Cucoo5

[USER="925"]Castlemario[/USER]
Koish has plans for Marx

Washington | Amboy

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Cicero was sitting in his car, tapping on the wheel nervously as he drove to Amboy. Everything is going to be fine. He made his way to a parking lot of a hardware store on the northern side of the town, making sure he chose a spot that would allow him to drive off in a moment's notice. Ok, now to just call up Trace and tell her where you are, simple.

***
Trace was rapidly approaching Amboy with Hollow in tow. She stayed near the roads, but far enough to stay away from prying eyes. When she came to a river, she navigated to a place near the bridge before using the functioning thruster of her Aether Wing to provide enough thrust to clear it in one leap. From there, she cut through farm fields until Cicero's call came in.
"Trace, I found a spot at a hardware store at... uh... two-twenty first avenue and... four-oh-fifth way. We'll maybe be able to get some supplies to try and patch you up here, too. Where are you now?"
"N E four hundred and nineteenth S T and N E Cedar Creek R D." Trace recalled a sign from a few seconds ago. Cicero muttered okay and went silent for a moment.
"Ok you're close. keep heading along the road until two-twenty first."
"Understood." Trace continued on, continuing to use her thruster to sprint towards the destination.

***
Cicero leaned over the steering column, looking out the windshield down the road when he started to hear what sounded like a small jet engine before seeing rapid movement in the trees across the way. When it suddenly stopped he knew it was Trace. "Oh goddammit she used the Aether wing all the way here." I should have told her not to. With a sigh, he got out of the car and waved in Trace's general Direction. She saw, packed the Aether wing so it looked like a backpack, and proceeded across the road with a small jog. As she approached, Cicero saw what she was carrying and had an extremely puzzled look. "Uh, Trace, what... what is that?"
"A creature I found in the woods. It's my new friend!" Trace's voice carried an unusual childlike tone as she presented Hollow by holding him out arm's length away, which caught Cicero off-guard. <> In addition, he glanced about, noticing the occasional stray glance in their direction.
"Ooooh boy. Uhm... let's...let's talk in the car."
Trace tilted her head inquisitively as she tried to understand Cicero's response as he went and opened the passenger door for her to get in. "Understood."
Once inside the car with the doors closed, Cicero stared at Hollow wordlessly. <>

Washington | Southern Forest -> Yale

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Trace held little Hollow firmly as she spooled up the still functional engine of her Aether Wing. When she throttled it up, she angled it just so she could essentially perform a leaping run. She decided to initially run away from the helicopter noise, heading south by southwest. As they ran, she tried to scan her surroundings as fast as she could. She eventually strayed close to a road, noticing a green sign. Yale 1/4 mile. She stopped, curiosity overtook her.
"Yale, a place in Washington state, south of Mobius Labs." The voice told Trace. "Keep going." Before Trace could ask any questions, a remote signal attempted to connect to her communication relay. She noticed the source name: Cicero. The nickname of the one assistant that performed system checks. Allowing the connection, she suddenly heard a panicked male speak to her.
"Trace? What's going on? What happened at the Labs?"
"The lab was attacked by soldiers."Her reply was calm. The conversation occurred in her mind, but she patched it through to her voice box and allowed Hollow to listen in. "I was told to escape south. I was intercepted by an attack aircraft. Several of my systems are damaged. Aether Wing right engine has been disabled-"
"Never mind the system report, Mobius Labs was attacked? Why?"
"They were targeting me."
"You?" Cicero went silent for a moment. After a moment, frantic movements could be heard, punctuated with crash of drawers being opened and a suitcase being stuffed. "We gotta run. Hide. Something."
"Correct." Trace was analyzing the audio, trying to comprehend what Cicero was doing.
"Government will be after you... after me." Another frantic thud of something being thrown to the floor. "It's like a movie. Ok, wait... like a movie..." Another pause, this time followed by a chair moving and rapid clicking of a keyboard. "We gotta meet up. Where are you?"
"Yale."
"Yale?" More clicking. "Yale. North by north east. Ok keep going south...uuuhhh... south, southwest. Go to Amboy, I'll meet you there."
"Confirmed. Heading south, southwest to Amboy." With that, the connection was terminated. Trace then addressed Hollow directly, "Ok little one, we can find help. Cicero will help us..." She stopped for a moment, a puzzled look appeared on her face. How will he help us? As she wondered that, she started to keep moving, crossing the road and heading in the direction specified.

You know, I completely forgot about this. Now I'm looking at it like "It's been 2 years."
And then I look at the edit history and I'm like "It took me two years to play about 800 hrs and go from iEagle to iCutter."

Reminiscing aside, We can probably finally make use of that damn inara wing...

Washington | Southern Forest

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When the creature confirmed it wished to go with her, Trace felt relief sweep over her. The portion of her near the barrier within her Encephalon watched as these feelings streamed out of the mysterious area. What is this place? And how long has it been here? Why is it injecting these emotions into my actions? The myriad of questions that stemmed from this discovery were set aside for the moment. "Let's go, then." She reached down to pick up the small creature as her Aether Wing module folded into one booster pack. "It'll be faster if I carry you, little one."

Washington | Southern Forest

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"You don't live here." Trace blinked and, right before she continued, suddenly seemed to freeze, with her head turned slightly, listening. "Search Helicopter. The soldiers are still looking for me."

"I need to go." She started to get up, but stopped. In the distance, the sound of the helicopter approaching grew louder. Trace turned back to the creature, a foreign idea entered her mind. "Do you want to come with me?"


She didn't know why she asked that question. Trace looked into her Encephalon, tracing back the origin of the question, finding a portion that was masked in a sort of mist. She reached out to it, only to find a barrier. A part of her mind was sealed off to her.

Washington | Southern Forest

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The comprehension came to Trace after a moment of piecing together all possibilities and settling on the most logical of them all: the creature couldn't communicate by vocalizations. From that, she came to the conclusion that she would have to resort to asking simple yes-or-no questions or questions basic enough for the creature to communicate by indication, as it did.

"You can't speak, but you can understand." Trace said this in her monotone, matter-of-fact voice. It was the logical conclusion for her to derive from what occurred. She then chose randomly from a list of questions she generated to ask the creature to help her understand what it was. "Do you live here?"

Washington | Southern Forest

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Hollow's features still perplexed Trace. Nothing she had in her vast databases could identify what it was. The developing organic thoughts prompted another peculiar response from Trace: she slowly moved a finger to the center point of Hollow's mask, near where one would guess a nose would be.
*boop*
She gently poked Hollow's mask, noting the texture and hardness. It didn't match anything she knew of. Eventually, her mechanical mind exhausted all possibilities and she defaulted to interacting to the creature in a different way. Her logic carried her to the next possibility: communicate with it.

"Hello." Trace's voice, while it sounded gentle and organic like that of a human, also carried a mechanical undertone.

Washington | Southern Forest

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As the little creature approached Trace, she flinched back slightly, taking a half step back. She paused though, noticing that it, too, was behaving in such a manner that gave away its own curious nature. Upon this realization, Trace slowly lowered herself to a kneeling position, cautiously reaching out to little Hollow.

A few things I should jot down here:

First off, Corrections to Trace, Evi, and Cicero's story stuff:
- Renaming the labs to Mobius Labs
- Renaming the Encephalon to the Mobius Encephalon

Trace and Evi Module status:
Rough outline and stats I intend to use.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gQ6evD2t-jESwRFelWYyZ7Zt-qgu7wrbvE17y6kPMrU/edit?usp=sharing

Evi Abilities:
- Evi can minimize her thermal signature and can "cancel" any sound she makes with a sound wave emitter *cough* speaker *cough*.
- Gave Evi 2 Mutegenic abilities in the prologue.
- - Poison Mist: Evi can secrete a potent poison vapor, which lingers where she was. Similar to VX Nerve Agent
- - Gravity Manipulation v1: Evi can locally manipulate the direction of gravity in a 3.5 ft radius sphere of influence around her. This allows her to traverse walls and ceilings without needing her Aether Wing.