The Octopus in the Jungle. (closed)

[Esmerelda]

Space, Seven days previously...

A ship had been struck by a large Meteor falling to Althanas. This ship, not native to neither this dimension, nor this region of space, had simply been peacefully mapping the Quadrant. It was nearly a mile long, ane a mile wide. It wasn't shaped like a box though, it was shaped like a giant red Octopus. It belonged to an Alien Species known as Aquamarinians, and being an extrordinarily curious species, they had made their way to our dimension, known to them as The Dry dimension.

Thus struck by the Meteor, the ship had tried to settle into orbit of a nearby world for repairs, failing that, at least manage to land. However the Meteor had struck their engines, and with power failing, it hurtled towards the world below, the world of Althanas.

Onboard the ship, the aliens, Octopus like creatures themselves, had been swimming to and fro in their environment in a panic.
"How far do you think the engines will take us?" asked the frightened captain of the chief engineer in their strange alien language.
"All the way to the scene of the crash. I bet we beat the locals by about five days." The Engineer said sarcasticly. Both knew it was hopeless.

The Captain's last words were "Send out a Distress Signal!"
Last, because right after he said those words, the Environmental controls failed, and with no freshly oxygenated water to breath, every last person on the ship died. The Computer though dutifully sent out a Distress signal to the world below.

Althanas, Corone, The Citadel.

Esmerelda walked out of The Citadel She had recently finished a fight with what she thought was an unqualified opponet. She scanned her list of Directives, and discovered that if she was stolen, she was to stay where she was until someone rescued her. Realising that was not possible, or at least unlikely all things considered, she scanned her files for an acceptable Directive she could follow. Before she could find one, her audio processors picked up the alien signal. For Esmerelda, it was the same as listening to someone speak to her in person.

"...............Emergency.......................... ....power......................................... ..................meteor.......................... ............................crash................. ..........................................beacon." The alien computer broadcast, though due to interference, most of it was garbled.

It repeated itself over and over. Esmerelda listened intently, picking up on it's source. She grabbed a nearby monk.

"Are there any lands over the water that way?" she asked, pointing in the general direction of Dheathain.

"Yes, a land called Dheathain. A ferry leaves for it from the docks shortly." the monk said.

Esmerelda ran to the docks, and after discovering the right ferry, melted into Grey metallic good and snuck aboard inside a crate.

Seven days later...

Esmerelda was making her way through the trees, weary of the creatures that lived here. She climbed a tree, and saw in the distance a crater where something hit the ground. She couldn't see to well, her telescopic perimeters still scrambled, but she knew if a starship crashlanded, there wuld be the most likely place.

She climbed down, and slowly made her way to the crash site, listening to the message again, this time clear as a bell.

"This is an Emergency Distress Signal from The Aquamarinian Ship designation Excelsior9 to any and all peoples capable of reciving this message. We have suffered a complete loss of power due to being hit by a Meteor, and are bound to crash on an Alien world below us. If anyone can recive this message, it will automaticly cycle on Emercancy power on this Frequency and Act as a Beacon. Please Help Us." The Distress Signal said in multiple languages.

Esmerelda didn't understand any of them, but she understood a distress signal when she heard it. Maybe, Maybe they could uncorrupt her files.

[Nautilus]

For the first time since acquiring the infernal disguise, Shadow was actually grateful for the cloak as the sky opened yet again. The bitroid snuggled the fabric closer around her, her sensory receptors finding the feeling of the coarse, dirty fabric rubbing against a large portion of her frame just a little weird. She was not used to wearing anything, as her exoskeleton was normally protection enough. But in this strange world, a cloak helped for purposes of anonymity among the locale and, as was being so finely demonstrated this morning, provided a decent shield from the rain. Rust would blossom like a rampant infection within the chinks and cracks of her weakened armour if she were to walk around exposed.

The machine took a moment and surveyed this newest sector of the forest. Dense verdant foliage, often choked with a wide variety of colourful epiphytes, gushed and billowed in a cascade of claustrophobic green. The waxy leaves and snarls of vine were lit with the barest traces of weak yellow sun that had somehow trickled from between the cloud veil hanging low over the canopy. Even among the unrelenting patter of water the diverse fauna screamed, gurgled, howled, and chirruped, a miraculous din of life. She remembered the smoking wastelands that characterised most of the planets in her home quadrant, and was suddenly overcome with remorse.

:This is an Emergency Distress Signal from The Aquamarinian Ship designation Excelsior9 to any and all peoples capable of receiving this message. We have suffered a complete loss of power due to being hit by a Meteor, and are bound to crash on an Alien world below us. If anyone can receive this message, it will automatically cycle on Emergency power on this Frequency and Act as a Beacon. Please Help Us:

Even with her antennae retracted so the hood would sit better over her cranial piece, the familiar signal came in loud and clear. Shadow placed her hand against a tree, peels of moist red bark loosening beneath her metal fingers. She had been following this signal for several rotations. The powerful Magnetars, a possible hope for returning home, were said to reside in Fiorair. To Fiorair she had travelled, straight from Salona after her little encounter with what the humans had deemed 'wraith', in actuality a society of disgruntled animalistic biocybernetic creatures from her own universe that had been deposited here illegally.

With the wraith disbanded and with only the name of the Magnetars and their mysterious reputation to go by, Shadow had disembarked immediately. It was nice, finally having a somewhat solid plan of action. Of course, she hadn't been counting on the emergency beacon that had caught on her broad frequency channel, a fly landed unexpectedly in her web, tantalising in prospect.

Truth be told, she'd rather confront a downed alien spacecraft than chase after a race of supposedly very powerful and very dangerous people who may or may not be able to help her. The stranded aliens, at least, stood a better chance of providing some use.

That is, if there were any survivors.

So Shadow had bypassed the majority of the swamp and soon found herself in the thick tropical rainforest called Luthmor, homing in and deciphering the message bit by bit until she had a fair idea of what was being said. It had surprised her, at first, of how similar distress signals from this universe and her own universe were to one another, but considering how her government had not been entirely forthcoming about their activity with the once-thought-to-be-never-before-used Portal, she had a few theories.

The 'troid pushed off from the tree, leaving clattering bark in her wake, and continued onward, adjusting her hood as the downpour strengthened exponentially. The land began sloping and she cautiously burrowed around some large white-streaked succulents, optics widening at the sight revealed to her. Instead of suffocating trees the turf bowed for the heavens; she was standing near the edge of a cliff strewn with dripping bushes and lichen. In the distant, misty valley before her a massive crater gaped, a sinister toothless maw, blackened with the incinerated remains of vegetative matter.

Before she had a chance to study it further, a shuffling sound alerted her sensitive audio receptors and the 'troid spun, revealing a sort of barrel-like structure on her arm. With a clicking and whirring of gears the wooden tiller of a pull lever cross bow emerged from the cavity. The arms had been modified to fold against the stock and straightened as a bolt was mechanically loaded. Shadow aimed it in the direction of the sound, thinking she saw a flash of pale hair beyond the greenery.

"You will reveal yourself to me now," she commanded the perceived threat, her feminine voice ringing synthetically.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda had been proceeding through the jungle, when she heard a voice commanding her to identify herself. She melted into a pile off Metallic goo on the spot, and slunk over towards the voice. It was, a mech, like herself, only of inferior design!

She immediatly reassembled herself into human form. She chose green hair to match with the scenary, and brown skin to match with the wood. Her emulation of leather armor went nicely with her look. Her eyes were green even.

"I am the pinnacle of War Machine Design, Warmech Designation Esmerelda. You will identify yourself." Esmerelda said, defensive spikes popping up all over her body, even as she raised her right arm, altering it into a crossbow, plucking a strand of hair, morphing it into an arrow, and loading it into the crossbow. If she had emotions, she would've been somewhat excited at meeting another machine on a world such as this, but alas, her files were corrupted in the event that brought her to Althanas in the first place.

[Nautilus]

What in the name of the Vortices...?

A machine? That had a liquid state? Fascinating. And a sentient, no less. It hardly looked friendly, erupting into spikes and morphing it's own crossbow in the process. Better that than a cannon, she mused, eyeing the weapon but relieved that the stranger wasn't packing bigger guns.

Shadow had never encountered an inorganic with multiphasic physiology such as this, and despite the tense flavour of the situation she found herself curious about the machine and it's origins on the primitive planet. It had chosen a female humanoid form for itself and spoke accordingly. Shadow's head tilted, the ringed lenses of her optics narrowing as she studied the new lifeform. Her bow remained steady, promising retaliation should the other being decide to attack. The rain tick - pocked hollowly on exposed metal.

Her response, however, was not delayed. This so-called "pinnacle of War Machine Design" had been polite enough to offer a title. She saw no harm in doing the same. "I am...Arcangel Experimental Reconnaissance Model two-two-one-five-two-one-five-one-six," she began, the rapid words fragmented by static, brief pauses and assorted clicks and beeps as she struggled to translate her full title into archaic Common. "...Function: Reconnaissance Specialist, Aerial Division, three...[static] -- eight-six-two-five-five; Military Intelligence Unit two-one-four-zero....[unintelligible electro-babble]."

Her heavy foot squelched as she tugged it from the soft turf and realigned her stance. "...Designation: Shadow. Warmech Designation Esmerelda, lower your weapon and I will do the same." This could very well escalate into a grand stand-off between two very stubborn machines. Though for Shadow, there was too much on the line for her to willingly yield before the unknown and at this moment, not incredibly threatening shapeshifter. The soaked bow stayed where it was, pointed at Esmerelda's head.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda considered, though the entire act itself only took the space of two seconds, the offer of mutually lowering weapons was first ran through her defensive protocols, then her offensive protocols, and lastly through her Diplomatic and Emergency protocols. Over million files checked in all.

What resulted was, Esmerelda melted again, weapon and all, backed off to a polite distance and reformed as she was, minus the weapon.

"As we are both machines, it is a reasonable to say that we have both heard the distressful cry of an alien ship. Though I personally cannot understand a word it is saying, spoken as it is in their alien language, perhaps you might. Rather than escalate the situation, and factoring in the possible curiosity of whatever government claims this stretch of land, I calculate our chances of assisting these strange and obviously advanced aliens to be higher than if we worked alone. Though clearly if this world is capable of producing you then it is clearly capable of helping these aliens faster than two of us alone." Esmerelda said assuming Shadow was infact made on this world.

"Also, it will be cumbersome if we continually repeat each other's titles. I find it will be easier and waste less energy if we simply shorten it to Esmerelda and Shadow, and proceed on a neutral if not friendlier basis." Esmerelda said, setting up an offer of peace between them.

[Nautilus]

The bow folded and disappeared into the modified cannon chamber and Shadow let her arm drop to her side. "Your logic is agreeable. Hopefully I shall not be forced to terminate you should your central processing unit decide otherwise," she replied shortly in turn, swiveling so her view was again directed toward the crash site. Her zoom lense refocused for a closer look, but the distance was too great and visibility poor. The light was grayer, denser, the forest's song softening around the onslaught of pelting water. "I am not from this world. I am a synthetically bioengineered mechanical organism whose ancestors were created by EVE Biocybernetics Laboratories, Incorperated, in collaboration with N-TECH. Otherwise known as a bitroid," the robot corrected dryly.

She glanced at the green haired faux-woman, appreciating the fact that they appeared to be operating on the same wavelength. An ally was a good thing and she wasn't about to dispute teaming up with Esmerelda, as tentatively as she was treating the proposed partnership. "I am also stranded on this planet, for the time-being. As for the message encoded within the distress beacon...I have discerned that the alien ship suffered some sort of collision and was forced to..." Her optic strayed to the immense crater. "...land. I can not however obtain visual confirmation of the craft. May I suggest that we endeavor a closer inspection, and perhaps get out of the rain?"

[Esmerelda]

"I did see a crater in the distance. My Telescopic vision utility is still scrambled due to the event that brought me here in the first place, but if a starship crash landed, or made an emergency landing, there would be the most likely place. Business aside, Bioengineering was common in my world, but I am different. I am not solid, despite appearences. Sure you could probably stand on my shoulders, but I am actually a swarm of nanites, alien to this world also. I could, or at least I once could, become anyone, or anything I so desired. I was designed to be a one machine army. It's easier to slip one person behind enemy lines. It's even easier to wear their face and be escorted accross as a returned prisoner." Esmerelda said.

She lead the way through the jungle knowing exactly where the crater was in relation to their present position. Suddenly she stopped and hid behind a tree.
The reason was obvious.

There were a pair of men ahead guarding the small hill that was the crater wall. She couldn't make them out to well from where she was, but she thought she saw wings on them.
"Two men on patrol, possibly more inside. What do you want to do, I can't become a man at the moment, nor can I form my wings. I think we could take them, as they have their backs to us, but if we wait a few moments they might move on." Esmerelda said.

[Nautilus]

She listened a bit distractedly as Esmerelda further explained herself. The being was certainly a marvel of technical engineering; she wondered what Phoenix2 would make of it -- her -- if ever he had a chance to meet the peculiar nanite swarm. Nanites were experimented with often back home, usually for purposes of medicine and espionage to cloak spies and fiddle with surveillance systems, but the AI was uncomplicated and glitchy, and the government rather uncooperative in terms of viable funding, for whatever reason. But to have an intelligent swarm, operatives who could slither unnoticed in tiny spaces and eaves drop on communiques from within, otherwise zealously firewalled...

She could foresee the need for bitroids like her and even the industrious minibots vanishing with such an invention.

Shadow had been good at her function. Top of her class, first of her kind. Her successful Awakening had inspired the next generation of Arcangels, and while her "still experimental" systems would never be error-free without a total and destructive rewiring, the Gamma Generation were destined to be flawless. Shadow would always have a place in her unit among her friends and comrades; knowing that a more advanced Generation was soon to be deployed only gladdened her for the sake of the Ring Alliance and a chance at putting an end to the war.

Self-aware naninte swarm operatives would be a helpful but ultimately necessary addition. Of this she was certain. The 'Angel followed after Esmerelda without arguing, having likewise calculated the precise distance in her CPU but harboring no desire to presume an alpha role over the swarm. Her one directive was to get to the ship and obtain the information she required, not indulging her ego, though the crossbow made a cautionary reappearance.

It took twenty three point six minutes to navigate the steep grade around the numerous plants and softening ground. The storm refused to lessen, venomously defiant of their efforts. She crouched behind a bush baring pumpkin-sized hot pink blossoms, her metal knee sinking into mossy earth the consistency of stale bread pudding.

"They could be after the same quarry. An investigation might be prudent...why do not you shift into your liquid state again and see if you can get closer and determine what it is being said? I will provide cover fire if needed," she proposed, zooming to her current maximum visual extent on the duo. They were winged, bipedal, human almost save for the differing patches of colour that glittered on their pasty skin.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda nodded, and melted. As she moved along the wet muddy ground sh calculated the possibilities of captive survivors. Coming up with very disheartening odds for the survivors she moved as quickly as she could, and in her liquid state, that wasn't very fast.

When she got there, the two weren't even talking.

She could see better though. Their eyes were completly black, their skin had all sorts of scales, which was as red as their hair. Their teeth were extra long and sharp, and they looked like they meant business.

She snuck through the bush around them, and reformed behind them. Smiling she suddenly grabbed them and cracked their heads together with all the force she could muster. It didn't knock them out, but it definatly stunned them.

She grabbed one and hugged him close to her body as she made her spikes pop out of it.

The other one had regained his senses, but looked like he didn't know what to believe, seeing a human woman covered with spikes. She retracted them and pushed the first unarmored guard to the ground, and punched the other with her hand, turning it into the head of a mace as she swung, knocking him out for good.

"Unarmored peons. Cannon fodder basically. No wonder they were sent out on guard duty. The ones inside will be tougher." she said to herself more than anyone.

She bent over and removed their weapons, a steel longsword and a battle axe of the same strength.

She looked around, there were others in the distance, not looking her way. she motioned for Shadow to hurry over and follow her up the wal of the crater. Uprooted trees and bushed covered it, making for excellent cover.

As they climbed, she bit into the axe, beginning the process of devouring the steel and restructuring it into more nanites for the swarm.

"I heal by eating metal. My swarm can break down steel and process it into new Nanites. I could probably do the same with stronger metals, but I've not come into contact with any. Do you heal by eating metal? I have a steel longsword here if you do. Otherwise I'm going to eat it and process it into spare parts incase I get injured." Esmerelda said.

At the top of the Crater they could see a giant red Octopus shaped ship laying in the crater. It was not in the best of shape clearly beat up by the fall, but still in one single piece. One of the tenticles had an open door at the end, and more Dragonians going in and out.

"Ideas?" Esmerelda asked, seeing the large numbers of troops in the crater. The base camp must have been on the otherside of the crater, thus they were approchin from what was essentially the backside.

[Nautilus]

She moved from where she had been watching Esmerelda, effectively concealed behind the flowering bush, her bow trained the entire time on the two winged males in case the faux-woman ran into some trouble. The shutters framing her bright optics narrowed in disgust as she approached the bodies, needlessly incapacitated by what she was quickly determining to be a somewhat overly zealous swarm. Perhaps Esmerelda would not prove as much of an asset as she had initially thought. She took a moment to drag them into the underbrush.

Shadow kept silent for a few nanoseconds as they trudged up the slope, having ignored the previous question. Her auditory processors faded out the sound of the swarm's chomping, focusing instead on anything that sounded remotely suspicious. "Maintain a higher level of control over yourself in the future," she admonished at length, quietly shoving aside a fern. "Deactivating those organics was a poor move. If they are discovered our mission will be greatly jeopardized. We don't even know what they are after, or even if they are enemies. Not that that matters now, given that you have just slaughtered two of them. I suppose we will now be seen as a threat. Good job."

As 'trigger-happy' as her comrades often teased her for, Shadow liked to think she could restrain herself until the killing was necessary, when the mission as a whole was not in danger...apparently unlike this bloodthirsty collection of srakking glitchy nanobots. So unprofessional, and further incentive for her distrust of the inferior machine.

At the top she flattened herself into the vegetation, discretely tugging at her hood again to avoid the irritating rain. "My suggestion? Recon. Find out what these beings want with the craft, discover if there are survivors and the range of functionality of the craft's systems, if any. Does that sound reasonable to you?" she asked a tad harshly.

[Esmerelda]

"I was not programmed with such a thing as restraint. I will destroy all things around me, I am a tool, not an individual. I must follow my programming, what other option do I have?" Esmerelda returned. She didn't know, because her programming wasn't entirely intact, that she did infact have the ability to rise beyond her programming if she so chose.

"Furthermore did your optics even pick up on that crater? It's a black charred surface. Either of us sliding down it is likely to be the second most obvious thing to happen since the onset of this storm. Even still, Night isn't on the approach yet, so waiting until it gets darker would leave us a bit on the exposed side for too long. I can hide in something, but what about you, you only have a solid state. If you value the life of these organics then you better figure out how to best keep incognito." she said. Suddenly she melted into the brush.

A roving patrol was coming towards the others.

"Did you actually see what was inside that thing?" asked one.
"Yeah, looked like some sort of octopus creature. Swore it came from another world. Doesn't matter though, Commander wants it all for himself, says he's going to take over as Ceann Cath, and from there take over the rest of the world." said a second guard.
"Hey, it's Gathoc and Azath!" said the second.
"Gathoc, something killed him. Knowing that blundering idiot he probably tangled with the wrong creature. Don't know what could puncture him like that, but then, I'd have give whatever did a round at the nearest tavern." the first said.
"He was rather annoying. Azath's dead too. Or at least he will be. Look, this is a magic rock from the ship. You point this red jeweled side at your enemy, press this glowing tile here, and poof they vanish on the spot, never to return." said the second. There was a hissing sound in the air, and a little pop.
"Eww, I got Azath guts all over me." complained the first.
"Sometimes it happens. Lets go tell the commander his moron brothers are finally dead, something wild got to them." said the second.

There was the sound of them moving away.

Esmerelda only partially reformed.
"Interesting. Hey listen, I got an Idea. Meet me on the other side of the impact crater. I know how to sneak into the ship so we can really find out what's up. Borrow one of the hooded cloaks some of those otheres down there are wearing." Esmerelda said, she completly dissolved and slid along the ground through the underbush.

[Nautilus]

Oh, lovely. She's a drone.

If Shadow had possessed teeth or even a moveable jaw for that matter, she would have been grinding it in frustration. The 'Angel was unable to retort to Esmerelda's following colloquial -- murdering organics left and right without necessity was hardly going to aid them in getting down unseen across the crater's charred interior. The winged bipeds would find their missing comrades soon enough and the security would be heightened, paranoia aroused, and search parties dispatched to find the killer, complicating everything. She would have rather waited for night to take proper stock of the situation before rushing head-long into it as the swarm was so keen on doing, but it was an irrelevant point.

The bitroid rolled behind a malodorous hunk of decaying wood before the scouts converged upon their position, recording every word. The men were using a tongue she couldn't understand and the 'troid's ill mood soured just a wee bit more.

Scrap it! I will adapt, as I have always adapted. By the Vortices, if I don't get a promotion when I get back...

Back. Back home. That's why she was doing this. Nothing else mattered.

Shadow pushed herself up when she was certain the danger had passed, praying that the men were not going to check on the guards Esmerelda had so efficiently dispatched earlier.

"Wait a klick!" she rasped as the drone slithered away. "While you are engaged with your data gathering, I will acquire information of my own through a closer investigation, using a holographic avatar resembling one of the natives readily identifiable by yourself." She extended her left wrist and a small silver orb with ten spidery legs crawled from beneath her sleeve. "Remember, we are not here to scrap every organic we meet. Utilize those logic centers...or files, or whatever it is you have, and save your energy for a real battle."

And please, please don't blow this all to fod.

She held her hand to the log and the spider-bot scuttled on it obediently. The damp air fleetingly darkened around the legged orb into a tall silhouette that gradually solidified and filled out with colour and contour. In seconds a Draconian replica was standing on the log, fashioned from what she had seen thus far: male, winged, with white skin and red scaly patches, and unruly crimson hair to match. It's clothing mimicked that of the guards' down to every last mud splatter. The spider had morphed and hung around it's neck like a piece of particularly gaudy jewelry.

Shadow slowly stood, automatically splitting and downloading her core consciousness into the avatar. The matter generation had hacked into her energy reserves with more vehemence than she had anticipated, but she was pleased with the result nonetheless. Adjusting her hood, the bitroid turned her back on the hologram and started on the long, soggy hike around the wooded perimeter that would end up taking her to the opposite ridge, if all went well, while the newborn Draconian replica eagerly stalked off after the roving patrol.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda slipped quietly along the jungle floor, on the other side she saw an expansive camp. There were multiple tents, one large one seemed to be the place where they went to eat. Another more well kept but slightly smaller one seemed to serve as command headquaters. She noticed a group of human slaves in a wooden pen, being taken to the ship in groups to do the heavy lifting. She slipped into the cave behind the humans, they were a large enough crowd that she could form a slave herself and slip right into the ship unnoticed, so she did, forming a dingy robe to cover her face, the dragonians didn't even seem to notice as they herded the last of them to the ship.

Inside the ship, the group she was in was herded into an empty barren cargo room and made to wait for items to be taken out. She noticed a crack in the wall, squarish in nature it lead to a tube being the door to said tube. No one seemed to be watching her, so she melted into the crack, disappearing.

She wondered idly how Shadow would feel about being suddenly abandoned like that, but she didn't care, she seemed unusually squimish about taking life. Forcing Shadow to empty sector of her hard memory, she focused the majority of her memory and processing power to the task at hand, leaving the rest of it for the continued repair of her software files.

Esmerelda slid along the floor until she came to a room filled with Dragonians, they were clustered around a strange Octopus like creature who was feverishly trying to fix the central computer. Esmerelda watched from her liquid state with interest.

Still, she couldn't help but wonder, how was Shadow faring?

[Nautilus]

Running an avatar never failed to be an interesting experience. The hologram's visual feed had spliced her HUD in two like the screen shared betwixt two video gamers; while she saw the encroaching rainforest in a soft, hardly perceptible blue shade, the Draconian replica's screen shown dull orange. Shadow's holomatrix program allowed her to simultaneously 'live' through her creation as she went about her activities. Her onboard computer was as smooth as could be expected after her extensive injuries at handling the separate commands and information relay, a task even fellow robotics who did not have this feature found confusing.

The ability was almost entirely inclusive to Infiltration and Reconnaissance models, something to do with the way they were hardwired. Shadow had never bothered to explore the specifics. She was a spy, a soldier, not an Anatomy Major. Three hundred of her five hundred standard stellar cycles of activation had been squandered on the battle field -- or all too often, sneaking about in enemy airspace well before the actual fighting. She had never had much use for the program, as avatars become obsolete when one is several thousand feet in the atmosphere.

At the memory of flying, Shadow's pace stuttered as did her avatar's, several yards away as it was. Cursing in the strikingly mechanical-sounding language of her people, the bitroid pressed onward; her holo did the same. For an Arcangel, forcibly going without flight was nigh intolerable. It went against her very programming, constantly walking about as she was...and without even the negligible respite of an all-terrain mode. Her hair string temper as of late was well justified.

It is a wonder I can still function normally. But she was not going to dwell on her disablement any more than she already had. There was a mission to be accomplished today. She would trek to the appointed rendezvous and in the meantime, finally put her skills to use, such as they were. She swatted at a palm frond with renewed voracity.


---

The two-man patrol had led the replica to the campsite, and she was able to melt into the crowd of winged creatures and scattered regular humans alike. Most of the humans, she noted with some dismay, were shambling along with shackles clanking around their bony ankles and all together operating in a general state of disrepair. Slaves, the robot realised grimly, but kept the ruse and walked staunchly past a struggling elder female who was attempting to lift a heavy wooden crate alone. It was not her place to interfere with the working order of things here.

Shadow's avatar wound innocently through the rows of thick grey canvas tents, behaving as if it was going about business as usual. Luckily the activity was frenetic and provided good cover for what may have seemed like a suspicious-looking troop wandering aimlessly around. Shadow's wandering was anything but aimless. She was committing everything to her memorybanks, forming a mental map of the site as she went.

Flashes of conversation:

"--crud weather. I don't see what the big deal is--"
"Watch it mate...!"
"'Ey, have you seen Raglen? I need..."
"Godblasted...Drav! Wait! Don't go into the latrine! Damn thing's busted again."

Her internal translator was working fervishing to straighten the peculiar organics' babble into Common. A lot of what she heard was useless banter between the site's considerably damp and mucky occupants. The rain had thinned a little, but the mud was thick and greedy and those who could afford to were huddled under what she surmised was the mess tent, seated at wobbly wooden tables and lapping an oily-smelling stew from their bowls. The human slaves nearby went without shelter or nourishment, shivering in their near-nakedness in the pen. Shadow tried not to look at them as she passed them by, heading for a smaller tent that held a few authority figures milling about a wide table with something large and slimy splayed upon it.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda slimed her way into the room she saw.

She landed behind fallen piece of the ceiling, and so remained unseen.

She took a look around the room.

On the far wall she saw a bank of what she realised must be computer screens, they were barely active, almost not functioning. Before them was a giant six foot Octopus, white in color, and it seemed to be hovering under it's own mental powers.

To her left was a massive construction. It was a giant black sphere of some sort in a strange glass tube. Though from looks alone, it might have also been a crystal tube.

Wires that looked lip copper ran down the tube and into the giant black sphere. The occasional bolt of energy shot down the wires.

It was partially submerged, and in the water, doing what Esmerelda could only guess was sitting, were twelve other similar creatures, two white, two pink, two red, two green, two black, and two purple.

In the room with them were some Draconians, pointing assorted weapons at the creature before the computer console.

"I tell you, the Taijitu Engine is Malfunctioning, and requires several days of repairs and careful balancing, lest the Black and White Holes therein break containment and obliterate this entire solar system!" the creature before the consol said. Emserelda realised he didn't actually speak, for his lips never moved. Instead, his head pulsed with his thoughts, and his powerful mind vibrated the air to make it sound like he said his thoughts.

"Yeah yeah, you and your strange alien jargon. We're not stupid you know. crawl up there and fix the wireing, or another crewmen gets to meet their maker." a particularly well armored Draconian said. Of them all he was wearing the best armor, full Plate. His scales, like his hair, were blood red, partially from real blood, partially from natural coloring. Clearly he was the leader of the Draconians.

"I am an Aquamarinian, all other species are stupid and unintelligent by comparison, it is the way things are." The strange creature said, and was promptly backhanded for his efforts.

"Just do what they say." a purple Aquamarinian said. A circlet of gold rest just above the base of his tenticles, at what Esmerelda realised was his waistline.

"But sir!" the engineer said to the Aquamarinian Captain.

"Just do it." The Captain said.
"Wise leader your captain there." The Draconian leader said with a smirk.

The Aquamarinian crawled up the side of the tube, and with his mind fixed the wires. He had been bluffing, it was really a simple fix, as they had been fixing the ship already before the Draconians took over the ship.

The Aquamarinian dropped into the water after the fix. The Black SPhere glowed white, and first all things were drawn to it, as though by a powerful force, and then all things were repelled away from it. Then the conflicting forces neutralised each other, and energy shot throughout the tube, and the entire bank of computers activated. Doors opened and closed, and reset themselves to closed. On the computer screens, one could see the intial shockwave of energy racing throughout the alien ship.

The Computer slowly came to life, and re-intialised it's sensors, and began scanning the inside and outside of the ship, even as it's weapons and defenses reactivated.

Outside the ship, a great hum of energy crowded out all other noise, even as sparks of energy ran accross it's surface. It's tenticle sections actually moved about momentarily, knocking the line of people coming to and from the ship far away.

It wasn't just Draconians investigating the ship though, evil fae had partnered with them, and all banded together to shoot down what seemed to be a strange creature come back to life.

Hovering a foot off the ground now, the hum died down to a barely noticble backround sound,and the tenticles stopped moving six were pointed straight down, and two were open, with a pathway down to the ground extending from them.

Back inside, Esmerelda suddenly wished she hadn't left Shadow outside, because outright confrontation wasn't going to work.

The Computer finished it's scans.
"Intruders detected, multiple Organisims and one Artifical Life form found in the Engine Room. Defenses activated." It announced in a cold and unimpassioned voice.
"What, Artifical?" everyone even the Aquamarinians could be heard muttering to each other.

[Nautilus]

Okay, what did she do?!

Shadow held a hand over her optics sensors as the wind shifted and blew rain droplets directly into the sensitive equipment. A giant crimson bulge was floating just above the rim of the crater, accompanying it the sincere sound of chaos taking place within the impact-induced hollow.

Her avatar was currently picking itself up out of the mud, flickering from the low frequency spacial disturbance coursing from the hovering craft. Thankfully everyone was too preoccupied with the alien ship to notice, although she wouldn't have much time to do any recon if the minibot was having this much trouble operating with the new interference. The tent sheltering the officers and the strange gooey thing had been leveled, as had the sizeable mess tent. Draconians and fae were splashing about in every which direction.

"I want that...that thing back on the ground!" shouted a uniformed male Draconian with blue patches of scaling on his oval face. He was crawling out from under the heavy canvas of the officer's tent, and when he noticed Shadow staring at him he motioned at her angrily.

"Get over here and help me you idiot!"

The avatar leapt clumsily to her feet and squelched over, taking his hand to pull him up. The weight of the soldier proved too much for the holomatter, however, and the replicated fingers sunk a bit into his flesh. Shadow pulled her appendage back hurriedly, but it was too late. He had seen it.

"What...? Who are you?"

He was staring at her quizzically, flexing his fingers and having some difficulty understanding what had just occurred. Perhaps this would be a good time to run...

"Sir, something is going on up there," said a young female who came jogging up.

"What?"

"The ship, sir! I managed to get out of there before it completely closed everything off! No one can get in or out. There was a voice that said it detected...artificial life or something like that."

The officer had freed himself from his daze enough to level an incredulous glare at the woman.

"Those filthy liars! They are hiding something from us!"

"No, sir," the woman cut in, anxiously bouncing on her heels. "It was identified as an intruder."

"Intruder?"

He paused a moment, then slowly raised his gaze at Shadow, who was by now backing away as inconspicuously as possible. Something clicked in his head and he threw a hand to the pommel of his sword, drew it and plunged it into the avatar, unintentionally impaling the holomatter sphere. The avatar blinked into fizzling white and disappeared, leaving the two dumbfounded soldiers staring open-mouthed at the small, ruined minibot that dropped lifelessly at their feet, legs unfolding and twtiching miserably.

"Deploy our scouts. I want every square inch of this gods-cursed crater scoured!" he barked, reaching for the destroyed minibot.