The Land of Milk and Honey (CLOSED)

[Eades]

The trees of the Red Forest seemed to press inwards as the day moved towards dusk. The sun, hovering just over the horizon lit the crimson canopy. To Eades, walking beneath the boughs, it was as if the sky was filled with glowing embers. A warning wind came rushing through the labyrinth of trees and for a moment the woman stopped in her aimless walk, grasping at the plastic amulet she kept around her neck. Her gray eyes were wary and wide, taking in every shadow as if it might strike against her. She’d walked through the Gardens of Eden once, when the shadow of night had darkened the dome and the only light was from the small halogen flashlight she’d been carrying. With the movement of the flora, inky figures seemed to dance all around her. She’d left feeling drained and tormented even though no harm had come. The Raiaeran wilderness made her feel much the same, tension seeping up her back to make the hairs on the back of her neck dance and tingle. Through the rustling of the red leaves, she could hear other noises in the background. Low groans and croaks, high chirrups, and a foreign cooing all came together in a strange symphony that she’d never experienced. For the safety of the food supply, no animals aside from cattle inhabited the Eden tower, all flora reproduction taken care of by AI units specially rigged for such delicate work. The living forest around her was alien, and for the first time that she could remember, Evangeline found herself frightened of a place.

Ducking under a low-hanging bough, she began to walk faster, her boots snapping twigs and dry leaves under her feet without care. Tall wild grass clung to the sides of her soft moccasins as she passed, burrs catching on her leggings. The forest was a beast, reaching out to grab her, nothing like the cultivated paradise of her normal terrain. Her walk turned to a run, and she was dashing through the forest, dodging curling vines, the purpled spines that edged them menacing.

I’ve got to get the hell out of here before the sun sets, she thought bitterly, her eyes again darting overhead where the canopy was no longer so brightly illuminated as cherry flames, but had begun to dim. The effect was that of blood drying, slowly oozing from a beautiful ruby shimmer into something darker, uglier. There was a murder in the sky, and she felt as if she didn’t hurry, her own would come shortly on the ground. As she rounded a large tree, her foot caught the root and she fell, rolling down a small incline. Her rather ungraceful stop came in a small ravine, against a rocky soil that scratched her forearms and dirtied her palms. On her forearm, something brittle and hard was pressing, threatening to break the skin and make her bleed. As she stood, her boots crunched on more hard places, a crunch that her mind told her belonged to sedimentary rock. A place where the oceans dried up, her mind said, telling her it was familiar. Something of home. But instead of the dry, cracking earth that she expected, she looked down to see strips of cream rocks. The smaller ones were cracking easily under her body weight, and looking at their shapes, the way they seemed to flow together, she realized with a lurch in her stomach that she was standing on bones.

Looking across the ravine, her eyes caught the sight of more bones, ribs bared higher than ancient Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. Spinal stairways followed the arches up and then down until they snapped off, only inches from the skulls that had once been attached. Human skulls her mind tried to scream before it was cut off by the more logical side. Something like a human… she realized, looking closely at the bone structures. The cheekbones seemed higher, more defined, the eye sockets a strange angle. The cavities for the ear canal seemed to be larger as well, as if the creature whose flesh had once adorned these macabre relics had been privy to advanced hearing. It was only then, with her senses opened to take in the small details that she noticed the thin vines that caressed and surrounded the bones. Blooming along the vines, in stems that all seemed to turn towards her, as if flowers could do such a thing, were pretty black blossoms.

The droid destroyed one of these before it ran… her mind reminded her, thinking back on the last sentence it had spoken. “That time, it was for free.” she whispered, letting the first words spoken in this new world float into the air. “This time, it’s up to me.”

A ripple of energy washed over her and she could feel something strange happening within her. A pull, unlike anything she’d experienced before, against not her skin or clothes, but something deeper inside. It moved beyond a physical understanding and instincts rose in her that she had imagined were lost. When the dragons erupted from the dying Earth so long ago, mankind had turned away from any Gods they might have once bowed before. Altars and churches were abandoned, taken over by the homeless and errant eccentric. Religion had never been a big factor in Eades’ life, but now she was faced with the profound feeling that if she wanted to save her soul, she should do it fast. Almost without thinking, her hand moved to her side, slipping aside the Velcro holster that housed her Last Resort. The cool iron of the crowbar felt comforting in her hand as she gripped the curved hook, brandishing the forked, flat end. The pull grew stronger, as if the invisible fingers sensed her intent, and while for just a moment she felt dizzy, as if she were spiraling away, she took a deep breath. As air filled her lungs, her solidarity returned and she moved. She pulled her arm back and then swept it forward again as she began to run through the ravine. Her steps were light and fast as she danced between the impromptu graves of elves that had been unable to fight the soul flowers’ pull. Bones snapped under her feet, a high sharp beat in a song that came from the most primal parts of Evangeline’s spirit. The need to survive was the first need a human ever experienced as it emerged from the womb. She had known this desperation as light had descended upon her for the first time out of the birth canal. She was a babe now, as the unfeeling iron swept blossoms away, as her feet came down and crushed them against the rocky soul from whence they came. As she came to the end of the ravine, she could feel that pull, that magical attack, weakening to nothing more than a mild annoyance. In victory, she rounded a corner and began to climb, scrambling up a low cliff to take her away from the patch of pretty death that was not quite completely thwarted at the bottom.

Sweating, dirty, and still reeling from adrenaline, she caught a small sound on the edge of hearing. Her legs, shaking now that her body was coming down from it’s fight and flight mode, carried her stumbling away from the ravine, closer to the mysterious roar. It was familiar and yet unknown. So many things in this place were, and she picked up the pace, the reminder that the day was nearly done springing back up when she nearly tripped over a root that she hadn’t even seen. Pushing through a flowering fern that grew taller than she was, she came to the source of the sound.

Water.

Eades’ jaw dropped, her face a picture of bewilderment at what she saw. From another set of small cliffs leading to higher ground, water cascaded downwards into a small pool. The swirling current was carrying leaves like small vessels, spiraling around until being flung to the far end of the pool. From there, a creek sputtered downwards, disappearing between long-limbed willow trees even as it began to widen into a respectable river. Falling to her knees at the bank, Evangeline dug her fingers into the sandy loam, expecting to find the tubes and wires that worked the recirculation system. Instead, she found a burrowing frog’s home. As the creature sprang up, she gasped and fell back, her eyes moving to the waterfall. After a moment, her eyes narrowed in suspicion and she stood, taking a graveled path to edge behind the cascade of water. Where she had been sure to find a control panel, she found only rock. She reached out, ignoring the cool battering of the water as she reached for the far edge of the waterfall. When she found only rock there as well, she stepped back, out from behind the falls. Her hand had been washed clean, the precious liquid glistening on her skin. She looked into the pool, down the path the creek took and again to the higher reaches where the cascade came from.

“New water?” she asked, to none but herself. Cupping her hands, she reached out, trying to catch some of the stream in her palms. The force by which it fell knocked most of it out, but when she brought what little managed to stay between her fingers to her lips, she greedily began to drink more. In Eden, what water couldn’t be refined for drinking went to irrigation. The water that was deemed suitable was cloned, hydrogen and oxygen atoms duplicated and fused, the moisture that came enriched with minerals and bottled. It was treated like gold, but the truth of the matter was that it tasted mostly like mud. This plentiful wellspring was taunting her with something crisp and delicious. Something that did not seem to be in danger of drying up at all. Had Earth ever been like this? The history books said so, she recalled from her school days, but looking at the wasteland of the planet, you’d never know. She looked again at her clean hand, and to the crystal clear pool that beckoned. Her mind was beginning to warp around the possibility that the robots had indeed taken her to this room called Althanas that they’d been going on about. A place without the terrible destruction of the modern Earth. A place without the need to sanction and ration out water and food. A place, her mind remarked with a mental grin, where a shower involved more than a cleansing breath of wind.

She stripped slowly, folding her tunic and bra and setting them on a fallen tree trunk. Her boots were pulled off, and her socks, her feet reveling in the cool, firm shore that ringed the pool. Her pants were peeled down, clinging to her skin as they never had before. The humidity in the air was not nearly as thick as it was in the rain forest, but in Eades’ home along the dry, sun baked avenues of Bethseba the materials of her clothes had no air moisture to deal with. Finally she stood on the shore fully nude, and released her hair from the pins and band that kept it pulled back from her face. A childish excitement of discovery rushed through her and while she wanted to take a running leap into the water, her rational mind reminded her that she’d never had the chance to swim before. Horror stories of workers who’d fallen into the irrigation tanks and drowned in the deep water surfaced in her memories. Hand in hand with caution, she took a step into the shallower reaches of the pond, gasping at how cold the water seemed to be. As she inched further in, she was shivering by the time she’d reached a waist-deep portion. Never a one to only do things halfway through, Evangeline grinned, held her breath and bent her knees. The water came over her shoulders, and then her face, the currents caressing her bare skin like an aquatic wind. She felt light, almost free and as she surfaced, she stepped to the side. Her feet left the shallow shelf and she slipped, going under in the sudden deepness that opened up so close to the base of the cascade. A panic filled the woman and she began to kick, fighting furiously against the water that was everywhere. To her surprised, she bobbed back up, gasping as her head surfaced the water. Continuing to kick her legs, she slapped at the water’s surface with her hands and when she didn’t fall back down again, she let out a soft peal of laughter. She was swimming! Rather, she thought, she wasn’t drowning. Paddling awkwardly, she began to move to the falls, and found a small shelving of rock at it’s base. There, she stood beneath the cascade, truly showering for the first time in her life.

Letting the water wash her skin clean, her breath sighing with satisfaction, Evangeline thought on lessons of the Lost Faiths she’d studied in college. Ancient texts told of a land of milk and honey, a promised land for God’s Children. Surely this was far better than that. She thought of the small slip of paper she kept in her pants pocket, her ration ticket for the week’s allowance of water. She’d been intent on trading it in before clocking in, but then the automatons had brought her here. The ancient texts told a story of a man stuck in Hell who had begged his servant, who he could see in Heaven for just a drop of water. A smile flitted to her face.

Who would have thought it would be the city’s mechanical servants that not only brought her water but had taken her from Hell, to place her in the middle of Heaven itself.

[Goji]

Water was not quite as precious in althanas, unless you were in Fallien and other inhospital regions, in fact sometimes people built up an excess of that liquid and currently the stranded pilot of mechanised murder was removing that excess water. Durandals hand was resting by its stomach, the cockpit open and the chair inside empty, apart from a first edition of Periozas Busty Beauties of the Bombshell Bunker, never hurt to have some reading material while travelling. Upon the hand of unusual alloy stood the scruffy shortened pilot along with a trickle of yellowish fluid, from his scruffy throat rose a small little tune, it was an idyllic scene and required a perfect song to bring all this crimson hued foliage into the open as gorgeous... Goji was not a good chooser of music.

"Doooo... your balls hang low, can ya swing em to and fro' ?... can ya tie em in a knot, can ya tie em in a bow?... do ya get a funny feeling when they dangle from the ceiling?... ah you'll never be a sailor if your balls hang low"

Charming... as the trickle eased off a shiver shot up through the diminuative figure of the mecha pilot, then came the zipping up and to keep himself sanitary started to clamber up Durandals hand. His boots had magnetic soles to aid in clambering up the mech and down during refits and so was able to saunter on upwards to the elbow joint, a leaf dangling heavily off its twisted twig. A quick flick of this and water was freed from the top of it, Goji washing his hands thoroughly in the cool collection of clear liquid. He had been acting as part of a guard compliment for a traders caravan, he'd love to say there had been some massive attack by bandits and he was the only survivor, but truth was he skimmed off to take a photo using Durandals memory system and wound up lost in the forests. He was an urban warrior, the concrete jungles were easy as hell to get around, normally built as a grid, but this was a tad trickier and damn disturbing... but then, everything had been since his arrival here.

"Used to bend down when going through doors, now I can't even push open a friggin cat-flap, what a crock... ah well, lets use our head Mr. Tuskan..."

... Sometimes he liked to refer to himself in the third person, it gave the impression there was someone else present in the conversation that could take the blame if the plain failed...

"... we're lost in a forest, one that does not seem particulary welcoming either..."

He took a few steps while he continued wringing his hands, wiping them on his rough trenchcoat and looked down to Durandals scuffed greaves. He had passed a flexible tree trunk that looked ridden with fungus, only to find the fungi were able to reach out and grab you, he'd managed to skim out of reach but they were persistent.

"... so how best to get out of this awkward little situation we're stuck in... option A, we meander about in random directions and likely go in circles until something eats me, or I starve, option B... hit the skim mode to full power and tear in a straight line till the forest eventually ends"

At least all this had a good constructive purpose, his dodging ability in skim mode had been developing, considering the speed and stiffness of the legs turning and shifting was very difficult in skim mode. Had actually be phased out of the newest mobile suits for proper flight modules or enhanced with additional verniers and hoverpods in order to facilitate over-steer and get some good hand-brake turns going. With dark hand-prints marring the surface of his trenchcoat Goji quickly stomped his way down the mechas arm and then clambered back into his cockpit, big benefit to technology in a world of swords and sorcery, he had acess to air-conditioning and almost felt cheeky enough to wrap up in his trenchcoat to prevent shivering.

The three levels of protection slid down to cover the cockpit entry and a flash of yellow light burst from Durandals vision, the mech coming back to life, while the arm at its stomach sank back, the twin rose and matched the originals position. Inside the cock pit Goji was listening to the building whine of the engine, screens stretched out along the left hand side of his panoramic cockpit were informing him of just how long skim mode should be maintained and that it wasn't wise to activate it in such dense terrain. This was good advice, but he wasn't in the mood and so down came the massive size 17 boot to the pedal and locked Durandals leg joints in place, a further whine and with a burst of blue light from the back it took off. His steering wasn't perfect, Durandal was far too fast for that, but at the least the metal master of mastication smashed its way through weak branches, bobbing and weaving through things a bit too sturdy and then... well the cameras at the front blacked out, Goji quickly hitting the brakes while his chair spun around to see what he had just passed.

Small little alcove of a waterfall, something was moving there but what the hell was covering Durandals main cameras?... With a heavy series of clunks the mech straightened up again, joints fully mobile once more.

"Brawler mode"

Voice activated commands, saved a lot of time looking for the big red buttons, immediately the servo supported gauntlets and boots came out from the sides of the cockpit, Goji slipping into them and giving a little test flex of Durandals hands. Satisfied that the noises matched what he was doing he flipped the chair around to face the front and grabbed for what was covering the mechs vision.

"A D cup?"

Of all the things to pluck off... well he was very grateful, but why the hell is there a bra of intensely modest making, no lace or anything, out here in the wilderness. Plucking the clothing that had followed his zooming past Durandal set them all into its right hand, while the other fixed its cloak, dishellved by the zooming, the most awkward part being to line up the hole in the back of the hood with its rear camera. Then... well he began walking on in all fairness, deciding that for now he'd just go in brawler mode, get the exercise and of course not sweep up any more survivalist lingere.

[Eades]

The roar of the waterfall was a sound that Evangeline soaked into her memory. The feel of the cascade was both so strange and pleasurable that she found she couldn’t move from her perch upon the rock. Her association of showers as being short lived and nothing special was shattered. The panic she’d felt, the confusion that had been threatening to overcome her, everything she feared of this new place was quickly being washed away with the dirt and the grit of her flight through the forest. As her hands diligently rubbed away dust and gravel from her form, she decided on her plan of action. First, she needed to know where she was. All she had to go on was the cryptic name of “Althanas”. A room with many doors. Logically, there would be a way to get back. As she stepped back under the spray and arced her head back to soak her hair in the water, she felt a tinge of regret. As wonderful as this was, she was in a place where she knew no one, no place, and no thing. Everything was a danger to her, even in this peaceful moment. She needed to return to the familiar, to her family.

On the edges of her hearing, another roar sprung up. It was decidedly mechanical, causing her to freeze, leaning out from under the water. Her eyes scanned first the opposing bank from where she’d come, and then moved to the shoreline where she’d left her things. Her things, however, had decided not to stay in their place upon the fallen trunk. Her pants and boots were sprawled along the sandy bank, her shirt farther off, and just at the edge of the trees a figure stood. It held something up, a long, dangling scrap of cloth that she recognized easily.

“What the hell? Pervert!” she gasped, diving into the deeper reaches of the pool and paddling furiously towards the shore. As she splashed her way out of the water, her jerked movements slinging water droplets around her in an angry perimeter, she let her steps stumble towards the stump where her heavy belt had been largely unaffected by the vortex of kinetic energy that was Goji. In her left hand, she pulled her gun, in her dominant, the crowbar. Being naked in a foreign land did after all require priorities to be taken into account.

“So, do you peep in on bathing women often or is it my lucky day,” she asked, stepping forward while she brought the gun up to chest height. Even in the dim light, she could make out a tall figure, but was more than a little surprised then the golden light making it’s last stand on the horizon fell upon the intruder. A glint of light shimmered across a metal arm. It wasn’t one of her automatons, for sure, but it was definitely robotic in nature. Robotic, she thought with a grin, was a language she could definitely speak.

“Declare your unit number and purpose.” she said with the authority of one who was more than sure her questions would be answered promptly.

[Goji]

"Thats quite a ripe form... uh wait, shit shes talking, voice switch on!"

He had made a few macros out of lines from super robot shows, but then watching those things then becoming a mecha pilot, it was impossible to resist. He also immediately made Durandals movements far more stiff and mechanical, why get a woman upset at being quite thoroughly checked out by a robot with a lonely bloke inside. It should have suprised the hell out of the mech pilot to find someone who recognized Durandal as mechanical, but in all truth a portion of blood had went south on seeing this clean, subtlely curved form and he just focussed on how to extend the peeping session.

"Durandal Unit 0-1, Mid-range and close combat, developer of Shitake industries..."

... He was positive he got that bit wrong but went further, no way she'd have known...

"... serial number #08000 6969 69"

Well, its a number you call when desperately lonely, but she dosen't seem the type to be knowledgable of those love numbers heheh

Was a hell of a pain keeping steady, the more a human tries it the more little involuntary actions build up, but facing one of the consoles Goji made a few quick adjustments using his tongue on the touch screen, normally he used a screwdriver rolling between his teeth but it had fallen out of reach for now. With the Brawler mode sensitivity down those little jerks and twitches would do nothing visible and allow him to continue mimicing a robot rather than a battle-hardened mech and its hardened pilot, wether in battle or just currently notwithstanding.

[Eades]

“Astonishing…” she murmured as she began to circle him slowly. Her bare foot caught her tunic, but she swept it away rather than pulling it back over her head. She was alone here with a machine, which cared nothing for the female form. She felt safe in the knowledge that the thing she stood before would harbor none of the thoughts that human men couldn’t seem to keep from their minds. In the dying light of the day, she tried to take in everything she could about him. Everything, from how he was constructed, to the way he moved, spoke of foreign technologies. The automatons of Earthen origin were usually more streamlined than this, with easy curves and synthetic coverings to make them seem as human as possible.

Beneath the covering of his cloak, she could make out bare turns and planes that spoke of a more bulky body than she was used to. A light breeze picked up, throwing aside the edges of his cloak for her to see the solid shapes of the ‘borg’s legs. Everything was so unyielding, as if the designers had been going for a look of frozen power. Even if he hadn’t said it, she’d have been able to guess his purpose was combat from the way he was made.

“Why would a combat droid be here? Durandal Unit, have you acquired targets in the immediate area?” she asked cautiously, worried that she was in more danger at the moment than she had thought. Surely nothing worse than the soul flowers lay in wait for her here. The breeze filtered across again, and this time she inhaled, trying to scent out an emission from him. She wondered how he was powered. What sky she’d glimpsed from between breaks in the canopy had been a more clear and crystalline blue than she’d ever seen on earth. Whatever power source this civilization relied on, it was obviously far cleaner than any of the things the humans of her homeland had used before the advances in technology had skyrocketed the use of solar power.

Sure beyond a doubt that the emissions system wouldn’t be under a cloak that might catch fire from any excess heat, Evangeline came to a stop directly in front of the mech, her eyes searching around his face and neck for the telltale shimmer of releasing gases. Finding nothing, she smirked and dropped to her knees before the robot. She’d known a few childish designers who liked to put vents in more “realistic” places, but face to crotch with the mechanized man, she found nothing of the sort. As her hand smoothed along the metal plane of his outer casing, her fingers lingered on a closed node that had been all but invisible when she’d been standing. She leaned closer, searching for a label to try and identify the purpose of the nodule.

“What kind of power core are you equipped with?” she asked softly, fingers still probing at the node, searching for the key to open its secrets.

[Goji]

"Enemies?... the hell?... oh yea combat unit, lets see here hmm"

Goji found it particulary har-difficult to concentrate on the stif-solid prospect of coming up with a convincing lie, then again, one of the worlds most convincing lies was truth, just worded differently and so he went with that. Another belt of vocality and the speaker system fired up again.

"Negative, Unit performing escort for local trader... "

He figured leaving pauses as if sifting through memory banks was more robotic.

"... in combat was seperated from objective... designation is urban combat, present terrain is incompatible with guidance system"

Goji quickly switched off the mic system so he could chuckle quiet loudly, thankfully his cockpit was sound-proof and certainly with his current size she wasn't gonna hear much. Now with that said she seemed to be pawing over him, Goji scratching at his stubble strewn neck in a wide smile as he watched and of course pondered on what his next move should be as this womans mechanical lover. As her face hovered in front of Durandals face the Mecha pilot gave another chuckle, blowing a kiss lazily in his chair to the screen that displayed that particular camera behind its eyes. Then slowly he watched her lower down, deciding to just use the cameras rather than make Durandal look for her, keep up the impression of a bot... then again she seemed pretty convinced, why not show hes a tad more life-like?...

So yes the head bent to watch her kneeling form, Gojis brows fairly highly cocked as he watched her prob and push at the metal groin of his mecha.

Power core?... heh one thats got more than enough horse-power to drive you wild love heheh

There was a sudden clunk to reach Gojis ears, Durandal hadn't always been nuclear, in fact the unit originally had a plasma battery that often required charging. What was now jutting out from between the mechs legs was its recharge pylon, Goji had burst into fits of laughter that his robot was hung originally and now he was reacting in just the same way, tears staining his cheeks as he saw the womans expression change on being faced with a metal pole.

"HAHAHAH... oh christ, I shoulda gave him ball bearing to boot hahahah"

Gulping in deep breaths to calm himself down Goji put on his best poker face and once again spoke up as the voice of mechanation.

"Unit was originally plasma driven... power source was since changed to nuclear, to facilitate extended combat performance"

Dare I?... I dare mwahahah

"Power source was seen as insufficient and changed when units purpose was altered to combat... original designation was of house-hold posession, providing tasks in home, work and aiding humans in their own activities"

Lets see if thats subtle enough to get a good rise from her

[Eades]

Evangeline was still nodding, contemplating his answer to her question of enemies when she was presented with what might be called the object of her desire. Durandal’s power charger rose upwards like a snake, threatening to strike. It rose like a few other things as well, but Eades tried not to think too much on those. While she had never been attracted to anyone enough to learn the finer points of human interaction firsthand, but she knew plenty to understand just what kind of household servant Durandal had been.

“Let me guess,” she said with no hindrance of the venom in her voice, “It was friction charged?” She moved backwards with a disgusted sigh, wondering how she disengaged the useless bar. She was sure that it slid down and inwards again, but she was hesitant to touch it. She felt dirty, even though she wasn’t quite sure why. Ignoring the chill up her spine and the feeling that she was being watched, she rocked back forwards onto her knees and grasped the pylon firmly. She tried gentle pressure to get it to slide back, but it didn’t seem to be working. After a few moments, she began to wiggle it back and forth, letting her hand slide up and down the shaft, frowning as she didn’t hear any of the small loosening clicks that she expected.

“Maybe this isn’t as fragile as it seems. I mean, you don’t use it anymore because you’re nuclear, so a little tough love won’t hurt, right?” Not waiting for an answer from the machine, she grasped around Durandal’s waist, letting her hand clasp onto a well-defined metal curve. Refusing to acknowledge that she was holding onto Robo-Ass for dear life, she grasped the power pylon at the tip and raised her chest to give her arm more leverage than she was normally used to. A small grunt came as she began to push, with no luck whatsoever. Her face reddened, and finally she let herself sink back onto her knees, looking up at the unit’s down turned face. In that moment, as her hands slid so that one was grasping their respective sides of Durandal’s waist, a small click sounded. The unit’s power cell began to lower, coming to a rest against her chest, safely cradled between two fleshy pillows.

“Oh…” she said softly, backing away again and looking between her breasts in surprise. A blush spread from her ears downwards, and she grabbed the offending pylon again, this time sliding it fully in without too much resistance.

“I don’t understand why it was so stiff. I mean, you know, hard to get in.” Cradling her face in her hands, she slowly shook her head before continuing to dig herself deeper. “It came out so easy, I don’t see… Oh never mind.”

Standing to face Durandal again, she scratched her head, and a thought came to her.

“Durandal Unit… how are your tracking skills?”

[Goji]

"..."

No response came from the powerfully designed robot, there seemed to be a great air of confinement and claustrophobia surrounding the mecha, an almost palpable air of restriction... what could possibly have brought this on?

Ziiiiipppp

"Ahhhh... freedom, damn jeans are too tight, okay now lets work this one out Goji... oh wait, priorities, you get that all recorded?"

There was a flash in one of the many panels dangling at the pilots eye level, he was looking forward to getting into the edit mode and make use of the highlights, certainly keep his spirits up while waiting for a new issue of Busty Bombshells to find itself warped to Althanas. He began firing up Durandal, the arms raising, at first he thought about grabbing the gorgeous rod-handler, but restrained himself and instead decided to let the woman see what she had just fondled. A single click of metal on metal and the cloak fell, Goji scooping it up while fighting against the heavier grip of Brawler mode.

With that pushed aside the black plated destroyer of wanzers, mobile suits and battleships was exposed. Stuffing the cloak into the hold-all bag that had fallen from its shoulder in the brief spot of movement, all this was to both impress the girl and more importantly, let Goji get over the guffaws bursting forth on the thought that his mech so far had received a hand-job and boob-squeeze.

"Starting to catch up on me girl hahah"

Then he settled back down, resuming the pose that he had seen many shit-scared privates assume when he walked past. He hated authority but when you got it, flaunt it and famous mercs get plenty of respect from the grunts.

"Voice on!... Units tracking is limited to immediate range, designation as close-combat class negated installation of more advanced equipment... additional... current area heavily saturated with unknown materials that make tracking inaccurate to a degree of... 29.4%"

He felt the decimil point added a bit more botness to the dialogue. Once that little thought was settled he had to ponder something more, how long could he keep this girl naked?... after all she hardly seemed the modest type or shy, more the enraged bull-buster... he quickly made a mental note of not opening the cock-pit until she was either gone or out cold.

"Previous intel suggested a settlement due West, however units internal compass is damaged"

Bastarding thing

Goji giving a glare to the cheap little compass he'd found in a goodie bag, a screwdriver having been stabbed down the middle, the thing never pointed in the right direction, kept reacting to his watch... the intelligence of having something that reacts to magnetism inside a vast creation of metal had never been questioned, he was too big in his world to try that kind of stuff.

[Eades]

She watched him for a moment, her brow furrowing. The way he sheld his cloak didn't seem to have any purpose, and that fact alone was decidedly non-robotic. Then again, a voice in the back of her mind reminded her, disobeying direct commands and bringing officers of the Peace to foreign worlds was technically non-robotic as well. Plus, she wasn't sure of Durandal's AI. It didn't seem to be too advanced so far, but there were ways for her to check that out later. For now, she just listened to him.

"We can fix your compass in the morning," she said quietly, looking around. "Even in this primal world, there has to be at least some lodestone around here. We could make something simple for you, no problem." The darkness that had barely allowed him to be seen earlier had come down thicker, and she knew that if they just stood around any longer she'd be completely blinded by the impending nightfall.

"I don't want to walk through this forest in the night, so the town's a bad idea anyway. Durandal, can you gather some dry wood and bring it here? We'll make camp here, and figure out what to do in the morning."

Her commands were said easily. It was nice to be able to fall back into the pattern of knowing what she said would be done. Content that she'd found at least something she could count on, she worked at gathering her things together while they could still be barely seen against the darker ground. She'd dress when she had them all in once place, but for now she crawled along the ground to check for anything that might have fallen out of her belt.

[Goji]

"Mmm... damn it girl crawl slower..."

Durandal was capable of filling a sniper role on the battlefield, Gojis accuracy was quite well known for its destructive, if not exactly precise results, in order to aid in this sniper role all of Durandals many cameras had been fitted with a zoom lense and night-vision... with that bare arse wiggling to her crawls Goji was exercising both to their fullest potential. It took some time before the mercenary of malicious mechanical mayhem recalled what she'd actually asked him to do, seemed a simple and quick enough job, hardly much trouble at all and hey she might still be trying to find things on the ground when he returns.

Durandals posture altered slightly, the thighs pushing forward and down, sliding in front of the knee joints, locking itself in skimmer mode, a quick boost from the side and then away he went into the darkness strewn forest. He decided the best bet for gathering would be a simple straight line and back, ripping whatever branches came into grip as he did so, plus with the large flare caused by the Skimmers boosters along with the noise it was bound to scare off most creatures, then again this world could have blood-thirsty moths... nah. It only took a few moments for Durandals arms to be stocked full of wood, branches of various lengths, thickness and other assorted branch related defining features, one of them even had a cocoon of a caterpiller, that was quickly shaken off.

As he turned and fired up the auto-pilot Goji rested back in his padded piloting chair and had to wonder just what the hell he was going to do while stuck in this world, he hadn't seen much of anything from this place, just a few magic tricks and puffs of flame... seen some really weird creatures, though none were as bad as the stuff on Sentai shows he used to watch. Really this was not a world he would ever fit into, specially not when his own standing was so miniscule and having to live your social life sitting down presented itself as being a bit of a ballax.

The only way I'd ever get down to it with a woman is if I had a specially made helmet and scuba gear... never heard of any fairy brothels in my own worlds fairy-tales either... aww shite

He gave a grumble and shifted lower in his chair, the high collar of his trenchcoat coming up past his ears, his hair displaying its mass all the more clearly as it spilled out around the material. Was good how quick Durandal could move, he was back at camp and indeed that peachy rear was still relatively high, he made sure to tilt Durandals cameras rather than the head itself to avoid her catching on that he was more than meets the eye. A quick flick and Brawler mode was back on though, Goji slipping his arms and legs into the fittings and began setting up the fire, a few scuffs of the plated foot to clear the ground, a few stones set down to lay out the boundries and then for added botness bonus, laid out the sticks as best he could in a rather geometrically sound design... well, it was a pattern he had made using a spirograph once that would do.