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Post by Heat on Jan 8, 2020 1:03:26 GMT -6
Heat didn't understand.
Why it was that the North was so interesting to him, that is. But, he could very easily hazard a guess. It was probably because no other place in the planet felt as alien to him than the northern heights. It was the only place that the heat inside of him couldn't overpower the ambient temperature, the overwhelming cold that made his metallic skin plating freeze over and get harder and harder to move the colder his joints and his internals became. However, the cold was no match for Heat's warmth once he actually applied himself to creating warmth, expelling all the ice crystals and the snow building up over his mechanical, robotic body with a small explosion of ki, increasing his temperature to dangerous levels for a short amount of time. It hurt, but so again, so did most of everything in Heat's strange, unplanned and unwanted life.
What else hurt, more than the extreme cold and the extreme heat, was the jagged, metallic stump that his right forearm now was. Being the curious little Android he was most likely programmed to be, Heat couldn't simply stay away from the intriguing tall, pale mountain he had laid eyes upon in the distance. Right off the bat, the trip was already gearing up to be a disaster. The raging, unceasing and biting snowstorm that didn't let up for a moment made it impossible for him to simply fly through the blizzard and up to the peak of the tall, tall mountain, forcing Heat to take to the snowy, pillowy ground, making his feet even colder than they were up in the air. The real challenge, however, came once he had to traverse a treacherous bit of land a bit higher up along the snowy, mountainous path, Heat's carelessness leading to him slipping on the ice and the snow and losing his footing, falling and tumbling down the side of the mountain. Having already crashed and smashed into quite a few trees on his path down, Heat knew he'd have to slow his descent somehow, the Android resolving to shove his hand into the cold, cold snow and dig his fingers into the ground. Though it worked for slowing him down, as he was no longer tumbling like an idiot, the icy, biting coldness of the snow around his forearm was enough to make it freeze over completely once he pulled it back out, and no matter however much he tried to warm up his metallic body with his internal systems, his right arm refused to thaw over.
So he snapped it off.
It was only dead weight, after all, and Heat's body worked in mysterious ways, even to himself, so he knew he'd be able to construct a new one using his unique constitution. Though, something else was more mysterious to him than however it was that his reconstruction worked, and that was why it wasn't working in the first place. Perhaps the blindingly thick snowstorm had cooled his body so much that it couldn't produce enough thermal energy to be converted to mass, or maybe the blizzard was obfuscating the rays of the sun, making them unable to reach Heat's body. Whichever hypothesis was correct didn't really matter, as the only current fact was that for some reason, his 'regeneration' wasn't working, and he's have to deal with that.
The pain of his missing limb would probably mean he'd be screaming his mechanical lungs out right now, though two more important things crossed his mind instead. The first being that he had to somehow think of a way to get out of such a bad situation, and the second being that he could spot the peak of the mountain from where he was, even though he was running out of the energy to expel and melt all of those ice crystals growing on his face and his remaining hand. It almost looked like the peak as the only part of the mountain where the raging snowstorm wouldn't be such a debilitating force. Maybe he could take off from there and never have to face the hardships of this place ever again. He simply gritted his teeth as his broken, destroyed right arm sparked and fizzled, seeing his current objective right in front of him, steam beginning to leave his body in short bursts as it mixed with the snow, small amounts of it even melting, only to instantly freeze over.
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Post by Aurora Arctos on Jan 10, 2020 13:44:58 GMT -6
Aurora watched silently from where she was seated at the very top of Mt. Frappe, the Arcosian having no problem with the cold and howling winds all around her. She had been spending her time once again in her Unleashed form in her continual attempts to try and regain some semblance of control over herself, and yet it still seemed to have had little to no effect upon her new form, as once again she had found herself angrily and frustratedly snapping her eyes open in a huff and barely resisting the temptation to crack the mountain open, such was her rage. She knew that this was her heightened emotions affecting her, and yet there was very little the Arcosian could do other than to remind herself of why she was where she was, and what she was there for. Forget that, and... there may end up being another Brench. That was something she wanted to avoid, no matter what, and was the main driving force behind her continual attempts to calm herself and regain her infamous control over herself even in this new form, all the while cursing the Arcosian children responsible for her issues in the first place.
It had been the failure of one such attempt that had alerted Aurora to the presence of the android climbing the mountain, her scouter down in the cave she had carved out where it couldn't disturb her. It had been just out of the corner of her eye, but the Arcosian would have taken any distraction afforded to her at that point, and so she had walked over to the lip of the tip of the mountain to look down and see... There! An android, by the looks of the arm, struggling its way up the mountain towards her. She wasn't able to tell its power level, but judging by the amount of effort it was needing to put in to make its way through the snowstorm that Aurora's presence in her Unleashed form created, it couldn't be amazingly high. She had to admit... that made her curious as to the being's reason for trying to climb Mt. Frappe. Aurora herself had never had that much trouble with the mountain, even when the blizzard used to rage when she came near, but now that she thought about it that was probably due to her heritage as an Arcosian. The other races didn't seem to be able to handle weather changes like she could.
She wouldn't move just yet, still trying to maintain a semblance of control, and instead simply watched the android as they struggled. Like an ant in water, she believed the term was. If they succeeded, she would be there to greet them and would even get to ask the victorious machine exactly what they thought they were doing. If it... he, she now realised, failed, then the ice around him would disappear and the blizzard would lessen and even dissipate under orders from her magic. She could take him back to the cave she was carving out, and then ask the questions there instead of the peak. Aurora was fully aware that this was all to avoid even more hours of meditation upon the cold rock she called her home, but at this point she wasn't exactly willing to care. She knew that as long as she stayed in her Unleashed form she wouldn't have the control to force herself back to meditate, and she took a sort of cruel pleasure in watching this weakling flounder. She wouldn't let him die, but that didn't mean the struggle wasn't entertaining.
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Post by Heat on Jan 11, 2020 18:32:35 GMT -6
Heat's vision barely functioned at this point, probably in part due to his metallic eyelids having frozen over already, making him unable to blink at all. That was the least of his worries, though. Even with his failing body and his fuzzy vision, he noticed some kind of... monster? It was something, and he couldn't exactly tell what, but he could tell that whatever it was, it was staring right at him. If it wanted to harm him even more than the mountain and the blizzard already had, though, it wasn't making its move just yet, and its sight didn't phase Heat's resolve one bit. He didn't even exactly know why it was exactly that he wanted to get up to this kami-forsaken mountaintop, but his soul was screaming for him to go on.
...The thought became less comforting the more Heat thought about it, though. It was probably just some string of code that his father had embedded into his artificial intelligence to seek the unknown and make it known. It didn't really matter in the end, though. His legs were practically working on auto-pilot now as his feet trudged through the cold, freezing snow, his body shaking and shivering as he felt like icicles were forming inside of him. It was a horrible feeling, but it was better than the thought of not discovering whatever that creature standing over the peak, looking down to him was. But, as Heat had realized some time ago, his form was made to resemble that of the humans that made him, and as such, he had their limitations. Their weaknesses. He fell to his knees as he couldn't even feel his feet under the snow anymore, but his trekking didn't stop just because of that. He dug his arms into the snow and crawled forward with his knees planted firmly on the ground, noticing that he was, in fact, getting closer and closer to the figure that stood in front of him on top of the peak of the mountain, slowly but surely inching forward. It would probably be his end if his body stopped moving right where he was, the snowstorm still beating down heavily on his metallic body.
He didn't know how much time had exactly passed, but what he did know now was that the creature that waited by the peak of the mountain was some sort of humanoid, though definitely not an earthling. Heat had finally gotten close enough to it to get a good look at it even as his vision failed him, his knees and his left hand freezing over from digging into the snow so much, even as the blizzard began to let up from his steady approach of the mountaintop. However, what he did feel was his energy starting to grow once more, the heat inside of his mechanical body growing. Maybe the cold really was what made his body start to malfunction so strangely, and he felt like maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be reduced to scrap metal just yet.
His left arm had frozen over, but to make up for it, his right hand had begun to grow once again, his strange, mechanical regeneration reforming his plating and his complex circuitry, his fingers clicking and sparking as they began growing once again over his hand, and before he noticed it, he stood there on his knees, right in front of the strange, winged creature. With how monstrous it looked, Heat wasn't sure if it would attack him or not or if it could even reason with him. He simply caught his breath despite not needing to breathe in the first place; perhaps a strange way he was programmed to act. He could probably use enough of his energy to unfreeze his entire body right now, but as it was, he simply wanted to relax a little, his eyes trailing over the creature's body. He had never seen anything like it, and even though he wasn't sure if it was dangerous or not, he stuck his right hand out to it, reaching out, his left arm limp, literally knees deep in the snow as his eyelashes were frozen over, as well as most of his face, practically unmoving except for his quivering lips.
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Post by Aurora Arctos on Jan 14, 2020 17:41:28 GMT -6
Aurora watched as the machine made its way towards her, notably struggling even when she lowered the force of the blizzard. How... curious, she supposed was the right word. There were plenty of questions running through her mind. Why was it here? What was it trying to do, by reaching the top? These were also followed by less serious ones, such as the expression of pain upon its face. She was aware that there was the technology out there to replicate pain to the smallest detail, having seen it in a few of the more battle scarred Arcosians and her chance meeting with Yakone before his untimely demise at the hands of the demon lord Sensoa, but to see it on the face of something that resembled humanity but clearly wasn't... Aurora had to wonder what the reason for such programming was. Especially since she saw the machine's arm beginning to grow back. Obviously self replicating, which meant that its creator had expected it to lose limbs and the like. So why give it the ability to feel pain? Either way, the (currently blue) arcosian couldn't help but raise her brow in bemusement at the idea of such a thing.
It crawled through the snow, pathetic but in a way proud. Its dogged determination alone was enough for her to respect it. Well, she would have if she didn't know it wasn't all just code. Its facial features displayed desperation, determination, curiosity, pain... all these fleeting emotions she could see from her time spent learning how to read humans. Really, it was a marvellously built structure, and Aurora was tempted to ask it where its maker was. However, she knew that this most likely wasn't the place for it, as the machine struggled towards her. The arm it had used to crawl up the side of the mountain was now the limp one, and a new, fresh arm raised itself towards her. Silently, Aurora tilts her head, debating internally what to do. She was far stronger than this thing, but... it would be a shame for all of its effort to be wasted by her simply flicking it from the mountain. While Aurora was on the fence about the highly debated idea of machines being truly sentient, she wasn't heartless, and the effort shown to her by the android was more than enough to touch her upon the heart. That level of determination... well. It was a feeling she knew all too well.
A hand reached out towards the machine, bypassing the outstretched arm and lightly touching upon the face of the android. Calling upon her magic, Aurora's ice spread from the machine as she flash freezes the thing over, completely preserving it in a moment of time. Such a skill had... well, it had taken her some time to get right, but these past weeks had been dedicated towards nothing but trying to control her anger and frustration, so it had been a good exercise between everything else. She still wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of trying it upon a flesh and bone being that wasn't her, but this machine didn't need to worry about things such as decaying cells, so odds were it was fine. The ice spread rapidly, leaving the android a statue surrounded by the howling winds. For a moment Aurora stood as still as her... she supposed her victim, memories of Brench tearing through her, before she shakes her head and brings her hands up to slap at her cheeks, careful not to accidentally slice the android's arm off. She wasn't sure if it would be able to regenerate after that. "Come on. Time to move." She murmurs to herself, before picking up the android and flying off with a flap of her wings.
A short time later found Aurora and her... guest? Prize? Whatever it was, they found themselves within the cave she had carved out in the side of the mountain. Ice sparkled along the walls, reflecting the light that was sent their way by the open entrance and the small blue wisps that floated lazily through the air. Small ice sculptures lined one side of the cave, increasing in size until they were as tall as her, an ongoing effort from the Arcosian to master the use of her own hands. From all the cracks and the uncountable failed attempts, it wasn't going exactly well. Aside from that however... the cave was rather barren. Aurora lived there, but had yet to go about making it a home. That would come later, when she got her hands on a few of those archaeology and architectural design books she had been eyeing the last time she was on her ship. Speaking of, said ship quickly floated back down from where it had been hovering over the lip of the cave and settled down with a loud whumpf, plunging the two into the blue light of magic.
Setting the android down, Aurora looks about. She was admittedly a little embarrassed to be showing such... barbarous conditions, but it was warmer than outside and she didn't want this thing on her ship, which merely looked like another wall at this point. Reaching a hand out, the ice recedes from the android, releasing it as the magic floats into the air to join to rest of the wisps. At this point Aurora had returned to her suppressed form, the blue wings gone and instead replaced with the small, purple Arcosian that had a far better control over herself. "Do not worry." She starts the moment the machine was free, knowing that it would be somewhat... panicked. "I merely extracted you from the dangers of the outside. You were losing control over your functions rather quickly, due to the cold. You are currently in my dwelling. You are safe from the cold here, or... safer, at least. You can leave at any time, this is not a prison." Aurora holds her hands up, before she looks around in the dim blue light. "I apologise for my actions earlier. You didn't find me at a very opportune time."
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Post by Heat on Jan 17, 2020 15:07:28 GMT -6
Heat himself wasn't exactly sure why it was that he reached out for the strange, dangerous-looking alien being that stood before him, peering down to his pathetic, broken-down state. Perhaps his programmed survival instincts kicked in and made him reach out for help to whatever the nearest humanoid was, or maybe he wanted to feel another living being before the ice and snow overtook him and the mountain claimed his body as scrap metal. Even with the freezing cold around him beating down on his weary body, he was ready to simply dispel the frost that covered his body if it became too close to forcing his systems to shut down, however, it seemed that the choice was taken away from him as the intimidating alien before him stuck out its hand to him, completely ignoring his outstretched arm and instead resting it upon his face for a short moment before Heat felt a great, freezing cold beginning to overtake his body within mere moments,
the Android now looking more like an incredibly sculpted ice statue, its hand reaching out ahead and its eyes widened, the ice and cold that overtook his hull and frame overcoming him faster than he could even react to it appropriately.
With Heat completely frozen over, the world seemed to fade out from his perception. Although, being a purely mechanical lifeform, he couldn't normally sleep, whenever he is somehow forced to turn off like a common machine, the act of resting feels more like some sort of strange time travel to him, Heat's simulated consciousness completely disappearing once he is turned off and immediately reappearing the moment he is powered back on, giving him the feeling of hopping forward in time. This moment was no exception, as once the arcosian had frozen him, Heat immediately woke up in its frozen dwelling as the ice covering his metallic, mechanical body began to dissipate and his eyes could finally dart around, scanning his location in a kind of panic. He noticed he was still in the position he was forced to keep as his body froze over, his hand now stretched out to the ceiling of the icy cave. The ice that covered him seemed to have turned into some kind of strange wisp, quickly joining the others that floated about the cave. He briefly ignored whatever it was that Aurora was saying to him, instead taking his time to adjust to a less silly-looking pose and craning his head to look over the cave, taking in the ice crystals that covered the walls and ceilings, as well as the strange ice statues littered about.
He then looked over to the arcosian. He definitely recognized her species now that she was in a less monstrous state, his piercing eyes curiously and shamelessly moving slowly from her face and down her body, almost like he was scanning her, though he was actually simply taking in her strange appearance and assessing whether or not she might be a threat. Her tone of voice and her words alone should have probably been enough to convince the android that she didn't actually mean him any harm, but he would much rather assure himself of it further than have her devour him when he wasn't paying attention, or whatever it was that his skewed perception of the world made him think of arcosians. Heat sat himself down upon the cold stone floor of the ice cavern, sighing deeply. "It's, uh, fine. I don't even know what it is you did to me, but you did get me out of that [Kssht] blizzard, so thanks." He closed his eyes, placing his hand on his forehead as he laughed to himself, followed by another big, heavy sigh. "I thought I was gonna be a metal popsicle there. I really wish those war criminals back in the lab built me of tougher stuff than that. I mean, you looked totally fine in that blizzard while I was basically cracking apart."
Heat quietly stood up, feeling like the rocky floor was a little too cold and uncomfortable for him to actually relax on top of and instead waltzing over to one of the impressively sculpted ice statues, circling around it as he took in its details before he looked over once again to the Arcosian, moving away a little from the statue as he felt like his innate body heat could even be enough to make the thing melt accidentally. "So, you live here? What's your name?"
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Post by Aurora Arctos on Feb 2, 2020 15:06:11 GMT -6
Aurora tilted her head silently as the machine analysed her. Were it someone such as Dion, she might have been flustered at such open scanning. However, as it was a machine... well, a machine with a libido would be a rather odd and useless creation. Evidently finished with its analysis of her, the machine made to sit down before speaking, thanking her for extracting it from the blizzard that she had found it in. Aurora felt a small tinge of... perhaps it was embarrassment, or amusement, at the fact that it was thanking her for saving it from something Aurora had largely been responsible for. "I froze you over, into stasis." She responds after he pauses, making her way past him and towards a bench carved into the side of the mountain. A few movements and the rock moved away, mechanisms whirring as it revealed a small panty. "Can you consume food? I understand that a large majority of the more advanced machines on Earth tend to be made as human as possible, when it comes to such matters." Her experiences with Androids weren't as... robust, she supposed, when compared to the majority of other species that could be found on earth.
If the answer was yes, she would press a few buttons into the side of the pantry and return with a mug of hot chocolate, one for the machine and one for herself. Otherwise, she would simply return with nothing, the second mug being little more than an attempt to make herself seem approachable. "I feel I must apologise for the treatment you experienced outside. That blizzard... well, it was partially my fault. A side effect of when I concentrate like I had been." Settling down across from the machine, she tilts her head at it. "But yes, I froze you. It is a technique that follows the principles of cryogenic freezing, although I will admit that I would not have used it on you if I had not realised you are a construct." The Arcosian still wasn't certain on how dangerous the technique could be to a living creature, as she wasn't willing to risk accidentally killing someone, or at least not until she was completely sure that they would not be killed and merely held within the stasis she wanted. Aurora had started working upon the ability after the events of Brench, as a sort of... she supposed fail safe. A last resort to preserve her body.
Her eyebrows raised as the machine continue to talk, acknowledging its creators and even referring to them as... war criminals. How curious. "I would not fret much over it." Aurora responds, red eyes boring into the curious pupils of the machine. "I am significantly stronger than you are, at least for now. I have no doubt that you will eventually catch up, at which point such a thing as the cold... well. It stops becoming any more of an issue than you allow it to be." Aurora would know. She then rose herself when they stood up and approached one of the statues in Aurora's dwelling. A recent work, depicting the pose the swordsman Typha took moments before shattering her body, the sculpture had passed the Arcosian's test of quality and been allowed to stay despite the small twinges of pain gazing upon it caused her. "I am currently in the process of... moving in, I suppose is the most apt way of putting it." She begins, following it slowly. She didn't doubt that it had no ill intentions, but the Arcosian couldn't help but feel somewhat anxious when others neared her artworks. "I usually reside within my ship." A gesture towards the entrance. "And... my name is Aurora. Aurora of the clan Arctos. What would yours be, machine? And, if I may ask, why were you climbing Mt. Frappe?"
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Post by Heat on Feb 4, 2020 16:34:05 GMT -6
Heat watched Aurora walk past him, like he wasn't even there. He was a total stranger, and yet she didn't have a worry in the world about letting him into her home. Perhaps she was as powerful as people claim the arcosians are, and she didn't need to worry in the first place. If a problem presented itself, she could probably just swat it away with her overwhelming power. Heat's eyes widened as the arcosian fiddled with the bench next to the wall, revealing a hidden pantry, Aurora grabbing his attention as she asked if he could consume food, comparing him to the humans that had constructed him in their image. "Erm... no, actually. I can't. I had to find that out the hard way, unfortunately..." Heat sighed, remembering his first experience with food. It truly was one he'd prefer to not have to go through again. Heat began to nod along quietly to the arcosian woman as she spoke to him.
'In the process of moving in' was appropriate, Heat thought. The cave was barren and frozen, thought he had previously assumed that was an intentional choice. Maybe the arcosians had a different standard of interior design than the earthlings that populated the planet. The statement she had made about the freezing snowstorm outside didn't phase him much, as he already knew of the arcosians and their relation to ice. He wasn't aware, however, that they could somehow control it. Heat couldn't even get upset if he wanted to, though. Knowing she hadn't almost frozen him apart on purpose would make any anger he felt feel unjustified, and the cold, freezing atmosphere of the icy cavern was enough to quell his hotheaded attitude. Heat had simply listened quietly and attentively to all the information the arcosian had dropped on him, her mentioning that temperatures would stop being a problem for Heat once he increased in power made his ears perk a little in interest, though. Being able to power through all the hazards that planet Earth threw his way would certainly be beneficial.
Heat quietly walked over to one of the cold, freezing walls of the cavern, pressing his back against it as he slowly slid down down to the floor, sitting himself down in front of the new arcosian acquaintance he had made. Aurora, she had said her name was. He wasn't sure whether or not she'd prefer if he spoke her full name, so he decided to not say it until he didn't have a choice. Heat was a little curious about this ship she had mentioned, as he hadn't seen one before, but her questions too a more important precedent. "It's Heat, and I'm no ordinary machine. More like a combat android, of sorts. I came here simply because I had seen a tall, white mountain off in the distance. I figured it might have been fun to go hiking. Is that the word? Well, anyway - I didn't expect such a powerful snowstorm to be enveloping this place so tightly. This power of yours is truly an impressive one." He complimented her, before taking a look around the cave once more, taking in its minute details. "Say- you mentioned you had a ship. If that's the case, why live inside of a cave? Is it, uh, the temperature?"
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