The Evrensel Conflict The Evrensel Conflict -- Chapter 1: The Only Easy Day was Yesterday

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As they moved through the tunnel Xiao made sure to keep widening it and kicked up rocky pillars from time to time to support the ceiling in places where it seemed be trying to cave in from the constant bombing up on the surface. Being too busy with the tunnel she noticed somebody new only once she was actually mentioned by BJ.

She stopped for a moment to look at who had actually joined in and saw a woman in armor with some weird floaty metal thing calling itself ghost? That confused er a bit but thanks to Mundi she was already sort of used to all this technology junk. Just giving Vortex a simple wave she stomped on the ground again to kick up another supporting pillar as dust fell from the ceiling when the most recent bomb hit right above them. "Hi im Xiao." She said simply, skipping the avatar bit since she doubted anybody would really understand that part.

@Raynar Saassin
 
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"Hey there." Vortex-25 responded to Xiao as she greeted herself. She observed her powers and was simply astonished as to how much power she possessed, being able to literally bend the ground and forge structures using it. "That's some incredible power you have there. The closest I've seen to such strength was from Titans, being that they literally punch everything and things explode. I prefer a more precise approach to killing. I'd have my Ghost introduce himself but he's occupied with that white armoured soldier that's in your fireteam." She exclaimed as she took a peek at what he was doing. Yep. Still scanning the Clone Trooper and being fascinated with it's technology. "So, what kind of training did you have to go through in order to do... whatever you call whatever it is you're doing?"

@Raffia Kiryuin @TheGreenerGrey​
 
Norman.... wasn't sure of how he felt right now, as the Droid kept inching closer and closer go the trooper. As far as he could tell, the little thing was only interested in his durasteel armour and weaponry. So perhaps it was okay? He had already met Mundi, and something told him that those around him had wildly different experiences with Droids than he and his brothers had. Force, what he wouldn't give for a Jedi right now. The Generals had always known what to do. It's part of why he and his brothers would lay down their lives for them.

"Uhm..." He eloquently responds to the Droid's inspection in the same voice as millions of other copies, leaning away from the small floating device. Looking at the others, he decides to make the most of the decision and broach the next topic. "We're safe for the most part now, but we can't just hang around in the sewers. There's never anything good in the sewers. Anyone got any ideas?"
 
Xiao took a step to the side as if she predicted that a chunk of rock would fall off of the ceiling. the thing came crashing down right next to her which she promptly jammed back up into the ceiling. "Its called earth bending...one of the four arts of my land." She moved on closer to Vortex and looked up the tunnel that she entered through.

"People usually learn their whole life times to bend one of the four elements and not everybody is capable of doing it, youre either born with the ability or you dont have it." She began explaining as she lit a ball of fire in her hand and tossed it into the tunnel to see in deeper. "I learned to bend all four from the wildlife instead of the masters. And only i can bend all four others are stuck with just one." Xiao didn't seem to be going into deep nitty gritty details about the specifics of learning bending because she could already sense that Vortex just didn't have right energy flow in her body.

@Raynar Saassin
 
TheGreenerGrey said:
Norman.... wasn't sure of how he felt right now, as the Droid kept inching closer and closer go the trooper. As far as he could tell, the little thing was only interested in his durasteel armour and weaponry. So perhaps it was okay? He had already met Mundi, and something told him that those around him had wildly different experiences with Droids than he and his brothers had. Force, what he wouldn't give for a Jedi right now. The Generals had always known what to do. It's part of why he and his brothers would lay down their lives for them.

"Uhm..." He eloquently responds to the Droid's inspection in the same voice as millions of other copies, leaning away from the small floating device. Looking at the others, he decides to make the most of the decision and broach the next topic. "We're safe for the most part now, but we can't just hang around in the sewers. There's never anything good in the sewers. Anyone got any ideas?"
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"Oh, my apologies. Am I making you uncomfortable?" The Ghost responded as he stopped scanning and proceeded to give him some space. "I was heavily fascinated at the technology that you have. It's nothing like what we have back home. Also the "Clankers" you were referring to? I'm pretty sure you're talking about a different race of machine. In our world, they are called the Vex and they can travel through time."

"Uh, I got an idea. Let's try to get out of here before the entire tunnel comes down on top of us." Vortex-25 suggested, peaking her head over her shoulder to see the Ghost and Clone conversing. "And come back over here Ghost, you're making him uncomfortable. I can tell from his body language." "Okay." The Ghost then flew back and disappeared in a puff of light as he went back into Vortex-25.

Raffia Kiryuin said:
Xiao took a step to the side as if she predicted that a chunk of rock would fall off of the ceiling. the thing came crashing down right next to her which she promptly jammed back up into the ceiling. "Its called earth bending...one of the four arts of my land." She moved on closer to Vortex and looked up the tunnel that she entered through.

"People usually learn their whole life times to bend one of the four elements and not everybody is capable of doing it, youre either born with the ability or you dont have it." She began explaining as she lit a ball of fire in her hand and tossed it into the tunnel to see in deeper. "I learned to bend all four from the wildlife instead of the masters. And only i can bend all four others are stuck with just one." Xiao didn't seem to be going into deep nitty gritty details about the specifics of learning bending because she could already sense that Vortex just didn't have right energy flow in her body.
Click to expand...

"Wow... Incredible." Vortex-25 responded, producing a smile under her helmet. "Well, I don't know if my powers would technically be comparable to yours, but I can harness the power of Solar, Arc and Void. Think of them as Fire, Lightning and well, Void. With Fire, I can summon what's called a Golden Gun which one-shots weak enemies and deals large damage to large targets. With Lightning, I can summon a electric staff which I can use to dip, dive and dodge around enemies and smack them around. And with Void, I can summon a Bow and Arrow which when landing shoots out anchors of Void Light towards targets, suppressing and weakening them to others."

@TheGreenerGrey @Raffia Kiryuin​
 
"Summoning weapons? Thats really cool. Im stuck using what ever i can find around me...luckily theres never a shortage of rocks." She said with a nod towards her idea of getting the hell out of here before the whole thing comes crashing down on top of them.

"What ever those iron birds are dropping down its really messing with the earth...i can feel it...like its begun to melt." Xiaos words sounded unsure but somewhat true. the heat from the bombs has melted the black tarmac and was trying to cook everything underneath it too. Each explosion gave her an insight of what is happened between her and the surface. "Gotta go deeper. the upper levels about to collapse."
 
Vortex disappeared down into a hole in the street and Alicia landed near it. Hunkering as more explosions washed over the area. Wings folded on her back to be out of the way down in such limited space.
And then hoping Vortex-25 had moved aside she dropped in as well, as another round of explosions tore trough the walls of the building to her left.
Unlike her new companion the armored girl was unable to break her fall in such constricted space the artificial muscles in the armor working to absorb the impact of her landing.
“Umm hi” she stated after a moment of taking in the view of the group. It was really a mixed bundle standing there.
 
Mundi detached its cargo cart then wheeled over from an inlet to reverse into a reinforced alcove as Xiao closed off ceiling accesses. The blue wheeled drone was retracting an antennae on a cable re-anchoring it in the communications array on its top. Each leg and light plate was still quite glowing but dim now that it wasn't so blustery. Pink shock sticks retracted as the drone shook free sparkling dust from its front spouting ash from every crevice as nanobots cleared its surface. Clean polish powder painted blue it did a chromatic self test with its outer hull turning to something that looked to be a cardboard box claiming it contained ramen. The blue exterior returned after a moment. Mundi had to sit still to go through a full nanobreeder cycle soon but a surface maintenance cycle had to do for now. Now cleaned Master appeared to lean on its side to see the new individuals on his own.

The bot seemed to turn its cameras to one side regarding the empty space, "Master! New people! They seem like friendlies and they could help! I want to help!"

Negative twelfth's volume seen without a harness was at best a bare confluence of noise and statistically unlikely alignments of dust as an AI out of the void ever so little moved.

The hollow faced scientist spoke more than enough for those with harnesses to hear as its voice was never that far,
"I'm sure you do, pet. Fine. They and the other AI seem useful. Time travel, hmm? That seems structurally unwise. Find out if they can support the slipstream NIC rather than the harness. Enable my armory patterns for the remainder of this deteriorating situation. If they ask describe me as appropriate."

While Mundi listened to Negative Twelfth it merely nodded periodically.

The cameras then went from Vortex-25 then to Alicia and continued with a cheerful wave to the armored women, "HI! Nice to meet you Ghost and Vortex-25! Are you in Master's class of AI? 1066 Norman's armor has impressive energy ablation characteristics I have not scanned it yet. Spartan-class armor is more broad-based maybe closer to new miss! Titans may be spartan class armor I need more data. I am built for manufacturing full self-contained infrastructures, upgrades, and weapons to those class armors. I am low on copper. Your pure energy based weapons are interesting as I have no analogous structures in Master's armory! My ruggedized bubble shield is personal-class and not artillery tolerant so I can't protect a hide. Please ensure I am not shot at!"

@Raynar Saassin @Silvir

Mundi pivoted up and lidar-scanned the ceiling, "But I feel miss Xiao is correct. We can talk and go deeper! The ceiling is becoming very bendy. Plastic deformation is bad in concrete and rebar structures!"

@Raffia Kiryuin
 
"hey just before i forget..." Xiao spoke up once she heard Mundi speak. "You never really explained me how to use this thing." She said while approaching Mundi and pulling out that neural harness. Stopping next to the metal being she looked up at the ceiling to see it ripple as more dust fell off. "Very bendy is an understatement of the century."
@lil_kreen
 
Mundi pivots a little for better access then took her chin to pull her closer to its limited arm reach. Each surprisingly soft grips the metal and synthetics in it a carefully jointed melody and Xiao if anyone could hear the chorus of nanobots maintaining their slumbering network. It flipped the neural harness in her hand the right side down.

It pushed her hand to the back of her neck, "Apply to the back of the brain stem. Technicians said it is like a fourth eye. Their literature said your third eye is up front so it is related? Master's fourth eye goes back here. Master can see Miss Xiao and Miss Xiao can see Master. So if Miss Xiao dies Master can repair Miss Xiao's mind-body from repair memetics inside master's pattern. After Mundi gets the body started again. Your pressurized systems are very leaky."

@Raffia Kiryuin
 
"You know you just made no sense there my metal friend." She said and pressed the thing to the back of her head where Mundi instructed. At first nothing really seemed to happen as the only thing she could feel was the cold metal touch of the applicator. After a few short moments she felt the thing burst to life and before she could react time itself seemed to stop. She could see that little piece of rock from the ceiling frozen mid-fall.

Only a second had passed for others while for her it felt like an entire minute had gone by. Negative 12th Could see Rava appear behind Xiao, holding the dark tanned girl protectively before flickering a few times and disappear like a broken hologram.

(nobody else but negative 12th could see the avatar spirit herself. thought to clear it up before its too late)
 
A man with a Misty hollow where a front and face should be came into Xaio's awareness while the hardware mapped. As it went it connected deeper than negative twelfth had anticipated. Some creature of the mists like itself but of what design it wondered?

In that long moment negative twelfth spoke to the creature as some awareness of her life exposed," Oh, don't worry so much I don't kill or corrupt them. It's not my job to turn that wheel. I'm the one that built to fix it if you screw up. We are all created with rules. I've little interest in fiddling with that strong a stable state."

Mundi replied when time resumes with a set of pale pant legs backing behind him,"it iterates! I thought it was suitable for adding eyes!"

Negative twelfth replied coolly now that Xiao could see him,"I make your friends in high places worry it seems, my dear. My goals are less intrusive than they envision and of little import to you. For now I seem to hear a leaf borrowing your connection. And an old friend."

Each gloved hand reached into the hole of mists to one side of the abyss shoulders cracking and distending to do so. The dark crevasse expands as two tanned hands reach out from the void swirling and chugging like some creature crawling out from an only lagoon. Then a bald head emerged with it's familiar blue arrow. It smiled but more like a dogs half understanding grin. This leaf a suit other spirits would entrain unlike the permanent fixation of mundi's mistress. It waded out of the pool stepping out of negative twelfth and onto the Earth. The gate inside it calling out to the spirit world to the one who came before.

@Raffia Kiryuin
 
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The blue spirit would show up just partially behind Xiao and make a silent nod before disappearing once more. And right on time as well as Xiao regained her senses the the world around her resumed in motion. Yet something felt off a bit like sometihng was tugging at her from within, coaxing her to look up from her feet.

Giving in to the temptation she saw it. a white labcoat dressing an impossibly deep and dark being. "Friends in high places?" She asked in a confused and stuttery voice as she was recovering from the shock of watching negative twelfth emerge. However that recovery wouldnt last very long as her eyes widened and she stepped back.

The lab coat opened to reveal the inky depths of the leaf as a pair of lightly tanned hands emerged from it then a head with a blue arrow? That made Xiao think this one over a bit. not before long the very avatar that came before her stood right in front of her. "An air nomad?....no...that's impossible...Zhang Min: Gale of the west! H-h-how?" The young avatar was in complete shock as she backed off more. Others could clearly tell that shes quite literally seen a ghost from the past.

@lil_kreen
 
"spartan class armor?" Alicia was puzzled by that statement but perhaps what it meant was versatile?
"you mean focused on versatile defence, in that case yes i guess they would be similar.. maybe" She wasn't to well versed in how her own armor worked but it did withstand all kinds of attacks from energy to kinetic to explosive as long as it came in moderation. She really should have listened more to her instructors regarding those details.

"Um is that girl okay?" The earth bending girl was pale and stared as if having spotted a ghost which made Alicia nervous. "she looks spooked, I don't like people looking spooked in dark tunnels" Alicia looked nervously in the direction Xiao was looking and thankfully nothing was there right now. Though maybe that was worse. "Did you see anything?"
please let it not be worse then this day has already been. Maybe it was just that neural link thingy she just plugged in.
 
"........... This is a fuckin' weird group." Alec just randomly chimed in, as he listened to everyone speaking. We got Spartans in future armor, weird alien people, a goddamn spikey robot thing, if there's a fuckin' zombie horde around the corner, Alec will admit he has died and his brain is simply shutting down by from the lack of blood and oxygen going into it. "I've had weirder." BJ quietly retorted, as...... Well, yeah, he does fight weird steampunk Nazi's for a living. Soap just stayed quiet, not even bothering with them.

Before they could move on however, Soap stopped around the corner of the sewer and listened in. "Shush!" He said to everyone, holding up his fist to signal them to stop speaking. As everything went silent, strange faint noises could be heard. Some sort of creature or two hissing all the way at the end of the tunnel. "Xiao," He signaled her towards him, needing her by his side. "What can you feel down there?" He asked, wondering if she could sense any footsteps those creatures might be making. An even greater hissing noise was made from behind him, causing Alec to spin around backwards in a panic.

"The hell's that?" The Scotsman asked, gripping his weapon tight. When Xiao tried to sense the ground, she would feel what seemed like a hundred feet running towards them from all sides except forward. What came out of the sewer tunnel walls not too far away from the group looked a little something like this:

245033-Alien_movie-Xenomorph-748x421.jpg
 
The moment soap called out her name the air nomad disappeared and she was left only with that infinitely black being known as negative twefth. "H--uuuh?" Xiao murmured and looked in Soaps direction... The mana didnt have to tell her twice to check her seismic sense as she could already feel it. feet dozens upon dozens of feet running across the tunnel. on the ground on the walls on the ceiling....they were literally everywhere on that side of the tunnel.

"I feel feet. dozens upon dozens of pairs...like a massive horde they..." Her eyes widened as she realized their direction. "And they're running right this way!" seeing the first one pop out from behinds the corner sent shivers down her spine. The looks alone were terrifying but the sounds it made were even more so. "Fuck that shit! and i thought molerats were ugly!" Slamming her foot into the ground she raised a wall of rock between them and the people in the tunnels. there was no way shed let something like that get anywhere near her.
 
"HO-- FUCK!" Alec yelled, firing his gun as Xiao slammed the tunnel behind them closed. Though admittedly, even with something as basic as this, Alec still couldn't win, even if he was saved by Xiao, as when the wall came up to block the alien creatures, it hit the bottom of his gun and pushed it directly into Alec's face. Thankfully it missed his nose, so a giant metal weapon didn't break it, but he did yell out in pain and covered his left eye. "AHHHHHHHHH!!!" He stumbled back and yelled, "FUUUUCK!!" Out of pain.

He got a pretty bad black eye from that when he moved his hand away. "Shit, we gotta move!" Soap yelled, running down the only tunnel not blocked by Xiao's walls. "Xiao, keep track of where those things are!" He ordered, leading the group now.
 
Negative twelfth reorganized the cavity in his chest to normal dimensions unconcerned with the risk of getting stabbed itself by the creatures lacking a physical body. This new avatar leaf was still instantiated but merely watching that Xiao hadn't really focused on it. That fellow Zhang Min was staring from somewhere inside the collective awareness. Gathering its bearings, possibly. The foundation leaf pointed at Mundi's cart as the droid took the silent order.

The labcoat-tugging foundation leaf mentioned toward Alec though the rest could hear, "Please take care of my pet I am needed for weapons. Mundi must not be damaged. I cannot reinstantiate anyone if the reality anchor ceases."

A blink of an eye saw the Foundation leaf of negative twelfth vanish inside Mundi who sailed back down the short distance to its cart. A quick-mount of that offroad cart's arms involved popping off the top of the cart to one side. There wasn't time to convert it needed things. Mundi stretched up so it could grab two cubes of metal material and ceramic from the cart. Mundi started going through weapons profiles as it headed off at speed after Soap the quiet drone making a wet skitter as the cart took off. Metal mesh wheels and sturdy construction absorbing the trials of wet and haggard ground.

The drone started making some idle trajectory calculations based on soap's movement as it chimed at Soap easily able to keep up with a running human, "Injured personnel go in the cart! Occupancy one!"

A flare of nanofabrication at its front involved Negative twelfth and Mundi manufacturing something with a long barrel. It was a rush job, and the hard sound rifle was more sub-assault class, but it involved a simpler construction. There was a power cord panel blinking at the back of mundi's flat top. Mundi couldn't make the simpler weapons as it hadn't any bullets to fire from them.

@Raffia Kiryuin @Bobby the Prussian
 
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Bobby the Prussian said:
"........... This is a fuckin' weird group." Alec just randomly chimed in, as he listened to everyone speaking. We got Spartans in future armor, weird alien people, a goddamn spikey robot thing, if there's a fuckin' zombie horde around the corner, Alec will admit he has died and his brain is simply shutting down by from the lack of blood and oxygen going into it. "I've had weirder." BJ quietly retorted, as...... Well, yeah, he does fight weird steampunk Nazi's for a living. Soap just stayed quiet, not even bothering with them.

Before they could move on however, Soap stopped around the corner of the sewer and listened in. "Shush!" He said to everyone, holding up his fist to signal them to stop speaking. As everything went silent, strange faint noises could be heard. Some sort of creature or two hissing all the way at the end of the tunnel. "Xiao," He signaled her towards him, needing her by his side. "What can you feel down there?" He asked, wondering if she could sense any footsteps those creatures might be making. An even greater hissing noise was made from behind him, causing Alec to spin around backwards in a panic.

"The hell's that?" The Scotsman asked, gripping his weapon tight. When Xiao tried to sense the ground, she would feel what seemed like a hundred feet running towards them from all sides except forward. What came out of the sewer tunnel walls not too far away from the group looked a little something like this:

245033-Alien_movie-Xenomorph-748x421.jpg
Click to expand...

"Ghost? Anything you can tell me about this... thing?" "Looks nothing like anything we've seen. And we thought the Hive had some pretty ugly creatures. This thing doesn't look too friendly." "And it looks like it'd want us for lunch..." Vortex-25 and her Ghost exclaimed, communicating to each other about the current event. What to use against this creature? Should they fight it? Or should they suppress it and use the opportunity to run away?

"Everyone!" Vortex-25 called out to the group. As she called out, she used her Triple Jump to gain some height and summoned forth a bow made out of a Void Light:

5d3f925345a9b82e4bdbb25b50578771.gif

She then fired a Void Arrow towards the ground in front of the Alien. Once it connected, it expanded into a small sphere-like Vortex and shot forth a line of Void Energy towards the Alien and successfully latched onto it. This would grant around a minute or so of suppression: Heavily slowing down tethered targets and suppressing them. "I've bought us some time using the Void Tether! If we're going to run away from this thing, we better do it now!"

@Bobby the Prussian @lil_kreen @Raffia Kiryuin @Silvir @TheGreenerGrey​
 
"Finally! Something to shoot!" Norman had called out, the moment people started shouting as he swung his rotary blaster towards where the creatures had come from, eager to let loose in the only way he knew how. You can imagine his disappointment then, when the Xiao the Not-Jedi blocked off the access point and everyone began to fall back. Grumbling to himself, he begrudgingly followed.

"We either need to get above ground or find somewhere to make a stand!" He calls out to the rest of the group as he kept pace, mind already taking in the benefits and problems with being in these sewers. He wouldn't be able to use his jetpack, and his rifle was definitely a no go. However, what few thermals he had with him would be amazingly more destructive if placed correctly.

"If those things know how to navigate the tunnels better than us, and trust me when I say they do, we either need to get to somewhere where they can't just pick us off one by one and ambush us, or make a place." He continues, glancing towards Xiao as he says the last part. The woman could seemingly reshape the land around her, it might be possible.
 
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