"Well, that would be better than time travelers or something.  That would be so much more of a headache."  He looks back to the Foxy,  "On fact 2, I don't suppose spare suits in convenient sizes are in ready supply?"

OOC Style: I've never played any of the command and conquer games.  But a detail that amused me I heard about them is how the Aliens are all WTF over the various warring earth factions basically considering their world ending intentions a mere distraction to their trying to kill eachother.
  Sometimes, the Humans Are Bastards cliche can be oddly comforting.

Emerald answers Joe, "Well... yes, actually. Non-humans come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, so I'm sure we could find something to fit you.." she then nods to Jake. "Yep. Non-Earthlings."

Worth a shot...

"They speak English too?  The Extra Terrestrials?"

Space suits for Joe and Jake!  Some good news!  Yaaay!  Well...  besides the good news of helpful fox lady instead of murderous alien.

  "Despite the apparently bad situation we've been thrown into compared to usual-"  After all, it's the normal everyday situation for Emerald.  "Things have been good so far.  So I keep expecting sudden sniper fire or something to take offense to that."

Emerald says, "They only bother to speak our language when they want to intimidate us. The aliens made it clear long ago they have one single desire; the eradication of all Earthlings. They didn't even care if our resources were destroyed in the process, as the shattered Earth proves. But we Earthlings are quite tenacious and have made this escapade of theirs cost them. A LOT. This war has been going on for a couple hundred years now and still no clear advantage on either side."

It's then she gets the two to a room where there is a window. They can see outside. It looks like a pretty outlook. Blue sky, clouds, etc... except for the fact one can see a floating land mass in the distance and this outlook has no floor at the base of its cliff. The sky has various holes that look like the aurora borealis. Suddenly a beam of radiant light seems to shoot from the current landmass to the one in the distance. Emerald doesn't seem alarmed by this. The beam of light then fades.

"So... we shattered their planet too?..  woah."

Jake stands staring at this latest overwhelming sight.

"Whatwasthat?!" he gasps at the sudden beam of light.

  "I was assuming more along the lines of taking out more of them than any civilization working off of the shattered remains of a planet has any expected right to.  Though I guess the aliens are still going purely out of spite by this point, a reason I can see some of the appeal of at least."

  Okay, lightshow.  Incidental, teleportation effects, or robot unicorns?

Emerald says, "Oh... that was a tractor beam." it looked like a bright, yellow ion beam. "When a land mass starts drifting too far or too close, it activates the tractor beam to reposition it. As for what we did to make the aliens pay for shattering Earth? ...well they didn't have a planet when they came here, but they used to be unified. We set them up against each other. The level of in-fighting legends tell of us Earthlings having once had? Now the aliens have. We found this race has zero forgiveness and are very aggressive. So despite the fact they hate Earth, they are quite capable of hating each other just as much. We've reverse-engineered a lot of their technology, so that also helps us stay in the fight."

"Wow...  It just so happens I'm an inventor...  Once I'm up to speed on what's been figured out so far I might actually be of some use...  Unless you had something else in mind?  Oh.  And I guess it bears mentioning...  Take a look at this thing."

Jake shows her the weird disc.

"I'm guessing this is what brought us to this place."

 Joe looks over to Jake from the lightshow, and asks "What have you invented so far?" he figures this is always a good question for any Inventor... Unless the list is really long then hindsight thinks it is bad.

Emerald curiously examines the disc, nose wiggling as she sniffs at it. After waiting for Jake to answer Joe, she asks, "And how did you get a hold of this disc?"

"Lots of stuff," Jake answers, "I hold over three dozen patents and have loads more pending.  But...  Well...  Apparently my ideas tend not to impress Corperate America in their money-making potential.  One of my favorites is a device that replaces those platic rings that hold 6-packs together that always end up strangling wildlife with something way more eco friendly.  But apparently the 'inconvenience cost to the consumer' was considered too high."

He looks to Emerald and fills her in on the story thus far.

  Joe shrugs,  "Some guy threw them at us like the toy these things resemble while getting chased out of sight by fashionable yet generic men."  He glances over to Jake, asking  "What, you wanted to ship them with magnets holding them together or something?  They'd never make it past the fridge door that way."

Emerald huhs... "Well I guess we'll need to find out what these things do then, won't we? As for how useful an inventor might be, I guess we'll see what the boss has to say on that." She leads the two to a computer room of sorts and contacts someone.

An image of some wolf appears on the screen. His eyes go wide. "...humans?"

Emerald says, "Well... yes. But not from our world. They are lost and need to find their way home. Was hoping you could help them."

The wolf nods. "Right. Bring them to me."

Emerald leads the two. As she does, she says, "That's Fenris. He's this area's top dog."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:10, Tue 28 Feb 2012.

Jake hopes Fenris is nothing like the Winter Queen's captain of the guard from the Narnia Chronicles.

"Here's hoping he's as helpful as you," Jake mutters.

He headshakes to Joe.

"Aluminum cans are non magnetic.  It was pretty much just the same concept but with a motor to retract the loops whenever a can is taken out."

  Joe thinks he might be able to take a wolf, they have to bring their neck closer to you if they want to bite you after all.  Wolf with a gun on the other hand, less certain.  You don't get much practice against gun toting wildlife when left in the woods with a spork and towel.  He wanted a RC car for his 7th birthday darn it.

  Joe blinks "...So, you wanted to replace a small, cheap, plastic fish hazard... With a MOTORIZED device, which are so much better for the environment.  Price may be the real reason they said no, but PETA probably wouldn't be crying over that decision."

  Back to the Foxy, he comments "They took that well.  Beyond the aliens you get a lot of off reality visitors, or are they jaded a practical amount?"

Emerald says, "Fenris is jaded, but you must have missed that your appearance did shock him. He probably doesn't believe you're from another world. Much more likely you're delusional and *think* you're from another world."

"Yes.  Motorized.  And being as it could be returned for a discount of equal value on the next 6 pack, the long term cost would be less than the current method.  But as mentioned, doing so was considered too inconvenient."

He nods to Emerald as he follows along.

"Just so long as we're not considered the kind of delusional that needs to be locked up, I'm fine with folks taking that as a first impression."

  Ah how nice,  Jake thought the average consumer wouldn't be too lazy to just toss robo can toppers instead of returning them...  On the other hand, some people can get rather obsessive over bottle returns (whether or not the bottles were completely empty)...  So they may be on to something.

  "I'd figure that sort of thing would be more popular in the bulk storage at least?"   Back to Foxy,  "But now my expectations of you are crushed, you're not your own boss, the shock.  Hopefully either him or you are a good influence on the other though."

Emerald chuckles. "Hopefully, your expectations being crushed was a good thing." She looks up at Jake. "Around here, survival is what's important. If you invent a new way to survive, I'm sure people will at least try it."

She soon gets to a door and leads the two in a room where the wolf they saw is waiting. He's in some kind of exo-suit with shoulder-mounted guns, lots of armor, and an enclosed helmet with a visor transparent enough for the two to know it's him in the first place. Think like a Terran Marine in appearance. In the suit, he stands 6' 6" tall. He looks at Joe and Jake. "Pardon the guns... I keep them with me at all times."

"... hadn't considered bulk storage."

When led to the boss man, Jake tries his best to not look intimidated.  But he does side-step so those shoulder guns aren't pointed in his direction.

"Uh... sure.  Name's Jake.  This is Joe."

  "It would kind off defeat the point of shoulder mounted guns if they didn't go with you, yeah."  He makes a mental comparison of the average door size they have passed, against size of shoulders before discarding the thought.

  If he wanted to run away, those things would just shoot any door too narrow bigger.

  "I'm really really hoping it's nice to meet you."

Fenris has Emerald fill him in on everything, letting Joe and Jake fill in any blanks. When he's filled in, he says, "...don't get your hopes up. I don't want to give you any false hope that you may some day leave here. But while you are here, I hope to make you as stress-free as I can given the circumstance. Walk with me."

He begins leading the bunch into what seems to be a high-clearance area..

"Stress free.  A lofty goal.  But appreciated none the less, sir."

Jake follows along.

  "I was gonna settle for trying not to die horribly, seems a popular hope.  But I like your idea too."  Of course, if/when Joe died he somehow doubted it would involve a calm and peaceful deathbed.  "I try not to poke things not meant to be poked, but some advanced noticed on things that it would be particularly bad to mess with in here would be good."