Three Fabulous Toys

Lombard's equivalent to an airborne van circles above the flames and smoke Lilly and Tyro have managed. The green machine comes to a stop above the carnage as Tyro fires off another round into one of the last cars. Its engine explodes, wrecking the chassis and making the remaining two thrusters carrier off into one of the near-by houses. It smashes into the second floor, destroying its front door. Not its doorbell though that was now on a constant loop...

Not that it mattered. They were almost out of the residential district and into the retail parks. His last shot cracked the windscreen of one of the cars before Lombard's van lumbers over the two escapees in their dash for freedom.

"Sir?"
"We'll make Lilly come quietly. Train a gun on the Tyro guy. Shoot if he tries anything clever."
"Yes sir."

A red dot follows Tyro along the ground as he looks up. The van's engines where noticeably louder. He raises his weapon and his attempts at attacking are met with useless clicks. Quickly, with practised precision, he flicks open his coat and grabs the two handguns, firing off at the van.

The shuddering dot passes over his arm. He rushes over the boundary with Lombard and his men right beside him.

The van drops to the ground in a jarring crash and skids horribly across the ground as Tyro cleared the residential district line. The flames forced men to leap out which Tyro swiftly fired upon. He manages to hit one of guards heavily in the chest before continuing onwards. He slots another two cartages into his gun



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"Well of course we need to leave! We've been leaving for a good few minutes now." Tyro barked without his usual, actual growl underneath. Its lost some of its impact.



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Lombard flops out of the wreckage as another bolt flies where just over Tyro's head. The maddened resolve of someone too high up to be able to get away with anything any more drew his weapons: a machete and a handgun. With a bellow, he barks something intangible before dashing after the two runners.



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He raises his gun at Lilly, blazing hatred from his eyes. He was seconds from pulling that trigger. Tyro had only just noticed.



Viral Hack successful. Entering intruding cyberspace.

Dear Sir or Madam,

In these uncertain times, acts of blatant treason against Lord Kyrios will be dealt with swift death. If you do not cease and dissist with your hacking of this network, I shall be forced to label you a new enemy of the state.

You have been warned.

Digital

The flames lick at Lombard as he drops his gun then drops to the floor. He rolls over and over to try and smother the lapping heat. Tyro stops and raises his gun. He needed to make sure that Lombard stayed out of the way. He took aim and fired with the newly loaded shotgun. Lombard's thigh explodes as most of the pellets hit. He turns and runs with Lilly, following her more than anything.

The streets had fallen to a solemn silence in the looming threat of war casting a real shadow of fear this young night had become. The occasional metallic carrier, motors whining constantly with the effort of running past the two on the run. Lights had flashed on in the maroon, tarmacked trenches that made up the ground level walkways they were powering along. Tyro chest was on fire in a new way: his mouth filled with a metallic tang as everything started to tell him he was torturing his body. Exercise was not a priority. People obviously just decided to stay in in this place after a certain time. Unless...

He looks briefly upwards. He could see black shapes walking on the glass levels above. Small lights of something electronic jerked around like a firefly.

The place where they'd come to rest looked old. Very old. We're looking at 100+ years. Grime caked the windows, birds had nested on the sign that said "Super Threads" and had dotted the surface with their leavings.

The old door clicked open as they approached for Lilly to swing it open. She moved inside, gingerly. He could hear her cautious snuffling.
"All clear now." Tyro follows her in, looking around the grotty little place. The grey carpet had been well worn, black spots in its cheep surface. Mannequins stand in their constant pose with arms and legs missing. Their clothes looked more like netting. Surfaces has a layer of silver dust, all illuminated by the filmy light from the ceiling.
"Charming spot...I hope its got a bed at least...."



You are in my domain. You must leave my data-space or I will have to extract you myself.

"Yeah...I guess so..." His footfalls throw up puffs of dust from the carpet as he drags another stool adjacent to shelf of aged shoes. He makes a trench of cleared material in the grey film. With a heavy thump, he flops into it. His face looks up at the grey windows, his face dropped.
"We need to think..." Head in his hands, he starts to formulate things.

"Come on! I want him belly dancing on national television before dinner." Kyrios sweeps back into the laboratory where the three monstrous machines continued to hum in anticipation.
"I hope no-one takes that out of context, for your own sake." The figure stood part way from the group of men dismantling "The Right To Beauty". He stood in a simple butlers suit, crisp and clean. It was blemish-less.
"What are you doing with my machine?" Kyrios said as the men behind him brought in a man wearing a suit of armour with a bright orange cape. The embroidery on the cape matted together as a thicket of fire. He was quiet but angry. The thin man in the black turned it face. And only his face. The man, well, robot had no head. It was a mask of blue glass, assumingly. The fact that it was moving with the slow, calm voice suggested otherwise.
"I am borrowing it. I trust that is acceptable." It was like when your computer reads loud what you type only smoother.
"I'd rather you didn't. Dr Altor was supposed to be working with that. Something about dog men." Kyrios scanned the room for the doctor. He shouldn't have left yet.
"I require it. I want something specific and thought it best to experiment at home." Kyrios seems to take little notice as he scans the scientists' faces studying the machines.
"All right but expect Altor to visit every so often. Speaking of which, where is he?"
"I do not know. Although, we have not been introduced."
"Oh for goodness sake....Where is he? I can't use my machines without him."

"I got it!" Tyro said finally. "We can call for help! We'll get Dom or Toivo to help. Heck! I'd settle for Myu at this point..."

"Dom would be good, and he still piss off that Kyrios' stole his ship. Myu, maybe." Lilly said with a laughing tone in her voice. She wonders who is this Toivo, and memories of a babe girl that never got to grow up into someone powerful. How she would named the child Toivo. The dark haired woman started to cry softly at that memory. "I wish that she could help but my baby girl been gone a long time. Toivo, I still miss you." she said in the saddest tone that is almost a whisper.

Lilly wonders thru out this timeline how her little would grow up to be. Her tearful eyes look up at Tyro and saw the shock on his face. It seems that in his old timeline that she was alive and all grown up. She would have a boyfriend by now and a powerful witch like her father.

(Tyro, I change the history a bit. If that is alright with you.)

"Well of course not. I would sooner shove a-"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" James cut across Kyrios' belittling comment to shout at a man removing a pipe. Well, of all the nerve, to cut straight through a man's carefully worked out routine. Its necessary to keep lay abouts like you, Dr Altor, in check. Make sure you understand the pecking order. All though, now that the pipe was free, that wasn't the best of smells but it was oddly familiar...

Ah! The corpse-rot from the strewn bodies. Mashed meat paste with limb-shaped lumps that still persist despite some of his trolls efforts. It has tinges of soil and the occasional tinge of iron. It meant that they were to carry on to do it all over again and that this would continue to get worse with the future additions.

"The law of conservation of matter, we can't create or destroy matter and so that room down there serves two purposes." James said through the aftermath of a retching fit.
"Ah!" Kyrios said. "Its a disposal tank for the leftovers, is that it? Would it not have made better sense to grind it into dog food?"


(Nah, Rose. I have no problems with messing around with the history. Its your character, you can do as you please. I'll be curious about a version Dom and Leth with a different Dad. Half-kitsune, half-wizard (so 'magical human' then).)

Tyro couldn't help but double take at Lilly. The thought of his children hadn't really entered his mind at all. Gun fights, a weird hermaphrodite and all the running had stopped him from truly analysing what he had exchanged with the girl he didn't know. He just knew of everything that surrounded the hole he was currently occupying, warped by his shape. He wasn't sure what to do when any woman was crying, to be honest. He wasn't good with depressed people. He couldn't relate well enough. The best he could think of was just to indulge Lilly with another hug, wrapping himself around her like a blanket as much as he could.

A question popped up and he could tell just from looking that it had weighted intent. It was a fatal curiosity moment. He could depress Lilly further, making her useless for God-knows how long. But it was something he wanted to know...
"Ca, can I ask how it happened?" And now we'll find out. Does she open up or does she cut him off completely.

Tyro couldn't think of a single point where any of his children weren't likely to be horribly murdered. Kyrios has always had the intent of dealing the greatest emotional blow he could. As a result, his children have fought battles of their own when they were separated from a protector. Leth had usually managed to ruin Digital's work. Dom would usually escape in something. Whatever was around would do. Myu had fought brawls occasionally but she was usually the one who started them.

Toivo was a golden girl in Tyro's eyes. An amazing creature of power and smarts. She was great to have around on little jobs. She could certainly handle herself but she'd been able to battle bastards twice her size since, what, 7? 12, maybe? She'd defeated a Huli Jing by the name of Mestari Meili. He was a powerful psychic that she fought and won. Apparently, it was all over a lake but Tyro was out of commission at that point.

Even so, his children could have died at any point growing up. He was sort of expecting them to have never been conceived but never mind.

Absurdity liked to pick on Tyro. It seemed to be continuing its favourite hobby despite Tyro being a different person now. So now he was sitting in this alternate reality, cuddling a total stranger in the dark. The last time anything like this had happened, Liz Tailor had gotten drunk and he'd offered to take her home. She was surprisingly flexible for a near-paralytic.
"I know. I know." He repeated softly, continuing the slow rocking. A gentle back and forth to help the relatively young Kitsune to rest. Nothing flitted over his mind as he drifted, dancing and toying with sleep.

One of his coat pockets began to ring loudly.
"Oh bugger it..." He said, as he snatched the little earpiece out of it and slipped it on. He hushes his voice: "Yeah?"
"Kie-I mean, Tyro, man! Where you been? Police have been looking al over for you! What you been doin' man?" The voice was all concern that was leading up to a question; Tyro could feel it.
"I've been working on a little project."
"A little project that the feds want your arse over, though? What could you possibly be doing?"
"It's.....It's probably best I don't say."
"Look, we all could use extra cash but is a bank job necessary? Is that why you changed your name recently? 'Tyro' always struck me as a name for a hooker than a criminal mastermind."
"Look, I really need to go."
"No, man! I've been shut out for too long! What are you doing?"
"Right now? Failing to be comforting. Bye Russel."
"Wait, wa-" Tyro slips the earpiece back into the pocket, returning to his work as a soothing pillow.


"A meat reservoir. Interesting." Kyrios said with little conviction. "Take that too. Its important." Digital's glass features turn to James, stern and hollow.
"Dr Altor, I'll require your assistance once we move the machine to its new location. These men are able to dismantle it but not reassemble it." He falls momentarily silent as though calculating the next sentence wisely.
"You may also be able to use your apparent understanding of Biology to aid me. There are a few experiments I wish to run. Do you like tea?"

As Lilly leans on him, he quickly thanks the fates for this moment at least. It had been along time he'd held a woman like this; she was a treasure he stooped over to keep safe from the rest of the world. It was a feeling of attachment to this woman in his arms that he quickly tried to dismiss as silly. But Lightwood begged to differ, filled with pity for himself and the fox he shared a head with. Neither had done anything to secure a relationship long term successfully. Sure, both had attempted, it was the day job that intruded. He would be caught up in his work that he would just float away and leave her behind as a lilly on a stream: beautiful but doomed to never be seen again.

Her thanks hit him with gentle aggression. Lightwood was shouting: she knows what you've been through. The Kitsune nodded in agreement.

His imagination began in to entertain these new thoughts. An artist with a new subject before him, sketching images of a partner. Someone to stave off madness and solitude. To hold him and to be held in return. To help and to be helped in return.

Concrete underfoot as he plants a peck on her cheek. Its a new city for her. He doesn't mind, its her reactions he wants to explore. They lock hands, indestructible. They dash towards the rising sun over the buildings.

"Nya!" She'd began to scream and it had made him jump a little bit. He hugs a little tighter, making calming 'shh' noices. "It's all right. Nothing but a dream. Its only a dream." He was beginning to think what might happen when he needed to sleep...Maybe on top of her?



"Uh, uh, uh." Kyrios wags a finger at James as he grabs him by the back of his lab coat. He drags James, Meat Container as well, with him to the 'Right To Clean Thought'.
"You have this to do before I let you go play with Digital." He looks back at the men still manhandling the Leader of the Sekaannus forces. Slower than they should have, they realise that Kyrios looking at them like they were scum meant that they ought to have followed him. With a quick jerk of fearful movement, the men in purple armour drag the Leader towards the chair of 'The Right To Clean Thought'. It was as though iron maiden's clamped down on his wrists and ankles one he was in. Kyrios gestures to the console.
"Dr Altor? I want him belly-dancing where my neighbours on my lawn can see it ASAP."

She floats away from the man with the lantern in her dark. Her fingers latch onto his hand, a lifeline as she leads him to his feet. The vixen walks with ethireal weight compaired to his lethargic plod to where the lamp-lights could not reach. Prying eyes that were thankfully not there could not see the settling dust or hear decaying springs protest. She'd turned to show her half-shadowed face, the emerald eyes met his liquid blues. The captivating glint in them mesmerises; the glimmer made her words satin soft as everything rings through his thoughts.

"Please, stay with me."

Each syllable was a signal in the sky. A hypnotising floodlight that displays his symbol on the clouds. A distress flare. From her. The springs shoutout about their woes to those that have blanked-out the rest of the world, except each other. A quiet hide away where the light can't quite reach. Where prying eyes will never see, she takes refuge within his arms where he's ready to deal with more demons.


You know, that bed was surprisingly nice. Especially as someone had already prepared it, complete with covers and pillows. Sure, the frame itself was rusted but everything else was clean. Brand new even, he thought. He sits up, picking his jacket of the floor. Underneath is a small note which he snatches off the floor.
"Huh...Cheers Denty."

He flops back next to her, hugging her in closely. For a hours and hours...

Light became thickened through the filthy glass and lightly stired air. The only noise of this new morning was the low buzz of servo's moving...

The humming stops for a full nanosecond before something leaps out from behind the shop counter. A metalic, spindly figure flies into the celing and leaves cracks as it imacts heavily. Then, the machine lands in a cloud of dust as dented pile of gibbering junk.
"Lilly! Give yourself up! Lilly! Give yourself up! Lilly! Give yourself up!" This was repeated as it used a leg stump to shove its way towards the bed where the aged joint had snapped in its ankle. Digits spasm and movements are reminicent of the Un-dead as it clasped twitching fingers on the bed and brought itself up to eye-level with Lilly.
"Lilly! Give yourself up! Lilly! Give yourself up!"
"Just shut it up!" Tyro cried, reaching over for the hand gun in his jacket. "Its too early for this stuff."