A Fistful of Nanites - Firmware overload
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xp_logsAfter Nica discovers the nanite trail, Kyle, Topaz, Molly, Natasha and Nica go after the robotic invader and confirm his identity - The Fixer.
And then there is a fight, because of course there is.
Natasha looked around at the assembled folks and knew there'd be no shortage of creative solutions when it came to dealing with Fixer. They'd need all the unexpected surprises they could muster. She'd repurposed one of the many tool sheds scattered on the mansions grounds a long time ago into a bolt hole if needed. They'd escaped the mansion with some additional supplies like batteries, laptops, and whatever else they grabbed on their dash outside. She peered through the corner of one of the windows. It was currently calm outside, but it wouldn't last long.
"Okay, so Fixer is likely coming directly after us and we're here to distract him to the fullest extent to see if we can alter and/or control nanite function from here. Use everything we have here. I have some Widow's Bites and there might be more electrical disruption devices stashed around here. Feel free to take whatever you think may come in handy."
At first glance, Topaz looked perfectly fine. At attention, ready to fight, but fine. Except her jaw was twitching, her eyes dark. She wouldn't feel nearly as bad about killing him a second time if it came to it. "Magic and electronics don't tend to get along," she said dryly, energy already flitting around her fingers.
"So, lemee get this straight." Kyle had zero technology, his X-Men jacket thrown over a long-sleeved hoodie, and was oddly, in boots. "Dude with the mind-control nanites might still be able to do that, and he's attacking the mansion, and according to you guys, he's a robot." He started pulling gloves on, letting his claws pop through the leather.
"Look, the best plan I have is to punch him in the robot face eighty times while you guys do whatever you do, and try not to get nanites in me. Again." He pulled a pair of welding goggles down over his eyes. "Just knock me the hell out if I start spouting about how Norbert's amazing again, because he's a full douche."
"Done," Molly said, folding her arms. She made a face. "And same. I do not want Molly vs. Kyle 2.0, thank you."
She let out a breath. "I can work on another EMP for the mini bots but the mansion is a WHOLE lot bigger than last time. I don't have enough supplies here. Also, he's a man sized bot so I don't even know if it'll work."
Nica blinked, coming back from the energy-based perception she'd been using to track the 'bots. "Even if you can generate a small EMP, I might be able to boost it, if my powers can get hold of it," she suggested. "And there's always the rest of the spectrum - robots don't like it when you zap them with concentrated infra-red. I worked that out on the mission with SHIELD."
"I like this idea of zapping everything until it stops working." It might even limit the amount of damage that might be done to them or the mansion grounds. Natasha might develop a few new habits to sweep for nanites every time she reentered her rooms at the mansion at least until the sensation of unwanted creepy crawlers left her.
Any further conservation or planning was halted by the sight of the Fixer striding past. There was little, if anything, still human about him, the various augmentations resulting in something that looked very like a robot. But if the man himself was inside the metal suit, he obviously had no fear of the mutants - as he passed the shed, he glanced their way and continued on. His intent was obvious - get to the mansion and its technological systems.
Kyle was off just as fast as he could move, dropping to all fours and slamming leather-covered shoulder into what he was hoping was Fixer's gut. He grunted as he met reinforced metal with his very not reinforced self, and tried to kick sideways at what he also hoped was a knee. Fixer still looked humanoid enough, he was hoping the joints would have the same weaknesses.
This was not, to Kyle's disappointment, the case. His kick did little, except to get him thrown off to the side.
Heavy hitting wasn't Topaz' strong point. She was more than likely going to be useless if Kyle couldn't take him down. But that didn't make her useless. She gathered a ball of energy in her hand - it moved a bit like liquid as she threw it, hitting the robot and covering its entire left side. If it had been human, it would have burned, but all it did was begin eating away at the metal bits it hit. A decently sized dome formed around them, allowing them enough room to move freely, but also cutting them off from the mansion. "Try not to hit the walls," she advised the others as she moved back.
Molly narrowed her eyes, which glowed purple as she clenched her gloved fists together. Using a nearby bench to catapult herself off, she leveled a punch at his face that had enough force to dent a tank.
"You picked the wrong house," she said.
"On the contrary, I have exactly the correct house." It appeared Fixer had finally deigned to acknowledge them - the fist-sized dent to the expressionless face and the flaking of metal from the areas hit by Topaz' first spell probably had something to do with that. The damage was fleeting, however, as his nanites were already at work repairing it. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" His voice registered emotion for the first time, soundly mildly puzzled. "Oh yes, Alaska. You killed me, I recall."
Natasha had been down for the count for that one and wasn't looking for a repeat performance. Training triggers be damned. She reached into one of her pouches for several Widow's Bites, smoothing her fingers over the top of one as she eyed where to throw them. She drifted back in line with the moving dome above them and made a mental note to ask Topaz later what interacting with the wall would do to them. "I'm sure they'd be happy to do it again."
She threw several Bites in quick succession. Each landed with a satisfying thwick thwack before a crackling sizzle of energy burst out in a combined wave to ripple over Fixer. She darted between and through several trees and brushes to spread out from the others.
Nica took her cue from Natasha and launched herself into the air in the other direction, shooting a series of infra-red beams from her hands at the metallic form. Like Topaz' spell and Natasha's Bites, she managed to damage the smooth metal, but almost immediately the nanites began to repair the spots.
"There is shit all inside this thing that smells like a people." Kyle kicked himself back up, and went right back into the fray, leaping straight for Fixer's face. "Yo, Tea Latte, get us a read on this?" He wrapped one leg around the man? robot? cyborg?'s metallic face, covering up Fixer's eyes. "Anything in this thing? Spam? Tuna? Soulless automaton?"
Tea Latte. Nope. "There's... something," Topaz said uncertainly, furrowing her eyebrows. "Maybe something I can work with." She hoped the implied keep him busy message made it across.
Fixer reached up, grabbing Kyle by the collar and wrenching him off, flinging the mutant through the air and into the side of Topaz' shield. "Enough," he said, with just a touch of impatience entering the monotone. "You cannot stop me." And yet, as he continued striding forward, that's exactly what happened. Topaz' shield was between him and the mansion and he couldn't make progress through it. Undaunted, however, Fixer raised his fists and began pounding on the wall of energy doggedly. Everything had its limits.
Sorry Kyle. Topaz cringed as Kyle hit the shield, and Fixer began pounding on it. But that hint of annoyance in his voice had sparked something. There was definitely still something organic enough in there to have feelings. She just needed to find the thread and pull.
"I have an idea," she called to the others, strain obvious in her voice. "But I can't keep the shield up at the same time. Think you can slow him down?"
Molly punched her hand in her palm. "I'll give it a go," she said.
Picking up a chainsaw (it was a tool shed, after all), she turned it on and gave Fixer a manic grin as she held it in one hand, using her strength to balance it.
"Groovy."
Running at him, she slashed the chainsaw at him like she was brandishing a sword, sending sparks everywhere.
"You're goin down, Mr. Roboto," she said.
Natasha looked down into her bag at her remaining Bites and any other surprises she'd grabbed. She'd try what she could but everything she had was easily being repaired. She threw more Bites, hearing them hit and sizzle, then followed them up with the variety of energy based weapons she'd grabbed out of her stash. A small handheld electrical stun gun aimed right at the same spot her Bites had managed to do damage. It fried some of the nanites, which fell off, and delayed some of the instant repair. She kept shooting until the charge cartridge was empty. The next item she pulled out of her bag was a small soundblast cannon. Those shots peeled back more of the outer metal covering and that gave Natasha an idea. She shot poison darts at the opening, hoping to hit whatever was under the metal, and followed it with more Bites.
Nica followed, blasting the metal figure with as many wavelengths as she could channel, hoping one of them would have some kind of impact. With the combined efforts of the four of them, he slowed... but still continued his inexorable movement forward.
"Topaz, better hurry up, this isn't working," Nica grated, watching as Kyle was flung back again, with Molly's chainsaw making high-pitched squealing noises as it got wedged in the Fixer's torso and Natasha's darts being swallowed up by the metal repairing itself over the top of them.
Topaz had ducked back behind the shed as soon as Molly attacked, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Finding Fixer in this chaos was easy; he was still organic, but not completely human, and that stood amongst the vivid emotions of the people she knew. It was cold, like plunging into ice water, inky darkness spreading out in front of her. But it wasn't endless. It was a river, leading back somewhere, far from the mansion, presumably to wherever the real Fixer was. It was too far for Topaz to track.
But there was enough right here for her to unravel and hopefully do some serious damage. She found the annoyance she'd sensed before. And she pulled.
Whatever happened to Fixer after Alaska, it had left his mind vulnerable. Presumably, someone had figured that psychic defenses were useless for a robot. Which was fair, if not for the fact that it was still connected to a conscious mind, even by the thinnest thread. A thread Topaz could pile onto, pulling it tight with just a little bit of emotion from everyone she could mentally touch (and maybe a little more from Kyle, who had more than enough anger to spare at that moment), along with her own powers amplifying it, turning it into something akin to emotional dead weight, letting it get heavier and heavier, until the thread snapped.
The metallic figure stopped abruptly and then a terrible noise erupted from him, a horrible screeching and wailing. His limbs flailed and jerked and he began gyrating, his torso spinning independently of his lower body, his head spinning the other way. Fragments of metal peeled off and were flung into the air as Fixer spun, turning in the air with metallic glints and slowly returning to the body, trying to reattach. The previously inflicted damage began to reappear in patches, only to disappear fitfully again.
"Aw, bro, this is why you don't show up at people's houses to fuck with them." Kyle clawed his way back up, spitting blood. He went to all fours, launching himself once again at Fixer, aiming for the robotic villian's legs. "Hey, you guys think he's waterproof?" He called as he drove his shoulder into what was as close to a knee joint as he could guess.
"Let's find out!" Molly said, tossing the chainsaw aside as she ran at Fixer, grabbing him by the arm to drag him, caveman style, toward the nearby pool, which was closer. Dirt and grass were kicked up in her wake.
"Bon voyage," she said, grabbing the other leg to fling him into the pool.
Natasha watched as the giant robotic body soared through the air still going through various glitches of repair and destruction. She grabbed the last few Bites in her bag and tossed them after Fixer into the water. Better safe than sorry and water was an excellent conductor. The sizzle as they activated upon splashing into the water sent a relieved satisfaction through her. Hopefully that would end this whole nightmare scenario.
Nica joined in, sticking her hand into the water and channeling the current of Natasha's Bites, amplifying and rechannelling back into the water. She wouldn't be able to do this normally, but the charge provided by the Bites and the water gave her a boost. "This had better do it," she said through gritted teeth.
It appeared it had - the metallic figure thrashed and flailed about churning up the water of the pool, before sinking to the bottom. A cloud of metallic particles, the nanites, rose from him, obscuring the form and murking up the water.
Kyle crept his way to the edge of the water, still on all fours and bent close. "Still sizzling down there.." He said, turning towards his teammates. Before he could get back up to a standing position, the water sparked and steamed, and a metallic and skeletal arm grabbed for his neck. He snarled, thrashing back and forth to try to pull it off, and then swore as it ripped free but left bloody furrows along his throat. "Motherfuck." He spat, kicking the arm back into the water. "I seriously fucking hate this guy."
Topaz was entirely unconcerned as she stepped out of her hiding place to join the others, rubbing the back of her head. "Whatever it's doing now, it's not responding to any signals from dear old Norbert," she assured them. "Might be something fun to take apart, though."
"This guy?" Molly made a face. "Heck no. He controlled people's minds and tried to kill us. Unfollow. Insta-destroy. Send him to the moon."
"Better to haul him out and make sure he's actually nothing but scrap metal left. I'd rather make sure than just assume and have it bite us in the ass later down the line. Might also toss it to the science types for them to analyze to create some defenses for the future," Natasha said as she made her way closer to the water but not too close after seeing what happened to Kyle. She peered intently at the subsiding ripples and half expected the monstrosity to rise up out of the water again. "Then after that we can either smelt him down to help with repairs or send him into the sun for a more permanent solution."
And then there is a fight, because of course there is.
Natasha looked around at the assembled folks and knew there'd be no shortage of creative solutions when it came to dealing with Fixer. They'd need all the unexpected surprises they could muster. She'd repurposed one of the many tool sheds scattered on the mansions grounds a long time ago into a bolt hole if needed. They'd escaped the mansion with some additional supplies like batteries, laptops, and whatever else they grabbed on their dash outside. She peered through the corner of one of the windows. It was currently calm outside, but it wouldn't last long.
"Okay, so Fixer is likely coming directly after us and we're here to distract him to the fullest extent to see if we can alter and/or control nanite function from here. Use everything we have here. I have some Widow's Bites and there might be more electrical disruption devices stashed around here. Feel free to take whatever you think may come in handy."
At first glance, Topaz looked perfectly fine. At attention, ready to fight, but fine. Except her jaw was twitching, her eyes dark. She wouldn't feel nearly as bad about killing him a second time if it came to it. "Magic and electronics don't tend to get along," she said dryly, energy already flitting around her fingers.
"So, lemee get this straight." Kyle had zero technology, his X-Men jacket thrown over a long-sleeved hoodie, and was oddly, in boots. "Dude with the mind-control nanites might still be able to do that, and he's attacking the mansion, and according to you guys, he's a robot." He started pulling gloves on, letting his claws pop through the leather.
"Look, the best plan I have is to punch him in the robot face eighty times while you guys do whatever you do, and try not to get nanites in me. Again." He pulled a pair of welding goggles down over his eyes. "Just knock me the hell out if I start spouting about how Norbert's amazing again, because he's a full douche."
"Done," Molly said, folding her arms. She made a face. "And same. I do not want Molly vs. Kyle 2.0, thank you."
She let out a breath. "I can work on another EMP for the mini bots but the mansion is a WHOLE lot bigger than last time. I don't have enough supplies here. Also, he's a man sized bot so I don't even know if it'll work."
Nica blinked, coming back from the energy-based perception she'd been using to track the 'bots. "Even if you can generate a small EMP, I might be able to boost it, if my powers can get hold of it," she suggested. "And there's always the rest of the spectrum - robots don't like it when you zap them with concentrated infra-red. I worked that out on the mission with SHIELD."
"I like this idea of zapping everything until it stops working." It might even limit the amount of damage that might be done to them or the mansion grounds. Natasha might develop a few new habits to sweep for nanites every time she reentered her rooms at the mansion at least until the sensation of unwanted creepy crawlers left her.
Any further conservation or planning was halted by the sight of the Fixer striding past. There was little, if anything, still human about him, the various augmentations resulting in something that looked very like a robot. But if the man himself was inside the metal suit, he obviously had no fear of the mutants - as he passed the shed, he glanced their way and continued on. His intent was obvious - get to the mansion and its technological systems.
Kyle was off just as fast as he could move, dropping to all fours and slamming leather-covered shoulder into what he was hoping was Fixer's gut. He grunted as he met reinforced metal with his very not reinforced self, and tried to kick sideways at what he also hoped was a knee. Fixer still looked humanoid enough, he was hoping the joints would have the same weaknesses.
This was not, to Kyle's disappointment, the case. His kick did little, except to get him thrown off to the side.
Heavy hitting wasn't Topaz' strong point. She was more than likely going to be useless if Kyle couldn't take him down. But that didn't make her useless. She gathered a ball of energy in her hand - it moved a bit like liquid as she threw it, hitting the robot and covering its entire left side. If it had been human, it would have burned, but all it did was begin eating away at the metal bits it hit. A decently sized dome formed around them, allowing them enough room to move freely, but also cutting them off from the mansion. "Try not to hit the walls," she advised the others as she moved back.
Molly narrowed her eyes, which glowed purple as she clenched her gloved fists together. Using a nearby bench to catapult herself off, she leveled a punch at his face that had enough force to dent a tank.
"You picked the wrong house," she said.
"On the contrary, I have exactly the correct house." It appeared Fixer had finally deigned to acknowledge them - the fist-sized dent to the expressionless face and the flaking of metal from the areas hit by Topaz' first spell probably had something to do with that. The damage was fleeting, however, as his nanites were already at work repairing it. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" His voice registered emotion for the first time, soundly mildly puzzled. "Oh yes, Alaska. You killed me, I recall."
Natasha had been down for the count for that one and wasn't looking for a repeat performance. Training triggers be damned. She reached into one of her pouches for several Widow's Bites, smoothing her fingers over the top of one as she eyed where to throw them. She drifted back in line with the moving dome above them and made a mental note to ask Topaz later what interacting with the wall would do to them. "I'm sure they'd be happy to do it again."
She threw several Bites in quick succession. Each landed with a satisfying thwick thwack before a crackling sizzle of energy burst out in a combined wave to ripple over Fixer. She darted between and through several trees and brushes to spread out from the others.
Nica took her cue from Natasha and launched herself into the air in the other direction, shooting a series of infra-red beams from her hands at the metallic form. Like Topaz' spell and Natasha's Bites, she managed to damage the smooth metal, but almost immediately the nanites began to repair the spots.
"There is shit all inside this thing that smells like a people." Kyle kicked himself back up, and went right back into the fray, leaping straight for Fixer's face. "Yo, Tea Latte, get us a read on this?" He wrapped one leg around the man? robot? cyborg?'s metallic face, covering up Fixer's eyes. "Anything in this thing? Spam? Tuna? Soulless automaton?"
Tea Latte. Nope. "There's... something," Topaz said uncertainly, furrowing her eyebrows. "Maybe something I can work with." She hoped the implied keep him busy message made it across.
Fixer reached up, grabbing Kyle by the collar and wrenching him off, flinging the mutant through the air and into the side of Topaz' shield. "Enough," he said, with just a touch of impatience entering the monotone. "You cannot stop me." And yet, as he continued striding forward, that's exactly what happened. Topaz' shield was between him and the mansion and he couldn't make progress through it. Undaunted, however, Fixer raised his fists and began pounding on the wall of energy doggedly. Everything had its limits.
Sorry Kyle. Topaz cringed as Kyle hit the shield, and Fixer began pounding on it. But that hint of annoyance in his voice had sparked something. There was definitely still something organic enough in there to have feelings. She just needed to find the thread and pull.
"I have an idea," she called to the others, strain obvious in her voice. "But I can't keep the shield up at the same time. Think you can slow him down?"
Molly punched her hand in her palm. "I'll give it a go," she said.
Picking up a chainsaw (it was a tool shed, after all), she turned it on and gave Fixer a manic grin as she held it in one hand, using her strength to balance it.
"Groovy."
Running at him, she slashed the chainsaw at him like she was brandishing a sword, sending sparks everywhere.
"You're goin down, Mr. Roboto," she said.
Natasha looked down into her bag at her remaining Bites and any other surprises she'd grabbed. She'd try what she could but everything she had was easily being repaired. She threw more Bites, hearing them hit and sizzle, then followed them up with the variety of energy based weapons she'd grabbed out of her stash. A small handheld electrical stun gun aimed right at the same spot her Bites had managed to do damage. It fried some of the nanites, which fell off, and delayed some of the instant repair. She kept shooting until the charge cartridge was empty. The next item she pulled out of her bag was a small soundblast cannon. Those shots peeled back more of the outer metal covering and that gave Natasha an idea. She shot poison darts at the opening, hoping to hit whatever was under the metal, and followed it with more Bites.
Nica followed, blasting the metal figure with as many wavelengths as she could channel, hoping one of them would have some kind of impact. With the combined efforts of the four of them, he slowed... but still continued his inexorable movement forward.
"Topaz, better hurry up, this isn't working," Nica grated, watching as Kyle was flung back again, with Molly's chainsaw making high-pitched squealing noises as it got wedged in the Fixer's torso and Natasha's darts being swallowed up by the metal repairing itself over the top of them.
Topaz had ducked back behind the shed as soon as Molly attacked, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Finding Fixer in this chaos was easy; he was still organic, but not completely human, and that stood amongst the vivid emotions of the people she knew. It was cold, like plunging into ice water, inky darkness spreading out in front of her. But it wasn't endless. It was a river, leading back somewhere, far from the mansion, presumably to wherever the real Fixer was. It was too far for Topaz to track.
But there was enough right here for her to unravel and hopefully do some serious damage. She found the annoyance she'd sensed before. And she pulled.
Whatever happened to Fixer after Alaska, it had left his mind vulnerable. Presumably, someone had figured that psychic defenses were useless for a robot. Which was fair, if not for the fact that it was still connected to a conscious mind, even by the thinnest thread. A thread Topaz could pile onto, pulling it tight with just a little bit of emotion from everyone she could mentally touch (and maybe a little more from Kyle, who had more than enough anger to spare at that moment), along with her own powers amplifying it, turning it into something akin to emotional dead weight, letting it get heavier and heavier, until the thread snapped.
The metallic figure stopped abruptly and then a terrible noise erupted from him, a horrible screeching and wailing. His limbs flailed and jerked and he began gyrating, his torso spinning independently of his lower body, his head spinning the other way. Fragments of metal peeled off and were flung into the air as Fixer spun, turning in the air with metallic glints and slowly returning to the body, trying to reattach. The previously inflicted damage began to reappear in patches, only to disappear fitfully again.
"Aw, bro, this is why you don't show up at people's houses to fuck with them." Kyle clawed his way back up, spitting blood. He went to all fours, launching himself once again at Fixer, aiming for the robotic villian's legs. "Hey, you guys think he's waterproof?" He called as he drove his shoulder into what was as close to a knee joint as he could guess.
"Let's find out!" Molly said, tossing the chainsaw aside as she ran at Fixer, grabbing him by the arm to drag him, caveman style, toward the nearby pool, which was closer. Dirt and grass were kicked up in her wake.
"Bon voyage," she said, grabbing the other leg to fling him into the pool.
Natasha watched as the giant robotic body soared through the air still going through various glitches of repair and destruction. She grabbed the last few Bites in her bag and tossed them after Fixer into the water. Better safe than sorry and water was an excellent conductor. The sizzle as they activated upon splashing into the water sent a relieved satisfaction through her. Hopefully that would end this whole nightmare scenario.
Nica joined in, sticking her hand into the water and channeling the current of Natasha's Bites, amplifying and rechannelling back into the water. She wouldn't be able to do this normally, but the charge provided by the Bites and the water gave her a boost. "This had better do it," she said through gritted teeth.
It appeared it had - the metallic figure thrashed and flailed about churning up the water of the pool, before sinking to the bottom. A cloud of metallic particles, the nanites, rose from him, obscuring the form and murking up the water.
Kyle crept his way to the edge of the water, still on all fours and bent close. "Still sizzling down there.." He said, turning towards his teammates. Before he could get back up to a standing position, the water sparked and steamed, and a metallic and skeletal arm grabbed for his neck. He snarled, thrashing back and forth to try to pull it off, and then swore as it ripped free but left bloody furrows along his throat. "Motherfuck." He spat, kicking the arm back into the water. "I seriously fucking hate this guy."
Topaz was entirely unconcerned as she stepped out of her hiding place to join the others, rubbing the back of her head. "Whatever it's doing now, it's not responding to any signals from dear old Norbert," she assured them. "Might be something fun to take apart, though."
"This guy?" Molly made a face. "Heck no. He controlled people's minds and tried to kill us. Unfollow. Insta-destroy. Send him to the moon."
"Better to haul him out and make sure he's actually nothing but scrap metal left. I'd rather make sure than just assume and have it bite us in the ass later down the line. Might also toss it to the science types for them to analyze to create some defenses for the future," Natasha said as she made her way closer to the water but not too close after seeing what happened to Kyle. She peered intently at the subsiding ripples and half expected the monstrosity to rise up out of the water again. "Then after that we can either smelt him down to help with repairs or send him into the sun for a more permanent solution."
