Khellendrosiic

“Is this the place?” grunted the nine-foot tall assault bot.

“It’s where Scirocco said it would be,” replied Toy Dispenser as he and the aptly named Combat Toy stared at one of the many ubiquitous circular Arachnos doors in Spider City.

“Doesn’t look like much,” chirped up Mini Bot, the eccentric one of Toy’s three battle drones.

“Doesn’t have too,” replied Toy again as he moved over to the keypad sitting next to the door. “And if the code’s that Mu gave me still work, then we won’t have to go through the trouble of alerting every guy in the base that we’re here.”

“That’ll be a relief,” muttered Small Toy, another of the battle drones, as Toy rapidly punched in a six-digit code.

With a hiss, the door cracked open and revealed the way inside.

“Big hulking combat droids first,” Toy said as he waved Combat Toy through.

The big machine grumbled but otherwise kept its vocoder shut off as it squeezed through the door and took up a guard position as the rest of the group filed in. As the last protector bot stepped through, Toy punched in another code that locked and sealed the door once more.

“Don’t want anybody getting out,” Toy said, mostly to himself, as he then assembled his laser rifle and propped the thing up on his shoulder. “Ok boys, let’s go kick some [censored].”

“Hell yeah!” shouted Mini Bot as it jumped up and down, its enthusiasm so great that it accidentally smacked into the wall.

“Standard guard formation,” Toy said as he looked around at his surroundings.

It was a typical Arachnos set-up, lots of red, lots of exposed wiring and tubing, and a whole bunch of machinery that Toy Dispenser could never fully identify. Nothing at all seemed unusual by just looking at the place, but things would probably get more interesting once he ran into his first enemies.

“She told us she loves us.”

Speak of the devil, Toy thought as a pair of Mu Strikers neared his position. They didn’t seem to notice him and his bots yet so the mastermind stood his ground and waited.

“She told us she loves us,” said the Mu on the right.

“And now we love her, now and forever,” added the one on the left.

“Creepy,” muttered Large Toy, a protector bot as it cast a quick shield on Combat Toy.

“You should love her too!” shouted one of the Mu suddenly.

A split second later and a crackling bolt of red electricity slammed into the shield covering Combat Toy. A little bit made it through, playing over the big robot’s armor, but the major damage was prevented and the Mu had wasted their opening shot.

“Let’s get it on!” shouted Combat Toy as its arms sprung up and their protective blast shields slid back. It fired a massive plasma burst, knocking one Mu out of the air and catching the other one on fire.

As the grounded Mu flailed around, the three battle drones stepped forward and opened up as well with a continuous laser blast. The airborne mystic spun around in confusion and pain until he passed out and joined his brother on the floor. Toy stepped forward and nudged them both with his foot. They were still alive.

“That was too easy,” Toy mentioned as the entire group started moving.

“It’s about to get harder,” Block Bot said. “Patrol of Bane Spiders ahead, boss.”

“She told us she loves us,” said one Bane Spider as it lifted up its mace.

“This is going to get really old, real quick,” Toy said as he shouldered his rifle and opened fire.

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

The Bane Spider Executioner gurgled as he clawed at his crushed throat. Toy Bot took a step back and shook some blood off of its mace hand and watched dispassionately as the high ranking Arachnos soldier gasped for breath and then collapsed, dead. The drone turned its four glowing red eyes toward its master and awaited its next orders.

“Brilliant. Just brilliant,” Toy Dispenser groaned as Large Toy used a small infusion of nanites to repair some damage to his armor. “We leave a whole ton of the small fries alive and when we come to the base commander, what do we do? We kill him. If Scirocco hadn’t said that casualties weren’t an issue, I’d be worrying for my head right now.”

“Sorry, boss,” said an unrepentant Toy Bot. “I was just eliminating him as a threat as quickly as possible.”

“Which is supposed to be my job,” growled Combat Toy from across the room as it worked on getting rid of the last bits of web grenade fibers trapping it.

“But you were immobilized and my function is-“

“Shut up you two,” Toy said as he pushed Large Toy away and walked over to the mainframe computer sitting against the far wall. “While I work at getting the security camera footage, I want you guys to look for the safe.”

“Aye, boss,” said all the bots.

The next few minutes passed in silence as Toy Dispenser used yet another of the codes Scirocco had given him to quickly access and watch the security camera footage from the infiltration a few days ago. The footage showed something very unusual and explained the one track minds of the soldiers that Toy had been forced to beat down. It showed first a woman in a genie costume entering the base and being blocked by a pair of Mu mystics, maybe the same two that Toy encountered as well. Then all three moved out of the entrance camera’s view and when the woman was next seen, she had several more Arachnos soldiers trailing her like a lot of lovesick puppies.

It appeared as though the woman was looking for something and once she had enough soldiers under her control, she sent them all out to find it. The footage ended then with a blinking message saying that the base commander had shut down the cameras at that point.

“Found it!”

The safe in question was hidden underneath a sloping platform and looked about as solid as any other Arachnos safe Toy had cracked during his stay in the Rogue Isles. As the mastermind walked over to it, a data disk of the security logs in his hand, he noticed something was wrong with the safe. Crouching down, he identified the problem. It wasn’t locked.

Dreading what he would find inside, Toy pulled the door open and was confronted with one of the oddest things that had ever happened to him. He smelled. Since he wasn’t used to the feeling, he wasn’t able to tell if it was a good smell or a bad smell but the fact was that it wasn’t being reported by his olfactory sensors. And of course the safe was empty.

“We are dealing with one crazy powerful magic user this time,” Toy said as he suddenly sat down. “One of you call up Scirocco and tell him that his base is clean and that I’ll be up to report in person shortly.”

“You ok, boss?” asked Mini Bot worriedly as Small Toy stepped off to the side and made the call.

“Oh, I’m fine. I just had something happen to me that’s supposed to be impossible, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“That’s actually kind of normal for around here, boss.”

“True.”

"This does not look good," Jay muttered to himself as he stodd shoulder to waist with what appeared to be a perfect replica of an Atlas from BattleTech.

The BattleMech confirmed its identity when it launched a barrage of long range missiles, a pair of emerald lasers beams, and a depleted-uranium slug at the demon child. But that impressive display of firepower meant nothing when the shadow simply reached down and blocked the fusilade with its claws. At the same time another mecha fired a trio of blue beams at the shadow demon itself which also accomplished nothing.

"<Someone call up one of the other bases!>" Jay shouted into his comm. "<This thing isn't being touched by conventional weaponry!>"

When he didn't hear anything back from command and another mecha had been crushed by a giant shadowy fist, Jay switched his comm. link to wide area.

"<Everybody! Stop aiming at the demon itself. If we keep shooting at the child, the shadow should do nothing but protect its host. And then if we can flank it, we might be able to end this now!>"

"<Copy that.>"

"<Sounds good.>"

"<Let's teach this thing what it's messing with!>"

The mecha now took aim at their new target and opened up with everything they had while several broke free from the fortifications and dashed around the demon, hoping to plant a few slugs and laser beams in its back.

OOC: What about Mr. I'm Super Powerful demon child?

Jay and the ground crew were working on linking up the final bits of the right shoulder launcher when suddenly alarms began blaring, accompanied by the traditional red lights.

"<Warning! All pilots to their mecha! An unidentified Class Ten demon is approaching the base! All unassigned mecha are to report to combat stations immidiately! All super powered personnel are to report to Commander Sai! And all non-combatants are warned to enter the nearest safety bunker!" a man called out over the intercom. "I repeat, all mecha are ordered to combat status..."

"A Class Ten?" Smith wondered as he slotted in the last power connection. "What the hell is that?"

"I think I'll be finding out," Jay replied as he hurridly wiped his hands off on a dirty rag and started climbing up Laserblade's back. "Get that launcher secured and the last of the ammo loaded! I have a bad feeling that they're going to need everyone out there."

"Got it, Jay," Smith replied and then started shouting orders at the other crew as he climbed off the shoulder.

About two minutes passed, they felt like hours, before the last checks were made and Laserblade was cleared for deployment. By then, Jay had seen almost a dozen other mecha walk past him from deeper within the base, some of whom looked to be about ten times as old as Laserblade's youngish three years. With a thunk and a hiss, the last cable disconnected and the mecha lumbered to its feet.

"<Command, this is Laserblade. I'm ready for deployment,>" Jay called up on the comm. "<I've never been given a defense assignment and I was hoping->"

"Laserblade!" a harried sounding technician interupted. "<Proceed directly to gate 3 and assist the defenders there! The Class Ten seems to be entering from that direction and all avaliable firepower is needed to take it down. Go quickly!>"

"<Aye, command,>" Jay replied as he throttled Laserblade up to a trot. "<Proceeding to Gate 3.>"

"<It's been holding up fine so far,>" Jay noted as he walked past the band.

Laserblade swiftly walked past the band and headed down to his personnel repair bay in the massive underground stoorage structure. On his way down, he passed by several other Anime-themed mecha painted in bright colors and equipped with a variety of projectile and beam weaponry. After entering the base proper, Laserblade thumped over to his repair bay where a small crew was milling around a large pair of missile racks.

"Hey Jay!" shouted Bill Smith, one of the technicians that had followed him from the prototype labs all the way to Japan.

The rest of the crew, about half of which were American, also shouted hellos at the returning hero and scrambled around to prep the computers and pull out some equipment. Backing into the alcove, Jay shut Laserblade down and popped the hatch. Climbing out of the back of Laserblade, Jay scaled down the ladder rungs that were built into the back of the mecha.

"How're the missiles doing?" Jay asked as he hit the floor and looked over at Smith.

"They're up and running again," the big man replied. "Tetsubara's English may suck but he certainly knows his weaponry. We even managed to find a new focusing lens for the laser just in case the current one bites the dust."

"Great! The lens is much more fragile than the sword's focusing crystal. I was worried that any more fighting today would have warped it out of shape."

"Oh? I heard you took down a couple of Oni, no sweat."

"Geez, has everybody heard that?"

"Yep."

"Word travels fast."

"Uh-huh."

"Let's get those racks mounted."

"Right-o."

Toy Dispenser here, RSVP acknowledged.

Expect to see me there.

"<Hold on,>" Jay warned.

With a cough and a roar, Laserblade's jump pack switched on and propelled the mecha through a long and low leap that barely cleared several buildings to land in an empty street. The pavement cracked and broke under Laserblade's feet as it absorbed the impact and then jumped again.

It took several more jumps, one of them right in the middle of a pack of Greater Hounds, before Laserblade crossed the Akihabara perimeter. As soon as the mecha landed, it was confronted by another giant robot that was at least one half again as tall as Laserblade and painted in white and red. It toted a giant machine gun under one arm that was currenty aimed at the US produced machine.

"Hey Takibasha," Jay said, reverting to english so that the Japanese pilot would know who he was.

"<Aha! My favorite United States Gundam fanboy!>" crowed Takibasha. "<And I've heard that you had a run-in with some of our fearsome visitors from down below.>"

"Those civvies got here already?" Jay asked, his disbelief clear through the megaphone. "How is it that they always get here before me?"

Takibasha just laughed and with a tilt of his machine gun, waved Laserblade in through Akihabara's perimeter. Since more destructive travel powers like Laserblade's superjump was banned while inside Akihabara, Jay activated the ground skates and went down the road at a brisk clip.

"<We'll be there shortly,>" Jay said to Toshio. "<After we arrive, just hop down and you can do whatever you came here to do. And for what it's worth, good luck.>"

Soon the entrance to the underground mechabays came into view and Laserblade slowed to a stop just outside of it. The mecha crouched down to give Toshio less of a jump.

Off to one side of the group was a row of large recharging racks, each of which contained a Guardian riddled with long, serrated spines. The hiss soon grew in pitch and everyone's attention was drawn to a huge heap of metal crates and gun racks lying haphazardly across the middle of the floor. With a creaking groan, one of the large crates toppled over and revealed a large, monstrous head. The head looked to be about the size of a normal human head but at least half of it was a drool dripping jaw. A huge boney frill standing above the head made it look at least four times as large and a pair of soulless white eyes glared with malevolence at the group.

The creature slithered fully out from behind the pile, revealing its mostly serpintine body. Only mostly because a pair of thin, but still strong arms, sat a little ways below the head. The arms looked normal, if very thin, until one got to where the hands should be. Instead of hands, a bone spur was there that almost doubled the length of the arm and looked a lot like a deadly scythe.

The Hydrith made a gurgling sound and flaps on the frill flapped open, revealing lines of the same needles that had perforated the armor of the Guardians. Raising up on its long tail, the Hydrith spread out its arms to appear even larger and more menacing before making a coughing sound and shooting a barrage of spines.

The spines themselves were nearly indestructible and about as long as a hand. They were easily capable of penetrating up to three inches of solid steel but traveled quite a bit slower than a bullet. They made up for this lack of speed by being spread out over a large area in front of the Hydrith.

The scythe arms were just as deadly as the spines but the Hydrith was clumsy using them. Because of their length, all it could do was rear up and stab downward with them. But it was proficient with its jaw, which could crack steel.

All this combined with a thick carapace made the Hydrith very, very dangerous.

OOC: *twitch, twitch, breathes deeply* I can roll with it, I can roll with it. Will someone remind Devious that his Rikti need attention?

BIC: Inside the barracks were beds, scattered personnel possessions, clothes, but no dead bodies. There were, however, several different ID cards lying around. Five of them to be exact. No telling which one was the one that was needed however, since the only script on the cards was a name and a picture. All the names had the prefix of Agent and all the pictures showed the previous owners in identical uniforms. Not much luck there.

If Tarxus had given the broken ID card to someone else, or perhaps was a bit more technically savvy, he would have realized that the corpse he had passed belonged to the technician second in command of all the experiments in this base. Her blood would most likely be sufficient to pass the DNA test. As would her eye.

The mainframe that Tarxus so casually destroyed caused countless errors in systems all across the base. That computer being one of the more important mainframes, things crashed and went haywire all over the place. Up with the Malta and Rikti, both Guardians suddenly shut down, their charging particle cannons falling silent. The Invaders seemed not as badly off as their massive brethern, and continued to fire.

Down with the Arachnos soldiers, they suddenly found themselves trapped in between two thick sheets of metal that descended from the ceiling. Mu'Jurkan assured Farfield that he would be able to get them out, but it would take some time. Time that the Captain wasn't sure could be spared.

And for the mages and the Tsoo, the effects were just as sudden and random. One of the two turrets suddenly entered a diagnostic mode, putting it out of comission for half an hour while the massive sealed door into the armory ground open as safties were disabled and locks unlocked. But from within the armory came a loud hiss as something trapped inside earlier awoke.

And it was hungry.

"<Yeah, I'm from Paragon,>" Jay said, some of his bitterness leaking through the translator. "<I'm Laserblade, nice to meet you. Could have been some better circumstances though.>"

Laserblade turned a bit and saw that the civvies had already packed up, fixed whatever must have been wrong with their car, and high-tailed it out of there. They looked to be heading for Akihabara base, which was good, since it meant Jay didn't have to chase after them and drag them kicking and screaming to safety.

"<You need a lift?>" Jay asked Toshio as he shut down his laser sword and slotted it into a holster on his hip. "<I go a little fast, but you look like you can handle it. I need to report back to base anyway, they always like telling the public about big dead demons.>"

OOC: Hey Plague, could you have one of your people or someone at the base where they're planning their attack from call up Laserblade and ask him to assist. I can't keep the name of whichever base you're at in my head long enough to write it out myself. -_-

OOC: Since Shadow said elsewhere that he'd be gone until after the 4th of July, I'll try to wrap up our section of the fight satisfactorily.

BIC: Chertak barely caught a flash of motion on one of the vision modes before Ryan's sword dug into his side. Briefly cursing up a mental storm, the subtleties of which went unknown to the humans, instead giving them a mild headache, Chertak moved with the blow and managed to avoid getting any important organs cut to shreds.

"Targets: Cannot hide: Forever," Chertak announced as he brought his rifle down on Ryan's back.

The ninja also rolled with the blow, literally this time, and jumped to his feet with one hand clutching the side where Chertak had punched him earlier. Since Chertak was in more or less the same position as Ryan was, the Rikti permitted himself a moment of ironic mirth before focusing on the task at hand.

"Us two: Shall dispense with: Unhonorable tactics. Objective: Fight on even sides."

"Ok," said Ryan a bit uncertainly. "I won't phase shift or disappear and you don't teleport or use your rifle."

"Deal," Chertak said, pleased. "Commence: Combat."

Dematerializing his rifle, Chertak rushed forward with his hands held over his head to crush Ryan. The ninja rolled to the side, easily avoiding the clumsy attack. But then Chertak lashed out with a foot, something that he had never done before. Ryan managed to jumped over that attack but was forced to block Chertak's follow up punch with the flat of his blade. The ninja was knocked off his feet and looked up as the Warmaster prepared to stomp him into the hospital.

But Ryan wasn't out yet and the clever fighter whipped Akujiki around and slashed at where he thought Chertak's hamstring was. His guess happened to be correct and Chertak fall over, more telepathic curses making Ryan's head pound. Rolling backwards onto his feet, he watched for a moment as Chertak pulled himself into a kneeling position and glared at the human.

"Ryan the Shadow: Objective: Finish this."

And Ryan did, one thrust carrying his sword cleanly through Chertak's body. Of course, he was surprised to note the very large, and very strong, gauntlet that suddenly gripped his throat. Panicking, Ryan forgot to phase shift out of the grip and was subsequently teleported to the hospital along with the Rikti. The judges having decided that Chertak's death grip would have gone undisturbed long enough for Ryan to choke to death.

OOC: Nice rush of posting here, 63 new ones. Sorry about taking so long, Shadow.

BIC: After making sure that Coldfire was out of the fight, thus lifting a great load from the Warmaster's mind, Chertak turned to look for that disappearing ninja again. The others could fight and die as much as they liked as long as they didn't interfere with him.

Hefting his rifle in one hand, Chertak pressed the other hand to his temple. The touch caused his HUD to begin cycling through vision modes as he attempted to find Ryan before the human got to him first.

The fact that Ryan's sword could cut through one of the best examples of Rikti metallurgy was disturbing to say the least. Throwing the ruined weapon to either side, Chertak dodged the stab and then threw a rock shattering punch at Ryan's side. His battlearmor enhanced his already considerable strength to super-human levels. If he connected, Ryan would have a few broken ribs at least.

"Cowards: Never win," Chertak countered as thorns rattled off his armor. He could feel the human scrabbling at the edge of his mind and despite his Restructerist leanings the thought of a human entering his mind disgusted him.

Figuring that Ryan was the greater threat at the moment, Chertak dematerialized his rifle and exchanged it for his massive Rikti warblade in the same moment. Both hands clutching its curved hilt, he brought the heavy, half-circle shaped blade up to block Akujiki. The moment it was blocked, he ducked down and swung his blade to the left to direct Ryan's fall off to the side.

The room wasn’t as big as Toy Dispenser had expected and looked all the smaller for being mostly taken up by a massive desk and a pair of chairs in front of it. The desk was huge, black, covered with papers, and had a well known super villain sitting behind it looking up at Toy Dispenser with the hint of a grin on his face.

“I’ve always found your choice of costume to be very amusing,” Sirocco said as stood up.

“Uh, thank. I guess,” Toy replied as he looked down at his multi-colored exterior.

“I am, however, glad to see that you have taken up my offer,” Sirocco said as he motioned for Toy to take a seat in one of the Arachnos emblazoned chairs.

“Yeah, about that,” Toy said as he sat down. “Did you really mean what you said? I mean, it isn’t everyday that one of the pillars of Arachnos decides to offer to help a mercenary like myself.”

“True,” Sirocco replied as he shuffled together some papers and slid them into a drawer.

From the same drawer he pulled out a sticky note and handed it to Toy. The mastermind took it, curiosity visible in his movements, and scanned it quickly. After a moment he looked up at Sirocco sharply.

“Wait, let me get this straight, ‘The observed aura is indeed a result of the subject’s greater destiny in this world. Like most such auras, the effect is clearly magical and it seems susceptible to standard Mu teachings.’” Toy read and then set the note down.

“That note was given to me by one of my highest ranking mages,” Sirocco said as he took the note back. “He sent this too me after viewing certain camera logs and interviewing various other mystics that you have defeated.”

“I guess Kalinda was right then and uh, about those mages of yours that I’ve beaten so far,” Toy said nervously, his head twitching from side to side. “No hard feelings, right?”

“No hard feelings,” Sirocco chuckled. “They were there to test you, as were all Arachnos soldiers that you have fought, although they didn’t know it at the time. And Ghost Widow’s Fortunata are trained to see into the future. Kalinda is especially good at what she does, hence her post on Mercy Island. But this meeting between us is not to talk about the past, but to talk about the present.”

“Alright,” Toy said. “What do you have in mind?”

“In order for you to gain mastery over this aura of yours, I will have to teach you a modified form on the standard Mu teachings. And of course there must be a certain amount of trust between student and teacher,” Sirocco explained, leaning back in his chair. “And despite the fact that I believe we shall get along fine, if your file is correct, I need to see first hand how proficient you are.”

“Sounds good. Am I getting paid?”

“Yes. We can set this up like one of your standard contracts. In fact, I have a copy here for just such an occasion,” Sirocco said as he pulled out a piece of paper and scrabbled his signature on it.

As Toy took the contract and read it over, Sirocco kept talking.

“There is a base of mine here in Grandville that cut off all contact a few days ago. No transmissions have been recorded going in or out since then and I would like you to go in there and find out what happened. That base is supposed to be a repository for some artifacts that I have acquired and I would like to make sure that they are unharmed.”

“Ok, let me get this straight,” said Toy as he leaned forward, placing one forearm on the desk while he ticked off points with his other hand. “Infiltrate an Arachnos base, find out why things are screwy, and look around for your artifacts. Are casualties an issue?”

“It depends on the condition of the soldiers within. If they are already dead, I don’t care what you do to whoever might remain. But if they are still there and attack you, I would prefer to have as many as possible left alive.”

“I can deal with that. Now, about those artifacts…”

“You will know them when you see them,” Sirocco said, deflecting further inquiries.

“Alright, at long as they won’t kill me or melt my CPU or something,” Toy warned as he added his angular signature to the paper. “So you’ve got my services from now until this issue is resolved.”

“Very good. I’d prefer that you start as soon as possible. There is no telling what might be going on in there.”

“Gotcha,” Toy said and then stood up.

Sirocco followed him up and the two villains shook hands.

“Good luck and try not to get yourself killed,” Sirocco said. “I would be most displeased to learn that a potential ally was killed on his first mission.”

“No problem there,” Toy said nonchalantly as he tipped an imaginary hat toward Sirocco. “I’ll come up and report directly once I’m done.”

Sirocco sat back down and nodded in reply to Toy’s statement. He quickly pulled a piece of paper off a large stack in front of him and started writing.

Amazing how even supervillains have paperwork to plow through, Toy thought to himself as he walked out the door.

“Welcome to our lord’s service, Toy Dispenser,” said the mystic to his right.

“You will find yourself most welcome within our ranks,” added the left most one.

Toy favored each one with an arch look and then shook his head.

“You guys will always creep me out.”

Not sticking around for a reply, Toy activated his anti-gravity jets and whisked down the hallway to the elevator. He had an Arachnos base to break into.

OOC: Uh... Darkstorm? No. You don't get to do that. I decide what you find. You guys get to fight. >_> <_<

Post will come here later.

Chertak looked around at the competition and was summarily not impressed. Coldfire he knew could cause a lot of trouble and the ninja was strong as well. The other hero was an unknown but the others were just pawns. Since he had entered the same door as Coldfire had, the Rikti gave him a nod and started advancing on the ninja. A press of a button on his suit cause his rifle to materialize in his hands and Chertak leveled the massive repulsor gun at Ryan.

"This fight: Begins," he said and fired the first shot of the evening.

"Targets aquired. Rikti soldiers and Malta operatives. Commencing defense."

Six Invader class drones backed up by a pair of Guardians stepped out from around a corner and leveled their weapons at the allied villains. The Invaders were about one third the size of the Guardians and equipped with a machine gun and a light photon gun, one in each arm.

"You have one chance to surrender," said one of the Guardians. "Or we will open fire."

"Division: Line: Between factions," Chertak explained as he took another sip. "I: Restructerist: Wish alliance: Humans. High Command: My sector: Traditionalists. Wish destruction: Humans. Punishment: Assignment: Coliseum."

OOC: Hey Soviet, I think you can just kill the Wailers off if I understand Burning's comment correctly.

BIC: The Tsoo and CoT were at a crossroads. The dead Repling and Guardian took up most of the middle, while the two groups took up the rest. Behind the Tsoo was the now defunct security room and behind the mages was a barracks and an armory. To the right was a hallway lined with more offices. Nothing much of value in that direction. Ahead of them was a high security elevator protected by an ID scanner, an eye scanner, and a DNA reader. If either of those devices showed an incompatable response three times in a row, then a pair of Class 1 turrets would descend from the ceiling and open fire at anything near the elevator.

If the two groups made it past this obstacle, they would find that the elevator had only one destination, a place called Portal Lab A3.

OOC: Oh yeah, speech in <> means that Jay is using his translator. And if any of you have played Front Mission's 3 or 4, you should know where this ground skating thing came from.

BIC: Jay coughed a bit in surprise at the man having taken out one of the Oni's by himself. Then he sighed and punched a couple of buttons.

Laserblade crouched down and suddenly shot forward, skating along the ground. Smoothly jumping over the car, Laserblade landed right in top of the Oni and crushed it into the ground. The demon roared and smashed its club into Laserblade's chest, knocking the mecha onto its butt. Although Jay was annoyed at such a prat fall, he recovered and lopped off the club arm with his laser sword. The Oni roared in pain for a moment before Laserblade shoved his laser arm into its mouth and fired. The Oni's head promptly exploded.

Standing up, Laserblade's angular sensor head swiveled in Toshio's direction and looked down at the drunken master. There was a slight crackle of static and then Jay was talking out through the megaphone.

"<Hey there, nice to see another super around. You got a registered name or just a regular one?>"

"Greetings: Fellow Combatant: Coldfire," came a voice from behind Coldfire.

A black battle armored Rikti slid into the seat next to Coldfire and gave him an affable nod. The bartender silently passed the Rikti a fizzy green drink that he drank through a straw that descended from his helmet.

"Introductions: Chertak: Warmaster: Gladiator: In past Coliseum," Chertak said. "Hopes include: This new Coliseum: Succeeds well."

"Stupid Paragon City and their stupid roads," muttered Jay Bigumton as he wrestled with the controls and brought his ten ton Powered Combat Suit in for a smooth landing atop a building. "Tell me I can't fight the good fight just cause Laserblade is too heavy and would break the roads. I'll show them, start a whole mecha revolution in that town once I prove that I can fight crime with the best of them."

A pair of thrusters lit up and the fifteen foot tall machine blasted upwards and hovered for a moment high up in the air.

"Bloody demon things, scratching up the paint. It'll take hours to get the scratches out," Jay kept talking to himself as he landed with a loud thud in the middle of a small open area.

A Lesser Hound lifted up its head and howled at the large, metallic smelling shape before it and then rushed forward, its tiny mind focused on destruction. Laserblade, both the name of the mecha and his registered hero name, pivoted smoothly and lifted up his left arm laser cannon and fired a beam of coherent light that turned the Lesser Hound into a greasy patch on the ground.

"Now I'm gonna have to check the focusing crystal. Too much laser fire and the thing starts to warp."

Another jump and Laserblade landed in a street next to an empty vehicle. In front of the vehicle was a pair of civilians and a small pack of Onis. The mecha took one step forward and raised its cannon before Jay activated the megaphone.

"Hey! You two there! Get back in your car and make for the base! This isn't the place for sight-seeing!" he shouted out.

The last thing Jay needed was for a pair of dimwit civvies getting themselves killed in his patrol sector. But then Jay remembered that he had forgotten to turn on his translator, which meant he just shouted at them in English.

"Aw hell, I hope the point got across," he said as he rapid fired a trio of shots into the lead Oni. The demon fell back with a badly scorched chest while one of its buddies threw a boulder at Laserblade.

The blue and white painted mecha took a step forward and switched on the energy sword clutched in its right fist. With a quick slash, he had cut the incoming rock in two, the halves falling to either side.

"<Get going!>"

OOC: What's more Japanese than a giant robot? Although I'm not that big. *checks weight scale nervously*

Ahead of the Nemesis troops was another air lock. But this one was broken. Actually, its two doors were lying on the ground looking as mangled and pathetic looking as the earlier face metled guards. Through the doorway, they could see another long hallway littered with bits of dead bodies. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their placement, as evidenced by three legs sitting in a row, but one thing was common, there were no heads to be seen.

If the Nemesis ventured forward they would see the glass enclosed remains of a large labrotory. Much of the equipment has been destroyed by acid or claws so what the lab was investigating will remain a mystery. However, there were long blood stains made from moving bodies that disappeared around a corner and through another, equally destroyed air lock. Straight ahead was another air lock, but it was untouched and a blinking light above the door showed that is was in use.

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

With the two Longbow Drones destroyed, Spiral could pay enough attention to his surroundings and noticed the cargo landing to his left. The corrugated metal door that normally blocked access was rolled up and the agent could tell that was the direction that the sound had come from.

If Spiral ventured inside, he would first encounter the two Drones, which would open fire immidiately. After those were destroyed, the Crey infiltration team would have ample oppertunity to take a look around the blood stained floors complete with shattered Longbow Guardian in the corner and the Nemesis Storm Rifle lying next to it. The would also have a chance to appreciate the loud hissing noises coming from the far side of the warehouse the moment they finished off the drones.

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

"I hate small elevators. I really hate small elevators. You want to know why I hate small elevators? I hate them cause they're-"

"Shut up, Hardy!" shouted all six other members of his squad. The Crab Spider Slicer shut his trap and resorted to nervously twitching his spider legs to get his point across.

The elevator the Arachnos troops had broken into was the last in a sequence of three that would bring them down to the lowest and highest security level of the base. Unforetunately, the elevator was only large enough to hold two Crab Spiders, or one Spider and both other people, at once. Captain Farfield and Private O'Hannien had gone down first to secure the bottom while Hardy rode down with Widow and Mu'Jurkan.

After another minute, the elevator dinged and the door slid open, allowing Widow and Mu'Jurkan to literally rush out of the car while Hardy slumped his way out.

"Someone really needs to revise his recruitment policy," Widow said on a private comm. link with Farfield.

"You think? But Hardy is a good soldier, despite his less savory attributes," Farfield replied and the switched to an open comm. "Ok you two. The elevator is coming back up. Just like before it'll take three minutes. Hurry up and let's find out what the hell has gone wrong with this joint."

"Yes, sir!" came the reply of one Slicer. "But, uh, there's something kind of odd up here."

"Odd?" Farfield frowned. "What the hell are you babbling about?"

"I think there's something else up here, sir," said the other Slicer and Farfield could just barely hear a clicking noise over the comm. link.

"What something? And what the hell is that noise?"

"That's what we're worried about, sir. You remember that dead guy we came across? What if what killed him is still up here?"

"It's long gone, trooper. Now shut up and get in the damn elevator."

"Yes, sir!"

Another two minutes later, one of the Slicer's called back.

"Entering elevator now, sir."

"Wait a minute!" shouted the panicky Slicer. "What the hell is that?"

"What the hell is wha- [censored]!!! Sir! We've got one incoming mutant! Opening fire!"

"Don't shoot it!" Farfield fumed. "Just hit the button and get down here!"

What followed was silence, about three minutes of it until the elevator reached the bottom and dinged open.

"I think I'm gonna puke," said Hardy as he quickly turned away from the elevator.

Inside was a molten mass that might have once been two Crab Spider Slicers. It was hard to tell if the loss of limbs or the quantity of acid they had been sprayed with that killed them. One trooper had his helmet melted off and the metal had pooled in the sockets where his eyes had boiled away and his face was frozen in a rictus of agony. There was also a great big chunk bitten out of his shoulder and the arm that should have been there was nowhere to be seen. Farfield couldn't tell what had happened to the man under him, but he didn't want to know.

The Webmaster reached inside and hit the door close button and then silently turned away from the grisly sight as the doors slid shut.

"I don't think I like small elevators either."

OOC: A middle section elevator.