DragonRage

"I do not believe I wish to marry anyone at this time. But I have already begun drawing the necessary wires. In the mean-time, this is a fuel cell. Water goes in, electricity comes out. Its adapter should be compatible with most electronics, and it will power the magnetic coils once installed." Alexandria provides Kyle with the miscellaneous item "6013 fuel cell".

"I can increase your firearm's muzzle velocity to 2000 m/s with a simple conversion."

Alexandria pops her damaged eye out with a grimace, and starts examining it. "Okay, that's busted, and that's busted... That's slagged pretty good. That looks intact though; it's a real pain to replace... Hey, Kyle. Do you know what a gauss gun is?"

"Hm. I believe I shall travel to the forges, and see what I can do about repairing my eye," Alexandria smirks, "No pun intended. Anyone who wishes to assist me would be most appreciated. And anyone who would like to upgrade their firearms is welcome to tag along. I will be drawing gauss wire anyway to fix my integrated cannons, and it would not be difficult to also retrofit any firearms offered as gauss weapons. They would require batteries for optimal function, but still be capable of use as a powder firearm. Estimated muzzle velocity: two thousand meters per second."

"Ah, multiverse theory," Alexandria plods up to Gary, a friendly smile on her place, "An incredibly complex and contentious branch of science and magic. I believe that the prevailing theory, in my home at least, is that every universe starts with a tiny change. Perhaps a man who would one day be very important chose to go left rather than right down a path, and was eaten by a predator rather than raising a conquering army. Perhaps random chance near the very beginning changed one or more rules of how the universe works. Regardless, over time these single changes compound and continue to diverge as one change begets another, spawning an endless series of parallel worlds, one for each of the ways a scenario could have reasonably gone. And if the first critical change was long enough ago, we get cubic people living in a world of computer code sitting in the same room as an android from the far future," She gestures to herself, "A savant from before the iron age," She indicates Mar, "And a Lung dragon made of stars," She nods politely in Eon's direction, "All sitting in the same room. Each from a place fundamentally alien, yet of identical origins. Of course, this is only a theory. We could be completely wrong. But I have yet to find evidence disproving it." "And if the multiverse needs saving, you can count me in. I have been sitting behind a desk for far too long. It makes me feel old. It is far past time I got out there cracked some heads. Although, if anyone has mechanical engineering knowledge, I'd rather like your assistance. This shrapnel is starting to itch, and fighting without depth perception is something I would prefer not to do. Of course, you would be compensated for your services to the best of my abilities. I doubt my Galactic Standard Credits are of much value here, but I believe we will be able to come to an agreement."

Alexandria sees the grenade, and her optics go wide. At this distance there's no way to shield everyone with her hard-light barrier. So she does the only thing she can in the time availible. She grabs the bomb, shoves Kyle away, and wraps herself around it as best she can. There is a very loud bang. Alexandria straightens up, covered in scorch marks and scratches. A piece of shrapnel is embedded in one of her optical sensors, which no longer moves in sync with the undamaged one. She works her jaws, and spits out a few more bits of grenade casing. "Ow. Wait, something's not right here. Everything looks flat."

"Oh, no you don't. You are not wiggling out of this one," Alexandria yanks on Kyle's arm, attempting to drag him to his feet, "You have proven resistant to being treated as a responsible and intelligent adult, so allow me to lay it out for you, you glitch-minded, team-killing, ungrateful imbecile! Since we have arrived here you have done nothing save endanger the lives of people who have been consistently friendly towards yourself, solicited aid for your own personal projects as though we are your personal legion of automaton slaves with no promise of recompense, or even acknowledgement that our lives have meaning to you beyond the services we might provide, and you repeatedly attempt to get yourself crippled or killed!" She raises her hand quickly, producing a shockwave of air, before catching herself and visibly slowing down the next slap to humiliate rather than damage. "When I slap you, you shall take it and like it!"

"Right now, to keep this idiot from killing things that don't need killing. Like us. And himself," Alexandria attempts to slap Kyle again. While he manages to dodge, the kick he lays into her armored 'dress' probably hurt him worse than her hand would have. "In the larger sense, I have my suspicions. Assuming that someone has gathered us here for reasons other than their own entertainment, logically they must have some task we are expected to perform. Considering the incredibly diverse capabilities and backgrounds of the assembled individuals, that task must be quite difficult. There are too many of us for a raid or fetch quest, and not enough to defeat an army of any potency. If I had to guess, an incursion of the Nameless Ones has gotten out of hand, or the Cystari found a way to breach the boundaries that separate the worlds. The Nameless are statistically more likely, as it is theorized that they can appear on any world they wish. But considering my luck it's probably the Cystari, because those things are a lot tougher to fight."

An automated alarm shakes Alexandria out of her vision. KYLE ALERT! KYLE ALERT! Before her processor catches up to her sensors, she's already clamped a hand around his and the grenade, crushing them into immobility without actually breaking them. The ancient android takes a second to figure out what she's seeing, and she slaps Kyle across the face. "Stop throwing grenades around your allies for no slagging reason! Give me that!" Maintaining a firm grip on his forearm, she pulls the grenade away from him and crushes it like a soda can. "What part of friendly fire do you not understand? That thing gives you trojans through visual contact, and you want to redline it? Are you insane, or just suicidal?"

"Hm." Something in Alexandria's forehead flashes briefly as she gazes down at Gwaedu. "No signs of malfunctions or abuse that I can detect. Whatever has rendered her silent is not physical in nature. I would suggest talking to her. Even if she doesn't respond, I am certain she is listening. A good anti-virus program might not be a bad idea either, if you have one compatible with her OS. I am not saying I think she has picked up some malicious code, but a little preventative maintenance never hurt anyone, and my physical scans wouldn't pick up a software problem." Upon exiting the vehicle and viewing the battered knight, Alexandria sees her blue box, the core of her being, cracked and shattered. Behind her broken frame, the town, then the continent, then the planet, the entire galaxy, and finally the universe itself are consumed in fire and darkness as a profoundly disturbing sound rises over the crackling flames, four voices cackling gleefully from a single throat.

"Katsuo," Alexandria's optical sensors turn to him, her tone mostly flat. Her fans start whirring again, but without noticeably raising the surrounding temperature. If Katsuo's fairly good at reading people, it might occur to him that she'd hammed up her earlier display to intimidate him. "I had not expected to see you again. Regardless... In battle, my dislike of you is irrelevant. I may disagree with what you say and do, but your transgressions have come nowhere near revoking your right to existence. All sapient beings have the right to exist, and to grow out of their mistakes. With very, very few exceptions." Her optics begin to glow faintly, a rich, royal purple. "And I will defend that right, for you or anyone, until the last spark leaves my wiring."

"You have a child?" Alexandria pipes up from the control chair. "Well, I say we must rescue-" A grinding noise emits from her fans. "Retrieve her immediately."

Alexandria thinks back to a rather gruesome incident involving a malfunctioning Maser. "Not survivably."

"I am informed by my organic friends that the standard issue blend is little more than a very strong coffee. It's the heavy enhancer that you have to worry about. Humans have a poor reaction to amphetamines in large doses, right? Well, I suppose I can understand your reluctance to accept consumables from someone who cannot be poisoned."

"You wish to become faster, Isobel? Hm. I think I still have the recipe for the Federation soldier enhancement solution known colloquially as a 'little stimmie'. It isn't something you can take too often, and I would require the equipment and ingredients to brew it, but it would make you faster. I also have the formula for the more powerful variation the Federation soldiers refer to as 'big twitchy', but this solution requires very dangerous and difficult to acquire ingredients that I would not feel comfortable acquiring or giving to someone for consumption."

"Essentially, imagine a board covered in countless tiny switches. Most commonly, computers and A.I. operate by storing data as a code of ones and zeroes, each corresponding to these switches being open or closed. Electricity can be used to read and transmit the codes from one place in the A.I.'s memory storage to another. That is an A.I. or non-intelligent computer in its most basic form. Of course, even that can require years of study to master, and computers can be far more complex than that. My little switches, to continue the metaphor, can be switched to up, down, strange, charm, bottom, or top. If you truly wish to understand the nuances of programming, I would suggest preparing to go to college."

"Very well. To town we shall go," Alexandria adjusts the machine's controls, brings up her mini-map, and sets the ancient device in motion.

"If I slap him he will be crippled. When he attempts to do something unwise, please do so for me," Alexandria asks Visrii, stepping toward the controls, "Now to ask the question that Kyle completely ignored, where do we want to drive this vehicle to?"

Alexandria drags Kyle out of the driver's seat by his ear, shuts down the castle/mech/tank controls, and forcably sits him down in a corner. "We have all had about enough of your thoughtless foolishness. Sit here in the corner until you figure out what you've done wrong, and put some pressure on that leak before you lose enough coolant to overheat and catch fire!"

"I am a phone."

"An A.I. is an artificial intelligence, a living being built like any other machine using extremely advanced technologies," Alexandria explains, remembering to keep it simple for the medieval people this time, "Radio waves are a form of light that most life forms cannot see. Some machines can perceive radio waves, which makes them good for fast, silent communication."

"I am capable of communicating through the use of radio waves," Alexandria confirms, "However, direct wireless interfaces are impossible due to the Faraday cage incorporated into my frame. Wireless communication is thus restricted to voice only."

"Hand over the unstable, dark magical ordinance," Alexandria tells them, "Unless any of the mages here can come up with a reason why this is a bad idea, I shall shoot it into the local sun and that will be the end of it. It shall be cleansed."

Alexandria Change Log: Hard-Light barrier can now shelter two allies at once. Getting behind the barrier is now a free action. Plasma cannon damage increased to 3d8 + intelligence. Now targets up to 3 enemies. Projected Shield replaced with Wall Hack, wihch lets up to 2 allies delay until after Alexandria to gain full armor pierce by shooting through walls.