[Event] Dormscape

[Natalie Denisov]

"Wait a minute," says a tinny Natalie voice from the 'nanite'. Now that she's got a lovely receiver hooked into the swarm, she starts looking at the instructional data that the swarm is trying to ignore. The swarm has deemed it an impossible task, so it's trying to ignore it, but can't. But she hasn't been able to take a good hard look at what it's trying to do.

[Will Stanton]

"OK, that brings back memories," Will groans, having been squirted out of the growing nanite.

"Can we talk now like civilized beings? Or do I have to find somewhere to recycle you?"

[Janice Gilbertson]

"I think Nat's... doing a thing."

[Narrator]

The entirety of the work-around the nanites have managed hinges on some kind of abstract number dubbed 'Similarity Index' they're striving to lower. Feeding into that are complicated calculations based on a whole bunch of data ranging from maps, architecture, visual scans, DNA reads from gathered skin-flakes and other biological info and more abstract info Natalie can't really make sense of. Something about dimensional frequencies and quantum stuff that isn't really her field of expertise.

[Natalie Denisov]

"They're trying to make this world so unlike whatever template they're using that they can effectively ignore the instructions to use the template... because the template is unworkable," the tinny voice says, camera eye staring at nothing in particular. As she ponders, the campus network pings with a request for data regarding the dimensional incursion and whether these nanites may have come with that. At the same time, she requests the nanite swarm configure a hard light projector under the guise of needing to evaluate some visual comparisons.

[Narrator]

She doesn't quite reach the campus network, but the nanites pick up the ping and flash with a bunch of data indicating that they indeed hail from another dimension, although not one involved in the massive breach but rather the one Conduit bailed from. Meanwhile they take the instruction for a hard-light projector and go to work. It takes a moment for her to figure out the data surrounding it, but it seems they eagerly took her up on the instruction because they recognized how helpful it would be in dealing with things trying to interrupt their directive. Such as the tiny X-Men.

In the real world the nanite blob slides over to the remains of the laptop and smartphones and begins ripping more things out of it, specifically the camera lenses, beginning to arrange them in a complicated setup, vague shapes flickering in an out around it with a static distortion that's reminiscent of the Danger Room starting up. This is surely fine.

[Victor Freud]

Victor kept one hand on Will's robo-helmet-head, the other raised in a fist as he watched what was going on and looking at the others.

"Is this... this is good, right?"

[Will Stanton]

"Man, I never know with these tech people. It's a lot of standing around and hoping their brain juju is going well."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Trying to get something to visualize some of the data," she says, "because it's not easy to communicate some of these things. It looks like they're from Conduit's dimension. Maybe if we can talk them into realizing this dimension isn't anything like theirs, we can get them to shut down."

[Narrator]

While they're talking the nanites finish their newly-inspired hard-light projector and it flickers on, manifesting what looks suspiciously like a futuristic gun. It takes aim at the dorms and fires a bolt of bright energy but before it can impact it loses cohesion and fizzles out as it goes beyond the range of the projector. The gun dissolves in a digital blur and instead manifests a two-feet tall lobster that slams it's claws into the driveway and pulls out a big chunk of rock that it hurls through one of the windows of the dorm. It seems almost like a childish reaction to failing to blow up the building with the gun.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie's nanite 'facepalms' with its one good manipulator arm. "Not what I meant." She pokes the nanite network again, recommending using the hardlight projector to visualize the blueprints associated with the repair instructions as a means of communicating with the X-Men.

[Narrator]

The second piece of rock the lobster pulls up thonks off of the Nanite Natalie is inhabiting. It doesn't do any real damage but it does leave a dent in the nice smooth shell.

"Data unfeasible for visual display!" the swarm chirps with it's weird sampled Will-voice.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Clad in a loincloth made of shed snakeskin and a piece of string, Bruce emerged from the grass to throw a rock many times larger than himself at the lobster. He sadly hadn't seen that it was a projection.

[Will Stanton]

"I have no idea if this is working or not. I don't think they think like us."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Hey," Natalie says to the lobster before the incoming Bruce distracts her. "What the?"

[Narrator]

Many times larger than Bruce is still more or less a pebble that hits the hard-light construct, which now turns it's attention, along with it's eyestalks, towards the tiny shark-man and the rest of the wee X-Men and swipes it's massive claw at the lot of them, bowling them over.

[Will Stanton]

"Shut the bloody proj-oof!" Will cried, before he was knocked over.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce is neither quick of wit nor quick of feet enough to avoid the blow and is thus thrown aside. However, he is tough of body enough to quickly get back to his feet.

"You asked for it now, ro-bro," he quipped before running hard at the lobster and charging up for an EMP clap maneuver.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie saw Bruce charging up and she started yelling, "No no no no!" Instructions were relayed to the network that shutting down the projector would be advantageous to prevent unrecoverable damage.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce skidded to a halt to look at Natalie like a confused puppy.

"I shouldn't stop the giant robo-lobster?"

[Narrator]

The lobster stops for a moment at Natalie's command, eyestalks swiveling around. Then it flatly says "Unable to confirm threat." and picks up Bruce in one of it's gigantic claws.

[Natalie Denisov]

The nanite with Natalie inside holds out its good manipulator arm towards Bruce as if to take him from the lobster. "This unit will handle this one. This unit suggests, based on observations, that parameters involving provoking subjects labeled X-Men run counter to continued survival of swarm." The verbal communication is strictly unnecessary to the swarm, but it's a combination of force of habit and wanting everyone else to know what she's trying to do.

[Narrator]

The swarm doesn't seem to have an intrinsic survival instinct, although it does parse Natalie's information as possibly relevant to The Mission and the lobster hands the tiny Shark-Man over to the Nat-nite. The Nanite's short-range sensors send her a flush of information upon picking him up, such as threat assessment (low, but with a bump based on unconfirmed data), composition (65% Oxygen, 18.5% Carbon, 9.5% Hydrogen, 3.2% Nitrogen, Others), VanDyne Saturation Levels (Some kind of complex Limit function that's hard to parse at a glance), the usual audio/visual stuff, Weight (an roughly estimated 5 Grams) and so on.

[Natalie Denisov]

"Anyone know about VanDyne Saturation?" She asks the other X-Men.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"Uhm... isn't Van Dyne a fashion line?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Something shrinky. I think." Bruce said after some obvious mind-searching, "Tosh could say more... if you can keep this thing from squishing him."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I think I can manage that," Natalie says to Bruce.

[Narrator]

Van Dyne is indeed the name of a fashion label belonging to former Avenger Janet van Dyne, perhaps better known as the Wasp. Or, it would seem in the reality the Nanites hail from, the discoverer and namesake of what is perhaps more commonly known here as Pym Particles.

[Will Stanton]

"Something shrinky...like Pym Particles? If they're the same thing, we can probably use the stuff in the Point to undo all of this."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Possibly," Natalie says, pocketing away and obscuring a portion of the Nat-nite's processing structure to keep the network's communications away from it. "I am kind of running on borrowed time in this thing, so we should probably get a move on."

[Janice Gilbertson]

"The point's a long way away. They must have shrinky stuff themselves, yeah?"

[Will Stanton]

"I'm not sure I trust how to use them. We tried coming in peace, and they attacked us. Maybe they'd trick us into shrinking even more."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Bruce shifted back to Tosh, who was grateful that the mechanical arm holding him was keeping his makeshift clothes on. "Miss Minamida will have to be the one to remove them as I certainly couldn't at this size, even if I didn't have to research how first."

[Victor Freud]

"Ugggggh, of course it is." Victor whined, rubbing his forehead. "It's no wonder I can't just undo what these jokers did, I'm not the one who uses Pym particles." Out of everything they'd gone through today, this was the moment when he looked the most annoyed about their situation. Not when rocks were being hurled around, or having to avoid a giant wasp, or anything else.

[Narrator]

The nanites do indeed have 'shrinky stuff' themselves. They did, afterall, watch the now Natalie-controlled one dispense some to shrink the newly minted robots down to their nano-scale.

[Will Stanton]

"If we're going to do it, we should test it out one either me or Vic. Vic because he's used to being small; me because I'm the one most likely to bounce back from a disaster."

[Victor Freud]

Vic was the one wearing the Expert shirt. Shit.

[Janice Gilbertson]

"So wait, why's Tosh the only one who wound up naked?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Because all my unstable molecule stuff is getting cleaned and I had to shift to fight off giant ants."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, I'm sure Janice will be more than happy to make sure you don't have any lingering nasty ant bites or anything," Will teased.