Khellendrosiic

"I'll get one or two if someone can distract them!" Toy shouted as he clenched his fists tightly. The electricity that normally flickered over his body quadrupled in speed and size as he temporarily supercharged his aura.

"I can only hold this for so long, so hurry up!" Toy grunted, strain causing his voice to static heavily.

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

"Oh [censored]!" Mini Bot shouted as the ball hit the ground.

Without waiting for anyone else to try anything, the ruby red bot scooped the ball up and activated another function of his chronal accelerator, the device that allowed him to have such insane reflexes. This function allowed Mini Bot to slow down time, effectively causing him to seem to have superspeed. Any offensive actions would negate the field, however.

The ball clutched in his hands and heedless of his own safety, Mini Bot sped out of the base and out the entrance, trying to get as far away as possible before it blew.

"Keep an eye on him," Toy said to Combat Toy and the rest of the bots that had moved over to his position now that the Mayhem forces were routed. "If he tries anything funny, break off an arm. But keep him alive, I wouldn't put it past the Masters to wire this place up with a deadman's switch."

"I hear ya," grunted Combat Toy as he squeezed Apex a bit. "You got that, scum? Try anything and I'm allowed to break you."

"I'll keep him from dying, sir," Large Toy said as he looked around the room at the other Resistance members, shooting a beam of thermites at Lithanka and Steve before he ran off.

"Maaaaaaaaaaan...." whined Mini Bot. "Can't I go and help Caleb kill the other minions?"

But Toy wasn't listening any more as he dashed off after Steve.

"Bear hug!" Combat Toy shouted in violent glee as he grabbed the mostly immobilized Apex Twin and held him tight enough to pin his arms and restrict his breathing but not enough to start crushing him. Yet.

"I hear you, Hokata," Toy muttered over his comm. link. "And seeing as how we've got our primary target, I think we can start pulling back to Baalial's position."

Ah, this question is always so very interesting to answer. Like what Burning said, I think the answer depends mainly upon what villain group that you're fighting at the time.

My main hero, Solid Shot, generally works with two seperate groups that he lumps enemies in: Those that aren't a global threat and those that are.

Enemies like the Skulls, Hellions, Trolls, Family, Carnival, and Sky Raiders aren't really global threats, so Solid uses some special ammunition for his gun in order to take them down (mostly) harmlessly.

But for those that ARE global threats, such as Rikti, Devouring Earth, Malta, and Nemesis, Solid loads up some AP rounds and shoots to kill. No one's going to miss those guys if they're gone and Solid is fullfilling his primary directive by killing these people.

Then I have my main villain, Toy Dispenser. Toy, quite frankly, doesn't really care if anyone dies or not when he storms through, as long as they stay down. He tries to avoid killing petty criminals, police forces, and people who should know better, but for everyone else he doesn't much care if his bots kill them or not. However, Toy does have a certain hatred for several groups, such as Crey and the Circle of Thorns and has instructed his bots to go for killing shots whenever possible with those.

So really, whether your hero or villain kills people or not depends entirely upon what YOU think they should do. Now, technically it's against the law for a hero to kill someone, but would people really care if you killed every Rikti or Devouring Earth you came across? And for villains it's even easier. They do whatever the hell they want and the Arachnos drones just come in to zap away whoever's left alive afterward.

"There you are," snarled Combat Toy as he caught sight of Apex's defensive maneuvers. "Time to put the fear of death back into you puffed up crooks."

Seeing that Apex's aim was to slip through the hole he had blasted in the door and escape the base through the front and under cover of the large melee still raging outside, Combat Toy started charging straight at the hole, bulling aside anyone in his way.

"Toy! Blacksmith! Now!" shouted the massive brute as he rushed toward the door, which was now partially blocked by the blurry form of Apex.

Toy Dispenser, not able to see what Combat Toy was talking about but with plenty of programmed reflexes to make up for it, enacted his part of the 'Blacksmith' plan, where he would throw up a super-powerful force bubble to force whoever was trying to get past him right into the arms of Combat Toy at double the force.

Having set himself up as well as he could and arranging himself into a tackling position, Combat Toy prepared to catch Apex Twin between a force field and a hard place.

"Hitting it!" Toy shouted as he drew back and dialed his force field generators up to maximum strength. A solid wall of force rippled away from him, phasing through immovable objects like walls and those friendlies that Toy had entered into his IFF targeter.

"Sybil's got nothing to do with us," Combat Toy snorted as a former Bane Spider slammed his mace into the robot's side. Thick bolts of electricity swarmed the impact area moments before the mace hit, absorbing most of the damage.

Cocking one fist, Combat Toy beaned the Spider in the head, knocking the man back a foot or two. The combat droid then followed up with an overhand double smash that slammed the Spider into the ground with enough force to crack the floor.

"Leave the bodyguards alone, CT!" shouted Toy Dispenser as he worked his way through the hole the more powerful robot had made in the door. "Go and flush out Apex!"

"Fine!" Combat Toy shouted as he jumped over the worst of the melee and landed next to Lithanika.

Sweeping his gaze around the area where he had seen Apex vanish too, Combat Toy activated a flood of short-lived nanites that briefly enhanced his senses to an unheardof degree. The nanites would burn themselves out in about a minute and he'd be paying for the brief overload in a couple of hours, but the now was much more important than the then.

Toy Dispenser, for his part, started off his bit in the fight by erecting sophisticated force fields around every non-Mayhem metahuman in the room. When a soldier got too close, he hit the man with a concentrated burst of electricity that overloaded his nervous system, sending him falling to the floor in a twitching spasm.

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

"Now this is MY kind of party!" Mini Bot shouted happily as he nimbly dodged between a couple of soldiers and then rolled forward onto his hands.

From his handstand, he spun around in a quick circle, kicking out at everyone around him. Then he did a headstand and started lashing out with his claws as his body spun around another couple of times before it ran out of momentum. The soldiers nearest him went down pretty quickly, either crippled or heavily wounded, Mini Bot didn't much care. They were down and down might as well have been out since Toy Bot was around.

The neon green android had siphoned the speed from one of the Huntsman and was zipping around the cafeteria, pausing every now and then to brutally savage an already wounded soldier before dashing off and increasing the kinetic energy of another of his allies. Small Toy was also adding his firepower and unique skills, moving invisibly about and leaving patches of caltrops and trip mines behind him, making sure that the Mayhem soldiers couldn't regroup and form a cohesive charge. Large Toy was hanging back, burning the occasional foe but mostly focusing on healing his allies with his thermites.

"PAAAAAAAAAAAARTY!" Mini Bot shouted as he immidiately dove forward, rolled under a soldier, and eviscerated the poor guy as he went.

"We shall take care of things here," Toy Bot stated as generators within his body whirred to life, sucking the kinetic energy from a Huntsman and transferring it to Baalial in a stream of blue light.

"Indeed we shall," Small Toy agreed as he stepped forward, launching a smoke bomb at a patch of Mayhem soldiers and then tossing a wave of energy at the nearest soldiers.

"Just try and keep yourself from getting killed while we're busy, sir," added Large Toy as he started circling the main fight, but not before flooding Combat Toy's systems with specially designed nanites that pumped up his combat systems to new heights.

"You guys worry too much," said Toy as Combat Toy waded through the melee, knokcing aside several soldiers to reach the door. It took several seconds for him to focus and then project enough power to blow a man-sized hole through the doors, but it worked well enough.

"Call for back-up, Stevie Wonder?" Combat Toy asked as he pushed through the hole and into Apex Twin's chamber.

OOC: *pokes Devious* You were following Small Toy, foo.

BIC: "Hold here please," Small Toy told the group as it started fiddling with the computer console set in front of the teleporter. "In order for this operation to be successful, we need to pull in as many of the others as we can. Hopefully they are not tremendously busy."

"Remember to leave Block Bot alone," Combat Toy grumbled. "If he up and leaves, the rebels might get paranoid again. We haven't really told them how good these salvaged 'porters are."

"Affirmitive," nodded Small Toy as it finished up. "Incoming teleportation, please shield your eyes."

The need to shield one's eyes became fairly obvious as a flash of light brighter than several camera flashes at once suddenly filled the room. As it faded, it gradually revealed three new robots standing on the teleport pad.

"Trouble with the Masters?" asked a short, neon green robot that stood in the center of the pad.

"Affirmitive," answered Small Toy.

"Who're the new guys?" asked a similar sized red robot. A trio of claws snikked out of its wrist as it tilted its head and dug at a chunk of dirt lodged in its neck joint. This robot seemed to be covered in dirt and muck, obscuring much of its brilliant red color scheme. The pauldrons on its shoulders were also heavily dented as though they had been hit by many heavy rocks.

"If they're in here, then they're rebels that Vendetta trusts, Mini Bot," answered the last robot before Small Toy or Combat Toy could say anything. This last robot was a bit taller than the other two and painted a dark blue. Like most of the others, it had no visible mouth and its eyes were covered by a thick red visor. The robot ran one hand down the bands on its chest in a nervous gesture as it stepped off the teleport pad.

"These are Toy Bot, Mini Bot, and Large Toy," Combat Toy said as he pointed at each robot in the order that they had spoken. "Normally they're out on detatched operations, but at an instants notice they can be recalled."

"This teleporter was the only thing I managed to salvage from the wreck of my manufactory satellite," said Vendetta as he walked up from behind the group. But Vendetta wasn't clad in the bright gold yellow armor that he had been before. Now he was wearing what appeared to be a riot of clashing colors and a cape that was covered in blue and red diamonds.

All of the robots seemed to stare at Vendetta in shock as he stepped up to the teleport console and started hitting buttons. After a couple seconds of this, he turned to the only three living creatures in the room and tilted his head at an angle, a broad grin written across his every movement.

"Think it's about time for Toy Dispenser to make a return, eh?" he said lightly. "Now Baalial, do your thing. Try and augment your power with the teleporter. It should work to punch us through the intereference and get us right on top of Apex Twin and his goons."

Combat Toy cracked its knuckles loudly and rolled his neck. Mini Bot snikked out its other set of claws and started grinding them against one another in anticipation. Large Toy's hands started radiating a dull flame while Toy Bot and Small Toy remained motionless.

"So much [censored] is going to get kicked," Mini Bot cackled joyfully.

OOC: OHHHHH YEEEAAAH!!!!!

BIC: Vendetta accepted the folder from Baalial and started flipping through it. Combat Toy loomed over his shoulder in order to read as well, something that probably wouldn't have been neccessary if the link that Toy Dispenser had had with his robots still existed.

"Please wait one moment," Small Toy said to Psycho, turning towards him. "It is unlikely that the situation would have changed while Vendetta takes the time to re-"

Small Toy was cut off as the computer console started beeping loudly. Looking up at Vendetta and Combat Toy, who hadn't moved an inch, the robot sighed and walked over to the console. Fingers swiftly dancing over the keys, the robot quickly brought up an image showing another robot's face. This one had the same eye visor that Combat Toy had with the addition of several motes of pink light that floated around its black painted head.

"Block Bot?" Small Toy said in confusion. "You are not scheduled to report in for at least another day."

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

"Screw the report," Block Bot said into the screen displaying Small Toy's face on the pop-up panel on its wrist. "What I just found out is much more important."

Pausing for a moment to make sure no one other than the mind-controlled rebel was nearby, Block Bot resumed speaking.

"Sybil's pulling one of her stunts," the robot explained. "Apparently Windsong got her [censored] kidnapped and she's sent Stevie Wonder and a whole lot of new blood to rescue her. And that's the weird thing, I haven't seen any of these people before and every single one of them are metahumans. One of them is even a psyker. It was everything I could do to keep myself hidden from her."

Block Bot was Vendetta's man on the inside among the rebels. Normally he acted as a relay between the rebel leaders and Vendetta, but he also acted as a spy, using his psychic powers to manipulate perceptions in order to allow him to listen in on supposedly hidden conversations. This tactic is how Vendetta knew about some of the riskier plans that the rebels had tried in the past and had been able to arrive in the nick of time to either join in the victory celebrations or help cover the retreat. Block Bot had mostly kept its psychic powers secret, though it was hard to do so around the ever-paranoid rebels.

"Stupidity aside," continued Block Bot, its voice becoming exasperated. "All of them, new guys and Steve, are hitting Apex Twin right in his home base. You and I both know that even with all the help, there's next to no chance of this assault getting pulled off. Apex may be small fish, but he's still a Zone Leader and certainly no push-over."

There came a knocking at Block Bot's door and he maneuvered his captive into distracting the other rebel for a few more seconds.

"I'll call back in when I can. Just tell the boss to get everyone else together and hit Apex's base with all we got. If we're lucky, we'll pull off a win."

Hastily snapping down the wrist panel, Block Bot turned to face the person who had come to see him.

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

"Interesting," Small Toy said as Block Bot's face went away. "Your wish may be granted, Caleb."

"May nothing," Vendetta suddenly spoke up. "We're going and all three of you are coming with me. This file has quite a bit of useful information that I'll have to digest later, but the most interesting part is this."

Folding the folder back, Vendetta exposed the first page and tapped the second paragraph with a finger.

"See this here? Looks just like some background fluff on what happened here but it's really a message in an old Master cipher that I had cracked some months ago. Simply put, it says here that no matter what else I do with this folder, I have to support whatever the heck the rest of this time travellers do. Weird as hell, I know, but it lists some more stuff that's... fairly convincing."

"And personnal," Combat Toy rumbled angrily. "How the hell did this guy know about-!"

"We're moving out," Vendetta said, cutting Combat Toy off. "Small Toy will lead you to my teleporter while I get prepared. Why don't you get to know each other?"

Vendetta then quickly power walked off into a smaller room that was set unobtrusively in a corner of the larger cavern. The room was shielded by a large screen and what seemed like a white noise generator, evidenced by the fact that Vendetta's feet stopped clicking against the stone floor after he had gotten within five feet of the screen.

"Follow me," Small Toy said as it lead the way down a short tunnel to a teleporter room taken right out of Star Trek.

OOC: Ok, hope this'll help put us back on track.

OOC: <_< *pokes back, with a knife* I know, I know. Had the RP bug a little while ago, posted once, was in the middle of making a post here when I got distracted and things fell apart. Rest assured that when I come back, I'll put us very close to merging with the main story line.

Have patience, grasshoppas.

<_< And please don't kill me. I like living.

"Initiating emergency repairs," stated the machine as it crouched down and placed its undamaged hand over the shattered stump of the other. "Estimated time until completion: Ten seconds."

Light green energy wafted from the palm of its hand and drifted onto the damaged areas where it was quickly absorbed. Within seconds, the shape of a new hand was recognizable and seconds after that the repairs were finished. Flexing its new hand as it stood up, the machine suddenly pivoted in place toward an open patch of ground.

"Incoming teleport!" it shouted to Mooncipher. "Prepare for combat!"

Sensing Psycho's distress, Small Toy set a thick roll of duct tape on a rickety table next to the hero and then went over to stand with its master.

OOC: *waves to the peanut gallery* *throws a rotten tomato at them*

BIC: "Sure I can, Caleb," Vendetta said as he turned back to the computer. "It's not like the Masters of Mayhem own the world after all. I've identified no less than twenty different satellites keeping an eye on things down here."

An image came up on screen showing every orbiting satellite around Earth as a point of blue or red light. Some of the lights were dimmer than the rest, perhaps to indicate that the signal was poor.

"I keep a couple of backdoors on several military satellites from different countries in case I ever need to use them. Ever since Elitest dedicated several Warburg nukes to take down any orbital objects owned by metahumans that he had killed, I've had to make due with other sources," said Vendetta as he finished typing in some code.

One of the lights blinked brightly and a subset of the screen shifted to a view of the outskirts of Paragon City where the satellite was currently looking. A smaller box popped up above that window, asking for the desired coordinates.

"Just type in the latitude and longitude of where you want to look," Vendetta said as he stepped back. "I'll leave you to that."

Small Toy moved up next to Psycho, perhaps to offer some emotional support, perhaps to keep him from damaging anything if he saw something too upsetting.

"Currently our plan amounts to guirella warfare," Vendetta said as he walked over to Baalial and Hokata. "And the resistance isn't losing, yet, but it's only a matter of time. I keep telling them we can't fight the Masters head on, but they never listen."

"They've almost gotten to the point where they don't even clue us in on their plans any more," Combat Toy grumbled as it moved over to stand with Vendetta. "We may not be an official part of the resistance, but we often coordinated in the past. Nowadays it's an effort just to take shelter in a safe house for a couple of days."

"I've been hitting military targets whenever possible," Vendetta said, overriding Combat Toy with a look. "Power plants, factories, barrackses, whatever I can get into, practically. I've been making myself into as big a thorn as I can and jabbing myself into the sides of the Masters as often as possible. Hopefully the Masters just tie up more of their resources searching for me instead of the real threat, the main resistance. It helps that I leave a calling card."

With a quick gesture, Vendetta snapped his hand up, a golden card appearing between two fingers. He passed it over to Hokata, a self satisfied expression radiating from his body posture.

The card read: You've just been owned, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Vendetta.
Short name, quality [censored] kicking.

"If you couldn't tell, I borrowed a bit from the old LMOUSVEV card."

"Warning! Class Twenty magical artifact detected! Excessive caution when engaging is advised!" shouted out the machine as the Magus drew the Hellfire blade and set about jumping around.

Knowing full well that it could only stand up to a Class Twenty combat artifact for less than a minute, the machine decided to end this fight as quickly as possible.

Snapping both arms out wide to its side, the machine deployed two long blades from its forearms. One blade hummed with pure energy, powered as it was by pure light and the good of all mankind, it glowed brighter here than it normally would on Praetorian Earth. The second blade was like a hole cut out of existence in the shape of a sword; powered by the void and the evil of all things, it was slightly weaker in this world, but still extremely powerful. The two blades were called Yin and Yang by their creator before he was killed and his creations stolen. They were only classified as Class Twleve artifacts, but their dual nature allowed them to survive against things that would annihilate a normal Class Twelve. The machine had only had need to deploy these weapons once before and that fight had nearly cost it its life. Hopefully this would go a bit better.

Taking several steps forward, the machine hurled itself straight at the Magus, switching power from its personnal armor to the m-shield surrounding its form. The swords would be its only defense against such a powerful artifact.

Both swords pulled back to punch them into the Magus' body and magic impacting on his shield, the machine was quite prepared to end this now.

"Glad to see you too," Vendetta choked out as Hokata caught him up in a bear hug.

Combat Toy snorted in laughter as the big martial artist finally put Vendetta down and the golden armored man rubbed his arms as though they were in pain.

"Quite a lot has happened since whenever you came from," Vendetta said as he slipped loose of Hokata's arms and walked over to the computer console. "For starters, I go by the name 'Vendetta' now, on account of the vendetta I have against that turned my home into more of a hell hole than it already was."

Vendetta hit several buttons and navigated his way to a short propaganda clip detailing the Masters of Mayhem as the true rulers of all.

"Those guys are the Masters of Mayhem," Vendetta said, turning around to face his audiance and hooking a thumb back at the screen. "They are currently the owners of the Rogue Ilses and most of Paragon City. I say most because there's a pretty active resistance going on, though there's no telling how long it can last."

"The idiots are trying to wage a real war," Combat Toy snorted again.

"And about LMOUSVEV," continued Vendetta. "On my orders and with the sanction of the Malevolith, CptCommie, and Outlaw Jack, we allied ourselves with Lord Recluse's forces and tried to stop the take over of the Isles. We lost. Most of us were killed in the last few fights and the retreat that followed afterward. More of us were lost forever when the Masters of Mayhem got together a number of sorcerors and cut the dimensional anchor that tied our base to this world. As far as I know, those who were still on it are still there, but hopelessly trapped."

"We're the only ones who remain," Small Toy finished as Vendetta slumped a bit, overcome by painful memories. "Out of a force of dozens of superbly trained, equipped, and powered metahumans, only seven robots walked away. And even we didn't escape entirely unscathed."

"Welcome to the future," Combat Toy said. "It sucks."

The skulls shot right at the machine but stopped in midair, blocked by a shimering yellow shield that seemed to absorb them without any undue effects. The bolt of pure force presented a little more of a challenge. The bolt slammed into the shield and was stopped by it, but not before imparting a hefty amount of its energy as kinetic force in the direction opposite of where the machine was falling towards. This served to arrest his fall as though his shield had hit a brick wall.

Plummeting to the ground, the machine landed in a crouch but surged back to its feet almost instantly. Barreling down on the Magus, the machine displayed an agility that was incongruous with such a bulky hunk of metal and circuitry. With this agility, the machine easily dodge any straight attacks that the Magus threw at it, though the Magus couldn't know how adept the machine was yet.

"Class Nine and two Class Six enemy arcane types identified," rumbled the robot as it slowly turned to face the Magus. "Activating anti-magic defenses. Loading anti-arcane type combat algorithms. Requesting aid of Subject Mooncipher to annihilate Class Six arcane types."

Moving slowly, the robot slammed both fists together, creating a sparking field that enveloped the machine in a globe of hissing energy that faded away soon after it was revealed. The arcs of electricity coursing over its form started shooting out wider, grounding themselves in the ground around it and blasting smaller burn marks in the already blasted ground.

"Obeying prime directive: All metahumans of Primal Earth must die," said the robot as it leapt up out of the crater and shot down through the air at the Magus, one fist pulled back to smash the offender's head in.

"SUBJECT MOONCIPHER," bellowed a deep voice from above the hovering Praetorian.

A black hunk of metal trailing a streamer of red shot past the god from above, hurtling toward the park below at incredible speeds. If looked at closely, the hunk would appear to be a massive man curled into a tight ball. The falling object hit the ground with tremendous force, landing coincidentally right where Praetorian Selene had been killed by the Magus.

The ground exploded out in a huge dust cloud as a crater was blasted into the ground. Anyone within the vicinity of the park would figure that someone had dropped a high-yield artillery shell rather than a man-sized object.

Uncurling itself and standing upright, the machine, for it was without a doubt an android of some sort, stood about nine feet tall. Artificial muscles seemed to be barely contained by pitch black high grade armor plating. Thick bolts of red electricity crackled up and down its form and a blank face studded with multiple red glowing eyes glowered at the ruined pastoral scene around it.

"Subject Mooncipher," shouted the robot as it turned it's gaze skyward, looking directly at the villain despite his concealment. "By direct order of Marauder, I have been assigned to your unit. The destruction of Hero Subject Hallucinogen and allied Hero Subjects is deemed of suitable priority to warrent my deployment. I await orders."

After finishing it's speech, the robot lowered it's gaze back down level with the ground and remained standing as still as a statue while the dust of its entry settled down around it.

OOC: Blar. Sorry I took so long to post.

BIC: "There has been a change of plans," Small Toy said to Psycho as it deactivated its cloaking field. "The intruders are actually allies of some form. Please return to the base while I venture forward and guide them in.

With that said, the grey robot started running down the tunnel to meet Baalial and Hokata.

"I thought I recognized you two," replied the crackling speaker. "Baalial and Dragon of Decay, right? But what the hell are you doing still alive? Last I saw of you, Baalial had been banished back to Hell for one hundred years and Dragon had been trapped in the base when a coalition of Mayhem sorcerors trapped it in a null-dimensional bubble.... then crushed it into the size of an atom."

The speaker fell silent for an instant before hissing up again.

"You two wouldn't be from some sort of alternate dimension to kill the Masters of Mayhem in order to keep this dimension from unravelling, would you?"

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

Small Toy suddenly paused and held up a clenched fist.

"There appears to be a complication," the robot said in explanation. "Hold here until further orders."

Statesman: "Oh you poor regen Scrapper, of COURSE I won't nerf you!"

"Be my guest," Vendetta said as he hastily typed at the main computer. "Just give me a second to see what we're up against."

A flickering image appeared on the main screen, revealing a picture of the hidden entrance in washed out black and white. The image seemed unstable with static washing across it every now and then as if the camera providing the image was malfunctioning or broken. But regardless of the poor quality, it still managed to show the two forms of the demon and martial artist clearly enough to get a good idea of what they were.

"Crap," cursed Combat Toy as it looked over Vendetta's shoulder. "Looks like a hit squad of metahumans. Knowing the Masters', those two should be hopped up on enough combat drugs and stims to take down an army, let alone us four."

"We've handled their like before," muttered Vendetta as he zoomed in on the face of the demonic looking being. "But something seems off here. I could swear I recognize them..."

As Vendetta resumed typing at the computer, Small Toy moved up to the door and rapped in the exit code. The drone motioned for Psycho to follow it as it stepped outside into the tunnel.

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

The miniature camera hidden in the ceiling of the tunnel panned over the two figures for several more seconds as Vendetta consulted his files. Finally, the two had barely managed more than ten steps down the long tunnel when a hidden speaker located near the floor activated with an electronic squeal.

"Long name, quality villainy, right?" came a heavily distorted voice from the speaker.

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

"We shall move forward to an advance position," Small Toy said to Psycho. "Multiple defensive measures are primed to activate upon intrusion, but they shall need assistance in holding off the enemy long enough for the base to be relocated."

Fading to almost-invisibility, Small Toy started trotting down the tunnel toward the instruders.

"Where'd you pick up the pet, V?" grunted a deep, growling voice.

The large black droid stepped down from the repair gantry, rolling it's new arm in order to make sure everything was in order. Energy briefly flared from its hand, radiating from generators tucked into its oversized forearms, resulting in a pink-ish red glow.

"Have some respect, CT," Vendetta replied as he crossed the room to a bank of computers. "The guy just got here and already he wants to go kick some Mayhem [censored]."

"He doesn't look like much," shot back Combat Toy as it gave Psycho an arch look, managing to look quite disapproving while glaring down at the hero through it's visor.

"I don't look like much," said Small Toy as it fiddled with something by the gantries.

Combat Toy snorted and lumbered over to where Vendetta was bringing up what appeared to be a map of the city on the main screen.

"About your last question, come over here and look at this," Vendetta said as he started highlighting certain areas in red and green. "Green areas are ones held by the Resistance, red for those held by the Masters of Mayhem. As you can tell by the lacking of any yule-tide charm, the Resistance isn't doing that well."

"Maybe if they had listened to you about not trying to take and hold territory," Combat Toy huffed as it crossed its arm.

"Yeah yeah yeah, past is past," replied Vendetta in dismissal. "But anyway, if you're serious about helping me out, Caleb, then you can assist me on this strike I was planning on-"

Vendetta suddenly stopped speaking and looked toward the door they had all just come through. A small red light had just begun blinking at the top of one of the consoles.

"Ah [censored]," Combat Toy cursed. "Intruders. And here I was thinking this base would stay secure for at least another month."

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

As the demon pulled at the door, it slid open effortlessly, grinding away with a crunching of sand in gears. The new opening in the ground led into a tunnel lit with the dull yellow lighting of long-lasting emergency lights.

"We're on the outskirts of what used to be Paragon City, Rhode Island, my fine friend!" said the man over his shoulder as he jogged down the tunnel. "And the tunnels you're moving through right now used to belong to a villain group called the Council."

Small Toy hopped into the tunnels behind Psycho13 and closed the door behind it before running to catch up with the other two men. Once again it remained just out of easy reach as it trooped along behind the hero.

"Please ignore the rubbish," the man said as the group moved past a side passage leading into a room that appeared to be full of wrecked and ruined Council robots. "I've tried cleaning the place up a bit, but there's only so many useful parts a Council warbot has and I have to put the rest somewhere.

"Ok now, we have kind of a long run, so let me monologue for most of it. You can call me Vendetta, on account of that's what I have printed on my calling cards. The quiet little guy behind you is Small Toy, if you haven't picked up on that yet. He's got more sensors packed into him than Black Scorpion had weapon systems, so don't try any funny stuff."

The trio were now passing various defensive installations, from pillboxes set into the walls to pop-out turrets that looked to have been to Hell and back. Some huge battle had raged through here some time ago, though who the attackers were wasn't certain.

"I'm going to assume you have amnesia or are from some alternate dimension, so I'll give you a little crash course in what's up. Basically, the Rogue Isles were taken over by some supervillain group called the Masters of Mayhem. They sorta came out of nowhere and took the place by storm. Various metahumans and superpowers tried to fight, but the Masters put things down with a ruthlessness even Lord Recluse hadn't shown."

The man stopped as he came to a large security door that blocked the way. The door was heavily scarred but appeared to be intact and certainly functional, as the man input a short code into a panel on his wrist and the door opened smoothly. Through the door was what appeared to be a defunct Council 'Blue Room' where the water supplies of large bases were stored and purified for consumption. But this room had had its purpose changed to something resembling a cross between a mechanic's shop and a living room, with repair gantrys sitting in front of a large TV and several cots sitting in a corner next to a couple of odd looking recharge racks.

"And then they came and took over Paragon," finished Vendetta as he motioned Psycho inside so he could close the door. "But what's really weird is that the rest of the world hasn't done a thing about it, leaving a small force of metahumans and regulars to wage an underground war against a bunch of bastards that have the combined powers of two superhuman nations behind them."

"Almost makes you wish you had drowned, huh?" added Small Toy as it stepped past Psycho and moved over to a repair gantry that was occupied by a large, pitch black robot getting it's arm welded back on by several servo-arms.

"Ha! I wish this was all a dream!" barked the man as he disassembled his rifle into little black boxes and stored them in compartments that opened up all over his armor. "Also, just so you know, you being a metahuman changes things quite a bit."

"Mayhem forces have been detected moving toward our position, sir," said Small Toy as it turned to face the city. Panels in its head peeled open like a flower to reveal advanced scanning devices and sensors. "A small detatchment, to be sure, but I believe they are finally investigating the same energy signature that brought us here in the first place."

"Oh joy," sighed the man. "I guess you should come with me. We can chat some more after we've lost these thugs. Shouldn't be that hard."

Rolling his shoulders, a red charge of electricity built up around his shoulders and then rippled down his arm to shoot off and impact a slightly raised patch of sand. The ground there shuddered and opened up, the secret door contained within pulling back and dragging its load of sand with it.

"Follow me!" the man shouted as he dove into the hole.