Post by Stoney on Jul 8, 2008 3:46:19 GMT -5
For some reason, Serenus Forest did not taper away gradually like one might expect of such woodlands. It ended in a stark line, almost perfectly straight and extending from horizon to horizon. The reason behind this natural phenomenon is unclear, but it gave the forest interior the illusion of a living wall of foliage.
Beyond this "wall" lay rolling grasslands, punctuated by hills and the occasional scraggly tree. It was a windy place; the low-pressure systems over Serenus Lake drew in air from the hot and dry Wilds over this area, creating a continuous blowing wind that turned the hills into oceans of grass, rippling with constant movement.
A solitary figure broke up the expanse of green; a human, laying face-up on the soft grass mere yards from the edge of the forest. The twittering of excited birds announced its presence to the forest while the area's wildlife studied it curiously. After several moments of inactivity, said wildlife determined that the figure would pose no threat, and wandered away.
A solitary butterfly, however, was more curious than the other animals. It gently descended to land on the human's chest.
The close range provided a much better view by which to study the figure. Had it contained the higher brain functions capable of it, the butterfly might have realized that this person was not, in fact, human. Though his skin was soft to the touch and internally heated, it reflected the sunlight in a way human skin could not, and the pigmentation was slightly altered. His feet were larger than would be expected of a human, and his hair shimmered unnaturally.
Of course, the biggest giveaway that something was amiss with this person was his clothing; it was built not of cotton, or wool, but rather tough synthfibers and dense metal alloys. The crystal placed on the front of his helmet glowed a dull green, pulsing in a rhythm similar to a heartbeat.
Said pulsing slowly quickened, as the person opened his eyes.
"Ungh."
The grunt was enough to startle the butterfly, which vanished into the air in a hurried flapping of wings.
Zero sat up, his hair spilling down his back in a waterfall of gold strands as he looked about himself. Where...am I?, he wondered. He looked to his left, and spied a small impact crater, scorched and still smoking. Zero blinked at it. Did I make that?
How had he come to be in this place?The last visual data he'd recorded was...
"The Ragnarok..."
He looked up at the sky. It smiled back at him, a beautiful unbroken blue that mocked him with its cheerfulness.
He'd been up there...above the atmosphere, in an exploding space station. How had he gotten back down to the planet?
Shifting his gaze back to his surroundings, Zero puzzled over his current whereabouts. This place reminded him of Area Zero...but it was different, too different to be the same place. And since Area Zero was the only part of the planet that still had vegetation...
Deciding that investigation was in order, he slowly climbed to his feet and checked himself over. No damage; his internal functions were reporting nominal conditions.
Zero turned his attention inwards, setting up a wireless connection to the artificial satellites surrounding the planet. Surely GPS could tell him where he was.
"What?" Zero spokee out loud, the surprise of this find breaking his silence. No satellites? That's impossible...was his scanner broken?
He turned to the forest behind him and scanned a tree; complete readouts of the lifeform were overlaid on Zero's vision, telling him its species, age, and current health status.
So his scanner was fine, then...but why couldn't he connect to the orbital satellites? There were thousands of them up there, constantly circling the planet; he should have been able to find at least ONE near his current latitude.
Perhaps it was a fluke, a freak malfunction or a glitch of some kind. He tried connecting again.
Zero sighed. No, he wasn't that lucky.
There were two possibilities that could explain this. Either someone was blocking his scanner, or...
"...I'm on another planet."
He exhaled the conclusion in a rush of breath, as if the weight of his realization had left him speechless. And perhaps it had; he said nothing more on the matter, deciding to continue under the assumption that his scanner was being blocked until new evidence presented itself to suggest otherwise.
Zero walked over to the crater and examined it. It was small, slightly larger in diameter than his height, with blackened soil and the ashes of burnt grass. Smoke was billowing upwards from it in a large cloud; Zero was surprised that the fire had been so small and localized.
This wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a strange location, to be sure; teleportation was usually the culprit, but that process didn't leave craters behind. The crater suggested atmospheric re-entry through another means; falling. Trouble is, such a fall would surely have destroyed most of his body save for the bits composed of heavy metals. It would also have left a larger crater behind, and caused much more disruption to the environment than he was currently witnessing.
"..."
None of this was making sense. Whether he was on his native planet or another one entirely, his method of arrival still defied explanation. Logic was the fundamental basis for Zero's entire being; he viewed the world with it, using the calculations and equations of science to analyze, catergorize, and catalogue all data he received. To him, this situation was quite irksome indeed.
He turned so that both the crater and the spot he had come online at were within his line of sight. Using some basic laws of physics, he calculated the likely speed he would have been falling at if he HAD somehow miraculously survived atmospheric reentry without shielding of any kind. He then took that estimate and applied it to some basic trigonometry which revealed to him the angle and distance he would have traveled had he bounced upon hitting the ground.
The results turned up moot; his body was not made of rubber, and would not have bounced at such speeds. Zero frowned, deciding to venture into the hypothetical realm as he attempted the same calculations on a person of the same height, weight, and build as him, but a body composed of lighter materials.
The results confirmed it; such a person would have landed at the spot where he'd been.
"..."
A human would probably have a headache by now. Zero did not, and turned to look back at the forest, instead. Its trees were identical to those on his world; in fact, if this was another planet, then it had an uncanny resemblance to his in everything from the air, to the soil, to the things that grew in it.
Zero heard an odd sound; a high-pitched chirping. He located the source of the noise and his eyes widened; birds. There were birds here.
He had not seen a live, organic bird during his entire remembered existence. They were an endangered species on his planet along with all other forms of life save for humans and Reploids. The only way he knew about them at all was through secondhand accounts and pictures.
Zero looked closer and saw other animals in the forest. Squirrels. Insects. A raccoon. All of them extremely rare and valuable.
Zero's auditory sensors alerted him to something else; footsteps from within the forest. From their frequency, volume, and direction, they indicated that several man-sized creatures were walking towards him.
The Reploid's systems went on high alert; he spread his legs apart in a combat stance and rested a hand on his hip, feeling the cool steel of his gun's surface touch his palm. His other hand went behind his back, grasping a small metal cylinder affixed there.
He pulled out both, and slid the cylinder into a hollow shell on the top of the gun. Then he raised up the combined weapon in both hands, the barrel pointing towards the source of the sounds he was hearing.
"Halt!" He called out, raising his vocal processor's volume level to carry his voice through the trees. "Show yourselves!"
Beyond this "wall" lay rolling grasslands, punctuated by hills and the occasional scraggly tree. It was a windy place; the low-pressure systems over Serenus Lake drew in air from the hot and dry Wilds over this area, creating a continuous blowing wind that turned the hills into oceans of grass, rippling with constant movement.
A solitary figure broke up the expanse of green; a human, laying face-up on the soft grass mere yards from the edge of the forest. The twittering of excited birds announced its presence to the forest while the area's wildlife studied it curiously. After several moments of inactivity, said wildlife determined that the figure would pose no threat, and wandered away.
A solitary butterfly, however, was more curious than the other animals. It gently descended to land on the human's chest.
The close range provided a much better view by which to study the figure. Had it contained the higher brain functions capable of it, the butterfly might have realized that this person was not, in fact, human. Though his skin was soft to the touch and internally heated, it reflected the sunlight in a way human skin could not, and the pigmentation was slightly altered. His feet were larger than would be expected of a human, and his hair shimmered unnaturally.
Of course, the biggest giveaway that something was amiss with this person was his clothing; it was built not of cotton, or wool, but rather tough synthfibers and dense metal alloys. The crystal placed on the front of his helmet glowed a dull green, pulsing in a rhythm similar to a heartbeat.
Said pulsing slowly quickened, as the person opened his eyes.
"Ungh."
The grunt was enough to startle the butterfly, which vanished into the air in a hurried flapping of wings.
Zero sat up, his hair spilling down his back in a waterfall of gold strands as he looked about himself. Where...am I?, he wondered. He looked to his left, and spied a small impact crater, scorched and still smoking. Zero blinked at it. Did I make that?
How had he come to be in this place?The last visual data he'd recorded was...
"The Ragnarok..."
He looked up at the sky. It smiled back at him, a beautiful unbroken blue that mocked him with its cheerfulness.
He'd been up there...above the atmosphere, in an exploding space station. How had he gotten back down to the planet?
Shifting his gaze back to his surroundings, Zero puzzled over his current whereabouts. This place reminded him of Area Zero...but it was different, too different to be the same place. And since Area Zero was the only part of the planet that still had vegetation...
Deciding that investigation was in order, he slowly climbed to his feet and checked himself over. No damage; his internal functions were reporting nominal conditions.
Zero turned his attention inwards, setting up a wireless connection to the artificial satellites surrounding the planet. Surely GPS could tell him where he was.
--SYSTEM ERROR: NO BROADCAST NODES FOUND--
"What?" Zero spokee out loud, the surprise of this find breaking his silence. No satellites? That's impossible...was his scanner broken?
He turned to the forest behind him and scanned a tree; complete readouts of the lifeform were overlaid on Zero's vision, telling him its species, age, and current health status.
So his scanner was fine, then...but why couldn't he connect to the orbital satellites? There were thousands of them up there, constantly circling the planet; he should have been able to find at least ONE near his current latitude.
Perhaps it was a fluke, a freak malfunction or a glitch of some kind. He tried connecting again.
--SYSTEM ERROR: NO BROADCAST NODES FOUND--
Zero sighed. No, he wasn't that lucky.
There were two possibilities that could explain this. Either someone was blocking his scanner, or...
"...I'm on another planet."
He exhaled the conclusion in a rush of breath, as if the weight of his realization had left him speechless. And perhaps it had; he said nothing more on the matter, deciding to continue under the assumption that his scanner was being blocked until new evidence presented itself to suggest otherwise.
Zero walked over to the crater and examined it. It was small, slightly larger in diameter than his height, with blackened soil and the ashes of burnt grass. Smoke was billowing upwards from it in a large cloud; Zero was surprised that the fire had been so small and localized.
This wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a strange location, to be sure; teleportation was usually the culprit, but that process didn't leave craters behind. The crater suggested atmospheric re-entry through another means; falling. Trouble is, such a fall would surely have destroyed most of his body save for the bits composed of heavy metals. It would also have left a larger crater behind, and caused much more disruption to the environment than he was currently witnessing.
"..."
None of this was making sense. Whether he was on his native planet or another one entirely, his method of arrival still defied explanation. Logic was the fundamental basis for Zero's entire being; he viewed the world with it, using the calculations and equations of science to analyze, catergorize, and catalogue all data he received. To him, this situation was quite irksome indeed.
He turned so that both the crater and the spot he had come online at were within his line of sight. Using some basic laws of physics, he calculated the likely speed he would have been falling at if he HAD somehow miraculously survived atmospheric reentry without shielding of any kind. He then took that estimate and applied it to some basic trigonometry which revealed to him the angle and distance he would have traveled had he bounced upon hitting the ground.
The results turned up moot; his body was not made of rubber, and would not have bounced at such speeds. Zero frowned, deciding to venture into the hypothetical realm as he attempted the same calculations on a person of the same height, weight, and build as him, but a body composed of lighter materials.
The results confirmed it; such a person would have landed at the spot where he'd been.
"..."
A human would probably have a headache by now. Zero did not, and turned to look back at the forest, instead. Its trees were identical to those on his world; in fact, if this was another planet, then it had an uncanny resemblance to his in everything from the air, to the soil, to the things that grew in it.
Zero heard an odd sound; a high-pitched chirping. He located the source of the noise and his eyes widened; birds. There were birds here.
He had not seen a live, organic bird during his entire remembered existence. They were an endangered species on his planet along with all other forms of life save for humans and Reploids. The only way he knew about them at all was through secondhand accounts and pictures.
Zero looked closer and saw other animals in the forest. Squirrels. Insects. A raccoon. All of them extremely rare and valuable.
Zero's auditory sensors alerted him to something else; footsteps from within the forest. From their frequency, volume, and direction, they indicated that several man-sized creatures were walking towards him.
The Reploid's systems went on high alert; he spread his legs apart in a combat stance and rested a hand on his hip, feeling the cool steel of his gun's surface touch his palm. His other hand went behind his back, grasping a small metal cylinder affixed there.
He pulled out both, and slid the cylinder into a hollow shell on the top of the gun. Then he raised up the combined weapon in both hands, the barrel pointing towards the source of the sounds he was hearing.
"Halt!" He called out, raising his vocal processor's volume level to carry his voice through the trees. "Show yourselves!"
One of the people near Zero's location, was Shino, a ninja for hire who is leading two certain people through the forest. "Ok, we're almost out. We simply need to..." Shino then stopped when Zero called them out, if Shino was alone she probably wouldn't have been easily found. But no time to think about "what ifs". At the moment the voice sounded very demanding and threatening, normally she would simply run from big threads, but at the moment she had two traveling companions. One of which is new to the world. So as the brave leader she is, she looked back at the others and whispered. "Geno, Louie, I suggest we follow his instructions. We don't have time for trouble." With the the ninja simply walked out to the android warrior's area.
Geno complied wordlessly, walking out into the field, his eyes scanning for the demanding voice that had called them out. When he finally located Zero, Geno's complacant stare seemed to lock on to the andriod as not-so-fond memories played within his mind. He made sure to take note that, while this character DID have a resemblence to the Axem Rangers, that was no reason to react aggressively.
"Oh... Okay..."
