[IC] Trespassers of the Multiverse: Director's Cut: The Whole Bus

[Powder Miner]

"Right. I, um, okay. I apologize for losing my composure." She took another breath, and then once again rested her chin on her hands (and her elbows on the top of the seat), thinking. "Something about my world... humm... umm... I suppose that since you have been getting rather negative pieces of my homeworld, I will tell you about one of its more shining pieces: my clan. I come from the Crab Clan, which holds the southern borderlands of the Emerald Empire of Rokugan.

 

Whereas most of the other seven Great Clans of Rokugan focus on affairs of the Empire, or on being political maneuverers or backstabbers, the Crab Clan has the most important duty in the country. We hold against what Rokugan borders to the south, the Shadowlands, a land corrupted by the evil realm of Jigoku, which is... literally a realm of pure suffering and evil. Not only is it suffused with the Taint, which mutates and maddens people and various other creatures alike, but it creates very vicious oni and actively wants the Empire and all within it dead. So, the Crab Clan holds the Great Kaiu Wall between Rokugan and the Shadowlands, and our duty is to war against them in order to keep everyone in the Empire alive, and so we have, for centuries, and very bloodily.

 

This means while clans like the Crane are focused on frippery and niceties, the tenets of Bushido we Crab hold dear are Duty and Courage, for these two tenets define the bravery and responsibility that the Crab must show in order to perform our duty. This also means that we are far less likely than the Scorpion Clan to backstab and plot for no other reason than personal benefit. We also tend to treat our heimin, peasants, better than other clans -- we allow them to have weapons, because fearing heimin makes less sense when they also must be wary of and battle monsters and oni like you. Therefore it becomes a very poor idea to try to abuse them, heh heh."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

"I got it from Tattletale's power, specifically when I accidentally used it when I was looking back towards the past. I should be fine, however" Proditor stated, his hand coming back to her head, "... I just need some more time."

[Strider]

"What." Harry just sort of stared. "You can do that?! Okay. . . that's new." This was quite the surprise, and useful. for one, it meant that either Proditor shared similar mental physiology to Tattletale, or that the powers caused headaches in a different manner. Good to know. Additionally, it meant that perhaps Proditor could give insight into whatever organ grants parahuman powers. Whether that be through some sort of advanced telepathy, or by getting information provided by Harry, and then following that information to a conclusion. "Uh, mind telling me when you're feeling better? Could use your expertise." On pretty much everything. After waiting for whatever brief response Proditor might give, Harry made his way back into the bus, feeling the wyvern scale he'd picked up earlier.

 

He addressed Soma as he passed, after a moments contemplation. "Soma, do you have a moment? For a sort of experiment? You mentioned that working with organic materials can be unpredictable, but I'm curious whether you could extrapolate this?" Harry held up the scale. "It's pretty tough, most likely a psuedo keratin. If things go well, it'd probably result in something pretty strong, or enough DNA for me to create more of it. If it goes poorly," Harry stopped, and turned to Calvera (presumably still standing near the door from throwing molten metal out), "Well, we should have an almost fool proof way of disposing of mishaps. Calvera, you willing to incinerate stuff if things turn out poorly?"

[kj1225]

Arminius looks like he's about to make a sarcastic remark before pausing.

"Gods, how many are running around that you need to specify that it's ANOTHER one."

[Hal Henderics]

"Oh, uhh, Sure."  Soma says distractedly, gesturing towards the scale after it's been set down outside of the bus.

 

It begins to grow, quickly at first, and then slower.

 

Then it explodes into a suit of armor, scales erupting from scales as her power crafts an entire suit of scalemail from it.  Then it seems to break free of her power, transforming into a permanent suit of armor, which is made from a pitch black material, haloed by intangible light.

 

"Oh, It seems pushing a magical metal past it's Schwartzschild radius transforms it into this."

Edited November 16, 2017 by Hal Henderics

[GodofGamingRWBY]

There was a noticeable pause from Proditor after Harry finished speaking, before the Ethereal replied with a simple "I shall inform you once that is the case" he stated, before turning back towards the endless void, trying to enjoy the silence once more. The Thinker Headache was beginning to start feeling... A bit better. Not by much, but enough so that he could actually get some kind of thought through it, if he didn't think too hard.

[Projeck]

"Always happy to help!"

Calvera follows Harry, ready to help if necessary.

[Strider]

"Huh. Interesting! Glad it made something useful. Hopefully it'll work better than your tinfoil, and maybe it's something you'll be able to make more of. It does seem useful." Harry made his way to the rear of the bus, and sat down to rest a bit. He wasn't terribly tired, but it was obvious that they were waiting here in the void for something, and there were no guarantees on whether he'd be able to get rest for a long time if something happened. If Earth Bet was anything to judge by.

[Armok]

Nhevi Pops into existence, for a fraction of a second overlapping and clipping into the chair before flickering into sitting on it casually, as if she'd been siting there for quite a while and traveled this way every day.

 

"Oh, I exist now. Hi, my name is Nhevi, and I am exited about getting to work with you all! ^_^ By the way I need to talk to Dr. Ebon about her system having quite the serious bug at some point, and probably get officially registered or somesuch as working here. Anyway, anyone up for crafting stuff with me? Who's awake?" 

[DragonRage]

"I-  I am really bad at apologizing, aren't I?" Mirri asks Satomi, "I sure seem to like the taste of my boots today.  I suppose I shall take my leave then.  I'm not quite so bad at reading people to miss that you'd rather not be spending time near me.  And after what I did, I can hardly blame you."  Mirri turns around and starts walking away.

[StormLord]

"Not as many as there once were, though you'd be surp--"

Frigus started to respond to Arminius again only to be cut off when a large purple and black 'Thing' appeared in the bus, only to disappear for a couple seconds and re-appear.

"Did...did you just see that?  Wait, there it is again.  I should go see what it is."

With that Frigus stood up and slid his note-pad into his pocket then started to make his way towards where Nhevi sat.

What Nhevi would've seen is a tall man with short, spiked, pale silver/blue hair, wearing long pants and a stylized shirt, with off-white/blue plate armor from his left shoulder to a gauntlet on his left hand.

"My name is Frigus, nice to meet you.  You mentioned Dr. Ebon so I assume you're here to help us build defenses against the Trespassers?"

[Armok]

"Yes that's the idea! at's the idea! at's the idea! at's the idea! at's the id"

 

"Yes that's the idea!"

[StormLord]

Frigus reached up to rub his eyes, then looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the....strange to arrival.

"Can I um...help you with something?  Need some explanations or something?  We're kinda floating in the lanes-between right now, not much to see for a while."

[Armok]

"I think I think I think I got all the important stuff; this is THE place to be if you want to actually matter and help out in the grand scheme of things? I... honestly I'm pretty similar to the things we are trying to fight. BUT that might also put me in an unique posit e in an unique posit ion to help out and I hope most of you will accept me despite that. I know I can I can be a bit unnerving. AS for you helping, I were thinking of crafting so those Synthesis Materials might come in handY?"

 

Something about her reminds you about Heartless, the whole thing about MISSING something critical...

[StormLord]

Frigus nods some.

"Right, well unless you go around corrupting everything you touch we shouldn't have a problem.  As for Synthesis Materials, I'm not even going to ask how you know about them, but I don't have any right now."

[Strider]

Harry opened his eyes from the seat he was on. Another one? And this one was almost migraine inducing. In any case, he'd come to the realization that he could probably get something started with the death wyvern cells, then rest. Back to his little lab, he supposed. He'd definitely need a place of his own at some point. For now, he mixed the few death wyvern scale producing cells he'd obtained into a micronutrient mix, and from there, went about testing to determine the proper chemical trigger that caused the cells to devote themselves to producing scales. Hopefully, a larger dose than normal would increase the scale material creation speed. If things went well, he'd lay them out in a thin paste over one of the steel plates, adding nutrients every so often, with the eventual goal of creating something a quarter of an inch thick. Following this, he sat down, to get some actual rest, to hopefully not be bothered by his own impinging ideas.

 

He would be there for a while, but when he was finished, he was well satisfied with the hard, yet slightly flexible plates he had made of the stuff. They would fit nicely into an added pouch on his existing armor.

Edited November 16, 2017 by Strider

[Projeck]

Calvera, thinking back to earlier, goes over to Soma.

"Hey... do you mind helping me turn this steel into some titanium?"

[GodofGamingRWBY]

After a bit, Proditor's hand finally fell as his headache finally began to vanish, leaving his mind to work again and come to a realization. These 'Trespassers' he was working against were likely the same creatures that devoured his own world, and the worlds that his kind fled to following his home's destruction. Which meant, in all likelyhood, this had been a problem going on for centuries now... And also meant that there was a good chance that he would return to his own world, to deal with Angelis.

 

"This is for the betterment of our kind… And our new race”

 

With that realization, Proditor sighed. In his opinion, Humanity was the race that was meant to take care of the Trespassers... At least, on his world. His kind was frail now, too old to continue their journey, which was to prepare other races for the coming storm. Ironic how he was practically the only one who still held on to that goal.

 

Either way, if he was to return to his world and help Humanity prepare... That would mean figuring out a way to assist the Resistance, or as ADVENT called it, 'XCOM', without getting his head blown off. Which, the only way to do so and still helped... Seemed to be making his physical presence as low as possible.

 

Spoiler

Proditor gains a new trick from the realization!

(Trick) Phantom Soul: Proditor latches onto the mind of a willing individual, his own body phasing into nonexistence as he becomes a passenger for the individual's mind. 
(Level 1) Proditor is unable to use actions while this trick is active.

 

About 15 seconds later, Proditor turned, floating back to the bus and lowering his form so he could enter, his brain finally working fine again. It honestly felt good to be able to think clearly, especially after the flashbacks towards his-

 

Why the hell was there a Codex in the bus?

 

That was the first thought that went into the Ethereal's head when he noticed the small... Thing sitting on one of the chairs, flickering constantly with magenta and black coloring on it's body. The mere fact that it was flickering was what made Proditor mistake it for a Codex... Except that he knew, without a doubt, that a Codex was more stable than this thing,

 

"... I seem to have missed something while I was gone. Would anyone care to explain what that is?" Proditor asked, unsure of how to refer to it. It was not natural, that was for sure.

[Armok]

"PROditor! tered or somesuch as working here. Anyway, anyone up for crafting stuff with me? Who's awake? Hi, my name is Nhevi, and I am exited about getting to work with you all! By the way I need to talk to Dr. Ebon about her system having quite the serious bug at some point, and probably get officially regis ... hink I got all the important stuff; this is THE place to be if you want to actually matter and help out in the grand scheme of things? I... honestly I'm pretty similar to the things we are trying to fight. BUT that might also put me in an unique posit e in an unique posit ion to help out and I hope most of you will accept me despite that. I know I can I can be a bit unner it unner it unner ... Sorry about my speaking I's a bit broken."

 

Proditor might have as some point seen an *horrifically sick* Codex in it's death throes exhibiting similar behavior. While speaking these lines she's slowly drifting up towards and partially through the roof before snapping back to her original location, not seeing to notice either of these things and just sitting on thin air. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Armok

[GodofGamingRWBY]

... Proditor's original prediction was right. Whatever this thing was, it was even worse than a Codex. It was even worse when one died on the battlefield... Yet this 'Nhevi' seemed to be in this state constantly. It reminded him of some sort of... Glitch in a computer system... Except instead of a computer system, it was a glitch in reality itself.

 

After a few motionless seconds, Proditor's head merely shifted slightly towards the rest of the group, silently asking if someone had an explanation for what was going on. In likely the first time in 3000 years of existence, he was truly at a lost on how to respond to the situation.

[Powder Miner]

Obviously, this sort of event going on in an enclosed and fairly small space was enough to snap Satomi out of talking about her clan, with the samurai girl instead swiveling to just stare at the bizarre, repetitive, wall-phasing, floating entity. Since Satomi didn't have any reference point at all for this being, no oni or magic to compare it to, all she could do was stare blankly at it. She turned her head and kind of just met Proditor's gaze as well as she could without actually being able to see his eyes, exhibiting the same kind of confusion as him. "Whuh?"

[Armok]

Having introduced herself, Nhevi focuses back on herself a bit, grabbing some writing supplies and jotting down some notes she's been thinking of for the last few billion years, but her memory is way to scrambled and they seem to have that quality a lot of dream ideas have of not looking nearly so brilliant once you're awake.

 

Spoiler

Nhevi develops a new trick: 

Epistemological Checklist (level 1, trick): Grants a 5% bonus to trick crafting rolls. Failures when using this trick have a greatly increased chance to result in broken bones and/or "Break It" triggers.

 

Frustrated, she impotently throws the crumpled paper across the buss, and tries with a different idea, hoping to come back to this one later when her head has cleared. 

 

Spoiler

Craft Decomposition Break (level 1, trick): By brute forcing "Break It", Nhevi attempts to ensure a positive crafting result. Such crafts require four times as many material components to be used, and if Nhevi doesn't have at least 4 of every ingredient to use the craft will fail. The extra ingredients are not destroyed, but are afflicted by the detrimental version of "Break It". However, this skill does guarantee at least a marginal success on the crafting check. Furthermore, anyone who is unfortunate enough to damage to unusability a product of this skill will be immediately, randomly glitched somehow. Nhevi has no control over this effect.

 

Nope. Nhevi curls up in a corner to mope, having just barely enough presence to do so conspicuously near Lily hoping she'll take pity on her. 

[GodofGamingRWBY]

For a good second, Proditor kept "eye" contact with Satomi, before his head turned back towards Nhevi, watching as she... Seemed to try and write something down, and seemed rather frustrated at her attempts. At that, Proditor sighed slightly, realizing that he'd have to ask questions about that later.

 

"So. Do you happen to know what I've missed while I was outside, Satomi?" Proditor asked, looking back at the small samurai. He didn't seem to have noticed that she was talking to Kusuke earlier... Though that may be a combination of the fact that he wasn't around for most of the time, and his attention was taken up by the simple existence of Nhevi.

[Chevaleresse]

"The Shadowlands, huh. . .?" Definitely not something that existed in his history. He could try and draw some similarities to the Boundary, but they didn't sound like the same thing at all. Some superficial aspects were the same, but he doubted these Shadowlands represented the space between timelines and worlds. "You said it's the Kaiu wall? So your family is the one responsible for building and maintaining it, then?" Satomi seemed to have architectural talent - among other things - so it made sense.

[StormLord]

Frigus glanced over to Proditor shrugged.

"I've got about as much clue as you do, but at least they don't seem malevolent.  Anyway, I just had an idea and need to grab some stuff."

He gestured to the back of the bus where the crafting materials were being kept, and then turned and made his way there.

After collecting up several seemingly random items(including three steel plates and some strange burning rocks he found) he made his way back up the bus some where others had been working on crafting things. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a notepad, different from the one he was writing on earlier, this one looked like some sort of directions, except they were written in a bizarre language that looked like a mix of diagrams and chicken scratch.  Using the directions(somehow) he quickly worked through the stack of items he picked up, turning them all into various colors of small crescent shaped gems.

Then with the help of Calvera and Lucille to combine a blast of ice magic, Calvera's fire, and some lightning from the tome into a glob of chaotic magic which he condensed into a small crescent shaped multicolored gem.