Futuristic 〘POLARIS.〙

[BnemonicDevice]

06

TIPHERETH

What did it mean to be someone's idol? When one moves from the world of the real into that of symbols, what gets lost on the way?

When that... apparition? Spirit? Whatever, or *whoever* it was residing within her blood, the real, Don Quixote that Tiphereth met prior idealized her as a being worthy of their worship... what was it that she was venerating? Her behavior was not seen as acceptable by those around her- her erratic, risk-voracious, unconcerned life of reckless abandon...

From when she had burnt her hands on the carrier clean-up mission, they had all met before.

When she decided to torture Solline about her lost family the most she saw an exploitable weakness.

When she pulled a gun on Chomp in the middle of a civilian establishment.

To the moments she shared and cherished with a certain engineer.

To the death she craved, and the resurfacing of her 'family' in her split mind.

Yet, it was because of her insanity, her willingness to question and to suffer the consequences when screaming the question aloud. She constantly strives to impose upon this world a vision of reality ultimately better than what they currently inhabit.

She was someone's God, after all.

------

That was the thought process that was running through her mind when she saw a spark, or another phantasm appear that would end up saving Churchland's ( Cresion Breezes ) life. Then came the EMP blast-- which, for our barely-equipped maniac, did almost nothing to her. And upon hearing a proper evaluation of the situation from Sisyfu, it was clear as to who needed help more.

"...Commander Shaw." ( Worthlessplebian ) She uttered his name in her right hand, and white electricity surged from her shoulder to the length of her arm. A heavy Zweihander, now properly held, firm and resolute, emerged from her fingertips.

"Give me the order to assist Churchland. This sword may be for display, but the sparks it conducts aren't. We mustn't let precious medical staff perish due to our negligence." She looked up at him expectantly. Whether they will now choose to split ways and the corebreaking team will proceed to get out of range from the EMP or choose to stand their ground and fight to take out the monster- she couldn't ignore another person in need.

No. It was in her nature not to ignore it.

Calculated or not. Rational or not. Reasonable or not.

Tiphereth could not accept that another soul other than her own could perish in her presence.

MENTIONS

See in-text citations.
Code written by: Pyosimros

 

[Worthlessplebian]

Hiberus Shaw, Phobos Itself
Interactions: Lucius Cypher Clockwork_Magic Cresion Breezes BnemonicDevice Norschtalen Mentions: Same as interactions, mostly;


The second the Sparkeater burst forth from the ground, like some burrowing insect of old, Shaw leveled his rifle at the colossal machine. His eyes, both of them, tracked the flailing tendril-cords that sparked with electrical energy. The machine seemed animate. Almost as if it were aware, even though the engineer knew that it thrashes wildly. It rears to extinguish the unhinged doctor with a mighty flogging. Only for its cord to be shot off by a mirage figure with an ethereal gun.

Shaw lowers his rifle to watch. That ghost, for lack of a better term, let bullets rip that strip the Sparkeater's cords. He watched the Sparkeater's energy condense, a dome of shimmering electricity before it violently decompresses into an electromagnetic pulse. Shaw braced himself reflexively. Raising one arm in front of his face. The intact lens of his Ghul-star shimmered then died. Luckily, Shaw doesn't design an electronic that couldn't function without power. Limited as it is, the lens can now only provide simple magnification.

It occurs to Shaw what they must do, their goals have been jeopardized by the untimely arrival of this behemoth. The urgency of the Ecology-Class machine weighed heavily on his mind, they could find the core. They're fast, they could sacrifice him. The Doctor, he'll understand. They'll understand. For the mission. For the people of Polaris. His hands squeezed the rifle. He was about to give the order when Sisyfu interjected with her thoughts. Kármán could only functionally locate the core if ample distance or the threat is refused. A new layer into the decision-making.

And yet when Tiphereth called his name, appending the title Commander to it, froze his mind. He heard Sisyfu without looking at the red-headed, but he turned to Tiphereth fully. Locking eyes with the white hair psychologist. He recognized the significance in her words, more than just to the mission, but to herself. This woman who he shared moments with, and cherished them as if they were droplets on his palm.

The decision becomes undeniable. Irrational. And apocalyptic. He turns to the rest sternly. Voice, thunder yet soothing against the backdrop. "Eliminate The Sparkeater. Chomp, Solline, focus on the minor and main tendril, heavy ordinance; Tiphereth, you're support-recovery... I trust you; Nero, your portals are flexible, if you see an opportunity to hurt or help, take it; Sisyfu, keep the EMP shield ready. I'm on control duty, I'll keep the machine's focus and corral its tendrils." He thumbs the mag-release of his rifle. The magazine only had half of its rounds left, he pocketed the partially-spent mag and inserted a new. "Roger that." It almost seemed useless to ask them that, he knows they understood. But it helped.

 

[Clockwork_Magic]

Solline Nova
Interactions: Worthlessplebian | Lucius Cypher | Everyone in general​

---

As the group wound down on their little banter, Solline dawned her goggles once more after finishing the ration Chomp gave her. It wasn't long after their little respite that things started to escalate very quickly. Solline got a bad feeling in her gut when Sisyfu said there weren't any signals around and her fears were only confirmed when the rumbling beneath their feet began, followed soon by the two messages broadcast over comms. As if things couldn't get more chaotic with the now extreme urgency of the situation, a massive automaton revealed itself to the group, crashing through the walls of the Ecology class.

"Shit!" The blonde raised her rifle to strike at the Sparkeater when it suddenly got struck by what seemed to some sort of projectile, sparing Doctor Churchland from the Sparkeater's strike. Solline turned her attention to the direction the unknown projectile came from and there stood an ethereal figure. A guardian angel is the only way the blonde could describe the mysterious figure, but there was something... uncannily familiar about the figure that caught her attention as it fired off its second round at the massive automaton. Its movements, the general frame of it, the way its firearm's shots rips through the cords. Is that... It can't be... could it? How would that even be possible?

Solline wasn't allowed to dwell on the matter for much longer however, as the Sparkeater began to glow an ominous blue glow before it burst forth. As the pulse washed over the group, even with Sisyfu's EMP shield, Solline's field of vision flickered as some of goggles' electrical components were affected. Hopefully that wouldn't be an issue in the long run, but for right now she decided to turn off her range finding system, essentially turning it into a mundane pair of eyewear. The old fashioned way will have to do for now.

"You don't need to tell me twice!" She took aim at the Sparkeater's main chord and, just like ethereal figure still present, fired several shots at the machine. After emptying half her rifle magazine, Solline loaded in an HE round and fired, checking her munitions pouch after pulling the trigger. "Shoulda brought a lot more rounds than this..." The blonde clicked her tongue, but then she suddenly remembered something. "Hey Chomp!" The blonde threw over one of her HE rounds in the auxiliary's direction. "I'm gonna need a few more HE rounds, think you can make a few?" Not wasting time waiting on a response from Chomp, she emptied the rest of her mag at the electrical beast, pressing the mag release and loading in a new mag as soon as the last shot was fired.

 

[BnemonicDevice]

06

TIPHERETH

"Hyah!" the albino psychologist screamed out at the top of her lungs, spinning 720 degrees in a circle like a shot put athlete towards in the direction of the Sparkeater, building up an angular momentum of the sword before she let it loose from her hands.

While in midair, she raised a hand in the air- storm clouds gathered over the sword's trajectory, clustering around its landing point- a couple of meters before the mechanical monstrosity. As the sword lodged into the ground, with a snap of her fingers, pale, white lightning struck down from the gathering storm, and the blade- acting like a Tesla coil, struck the handle, overloading the blade. Like a picture-perfect moment being captured on camera, another white flash filled the limited space that they were in.

Finally, the current of electrons became attracted to the nearest source of protons-- the beast before them, sending volts of electricity in hopes of bringing the beast down.

MENTIONS

See in-text citations.
Code written by: Pyosimros

 

[Lucius Cypher]

Interacting with: Everyone in general.​

---

With the last of his repairs done, Chomp was about ready to set out with everyone else. He figured this mission would be fairly easy, given how little they had any difficulties so far. He went as far as to begin to play some music on his personal communicator, much like how he did back on the Polaris. A little tune to uplift the spirits. However as he was fiddling with the playlist he wasn't getting any feedback from his speakers. This was strange since all of his music was downloaded right onto his communicator so there shouldn't be any loading issues. Perhaps there was something about being in one of the Ecology Classes that was interfering with his communicator? But by the time Chomp realized what was really going on, he was a moment too late.

The Sparkeater burst from the ground, attacking the group. The field doctor went to engage the beast, a strange decision considering that they were there assault team, and he was a medical personnel. Was this machine responsible for the lack of staff here? Did other GPO's attempt to take it down, only to be defeated by this thing? Shortly after it's arrival the Sparkeater unleashed a shockwave that Chomp tried to brace for, but knew his body was not going to handle it well. Against physical threats such as most machine swarms and the harsh conditions of the surface world, Chomp's machine body was more than capable of handling either. But more esoteric means of attacks, such as pure electrical discharges, Chomp had no defenses against. And while Chomp's Black Box was more or less safe, such an attack would fry some of the more delicate parts that was housed inside of Chomp, such as the computing components that go into operating his jetpack, thrusters, and overall body movement. If his body was struck by a sufficiently powerful EMP, it would at the very least make him very sluggish and unable to properly defend himself from further attacks.

Thus it was fortunate that Chomp was able to avoid a bulk of the damage thanks to Sisyfu GP erecting some sort of barrier dulling the attack. But even so, Chomp felt his body heave as it was shocked by the remaining energy. Nothing that was enough to damage any core systems, but enough for Chomp to know he needs to be very careful against this enemy. Grabbing his Impact Blade, Chomp went into battle at Shaw's command. He and Solline would be tasked to deal with the tendrils, Chomp on the minor while Solline handled the primary. She needed more firepower however, and tossed Chomp one of her HE rounds. Catching the bullet in his maw, Chomp consumed it and copied it's physical make up into his GP. It was relatively simple to make, so he spat out three magazines worth of HE rounds, in the mags as well, and tossed them back towards Solline.

"LOCK AND LOAD."

Rocketing towards the massive machine, Chomp focused on shearing off the minor tendrils. They didn't seem particularly articulate, just randomly lashing out at anything. This was good for Chomp, since this means that as long as he kept his spacing in mind he can largely ignore the minor tendrils and focus on the Sparkeater's movements and it's main tentacle. However Chomp also knew that if it could get it's many minor tendrils on him, Chomp would himself quickly overwhelmed. So he would have to work quickly. Shortly after Tiph's attack, Chomp charged in with his Impact Blade raised to rip right through a dearth of minor tendrils. He didn't even have to activate the Impact Blade's rocket rocket thrusters, relying solely on his own momentum to cut through the wires. Maintaining momentum Chomp would use his Butcher's Blades to quickly redirect his direction and go for another attack. If he could, he might even try to chop off it's leg or it's main tentacle, if Solline is able to weaken it enough for him to go for the attack.

 

[Worthlessplebian]

Hiberus Shaw, Phobos Itself
Interactions: Nobody Mentions: <<><>>;


With the rest acting swift, it seemed almost humorous that Shaw had been nearly the last to the table. But he was not the least of their assault against the Sparkeater. His eyes work fast though, acquiring a dangling set of cords from the Ecology Class' gutted insides; its vasculature, one could say. His knees bent then shot him up to the wiring and allowed gravity to immediately yank them out as Shaw fell back to the ground. He immediately gutted the pommel of his sword and ripped out the miniature power cell of his dearly valued helm. His hands blurred as he worked to connect the two pieces. In a few seconds, his enhancement had been complete and the cord tightly woven around his forearm.

He ran then jumped into the air. With a twist of his torso, he imbibed rotational force onto his body. At the apex of his velocity, he chucked the blazing blade with all his might sheathing it within the Sparkeater's cranium or what appeared to be it anyway. His feet slid as he landed and the makeshift rope weapon grew taut, the coiling bit into his arm as well. His incredible strength unsteadied the creature further while a newly sprouted set of chain-swords swiped at the flailing, small tendrils.

 

[Norschtalen]

Nero Argent "Janus"
Location: Inside of an Ecological Class monster
Interactions: Spark Eater
​

---

While Nero was chatting with the other operatives, she had a strange feeling in the back of her neck. That calm before the storm, that chill before the rush. Maybe it was just because she was inside of an Ecological Class, which is always going to be tense simply by the nature of the threat it poses, but this feeling felt more immediate. Something big was coming. And then it showed up.

"Spark Eater! Haven't seen one of these in a while!"

Immediately getting into combat mode, Nero begins shooting at the Spark Eater, taking careful aim not to hit her allies in the crossfire. But the thing was so big, it was easy to hit something without aiming any her friends. More importantly however, Nero was trying to aim to disable and remove the energy cords the Spark Eater needs to absorb enemies and actually be a threat. "Careful gang, if you're too close when one of those cords burst, it'll explode!" Getting ready for such a thing, Nero makes sure to hold off from shooting her Janus until she spots a cord or the Spark Eater about to use an EMP pulse, so she can use her portals to teleport any of her allies near the Spark Eater to a safer distance.

As for Nero herself, she figured she would be safe as long as she keeps her distance. Short of one of the Spark Eater's bigger EMP blasts, the creature wasn't the most preceptive and lacked dedicated ranged weapons. It was just a big bruiser, and Nero can easily out maneuver one of those. But it was also tough and doing damage to it involves taking damage from the EMP blast, so if anyone was just going to rush in and take it out in one big attack, they might end up getting hit back by an equally huge counter. And that's if they can hurt it, since Nero knows at least that just trying to shoot it's body was useless due to it's hyper-dense lithium basically making it bullet proof. But everyone seemed to know what they were doing and Nero knew what she had to do.

 

[Cresion Breezes]

POLARIS
CH.6.1 OUR REFLECTIONS (2)
​

As the flurry of attacks landed on the Sparkeater, it seemed undeterred, it wasn’t an automaton with a very high level of perceivable intelligence after all. It made the mechanical creature more predictable, but also harder to cripple and intimidate.

As Solline shot at the beast many of its flailing tendrils were struck, some of the cracked and hung down lifelessly from the rest of the body, the remaining stub still whirling around rapidly yet mostly harmlessly. The physical assault of the Sparkeater was indeed hindered by many of its tendrils being broken off, but once it did the energy that was within the coils burst out in another EMP blast similar to what happened when the ethereal Solline launched its attacks.

“Ugh-! Kármán!” Sisyfu commanded the drone as it generated another EMP shield that was big enough to elapse the group that was still around her, but that wasn’t everyone as a white-haired figure dashed out with a generated weapon in hand.

“What is wrong with her!” The redheaded operator shouted at whoever was nearby, “does she have a deathwish!?”

But it seems like Tiphereth might know what she was doing after all, as the electricity generated from her attack collided with the Sparkeater’s outburst, in a brilliant yet blinding flash, sparks and light shot in every direction as the two energy sources canceled each other out, leaving behind only another slightly numbing feel for everyone involved. However, although the currents seem to have damaged the components of the Sparkeater, it also made its motions even more frenzied in the short term, as the creature now bursting with excess energy flailed most of its remaining tendrils wildly around. The tendrils crashed into the ground and walls of the Ecology class that was now rumbling with momentum, kicking up specks of dust and shards of metal that pelted the space when gravity pulled them back down.

Tiphereth would have been in the path of the now berserk tendrils, but many of the flailing mechanical appendages were sliced off as Chomp initiated his attack. As the tendrils fell the sliced surfaces released more sparks and currents into the air and ground around them, with whatever energy the Sparkeater had left and was charged by Tiphereth’s attack.

“W-wait! Is he a remote blackbox auxiliary or-” Sisyfu tried to ask but decided to cut herself off mid-sentence as she jumped and grabbed the red drone that was with her, and hurled the drone in Chomp’s general direction. Kármán’s own propelling systems likely weren’t fast enough to make it, so the girl decided to call on the strength her GP granted her to hurl the drone and open the EMP shield in time.

“...Kármán’s power level…” She mumbled, EMP shields were never Kármán’s main function, if all of the remote drone’s power was used up in a battle, it would struggle to perform its main function of signal searching later down the line. But Sisyfu didn’t care and couldn’t care about that much anymore, if the squad’s leader decided to fight this thing then both she and Kármán would need to hold it out until the end, no matter what. She silently questioned the party leader, Shaw’s judgment for a moment.

However, the leader himself seems to have proven the girl wrong as he whipped a sharp component to a chain right into the frontal area of the Sparkeater. The blade’s momentum was so strong it dented the hyper-compact lithium shell parts within the machine. The damage itself didn’t seem to deter the less-than-intelligent machine, but no amount of stupidity can argue with physics itself. The attack tilted the entire machine like a seesaw with the area that was struck being almost pinned into the ground, the tendrils around it also flailed, but near the ground this time. Many bursts of electrical currents contacted the ground and ran into it harmlessly, being absorbed by the mighty Ecology-class’ many conductive and non-conductive components.

Even so, the remaining currents that heat up the air were enough to cause quite a bit of discomfort and hindrance to combat. Although the operators who chose to launch a melee attack were able to avoid the bulk of the attack by parrying for each other with their own unique flavour of offenses, the rapid flurry still caused the Sparkeater to begin releasing many electrical bursts. Luckily, the power level of the bursts was greatly diminished as they were canceled out or was grounded thanks to the operators’ tactics, and where Nero and Sisyfu remained was relatively safe.

Sisyfu steadied her breath as she saw the predicted great EMP blast fail to come to fruition. “...Phew…Kármán…” As she waved her hand the red droned dropped into a portal and reappeared back beside her. “I can’t believe we-” Before the girl could finish her sentence, the long silent and static-filled communications channel came to life.

In the distance a humanoid figure crawled and rolled out of the rubble, or at least it seemed humanoid, just missing a limb or two. It was a dull violet hue, splattered with the fluids that ran through its veins, the doctor, Levin Churchland, of the medical station dragged his mangled body out of the scrap metal. A dry cough came out of the comms.

“E-everyone…I…I would like-” Another series of coughing and wheezing cut off the sentence, but the speaker continued. “-like… permission to…”

…No

There was a few seconds of silence before another message came out of the static-filled channel.

“I apologize for this.”

A familiar yet eerie glow can be seen gathering near the Sparkeater, it was more bright and eye-catching than even the bright electrical discharged on the battlefield. It was bright in a way that seems to illuminate one’s soul, whatever that may be. Figures were being formed by the ethereal light, similar to the rifle-wielding one from before. They were all of a different stature, a distant-looking feminine silhouette; a masked man’s steadfast shape; the rifle-wielding youth from before; a humanoid female figure that seemed ordinary, but the flickering lights wrapped around the formerly inconspicuous silhouette with sharp mechanical geometry.

And finally, with the geometric mass of mechanical parts made out of the light that appeared, it became clear how these shapes were crafted in the image. Although they may not be completely accurate to the person, it may be difficult to notice in the heat of battle, but all of them seem to have slight differences and inconsistencies to the real sentient beings that stood alongside them.

They dispersed and began to support the battle, their actions familiar yet uncanny.

The weighty geometric figure that resembled Chomp seemed to be wandering the furthest away from the group as it scaled a somewhat worn and crack-filled wall near the Sparkeater, avoiding its attention and the flailing tendrils as it gained altitude. Then, once it seems to have reached a sufficient height, the figure that now looked like a speck of light leaped from the height and onto the Sparkeater’s main cord on its back, the shape morphing and changing as it did an unsheathing motion. New parts that resemble blades were generated on the bright silhouette as it impacted the main cord, causing a burst of electricity around it. But this figure wasn’t an auxiliary, wasn’t a human, wasn’t made of flesh or blood or silicon or plexiglass or souls or thoughts, it simply kept on doing the motion, as if it was a programmed machine with all its actions pre-determined, seeing them through no matter what.

The Chomp-like figure dug deep into the main cord, to the point where a few more concentrated attacks would be able to break the cord completely and silence the Sparkeater once and for all. But this attack would have to count, if the energy supply cannot be disconnected completely and cleanly in one swoop, the resulting EMP burst would likely be deadly. The Chomp-like figure itself gave a demonstration of this shortly after, as bursts of electricity eventually enveloped its ethereal shape, and when the sound and fury settled there was nothing but a few wisps of light that floated into the air left.

Despite the seemingly decent results, there was a stuttering mumble in the communications channel, a panicked one even, the sound of someone that didn’t have the energy to panic yet is doing it anyways.

“I’m sorry…I-I I’m sorry…I didn’t want this to…I…”

For Chomp

Recollection is different for everyone, and even different for the same person if they do it at different times. It is something like a type of leisure, or a method of motivation, or a source of emotion. But there is a time and place for everything, recollection included.

It is unknown whether Chomp would recollect in the heat of battle, especially of arbitrary memories from approximately seven years ago, but if he would, he would realize that something is off. Not very off, maybe not even off enough for him to take notice, but it is there now.

There was a hole.

Not a hole that one chose to make.

Not the hole of what one ate for lunch exactly 87 days ago.

Not a hole of the cradle of life where one first perceived the world.

But…also maybe not a hole that anyone would care about.

Yet still, now there was a hole.

​

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