Vox Vult

"**Vox Vult**" (1x15) is the fifteenth episode of Memory=Null, in which nothing goes as planned.

## Synopsis

The crew all head back to the hangar and discuss where to have the meeting with Silentium. Thicc calls up The Hammer and invites them down to the hangar to meet, which he agrees to. Thicc sets up some chairs in the middle of the hangar, while everyone else takes up strategic positions throughout. The Hammer soon shows up, disarms himself, and sits gingerly down in the provided folding chair. They chat briefly, and The Hammer mentions that while he’s still getting used to having another voice in his head, it does have its benefits; for example, he had cut himself badly earlier, but was soon completely healed.

Silentium emerges and tells Thicc he’s been paying a lot of attention to the other vox, and that it seems it is trying to fracture its core mind into pieces. This would allow them to hide the pieces throughout the galaxy, making it much harder to kill. If one of the pieces was killed, though it may lose some of its aggression or knowledge, the majority of it would remain intact. In addition, one of these pieces is growing beneath one of the cities on the planet below. They’ve never taken this strategy before, so he is unsure how long they have until it is complete.

Thicc offers the chance to find another willing body in the event that The Hammer stops being willing, but Silentium says that once the vox have been defeated, all he wants is to return to the planet below and live in peace and solitude. He also asks Silentium if he is in danger of being reabsorbed into the vox. He says that he does not know, and would rather not risk it.

With the conversation finished, Silentium returns control to The Hammer, who heads out to go start a bar fight. Lunch arrives soon after, the bearer of which is greeted by many guns held by still jumpy individuals, since Hannah hadn’t told anyone. Over lunch, the group decides to go in on foot to locate the vox, then bring in the mechs afterwards. As they begin to gear up, Thicc takes Tina aside and asks her opinion on whether or not to take Hannah along. Tina believes that no choice is good right now, but that she would rather not leave Hannah alone. Thicc agrees, and they all finish gearing up.

Thicc, Tina, Hannah, Animal, Hellhound, and Shade board the dropship with their Sank-issued muffins and make their way down to the planet as Thicc begins playing Africa by Toto. Once on the ground, Thicc takes a moment to focus on the weave as the others take up defensive positions around. As Thicc focuses, he notices a distinct lack of the weave from an area of the city, and surmises that the vox are in that area. With no better leads to go on, the group begins slowly making their way through the city in that direction.

A while later, Thicc notices a person standing in front of an old subway entrance. He immediately ducks for cover, then alerts everyone else as they also sprint for cover. Hellhound psychically makes himself unable to be focused on by others and begins very slowly walking down the street. Thicc has Shade come over and pick the lock on a nearby door to move through the building parallel to Hellhound. As Hellhound approaches the person, they begin to speak, revealing themselves to be a vox. They know someone is there, but can’t see them, and asks what they want. Thicc focuses on the weave and once again gets nothing from it. As they discuss whether or not to take out the vox, they hear something entering the atmosphere. They look up to see a massive ship as comms come on, and hear a voice say “We are looking for one Mr. Thicc McRunfast. This is the Hammerhead of the Crucible of Nine.”

Thicc responds back in characteristic Thicc fashion that he is not available and asks them to leave a message. The Hammerhead says that they have questions about what happened to the Monarch’s Fortune, and that if they do not surrender, they will take severe actions, as eight mech drop pods are launched towards the surface. Despite the group’s attempts to stop him, and Shade’s attempts to scramble their signal, Thicc continues talking to them, trying to diffuse the situation as they make their way back towards their mechs.

As the mechs start making their way in the group's direction, and the ship begins powering up weapons to level the city, Hannah turns around and starts walking towards the enemy mechs. She stops in the middle of the street as her eyes go black and her hair begins to float, and she reaches up towards the Hammerhead. Tina, seeing no other option at this point, runs over and joins her as her eyes go white and her hair begins to float as well. As the creaking and groaning of metal reach their ears, the group watches as the Hammerhead briefly drops before its thrusters go to full in an attempt to stay airborne. As Thicc begins to smell burning fabric from Tina and Hannah, one of the Hammerhead’s thrusters breaks off and flies into a nearby building

Suddenly, they hear the sound of another object entering the atmosphere. Over their comms, another voice shouts “Player three has entered the game!” as a mech drop pod falls through the air behind them. As Hannah continues to pull the Hammerhead towards the ground, ripping chunks of it off, the charging mechs launch a barrage of missiles, which Hellhound begins psychically knocking into various buildings. With one final motion, Hannah shatters the Hammerhead into pieces as a pair of burning wings spouts out of Tina’s back. Tina grabs a set of threads in front of her, and with a pull, teleports her’s and Thicc’s mechs behind them.

The new drop pod lands and breaks open, revealing a massive four-legged mech with the Lalta Chambran royal crest and crossed wrenches on it, as Pippin levels a massive cannon at the approaching mechs and opens fire. Hellhound sprints in and scoops up Hannah, who has now collapsed on the ground, while Thicc and Tina sprint for their mechs. Both mechs reach down and scoop their respective pilots up into the cockpits as four more drop pods enter the atmosphere. Pippin points out that there are two weird things about Lalta Chambran law. The first is that they are not allowed to land military forces on any terrestrial body. The second is that all laws are superseded by the requirement to protect the royal family.

By the time Thicc and Tina finish syncing up to their mechs, Pippin has already taken out two of the eight pirates. Thicc sprints towards the advancing pirates firing his chain gun while Tina and Pippin get up on top of some nearby buildings for better shots. Pippin and Tina take out three more mechs from above, while the Lalta Chambran reinforcements, who have finally landed, take out two more at range. The last remaining pirate, which was engaged with Thicc, turns and runs. Thicc tries to take over the mech and stop it, but isn’t quite able to, and so decides to let them go.

Drop pods full of Lalta Chambran ground troops begin to land on the planet as swat teams begin moving through the old subway. Inside, they find a single individual. However, when poked, they simply fall over and turn to dust. They also find a massive matte-black shell, which also cracks and falls apart when poked. Anything that they find which might have been vox are now just dead husks. As the Lalta Chambran scientists move in to start researching, the group all head back up to Gunnison 4 and head off to the Weeping Cock.