Centros: The Metal Army [Archive]

[Mizagium]

"Yes...please use whatever brains you have...no matter how little that may be." Magnus growled, none too pleased at being punched by some random guy who showed up out of nowhere. "At this point I don't need anyone here getting in the way. Either help out or leave."

He cleared his throat and calmed himself, returning his attention to Esfir and the....was that a raptor in a suit? Interesting... "Er...yes. Mister...Daryl. We could certainly use someone like yourself in our defense!" Seriously, was that a goddamn raptor in a suit? "You would be considered a great hero...of humanity." he added as an afterthought.

A thought suddenly occurred to Magnus. "Ah Jeff....you're going to need a weapon, aren't you?"

[Mizagium]

Fury looked at Perish and grinned. Time to show what he could do.

Walking into the training area with his machine gun, he took careful aim at several paper targets and fired a long burst, screaming all the while. The targets were rendered into little more than scraps of confetti in a second. He looked back at Perish with a grin. The challenge was implicit.

[Mizagium]

Jeff shook his head. "I got one, remember?" He held of the totally non-copyrighted key-sword. "Not that I'm any good with the stupid thing, but, hey, it's better than nothing." He wasn't sure how much good it would do against an army of robots, but...damn, why was he getting involved in this? All he wanted to do was go back home. And now he was involved in a war?

He needed a drink.

[Mizagium]

Scar walked with Dante and Raphael to keep an eye on Raphael. He looked at the raptor and shrugged as he didn't care. He noticed Chad did everything by chance and smiled. Drayko was headed towards Heros Refuge on a cloud to kill the Mechanist King. He was quickly got to the large tower and busted in. He walked up to the Mechanist King and smiled. "Mechanist King I have come here to..." suddenly he paused, completely frozen. Then he smiled. "Mechanist King, I have come here to join you. I will be very useful to your team." he laughed and the smiled at him evily. "I can control all the elements. You need me Mechanist King." he laughed again.

[Mizagium]

Esfir observed the chaos going on in her shop and sighed. She needed to get out of this town.

There were so many strange people inside of her shop. Too many people. She needed some space. "Hey!" she yelled, hoping to get everyone's attention, "You!" She pointed to the man with the dice. "Do not punch Comrade Magnus! Comrade Jeff, learn to use weapon!"

Esfir turned to the rest of the people in her shop. "Here is deal: you here to help battle man of metal, you stay. If not, out." She pointed her wrench towards the door. "Decide fast, or you get face smashed."

[Mizagium]

The Mechanist King could not help himself but laugh. "Such arrogance! It seems my security forces have been a little lax today (seriously, what's with that?) but no matter. You may fight for me, Drayko. Help me take the town of Heroes' Refuge. Follow the robot fellow there down to the training rooms. Two of your comrades are already there. Get acquainted with them quickly. We march soon."

-

Jeff shrugged. "I'm helping. I've only been here like...literally a few hours, but this king dude sounds like a jerk. So. Yeah."

[Mizagium]

Chase walked into the training grounds, just in time to see the muscular man's unspoken challenge towards that armor clad vixen.

A loyal servant...

Chase dashed forward, then rolled, gracefully maneuvering himself between to the two of them. Unsheathing and then charging his energy cannon, Chase fired at the target that had been riddled with bullets, completely disintegrating it.

The room grew quite, as Chase turned towards his allies. The training room always made him feel better.

"Hi guys!, I don't believe I know your names!"

"I'm Chase!"

[Mizagium]

Training was a rather strange concept for Perish but it made her wonder whether she'd fully grasped her potential. Sure she couldn't die, but maybe getting stronger might help in regards to avoiding the closest thing to death Perish could get?
It took her many years to recover from full obliteration, and the sensation of being alive without a body was eerie to say the least.

So she'd looked at her paper targets with a kind of intrigue -right up until her ears were assailed by the noisiest weapon she'd ever heard.
Immediately clapping her hands on the side of her helmet in vain hopes of blocking out more noise, she turned and stared at Fury incredulously as he kept making more and more noise until his targets were littered on the floor.

Perish let out a breath of frustration and exasperation, slowly sliding off her helmet so she could cover her ears a little more effectively next time, before glaring at Fury.
A challenge huh? Perish hadn't competed in anything in a long time...

Though as she was contemplating how to blast her targets to oblivion, that little blue robot person came back and blasted one of the targets.

"Uh... Perish..." Perish replied to the robot's introduction, before returning her attention to the target and redoubling her concentration.
She brought her hands to fists as she tensed up; dark energy seemed to gather at her position from nowhere and built up rapidly; symbols drew themselves on the floor in some inky substance until she was standing in a rune circle.
Perish suddenly thrust her hands forward and launched out some kind of demonic head made of shadow that violently snapped its maw over the top half off a paper target.
Being such a flimsy target, the top half no longer seemed to exist after the demon head dissipated.

"Hmm... Maybe I should have gone with a flashier spell..." Perish said thoughtfully, now actually rather curious on the intricacies of combat where it used to be something unpleasant and unnecessary.

[Mizagium]

Daryl seemed quite unphased by the suggestion that his head needed fixing, but he did give a bit of a cautious look at the wrench. "Ah, well in that case I thank you for the directions, the offer for a drink still stands though." he insisted, turning to leave before he was stopped by a different suggestion.

"Help with an evil threat? You can count me in, I've barely had a chance to explore this town." he said, thinking of course how many inhabitants he would lose the opportunity to 'meet' with while he was here. That was most definitely unacceptable. The idea that he'd be considered a big hero certainly encouraged him to.

"Ah, well I suppose I could help a little bit then. I'm certainly not the type to to ignore a damsel in distress. Though I'm not like those suicidal knights, if things get bad I'm out of here." he warned.

[Mizagium]

Walking a bit more, Phase and Break came across the weird reunion held in a mechanics shop. Eavesdropping a bit, they came across the important bits, namely "Big Battle" and "These guys are going to Lose." After quickly discussing what to do, they walked right in, leaving Phase's 2-Ton sword outside the door, since It didn't fit through the doorway.

"Hello, we heard you needed some big damn heroes?" Break said to no one in particular, not knowing who was in charge. "Well, we are blood Knights, for whom fighting is it's own reward. That's close enough." The Poet Mage dressed in black then added, "Where do we sign up?"

[Mizagium]

Dante laughed at Esfir, "Please, try it and my mannequins will stop you!" the mannequins stepped infront of Esfir and glared at her. Raphael also laughed. "I may not have any mannequins to protect me but I can easily turn into some kind of animal to stop you." Chad looked scratched his head a little before smiling. "Wow, crazy. Yeah, sorry I hit you Magnus... is that right? Anyway like I said its just numbers but I will help you out however I can since chance has given me the task to help one of you out." Chaos and Raphael quickly looked at Chad. Then both together, "Understand that we are on nobody's side. We are on our own side so we wont help you or that King. We will just watch and kill whenever we get bored and we could kill anyone on either side." with that they looked at each other and shrugged. Chad wondered what to do and so he asked Magnus. "So then how should I help? I can make your chances of winning higher for you if you want, I can evan see the chances of winning and at the moment it is very low or maybe I should take another roll?" he waited for an answer.

[Mizagium]

Drayko followed the robot to the training room, he watched as he fired at the target. Then he watched somebody else do some magic thing. He sighed as he shook his head. "Is that all you got? Seriously, you need to do better than that if you are truly going to aid our King." with that he raised his hand and the earth raised with it. He threw the earth at the target and sighed. "It would be better if I had other elements but oh well." then he paused, after a minute his eyes opened wide. He looked around and gulped. He quickly raised the earth and threw some at all three of them. He then jumped back a little. "Who are you! Where am I?" he clenched his fist as he looked around. It seemed they were in some kind of training room and his only weapon was the earth. "Damn you! You tricked me somehow didn't you!" he watched everyone carefully and noticed the man with the huge gun. He quickly raised the earth to around him to protect himself.

Scar watched Dante, Raphael and Chad as they each spoke. He already knew Dante wouldn't help but he wasn't completely sure with Raphael. Until he spoke along with Dante. He noticed that they were both smiler and he wondered if they noticed it too. He wouldn't help either but just stay back with Dante. He didn't care what happened now that he had found Dante. He smiled as he didn't want to say anything.

[Mizagium]

Jeff took a mental note of the defenders: Him. Magnus. An inexplicable Russian mechanic. A raptor-man. Scar, Dante, Chad, and Rapheal (each of whom he was sure would actually destroy the town later), and a smattering of quasi-useless civilians.

"So should I start writing my will, or would that be a waste of time?"

-

Finally alone, the Mechanist King considered the map again. His eyes fell upon what looked like a chess piece - a queen. Salma, he recognized, commander of the Southern Army. To the east, a bishop. Khilbron. To the west, a rook. Varesh. And to the north, a knight. Evenia. Finally, a king was stationed at the center, representing Rurik, captain of the Kingsguard, as well as Commander-General of the Metal Army. Five generals.

"My lord?"

"Ah, Rurik. No, no, come in." His Commander-General stepped inside and stiffened to attention. "At ease, Rurik."

"Aye, my lord." He relaxed, but barely.

With a pleasant sigh, the Mechanist King spoke. "Do you know why I've stationed you here, Rurik? At the Chromium Tower? You're the only one of my generals I can trust. I know you'd much rather be out there leading the charge, I can see it in your eyes, my friend. You're a warrior, not a bodyguard."

"I serve my lord, the Mechanist King of Centros," he answered dutifully.

"And that's why I've placed you here." He indicated the king piece. "I trust you more than anyone to keep safe my Tower while I am away. It's a selfish, wasteful order, I know, but it is what I must do. I cannot be a conqueror if I do not lead the charge myself." He lapsed into a brooding silence.

"My lord...?"

"Can I trust you, Rurik?"

"You can trust me with your life."

"Will you remain here at the tower if I order it?"

"Aye, sir."

"What if I ordered you to charge against Salma, or any of the Four Generals? Would you lead your forces against them?"

"I obey your commands, my king. If you ordered me to fall upon my own sword, I would do so without hesitation."

"There's no need for that, my friend." The Mechanist looked up from the table, feeling his mechanical joints creak. "I know you will never question me, so I will answer what you wish to know: I fear that Salma...no, I know that Salma desires the Chromium Tower, and Centros. She will turn against me, and I fear she will have the support of the other Generals. That is the true reason you are here, my strongest, most loyal General. She is a crueler human than I have ever met. She cannot be allowed to usurp me."

Rurik studied his king for a long moment, before bowing his head. "I understand my lord. I will protect this Tower and your life with my own. If Salma turns her blade against you, I will stay in the way."

"Thank you, Rurik."

"Of course, my lord. Shall we prepare to march on Heroes' Refuge?"

"That I shall do."

And they left to survey the robotic forces.

[Mizagium]

Magnus took a moment to survey the gathered forces. It wasn't much, but it was better than he'd hoped for. Honestly, who's bright idea was it to defend this place anyway? The Magisters may squabble amongst themselves, but they generally made sound decisions that didn't involve such suicidal risks. Maybe they were desperate.

Or they just hated him.

...yeah it was probably that.

'Whenever I get back to Northyos, heads are gonna roll.' Magnus thought. Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Magnus noted that two more had joined theoir little army. Cool.

"I'd be happy to have you aboard." Magnus said, addressing Phase and Break. "We could definitely use some more big damn heroes."

Magnus stepped out of the mechanic's shop and into the streets. By now, whatever civilians that remained in the town had either wised up and left, or were hiding in their homes. The streets were deserted, save for the few recruited mooks from the bar. The defenses were ready, for the most part.

"Okay then. Esfir, I need you to bring out whatever heavy weapons you've got. If you have any artillery, I want in out in the streets behind the barricades." He turend to the group. "Anyone who fights up close, I want up at the front lines. Luckily, there's only one road into this town so we have don't have to spread ourselves out too much."

He paused, thinking. " I want...hmm...you two," he turned to Phase and Break, "Down on the road with whatever melee fighters we have. Any ranged fighters are with me up on the rooftops." He turned to Chad. "You do that...chance thing or whatever and then join the defenses. And you guys..." he looked at Dante, Raphael and the others. "go be useless somewhere else, I guess. If you aren't going to help, don't get in the way."

Without waiting for replies, Magnus turned and headed for the front defenses, a small wall of barricades and sandbags that blocked the only road into town. Pumping magic into his legs, Magnus leaped onto a nearby building and stared out into the horizon, waiting for the inevitable line of troops that were sure to appear eventually.

Now it was just a matter of waiting.

[Mizagium]

Magnus took a moment to survey the gathered forces. It wasn't much, but it was better than he'd hoped for. Honestly, who's bright idea was it to defend this place anyway? The Magisters may squabble amongst themselves, but they generally made sound decisions that didn't involve such suicidal risks. Maybe they were desperate.

Or they just hated him.

...yeah it was probably that.

'Whenever I get back to Northyos, heads are gonna roll.' Magnus thought. Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Magnus noted that two more had joined theoir little army. Cool.

"I'd be happy to have you aboard." Magnus said, addressing Phase and Break. "We could definitely use some more big damn heroes."

Magnus stepped out of the mechanic's shop and into the streets. By now, whatever civilians that remained in the town had either wised up and left, or were hiding in their homes. The streets were deserted, save for the few recruited mooks from the bar. The defenses were ready, for the most part.

"Okay then. Esfir, I need you to bring out whatever heavy weapons you've got. If you have any artillery, I want in out in the streets behind the barricades." He turend to the group. "Anyone who fights up close, I want up at the front lines. Luckily, there's only one road into this town so we have don't have to spread ourselves out too much."

He paused, thinking. " I want...hmm...you two," he turned to Phase and Break, "Down on the road with whatever melee fighters we have. Any ranged fighters are with me up on the rooftops." He turned to Chad. "You do that...chance thing or whatever and then join the defenses. And you guys..." he looked at Dante, Raphael and the others. "go be useless somewhere else, I guess. If you aren't going to help, don't get in the way."

Without waiting for replies, Magnus turned and headed for the front defenses, a small wall of barricades and sandbags that blocked the only road into town. Pumping magic into his legs, Magnus leaped onto a nearby building and stared out into the horizon, waiting for the inevitable line of troops that were sure to appear eventually.

Now it was just a matter of waiting.

[Mizagium]

Esfir glanced at the mannequins. "Eh, matryoshka from my homeland are more intimidating than your dolls. But we may fight later. Right now, there is battle to win!" She then began to grab the weapons she had been creating over the years. "Comrade Magnus, I will bring you weapons! Artillery is out back. Comrade Daryl, new comrades, assist me in gathering our weapons!"

She paused a moment, then turned to Jeff. "Comrade Jeff, go ask Comrade Magnus if he knows anything about rust and the negative side effects it has on machines. Maybe it help, yes?"

Esfir continued to pull out more weapons from the back. "So, any of you interested want to learn to use these weapons can also talk with me. I am sure I find something we can blow up."

[Mizagium]

Chad walked to Esfir and sighed, "Well I been quite useless so far. All I have done is raise the chance of winning and that isn't much at all. So please I liked to learn how to use a weapon so I can be of use." he waited for her response quietly as Dante and Raphael laughed at Chad as they knew raising the chance of winning was a great help and he didn't even know it. They continued to watch as they waited for the battle to begin.

[Mizagium]

Perish had been deep in thought about what her available arsenal of spells and such was when she was interrupted by a third voice that seemed rather unimpressed. She met the newcomer with an equally unimpressed gaze until he started freaking out randomly, at which point she just looked at him weirdly before returning to her targets, figuring it might be better to just ignore him at the moment.

Her rituals took so long to use but they were her only option for versatility other than flinging raw power, so she figured she'd need something in between or a way to quicken her rituals.
While she thought about it she continued focusing and the symbols on the floor around her shifted slightly, and soon a large black cloud floated over her next paper target.
With a few sharp gestures, the cloud produced what looked to be over thirty of her swords, which fell from the cloud and rained on the paper target. These swords didn't seem to possess handles though, so it was really just a rain of blades.

Still yet her spells didn't seem grand enough, but most of the spells she remembered as 'grand' where ones that flew out of her control like that bone dragon one time...

[Mizagium]

Perish?

What an odd name. No matter, Chase was on a mission. His loyalty would forever be cemented....he would have his Creator's praise, his trust. All he had to do was shape up this group into a formidable fighting team.

"Hey everyone!" Chase yelled "We have to work together! Compensate for each others weaknesses!"

Turning towards the muscular man, Chase continued.

"While Perish charges her spells, we keep her protected with suppressive fire! Drayko can provide assistance...if he ever stops freaking out."

Following his instruction, the three of them turned repeating what they did before, but as a team.

Perish charged and used her spell, while Chase and the Muscular man fired away. The complete force of the three of them was too much to handle, and the target were completely obliterated.

It went better than expected.

"I think we're ready" Chase said, walking his way back towards the door "I'll go tell the King."

Chase approached the King, a new resolve fueling his drive.

"Um..."

Uh.

Oh yeah.

"I believe we are now an able-bodied fighting force! We await your command, Creator!"

[Mizagium]

Phases eyes lit up at the sight of so many weapons. A small voice in the back of his head begged him to take them and unleash havoc. He hungered for a chance at using them like a diabetic in a candy store, with just as much potential for disaster. "I have to... go check things out at the soon-to-be-frontlines," he quickly excused himself from the shop, leaving Break on her own.

"Yeah, I'd love to stay and help and chat and stuff," Break said. "But I've got things to do. We ought to have a cup of coffee later, assuming we're both alive." she added, heading out the door.

She decided to take a little detour and try to persuade the unruly and uncooperative group that decided to play like a wild card. She had, a possibly really stupid idea.

Pulling out a small piece of Stationery and a pen, she wrote down a short message for Scar, Dante and Raphael. Folding it up, she sent it to its destination via a quick incantation, and hurried towards Phase.

[hider=Dear Cowardly Assholes]
I apologize for my rude introduction to my message, but I don't know your names, and must get your attention.

I am fairly certain, in the upcoming battle, that you will be incredibly disruptive to our faction, which I cannot allow.

So, if it's a challenge you want, then we throw down the Gauntlet.

Meet us on the road away from town, on the soon to be battlefield.

-Break♥

P.S: I don't have the time to write in Scheme and Scansion, so sorry if it looks little messy.
[/hider]