Centros: The Metal Army [Archive]

[Mizagium]

Perish tried to think this through logically, as much as logic may have abandoned this situation, but there was usually a good and a bad side to engagements, so Perish just had to figure out which was which and she should be able to do something.
Except trying to identify such a thing seemed almost impossible with what was offered, so Perish tried simpler thoughts and figured the demonic types and the bladed metal things were probably the evil ones simply because they looked the part.

Not that it'd matter but Perish would rather stick with reasonable types since they were less likely to try and kill her, and reasonable types were usually on the good side! But whatever, she'd find out what one side was and make her decision then, so Perish climbed out of the tree and shot after the retreating group, gliding a few inches from the ground.

"So... what's actually going on here?" Perish queried as she flew up beside the musclebound gun-toting man and the short blue thing that was following.

[Mizagium]

Throughout the entire fight, Magnus had managed to remain inconspicuous. "These people are getting a bit wild." he commented dryly. Honestly he would have left already...except he had Jeff with him. That would slow him down a bit.

Wait, why was he helping this kid again?

Ah yes. Boredom. Well then. "Alrighty Jeff. Looks like we'll need to get out of town, or something. I can create a portal that will get us out, but it takes about twenty minutes to complete and fine-tune. Cover me." With that, he turned and began to chant, his hands glowing blue with ethereal energy...and completely forgetting that Jeff probably couldn't defend either of them if it came down to it.

[Mizagium]

Jeffrey stared down helplessly at the only objects he carried that could possibly be considered weapons: his cell phone (useless in Centros) and is keyring (especially useless). "Right. Cover you. I'll get right on that."

With a shrug, he pocketed his phone. Actually, on second thought, he retrieved it and snapped a picture of Magnus creating a portal. "No one would believe me anyway.

-

The Mechanist King stared at the intruder, Perish. Hard. "How the devil did you get past my...oh, it doesn't matter. We're in the middle of secret world-domination things right now."

[Mizagium]

Perish had lost track of things in pursuing the stupidly fast transport, so her surprise was a little delayed when she realized where she was after following that retreating group so intently.
Pieces were starting to click together and she realized this was probably the 'evil' group... but... she kind of didn't care...

"Get passed...?" Perish said with a bit of surprise, looking back the way she came. Well of course a place like this probably had defenses and such, but injuries and regeneration had become third nature to Perish so it might have actually been possible that she hadn't realized she'd been attacked on her way here.

"I was busy following you guys, I don't know what happened," Perish said with a shrug, "I suppose the typical response to a world-domination plan is to try and thwart it, but really, I don't care, let's do this world-taking-over thing."

She put her game face on and moved in closer to see what was going on.

[Mizagium]

Chase was enamored by what had happened. Merely a day ago, he had been nothing but a lackey, but now? The King was promising him an honored position at his side, and he got to share it all with these brand new friends! Even is he didn't know their names. Needless to say, he was unable to contain his excitement.

"Dr.Light MECHANIST KING!" he exclaimed in his high pitch almost feminine voice, "What do we do next?"

[Mizagium]

Fury nodded. It was simple, really. The best way to impose law and order was to conquer the world and exercise minute control over, well, everything. He was surprised he had never thought of it. He tried to think of more plans but was blindsided by an immense headache and suddenly choking. Stop forgetting to breathe!

"So what nyow?" he asked the others, giving a lingering gaze to the King.

[Mizagium]

The Mechanist King cleared his throat. "You," he indicated the lemon-shooting robot. "Bring me coffee and a tin of motor oil. You," he indicated Perish, "I don't know how you got past my security, but since you did, I'd rather you be on this side." For now.

"As for you," he indicated Mitch Fury, "Well, all of you. The plan is simple: I march the Metal Army on Hero's Refuge." HE said that so casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Sire, if I may?" Rurik, who had thus far been relegated to the shadows, stepped forward. "The Army is spread thin as it is. Tensions along the borders - all of them - are increasingly high. The Outer Lands fear we will turn our guns on them."

The King laughed a hearty laugh. "And so they should be. I fully intend to bring this world to heel."

"But sire - "

"Tut, tut, Rurik. How quickly you forget my powers."

Rurik narrowed his eyes. "The Breath of Life...can it really be as powerful as the legends tell?"

"It allowed me to take all of this." He spread his arms wide, indicating the land of Centros around him. "So long as the factories continue to produce the shells, I will supply the souls."

Rurik exhaled sharply, but said nothing.

"Now then, any questions?"

[Mizagium]

Dante stood up and walked through the crowd of mannequins. Each one had a soul, he placed his hands in his pocket and pulled out a small sack which was tightly tied. Dante undid the tie and opened the sack and inside was little orbs. He pick one out of his sack and looked at a mannequin. "Weak fool! If your going to constantly lose then I dont need you! You were once strong but now you grown weak and I dont need weak souls." with that he smashed the orb and the mannequin fell to pieces. he threw the shattered orb to the ground and put away the orbs safely. "The rest of you! Whoever shows signs of weakness will die understand!" Dante's mannequins nodded. Raphael's eyes opened wide, "So thats how he controls them! All I need to do is get rid of those orbs and hes defenceless." Raphael smiled as he stood up. He licked his lips and walked over to Dante. "I liked to help you. Call me Raphael." Dante shrugged and ignored Raphael. Raphael jumped back and transformed into a spider, he caught the sack with his long sticky web and threw it to the ground. Then all the mannequins fell apart except 10. Dante looked at Raphael and clenched his fist.

[Mizagium]

As the battle had raged around him, Samson hadn't so much as flinched, and instead had calmly continued to haul his massive tree through the streets. The brawl seemed to have taken the townspeople's interest off the damage the lumberjack had done. Soon enough, he was at the edge of the town. He rolled the tree against the town wall and stopped for a breath.

Suddenly, a mechanical man, a blue robot and a gun-toting lawman charged past him, and hopped onto what looked like a motorbike. To Samson's surprise, the vehicle roared to life, and hovered above the ground. Samson realized he hadn't been in town for quite some time. The hover-bike tore off into the distance, the mechanical madman shouting some gibberish about revenge and all the other standard villain threats. The three were then followed by a flying horse. Samson sighed. It was this sort of madness that he hated about townspeople.

Samson knew that Centros was under the control of some dictator-like figure or someone like that, but he figured it must have been this cyber-creep. It had never bothered him though, any of the Mechanist King's minions that entered his woods were sent back out in scraps.

Samson turned around and looked back into town. He saw a scrawny kid watching a wizard make a portal, and several others standing in a crowd of lifelike mannequins. He decided he really couldn't be bothered with this sort of madness, and resumed dragging the giant tree towards the forest.

[Mizagium]

Perish once more looked back the way she came when the King mentioned the security, causing her to grimace a little in thought as she tried to remember what had happened on her way here.
But it didn't seem like the memory was going to come to her very easily so she just cast it aside in favour of listening to this King's 'plan'.

"...Questions...?" Perish asked with a rather unimpressed expression, "Your whole plan is simply throw a bunch of soldiers at it? Where do we come in? Do we just sit and watch? Do we get sedan chairs? Did you want me to raise some skeletons or something? Maybe that guy can loan me one of his noisy weapons."

As far as plans went it was rather boring in Perish's opinion, when offered the scenario of world domination only to be told to go watch some town get hit by a tidal wave of soldiers, it seemed rather mean. Then again, this was the evil side was it not?

[Mizagium]

Magnus felt sweat run down his brow as he concentrated, pumping a final blast of magic into the steadily forming portal. With a hum, the arcane window flickered into focus. Magnus exhaled loudly, stepping back and relaxing. The sheer concentration that it took to bring one of these portals into creation was immense, not to mention that if he was interrupted half-way through the backlash could wipe out the entire town.

Portals were serious business.

"Alrighty, that should do it. I didn't really input a specific destination, so it should be a bit of a surprise where we land....hopefully not in the Mechanist King's tower." 'Like last time he mentally added.

He walked up to the portal and cast one final glance around Hero's Refuge. "Goodbye small, decrepit village." he moved to step into the portal....and froze. The portal rippled, as if changing somehow. Magnus' eyes narrowed as he stared into the portal. "Ah hell, now of all times?"

The portal seemed to hiss for a moment.

"But why?"

More hissing.

"Surely you don't expect me to do it by myself."

The portal responded.

"Well yes, of course I can but-"

The portal seemed to shimmer for a moment.

"...fine. But you owe me." With that, the portal wavered for a moment, and then collapsed. Magnus sighed and turned back to Jeff. "Change of plans, kiddo. Looks like we'll be staying here for a while longer."

He glanced around at the town, at the few people still out and standing around. "...I don't suppose you would know how to raise an army within the next twenty-four hours?"

[Mizagium]

Scar nodded at Dante, "Yes I have got myself a few new powers." he laughed and turned to Raphael. "That is my little secret." He watched the Mechanist King and his friends leave. He shrugged as he didn't really care. He noticed a wizard was making a portal to another location, slightly different to his power. Then he saw Dante grab a small sack out of his pocket. He knew exactly what it was. He started to shout at the mannequin. Scar didn't like how this was going. He looked at Raphael and closed his eyes. His power and soul was strong, he smiled and touched Raphael and started screaming as his hand glowed red. After a few minutes he had absorbed Raphael's power. finally Dante smashed the orb making the mannequin's soul be destroyed. Raphael took advantage of this and quickly went for the bag. He watched him get the bag and destroy the orbs making the mannequins be destroyed. Quickly Scar clenched his fist and closed his eyes. "No, I wont allow this to happen!" he ran towards Magnus who for some reason closed the portal and chose not to go. He jumped at Magnus and the suddenly disappeared. Everything turned white and within a minute he was back at Hero's Refuge. "Weak fool! If your going to constantly lose then I dont need you! You were once strong but now you grown weak and I dont need weak souls." quickly Scar ran and grabbed the orb before he could smash it. "Not here Dante!" he placed the orb in the bag carefully and smiled. "Later on ok but just not here." he smiled and watched Magnus.

[Mizagium]

Jeff shrugged. "I can do this." He jiggled his keyring around until he found the right key: the one that used to open his front door. When he separated that key out from from the others, it began to glow and, in a flash of light, a fairly decent sized sword replaced it. "Figured out I could do this when I first got here, but I'm no swordsman, so..." He shrugged.

"I think we're going to end up killing each other off first, but , hey, that's just me,"

-

The Mechanist King cleared his throat. "What do you mean 'That's it'? How else do you think I've brought this land to heel? The side with the most men and the biggest weapon wins. Of course you three with your - ahem - unique abilities will be on the front-lines, with my soldiers backing you up." He slammed his fist onto the table-map. "We will take that town if we have to burn it to the ground - and then we shall have peace."

[Mizagium]

"You sure this is the right place?" Phase asked his new companion.
"You wanted Heros Refuge. You got Heros Refuge. I see no problem here," Answered Break, boredom permeating her voice.
"I just thought it'd be sunnier, that's all."

The two adventurers walked into the town with their eyes peeled back while stepping on the tips of their toes. They hadn't worked together for very long, but they knew too much caution was never a bad thing. Especially in a place where most of the town was horrible shape due to constant fighting. Goosebumps formed on Breaks skin, and Phases blood started pumping faster than usual.

"I have a bad feeling about this place," said Phase.
"I can't say I'm comfortable here, either. The crowd here is quite weird," added Break. "So, I say we talk to that weird guy with the bladed dolls."
"Sure, why not." said Phase.

The pair walked over the Man with the Mannequins, no less careful than before. Phase was the first to talk.

"Hi, we're new here and we need some help getting around. We're looking for somewhere to stay the night?"

[Mizagium]

Rando woke up. The last thing he remembered was riding a turtle to school. He looked around and saw that he was napping in a horse trough. "Oh, how pleasant!" he proclaimed.

He got up, clothes a mess from the horse feed, put his hands on his hips and looked around at his surroundings. Well, this certainly wasn't home, he thought. This place looked far too boring. It must have been the next town over. They say that was where all the uninteresting people were shipped off to. He ventured around trying to find out his exact location.

The town looked pretty run down. "Odd sense of decor here," he thought aloud. He kept going until he found a sign that read 'Hero's Refuge'. "Hmmm... Odd, name, but I like it. I wonder what Princess Raindrop would think of it here? She could make it her playland!"

[Mizagium]

"We will take that town if we have to burn it to the ground!"

Those words were ringing through Chase's head. He looked up to the King (both physically and metaphorically) but Chase didn't always like the things he did. Uniting a nation so peace could flourish made sense, but burning everything in your path to get it? Did the ends justify the means?

"Creator?" he asked "What about the villagers who live there? Will you spare them?

[Mizagium]

The Mechanist King folded his hands and sighed. "I am not unmerciful. Those that choose to submit to my rule will, of course, be spared. What good is a king without subjects?" He chuckled morbidly. "But no. My endgame is not the eradication of the Centrosi...my own people..."

Fires...bullets...the swords in the night...blood...so much blood...the cries...he saw -

He exhaled sharply, suddenly aware he had been holding his breath.

"I will not, however, extend the same courtesy to those who raise their arms against me." Wiping sweat from his brow, he turned away from the table and those gathered. "They are troublemakers. If allowed to live they will sow anarchy and discontent among the people. I will have peace...order...even if I have to make them hate me."

With a backward glance, he asked, "Are we ready?"

[Mizagium]

Magnus was pretty sure that they were all properly screwed. Somehow he had to put together a defense of Hero's Refuge for some unknown reason -they never told him anything- and somehow manage to hold off the entire army of the Mechanist King.

So far his rag-tag army consisted of himself, Jeff, and eight men he'd recruited from the local tavern...half of which were nursing hangovers. The other half were still drunk.

"Okay....this can work. This can totally work." he tried -and failed- to reassure himself. He cleared his throat and addressed his troops. "Right, men. We are all that stands between this lousy, good for nothing piece of-I mean we are all that stands between Hero's Refuge and the Mechanist King. Fight confidently, knowing that in the likely even that you all die, I can bring you back as zombies to hold them off for a few moments longer."

Judging from the looks he was getting, this whole inspirational speech thing wasn't going very well. "Right....uh, go team?"

Honestly he was still tempted just to skip town. If he kept his magic use to a minimum the Magisters shouldn't be able to track him for a few months. He might even not be killed for desertion. Maybe.

[Mizagium]

Fury nodded in enthusiasm. He drew his huge pistol, held it by his ear. "Let's clean out that wretched hive ahv scum and villainy!" he cheered.

His eyes lit up as he realized what this meant. "Finally! Ah've been sahving dis one," he said. From nowhere he drew a massive belt-fed machine gun. Wrapping the ammunition around his forearm, he held it up for everyone to admire. "Let's kick some ash!"

[Mizagium]

The Mechanist King's speech had helped reassure Chase's doubts. They would be the harbinger's of peace. Although the look he had in his eyes had suggested something else, leaving him with a feeling of uneasiness.

Oh well.

"I'm ready Creator, let's-"

Uh.

Um.

Oh yeah.

"Let's get MEGA"