Bad Communication The second Minos heard the call, she ducked behind a cubicle, punched a hole in the wall to see through, and dug her hands in the ground ready to turn the office flooring into whatever additional support she wanted. Her eyes followed Override’s blaster into the darkness, desperately seeking out whatever hostile intent she could. Even Override was not immune from her watchful gaze. For a moment, things were still, the only sound emanating from whatever Override or his suit made. But it was only for a moment. The first thing that happened was that all of the computers in the office whirred to life, like a pulse, a wave of activations fast enough to appear almost simultaneous without the scale of a whole system’s worth of computers available to watch it travel from one end of the office to the other. For those in the room that could tell, they could tell that in the moment all of the computers turned on, they sent a signal, one hard-encoded and indecipherable, but they sure were broadcasting something. Minos didn’t care about all that. She cared more about the monitor right next to her now shining bright white light directly into her peripheral vision. Even if the light dissipated by the time it reached out of the cubicle, after so much darkness, it was practically blinding. From her crouched position, it was pretty easy to shoot out a kick, pulverizing the case and everything in it. The monitor did not shut down, though. Minos stood to square up with it, and she noticed a ghostly apparition floating just behind it. She did a spinning kick through the monitor, and the apparition disappeared. Meanwhile, the blip on Override’s radar also came closer. They were able to audibly hear it before the figure walked into view. It was a robot of sorts, though it looked closer to a mannequin in shape, or perhaps one of those artist-pose dolls with articulated joints, except the joints were empty, and the limbs just floated detached from the rest of the body. Individual fingers were separated from the hands, which were separated from the forearms, which were missing an elbow, and so on for the legs. It held now-familiar knives in both hands, and behind it all was that same shadowy apparition. All for Myself The inside of Project Rubicon changed the deeper Sibyl fell into it. Gone were the fleshy microtubes passing scalding hot steam around the body, now replaced by a warm metallic piping that coiled around until it dumped her out into a room that was shaped much like a mechanical heart. Its walls were similarly rounded at the corners, with partitions quartering the area leaving just a few openings to travel between the quadrants. Vents just like the one Sibyl came through were also all along the outside. All of the walls and partitions had more piping on them than could possibly be comprehended -- both a plumber’s greatest achievement and their worst nightmare. Some hydraulic tinker must have been proud. In the center of all of this was a column, which unlike the walls was an electrician’s nightmare instead. It was all connected, with all the expected lights and bleeps and bloops. The exposed wiring of the connections might have indicated some sort of fragility, but there was the soft shimmer of a shield protecting everything from the outside world. As soon as Sibyl entered the room, two things happened. The first was that the center column lit up like a pulse had just gone through it and it was now receiving information to relay to the rest of Project Rubicon. Many of the pipes shuddered as new blasts of steam shot through them, some leaking out at regulators or where the joints weren’t entirely welded together. The steam did not dissipate. The second event Sibyl had triggered was even more steam came flowing in through the other vents in the heart, and it was starting to fill up two of the quadrants, including the one Sibyl was in. Get Real Get Right As Aeon left the robot gymnasium to continue her hunt for Caesar, she ran into a familiar figure. Between the two of them, only Aeon could be surprised at the encounter. The other one had known exactly where and when he would find her. It was Bard, one of the higher-ups of G3, who had been there in the Sweatbox the day after Cassandra’s prophecy. Bard’s greeting to Aeon wasn’t exactly warm, but he did nod to acknowledge her and her mission. “He’s this way,” Bard said, beckoning her further into the darkness. He was much more confident than the last time she had seen him, in a way that seemed almost unnatural. It seemed like he knew what he was doing. “You don’t kill him,” Bard said as they continued along. He didn’t say, “Don’t kill him,” like, as an order from the top brass, he said it as a statement of fact. He gestured to his head. “At least, I don’t think you do. It always gets fuzzy involving you people, but that’s where I’m at right now. Maybe it doesn’t matter.” Aeon’s walkie-talkie clicked on. “Heyyy just checking on where you’re at,” Lachesis said, her voice a little crackly through some interference static. “Roy’s finally got his act together, so we’ll be in in a sec after y’all.” “Where they were at,” finally, was stopped at the end of a hallway in front of a door to one of Battle Labs’ many labs. “There are two non-combatants and three Gibbons in there,” Bard said. “Technically four, but I don’t think Morana’s body will be doing much of anything while they’re still fighting elsewhere in the building or keeping Project Rubicon from falling apart. Ebony’s the one with the darkness in most of the building, and then you haven’t seen Dvno yet, but you should be able to handle that too, especially since Caesar’s there and he can’t exactly turn his power off.” OOC  

very cute song, 8/10

She wasn't sure if it was actually the intended plan from the start, but Bridget approved of it. Use Bubble to slow down the enemy. She was, herself, pretty fond of strategies like that, whenever her classwork had presented her with hypothetical battle situations. Her enthusiasm for the plan soon faded, however, as rather than slowing down, the Malamar that had assailed the team began speeding up instead. She'd read about this one. "Pokémon wiv Contrary for an ability are able to reverse gains & losses incurred in battle," Bridget recalled under her breath. It was unlikely Nathan or Quinn heard her, but the utterance wasn't necessarily meant to be heard, either. What followed, however, was. "Alright, you two, try not to hinder this guy any furver; 'e'll make us regret it!" Her finger then pointed out, to the brave little Trapinch still attached to the enemy. Even as the enemy Malamar tackled Peat, the mighty jaws of a Trapinch would surely never let go. "An' you! You're doin' great, Arfur! Keep on Bitin' 'til 'e gives in!" It wasn't easy to stay attached when Peat tackled his quarry, causing the Malamar to rock about, but Arthur did manage to stay attached and biting. With the same energetic vigor as before, Arthur continued chewing and chomping on his prey, prompting something of a change in strategy from Malamar. The wild pokemon once again moved to tackle Peat, only this time, it angled itself to use Arthur as a sort of improvised battering ram. "Ease off 'im for a bit, Arfur!" At her command, the Trapinch released its deathgrip on the Malamar. While it hadn't done so soon enough to avoid colliding with Peat entirely, it was at least enough to soften the blow a bit. Malamar, for its own part, seemed to be having none of Arthur's shenanigans any longer. When met with a threatening chitter from the Trapinch, its response was to merely attack with a Psywave, against which Arthur was powerless to avoid. Which, in turn, only prompted a second, angrier chitter from Arthur once it recovered from being hit with a psychic blast.