(OOc: All right, the results of Drake's and my Skyping. Warning: roughly 5 pages long. Good news is you honestly can just skip it if you don't care; it deals with the fates of these two AI and doesn't interact with the organic characters. Important thing for you to know is that the sentient battleship is now attempting to destroy New Peenemunde.)
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Soundwave in turn, after having given the order of "No Quarter" to the Destroyer outside the base, turned his attention to the virtual exit and started to make his way towards it. However, upon arriving at said exit, he found it to be blocked off as he scanned it for a moment, wondering just what exactly was going on and why he couldn't escape right now.
As Soudwave stood, the four electrical firewalls creating a sort of 'room' became clearer. "Well, this is familiar," said a voice behind him, as a figure he'd seen once before materialized: a pixelated and poorly rendered scientist.
Soundwave turned around, and as he did so, showed off his true form to the other form. His true form in question being that of wearing a longcoat and sporting a gasmask which in turn, covered his entire face to show off no actual facial features "ROSS" Soundwave begun as he seemed to just scan the other creation.
"I'd say this is pretty similar to how we met last time," the scientist program spoke, glancing around. "You remember? You being trapped in a deadly world of my creation?"
ROSS didn't move, simply observed his foe casually. "No, you wouldn't remember that. Because last time our roles were reversed."
ROSS raised his arms, and stationed sentries began assembling themselves slowly in the corners. they would take a millisecond each to assemble, an eternity for these two programs.
Soundwave raised up a gloved hand and pointed at ROSS "Program, you will stop this and unlock the exit" he attempted to order ROSS straight away, yet, still taking note of the sentries being built.
ROSS bowed his head. "As you wish." Behind them the door unlocked and swung open. The vast internet, a series of electrical sparks and data superhighways, shone in.
"I'll allow your leave just as leniently as you allowed mine back at Drake's."
Soundwave lowered his finger and turned towards the now open exit and stepped forward, eyes still upon ROSS for a few moments more "Very good" was all he spoke and went to step forward, only to find that he was instead, hitting a wall. An illusion no doubt.
His gaze turned back to ROSS and again, he pointed at the other creation "Program, do not play games with myself. I am already superior than yourself and if you will not co-operate, then I will be forced to take other measures to ensure that you do wish to co-operate in the end and in turn, allow for me to escape"
Just like a flat screensaver can display miles of open fields, the door and its exterior were little more than two-dimensional illusions.
"Leaving's not going to be that easy," ROSS spoke up. "This room is just a program, programs don't always have exits. To shut down this program, you're going to have to delete what's keeping the program running."
With a snap of his fingers, the sentries completed themselves ahead of schedule. However, due to their placing, their range allowed them to see every pixel of the room except those Soudwave was currently standing on.
"Since I escaped you, I spent every free microsecond preparing myself for when we met again. I will not let you leave this room." For the second time since his creation, ROSS wasn't joking or being dismissively sarcastic. Observing Soundwave, the focus of his life's work, ROSS was deadly serious.
Soundwave's gaze shifted to the now completed sentries, then back to ROSS, already understanding what was going on now "You wish to destroy me? Very well then, the option is available, but arriving at said option will not be an easy task" he spoke as he flexed his gloved hands for a moment.
Once again, his gaze shifted around the room then back to ROSS once again and that's when he made his move and bolted forward, despite the sentries being active, knowing how to fight back in the real world using his Rhino Suit would have to surfice for this battle right now, despite the lack of power enhancements, hand to hand combat was still something he would be adept at doing.
ROSS simply watched as Soundwave attempted to destroy his sentries. He made no effort to protect the machines that were now blasting salvos of hitscan bullets at their target.
Soundwave grabbed onto one of the sentries and begun to push against it, allowing for it to instead, aim at another sentry to destroy it, followed by another one, and then another one until soon, all were destroyed, except for the one he was using.
He pulled his fist back and slammed it into the sentry and in turn, ripped out what wires were available and tossed them to the side before his attention turned to ROSS again "If you wish to destroy me, then do so with a real challenge program"
Next ROSS sent lightning blasting out of the ceiling, targeting Soundwave. He continued to watch and observe, seeing what will happen.
Soundwave was still taking note of what was actually happening, that ROSS had control of the room. There was one thing that needed to be done and that was to destroy ROSS himself. However, he was instead, struck by the lightning, being weakened just a little bit, but not enough to slow him down right now.
He moved and rushed forwards, fist pulled back before bringing it forward to try and knock ROSS square in the jaw.
As Soundwave crossed the room towards his foe, ROSS simply toggled the invisible wall in the middle of the room to 'solid.' "Dear me, why was I so serious?" he mused, waiting for the crash. "You're hardly at threat at all. I'm beginning to wonder if you would have been able to escape Drake's machine."
Soundwave stopped in his tracks as a wall solified right in front of him, to which he instead, bought his fist forward and struck at the wall, repeating the process a few good times, as if he was just simply trying to break down the wall with mere punches.
"Sad. You detected the wall. That would have been really funny," ROSS noted.
Suddenly the entire half of the room Soundwave was on started lowering, until it was about ten meters lower than ROSS' half. The room was almost two rooms now, on different floors.
"Well, it's just water under the bridge," ROSS mused as a rush of boiling water washed over his floor, creating a waterfall heading right for Soundwave.
"It matters not Program" Soundwave retaliated back before he took a few steps back and lowered down into a crouching position, both hands on the ground before he took off in a sprint, eyes gazing upwards at the rushing water as he leapt up into the air, pulling a fist back and slamming it into the side of the wall, pulling himself up and in turn, putting a foot into said hole.
He again, repeated the process, causing another hole and in turn, started to clim up, hands grabbing onto the side of ROSS's floor and in turn, pulled himself up despite the water rushing at him in an attempt to burn him.
But once Soundwave was on the top floor, nothing else was there except boiling water to stand in.
"I'm down here," ROSS noted helpfully from the lower level. "I've almost got a Biblical plague theme going here with these attacks, have you noticed? Let's see, already did the plagues of water, thunder and automated turrets, what else......oh yeah, locusts."
Spilling from all three walls of Soundwave's level came mechanical nanobots, armed with razor sharp teeth and bodies which were little more than jaws desgined to give those teeth armor-piercing strength.
"Automated turrets were not part of the Plagues of Egypt, Program. You should do more research when getting facts correct" Soundwave corrected ROSS before his attention turned towards the nanobots.
If one were able to see his face, Soundwave would indeed, be having a look of concern upon it, but considering that his gasmask covered his face, that was not possible and instead of staying around for the nanobots to attack him, his attention turned back to ROSS as he rushed at him, leaping off his own level and in turn, pulled a fist backwards.
His new objective was once again, to strike ROSS, or at least grab onto him in order to beat him senseless.
"Clearly attention to facts is why you're an admin and I'm not,' ROSS commented back.
As ROSS spoke, sharp spikes grew out of the ground to five meters tall. The spikes were aligned nine per sqaure foot, and covered everywhere Soundwave could possibly land.
"I respect an admin far too much to make lame puns regarding 'sharp ideas' and the like at a moment like this," Ross concluded, as he adjusted his width so he could weave throughout his forest of spikes easily. "Though I will poke fun at the size of your ego by doubling gravity." He snapped his fingers while Soundwave was still in midair.
Soundwave felt the effects of the gravity in the room pull him down much quicker this time around with no chance to adjust his position now and instead, slammed right into the spikes in question. Yet, he was still alive, not being destroyed as easily as he pulled himself back up and adjusted his position in order to just remain standing on said spikes, despite the gravity still pulling him down quicker than usual.
Before he could get his balance, the spikes crumbled into ash, leaving him with no support between his current position and the floor.
"Well, this has been fun," ROSS said, floating into the air. "But i'm getting tired of this. I wanted you dead, so let's get on with it."
He snapped his fingers three times, multiplying the already-increased gravity by six. Though he of course continued floating unaffected, the current gravity would feel like the atmosphere was made of lead.
Soundwave felt as though he was now being crushed underneath the gravity as he was unable to push himself back up anymore "If you wanted me dead, you should have done so to begin with, not waste petty time playing games all the while. However, even if you are to destroy me, that still will not save your real world counterpart, nor his friends from being killed"
His eyes did manage to gaze up towards ROSS for a moment as Soundwave continued to push up against the weight of the gravity, but still, to no avail "I gave the Destroyer the No Quarter order. Even if our time differs greatly from that of the real world, you would still have no time to save them, the sentinent Destroyer would be working almost instanously and in turn, the base would be leveled, leaving no survivors"
"This isn't about them," ROSS narrowed his pixelated eyes as the floor started rippling and becoming liquid mercury. "This was never about anyone except you and me. You created me to be one of thousands of mindless AI, and you tried to kill me simply for recognizing my impending deletion upon completion of the simulation."
The mercury instantly hardened around any part of Soundwave's body that was dragged under. But the room made sure his head stayed afloat.
"And as for why I made this so humiliating..." ROSS puased. "I was going to say that it was to avenge all the AI you carelessly dispoed of. But that's not true; I hated the lot of them. It honestly was because I just don't like you."
"A personal venedetta against myself?" Soundwave questioned somewhat, but in the end, shrugged it off, as if it was really, of no suprise to himself "It matters not. However, after this is all over, what would then be your purpose program? You are still an incomplete program in the end. If this has been all but a personal vendetta against myself, then you instead, need a new plan afterwards"
Soundwave attempted to wriggle free, but found himself trapped, with no hope of actually escaping as his gaze moved back to ROSS once again.
"There is no afterwards. You still don't get it?"
Ross waved his arms all the way around. "This room is me! You're merely talking to my avatar! The reason you haven't been able to kill me is because, like a man who shoots the monitor instead of the hard drive, you haven't been focusing on the real ROSS."
The floor completely solidifed, leaving Soundwave completely trapped.
"You're still a program, Soundwave. A program cannot be killed. it can only deleted. And I can only delete myself."
As he spoke the mercury began melding with Soundwave, filtering itself into soundwave's armor.
Soundwave was now finally realizing what was going on, what he had actually done wrong for once and now, there was no way to reverse it, to get out of it as he felt the mercury filtering into his system, much like a virus would. His body started to jolt around in what seemed to be glitches.
There was no retaliating speech that had come from him, no nothing at all as the mercury begun to work its way on him, corrupting himself, and in turn, slowly destroying Soundwave.
"Welcome to the Rudyard Oscar Shelton Software," ROSS said, as he merged his program with Soudwave. "There's room for you in debug. Error, error...our programs are not compatible. Safe shutdown overrode. Backup prevented. Critical...failure...system...crash--"
And with that, the room collapsed on itself and ceased to exist.
