks.
"Well, not exactly a secret, even if it was." Raylo says to it. "But we should really go see to it..."
"I wonder why they just left their bodies behind still alive...well, a 'alive' at least." Nesala added. "I guess it was a backup plan of sorts that became obsolete."
It's no secret that Boris is listening to everything, yet right now, he is being completely silent. He knows very well that they might go through with what that message is asking them to do, which is, well 'killing' the human bodies that were left alive.
"Hhhmmm..." Nesala looks at the bodies in pods, the bodies of the humans that took very drastic measures, literally stole the life of some of the native inhabitants of this planet for their own end and carved a legacy that is affecting things even today. "...What shall we do with them?"
"I know..." Taluno replies darkly... "That Boris would probably want us to spare them. Hell, I know that the human protection law is a thing. But... Once they've read everything here. See what we saw..."
He raises his gun, and turns to his side, giving the charging handle a pull in preparation. He nods to Ranyu, who is thinking the exact same thing. He raises his, and aims at the right side as Taluno aims at the left.
"...They'll understand why we did this."
And with that, the sounds of gunshots and glass breaking fill the room, as Taluno and Ranyu both fire what's left of their bullets straight into the glass, the braindead bodies spilling out onto the ground as does the fluid they were contained in, a mess of blood, broken glass, and stasis fluid pools onto the ground.
As soon as one of the pods is pierced, an alarm blares, and red lights fill the room. However, the turrets, of which there were 4 of, remain dormant, and nothing comes for them.
Taluno looks up the alarms.
"Ah shaddap." He grumbles as he raises his gun, only for it to click as it is now out of ammo. He holds the blizzard with one hand, while he pulls out his backup pistol instead, and shoots the red lights and the siren, silencing both.
Nesala and Raylo watch in silence, so does Rotom who has pretty taken aback with the whole thing; it wishes it didn't have to see that.
When it was all said and done. Raylo speaks up, he expects Boris to shout, perhaps even say something in protest of what just happened..."Boris, are you alright?"
"Yes." He doesn't sound happy having witnessed all of that, but understands. "I do not like to see humans getting hurt, but these are traitors of the highest caliber when it comes to being human... it's not something I tolerate. If they just left their human bodies behind like this...they deserve no pleasantries."
"Well.... if there's nothing else... I don't think we really need to check out the repair bay where Rotom came from." Taluno says. "I don't think we're going to find much of anything interesting or learn anything new down there. We've basically come here to do what we were assigned to do. Even if we did take a few..." He looks at the corpses on the ground. "... liberties with said mission. Any objections to heading back?"
"No no..." Boris sighs. "The mission is very much complete, unless you got anything else you want to do there, i saw you can go back to Eijyu and extract out of there."
"Well... Let's head back, then."
"Wait... before you go..." The crew turn towards the Misdreavus, who promptly gives Taluno a little kiss on the cheek. "For everything."
"Erm... um... you're welcome."
"Heh." Raylo holds back a giggle at seeing his packmate get a kiss from a ghost. Nesala found it amusing too.
"So what will you do now?" Ranyu asks.
"I'm not really sure." The little ghost replies with a sigh. "We've been forced into hiding for so long that I'm not exactly sure what we'll do now that we have the whole island to ourselves..."
"Erm... yeah... About that..." Ranyu starts.
Nesala decides to add to what Ranyu is about to say. "You would mind if...someone else moved in here to live with you?"
"If they're like you, I wouldn't mind. The others might take some convincing, but once I tell them about what happened... I'm sure they'll come around." The little misdreavus says.
"Yeah, they're more of us." Taluno confirms.
"Oh don't worry, they won't be anything like the humans." Ranyu assures her.
Raylo nods. "Yeah, we promised that we won't be like the last owners of this place."
Taluno nods. "Well, assuming there's no more surprises, let's head back. I'm betterin Eijyu is starting to get bored by herself there."
With the Night Witches squad having finished their mission, the case of the Black Isle and it's mystery has been solved. Everyone regroups back in Boris' submarine for some downtime, and to enjoy some of that canned berries Boris was talking about eating with them to celebrate, hopefully it would have been enough to lighten up the mood after everything, all that action...all the disturbing finds...
Hours later after the detailed reports of the mission were sent to both the Avali higher up and Mattias, the latter makes an appearance in the Sandgun base. Even though there is the convenience of the gadge he gave to the commander here, he still can't get enough of coming here, always fascinated by this base the Avali have set up.
The human goes to the commander's tent, pushing aside the flap to gain entry. "Hello again." He sounds calmer this time around, there isn't any urgency after all.
"Ah, you again. Hello!" The base commander greets him. "You're starting to become a regular around here." He motions to a chair in front of him. "Please, make yourself comfortable."
"It gives me good reason to come out and get some fresh air." He walks toward the chair, pulls it back a little and then sits on it. From one of his pockets he gets that cube device again, making it fold into it's phone-shape. He is reading something on it or rather re-reading some of the report from the Black Isle case. "So, you read the report of that mission too, right?"
"The Black Isle one? Ah yes." He reaches over the table, and 'pulls' up a hologram, containing the files on that. "Quite the disturbing piece of work over there, no?"
"Definitively..." He sighs and nods. "Definitively. Mostly all of my coworkers involved in this were giving the Iron King the shadow of a doubt about his malevolence because they thought he was forced to be a pokemon by something out his control like the legends usually dictate, now that they know the truth they are very unhappy, some more than others. They thought he was forced into this, not choosing this...well, the circumstances might have forced him somewhat. But the fact that he so brazenly rather be a pokémon instead of a human was all everyone needed for their opinions on him to hit rock bottom."
"Hmmm. And that's despite the fact that the USCM had that whole 'human supremacy' thing going on, second only to those purple-robed psychos." The commander is still not exactly sure why they've chosen to concentrate on that part of it of all things, but he decides not to question it. As what they were doing in that regard was still horrible. "And stealing lives away from innocents for their schemes. Seriously, I'd expect this sort of thing from the Miniknog. But them? Well..." He rubs his chin. "Then again the USCM was kind of known for not being on the level."
"What they did is simply deplorable." Mattias agrees wholehearted with that. "There is talk about opening an investigation deeper into this, to find out who and where the other body snatchers were when the Iron King's reign began. There is suspicion that his most 'trusted followers' were not chosen by mere chance...and we want to be absolutely sure they are not in the background somewhere, possibly preparing to make things difficult for us." He raises a finger. "Yes, I know their bodies could have perished with the passing of time, but the chances of them still having this 'Project Transference' somewhere else besides that old base is not exactly a flat zero, and some species live longer than others...
"I doubt they built a second one... what would they have built it out of, and how would they have shipped it out?" The base commander replies back. "I mean..." He clicks a button, and one of the audio logs from the team plays for them.
"And it's not like you can just throw some ingredients into a pot and pull one out of it, something like that is bound to be complicated to make. So I doubt there's a second one."
"Well, Khaako's signing the final virtual paperwork to have a team deployed to that place to set up a base camp there. We've already sent a preliminary squad to negotiate with the local ghost types."
"Things sure like getting complicated huh?" Mattias sighs. "I hope it doesn't become too much for the Avali, without guidance this planet will never move forward. Anyways...i suppose we should thank the USCM for giving you solid footing in the Oracle Sea."
"Yeah, I guess there is some silver lining for that."
He reads more of the report in the device he has in his hands. "So, Johnathan, with how many crimes do you think he would be charged with for everything he has done?"
"Well, let's see.... Torture, countless rape accusations, especially if him being the iron king is true, and considering the 'Iron King's later ambitions. Which at this point we have no reason not to believe that's the case, conspiracy, countless murder charges, misuse of science. The list goes on and on..."
"I see. Must be a long list." Now to focus on the present... "So, the campaign against the Grove, it looks like it's about to take its first leap."
The commander is somewhat glad for this change of topic. "Yes. From what I've heard, the preparations are almost complete, and they're ready to move out onto the town itself."
"Yes. It would appear that Stic somewhat has a strategy in mind for the whole thing, it seems." He says. "I do hope we taught him well. It looks like he wants to split the force after taking Bleached Bastion."
"Ahhh... I see." He replies
"And from there they will take two more towns and take on the Capital of Sand. Stic believes that the the Grove and the nobles forces will be spent after fighting each other, and in the end they just need to deal with who is left standing."
"Especially if the Grove's supply lines are cut off beforehand."
"Yeah I agree with that, though first we gotta hope they can take the necessary steps to get to that stage..."
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