Patior refused to be alarmed by the meteors hurtling towards his house. He was smart enough to know they would absolutely kill him if they made impact, but he was also ware by this point that entering the game would remove his hive from the area, rendering the threat moot.
With this in mind, he felt that the meteors were hardly worth the effort of thinking about even as the troll kingdom burned around him. He kept his focus on the game. Java would be his server player, and she was currently attempting to get the starting items placed in his home. He took the time to do the same for Mutosi for efficency sake.
Patior's robotic lusus found the flaming rocks to be much more of a threat than Patior did, and while he worried himself with the game specifics, his lusus was busy making sure none of the meteors crushed them before he could eter, using the various weapons that he had been upgraded with top destroy the meteors as they got close.
When Patior had opened the Crux, he looked to his lusus to see what he was doing, finding that he;'d entered overdrive mode, burning out all of his possible systems to maximize the amount of damage he could unleash in a single attack.
Gattling guns, lasers, and missiles firing from his body in an impressive display of force that reduced the giant flaming rock about to crush them to nothing but charred powder raining down over the house.
Unfortunately the force of the attack took its toll on the cybernetic lusus, and he was gradually beginning to die as his systems shut down. Patior went over, grunting with the effort of hefting his lusus and carrying him over to the kernelsprite.
He put his lusus in, a small smiling forming when he saw that his caretaker would not be perishing today. It quickly died down though when Patior remembered that he could be seen by Java. didn't trust her not to go jabbering to the others about him becoming emotional. Couldn't afford them to see their leader in such a state, benign or not.
Patior pried his sniper rifle out of its post at his window, took aim at the target circle that had appeared as his entry item, and fired. The target shattered, and Patior's hive glowed as he entered the game.
Java had basically zero understanding of what was happening and why, but felt that now was not the time to ask questions, what with the flaming boulders descending and all. Dustine had already dropped the starting items into her house, and she'd armed herself with her brass knuckle kind. All that was left was the sprite.
She'd seen how Patior had put his lusus in, returning it to life-and on a side note she was not easily going to forget seeing the blue blood actually smile for what she assumed to be the first time in his life-and went over to her bed.
She retrieved the pilot-device, responsible for so many hours of flight simulation training, and chucked it into the kernelsprite. In a flash, the sprite appeared, a female pilot with aviators on, and jet wings protruding from her back like a bird.
She seemed to be a cross between the plane design of the device, and Java's in simulation avatar character. Java grinned excitedly at seeing her. Pilotsprite smiled back, instructing her to break the entry item while she took care of the incoming bogies.
Java nodded, taking a moment to watch Pilotsprite blast meteors out of the air before bringing her brass knocks down hard on the mini-landing pad that had appeared as her entry item, shattering it instantly, and entering.
Dustine was in his every aspect of being freaking the fuck out. Meteors were destroying the entire kingdom around him, even his lawn had caught fire by now. He was having to mentally go over every word of his Book of Mirth just to keep from having a full tilt meltdown.
Valtina was thankfully in less of a panicked state than him, and once the beginning items had been placed, she explained what he needed to do, and told him to get a move on. Soon everyone would be in the game and safe from the meteors.
With a second of cold, abject horror at the thought of Risura not making it into the game in time, Dustine forced himself back into his laid back persona, taking out his mace and bringing it down hard on the Crux lever to open it.
He threw his book of mirth into it, creating a sprite resembling a half-demented clown, but who only smiled dignified as he went out to ward off the meteors. Dustine looked to his entry item, finding that it was a sort of skill tester machine. He brought his mace down onto the it hard, the skilltester shattering from the impact and allowing Dustine to enter the game.
Valtina was on the verge of a meltdown as well, but kept herself focused so as not to let everything crumble around her. In mere moments a calm, pleasant day had turned in a red hell of flaming rocks and towering inferno across the neighborhood.
It had taken quite a bit of force with her shovel to get the Crox open, but she had a great idea for her sprite. She took hold of a vine from her ever growing garden and pulled it inside, connecting it to the sprite.
The sprite absorbed the vine and everything connected to it; meaning her entire garden. The result was a sprite of tangled planets of too many different kinds to identify all in a single glowing being. It was marvelous, and could thankfully use the venus flytraps as mouths to speak from.
While Gardensprite focused on preventing the flames from reaching the house, Valtina took out her sheers and cut the crystalline weed sprout that had formed as her entry item, entering the game as it shattered.
Risura kept his calm as the meteors started coming down. His positioning actually made him much less likely to get a direct hit from the meteors, and this knowledge made him comfortable in taking his time with the items.
His entry item appeared as a punching bag, and opening the Crux with his bare hands took only a bit of extra effort. He wondered for a moment if there was any point in putting something in the sprite now , or if he could wait until the game started.
The choice was made for him when a loud crash echoed through his hive as it shook from the impact. His hive hadn't been hit, but the land around it had, and that had caused the tunnels his lusus roamed into cave in.
Risura pried the door to the tunnels off its hinges and began lifting and tossing aside as much of the rubble as he could. Strong as he was, even his muscles were starting to grow sore from exertion by the time he found his now quiet and lifeless lusus. Risura hauled him aboveground, bringing him to the sprite.
He sighed in relief as he was absorbed by the sprite and returned to life, then took out the remaining stress of the moment on the entry item punching bag, shattering it with his bare fists and entering the game.
Mutosi was this close to completely and utterly losing her shit. It took all of her ironclad will not to throw a bitch-fit worthy of the gods about being the last one to enter the game when a fucking blue blood got to enter first.
She could see the messages from the others telling her it was just a coincidence that the highest blood cast of the team went in first and the lowest last, and she knew already it was bullshit.
The only thing that prevented her from going full tilt ballistic was a dose of fear when a meteor crashed into the side of her hive. Not just any side either, the side her lusus said in. it was the resulting cave in that had killed the massive scorpion more than the meteor itself, but the result was the same.
Thankfully the kernelsprite allowed her to return to life, and with a much more manageable size. Sighing with relief, Mutosi realized that her speeches and fits could wait until the sky wasn't literally attempting to kill her.
She swung her broom at the large fluffy rabbit that appeared as her entry item, completely ignoring the irony of it being a literal dust bunny, and entering the game as it shattered from the strike.
Now all members of the villain team had entered the game.
