smashrising | SPRING CLEANING [OPEN]

Entry tags:

SPRING CLEANING [OPEN]

Who: ALL OF YOU NERDS
What: CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!!!
Where: ABSOLUTELY FREAKING EVERYWHERE
When: RIGHT NOW
Warnings: Chemical burns??? IDK

There was no escape in sight. As far as anyone could tell, they were all stuck here on this mysterious floating island for the time being, and they would have to make do with what they could find. You'd think they would be well off in an AWESOME MANSION, except that the mansion is... a little worse for wear. Okay, a LOT worse for wear. The place was a mess.

Flurrie would not stand for it.

A woman of her tastes and sensibilities would be all for living it up in a huge, fancy mansion, but certainly not one in this state. And so, she took some initiative. Early one morning, she found a megaphone and stood outside the front of the mansion, barking orders loudly to the other inhabitants.

"EVERYONE GET OUT HERE, PRONTO!!"

Once everybody was gathered (as gathered as they were able to at this time of day, anyway), she yelled a little less:

"All right, everyone! I think we've been lounging around long enough! This place is an absolute disaster, and I cannot abide it another minute. Today I proclaim that we're going to make this mansion spic and span! And we're not going to stop until it sparkles! Now who's with me~?"

[HERE'S HOW IT WORKS: Step 1: Pick a location. Step 2: CLEAN THAT SHIT. Step 3: Tag around and help clean the mansion YAAAY! OR, you can do none of the above and screw around the entire time! YAAAY?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Harpuia... did not want to admit how exhausted he was getting. An energy crisis was a familiar situation, even if this one was on a much smaller scale than the one he was used to, and he knew entirely too well the cannibalistic, ruthless sorts of solutions that could rise.

But it was starting to show. He might be able to coax his systems into lasting longer than Zero's, but he had stopped flying entirely. The glow of his helmet crystal was dull and unsteady, dimming with each passing day. The sharp focus had left his eyes, and his scanners had been shut down for days -- an austerity measure to drag out battery life.

It's telling, but he doesn't even catch on until Rock peeks in and speaks up. It's only then that Harpuia joins Rock, glancing in over his head.

"A disc? Is it still readable?"

The pause before he could answer was telling of Zero's own fatigue. He eyed the disc with a wary eye, trying to process exactly why he felt so ill at ease with it. His reflection in its gleaming surface seemed off, somehow uncanny.

By now he knew that any time he had bad feelings like this, it shouldn't be ignored. His gut instinct - if reploids had such a thing - rarely foretold anything good. Just another perk of his bitterly ironic lot in life, probably.

He took a step towards the others, muttering, "I don't know... It might need to be analyzed in a--"

Before he could finish that thought, Zero's helmet crystal and eyes went dark just as he extended his arm to hand the disc over to Harpuia. It fell towards the guardian instead, flung by the sudden forward jerk as Zero staggered and collapsed. An unnatural, static-like spark crackled across his armour before everything went dark.

For a moment he was completely still, lifeless. But only a second later, an otherworldly glow bloomed out from inside him, rapidly overtaking his entire body until he was utterly engulfed in light.

"Z-Zero!" Rock called out, rushing to his side without a thought to the potential dangers, grabbing him as he collapsed. But when he touched Zero, the light began to shine from inside him, so much so that it began to blind Rock's optic sensors. He had to raise a hand to cover his eyes as Zero glowed, but his protective grip never loosened. "What's going on?!"

At his best, Harpuia would probably have been sharp enough to catch the disc. Or to realize that disks that do god-knows-what to Zero probably aren't a safe thing to touch. Low-battery Harpuia, on the other hand, made a delayed grab at the disc, fumbled it completely, and let it clatter to the ground at his feet.

For a moment, Harpuia thought Zero might finally have run out of power. The flare of light, however, quickly disproved that theory. "Master Rock, don't touch him!" Harpuia blurted, shielding his eyes with one arm. Without the energy to keep a scanner lock on Zero, there was no telling what was happening, but Zero was a reploid with a long and storied past of unpredictable viral reactions, and who even knew what was on that disc?

Though the transformation took only an instant, a myriad of colours seemed to shine from Zero's body, now a blinding silhouette. Then, in a flash, the light melted away as though he were emerging from a pool - sliding off each long strand of hair until it vanished in a blink. The Zero that remained behind, still in Rock's arms, suddenly heaved and choked on raspy breaths, like they were the first he'd ever taken.

Well, that wasn't entirely untrue.

With a grunt, Zero inelegantly spat out the mouthful of viscous liquid that had somehow made it into his mouth before realizing he could... feel... the bumps on his tongue and the shape of his teeth. As he shakily brought his hand to wipe his mouth it felt soft. He felt soft. And cold. And... squishy, everywhere - vulnerable inside and out to a level he'd never conceived of before. Not only was his armour gone, but every bit of metal had been stripped away and replaced with skin. Flesh. They almost felt like they were writhing underneath the surface.

Instinctively, he pushed himself away from Rock, stumbling backwards on padded, quiet feet. Zero opened his mouth, but before he could even get a word out, it was already filling back up with spit. Alarm, confusion and disgust all flickered across his face and his bright, dark grey eyes as he clammed back up.

The influx of new senses was so overwhelming, the now-human Zero didn't even notice he was pretty much naked, save for his assault vest.

Edited 2016-02-18 03:47 (UTC)

Rock let go of Zero as soon as he pushed away from him, and just... stared in awe for a moment. "Zero...?" he asked. He was picking up... vital signs? That shouldn't have been possible!

"You're... A human?"

"Zero, that's disgusting!" Harpuia blurted, recoiling from the spit on the floor. Kind of the wrong thing to be focusing on, there.

A fact that hit Harpuia a second later, his struggling systems finally catching up to the obvious. Reploids didn't salivate. As far as he knew, Zero had never been built with artificial flesh anywhere but his face. Certainly not with the sort of aftermarket upgrades that had no point outside of a human-reploid relationship.

"Then... that disc... was for this?" He managed, falteringly. "How do you feel?"

Wait, no, priorities. Treat him as a human. Harpuia gave his head a shake, trying to will his processors into running a little more smoothly. "Er... first of all, find something to cover yourself up. You must be cold."

Zero shot the guardian a disgruntled glare - don't coddle him, Harpuia - before the prickling goosebumps on his skin (what the hell?) reminded him that actually, it was still winter out there, and he was freaking cold.

Come on, stop making such a big deal over this. It's not like he hadn't seen a human turned into a robot before. There were plenty of other humanized people around that he had no reason to treat this as anything other than an uncomfortable, humiliating, powerless inconvenience. "Fine," he grumbled, glancing around the room for something to use as a makeshift clothes.

(His hair was being more disobedient than usual - it was falling all over his face, for one. With a huff, Zero begrudgingly parted his bangs and... huh. He'd never noticed how soft it was...)

The curtains would just have to do - the broken window wouldn't exactly need them anymore. He walked over and-- a bright stab of pain shot up his leg as he blindly stepped on a shard of glass.

"GHHkkrgh--!" Good job. This is what you get for not paying attention.

"Zero!"

Rock's helper instincts kicked right in. He bolted from the room like a flash. He returned about a minute later with a first aid kit. He'd helped clean up after lab accidents, bandaging wounds, before. He knew just what to do. He even thought to bring a blanket for Zero. They weren't exactly pants, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

He made Zero sit down, knelt down, and started to look at his foot to treat it.

Edited 2016-02-19 04:07 (UTC)

Ten seconds as a human, and already Zero was up to two bodily fluids being spilled. This was already gross and kind of horrible.

At least Rock seemed to have things covered. Harpuia had worked with humans before, but never as a medic; he was more than okay with leaving that in Rock's capable hands. Instead, his boots crunched past the broken glass that had stopped Zero so easily, and Harpuia retrieved the old curtains in his place. A blanket was a good start, but it was still winter, that broken window was letting cold air in, and a vest would only go so far, right?

"On the bright side, this certainly seems to resolve your energy problem," Harpuia pointed out. "If you can bleed, then that just proves you're entirely organic now."

He stopped for a moment, eyes on the fallen disc. Well... keeping it around would be useful, surely. Maybe Zero would need it if he wanted to reverse the transformation?

"Hasn't fixed anything yet," grumbled Zero, one hand clutching his midsection. "This body's still low on energy."

Hunger pangs were certainly a first. An awful, awful first. Being low on energy as a reploid made you sluggish, but at least it didn't cause physical pain and internal rumbling. What was even going on in there? There were sounds...

Trying to focus on something else, Zero proceeded to pick out the piece of glass in his foot, managing to cut his fingers too. Amazing. Seriously, no one ever stressed to him how sharp glass actually was. It took a second for him to even register that he was bleeding from an entirely new place now, but when it did, that thing hurt like a motherfucker.

"Tch!" At least that chunk of glass was out of his foot now?

Rock just looked up at him, dumbstruck at what he did. "Just let me take care of it!" Rock said, snatching the piece of glass away from him and setting it aside before Zero hurt himself AGAIN. "You may be low on energy, but at least as a human that problem is a bit more easily solved..."

Rock's expression changed, and he looked between them. "Hey... Maybe this is the answer!" He suggested. "If we all had human forms, then we wouldn't have to worry about depleting energy reserves!"

"Rock... you may have a point," Harpuia admitted slowly. Reluctantly, even. It was true that humans could do just fine without anything to recharge; all they needed was food and sleep, and this place seemed to be able to provide that, at the very least.

But... there wasn't an awful lot of enthusiasm behind his agreement.

Still. Beggars can't be choosers. Harpuia surely wouldn't choose his pride over his survival, right? ...R... right. He knelt down to the fallen disc, and took it in his hand.

Just the same as Zero. A sudden lurch, a sensation completely like any his sensors had ever registered before. A dazzling burst of light, not unlike the activation of an Armed Phenomenon. Except, instead of a birdplane, the end result was something much more ridiculous. Harpuia, with nothing but those old curtains and a vest. One with holes in the back where wing ports should have been. No helmet, no armor, not even the green arrows on his face.

Wow. Pretty underwhelming, huh?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SPRING CLEANING [OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

magical human henshin

Re: magical human henshin

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

See icon keywords

no subject