towerofanimus | Ex Machina; Infiltration

Entry tags:

Ex Machina; Infiltration

Characters: Riki and the infiltration team
Setting: administrative levels
Format: any
Summary: Riki's efforts must be sabotaged. Stealth is the name of the game and time is of the essence.
Warnings: psychological horror

Though the chipped unit does not follow, he sees to it that the team advances the rest of the way. At the end of the lit corridor is a set of double doors, heavy-duty polished metal with small windows set into each one.

Through the windows, a massive machine is visible, connected to thousands of holographic screens that are hard to make out at the speed at which they're being manipulated. The machine sits in the center of the room and is networked to four elaborate terminals stationed along the walls via a complex tangle of panels, wires, and towers. Each of these terminals controls its own set of floating screens; the sheer amount of holographic monitors in the room is disorienting, and really, it's hard to tell what's connected to what.

In the chair in the middle of the enormous set-up is Riki, maneuvering all of the screens with the same ease with which most people breathe. His back is to the doors that lead into the room, and for the moment, he is utterly engrossed in his work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Once those who had touched the walls were on their feet again Lucifel began to look around for something useful as well, a toolkit, anything that could be used now and perhaps later as well if the situation allowed it. Before he would use brute force he wanted to search for an alternative if one was available.

Edited 2014-05-15 23:35 (UTC)

The voltage of the electricity gradually begins to increase the more pressure that is applied, traveling along the prying weapons to their wielders.

No tools have been left behind.

After the first burst of electricity, Riku stopped briefly to catch his breath and cast Cure on himself.

"Guys, I think we may have to change tactics here. If this thing's gonna start shocking us, I say we pry at it in short bursts. Maybe that'll keep us from getting fried."

Whatever the others choose to do, Riku will start applying a start/stop method to prying in hopes that it'll stave off the charges. However, if it gets too unbearable, he may take a longer break. After all, he doesn't want to risk dying and, therefore, his real powers.

David's not giving up, even as the electricity continues to amplify. He's been shocked plenty of times in his superhero career—by Outcasts with electrical powers, by the Freakshow—he has a good idea of when this will get too much for him to handle, and David hasn't felt like he's hit his limit yet.

—but, he does let go of the sword momentarily when he hears Riku's idea.

"Arright ... Let's try dat," David responds. His voice has a slight shake to it, mostly from the aftereffect of the shocks he's already received. "I'll follow your lead."

So, he'll wait for Riku to begin prying. Once the keybearer's going at it, David will join in, but only prying when Riku's at rest. In a bid to get the bolt he's working on to come off, he's also activating his flight system's afterburners to get even more leverage every time he makes an attempt, grunting in both frustration and pain as he does so.

Edited (Minor rewording.) 2014-05-17 04:21 (UTC)

This couldn't keep going on, it would kill them! And who knew if Ruana would be in any mood to revive anyone...

"Will someone allow me to use their lever? My armor can shield me from harm as long as it holds up, itself."

Once it was clear the room itself was empty of tools or something that might help them, Xion attempts to examine the panels more closely itself, as well as the walls around them, looking for anything that might help them access the panels or the area behind them. She kind of wishes she'd observed this room more closely when she'd been here before.

"There's gotta be something," she says, quietly.

She knows some people are trying to muscle their way through, but it could take too much time. Time is of the essence.

Of course there aren't any tools they could use. That would be just too easy, wouldn't it. Zelda sighs, wincing in sympathy and frustration as the others continue getting shocked. Eventually she heads back towards the retrieval unit.

There has to be a better way...

"Do you know if there is a way to remove them without physically prying them from the wall using brute strength?"

It's clear enough that avenue is quickly becoming a non-option if they intend to survive this.

Riku and David will feel the rather unpleasant sensation of increasingly powerful voltage coursing through them when their weapons are being used to attempt to pry it free.

The retrieval unit looks concerned as it glances in the direction Zelda approached it from. "If you have some way of prying it off without physically touching it... that would be ideal."

David lets go of the sword once more after hearing Enoch's offer, glancing back to look at him for a moment.

"I'm still good fer now—!"

David's not sure if his glamoured suit is making any real difference when it comes to the electrical shocks—either it's not and he might as well be doing this barehanded, or it is and the simulated protective layers of his suit are lessening the shocks he's feeling—but David still doesn't feel like he's reached the point where he'll be in serious danger ... so he resumes rhythmically prying on the bolt, putting both motor-assisted muscles and flight system to work.

"Come—off—already!"

Until they find a better way around this obstacle, it's all he can do to help.

Reno lets go immediately upon the first time he gets shocked. The bolts are what needs to go, so he stands back and observes for a few moments and seeing what the booby trap Riki set is doing. When the retrieval unit answers Zelda's question, something clicks in his brain.

Shaking his head, he steps in front of the panels and waves his arms out. "Hey, yo! David, everyone! Back off! Get away from the panels. We need to get the bolts off. Anyone got ice magic use it on the bolts."

Hey, it's the best way he can think of to get them off without touching. He's glancing over at Xion, since he knows she has at least one.

"Freeze 'em as much as you can! Give 'em everything you got! They'll snap off!"

WELL. All that prior was a nasty adventure. Time to focus on the present, though.

"Without touching it..."

Samus frowns, glancing at her arm-cannon. Without her actual visor, it's tricky to tell what she has on hand, save for manually switching things and testing them. Samus steps around to get a clear shot at one of the panels, and after flipping a switch in her cannon, the end glows blue. Reno's announcement gives her pause, though, and she holds up her arm. "I'll try following the ice up - I've got a grapple beam, that hopefully won't conduct electricity."

Xion squints back at Reno, suddenly a little nervous. She's still mostly tapped, though maybe she's recovered enough to manage a little. "All right, I'll try," she says with a nod. She can't really afford not to.

Reaching forward, she musters some ice magic into her hands. Not as much as a full Blizzard spell. She wants to be more precise than that. Carefully she forces as much as she dares onto each of the bolts, enough to put a layer of frost on each, as well as some of the surrounding metal, about an inch in radius. Still, she's not sure how much more she can muster, and there's still three more panels, after all.

Although...

"Riku?" she calls. He should have ice too, right? Maybe even more than her, since he wouldn't have used so much of it up trying to clear the path to the elevator.

"Hold on, Xion."

Riku gazes down at his Keyblade, tightening his grip. But rather than cloak it in ice, flames swirl around the tip. "I want to try something a little different with the next panel. The way I see it, if we heat these things up and then nail them with the ice, that might warp and break the metal. Rapid cooling and freezing never ends well."

He points his Keyblade at the next panel, not directly striking it, but letting the heat flicker. "Anyone else got ice spells in their arsenal? Otherwise, I'll freeze this thing in a second."

The good news is, all that damage he took and the short breaks he's given himself allowed him to replenish his magic. This shouldn't be too tough of a task, assuming the physics work out.

David stops again as Reno calls out a new plan. He glances back, pausing to consider what he's hearing ... using ice powers to break the bolts off? That might work—hopefully. Reno has to have a better inventory of who has ice powers here—

"Arright! You got it!" But before he pulls away, David first grabs hold of the Orcish sword and yanks it free from where he'd wedged it in between the bolt and the panel. No telling if the blade could be made just as brittle to freezing as the bolts themselves, and he'd rather not risk finding out.

He pulls away, sword in hand, as Xion starts freezing the bolts.

Xion's spell succeeds in layering the bolts lightly with frost. However, blocks begin to stick out of the wall, twisting out of place and moving to ram Xion, Riku and David away.

Seeing the wall move, Reno went into action, jumping at Xion from where he stood by the panels to grab her and pull her out of the way. Thank his lucky stars she isn't too heavy.

For the others, all he can do is yell out a warning. "Riku! David! Move!"

Riku's eyes pop wide open the second the wall bulges. Clenching his teeth, he lunges out of the block's path and throws up his Keyblade in a defensive stance. If there's an opportunity to strike back, he'll fire off a Blizzaga spell at the plate from a distance.

"Whoa—!"

It's a good thing David was already in motion when the wall started to fight back. Wheeling over to face away from the wall, David's flight systems punch into overdrive as he rockets away—preferably in a direction away from the rest of the infiltration team, as (should the blocks be capable of doing so) he doesn't want the wall smashing into other people in its attempt to swat him down.

Xion yelped in surprise, falling against Reno as he pulled her away. Still, it saved her from being hit, and she looked up at him gratefully, blinking still in the bright light.

She looks back at the panel now, and over at Riku. He'd heated it, and was firing what looked like a Blizzard now. So if she'd frozen it... maybe try to-

She turned, mustering a small Fire spell, which she sends at the panel from a distance.

"Someone try to pull them off now!" she yells.

"On it!"

There's a (possibly over-dramatic) drawing back of her blaster arm before thrusting it forward, launching a blue beam of energy at one of the temperature-altered plates. If it manages to latch on, Samus is going to yank back with all the force she can muster.

The force of the grappling beam is enough to rip the panel off with the weakened bolts, revealing a series of wires and plugs in the wall underneath.

The blocks that protruded from the wall became more fluid, and began whipping around the room wildly to try and hit anyone in the room.

Geez. Of course it'd get worse. Of course. Well, it's too late to turn back now. With the first set of plugs exposed, it seems like as good a time as any to try and pluck them out. Of curse, in order to do that, he'll need to stay unharmed, thus he continues zipping around the room, shooting glances at the wall all the while.

Provided nobody else gets to them first and provided the blocks don't mow him down, he'll point his Keyblade at the wall and try to use a Graviga spell to force the plugs from their sockets. It worked in Hollow Bastion to bring down floating chests. He can only pray it'll work here.

The second the idea of using magic had been brought up, Sheena had hurried to get out of the way. The young ninja can't perform any, and while her cards can deal some elemental damage, they need to touch in order to be truly effective.

So, she had distanced herself in order to stand watch for anything strange; still, she had been caught off-guard by the blocks coming out of the walls, and had barely managed to duck out of their way.

Now, she's doing the same thing, only now it looks more like a frenetic dance as she bobs and weaves and leaps and jumps over, around, and under the blocks, pulling whoever she can out of the way.

"Look out!"

After hearing people stay that the panel had to be removed without touching it, Lancer stays back, shaking his hands and arms, which were sore from the electric shock. Now that the panel has been loosened and the blocks are whipping around, he ducks away from the blocks, watching for others so he can pull them away or shout a warning to them.

Of course there wasn't anything helpful, and the 'brute-force' approach to things hadn't worked. Yukiko can't do a whole lot to take out the plugs and things, but she can help with the aftereffects of the shock. She ducks a few incoming blocks, then quickly fires off a Mediarahan. Once that's done, she'll carefully run across to the other side of the room and cast another one.

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