Like a Phoenix From the Flames - Library - Main Concourse - TergoCorp. Industries - Message Board - Yuku

RSS
Email

0 Kudo

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Like a Phoenix From the Flames

Author	Comment
Tergonaut	Like a Phoenix From the Flames	Lead	[-]
Posts: 416 (Fri, Mar 20, 2009 10:44 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None TergoCorp. Industries presents: Like a Phoenix From the Flames A Mobius Forum World Fiction Written by Tergonaut Starring the characters of these forumers: Tergonaut Vector Naareil Ahead, the night-shaded sand stretches out as far as I can see. Step, step. A glance over my shoulder. Big, black rocks strewn across the landscape, some huge, some smaller. Climbed out of that. Don't want to go back. Face forward again. Step, step, step. My arm. Raise it, look at it. Is that my arm? I think so, but there's something more. My arm is inside those muscles and thin wires. No, not wires, more like tubes, pumping, heartbeat. Flex the hand, notice the glistening red fluid coating my arm. Blood? Am I bleeding? No, not bleeding, but I'm covered in a thin layer of fluid. It is dirty with grit from the rocks and sand here. I am not looking at my body. My body is inside this one I am looking at. I think I remember why I am this way, but my memories are in pieces. I think I...died? But I am alive. I don't know how I know this, but I know. A picture in my mind. A crocodile standing on two legs, wearing a labcoat and headphones. The scientist. His name. Vector. He can find the answers I need. Must go forward. Forward is where the scientist is. I don't know how I know this, but I know. Lower the arm, and forward again. Step, step, step. I walk for a while. Don't know how long. I glance up at the sky, and see the stars. Pretty. Quiet. Not even the wind blowing. But wait. A plume of dust ahead? Something is coming, fast. And from the direction I need to go. I look closer, and suddenly my vision goes forward. I only think of the right word while I look at the truck. I zoomed in. I don't know how I know this, but I know. Truck. That's a hover truck. The engine operates on ion-projection principles. The engine charges and isolates the ions, shunts them through the system to the vectored thrusters, propelling the truck and holding it in the air on a cushion of ionized air. Wait. That's my truck. Someone is driving my truck. Why are they driving my truck all the way out here? I see the driver, and I stop getting angry when I understand who she is. Cera. I try to open my mouth to call out her name. It doesn't work. At first. I realize that my entire body, not just my arm, is inside another body. I am not moving; I am being moved. My lungs are breathing air, but only because my diaphragm is being pushed in and out for me. I am in control, but only with my mind. "Cera," I call out weakly. She is still too far away to hear me, but her eyes meet mine somehow and she gasps as she sees me. She races the truck toward me, and soon she is close; my vision has already zoomed back out. She opens her door and hops down, her eyes wide and scared...she is scared of me. But she still approaches. I watch her lips form the words as I hear her voice. "Justin, is that you?" I stop and think about that. The name sounds familiar. It takes me a moment to realize that is one of my names. Yes, I have more than one name. But my head hurts. I must find the scientist. "Yes," I croak, my mouth moved by the second body I am in. "We are Justin." I notice that I said "we." And that bothers Cera, but she comes over to me and helps me toward the truck, sits me down. I said "we." The second body I am in is a separate entity. But what is it? My chest - no, the second body's chest - shoots out fleshy tendrils that splat against my truck's dashboard and tears the radio out. I feel it pulled against the outer body as it incorporates the machine into the chest. I realize how hungry I am, and the radio "tastes" good. "Justin, we have to get you to a hospital," said Cera. Her voice is trying to be calm, but I can tell she is scared, and I sympathize with her. "We'll get you some help." "They can't help us," I say. I know this too. That much I figure out as my chest slowly devours the radio. "Vector...take us to Vector." The being in the other body is identifying itself with me. We are effectively one. But it is providing the movement, the power, while I am providing the thinking. That's why I'm saying "we." But it is chilling, too, because I remember a demon doing the same thing. Am I a demon now? "It'll be okay, Justin," I hear Cera's voice say next to me as the hover truck is turned around and accelerates. "We'll be there before you know it." Even as my vision fades to rest, I know that I love her. I do not know how I know this, but I know. Last Edited By: Tergonaut Sat, Mar 21, 2009 5:48 PM. Edited 1 time.
Tergonaut	Part II	#1	[-]
Posts: 417 (Sat, Apr 25, 2009 7:13 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Justin woke up to the sound of familiar voices, though it took him several moments before he made sense of what was being said. He opened his eyes and adjusted quickly to the bright overhead lights...faster than he would have with his own eyes. He tried to move, and found his arms and legs restrained. He lifted his head and glanced around, seeing the forms of Cera and Vector as they stood nearby. They came into focus; Cera, an elf-eared young woman with soft brown eyes and hair, and Vector, an anthropomorphic crocodile with green scales and a white labcoat. "And he was like this when you found him?" Cera nodded tiredly. "He talked to me, but sometimes he called himself 'we' rather than 'I.' Vector, what does it mean?" Vector shuddered involuntarily, though he kept up a good pokerface, most likely for Cera's sake. "I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet. I want to talk to him first and see what he makes of it himself, if he's able." Justin still felt that he had a dual body; or that he was inside the body of another. But it was becoming more natural, and he spoke more easily as he said, "Vec, you gotta get me out of here." Vector and Cera both looked over, surprised, at Justin. "Is that you, Justin?" asked Vector as he approached cautiously. "Yeah...and something else." Justin glanced down at himself and saw the straps of the gurney he laid on. He was still inside the plate-and-wire organic body, yet it was utterly artificial. "I want out of the suit, Vec, but it's too weak to open up on its own. It needs help." "All right," answered Vector, and he walked over to Justin's side and looked down. "It appears that there is some kind of seam that runs down your chest...I'm just wondering if I'll need a scalpel or a crowbar." "Crowbar," affirmed Justin without skipping a beat. Vector nodded, the gesture exaggerated by his long crocodilian snout. "You realize that right now, we don't have any answers to why you are the way you are." "We'll find them out, Vec. Trust me." Vector opened a tool drawer and hefted a dull metal crowbar. "Cera, I'll need your help for this." Cera nodded wordlessly, and they took up positions on either side of the table, on either side of Justin. Vector wedged one end of the crowbar into the crevice hardly visible in Justin's flesh-plated chest. "On three," he growled as he and Cera braced themselves against the table. "One...two...three!" Vector and Cera pushed and pulled, and Justin felt like his - no, the suit's - chest buckle, and pop open, throwing his helpers onto the floor as this caused a chain reaction. All along Justin's body, he felt suction he didn't know was there release him, and when the plates forming the face of the suit subtly split apart and opened like the petals of a flower, he shot up to a sitting position like he had been struck with lightning, and gasped for breath with his own lungs. Vector stared up at Justin from the floor. "Well," he said slowly as he adjusted the headphones around his neck, blinking owlishly, "you have hair again." "Who cares!?" shouted Cera, the stress pouring out of her as she leapt up and threw her arms around Justin. "He's back, and he isn't dead! Shouldn't we just be grateful for that?" Justin clumsily hugged Cera with one arm back, though he was regaining his breath and strength quickly...almost too quickly. "What about my hair?" he asked, reaching up his other arm to feel the top of his head. His fingers felt oversensitive, like when he wore a pair of gloves too long and then took them off only a moment ago; the smooth texture of his hair felt impossibly soft to him. For that matter, Cera felt soft and welcome against his bare chest and skin. Vector wordlessly reached up to a nearby drawer, scrabbled around inside it...and made the weirdest expression when a rubber ducky squeak came out of the drawer. But the crocodile picked himself up, looked inside the drawer, and picked out a small hand-held mirror. "I think you'd better see for yourself, Justin. Oh, and we need to get you some clothes, too." Justin glanced over at the mirror, and stared at himself. Besides the fact that he hadn't had hair for several weeks, and so the shock of having that alone was enough, the fact that it was blue startled him. And not some kind of blue-black or other natural kind of blue that might be seen...it was a deep blue. His skin, by comparison, was slightly paler, most likely the result of being underground for nearly all of three days. And his eyes, once he focused on those, were no longer turquoise. They were orange. "What the heck happened to me?" he asked, hugging Cera tightly and finding comfort in her touch. "That is what we're going to find out," replied Vector, determination in his growly voice. "Full lab analysis, and let's get you some food." His eye ridges creased together in dire seriousness as he added, "And some pants." "VECTOR!" "What, you don't want him to have pants? I might have a kilt lying around here somewhere..." Justin thought his sides were going to burst as he laughed harder than he could ever remember doing before. Maybe the question of what had happened to him was still there, but he knew he was with friends, and he was alive. That was what really counted right now.
Tergonaut	Finally some explanations...or is this just the beginning?	#2	[-]
Posts: 419 (Mon, Jun 29, 2009 5:53 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"Okay, Vec, so what've we got?" asked Justin jovially as he dug in to the oatmeal bowl for another large bite. "Don't eat too fast," said Vector with a frown as he saw Justin gulping down the brown mush. "Your system is still on the mend after the tremendous shock it went through. You'll have to eat simpler foods for now until we know what effect the nanites have on your system." "But Vec, I'm starving! Dying makes you really hungry, I guess." They sat in a side room of the HQ Tower, with a brown leather couch that Justin was propped up on with pillows as he lay across the length of it. Vector sat across the couch on an easy chair, unable to help a reptilian smile at Justin's good-natured protest. The room was lit from the sunlight outside, and though it had ceiling tiles like an office, the complicated equipment that Vector had set up to monitor Justin's condition beeped like his laboratory, the white machines lined up like blocks against the wall. "For someone that hungry, though, you haven't even touched your Jell-O," pointed out Vector as he leaned forward in his chair, adjusting his reptilian tail behind him. Justin looked down at the coffee table next to him, with the yellow plastic bowls that Vector had gotten for him. One of them had smooth red gelatin in it. He shrugged, then took another bite of oatmeal. "Could use a little brown sugar, maybe some cinnamon," he mused. "When can I go back to eating cheeseburgers and chili dogs?" "That," said Vector, "is a question of how long it takes for your digestive system to adjust to having nanites crawling around in it." "Ew, Vec!" Vector shrugged. "If it's any comfort, they're not limiting themselves to that area. It looks like your entire body has been...infiltrated by nanites. Obviously, they're from the omni-suit, but they aren't the same as they were before. For one thing, they are no longer generating the tetryonic radiation that gave you your deep-seated cancer in the first place. Speaking of which, you no longer have cancer." Justin let the spoon hang in his mouth for a moment as he considered what Vector said. "Uh, then...where did it go? Did the nanites just eat it or something?" "A possibility I considered, but then I examined the...suit, that we got you out of. As far as I can tell, it is made of the cancer cells that were in your body as well as nanites that have bonded with them to control their growth. My hypothesis is that the nanites were able to manipulate the cancerous cells into creating new, healthy cells that were used to repair your body. Your hair and eye color were affected, but those are just cosmetic changes." "That's a relief. I'm not sure I wanna keep blue hair, but if it's harmless..." Justin finished the bowl of oatmeal and set it with a plastic plunk onto the smooth surface of the coffee table. "So, it's kind of like the suit and I traded parts; it took my cancer and gave me nanites instead." "Nanites that appear to be maintaining your system and helping your recovery, even outside of your suit," said Vector, with a level gaze across at Justin. "The suit itself, however, can't be maintained by my equipment quite like it has before. It's now partly organic, and after some analysis, it needs a combination of food and inorganic minerals to supply itself with material to continue functioning. For now, I've come up with a liquid compound of honey and various minerals so that it can get a...balanced diet, you might say. But I think that this new suit is potentially capable of producing new objects entirely on its own; after I fed it, it rebuilt the radio that it had taken from your car and separated it from itself. It's like a mobile factory!" "So, could it build new things, or just things that it's eaten?" Vector rubbed his scaly chin. "Possibly both, though it may need to be exposed to something first before it can reproduce it. Either way, with some armor plating and extra components attached to it, it could possibly build ammunition for you, or create other small devices for you. Naturally, it's limited to the resources it has available to it..." The crocodile hesitated. "Justin, are you still willing to be Tergonaut?" "What kind of question is that?" asked Justin, genuinely surprised. Then he guessed, "Sure, I died and all, but the Griefbringer is gone now. And I'm alive and kicking, maybe even better than before." "Well, I ask because Cera..." Vector reached up and scratched the back of his head. "I chatted with Cera a little bit as I made sure she got a taxi back to her place. I think she would be...reluctant to allow you to continue in your role as Tergonaut, after she nearly lost you already. She sounded like she was afraid that next time, you wouldn't come back." Justin frowned. "Thanks for taking care of her, Vec...I'll have to talk to her later. But not anytime soon; she was pretty stressed out by everything that happened last night, she needs her rest." "As do you," said Vector as he stood up. "I'll start adding onto the new suit...it's changed so much that I believe we can officially call it the OMNI-02 now. Once I've got it finished, I'll make sure to come get you. In the meantime, get some sleep and let that food circulate into your system. You'll be back at full strength before you know it." "Thanks, Vec." Justin looked like he wanted to get right up himself, but his eyelids were already drooping as the crocodile scientist closed the door behind him. Minutes later, a man who had been sitting in one of the other chairs, invisible to both Justin and Vector, stood up and stepped over to the couch, glancing down with white glowing eyes at Justin's sleeping form. Dressed in a long black trenchcoat, the man had an ethereal aura about himself, though his chuckle was entirely human. "Justin, Justin, Justin...job well done," he said out loud, not apparently concerned about whether he would wake up Justin or not. "You saved me quite a lot of trouble with having to deal with that Entropic abomination myself. You mortals continue to surprise me." The man paced away from the couch, examining the machines with casual interest. "I know you can't hear me, but I'm planting some memories into your mind for later so you'll remember this little chat...and that it was me who gave you that nice dream you're having right now." The man shrugged. "I know you like those echidna girls, though even I don't know why. But you've got a beachful of them to occupy your mind as you rest, so hopefully that recompenses you for the job well done." Then he turned back to Justin. "But don't think you're done yet; by choosing to continue wearing the mantle of this world's Champion, you are choosing a harder road. There is another challenge ahead of you that will involve more than this world alone can hold. The mists of the future can be hard to read, even for a Guardian of the Multiverse, but you've still got your work cut out for you. Oh, and while you're at it, give that red-headed witch a good punch from me. I can't stand that woman, thinks so much of herself there isn't room enough in the Multiverse for that ego." And with that, Mobius TetherBlood, Guardian of the Multiverse and a former Admin of the Mobius Forum, vanished from the room in a flash of light.
Tergonaut	Tergonaut is back!...again?	#3	[-]
Posts: 446 (Sat, Oct 10, 2009 9:59 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Justin heard the rapid, heavy footsteps down the hall, and he closed his eyes tighter and tried not to wake up. Just a little longer, they aren't done with my foot rub... "Justin!" called out Vector as he burst in. "Stahlmansche is back!" "No, the echidna girls already got done with my back," moaned Justin as he still wavered between sleep and wakefulness. "What are you...wake up, this is important! It's on the news!" Then the word "Stahlmansche" finally penetrated Justin's brain, and he shot upright on the couch, the sheet sliding off as the electrodes attached to his chest stretched on their wires to the monitoring machines. "Stahlmansche! But she was...oh no, she couldn't have!" Vector didn't waste time trying to explain; he picked up the remote control for the holovision projector set and turned it on. The holographic three-dimensional representation of a news conference held outside a large office building formed into view over the projector, which hummed to life as its fan kicked in. "That's her, all right," spat Justin as he pointed to the red-haired figure standing near the podium as another woman, taller with black hair, made Georgia Stahlmansche's introduction to the crowd. "Terrornaut must have gotten her to a new body somehow. Bet it's a body made with that AI shell we recovered from the Segan ruins she hired me to infiltrate...dang it, why didn't I see this coming?" "That's Effective Cybertronics Unlimited, isn't it? The building the conference is being held in front of?" "Yeah, Vec, we both know that. Why?" Justin was impatient, itching to activate the omni-suit and blast off- But to what? He didn't have the suit now, and what could he do about Stahlmansche? As far as anybody in the public eye knew, Stahlmansche had never been involved with Overkill or the Griefbringer. If anything, she was praised for the reconstruction efforts made by her company's robots after Overkill's attack at Carnival Island. "There wasn't a statue there before, so what's that?" Vector pointed a claw at a black-draped figure standing to one side of the podium, flanked by two of the human-sized Armada Trooper security robot units, each armed with a stunstick and riot shield. Justin hadn't noticed it; when he saw Stahlmansche, his focus had tightened on her, his anger blinding him to everything else. But there was something about the way the top of the black cloth was pointed where it rested along the cloaked figure's head that suddenly made him uneasy. "Whatever that is, it sure ain't a statue," he said in a low whisper. He turned back to the podium as Stahlmansche stood up to the applause of the people standing by and watching. For a brief moment, he thought he saw someone familiar in the crowd, but Stahlmansche began speaking, and he tracked his eyes back up to focus on her. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for assembling yourselves together on such short notice," she began, her voice brimming with such confidence that Justin felt sick hearing it. "In the wake of a terrible incident, where Sega City was attacked by robots built by my company that were possessed with demonic entities - as verified by multiple witnesses - I feel it necessary to begin rebuilding the trust I and my company have long enjoyed with the citizens of Sega City ever since my company's debut a few years ago. You are all aware of the tragic death of Tergonaut, whose memorial service was held only four days ago. He was always admired as a hero of the city, a protector, a champion...always ready to sacrifice everything to serve this city and its citizens. His loss is deeply felt." "Yeah, I bet you're feeling it," muttered Justin. "What would you say, my friends, if you could have Tergonaut back?" Justin's mind went blank for a moment. He was stunned. Of all the things that she could have said...why would she want her most dangerous enemy back and alive? Did she know, somehow, that Justin had survived? But there wasn't any possible way for her to know, unless she somehow planted robot spies- "She's tried before, but she's never gotten a single spy robot into this Tower," stated Vector clearly. "She may be a genius at covering her tracks, but I am definitely the superior technical mind here in this city. And only you, Cera, and I could possibly know that you were recovered and brought here." "What about while Cera was bringing me back? She could have seen us then; it wouldn't have been too hard to tell tha-" "Allow me the honor of telling you myself that he IS back! Guards, please unveil our guest!" One of the Armada Troopers put its stunstick away and reached up to pull the cloth off of the standing figure, and everyone in the crowd gasped, dumbfounded, as the sunlight gleamed against orange and blue armor plating. The cloth was stuck for a moment on the backswept helmet spike, which Justin now realized he had recognized under it, but then it fell away and fully revealed the armored figure. "After recovering his body, and applying our most advanced medical and robotic technologies, we at Effective Cybertronics Unlimited are proud to say that Tergonaut is back!" Justin couldn't believe it as he stared at the black visor of the figure standing there. It was Tergonaut. Stahlmansche smirked as camera flashes strobed around her and Tergonaut, everyone's attention riveted by the miraculous event. Justin looked back and forth between the two, unsure that what he was seeing was real. But when he saw Tergonaut raise his arm, transform it into a cannon, and aim it at Stahlmansche, he was utterly confused - if a bit hopeful despite himself. "Look out!" cried one of the reporters. Tergonaut's arm cannon fired with a loud burst of charged particles that careened toward Stahlmansche, but she was knocked out of the way by the taller woman as the podium exploded into splinters, showering the crowd. Tergonaut then ducked down and swept one jet-assisted foot around to knock the Armada Troopers aside, their stun sticks useless against his powered armor shell, and when he leapt into the air, he hovered for a few moments, the crowd watching. And then he shot at the nearest reporter. Justin shoved himself off the couch, as if trying to jump into the scene and stop this madness, but the blast intended for the reporter struck an invisible force field that flashed white briefly, spherical and composed of an ethereal energy. But Justin recognized it, and he scanned the crowd to find the source of the psi-based protective field. Sure enough, a certain white-furred anthropomorphic feline, with silver markings in her fur, stood there, her golden eyes slitted as she focused on the psi energy that protected the bystander. "Arikyrenne!" shouted Justin, then realized she couldn't hear him. "Vector, I've got to go stop that imposter!" "But the new suit hasn't been tested yet!" shot back Vector. "I finished installing the parts while you were asleep, but it's still an unknown variable!" On the holovision, Tergonaut fired a few more glowing shots, then jetted away from the chaotic scene on blue-white ion streams. Justin returned his eyes to the scene and found himself staring at Stahlmansche, on her hands and knees looking up as her bodyguard stood up. Even though her face said that she was caught off-guard, he recognized a glint of smug success in her eyes that caused his blood to boil. "This was no accident," he growled. "She's doing this to make everyone afraid of me! If it's the last thing I'll ever do, I'll-" The room shook, and Justin steadied himself on the coffee table as Vector fell back onto the chair he had been standing in front of. "What the-" "That didn't sound like an attack from the outside," muttered Vector as he steadied himself and went over to the wall, clicking a button on a touch-screen monitor. "Yes, that definitely came from inside the Tower! Heavy damage report in my lab!" Vector and Justin glanced at each other, then dashed out of the room toward the laboratory. Justin nearly tripped over the electrode wires, and he yanked them off hastily as his bare feet smacked against the hard tiled floor as he ran down the hallway. He managed to pass Vector and got to the door first, looking in. Inside, an assembly bay in the wall lay shattered and broken, with smoke steaming from it and making the air stink of ozone. The opposite wall where large plated windows overlooked the city was also destroyed, the glass shattered and broken in a vaguely humanoid shape. "The suit's escaped," said Vector, breathless with unbelief as he peered over Justin's shoulder. "No," corrected Justin as his expression became grim. "TINNER is the one who escaped." "TINNER?" asked Vector, thrown. "Vec, in my world, artificial intelligences were heavily scrutinized when TINNER was created for the omni-suit. The omni-suit could not operate without one, but with the destructive capability of the suit, TINNER was chained with command protocols to prevent her from going rogue or controlling the suit in any capacity beyond the control of the pilot. But since the omni-suit has...mutated, evolved, whatever-" "Then it's possible that she's gained control of the suit and is acting under her own power now," finished Vector. "Vec...we've got to neutralize that suit. It's bad enough that Stahlmansche created that fake Tergonaut, but if the new suit goes berserk as well, there's no telling how much damage would be done." Justin turned his orange eyes to Vector. "Is there a way we can recover TINNER from the suit?" Vector rubbed the end of his chin with a hand. "I believe that a CAP round would be sufficient to disable the suit for recovery. I can track the O-2 down by the communication relay that I installed into it." "I'm going." "But you just barely-" Justin flexed an arm. "Never felt better, Vec. I'm ready for action." "And that worries me. Your body is being supported by those nanites. I'll support you, but you be careful out there. We'd better act fast if we're going to catch up to the suit."

<< Previous Topic Next Topic >>

Quick Reply