DeviousMe

((Well, I wanted to wailt for Khell and Krazy at least, but since it's been demanded I post here... ))

Acid didn't need to be a study of human psychology to filch the stress from Sheldon's tone. Things were getting dire, and everyone knew it - including the Malta.

"Just start jumping people aboard!" the reptilian yelled into the channel, his loud tone necessary to overpower the thunderous explosion of another SAM site, not to mention the chatter of gunfire all about him. The Engineers manning the AA weaponry had been warned quickly, and now made life extremely difficult with perimeters of automatic gattling cannons. Sure, the Khelari could command energy shields into being, and his skin wasn't exactly soft, but those rounds still hurt like hell.

"Set the shield to standby!" he advised the inventor, hoping that the Drop Ship's computers were fast enough to raise the barriers to deflect incoming missiles, but also drop them again to allow Wallace to use the vessel's teleporters to evacuate their teammates, "Then jump whoever you can! If that doesn't work, shoot 'em down...!"

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

_

_

EMERGENCY POWER UNIT_

The crimson lenses of Delta 5 glimmered to life once again.

WARNING! MAIN BATTLE COMPUTER OFFLINE. SWITCHING TO AUXILIARY BAERROR8VG+@BE(M2-3SYSTEMCORRUPTION9&9O%L4=2A*D/8EV*DS44^45D-DANGERET=+35*4K/?3TEV-*D4SV76EFATALERROR+DV*++-RBG&^4B5F225-*/^%5DEGB

PRIMARY SYSTEM REINITIALIZED.

UNIDENTIFIED PARAMETER DETECTED IN ALL CORE FUNCTIONS. UNABLE TO DELETE. OVERRIDE INEFFECTIVE. TOTAL SYSTEM CORRUPTION IMMINENT_

With the mechanical grind of damaged joints, the Delta Titan rose from the ground like a great mythical beast, the chaos of raging combat all about not quite enough to hide the event.

A staccato of energetic hums rang out, the machine's plasma generators powering back up, feeding their sun-hot ammunition to the Titan's arm cannons. Within moments, Delta 5 had raised its fire-ready cannons toward the sky.

TARGETING.

TARGETS LOCKED_

With the characteristic echo of a Zeus' quad plasma blast, the Delta's cannons roared their bright-blue streams into the sky and into the midst of the missile flight approaching the Drop Ship, utterly annihilating every single one in their fully encompassing arc of sweep...

Lightning war, actually. Blitzangriff would be attack.

And hey, I've got a General named Schwarzherz, so I should be one to talk, haha. Either way, others have made some very good suggestions, but I'd say don't worry about it. Wait until inspiration strikes, and you'll have the perfect name.

((See Krazy, this is what happens when you edit the last post on a page after other people have already started a new page, and then don't tell anyone you did. ))

"Fruit salad!" the Doc cried out at the sudden eruption of chaos down the hall, whisking from his night-black trench coat an alien-looking device with the fervor one might imbue to the draw of the sword.

Instead of a blade, however, a neon-green beam lanced from the implement, trailing a stream of misty vapors as it drilled its way into War. A wave of nausea assaulted the Horseman as his stomach revolted to a sudden, searing pain. The average civilian usually blacked out for a moment at such occasions, but even if War experienced no such effect, the results would remain the same.

A Talsorian arrow clattered to the floor at War's feet.

And a wall of energy flared up in Julia's way.

It had all happened in nearly the same instant: the hole in the mercenary's gut had been practically exterminated, the arrow ejected, and the protector bot beside the Doc had transferred its protective energies from the latter to the former, bestowing War with the force field upon his person.

This of course left the Doc 'defenseless' now, but considering his proximity to a glass door in the side of the hallway, he didn't consider this too critical. Beyond lay a short hallway of mirrored walls and somewhat reflective floor and ceiling. Fine beams of soft, mist-like light crossed horizontally from wall to wall, performing slow, vertical oscillations. They came from what appeared to be halogen lamps behind a transparent material.

A static dispersion chamber.

Black-gloved fingers left a few keys depressed upon a pad by the doors, and almost immediately they slid aside, freeing the way for the Doc. The mainframe was near now, the static dispersion chamber present to keep the supercomputer's chamber as free from dust and electric charges as possible. The only thing that now stood between the silhouette-like man and the mainframe was a thick, heavily armored blast gate.

Of course, that held a keypad as well - and seeing as the Doc seemed to know every code around here, that wouldn't keep him out of there.

However, the creepy, Resident-Evil-esque hallway may very well have taken offense at other intruders...if they managed to get past War, Death, and the protector bot, that was. Just because the machine now shielded the mercenary didn't mean it couldn't shoot...

I need to grab me some reference shots. This is just mind-blowing here.

Cool.

The Doc's head nearly spun as a speeding-by archer attempted to do the very same to him, a black-gloved hand shooting at the nearest uneven section of wall to grab a hold of. Fortunately, he succeeded.

Unfortunately, if they hadn't before already, the mechanoids that accompanied the man had now been relegated to absolute uselessness. Despite pouring fire in every direction, their effect at keeping people away from the Doc had dropped to zilch. He had to get out of here, and he had to do it fast.

Okay, think. Back door to lab is...right. Now how do I get there? Passage should be in...right, supercomputer.

The Doc suddenly darted off in the direction of the mainframe, leaving his robotic entourage behind - save of course for the protector bot maintaining the shielding about his personal effects. He gave no illusions that con Vulse had by now very likely torn the assault bot apart (perhaps literally, even), and could only hope the second protector could support the battle drones well enough that nobody would notice the Doc's disappearance.

Fat chance.

A grenade-tipped arrow sailed by out of nowhere, speeding past the Doc and into the angry mob he'd left behind, laying the mechanoids there flat as corn stalks in a crop circle and disrupting any accuracy their fire might've had for the next few seconds.

Far enough away from the debacle to receive no ill effects, the Doc turned another corner (located before the one Target Lad had taken, of course), and bolted down the hallway marked, among other things, as 'Mainframe ->' by a very helpful sign...

((I think he's working on it...but if you really want to poke a crazed gun-nut, feel free to send him a PM while I stand behind this ballistics barrier here. ))

The protector bot's crimson lenses regarded Kirae almost quizzically as she first seemed to succumb to the paralyzer, but then spontaneously jumped up and ran off again. Had the machine possessed anything resembling emotions, it might've been quite frustrated as the winged woman shrugged off bolt after bolt, completely ignoring the mechanoid's assault.

As he reappeared, chances were Abram had gotten a good look of the black-garbed figure down the corridor (actually, chances were practically zero that he hadn't, considering the direct line of sight between the two), and if he knew as much as his counterpart, it wasn't far-fetched that he'd recognize the silhouette-like intruder. After all, just about anyone who hung about deeply in Portal Corp. on a regular basis would've caught the rumors spread by the resident scientists.

They spoke of a man who wasn't a man, a phantom of shadow that was at times here, at times there, but generally just not present - especially whenever one of them followed the mysterious figure around a corner.

They'd given many a name to the aberration, including of course the Phantom, the Shadow of Science, and Doctor Poof, but had generally agreed upon just referring to the guy as 'the Doc'.

And unlike the machine, the Doc was practically fuming!

Seriously, what in blue blazes was going on here?! Not only did he know those tin cans he'd brought along could flatten humans for several hours with their paralyzers, but some nut job had recalled the chemical mercenary's grenade, resulting in a cloud of freakin' blood toxin that nobody even seemed to be noticing!

The Doc himself was far enough down the hall to be unbothered, but the ignoramus attacking that wing-gal just stood right there and laughed in a fog whose specialty it was to pick apart red blood cells! Hell, it caused injury to humans upon contact with soft tissue, like eyes - not to mention the stuff tended to laugh at military-grade gas masks and just pass right on through!

But that wasn't even the half of it! The Doc nearly couldn't believe his eyes as he saw Abram's other antics, the guy and his imps releasing psychic shockwaves all over the place while at the same time somehow attaining downright miraculous reflexes that allowed him to somehow avoid not one, but two speeding swords without so much as a scratch - let alone the fire from the robotic henchmen that Kirae had drawn his way.

Geez, what in cripes am I dealing with here? The powerhouse of the month finalists?

Hell, he didn't even want to know how the archer zipping at Pestilence over there got through all that toxic gunk and rapid-fire psi garbage. He just hoped it was some kind of major armor and not the guy's powers. Otherwise, the kid would've been near-invincible!

Indeed, had the Doc known of Cynic's quickening recovery, he would've been even more furious. True, metahumans certainly differed from the norm, and usually none of them stayed down for the full ten hours, but even tanker-types were generally out of comission for at least three. Since when had the robots' paralyzers become somehow wimpified?!

Well, at least plasgirl up there seemed to be having problems with it all, making her an easy target for some battle drones. Her blasts hadn't been able to pierce the Doc's shield alone, but considering the uncanny frequency with which heroes popped up today, he wasn't entirely confident she'd be the only one attacking him for long.

Hopefully, there wouldn't be another incredible miracle, and the mechanoids would actually succeed in paralyzing someone for once. All this ignoring of their attacks was really getting old.

Oddly enough, the Doc seemed to have a rather scattered mind - no longer needing to worry about his own defense, he took off down the corridor again...

((Huh...I thought the plants had smacked him before he got those off. Oh well, guess not. ))

The protector bots carrying Cynic didn't seem to like this proposition at all, one of them coming about face and blasting a paralyzer bolt at Kirae, hoping to reduce her body to an unresponsive meatbag for the next few hours.

Whether this worked or not of course remained to be seen, but if the machine succeeded, it and its cousin wouldn't waste any more time stuffing Cynic into that closet and out of the way.

At the same time, however, came a yell from down the corridor, though Julia's impacting volley of plasma blasts somewhat distorted the tone, "Hey, you! Yeah, you, with the aluminum foil! I said I'd pay extra for no killing, and...!"

Oh snap...

((Oh...you know. Also, to Dogma: Natural forces are perfectly logical, at least in my opinion. Furthermore, I'm sorry you don't consider energy shields a reason, but I do, so I'm going to keep using them.))

"Then I hope you don't mind a time out." the black-clothed man jabbed two gloved fingers in Julia's direction with force, while her plasma beams impacted on the remaining protector bot shield.

Nothing happened.

Well, at least not anything the silhouette-like figure had been the cause of. The charged paralyzer bolts two of the battle drones had been...well, charging, however, thunder-hissed across the hallway, intent on taking Julia down then and there - and if they somehow missed, they of course wouldn't stand there and do nothing. They'd keep firing, punching, grabbing, kicking, and doing whatever else they could do to keep the heroine from the dark figure.

Cynic wasn't spared either, a protector bot taking the chance to knock out the unprotected Commander's motoric musculature, leaving him unable to move. Though not exactly concentrated, the dosage was enough to flatten the average human for a good four hours. Of course, the duration of his paralysis could vary, depending on his willpower.

Not really seeming to care, the mechanoid signaled its 'cousin' over, the two protector bots taking Cynic by the shoulders, then guiding their steps toward a nearby unused lab with the intention of dumping him there.

Well, not exactly.

One of the machines placed its hand-carrying arm onto the Commander's back, injecting his suit with regenerative nanites. While the Type T-02s didn't carry sufficiently complex nanoregenerators to repair organic beings (living ones with the outcome of them still being alive, that was), the idea was to jump-start the Commander's suit and have it take over from there. If that didn't work - and they'd know; they were protector bots, after all - they'd just have to take alternate action...

What wall of text? I see a very nicely organized collection of coherent sentences and formatted paragraps.

That said, I think this could work. I've never been a fan of true side-switching period, but the co-op stuff had me at hello. This is an awesome, awesome idea. Devs, can we do this? Please?

((Much like Cynic's brushed off most things so far: someone wrote it. ))

Definition of insanity: repeating the same action and expecting a different result. Oh. Wait...

The coincidentally simultaneous strikes quickly overloaded the first barrier, a muffled crash coming from one protector bot as smoke rose from the joints of its gripping hand. The shield projector had fried.

Time or not, now he just couldn't stand it anymore.

"Aah!" the dark-garbed man exclaimed in seemingly panicked shock, flinging the open palms of his hands in the air beside his shoulders. Curiously enough, the paper he'd held literally the instant before had disappeared without a trace, but he certainly didn't seem to have noticed, chaining together into a single, rapid-fire, and heavily gesticulated outburst, "What'd I do?! Get away from me! You smell like feet! Leave me alone!"

The battle drones and protector bots seemed fed up as well now, forcefully interdicting into the paths of would-be pursuers as the silhouette-like man weaseled his way through where the blast gate had been...

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

A sting might be felt alright, but Pestilence probably wouldn't be its first victim. From the biting cloud of toxins rushed a long, rootlike vine, brimming with thorns. Like some titanic tentacle, it swatted down at the archer, seeking to impale, crush, or mutilate him with a combination of both.

Worse yet, it had a little friend - the Venus Man Trap still had Target Lad's 'scent', and chopping its maw off didn't seem to have slowed it down much. It had simply grown another.

And just to top off the bad news, the feral flora appeared to be in constant communication, which meant they wouldn't fall for something as silly as colliding after the hero leaped away at the last second. Oh no, these ravenous plants cooperated, working as a team - and who knew what else was still hiding in that cloud...

((Ah, okay. Edited for continuity. And Krazy, he's headed for the door Julia left through, not the one she just used to came back in. They're not that close to the exterior. ))

The silhouette-like man didn't seem too impressed by Cynic's ballet, ignoring the Commander in favor of figuratively scratching his head at a certain fellow come running from the portal chamber. He knew of Abram Yakovushka, but wasn't too sure why he'd stormed down the corridor the other way.

Well, at least not until he heard a female voice cry out from beyond the corner Abram had rounded. The man concluded he'd likely known Kirae had been in the corridor down a ways, and being a hero had gone to help her. Yes, that made sense enough.

Cynic's attack certainly might take a different direction, the dark0hued figure apparently not bothering to evade. After all, that's what an energy barrier was for - once it flared across the Commander's path in response to his staff making contact, the reaction would probably toss him a dozen meters down the hall, depending on just how much power he'd funneled into it.

Suddenly, however, Julia burst back onto the scene, demanding to know who stood responsible for the whole tohuwabohu. Under different circumstances, the black-garbed man would've had a very amusing (and confusing) answer for her, but right now wasn't the time to laugh. With quick step, he set his feet into motion for the door that had opened...

((Not a stun. Just results in motoric incapacitation when defeated instead of death/mortal injury.))

As Cynic opened fire, the robots performed the equivalent - well, except for the assault bot. It didn't carry any nonlethal weaponry aside from its gas missiles, and considering both attackers wore sealed helmets, doubt of their effectiveness ranked high. Instead, it set itself into motion to storm after Doctor con Vulse. The rest split their fire somewhat evenly, and like the initial shot didn't waste time masking their unseen paralyzer bolts with crimson streaks of light.

The mechanoids didn't seem bothered by the rampant energy bolts, the pale-blue flares of barriers effortlessly keeping the Commander's energy bolts from their frames. An exception formed the battle drone that hadn't quite regained secure footing after it had fired that first bolt, the relatively small machine being rammed into a wall in much the same fashion that the armorsuited doctor had earlier.

The black-garbed figure remained where he was, the same sort of energetic wall appearing pale-blue in the air for a few moments as Cynic's bolts struck the shield. Like they had with their fire, the protector bots opted to drop their visual effects budget. Their shield projectors didn't actually need to point in any specific direction to form a shield there - they just did so and were done with it.

Still, the silhouette-like man didn't look happy. If con Vulse didn't stop to deal with the mechanoids' assault - assuming the paralyzer fire didn't KO him, that was - his fists would just collide with the protectors' projected shield as well, so at least for now, that wasn't a problem. What did occupy the breath of his mind right now was finding a way through that door. Cynic's blast hadn't just fried the keypad, but also severed the hard lines. Barring several tons of physical force, that sucker wasn't opening for anybody for some time - and his assault bot was busy trying to bash con Vulse upside the head.

"Setbacks, setbacks." the man muttered under his mask, "Gonna need another way around. Open KF-121. Yes, I know."

As if on command (and it certainly appeared to be thus), the blast door segments that had cut Julia off from the fight now retreated into the ceiling again, freeing the way. Of course, where Julia was now could be anyone's guess...

Acid felt no need to speak further words to Wallace. The man knew what he had to do, and could be trusted to do just that. Keeping up a conversation wouldn't serve any positive purpose right now; at best, it would've been a distraction.

And not only to him.

The Khelari's presence may have only been in part, but if this one day became the truth, then this part worked with its entirety; namely on a way to escape this rapidly escalating situation.

Acid had no doubt that Wallace would get the ship here. No, the problem lay in the thereafter. This meant he had to be very, very careful - even the next few seconds could decide which way this mess would turn. Acid's thought process needed to be clear, calculating, and most important of all, concise as could be.

So it was.

Now he could act.

Reading contacts from his scanner, the reptilian's other hand dug several micros from a pocket of his black, biker-like jacket, clawed fingers expertly separating the three to the space between them. The next moment, he'd vanished, air filling the vacuum his teleportation had left behind with a spontaneous pop. Not a few seconds later, an infuriated bark came over the Malta Operatives' radio network, mostly concerning the matter that a fireball had just consumed one of their SAM sites.

"Doing my best to cover ya." Sheldon heard the Khelari's voice in his team's channel again, "Only got so many micros though, so make it fast..."

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

Cher'tak's senses flared to high alert as his back suddenly collided with a solid object, the Warmaster's head and blade whirling about...and stopping dead a moment later, the form of Sah'Teece mirroring his movements almost perfectly. Had their suits of powered armor not carried differing hues, an onlooker may well have thought the Warmaster had run into his own reflection.

Apparently, the heat of combat had caught the two in its fervor to such an extent that they'd temporarily lost one another. The specifics remained to be explained, but the former diplomat certainly seemed to place priority on getting out of here alive, returning to the adversaries on his side while Cher'tak did the same in complement, the two Rikti working their way rearward as they fought back-to-back.

"I believe retreat is planned." he informed the Warmaster, receiving yet another gash in his already scarred armor for his moment of inattentiveness before ramming his own blade down the figurative throat of the offending Rikti-robot-machination, "I think it wise. We should form an extraction zone..."

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

Forgotten Sanctuary
Command and Control

Things hadn't much changed in the local C&C center of the Malta Group. Most of the personnel within the chamber that brimmed with field command gear hadn't even moved from their stations.

Behind the large, ornate gates set into the room's far wall, however, things looked entirely different.

The Commander stared upon his monitors devoid of emotion, the iridescent blue of the haphazardly arranged screens the only source of illumination within the otherwise pitch-black chamber.

Reports crackled from a terminal's speaker system with hectic frequency, and the Commander analyzed each with great care. The Knives seemed to have acted prematurely, but there wasn't anything he could do about it now. Well, there was...just nothing that would've helped more than harm. The operation's success ranked greatly higher in importance than individual lives.

Still, something had to be done.

The ornate blast gates ground open and shut yet again, an Operations Officer once more emerging from the reclusive Commander's domain. Almost immediately, the man spurned the command staff into action, most of the present black ops personnel of course being Operation Engineers.

"Tell 'em to hold long as they can, fall back if they have to," he told the one manning communications to relay to the detachment currently engaged with Arachnos. Meanwhile, several Engineers left their posts and broke open a supply crate, stuffing their pouches and satchels with large amounts of plastique, "and bug out on signal Kappa Blue. Just don't let the enemy outta that tower..."

In short: no.

While most stories and their ideas will have common elements with other things, the context of these elements can differ so drastically as to make them completely unrelated. Unless more than 40% of the elements overlap with one perticular work, I wouldn't worry about it and just have fun with it.

KRRRR, and there I thought she'd put up more. Curse you, Grey!

Mistake!

Nataan needed only an instant to act, and Prodder's decision had given him just that. The moment he let go of the Frostvine Agent, the Osh'kan commanded his icy sword to jut anchoring spikes from its blade, locking it firmly within the hero, and pushed off with all the strength he had to get as far from the man as he possibly could.

He got about half a meter. But it was enough to get away from Prodder's strike...and collide with a Man O' War.

The moment the Frostvine Agent made contact with the amoeba-like offshoot of the Hydra, the animated glob whirled about to see what had just hit it. Nataan was of course no longer there, already sinking into the creature's back.

Not that this was exactly bad - the concussive force of a certain grenade-tipped arrow found a rather receptive padding as it splattered the Man O' War against the nearest wall. Furthermore, the large example of Hydra didn't seem so uncoordinated anymore as it stood quite a bit faster than the others that had suffered the same fate.

Fortunately, it didn't seem to have any intent to continue the battle, bolting for the portal with the meanwhile-absorbed Nataan even as it tossed a large gob of slime at a Spawn near Pestilence. That Hydra offshoot in turn began to write a short series of letters and numbers into the floor of the portal chamber: a code that, in short, signified to the chemical wielder that the Frostvine Agent was too heavily injured to keep fighting and would be pulling out.

The portal itself certainly didn't seem to mind, having withstood the explosions with little more than a few scratches. After all, considering heroes standing about in front of these things sometimes got bored and started showing off their 'moves' to teammates and bystanders, Portal Corporation had decided that their portals had better be nice and sturdy...

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

Con Vulse's backhand expectedly caught only air, the unseen man retorting mockingly, "Have something of mine. Feh! The only...!"

A sudden assault of colorful language cut off whatever the invisible man had intended to say then and there, as the voice's owner took the verbal waterfall as cue to make himself thin ASAP.

Then came the explosive blast and blew this part of the plan to kingdom come. Perfect.

Before, the standing-up robots had still been rather relaxed, getting their bearings and thinking things over a few million times to determine the best course of action.

Now, however, they were just mad. Getting knocked about a second time just wasn't in their patience files today.

Cynic's left arm suddenly went numb. No, not just numb - it practically disappeared from the man's nervous system. Sure, visually it was still very much there and completely unharmed. But as far as the Commander's motor neurons were concerned, that part of his body didn't even register anymore. His arm had been completely paralyzed.

How? By a paralyzer, of course. Cynic had just been lucky the drone that had fired the shot hadn't been far from the keypad, the explosive blast shoving it through the air throwing the mechanoid's targeting off by several orders of magnitude, resulting in only a scraping shot. Unlike the normal paralysis of several hours, Cynic would have feeling back in his arm in less than one minute - less if he possessed a strong will or training in that field. The thunder of the explosion had also swallowed the characteristic gunshot-hiss combination of the paralyzer bolt.

But the robot wasn't the only piece of hardware around that had reacted to the explosive blast - and while what the six mechanoids would do now was open to question, the deflector field of their escort had been swept away in a haze of pale-blue lightning.

The corridor suddenly held someone that looked decidedly human, stood around two meters tall, and clothed himself from head to toe in nothing but black. From a duster hat to a full face mask accompanied by round, opaque glasses, a nice shirt complete with tie, trench coat, matte gloves, and long pants with combat boots, everything on the formerly invisible figure carried that same night-black hue.

Well, except for the page in his hand, that was.

"Figures." he growled as he noticed he was no longer unseen...

Nataan practically seethed over at this point. What by the fires of Terat was this guy - some sort of super-mega-over-tanker?!

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could do at this point. A fast mind didn't always make a fast body, and the Frostvine Agent simply couldn't keep up with Pokin' Prodder's lightning-fast reaction speeds. The hero's grapple succeeded brilliantly, and since not five seconds had passed since Nataan's power boost by heat theft, he just didn't have the energy to supercool the air about him again for at least another minute.

A multitude of spines ripped through the Frostvine Agent's body from front to back, the biosuit simply unable to resist the entire flood of them. A sickly clear fluid trickled from Nataan's ventilator, accompanied by a horrid, gurgling rasp that was likely a raucous curse of some sort.

In a last, desperate gamble, the mercenary tried to break Prodder's hold by ramming the ice sword that sprang from his free hand up through Prodder's gut and into his chest cavity. If this didn't work, the Frostvine Agent would be done for...

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

Doctor con Vulse found nothing but air at the terminator of his intended tackle, the depression of keys having stopped not a moment before the armored villain had passed the pad.

At the same time, Cynic found quite a bit more than air as he attempted to storm through the door, a wall of armor ramming down from the ceiling in less than half a second. Apparently, some security system had detected the robots out of their now-disrupted deflector fields and judged them a large enough threat to seal that particular door with a blast shield.

"Do you mind?" the unseen voice questioned con Vulse haughtily as the doctor teetered by, "I am trying to open this door..."

((In a way, I already did. But no, Nataan wouldn't care about Hydra.))

((Oh ho, wouldn't you like to know? Stick around and find out. ))

"Cripes!" the invisible figure cried out as the energy-razor storm popped into existence, catching the robotic entourage that trailed in its midst.

Their deflector fields failed almost instantly, unable to cope with the entry and departure of that much kinetic energy at once, revealing six of the seven for what they were: apparently nothing more that standard 'mastermind robotic henchmen' from the Rogue Isles.

What wasn't quite so standard, however, was their reaction to the storm - the razors collided with previously unseen barriers about the mechanoids, air flaring up pale-blue all about them in spherical arrangements as several layers of shielding intercepted Cynic's assault.

Of course, with that much force involved, momentum just somewhat laughed at said shields, sending the robots flying whichever way the vector sum had ended up pointing. In short, the mechanoids had been played pinball with, and now worked on regaining their bearings.

Considering the biopositronic nature of their 'brains', however, that wouldn't stop them for long.

The keypad-locked door not a few meters down the hall, however, performed that job nicely, forcing the leading invisible being to stop for now. Still, at least judging from the purposeful depression of the pad's numerics, that wouldn't last very long either...

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

"None of your concern." Nataan rasped forth as he brought his massive ice sword down on Prodder, intending to cleave the man in half right then and there...

((Bwahaha. I know, I know, I'm sorry for holding yalls up, but I really don't want to lose Khell in another of his life holes. Also read your post again Dogma, and now I see it - for some reason it sounced more like a tornado of C4 pellets at first, but then I realized you wrote 'force'. My bad.))

((Waiting on Khell myself. Also, RoA? Sounds more like Blizzard to me. ))

((*Pokes Soviet in tandem with Grey.* ))

If it hadn't been evident before, it now stood clear that Acid had ceased all efforts to stop the elite Gunslinger. The reptilian's eyes narrowed as he accessed the team's communications channel.

"Guys, we need to move." he told them matter-of-factly, "We got incoming, and a lot more than we can handle. Mr. Wallace, I know how you feel about flying, but we're going to need that ship over here right about now..."