trans_9 | Hydroponics

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Hydroponics

Morgan had been in Hydroponics when the message first came over the comm system. He had exactly enough time to frown at his omnicomm before the power limiters engaged and the hyperspace compartments in his cloak failed. Like some outtake from a horrible collision of the Matrix and Harpo Marx, the entire contents of that space fell back into normal reality, leaving Morgan in a thigh-deep mound of guns, swords, and an electric guitar.

"Damn," he said, mildly, as he rolled his neck. He glanced off into the distance, quickly judged the amount of time he had till the robots he saw way out there reached him, then spent a few of those precious seconds tossing out a heads-up over the comms for his location.

That done, he dug out the multi-sheath he had made back when he used to carry weapons openly, slapped half-a-dozen blades through it, threw it on, then scooped up a pair of submachine guns.

"Why can't there be an army of good robots for once?" he muttered, flicking off the safeties.

(ooc: feel free to thread together to help Morgan defend against the evil robots. Also, evil robot NPCs are needed here!)

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"Right," he said, and took a deep breath. "You guys flank, I'll climb this tree and ambush to the best of my ability."

Azula vanished into the foliage like a shadow, for her many...many faults as a human being, what skills she had were amazing.

Kaya was likewise ready to blend in: in fact, she put her ninja mask on, and was already streaking through the shadows barely being seen.

With the wrapped-up weapons tucked beneath one arm, Morgan set about the rather awkward task of climbing the tree with only three limbs engaged. Ordinarily, this would be no problem -- he had enough upper-body strength to practically climb it one-handed, if need be -- but now the injuries to his back made the whole prospect much more complicated.

Oh well. He could soldier through pain. Gritting his teeth, he clambered up into the tree, shoving the bundle into a crook of the branches for safekeeping.

As the Robots entered the forest they may be concerned to find that the humans seemed to have vanished.

...and fingers crossed that the machines didn't have some sort of Inferred heat scanning technology.

But as they strove deeper into the foliage scanning for life forms to shoot they would slowly, slowly begin to dwindle in number.

After all it was enough of a task to take them out one at a time silently.

Sliding her back along a tree and waiting for one to pass. Moving quickly and quietly to slip her blades around it's neck and take off it's head before vanishing into the trees or the bushes so that any noise it made would not end up with her being discovered.

Each enemy fallen was a rush, a sensation of pride and approval. She was worth something after all, she was the product of a lifetime of grooming for war and politics.

She was the Firelord's daugther let them fear her.

Likewise, Kaya was riding on full blown quiet rage. Where she would at least have been relatively quiet and quick, their demolition was swift, and Kaya had a small satisfaction in watching the lifeless drones come apart with her sword. She could feel her teachers from wherever they were, watching their time and training with Kaya coming to fruition.

Move stealthily. Lie in wait. A robot approached, movement was minimal but edged closer before striking with deadly force. Rinse, repeat. Fear was gone in her: it felt like a feeling she had long ago but forgot about somehow.

Right now, there was only winning.

For the individual drones they were fighting, the tactics were quite effective, but a new challenge was coming.

A large group of Sharkticons came into view, razor sharp teeth and claws tearing through everything in their path. The teeth could rip through other robots with ease, so fleshy beings and vegetation were likely to pose little problem. And while they didn't seem to have spotted Azula or Kaya, the sight of a injured fleshy being trying to climb a tree made for an opportune target. As one, they turned and moved towards Morgan's position.

"Well, that's just super."

Morgan eyed the robots from his vantage point on a low branch, then carefully selected his weapons as he weighed his options. He couldn't trust Azula to have stayed nearby, or to care about his survival if she had. If she had stayed nearby, she might take out a few of the robots just for her own amusement, though. Kaya, on the other hand, was more likely to attempt to rescue him, but then again, she was also more likely to have stuck to the plan. If either of them had stayed close, they'd abandoned the plan... which, given before was entirely possible. Still, he was probably alone out here.

So he pulled the Primium sword into his left hand, a shotgun into his right, and watched.

Unfortunately for you Morgan Azula had actually followed his orders this time, more for her own entertainment then your desires. She was deeper in the forest. Slinking and slithering through the shadows she was enjoying herself almost casually.

Good luck with the shark robots!

Kaya was definitely TRYING to follow his orders of curse, but even in the midst of something like her pet/friend dying, she was still trying to make sure that he was ok: he was injured, after all. When she saw that he was being pursued by the enemy however, she knew the plan would have to wait.

People came first, and since saving others also meant that she would get to destroy some more of those robots, it was not going to be a problem for her. She crept through the underbrush, nary making a sound, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Undaunted by the sight of the weapons, the Sharkticons rather single-mindedly continued to head for Morgan, circling around the base of the tree en masse.

Morgan's branch seemed to be just out of their immediate reach, but it didn't seem to occur to them to try and figure out a way to climb up it. Rather, they started to ram themselves against the tree. Some of them turned around and began to swipe at it with their tails, the rounded, spiked ends bashing against the thick trunk with some force. Some of the others, the ones who simply didn't fit into the space, swarmed about and waited for a chance to get in on the attack. They still failed to notice Kaya, intent instead on shaking their prey loose from its hiding place.

So he approved of Azula's actiosn but not her reasons, and Kaya's reasons but not her actions. Together they made the perfect girl, or the worst. He wasn't about to find out which, having just come off of a wacky run of two-people-one-body himself and not being in a hurry to reintroduce that to the ship.

The tree, clearly, was not going to last long, and if they got him on the ground, he couldn't hold out forever (though he could give them one humongous repair bill). He stuck his sword back in its sheath, hauled himself to his feet with his now-free hand, then looked around to judge which tree would be the best one to jump to.

A just as it seemed that the tree wasn't going to hold Morgan anymore, Kaya pounced. The first Sharkticon hitting the tree bore the first slice right across the middle of its forehead before Kaya seized it as quick as she could and threw it at a group of the others. She was aware her rage was playing a part right along with her adrenaline, so she was going to test exactly how far she could go with just that.

She ran into the group hacking at the tree and sliced at the tails, being enough of a distraction for Morgan to get to the next tree. Her arms were already raised for another fight, gun now in her hands.

It was an effective plan. The damaged Sharkticon went sailing through the air and crashed into the group it had been thrown at, knocking them back and away from the tree. As it hit the others its claws struck one, ripping through the metal of its head as easily as any other robot and rendering it useless. Another one hit a tree high up and crashed to the ground, twitching as it was temporarily disabled.

A lucky shot on one of the tails of the second group resulted in it becoming separated, falling to the ground and flopping for a few seconds before growing still. While none of the others were sliced clean, there were signs of damage, and it did have its intended effect, allowing Morgan time to get over to another tree.

However, Kaya now had their full attention, and they started to move towards her instead. Apparently the idea was to kill whatever was the closest and she was it.

As if Morgan was going to jump to another tree now. Instead, he stuck the shotgun through his belt (carefully!), drew his sword, then lopped off enough of the branches to give himself some clearance. As the tree began to collapse in a crackle of wood and bark, Morgan grabbed the tree trunk, then all but threw himself off the branch in the Sharkticons' directions, all his weight focused into forcing the tree to fall that way.

"This is gonna hurt in the morning," he muttered.

Kaya was watching out the corner of her eye Morgan's movements: they would gain more of the advantage, she figured, if she distracted them enough so that he was able to launch his own attack ad they could start to divvy up the sharkticons.

That, and well, they were coming after her now. She'd better start attacking them soon. The sword went back on her back, her fingers now at the holster.

The gun was up and at the ready, shooting at the nearest bot. She knew she wasn't the best when it came to firearms, she only knew basics, but she was close enough where it wouldn't matter.

And with Morgan's jump toward them, it looked like she would have to go back to using the sword again.

The tree took out a chunk of the remaining robots, although a few at the edges weren't damaged enough to be taken out of the fight and promptly resumed their attack. Kaya's close-range shot hit another in its eyes, taking out the optics and knocking it off its original path. It continued forward, but nowhere near where she was located.

The others started to split off into two groups, moving on a wide enough trajectory that it was clear they were going to try to do to Morgan and Kaya what they did with the tree earlier, even though their numbers were dwindling. To make matters worse, one of the ones that was closest to Kaya leapt at her, metallic jaws unhinged and razor-sharp teeth attempting to take a rather large bite out of whatever part of her it could reach.

Morgan hit the ground rolling, which he immediately and painfully regretted, but no time for that now. He turned the roll into a kippup that hurt like a son of a bitch, then snapped one leg forward, smoothly drew the shotgun out of his belt (where it had left yet more bruises), then fired it directly into the face of a nearby robot. His other hand, seemingly independently, hewed at another robot. He trusted Kaya to take care of herself, at least.

That was a bad move on the Sharkticon's part. Kaya had been containing her anger with weapon fire for the moment: it was a good way to at least distance herself from the quiet anger she was feeling. Once the robot leapt toward her though, all bets were off.

The sword was in her hand in an instant and the open jaws were cleaved in two, sparks flying, and the look on Kaya's face enough to scare most people who knew her. There was no forgiveness or holding back here: now, she was more than willing get down and dirty.

She ran toward the robots and hacked at them, screaming all the way, making sure steel met sword.

If these were more intelligent robots, then they might have switched tactics to compensate for Kaya's furious fighting or the fact Morgan was able to engage with more than one of them at a time. But they didn't, instead continuing to try and trap the others in the circle - a fact made more difficult by the fact that they kept getting cut down.

It quickly became evident they were low on numbers, not enough of them available to swarm in and overwhelm the crew that were there in the battle. This didn't stop them from trying, because being dumb and voracious pretty much meant they were doing to go down doing their level best to at least take a chunk or two out of the humans. As long as Morgan and Kaya could keep it up, though, they would likely be able to finish off what remained sooner rather than later.

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Hydroponics

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