[TF] A Scent of Rubber and Rust
Note: This is a formatted version of a roleplay log. Half of this text was not written by me, but rather by Aster Sylveon on F-List. Expect the quirks of RP-based writing to show up in this piece. Both characters in this piece use feral anatomy. Synapsis is mute, and can only express herself with the projector crystal located on her forehead.
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A howling wind rages across the stone tiling of the old bridge leading up to the abandoned aqueduct. Synapsis had wandered close to this structure many times before, but she had never dared to step a paw within, for the building has always intimidated her. This time, however, there seems to be a pink and white creature already engaged half way? She scampers up to it, wondering if she could have some company in her life of solitude. As she scampers up to the fluffy sylveon, she lets out a little squeak of joy, and projects an image of a pink and blue heart onto the pavement.
Aster Sylveon wasn't exactly sure what his plan was, as he didn't quite know what awaited him on the other side of the bridge. He had witnessed it many times just like everyone else - The crumbled, foreboding aqueduct that never saw even a lick of foot traffic. Even prey critters didn't bother squatting in there. The lack of knowledge surrounding the aqueduct and its potential secrets was what pushed Aster to the bridge. He wasn't the most strong-willed Sylveon, and would likely flee at any sign of danger. That was, until, he noticed the smooth creature approaching, a few inches shorter than him. Judging by its stature and temperament, this was definitely not a threat. He made eye contact, blue eyes staring into white orbs.
"Are you going to the aqueduct too? Two's better than one, so we should probably stick together," he suggested, motioning further down the bridge with one of his ribbons. "I'm Aster."
The Sylveon speaks flatly, without the usual bouncy disposition one would expect from a Sylveon. He continues his trot, hoping his new partner would understand his intentions.
Synapsis twirls her thick cyan tail, excited to hear the voice of a friend. This was all she needed to gather her courage to finally cross the bridge - someone who could walk alongside her every step of her wanderer's journey. Her quest to see all the landscapes the valley had to offer no longer had to be a loner's travel. Did his voice had a spark of disinterest, though? Perhaps he had already been here. An experienced adventurer to guide her! Even better! She turns her projector towards the fence bordering the bridge, and imprints a blinking arrow of light upon the stone. She trots forward with a squeal of delight, but freezes in her path as she feels the ground vibrate underneath her light blue paws. Her fur standing on end, she lowers some of the tendrils on her head to feel the source of the impact. The aqueduct, abandoned for centuries, is inhabited? No, surely, it must just be some industrial contraption spasming out after receiving a surge of electricity from the broken power grid. Nonetheless, she judges wise to alert her new friend by showing a picture of a giant cog, then a ferocious tiger with glowing red eyes, and finally a question mark.
Aster Sylveon does the mental math and gathers that this bizarre creature does understand speech. The new set of projections didn't leave much up to interpretation, and Aster didn't need to do much thinking to voice his thoughts. Predators dominated his thoughts just as much as it did for everyone else. Not slowing his brisk pace, Aster blinks at the spot at the ground that his partner projected the images onto.
"I dunno. I've never been here before. I imagine there's some predators that camp out here, but we can just run. I do wish to see what this place holds, though. It's too shrouded in secrets, I'm sure there's something of value in there," the Sylveon said, his eyes glazed over as he gazed at the blurry structure in the distance that gradually grew better defined as they approached. His pawsteps were too light and fast to take note of the low rumbling, but a new figure in the distance surely was. A dark figure, seemingly green but shaded by the lack of light throughout the structure, slipped just barely out of sight past the side of the bridge. They were most of the way past the bridge now. Aster stopped, a forepaw still in the air.
"Did you see that?" he asked sharply, almost instinctively.
Synapsis shivers upon noticing the silhouette squirm in the darkness of the aqueduct. She staggers back. A projection of a childishly drawn depiction of her flashes two steps away from her, with red X placed over her eyes, and an arrow pointing at the corpse with the caption "SYNAPSIS". The picture quickly vanishes, and is replaced with a sketch of Synapsis and her Sylveon companion creeping alongside the bridge's edges to the entrance archway, peeking to have a better look at the foreboding figure. She turns off her projector, smiles to her new friend, her snout betraying her anxiety, and paws up to the edge of the passageway inside the aqueduct. A quick glance reveals not one, but two extremely menacing looking mechanical snakes. Their backs are traversed with a dark green hue, and the rest of their bodies are marked with a slightly lighter shade of the same color. Two golden crescents adorn their midsections, and their heads bear four frills of an equally radiant yellow. As they slither across the ground, the metallic chassis in between their rubber scale segments is revealed, exposing their inorganic nature. The tendrils on Synapsis' back twitch upon realizing a single one of these robotic titans could ground her to dust with only three of their latex sections. Bent over as they are, they already reach Synapsis' size twofold - their heads fully raised, that would easily be risen to a sixfold size difference. An eerie red glow gleams around their heads, turned away from the little critter's stare. Almost paralyzed in contemplation, she doesn't look back to see if her companion followed her or not.
Aster Sylveon had followed Synapsis up to the point of confrontation, but only so far. He was still a few paces behind her when they encountered the big, mechanical snakes that emitted a bizarre concoction of sounds - Creaks and squeaks from their large, shiny rubber plates, whirring and clanking of their metal components shifting past each other, and the low hum of the electronics that powered them and their luminous red LED eyes. Aster didn't bother making eye contact out of fear, instead keeping his gaze lowered to their utterly inorganic midsections. In their current position, Aster saw a blink of an opportunity - a small gap beside the two snakes, just large enough to squeak through and continue down their path. However, the bots would quickly catch on to a maneuver like that. The Sylveon's blue eyes then shifted to Synapsis, viewing her from behind. He paused for a moment, before taking a step towards the unknowing blue critter. Then another, and another, and then... Pounce! Aster ran right towards Synapsis, lowering his head and ramming it right against her backside. The ram sent her flying forward towards the snakes, which lowered their glowing gaze to her as she tumbled to the ground. Aster saw his moment of opportunity and capitalized on it. He zigzagged to the edge of the path and sprinted past his temporary friend and two new adversaries, not looking back as he dashed into the darkness, hoping that his devious plan was a success.
Shaken by the sudden impact, Synapsis freezes solid. With four blazing fires of red light exposing her frail body to the mechanical beasts, she could only hope that the reptile-bots' vision would fail to recognize an immobile target. As the seconds stretched into one full minute of terror, she tries to hold back her urge to mewl in both anger and fear. The first friendly face in years, revealed to be yet another one of the monsters she had ran from all her life? No, surely, it had to be some kind of plan. Her tail tendrils, laid flat on the ground, recognize the gentle tapping of the Sylveon paws on the concrete, further and further weakening as Aster distances himself from her. At any moment, he would turn tail and save her. The snake robots still hadn't moved an inch. Were they friendly? Synapsis charges an explosive tension in her legs, ready to sprint to join her companion. She would deserve a good explanation. She folds her legs, ready to begin bolting to safety, but a spasm in her paws stops her in her tracks. She tries to bend her legs again, but her efforts remain in vain as her bones take on the rigidity of metal. Paralyzed, a faint projection of a stone-turned Synapsis statue glows on the floor, only visible due to the creeping darkness inside the aqueduct. She takes in a deep breath, but feels as if it wasn't enough. Hyperventilating, she takes in more air than she can blow out, her chest swelling with every inspiration. The glow of the snakes' eyes doubles in brightness, bringing Synapsis to stare into them against her will. She tries to move again, but every single inch of her body feels as if it was coated in a thick coat of solid concrete. A speck of fur on her back turns from cyan, to turquoise, to a deep green in every bit similar to the reptile's design. The new color spreads all across her skin, lightening as it reaches her chest and her torso. Three more rapid inspirations cause her belly to inflate beyond the physically possible. Her white eyes darken, reflecting the red glow of the snakes back towards them as they illuminate with a similar glow. As this happens, the shadows enveloping the aqueduct dissipate, granting her a clear look towards the sprinting Sylveon.
Soon, her ballon-like body absorbs her paws, now tiny in comparison. Rendered an orb of green flesh, air and fear, a fissure expands along her midriff, soon followed by five more. As if a giant baking roll has squished her, Synapsis's body elongates, turning her shape from the quadrupedal to the serpentine. Her eyes jut out of their orbits, and her vision fades away for a second. It soon returns, now covered in a red hue due to her new glowing LED eyes. Two yellow crescents form on the central segments of her new body, simultaneously hardening her soft flesh into a tender yet firm rubber blend.
Aster Sylveon flicked his legs against the ground as quickly as possible, not daring to look behind him. However, the sounds and tremors blasted through the stone and clearly alerted Aster to what was happening. Synapsis was being converted. Aster felt a pang of guilt, as his newly-acquired friend was just as vulnerable and innocent as he. However, the two of them would never escape their confrontation with their current bodies intact, so he told himself. The site behind the Sylveon roared with the energy of new heavy machinery being activated for the very first time, a sound most unnerving to an organic creature like him. Aster's thoughts raced and fought himself almost as quickly as his running pace, until both came to a crashing halt. Aster ran face-first into his worst-case scenario - a dead end. The aqueduct path in front of him led straight into a thick stone wall that the negligent Sylveon managed to smash his head against, collapsing to the ground in a dizzy haze. Only now did he receive a gaze at what his actions had brought forth, hazy as he splayed on the ground. A new robotic Serperior was emerging, its rubberized body expanded along its metal chassis as it inflated to a rounded, pressurized form. Its metal was completely identical to that of the other Serperiors, from the hues of its rubber and metal to its inner components that Aster barely got but a mere glance at. There was no sign of Synapsis anymore, except for the last few tiny patches of blue fur that rubberized over, the disappearance of the last patch triggering the activation of its glowing, electric red eyes. Aster couldn't move or put pressure on his limbs without a searing headache. He only hoped he had enough time to catch his bearings before the new Serperior fully activated alongside its clones...
The transformation reaches Synapsis's shoulders, elongating her blue sensor tendrils into four latex golden frills. She struggles to remember how she came to be stuck in this unfortunate situation. Where had she come from? It couldn't have been the bridge. She had already taken in her dose of solar energy for the day, and any extra could be an overcharge threat. Her muzzle lengthens, becoming pointier, and lightening to a pure white color. As her segments continue to inflate, now bringing her height to three quarters of the robot snakes she was slowly becoming in all parts alike, Epsilon wonders why he feels like he didn't always have this name. That must simply be an error in his processing systems - and he could afford no mistake, not when the Alpha's fortress was under "attack" by pitifully small and ineffectual critters. Some of his subordinate drones had already taken care of the first intruder - the mechanical lieutenant reminded himself to upgrade their systems as a reward after this alert was dealt with. Now towering over his two loyal units who had succesfully handled the first part of the invasion, he judges wise to personally deal with the second trespasser. Slithering towards the aqueduct - or rather, Alpha's fortress - other end, Epsilon's astounding weight causes the structure to rumble and the other snakes to quickly remove themselves from his way. Activating his infrared vision, he noticed the tiny, trembling shape of a Sylveon in a stone corner. Without hesitation, he increases the solar energy output in his LED eyes, and directs his stare towards the insignificant critter.
Aster Sylveon didn't need his blurred vision to alert him to the robotic, inflated Serperior that began to approach him. To the Sylveon, nothing differentiated this snake from the others, except for its height. Synapsis, or whatever the hell this monstrosity was now, was taller and larger than the Serperiors that had converted her. It was almost as if the new rubber robot was somehow already at a higher rank than the others, but Aster convinced himself that these inorganic beasts had no sense of hierarchy. The Serperior slithered closer and closer until the true size of the new snake was revealed to the Sylveon, a green and yellow cacophony of rubber, air, metal, and electricity that in no way resembled a living creature, much less one as meek as Synapsis. Aster shielded his eyes from the domineering gaze of the snake, not because he knew of its powers, but because it was far too bright for his comfort. "Alright, alright, just let me go! Synapsis, come on! I know you're in there, so cut it out! Just let me go!" Aster shouted up to the snake, his words growing more and more desperate as the harsh, glowing gaze of the metal reptile didn't budge. Despite his efforts, the tiny rays of red light that seeped into his conscious already began to take effect. The Serperior lieutenant, even more powerful than the two lesser drones, was far too great a match for the pitiful Sylveon, as his white back fur began to darken from white... to beige... to dark, soulless green.
Epsilon received a surge of pleasure coarsing through his steel chassis as the first speck of green fur appeared on the Sylveon's body. The Alpha would certainly rejoice to have a new member in her ranks. Speaking of which, why hadn't she arrived yet? The lieutenant understood the Mistress would not allow herself to be disturbed by such a pitiful intrusion, although she was always around to welcome her new recruits. When the low-ranking Omicrons gaze in her immense red eye, the size of the Sun, receiving her commands directly into their psyche... It's such a wonderful sight. Alpha, in her titan stature no doubt tenfold the size of her fortress, was truly the jewel of this land. How lucky he was to be able to serve her! As the tiny Sylveon's new colors crept along his body, Epsilon knew it was only a matter of time before the Alpha would make her glorious appearance.
Aster Sylveon begins his own conversion without consent, as the sheer power of the new Serperior's gaze overrides his organic instincts and converts his body from the inside out. For the most part, the beginning stages of Aster's conversion proceeded not dissimilarly to that of Synapsis. His body, already weakened and dazed from his crash, collapsed to the ground with the weight of hardened steel. The fur on his back is the first to darken, followed by his underside and extremeties. His eyes darken to black, as if his body were a computer, shut down and rebooting. That was where the similarities abruptly concluded. Aster's body quickly ballooned outwards, easily widening beyond the width of the aqueduct and spilling outwards, filling the darkness with the dark green fur of an assimilating Sylveon. Aster's inflation was infinitely grander than his ally. The rearranging of the molecules of his fur, transferring from fur to thick rubber, placed an immense load of weight on the aqueduct, causing the stone underneath him to buckle and crumble, a large divot forming at the Sylveon's ground zero. Aster's head, paws, and individuality was lost in his new grandeur, as his body became a colossal orb of green hues atop the stone structure.
His body proceeded to the next stage of the conversion, more metal supports forming within his body as he drastically restructured to conform to a serpentine shape. With this gradual expansion, the true size of the new Aster was revealed to the other drones. He was taller than the aqueduct. He was far taller than it. The aqueduct was as tall as his midsection was wide. The immense amount of steel and rubber forming within his body commanded energy, as the prototypical yellow appendages emerged from his serpentine head and neck, beginning their solar energy collection. The aqueduct began to bend from the sheer load of mechanical power atop it, the structure barely enough to support the monstrous being atop it, whose head reached into the clouds above.
The conversion fine-tuned itself for a few minutes as the black-eyed beast continued its energy collection, laying dormant as the last atoms of fur became the yellow and green patterns along the colossal robot's body. Then, at long last, two piercing red lights activated, challenging the light of the sun as the fortress fell under the gaze of its commander. Alpha did not need to activate any of her sensors, as all were intelligently activated on a whim. The rest of the mechanical snakes, approximately five dozen throughout the aqueduct, lit up on Alpha's system. No organic life remained on her fortress. Alpha revelled in her permanent superiority, as she felt the transfer of every drone's energy enter her body - a tithe for her presence. Despite this incredible stature, approximately six times the height of the fortress itself, every drone instinctively knew that the glory of their Mistress could amplify even further.
Solar energy leaked from every inch of Epsilon's body, donated to the majestic return of his Alpha. Weakened, he collapsed on the pile of rubble that was once part of the fortress's ceiling, utterly exalted to witness such a fantastic demonstration of power. The lieutenant appeared as a speck of dust next to the colossal God-Snake; his entire body was merely the size of a single one of her scales. Epsilon was drained of power, but he knew this did not matter. Once her Alpha will move away from her fortress to allow the sunlight to lighten it once more, his reserves will slowly return to their normal state. Her army rejuvenated and her Majesty present, not a soul in the land will be able to face off the wrath of the Alpha. For now, the light in his LED eye-sockets dimmed as Epsilon entered low-power mode. They would attack at dawn.