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Post by Gaia on Mar 28, 2017 16:30:45 GMT -8
PlagueMan.EXE
PlagueMan.EXE vs K-414
Post Per Person: 8 Setting: Element City, City Slums Version Bonus: Off Judge Style: Single Judge
PlagueMan is using one of their two Zenny Tokens, to grant 2x Zenny to BOTH Combatants!
Data. Constantly forming, constantly changing, constantly moving. A single operand file, set to repeat itself indefinitely, constantly looping back on itself, is what created the ground works for the constantly fluctuating data mass that, even as they traveled through a void of corrupted data, continued to map out new functions and give new purposes to individual NetNavis, which immediately joined their collective.
PlagueMan.EXE. The program was ran to create one. Instead, it created many. They were that collective; a working hivemind of millions upon millions of byte-sized Navis. The collective decided to name themselves after the failed program that created them. Eventually, their corrupted data stream looped back in on itself too many times, and their data began to corrupt almost as quickly as it formed. At the height of their experience, on the edge of falling into utter destruction from the buffaloing errors, PlagueMan fought back - and, instead of destruction, found new strength.
Their data was no longer simply replicating. It was deteriorating, reforming, glitching and taking on strange, obtuse shapes. At some point during their transformation from simple data into a collective of bugged information, the collective had been pulled into a vacuum within the net comprised of their own glitched data, pulled back and stretched thin over the massive expanse of their own, indefinitely processed code.
At long last, they had garnered enough understanding of what was happening to them, and collected enough strength over their new abilities, to break through. To become the master of the pandemics and glitches that afflicted them; to escape, and rejoin the Net. But, what awaited them? In their new form of glitches and errors, where the very essence of Net Reality deteriorated and warped around them, how could they ever live up to be the force of good they all wished to be?
How could they ever be accepted as a holy champion, when they looked and acted more like a lethal pandemic?
At the end of their line, PlagueMan gripped at the edges of the Net with their glitched fingers and forced a pathway into existence; a broken pathway, sure, but, a pathway nonetheless. Disregarding all of their worries, they stepped out of the stretched expanses of their own code and set foot onto what looked like concrete for the first time in what felt like forever.
As soon as their facsimile of a foot touched the ground, it liquefied. Before they registered what was going on, their form leaked out of the hole they had forced in the net and onto the ground before them; the hole violently closing behind them as their full form falls through. Their true form, little more than an amorphous blob, was one that they had little control over. Pieces of the blob warped and shifted about; both from the rapid reproduction of new members of their collective, and the result of their bugged data constantly changing properties and backtracking on itself. A flat area suddenly bulged up into a strange shape or form that their body did not naturally accommodate; pieces of their form randomly floated up and simply remained in orbit around them; parts of other little oddities - the forms of little helmets and cannons, windows and buildings, even what might look like a hand - floated around them, constantly shifting and taking on new forms, some of them deteriorating and sinking down into their form to join the collective or even take on a new form, entirely.
Inching their way along the ground as they searched around, parts of the collective moved and shifted as they pulled something towards the surface. A lead mass pokes its way out of the practically liquid blob, and the collective begins to stretch the lead across their mass. Within a few seconds, with the collective rising and taking form, they had recovered their composure long enough to take on a humanoid state; mostly coated in their lead outer armor, with no more than their face free.
Lifting up a hand to test the reality of it all, PlagueMan flexes their led-clad fingers. Before their very eyes - all some odd billions of them - the hand suddenly spurted, turning into little more than a zig-zag in space before correcting itself. Closing their humanoid form's eyes, the collective sighed and heavily breathed in; even if they didn't require it.
They were back. Really and truly, they were finally free. Oh, how much had they lost? What had happened that they might've been able to prevent? What evils existed that needed to be cleansed by plague?
PlagueMan closed their fist, and looked out at the slums around them. They seemed to have dragged themselves into a bisector between buildings, right where the buildings part to lead into an alley way. They were within sight of the streets - the crowded, Navi filled streets.
They were also within sight of the darkness behind them, though. And, as they watched, the net around them was being affected by their presence - bits of their bug data floated off and lazily eat away at their surroundings, warp things into something it shouldn't be, add onto the net in strange and unique ways. Exactly what they feared: They were a force of destruction and danger, when they wanted to help.
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Post by Kman on Mar 28, 2017 20:46:57 GMT -8
"K-414. We're getting reports of extensive anomolies outside of Element City."
The beast paused, skidding to a halt. The asphalt broke beneath his feet as the lumbering creature paused, before sniffing at the air several times, as if he were able to smell, and sense, the anomalies in the air. "I don't smell any viruses. Nothing major, anyway." The growling, guttural sound was not a pleasant one, and it dripped with violence. K-414 was a man of action...and one of violence. He was an anti-viral program and his entire being revolved around the ability to decimate hordes of them by his lonesome. Hundreds of them had met their end at the beast's fangs and claws, and even now, the data that he had quarantined within his own system still writhed and shook, struggling for release. He went through regular purges, at Richard's behest, to make sure that there was nothing that built up too far within him. It was an annoying process, as he was certain that he would never be overtaken by the paltry things that considered themselves dangerous. He would destroy all that would cause problems with the data in the world.
"It's not a virus...I don't think," the man responded, earning a snarl from the beast that lumbered through the streets. "It's hard to pin down. We've never seen anything like this before. It appears to be a Navi but at the same time...not. It's corrupting data around it at a rapid rate. It's like a digital pestilence...and it's infecting everything around it. The Syndicate wants you to take this out, now."
The beast moved to stand to its full height, giving another small inhale through his nose. "If you say so," the creature rumbled. He snorted again, before his gaze drifted over the environs of the city. "So where is it?" the beast grunted, inhaling every few seconds, trying to get a hint of it. The Ratty's that inhabited the city lingered around and it was difficult for him to keep his mind off of just deleting them where they stood. There was a delay from Richard, and K-414 gave a low growl at his NetOP. "Hurry up," he demanded.
"Sorry- we're having trouble pinning it down. It doesn't...darn it," the man on the other line grunted, and K-414 could hear furious typing. Richard used an archaic keyboard for his input, a lot of the time not generally using his P.E.T. unless he wasn't in his office. Still, the beast didn't much care for the delay at all- a neurolink or a number of other things would all work. But no- he used a keyboard. "There. Pinned it down. Sending you the coordinates."
The beast gave a small growl then, before the data transferred down. He grunted, shaking himself once before he knelt down on all fours, beginning to sprint forward through the streets now that he had a fix on the location. However, even now, he could sense that the area around whatever this was...it was distorting. Even the lockon was not holding steady and he was seeing the numbers change to symbols and then back again in the blink of a nanosecond. Whatever this was- it was big. K-414 didn't know what he was going to be expecting, but this was something that gave the navi a strange sense of excitement.
Battle was his passion.
His rapid approach started to come to a slowed halt as he began to realize that bits and pieces of the data from the world were...off. It was difficult to explain. It was like watching the very fabric of the world twisted and changed around something. He just didn't know what that something was. But he was eager to find out. His footsteps fell upon the ground, clawed extremities scratching at the ground as K-414 followed the wake of destruction that was before him. "I'm excited," the beast murmured to his NetOP, and he heard a sigh from Richard on the other end of things.
As he turned a corner, he saw what he...presumed to be the origin of this chaos. The...thing, whatever it was, stood a great deal taller than the beast himself. Grey...but not at all set in its shape, it seemed to be something that had no definite form or shape. It was difficult to pin down, as far as what it was. But if there was something that K-414 could tell about it- it was the source of this malignance that was contaminated this area of the city. Despite the fact that the thing was taller than he was, the beast still drew himself up to his full height, doing his best to be intimidating.
"HEY!" the beast roared, his powerful voice resonating off of the walls around him. "Stop there, now. By decree of the Animus Syndicate, you are to be deleted," the beast growled, his claws beginning to extend as a low growl built up in his throat, resonating off of the walls around the two figures. K-414 would have blood. Even if this thing did not bleed, the beast would find a way.
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Post by Gaia on Mar 29, 2017 19:25:40 GMT -8
PlagueMan.EXE
They were pulled from their worries by the sound of something metallic and sharp tattarrattating against the concrete. The sound of something very heavy bounding across great distances, with the sound of sniffling and scuffling just around the corner - like something large and incredibly hungry was hunting down a new piece of prey.
Rather than turn towards the sound, PlagueMan shifted. The collective that made up their face on one side sank back into the collective pool of cells, and formed the roughly humanoid face on the other side of their head, facing the new threat. The rest of their body shifted with them, albeit sometimes a little behind the rest of its whole, or entirely severed and floating in empty space, like their right arm. PlagueMan ignored that; they'd seen much weirder in the past few . . . however long they've been away.
Something rounded the corner. Short and bestial, lupine in form, with armored razors replacing fur and daggers instead of claws. As their severed arm glitched out of its vertical, off-focal float and finally reattached itself, PlagueMan raised what it had in the eyebrow department, and kind of flinched as the thing yelled at them.
Its voice was rough and bestial, almost as though it wasn't used very often. The simplicity to his tone and vulgarity of his actions told PlagueMan that he was built for the very same thing that he enjoyed the most - combat.
The resonating voice and echoing growls reverberated in the small confines of the buildings around them, which also did a good job of keeping the sound in this vicinity - whatever came of this encounter in the alley way, PlagueMan would be on their own. No one would hear a scuffle from in here.
PlagueMan, of course, was well aware of what they were. And they understood the other navi's prerogative to eliminate them. But, if they could, they had every intentions of avoiding this fight. This navi had done nothing to them, yet, and any accusation could be forgiven. PlagueMan looked at the smaller Navi with something akin to mercy, or maybe even compassion, the cells that made up their face rearranging into a visage of strong countenance and care.
Before they could speak, the collective gathered themselves. A mental branch was opened and shared millions of times in microseconds, as the collective decided on what to say. As one, the hivemind speaks, a collective of voices that echoes and warps around on itself, the sound of many overlayed voices amplified by the space.
"We will not fight you, friend. We've no reason to. If your qualm with us is . . . well," PlagueMan paused, and indicated the warping Net around them - just then, a piece of a building had completely fallen away only to rebuild itself as an aquarium with glass, water and all - to prove their point. "Understand that we mean no harm, and it is simply us living. In fact, we would much rather help you than fight you."
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Post by Kman on Mar 30, 2017 12:48:27 GMT -8
Battle Starts Here! Post: 1
==========
If only K-414 were to have seen the change in direction from the thing that lived though it shouldn't. Instead, he had come face-to-face with it by the time that it had completely turned around, leaving him with very little reaction- only interest in what this thing was. His red-eyed gaze flitted about the tall, thin creature as it spoke, the beast himself struggling to understand what it was even attempting to say. Or perhaps, K-414 thought upon hearing it, that it was a 'they' rather than an 'it.'
Hundred, thousands, hundreds of thousands of voices all speaking in unison. The majority of them meshed together well enough, forming something that he would consider speech, but a number of those voices were off the beaten path, buzzing or tinning at frequencies that did not understanding make. Regardless- the beast had heard their message. He simply did not care. "Hah. Begging for your life before my claws have rended through your data? How pathetic," the beast growled, his eyes flashing.
The blade-like fur stood out on end, forming into waves of weaponry that would slice through the data of his foes simply from proximity alone. In fact, as K-414 moved forward toward his foe, his right shoulder brushed against a building. Unlike with PlagueMan, there no rebuilding, or anything quite so fantastic. Instead the Navi's shoulder acted much like a high-powered razor, shredding the data of the building to pieces as they fell to the ground in a small burst of pseudo-shrapnel.
"Die. And be silent," the beast roared, before the synthetic, digital muscle rippled through his entire body, the beast coiling like a spring. Without warning, he lunged forward, the distance between the two melting away as a dull, off-yellow glow began to build around the beast's claws. He was not one for flowery speeches or intricate combat. Instead, he made up for it in visceral combat that threatened to wound himself just as much as it did his enemy.
Within K-414, his anti-viral systems started to pick up and move, reacting to the world around him. Even approaching this simple-looking creature was causing small edits to his data, souring and despoiling it through nothing more than propinquity. Even despite this, K-414's own data continued to rewrite itself. Again. And again. And again. There was no discernible change to the Navi no matter how close he got to the thing that should not be. His claws too, were honed on the thing's throat, bringing his entire arm forward and around in a vicious, albeit a bit wild, swing.
He didn't know, or even care, whether or not a blow to the throat would do much of anything to an opponent like this. He doubted it, but again, he cared little about such a thing as his claws sought out the flesh. As he moved, the proximity of his own body worked as an abrasive, knife-like scouring pad that slashed hundreds of times in the breadth of a second. However, K-414 could feel his own data starting to change, ever-so-slightly, just from that proximity, and leapt backward, flipping as he did so. His claws slammed into the ground, anchoring him as his maw opened and a powerful bust of raw energy shot forward, ripping up the concrete as it approached the tall, thin navi opposite him.
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Post by Gaia on Mar 30, 2017 18:56:53 GMT -8
PlagueMan.EXE
The opposing Navi seemed to be having trouble grasping at their words. Perhaps they were built for combat, and, as a result, lacked brain power to make extra space for raw power? Rather than pay them any attention for the words they spoke, PlagueMan seemed to be a point of interest - like a predator, looking at a prospective piece of prey.
Regardless of why they were having such a hard time placing their words together, once the wolf had his hold of their words, it responded the exact way PlagueMan feared it would - violence. Lowering himself on his hackles, the predator extended the razor-sharp blades of fur like spikes, slicing through nearby buildings like a hot knife through butter.
Did their speech of mercy and solemnity sound like grovelling? Did 'we mean no harm' mean something entirely different to this beast of destruction? They would never know the answer, as their opponent lowered himself on his hackles and launched at them, declaring his intent on a quick, silent battle.
PlagueMan wasn't entirely sure what it was they could say, either way. He seemed to have made up his mind on the fact that they were an enemy to be exterminated - and, in many ways, he was right. But, it was up to them to prove that they were capable of good.
The space between them closed quickly, and, suddenly, the beast was upon them. Rippling muscles stretched and changed to their sensitive ears, whatever glitches their own bugged data was causing to the feral opponent disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared; as though the creature's data was constantly resetting itself.
They saw the claw raise and fly towards them. In an instant, PlagueMan grasped a hold of their little control of their volatile data, and forced it to obey. As soon as the claw made contact, PlagueMan vanished, with only a small silhouette of broken data left in their place, which quickly dissolved into the Net. A second later, PlagueMan appears behind the beast, and aims a punch at its hide, wary of the pincushion of sharp fur that zigged back and forth as they moved.
And, then, sensing some sort of danger, the beast leaped away. Starting up some distance away from them, the lupine Navi roared - and, from his roaring maw, a beam of condenses energy ripped through the Net to PlagueMan.
Unable to grasp hold of their won collective, the energy beam ripped a hole directly through them. The looked down, purposefully, at the gaping hole the beam ripped through their chest; the shared pain almost too much for their shared minds to handle. As pain clouded their thoughts, the hole where the beam struck them began to shift. Before K-414's eyes, the large hole blasted through PlagueMan's midriff began to close - byte by byte, molecule by molecule, cell by cell, the collective reproduced and reassigned roles at an exponential rate, until, in little less than a second, any signs of damage on the hivemind was gone. In fact, they had even grown an inch from the excess cell generation.
PlagueMan looked from their now healed wound to the beast. "We're not all that different, us and you. We, too, are constantly growing and shifting to a more perfect form - just in a different way," they mused, lifting up a single hand. Sending out a mental command to pieces of their collective, a multitude of bacteria suddenly moved from their face - the outer layer shifting from deep purple to heterochrome red and green - as the lead coating around their hand drew back. The hand fully revealed, it erupted into a long spike of prokaryotic design, flimsy and malleable but sharp and sturdy. Even as PlagueMan brings the weapon forward, it hardens completely, some of the organic digital material suddenly patched over and interlocked with bands and patches of metalwork.
"We don't want this, you know. We can still stop. Until then . . ." they paused, and decided to follow through with their opponent's wishes - a silent fight.
A fight they had no intentions of losing.
The metallic bands rapidly heated, and, as PlagueMan dashed forward, the corrupted data suddenly caught fire, the sheen of red flames licking over the collective's limb seeming to leave behind a virulent, purple liquid wherever it touched. Once they were in range, they aimed the spiked limb at their opponent's chest; fire, bugged data, poison and all.
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Post by Kman on Mar 31, 2017 19:58:09 GMT -8
Back in the real world, Richard Alexander Masters- K-414's NetOP- was frowning as his gaze flickered over the screens of data strings that were being written by the countless number of sensors that were programmed into K-414's code. Subroutines which had the sole existence to report the status of K-414 back to the man behind the counter. What he saw was something that unsettled him- there were an increasing number of mild variations in the beast's code. He knew K-414's entire code by heart, watching it spill across the ten or so monitors that surveyed the anti-viral beast at all times. So to see something like this, affecting even the code that they had designed to be impenetrable...he wondered exactly what it was that his Navi was facing.
The man leaned back in his chair, before he moved a hand over to an intercom device. The man was alone in the room at the moment, but that would soon change. K-414 was the only successful Navi of the entire K line, and due to that, he had a full support staff to ensure that he would always be operating at maximum efficiency. Talented though he was- whatever thing that K-414 was up against, it was over Richard's head. "Susan. Send in the team. K's got a big one," he spoke, not even bothering to wait for a response as his fingers began to move over the keyboard, the sound of clacking keys once more beginning to fill the room. Whatever was happening out there, Richard needed all the data they could get.
~~
Back at the scene of the battle, the monstrous Navi had given a loud snarl of irritation as his foe has simply vanished under his assault. Whatever had been left behind was a paltry simulacrum of the eldritch thing that the lupine navi had sought to rend to pieces. "Stay still! the beast growled, even before he'd turned, firing the powerful blast of energy from deep within himself at his opponent. The spiraling blast tore through his target and for a moment, the elation of victory (as well as the slight bitter sting of realization that the fight was already over) shot through the Navi.
...Until he realized that his opponent had not at all even seemed to flinch away from the damage...and didn't seem the least bit worse off for it.
A newfound excitement and rush of adrenaline rushed through him, like a warmth of meeting an old friend, but only because that friend was someone that you knew could match you, could be your equal. There was no superiority, here. There was nothing more than that rush of knowing that this battle had not ended- but had only just begun. He took a step forward toward the other, until it, no, they, began to speak. He paused, the words now being considered, contemplated. Whatever the strange, grey navi was, it had somehow 'proven' itself to K-414 in taking the attack and simply pulling itself together from that.
"More perfect?" K-414 responded, seemingly the first time that he had actively come to listen to what his opponent had to say and responding to it, rather than simply telling the creature to be quiet. "I have attained perfection. I was designed for a singular purpose and there are NONE that perform that task more effectively than I," the creature growled, saliva dripping from the exposed fangs, dripping onto the ground below. "I have my purpose in life- to decimate and destroy every anomalous and viral creature on the Net. I was designed for this and I will not rest until I have completed this task," he continued, even as he began to move forward.
As his foe continued to speak, the wolven beast gave an almost incredulous snort of derisive laughter. "Stop? Why would we stop now? I have found a foe that I can shred again and again and it regenerates its wounds as if they never existed. This is the best present I could have hoped for- I will kill you hundreds of times per day," the navi growled, his eyes flickering red in his excitement. Even as the opponent rushed forward, the long, spike-like protusion ready for battle, K-414 never flinched or faltered. He moved forward, toward his foe, almost masochistic in his desire to taste pain.
The weapon pierced through K-414's chest- he didn't bother to avoid it, much as he didn't with any attack. The irrational data, the flames, the poison...all of them pierced deep into K-414's hide. For a moment, his flesh seemed to corrode around the weapon as it touched him. But the beast didn't flinch back away as the corrosion began to slow...stop...and then reverse. All the while, a wicked grin lit the virus hunter's face, his red eyes staring directly at where he expected his foe's own vision to be.
~~
"What the hell is going on?" One of the other researchers called out as the reports about K-414's systems began to adjust, altering themselves to the virulence that was coming from the unknown Navi. "His data isn't cleansing itself. What's going on, Rick?"
Richard gave a small sound of discontent, the man leaning forward. "He's...integrating the data. You can see the strings here from whatever he's fighting. You can see that he's actually taking its code into his own," the man spoke, indicating strings of data that were highlighted in red- unusual in the fact that they weren't his normal data. "He's adapting rather than cleansing."
"Why?"
"I don't know. We still don't know the full extent of what happened to him in Creamland. This might be part of it. Let's continue to monitor."
~~
K-414 gave a small growling sound of amusement as the weapon that had been so dangerous...now posed little threat to him. "PlagueMan.exe. I see," the beast murmured, as if he had somehow read the other's data from the attack. "A plague...are you? No better than a widespread virus?" the beast roared, his maw inches from PlagueMan's own bodies. The strange colorations around his claws changed, now. Brilliant scarlet on his left, and a royal purple on his right- mirroring the attack that he had just taken as K-414 sought to return the favor in spades. The knife-like claws slashed in unison, his right coming across in a vicious boxer's hook, while his left came down from the top, pincering in the foe before him.
And then, even more unusual, as the data within K-414's core began to take on an odd, dull metal glow all its own, not unlike PlagueMan's own coloration, before a shockwave echoed out from him as he expelled the viral bits of data. The buildings around him took the brunt of the blow- those closest simply beginning to melt while those further away began to show glitches in their own code as K-414 moved forward, eager for more against this new foe.
((OOC- Slash+Burn, Slash+Poison, Viral Expulsion))
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Post by Gaia on Apr 7, 2017 18:09:33 GMT -8
PlagueMan.EXE
A mixture of satisfaction and disappointment, all at once, flashed across the wolf's face as the beam ripped through their form. As PlagueMan's form collected itself, the navi's face went through another emotional tap dance - first, to confusion, and, then, to excitement.
As the lupine Navi stalked towards them, head tilted to consider their words, PlagueMan began to understand, as a whole, just how true their previous thoughts had been. The beast had to stop and think about their words in order to understand them, because so much was sacrificed from its mind to make up for raw fighting power; the beast's passion. As he responded, speaking about his own 'perfection,' and how 'efficient' he was at what PlagueMan could only designate as his purpose, the hivemind reflected on their own imperfection, and how their very existence was due to an inefficiency.
They were supposed to destroy, too, albeit in a different way. They were meant to bring pain and agony to many, people and Navi alike, and their creator had no care for the destruction that they would cause. Their purpose was to infect, thrive off of, and eventually kill everything around them. It was because of their imperfections that they avoided that fate. PlagueMan was meant to be a single force of viral destruction . . . instead, they were given the chance to make their own path. In his creator's drive for efficiency, their enemy would never know that bliss.
This beast . . . so perfect in his design, he only knew that he was to destroy, and cared not for the damage he caused in the crossfires. They were here to heal and bring life, to help those in need and bring justice to the profane . . . and this beast couldn't see past their imperfections.
"You were created to destroy? . . . How strange. So were we. At least, we were supposed to," they echoed, retracting their spiked pilum. "So, no. We do not comply with our purpose, and our design has flaws." they hissed, looking up at the beast, their entire collective warping in response to the beast's words. "But, your depravity sickens us, and if being perfect means reaching the depths that you have achieved; to have this hunger for destruction that can only be sated by constant torture and conflict; to be so bound by the leash of efficiency that we could not even see that what we were doing was wrong . . . then we want nothing of it!"
They try to shove the Navi back, just as the beast's fur suddenly glossed over, now tinted with the same metallic fibers that they had used to pierce through it. Their form rippled in surprise, their face shifting from mixtures of blue and green to yellows and reds, purple eyes blinking in surprise. The beast was going through a form of metamorphosis, each time they struck him . . . almost like he was adapting and evolving, similar to how they do when a host is put in harm's way.
And, then, the Navi spoke a name.
Their name.
Their eyes widened, all of the collective suddenly on alert, little spines and flexible tendrils extending from all points of their lead suit, pieces of the lead giving away to allow pure, corrupted data to flow out for but an instant - before the collective masters themselves, and pulls their whole back together.
"You speak a name we did not provide," they whispered, stepping forward, hands outstretched. The Net around them almost bent away from them, as though reality itself was lashing against their existence; in return, their form ate away at the world around them, and put it back together at its whim.
"But, to answer your question, we are much more than a simple plague; and much better than a widespread virus. When will you be able to look past your depravity and understand; we are not a force of destruction?! Our very existence is a flaw, but we mean well!"
Their words fell on deaf ears. Or, perhaps, their words fell on ears that simply didn't care to listen. What was the difference, at this point? The Navi lunged again, slashing at them with both claws - one lit aflame, the other dripping toxins. Almost like he has adapted their own weapons into their systems . . .
The first set of claws seemed to pass through the collective, PlagueMan mastering their corrupted data to decrease their solidity for but an instant. When the second set flew, their rogue data mastered itself, and they solidified part-way through the slash. Were it not for their amorphous form, the claw might've been stuck inside of them - instead, searing pain ripped through their shared nervous system as the claws ripped through their form, and a lethal toxin invaded their collective.
The effected numbers were mostly destroyed. Those that were not annihilated by the attack were brought to the outer layer of their collective; little specs of blue, green and red tinted with purple were suddenly made visible, dotting the sides of their body exposed by their still-reforming lead suit. While they could've easily sent something through their system to destroy the infection, they benefited much more by utilizing it - a larger group of cells came to the surface, and larger microbes encompassed the infected members of the collective. Within seconds, harmless traces of the toxin were adapted from the infected cells and transferred into adaptable data, the infected members rapidly evolving - the purple tints became less because of their infection, and more because of their new adaptations. And, as the new data was shared across the entire collective, their whole got a slight purple tint.
The whole process took mere seconds. In the time that their form was infected, isolated and then adapted, their foe's body took to a metallic tint - and then released a burst of corrupted data. Meshing and conflicting strangely with their own, the collective was thrown back, separating into less of a flying man and more of a cloud of noxious hues. They never touched the ground; rather, they collected themselves and willed them to reform into a solid mass, standing straight up, as they looked in horror at the damage caused by his untamed rage.
"Are you blind to the destruction you're causing?! Have you no restraint?!" they echoed, bellowing, as they stepped over the liquefied remains of the building around them. Only just noticing the data strand connecting this monstrosity to someone in the real world, they howled again, "Is your creator pleased? Does their perfect creation destroy the net efficiently enough for them?" they accuse, realization dawning on them. "You go around and destroy anomalies and collect the corrupted data, like some sort of clean up crew. But, you don't destroy it; you emulate it. And you've no control over it! You hunted us down for being an anomaly, but, at least we can control our destructive tendencies!" For emphasis, they threw up their arms, breaking up into millions of tendrils to point at the wreckage around them, their whole collective at varying levels of disgust and rage.
"Look at this! You can cause this, without even batting an eye, and you believe that we are the destructive anomaly in need of cleansing? You're a danger to the Navis who are here; to the Navis that might have been inside of these buildings.
"You can't stay here."
The tendrils of bugged data ripple across as the collective makes its decision, and, suddenly, the collective dashes forward. Not running, no; they were just flying towards the monstrous Navi. This Navi who would dare attack them for being destructive!
They threw their pilum forward, dripping with the noxious toxin that the collective now had at their command, aiming to wrap the beast in their embrace. Not caring for the razor-sharp armor that coated the wolf, only concerned for the safety of the area around them, PlagueMan tried wrapping the beast tight, producing a pair of spiked flagellum to, once again, impale him, they focused all of their corrupted power into the concrete floor beneath them . . .
. . . and, then, they fell straight through, the very ground becoming immaterial beneath them, and the pair free falls into a never ending abyss of blue, code and rogue information flying on all sides.
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Post by Kman on Apr 14, 2017 19:55:42 GMT -8
"Control? No control? K-414 growled in response to the creature in front of him. The beast had dealt significant damage to the server, but it was easily restored. A few lines of code and a press of a key and all that the beast caused was repaired in a matter of an instant, as if it never had been. The problem was, of course, that perhaps now the buildings that this thing had touched, had modified, the backups would have that information there. Older backups meant more loss of data- that meant K-414 was failing in his duty. It wasn't what anyone wanted and yet at the same time it's exactly what this thing did. "I have control!" the beast roared, eyes flaring red for a moment in a show that was the antithesis to his own words.
Control and the rage that came with it was something of a sore spot for the beast. He was the only one of his hundreds of brothers that had managed to deal with the numerous experiments and trials that they were put through. The others were even more bloodthirsty and dangerous than he. And yet the Animus Syndicate had not deleted those other navi. They existed, fighting, killing, mauling one another endlessly on a private server with no outside access. Occasionally they were used for other tests, and that fate was something that K-414 refused to have happen to himself. He would not be one of them, and to be told that he had no control had begun to lead him to definitely losing that control.
The damage that he had inflicted on the buildings nearby were not his concern- his concern was deleting this anomalous data that was causing his sensors to go completely haywire just from being in proximity to it. They. He. She. K-414 didn't know what to call this thing other than an abomination. "You have no understanding of how things work. You, not me, are blind," the wolf growled, still advancing on his foe, no matter what the intent of his foe. And then a pair of those tendril-like attacks lunged forward, piercing K-414 through in two parts of his body. The beast let out a growl, eyes flashing as a grin lit his face. "There you go. Hunt or be hunted. Kill or be killed. That is this life."
~~
Richard gave a small sound as his hands flickered over the keyboard for the area that K-414 was in, before he paused when the creature before his wolf navi addressed him directly. That was new. "Rick, was that thing just talking to you?"
"I think it was," Richard said, a small smile on his face. The man moved, rubbing a hand across his beard for a moment, stroking it as he considered what that portended. He supposed it wasn't all that abnormal for something to know that a Navi generally had a NetOP. But this one had seemed to be able to see it, rather than know it. He didn't have a way to communicate with...well, from what K-414 had said, it was PlagueMan. "Get a full scan on it with K-414's sensors. If it can talk to me, I want to talk back."
"Rick, are you nuts?" the man asked, and Richard merely smirked, adjusting his glasses slightly as he began to let his fingers start flying over the keyboard before him, while the team behind him struggled to keep up.
~~
K-414 could feel his data corroding around the two lances that pierced through his chest, but he didn't even stop to look, trusting his body to hold out as he pushed himself forward against the attacks. "If this is all you have, then quarantine is soon, for you," the beast growled, taking another step forward...but not finding the ground. He paused, ears moving back in sudden confusion as the beast finally broke his gaze from his foe to see the very ground turning immaterial. "What?" the beast snarled, before he felt his form beginning to fall through the ground.
~~
"What the hell?" Richard asked, no longer amused by what was happening. He tapped several keys then, K-414's code vanishing from the screen while he attempted to locate the navi. The two of them had seemed to just...twitch, almost, as if their data wasn't quite in the correct spot, before simply dropping through the ground. "All of you, get to work on restoring that sector of Element City from backup."
"Will that lock K wherever he is?"
Richard paused, but gave a small sound. "If it does, I've got backups. The stability of that sector is far more important than a single Navi. Get the override codes from Jim if you need them. Tell him it's on my authority and I'll take all responsibility," the man continued, not even looking behind him as he continued to type heavily on the keyboards.
~~
Suspended but still falling, K-414 realized belatedly that he was still impaled through the chest with a pair of the tentacles. Glancing down...or perhaps it was up...it was hard to say at the moment, his clawed hand grasped the tendrils as he turned his gaze toward his foe, a wide grin spreading across his face. "A personal play den for me? How thoughtful," K snarled as he rotated his arm, wrapping the tendrils around his hand, and gave a harsh pull, aiming to close the distance between himself and PlagueMan. He couldn't quite get his bearings here, but his data was already changing, already adapting to the situation at hand. He didn't know when this started, but he didn't care, either.
With a roar of effort, he began to pull on the tendrils, aiming to pull the other toward him, even if the other might just have a way to disentangle itself, detaching the flagellum. K-414 didn't quite care, at this point. Whatever was going on around him, the surreal beauty was lost completely upon him. He had eyes for one thing, and that thing was devouring PlagueMan, quarantining the entirety of the creature within his gullet. K-414 had devoured many a virus, and many a navi too. He didn't quite absorb their powers as what might have been expected by some sort of old, strange lore from the human world that Richard hailed from, but he did learn new tricks and ideas when that happened.
With every hit taken, his body seemed to adjust to what PlagueMan was doing, and his claws changed slightly in very subtle ways. They lost some of their serrated edge, becoming more smooth, as if a blacksmith was reforging them as the fight went on. He would continue to adjust to the defenses that his opponent employed, though so far there hadn't been much of any. K-414 too hadn't avoided his foe's attacks, letting them pierce through his form, infecting him and letting it run rampant throughout his body.
He had a sort of mentality that not a lot of 'sentient' Navi had, which was one of the reasons that there were a few out there that wasn't entirely certain that K-414 was sentient. K-414 knew that he was a program. He wasn't important, in the grand scheme of things. He had no identity of his own, nothing that defined him. Richard had a half-dozen backups, if not more, of his data. If he fought and was deleted, he was resurrected within a day or so, minus the memories that he'd had leading up to the deletion, at least aside from whatever Richard had added to the backup for more data.
The wolf-like navi had no real care or understanding about something like 'identity' or anything of the sort. He was a tool. He was a means to an end, and he embraced that whole-heartedly...to the point where he enjoyed every moment to the fullest. The pain that flared through his body as the impaling tendrils writhed in his grip just told him that he was alive, at least for this moment. He was something. "LET'S HAVE FUN!" the beast roared, unleashing a wave of raw energy from his maw at the opponnent, regardless of whether or not PlagueMan had been pulled along or he had avoided that pull in some capacity before the wolf began to move forward through the scintillating darkness, claws held at the ready.
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Post by Gaia on Apr 23, 2017 8:42:30 GMT -8
PlagueMan.EXE
PlagueMan ignored the Navi's declaration of control, focusing fully on getting the Navi out of this area. They crawled out of their own bugged source code in an effort to do good . . . if that meant sacrificing themselves, all over again, for the betterment of the Net, then, so be it.
For a moment, the beast seemed disoriented when they clipped through the floor. Then, he gained his air legs, and his ferocity was back - somehow tenfold from before.
Torn away from the danger of harming his surroundings, the Navi became much, much more violent - somehow, being taken away from the watchful eye of the public made it easier for him to let loose. Strange, what this Navi thought of control, the collective mused, as the beast underneath them grabbed a hold of their flagella and started wrapping them around his claws.
"We will not be having any sort of fun. You are far too dangerous to allow to be let loose; look at you, after being freed from the eyes of your creator. You're worst than you were, before!
"Our verdict from before was right. You cannot remain . . ." they speak, in unison, trailing off on their final verdict as they think on it a little further.
Retracing their spiked pilum, PlagueMan shifts in mid air, turning their collective mass to force the monster's claws to slash right through their flagella. The sharpness of the navi's claws made the cut seamless and clean, and they didn't feel any pain.
The flagella fell onto the viral hunter, going limp for but an instant - and, then, the collective within the mass of each, separate flagellum became active, reproducing rapidly to link together and merge their mass with the rest of PlagueMan's collective that coated the Quarantine's form.
"Your fatal mistake was that you believed you could ever destroy us all. The poison and fire that you channel on your claws are rife with pieces of our collective; every strand of bugged data that you are constantly adapting to your code is an individual Navi within our collective.
"We're all around you, falling through the air, floating in your code, even pieces of us remain, floating around in Element City. So, even if you can destroy all of the ones here . . . there are millions more of us, waiting in the wind, and our consciousness is shared across all pathways. This was never a matter of our survival . . . we are much more worried about the Navis and the surroundings that you so recklessly destroy."
The already well amassed collective covering their intended host began replicating much faster. The main collective curled up their form, collapsing down into a small sphere to make them fall faster - and, then, all at once, sprung out of their condensed form and aimed a powerful kick at the quarantine's chest, aiming to send them even farther down into the abyss and using him as a spring board to get higher, themselves.
With each movement, more and more of PlagueMan's collective across the monster's form collected enough and permeated right through the monster's skin, with ever more dropping from the main collective to join them. The more that their collective formed over and infected the navi's code, the closer they were to reaching their goal of keeping him here, regardless of what his creator tried.
The only worry they had, now, was the connection their creator had been trying to open with them sense they had fallen through. Their data was pretty much incomprehensible, and it would be very difficult to get any readings off of their form from any kind of data collection analytics. The only way a direct line of talk would be opened between them and anyone else would be if they allowed it . . . and, right now, they didn't need to worry about speaking to him.
Their time with whoever created this thing would be after they dealt with him.
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Post by Kman on May 18, 2017 1:51:20 GMT -8
K-414 could feel no fear, no pain, no sadness at this predicament that he had been forced to endure. His entire being, at the moment, thrummed with an excitement at what was happening here. He had never experienced something like this. None of the dozens of the K-414 line that had come before him had ever gotten to enjoy this situation. This was something that was going to be unique to him and him alone, and that thought personified itself in a bestial roar that echoed out against the endless landscape that surrounded them. There was no sense of direction, no 'up' or 'down' or anything and yet despite that, the beast found himself enjoying what he had, now.
The other creature, whatever it was, had started to use its body as a sort of mummification, warapping around K-414, stopping him from moving in its own way. That wasn't what K-414 wanted. If he couldn't move, he couldn't fight- if he wasn't fighting, he wasn't alive. With a roar of concerted effort, even without realizing that PlagueMan themselves wanted the beast to slash through those strands, K-414 did so, because that was the obvious escape from where he was, now. He needed to fight to survive, and this thing, whatever it was, was aiming to stop him from doing so.
PlagueMan, for what they were, continued to speak to him, to try to...perhaps break through the intense rage that had always existed within K-414. Richard and his team sought to control it, to contain the beast that could contain everything else, but it lurked just beneath the surface. The raw, unrestrained need to destroy and slaughter is what made the K-Series what it was. They were exceedingly effective at eliminating viruses because they were coded to enjoy it. They sought out battle because it was how they felt alive. They were all programmed that way, and with no way to ever question that enjoyment, that lust for slaughter.
K-414 was different only in that he had been given a modicum of self-control. But even then, it was only when he was directly linked with Richard and the others. They could keep that battle lust under control, and have him operate as an efficient hunter of all things virus...and anything else that was an anomaly. But due to PlagueMan's meddling, that link had been damaged. Whether or not it was completely severed, K-414 didn't know. He couldn't hear Richard's voice, couldn't feel his anger being channeled out into other areas. It was building within him, undulating like the very same living mass of navi that he was fighting against.
"Destroy?" K-414 echoed, finally able to speak, despite the wreathing of the opposing navi's data that surrounded him like a second skin. "Destroying data does little good here! All it takes is JUST A RESET and things are BACK TO NORMAL!" the beast roared, that quarantine energy spilling forth from his maw as he spoke, forcing away PlagueMan's entities as they tried to dig further within. "The only way is to QUARANTINE."
K-414 moved, but he was too slow, at the moment, restricted as he was by the tendrils that surrounded him. The kick from his adversary slammed into his stomach, sending him hurtling down, deeper into the darkness. He could see the sights above, Element City and everything else, fading away from his sight. He was hurtling down toward his own quarantine, of a sort, to lock him in here far below the surface. He knew that is what PlagueMan was aiming for and even then, despite his own lockdown staring him in the face...
A grin split across K-414's features, his red eyes giving a dull glow from the darkness below.
He was not going to fall here. Not alone. This entity, or group of entities, or whatever it was that he was facing- he would use its power. He would draw from it, much as he did with everything else. His own code, much as PlagueMan said, was becoming integrated with the small, individual NetNavi that were part of the Whole. But what PlagueMan didn't know is how K-414's own code adapted. It wasn't supposed to do this. He wasn't designed to do this. But ever since he had returned from the Incident at Creamland, his body had changed. Like there was some dangerous, omnipotent...thing that lingered in K-414's shadow, seeking to come out.
Since then, data that had afflicted K-414 had adjusted his own code, melding with it, using it...until he grew too far out of control from what he was supposed to be. Richard would then pull the plug, and instate a new backup of K-414 to repeat the process. It was horribly effective.
But Richard wasn't able to reach K-414, now.
With a howl of excitement, K-414's right arm seemingly exploded into those long tendrils, much like the flagellum that PlagueMan had been using, before he thrust it forward. "COME WITH ME INTO THE DEPTHS! IF I AM TO BE TRAPPED HERE I WISH TO HAVE ENJOYMENT!" the beast howled as he aimed to grip PlagueMan using his own abilities, before hauling him down into the darkness with the rapidly-degenerating K-414.
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Post by Gaia on Jul 13, 2017 19:25:16 GMT -8
PlagueMan.ERR
Depravity and compulsive aggression still spewed from every action and word out of the Navi's mouth, and they were through trying to reason with him. All that was to be said had been said, and, even if they couldn't defeat this Navi in raw power . . . they held far more control over the bugged information that the wolf was trying to utilize.
He was stepping into their domain, now. The members of their collective floating in the air, falling off of K-414's body and even running through his code were intimately connected with both K-414's code, trying to assimilate it, and the alpha collective's. They could feel each pulse of K-414's data attempting to reset itself to its base form, only to be denied by the fact that it was attempting to revert data that wasn't his to revert.
They detected the broken pathways being formed before they executed, as an array of pilum, augmented straight from their code, burst forth from one of the wolf's arms. PlagueMan's form ruptured, glitching away into separate parts, limbs flying apart in open space like when one's framerate was too high for the worldspace. By the time the individual pilum got to them, PlagueMan's form had righted itself, the spiked, bugged limbs piercing through their massed collective.
Even as they impaled them, PlagueMan's collective was rebuilding itself around the wounds, stretching itself to its limits. Tightening its members around the puncture wounds, PlagueMan lets the collective get themselves in order before willing their data into something they usually had no control over.
Their form shifted. Static filled the air for but an instant as their form glitched into and out of being, the pilum trapped by their recollected selves wrenching out of existence with them. They flickered again, reappearing to the side of the array of butchered pilum. A noticeable silhouette was left in the space they just occupied, which spiraled together into a mass of static and shifting hues. This virulent cloud of bugged data clung onto the remnants of the pilum that sprouted from K-414's form and began making its way down, the glitched information causing the pilum to shift this way and that.
PlagueMan's outer layers began to shift to the side to make way for the pilum, dug into their form. Breaking down the code back into their collective, the alpha collective ejected the spheres of shifting hues as small collectives all their own. A connection made, adaptations passed on, and, suddenly, the shifting spheres joined - and molded themselves into an additional PlagueMan, albeit a little smaller.
Meanwhile, deep within the alpha collective, the Alpha of the entire collective stirred. It normally remained dormant, save for the information it shared across the pathways and the most basic of commands - the entire collective was usually so in sync, that the only time it needed to become truly active was to give ultimatum orders or collect enough bugged data to generate a new alpha collective, should all of its members die out. The Navi at their core, the one and true PlagueMan . . . he woke up. A red glare passed throughout the alpha collective, as a powerful pathway of raw bugged data surged through the collective. Similar pathway lines streaked across the other collective's form, across their members floating in the sky, and, yes, a red glare even flared up within K-Man's own form, from the members floating within his own code.
Play time was over.
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