Dark_Harrier

LPoM would probably attempt behavior correction via the Hypnotron at that point. If it didn't take, he'd point at the friend, and say to Destructotron: "Rend."

Hm, of mine, Last Prince of Mars would probably work well in a parody, since I play him as non-serious anyway.

the Last Prince of Mars!

I'm intrigued, but, I have no idea what kind of characters you would need or use, so, any further info you can give?

Note: on NA forums, only Orc-derivative characters may speak with Cockney accents.

/runs off cackling

Aw dude! I am humbled.

Thank you.

Note that this origin tale continues in the Cult of Mu thread.

Mm, honestly I never understood why Doc Brainstorm's origin type thread even got a sticky; he's nifty but of what forum use was he?

Anywho.. thar's a new shurrif in town?

The storm that had threatened the construction, continued threatening it into the night, but never advanced. Many Arachnos scientists were monitoring the stalled squall line, but the weather condition had collided with another front and sat far offshore, gathering energy and lighting the horizon in that direction. St.Elmo's fire was occasionally seen flickering on the tallest metal parts of the cable support towers on the farthest of the four small bay islands. Nobody took it as a good sign, though there were many nervous laughs.

One of the Scrapyarder work crews brave enough to take the bounties for duty on Gull Atoll was busy securing as many bolts, welds and augmented metal alloy plates as it could before the rain that had been building offshore for hours finally came and drenched them. Many had lived on the coast all their lives, and knew a squall could dump so much water mixed with so much wind that you couldn't look straight ahead without having your eyes plugged by water and debris, could barely keep your mouth open to breathe. They didn't want to be out in the open when it hit. Especially NOT on top of a metal tower covered in metal cables that arched out into the air for hundreds of yards in all directions.

Mike and Jimmy Knuckles were man-handling a huge plate door down onto an access ladder hatch which in turn lead down from the cable anchor platform all the way to the ground a hundred feet below. "Come on, we gotta blow!" Knuckles grunted at the two welders putting final beads down around the edge of the tremendous beams crowning the tower, equalizing the incredible tension of the thigh-thick cables which stretched up and up, into what would soon be invisible darkness, vibrating in the rising wind as they arched over the turbid bay to the great seat of Lord Recluse nearly a half mile away.

"We're comin', we're comin'," one of the welders, Sully, replied under his breath, careful not to piss Knuckles off too much by actually letting the huge hulk hear him. Knuckles had the familiar gigantism that afflicted so many people born on the Isles, and which got him his position in the Scrapyarders. The second welder, though a new guy, already knew enough to keep his mouth shut tight. Sully could see him, crouching over the corner weld he was finishing. The guy was a bit sloppy, but Sully figured, and Knuckles had agreed, this spot was the farthest out, so by the time any of the Arachnos goons who knew a roll of one-oh from a regulator got here to check quality, the team would have already paid out and be long gone.

The two blinding arc spots gave enough light for the two larger men to wrestle the plate into place and slide the hinge bolts home. The heavy lock mechanism was bolted on in short order.

"All right, let's get the [censored] below and get the hell outta here," Knuckles announced as he tested the play of the new door, and the job was officially done, even though the new welder still had his tip playing along the edge of the beam with its controlled lightning. The other men wrapped the gear, tied it into the small crane-held bucket and the larger guys, Knuckles first, descended the ladder. The new guy, being the New Guy, was forced to stay behind and lower the crane, standing in the rain, humping the crank until the gear was safely down. Then he would be allowed to come in himself.

From below, waiting for the twirling basket to arrive, the three seniors watched the rain come pouring down the shaft and creating puddles under their boots on the recently-poured slab floor of the access tower. There were knowing looks and chuckles from those remaining mostly dry. The basket settled and they loaded the gear into the golf cart.

"Come on, get down here Dennis, let's get the [-] out already!" Sully yelled up the shaft, pulling back before getting too soaked.

Lightning flashed outside and the thunder was immediate, right overhead. The shaft lit up and Sully could see the new guy's form silhouetted in the bright square above, one arm holding the plate open. In the after-flash blindness, Sully heard a clatter from above and flung himself back by instinct. Dennis' helmet came caroming down the shaft, smashing itself to pieces on the floor at their feet, as a horrible scream came echoing down on its heels. The sound was cut off by the sepulcher clang of the great metal door they'd just installed.

"Dennis!' Sully shouted up the closed shaft, but the two other Scrapyarders, their faces wide in fear and pale and wet with rain, were already hopping into the electric cart, tilting it with their bulk and accelerating into the access hall leading down through the hill and to relative safety. Sully gave a last look up, then ran for his life, chasing the cart as it scraped off alternate walls down towards the guards in the distance.

Above, on the platform, lightning flashed again. The rain came sluicing down, with the squall line only a few hundred yards off.

Grinning, Dennis considered sliding the lock closed too, but that would look too suspicious. And the Deep Ones wouldn't bother doing it. So, he ducked back to the base of the great cable anchor, and began planting the magnetic bombs all around its circumference.

As he'd suspected, nobody came clambering up the ladder for him even five minutes later, even though he waited for them so eagerly, so, his explosives planted below the lip of where observers might come to check, Demiise cackled, and flew off, into the darkness.

Mm, a hogshead full of ale. That we all understand.


LET THERE BE BEER

No, we use cubits and fathoms.

Our RP threads are 1.5 times longer than yours because of the conversion rate.

St. Martial passed beneath him, an interesting study in undulating landscape covered by the tall rectangles of human engineering.

Having seen the silvery Deco splendor of Paragon City from sea level, but at a distance of ten miles or so, the Last Prince of Mars was more circumspect and attentive now that he was seeing this part of the Rogue Islands, from the air and at high speed. A varied area, with new locations, new threats, new sources of power, technology and slaves. Boris the Russian, his First Slave, had described the apparent nest of a human power-clutch calling itself the "Scarlet Society", and Prince Gashanatantra hoped to spot the place from above, rather than having to walk the squalid streets of yet another mega-ghetto belonging to the Earth's dominant species of monkey-men. Little did the ultimate royal personage desire to stalk the grimy, ill-smelling streets below, if he could avoid it.

His red eyes glanced above and behind him; high in the strato-cumulus, he could just make out the white slim line of the exhaust given off by his robotic Delivery Pod, traveling after him at jet-speed, carrying its payload of Martian servitor robots, including the Prince's glowing achievement, the Destructotron. These mecha-soldiers and servants, their carrier following its owner using an integral global location system interfaced with a single, geosynchronous Martian satellite, awaited the Last Prince's summons, to wait upon him or to rain laser death on his foes.

For himself, the Last Prince rode the blue Earthen skies comfortably. Encased in a nigh-impenetrable personal force field, his articulated, beautiful black Titanotherium wings were locked in 'cruise' position. His rocket boots, spewing long white-blue trails leading to miles-spanning contrail clouds, hurtled him along at trans-sonic speeds. He had marveled at the impossible vistas of horizon-spanning Earth waters; but now, the globs of unsightly land below needed his attention. He had a human slave in the headquarters of this supposed Scarlet Society, and his other slave's information told Gashanatanra that perhaps lingering at said HQ might bring him closer to power, income and ultimately, world domination, as was his desire.

The soaring glint of red light, tracing a precise white contrail behind it, descended on St. Martial, as the sun moved, red and angry, down towards the ocean-girded horizon.

[ QUOTE ]
K, That's fine with me.

I think we should be ready to roll by monday ish. You have till then to bandage your boo boos.

[/ QUOTE ]

But it's already Monday! We just said that.


/snerk

IIRC Sol-Ar/David was also a professor listed, or mentioned. I don't think he ever posted when I was in there, tho.

Nah, I was under the impression this was 'current' with the Whitmoore timeline, post-Rikti-massive-invasion. Paragon present.

We have some good Rikti-haters here already.
But YAY THRAED!

We just RP that the air is heavier.

Whoa, I didn't know.

Heilsa!

It's good to hear a story from someone who met him.


We all fail our last save vs Death. Contribute to life before you do! Hail Dave!

Wow, I agree.

Breathing raggedly, Demiise stood surveying the shambles of the guard post.

Even the floating Arachnos psychics were having problems with him. In a sense, since being thrown off the roof by one Dennis had declared an unending war on any of the Mystics, Fortunatas or Night Widows he came across. They were the most dreaded, and thus, the most interesting targets for him now, and his petty vengeance.

The Fortunata assigned to this post had gone down hard. Her body was draped backward over one of the spilled consoles, limbs rigid; her mouth hung open so widely that an indentation could be seen in the reddish fabric pulled taut over her face. She'd been first to fall; almost all the other guards here had been robotic, and they'd been far harder for his mind games, though the largest arachnid had had some kind of brain material grafted somewhere inside it's workings to assist it in its duties, some horrible amalgamation of Arachnos technology and human organic components.

Other than that small boon, he'd had to hammer the things to pieces with telekinetic lances and thrusts.

Untouched amid the chaos, the bomb-sniffer arch stood quietly, beebing and blinking.

"Sorry hun," Dennis cooed, cradling the limp, lolling head of the Fortunata, "You gotta sleep now. Daddy Dennis is gonna leave a little present under the tree, then he's gotta scoot. Heheh." The cackling continued, rising and falling, as Demiise left his next bomb under the console for the bomb-sniffer operator.

His body ached where he'd been shot or pierced through by the Arachnos robots. His leathers were becoming more ratty, and he was getting that itchy feeling again, and was eager to be quit of the suit, but not yet.

He fidgeted with the pen-sized USB disk drive in his pocket as he slunk deeper into the base. The corridor led him to a computer farm room, the one he'd been looking for at last. He strode in among lab technicians and uniformed Enforcers and Spec Ops personnel, looking for a specific workstation label, finding it unused in a far corner. Dennis nodded to an upturned Huntsmaster's face, the real Arachnos lieutenant following the new arrival as the man sat down and began typing.

As he did so, the dark presence in the back of his mind rose again.

"So there you are," he said to the Eye.

Access the information about the latest dig, the other presence in his mind demanded. It's goading at this point was redundant, as Dennis was eager to get this caper over with, and rather proud of himself at getting so deeply behind enemy lines.

"Chill out, I'm on it," Dennis said aloud, and the Huntsman again turned at him, wondering who he was addressing, then, surmising it must be via his helmet comm. "I know what I'm doing." Dennis' hands flew over the keys, sifting through data until he came to the map layouts for one of the Pit side digs. Schematics flashed on the tall, fan-like flatscreen. Technical readouts filled a side window.

There, a salt dome a few hundred feet beneath the lowest tunnel, sounded out with their meager sensors. That is the plug that sits at the top of the bore. Far beneath it, the Goat lies sleeping, the Eye recited, in an odd sing-song, as if picking at a remnant of poetry or prayer. There was something strange in its tone that made Dennis snort in derision, eager to belittle anything that the Eye held with any relevance.

"What's with you guys always sleeping? Bunch of slackers, hah!" his manic laugh was rather awkwardly loud and out of place for the room he was in. "Leviathan sleeping, the Goat is sleeping, do you guys do anything but sleep?"

"Keep yourself quiet, there!" Dennis was abruptly aware of a hulking presence at his left shoulder; the Huntsman had gotten up from his seat. "Keep your voice down! Who are you communicating with? You know there are no comms allowed in this room!"

Dennis also wasn't aware that that was just a ruse. "Uh, sorry sir, I'm just following orders, man." He turned back, trying to obscure the screen with his hunched body and failing miserably given how large the display was, and teh way it was shaped.

The Huntsman tensed, as that wasn't the deference he expected; the screen's contents were an afterthought. Simultaneously, Dennis himself wondered just which of them were supposed to be superior in the Arachnos pecking order; they both had capes. As if to add a final metaphoric nail to someone's coffin, the Huntsman asked, as the Eye began stirring in earnest, "Where is your club, soldier?"

Kill him kill him kill him rang on and on in Dennis' shared mind, and he began turning back around.

His vision turned to stars and pain. He found himself face down on the floor some yards from the computer, a few seconds of consciousness a blank, teeth fragments like Chiclets rattling around in a mouth filled with blood. Glancing up, he saw the Huntsman standing, his assault rifle butt-first, still poised at the end of his strike to the side of Dennis' head. Nearly everyone else in the room had risen from their chairs, looking eagerly on at what promised to be a bloodletting, or possibly hoping to join in.

"Secure the room, we got us a security breach," the Huntsman commanded, and the standing soldiers, feeling that last desire was to be sated, began drawing weapons, as the red-caped Arachnos lieutenant drew a bead on the downed man with his combo-shotgun.

Dennis spat out tooth fragments even as his gums sang as new white tombstones rose in their place. "Yeah, secure the room," the downed man growled with surprising confidence. One of his gloved hands rose from the floor, palm-open; men approaching the armored room door to seal it up so their fun could begin, pulled up as the metal firedoor slammed shut in front of them. The Huntsman spun at the sound of men gasping in surprise; he put two and two together, as his prey appeared to be holding his quivering palm aiming right at the portal.

"Freak!" the Huntsman cried, and there was thunder in the chamber as he blew Demiise's outstretched hand off at the wrist.

Dennis shrieked and rolled under the workstation, blood spewing out across the floor and then up into the air. Technicians scrambled to get out of the way in a place with nowhere to run as the soldiers present began priming clubs or rifles. The Huntsman switched triggers and shot a gas grenade beneath where the assailant had gone, laughing as sickly greenish fumes rose. Any man in the room without a protective Arachnos helmet on began crying out in alarm, coughing and blinded. Some other game soul shot a few rounds through the table top, and they could hear cries as the scrambling man beneath it was hit again.

"Get him!" the Huntsman directed, but as three burly thugs, guns held cavalierly moved towards the computer, the workstation, table and all, flew upward and smashed into them. A gun discharged into the ceiling and at last, someone had the intelligence to push an alarm button.

The room dipped into strobing black as red spinning lights accompanied the klaxon of a security breach. The injured invader, left wrist a blank stump spouting red, rose up, peeling off his hated helmet, and suddenly red light far brighter flooded out into the room. Gunfire erupted towards it, and for a second the red twin cones of lurid bloody light turned away, but them came back up and around.

The shrieking, the gunplay, the barked orders, all quieted, leaving only the buzzing of alarms; every human in the room crowded together on the one side had frozen, hands clapped to their heads, their bodies vibrating in the throws of nightmare. Demiise stood revealed, and the images of death flowed out from him in a miasma more poisonous than the gasses rising at his legs. Men, so entranced they couldn't even choke out a cry, their minds brimming with the invasive sensations of burning, dismemberment, stood where they'd been affected.

Dennis faced them, his good hand now palm-outward, striving to control all the men before him. The gas wasn't even considered, as breathing was, for him, only an inconvenient habit for the most part.

His blasted arm was agony, threatening his concentration, until he aimed that pain down the bore of his horrid mind and out at the soldiers.Some of them even dropped what they held in unconscious response as further amputation entered into the gruel of sensation that trapped them.

Some of the weaker minds succumbed; a number of technicians dropped at the back, being closest to the door and potential escape when trouble had broken out. the poison gas in the room probably hadn't helped their chances. Demiise surveyed the field, felt his inner reserves, and understood he needed to act further. Still straining mentally while trying to walk, he bent, scooping up his severed hand, trying to keep the assault up without the benefit of his somatic gesturing hand. His lost limb felt heavy and gross in its mirror-twin's grip.

Then the Eye acted; the lost flesh began flowing, melding in all its awful interior colors into a shapeless blob that flowed into him; at the same time, a bud appeared to plug the profuse bleeding stump. Smaller, larger, one losing substance for the other; five tiny quivering nubs sprouted, and in no time, a fresh pink hand lay flexing at the end of a ragged crimson sleeve.

Restored, Demiise now bent for the Huntsman's shotgun. He stalked around the room. Picking a soldier at random who was not the Huntsman, he raised the shotgun, placing the barrel next to the hapless man's head.

Soon, the magazine was empty, and he went next for one of the powered clubs.

Only the Huntsman stood now, and he was gibbering a bit, exposed for so long to the influx of memory, stricken but becoming inured to it with time. Demiise's naked, burning face came close to his. Focusing all his attention, and that of the active Eye, on the man, Demiise held him in place, far longer than he could have with the added strain of the others now gone.

"I like your clothes," the assailant hissed, and a giddy child's giggle escaped him. "Oh! Almost forgot why I came," he said abruptly, voice somewhat different, as he drew the flash drive from his pocket and stuck it into a slot on another of the computers. He sat casually as the Huntsman mewled behind him, accessed where he'd been previously, then began copying information.

"Oh hey, and who's the new Security head? Not gonna tell me," he said rhetorically, gauging his hold on the man. "I can find it," he went on, but, annoyed, as if answering to an unheard admonishment.

An image popped up on the screen, and Demiise whistled. "This guy, huh? Interesting," he sneered, then copied that set of files as well.

He popped the flash drive just as the first blaster beam thumped against the secured door. "God dammit," he snarled, rising from the console. He frowned, as the Huntsman had soiled himself in his efforts against a body and mind that clutched itself in an instinctive rictus. "Gonna make this quicker than I'd hoped. Company's coming."

The breach crew outside paused in their welding efforts at an unearthly, quavering howl of agony that came from inside the locked room. It ran on and on, beyond the duration possible from a single inhalation of air, and trailed off weakly, making the remaining silence even more horrible. They redoubled their efforts, and when the door was smashed back, all the bodies strewn beyond brought them up short. Armed men flooded into the room, weapons bristling, but neither they nor the robots bringing up the rear [their grafted bits of human brain sizzling amid electronic filaments], noticed a concealed presence that passed between them and out through the air, above their heads, and down the corridor.

However, such a thing was the last worry on their minds, and not even literally, when the remaining explosives tossed under the tables, went off and tore the innards out of this entire corner of the level in an incredible blast. The intruder alarms in this section quieted at last.

Tensions inside the various Arachnos facilities were still running high days after the disaster. Security was very tight, especially since hero groups were taking advantage of gaps in surveillance and making inroads wherever they could. It also didn't help that the seismic results were still not fully known; a number of labs assumed safe had inexplicably flooded, with the loss of all hands and quite a bit of equipment.

It was known that during the hubbub, Interior Security Officer Cook had been summarily executed. Why the head of security should be held accountable for a natural disaster, the low-ranks couldn't figure out, but his public death had been enough to keep the questioning likewise internal. Those higher-up knew this had been far more than natural, and that a scape goat - well, a number of them across departments, actually - had been needed, but some wondered if a change of guard at this crucial moment had been such a good idea in and of itself.

The dangling corpses adorning the walls back at Recluse's Victory kept those questions close to the vest, unvoiced, as well.

So getting into the survey offices right near the point of the disaster on Shark's Head had been no easy task. Light infiltration, a slow accumulation of codes. Deeper infiltration, assumption of identities and duties. A small mishap where an entire guard post had had to be neutralized.

Dennis was getting tired of his Enforcer outfit. He'd never had the training this brand of Arachnos troops went through, so the simple routine of cleaning his armored leathers had been foregone; his outfit was getting sweaty and it was no longer comfortable for him to wear. But it allowed him access to wherever he needed to go, and the Eye woke, or spoke, intermittently these days, but it coaxed him, when he needed it. So, here he was, skulking along the halls of the Moore complex, passing the three-story internment chamber [one of many] and following the twisted hallways looking for the next elevator down. Across his back, hidden by the cape, were a bandoleer of explosive devices Eugene had gotten somewhere, telling Dennis he needed to plant them along the way. One had already been put behind a computer. Three more needed to find a home. And Dennis needed to get past a security checkpoint that included, their info said, bomb sniffers.

The sidearm he carried as part of his disguise was now empty.

The corridor ahead ended in a checkpoint. A tall door-way-looking lighted apparatus stood at the threshold, flanked by augmented guards and arachnid robots.

Dennis stepped back into the shadows.

A day later, and Dennis was at it again. In another confiscated uniform [another of the Wolf Spider Enforcer jobs, since he'd decided he liked the cape], he was making his way down the long ramp to a dry portion of land outside the fortress. Enough high ground had survived to create an archipelago of dirt between the Arachnos fort and remaining industrial facilities above where the air strip once lay. Arachnos troops were attempting to build a bridge across the open bay now sloshing over lost aircraft, using the strips of land to set their pylons; the lone control tower that sat by itself now in deep water, would likely be converted into a lighthouse.

Recluse had decided to make the best of circumstance and press-gang anyone left alive outside his walls into his organization. Many had required force and coercion; the rest, losers to begin with but some with the spark of opportunism, had agree and were even now being processed into the lower ranks. This made Demiise's job a bit easier; new faces everywhere, too much work and stress to be noticed, the bedlam of raised spirits after yesterday's arena debacle. He could sense how on-edge all the black-clad soldiers were, but at the same time, he moved easily among them, to the base of the ramp, where Crazy Eugene stood, leaning against a pylon, a lit cig dangling in his mouth, even though the Cultist lunatic had never shown the habit before.

"There you are, boss!" the brute announced a bit too loudly, and inside his helmet, Demiise winced; even more so as Eugene slapped him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. Dennis glanced at the outre looks of the other Arachnos thugs milling about, and tried his best to appear incensed, making a great effort to shove the larger man to one side, hoping beyond hope to maintain some illusion of Arachnos-style strength.

"The freak is the matter with you?" Demiise sniped in annoyance "I got a good thing going here. Don't [censored] it up, Eugene, Christ."

"No no, Eugene's sorry," the greasy-haired maniac said, appearing honestly contrite; it held for a few seconds, at least. Then, he snapped a salute, with the wrong hand, glancing at the still-spying Spider recruits and Crabs working on the bridge supply line. "Sir yes sir!"

Demiise groaned. "That's perfect. OK, look. I saw Assassin-Guardian yesterday, she's still skulking around here somewhere but she ain't contacted me since then. Damn [censored] dumped me off the wall. But anyway, tell the Avatar I should be able to get into the survey office tonight and get the scans of the rock wall above the Pit."

"That was some tasty soup," Eugene chuckled, about the carnage in that part of the dig.

"Yeah," Demiise answered with equal malice,"no crap. Is Sword still on the island?"

"Sword and stone and a hank of bone," Eugene piped.

"Stay with me for a freaking second, would you!" Demiise again tried shaking the man who out-massed him hugely, causing Leon to salute again like a jerky puppet. "I need Sword to be ready tonight! Once I get the surveys I need to get out stat. Friggin' place will probably go off like a firehouse. They got alarms on everything here, even some of the toilets." This made Eugene giggle.

But then he said, "Potties go boom, but it'll be nothing compared to when we dig the bore and raise up the Goat. Oh yes, the Goat, the Goat, the Goat with a thousand young!" He nearly capered, trying to throw up his heavily muscled and inked arms, but again, Demiise held him as best he could.

"Yeah, the Goat. Gonna be blast," and now it was time for Demiise to leer a bit in his own mania. Inside his shared psyche, from far away, there came a third chuckle, one with no humor at all.

It ran on even as Dennis asked, "You coming in? I can get you a uniform, we can grab some free food and [censored] around. Maybe steal some guns?"

"Hey! Who do you take me for!" Eugene suddenly erupted, loud enough to turn heads, "I don't swing that way! Don't need a job that bad! Get away from me!" He shoved Demiise from him, and the oily cackles that filtered from the soldiers around him caused Dennis to hunch a bit lower in is gaudy dressings, glancing around as color flushed his hidden face. He twisted back at Eugene, but the maniac had a smile and a wink for him, muttering "See you tonight, don't be late," and blew him a kiss.

Demiise swept the cape out of the way of his legs, stalking back up the ramp, followed still by the knowing snickers of the workers; in his sociopathy, the momentary embarrassment was completely gone already. Given the look he'd seen in Eugene's eyes, he, too, was snickering.

Sharkhead had only seen half the show, so far.

Dennis preferred not to be mano-a-mano with anyone, especially a combat trained anyone in padded armor and a powered helmet, but with the gun in his hand and the rising lust seeping from the Eye, he only took a half step back; but he had clumsily drawn the wide-mouthed sidearm, and with the Commander looking right at him with his own gun still smoking, he succumbed to the inquisitiveness about its function and, despite there being several Crab soldiers rising to the traitor's defense, he pulled the trigger.

The kickback was so profound and unexpected that he missed, at a mere three yards. A set of tiny metal bolas blew out of the barrel, trailing a blob of netting and a line that unreeled from beneath the weapon, expanding into a poetic spider-web, and snarling not only the small-armed Crab from his own troop but one of the Commander's Spec Ops entourage as well. Dennis gaped as the net lit up with tesla energy and the two entrapped Arachnos went rigid; the smell rising immediately suggested an amperage quite above the usual amount, to go along with the voltage.

The traitorous suspect, meanwhile, shot Dennis point blank through the liver and rushed passed him with a snarl of triumph and defiance.

The crowd was going wild, some running [since the gun play was now totally indiscriminate], some cheering. Already a phalanx of protective security had flooded the main stage in front of the dark armored leader, whose flexing, hungry armatures still towered over them.

Dennis, slumped half way down to the floor, gasped and laughed simultaneously, clutching the red blood pouring from his smoking stolen uniform. He turned, getting up, unable to muster the strength to lift the huge gun a second time, but he reached out towards the fleeing officer.

The area around his helmet's mouth-guard lit up with crimson leaking from his eyes above it. His fist clenched in the air, and the traitor, busy blasting his way towards the exit, abruptly seized up. His palms went to the sides of his head, his gun clattering away. The crowd, already half out of his way, took the opportunity to flee in earnest now.

The man was gobbling, and at Dennis' whim, he began turning around. Demiise began undoing the chin strap of his confining helmet, and that's when one of the traitorous Commander's loyal Crab soldiers drove one of his cybernetic spikes right through Dennis from behind.

Dennis hefted the larger gun; the barrel looked like a more threatening shotgun maw, and it weighed a ton. He slipped it awkwardly into its holster, then remembered to say , "Yes, sir," then started messing with the communications settings on his helmet. He hadn't even realized he could key into the chatter he'd been hearing; the first helmets of this type he'd stolen had no such gear, or hadn't appeared to, as they were only activated by command personnel for foot soldiers. But the Enforcers and Spec Ops Arachnos men could participate in the banter.

Now locked out of the security booth, he pressed the helmet's mic button. "Tango, where are we rendezvousing?"

A short time later, he fell in with a small handful of Arachnos misfits. In his cape he seemed the most senior, save for some insignia one of the Crab soldiers wore; also, that one's armor was a slight variation on the dull black the unproven chumps all wore. A second Crab bore only tiny fledgling crab-arms. Dennis had no idea what to make of him, but other than his pubescent robotic armatures, the guy was otherwise huge.

Until the meet-up, the voice of the Eye had been silent. Now, it piped up,

They are apprehensive, it told him almost hungrily, and Demiise could sense it too. He was leering like a hyena inside his face mask. After a few minutes he realized, they were waiting for him to begin things.

Except of course, he'd had no briefing, and had no idea where to go.

So he flapped the cape around behind him and barked, "What are you waiting for! Proceed!" and almost let slip a giggle.

He followed where they led, back down the cement steps, into the arena.

There was nothing for it; Demiise rose and followed after. A lot of helmets turned to watch him. No sense making a scene, with all these trigger happy spider-followers all around him. Surely it would become as much of a feeding frenzy as it was outside the walls, if any trouble were to erupt here.

The Enforcer's sidearm was holstered in the open on his belt, and was confiscated quickly. Keeping his face forward, body mostly hidden by the cape, he followed where he was ordered, soldiers falling in around him.