OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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Siege
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OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Siege »

So Mobius asked me if I wanted to do the honors. Predictably, I said 'yes'. So here... we... go!

OZU: A Fistful of Baylors

A Multiversal Soap-Opera With Guns and Explosions


PROLOGUE

THIRD MULTIVERSAL PLATEAU
INSERTION POINT 3551-ALEPH-87-B-NINER


Q-beams flickered through the void of intergalactic space. Humongous planetoids the size of worlds, piloted by the disembodied minds of Bragulan warriors, ripple-fired uncountable missiles, multi-mile projectiles that tore apart the darkness with the whithering glare of their GUT-drives. Where they struck their warheads detonated and artificial suns briefly outshone the stars themselves. Seven-fold dimensional shields buckled and vanished under the onslaught of the zero-point warheads and the first wave of enemy ships vanished in a conflagration of impossible energies.

But still the eternal enemy drove on, wave after wave of wedge-shaped, light-minute long warships battering into the Bragulan wall of battle. Alien weaponry unleashed titanic flashes of multi-dimensional light that tore through the Bragulan battlemoons as if all their shields and armour wasn't there. The battle raged for hours as thousands upon thousands of warships were gutted and annihilated by incomprehensibly powerful weaponry, but the superhuman intelligences that controlled each side had calculated every possibility, every move and counter-move even before it had begun. Everybody here knew the hard truth of the situation. And that truth was that despite all its unfathomable might the Bragulan Interdimensional Imperium wasn't going to win this battle. They were going to lose, and there wouldn't be another battle after this. After a war that had lasted the better part of a hundred thousand years, and which had laid seven universes to waste, this was the day the Transhuman Combine was going to win.

Thirty thousand light years behind the last line of Bragulan defenses, the supreme sovereign of the Bragulan people realized it too. Emperor Byzon the Eternal had long since transcended his mere mortal form; his body was now a warmoon the size of a sun, docked to a gargantuan space station the size of a modest solar system and many times its mass, hovering above the supermassive black hole at the core of the local galaxy. Byzon uttered a digital curse as his second line of defences was washed away by the combined power of three universes worth of human ingenuity, then turned his attention back to more important matters.

The battle didn't matter. The humans could win it, for all he cared. He was ready; his last gambit was prepared. If this went according to plan, the battle would never have happened. The Combine would never have formed. And the Bragulan Empire would reign supreme over the entirety of the multiverse.

In the underbelly of the titanic planetoid, in a hangar so vast its horizon actually curved, stood the massively complex device that made interdimensional time travel possible. A triumph of Bragulan engineering powered by the supermassive black hole, the device could reach the furthest corners of the omniverse. Within the massively complicated device swirled a tesseract of impossible colours and dimensions, so complex that it hurt the eye just to look at it.

In front of the device were assembled the finest of the Eternal Empire's elite: a dozen cyborg warbears of the Byzon Guard and their commander, a SHARDIK-3000 advanced combat mechanoid controlled by a mind-imprint of the Emperor himself. All of them looked up at the digital visage of their leader, the eternal sovereign of the Bragulan people, which was displayed on the ceiling of the cavern like the face of some gigantic god.

“Minions” proclaimed the digital face. “You are the final line of defence, the last and best hope of the Empire for greatness. I have personally chosen each of you for this mission. We have spent the last hundred years developing the technology to make this day possible. You must not fail me.”

The combat mechanoid bowed. “Your wish is our command” growled its heavily digitized voice.

“You must go back in time” the digital face commanded. “And kill the ultimate enemy-” Byzon's voice briefly faltered. The Emperor seemed momentarily distracted. “They have broken through the last lines of defence” it announced. “It is up to you now. You must kill the ultimate enemy!”

“And who is that?” asked the mechanoid.

The digital face of the Eternal Emperor contorted in a rictus of fury. “JOHN BAYLOR!” Byzon screamed, his voice thundering through the humongous bay with the finality of an earthquake. “You must kill John Baylor!”

The tesseract appeared to blossom, engulfing the entirety of the bay. When it returned to its former dimensions, the warbears and the mechanoid were gone.

***

Searchlights flashed on in the immense, cavernous hall. The elite super troopers of the Transhuman Combine streamed into the massive space, forming an honour guard for the last man to enter.

Jonathan Omega Baylor, commander of the supreme interdimensional battlefleet, stomped past the silent wall of power armoured hulks, trailing clouds of smoke. A lit cigar sat in the corner of his mouth, the last Cuban Montecristo that still existed in this universe – or any other universe for that matter. He'd lit it up the moment his techs had confirmed that the gigantic femto-optic mainframes that sustained the mind of Emperor Byzon had gone cold. The virus had done its job. It was over. After a hundred thousand years of war and an improbably huge number of casualties the bastard was dead. Game over. He'd won.

Then he gazed at the mind-bogglingly complicated machine in the middle of the room, and a sliver of doubt crept in his mind. Or maybe not.

A technical analyst hurried up to him, a worried expression on his post-neo-posthuman face. “Sir, I think we have a problem.”

***

“So you don't know what they sent through” Baylor summarized, and chomped on his cigar. “You don't know why they sent what they sent through. I ask you if you can tell to when they sent who they sent; you don't know.” He subjected the techie to his number-two glare, and the man seemed to shrivel before his eyes. “Is there anything you do know?”

“Byzon is changing the past, sir. We're fucked.”

Baylor sighed and regarded the technical analyst like a father might a particularly obnoxious child. “So how do we unfuck ourselves?”

The analyst scratched his head. “We could send someone back through this thing” he said and pointed at the machine. “But we don't know where they'll end up...” He went on to describe the various possibilities in which a mission back in time could screw up the timeline even worse, but Baylor tuned him out. The supreme commander experienced a strangest case of deja vu, which was peculiar since post-neo-postmen weren't supposed to have deja vu. Even so he distinctly felt that tingling sensation that came with recalling some half-forgotten memory from a foggy past.

“This already happened” he murmured. Then, when the analyst frowned and asked 'what', he repeated more forcefully: “this has already happened!” He grinned, ignored the protestations of the analyst, and called out to the nearest of the super troopers. “Quick. Get me a post-pen and some post-paper.”

As the soldier scrambled for the desired artefacts Baylor once again turned to the techie. “This device” he pointed at the Bragulan time-device. “It can displace people in time, correct?”

“Yes, but-”

“From different universes, correct?”

“Yes, but-”

The soldier arrived and handed him the post-pen and post-paper, so named because they were just totally more advanced than ordinary pen and paper. Like, the post-pen totally had like space-ink in it, dude. Baylor scribbled down a list of names and places, straining his mind in an attempt to recall half-forgotten adventures from millennia ago. Finally, smiling fondly at the memory of friends he had very nearly forgotten, he handed the paper to the analyst. “Fire up this machine” he said, “dial up these people, and get them to this location” he pointed to the name written at the bottom of the leaf of paper. Baylor looked at the analyst, who looked at him as if he'd gone completely crazy, and his smile widened. “Trust me old boy, this is one battle we've already won. Byzon just doesn't know it yet.”


INTRODUCTION

WORLD VOLUME ONE
'COULDA, SHOULDA, WOULDA


On the 29th of September of the year 2016, a completely unexpected yet particularly violent thunderstorm swept over the eastern seaboard of the United States of America. In Harrisburg the Susquehanna River broke its banks, flash-flooding parts of the city. In Boston, the Big Dig suffered enough serious water damage to set the entire project back at least six months. And the Port Authority of New York City was forced to close down the Staten Island Ferry. But that was nothing compared to Washington D.C., which seemed to be at the very epicentre of the storm, if storms could be said to have an epicentre.

Monstrous black clouds blotted the stars from the sky. Water streamed down from the heavens in unstoppable torrents. Lightning lit up the sky with such ferocity that night was transformed into day. Winds swept through the streets of the capitol, upturning trees and pushing cars from the road. It was in this conflagration of upset natural forces that a monstrous bubble of electric blue formed in Jefferson Manor Park. Lightning arched through the park with incredible ferocity, scorching the grass and setting trees alight despite the pouring rain. Chunks of earth, grass and gravel slowly rose into the sky in direct defiance of the laws of gravity as the zero-point disturbance reached its absolute zenith. Then, with a titanic thunderclap that drowned out even the loudest thunder the blue bubble vanished, in the process triggering a shock wave of displaced air that flattened every tree in half a mile, and shattering windows as far north as Alexandria.

In the wake of the absolute destruction of once-placid Jefferson Manor Park, a handful of strange figures were left in the crater-strewn landscape. Even more than the strange storm these creatures, human and otherwise, did not belong in this time and place. They were displaced in time and space by the incomprehensible technologies of a far future society, unaware of anything but the fact that they had apparently been snatched from their familiar surroundings, to be somehow dumped into what only could be described as a terrible storm.

Underneath the smoking ruin of what had once been an oak tree, Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Starr, United States Aerospace Force, blinked in utter bewilderment. One moment she had been in her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, enjoying a Bud as rain swept against the windows and Bob Seeger played 'On The Road Again' on the stereo; now, she was here – wherever here was – getting rapidly drenched to the bone in the storm of the century.

What the fuck?

She looked around. Lightning split the dark, followed by a rolling thunderclap. Across the felled trees, the craters, the mudslides and the other devastation she could ever so briefly see other figures moving across the landscape. Some looked human – one or two looked vastly less so. Okay 'Lex, you've been through weirder things than this she told herself. She straightened her shoulders, waited for the next flash of lightning and, having surveyed the park in the split-second of brightness, made her way over to the nearest of the moving figures. Let's see what we've got...
"Nick Fury. Old-school cold warrior. The original black ops hardcase. Long before I stepped off a C-130 at Da Nang, Fury and his team had set fire to half of Asia." - Frank Castle

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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Mobius 1 »

OZU

The Tyrax - Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

Pure willpower began to coalesce above the Jefferson Manor Park, arcing blue lightning in the tremendous rainstorm that wracked the park. Tendrils and fingers of flickering azure shot this way and then, before encircling a sphere of black that was darker even than the night around it. Stars seemed to flicker from the obsidian ball, which hovered above the wide and squat picnic pavilion on the south end of the park.

The spheroid detonated a moment later, in perfect unison with the dozen-so other space-time insertions. The pavilion under this specific spheroid was flattened as though by the hand of god before exploding upward in a concussive bubble of shrapnel and twisted hunks of metal.

And it was there, within that swirling chaos of zero-space, that the red eyes began to glow. Too lean yet too massive to be a simple human; the shadow crouched in the perfectly smooth, glassed-over crater, all spikes and long, gangly limbs.

As the shrapnel began to rain down in slow-motion around the site of trans-dimensional teleportation, the Tyrax slowly stood up, combat routines flickering into full awareness. It had been destroyed, its systems pulverized, its body atomized. And yet it was alive – well, operating – once more.

The unpleasant rebuilding process flickered across the Tyrax’s mind, something partially indefinable to a non-psionic cyborg. And yet, when all its scattered bits had collected in the singularity of the black hole around which his first and final stand had been waged, he distinctly recalled willing himself back into being. There was no other word for it.

But instead of reemerging in a graveyard of ships, he was now standing in the remains of what could only be a once beautiful commons. It had since – obviously by his not-so-subtle entrance – been transformed into a hellish mix of destruction interwoven with patches of green. Rain stormed down from above, and lightning briefly, momentarily highlighted the area for lesser eyes. The Tyrax ducked into the wreckage of the pavilion, folding in on himself as his ocular sensors flicked into multi-spectral analysis.

There – six, eight – no, more. Forms moving, each emerging from their own personal crater. All… humans. Perhaps his foes in the ISA and amongst the Ark loyalists had managed to intercept his return to the Milky Way and had planted him in a neutral area with several of their own warriors? No. This humans were all emanating radiation on subtly differing spectrums, all unique in their tags. Their bone structures were mildly diverse, some overlaid with cybernetics, some glowing with a particular gene that signified beyond-baseline physical ability. There were no less than three of the latter, their strengths impossible to determine. They weren’t Storm Commandos or anything of the like.

They were not from here – they stuck out like, as his language parameters informed him, sore thumbs.

A sign clanked down near one robotic foot, spinning on one corner before landing face up. The language was obviously human, but somehow less advanced than the English Standard of the Milky Way of the late 26th century. After a millisecond of bouncing around algorithms and matrices, the Tyrax read the sign: JEFFERSON MANOR PARK PAVILLION. PLEASE, NO SMOKING. NO PETS. HAVE FUN!

At last the Tyrax gazed upward, casting his crimson eyes towards the heavens. Programs began to identify and store known stars and constellations, slowly whittling down his location in the galaxy.

And then the smoke cleared, and he saw the glowing globe floating in the sky, unmistakable for someone who had spent his entire operable life trying to get his hands on the system in which the moon resided. That was Luna.

But it there were none of the telltale signs of development. No vast abandoned industrial complexes sprawling across the southern hemisphere. None of the rings of deep and entrenched megacity that hugged the equator. It was just… there. Rocky and abandoned.

And then the satellite caught his eye. There! Slowly tracing a path across the sky. The Tyrax stepped up his magnification a thousand fold and saw it was indeed a space station, perhaps a couple hundred meters wide at best, reliant on primitive solar panels for power generation. Small drones and the occasional manned transport craft orbited the station lazily.

And there, on the side. A standard, an ensign. Thirteen stripes, alternating red and white. A blue rectangle in the upper corner, dotted with a multitude of stars.

The Tyrax had moderate files on the history of humanity – but it did know something of a vague history of the race. How, in what he could only call his verse, the humans had abandoned their homeworld, Earth, sometime in the 22nd century after disaster after disaster rendered it uninhabitable. But here the Tyrax was, on what could only be Earth. Looking at what he knew was a primitive space station operated by the “United States of America”.

This could be potentially very interesting. Engaging some measure of stealth, the Tyrax began to slink towards his fellow dimension-hoppers. He needed answers.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Booted Vulture »

Eric Rivers, Agent Of PEST, was not having a good day. He was dressed as usual in an armoured skinsuit,(black) utillity belt (black) and a long trench (black, with the PEST logo stamped over the heart in ostentatious gold), he had been somewhere... An office building, on a covert mission. There had been a white blinding flash. And now he was else where.

He opened his eyes. He was lying in a large crater, there were other people, all around. His skull pulsed as if his brain was rapidly expanding and becoming too large for his skull. There was a sudden, massive influx of new thoughts around him, some familiar and human. Others less so.

He rose to his feet and looked around him and felt a horrible jolt of recognition. There was another human standing not too far away. A human looking straight at him. Someone who looked exactly like Control Agent John Baylor.

Inside the confines of his own head, Eric snapped slightly. If there was one universal truth of the last few years for him it was this; everything bad that had happened to him had happened entirely because of John Baylor.

And he was going to get some answers.

Taking three quick steps forward he lashed out; punching John in the face as hard as he possibly could, sending the man flying the ground again.

Surprised and angry, John looked up, unleashing a screamin torrent of harsh invectives, only to stop mid-flow at the sight of a small, very deadly looking, chromed pistol being precisely aimed at his right eyeball in a firm two handed grip.

"Hello, John" Eric said, "What's going on here?"
Last edited by Booted Vulture on Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Heretic »

Annava looked up at the twirling black storm above as she laid flat on her back on the crater. Interesting, she thought. Was this the reality skip O1D+45 was talking about a second ago? He did mention such a thing possibly happening to her. And as Annava tilted her eyes to look at the beings around her, there was no doubt that they weren't part of anything.

"Ok..." Annava whispered as she stood up. There were beings all around her, some cybernetic, some looking too badass to be. But, there didn't seem to be a being that was biologically artificial like Annava. Whatever universes these beings came from didn't seem to have thought of using Mother Nature herself to make a war machine.

As her looked around watching the crowd, she felt a tap. Looking back, she saw a man in a brown dusty trench-coat and brown cropped hair smiling at her. He had a big revolver. Next to him was a skeleton-like robot with flat metal sheets as ear flaps, wearing a blackish red cape. Annava could see on the hem of the cape laced with small fiber optics and such. On his back was a big machete with spikes on the tip.

"Excuse me, miss, but do you know where we are? I don't want to miss another shipment, or else the Duke will get my skin." The man smiled, his stubble darkly showing.

"I believe we are either in a reality skip or a time traveling bonanza, though looking around, this isn't the Washington DC in my time or reality. I mean look!" Annava pointed at an overturned small car with wheels. "Hippies still exist here! Damn Priuses." The man looked at his robot companion.


"I believe she speaks the truth, human captain." Omicron 70 gave a hoarse statement as he scanned around. "I believe in our history Washington DC turned into a political mall..." Omicron 70 looked down as a floating sight caught his eye. A newspaper glided under him. He scanned the type... "And it seems we are in the year 2016." Omicron 70 said aloud for the other beings to hear. Some looked their way, shocked.

"2016." The young pale woman rose an eyebrow and shook her head. "Not only are we in different realities, but we are also in the past." Annava looked around, her short red hair covered in dust. Then, the hair seemed to have small nodes moving around, and the dirt disappeared. Daniel Animus gave a choke.

"What the hell was that?" He gasped, twitching his body back. The red haired pale girl in a hard-shelled greyish green catsuit smiled. Then, a mass of matter morphed on top of her shoulder and waved into a parrot.

"I'm a genetically engineered "Clandestine Soldier" built in the secret labs of an unknown planet by the Gloguk in order to have an edge against the Tyxans and the Greeg Dominants. My genetics and organs are a mix of alien genes, built into a human frame of a young 21 year old." The parrot said in a high pitch sqwauk before slowly dissolved into her shoulder. Daniel just gaped at the girl.

"Interesting." Omicron 70 said, but then his eyes, normally yellow, turned red. He sensed another mechanical presence here. A strong presence. One that could utterly destroy him, but if taken down, has a store of information. He slowly turned his eyes towards the Tyrax.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Siege »

QUARTERMASS EXPT.
SHETLAND ISLANDS


Deep within the bowels of the Quartermass Experiment's facilities in a remote corner of the Shetland Islands was buried Sector D Test Labs and Control Facilities, the most dangerous and quixotic of all the branches of the Experiment, including the Temporal Department. And at the deepest point of the Test Labs sat the Hypercollider Pit, a facility that was at the forefront of the bleeding edge of science. And today, Dr. Tiffany Jones and her colleagues were about to push that edge just a little bit further.

From behind the relative safety of six layers of safety glass and at least three forcefields Tiffany Jones looked out into the depth of the hypercollider pit, a gigantic cylinder in the middle of which sat the experimental anti-mass spectrometer. Elements of the spectrometer were slowly gearing up to speed, turning and revolving around each other to generate the anti-magnetic charge necessary for the experiment.

“Power to stage one emitters in three... two... one...” her assistant called, and gently fingered the red button. Just as predicted the complex device in the midst of the pit began belching out arching yellow lightning, beams slowly converging on a single point where the hypercollider would sent supercharged particles screaming through in a few moments.

Tiffany nodded and manipulated the controls without taking her eyes off the spectacle unfolding in the pit below her. “I'm seeing predictable phase arrays... Stage two emitters activating... Now.”

The familiar hum of the anti-mass spectrometer increased threefold as the megahomodyne receivers kicked in. Within the pit the lightshow increased in intensity as intense magnetic and anti-magnetic fields interacted, throwing scalar shadows across the walls. Then the collider itself activated, causing supercharged elementary particles to charge through and interact with the scalar fields.

“Tiffany, we cannot predict how long the system can operate at this level...” her assistant reminded her. “Please work as quickly as you can.”

She nodded. “Will do. Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent...”

Within the collider pit the fields began oscillating anti-parallel to each other, building potential as unreal colors flickered across the shielded walls of the pit. “Uh, it's probably not a problem...” Tiffany could positively hear her assistant frown. “Probably... But I'm showing a small discrepancy in... Well, no it's well within acceptable bounds.”

“Are you sure?” She briefly took her eyes off the instrumentation and looked at him. A worried frown creased his brow. “We can abort and try again later...” Much later she thought; the Experiment was currently using up volumes of energy ordinarily associated with stellar output. Still, she knew all too well what could happen if something went wrong.

“Sure I'm sure. No need to abort. Sustaining sequence! Uh, I've just been informed that the sample is ready Tiffany. It should be coming up shortly...”

Inside the pit a platform containing a robotic cart rose up from the depths of the facility. Clasped inside the hands of the robotic probe was a preformed crystal, designed explicitly for maximum scalar resonance. Slowly manipulating the control Tiffany edged the robot forward, until the crystal touched the arching beams of the anti-mass spectrometer.

In an instant, chaos broke out. Green lightning shot out from the crystal, hitting the anti-mass spectrometer and arching back, creating a feedback loop that immediately engulfed most of the hypercollider pit. A deep tremor passed through the installation as a deep-red and impossibly multi-faceted tesseract formed in the midst fields of wildly oscillating scalar energy. She heard her assistants shout in the distance as piercing beams of energy spat out of the pit like searchlights but the words did not register, and then one of the beams seared through the layers of glass and the force fields as if they weren't even there, striking her right in the chest.

She heard an ever so brief sound like the tearing of dimensional seams, and then everything went dark. For a brief few seconds she could hear nothing but her own heartbeat. Then, the screaming again and in a flash of light she was standing amidst an alien vista. Tiffany caught an ever so brief glimpse of a group of bizarre creatures drinking from a strangely multicolored pool. Then the world went black again. Once more she heard her heartbeat. Then the whining scream again followed by a discharge of what felt like static electricity, and suddenly it was night.

Torrents of rain poured down on her head. She shrieked a foul curse, stumbled, and found that her boots were stuck in what felt like sticky mud. She cursed again, very rudely. Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the ruined landscape of what appeared to have once been a fairly pretty park. Tiffany sputtered in the rain, her words lost in the rumbling thunder. All any telepath in the vicinity could pick up of her thoughts was the mental equivalent of a deeply annoyed sigh and three simple words: ”... goddammit... not again...”
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Mobius 1 »

The Tyrax – Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda – 2

It didn’t take long for the assemblage to turn violent. One human had slugged another before pulling a gun on him. The Tyrax noted the name “John” in the charged interrogation, and took a closer look at the assailant’s target. It bore a unhealthy resemblance to a high-ranking Carnage Mech Pilot the Tyrax had encountered more than once in his battles – a Major John Baylor.

Facial mapping turned in a second later – there was a definite similitude, to the sure. Perhaps a sibling? A family relation?

Who knew. The Tyrax drew up a firing solution, aiming a mounted rocket at the pair, before filing the solution away. He wouldn’t open fire… yet. He was still somewhere in the past – though, even going by the comments he was overhearing from some of the others in the ‘crash site’, it was entirely possible this was another dimension.

If that was so, caution was to be called for. Killing everyone in the clearing, as easy as it would be, would accomplish close to nothing.

And then the robot in the trio of humaniforms turned to look at the Tyrax. Wonderful. Spectacular. Oh well. It’s not like he could’ve simply gone unseen.

Filing away another firing solution, the Tyrax straightened up into a loose defensive posture – specifically designed and posed to be as non-threatening as possible – and nodded to the robot. Best to start gathering information.

Keeping an eye on the various other humans emerging from their craters, the Tyrax gestured expansively to the storm clouds overhead. “Poor night for a walk.”

At the same time, the Tyrax began scanning the airwaves for signals. There were literally hundreds of them, unencrypted. Of course, the programming language could take some getting used to – the Tyrax spun off a subroutine to decipher the archaic code.

Threats were approaching from middling range, the Tyrax noted, as his internal SLIDAR began to track multiple airborne contacts lifting into the air from – what could only be a base – some fifty miles away. Judging by the whine of the motors, they were rotor-based aircraft.

There. The subroutine chimed on his mental HUD, and the wavelengths began streaming in. Radio chatter – apparently this was a major governmental center. Civilian bands – generic political dissent. And there, a the forebear of a CommNet. Known colloquially as the Internet.

The Tyrax began to surf the web, opening pages faster than the human eye could track, specifically seeking out news sources – hitting upon FOX NEWS, he embarked upon a archive binge.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Vagrant Orpheus »

Fantastic Jack. No more needs to be said, everyone knows Jack.

Jack groaned, opening his eyes and noting that it was suddenly very dark. His ears picked up the sounds of wind, beating rain hammered against his skin, and the constant booming of thunder just overhead assaulted his ears. He rolled over, the rain striking his bare chest, as he strived to remember exactly what had happened. He stretched out one hand, feeling smooth fibreglass beneath it. He'd been surfing, riding the tubes with glorious skill, shredding up the waves to the glee of a gaggle of tourist women, showing off his incredible skill with the board. He stretched out his other hand, and felt something squishy, something writhing underneath his probing fingers.

"OCTOPUS!" Jack roared, sitting bolt upright, his hand tightening around the thrashing tentacle as his memory caught up. He saw the huge tentacles bursting out of the wave ahead of him, the giant beast surging forward on the wave, right for the group of fangirls who had been watching Jack with adoration. Jack had bent over slightly, angled his board and shot forward at the octopus, leaping off the board in a spinning overhead flip, the leg tether around his ankle bringing the board flipping wildly with him. He'd landed firmly on the huge octopus, but just as he had struck it the octopus flicked out, enormous poisonous suckers fixing to Jack's back. And then the world had gone black in a swirl of lightning and crumbling reality.

Jack jumped to his feet, his muscles glistening in the lightning-struck air as they glided fluidly underneath his flawless golden skin. With all the grace of a ballerina, but none of the fagginess, Jack twirled, his bare feet crunching through the glassy surface of the crater, shattering the material against his indestructable soles. As he spun, Jack whipped the board in his hand around also, building up momentum and slamming the fibreglass board right into one of the disoriented eyes of the distraught octopus. The board shattered into fibreglass shards from the impact, as the eye imploded and torrent of octopus jelly streamed from the pierced cornea. Tentacles flailed as the octopus opened its beak and howled a shriek of uncomprehending pain, shocked and bewildered by the sudden displacement from the ocean and having its eye burst by an absolute specimen of manhood. However, the shrieks of pain did nothing to deter Jack, for he was an avatar of manliness and this beast had threatened his women. He was dutybound by his astonishing pecs to defeat the monster, so he wrapped his arms around three tentacles, and began to spin, digging his heels in as he gathered momentum, and then dropped to one perfectly-sculpted knee as he swung backwards over his head, whipping his blonde bangs out of his eyes as he released, the octopus shooting high up into the air.

In his kneeling position, Jack shifted his stance, his muscles straining with the sheer power they held as they tensed, and then released like a steel trap, sending Jack rocketing up into the sky after his foe. Jack hurtled upwards, the beating rain striking his upturned face, his expression contorted in rapturous awe at his own brilliance and might. His powerful leap sent him shooting past the octopus, and Jack once more spun gracefully as he reached the apex of his ascent, streamlining himself as he shot downwards, building up velocity as he approached the airborne octopus, its limbs still flailing madly. Jack pulled his right arm back, drawing his hand into a fist, as lighting lit up the scene with stark light, clearly defining his Adonis-like abdomen, his steely blue eys, and his astonishing grin. As he prepared himself, Jack envisioned the scene as if it were an action-blockbuster about his life, the whole world settling into slow motion as the camera panned around him in 360 degrees, gloriously drinking in every aspect of his being.

"BIIIIIIG"

Jack's roar seemed to overwhelm even the thunder that boomed above him, as he cocked his fist.

"FIIIIIIVE"

The octopus' one good eye locked with Jack's own azure glare as they rushed towards the terminal point where they would cross over. And in that moment, incomprehension changed to comprehension. And the octopus feared.

"OOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!"

Jack's battle-cry cut through the night as his fist plunged downwards, meeting the skull of the octopus with the combined velocity of the octopus' forced flight, Jack's diving fall and the punch of the most powerful man in the world.

The octopus exploded.

Jack slammed into the ground, sending up a spray of glass shards as he made impact, landing on one knee and the opposite fist, smiling widely as ichor and ink and octopus fragments rained down upon his boardshort-clad body, coating his hair with muck. He stood up, a bolt of lightning shooting overhead to illuminate the scene as he held both arms up in an expression of victory. He flung his head back and let loose a roar of self-congratulations.

"I AM THE GREATEST. ARCHWIND DON'T GOT SHIT ON ME!"
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Magister Militum »

Yeah, I kinda gave away a plot point for Gotterdammerung, but, hey, I needed to start with a bang.

Universe Designate TEG-1
Milky Way Galaxy
Canton, Grand Union of China – Currently Under Siege


Captain Gabrielle Chevalier and the rest of Unit 06 were now closing in fast toward their target, ex-teammate and traitor Jean-Marc Benzekri. He had betrayed all of them when they had gone to extract the Chinese defector Jin Jianguo from Sihnon, killing Fortak, Tiantant, and their support staff and nearly condemning all of them to a grizzly fate at the hands of the NSB. Unfortunately for them, they had escaped with Jin and his plans, and the United Nations was now on the verge of driving right into the Heart of the Indian Empire after crushing the Germania Pact's failed offensive. More importantly for Chevalier, though, was that the end was near for Brigadier General Huang Tao, the mastermind of the now failed plot to force France out of the war, and the miserable worm Benzekri.

Unit 06 had chased them from safehouse to safehouse throughout the galaxy, wiping out everyone connected to his grand plan until Huang and his outfit finally found refugee in the fortified Chinese world of Canton. Under protection by the Chinese Army and Space Navy, the General hoped to salvage what was left of his plan in relative security, but even that was denied to him by the Empire. The French Imperial Starfleet, as part of their blitzkrieg campaign in the sector, had isolated and cut off the region of space Canton was located, preventing anyone from fleeing. Trapped in his supposed 'unassailable fortress world' Hunag was now right in the cross hairs of the Grande Armee, ready to be assaulted by not just the 59th, 325th, and 120th Legions, but by Unit 06 as well.

The 257th and 66th Fleets of the 20th Imperial Armada had finally broken the back of the defensive fleet and fortifications, and planetary assault ships, drop pods, and landers descended upon their various landing zones. Unit 06, alongside the 4069th Marine Spacemobile Brigade, however, headed to another location, the main stronghold of Huang Tao. The brigade's combat walkers had wiped out most of the defenders with their plasma lances and heavy repeaters, the power of the nuclear firestorm unleashed consuming columns of light tanks. Meanwhile, the heavy infantry of the brigade and Unit 06 had forced their way into the stronghold, cutting down scores of soldiers and NSB agents. Gabrielle herself had started to lose track in the brutal close-quarters fighting that dominated the engagement. Based on the resistance encountered, they were getting close to their prey.

A nearby Chinese commando lunged his bayonet-fixed repeater at Chevalier's side. Reacting instantly, Chevalier pushed the repeater aside and plunged her own bayonet right into the commando's belly, the breaching systems ignoring the battlescreen present and the sharp instrument vaporizing his innards. Even before the body hit the ground, Chevalier had already taken aimed and fire offed multiple bursts of hypervelocity explosive rounds at another soldier. The warheads of the penetrators and their sheer kinetic energy shredded the battlescreens and armor of the soldier, allowing the next burst of kinetic penetrators to punch right through the man, shattering bone and liquefying organs in the process.

“Cap!” shouted Bergeron over the hyperwave radio, “There he is!”

Utilizing their datalink network, Chevalier could immediately see who Bergeron was talking about form his sensor feed. With an ion gun in hand, which had just immolated a nearby marine, Benzekri stood over the corpses (or, rather, their immolated remains) of his former countrymen and let a feral grin creep across his face as he spotted his former superior.

“Come and get me, Gabrielle!” crooned Benzekri as he sped down a corridor at impressive speeds.

“Rousseau, Cyrano, Girard, find and capture Huang before he escapes! Bergeron and Tamor, we're going after Benzekri! I will NOT let him escape this time!”

Swiftly responding to their orders, Bergeron and Tamor activated their counter-grav generators and flew down the corridor alongside Chevalier. Avoiding the fire of several nearby soldiers (who couldn't really have hit them, anyways), Chevalier and her unit caught up with Benzekri, who fired off a dumbfire micro nuke at their vicinity. Pushing their counter-grav generators to the max, they whizzed by the miniature nuclear firestorm that had just missed them, while Benzekri phase-shifted through a wall. Phasing through the wall, Chevalier her operators found themselves in a spacious armory, with Benzekri standing near a large weapon.

“Stop right there, or everyone on this continent dies!” shouted Benzekri as he fondled the detonator to an implosion device.

“You're insane, Benzekri!” shouted back Chevalier as all of them kept their weapons trained on him. “What can you possibly get from detonating that weapon. All your escape routes have been cut off and there is nowhere else to hide. Give up now and I can guarantee you leave this planet alive.”

“So that I can be executed on Imperial Center?” asked Benzekri in a mocking tone as a look of sheer hatred consumed him. “Forgive me if I doubt your charity.”

“You knew exactly what the risks were when you did what you did.”

“Perhaps. Either way, though, I know how much it means for you to capture me, especially after I played you like a fiddle in Sihnon.” Benzekri smiled. “I still remember the look you had on your face. I guess that can be my consolation prize in the end.”

He paused for a second before he returned to his dead serious demeanor. “No, my consolation prize is the fact that I will deny you your victory. You have lost today, Gabrielle!” Before Benzekri could detonate his bomb, a nearby artillery strike sent shockwaves throughout the fortress, throwing him slightly off balance. Taking his shot, the unit's marksman, Pilor Tamir, fired his rifle before Benzekri could react, tearing through the subdermal armor and synth flesh of his head and exiting from the back of his skull alongside a jet of gray matter.

Watching Benzekri's corpse twitch in a pool of its own liquids with satisfaction, Chevalier contacted the rest of the unit. “Benzekri has been eliminated. What's the status on Huang?”

Instead of hearing the voices of her squadmates, Chevalier was instead greeted by a blinding flash of light and the open arms of unconsciousness.

Universe Designate CSW-1
Jefferson Manor Park Pavilion
United States of America


Chevalier came to as she slowly rose form a giant crater and took in her surroundings. Instead of being in a Chinese fortress, she was in a park during a major thunderstorm that clearly wasn't taking place on Sihnon. For starters, it was night here, and not the morning, and the architecture of the buildings was all wrong. If Chevalier didn't know any better, she would have sworn that she was on an Orionian world.

That wasn't the only thing wrong, though. Instead of being greeted with the location, status, and details of nearby friendlies, Chevalier found no one else connected to her Inter-Platoon Datalink Network, nor could she contact anyone else on her hyperwave radio. She couldn't even figure out where she was other than the fact that it was an Earth-type planet. Grabbing her repeater (at least she had the luck of keeping her weapon), Chevalier did a quick scan and found multiple individuals of varying makes strewn throughout the park. One of them, which was giving off the classic reading of a psychic (albeit a peculator reading), had already gotten into a scuffle with another. What got Gabrielle's attention, however, was the detection of what appeared to be a war droid and a posthuman of sorts.

Walking out of her crater and toward the congregating group of displaced individuals, Chevalier sighed. It's going to be one of those days again.
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Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Dakarne »

There were very few things that a Scottish university student in her late teens could have expected when having gone on the way to the bathroom to brush her teeth. The first was, of course, lots and lots of rainwater falling in torrents and drenching her. The second was probably the fact that she was suddenly standing barefoot on a set of uneven, wet rocks in the very middle of what appeared to be a large crater with several people and a recently-exploded octopus; she could see the blurry shapes of a few fallen trees beyond that. She had expected to be still standing on the uneven surface of clothes and newly-bought psychology textbooks that made up most of the floor of her bedroom, but she'd come to expect the fact that life really was pretty crap sometimes.

She didn't even have her glasses, so everything was blurry and indistinct. It was also just about cold enough that she was painfully aware of the fact that she was only wearing a pair of black and red pyjamas that were becoming uncomfortably translucent in the rain. Rather than panicking, her few years of experience as a local superhero in Edinburgh had taught her two things. The first was simply not to panic, particularly when finding oneself in a completely distant and unexpected situation. Or was that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? The second was that she was functionally invulnerable to many things, and strong enough to punch through steel with her bare hands; it was sort of her general thing. What stopped her from panicking overall, however, was that there were worse places that she could be.

She glanced at the people around her, unable to take in too many details due to her myopia, and tried to figure out exactly where she was. It looked and felt like Earth. Or a planet close to it. She had read and watched enough in the way of science fiction to know that alien planets would likely suffocate her with their poisonous gases and (try to) crush her 'puny' human bone structure with their massive gravity. They also tended to look more like gravel quarries than this, though. She glanced around and decided that she'd ask one of the nearby figures if they knew anything.
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'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Malchus »

The Great City of Sarnath, Earth, approximately 10,000 B. C. E.

Screaming.

There was screaming everywhere, and the combined volume of the sheer number of the screams was drowning out every other sound in Sarnath. It was louder than the boisterous revelry that had enveloped the great city earlier that night. At least, until the appearance of the strange green lights on the lake and the sudden heavy mist had stunned the celebration into silence. A silence that had been quickly broken by what had followed.

A shame, really. It had been a pretty good party.

Justinian ran through the paved main street, tearing through the still thickening mist without apparent regard for direction or obstacles. He knew where he was going. He’d felt the pocket just minutes after the lights had appeared and the mists had rolled into the city Sarnath. It called out to him and, as always, he always ran toward the general direction he’d felt it calling from. Frustratingly, though, he hadn’t seen it yet.

Around him, the mist swirled as dark shapes zipped past. It was the people of Sarnath, running blind and panicked through the mist. Justinian wasn’t worried about those people, though. So far, he’d yet to bump into one of them. The fact that Tribonian had pushed them away before they could come close helped.

Justinian, the familiar mind-voice of the aforementioned Tribonian resonated in his head, they’re getting close.

The boy knew that the psychic quail did not mean the people of Sarnath.

He turned to look behind him. A wasted gesture, really, since the mist was now so thick that he couldn’t see five feet in front of him. He could still hear the screams, however. The screaming wasn’t as loud as it was before, not because the people were starting to calm down but because there were fewer and fewer people left screaming. And, as the screaming wound down, he heard them.

There were no roars, no grunts, no inhuman shrieking. There was only the ever-louder series of wet, slapping sounds coming closer and closer. The boy still couldn’t see them, but he knew that they had to be really close now.

He turned to the girl running beside him. She clung to his arm, as she always did, somehow capable of keeping pace with him. He could barely see her through the haze, but he could see that she had turned to face him the moment he’s turned to her. He gave her a smile.

“Your show, Rasa.”

The girl nodded. Abruptly, they both stopped running and turned to face whatever was approaching them. She let go of Justinian’s arm as her right hand reached for the bells tied to her hair and her left reached for the one hanging from her neck. She flicked each bell rapidly, several times in a specific sequence. The misty night, already dark enough save the strange lights that had come from the nearby lake, suddenly turned pitch black.

The wet slapping sound chasing them stopped. Almost immediately, it was replaced by wild, pained screams. Unlike the panicked but quite human screams of the people of Sarnath, these were chilling, inhuman shrieks. Any other person, sane or not, would’ve found those shrieks terrifying to the bone. Justinian, however, just stood there calmly in the absolute darkness, smiling his pleasant smile.

The shrieks stopped. Then, as quickly as it had happened, the dark shadow that had descended over the area receded, and things were visible again. Well, as visible as the still-present mist allowed.

They’re gone, Tribonian reported, but they would surely have sensed that. More will be coming.

“Well we’d better get going, huh?” Justinian answered merrily as he started running again.

He turned again to the girl running beside him, who had now resumed clutching his arm. Rasa was looking up at him expectantly. His smile widened and he reached for her head with his free arm, stroking it gently.

“Good girl.”

They ran until they reached a courtyard with a large, ornate fountain made of stone. The mist was covering most of its majesty, however, so they couldn’t really appreciate it. Had it been fully visible, they wouldn’t have either. Justinian leaned over the lip of the base of the fountain and stared at the water intently.

It was in there.

Anyone else who looked at the same spot would’ve wondered about what the boy was staring at as they wouldn’t have seen anything themselves. He, however, saw something that had become quite familiar to him. He saw a wildly twisting and undulating pattern of space and time, a temporary knot in the fabric of the universe as it repeatedly folded in on itself to the ignorant bliss of the majority of its inhabitants. It morphed into an almost psychedelic pattern of colors as it wound and unwound on itself.

At any other time, Justinian would’ve found it beautiful and would’ve paused to appreciate its beauty. Now, however, he was in a bit of a hurry. Gingerly rolling up the sleeve of his hooded jacked, he reached into the water and pulled on the undulating knot of space-time. He tugged and kneaded it, shaping the knot until it began to take shape. Appearing almost crystalline at first the knot of space-time morphed in the boy’s hand until it turned into a shape that bore a great resemblance to a cube. The cube, itself, seemed to warp and twist around what looked like another cube within. Justinian stared at it.

“Huh,” he muttered, “That’s new.”

What is it? Tribonian inquired from his perch.

“It’s red.” Justinian replied. “That’s never happened before. It’s supposed to be blue.”

Before the quail could respond, however, a gaggle of green lights suddenly flew over the courtyard and began hovering over the fountain. The mist swirled, as if in response to the lights. Around them, they suddenly the distinctive wet slapping noises of the creatures’ approach. As the green lights above them began to turn faster and faster, the mist seemed to pull away. What had been a barely visible courtyard was suddenly quite visible, illuminated by the strange green glow.

What the glow revealed was… worrisome to say the least. Sure, all the dead bodies of the city’s people were quite ominous by themselves. However, the bodies weren’t what the trio were paying attention to at the moment. No, what had their attention were the several dozen great greyish-white, almost slimy-looking things gathered around the courtyard, looking right at them. Well, at least, they seemed to be looking at them since they looked like they had no eyes. They were rough frog-like in appearance, with vibrating masses of short pink tentacles on the end of their blunt, vague snouts. These tentacles were pointed right at the trio.

They were surrounded.

Rasa tensed, readying her living shadow. Tribonian stared almost impassively from atop Justinian’s head. However, many of the pebbles and assorted debris around Justinian suddenly began to vibrate slightly as the faux quail readied its psychokinesis. As for the boy, he merely blinked. Cocking his head to the side as he stared at the red tesseract in his hand curiously, seemingly unconcerned with the creatures surrounding him.

“Hm, well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we…” he mumbled faintly before the red tesseract in his hand expanded into its net and flashed bright red, obscuring him, the quail on his head, and the girl on his arm.

They were gone.


Jefferson Manor Park, another universe

It was raining, that much was immediately obvious.

Justinian felt a slight telepathic wave of dislike from the bird on his head. Tribonian really hated getting wet. The grip on his arm tightened around him, and he felt Rasa move closer. Suddenly, the steady drizzle of the raindrops against his skin and clothes stopped. He looked up and saw a black mass—Rasa’s shadow. Apparently, shadows made pretty good umbrellas. Who knew?

“Thanks.” he said, turning to look at the girl beside him. He gave her another pat.

We’re not alone. Tribonian reported, suddenly aware of all of the entities around him.

Justinian looked around and his gaze fell on a soggy-looking woman standing about twenty feet away from them. Rasa tensed as she saw the woman as well, but the girl kept her shadow back—for now. Lighting flashed, illuminating everything for a moment. In the brief illumination, he saw that the woman seemed to be gaping at them, eyes wide in surprise.

He shot her a smile and gave her a friendly wave.

“Hi!”
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Siege »

Alexis Starr took in the tableau in front of her. Just like Reservoir Dogs she thought as she swept her eyes from the curiously familiar-looking man on the ground to the other, gun-toting figure who had just punched him. "Hello, John" she could hear the gunman say. "What's going on here?"

Seems like I'm not the only one at a loss here. Starr stomped over to the two men, boots making sucking sound in the mud and the grass. The man with the gun angled himself slightly so as to be able to keep his weapon trained on both her and the man he had punched. That didn't bother her much. The model wasn't familiar, but the gun sure as hell didn't look like it'd be a danger to someone who'd taken RPG rounds to the chest and lived to talk about it.

She stopped at a few meters distance from the two men and took a better look at them. The gunman was dressed in black, the kind of color quite suitable for a night like this, and there was some sort of logo stamped on his chest. She didn't recognize it - and as a Lieutenant Colonel she was quite familiar with most of the bewildering number of logo's used by the armed forces and police divisions of the United States. This one wasn't one of those.

Then she looked at the man on the ground, and one of her eyebrows arched up in surprise, a gesture barely visible under a mess of rain-soaked hair. "John? John Baylor?" she couldn't quite keep the bewilderment out of her voice. "What the blazes are you doing here - who is this guy, and where the hell are we?"
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Dakarne »

Emily directed her attention to the nearby blond-haired man who'd apparently exploded an octopus and was throwing his hands up in victory. As she drew closer, her vision cleared up enough so that she could see he was wearing very little other than a pair of baggy shorts and the splattered remains of the octopus. There was a sucker-covered tentacle drooping over one shoulder, and more than enough ichor matting his hair that he looked more generally ridiculous than victorious; but that was actually true of most fight endings. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, and in fact looked enough like an outright idiot to be a generally harmless person to ask directions of. She walked over to him, glad of the fact that she was basically invulnerable as she made her way through the glassy crater.

'Excuse me?' Emily called out to him. 'Aye, you! The only ane here theck enough tae be wearin' less in this crappy weather than I am...'

____________
EDIT: Scottishised!
Last edited by Dakarne on Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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'For the moment, mortal, they find the thought of killing me more desirable than that of killing you.'
'And what are their chances?'
'The answer to that is evident in how long they've been hesitating, wouldn't you think, mortal?'

-Anomander Rake and Ganoes Paran in Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Destructionator »

Sulysi residence, Midea, A'millia

It was National Education Day, and just like every year, scientists, engineers, etc., etc., would take the day off of their normal job, if at all possible, and go to schools all around the country to talk to the students about the "endless fun and excitement" available in higher education.

"What's with the outfit," Adam asked his wife as she got dressed in her Royal Knight duty uniform, "I thought you were going to the hospital again this year."

"I am, but the kids see doctors every day. I'm hoping to give them something a little different today."

"Oh cool, they'll like that. Same talk though?"

"I think I'm going to talk about it in the astronaut program this time," Leila paused for a second, "You should too!"

"Hmm, that might be fun. Been a while since I've done that."

"Yeah, and it would spare us from dealing with irate teachers... again."

"How was I supposed to know that lecturing the students on the virtues of laziness would be frowned upon?! I'm not a mind reader!"

"If you just stuck to the technical aspects of automation..."

"Blargh. The kid asked."

"I know. But let's not do that again. Astronaut talk!"

"I think Dr Kiminski is leading me too. After he's through with his talk on the ever exciting importance of agricultural engineering on maintaining the food surplus, the astronaut talk would be a real crowd pleaser."

"Astronaut talk!"

"All righty, I'll do it."

"Yes! Well, we'd better get going so I don't miss the train."

"Yup."

They grabbed the last of their stuff and shut off the lights. Then , Adam saw a weird glow...

"Lei, dubteeeff is that?"

"Hm, I dunno."

Adam pulled his pen light out of his pocket and got a closer look.

Leila glanced at her watch. "Probably just a reflection."

"No... it's emitting. Take a look."

"We're gonna miss the train..." she muttered while putting her glasses on to look. "Hmm, that is weird."



Then they suddenly found themselves in the middle of a dark park.

Jefferson Manor Park

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Adam exclaimed, quickly getting wet.

Leila, thinking fast, wrapped her knight's cloak around both of them, keeping the bulk of the water out of their limbs and torsos, at least. "C'mon, let's get out of this rain."

They headed toward the nearest shelter they saw: a group of trees.

"Lightning?" Adam reminded her.

"Better fried than drenched," Leila replied.

Neither of them questioned her superior logic as they huddled under the trees to wait for the rain to stop, their single-minded state preventing them from noticing everyone else in the park.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Magister Militum »

Chevalier kept to the sidelines as she watched the drama unfold. The posthuman (or whatever she was) had now gotten involved in the scuffle between the other two, and, from the looks of it, was also completely confused. And for some inexplicable reason, a man wearing only shorts had just killed a giant octopus and was now howling in triumph while covered in its goo. The language, however, is what caught Gabrielle's attention. It certainly didn't sound like any tongue used in the known galaxy (was this even her galaxy?), although it did have a passing resemblance to Anglo. After listening for a few more moments, the translator implanted in her brain finally determined what the obscure tongue was: it was Old English. Things were definitely getting more confusing by the second, although, at least she would be able to communicate with her fellow displaced associates.

Walking over to the trio, Chevalier slung her repeater over her back (no need to make a bad impression, after all) as the others immediately noted the armored figure walking toward them. "So, I take it you all know each other? If that's the case, then could one of you kindly tell me who the hell you all are?"
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Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Booted Vulture »

John didn't answer him. He just looked up at him from the ground sullenly. A third person entered the 'conversation'; a woman with blonde hair soaked to skull by the rain.

Eric shifted uneasily, circling around John so he could quickly raise his sights to target the newcomer if necessary. Like everyone else here whose minds were at all comprehensible. She was very confused but beneath that he sense an order almost military progress overriding her confusion.

She noticed the gun and made the slightest of smiles at it, as if totally unconcerned that he might shoot her. Eric frowned, this was not normal behaviour as far as he was concerned. Using his senses, he pushed at her mind, actively trying to gain access as opposed to passively reading her, as he had been doing before.

Unpleasantness happened. No soon had he slipped his awareness past her outer barrier, the connection not only crackled but both snapped and popped as well. He shied away from her mind as quickly as possible, realising more power would just in greater feedback.

Girl's got scramblers And he couldn't see any telltale hardware on her head either, Scrambler implants? That's just not fair

"John? John Baylor?" She directed her questions at the man on the ground, "What the blazes are you doing here - who is this guy, and where the hell are we?"

The girl claimed to know John. That was rich. Eric spared her another long look. Neither her face nor her mental presence was at all familiar but if she did know John, and she had have anti-psi, she could easily be another member of the Control department or even from another Protectorate Intelligence that could have liaised with John. A fine theory, with one minor flaw: she hadn't recognised him. Eric was not being immodest in thinking his face would be quite well known among people, considering the rather massive amount of media attention he'd got a couple of years ago during a very high profile hostage rescue assignment.

Things were just getting more and more confusing.

He took a step back from Baylor and lifted his gun slightly, so it was not aiming at either John or the newcomer, but postioned to be equally trainable on either if the made any moves he didn't like.

"I believe, I was asking the questions, ma'am." he said to the newcomer, "My name's Rivers, What's yours? Oh and do you know this" he indicated John with a slight inclination of his pistol, "weasel?"

***
(OCC: Gah! MM posted before I finished this response, As this is a direct reply to siege's post, can we assume it actually happens just before Chevaliar turns up?)
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Mobius 1 »

The Tyrax – Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda – 3

The Tyrax watched as the other dimension-hoppers began to intermingle, all displaying obvious signs of confusion. One human – in little more than shorts – had beaten a cephalopod to death in a rather spectacular fashion but, to be fair, the octopus had it coming.

Having finished his archive trawl, the Tyrax turned his full and considerable processing power to manipulating several banks, slipping in under the laughable security and fabricate a dozen accounts with vast reserves of capital. Spinning up several dumb AIs to provide security over the bank accounts (with a self-destructive worm as a last-case measure), the Tyrax then registered several dummy corporations in various tax havens, dropping meager technological advances into their databanks to spin up local progression. Nothing spectacular, more the sort of plain and everyday consumer electronics that were commonplace in the 26th century. A new concept in computer here, a breakthrough there – all timed to go off over the next decade as more dumb AIs he spun off slowly began disseminated the information.

All in all, something the Tyrax could command a sizable commercial empire within five to ten years. Not that the Tyrax was lacking funds now, but it would be amusing to build sway behind a economic celebrity. Satisfied with his progress online, the Tyrax checked back on his SLIDAR.

The helicopters were coming closer. He estimated they had five minutes, at best until they’d be in the copter’s visual range. The Tyrax slowly debated the merits of alerting everyone to the approaching natives. If he truly was displaced in space and time as much as the rest were, then simply blasting the helicopters out of the sky himself seemed a surefire way to incense the United States government (for he had located himself on an application known as Google Maps and knew he was a stone’s throw from the nation-state’s capital city, with all the accompanying security). As much as it annoyed the Tyrax, he would have to play nice if he wanted to gather information on what was happening.

Consequently, he’d most likely have to inform everyone else to this fact. If they, as a whole, presented a disorganized face when the first responders (the comm signals he deciphered told him readily they were of a black operations group known as the Activity), hostilities would most likely break out, most likely a panicked shot from either side towards the other.

The Tyrax gave a short squelch over his vocabulators, and everyone jerked, looking over at him. The psion, the one dressed in black, blinked hazily, his gun wavering between “John”, the blonde woman, and – now – the Tyrax.

“Gentlemen. Ladies. Quails. I’d hate to steal away your attention from the first stages of confusion, but I must inform everyone that the local authorities are within five minutes of here, riding in on air support. Whatever conversations you need to have, I suggest we wrap it up before the governmental forces arrive.”
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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Mobius wrote:“Gentlemen. Ladies. Quails. I’d hate to steal away your attention from the first stages of confusion, but I must inform everyone that the local authorities are within five minutes of here, riding in on air support. Whatever conversations you need to have, I suggest we wrap it up before the governmental forces arrive.”
Starr took in the fifth figure, an imposing... thing... made of a silvery substance, with glowing red eyes. Impressively menacing she thought. The Paragon would be proud. Of course somehow she doubted the Paragon was responsible for this particular, well, whatever the hell it was.

“Would you care to tell us who these authorities are?” The Lt Col asked, keeping as much suspicion from her voice as possible. After all that she'd been through she found it hard to trust a cyborg death machines – and this thing certainly looked a hell of a lot like a cyborg death machine. God, I hope this isn't Russia she hoped. It would be a royal pain in the ass to explain how the hell she ended up there...
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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"Now would you care to identify yourself?"
The poor woman in the ultra-tech armour didn't have time to respond before what looked for all the world like a giant metal dinosaur stepped forward to say;

“Gentlemen. Ladies. Quails. I’d hate to steal away your attention from the first stages of confusion, but I must inform everyone that the local authorities are within five minutes of here, riding in on air support. Whatever conversations you need to have, I suggest we wrap it up before the governmental forces arrive.”
Eric snapped.

Again.

"Goddamn It! Will you people stop interrupting?!" his voice steadily becoming more clipped with anger, "And Lady, Col. Ms.Star, whatever the hell you call youself. As ar as I'm concerned The United States of America fell in the 22nd century. i.e.) four fucking centuries ago. So what the fuck do you think you are trying to pull?!"
Last edited by Booted Vulture on Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Siege »

Malchus wrote:Justinian looked around and his gaze fell on a soggy-looking woman standing about twenty feet away from them. Rasa tensed as she saw the woman as well, but the girl kept her shadow back—for now. Lighting flashed, illuminating everything for a moment. In the brief illumination, he saw that the woman seemed to be gaping at them, eyes wide in surprise.

He shot her a smile and gave her a friendly wave.

“Hi!”
Tiffany Jones had barely regained her balance before she nearly lost it all over again simply by looking at the odd boy, the girl that clung to his arm, and the quail perched atop of his head. “Err... Hi” she replied, and futilely wiped a strand of soaking wet hair from her forehead. Suddenly she realised that it was no longer raining – or to be more precise, it was still raining, but somehow the rain wasn't hitting her any longer. She glanced up. An oddly incorporeal veil of blackest shadow blocked the rain and the starlight alike from the heavens.

Hokay.

“I'm Tiffany” she introduced herself to the boy, who somehow seemed to be in charge of the odd trio. Before she could continue a device began beeping inside the multitude of pockets that covered her army trousers. She pulled the locator device out, and frowned at what the display was telling her. Not only were there apparently half a dozen satellites trained on them, the device also showed that a veritable host of vehicles was inbound for their location: helicopters, jets, and at least three columns of armoured vehicles. The device also informed her that she was on Earth, a handful of miles outside the capital of the United States of America, although it thoughtfully added not your United States, though, as if that was of any help.

“Err, guys” she frowned, looking from the kids to the group of five or six other individuals gathered not too far from there. “I think it's time to, you know, not be in this park.”
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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More and more people came. A man in shorts punching an octopus and screaming how he was better than someone named "Archwind", which the whole process Annava thought was cool. I mean, no one really ever punches an octopus in shorts during a reality/time slip. Also, the dude was hot. Some girl in pajamas came to the man and spoke in some weird accent. The closest thing Annava could make out was that it was probably a French accent.


The machine looked at Omicron 70 before minding its own business. Omicron 70 just nodded and went next to his human captain. The brief fleeting look between the machines said many things. Omicron 70 will not interfere with the machine's agenda. The Code of the Predator has stated that one should never interfere with another equal machine-predator unless the Signal of Challenge was emitted, and this was not the time. Still, such invisibility device the machine was wielding intrigued Omicron 70.


Daniel Animus was too busy watching men with big guns beat each other up, and a blond woman go in the middle and talk as if nothing happened. "Weirdos." Daniel looked around at the wide assortment of people. Yep, this was probably a time/reality skip, with some people wearing ancient stuff as well, such as the kiddos...and quail? "Damn, this is weird..."

A loud squeak came piercing and everyone but Omicron 70 jumped.

“Gentlemen. Ladies. Quails. I’d hate to steal away your attention from the first stages of confusion, but I must inform everyone that the local authorities are within five minutes of here, riding in on air support. Whatever conversations you need to have, I suggest we wrap it up before the governmental forces arrive.”

The man with the huge gun and black trenchcoat looked pissed.

"Goddamn It! Will you people stop interrupting?!" his voice steadily becoming more clipped with Anger, "And Lady, Col. Ms.Star, whatever the hell you call youself. As far as I'm concerned The United States of America fell in the 22nd century. i.e.) four fucking centuries ago. So what the fuck do you think you are trying to pull?!"

"I believe that we are all in a reality/time skip." Omicron 70 increased his voice volume for all to hear, "We have been sent from different times and dimensions in this spot, and I don't believe it is coincidence. I deduce that someone sent us here. Is there a being here that more than two extra-dimensional beings know about?" Omicron 70 looked at John Baylor. "It seems from the conversation I'm overhearing that you are under great suspicion."
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Heretic »

Siege Wrote:
“Err, guys” she frowned, looking from the kids to the group of five or six other individuals gathered not too far from there. “I think it's time to, you know, not be in this park.”
Daniel Animus looked at the woman with camo pants and a weird device.

"Yes, I quite do agree. This dimension might have super alien robot kaiju or other damn Jap propaganda pop culture infesting here, and I wouldn't want to get stuck in situations like that." He pointed at the chopped octopus surrounding the speedo man.

"What have you got against Japanese pop culture?" Annava asked offended. Daniel gave a frown.

"They infested the whole galaxy with their pop culture before the Solar Confederacy exploded, forever tainting cultures worldwide. Now, you can't pass a major cosmopolitan area without a subculture saying "Kawaii!" or "Kyaa!!" But anyway, I think we should find a place to escape. Perhaps underground?"


Edit: Sorry for the double post. Was suppose to post this after someone else did, but forgot. :oops:
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Siege »

Heretic wrote:They infested the whole galaxy with their pop culture before the Solar Confederacy exploded, forever tainting cultures worldwide. Now, you can't pass a major cosmopolitan area without a subculture saying "Kawaii!" or "Kyaa!!" But anyway, I think we should find a place to escape. Perhaps underground?"
Starr raised an eyebrow. I seem to be doing that a lot right now she considered. "Err, right. Okay. As far as I know this is the year 2016, and the United States of America most certainly did not fall" she threw the man who called himself 'Rivers' a whithering glare. "As for underground, I don't see why-"

The woman with the red hair and the group of three kids walked closer and shoved the device in her hand in Starr's face. "“Because there's a whole lot of trouble headed our way” she simply said.

The Lieutenant Colonel quickly analysed the data the device was generating, ignoring for a moment that there was no conceivable way for a technological device to do just what it appeared to be doing. There was, after all, no conceivable way for her to suddenly end up in some god-forsaken park either. “Okay...” She frowned as she recognized the familiar layout of roads displayed before her. “If this is correct, we're in Washington D.C. Just outside the Beltway, and only a few miles south of the Pentagon.” She glanced around at the devastation around them. “I'm not sure this is my D.C. but I'm betting that whatever the hell just happened here has been noticed.”
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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Star gave him a withering look for his rendition of history as he knew it. And there was somebody's robot butler seemed to be suggesting they'd all travelled here through time and space from different universes. Which as far as the telepath from a human colony world was concerned was just kooky science fiction.

The conversation then turned to an underground escape. Eric shrugged.

"Well barring any of you having the abillity to teleport or transformer yourselves into an armoured personnel carrier..." Eric paused, thinknig the way this day was going such an event was not as weird as it might sound, "It's probably our best chance of escaping without incident. To somewhere else were we have no idea, where we are, why we are here or how to get back but hey at least we won't have government scientists lobotomising us to see how we work. Always a plus "
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

Post by Destructionator »

Being under a tree, Adam and Leila were both mostly out of the rain and generally out of sight of everyone else.

With their eyes adjusted for dark vision and ears pointing out, they were starting to size up the situation.

"What do you think happened?" Leila asked.

"No bloody clue," Adam answered. "Sure we're not sleeping?"

"Seems unlikely."

"Maybe that weird glow was a Gate."

"Normally I'd laugh..."


Then, the Tyrax's "voice" boomed out, all too easy to hear. And, luckily, it was English!
“Gentlemen. Ladies. Quails. I’d hate to steal away your attention from the first stages of confusion, but I must inform everyone that the local authorities are within five minutes of here, riding in on air support. Whatever conversations you need to have, I suggest we wrap it up before the governmental forces arrive.”
"Oh good," Adam remarked, "rescue is coming."

"Maybe," Leila said, "what is that thing?" She pointed toward the Tyrax.

"We might have somehow jumped to Earth. Humans make all kinds of weird robots. It is speaking English."

"Hmmm"

Interrupted by another robot:
"I believe that we are all in a reality/time skip." Omicron 70 increased his voice volume for all to hear, "We have been sent from different times and dimensions in this spot, and I don't believe it is coincidence. I deduce that someone sent us here. Is there a being here that more than two extra-dimensional beings know about?" Omicron 70 looked at John Baylor. "It seems from the conversation I'm overhearing that you are under great suspicion."
"Or maybe these are merely the space-time coordinates of least resistance."

"The end of time?" Leila smiled.

"Heh. But why do certain people always assume it is someone?"

"Meh, I dunno. We should prolly listen in on the others to find out."

"Blargh. Rain."

"It's getting better. Come on."


Still cuddled under the one waterproof cloak, they proceeded to the congregation, ears pointing ahead the whole time.
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Re: OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

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Omicron 70 could see that the feeble organics did not take his underground plan seriously. "Well, where else can we go in this park? By the time we find a secure place, helicopters would come at our backs, and we do not know if any are friendly." Omicron 70 then took out his huge rotating spiked machete and started roaring the trigger up. The sound of the chainmachete was loud. "If that is the case, I believe we should take our chances against this USA and hope that none of the would be dead are your ancestors." Omicron 70's mechanical cheeks etched into a smile.

"I don't believe that is necessary!" Daniel Animus shouted. Omicron 70 looked at the human captain.

"Why not, human captain?" Omicron 70 asked. "If we can show these archaic humans how technologically superior we are, they would be too intimidated."

"Well, we don't know that! For all we know, we could be in a land of superheroes and villains, though the chances of that are slim!" Daniel Animus shouted as he looked into the ground, and nearly vomited. The red-haired supersoldier named Annava was eating the mud. Daniel jumped towards her, eyes wide open. "What the hell are you doing!?" Annava was sitting on her feet, munching the mud that was in her cupped hands. She looked up.

"Replenishing my carbon supply?" Annava said. Daniel just shook his head.

"I don't want to know." Captain Animus walked back to Omicron 70, who turned off his chainmachete.

"Well barring any of you having the abillity to teleport or transformer yourselves into an armoured personnel carrier..." The trench coat man said, "It's probably our best chance of escaping without incident. To somewhere else were we have no idea, where we are, why we are here or how to get back but hey at least we won't have government scientists lobotomising us to see how we work. Always a plus "

"Yeah, but where is a place where the government can't spot us? I mean, all this activity seems to have caught a few eyes," Annava said as she gulped down the rest of the mud and wiping the remainder off her mouth, "and unless this is a special 2016 USA, they have all types of sensories."
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