The library

"Well, I can create a giant cannon but it's not exactly armor-piercing"

Cole was opposed to the idea of shutting down Marcus' armor, saying that it was somehow alive and capable of feeling emotions.

"Yeah, I read something about a 'Machine Spirit' but I think it's one of their crazy beliefs like every non-human being untrustworthy. Wait, how do you know about that?"

edited 11th Oct '16 3:25:44 PM by DeisTheAlcano

Ben sighed as the others started talking about ways to kill Brother Marcus. "Look. Guys. We can't kill him. He'd just come back. We need to find a way to make him want to stop trying to kill people, or he's gonna rampage forever. Maybe we can convince him that we're on the same side. Well, I dunno how to do that, so I was kinda hoping it'd be in this book." Ben furrowed his brow, putting the book back on the desk.

"Well, this thing is useless," Ben sighed, slumping against the desk. "You guys see if you can't make heads or tails of it. But a board game book isn't gonna help us stop him. And he won't listen to me. He hates me cause I'm a heretic or something."

edited 31st Jan '16 4:57:57 PM by AllHailThrall

"He knew about my scars." Sawyer piped in, idly looking through the guidebook again. "I presume he knows about whatever Machine Spirit is."

"A textbook Space Marine hates non-humans of all forms. The slightest trace of what he perceives as heresy is to be burned out with ardor and zeal." She tapped her collar for a bit. "...to reason with him is a task failed from the get-go."

Cleaner smiled thinly. "However, if he was to be properly incapacitated, he will not be able to return back to the living as new."

The Library

Adam stepped in, It had been a long walk back since he was still hurt a bit.

He took notice of everyone taking note of information, "What do you have?" he asked stepping up to Ben.

"This is actually the first time," Plague Knight replied.

Cole glanced over to Sawyer, then looked back at Rex, leaning against the table again. "I can hear the hurts inside people...hurts and means to heal the hurts. I always hear it, in all of you. Well...almost. There are...oddities here in this world." Perhaps a glance in Miss Tairee's direction at that.

He looked at Rex, then spoke in another vaguely trancelike way. "You know the best thing about amnesia? I forgot!"

He looked down at his hands, turning them over to examine the burns still there from Marr's lightning during the fight. "I heard the armor crying out in pain and rage during the battle, it was damaged, wounded, it wanted to do its job but it couldn't. That's how I knew about Marcus...his fear is not like our fear. It's not real in the same way. That's why I know he could be reached if I can just have the time to understand how."

"But there is no time." Sawyer frowned, glancing from over her freshly-opened Dark Eldar Codex. "He is out there. He has already been killed and that makes him hard to reason with on the grounds that any smidgeons of trust he could put in you were thrown away by his demise."

"For him it is do or die. He cannot fathom the thought of a middle ground. Conversely, we have to find one to neutralize him."

"You can rent as many books from the library for as long as you want" Miss Tairee told Sonic. "The humans aren't bigger; you're smaller. My boss didn't want anyone too big or too small to be able to move around in the city comfortably, so that you could all talk to each other. If you were as big as you normally are, you wouldn't be able to fit inside most of the buildings" she then answered Grimlock, then glanced aside at the ongoing conversation about Brother Marcus.

Finally, after a bit, she spoke up towards them. "Oh come now; you say you want to get this space marine to stop fighting you, but you're hardly even trying!" Miss Tairee said as she got up from her chair slightly and put her hands on her desk, scolding Ben and Rex; it wasn't entirely clear who she was directing that at more. "You need to understand things from his perspective if you're ever going to make a connection with him. You need to know what his universe is like, and imagine what all of this seems like from his point of view. That means stop criticizing his way of life just because it's different than yours, and don't stop learning more about his universe because what you don't know most certainly can hurt you in this case" she ranted at them, then sat back down with a slight huff.

"And for goodness sake, don't treat him like an idiot or patronize him; that either won't get you anywhere or will just backfire later on" Miss Tairee added, and then went back to reading through and occasionally writing in her large book at the desks.

Ben pulled himself up to meet Miss Tairee's gaze. "His 'way of life' is killing innocent people just because some dead guy in a golden chair said he should like a zillion years ago! And I can't make a connection with him, because he thinks I'm some kind of evil monster, all because of this watch that I use to save people from guys like him!" Ben walked over to one of the chairs and slumped into it in a huff.

"Besides, that book was saying he was completely made to hurt people. How do you reason with someone like that without going down to his level?" he sighed angrily.

"Do you think people cannot be anything but what they were made to be?" Cole asked Ben, scooching back to kneel in his chair. "Do you think you have no option but to do what you were created to do?"

The Library and Self Determination

Adam frowned, moreso than usual, "So that Brother Marcus is literally made to kill. Sounds similar to some Augments I've met."

He wanted to start smoking again, he had human lungs he could let them burn, but currently. His cigarettes were gone.

"So we have to find some way to point out his rules don't apply here. At all."

"Um." Sadness winced; a part of her had hoped that Asgore would choose for them. Trying to remember the random direction she had pointed in, she looked around for any sort of landmark.

There - a column of smoke was rising over the trees to the left. There had been fires in the library last night, hadn't there? Maybe some of them had been relit? It was sort of a stretch, but Sadness honestly had nothing else to go on. As long as it wasn't something scary and fairy tale-y like a dragon, they would be fine. Sadness just hoped she wasn't leading her friends(???) into danger.

"That way," the emotion said hesitantly, pointing towards the smoke. She set off with Mary's humming seeming to echo in the background.

edited 31st Jan '16 7:00:21 PM by Syrika

"All right." Asgore nodded and followed alongside the two girls towards the direction from where the smoke was coming from. After seeing it he had to admit he was curious to see where it was coming from, at the same time though it could be something bad. "Stay close to me, ladies, just in case something hostile appears in our way," he warned them, although he spoke in a soft voice in order to not leave them too scared.

Kieri nodded to Grimlock as he settled himself down next to her, listening as Ben, Rex, and the newcomer all spoke about possible ways to deal with Brother Marcus. She had caught something earlier about multiverses and whatnot, but she decided to leave that for later. She'd rather not happen upon a book about her travels in Media, not yet anyway.

Kieri caught the book as Ben tossed it aside, scanning the cover. 'An Introductory Guide to Warhammer 40,000'. She briefly scanned the introduction page of the book, just in case Ben missed anything. While she was briefly confused by the talk of dice and tabletop gaming, she refocused herself. They were probably just distractions. Something that Miss Tairee said, however, struck a chord with her. 'You need to understand things from his perspective', she had said.

"P-Perhaps you should g-give us an in universe b-book in that case after all," she said quietly "if w-we are to understand his perspective b-better, we m-must read what he has t-to brainwash him into b-believeing anything non h-human is to be killed. And I d-do not believe this book w-would be of much use to us in t-that case..."

A lightbulb went off in her head after Kieri said this. She started to flip through the book with vigor, scanning over each page for what she was looking for. "Although, if t-this book contains information on t-the creatures w-who he kills, p-perhaps that will also be of use..."

The library — Morality discussion

Cole explained that he could feel negative emotions in other people and creepily showed this by quoting something Rex had said when he had met Noah. The teenager got creeped out. Cole could potentially know everything about him and he apparently didn't know when stop talking about sensitive subjects.

"Don't ever do that again"

Rex tried to not think about his amnesia, it reminded him that Providence had to stop EVOs without its secret weapon for now. With any luck, they wouldn't have to wait for long.

Adam wondered if they could somehow convince him that his way of life, didn't apply here.

"He's convinced that the city is just an illusion to make him stop fighting for his dear emperor and he still doesn't believe we can't die here. He's going to only listen to pure-humans he doesn't consider heretics, which are currently" he pointed at Sawyer "you and another girl PK, SK, and I found near the pub"

Rex went back to reading the book. Miss Tairee had scolded them for not trying to understand Marcus' way of life and, while his way of life was incredibly agressive, she sort of had a point. Understanding why he acted the way he did could help them deal with him or at the very least make it clear that they weren't his enemies.

Maybe Cole's abilities could probe useful apart from creeping out people "You say the armor is alive and it can feel emotions, do you think you convince it that we're not xenos or heretics?"

Cole let out what sounded like a frustrated groan, shifting to lay himself on the table again, face on the surface, arms spread out, looking for all the world like a child gearing up for a tantrum. "That is what I have been saying!" he almost whined. "I need to be able to figure out what can help him without people fighting with him! It makes the thoughts move too fast, too much distraction, destruction, dysfunction, I can't put the puzzle in place! I'm still learning how it works!"

Miss Tairee frowned slightly in disappointment at Ben's comment. It was after Kieri spoke up that she then gave a nod. "She has the right idea. You all should try to understand why the space marine was made to kill, and why his Imperium deems it necessary to kill all aliens and heretics" Miss Tairee said, and looked at Kieri, waiting expectantly as the angel flipped through the book.

The picture it was starting to tell was clear as Kieri flipped through the pages.

The orks: A species who live only to fight, born inherently with knowledge of how to wage war, who reproduce through fungal spores released upon death making them nigh impossible to root out completely.

The tyranids: A nigh unstoppable, hive-mind horde that consume every life form and scrap of useful materials from entire planets, including the atmosphere, leaving only desolate, lifeless rocks.

The necrons: Undying, metal skeleton robots serving soul-eating demigods and wielding strange technologies that could alter the fundamental properties of the universe.

The dark eldar: Sadistic, long living aliens who fight to take captives whom they torture and rape in ways far more horrific than you could possibly imagine, for no other reason than for their own twisted pleasure.

Chaos: Literally evil incarnate, dark gods and their demonic servants twisting the hearts and minds of men with whispered temptations, stopping at nothing to make the whole galaxy their own playground.

There were a few who didn't seem all that bad, such as the normal eldar or the tau, but they seemed to be the exceptions of Brother Marcus' universe, not the rule. Kieri would find a particular segment that stood out.

The Imperium stretches across the galaxy.
Besieged by aliens and monsters.
Attacked within by heretics and rebels.
For 10 thousand years it has endured...

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

Library

Lune quietly listened to the others talk about Brother Marcus and planning to reason with him while enjoying a slice of oval-shaped cheese pizza. Although there was some doubt, she believes Brother Marcus can be reasoned with. Maybe the clashes happened because the group's ethics clashed with the Imperium's culture.

She also overheard them talking about characters being fictional in other worlds. Perhaps, the same could be said about her? Her adventures on the surface world and her brief adventure in Las Gias seem pretty exciting enough to make video games. They involve a group of people banding together and stopping any bad guy that comes their way. Each robot the Steel Dragons used had a unique capabilities battlestyle. Maybe a tactical game might be interesting to see in action. Also, the animations should be enjoyable to watch, so people can get a feel on what the mecha can do.

When Kieri got an idea and began skimming through the book, Lune inquistively asked, "What kind of plan?"

Kazuraba Kouta, Forest

As Kouta walked in the forest, he noticed someone: a large goat-like person. He simply stepped forward. This thing doesn't look like an Inves and his recent doubts about fighting have had him convinced that he'd not answer with violence.

He seemed like a nice guy too. He has two kids with him... Well, one kid and one small chubby blue skinned woman... But details, schneetails.

"Hey!" Kouta waved to Asgore.

"...Okay."

The group plinked away at their meals for a bit, in general silence. It was getting a little awkward for Koishi. They may have just met, but they should be at least grateful enough to eat this meal to make a little camaraderie! She immediately tried to rectify this glaring issue, with a friendly conversational topic.

"I know I'm asking more than I'm answering but...you two, Plague and Spectre Knight...you know each other. Did you work together? You mentioned an, uh, 'Enchantress' earlier. Is she your boss?"

"It's like you were trying to paint a terrorist group as well-intentioned." Sawyer shot Miss Tairee a disapproving look.

"There is nothing to discuss here. From what this book entails, they are hostile towards any and all forms of non-human life on the basis they are not humans. This is just racism taken to some extreme ends."

A small sigh. "I stand by my point: he should be incapacitated and kept in that state if possible."

edited 1st Feb '16 5:35:40 AM by FergardStratoavis

The Library

Adam looked at the book himself and grimaced. Life sucked in Marcus's plane of existence.

"Christ, no wonder he's all "Burn the Heretic". Most if not everything is trying to kill him."

Adam stroked his beard, "Maybe we could use this. I almost had something until everyone else joined in."

Specter Knight resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably in response to Koishi's question.

"Together would be a stretch, but yes, we did both serve the Enchantress at one point."

edited 1st Feb '16 6:37:40 AM by astrokitty

Library Zone/ Act 1

Sonic heard Sawyer speaking, and decided to talk as well.

"Well if we are going to knock him out permanently, we're probably going to have to do something like freeze him."

"Hold him somehow, then remove his limbs and patch the wounds up so that he doesn't bleed out." Sawyer tapped the Dark Eldar codex again before putting it away. "That could work."