Well after a much longer wait then I expected here is next section of my contrubution to the world
*****
I don't sleep anymore. It's just varying levels of consciousness, drifting for a few hours skimming news feeds is as close as I come now. I know that the integration of what used to be Terry and Clank is still running through various permutations in my subconsciousness.
Morality has become a transitory thing. I spent the better part of last night alternately disgusted at the corpses in the freezer chest in the basement, and afraid of what I might do if I turned myself in. Now it doesn't bother me. All three of them were fools drunk on their own power, attempting childish displays of force. They would have drawn more attention than I'm ready to deal with. I have no delusions of grandeur, I know my limitations. I can't stand any sort of prolonged confrontation in my current state. The best thing I have going for me right now is that I'm flying under the radar.
The three I have defeated where by far not the only ones looking to make trouble, and I haven't been the only one to thwart them. In the two weeks since the incident there has been a confrontation of some sort almost every night. Maybe because it's the silicon valley, or maybe this is happening all over and the news stations aren't reporting it on a national scale yet. Of the eight that I managed to reach in time, I ended up circling like a vulture for half. Either because both sides were clearly not technologically based or hoping that one side would fall before the police (with their own small but growing selection of supers) arrived.
-----
My first victory was against a fellow robotics mastermind. He was either foolish enough not to check for ambushes, or unable to detect the electronic noise I put out when cloaked. In the end it didn't matter the cause of his inattention, the result was the same. His robots were torn down and rebuilt as my own, and he was salvaged for any clues about how portal technology operated in this reality.
-----
The second victory (If I could really call it that) amounted to picking off the winner of another battle. I arrived after the conflict was already under way. A rather brightly colored kid with a big sword and a girl with familiar looking force fields was facing off a hulking mountain of mechanics in the form of a man. The sounds of battle masked any conversation that passed between them. It was a rather drawn out fight, and even though the pair of heros seemed to have the upper hand when I arrived, the balance slowly shifted as the fight wore on. The mechanical mountain seemed to glow with some inner power that just got brighter as the fight wore on, while the dynamic duo just got tired. It ended when sword-boy took a blow to the head that tossed him across the parking lot; he didn't get up. Bubble-girl yelled something and hit her oppenent with a blast that hurled him away from her fallen compatriot. Before he could close the distance again, she had knelt next sword-boy and they both had teleported away. I tailed the victor for a while until he settled down to repair himself. He must have felt some of electromagnetic noise I put out, because it took him what seemed like forever to find a 'safe' spot. As soon as his massive form seemed to wind down I hit him with both barrels of binding webbing. His last moments were spend struggling against he sticky material as my bots pumped him full of lasery death.
-----
My third victory was against a corruptor with a penchant for cold attacks and supers speed. She had apparently frozen her way into a armored van and stolen a valuable portion of the goods sorted within. Police cruisers make a poor match when pitted against someone who can do 80 mph on foot. It took me six city blocks and three teleports to get the positioning down. But seeing her closelined by a 2 ton stealthed bot was worth it, and it definitely got the fight off on the right foot. On the plus side that opeing move knocked her off her feet and disoriented her. On the down side she slid farther than I guessed and it put a nice big dent in the assault bot's arm (note to self: increase armoring on assault bot's arms, disabling the flame-thrower isn't worth any amount of amusement). Her slide took her outside the range of my entanglement webbing, and by the time I had closed the distance she was back up her feet. I fired the webbing anyway. I didn't expect it to hit her, or come anywhere close, but it kept her attention on me and not on two bots that were sneaking up behind her.
The webbing canister sailed past her shoulder as she circled to my left, doing a fairly good job of keeping me in the firing arc of my assault bot. While her maneuvering succeeded in limiting the fire of my big guns, she quickly found out they are not the only guns I have. The ground underneath my feet froze and foot long icicles started to bounce off my shields, and unhappy creaking noises started to emanate from the hulking form behind me. The freezing wind that was slowing reducing my assault bot to frozen scrap did have the nice side affect of hiding the whining charge of two blaster arrays being charged to overload. Both shots from my battle drones hit her square in the back. One of the battles drones lost the lower half of it's arm as it's array exploded, but it was worth it. Smoke was visibly rising from the gaping hole in her back; this time she didn't dodge the binding webbing. She did manage to remind me that down was not out thought as a series of frozen energy blasts dropped remaining drone like a bag of rocks. She smiled at me she worked at the webbing at her feet.
"It seems I've broken all your toys, now I'll just have to break you."
I smiled back at her at the frozen battle bot disappeared behind me with the ripping pop of a teleport. "Oh I don't think your going to do that." Engaging in witty banter during a battle rubbed my the wrong way. But it did keep her focused on me.
"Don't tell me your going to run away, that wouldn't b--" Her response was cut off as two tons of frozen war bot slammed into her traveling at roughly 120 mph. The bot didn't survive the gravity test, and neither did she.
I picked up the bag of loot she had dropped and placed a transport beacon in their combined wreckage. I'd sort the parts out in the warehouse.
-----
I was taking a break from the reconstruction of my battle bot (he wasn't up to what Mr Tock standards, but getting close) when I saw the news article. Or more accurately, I saw the photo in the news article. The photo showed a two women in costume standing over a shackled form. The woman in the foreground didn't ring any bells at first, but the woman behind her got my full attention. Nogi (or Lady Nogitsune to the doomed) standing around with Heroes? The thought refused to process for a few seconds. I mean sure, we had teamed with a few of the Legendary once or twice to stop common threats. But somehow I didn't think the poor bastard at their feet was a world destroying power. A sliver of hope wormed it way into my conscious thoughts: If Nogi could be accepted, then so could I.
As soon as I got the cackling under control I started prepping the warehouse for my extended absence. I had simply assumed that I would have to work from the shadows, with paranoid and short lived 'partnerships' with other villains while I gathered enough information to get back to Agatha. The idea that I could be a 'good guy' simply hadn't crossed my mind. I didn't care what other people did, only how to get back home, to Agatha. My time in the Isles had taught me that adopting the values of others could lead to knowledge and power. Becoming a 'hero' was a small price to pay if it meant being accepted by the group most likely to know about portal-tech.
*****
As alluded to above Clank patrol is headed to NJ. The reception a sociopathic war machine receives I leave up to you. How would you handle someone who just wants to go home, and doesn't mind taking over a small country if that is what it takes to develop the necessary tech?-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
*****
I don't sleep anymore. It's just varying levels of consciousness, drifting for a few hours skimming news feeds is as close as I come now. I know that the integration of what used to be Terry and Clank is still running through various permutations in my subconsciousness.
Morality has become a transitory thing. I spent the better part of last night alternately disgusted at the corpses in the freezer chest in the basement, and afraid of what I might do if I turned myself in. Now it doesn't bother me. All three of them were fools drunk on their own power, attempting childish displays of force. They would have drawn more attention than I'm ready to deal with. I have no delusions of grandeur, I know my limitations. I can't stand any sort of prolonged confrontation in my current state. The best thing I have going for me right now is that I'm flying under the radar.
The three I have defeated where by far not the only ones looking to make trouble, and I haven't been the only one to thwart them. In the two weeks since the incident there has been a confrontation of some sort almost every night. Maybe because it's the silicon valley, or maybe this is happening all over and the news stations aren't reporting it on a national scale yet. Of the eight that I managed to reach in time, I ended up circling like a vulture for half. Either because both sides were clearly not technologically based or hoping that one side would fall before the police (with their own small but growing selection of supers) arrived.
-----
My first victory was against a fellow robotics mastermind. He was either foolish enough not to check for ambushes, or unable to detect the electronic noise I put out when cloaked. In the end it didn't matter the cause of his inattention, the result was the same. His robots were torn down and rebuilt as my own, and he was salvaged for any clues about how portal technology operated in this reality.
-----
The second victory (If I could really call it that) amounted to picking off the winner of another battle. I arrived after the conflict was already under way. A rather brightly colored kid with a big sword and a girl with familiar looking force fields was facing off a hulking mountain of mechanics in the form of a man. The sounds of battle masked any conversation that passed between them. It was a rather drawn out fight, and even though the pair of heros seemed to have the upper hand when I arrived, the balance slowly shifted as the fight wore on. The mechanical mountain seemed to glow with some inner power that just got brighter as the fight wore on, while the dynamic duo just got tired. It ended when sword-boy took a blow to the head that tossed him across the parking lot; he didn't get up. Bubble-girl yelled something and hit her oppenent with a blast that hurled him away from her fallen compatriot. Before he could close the distance again, she had knelt next sword-boy and they both had teleported away. I tailed the victor for a while until he settled down to repair himself. He must have felt some of electromagnetic noise I put out, because it took him what seemed like forever to find a 'safe' spot. As soon as his massive form seemed to wind down I hit him with both barrels of binding webbing. His last moments were spend struggling against he sticky material as my bots pumped him full of lasery death.
-----
My third victory was against a corruptor with a penchant for cold attacks and supers speed. She had apparently frozen her way into a armored van and stolen a valuable portion of the goods sorted within. Police cruisers make a poor match when pitted against someone who can do 80 mph on foot. It took me six city blocks and three teleports to get the positioning down. But seeing her closelined by a 2 ton stealthed bot was worth it, and it definitely got the fight off on the right foot. On the plus side that opeing move knocked her off her feet and disoriented her. On the down side she slid farther than I guessed and it put a nice big dent in the assault bot's arm (note to self: increase armoring on assault bot's arms, disabling the flame-thrower isn't worth any amount of amusement). Her slide took her outside the range of my entanglement webbing, and by the time I had closed the distance she was back up her feet. I fired the webbing anyway. I didn't expect it to hit her, or come anywhere close, but it kept her attention on me and not on two bots that were sneaking up behind her.
The webbing canister sailed past her shoulder as she circled to my left, doing a fairly good job of keeping me in the firing arc of my assault bot. While her maneuvering succeeded in limiting the fire of my big guns, she quickly found out they are not the only guns I have. The ground underneath my feet froze and foot long icicles started to bounce off my shields, and unhappy creaking noises started to emanate from the hulking form behind me. The freezing wind that was slowing reducing my assault bot to frozen scrap did have the nice side affect of hiding the whining charge of two blaster arrays being charged to overload. Both shots from my battle drones hit her square in the back. One of the battles drones lost the lower half of it's arm as it's array exploded, but it was worth it. Smoke was visibly rising from the gaping hole in her back; this time she didn't dodge the binding webbing. She did manage to remind me that down was not out thought as a series of frozen energy blasts dropped remaining drone like a bag of rocks. She smiled at me she worked at the webbing at her feet.
"It seems I've broken all your toys, now I'll just have to break you."
I smiled back at her at the frozen battle bot disappeared behind me with the ripping pop of a teleport. "Oh I don't think your going to do that." Engaging in witty banter during a battle rubbed my the wrong way. But it did keep her focused on me.
"Don't tell me your going to run away, that wouldn't b--" Her response was cut off as two tons of frozen war bot slammed into her traveling at roughly 120 mph. The bot didn't survive the gravity test, and neither did she.
I picked up the bag of loot she had dropped and placed a transport beacon in their combined wreckage. I'd sort the parts out in the warehouse.
-----
I was taking a break from the reconstruction of my battle bot (he wasn't up to what Mr Tock standards, but getting close) when I saw the news article. Or more accurately, I saw the photo in the news article. The photo showed a two women in costume standing over a shackled form. The woman in the foreground didn't ring any bells at first, but the woman behind her got my full attention. Nogi (or Lady Nogitsune to the doomed) standing around with Heroes? The thought refused to process for a few seconds. I mean sure, we had teamed with a few of the Legendary once or twice to stop common threats. But somehow I didn't think the poor bastard at their feet was a world destroying power. A sliver of hope wormed it way into my conscious thoughts: If Nogi could be accepted, then so could I.
As soon as I got the cackling under control I started prepping the warehouse for my extended absence. I had simply assumed that I would have to work from the shadows, with paranoid and short lived 'partnerships' with other villains while I gathered enough information to get back to Agatha. The idea that I could be a 'good guy' simply hadn't crossed my mind. I didn't care what other people did, only how to get back home, to Agatha. My time in the Isles had taught me that adopting the values of others could lead to knowledge and power. Becoming a 'hero' was a small price to pay if it meant being accepted by the group most likely to know about portal-tech.
*****
As alluded to above Clank patrol is headed to NJ. The reception a sociopathic war machine receives I leave up to you. How would you handle someone who just wants to go home, and doesn't mind taking over a small country if that is what it takes to develop the necessary tech?-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy