Army of Five

Validus found himself waking up due to a kick from the side by Rhea. Painful, sure, but it had at least jolted him awake. The navi's visor rebooted itself as he stood up, his head completely disoriented and his vision slightly blurred. He found his rifle lying a few inches away from him, and picked it up. A few scratches here and there. It was in one piece, but good lord was it going to take some time to polish it back to it's original gleam.

He brought himself to sit upright. His legs still fell asleep, so he didn't bother to stand up for the moment. He scanned the surrounding area. The whole battlefield was totally barren: cooled lava sat on one side, former banners of the "Neo-Shogun Empire" were now burning, as if driving the point home that the empire itself was done for, and the tower he was on now look really, REALLY unstable. Validus shook his head, best get his butt moving before the whole tower itself crumbles.

Eternalis wasn't anywhere to be seen, he must've jacked out right after the battle, reasoned Validus. A quick scan also saw Broadside and his comrades guarding the area around the entire battlefield. He made a note to himself to thank Broadside later on, and also to inquire more on his mechanical form and it's capabilities. Hell, without the behemoth, there certainly won't be a victory in the beginning for this whole battle.

The blue colored finally raised himself up, and brushed the debris off his shoulders, before turning to face Rhea. "Well, that certainly could've gone a hell lot better, eh?" He said with a slight smile at Rhea, with one hand rubbing the area where he had been kicked. He lifted his free hand in a fist-like gesture and pointed it at Rhea, as if awaiting for an acknowledgment to his gesture.

Rhea blinked a few times, not comprehending the gesture. Seeing how he was waiting for her response, however, she just mimicked Validus's movement obediently, though she was in a bad shape from all the action.

"You wish for me to punch you, Validus?" she inquired inquisitively, head tilted slightly to the side in curiosity.

"What? Nonono- I'm doing a brofist gesture! you know, like a congratulatory gesture?" Validus suddenly explained as he was taken aback by the question, nearly losing his balance.

"You're weird, you know that?" Validus said, but then gave a chortle. "But that just makes it a hell lot more interesting." He added as he rubbed Rhea's head. Although with that smoothness he wasn't even sure would it mess it up in the first place.

Ro spoke to Broadside over his helmet communicator when Rhea stirred next to him. "They're awake, Chief."

Broadside nodded absently. No-one had come to attack them while they were vulnerable, and it didn't seem like anyone from the battle had chosen to hang around either. The battle itself had also seemed extremely pointless from his own perspective. For what reason would an army of thousands of Navis amass to do battle with them over a small section of the network such as this? For what reason had they chosen violence over negotiation? True, Broadside was himself a Navi constructed for combat, server defense even, but that did not make him ignorant of the ways of politics and diplomacy. The use of force was merely an extension of the two, or the result of failure, depending upon one's perspective.

What was the GNA withholding from them?

You're thinking about this far too much. a random thought chided.

Perhaps. But he still wanted answers. The body count for this battle was blown too far out of proportion to simply brush aside casually. To get answers, one must first have clues to base questions upon, and that meant...

"Ro. Nadia. Help me search the field for artifacts left behind by enemy soldiers." Broadside requested suddenly.

"Okay.... like what?"

"Weapons, armor, ammunition, documents, and any other unusual items of interest a normal Navi could have carried."

"Got it, Chief."

"Roger that."

With that, the two SPs climbed down the tower and began searching the field. Broadside, meanwhile, searched the top of the tower for the moment. He would join his SPs in the field shortly, but first... "No hostiles have appeared since the fall of General Vee, and the remainder have withdrawn. It would appear we have attained victory." Broadside reported to the other two Navis before his attention returned to searching his surroundings.

----Summary----
Broadside: Search Tower
Ro: Search Field
Nadia: Search Field

Unable to comprehend the situation further, Rhea just moved away, confused at the action before smoothening her hair out-- again. "Why do people do that... ?" Rhea mumbled, before realizing that the rest of the group was heading out for scavenging.

Turning to the sniper Navi, she pointed to the open fields. "We should be searching, as well." she said in her default tone, then was off to search the fields with the other two SPs.

(+1 FXP for Validus and Rhea)

Predictably, about the only thing left strewn across the battlefield was broken wood from the guard towers and splintered spears. Upon closer observation, however, Broadside managed to find the fearsome general Yasu's katana. The thing had been ruined by its dip in the lava, but it might be worth holding on to. Rhea similarly spotted on of the kunai Vee had left behind. The thing was pretty simple and small... it didn't seem as lethal as the ordinary kunai chip. In the general's hand it had glowed with electricity, but in Rhea's, it was just a small and dinky knife.

"Right then. Let's just do that." Replied Validus non-chalantly as he scanned his surroundings again, the visor picking up information from the entire surroundings. The navi flipped through regular motion scanning to thermal scanning, and came up with no results.

"looks like everything's clear..." Validus muttered to himself as he began the descent from the tower itself. "Broadside, do you see anything? I'm picking negative here." He said on a communications from his helmet to Broadside's.

"Affirmative. No readings." Broadside replied to Validus as he slowly moved away from the tower. There had been nothing of interest on or around the tower. The few spear heads he'd found were smashed and bent. None of the arrows used by the archers had survived the lava... Indeed, not much of anything had survived the lava. Even the remains of the other destroyed towers were reduced to burned piles of splintered wood.

Broadside was nearing the edge of the Metal terrain. Beyond this was nothing but lava, and zero hope of finding anything remotely useful. He just about to call off the search when he rounded a pile of rubble and came to the spot where Djinni has fought Yasu... A green bladed katana poked up out of a Metal panel, most likely locked there when the terrain change had occurred. Broadside slung his rifle over his shoulder, and then reached out and grabbed brown leather-wrapped hilt of the weapon. He took a moment to look at the curve of the blade, then pulled upon it with a bit of added circular motion.

It took a while, and quite a bit of effort, but Broafdside eventually managed to pull what was left of the weapon out of the solid metal platform. The lava had not been kind to the sword, as it had melted and blackened the greater part of the blade. The end of it had actually become brittle and ashen, and had broken off underground. Still, it was easy to tell this had been a formidable two-handed weapon, and the fact that it had survived the lava at all said quite a bit about the quality of the brand. Strange... the blade seemed to be made of a green hued substance, sort of similar to that of Boomerangs.

No matter. It could be examined later. "Mission complete. Ro, Nadia, return to the PET."

"Alright, Chief, we're out."

The three of them jacked out of the net a moment later.

((Jack Out.))

As Rhea searched, she found that the General who had offered to surrender had left behind a kunai. Her eyes squinted slightly as if in appraisal, before collecting it and sending it to the PET. "This seems useful," Rhea said, as if trying to give herself an excuse to keep it.

"Then we're all done here, Rhea. Welcome back."

Rhea nodded simply, turning to Validus and giving a wave before disintegrating into data packets, destination being Camillia's PET.

[[Rhea.EXE, Jackout]]

Sighing to himself, Validus scratched the back of his head. "Boy, what a bunch of serious guys." He muttered to himself.

"Validus, where are you? Aren't you supposed to have jacked out by now?" a voice came into the speakers mounted inside the Helmet. Validus almost whipped out his pistol, before realizing it was Tsujsa's voice.

"Oh yeah. Nothing else we need to do here. Jacking out, capn'."

[[Validus.exe Jack-out]]