Chaos Advent - Story

Signas stood at the front of the room, the newest bunch of rookies were standing before him. He spoke quickly and loudly enough so that all could hear him. Being the head of the Maverick Hunters meant that he was used to being in charge and making sure his voice was heard. Though even if he was in charge, he still cared about all those who came to work for him, even if he did end up putting them into dangerous situations.
“First and foremost, lets set down some ground rules here… Before you can be assigned active duty you all must go through basic training. This is to ensure you all have the necessary capabilities to become hunters. But before we begin basic training I ask that you all proceed over to the armory and pick out your primary and secondary weapons. Just a note that the armory contains all the weapons you could ever hope and dream of, but you may only carry 2 of them… And just to ensure there are no accidents, all weapons from the armory are locked off inside the base as long as you are rookies. There are of course 2 exceptions to these circumstances… One of which is if you are in the training hall, the other being if I manually release the locks on your weapons.

And just so you know, every time you activate your weapon in the field, it is logged when, where and for how long. These usage statistics help us not only to monitor rookie behaviors but also to enhance our weapons to keep up with the maverick populace and ensure we are always at out peak capacity. So we'll proceed onward to basic training in a little bit, we'll announce when we'd like you to return, so until then your free to roam about this level of the base. I trust you'll find everything you need to be comfortable here. Couches, tvs and food or drinks are available in the lounges just outside.” With that Signas stopped talking and left the room. Leaving the newly recruited hunters to talk amongst themselves, to get to know each other and prepare for the coming challenge.

In turn, the hunters made their way over to the armory and picked out their new weapons from the vast variety that Hunter HQ had stocked. Being the primary fighting force against Mavericks meant that they needed to have powerful weapons of all types to suit the Hunters they employed. And the United Nations made sure to keep a healthy allowance to provide weapons and Research and Development funds for them.

Though after the recruits had their weapons they were summoned into the Training room by a new face, Vasas. Once they were all inside the large room, a voice echoed out over the loudspeakers.
“Alright, Welcome to basic training. This will be a dry run of conditions that can happen in the field, we'll start things off easy enough for you. But we'll be making them harder as you go. The first thing that will happen is the room will change from the drab look it has now to a simulated environment of a battlefield. It is highly realistic, and will accurately prepare you for anything you may encounter. It should be noted that even though this is a simulation, we have had casualties in the past… Especially once we ramp the difficulty up. So just be aware that we are using live munitions in the training, as a result your weapons will be live as well, so be careful what you do with them, we don't want any friendly fire.” And with that female training room operator finishing speaking. Then Signas apparently took the microphone as his voice soon boomed across the loud speaker.

“Good luck to you all.” Was all he stated before he turn off the speaker and let the training room operator do her job.

The exceptionally large room the would-be hunters stood in gave a shimmer as light emitted from various sections appeared. And soon the room was replaced by a forest like area composed of solidified light energy, a large waterfall could be heard in the distance and even the smell of the damp forest was faithfully recreated. The trees stood tall and obscured the sunlight from being seen, and provided some cover for the hunters for when the time came to fight… Then the large buzzer sounded and the indication that the mission sequence was active. It was time to fight and sure enough the sounds of battle could be heard in the distance. Whether mock battle or people really engaging troops was difficult to tell. But the sounds of advancing troops was certainly realistic…

The mechaniloids advanced, lighting the area up with weapons fire and caused the hunters to leap out of the way… Very much convinced that the weapons fire was real and they were in imminent danger. They took to attacking the enemy quickly, cutting apart the rabbit like mechaniloids that were firing the lasers into the area. Then out trotted the metools. Those too were vanquished with ease. Though in the midst of the fight, the entire area shimmered again. Then the area shifted and the great forest gave way into an urban area. Tall buildings could be seen in the distance in every way around the hunters. And that's when the would be hunters noticed the rippling effect was still in place. But a loud crack rather took their minds off it onto the enemies at hand. From the corner of the buildings came masses of Deerballs on top of Rush loaders, and the whirring of helicopter blades indicated that Bee Bladers were not far behind.

With the new threat imminent, the hunters engaged the targets. Deerballs went flying, beebladers fell and rushloaders were destroyed.

Meanwhile, Vasas escorted a new recruit into the area then left to attend “other business”. No sooner than Vasas left the room, the area cleared and the hunters stood down preparing for the simulation to end. Though instead of ending the room flashed red and in red text the word 'WARNING' was written across the wall, flashing with a loud siren calling attention directly to it.

Inside the control room, Signas looked out the window, quickly he turned to the operator.
“Operator, what's going on?” he asked urgency in his voice.
“Signas, the control panel isn't responding… It's loading a new simulation. One for the advanced hunters.” And as the operator said that…

Inside the training room the air wavered and flickered again, the training sim room began sparking and cracking, sending wild arcs of electricity bouncing around. With each strike of electricity, the room changed bit by bit. With a final arc of electricity, the room finally changed entirely. Revealing the inside of a dark castle, flashes of lightning could be seen from the cragged windows. The floors warped and twisted a bit, making for uneven footing. A step forward and the entire floor gave way dropping the would be hunters to the basement, and easy 30 foot fall. Various groans and grunts elicited from the hunters as they stood up from the even virtual fall to survey the new surroundings. A massive room with hundreds of pillars seemingly spanning in every direction.

A loud mechanical whine could be heard, and from one of the many pillars, a gigantic ride armor stepped out. It was about 20 feet tall, The massive clank of it's foot on the uneven stone ground. It's gigantic gun was leveled at the prospective hunters. Another of the various unnamed prospectives figured he'd be smart and capture the robot ride. But as soon as he leaped to the rider's seat the entire robot ride gave a pulse and the reploid was knocked backwards to the ground, where he landed with a thud. The noise prompted several more of the gigantic robot rides to step out from behind other pillars.

While the hunters dealt with the new simulation, inside the control room Signas was furious.
“Hurry, override that protocol, high level access authorized” Signas barked the order quickly, the operator furiously punching the keys on the keyboard, hoping that it would work. A flash across the screen revealed that it was denied.
“Use the back up systems and codes.” Signas barked again.
“That'll take time” The operator shot back.
“Do it or they're dead, the system will kill them if we don't do anything.” Signas replied as he opened his comm line.
“Priority 2 altert, lock down the base. No one gets in or out.” He said as he closed the line and began to leave the room.
“Where are you going?” the operator asked as she hurriedly began to fire codes into the system to access the backup systems.
“If all else fails, I'll cut the power…” Signas said with a solemn glare in his face.
“But if you do that the resulting overload could kill you and wreck half the base…” The operator said as she continued to type.
“I know…” was all Signas said as he walked out of the room, heading down to the breaker panel in an effort to cut the power.

The hunters dodged, ducked and weaved amidst the firing of gigantic ride weaponry, countering when they could and trying to avoid being blasted by the simulator. While inside the control room the sound of keys tapping furiously could be heard. The operator was furiously at work, feverishly pounding the keys to enter the code to force a switch to the back up systems. Especially before Signas reached the hunter power panel and managed to cut the cable and blow half the base up.

Red warning lights were flashing across the screens as they registered the various subsystems fading and dying, the code was working but it was slow progress. As the subsystems died, the operator couldn't tell what was happening with the hunters in the simulator until it was all over and they were either escorting wounded out or spraying the battle field down to clean up the wrecked corpses of the would be hunters. A chilling thought she pushed out of her head as she kept working on the code.

Signas was making his way through the interior of the base, ducking down he crawled under the low bridge of the massive pipes that stretched across the pathway.
“There has to be a quicker way to get down here… Note to self, install quick access pathway for these kind of emergencies.” He muttered to himself while he stood up and continued down the bleak hallway, the power only illuminating a single light that bobbed eerily from the ceiling.

The operator was panicking, Signas should have been getting close by now… she was running out of time and she knew it. Then the screens flashed green.
“Backups online” The system stated as the operator furiously regained control and radioed Signas.
“Sir, the backup systems are online, We have control again. I'm ending the simulation, come on back…”
“Excellent, I'm going to investigate the power panel anyway just to ensure no tampering has occurred. Proceed as planned and I'll be back in a bit.” Signas said over the comm.

“Ending simulation… Now” the operator stated as she punched the final key and waited. Nothing happened at first. Then inside the training room, lightning flashed and massive arcs struck the robot rides and caused them to fade out, then the room itself and everything changed again. This time returning to the basic room, boring and blank white training room.

“Man, that was too close for comfort” Said one prospective hunter as he walked towards the still sealed door. He reached out and grabbed the handle to open it and was immediately met with a strong electrical surge.

“The simulation is still active… I can't disable it, even though I managed to kill the robot ride issue… So you'll have to ride out whatever the preprogrammed simulation has left.” The operator called over the comm lines.

Then the red warning light began to flash over the door. “Oh no… Something's coming” one prospective said nervously as the warning light flashed. Across the room, the data began to swirl and take shape… Forming with ease and solidifying into what would become a terrifying shape.

Zero.

“Party time” the holographic copy of the legendary hunter called out with a distorted sound in its voice.

The hunters attacked first, taking shots and using their special moves to try to take out the legendary hunter's replica before it could counter. Though their attacks proved largely ineffective because the holographic copy was too powerful, easily countering dodging and parrying attacks launched at it.

Inside the control room, the operator was sitting at the computer, working away.
“Blast, why won't this door open” The operator cried as she punched the door open key, resulting in several sparks shooting from the terminal as the open code was rejected.
“The door must still be charged… If that's the case I won't be able to open it from here with any code… Why did they build the system like that. Who seriously thought charging the door with electricity was a good idea. And what's worse is the entry doors are solid, anything less than a C8 charge isn't even going to scratch it.” The operator muttered to herself in despair, having seconds ago halted from trying the code to open the door seeing as how the panel reacted in code entry. Instead she had resigned herself to waiting and watching through the back up systems what was going on. A sudden thought came across her mind.
“What if… we've been hacked, and whoever did it is still controlling the system, but only letting us think we're in charge… That would explain why the door won't discharge and open, as well as the rogue simulation. But if we've been hacked, they must still be connected to watch the fight and see how things are going… ” And with that thought the operator stopped leaning on her face on her hand and started typing on the keyboard again. She began to disconnect the control panel systems from all hunter services save for power. After tense seconds, finally the system was isolated from all but the single control panel in the operation room.
“Let's try this again…” The operator said as she punched the door open code again.

The door sparked once and opened a bout an inch, then it sparked twice then suddenly ceased solid.
“Aww, crap in my haste I fried the door servos… I am soo fired.” The operator cried as she dropped her head into her arms and nearly cried. A sudden explosion rocked the base. The operator's first thoughts were of Signas… But as she calmed down she realised that the explosion wasn't that large… more contained and focused. And it had come from the Training room entrance. Looking to the monitor she saw the sudden cause of the explosion. A reploid in blue armor had managed through and was now racing his way to aid the would be hunters.

The hunters engaging the holographic Zero soon spotted the blue armored figure of X racing towards them. Together they re-engaged Zero and with X's help they were able to hold Zero off. Long enough for the hunters to get away from Zero before X charged in. X took 3 steps, jumped high into the air and triggered his hypermode. The blinding flash of light surrounded him. As the light faded about him, the blue armored visage of X was replaced with the sleek and shiny black of X in his hypermode. “Wow” one hunter remarked. This being the first time they'd seen it. Everyone had heard that Hypermodes were in development. Based upon some of the New generation reploid ideas, particularly of transforming. But this was the first time they'd seen it up close.

X paid the onlookers no mind as he hurriedly began to charged his weapons up. The buster gleaming as the power flooded into it. As it reacted the critical level, X dashed forward, then slammed the glowing buster into the holographic Zero's face and unloaded the full power into the hologram, and then the ground. A second explosion rocked the base as the powerful blast struck the ground and had no where else to go but down into the ground. Bits of the ground began to rain down upon everyone as the hologram completely dissipated and the red warning light went out.

X let out a sigh as he powered down, his regular blue armor replacing the black as the hyper mode disappeared in a flash of light.
“Whew, Still tiring.” X muttered as he turned to leave. Pausing for a moment, he turned back to the group.
“I'm sorry guys, but for now just stay here until Signas can debrief you on what happened.” X said as he turned and saw a rather dust covered Signas strolling out.

“Hello All, we're sorry for the problems we've encountered today, normally the simulations don't go out of hand such as this one… But it's also not every day we get hacked and have our base training simulations messed with. Again, we're sorry for the troubles, we shall take precautions to prevent this in the future. Thankfully no one was killed in this simulation. Anyone who is injured, we'll be happy to treat immediately. And now for the fun part, you guys are free to go about your business within the hunter base while your performances are graded. You may not leave the base because it is still locked down from the computer intrusion which caused this mess. Any attempt to leave the premises will result in immediate arrest. Resisting arrest will lead to execution on the spot. Needless to say we don't want that to happen.” Signas stated. He then turned to leave to investigate more in the cause of this disturbance.

This is the first mission of the RP. It was originally intended to go from this mission right into the maverick selection process. But since this roleplay I started using a new system where characters grow (and players earn points for their characters based on a number of criteria), I opted to have this as a training mission and created another mission to serve as the intro mission.