Rogue Chaos- The Algorithm: Magnus Vs Draconequus
Shortly after the group was able to stop the S1 Sentry Unit named Geoff, who personally saw himself as a spider king and had a strange personality complex that would drive anyone, including ISIC, crazy. But as the group pressed on, they soon found themselves in an almost completely frozen cave with a bunch of minions that are iced over.
“The only way in order for you to press on is to destroy the shards that are powering the grids covering the air vents.” Kleese informed them as they continued to move on inside. A little while afterwards, they soon heard Ghalt on the other end of the comline come back as both Shayne and Kleese informed them on what was going on. Then, a rather crazy and unthinkable idea soon entered the captain's head as he soon decided to speak up.
“Wait, I got it… We’ll hit him with a logical paradox.”
“Captain, that won’t work…” Kleese tried to inform him, but Ghalt still pressed on anyways as he cleared his throat and began to speak up.
“Hey, ISIC.”
“Heyyyyy, Captain Ghalt.” The Magnus AI replied in a cheerful manner, unaware of what exactly the UPR captain was going to say,
“This statement? It’s a lie…” He spoke up, while Reyna heard Discord on her end of the conversation how some “cake” was also a lie as well. “Blam, Cyber headshot.”
“Oh no-! My brain!! IT’S MELTIIIIIIIING!!!!” ISIC’s cries though soon turned into an even crazier chuckle as he then spoke up. “So, we’re fighting with words now? Cool, here’s something for YOU to think about!”
“Oh great…” Kleese groaned.
“I hate you SO much, it literally gives me energy. Energy I use to write letters to orphans, in which I make fun of them for being orphans... Oh and you will forget your mother's face before you forget the LLC's advertising jingles.”
“Awww, man.”
“What did I TELL you captain!?” Kleese shot back, now sounding a little personally stressed from the UPR captain ignoring his advice from earlier.
“Can we PLEASE kill this thing? Damn man…” He asked, now sounding a little depressed in the process.
“I TOLD YOU!!” Kleese snapped, only causing Shayne to chuckle a little and add a snarky remark to the end of that statement.
“The old guy’s right, you know…” She snickered, causing Discord himself to laugh as he continued to listen in on the mic.
“Oh for the love of god, I told you that I’M NOT OLD!!”
“Oh! And here’s a little something for you, my soon to be controlled Draconequus.” ISIC spoke again. A ‘You got Mail’ robot appeared in front of Discord.
“Yay!!!” He cheered, opening the letter. It was a rather lengthy word that, when viewed from a distance, was a picture of a young Discord, running for his life from both the Battleborn and Rendain.
“Ta-Da!!!”
“... I hate him.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks the same way Discord,” Reyna groaned as she loaded a new clip into her pistol. “That Magnus is really beginning to piss me off.”
“Well, we hopefully don’t have to go much farther,” Kleese spoke up, “There’s an strong signal coming from deeper within the caves. The signature is just beyond that ice wall and-.” The LLC member paused for a moment upon seeing Oscar Mike looking at some of the equipment that was found there. “But oh thank heavens for randomly abandoned industrial equipment!!”
“Is it still operational?” Montana then asked, speaking up a little.
“From the looks of things, it probably is, Mountain Man,” Shayne then spoke up over the comline. “Ghalt says that you can get the drill activated by standing on the same bulwark that was used to activate the gate to the bridge and the one for the fumigation systems when dealing with Geoff earlier.”
“Please let the professionals do the talking,” Ghalt advised before he spoke up. “Just be prepared for anything. Once that drill gets to work, it’s bound to cause some attention-.”
“As we will use this drill to pierce the heavens!!!” Discord cried out, conjuring a strange pair of sunglasses to put over his eyes. Just causing Reyna and Thorn to raise an eyebrow, Montana to chuckle and Oscar Mike to facepalm his own helmet. But as they activated the drill, several spikes of Ice were beginning to rupture from the ground, followed by hearing ISIC’s voice.
“Oooh, there’s something really nasty down there with you guys!” The violent tremors grew even more as the drilling apparatus began to break the wall and ISIC continued speaking. “Not really sure what it is, but it’s big, it’s huge and it’s angry! It’s-.” From the ground, a towering hulk like Ice figure soon emerged… and it was quite pissed off at the presence of Discord and the others. “ …Whatever THAT thing is!”
“Kill it with fire!!” The youngling screamed, conjuring what appeared to be some kind of handheld flamethrower as he tried to burn the creature that was trying to attack them.
“I got it!” Montana yelled. His machine gun spewed fire bullets at the creature.
“It’s going to need a LOT more firepower than that! All of you, shoot that thing!!!” Reyna ordered, using her offhand blaster to mark their target. Taking initiative, everyone began to open fire, hitting the creature with a sheer amount of firepower before it sunk into the snow.
“Did we beat it?” the youngling asked.
“Not yet, Discord!” Shayne told him before Kleese soon spoke up and a bunch of smaller golems began to emerge. “The Blasted thing is regenerating! Quickly, kill the underlings before it resurfaces!!”
“You heard the old geezer, let’s have some fun!!” Discord snickered, conjuring one of Ghalt’s shotguns and firing on the ones that got too close to him and Reyna.
“I AM NOT OLD!!”
It was just ridiculous for the group; Every time the ‘Galactic Emperor’, as Discord calls him, went underground to heal, it seems that more underlings came out each time, giving him the advantage needed to heal.
“I can do this all day!” Oscar cheered
“You can.” Thorn scorned “But we’re all tired!”
“...Lightbulb!” Discord said. He pulled out a red ball, which grew to the size of an apple. “Go, Pokemon!” The red ball open, and appearing in the snow, only it’s head showing, was a brown, large, adorable eye & nose thing… followed by more popping out, some with three heads together.
“...What did you bring?” Reyna asked. The weird creatures began to scurry around the area, causing deep holes in the floor, eventually launching the Emperor out. The Emperor tried to stomp on them, but their heads quickly disappeared under the surface… and they jumped right out, showing that, despite their heads, their bodies were beyond macho! Just seeing them, both Reyna and Thorn had nosebleeds, Montana fanboyed out, and Oscar… he looked at himself.
“I really need more protein.” The muscular creatures beat up the Emperor, and when it exploded, they ran off, showing off their muscles in a sort of muscle march. It took only a short while to deal with the galactic emperor after that and his friends didn’t necessarily stay around long afterwards. Which gave ISIC time in order to try and convince the group one last time.
“Really now? Just think of it. The universe is in a mess to where the world is going to end one way or another and with everything that’s going on, it just makes more sense that the world that we live in is a lie. Think of it… The wacky bullsh*t that the Eldrid call “magic”, The Varelsi, everything! It’s just all a dream and the real people like you and me are just in a deep sleep. With the Algorithm, I could put all of this f*cking nonsense behind us and we can-.”
“That’s a nice speech and all that… But that’s totally unoriginal,” Shayne interjected as she spoke up on the comline. “That sounds too similar to the plotline from that old earth film The Matrix.”
“N-no it’s not!! I came up with this speech a week ago!” ISIC protested before clearing his throat. “Now as I was saying, wouldn’t you all just want for all of this to end and for you to wake up like it was all a dream-.”
“THE… MATRIX. Seriously, it’s like you watch that movie scientifically…” Shayne snickered before looking at Ghalt and Kleese. “Hehe… Get it?”
Discord’s response was for him to change into a full black attire with a black trenchcoat and shades along with conjuring Reyna’s laser pistol. “... Agent Smith’s the one.” He said, deepening his voice to add to it.
“HA!!! Even the child know who’s the real hero!” Kleese said with enthusiasm.
“... Ugh fine. You know what, F*ck it…” ISIC groaned. “Minions.”
“Minions?” Oscar Mike asked, until a horde of robot minions spawned into the room out of nowhere. “Oh GOD, MINIONS!!!”
“Everyone, you’re on the home stretch now! ISIC’s signal is getting closer, so you can’t slip up now!!” Ghalt told everyone as Kleese soon chimed in with his two sense. “Finish what the LLC could not! Destroy that bastard magnus!”
“Consider it handled!!” Reyna replied, aiming her pistol as she opened fired and looked at Discord. “You ready for the final push, little guy?” Discord put some Football gear on Montana, blowing a whistle.
“Wrong push…” she sighed, using the priority target mod on her second weapon to mark a bot in front of her. “Let’s make it simple, anything I mark… We’re going to kick the crap out of it!” Discord gave a curious look.
“Robots can poop?”
“She means destroy it!!!” Oscar Mike shouted, before looking back at the other bots as he shot another one to bits. “Please be advised, I killed the crap out of something!”
“Not as much as mine.” Montana mocked, standing on a pile of robots.
“Oh come on! … That’s it, killing contest! GO!!” The clone declared as the two of them threw themselves into the mechanical mayhem that was in front of them while Thorn took out the snipers from the ledges that were nearby.
“Boys…”
“Eighteen… Nineteen… TWENTY!!!”
“Eleven… Twelve… Sixteen!! SH*T!!!” Oscar Mike swore as he saw his friend annihilate a Rocketeer bot. “HEY, THAT ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!!!” That only caused Reyna, Discord and Thorn to look at each other with an expression that made them wonder what the hell those two were doing. So, while they were distracted, the three of them ran to the jump pads at the end of the basin as they were slingshot all the way to ISIC’s lair.
“Oh CRAAAAAAPPPP!!!!” Reyna shouted mid flight before barreling forward upon landing. “Discord, you okay?”
“I'm feeling Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!“ Just as he said that, Reyna turned to see Discord floating down softly with an umbrella out that lightened the speed of his downward descent as the youngling touched down on the ground softly. He landed and pulled out a chimney sweeper, making him dirty, followed by some music playing. “Chim Chimney, Chim Chimney, chim chim cheree, a kiss is as ‘ucky as ‘ucky can be!”
“Enough singing!” Oscar yelled, landing next to them. “We can celebrate as soon as we kick ISIC’s ass!”
“Where’s Monty?” Discord then asked, followed by Montana’s abrupt landing on top of Oscar Mike. “There’s Monty!!!”
“O…… kay, now that everyone’s here, let’s activate the elevator and get going.” All of the group agreed with Reyna on that one as she over shielded Montana and the five of them landed in what looked like a freaky computer simulation. Followed by hearing ISIC speak up.
“Oh good, you survived. That means I get to kill you myself! Which is way more fun than anything else. I hope Kleese is watching because when I’m done with you… He’s next.” He said, laughing like a maniac as well as the group just looked at the quad legged robot form he was using.
“Okay, is it just me or does anyone else feel that ISIC’s lair is a little trippy?” Shayne asked over the comline. “Ugh whatever, just deal with him as quickly as you can.”
“Easier said than done. I'm going to make sure you all suffer horribly, keep you alive, and make you all suffer! Except you, Discord; you're going to do what I say and when I say!”
“... I don't think so.” Discord replied. With a snap, he was in a white, neon blue, technologic looking suit, and techno music played. “You wanna play? We’ll let’s play!” With it, he snapped again to form Marquis’ signature weapon Bindlebane as he fired to the beat of the music. With Discord distracting ISIC, the others all focused on the exposed energy canisters on the legs of ISIC’s contraption. Keeping heavy fire throughout the whole process. Then, ISIC’s legs fell, and the core his energy stuck out.
“Uh oh! Boys, you better-” ISIC Spoke, but was interrupted by Discord.
“Serious, serious, SERIOUS PUNCH!!!” He announced. Using his lion paw at the core, he punched, though it was a tap.
“OH? OHOHOHOHO!!! How adorable! You seriously thought that-?”
BOOM!!!
“What the f**k!?!?!?” Everyone on the battlefield and intercoms shouted in unison.
“ONE PUUUUUNCH!!!” Discord cheered, wearing a yellow suit with red boots & gloves, with a white cape. The impact not only exploded ISIC’S body, but it destroyed the skull.
“That’s it! You captured ISIC!!! Amazing job! Bring him back to the ship, then we’ll know what to do with him.” Kleese said, laughing to himself while ISIC himself had one response to the situation.
“Sh************t.”
Later…
Sometime after the team returned and Discord reunited with Shayne and Aurox, Kleese immediately got back to work on reconfiguring ISIC’s murderbot personality to where he was doing that to the Varelsi and Jennerit forces under Rendain’s command instead of them. However, while he was going through the files of the rogue magnus, there was something he uncovered that he had Nova pull out and keep on an separate interface and have her investigate it. But the subject content for the file was deeply important. So important that he needed to call in Ghalt, Reyna and Shayne. The reason for calling them was simple… He had good news, and bad news.
“So what did you need to talk about Kleese?” Ghalt asked him as he folded his arms.
“Well, while I was reconfiguring the damage on ISIC, I found something that might relate to the little friend of ours.”
“You mean Discord?” Shayne asked, looking at Reyna. “What is it that you found, Kleese?”
“Well, that’s the thing… I found the files that ISIC was probably referring to when he knew what kind of species Discord was. The only problem though is that there’s a heavy source of encryption blocking us from accessing the files.”
“What Kleese means is that it needs a password to be opened,” Nova corrected him. “There was also a message that was with the file when we failed to open it.”
“What was the message?” Reyna then asked.
“It goes as followed…” She said, before pulling on the transcript on it and began reading it. “Hahahahaha…. Hahahaha…. HahaHAhaha…”
“I think we get it-.”
“Wait, there’s more,” The AI stopped Ghalt before she said the last part of it. “... Ha.”
“Well, that’s just great… Do we know anything about what kind of encryption type or language it is in?”
“We were just getting to work on that. It’ll be another all nighter at least,” Kleese said as his chair, or what he preferred to call his “Battle throne” had a mug of coffee digitize in the left cup holder. “You three get some rest, we’re going to need it if Rendain tries to pull anything on us… Oh and Nova, did you place the training setup in the game room?”
“Affirmative.”
“Training setup?” Shayne asked.
“Even with the whole Universe is Ending thing going on, everyone would need a moment to release some much needed stress… Most preferably, on each other. So Kleese activated the BATTLEGROUND ASSIMILATION SYSTEM, or by the preferred acronym, BADASS.” She explained as she showed several maps on the holoscreen. “Here, teams of five can compete against each other in several different scenarios to practice their combat skills before missions.”
“That… is just awesome.” Shayne smiled, looking at Nova in awe. “Thanks Nova! I’m going to go see if Toby and Discord want to give it a try before we get some sleep!” With that, Shayne ran off into the alley behind them as everyone soon looked at each other.
“Does she even know that what she’s looking for is in the opposite direction.”
“Meh, who really cares? She’ll find out eventually.” Nova said to them as Reyna and Ghalt left the hall to go retire to their own quarters and hopefully, get some shuteye before the next day comes.
And hopefully, they would have more days to look forward too.
