Endgame Earth

[Luke White-Heart]

As all the Furs piled into the vault, Luke wandered around, lost in thought. Vaguely, he was aware of Nova playing some sort of game, Ip trying to talk to him, and a wide variety of robots throughout the vault, but Luke couldn't focus. The weight of the sword on his back and the pistols at his hips were forgotten. His thoughts were on Daniel, and the file, which he was perusing as he walked. His file was surprisingly in depth, and as he looked, memories of Daniel flowed through his mind. The file mentioned numerous places where he had been assigned...Assigned where?...and missions he had carried out. One of those locations was...but that couldn't be right, could it?...was here. He ran over to Nova to show him.

[NovaAurora]

    Nova looked up from the console as Ip started talking to him and Luke ran up from behind. He grew rapidly more annoyed when Ip showed absolutely no interest the things that they had just spent all this time trying to obtain. "Ip are you crazy?!" he shouted, "Look at these things! Here, come over here and see for yourself, these are what we need to defend against the consumer horde! The others are taking care of themselves and there's nothing we can do about Himawari, but you could make yourself useful and start controlling one of these bots." By then Luke was right up in front of Nova and appeared to be holding some sort of papers with great interest. Nova looked down at them and back up at Luke's excited face and asked, "What is this, what did you find?"

[Luke White-Heart]

"Nova," said Luke excitedly, "look at this! Daniel was stationed HERE! He's BEEN HERE!" He stuffed the file into Nova's paws, then waited, watching Nova's expression. In the back of his mind, the rational, cold part of Luke was screaming to put the file away and prioritize. They had been betrayed and he needed to prepare for an attack, but Luke was too focused on Nova's face to care.

[NovaAurora]

    "Whoa what? Slow down..." Nova said as he had the papers thrusted into his paws. "Daniel? That guy you've been looking for?" He skimmed the pages quickly, flipping through them and glancing at bits of random information. It was indeed the file of someone named Daniel, and his last listed stationed location was indeed Fort Peregrine. Next to this information were the dates of his stays at each base, and furrowing his brow in thought Nova tried to recall exactly what they could reveal... If he remembered correctly, Daniel was to be stationed at this base until well after the war essentially ended and the meteors fell. It was no guarantee in the slightest, but that at least gave Daniel a better chance of having remained in the local area than if he was transferred to a different location before military operations formally ceased. After another few seconds of browsing he smiled and looked up at Luke, who was staring intently at him rather like an extremely hungry puppy, Nova thought. He was slightly startled by his intensity but at the same time it was heartening to see Luke so happy about something. "Well you're right," Nova said as he handed the papers back to Luke. "This is an amazing find, Daniel was stationed here. And I'd bet that this was the last place he ever was, too. Unfortunately... it doesn't bring us any closer to finding him. I mean, he could've gone anywhere, and this file is of course only documenting what he did up until the war ended. I wish I could say something more, but..." he glanced anxiously down at the control console for the robot, "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. And we have more pressing matters at hand now." He gestured to the rest of the robots, dormant and locked into their stations like tigers hiding and waiting to pounce. "If we survive to see another day, I promise I'll do my best to help you find him."

[Luke White-Heart]

Luke took the file and stuffed it into his bag, happiness and excitment coursing through him. He looked at Nova and nodded, then let the analytical part of his brain take over. He scanned the equipment and moved to a console, then began to type in commands. He was no computer genius, but he was quite adept at hacking systems and giving rudimentary commands. Luke tried to access all of the androids, but the system was more heavily encrypted than he thought. Frustrated, he turned to Nova with a cold, nuetral expression and said, "I'll keep watch. Let me know if there's anything else I can do."

[Ventus Fall]

The Voice, as it called itself for now thanks to be able to know how Himawari addressed it, was closing in on the fort with the horde following it.
It halted the horde and glared at the buildings.

'Vault'.
The word came to its mind.


It steered Himawari's head to look for the building with this 'vault' and eventually found it.
A couple of Consumers in the horde was getting anxious and started making noises.
"Sush," The Voice gestured to them.
Some of them fell silent, most were still making noises of excitement. It had been a long time since they could actually hunt some prey.
It told the horde to wait with attacking untill he returned. For now, they should try and hide wherever they could. Only one may accompany it to the vault.

After choosing a single Consumer to walk with it to the vault, The Voice started to proceed to the buildings, walking slowly as to oppose no threat. At least not now. It wanted to see the rational capabilities of these beings and was quite interested. The more it got controll of Himawari's body and mind, the more it grew self-aware of itself and wanted to find out all kinds of things.
Perhaps this wasn't a smart move, but would they kill Himawari? The only human they have come to value? If they would threaten to kill him, then he has a whole horde in the back, waiting to attack.

[MrRazot]

Warren Slipped into one of the machines with a grin of accomplishment and grew accustomed to the controls as well as he could. The helmet was indeed a nuisance and so he settled with the screen display.
He'd heard of such powerful machines being made but he'd never actually believed it. The thought of Himawari crossed his mind and the hope she was doing alright.


The machine moved forwards as Warren commanded, a bit to slow for his liking, but it really was better than anything else for now and he'd admit to be having the time of his life being able to steer the machine marvel.
The railgun would do well in a straight line indeed, though the loading time would still have been a bit too slow for his liking though this would easily be made up for with the machine gun.


"This is brilliant!" He shouted like a child on christmas before shutting himself up as who knows what could be lurking around.

[Byracka]

Sarah tried to console Jave, to her very best but at the end stood with sloped shoulders and a sense of desperation as every touch she gave was met with a painful shudder. She couldn’t even lay a comforting hand on his shoulder without a whimper. Jave gasped, seemingly random his breaths changed between a shallow hiss and deep violent pant, he couldn’t even stand up on two any longer.

“You’ve seen worse, this is nothing; this is nothing bad, nothing bad. Nothing.”  Sarah went through a cycle of thoughts to get a hold of the situation. She has experience in medical treatment; she has experience in dealing with shock, and blood and stench. She stopped breathing from her nose to keep herself from becoming nauseous. She bent down to her knees and tried to evaluate Jave’s injuries… In an awful streak of luck most of his burns were located on his back, which was faced up and easily examined from her position. No fur at all was left, just charred skin. Below his left shoulder Sarah saw a burn that had eaten down to the flesh, it had healed very poorly and must recently have opened up since there was a grayish and lumpy secretion running down in a cluster of streams. It was infected; even the common layman could see that.

Sarah began to question whether or not this was her fault, could the wound have opened because of their earlier brawl? When Jave was scraping around in the back of her trunk he could have caused all sorts of damages to his sensitive hide. Her hand started shaking in the thought that she could have been responsible for this and for a moment she carelessly breathed through her nose and started coughing by the smell. Part of her felt the horrible urge to lightly kick Jave in his side; try to get him out of his state of shock so that they could move inside the bunker, inside the vault that hopefully had been opened, it had taken time but now Sarah felt the bitter cold of the outside. Her attempts so far had been of no use, she couldn’t touch nor talk with Jave, nothing got through. She felt her arms shaking out of anxiety. Jave trembled and whimpered, spoke in nonsensical whispers interrupted by quick inhales. Sarah felt even more helpless, soon she would have to drag him inside. The snow was eating down into the bones of her paws.

She skipped a heartbeat. A crunch was heard in the snow. Himawari stood in front of them. A sense relief fell through her chest and she smiled. Then she saw the consumer.

[NovaAurora]

    Nova nodded at Luke and then turned back to his control panel. Warren's giddiness made him smile, and he had to admit it was pretty damn fun. He accelerated the robot again and drove it out into the open field, expecting to be able to fiddle around with it a bit and get used to the controls. But then, walking across the field towards the bunker, was none other than Himawari... and a super consumer. His stomach dropped. He didn't know whether to feel incredibly relieved that Himawari was still alive, or terrified that she had clearly lost her battle with that inner force as evidenced by the fact that she was still alive. He stopped the robot between her and the bunker, it's two weapons leveled at chest height. "Damn, there must be some way to communicate with this thing!" Nova thought. There appeared to be a built in microphone to the console, so he figured there must be a comm system built into the unit. After a few seconds of anxious glancing around the screen as he watched Himawari and her gruesome companion approach, he found the mic controls. He entered a couple of commands and suddenly a red light appeared on the console next to the screen. He took a deep breath and spoke into it. "Himawari! Or whatever you are! This is Nova speaking. I'm controlling the robot you see in front of you. I know you can hear me and understand what I'm doing. Stop right where you are or I swear I will not hesitate to open fire!" He intentionally neglected to specify exactly who he would open fire on, as he knew that he couldn't just gun down Himawari like that... But the consumer was a different story, and after all, he was the one with the combat capabilities. He hoped that whatever was controlling her didn't sense the weakness in his voice.

[Takamei Edevane]

Ip watched the machines roll out, and took a console for himself. "Seems fairly simple" he said as moved the robotic machine forwards, eventually making its way outside. He squinted at the screen seeing a small figure and something relatively large next to it. The robot was too far away but found a control to zoom in, revealing that it was in fact Himawari. He remembered Nova saying "You don't have to worry about her" and felt a rush of anger. He looked over at Nova who was now speaking into the control. Once he had finished speaking he strode over and gave Nova a little push "Nova, what the hell? You don't have to worry about her?!? That's what you said!" Ip pointed at his screen "Excuse me, but look at this bloody situation! Himawari is one of those things!" He went back over to his console "I guess its too late now, its shame. Because you let her go back out there" he said sternly and took a deep breath afterwards. Ip commanded his robot to aim at the large consumer, but slightly moving it towards Himawari a little.

[Ventus Fall]

The Voice grinned slightly, almost unnoticeable. Even though the wolf-dragon like creature put up a good show, it was as sure as it could be that the wolf-dragon wouldn't shoot Himawari down. The voice of the wolf-dragon, which it found out thanks to Himawari was named Nova, didn't sound hesitant. Nor were there any other indications that Nova would actually not shoot, but seeing the memories of Himawari talking to Nova made him pretty confident Nova wouldn't want to kill her, let alone in such a cold blooded manner.

It looked at Jave and Sarah for a second and smiled. Those two, especially the state they were both in wouldn't be able to fend off the Consumer it had brought along.
It signaled some gesture to the Consumer, but it didn't do anything. Yet.

"You better stay where you two are," The Voice told the two furs.
It glinstered at Jave for a moment and felt a sudden pain in its stomach and head. It didn't know why and cringed. The Consumer looked at its leader confused, but it moved its hands in a way to show it was all fine.

What the hell was that about? It wondered to itself.
"Me, you idiot." A female voice appeared in its head.
"My, my, Himawari. I thought we had an agreement. I had given you some time, your friends could have left, but they were too focused on getting in the vault."
"You know damn well you're lying. You would have gone after them." Himawari said in an angry tone.
"So you're breaking our deal? I thought you were better than that."
"I know what you're planning on doing with those two, don't you dare."
"Too late, I'm already am. Besides, what got you so worked up about anyways? They're all going to die eventually, one way or another."
Himawari fell silent for a moment. She knew she wouldn't be able to do anything, at least not enough to make a difference.
The Voice continued talking back, but spoke it out too. "Oh... I have a brilliant idea."
Himawari tried to argue and fight back, but she was soon muffled back.

It raised its head to look at Nova, or at least the robot. "Hello Nova, nice to finally be able to speak with you." It paused for a moment and grinned insanely. "I want you to listen to me carefully as well, or else these two..." Pointing at Sarah and Jave, "will be sacrficed by your own hands, whether you wanted to or not. I wonder if you would want to kill your own, your friends, by not just simply listening to me?"

[NovaAurora]

    Nova barely paid attention to Ip's anger, instead focussing intently on Himawari and the consumer. He didn't doubt that the force controlling her was powerful, but the notion that it could possibly make him, or his robot at least, do anything against his will in this situation seemed absurd. Especially since he had no problem blowing the consumer into the stratosphere. "You may speak," he said forcefully, "And I will listen to what you have to say, but I know that you hold no power over the rest of us. Nor will you ever force me to fire on my friends. You may have a significant numerical advantage over us, but our defenses and our resolve are strong. If you think you can win sheerly through threats and intimidation, I assure you that you are sorely misguided." He kept his finger solidly on the trigger for each of the robot's weapons, ready to engage should he sense that any of his friends were in danger.

[Ventus Fall]

A loud laugh erupted from Himawari's voice chambers.
"I did not expect that reaction at all, you amuse me, Nova."
It locked its gaze on the robot.
"I mean to say I have these hostages here. They have their own free will, of course, like you do. Do anything stupid right now is very unwise. I do not see you as an unwise being, Nova. Please tell me I am not mistaken in you." It said in a hollow voice, masking out Himawari's voice almost completely.

It waited for Nova's reply. In the meantime it was looking around, thinking more detailed about its plan.

[NovaAurora]

    Now it was Nova's turn to laugh. "Look at you!" he proclaimed, "Declaring that you're holding anything hostage... I can vaporize your consumer buddy there before he even moves an inch towards my friends. You asked me to listen to you, but you seem to be having an awfully hard time coming up with anything worth hearing. As I said before, I'm fully aware of the size of your army, but standing in front of me as you are I have a hard time believing in the credibility of any of your bluster." As he said these words Nova wondered briefly why he didn't just destroy the consumer right then and there. He really didn't buy into the thing's threats, but he had to admit to himself that he was concerned about the entire horde of enemies inevitably lurking just out of sight in the woods. But surely they would attack regardless of whether or not he kills one measly member of their ranks... His finger curled around the trigger for the machine gun, but he stopped himself. "No," he thought, "I don't know precisely what I'm dealing with yet... let it make the first move." He continued staring intently at the screen on the console, awaiting a response.

[Byracka]

With three shallow kicks to his side Sarah had gotten Jave’s attention. His chock might have been severe but you easily recover when two mechanized war machines rolls into your field of view. Sarah whispered through her teeth “we’re in a situation here…” Jave, still down on all four looked in horror at the towering consumer standing besides Himawari. “… Can you use a gun?”
Jave whispered back through his teeth “never held one in my life.” Sarah began to unclip one of her pistols from her holster, using the most careful and minute movements she could. “A pistol will drop to the ground, you pick it up.” Her voice got more rash and blotchy, like an old diesel engine. “And then we run and shoot like we’re nuts.” Jave nodded, the nuts part he could do like a professional.

Whatever that thing in Himawari wants, whatever it seeks to achieve with them as hostages, it forgot something. These hostages have guns.
The gun got loose and fell to the ground with a loud crunch. Jave’s last controlled thought wasn’t one of encouragement “I’m going to die.”