DeviousMe

Allen reluctantly packed away the bottle. He didn't believe in objects of power - they always let you down. Batteries went out at the worst possible moment, or you couldn't remember the activating word of power in a situation that warranted its use. Not to mention the damn things never came with an instruction manual, not to speak of even a simple label!

Still, he thanked the magus as he moved on, and put the bottle to his betl, where it attached to the suit. he carefully surveyed the Crawlers, which were now being arranged in a zig-zag formation. Satisfied, he smiled at the setting sun, almost gone, finally able to untint his visor. If the demons thought they had an advantage in the night, they would soon be taught much different. The darkness was THEIR territory, the shadows THEIR ally. Nothing would change that.

[ QUOTE ]
"...hey you, weird guy..." ZERO said to Allen, "You comin too?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Allen was startled, but when he saw the girl speak like this, it felt like a huge load fell off him. She hadn't been erased. Whether by design of fluke, her spirit was still very much alive in the robotic shell, this he could sense.

"Of course I am." he said to her gently, "Wouldn't be a party without me."

"General Fang..." a trooper stepped up beside him, saluting, which drew a cold glare, the trooper rapidly dropping his hand.

"Sorry, Sir. Won't happen again."

It was a good thing only Yuka was around to hear this. She probably wouldn't know what to make of it.

"Either way, we're ready to move out on your command."

"Good." Allen replied, turning back to the main building, "Now, where are Ukyo-san and her team...?"

At first, Allen had smiled when the introductions had passed. He had been tempted to speak openly with his 'fellow officer', but restrained himself. They were here to do a job, aside from that they were not to interfere in the development of humanity.

But when the doctor entered and introduced ZERO, Allen had quickly revised the notion of the worthy commanding officer. The girl looked like she had no mind left at all - and that was blatant murder!

Relax...this is a different world. You can't apply your culture's standards here. They are humans. They are young. You are not to interfere.

This he told himself over and over again in his mind until his body untensed again. Still, General Sanada had fallen heavily in his opinion - a General was to protect his forces, and especially civilians, not have them be made into mindless weapons. If these people were willing to go to these lengths, maybe they deserved to be slaughtered by the demons.

"Can't say I agree to this." Allen finally said to the old officer, "But I suppose it's not of my business. We're here to stop this invasion. In that respect, I motion that we move up the timetable. Seems to me that with every passing moment the enemy not only gains more ground, but more followers as well. We'll be ready to go in thirty minutes. I'd appreciate if your team was ready by then."

Allen tunred to walk outside again, but stopped for a second by the doctor, though he didn't give him the dignity of making eye contact, "Nature is balanced. You'll get what's coming to you."

With that he walked out...

((Also, I don't think everyone else wants to wail until 'tomorrow' for this . Speaking of, what time of day is it now anyway in this thread?))

"\Well, I tried.\" Allen heard as he took the phone back, stepping away a little so Sae couldn't hear the rest of the conversation, "\I'll try to get paperwork to you, but at the moment it might take considerable time.\"

"\You don't have to tell me we're in a war here.\" Allen grimly replied, "\Just get me the clearance on paper ASAP. You know me, I'm not going to exploit this, but I can't tell anyone that.\"

"\Right. I'll just handle this as if USUKA was still what it was five years ago. I should have everything rolling within 48 hours.\"

"Arigato." Allen hung up, then walked back to Sae, "I'll have that clearance soon. And don't worry, I have no intention of involving your friend in any way if he isn't directly connected with this."

Before Sae could respond, the ground began to rumble, and pebbles laying on the street started jumping up and down a little. Both Allen's crew and the SDF operatives raised their weapons.

But as a roaring sound came over the rumble from behind a few buildings, Allen lowered his arm cannon again, turning it back into a normal hand. His troopers did the same, and just as he was about to tell Sae what was coming, five more Crawlers rounded a corner at ridiculous speed, rushing into the base around the train station, and came to a stop in convoy formation not half a meter from Allen.

"Backup's here." he smiled to Sae, greeting the trooper stepping from the lead vehicle with a firm but quick hug, "Glad to see you made it, soldier."

"Glad to have. It's a mess out there. Are we really expected to clean all this up?"

Allen cleared his throat, causing the trooper to snap to attention.

"Right, Sir."

"Everything go smootly out at sea?" Allen questioned.

"Depends on what you mean by smoothly. The UN fleet and the MSDF didn't give us any trouble, if that's what you mean. In fact, the requisition for their Osumi went off without a hitch."

"Good to see the Chobetsu still holds authority with some people around here." Allen sighed, "Alright, get the men ready to move out and add my Crawler to the convoy. I'll be back shortly."

Allen turned about and walked back to Sae, having no doubt his orders would be carried out. That's one thing his crew had in common with the SDF around this base - fierce loyalty to one another.

He followed Sae to the main building alone, his troopers busy setting up what needed to be done, mostly unloading spare equipment for the SDF operatives they expected to be transporting shortly.

"Right then." Allen continued to Sae, "What's your idea of this attack?"

Allen could have burst out laughing. His friend Ace had once observed two things about why he thought humans would take centuries to become an advanced civilization: first, rain showers could prevent a rocket launch, and second, the only thing their 'nations' could even agree on was to disagree.

However, this was a starting point for this investiation, and if he backed down now, he'd have to go in without all the intelligence - and this person might know something very crucial.

"Very well." Allen said, nodding to a trooper leaning on tha Crawler, "Terc, get the Chosa Besshitsu on the horn, we'll need their ok for this."

The trooper nodded, pulling out a mobile phone and dialing a number. It had to be satellite, for he got a flawless signal.

"\Miss Niguma\?" Allen asked as he was handed the phone, speaking Japanese correctly, but with quite the accent. Where that accent came from, though, was nigh impossible to tell, "\It's me. I'm afraid I don't have time, we've got a little crisis on our hands. Yes, of course I am in Tokyo. UKUSA assigned me to this case, but it looks like they don't have the level of clearance I need to get a certain name, and I was hoping Chobetsu could help with that.\"

The female voice on the phone said a few more things, then Allen handed the phone to Sae, "For you."

The person on the phone identified herself as Niguma Yuki, head of the Chossa Besshitsu. She informed Sae that ECHELON operatives had transferred status from a third-party relation with Japan's intelligence forces to a full-fledged partner, at least temporarily, and that since the UKUSA community practically headed ECHELON, they could be told anything that was deemed in any way helpful to resolving this crisis...

((Ah, i see you've already got a character for the Mecha AT? Well, here's hoping too, it's an awesome concept for an epic ))

Allen sighed. What was with people thinking they were better than everyone else? If everybody thought like that, no one at all would be helping each other in the galaxy - and help was in short supply these days already, if only because the Concile had killed off almost all of it.

"I thank you, ma'am." he said to Sae, smiling under his visor. Too bad he had to keep his identity secret...but after all, there was good reason for the LAW.

He really didn't want to tell her that their weapons were far beyond anything the humans had, so he just remained silent on the topic of the armories.

"But I think we'll be on the move most of the time. You've set up the defense. The UN and Portal Corp. have the Containment Blockade. We're the ones assigned to spearhead the counterattack - once we gather enough intel on the enemy, that is. So the first thing I formally request is a synopsis: to the best of your knowledge, what happened, and who are we dealing with?"

At that moment, Allen bit his tongue. He had said 'who', not 'what', as humans normally did when they talked about otherworldly creatures. To Allen and his crew, anything intelligent went under the term 'people', including whatver force was guiding these demons.

Allen just hoped Sae wouldn't notice the slip-up, or just attribute it to his 'foreign' background...

Hm. G-lift on a large scale. Fun.

Allen slowly reconstructed his balance. he had expacted a teleport, not a careening through the air. Luckily, the Crawler was build to take this, and the crew was grinning boadly at the troopers, who had no g-foce compensators to nullify the acceleration forces.

"So who was the black knight you were shouting at?" he questioned Sae, having only caught a glimpse of the creature out of the corner of his eye, as he and his troops had been busy fending off the large number of Oni that had tried to encircle them.

"Jusgind from that last oder, I'm going to assume he's bad news, yes?"

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

"Entering troposphere." the pilot reported, "Course steady, no detection evident. I think we kept it clean, Sir."

The commanding officer in the dropship's cockpit nodded, "Good. Descend into hydrosphere then, we don't want to be picked up visually. How far to the destination 'Tokyo Bay'?"

"Sixty-two kilometers and closing. We should eb there in about eight minutes."

"Have all landing forces ready to deploy. We have to assume the enemy holds much of the territory..."

"You won't need to." Allen said, tapping his finger in two different directions, signaling his troopers to take position. The crawler's smaller front turret rotated around, taking aim.

As the second Oni smashed through the wall, it was greeted with several beams of crackling green energy, slicing right through its body and leaving small holes.

At first, this didn't seem to do much more than enrage it. But as the holes widened, the Oni's roar of rage turned to a bellow of pain, the green energy rapidly consuming its body.

The third broke through as the first fell back, slowly vaporizing into nothing, bringing its kanabo down on Allen with the force of a bulldozer.

The turret, however, foiled this plan, a thick stream of plasma consuming both the weapon and the Oni's right arm. Another roar cheoed as this demon met the same end as the first.

"They're here, Sir." a voice crackled in his radio, then the telemetry form the Crawler's sensors popped up on his visor, showing a large force of various demons approaching from all sides. They had been surrounded. The Oni were only a distraction.

"Knew this was too easy." Allen growled, "Our 'larger force' isn't stupid. Any ETA on that evac?"

((Ah-HAH! I had a nagging feeling that was spelled wrong for some reason ))

"Three?" Allen mumbled quietly as they packed their robots back into the Crawler, "There should be more..."

He nodded to the driver, the coaxed everyone into the armored vehicle, not even waiting for the hatch to close before telling the driver to gun it.

The hundred meters shrank frighteningly fast...

Magus Kama'Sur staggered backwards, the stun clouding his vision. But the communications officer hadn't just brought in him for backup.

The portal was still open, and as the Rikti fired again, their stunning energy shots hitting home, a dozen vicious Rikti moneys, jammered out of the portal, spitting and screeching, throwing themselves upon the nearest Wailer...

Allen frowned. He usually thought of himself as a pretty good actor, generally being able to pass himself and his troop off as human unless someone got nosey.

"Momotaro?" Allen mumbled, "Aren't you supposed to be twelve? Ouch, things are worse than I thought here."

"General, we got incoming." a trooper reported calmy, "And they're quite a bit more than the Crawler can handle. I recommend we get out of here before they get the drop on us."

"I see...how long until our backup gets here?"

"Shouldn't be much longer, Sir."

"Sounds good." he turned back to Sae, "Very well then, Ukya-san, can we give you guys a lift?"

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

"End linear manuever!"

The humming of the converters ceased almost immediately. Outside the bridge windows, the stars returned to normal from the lines in a gray fog that they had been earlier.

"Linear converter shutdown confirmed." the navigator reported, "Relative distance to Terra-Luna now one point six million clicks and closing."

"Slow to a stop on the far side of Luna. I want to make absolutely sure we're not detected. The General would explode..."

"Wilco. Slowing to a stop in lunar orbit."

"All hands to the launch bay." a female voice sounded throughout the ship, including over the stream of troopers in black armor in the lower perts of the vessel, "Final loading now in progress."

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

No sooner had the AGS IV's pitch-black form come to a halt in the shadow of Earths moon than the dropship was dispatched. Shaped vaguely like a B-3 with a tri-hull, the craft was lamost completely undetectable - and it would be a LONG time before humans developed mass detectors.

"Confirmed entry into Terra-Luna system. We will be entering the atmosphere in twelve minutes..."

A shield the Guradians had dropped on the Magus dissipated the destructive energy, but still let careening noise through. Kama'Sur thought he felt his brain try to escape his head - even the worst heavy metal bands were better than this!

Still, he knew a thing or two about demons, and as he kicked the Walier away with a powerful roundhouse kick, the armorsuit augmenting his strength, he quickly reached down to one of the bodies of the fallen lesser Wailers.

A severed finger with claw attached was exactly what he was looking for, and as the King screamed, turning about for another go at his face, the Magus ripped the skin from the finger and poked the bone in the King's direction twice, mumbling something incoherent.

The demon seemed to crash into a brick wall in mid-air, unable to break through the barrier the Magus had cast across the room with the slain demon's blood and marrow.

"Malta Operatives: seek cover beyond this wall!" Kama'Sur shouted to Marcus and the others, "Ward: protects this area!"

Then he motioned to the others of his troop, and the Gunmen opened concentrated fire on the King trying again and again to smash through the barrier...

A Guardian let out a low-pitched scream of pain as the King managed to get at his leg for a moment, slicing through flesh and tendons and almost severing the limb.

[I will cover.] Gunman Kul'Bere ran ahead on her long legs, aiming the arm cannon in the King's face and blasting him back as the energy bolt collided with his sonic shield.

She picked up the wounded Guardian like a feather, then retreated back into their new formation, analyzing the situation.

Technically, she was now in command - but she never liked being a leader. And as the Wailer Lord's mighty form twitched on the floor, she had the distinct notion that he wasn't dead.

[Officer!] she turned to one of the COs, [These creatures are what humans call 'demons'. We shall need the arts of a Magus to defeat them soundly.]

[Understood.]

As the others covered him, the officer generated a rift portal. At first, it was only a line in space, but quickly widened into an oval gateway.

[Infiltration troop needs support of aracane type. Requesting Magus Kama'Sur.]

Moments later, a figure resembling the armored Kal'Merus stepped through. Unlike the average Rikti Magus, Kama'Sur had been human before, and he detested not fighting with a helmet.

[I have arrived.] he conveyed, locking eyes with the Wailer King attacking his comrades.

"Freeze." he enunciated, stretching a hand at the demon, and ice started to grow from the floor in an attempt to encase it...

((Diagram of how I saw this:

Upper floors - Nemesis, Arachnos, etc...
[]
[]elevator of normal security levels
[]
[]where the Wailers WERE before they dropped down
[]where the fight is - also where door to highly secured elevator is
///[] where the Tsoo are
///[]
///[] OTHER elevator to more secretive levels
///[]
keeps going down

If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me))

((*raises finger* Actually, I only wrote to death my boss and a drone, the rest are still ok. And Burning downgraded the Wailer Lord to boss strength a few pages ago. Don't worry, the Rikti are still very much in the game. There's a reason I gave them 2 comm. officers ))

"Side effect of our jobs." the General said to calm her down, then motioned to the mage with a thumb, "C'ept him, we just met recently. And I meant the containment procedures for the primary blockade around Tokyo and the secondary around the Japanese Home Islands. I'm assuming the UN fleet has moved in all necessary reosources?"

Sea nodded, but still didn't really believe him. What Chihaya had told her had been hard to digest, "The blockades are holding - for now. But seriously, who are you?"

"Allen Fang." the General came up with quite the convincing story, "UKUSA, Division Six. We deal with this type of stuff when it gets...out of hand. As you may well know, this isn't the first interdimensional invasion of Earth."

The explanation was true - most of it, anyway. UKUSA really did exist, albeit covertly, as any good echelon should. Their records were off-limits to practically everyone, highly classified files behing walls and walls of secrecy.

Allen looked at his watch, "I'm expecting backup soon. Is there anywhere we can pitch camp around here and set up a temporary ops base? And who do we have the pleasure of meething here anyway?"

((Easter egg: Division Six, where's that from? ))

((Ok, I think we've gotten it right now. So from what I understand now: Floor X is above Floor Y, is above Floor Z. We're not sure of the difference between the floors.

Nemesis, Carnival and Aracnnos are on Floor X.
Malta, Rikti, and Wailers are on Floor Y.
Longbow and Tsoo are on Floor Z.

I think that's everyone. And AD, please don't take control of other people's groups without asking. ))

((Yeah...REALLY confused here. Where in the world are you? Also, Soviet has the Malta and I have the Rikti, there aren't any other cells around...))

"All clear, General." an armorsuit trooper spoke into the vehicle as another, seemingly indifferentiable one stepped out. Unlike the others, however, his black suit did not carry an arm cannon as his rightlimg, but a 'normal' hand.

"Ain't this ironic." he said to Sae, mustering her through the visor of the full helmet, and very glad indeed that she couldn't see him underneath it, "There we come to bail you guys out and you end up rushing to us. By the way, how's Containment holding up?"

((Hm? Not many skyways anymore? Two years ago there were still quite a few, especially around Nihonbashi. Ah well, been a while then, I really have to go on a sushi rampage there again sometime.))

"Circle, eh?" the trooper the magus had shown his sign to commented, nobody inside the vehicle even feeling any acceleration from the freefall.

"Hang on!" the driver warned as the vehicle hit the ground, bouncing off the concrete once and veering to the side, crashing through a ruined wall before coming to a stop.

The door at the side slid open again, and a mechanical monstrosity stepped out, engaging the rapidly appraching flappers with dual plasma cannons.

Demons wilted and spattered all over under the effects of the potion and the assault bot's fire, giving cover to the division of four ground troopers on board as they spread out and started taking the fight to the enemy with concussion missiles, trying to cover Sea's seemingly very outnumbered team...

((Just so you know, the vehicle has a crew of 8: the CO, driver, front and rear gunner, and the four troopers. It can, however, hold quite a few more.))

The gunner manning the smaller front turret siwveled his scope about to see what had landed on the roof, already expecting the first attacker. However, while the scanner showed readings of powerful arcane properties, the blind passenger was far from demonic.

He signaled the trooper team and the hatch at the side of the vehicle, located almost centroidally between the huge wheels slid open, and a humanoid in a black armorred suit that resembled rikti armor, though it was covered in some sort of thin green energy, peered onto the roof, waving to the magus to come in.

"It's a bumpy ride!" he shouted, his voice somewhat muffled by the speaker in the front of the elongated helmet, "And it's a lot less windy in here!"

As if to reinforce his point, the vehicle came upon the end of the highway, where the demons had smahed a secion straight out of the skyway bridge.

The driver didn't stop, though - that was right where they wanted to go. He gunned it and the vehicle lurched over the edge...

Kal'Merus felt impact after impact as the demon attempted to strike its way through his battlesuit. The Wailer Lord was still strong as hell, and the many energy strikes from the arm cannons an rifles didn't even seem to phase it!

Fintally, a sharp pain streaked through the Mentalist's body as his chest plate gave way and the Wailer Lord ran him through all the way to the back, the clawed arm stopping at the back plate.

Green blood seeped out of the breach in the armor ((don't ask why, for some reason I have it in my head that Rikti have green blood)), spreading over the battlesuit and forming a puddle on the floor. The Wailer Lord had pireced his heart!

"Die in vain: I shall not!" Kal'Merus spat forth in a gurgling voice, feeling his life fading fast, "In death: you join me! My comrades: for them!"

With his last breath, he grabbed the Wailer Lord's arm, holding him with the augmented strength of the battlesuit as he concentrated, overloading the suit's power core.

In a blinding flash of white light, the core detonated, spreading a spherical volume about six meters in diameter with millions of degrees of searing while plasma...

((Hm...I think I'll try this out then...))

A shadowy figure sat in a dark room, only the board table with the seven seats illuminated by any type of light. Six video moniors showing six strange symbols with the numbers one through six were turned toward him instead of the other chairs along the table, while the shadowy figure sat at one end of it.

"This is not goint to be enough." the cold voice of One said, "Containment will not hold them forever."

"I agree." Four commented, "But our public face cannot be seen starting a war here. It has always based itself on containment. If we were to intervene directly, we would have to reveal ourselves to the world."

"No." the shadowy figure moved closer to the light, immuniating a gray muzzle full of sharp theeth, "I suggest I handle this one alone, under guise. There are enough resources at my disposal here - and do not forget that we cannot affort to lose the Earth...to anyone. We will need humanity when the Final Conflict arises."

"This is true." Two agreed, "But are you sure you can handle this by yourself?"

"I will not be by myself. I would like to request that you dispatch the AGS IV with enough of my crew aboard to help me stop this invasion. With the humans and many other beings already fighting for this planet, I should be able to tip the balance in their favor."

"Old friend..." One continued, "I'm afraid nothing we can say will dissuade you. I only wish we could come to help. The AGS IV is on its way as we speak."

"Good. Then I shall engage them while I wait."

"Don't take this lightly, Al. If the containment plan fails..."

"If the containment fails, I shall do it myself!"

And so the silent agreement had been struck...

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

A large, armored vehicle with oversized wheels ((imagine tha 'tank' from Aliens)) sped over a devastated highway to the scene where the reports of the large engagement were coming from.

Transmitters and receivers inside it busily encoded and decoded relay messages to and from the multiple high-altitude drones that gathered information on the situation in Tokyo.

Simply put, the whole place was a mess, large areas of the city in complete shambles. It was even worse than the Rikti invasion.

"Still better than the Shades, I suppose." the driver mumbled as the vehicle hopped over bumbs and debris, heading toward the fight...

Kal'Merus realized his mistake too late, right when the Walier Lord's fists shattered the shields over him and plowed into his suit, making a huge dent in the chest plate and sending the Mentalist to the ground.

The King's attack, however, paled just on its own, sputtering out on the shield of the Rikti it was aimed at ((I'm assuming it's a different one)), and two invisible drones promptly drove him back, their stunning energy fire making it difficult to counterattack.

And as the Walier Lord was finally given the RIGHT suggestion of slowing by Kal'Merus, still lying on the ground, the compounding stunning energies of the Rikti cannons mounted on him as the searing blasts came even more quickly than before...

((Eh, I thought it'd be funny. Was worth a try ))

Kal'Merus could havelauched as the Wialer Lord's uppercut wnt crashing into a Guardian shield, the demon shaking his hand to drive away the pain of the collision.

[You have a mass of one hundred of your kind!] the Mentalist attempted to influence the Walier in order to slow him as the Gunmen took aim with their arm cannons, letting loose together...

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

The drone exploded in a spectacular detonation as its power core overloaded, sending the Walier attacking it almost up to the hole in the ceiling again...

The Rikti grimaced, the sonic attacks giving them headaches. Though their shields deflected the actual sonic pulses, the infernal noise the Waliers made took a toll on the Comm. Officers and Guardians, not clad in protective battlesuits.

Kal"merus didn't like this situation. He locked on to the Wailers' minds and attempted to plant a powerful suggestion:

[ALL of you have lost your voices!!!]

At the same time, an invisible advanced drone slammed into the Waliers attacking Marcus, forming a layer of armor with its own body as the demons slashed at it, cutting deep into the chassis and ruining internal systems, prompting the drone to open vicious eneryg fire at point-blank range...