AKUDAMAX [Final Trial]

[akudamods]

You’ve really done it now. The sun rises on Saturday morning, and Kansai is simmering with rage. After massacres throughout the week, the citizens have no more patience, and they’re armed. Even the holy Shinkansen itself rejects you. There is one way out, to get past the fortifications of the city. The requisitioned blimp. Well, some of you can fly far more gracefully. Perhaps it's even possible to ignore the barbs of the population. But you do have a destination for answers in mind.

Out here the land is wasted. It’s more obvious, without the concrete covering, that nothing was growing in soil that had been bombed in the past. Whether thin for lack of plant roots or tainted with industrial byproducts, there are particles in the air that easily catch the light and turn green. You see a network of production facilities and even pipes. Glowing above them all is the tower you have summoned out of the blighted earth.

Inside… Everything manages to occur on the walls of the tower. Service staircases, riveted dumbwaiters, control panels, vats of capacitors, wires, metal, sheets of it, and a note of human blood. You can look all the way up to the blue light that marked the roof. Echoes easily bounce off the walls.

When you approach any of these panels (and even the industrial containers are electronically mediated in the end), the light that comes from them is yellow.

Comments

KEEP FLYING PAST FACTORY...?

[akudamods]

[You've finally found it. You haven't seen anything else of note on the flight out so far. But is this a trap?

After all, according to the grander maps, you are still in the territory of Kansai.]

[your_best_friend]

[* Flowey leans over from his flower pot.]

Is that it...? Where we're supposed to go?

[thefifthchild]

That's it.

[He looks over at the others.] I trust we're all on the same page about seeing this through to the end?

[voidseeing]

[It's a good thing Funell is multi-purpose, because Gai is just going to be using the little robot to project holographic images of some of the data he'd downloaded from the complex yesterday, including images of that tower.]

Right now, everything is pointing towards this factory. There's something going on there, and I don't know about any of the rest of you, but I want to find out what it is. If it's connected to how we were brought here, it stands to reason that it's also going to be our best chance of going home.

[thefifthchild]

Agreed. The answers are in there. I have no doubt they want us in there – and they've likely attempted a trap. But after all the blood we've spilled I refuse to leave without riping the true mastermind off his throne. [His throne, because Damian is sexist.]

[pr159]

[ He's really not that eager to do this, but. ]

I suppose there's probably not much harm in stopping to see what we find. Even if our arrival is expected, I have a hard time believing we wouldn't be able to take down whoever comes to greet us... though we might want to consider splitting into groups so we're not all in one spot if they try to blow the place up or something.

[ He shrugs. ]

Anyway, we can just destroy it ourselves and leave if it doesn't turn out to be useful.

[intimations]

[Okay but is it possible to figure out where Kanto is from the maps or...?]

LANDING

[akudamods]

[There is no more hesitation. The blimp lands in a wide space in the industrial complex outside the factory. They will find that it is open. A series of conveyor belts carry materials to the heart of the factory. There are dumbwaiters with the same purpose. All around everyone who enters is motion and golden panels.

In the center of all this motion, though, the place where it leads... Physicist is being suspended in a beam of hard light, a single Noh mask floating at the top and looking down at her before the others bust in. It turns. The mask is unchanging, yet coincidentally, perpetually annoyed.]

My goodness. It truly is just one thing after another these days.

[As though the mask wasn't expecting it. The drawl in its voice makes it sound insincere.]

[voidseeing]

[HMMMMM don't like this. He's going to let his gaze sweep around the room, looking for any signs of traps or an ambush before he makes any sort of move.]

So who do we have the pleasure of addressing now?

[Judging by the tone of his voice, though, it's really not much of a pleasure at all.]

[thefifthchild]

You're the one behind it all, then? You have a real aversion to showing your face. Almost like it's something to be ashamed of.

[He looks over at Physicist. Does it seem like she's conscious?]

[your_best_friend]

[* Flowey unroots himself from the flower pot and roots himself in the ground. He eyes Physicist before looking around to see if there's any obvious controls to the beam of light.]

USURPER

[divinedaifuku]

[Funnel can get as far as turning on the "refined projection" before the purple bunny ears of doom appear on that screen to kick him out. But this symbol will continue to haunt the world outside the screen, because they're on the head of a woman who just appeared in the beam the Noh mask was in. Of course, she floats out of the beam right after that. It's Liv's Lava Lamp only now. She's muttering to herself.]



My, Loyalist, how useless you really were... Getting killed before our plan could even start, and you couldn't even keep an eye on that idiot Populist to prevent this... But it was fun seeing you get trapped. Just like I felt... trapped in that never-ending memory!

[Uh, she'll get to you X-Classes in a minute. But for now... the Shark Bunny Projection is starting up, and those little assholes are bopping all around the factory.]

Hey Shark!
Yeah Bunny?
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Sure am! These guys know too much!
If they don't come quietly...
THERE WON'T BE A NEXT TIME.

[Their dancing is mesmerizing, isn't it? ....Best not to watch too closely. It is literally hypnotic.]

[queendoms]

[ She has a feeling......as though she's being made fun of, somehow???

Weird. ]

[thefifthchild]

[





This might as well just fucking happen. This day is already so goddamn weird.] ...Were we dealing with a C-List villain all this time?

[voidseeing]

[So is this projection coming from any specific source...?]

[your_best_friend]

...Golly, what an outfit! I assume you're the one with control over this timeline.

Re: USURPER

[conways_retribution]

...huh! _{[This was the last thing Jake expected.]}

[depleting]

[ Satsuki has been quiet until now, given that this is the kind of conversation that sits above her pay grade. However, now that they've been presented with an actual face for their mastermind... ]

Hey! You're the one who should be coming quietly...!

[ it's fine, this is just like how fighting games work ]

[intimations]

[Well, it's been interesting watching all this unfold but hey. Sometimes you gotta join the fun too.]

Ignoring us? That's awfully rude of you.

[Just gonna aim a sword of his straight at the Physicist, where she's suspended in that hard light pillar!]

[inspiritus]

[ Sephiroth isn't going to allow his gaze to become encumbered by such things. Instead he looks bored, and allows the others chat.

However, during this time is there anything else that seems to be of interest? Such as anything that looks like it can function as a 'source'...terminals, etc. ]

[thefifthchild]

[After this discovery, Damian will very loudly project his voice and shout out for everyone to hear.]

Everyone! AIM FOR THE GREY STAR ON HER CHEST!

WHAT TO DO WITH FACTORY COMPUTERS?

[cantwaittowatch]

[The tentacles clatter over the control panels, and metal rods slam down to frame large squares appearing on the floor of the factory, flashing in uniform but unpredictable blocks of color, like a dance club. The terminal screens cycle wildly in time with this. The antimatter provided spins above everything, suspended along hardlight wires, drawing to mind a comparison too old-fashioned to name.

The printing queue is paused as requested for the moment. There are squares where each body would appear, in the outfit they were wearing most recently as they remember.

There is an option on one terminal to use the time gift on each present player character, de-anchoring each one from this spacetime, catapulted into another one corresponding to the square they stand on.]

It's configured. My usefulness is complete.

[thefifthchild]

[


Well, that was fast.] ...I assume you're leaving as well, then? I'm sure you understand why I don't trust you with this world. [Or any world for that matter.]

[hunterandhunted]

I am most pleased we could remain as allies, in the end.

[voidseeing]

What about those of us who can't go back?

[Strangely enough, he doesn't sound upset about it. In the end, he'd managed to accomplish what he'd spent years trying to do. He has no regrets about how things ended back at home.]