"At least we speak the same language..." observes Kai to no-one in particular as the group begins to gather their wits. Following Zellgato and the others into the tent, the techie stands by to assist Zellgato if needed.
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Kai stumbles through the portal, taking a moment to look around at the place where they landed. "This... doesn't look like the right place."
After a moment, a panicked look spreads over Kai's face. "Oh no, Legion! We left them behind! And Greer! What's wrong with him? Zellgato, can you help him?"
Kai runs towards Nissa, theor and the others; whatever happens, Kai doesn't want to be alone. "Tarokh! We can't bring infected Greer to Ear- our Earth!"
"Almost there, almost... Kai wipes some sweat off with a shoulder, hands still busy with the device. "Done! Ready! It's set!" Only then Kai looks around at the mayhem of the shifting room, alt-Greer nowhere to be seen and a smaller demon having now spawned alongside the vrock. "Uhh..."
Kai keeps frantically working on the device, hands shaking with fear and stress.
"Then go! This needs just a little more... ngh." Kai is evidently stressed as the imploding device is taking its sweet time arming itself.
Making all the right wire connections while giant demonic eggs are popping up everywhere is a little challenging, but kai appreciates the heroic efforts of everyone trying to stave off the undoubtedly horrible creatures that would emerge from those eggs. That said, when the giant baby bird emerges, Kai drops the tool used to put the final touches on the imploding device. "Uh, I'll need more time, very sorry! Can't rush this, or we all implode."
Kai had been trailing behind; although life sciences were more Zellgato's field, the place was still fascinating and there are about a hundred hypotheses running through Kai's mind, all of them probably wrong. "Hm? Ah, of course, the imp-... yes." Not knowing how much the demons could hear - or understand, Kai doesn't finish that sentence. No reason to forewarn their enemies of what was about to go down. Still, Kai pauses again. I've been spending too much time around these martial types, I'm starting to think in military terms.
With Legion shining a focused light on the delicate work, Kia begins to connect the detonator to the device the team had put together earlier.
Kai didn't have much hope of actually harming the demon, definitely not to the extent that Charles and Theo seemed to be doing, but hopes to provide at least some distraction.
Perhaps the habit of using B.I.N.A.H. helps Kai's mind repel the thought-warping of the demon tower, but then the techie freezes at the sight of the huge demon stalking towards them.
At the sound of the gargoyle impacting the truck, Kai whirls around to see Zellgato's predicament. Almost certain that firing the newly acquired mercy pistol at the creature would very likely miss, Kai sends Legion instead to pester the gargoyle and hopefully distract it.
Kai sends Legion ahead to provide support for the team already in the tower while preparing to climb the line. It goes much easier than Kai had expected, perhaps because Greer was setting such a good example of how to execute these athletic maneuvers.
In the truck with Greer:
The stench of the artificial pheromones is overpowering, and although Kai tries to keep some distance from alt-Greer and breathe shallowly, the engineer ends up barfing in the glove compartment. "I'm so sorry, my apologies - ugh. No, I did not know your counterpart at all. I joined the team after, after he..."
Kai spots the gargoyle as well, but the others don't engage, so Kai stays put. As they enter the plaza, Kai gazes up at the lone door. "I'd rather not go in first, but I think me going last is an equally bad idea."
Kai joins Greer in the front of the truck, hoping to get to know the man a little before everything goes explodey.
Kai looks uneasy at the idea of being part of the real assault team, but in the end simply nods. "Alright. What about the imploding device? Are we planting it inside and then try and get out before it goes off?"
"At least now I know where the problems are and how to fix them," announces Kai as the engineer disappears halfway into Big Blue's exposed mechanical innards.
Kai looks vaguely conflicted. "I don't know how useful I am going to be on the inside, I'm not exactly a fighter. You can put me where you think I can be of most use."
Heads up that I will be on holiday from September 10th to September 26th. Please bot Kai as you see fit.
Kai is startled from having dozed off in the makeshift workshop. "Code Green... Green is good, right?" Kai looks questioningly at the World 16 natives.
Charles growls softly. "I hate just... waiting," he grumbles. "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help, Kai?" Kai looks up from the tinkering, thinking. "I had the beginning of an idea, but I don't know enough about how brains work. We're almost done with the implosion device, and after that I think we should rest a little and try to find out more about this world." Kai pauses to look around, then whispers to Charles. "It is a world, right? Not a pocket dimension, or..." Kai gestures vaguely. "You have a lot more experience than me with these things."
Kai watches the tape as well, having taken a break from tinkering while the assistants finish up soldering the less delicate parts of the imploding device. A hand goes to the band around Kai's forehead, rubbing the side of it. "I am very curious if B.I.N.A.H., or something like it, can be used to protect from the demons' mental influence. It would have to be heavily adapted though, since they seem to experience very realistic hallucinations, rather than emotions. Besides, it's not my design - we might need my friend to help us, but I don't want to put her in danger."
"That's a good point, Charles, and a good question." Kai takes a break from tinkering to try and figure out if omnisium can travel through interdimensional portals.
He frowns as Kai reports how long it will take to get things ready. "Think some of us should check back home while you're working? That's at least one more night of the portal opening, if the pattern holds, and we'll need something heavy-duty to be watching it in case one of those big ones go through." Kai nods. "Might be good to get some help with these projects, try and speed things up. As they said," Kai indicates the native group, "this is becoming more than this world's concern."
Kai is absorbed in the discussion with Doc Z, nodding along at the explanations. "I could build something to contain the blast for a little while, until you're out of range." Hearing the comment about the mecha, Kai thinks for a moment. "I can take a look, but not sure if I could get the tools and parts for fixing it here."
Kai allows Doc Z to cast his spell, looking at the arcane symbols curiously.
Kai is squeezed in the back with the civilians, trying to comfort them while the talk of demon towers happens nearby, feeling entirely too unprepared for any of this. "If they had technology, I could help against that, but all this..." Kai shrugs helplessly.
Uh-oh, Nissa was in trouble! Now that the civilians are safe, Legion begins flying at the Vrock's eyes, trying to distract it as Kai does the same.
Kai winces as one of the civilians is torn to shreds, redoubling efforts to protect them against the demons.
Kai provides covering fire to the civilians as instructed, while sending Legion to scan the vrock.
The demons' music is not unlike what a former roommate of Kai's used to listen to, so the engineer doesn't find it particularly disturbing. Inching closer to the fight while using the wrecked cars for cover, Kai continues to try and help Nissa.
Kai continues to lay down covering fire as Legion swoops around the smaller demons and tries to distract them.
Kai switches targets to the demons assailing Zellgato, continuing to provide covering fire.
Kai continues to try and distract the demons attacking Nissa as legion swoops in wild figure eights around the mecha.
Kai sends Legion to fly around the demons harrying Nissa's mech and try and distract them, while Kai is searching for better cover.
Heading Nissa's warning, Kai pulls Legion back and lays down defensive fire for Nissa.
Not knowing how many more demons were in the tower, Kai dives for cover, whispering on comms, "There are people in the car, they're shooting at Legion and the demons."
Not much use in fighting the demons on either side of the portal, Kai sends Legion on a stealth recon mission towards the car.
All the heavy hitters had passed through the portal, or were about to, so Kai wasn't about to stick around on this side and watch helplessly from the sidelines. With an apologetic look at Detective Macleod, Kai orders Legion through Nissa's portal and follows closely behind. "Uh, I hope the Patriot can take of these three, we're going to try and stop this invasion at the source."
"I think the news drones have been told to stay back, but I can send Legion to investigate... just not through." Kai guides the drone to fly closer to the opening and run some scans.
Kai jogs over to join the others, grabbing Legion from Zellgato and tethering the drone to Kai's belt, in case interdimensional travel was imminent. The techie looks at Nissa with puzzlement. "Who are Flora and Fauna?"
Kai had indeed packed for a couple of days' journey in unfamiliar territory, but at the moment the mold is concerning. What if Charles has been breathing in the spores and somehow becomes infected? "Uh, detective Macleod, there's some suspicious mold in the church and the crypt, can we get some people from the municipality, or monument protection, or what have you - in hazmat suits, mind you - to clean it up once the portal is dealt with?" Wasn't there a Plant-Woman superheroine on site as well...?
Nissa replies to Kai, “Oh! The Indiana Jones movies—I was thinking about those when we saw the Nazi sign earlier. That’s part three—the one where Indy gets Hitler’s autograph.” "Right... were there any demons in it?" While waiting for Nissa's reply, Kai does a little research on black mold.
"Nissa, you took 20th century movies in school, right? Do you remember this one that we're seeing through the rift? Came out in May 1989." As Zellgato's query comes through, Kai does a quick search on the history of both cemeteries.
"good, otherwise we'd be looking at time-travelling demons," grumbles Kai.
"Oh, this is interesting. We reconstructed the events of last night, more or less, but this drone has footage of the whole thing." Kai sends a compressed version to the team chat, and uploads the full footage to the Boston Theoretical servers, with a note for Ron to start analyzing it more thoroughly.
"Got potentially useful thing. Kai, can Legion download and sift data from an errant drone safely? The fact it was knocked out of the sky-this far away makes me curious. Might no be time sensitive if things are busy, but could be useful. "Should be able to, give me a minute." Kai gets to work on connecting Legion to the damaged drone (after putting up firewalls and other protections) and trying to download the data on a separate SSD, just in case it contains something malicious.
While working on that, Kai also keeps an eye on the T-Rad readings. "Hey team, I'm registering increased levels around the church. Looks like whatever phenomenon this is... it's going to be right on time."
Kai sends Legion to shadow Zellgato, instructing the drone to send an alert ping if anything unusual occurs.
Meanwhile, Kai paces around the church, scanning for T-rad.
Kai shrugs. "I'm just as much a newcomer as you are, Zellgato. I'll send Legion with you to keep an eye on things, and to scan."
"Your announcement was way better, Jenny. See you when we get back, we'll work on that dampener together!" promises Kai before boarding the armoured van.
"The T-Rad is close range, so attaching it to a sniper rifle is less convenient. I think giving one to Charles and having the other on Legion should work best," Kai decides. "We should take some omnisium with us if we can. We know how to open portals, but not how to close them, so something that blocks T-rad might come in handy. It might also come down to going through the portal and confronting whoever is causing this, so we should be prepared to travel." Kai starts writing a quick packing list - food, water, basic necessities, flashlights, a few non-technological tools like rope and crowbars. Apparently playing all those tabletop RPGs is coming in handy.
"Are we missing anyone? That's all of us, right?"
Kai emerges from one of the labs with a freshly assembled T-Rad detector. It doesn't feel like Kai's best work, but it will have to do for now. "Who wants to take this for the mission? I can hold the other, or stick it on Legion for more scanning options."
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