/vt/ - Virtual Youtubers

The heat of battle flared and faded day after day. The Machine and its cruel mockeries of human form were unrelenting, targeting the syndicate's members both within the confusing passages of the void and the familiar venues of the waking world. Many of the group's members fled into hiding, were swallowed up by the void's tendrils, or lay face down in a pool of crimson fluids. The tools of the Machine searched and searched; the days between finding their prey growing longer and longer but they did not tire or falter.

A dim light bulb swung slowly in the cellar of a forgotten estate. Casks of wine and barrels of stored nuts and meats were strewn about in the wake of an oil soaked automaton. It stood before a mighty iron door slamming its ramrod appendages against the scarred surface. The cheap metal of its "arms" warped and cracked as it repeatedly deepened the dent in the center of the door. The light overhead flickered and continued its pendulous motion.
Hours passed. The automaton's "arms" wore to useless stubs before it began using the "legs" supporting it to batter the metal between it and whatever lay beyond the door. In the hallways layered above the estate cellar, oil portraits of the presumed owner rattled and rocked on their mounts. The dignified face of the presumed owner was dwarfed by the exquisitely detailed and massive furred tail behind his torso.
At long last the crinkled body of the automaton crashed over the threshold into a dimly lit concrete room. The dull clank seemed to permeate farther than a human eye could see in the darkness. The murderous red gleam in the automaton's "eye" was in stark contrast to a dim aquamarine glow somewhere deep within. It beckoned.
The warped mess of metal steadily dragged itself across the raw floor; the metal made an ugly screech which drowned out the soft thrum of the enormous system which occupied the room. Strange banks which almost resembled bookcases flickered slightly as the lump of machinery drew itself past them toward the soft glow. Eventually, through a labyrinth of strange and foreign equipment, the heap of scrap lay before an even more peculiar construct.
A metallic and synthetic visage was illuminated by faint lights traced across wires of varying size and color. The wires stretched in all directions, behind and around the semblance of a human face, into a partial "torso" with stronger lights emanating from behind a synthetic protective plate. The countenance was expressionless and did not seem as though it even had the ability to do such a human thing.
The automaton, with its red glare, beheld the figure. For a long while there was no more activity in the room. The hum of glowing system continued as did the whirr of the automaton's motors, gears, and springs. The piercing red light began to fade slowly.

The smoke stack, long having poured dense black exhaust from its peak, stopped briefly. The man in his wheelchair set his glass of water down and gazed with amazement and curiosity as the smokestack started anew, first dispelling its familiar black soot then steadily lightening and clearing to a thin fog. The man nearly knocked over the book and glass from the table at his side as he wheeled about and raced down to the housing of his creation.

Tendrils flurried past the lone Apprentice, striking the three mechanized behemoths that pursued him. They hardly faltered before cutting down the dripping black appendages. Oil mixed with the trail of crimson before being swallowed up into the depth of the void.
Unable to bear the pain in his abdomen and negotiate the path ahead, he stumbled and fell crudely into a hard mass in the abyss. He turned, clutching the wound in his side, only to see the towering mechanisms looming above. The center monstrosity raised its sharpened appendage and it's fiery "eye" flickered in the blackness around it. The Apprentice shut his eyes and braced for a strike which did not come.

In the dim aquamarine glow of the cellar room of the forgotten estate, many constructs gathered. Each with a faint red light in it's "eyes" and an "offering" in its "hand". Machines, large and small, placed warped and crude facsimiles of sculpture before the synthetic figure wired to its elaborate metallic system. Masses of metal littered the concrete floor around the suspended torso. Beneath the torso, buried under a mass of wires and scraps, lay a plaque engraved with the letters P-A-G-I.

The wheelchair rested before the console of the man's creation. The punched tape had stopped flowing from its orifice for many minutes. The man curiously caressed the interface as he read the tape's message over and over again.