DeviousMe

So this was what Paragon had turned into hm? Sad.

As the figure in the plain gray cloak stalked down the alley, this impression grew more and more. it said something about the psychology of the being that had in its hands the power to reform the entire planet...and did this.

Truly sad.

It was almost as if...

The figure never got time to finish that thought as it turned a corner and saw a frantically running Dr. Phillis heading right for him...!

The connuncations tower blew apart under the spell. It had no defenses, and to conceal what lay beneath it, was programmed to self-destruct if an attack was not sufficiently scaled to destroy it.

However, this offense was, and the parts of the tower that hadn't disintegrated blew spectacularly...

--------------------

"We've lost transmission."

Acid nodded to the pilot, then turned to face the beidge crew, inclusing Vern, "Alright, we've got a, little info, but not enough to act on yet."

it didn't take a genius to figure that this 'Overmagus' had used the Malleus Mundi to forge Terra into his own personal playground. Sadly, no record the tower had been able to send conained a reference as to his actual identity or location.

Either it was such common knowledge that it didn't need to be stored, or it was secretive enough to lock away under the highest of protections in the most unreachable of spots.

"So what now?" Vern wanted to know.

"We land."

"Well, that's obvious, I meant where?"

"That's a good question..."

The tower in Peregrine was still active even as the AGS-3 burst out of halfspace not five million clicks from Terra. As soon as it sensed the ship's presence, the machinery within the tower sent all data it had gathered so far.

It wasn't a pretty picture.

The offshoot of SENECA had spread its global tentacles, leeching information out of everything it could, and so it had quite the fill of data to present.

It likely hadn't gone undetected, but it wasn't programmed to care about that in this situation. Anything it could acess was acessed, from public records to the deepest, dirtiest secrets of the so-called secret police.

How it got into these systems was even more of a mystery, and it would later turn out that several of these records hadn;t even been stored in any manner of computer. if it was just near some form of processor, the intruder seemed to be able to see it without any difficulty at all...

GLX 0249.
TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.
REROUTING.

It had always been a perogative - a very important one.

GLX 1742.
TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.
REROUTING.

Terra's position was nobody's beeswax.

GLX 0261.
TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.
REROUTING.

Especially not the Concile's.

GLX 1102.
TRANSMISSION RECEIVED.
REROUTING.

That's why long ago, someone had set up a galaxy-wide network of tiny relay stations that shot transmissions from ot to Terra all over the place. Every now and then, one of them was discovered, but that didn't matter - there were far too many to ever find any scheme between them.

And only a few of them had any relevant data at any given time, which was passed on constantly. Being this, the relays bounced the transmission around until it hit one that currenlty had relevant data.

In this case, GLX 1019 - which had the current position of the APOCALYPSE...

---------------------

Which surrently sat in orbit above one of the Concile's many slave worlds.

Under fire.

And Acid snarled viciously as the massive vessel was shaken yet again.

"Status?" he demanded, taking a break form barking orders at the small fleet of agglomerated ships around them.

"Transports AD'VALIS and KARMERUT are away." SENECA answered him before the bridge personnel could, composed once again of Allen's Necrian troopers, "Evacuation is almost complete. We should be done before SVE reinforcements arrive."

"Let's hope so." Vern added, panting heavily as he concentrated on slamming two more of the variable-cell ships into one another, sewing confusion and panic in the enemy lines, "I can't keep this up much longer."

"You won't have to." Acid replied solemly, not taking his eyes off the holodsplay. Several ships had been hit hard. It was no surprise. This fleet was a flying scrap pile. Everything but the APOCALPYSE and her Gunships had tagged along at one point or another, wanting to help however they could.

Acid would have loved to tell them to get lost. But until they reached one of the Hidden Worlds, the space around the massive carrier was the only safe spot around.

And 'safe' was a very relative term.

"I was wrong." SENECA announced, "Two hundred SVE ships have just left halfspace. More are arriving by the second."

"Gunships 1, 3 and 4 to flank!" Acid commanded, "Cover those transports. Pilot, put us between the planet and the SVEs."

The pilot didn't question, executing the order without hesitation.

"Fire control, put 'em in a gigaring. Salvo tact 7."

The bridge door slammed shut as the salvo tact began, the entire ship locking down into thousands of compartments.

And the guns roared. Not audibly, of course, but the harsh shockwaves could be felt everywhere. However, they were nothing compared to the results on the other side.

One after another, the SVE ships popped like soap bubbles, charges up to 6000 gigatons of TNT in yield suddenly appearing out of nowhere in their innards.

But there were simply too many. Acid scowled as the third transport vaporized in their fire as it tried to make a break for it. The SVE units downright ignored the escort Gunships, even as they tore into their formation with salvo upon salvo of gigabombs.

"Change of plans!" Acid immediately reacted as the fourth transport was selected to meet the same fate, "Course 2-4-9!"

"But Sir, that...!" the pilot gasped, but was quickly silenced by another, "Course 2-4-9! NOW!!!"

The size of the APOCALPSE belied its speed. Interstellar combat was a matter of near-luminal velocities, and the gargantuan carrier was by no means a slow hulk.

Before the SVE units knew it, the 5-kilometer-long vessel was upon them. At 300 meters in diameter, the spherical opponents seemed dwarfed, and the Concile fleet commander gasped in horror as the APOCLYPSE rammed the first few right out of the way, laying into the quickly turning others with a vicious bombardement of artificial suns.

"I've got a signal." SENECA suddenly announced, "It's..."

"Later." Acid ordered, gritting his teeth.

And then the final transport faded from space, its liner drive catapulting it to superluminal speeds.

"We're done!" he announced, clenching his fist, "All units, pull out!"

And they did. Not one by one, but in a massive transition, the ragtag fleet rushed away into the safety of halfspace. It wasn't really a space, just a boundary, but it was damn near untraceable - and that made it an excellent medium for covert getaways.

And last of all, the APOCALPSE stormed away as well. The Concile forces were left with a demolished, empty planet, heavy losses, and nothing to show for it.

A victory in the public image.

But not for Acid.

Two hundred thousand people had been aboard that transport.

That wasn't something easily swallowed...

---------------------

Ding.

"Come in." Acid sighed, rolling over in his bunk again.

In stepped Allen, the wolflike Necrian holding a hologram of some sort.

"We're done decoding the signal." he started, sitting down next to his friend, "I'd really wish you'd stop scrunching everything down to a picosecond. It takes forever to stretch out again."

Acid didn't respond.

"Anyway, it's a signal from Terra. Someothing's gone wrong. Malleus Mundi kind of wrong."

Acid snapped to attention, sitting up immediately, "What the hell?! I thought we hid those, and...!"

"Apprently not well enough." Vern interruped as he walked in, "Looks like someone managed to gather all the pages back together somehow. Acoording to the impulse, Terra turned into a giant mess."

Acid sighed, the geez-not-again look in his eyes, "So what're you here for?"

"To try and convince you not to go. Terra might be your pet project, but let's face it, most humans are bumbling idiots. Besides..."

"Oh, screw what the Law says!" Acid exploded, storming up from his bunk, "You may not believe it, but I tell you, one day those damn apes are gonna be our greatest asset."

Vern just grinned, causing Acid's wild gesturing to suddenly fall limp.

"I hate you." he huffed as he realized Vern had tricked him yet again, then turned to Allen, "Both of you."

Allen just grinned as well...

---------------------

"Alright guys, here's the deal." Acid paced back and forth at the meeting in the third portside hangar, "Vern, you're with me. Kerat, Al, Doc, I'm counting on you to get these people home. And send the brothers my way as soon as they're done rigging the third moon of Kihar to blow."

The spoken to nodded. There was no more need to say anything, even as Vern and Acid boarded the AGS-3.

Everyone had work to do...

TRANSACTION TO ACCOUNT 0759227062 COMPLETE.
COMMENCING TAC 17 ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE CURRENT STATUS.
TRANSMITTING PACKAGE TO LOCAL HUB.
CONNECTION LOST.
ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT . . . FAILED.
ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT . . . FAILED.
ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT . . . FAILED.

UNABLE TO RECONNECT THROUGH PRIMARY UPLINK.
REROUTING OVER SECONDARY SATELLITES.
ERROR.
SECONDARY PATH UNRESPOSIVE.
INVESTIGATE CAUSE.
FOUND.
SECONDARY PATH NO LONGER EXISTS.
ANALYZING DP FIELD LEVELS OF THE LAST TIME PERIOD.
HYPOTHESIS CONFIRMED.
SCENARIO 2016 IS IN EFFECT.
COMMENCE OPERATION_

Close ot the center of what was once, was now, or never would be Peregrine Island, something stirred.

PRIMARY CONDUITS CONNECTED.

A secondion of ground began to crack, the rift running into a circle and through anything present - buildings, roads, dirt, it didn't care as it twisted the circle of earth almost ninety degrees.

Then the section upheaved and collapsed down in a masive cloud of dirt, dust, and noise, as a gray-red metallic structure shot up from the hole, the coneic tower-like construct juttin into the sky until it had reached its full height of fity-five meters.

GENERATOR ACTIVE.
BOOSTERS ACTIVE.
RELEASING BLOCKERS.

The tower suddenly came to life, pale-blue lights flaring up all over its exterior, shooting up in linear patterns along its side. On its top, a platform grate extended, clicking and clacking as mechanical joints unfolded.

DEPLOYING.

Then a crash came fom inside as massive latches unlocked, releasing the cylinder at the tower's center, shooting it upto the top along a magnetic rail.

Within seconds, the thing reached the top, crashing to a stop, then wtisted about and located a spot in the sky.

TARGET ACQUIRED.

The cylinder snapped apart into three pieces with tremendous noise, unfolding them into equilateral positions. With a snap, the thre pieces unfourled part of a circle, joining together, then bending the metal inward to form a huge dish.

A compound spike clicked into psoition at the dish's center, crackling with energy.

COMMENCING MESSAGE.

The tower fulfilled its purpose. Designed for emergency situations, is contained a powerful reactor and wasn;t detection shielded. Though the finely bundled hyper-dim stream it sent into space couldn't be detected by anything less than a truly excellent 5-D receiver - not to mention it had to be in the path of the beam - the energy output from the reactor was evident to anyone wih even the weakest methods of detecting energy releases...

"Oh, come on, gimme your hand." Acid sighed, firmly gripping Toy's fingers.

Both he and the mechanoid quickly became somewhat transparent as Acid shifted their molectular structure enough so Toy could pass freely through the spaces between th table's particles.

Sanding Toy up again, Acid released his grip and they both faded back into normal space-time.

"Took me a while to get it just right too." he smirked, "Took even longer to copy. But I had Vern to help..."

((Very. So much it was banned by the Montreal Protocol.))

And all the lights in the room went out. Well, not all of them but all the major sources.

"Ack!" Hotaka grumbled, "Can't...see...squat...!"

Luckily, he didn't need to see to fight - his other senses gave him plenty of data, and he at least managed to avoid being massacred by the Rikti storming right by him and his Jounin now.

Taking quick action, said Rikti switched their suits to alternate vision modes, as the lack of light combined with the swirling darkest night would give them quite an edge.

Indeed, just about everything seemed to be missing them right now, and on after another, they hopped into the portal, which was now the main source of light in the room.

The quivering squadand a few othrs were now all that was left, and one of them managed to get to a red box labeled with a strange symbol group.

However, the blocked lever attached to it made it more than clear what the thing was, if anyone could have seen it - the fire extinguisher system. The Rikti had blocked it off to favor their development, but now it was no longer necessary, an it would certainly give those pesky heroes a run for their money.

The soldier pulled the lever down, and a harsh hissing echoed throughout the room as inflow pipes discharged their fire surpressant.

Halon!

Acid had already finished his portion of them omelet. As susual, he'd just wolfed it down. Reminding himself he should slow down in the future - agian - he slid off his barstool and took an scutinizing look at the stuck Toy Dispenser.

"Hm, ya might wanna work on that phasing idea of yours." he said, extending the robotic mastermind a hand, "Looks like it's got a few bugs in it..."

[ QUOTE ]
"Now what are YOU up to?" she asked, her eyes growing large and watery at all the meaty goodness. "This is more my speed."

[/ QUOTE ]
"Omelet." Acid smiled as he slid the cutting board to himself and started chopping away a the onions.

"Damn it...*sniff*...I hate onions. Figures. Hose me with arsenic and I'm fine, but gimme an onion and I break down."

Thankfully, the onions were quickly slaughtered - the knife was practically racing in Acid's hands - and he went on to the sausage, throwing it into the pan as finely minced meat after the onions right away.

Then he realized he'd need another pan, stretching his tail to the drawer once more. Sadly it was just a bit too short.

"Eef...must...get..." he mumbled, moving back a little while mauling the potatoes, and it was probably quite comical viewed from the side as he reached into the drawer and snatched out another pan.

A lot of hacking things apart and a few broken eggs later, the dish was ready, and Acid quckly made sure he had a plate and cleared the area as he told Rosie and the others there was food here up for grabs...

Acid had to admit he was thankful for the thievery. That...thing had smelled sickeningly sweet, even from more than a meter away.

"Oh, that's alright." he said to Essex, "I'm not much into sugar anyway. But thanks for the offer."

With that, he stepped to the fridge and rummaged about for...hmm, what did we have here? Sausage, eggs, cheese...pantry time!

He was over at the pantry in a flash, supplementing his collection with garlic, potatoes, onions and herbs. His arms now full, he fished a pan out of the open drawer with his tail, skillfully placing it on the stove as he fetched a large knife and cutting board, all the while grinning toothily. Oh yes, having a tail was very enjoyable at times.

Morsko, in the meantime, had stalked outside once more. He needed to have breakfast...his own way...

((Actually, they more ripped the conduits out than anything else. ))

As the lines severed, the negative energies sprayed all over the room, combining with the loose magics to form a thrall of shadows and malevolence, clouding the area in darkness.

The Rikti magi quickly manipulated the shadows, forming the darkens of nights about the heroes as they covered the escapees.

However, the coduits weren't necessary to fire. They'd merely served for a charge. Sure, they had a limit of dark ammo now, but the Rikti didn't mind - all they wanted to do was jump through the portal.

Which they now attempted relentlessly, blasting everyone in range with negative energies - though not all of them had managed to convert their weaponry - and slicing at foes in melee range as they barreled for the gateway...

Just after 0830, Acid sauntered into the kitchen as well, Morsko in tow, the night-black creature having a blanked of some sort draped over his back.

Not that Acid didn;t appreciate the gesture, but his jacket kept him plenty war through most conditions. After all, there were more than a few icy worlds out there. One had to be prepared.

During the night, Morsko had spotted Leyde, but decided not to do anything but growl for a moment, seeing how he wasn;t doing anything threatening. Acid had just taken the noise as a sign to saw more logs. When he got into a deep sleep, you could probably set off a nuclear warhead and he wouldn't budge.

"Howdy all." he greeted them, pulling up a barstool as he waited for Rosie to get done with the fridge.

[ QUOTE ]
"If anyone would like some breakfast, I will be making crepes." she said, hovering up a little higher to grab a frying pan and turning on the stovetop.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Hm? What's a crepe?" Acid wanted to know...

((Sorry, meant no offense there. But the whole thing reminds me more of spastic anime ninjas than the cool, calm, and collected ninjas of real life. Brains, deception, and planning ftw!

And yeah, I'd argue a rune is very different. You trace the rune in the air, and it maifests as a sigil, then does its thing. Making a hand sign - or a fast series of - and then shouting something...yeah, I can see how that would aid in concetration of chi. I guess my point is just that mage summons sigil, sigil does magic, whereas hand sign does...what exactly? Now a meditative stance conveying deep concentration for a moment, that I feel is a much more appropriate way. But hey, as they say, your insanity may vary. ))

((Heh, well, mysteries are kinda hard to actually turn into a text thread. Let's face it, it's not like you can see the room and take a look at what's lying around.

And yeah, I'm getting unsure of this myself here...we're getting close to a point where some of my characters would have the motivation to jump in, but to be honest the "demon-ninja-elemental-magic-make-hand-signs-and-call-out-your-attack" thing seems too...childish for me.

Then again, I'm still considering, so don't count my mantle as turned just yet. ))

"Hello, I need more minions over here!"
"Coming, Countess Crey."

"Hm." Acid commented at the paladin's sudden departure, then stretched, "Yeah, I guess I'll turn in as well then. G'night everyone."

Though he could go a long time without sleep, let's face it, Acid had no want to do so. Picking up his closthes and re-dressing, it didnl't take him long to reach the font yard and find a tall patch of grass.

Flopping down onto it, he stretched again, then twitched as he rolled onto a large twig. With a mumbled curse, the obnoxious wood was disposed of via throwing...

Acid winced at the sound of the crack, flailing about madly as he tried to straighten up in the water of the pool. It was a failure, but at least he got a good look at what had happened.

"Well, that's not good." he commented, deciding he'd better go and see if the guy was alright. Climbing over the pool edge, he quickly shook, the water draining off him as if laminated. Then he stepped to the hot tub, just as Morgany went under again.

"Oh no you don't." he said, reaching down into the hot water and picking up the paladin under his arms, hauling him back to the surface, "Last I checked, humans still can't breathe water, so get back up here..."

Several Rikti clattered to the ground, the crates they carried crashing to the floor and opping open, spilling various devices everywhere. Strangely, they seemed to be mostly cell phones, radios, and just about any sort of device that communicated wirelessly.

And though several Rikti made it over the heroes and into the portal by jumping, many did not, cut off from their retreat.

But the Rikti weren't out of tricks quite yet.

Though their portal technology didn't take the easy way it, it was close. Conduits of negative energies surged back and froth from the portal, and there were many redundancies.

Being thus, several of them near said conduits tore them from the wall and attached the feed lines to their rifles, the bright shimmers of energy becoming dark and twisted-looking as they charged with negativity.

They fired relentlessly on the heroes gathered in front of their portal...

((Well, at least we've got an explanation then. It just looked a lot like godmoding for a while there, especially with Ryuji having taken his shields down and popping elude or something. ))

With the would-be snipers distracted for a few moments, Hotaka took the opportunity to barrel out of cover, degrading a pillar with his toxins and having Waziri slash it through, taking down a catwalk and one or two Rikti not fast enough to jump to another.

Freaking jumpers! I swear, next time I'm stocking up on web grenades!

As he rounded some manner of storage container, he ran into another blade-wielding soldier, who wasted no time stabbing his weapon at him - and into a spray of vile venom.

Momentarily blinded, the Riti missed Hotaka diving down, the blade only slicing into his shoulder. But Ryuu got what he was after - the soldier's weapon.

Not spending time to chat, Hotaka blasted the armored attacker back with his own gun, then continued on to Pariku, who had become the target of a few more gunmen. Apparenly, Rikit were a lot like bees - tick one of them off and a lot more came at you.

Snatching the mage with him and diving behind cover again, Hotaka handed him the rifle.

"I think you'd do better with a little firepower." he smirked, pressing the gun into Pariku's hands, "Oughta have a few shots left. Old street proverb - watch your back, shoot straight, conserve your ammo, and never, ever cut a deal with a dragon."

He seemed thoughtful for a moment before adding, "On second thought, scratch that last one."

With that, he bolted to another cover, some manner of weird-looking cylinder with something spinning inside. All he knew is it was taking the fire for him, so it was good enough.

Now how to...?

Suddenly, the Rikti were screaming bloody murder! What the heck had happened?!

Peeking from his cover, Hotaka grinned as he saw the metal 'tombsone' under attack sway and fall over, right into the swirling energies of the circle, causing a flash brighter than the sun to cover the room.

Not to mention squshing the mage tied to it. But he'd looked pretty dead anyway, the magics having seared and torn at his flesh this entire time.

The entire room shook with the force of an earthquake as the arcane energies backlashed, the disrupted forces at work seeking some way out. The cannon was their first choice, quickly throwing a fit and quitting its duty in a shower of sparks and flames before exploding completely.

Other machines fell victim as well, and several of the shaken catwalks came down, crushing a good many of the enemy under them.

The portal, however, was still going, and the surviving Rikiti quickly made a beeline for it, carrying several boxes of who-knows-what as the first troop jumped into the gateway.

Others scrambled up and picked up their own loads, covering one another with fire more vicious than ever before and countering melee opponents with their blades...

((Yeah, I guess they are still subsonic after all...go figure.))

With their primary source of extreme cold removed, the magi went to another - their frozen comrades. The fire tanker, still somehow apparently invulnerable to everything, was casuing havoc to no end. They had to stop him!

As for Ryuji, the magi hadn't a clue of what to do just yet - how the heck was he dodging both blades and energy blasts while still returning fire and never taking a single hit?! - so it was the psi-corps' turn again. A duo of mentalist took it upon themselves to try and dominate his mind while a third concentrated his willpower into a painful psionic lance...

((I meant Wielder bashing the Mentalist on the head. Poor guy. Even with his helmet, he's flopping around like a fish. ))

Just because the magi didn't speak didn't mean they were deaf. In fact, the Rikti were communicating very efficiently this entire time, strategizing and coordinating with one another. They quickly shifted their spells about, sucking the cold from Ryuji's icy shell and feeding it to the fire tanker instead.

With the two seemingly unharmed by everything they had thrown at them so far, including their energy rifles - complete with stun component - blades sheathed in lethal energies, elemental spells, and psionic manipulation, the Rikti just hoped that this would be the something that would work eventually.

The Gunmen on th catwalks kept doing what they had been: blasting...

((Actually, as I've stated several times, all the Rikti in this room are wearing their full armor. ))

"Don't I feel special." Hotaka grinned, nodding to Pariku, then turned once more to the whirwind of arcane energies swirling about the continuously firing cannon.

Alright, think - big magic tornado, frontal assault bad idea. The damn thingamabobs with the mages are gonna take a LOT to knock down, and...hey, wait a second - knock down! That's it!

This wasn't a rikti ship or anything, it was still just a sewer - an old, crumbly, and never-maintained sewer! The Rikti might have covered the floor in metal, but the foundation was still just old, old, rock, right?

And that meant the 'tombstones' could probably be knoked over!

His eyes darted about, finding Wielder and Guapo. They oughta do the job.

But before he cold tell them anything, the Rikti countered again. Feeling the waves of passion from the masked wrestler, a few mentalists took it upon themselves to plant deep feelings of loneliness and desprai in his mind, hoping to cool him down.

And if that didn't work, some magi had prepared a new spell, sucking the heat right out of him and transferrin it to the air around Ryuji, super-heating it. It just had to get one of them...right?

Seeing Pariku as the source of quite some support earned him some attention as well, as gunmen deployed on the catwalks above, a few of them picking him as their target of choice as the rest rained down surpressive fire at absolutely everyone!

Thankfully, the damn things weren't floating free, but actually had columns, which Hotaka's toxins could eat away at, and then Waziri and katashi could follow up - if they stopped freaking shooting at him for a moment!!!

But that wasn't exactly a concern of the Rikti, who now sent a few advanced drones at Wielder, the mechanoids engaging at range and nimbly darting back and forth in an effort to avoid the Painpipe...

((Geez, I guess I do have to do some GMing around here. Well, that'll change once Part II rolls around. ))

Ryuju hit something, alright - the energy-charged blade of an armor-suited Rikti. And the guy had friends, including a Magus who conjured a searing cage of flames, whipping up around the ice wielder.

Meanwhile, the strange metal 'tombstones' seemed to chuckle at their assaults - and this really ticked Hotaka off. He was used to his toxins being able to affect jus about anything, and here the alloy of those things was mocking him!

Yes, it was degrading, but not nearly fast enough.

Not that he had time to think about this right now, as another Chief Soldier rammed his glowing blade at him!

"Urgh!" was all he managed to comment with, falling back and colliding wit a console. He'd managed to avoid a lethal blow, but the wound to his left side still stung like crazy!

"I'm getting sick of you." Hotaka grinned fiendishly, spewing up a large conical cocktail of vile poisons, coating the rikti's armor from head to toe.

And again, Katashi was there, driving the sword-wielder back with his fists, the degraded armor not allowing the Rikti a quick retaliatory strike.

There's too many of 'em. Gotta come up with something...

Seeking cover, Hotaka thought things through, trying to find a weakness in the Rikit formation. However, there didn't seem to be one just yet.

Wielder found his mind assaulted by a Mentalist, the expert psychic tearing at the man's brain viciously, even though it looked like he wasn't even doing anything.

El Guapo grande was beset by energy fire - even if the Rikti energy cannons didn't harm his fiery aura, their stunning component would surely overcome him, and then he'd be left wide open.

As for fathr and son, the Rikti didn't care. One came close enough to ram his blade at Xander while another few chose to open fire on his father.

The Rikit were experienced combatants, and they woul try to exploit their enemies' weak points one after another - ice with scorching flames, strength with psionics, blade with blade, and gun with gun.

Gotta be some way. Cover each other, maybe? Take and give...?

"Much obliged." Acid called out as he caught the errant can...or at least tried to. Following Murphy's Law, the metal menace slipped from his claws and down it went.

With a shrug, Acid went after it, considering for a moment to just bite into it.

Nah, that would've been rude. He decided to just grab it and head back to the surface instead, popping it open and draining the whole thing in one swig.

His eyes darted around for a moment, and when he thought no one was looking, he quickly ate the can as well...