MrKrazy

[ QUOTE ]
"Wait a second..." Darkvapor raised a hand to silence Martin. Seeing as he had just become leader this might have sounded like insubordination, but Darkvapor had his reasons.

His eyes flickered.

They suddenly glowed with a passionate intensity that no one had ever seen before.

"It's a trap." he said slowly.


[/ QUOTE ]

"Well, I coulda told you that before. So much for being an almighty being." (He assumes, judging from his soul's state.) Dusan said a bit irritably. The rest of his statement, however, was news to him, and he listened with intent.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Dusan said, having one of his rare serious moments. "It feels like we're being lead there. I don't like it." Of course, this was only muttered to Dennis, but he had no plans of keeping it secret from the team for long.

Walking up to 'Hobo Ned', Dusan made clear his worries, with Dennis as a strong back-up.

"You're the newly proclaimed team leader, right?" He said, again, making sure no one else could hear. "Well, even though I don't do so well with authority, I think I should make clear some suspicions of mine..."

With that, he explained his thoughts in the past few minutes, explaining his unique abilities when appropriate to explain where he got his information.

"Dusan is rarely wrong, sir." Dennis said, standing firmly behind his buddy. "Well, at least, in these matters."

"Dammit..." Jake muttered as he got the message.

I'm never going to get this done, am I?

Masking his frustration, he curtly, but urgently, replied, "Roger that. We're on our way." Jake turned around and halted the group, again. "We're needed down the right passage. Seems they've run into a bit of difficulty." With that, he nonchalantly began to walk in the other direction, seeming to have no urgency whatsoever, and if one looked close, it would even appear that his minions were sharing his emotion, or lack thereof.

"Take a number." Dusan shouted from across the room, more out of habit than anything else.

His soul...

Dusan's face took on a very grave look, not quite going pale, but certainly giving him an edge to be runner-up in the 'Albino of the Year' Award.

He stumbled, but quickly regained his composure. The blood returned to his face, his jaw lifted itself off of the ground, and he glanced around to check if anyone's eyes were on him.

Of course, there was no one looking at him except for Dennis, who was giving half a look of 'You idiot, you're embarrassing both of us' fused with half a look of 'What's the matter?'

Needless to say, Dusan quietly walked over and spoke with Dennis about what he had just noticed, and his suspicions, making sure that only those two could hear.

"Dennis..." He started, looking at his deceased friend, "The Mortifactor's, that is, Karl's, soul just now, it did a complete one-eighty. He had nothing but contempt for us but a moment ago, not caring about his fate nor that of anyone else, but in a split second, it did a completely one-eighty, to the point of convincing him to help us."

"Dennis... That was done by an outside source. There's no way someone can convince themselves to that extent that quickly."

Damn! Dennis thought, his brow furrowing as he realized what Dusan was saying. "Was afraid of this..." He muttered. "Dusan, I think the one we're after, that is, the one who I believe possessed Cohen."

"You think he was-?"

"Yes, just let me finish." He said, a bit irritated that Dusan would interrupt him in the middle of an explanation.

"This guy's more than just your generic 'Take-over-the-world-and-mold-it-into-my-own-image' villain. He's above things like that, I'm guessing. He's trying to lead us somewhere, and if I'm right, the City Rep. is vital."

"No qualms here." Dennis replied drily, seeming absorbed in thought.

"Who says 'qualms'?" Dusan suddenly asked, his face registering mocking as his clear motive. "Ye olde Englishman?" He said, smiling and chuckling, seeming to be the only one to understand his horribly random joke. "Anyway..." He started, getting a partially serious look on his face after seeing that his joke didn't go over well, "Hobo Ned can lead. I see nothing wrong with him, and I sense he has good intentions."

Of course, I can sense other things as well, but something tells me he doesn't exactly want it brought up in conversation.

(>.> I was implying that he had landed in the main room, ie, not with the robot doggy. My bad if that wasn't made clear.)

"And with twenty-two seconds to spare." Wirespike replied, smirking. "Come on, I believe we need to get to the Resistance headquarters, the location of which isn't exactly known to me."

((For God's sake, people, I can't get to a computer for two days and you guys post six pages? *Sighs* I'd quit for time reasons were it not for the fact that this is the only RP where I can flesh out Dusan and Dennis. >.>

Post coming shortly, just as soon as I read all this stupid text. *Grumble*

Edit: I'm not even going to attempt to write up a post to get Dusan and Dennis caught up. Just assume they acted normally throughout. >.&gt)

"Honestly, no." Dusan said aloud at the obviously rhetorical question. "Although I do have a few connections in the afterlife..." He muttered, putting his hand to his chin in mock-thought, an obvious sign that it was a joke.

-----

Dennis sighed at the general chaos the group was bringing upon itself. He'd seen groups like this before in his years of working with Dusan. Generally, they didn't end well. Almost always, he was the one who had to save the team's [censored] due to his ethereal state, however, he had a feeling that he wasn't going to do much good here.

It was clear that this particular supervillain had a limited control of spirits, or at least, had the ability to possess someone. Cohen wasn't a famous scrapper, however, he was known, and Dennis certainly knew of him, and someone like that wasn't just going to turn around and betray the city, not to mention clean the clock of the Statesman and the number one task force in the nation at the same time, but, two days later, get killed by the freakin' Vahz.

No, this body was abandoned long before that by the man (Read: Entity) they were looking for.

Thus was the cause of Dennis's worry. It was very possible that any of these people were being manipulated right now. He highly doubted that it was Dusan, as his mastery of souls and partial-god status pretty much immunized from it, however, it could very easily be any of the others.

A boy about the age of eighteen suddenly appeared about fifteen feet above the ground, falling a bit ungracefully to the ground. It was a bit obvious that he hadn't planned on being that high up, as he got up with a red face, a tell-tale symptom of a bruised ego. Looking around him at his surroundings, it wasn't hard to tell he hadn't appeared in a place he had exactly expected.

Getting up, one could tell more and more of his features, his most notable feature (At the time) being a dark blue hoodie with a simple Union Jack on the front, possibly being a homage to Hero1. If one was wanting to be particularly observant, they would have also noticed his out-of-order hair, slightly covering his eyes but oddly seeming to ignore his ears. His jeans were nothing to look at either, as it was clear to see that they'd seen their fair share of abuse during their lifetime. What truly stood out though, were his eyes, which were a deep green, not exactly a common color, especially for one with dark hair.

He cleared his throat and shouted, wincing as he heard his own voice, the room clearly being smaller than he'd initially expected.

Today's just full of surprises... Dusan muttered in his mind, untensing his shoulders as his echo died down. "Hey, I'm here for the tournament. I take cash or check, and I also accept all major credit cards." It was clear he was joking, possibly to lighten the mood of this otherwise dark and dreary room.

Jeez. Even Dennis isn't as much of a kill-joy as this room seems to be...

"How about right here?" Wirespike asked, waving his arm in a wide, horizontal arc. "It's about as good as anywhere else."

Jake absent-mindedly nodded in agreement, crossing his arms and turning his body in a different direction, giving the impression he didn't really care about the matter at hand, and had his mind on other things.

"Good to hear." Jake replied, obviously anxious. "Let's go." Making an unnecessarily over the top hand gesture as he pointed forward, marching onward into the (Not so much) unknown with his bots close in tow.

Dusan, having recently snatched back his communicator from Dennis, replied with a rather straightforward "Right." And sped off in the direction of the Soul Hound, nearly stumbling over a pot-hole in the process.

Wait a minute... aren't we going in the same direction as Bladewing?

-----

Dennis continued flying across the landscape, now only five or six feet away from Energon-X. Noticing blaster and recognizing him as one of the team members who had more of a level head, he decided to strike up a conversation, considering the trip would otherwise be boring.

"So..." He started, glancing in his direction. "What do you think about where we're going? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bladewing just recently went in this direction. In fact..." He said, pausing a moment and closing his eyes. "Yeah... I can even sense his soul over there."

[ QUOTE ]
"I'm telling this ravening pack of idiots that we need to band together, pick a leader, and start makin' some real progress... This chasing after each other as much as the poor City Rep has got to stop... And Lord knows what we'll have to chase after we rescue her.

[/ QUOTE ]

"You got that right..." Dennis replied, having overheard his monologue due to only being ten or so feet behind him, however, flying a bit more slowly, albeit. He was about to reply when the man commented that he had passed them up, and shortly afterward slammed into a wall, which caused Dennis, instead of giving a well thought out and logical response, simply rolled his eyes and sighed.

"This has gotta be the worst Taskforce, ever..." He muttered.

-----

Dusan had yawned and exited after he observed that the Vahz were no longer a threat. "Nice chatting with you!" He shouted back to them, giving a wave and a friendly smile before going completely out of their sight.

"So, Northward, right?" He said, nonchalantly boosting everyone's speed.

"Screw it..." Dennis mumbled, forcing spiritual energy into the physical plane, causing it to heat up in his hands. "Alright, guess it's time to kill them before they kill us." With that, he fired a stream of spectral energy at the nearest Eidolon, knocking him back rather far as well as giving him some decent damage. He then rushed forward, getting ready for a more damaging punch to the face, taking advantage of the zombie being down.

-----

Dusan nearly leapt with glee as Dennis began attacking, as it gave him a justifiable cause to rush in himself. Sending the decoys in first, to take a certain degree of fire, (The Vahz were probably going to go for the ones who were shooting and hitting them, rather than the ones who stood around looking intimidating.) Dennis followed shortly and gave off a huge flux of energy on the ethereal level, causing those in a short radius around him, (With souls, mind you.) to be overcome with pain, albeit, almost none of it lethal. This kept them place for a good while, at least enough for him to control the loyalties of several Mortifactors' souls, who were now firing on their former comrades.

"I love my job." Dusan said, grinning as he saw a Mortifactor get a clean shot through the eyes of an Abomination.

(Will do. Coming up with an excuse for Jake to ignore him as we speak. >.&gt

(Bah. Alright, I just got a PM from Kaolin in which he basically stated that life has caught up with him. He gives his regards, and wishes us all well.)

"Fantastic!" Dennis shouted, sarcastically, "Maybe we'll just ignore the camp of all the Vahz in Boomtown to make sure the Representative is OK!" He sighed deeply and rushed forward toward the camp, attempting (For what good it would do, at this point.) to seem nonhostile. "I repeat, they're non hostile. They will not attack unless we [censored] them off, so STOP attacking!" This statement was clearly directed at Ghoul, and even shouted to an extent, which, considering he wasn't three feet from him, would certainly become noticeable.

"I promise you, it'd probably be much more beneficial if we just listened to them."

-----

Dusan, however, was prepping for combat. His attempt at peace having failed, he was a bit too eager to turn to violence, delighted with his find of an enemy with a soul.

"There." He said, heaving a rather convincing 'Phew!' as he summoned his third decoy, getting ready to rush into battle at a moment's notice.

Alright, assuming [And hoping] Dennis's deplomatic abilities fail, 'It's clobbering time!'

The Warmaster's coming? Jake thought suddenly stopping in his tracks. "Hold up, sounds as if someone else is being assigned to our group." He said, sub-consciously holding up his flat palm as a hand signal to stop.

Dusan, at that moment, had happened to be looking away from the collapsed wall, howver, an overpowering stench a few moments later had convinced him to at least figure out its source, after which, he discovered it to be a camp of Vahzilok. Automatically tensing, he detected a non-aggressive nature in their spirits, giving him reason to loosen up.

Dennis seemed to have come to the same conclusion, as he had no sonner shouted, "It's OK guys, these guys aren't-"

[ QUOTE ]
"That felt good...." Ghoul drawled, drawing out the last word as he let the human drop to the ground, where he proceeded to bleed out. "Now, what say we inaugerate our little meetin' with a severe BEATING!"

A powerful uppercut sent the second Mortificator flying where he came to a stop on an abomination, knocking the synthetic undead to the ground. Ghoul's eyes widened with glee as he followed the man, both fists aching to tear into the walking corpses on either side of him.

[/ QUOTE ]

"... hostile..." Dennis slammed his face into his palm and shook it with deep annoyance. "OK, let's completely [censored] up a rare moment of peace with senseless violence..."

-----

Dusan, however, had a differnet plan. Using his mastery of souls, he gave Ghoul's soul in particular a strong wave of passiveness, for the time being. It would depend on his willpower how effective it would be, but normally, it would convince someone who was fairly [censored] off to at least sit down and take a few deep breaths.

Dennis tensed (Well, as much as a spirit can tense) as he overheard the remarks of the Sword Duo. Dennis wasn't nearly on the intellectual level of some metas, but by no means was he stupid, and he picked up on the psychological tactic fairly quickly.

Now, due to his ethereal state, if Dennis really wanted to, he could detect basic emotion in his companions' souls, basically being able to tell what their base mood was at any given time. He decided to give the Duo a good scan due to hsi new found suspicion.

Needless to say, he found nothing.

Not a trace of any emotion was to be found in the souls (Or, rather, lack thereof) of the two Vanguard operatives.

Again, needless to say, this worried him.

"Dusan..." He suddenly whispered, flat-out muting his comm. "You know the Sword Duo over there?" He vaguely gestured in their area.

"Yeah, and?" Dusan responded, equally as quiet, having picked up on Dennis's serious tone.

"They have no souls. I don't know if they sold it or are just robots or whatever, but generally beings of that nature have malevolent intent, especially if they've been keeping it from us. Not to mention, they're playing mind games with one of our comrades." Dennis's face grew dimmer by the second, his translucent mouth sliding into a near perfect semi-circle pointing upward. "Not exactly the sign of a good comrade."

Dusan got a half-worried look on his face, the other half quickly turning to panic as he gazed at them, intent on finding a trace of a soul. "Damnit..." He replied, turning back to Dennis. "You're right..."

"Dusan," Dennis said, grimly, "I fear this is a trap..."

(*Cough*Previous page Chameleon.

Dennis has a question for you. )

(Happy Birthday Devious! Here's to another year of happiness, health, and WMDs!)

Dusan was about to speak into his communicator when it was rudely snatched out of his grasp by a certain translucent hand. "What're the odds that it's a type of spiritual energy, if you can tell? Dusan and I could probably give a better evaluation in that case."

Needless to say, Dusan felt a bit belittled by Dennis's possessive action. "Now wait a minute, who gave you permission to use the comm link?" Dusan asked, insulted that Dennis had thougth so little of his ego when doing what he did. "Let's get this straight, I'm the hero, you're the sidekick."

Dennis nearly burst out laughing and put his hand over the mic to prevent this from being heard by the majority of the task force. "Really?" He said, stifling a laugh, "Well, I wouldn't want to take away that salve on your ego." He finished, bursting out laughing again as Dusan fumed.

Jake: *Summons Assault Bot on top of Mutant Illusion, followed by his Protector Bots and Battle Drones* Being a mastermind is fun.

Me: Sure is Jake, sure is.

Dennis: Lol blackhole *Phase shifts*

Jake: *Eyes widen to unimagineable levels* Uuum... *PFF*

Dusan: Aw crap...