LNH: All-New Legion of Net.Heroes #4

Andrew Perron pwerdna at gmail.com
Thu Feb 13 04:13:56 PST 2014


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LLLLLLLLLLLLLL                                      |   Session #4    |
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ANDREW PERRON as Kid Enthusiastic
EDWARD HAUSER as Genesis
ANTONIO MENTEGUIAGA as Maia
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THE STORY SO FAR: There is *power* flowing from the Net to humanity and 
back! The net.powered have gathered together on a budget to form - the 
Legion of Net.Heroes!
========================================================================

Maia says, "So can Genesis do the whole matrix thing?"

Maia groans, "I kinda wish my power was a giant fork right now."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Are you eating something?"

Maia says, "No, I'm hungry."

Kid Enthusiastic huh.

Genesis says, "Hm? Matrix thing?"

Maia says, "Like. Downloading years of learning and being able to fly a 
  tank type of stuff!"

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Ooooooooh."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "...I think you'd need, like, rockets."

Genesis says, "Not really. Galeora's physically somewhere in my 
  midbrain, and there isn't any way I know of to connect her to 
  anything outside."

Maia says, "I think if you just fire the main canon enough times."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Wi-fi!"

Genesis shakes her head. "We tried that at VEIL. She's connected to my 
  brain and only to my brain, from what I've been able to gather... bit 
  of a shame, actually. She's got an encyclopedic knowledge of her 
  people's history, and we've only been able to wake her up twice. We 
  still don't even know their name."

Maia holds up the hammer in a cartoonish way from her desk, feet 
  propped up on it, looking at Genesis with a questioning look towards 
  the hammer.

Genesis quirks an eyebrow. "What are you hinting at?"

Maia says, "...Y'know, I'm not really sure. Was just channeling 
  something."

Maia says, "Some sort of bunny rabbit. With a gigantic gun."

Genesis looks a bit more confused.

Genesis says, "...anyway, I think one of the weirder things was the 
  first time she woke up and possessed me, before she figured out where 
  she was, she was giving commands. Near as the techs could figure out, 
  it sounded like they were commands for a starship."

Maia says, "...Does that mean you can fly?" Her eyes seem to be beaming 
  bright at this point. "Like! An airship?!"

Maia says, "Kid I think we're already at end-game!"

Kid Enthusiastic oooooooooh.

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Clearly we need to build some sort of 
  bio-mimetic starship around you."

Genesis says, "Well, I'm not Galeora. She's an AI sitting dormant in my 
  head. One I can't seem to awaken for any significant periods of 
  time."

Maia pouts, "So you're not the cool end-game airship thats thousands of 
  years old under a dessert?"

Kid Enthusiastic pulls out a megaphone. "I have an idea!"

Genesis says, "Well, given that she's an AI... she may have *been* a 
  sta--hm?"

Kid Enthusiastic clicks it on. "HEY GALEORAAAAA"

Genesis says, "Believe it or not, we tried that too."

Genesis rubs her ear. "You can turn that thing off now."

Kid Enthusiastic aw.

Genesis says, "If anyone can figure it out, though, you probably can."

Genesis says, "Anyway, she probably was a starship. Military, most 
  likely..."

Kid Enthusiastic hmmmmmms. "Maybe subliminals... oooooh, space opera!"

Genesis says, "If you can induce a hypnotic state that's deep 
  enough..."

Maia starts twisting this and that on her hammer, "Maybe this thing can 
  go all pendulum."

Genesis says, "Can either of you record video on your phones?"

Maia looks at hers, "I think. Why?"

Kid Enthusiastic hmmmmmmm?

Genesis says, "Well, we're going to be trying to awaken the AI in my 
  head, right? I won't be awake when she is, is the thing."

Maia says, "Maybe we should get one of the cameras made for that 
  instead?"

Genesis says, "I don't think we need to, as long as Kid E can rig up a 
tripod." She hands him one of those wire inbox-things. "This'll 
  probably do it.""

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Maybe we can have you both awake and sing 
  two-part harmony with yourself! We'll make a fortune off Youtube 
  partnerships."

Kid Enthusiastic oh, thanks.

Maia stares at Kid, "Y'know I've always wanted to sing harmony with 
  myself like those monks."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Oh, yeah"

Kid Enthusiastic says, "People say they monkey around."

Genesis says, "I dunno, I think they're too busy singing to put anybody 
  down."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Hm, true."

========================================================================

Genesis hmm.

Maia says, "Hmm?"

Genesis looks up from a modestly-sized shard of green crystal in her 
  hand. "Hm? Oh, did I say something? Sorry, kinda... lost in thought."

Kid Enthusiastic is wearing X-ray specs and a fake moustache. "Well 
  zen!"

Genesis stares at Kid E. "No, I... I don't think we'll be doing that. 
  Here's the problem, though... do either of you know hypnosis?"

Maia says, "...I have a hammer! It swings like one of those hypnotic 
  things. Don't it?"

Kid Enthusiastic hmmmmmms. "I've been watching videos about it. It 
  looks simple enough!"

Genesis hmm. "Okay. Certainly couldn't hurt." She smiles a little, 
  wheeling her chair out from behind her desk into the middle of the 
  room.

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Okay! Maia, incredibly powerful magical 
  artifact please."

Maia blinks! "Oh! Right! Hammer!" Dropping out of her daze at what 
  artifact Kid spoke of.

Kid Enthusiastic takes it and lifts it *very firmly*. "Man... forgot... 
  how heavy... this is. Hokay..." He staggers over and places Maia's 
  phone on a jury-rigged tripod, made of aluminum piping and duct tape.

Genesis quirks an eyebrow. "You... aren't planning on knocking me out 
  with that thing, are you?"

Maia takes her hammer back, "Just... tell me what you're doing. I 
  really don't feel easy with other people touching this thing."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Well, I mean, I was going to swing it back and 
  forth as part of the hypnosis. It's not like any of us has a 
  pocketwatch on a gold chain!"

Maia stares, "...I can do that.

Genesis hmm. "That can't be good for your back... look, will any 
  pendulum do? If we've got... oh, there's that."

Kid Enthusiastic hmmmmmmmms?

Genesis holds out a shard of green crystal. "Got a piece of string?"

Maia blinks, and undoes some loose string from her outfit and hands it 
  over.

Kid Enthusiastic ooooooh! He ties the string around the crystal. "This 
  will probably work really well, if we're trying to evoke memories!"

Genesis blinks. "I... what? No, I don't think that's going to..." She 
  sighs. "Look, just be careful with it. It's important to me."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "C'mon! Have you ever known me *not* to be 
  careful?"

Maia raises hand.

Genesis says, "Yes."

Kid Enthusiastic large comedic anime sweatdrop. "W-well, that's not the 
  point right now!"

Genesis says, "Let's just get this started. Are we rolling?"

Kid Enthusiastic leans over and presses the button. "Rolling!"

Maia puts down the dice, "Right! Rolling!"

Maia gets her hammer close.

Kid Enthusiastic lets the crystal dangle. "Focus on the crystal..." He 
  begins swinging it back and forth. "Follow it with your eyes, only 
  with your eyes..."

Genesis's eyes follow the crystal as instructed. Her vision starts to 
  haze a bit, and she continues.

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Relax... you are safe... you are relaxed... you 
  are letting go... let go..."

Genesis's eyelids grow heavy fairly quickly, and she's clearly in a 
  low-level trance already. But there's nothing happening yet...

Kid Enthusiastic takes a deep breath. This was the tricky part. "Go 
  deep... go deep down, and ask Galeora to come up... Galeora, come up 
  and speak..."

Genesis's eyes close after a few minutes of coaxing, and for a few 
  more, nothing happens. She begins to enter a dreamless, dormant 
  state, activity slowing... and becoming sparse enough to allow 
  something new to come forward. After a long moment, her eyes open, 
  glowing with a bright-green light!

Kid Enthusiastic jumps back. "Whoa! ...er... Galeora?"

Genesis replies to Kid E with something wholly unintelligible.

Kid Enthusiastic hrmmmmms... "Do you speak English? Nihongo desu ka?"

Genesis pauses for a moment, then nods. "English. Yes. Sorry. I will 
  *never* get used to the way this brain stores memory..."

Maia says, "Woah neat. Cool trick with the eyes."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Oh! Awesome!" He carefully puts the crystal 
  down and picks up a notebook. "So I had a list..."

Genesis blinks. Her eyes slowly fade to their normal green, and she 
  leans over to pick up the crystal. "A piece of my matrix-crystal... 
  clever, using it as a hypnotic trigger." She turns it over in her 
  hands for a moment before setting it back down. Her movements are... 
  awkward, slightly un-human. "Let me guess. Questions?"

Kid Enthusiastic grins. "Hah! I *knew* it!" He a-hems. "Yes, ma'am! Or, 
  y'know, if there's another pronoun you prefer that's good too."

Genesis shakes her head. "Female is fine. I'm a feminine consciousness 
  and chose a female body, so." She smirks. Or makes something close to 
  one.

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Ah! There we go, first question: how did... 
  like, what's your history and Genny's and how are you two related?"

Genesis presses her lips together. She lets out a long sigh. "Right. 
  History. I'm a warship AI of the Viridi stellar navy... one of the 
  two most powerful ever created. Given command of the entire fleet... 
  a brilliant tactical mind, if I do say so myself. We were at war with 
  an extremely hostile... I hesitate to call them a race, or even a 
  species, as such. They're sentient nanomachines, essentially... led 
  by my opposite number, an AI known as Alterac. Used to be one of us. 
  Nobody knows what happened. She disappeared into deep space on a 
  scouting mission, and neither she nor her escort vessels were heard 
  from again until years later, when she reappeared within our borders 
  and declared war against Galeos herself."

Kid Enthusiastic listens with wide eyes. o.o "And... who's Galeos?"

Genesis says, "God. The universe. Consciousness. Existence itself."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "...that's a heck of a war."

Genesis says, "Yes, well... it's not quite a war in the normal sense. 
  Not in its goals." She picks up the crystal, examining it 
  thoughtfully. "Galeos is the sentience of the universe. At the very 
  beginning, as the universe was forming, she slept. She only awoke 
  when the first primitive intelligences began to develop--simple, 
  single-celled organisms with some modicum of basic autonomy. Wasn't 
  much to her then, so to speak... for eons she was wild and feral, a 
  reflection of the primitive intelligences that composed her being."

Kid Enthusiastic takes furious notes. "Man, I really want to ask you 
  how exactly a greater consciousness kept cohesive at universal 
  distances, but I think this is more important!"

Genesis says, "As the first truly intelligent life came to be--
  self-aware, self-reflective--Galeos truly awoke, into something 
  approximating her current state. She became aware. The point of this 
  is that while she is an autonomous, self-determining intelligence, 
  she's shaped by the tendencies and minds of the sentients 'below'. 
  Alterac heads a hive-mind nonillions of nanite minds wide, with the 
  ability to convert other matter into more."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Oh! Oh, I get it - fifty percent of the vote."

Genesis nods. "A single consciousness with enough animic mass to 
  dominate Galeos..."

Kid Enthusiastic hrmmmmmmmm. "This is bigger than our planet, tho."

Genesis says, "Oh, definitely. Far bigger. See, the war was... oh, 
  you've got a word for it, what is it... Pyrrhic? It's close, anyway. 
  We very nearly eradicated them AND Alterac, but at the cost of our 
  homeworld, and most of our colonies at that. We, Galeos' champions, 
  were devastated at the end. And we didn't win. Alterac was bloodied 
  and beaten, but she escaped. Want to guess where she was going?"

Kid Enthusiastic frows. "Aw sugarmuffins. But then she's at a lower 
  power level, right?"

Genesis says, "Her numbers are diminished, yes. She's... more powerful 
  than I am, though. I'm divided. Elizabeth Holmes can wield the power 
  of Galeos, but at a severely diminished capacity, because she lacks 
  me. Because of the way Alterac's consciousness warps animic space, 
  she's still able to wield those same powers, and with far more 
  strength than we can."

Kid Enthusiastic paces back and forth at double speed. "Well that's 
  just prime! So--" He turns to Galeora-in-Genesis. "How do we stop 
  her?"

Genesis says, "I don't know. The 'plan' Elizabeth Holmes has come up 
  with is the closest thing either of us has to a proper solution..."

Kid Enthusiastic shakes his head, hair getting even messier. "Dang! I 
  shoulda thought this wouldn't be that easy!" He paces at triple speed 
  (but doesn't wear a groove in the floor, because this universe is a 
  bit more realistic than that, I'm afraid). "Okay, so... what happened 
  after Alterac escaped?"

Genesis says, "She escaped, and I followed. I was crippled, so I 
  ejected my core and used it to give chase... there's a rarely-used 
  function of the core crystal that allows it to generate an organic 
  body based on any template one gives it. I chose human, of course... 
  but I pushed things too hard, apparently. The body hadn't fully 
  developed, the link between the unit containing 'me' and the brain 
  was incomplete... and the only saving grace? The drive unit 
  malfunctioned, causing me to arrive years before Alterac. I loaded my 
  memory bank into the unit within the brain before atmospheric entry 
  began, and... I went dark."

Kid Enthusiastic's eyes widen and he bites his lip. "Yeesh. So all 
  that's left of you is..." He gestures at the shard.

Genesis taps her head. "I'm inside here. There's a small shard here 
  with my memory on it. She must have taken this from the impact 
  site... it's useless. Synaptic crystal. Probably leeched of useful 
  materials to make this body."

Kid Enthusiastic hrm. "So it's not one of those things where we go 
  around collecting crystals to power you up."

Genesis says, "No. It's worth noting that the connection between brain 
  and shard has developed, though. It's how I'm speaking with you now, 
  and how Elizabeth Holmes can use my powers at all..."

Kid Enthusiastic says, "Hrmmmmmm. Well, I'd better ask you the rest of 
  the questions before I say 'wake up'!"

Genesis shudders briefly and closes her eyes, slumping back slightly in 
  the chair as Galeora is unceremoniously pushed out of the way for 
  Elizabeth to wake up. Which she does fairly quickly! Genny looks at 
  the crystal in her hand. "Mmh... hm. Did it work...?"

Kid Enthusiastic blinks. "...aw, nuts."

========================================================================

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, amazing and spectacular!


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