NanoFreakV2

Plague-Hunters 2

@NatsucooldudeI did say I'd make it soon, but then I thought I won't keep you waiting any longer so I already did it now. I'd recommend checking the latest post.

Plague-Hunters 2

“Excellent!” Joshua exclaimed as he set forth leading the trio. “We should reach that sawmill in no time. Maybe even too soon. Don’t push yourself Imgor, lost limbs tend to have a bad way with a trainers reputation, yes? Good.” Joshua finished with a laugh.

The forest got denser as the four took a turn off the main road and into the woods. A light mist engulfed them as they inched deeper into the woodland.

“I’m sure it was somewhere around here.” Joshua rubbed his chin.

"Ah! There!"

And sure enough, moments later a sawmill revealed itself through the trees and faint fog. As expected, a clearly still young Wyvern had made it it’s home, resting underneath the shabby wooden structure. It looked rather peaceful. Looks, however can be deceiving. The place itself had an eerie feel to it. As if . . . they were being watched.

"Try to make it quick though. We are running late. Joshua said with confidence that his students were up to the task before hopping off his horse.
“Well then. What are you waiting for?” He urged them with a grin.

Sapphire, on the other hand, had a bit more trouble dismounting. And as soon as she did she grasped her abdomen, clenching her teeth, which did not escape Joshua.

“Everything alright, Sapphire? Not having second thoughts or anything, are we?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, everything’s fine.” She responded.

Joshua merely nodded, but he didn't look convinced.

---

On the outskirts of Kiruth a black haired fancily clothed individual was riding his horse, which happened to be his familiar too, into the moon-lit town. The bond between man and horse is a strong one. However, that bond pales in comparison to the connection between familiar and master, their thoughts eternally intertwined.

The young man held a letter in his hands and it was likely the third or so time he was reading it. It seemed fitting though, as he was so close to his destination.
Castle Bloodleaves.

“Dear Jonathan,

I’m sorry to hear about the disappearance of your previous trainer and the disbanding of your group as a result.
However I’m happy to say a spot has just been freed up after the departure of one of my students. Therefore I’d be happy to take you under my wing. I’m sure you’ll get along well with the rest of my pupils.

That being said, I’d like you to meet us at Castle Bloodleaves in two days.
I look forward to meeting you.
Take care,

Joshua”

It was the response he got after requesting to continue his training under him.

A glance at the town’s roads distinctly visible from the hilltop revealed a crowd gathering somewhere near the center of Kiruth. At this time in the night, the only reason possible was that something had transpired there. A scuffle between bandits maybe? It was probably worth a look as Jonathan was early anyways.

NCQuest: Favors for Favors (Taking new players)

---

Old Moscow, Volkov Nuclear Security territory. Database/Transmission Facility 12

Two off-duty guardsmen in the buildings' cafeteria are playing chess, alone in the room aside from a few messhall orderlies.

"I swear to god Sergei,", the shorter one in a gasmask would start, "Why do you always bring your Kalashnikov to the chess table?", asking his compatriot in boardgames.

Sergei responded sarcastically. "I don't know Vladimir, maybe because I'm a fucking guardsman in the ass-end of nowhere, where my balls'll freeze off at any moment due to the nuclear blizzard going outside, and that there are hundreds of ludicrously vicious, radioactive, oversized mutated predators roaming the countryside waiting to rip out our goddamn throats?" The man had a few good points.

"Well, yeah, but you don't see lugging around my Barret everywhere. It's just rude, alright?", Vladimir elaborates, while eyeing his weapon leaning in the corner behind him.

"'Rude' is sticking a twelve gauge up somebody's asshole and pulling the trigger."

"Oh, so doing all that except pulling the trigger is just fine?"

"Fuck you Vladimir, you're a cunt."

The two men, after making a few moves on the chessboard, notice that their buddy Ivan walks towards them and takes a seat, sitting in it reversed, laying forwards on the backrest. "Hey guys, how's it going? Is today Tuesday? I'm craving tacos."

Vladimir rolls his eyes, "Urgh... you see Ivan..."

Ivan, with hope in his eyes (as much could be told behind the goggles), listens intently.

Sergei finishes for Vladimir, with audible sadness in his voice.

"...Ivan, taco tuesday was cancelled."

"...Oh." was all Ivan could say. All of the hope and love of life exited his eyes instantly.

"...So-so how's the boardgames...? We... we still have checkers right?"

Vladimir tries to salvage the situation, "Yes, we still have checkers."

"...What about Bunkers and Badasses?"

"Yes, we still have B&B", Vlad happily confirms.

Ivan skips ecstatically, a loud "YES!" emanating from his person.

"Calm down Ivan.", Sergei bluntly commands.

"Oh, okay!". Ivan sits down to watch their game.

---

Two stories below them, in the command room of the facility.

"Commander!" one of the RADAR operators shouted for.

Inquisitively, "Yes? What is it?", the commander asked. "Is there an enemy?"

"Uhh... Yes sir. It's moving in quick. 6 kilometers above the ground, blinking in and out. IFF isn't operating. Appears to be a Neural Combatant, or perhaps a heavier fighter-bomber."

"Activate all perimeter defenses, hail it and shoot it down if necessary."

"Roger, sir."

---

Sergei snaps his fingers. "Ah-hah! Suck it Vladimir, your knight is mine."

Vladimir laughs. "Hohohoh...but Sergei, your queen...", Vladimir uses a pawn to take Sergei's queen, out of the blue, "Is mine."

"Shit...", Sergei huffs. "Ivan.. what should I do?", he whispers while Vladimir gets a drink.

Ivan, advising, "Well, Sergei.. your bishop should finish what you were planning, then move back in position with those three pawns and two knights."

"Genius..."

Ivan then crosses his arms. "Man, I feel like this is somehow important in multiple, subtle ways. Like, determine the fate of the universe level. What if somebody's watching us?"

"You need to lay off the weed, Ivan."

"Hey, don't rat me out."

---

Nine took a look at his scanners and grinned. "Everything is in place. This is going to be so much fun."

After blinking in and out of seemingly all existance a few more times, carefully maintaining his 6 km range he finally made his move. The blinking stopped and he was headed straight for the base.

Mere 100m away from the base he stopped and waited, as if waiting for them to act first . . . toying with them.

Interrogating russian soon turned into angry, ranting russian speech when Nine penetrated the perimeter far too quickly all of a sudden.

"Unknown NC! Stand down immediately or be destroyed, this is your last warning!", the radio's operator barked.

Turrets outside the surface portion of the facility began whirring to life, and larger implements in the mountains far away did the same, scanning Nine. Two heavy laser systems, numerous rockets, and plenty of simple flak turrets were trained on Nine's Neural Combatant, warming up quickly.

Nine opened a radio channel and the first thing he did was of course laugh maniacally. A long paused followed. "How entertaining. I was going to say the same thing to you."

A few icons popped up on Nine's HUD, a few of them suddenly blinking red. Six kilometers from the base, surrounding it, a large array of jury rigged anti-materiel sniper rifles salvaged from unknown NC's opened fire. Synchronously, nearly all exterior defenses were crippled.

"I do hope you have some NC guards in there, otherwise this won't be fun at all. Your move."

The command staff and guards of the facility began panicking, watching as a vast majority of their heavy defensive armaments suddenly exploded all around them. "Status report!" the commander demanded, "Now! Launch everything left!"

"Sir, 87% of all weapons annihilated! NC 'Proletariat' is already returning from patrol to assist.", one of the commanders' staff members notified.

"She'll have to do."

The remaining guns, a scant few flak turrets in addition to some stationary tank guns, began firing. The skies above the base turned into a fireworks show almost instantly, the flak guns attempting to box the enemy NC in while the 150 millimeter cannons attempted to directly damage the assailant.

The hostile black NC began boosting towards the main gate of the base effortlessly dodging most incoming fire.

The patrol NC 'Proletariat' entered the combat zone, the first bout of flak receding while the 150mm guns continued trying to hit their target, to little avail.

Several three bladed discs lodged themselves into the main gate and exploded, leaving a sizeable hole in it. Nine however moved away from the gate.
"Not yet." He said, instead now focusing his attention on the patrol who had entered the combat zone.

The bulky, rounded and blue NC opened up communications, warming up a plasma beam machine gun, and locking on with thermobaric warheads. "Get ready to die, raider!", the female pilot boasted over comms, "I don't go easy on you mongrels!". The NC was two thousand Km above the ground, falling down steadily while gaining ground on Nine, firing off a burst of particle beams.

The black NC side-stepped the first volley before simply blinking out of existance. "Why don't you come down here. We'll play a little game."
The NC reappeared in a different location and fired its railgun once, aiming to just graze the other NC. More toying around with his prey, it seemed.

The Proletariat flinched at the impact, but stayed afloat, changing course for the enemys new position. "I-I'll... I won't stand for.. Oh forget it!". The NC's boosters went to full afterburn, aiming to grapple her opponent, firing highly incendianary rockets in a spread beforehand.

Nine merely stood still and waited for the rockets to close in. And he waited some more, to the point where the likelyhood of dodging was zero.

However, merely seconds before impact his NC took out another one of those explosive discs and threw into the ground. It penetrated the dirt beneath him and exploded all while he used his thruster to move himself to the side just enough to avoid getting caught in his own explosion. As the disc detonated underneath the ground it launched a sizeable amount of dirt and rocks towards the sky, creating an umbrella of sorts, intending to cause the rockets to detonate prematurely.

The missiles' massive fireballs did extend outwards from the on-demand dust storm, yet at best the explosions singed off a few cans' worth of paint.

"H-how... HOW?!", is all the pilot of Proletariat could muster. "This.. THIS ISN'T FAIR!"
The pilot could be heard audibly hyperventilating as she tried to continue piloting, fear and awe overtaking her training.

"Who.. what are you...?" was heard after a few moments, the Proletariat pausing to land for a moment, thrusters still hot.

"Your worst nightmare." was the only response she got.

Out of the still settling dust, at high speeds, the black NC emerged, heading straight for the blue one.
With a quick vault over the top of the bulky NC, Nine deployed the blades hidden within the arms of his NC. A few slices later, the other pilot would likely notice her thrusters were unusable after the attack.

"Tag, you're it." Another laugh followed over the comms.

The pilot yelped in pain, surges of the sensation coming through the neural net technology."What do you want?! I don't want to die - Please!". The NC struggled back to action as the pilot ranted, trying to aim the plasma gun towards Nine, firing off a sloppily aimed snapshot of a volley.

"Meek words for someone firing a plasma rifle." Nine said as he vanished again, at the same time attempting to dodging the incoming plasma bolts.

The staffmembers in the command room watched as non-essential personel were confirmed as being evacuated. The bases' leader grabbed the radio equipment and set it to Proletariat. "I swear to god, make time! Give your life if you must, the data can't fall in enemy hands! Charge, damn you!". Orders sent, running to the server room, he started helping his men burn and wipe documents and hard drives.

Proletariat paused, regained composure, and resumed attacking. Six missiles were fired in addition to her plasma rifle launching another wave of green-yellow bolts, beginning to overheat at this stage.

"I don't like people who sit around on their asses."

Nine suddenly appeared out of thin air behind the blue NC, kicking it forwards mid air. At the same time another one of the icons on Nine's HUD blinked. Six kilometers away another one of the anti-materiel rifles fired. And the Proletariat was right in the path of the shell.

"Goodbye."

"I wasn't strong enough-" were the pilots' last words. What was she fighting for anyway? The more pressing matter at hand was the information deep inside the facility, being corrupted to uselessness as Nine played with his toys.

However, he was now done. The black NC moved through the gates that were blasted earlier and checked for other hostile NC on the premises of the base. None showed themselves, and the main interior hanger was empty aside from maintenance tools and whatnot. The entrance to further inside was not large enough for an NC.

Nine stepped out of his NC taking his trusted handgun with him, holstering it to the back of his camo-patterened pants. With hurried steps, yet not bothering to actually run, he entered the facility.

Nine could hear people further inside, their foot-steps being mostly orderly and heading for various smaller, secondary hangers for a few escape vehicles. It was obvious to Nine that he couldn't waste too much time fighting his way through.

Nine headed towards the direction from where the sound of people came from. A turn later through the maze of hallways, a few people heading towards one of the hangers. He took out his handgun. Blood spilled on the walls as two gunshots resonated throughout the halls. He then continued through the hallway from which the people were coming intending to shoot down anyone in his way.

He soon came across two guards who were marching away from the server room, facing him after turning a corner. They took cover, disengaging safeties. A few tense moments passed before one threw a grenade of some sort down the hallway.

Nine didn’t even flinch and before the grenade was even half of the way to him he shot it mid air followed by more shots at the cover, right in the spot where he knew their heads were after taking refuge. Two satisfying ‘thumps’ later, and Nine was free to go to the database, now just a few rooms away.

”Poorly prepared.” Nine huffed as he passed through the last hallways leading to where he assumed was the room holding the database of the facility. One final security door kept him away from his goal, and he could hear people typing away on the other side.

”They wouldn’t. . . ” He said with a grin as he pressed a few buttons on the panel next to the door intending to open the door.

Nine was then greeted by a heavily armored infantryman spooling up a minigun, two scientists, cowering behind him and now slowly typing at a console respectively.

”Hah, you did not, seriously, leave this door unlocked.” He yelled as he as he took a few steps to the side and waited with his back to the wall, expecting the minigunner to open fire, which he did. six millimeter bullets began whizzing out of his guns’ seven barrels, more like a laser that just happened to be made of physical matter instead of photons instead of a steady stream of individual bullets.

Of course, Nine dodged out of the way just as well as he usually does, omnipotent reflexes serving him ludicrously well. The heavy’s eyes widened at this, expecting to see an intruder turned into a thick slurry in milliseconds. Nonetheless, he continued firing and advancing on the intruder. The large fellow began screaming in native Russian. “IT’S YOU OR ME! LET’S ROCK!”

Nine grinned madly, his teeth showing, ”I love this.” he spoke, not being so excited in a while. He stretched out his arm resting it on the control panel of the security door and awaited the arrival of his foe. Allowing his gatling to rest for a bit, the soldier slowly walked to the door, before beginning to spool up yet again just as he reached it, jinking his view immediately towards Nine as soon as he saw him.

The moment his minigun poked through the door, Nine pressed a few buttons causing it to slide shut. The guns’ barrels stopped rotating, and crinked due to the force while being stuck in between. The bullets continued attempting to fire, getting stuck halfway through the barrel due to it being squished, then nearly immediately filling it up as the brute of a soldier was confused on what the hell happened. Figuring it out one millisecond too late, the 6mm bullets’ casings began exploding inside the gun itself, causing it to jam further and blow it in half. The heavy staggered backwards, before ripping out the gun and forcing the doors to open.

As the door creaked open, Nine stood in front of him, still grinning madly, with his handgun aimed at him. Not moments later he opened fire, however the low-caliber bullets harmlessly bounced off the heavy’s armor.
He then began a fist-fight, an armored right hook aimed directly for Nine’s face. Nine, however, ducked, easily dodging the clumsy blow. Immediately, it was followed by a left-handed uppercut, going straight for the jaw.

Nine bent backwards, dodging the uppercut while pulling out his knife. The Heavy’s armor clearly had openings in the joints, mainly between the glove part and the rest of his arm, and that’s exactly where Nine aimed at with his knife. The Heavy didn’t even flinch, conditioned to accept pain as long as it results in victory. He used this opportunity to bring Nine in, attempting to snap his neck like a chicken bone.

Nine, however, seamlessly slid down in a crouch, avoiding the attempted grab and stuck his knife in the soldier’s ankle following it with a low spin-kick as he attempted to detach his foot from his leg. The foot was nearly cut cleanly off, dangling for a few moments before the Heavy, ignorant of the pain and that limbs’ condition, tried to kick Nine in the face. Obviously, before impact, the Heavy noticed that its’ foot was now flying in an arc. It was… comically, surrealy slapstick for some strange reason.

The Heavy then fell down, beginning to lose blood, before stumbling back up and trying to continue fighting while missing a bloody foot. Obviously, he was… on his last leg. Being so bulky and obviously crippled, it took him a while to stand up, which gave Nine plenty of time to walk around him, now facing his back. ”Night-night.” he said, maintaining his psychotic grin all the while he stuck his knife into the back of his neck, severing his spine.

The Heavy slumped over like a piece of meat (Which he effectively was anyway), as the two scientists in the database room slowly put their hands up.

”Well then . . . “ Nine spoke and immediately pointed his gun at the foot of the first one, firing without hesitation, then doing the same to the second one.

The second one, an older bloke, coughed as he hit the floor in pain and frantically started attempting negotiations. “Do- don’t kill us! The.. The data is salvageable- I-I promise! The m-master password i-is 46*3-aJIK!”. The older gentleman breathed for a few seconds, “Just.. let us live! I gave you the cod-code, it’s only fair!”

Nine step forward and inputted the code into the mainframe while he pulled out his own data drive and prepared it.
The younger one looked at his wound, before asking a question. Calm, for the most part, “What.. exactly are you looking for..?”.

”Oh you’d like to know wouldn’t you.” he responded while still focused on trying to salvage the data he was looking for.

”Actually . . . can you tell me who and where the leadership of Volkov is?”

The older man looked in fear as his junior associate seemingly weighed his options. The young man gave his offer. “...I really don’t like that you just shot me in my foot… Of course, you’d kill me if I didn’t tell you, anyway… So, I give you everything I know.. but you get me outta here as far away as possible? Volkov’ll use me in one of their bio-engineering experiments anyway.” He certainly had balls, assuming he was in a position to negotiate.

Nine turned around and eyed the young man. While still staring him in the eye he pulled out his gun and shot the older scientist in the head.

”You will tell me what you know right now . . . and I will . . . consider taking your interests into account.”

The young man widened his ocular instruments at the hole in his fellow employee’s brainpan. “He was an asshole anyway… But yes, I took quite a few peeks that weren’t in my contract over the years. Turns out that our mysterious… main leader… never stays in one place for more than a month. But, you can find him using an algorithm. I wrote an unencrypted list, it’s in my room, under my mattress. You won’t miss it on your way out. I’d get it for you but you sorta blew a hole in my fucking foot. You’ll have to go to each location individually and it’s random, but he doesn’t relocate anywhere else. Set up traps if you want, I wouldn’t care.”

“So, can you please help me hobble out of here?”

Nine turned back towards the mainframe checking that all the data was copied on his data drive before taking it with him.

”If you’re lucky, you should be able to crawl out of here before you bleed out. I have no doubt you’ll find some vehicle in the hanger.”

“Well gee, thanks for holding up your end of the bargain...” the technician snarked as Nine began leaving the room.

”If you by chance run into Volkov again . . . tell them Subject Nine sends his regards.”

The young technician sighed. “..Dick..”

Plague-Hunters 2

@Mcmolly Of course. No worries, I feel your pain man. Just a few weeks ago I had my hands full with it as well.

Plague-Hunters 2

Well I'd like to make sure that you're all still on-board with this. I'll, of course, simply pick off from where LHG100 left. Also would like to know if you, @Natsucooldude, are also still on-board since I'll make your introduction very soon.

Plague-Hunters 2

Not that much going, eh? Also @Mcmolly, do the riddles have you stumped? xD

Plague-Hunters 2

In the castle Bloodleaves Willo was hard at work trying to figure how to disable the barrier keeping Lazarus outside.

The first door to the right, opposing of the one where the blood trail led revealed some sort of storage room for various weapons including regular swords, maces, glaives and, uniquely, a crossbow. It's bow part was made of two sharp blades. Even lightly touching the edges would most likely result in a cut. The weapons were probably to be used in case the first line of defense was breached. It was rather curious that not only were there no signs of struggle, excluding of course the trail of blood, if that can be considered a struggle, moreover all weapons were accounted for too. As far as Willo could tell anyways. On the wall opposing the door, a vaguely familiar rune was carved into it and glowing brightly. It was the same as the ones at the entrance. However, Willo didn't have the luck of being faced with an as simple task as described by Drake. The rune had, in fact, four removable tiles opposed to Lazarus' assumption of merely one. Two to the left and right of the rune's center and the other two to the top and bottom. Each tile additionally had a word inscribed into it. The top one had 'Everything' ,the bottom had 'Nothing', the right one 'Darkness' and the left one had 'Light'.

Additionally an inscription below the rune read:

"It is greater than God and more evil than the devil. The poor have it, the rich need it and if you eat it you will perish."

Further down the wall another inscription.

"A mile from end to end, yet as close to as a friend. A precious commodity, freely given. Seen on the dead and on the living. Found on the rich, poor, short and tall, but shared among children most of all."

Plague-Hunters 2

@Mcmolly I'd like to invite you to another round of collab. I apologize for the long wait, it's been a busy week. And I hope you don't mind the abundance of collabs, however when working with only one more person I find it far more convenient.

Plague-Hunters 2

Sapphire listened in on Joshua’s lesson which prompted her to remember the time she exhausted her own magical abilities similarly to Imgor. . . while defending Nickolaus Schulze. She cringed slightly at the memory before closing her eyes and sighing. Joshua’s cough cleared her mind and soon afterwards they were on their way again.

Once at the stables Sapphire raised an eyebrow at Joshuas actions, however, for once she was the first go on ahead of the others, following Joshua over the gate. She occasionally had done similar things even before becoming a hunter in training. It was always out of necessity of course. She walked in front of all the stalls eyeing each horse from under her hood. After having seen all of them she returned to the enclosure that held one of a dark grey color. Under the cover of the night it could be mistaken for a perfectly black one.

Sapphire opened the gate and undid the rope binding the horse. She led the horse out and waited for the rest to do so as well.

RWBY - Only the "Finest"

Tentative interest here.