Lox the Plama-cling and the ERT

[DrewTuber]

Just had a crazy changeling round that I had to share, as it was all over the place with a more "stealthy" overtone.

So, round start, and in walks our villain, Lox, the plasma-meme atmos tech. My objectives are to kill and become Qay, the station engineer and to steal the HoS's antique laser pistol.

The round starts off simple enough. I set up the very basics of atmos (max those gas filters) and give a hand to the other atmos tech in setting up the turbine. I start thinking about how to infiltrate security for that pistol when :g starts spouting off how the librarian just went into changeling stasis and was about to blow our cover. I don't give it much attention and decide that the best way to get into security is to body swap an officer in order to maintain their sec implant. I go about collecting supplies, NoX gas, cuffs, etc. Suddenly, the ERT arrives on station not even 40 minutes in.

Change in plans, if I can become an ERT, I can own the station. Two ERT officers step off the shuttle at arrivals and walk past me. Good, only two of them to deal with. Now to set the trap...I rig a prox sensor to an igniter and throw it onto a welding tank. I set the activation timer to 40 seconds, and shove it in the airlock to the ERT shuttle, hiding it under the door itself.

Next, I cut the station cameras in the intimidate area and cut the AI wire for the airlocks to cargo maint, just in case things go south. Next, I convert the vacant office to my own little cling office. I remove the glass from the airlock for some privacy, and set the door access to atmos only. Now to lure in my prey.

Lox: "ERT someone is breaking into your shuttle!"

While waiting for my clearly genius and fool-proof plan to take hold, a curious station engineer decides to investigate the ERT shuttle. This goes about as well as you would imagine.

The engineer looses a leg, two sec officers show up to investigate, and I decide to cut my losses. I figure if I can't nab an ERT, I could at least go with my original plan of becoming a sec officer.

I wait for the officers to split up, and fire a tentacle at the one in riot armor since he was a bit slower and fell behind. But I missed and he kept walking off screen. About this time the pogo engineer is getting back to his feet foot, so I tentacle and drag him into my cling office. This is when I notice that he is clearly new, and doesn't actually know what a changeling is (also typing "lol" IC and not immediately screaming over comms being a giveaway). I decide to let him live, and play it off with a casual "Yeah I dragged you in here to say sorry because that trap wasn't meant for you."

He's cool with it and is just over-all interested in what just happened and how do you have a tentacle etc. I drag him to medbay and don't see him for the rest of the shift.

Anyway, back to the plan. As I head back to my vacant office the same two officers from earlier pass me. Me, being an atmos tech, make up an excuse and start repairing the hole I made not too long ago. I'm meet with an immediate shotgun blast to the chest.

So here I am, lying stunned on the ground, with two officers, an ERT member, and a medic standing over me. Rather then trying to fight my way out of this situation, I decide to play innocent.

"What the fuck, you shot me!"

The ERT member, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, asks the sec officer that is putting me in cuffs as to why he decided to KOS. The officer explains that he saw me shooting my tentacle earlier (shit) and that he was sure I was a cling. The next 20 minutes is me exaggerating how badly I'm hurt (*Gasp *Faint) and trying to worm my way out of it.

So now I'm in security with a broken rib cage, under the control of the ERT member. The station is in pure chaos and aside from the one officer's word, there is no proof of my changeling-ness. The ERT starts to lean more and more in my favor of innocence, and even fixes up my busted ribs. After some arguing and me wailing about how I was shot unprovoked, the ERT and magistrate (that was now very interested in the shotgun-wielding officer) decide that they will let me go on two conditions. One, I get tracking implanted. Two, the shotgun officer is now my best bud and I'm not to leave his sight.

We agree to the terms and I play along, even going as far as to drag the officer around the station with me. So what do I do in this situation? Robust the officer with some quick slips and stuns? Pull out an armblade and rip his head off? Nah. It's time for an industrial accident.

So we head to atmos, with me explaining what the pipes do and the officer actually curious as to how it all works. I offer to show him the turbine and he agrees, so off into maint we go. Side story, Slith had the same idea of using the turbine room for nefarious deeds and when I walk in with the officer in tow we are greeted with an interesting sight. A hissing tunnel-lizard dragging a corpse out of the room through a hidden door in the wall. (Sorry for interrupting.) Dumbstruck, my parole officer just stands there and says "Not my job." Well alright, so where was I? Ah yes.

I bring him to the turbine and show him the combustion chamber, which is already fired up. Now a little bit background for non-atmos techs, the atmos hardsuit is very special in that it is completely immune to even the hottest of plasma fire outbreaks. Security riot suits, however, are not. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Que the "accidental malfunction" of the containment airlock (I stood in the airlock and cycled, forcing both to remain open). I use mute sting on the suspicious officer to silence his screams of agony, and a steam of hot plasma floods the room. He's dead in under 10 seconds. This is also where I find the HoS's antique laser pistol, just sitting on the floor from Slith's interrupted abduction. So now I have the pistol, but at this point I'm determined to become this sec officer that put lead into my chest. Now, instead of just taking his DNA and appearing to become him, I want to body swap with his corpse so that I can BECOME him (and, most importantly, get his sec implant).

But if I were to swap with his corpse with no planning, he would just put me in cuffs and drag me to the incinerator before I could use regenerative stasis. So, the question is, how do I both swap with the corpse and incapacitate the officer when he gains control of my body? Remember that NoX gas I got at round start? So, here's the plan. I drag his corpse to the atmos maint closet between the turbine and engineering, give myself the gas and make the body swap just before losing consciousness. What could go wrong? In walks (rolls?) an engineering borg to figure out why the turbine is screaming atmos and fire alarms. Shit.

Thinking quickly (panicking) I explain to the borg that while I was showing off the turbine to a curious member of security, he opened the airlock and flooded the room, killing himself and setting off the alarms. The friendly borg does not question this explanation, fully believing that shitcurity would be dumb enough to do just that, and grabs hold of the corpse to bring to medical. However, I am not done with my prize quite yet.

I pull the body away from the borg, and explain that I'll take him to medical myself. I ask the borg if he can fix the now super-heated turbine room and fix the atmos alarms, and the borg happily agrees.

10 minutes later I am a fully bonafied member of security, complete with an intact security implant. For good measure I drag my old corpse with the officer's soul inside to the chapel, beating the corpse with my baton to sell the charade. Screaming over the security radio frequency that Lox in fact WAS a changeling and that he tried to kill me, the AI happily lets me into the chapel and turns on the incinerator after I throw in my old corpse with no questions asked. I even yell "Told you so!" over comms to the ERT member that suggest the parole idea in the first place. +1 to appearances.

Now all that is left is to become Qay, the engineer. I head to medical and ask for a way to track crew members. Being a security officer, they do not question this request and are happy to give me a crew monitor. No luck, he's not on sensors. Deciding to check the morgue, I walk into cloning when I notice a pile of engineering-related items on the floor, with an ID that reads "Qay, Station engineer." What luck! He's currently in the cloner at 80% and about to pop out! I start collecting his (my) belongings when the medical technician that was running the cloning tubes asked me what I was doing. I'm arresting this engineer as soon as he is done cloning. "Oh, okay!"

My target pops out, I throw him in cuffs, and start dragging him to security. I explain that he is under arrest, and take a shortcut through dorms into security maintenance. Except, I'm not a security officer, I'm not arresting him, and I'm not taking him to security. In fact, I'm taking him to the security atmospherics maintenance room (you think I would leave my old ID with the body?) and quickly mute-sting him. I start squeezing the life out of his body and tell him not to worry, that it'll be over soon. He gives a sad nod before expiring, and I begin the process of corpse swapping once again. Same procedure, however this time I'm doing it to get rid of that implant from earlier.

Long story short, their bodies are never found, Qay's (I'm) never questioned as I walk onto the shuttle in my new (his) body, and I greentext when the shuttle docks. Yep. Definatly greentexted. Totally didn't get spaced out a shuttle breach 4 seconds before docking at CC. Yeap...

[Tayswift]

Great story! This is the kind of shenanigans changeling is all about. Well done on your impersonation of that sec officer! And hey, this story proves that the end result of greentext doesn't matter, it's all about the journey