Future-Shock: Machina ex Dei

Quinn perks up when the lady asks them if they want to go see Cale. "We can go see Cale? Oh! Oh! We should go right now. It should be fun!" Though the fear of the lady wore off somewhat, letting Quinn get more active around her, she still wasn't going to do something completely retarded like ask to play a game with her. Fighting was one thing but dodging trains that came out of nowhere was a completely different field.

Quinn bounces up and down a little, excited. "Come on, I want to see Cale!" She waits for the lady or the robot, which she still hasn't bothered to find out what his name was, to lead the way, her eyes shining.

She was enthused to see such a response about Cale, of course she couldn't help but smile widely as she took in the image of the young Quinn so eager to meet her adoptive father in the present timeline. Of course she saw Ryan starting to jumble a bit, going out of his way to ask if it would be okay to see Cale. The woman laughed as she reached out and pinched Ryan's cheek, pulling and tugging on it playfully.

"Haha, Oh Ryan. I forgot how adorable and simplistic you were. If it weren't okay to go see Cale would I have suggested it?" Her laughter was cut short when there was a little chuckle coming from the Ranger.

"Yes. Yes you would. And because it weren't okay is EXACTLY why you'd suggest it." He managed before she turned her head to him, shooting him a warning of a glare that could shred right through his alloy armor with ease. The Ranger held its hands up in defeat as it continued to chuckle, seemingly it was quite humored. She then turned back to the group.

"You bitch....don't ignore me. There's more than one way to kill a freak like you!!!" The Huntsman called as a similar weapon to the energy batons he used slid down through his hand. The metallic object was like a spike as it reared back and threw the spike. The older girl turned her head and placed her hand out, her eyes growing wide as she realized exactly just what was thrown. Her powers couldn't help her here. All the godlike power in the world and still, she was as helpless as a newborn child. The spike sored through the air, seemingly in slow motion as she noticed the odd trajectory placed in the throw. Her eyes shifted just an inch as she realized what the weapon was aimed for. In her peripheral vision she could see herself, her younger self; a prime victim.

A violent upheaval threw the young Quinn to the ground, knocking Ryan over as blood sprayed all over the grass, glistening in the sunlight. Quinn turned, a genuine little noise escaping her, she wasn't quite sure what this noise was...quite possibly a gasp. She didn't do that very often, especially not as of recent centuries. The Ranger stood there, a formidable spike through his chest, blood and oil compound leaking as he groaned and dropped onto his knees, his hand reaching up as if trying to grab onto the older Quinn to steady himself. Once on his knees, the Ranger reached down and began to pull the spike from it's chest, the bright lights that once adorned his armor now fading and dimming. Rolling towards its side it sat on it's rear before lowering itself back down to the ground. The older Quinn knelt down next to him, her eyes burning with a fierce red color.

"KAZ!!! You idiot, you promised me you weren't going to get yourself killed!" She said, chastising the robotic being as it began to slowly shut down; as if there weren't anything else that could be done. She raised her hand and tried to apply it to the wound, drawing upon the primal magic's. Alas it was ineffective. "Atterrium....it just had to be atterrium."

It took a moment for it to sink in, but the older Quinn hadn't said a thing, just looked sternly at the dead machine on the ground, then looking to her hands, taking in ever detail of the bloody fuel.

"You know, Kaz was the first thing that Cale helped me create. He was made with my DNA and-" Her soft smile faded as she sighed. "...but now they're both gone. And you're the reason why..." She said not even looking at the Huntsman.

"Well they were both dys-" Spontaneously the Huntsman blew up, a chunk of earth and subway blown away from where it was. The older Quinn turned her head to look at where the Huntsman had once been standing, only to see small fragments of the machine reforming, an extension of her will made real.

"mmm-no. You don't get to talk." She said, the perfectly reassembled and regenerated robot then began to glow red hot, part of it's face and it's anatomical construction beginning to melt into a grey goo, the machine groaning and howling in pain. The older Quinn held out her hand, the auditory modulator tore from the robots throat and entered her hand, where she proceeded to crush it within her hands.

"We're going to play a game.... It's called hide and seek." She said, as the melting robot began to reform, back to perfectly healthy and unscathed nature. Then it began to crack, fracture and splintering, it's own metal shards expanding and giving the sensation of ones own bones growing out of their flesh, piercing their organs and spiraling like corkscrews. "You're going to go to your mother...and you're both going to run. Then I'm going to find you. Then I'm going to kill you. Then I'm going to bring you back; and then we're going to do it again. We're going to do this until I'm bored. Then I'm going to shrink you to the size of an ant and then lock you up with the rest of the broken and forgotten toys. You have until I get these two to Cale. Then the game begin, and your world...is my playground."

With a wave of her hand the machine seemed to dematerialize, it's molecules and shards of metal flying through the air, perhaps some manner of transportation spell. The Older Quinn sighed and rubbed her eyes before turning back to her younger self and to Ryan, a soft smile weighted down with stress.

"Well....let's get you two to Cale... He'll be so excited to see you two....It'll be nice to see him happy again; for a change." She said as she startred to walk on her way towards the city, hoping the others followed close enough to see where she was going; which wouldn't be hard to do.

Ryan was...well slightly annoyed by the scary woman, but the annoyance faded rather quickly to the prior feeling of apprehension. After all, she had casually stomped the very person that was giving him a hard time not so long ago. Well they were going to see Cale, so maybe he could explain things a lot better than anyone else could as far as things were concerned. Honestly, maybe seeing them would give some answers to his questions about their sudden disappearance, something he still had been wondering about for a while. If they were in the future and Cale was still around, maybe that meant he wasn’t dead afterall. Things were starting to look up, that much was known. Well they were until the annoying robot kept talking, then he was being tackled by that weird robot guy that had been trying to kill them not so long ago.

There was blood, and then the realization that the very same robot was now dying. Things weren’t making much sense, but then again that might have been because the lack of context that this situation was riddled with. Then again, having your son die infront of you, that sounded like a pretty terrible thing without him having to think about it. The future Quinn’s promise to deal with this person later was made, and then they would finally be able to see Cale. ”Yeah, let’s...go.”

Quinn looks at the Ranger, confused as to why he pushed her out of the way. It did, after all, look just like a simple spike, she could have easily caught it with no issue. Her confusion grows as the Ranger somehow dies from what should be a simple flesh wound, dropping down to the ground. She didn't exactly miss the fact that he was the older Quinn's son, causing her to walk over and crouch down beside him, tilting her head to one side.

She only partly pays attention to what happened to the other robot, seeing as how he was basically doomed, so it didn't really matter. Quinn stands up and looks over at the older Quinn, still smiling. "Yes, let us go see Cale." With that being said, she follows along, more subdued than before.

There was relative silence as the older version of Quinn led them for a good long walk. The walk in and of itself would take close to 30 minutes before she brought them to the base of a mountain. With a wave of her hand the mountain shifted, and a door-frame encrusted with jewels arrived and a blue funnel of energy could be seen ghosting through.

  "Through here. Just...make sure you think happy thoughts.... Daddy-uhm...Cale isn't as happy as he used to be." She said trying to reassure them a little bit. Yes she was reassuring them by saying something they didn't want to hear. Maybe it was her way of slightly preparing them. Stepping through the portal they would feel a rush, and arrived somewhere else depending upon the feelings they had. Thinking good thoughts lead to Cale. Thinking bad thoughts....put you somewhere else.

(Ask me to figure out where you ended up)

  Upon the throne there was a very strange amalgamation of constructed parts and pieces. The older version of Quinn had now stepped before him, looking back in order to see whom else had followed her to meet her father.

   "Quinn?" The voice asked, though his eyes opened and he shifted, as if looking closer.

Ryan truly tried to keep his thoughts good and yet when mention of Cale not being as happy as usual, that sent a pang of worry through him. If he was less happy then usual, then that probably meant that he was not happy at all and something was bothering his tall friend. When he stepped through, he ended up in a place that he did not really live up to where he expected to be.

A flurry of white flakes fell down around him in a torrent, piling upon the snow that already lay thick beneath him. With a muddled thump, he collided with the snow and sank a bit into the pile up that had been created. ”This doesn’t look like a place that Cale would be.” Ryan spoke to himself, a golem of snow a few feet taller than him forming from the snow and lifting him from it, raising to allow him a better view of what was around him.

The first thing that caught his attention was something lumbering, hulking  ever high into the air. They were large, with circular heads and with arms that dragged along. They resembled his golems, but were far larger than he could have ever hoped to have created now, at least not at the numbers that walked before him.  Taller even moreso than the defenders was a castle, carved completely out of ice, yet with a look about it as if an infinite amount of care had been placed into its crafting.

”Wonder what this means.” Without a spoken word the golem stepped forward, mostly unnoticed by the far larger golems standing their silent watch, seemingly disinterested within him. Quickly it moved to a massive door, Ryan opening it with a small amount of effort involving his own power. Large icy hinges appeared to creak, both of them stepping through into what looked to be some type of entrance hall. Even the snow carpets were finely detailed, though what caught his attention was a female, pale with white hair trailing down a staircase.

“M’lord, you’ve left your throne room. Is something the matter?” She asked, speaking as if he were the one ruling this castle of winter and him leaving his throne room was uncommon. With a motion the golem would let him down, Ryan standing on the snowy floor which felt surprisingly solid.

”What? I don’t really even know who you are.” That appeared to confuse her somewhat, as her expression took on a more puzzled look, but then sudden realization took over.

“I see.” That was when it appeared that a dozen knights in armor of ice appeared around him, wielding massive swords.

“You’ll need to come with us.” The largest spoke, armor more defined with massive spikes on the shoulders and a sword even larger than the others.

Quinn was able to keep negative thoughts out of her head, however, that was because she just removed all thoughts completely. So when she stepped through the gate, instead of landing in the naughty zone or wherever the older Quinn was, she appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a completely deserted laboratory. Dust was layered on everything, showing that nobody has been here in a while. Quinn takes a few steps into the lab only to start coughing as all of the dust is stirred up from her movement.

After taking a moment to let the dust settle again, she once against moves through the lab, this one going slower so that she isn't choked again. Multiple unfinished robots litter the room, along with a multitude of other instruments for unknown uses. There is even what seems to be a broken and bloody suit of armor in the corner, facing the wall. As Quinn gazes around the room, she spots what seems to be a computer, she almost missed it since there was a robot blocking it from her view. Carefully walking over to where it was sitting, Quinn presses the power button, not really expecting for it to work at all.

Quinn couldn't help but smile when the machine booted up, though that instantly turned into a frown when it asked for a password. She just sighs to herself as a cord was created, a moment later one end was plugged into the machine and Quinn was inserting the other side into the back of her neck. A moment later the whole machine was cloned, stored in one of her spare crystals and quarantined from the rest of her systems. The password was easy to crack, it wasn't even hard with how much she can process, but then the rest of the data was heavily encrypted, basically telling her that the password was just there for show.

Quinn does a quick scan of the data to make sure that she didn't miss anything before setting a decryption program on it and leaving it to work. It'll break through it sooner or later, so she wasn't very worried. Turning back to the lab around her she ponders on what to do next before remembering that she left the computer on. A quick turn and a button press and it started to power back down, like it was never turned on in the first place.

The areas in which the little group had landed were in most certainly different areas. Quinn had transported to an old and broken down laboratory. Ryan had ended up in a palace of ice and talking with sentient creatures made of his favored element. The knights would escort him. But to where? More importantly to when!?

Quinn herself would find herself within a kingdom of dust and debris. At a first glance this lab seemed to be a monument of what was once an impressive assembly, an origin points of robots. Of course to a keen eye like Quinn's; she could most certainly see that this greatness was once nothing more than a makeshift workplace. A place much like Cale's place back in her own time.

She made her way to the computer, all to happy to see that it had worked as her fingers tapped upon it like a nerdy composer on her nerdy instrument. But finally she noticed a different computer. A new computer, the likes of which had never been activated in the first place. An eerie thought to consider as she scanned it quickly before powering it back down. But of all the things she had seen one thing would stick to her.

Subj-3h.CaleServosImplt_007.exe ---- Status: Deceased

(Topic concluded after long procrastination. Part 2 shortly)