EVENT: HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

[initiatesnpc]

Date & Time: October 24 - October 31
Location: Throughout Exsilium
Characters: ALL; tag yourselves in
Summary: The Transports return from their mission to find the island crawling with monsters.
Warnings: Violence, possibly injuries (notify a mod if there's cause to add a particular warning!)

The Transports return from their mission to Medieval Russia, but the Initiative Hold is eerily deserted. Normally, their would be a number of Initiative personnel prepared to meet the Transports at the end of their mission for debriefing.

Instead, there is only silence.

That is, until a distant thumping sound can be heard. It is growing closer, and suddenly the beast is bursting into the room. It lets out a roar and charges. Within minutes, it is easily defeated, but damage has already been done -- it collided with the Transporter machine, which is now making a low fizzling sound and lets off a couple sparks. The commotion is enough to draw the attention of the few remaining Initiative personnel who still inhabit the Hold, who arrive immediately afterwards. They are able to tell the Transports two things: that the machine is broken and currently unable to sent anyone back in time, and that the island has been overrun with aggressive, mutated beasts sent by the United Earth. They have been under siege for months, with the island's population reduced to a mere fraction of what it had once been.

Comments

[getwrenched]

"Isn't that part of why we're not allowed to say no to the whole recruitment drive?" Winry can stare at that code all day long, waiting for any of it to make sense. The longer she's been here, the more things seem to fit together, but it's a far cry from understanding the whys.

"Only applied to this world's time... stream," she settled on, "As well as our own."

[fe_male]

"I think a decent part of that was a sort of an 'if they can't say no, they might mean yes' mentality. It doesn't really hold up in court."

The code isn't really making a whole lot of sense a decent part of the time, but it's working well enough. At least, it's making sense often enough to motivate him on to keep working on it, rather than attempting to just sort of break the thing more out of irritation.

"If it's only bringing people here, I count it as one direction. Relativity strands you in shades of grey. Ruins the 3D."

[getwrenched]

Court keeps coming up as much more relevant to people around here than it ever has been for her previously. Winry makes a noncommittal noise, turning her gaze back to the code that keeps on babbling on. Code that has everything to do with the sorts of puzzles that Ed would probably better at, if he had some desire to decode what it all meant.

"Three dee?" Why did half of what people say make no sense? "That this thing works two way at any point makes about as much sense as time travel working at all. Is there anything I can help you with?"

[fe_male]

Unfortunately, Tony is not frequently inclined to explain himself unless asked to do so directly. And... oftentimes not even then. If he started stopping to explain himself all the time, he'd never get anything done, because that's what he would be doing. All the time.

That earns you a glance, because, yes, 3D, what even, and also the thing working is time travel. "Time usually does go in only the one direction." It's a short glance though, because he's got a handful of screens here to work with and at any given point at least one of them is showing something moderately useful. "Mechanic?"

[getwrenched]

Yes, that is the usual direction of time. In fact it's such a deliciously logical and obvious statement that Winry decides to shrug and not worry overmuch about what she's not understanding in favor of responding to the second sensible thing he's said:

"Automail mechanic, so yes, mechanical enough to help." Yet again, with automail being like unicorns, she adds in a short explanation. "I work with prosthetics that connect directly to a patient's nervous system. In a world where we don't have television or computers, and apparently no standardized civilian court system."

Thanks for that 411, Edgeworth. "What do you want me doing?"

[fe_male]

See that's cool enough to get his attention completely, actually, and he stops working for a moment to look at her.

"Directly into the nervous system? How does that work?" Because this is interesting and what he's working on... not quite as much. More important, right? Tony Stark has priorities, they're just not always in the same order as everyone else's.

[getwrenched]

"Really well," she answers at first, founding fairly dry. It's not Tony asking -- it's more by now wondering how it is people have such amazing, advanced technology and yet lag so far behind in a field as immeasurably important as this?

So she relents, sighing, and then offering something more of a sincere smile.

"Through connective plates, wiring, and extensive, anesthetic absent surgery mostly."

[fe_male]

"Absent?"

He's had that before. That's very unpleasant. Anesthetic is, you know, necessary. Without that it's really just torture that happens to have a positive outcome.

"That why you guys don't have a court system? Seems kind of... fun."

[getwrenched]

She gives him an odd look. "What does that have to do with anything?" Courts and automail don't really go hand in hand. "We can't be sure the nerves are responding without an immediate response time. The pain is part of why choosing to go through with automail isn't a process everyone can dedicate themselves to, but none of that is really going to help with all of this."

She gestures vaguely at the computer and machinery all around.

[fe_male]

"Not in the slightest, it's just interesting. You want to try and get power restored to that cabinet in a way that doesn't mean it shorts out every eight and a half minutes?" With appropriate gesturing to indicate said cabinet.

[getwrenched]

"It'd be my pleasure," and it is. Having things to focus on doing, challenges to work through, that's why she's here and not twiddling her thumbs staying back in her apartment waiting the monster epidemic out.

Time to get a look at that cabinet and keep an ear on anything else Tony had to say.

[fe_male]

Fantastic. He watches her get to work, watches until he's satisfied she does know what she's doing, and then moves back on to what he was working on himself.

"Where'd you learn mechanics?"