Khellendrosiic

"It will take at least ten minutes for my Stickmen to get into position," Toy Dispenser said. "If we're going to do this I'd like to know as soon as possible."

"Being really divergent would be if I started talking about the prices of good haggis and how the tomato economy is ruining our childrens' futures," Solid said to Ryatt and Sheldon. "And insane people can work really well in a fight as long as you point us in the right direction."

"Robot chicken!" Solid Shot shouted as M shifted form. "Quickly! Someone get me some claymation artists! Sheldon can sub as the mad scientist and we can use Vern for the Godzilla parody!"

"I'm not picking up anything anamolous," Toy said to Acid as they started crossing the overpass. "Then again I might be getting a bit overwhelmed from noticing something new every couple of seconds or so. In any case, what exactly are you following?"

"That alien quote thingie makes me think of the crap we flew through to get here," Solid said outloud after Sah'Teece had finished translating the inscription. "I don't know about you guys, but without those giant [censored] flame projectors I don't think we could've landed."

"We still would have landed," Toy Bot added. "But accuracy would have been drastically reduced."

Meanwhile Cher'tak kept his own counsel, not speaking to anyone and keeping his thoughts to himself but clearly ready for conflict.

***********************************************

"This should do nicely," Archlich said to himself as he began taking various items out from under his breastplate and placing them in the required positions.

Although even if Archlich had wanted to speak to someone other than himself he probably wouldn't have been able to manage it, seeing as how he was currently at the bottom of an age old shallow crater on the room about half a mile from the research base. The mage wanted enough distance to ensure that the foolish mortals wouldn't be able to get to him quickly while being close enough that he could still teleport back quickly given any trouble. Though once he began the ritual, the only thing that could snap him out of the trance of casting it would be death itself. Not that dying would harm Archlich much, it would just be extremely inconvenient and delay his plans for several days. And those several days would undoubtedly put the Rikti homeworld beyond his grasp altogether, so Archlich would make sure that there were enough wards place around this crater to obliterate or halt an entire army.

Of course Archlich knew about Lady Grey's plans to keep him watched. He had expected nothing less but was assured when the 'wards' he had placed around the base camp relayed to him her exact orders. While the lich had a grudging respect for the woman's ability to keep an organization like Vanguard operational and productive, he knew what she would do to him given the chance.

By the time the main group had landed on the planet, Archlich had finished placing his runes and wards, the first of which to go up had been a cloaking charm to mask him from the sight of the Rikti warship hanging overhead like a Sword of Damocles. Satisfied that his defenses were complete, Archlich began preperations for the main spell. Not only would he be casting about to see if any gods of the Rikti had survived, but he'd also attempt to enter their world if it was still around. Every pantheon had their Valhalla or Olympus and Archlich figured that the old gods of the Rikti had had one as well. The only question was if it was still there and if any god was still lingering about in it.

But first... He had to prepare everything, which would take a little while.

Upon landing, Cher'tak followed Sah'Teece's example and removed his helmet, albeit in a more controlled fashion. Neither Toy nor Solid had seen the Warmaster with his helmet off despite the amount of time the trio had spent in eachother's company fighting in the Rikti War Zone. It turned out Cher'tak looked just the same as any other Rikti, psychic signatures being the primary way the Rikti distinguished one another, except that he had a long, jagged scar stretching from just to the left of his chin, curving up in between his eyes, and terminating at the edge of the right corner of his head. Breathing in the air with apparent relish Cher'tak closed his eyes and seemed to relax for a moment.

He snapped back into readiness once Acid cried out, however, and quickly tugged his helmet back on. It was impossible for him to communicate to the others without it and it would be very bad if he was caught without any means of translation.

********************************************

"Friendly place," Solid remarked as everyone disembarked and he got his first good look at the Rikti homeworld. "Reminds me of Mars with air on crack."

"How did you get that out of this?" Toy Dispenser asked as he took a few steps away from the group to get a good scan of things. "It's more like a hospitable Venus than anything Mars related."

"As long as it's not toxic and has air to breathe," Solid countered as he unlimbered his rifle and started looking around. "So you two have any idea who ma-"

Solid was cut off by Acid's announcement as he smoothly adjusted from casual viewing to scanning for possible threats. Toy's bots started fanning out in a semi-circle between Toy and the direction Acid was facing while the mastermind himself assembled his pulse rifle and started scanning for scents.

"I thought you said no one was up here," Toy said to Sah'Teece and Cher'tak after a few seconds.

"Searching for corpses now," Small Toy said quietly as it faded from sight and moved forward.

OOC: Archlich when I've had sleep and some more time to contemplate the god angle.

"It always comes down to maulings eventually," muttered Combat Toy from out in the hallway, speaking just loud enough that the whole room could hear him.

"Someone needs to turn down their volume dial," Solid Shot replied as he gave the assault bot the finger. Or he tried, at least, since there was a wall between the two. But Combat Toy still leaned partway into the room and flicked Solid off in retaliation before stomping away.

"Uppity combat droid," Solid said angrily as he fumed to himself.

"Simply by building their base in Siberia and being found out by our group here, I would say these 'Bionic Thralls' already have two rival factions that would have a say in things," Toy said. "Namely CptCommie and his stronghold and Vern's base as well. If we know the exact location of the Thrall base, we can have those two allies of ours cordon them off from the rest of Russia. At the very least we could track incoming shipments or whatever and discern some sort of schedule that we can take advantage of.

"Of course, this all depends on how quickly we want to act. If time really is of the essence then a quick scouting mission from one or several of us with a full frontal assault right on its heels would probably serve our purposes well. Most, if not all, of their research would be destroyed by the time we reach their inner sanctum, but if we could prevent their escape by teleportation or air, then we would have accomplished our objective of stopping this man from whatever he plans to do."

"Or we could wait weeks, properly plan everything out down to the last nitty gritty detail, and surgically blow the guy to smithireens without him even knowing what the hell happened," finished Solid with an expressive roll of his head. "Boooooooooooorrrrrrrrring..."

I am somewhat confused as how to navigate that site to find what I'm looking for. Do I just randomly wander through and pick out thing that apply to my characters?

EDIT: Might as well add a few I got from looking at what's already been found.

My Suit is Also Super: Everyone except Archlich.

Clothes Make the Superman: Archlich, to some extent.

Glowing Eyes of Doom: Archlich, Lord Netharak

Power Glows: Toy Dispenser, Solid Shot

Take Over the World: Archlich

Utopia Justifies the Means: Archlich

Kill All Humans: Progenitor Runtime 2, Lord Netharak (though he wants to kill EVERYTHING)

Ridiculously Human Robots: Toy Dispenser, Solid Shot, Toy's bots (to a lesser degree)

Instant AI Just Add Water: Toy Dispenser, Solid Shot, Progenitor Runtime 2, Toy's bots

Lightning Can Do Anything: Mini Bot (Yes, Mini Bot gained his sentience by being hit by lightning. Took Toy forever to get it right, too.)

The Undead: Archlich

Hitman With a Heart: Toy Dispenser (to an extent)

Healing Factor: Balsk

One Winged Angel: Brutish Ghoul (involuntary)

The Cape: Solid Shot, Balsk

The Gunslinger: Solid Shot

Card Carrying Villain: Archlich (So hard with friends like Toy, though)

Color Coded for Your Convenience: Archlich, Lord Netharak, Progenitor Runtime 2, Brutish Ghoul. Subverted by Toy Dispenser (he's bright everything) and Solid Shot (he's grey).

Ok.... Maybe I DO kind of know how to do this. <_<

OOC: Three stood out from the rest, besides the capitol? You only gave us two choices.

BIC: Upon teleportation, Cher'tak took a moment to orient himself, then nodded to no one in particular and sat down at the gunnery controls. He had been trained in the usage of dropships and could operate any station with some degree of competence but, being a warrior at heart, Cher'tak was most at home firing the guns. The Warmaster paused for a second and stared at Acid for a few seconds, some amount of surprise evident in his stance. But he brushed off the oddity soon enough and had just sat down when Acid asked for his opinion.

"Landing: Capitol city: Fastest: Obvious dangers," Cher'tak said, adding the mental equivilent of facepalming at Sah'Teece's first suggestion. "Landing: Balt're City: Unknown. Old plans: Construct: Monument, Grave marker. Plan: Accomplished: Unknown. Forgotten Sanctuary: Status known: Abandoned. Resumed excavation: Current political-state: Unlikely. Sanctuary: Best bet."

"Always takes you freaking forever to say things with all those little pauses," muttered Solid Shot as he looked over one of the ship's seats. "How the hell do these things work, anyway? Do they have some sort of automatic strap thingie or gravity field to keep you from falling out during maneuvers?"

"Considering that we'll only be maneuvering violently if we get attacked then it doesn't much matter," Toy said as he sat down, his smaller bots copying him and Combat Toy moving to stand at the end of the row. "Because if we get attacked so soon, then our whole mission is [censored] and getting knocked around will be the least of our worries."

"Getting home will, yeah yeah," Solid said under his breath before adding a couple of choice curses as he sat down across from Toy.

*******************************************

"I shall do as I wish," Archlich said as he walked over to Lady Grey and Sheldon. "Which shall not include interfering with your work, mortal, or the orchastration of your soldiers, Grey."

Focusing on Lady Grey, Archlich's eyes flared slightly as he continued speaking. "I am not under your jurisdiction, 'Lady' Grey and shall pursue my own goals which do not coincide with your own. Since a friend of mine is, however, I shall aquiese to aiding you if you require it of me and the need is suitably great. Also, I would suggest that your men or you do not attempt to restrain me as I leave for my blantant rudeness. I have a far greater task in front of me than this peacemongering."

Spinning around on his heel, his cape flowing around him, Archlich strode out of the room. Once he was a significantly far distance away from the base camp he would teleport onto the moon's surface. As a lich, he had no need of air whatsoever and the outside would be free of potential disturbances.

And Archlich would certainly need all of his concentration if he was going to succeed at contacting a god.

OOC: Bum bum BUM?

"Hmmm... Where in Siberia is this base, Dr. West?" Toy asked as he shut his wrist panel, shutting off the small hologram. "An ally of mine may or may not be close enough to them for us to simply borrow the usage of his teleporters. And since he uses those teleporters frequently to get his men to his base and ours I think the target would be used to the energy discharges by now, if they even detect them."

"Why don't we give the name already?" asked Solid Shot as he walked back into the room. "Call them the Thralls or Bionic Men or something. This 'target' b.s. is kind of annoying."

"Mission: Continue: Ready," said Cher'tak as he mentally acknowledged Lk'Onik's desire to remain behind. "Ready: Willing: Able: Still."

Slinging his bladerifle, Cher'tak moved over to where Acid indicated and took up an at-ease position with both arms crossed in front of his chest.

Toy Dispenser, meanwhile, had slipped away from the gathering point and was fiddling with something on his chest right in the middle of the yellow and red star symbol of LMOUSVEV he wore. Archlich marched forward to meet the mastermind midway and together the two of them maneuvered in such a way so as to block anyone else from seeing what was going on. In actuality, Toy Dispenser was giving Archlich a small portable hard drive that he had taken out of a small compartment set into his chest. That hard drive contained a copy of Toy Dispenser's mind and could be used to rebuild himself should he get destroyed while out of the mediport system's range. For reasons that Toy never could figure out, he could have only one copy of himself floating around at a time. Whenever he made a new copy, the old one would start behaving like a normal program would if it's code was as jumbled as Toy's: It would stop working.

Archlich slipped the hard drive into one of the pouches he kept hidden under his armor and patted Toy Dispenser on the shoulder as the mastermind closed up his chest compartment. Straightening up, Toy walked back over to the gathering area as if nothing had happened, his bots meeting him halfway and then clustering protectively around their boss.

"I'm ready to go," Toy said in response to Acid's look.

"What's this about one place at one time, now?" Solid asked as he meandered over next to Cher'tak and copied the Rikti's pose. "Unless one splits himself in two, we're all generally in one place at one time."

Archlich dropped back from the group a suitable distance and then began pacing around the perimeter of the room. After getting a feeling for the area, Archlich would begin laying various mystical wards that would tighten up security while offering up no energy signatures that the Homeworld Rikti would be able to search for.

"A composite of impervium and orichalcum," Toy said in response to Jake's question. "I was able to convince an archmage that I know to render a small supply of the metal maleable through non-magical means."

"You have indeed hit upon the greatest limit of the Stickmen," Toy said, turning back to Dr. Phillis. "The longest amount of time they can remain active is 45 minutes, at which point they self-destruct as they phase back into the real world. I do have versions that are capable of being recharged but considering the target's location, I've ruled those versions out."

Lowering his voice as well, Toy added something more. "I would be quite willing to do that as long as we coordinate our minions in such a fashion so that they don't interfere with one anothers' work. My only concern with sending two groups of scouts is that it raises their chances of being discovered and I'm fairly certain any mission we undertake would be much easier if the enemy was unaware they had been found out."

**********************************

"Where the hell're you going?" asked Solid of Igor as the blaster followed the surgeon out.

"It's the head," Solid said in response to Acid's comment. "Looks like a lizard. And the tail. But hey, why would we need a crew when we've got some perfectly good androids right here? Just point us to where we can download the flight manual and then hold onto your socks."

****************************************

Small Toy's IFF system was linked directly to its particle rifle. If a friendly wandered across the sights at the exact same moment Small Toy triggered the rifle, the beam would not fire. As such, Cher'tak and the other Rikti had no need to dive out of the way. Not that they knew this, of course.

In any case, Small Toy's aim was moot as Ghost was teleported away a milisecond before the beam hit him. Instead it flashed through the air and drilled a hole the size of a button into the ceiling of the corridor. An emergency shield shimmered into place before much atmosphere could be lost, though the loud hissing of impending decompression probably unnerved anyone who had heard it.

"My apoligies," Small Toy said as the rifle folded back up into it's handless arm form. "You were perfectly safe, though the sudden disappearance of my target was unexpected."

Cher'tak looked over at Small Toy from where he had pressed himself up against the wall and mentally sighed.

"Return: Main group: Best course," the Warmaster said, having recognized the tell-tale sound of a teleport when Ghost vanished.

************************************

"You have a friend in there still, Acid?" Toy asked over the team link. "Since aside from the passive life signs of Rikti tech I see one other living thing in that ship. I think we've got ourselves a ride."

As he was saying this, Acid would be recieving a short message from whatever system he used to communicate over the team link indicating that Toy Dispenser was requesting a teleport.

Toy Dispenser was a wee bit out of his element. And he knew that. Sure he was extremely intelligent, he was a mastermind-class android after all, but his brilliance did not easily extend itself into the realm of true science. Sure he was practically an expert on all things AI, sure he was very competent around a machine shop, but he hadn't been made to heavily analyze things and regardless of how much he had changed since he was created, he still carried around that "Do, not say" mentality. That said he was also a mercenary, one who was very used to operating by himself but with the vast majority of the information supplied by his employer. The fact that he and his 'team' had to do most of the legwork unsettled him. But he would have been a poor android if he hadn't thought of such contingencies beforehand.

"Dr. Phillis," Toy said, addressing the man as he turned around in his seat to look at him. "Are your Phillisbots prepared for such scouting? I'm sure that you have dedicated scout variations for just such a purpose, but reports I've read on your technology leads me to believe that I may have something that would work better.

"I'm sorry if I sound disparaging," Toy said as he hopped over the seats to sit down next to Midas. "But my line of work encourages me to make extremely specialized models for certain tasks. Such as my Stickmen."

Toy flipped open the panel on his left wrist and tapped a few keys, causing a small holographic image of an extremely thin robot to appear in the air. Curiously enough, the robot looked almost exactly like M did. Or at least M's current form, if he was who Toy thought he was.

"The beginning of a new line of combat droids I've been working on for the last little while," Toy said as he punched up specifications of the robot. "The Stickmen are equipped with a unique system that keeps them permenantly phase shifted, much like the ability that some metahumans have. The only weakness of that system is the fact that gravity would normally drag the Stickmen down into the center of the planet, which is prevented by a single molecule wide, virtually indestructable, slip of metal located on their feet. It's undectable to the naked eye and shows up as a mere anamoly on most sensors. Furthermore, the Stickmen are equipped with an unbreakable, undetectable link-up to my HQ, allowing them to transmit everything they see or hear as long as they remain in contact. It can only be one or the other, though, which is I deploy them in pairs."

Throughout his explanation, Toy made sure to talk just loud enough to get everyone's attention. If he couldn't help much with the hypotheses floating around then at least he could offer up what he was good at. It also didn't hurt that he enjoyed showing off every now and then.

*************************************

In response to the construction orders, the manufactory revved up and began constructing a pair of Stickmen recconasaince droids. It would take half an hour for them to finish making the pair, as all of the parts had to be highly miniaturized, and then the droids would not be activated until they had been deployed to where they were needed. The limit of the phase shift system was that once started it could never be turned off until all power was drained from the Stickman. This drain, combined with moving about and transmitting information, gave each Stickman a life of 45 minutes at the most. Upon shutdown, miniscule charges throughout the droid's body would ignite, melting the whole thing down to slag as it shifted back into the material world for the first, and last, time.

The Stickmen had been used several times before and Toy had been quite pleased with their usefulness. He had never sent them on such a task as this, however, and the data of their success or failure would be well recieved either way.

Small Toy was startled when Radiator suddenly flew by overhead. As such, it was unable to deploy it's particle beam rifle in time to open fire.

Although linked to Toy Dispenser's neural net, Small Toy could not know what its brothers had seen without Toy Dispenser clearing the information for dissemination. Since Toy was somewhat distracted in scanning the Rikti warship, he could not offer active assistance to his bots, thus enabling Radiator to get past the little drone quite easily.

But Ghost wasn't as lucky. Small Toy had deployed its sophisticated sensor array instead of its cloaking device and had situated itself in a corner from which it could see both in the direction Radiator had come from and where he had gone. Ghost's cloaking field was good, but battle damage had eroded some of its capabilities and Small Toy's sensors made quick work out of the remaining field.

A new target firmly in sight, the battle drone aimed down the length of the particle beam gun, fused as it was into the drone's right arm, and fired a single bolt at where Ghost's chest should be. While normally Ghost would be able to easily keep going after being hit by such an attack all of the wounds he had recieved by the Vanguard soldiers had most likely degraded his health to such a state that Small Toy could take him down with one or two shots.

******************************************

"Amazing how quickly mortals forget things," Archlich remarked as the snow storm surrounding the invisible Ghost drifted off down the hallway. What Small Toy's sensors had identified as damage to the cloaking field were actually bits of snow impacting the corruptor, creating a thin outline that just about anyone could see.

"He won't get far," stated the lich as he started walking after Ghost to keep the spell in range.

"I think I'll hold my comments for later," said Toy succinctly. He was looking a bit more attentive now, leaning forward in his seat with his chin resting on one fist while the other hand lightly rapped on his leg.

"I hate it when people play god," Solid muttered to himself as he rested one hand on Essex's head and gave the girl a comforting scratch.

"Hooooooolyyyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit........." Toy Dispenser exclaimed as the Rikti warship exited the underground docking facility and started drifting over the research station. "How the hell did you get the codes for that thing?"

As he talked, Toy also thuroughly scanned the ship, searching for any lifesigns. It never hurt to be sure.

******************************************

Solid paused as Lady Grey brought up Nemesis' master plan for the Rikti. He had completely forgotten about that in the excitement of catching the Vanguard leader on something.

"I totally forgot about that," Solid said in a bewildered tone of voice. "Damn all this adware to the darkest depths of an ENIAC system."

Across the room, Cher'tak was advancing alongside Sah'Teece and Lk'Onik as the Rikti and Sheldon chased after Radiator. The Warmaster had his bladerifle held in such a way so as to whip out a melee attack as soon as Radiator came close enough to attack. Knowing that the hero with them was less durable than the assembled Rikti and that he was the toughest out of the three, Cher'tak made sure that he was ready to intercept any attack that Radiator might make. He might have fought against humans in the past, but now that he was working with them for the survival of his very race, he was sure as hell going to make sure none of his new allies died on his watch.

"You are either the most insane or the most brilliant lizard I have ever met," Solid said as he followed Lady Grey's gaze and heard Acid's remark.

"The hell is that?" Solid asked Sheldon as the android paused in his pacing to lean over the rear row of seats for a better look at Felix. "Some sort of loli breakfast machine?"

Solid stared at Essex for a few moments, slouching forward in a body movement of surprised disbelief. After those few moments, he facepalmed then resumed his pacing.

Sheesh, Ess, Solid said over a channel that he labeled 'Meeting Staff' and invited Essex to. You're so incorrigable. If Hal were here I'd be hard pressed to keep him from drooling all over you right now.

"I believe we're ready to start listening once you're ready to start talking, Dr. West," said Toy. "If you haven't thought of it already, I can have one of my bots store the meeting's conversation so that anyone who shows up late can have a transcript of everything we had talked about up till then."

"Kids these days," Solid said as he sighed theatrically. "You try and teach them algebra and then they up and build a horde of robots to conquer the world. What's gone wrong with the world?"

"Co-op or solo?" Solid asked Experiment.

"Excuse me for being a bit paranoid on a hostile moon that I know zilch about," Toy replied a bit testily. "Have you made sure that this automated launch hasn't alerted whatever passes as the authorities around here? I'd hate for you to find a ship for us only to have it blown to smithereens when a Rikti warship comes to investigate."

************************************************

"You don't get much more potent than the Rikti," Solid said, continuing to argue in an amiable tone so as to give no offense. "The only guys who might give them a run for their money is Arachnos or Nemesis. And since Arachnos is kind of holed up in its little island and Nemesis is too busy concocting grand schemes, the Rikti seem to be the greatest threat to our security ever since they invaded in the first place."

Keeping his targetting eye focused Radiator and Ghost, he turned his other eye toward Lady Grey.

"Unless you're talking about something that has yet to hit Earth. Cause if you are, I'd be veeeeeeerrrrrrrry interested to know exactly what that is."

"The hell is an Ecialist?" Solid asked as he started pacing back and forth at the rear of the room.

Toy Dispenser, having left his bots out in the hallway, sat down in the middle of the second and looked around at everyone else.

"In case you missed me earlier, I am Toy Dispenser, major undeclared," Toy said with a wry grin in his voice.

***********************************************

"This is gonna be as boring as all hell," Combat Toy muttered to the general agreement of the rest of its fellows. Mini Bot was far too busy talking with Spindle to even acknowledge Combat Toy's glum declaration.

OOC: *twitch* This entrance is too good for me to pass up. Thanks Grey.

BIC: "[censored] yeah I can handle Nemesis!" came a loud shout from behind Nessie.

A grey painted android stepped forward from a door set further back into the room, an assault rifle cockily leaning on one shoulder and the elongated targeting lens of his cyclopix visor winking red. Heroes and villains with some form of identification equipment on them would recognize the android as Solid Shot, one of the more powerful rifle wielding blasters in Paragon City. Although he generally managed to stay off the major news, any reports on this hero painted him as brash, annoying, loud, and altogether too good at his job. He was also known as one of the heroes that dealt in lethal force when fighting select villain groups, though no one had asked him why he does so.

"I've shot him up at least two or three times," Solid nodded as he walked toward the gathering. "Done the same to Praetorians, evil clones, and alternate Nemesis'! Only people I haven't kicked the [censored] of are the big baddies from the Rogue Isles and that's because I scared them all off!"

"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you?" said Toy Dispenser as he crossed his arms and stared at Solid.

Solid hefted his rifle off his shoulder and aimed it at Toy one handed. "That includes you, Color Blind Bot. You ever want to have a good, old fashioned throw down, come rob a bank near my apartment and I'll show you a good one."

"So says the robot who still looks like he came off the assembly line," Toy shot back, his tone of voice making up for a lack of visible eyes to roll. "And I assure you, again, that if we did fight they'd still be picking pieces of you out of the stratosphere."

"Anyway!" Solid said even louder as he shouldered his rifle once again. "You jabberwockies wanna move your intellectual [censored] into the room made for talking? You keep crowding up the entrance and even Azuria could find this place due to the pile-up."

OOC: This is now a Solid Shot thread.

"Hello Vanessa," Toy said as he held up one finger at Klaus, signalling the mad scientist to wait a moment. "I haven't seen you around the base lately. I assume your absence has been due to the topic we'll be covering today?"

"The boss is not much of an inventor," said a four-legged battle drone as it clicked up to Klaus. "We are all modifications on a standard design template that Toy Dispenser aquired at some length. His specialization lies firmly in the realm of the mind... The electronic mind, to be precise."

"Hey Spindle!" shouted Mini Bot gleefully as the drone sprang forward into a forward cartwheel that involved using it's shoulder mounted tentacles instead of it's three fingered claws for thrust. "Don't listen to the crabby lady. How've you been doing?"

********************************************

"Only if they ask for it," Solid replied in a light tone before turning to Essex and nudging her. "Try not to make too many friends, alright? I have a hard enough time not arresting people who know me through you as it is."

Further conversation was abruptly stilled as a battered Longbow body hurtled through the air inches from Doctor Klaus' head and hit the brick wall near Vern with a loud thump and assorted crackles. The unfortunate do-gooder's mediport activated, whisking him away to a long stay in a hospital, as a hulking black android lurched out from between a couple of buildings across the street.

"God damn Longbow always trying to make trouble," Combat Toy said to whoever was in earshot. "[censored] need to learn not to mess with me."

"They do need to go over threat assessment in boot camp again," replied a shorter, multi-colored and caped android as he stepped out from behind Combat Toy and patted the larger machine on the shoulder. "At least that soldier will remember not to attack an armed group of dangerous looking robots all by himself in the future."

"Yeah right," said Combat Toy sarcastically as it glared at the several other metahumans in front of it. "And look at the menangerie we've got here. Capes, lizards, and masks, oh my."

"Please let the more mature people do the talking," Toy Dispenser said to his assault bot in a disparaging tone of voice.

As Toy Dispenser approached the building where the meeting was to take place, his other bots emerged from the shadows and trailed along behind. Due to Siren's Call being a hostile zone, they were trying to keep chatter to a minimum for the time being.

"Vern, Experiment, others," Toy said with a nod toward the group. "I assume we're all here for the same reason, then?"

"This looks like it might be fun," chirped Mini Bot as it looked at the spindly robot accompanying Vern.

******************************************

"Right-o," Solid said. "I can totally restrain myself. Well, my gun at least. Maybe not my acerbic and razor-sharp wit, however. So... Are we there yet?"

"[censored] yo," Solid said in awe as he backed out of the fight and landed next to Essex. "Look at them go."

Turning to Lady Grey, Solid accessed the command link to talk to her.

"Did you guys really need us to help take down the Rikti?" he simply asked.

Cher'tak had also decided it would be wise to pull back, though that decision had nothing to do with the eye beams Radiator had fired at him as they had done such little damage as to be ignored. Rather, the Warmaster lifted up his bladerifle, sighted down the top, and fired a powerful repulsor blast at the heavily wounded radiation villain. Toy's bots joined him in this, Combat Toy cutting loose with another pair of plasma blasts while the others unleashed a fusilade of laser fire.

Archlich added to Ghost's and Radiator's woes by starting up a mystical ice storm. Blue runes suddenly grafted themselves to Ghost's armor, serving as the focal point of the storm that filled the entire room. But the Vanguard troops and allied heroes and villains need not worry about the chilling winds and snow, which went through them with no effect. Being the adept wizard that he was, Archlich was easily able to make the storm affect only his targets.

********************************************

"I hope you're the one opening that up, Acid," Toy said as he dropped Small Toy, ordering the battle drone to continue on without him. "Cause if not, I'm going to have a hell of a time trying to shut it."

Toy relayed a brief video clip of the opening doors to explain what he was asking about as he began building up power just in case this whole thing wasn't as planned.