Mr_Grey

"ENOUGH!" Martin suddenly shouted.

He glared at the three, Energon X, the Colonel and the Sorcerer.

"We're here now! Deal with it! All of you. If you can't get through this without your whining and [female dog]ing, we can probably get by better without any of you! Cripes, it seems the only ones among us that are actually trying to keep on the task at hand are the ghoul and that guy who just took off..."

He noticed one of the miniature black orbs float past. It had the same feel of Darkvapor.

"Now look, I know I haven't been playing my 'A' game up to this point, but I can assure you, that's about to change. I owe the world better than that..."

"Finally, you start to see your role in the grand scheme of things..."

"And I'm working on that right now..."

He turned to the Mortificator.

"Don't you try to tell me that you don't know where Moreira is, otherwise, you wouldn't have mentioned her.

"AUGH!" Psycho13 shouted, "Holy-freaking-bejegus!"

He backed away from the headless corpse and looked up to Combat Toy.

"As amazingly awesome as that was, man, I was kind of in agreement with Twilight over there that maybe we should have kept her alive. She didn't look too pleased that her shield dropped... Maybe... Maybe she'd outlived her usefulness..."

He picked himself off the ground, muttering "Man, I don't get what's going on here..."

"Lady!" Psycho13 shouted as he batted her rifle away, "I'm right here! Worry about me!"

With that, he dove toward her midsection, hoping to tackle her down.

"Calm down, guys..." Martin shouted to the rest of the group, then turning to Ghoul and his charge of the moment, "Maybe we ought to video-tape ya, and play it back in slow motion. Don't put the guy down yet, Ghoul. Lord knows what this speed freak is likely to do next..."

He turned back to Karl.

"So... You spoke with the City Rep. Well, then I guess we know now that the lizard's been bringing us to you, and not your coffin. So, fess up. Where is she?"

Power Breaker, still in Poe's way, (and not a little angry that his cages couldn't stop the guy) side-stepped to ensure he'd remain in the lunatic's path. His hand crackled and an arc of red electricity shot out of the air to impede his path...

Only to stop halfway and fizzle out.

He looked around and noticed the waiter standing next to Lt. Briggs wagging his finger.

"What?" Breaker asked, failing to comprehend the logic behind forcing a failed attack.

He'd have to talk to the DJ later.

"Some kind of shadow dweller," Martin growled without turning around, "Probably been following us for a while, or just got here. Either way, so long as he isn't trying to hurt any of us, there's no reason for us to be uncivil."

He turned so his gaze met Ghoul first.

"Of course, I don't have much experience with stalker types. I guess I defer to you as to the proper means of disposing of him."

((Welcome to the RP, fuming. One thing of note, please please PLEASE spellcheck your work. The latest Mozilla Firefox client has an automatic spellchecker, and if that's distasteful, then I suggest doing what I (rarely) did early on, and type out your responses in a word processing program before cut-and-pasting them here. Other than that, I wholeheartedly welcome you, and I hope you enjoy your stay.))

Psycho13's eyes widened with glee.

"Hey! Got yer knife?" he asked to nobody in particular, then, in a different, gruffer voice, "Yeah. I got my knife."

He seemed to be ignoring the reactions of those gathered.

Again, he was back to his normal voice.

"Know what time it is?"

He drew his blades, pointed the one in his right hand at Panzerfrau and shouted in a voice that was like a merging of the two.

"IT'S STABBIN' TIME!"

With that, he started chasing the Master lackey while shouting "And we're stabbin'-and-stabbin'-and-stabbin'-and-stabbin'..." all while swinging and stabbing with his wicked curved blades. He was taking this way too seriously, not seriously enough, or he had entirely different goals in mind.

One of the swings cut Panzerfrau's sleeve, but didn't break skin. Still, it was damn close, and Psycho13 just wasn't skilled enough to have been so precise.

----------

--Meanwhile, with Jake and... Jake(?)--

((I'm putting this up as a good reason for us to leave Kaolin's character without outright killing him off.))

Kip felt something shudder on the aether. He didn't know what his friend was doing, but he was having entirely too much fun.

"We should probably get going..." he muttered to Jake, "Now."

He turned to Soul Striker, who seemed to have slumped to the wall. He'd seen the posture before. The posture of somebody who'd given up.

"Hey," he growled as he approached the armored hero, "Hey, you did what you could, man... Nobody's blaming you. Suffice it to say, you're not gonna want to stay here..."

Striker just sat there, staring into the surface of the roof. He was muttering something about failure and futility. Whoever that was back there he'd had to kill must have hurt more than he let on, even with his emotional outbursts, and this victim of the Masters of Mayhem only further seemed to drive him away from the cause.

"Listen, I can get you to relative safety," Kip whispered to him, "I know a place nearby that the Masters haven't found yet, and they think it's a bombed ruin. I can get you there and you'll be safe until you're ready to get back to the fight. Okay?"

He took Soul Striker's silence as a yes. After working to heft the guy up onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, he turned to the Jakes (no, he doesn't know they're the same guy, but he has a gut feeling about it).

"I'm taking this guy somewhere safe. You tell me where you want to meet, I'll be there. Wait for twelve minutes. If I'm not there by then, I'm probably dead, so you know what to do."

((It was supposed to be necromancy in its purest form, Diov. The touch is supposed to read what the body has been through, not just the mind. However, since Martin's obviously not skilled at the ability, I'll work with this.))

"Ow." Martin said as he rubbed his temple, "I really wish I had better control of that. How..."

The Lost? What did they have to do with this?

He turned to Karl.

"Things aren't looking good for you at all," Martin pointed at the Mortificator, "How long have you had this corpse, and how much do you know of the events of the past week? What kind of deal do you have with the Lost that they got a hold of your little pet project here?"

He turned to Energon X.

"Apparently, the memories I got were only the hero's life, which were dull and boring, plus they ended a couple weeks ago... I don't know why he didn't med-port when this jerk iced him, but that's the short of it. The soul's not quite gone, and the brain doesn't hold any memories of when it thrashed Statesman, but resuscitation is definitely not feasible. All I've got is that the Lost have something to do with this whole mess..."

He turned back to Karl.

"And don't try to tell me that you had nothing to do with it. You obviously put a lot of care into this project of yours, so maybe you can tell me why the last thing I saw in there was the Lost popping the cap before everything went supernaturally dark?"

"Holy Hell!" the shocked scrapper shouted at Twilight Radiation, "What happened, man? I come by here, all stealthy-like in case you need help, and suddenly the wall gives way and you're gone! I thought you were buried!"

He smiled suddenly.

"You know, I hope my concern doesn't cause you to suffer any indigestion. Whatever... In any case, yeah, I'm ready to go. Just, where to?"

The dark melee scrapper pushed past Karl and knelt next to the body. He nodded at Dax's comment.

"Well, here's the context," Martin said as he gripped the wrist of Cohen.

A shock went through him and he gritted his teeth as he felt what the body had been through. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, but it wasn't something he'd mastered, yet. Also, before, he could count on the "voice" in the back of his head to help sort it all out.

That wasn't going to happen here. He'd need to interpret the random images and events as they came to him.

He just hoped he'd be able to handle them.

Martin Sanders crested the hill a moment later and stared in dismay at the body rolled out of the coffin. It was the broken remains of the man who kicked the tar out of Statesman.

"Damn, that sucks," he grunted as he started working his way down the rubble, "Well, better start asking the Vahz boss where he got the body from. Maybe get a feel of it when I get there..."

He stopped suddenly and blinked.

"Man, that doesn't sound right out of context."

The next few days proved to be as terrible as Kip expected. Apparently, the city was buzzing about the first boy-toy of one of the most celebrated heroines in the past five years. Frankly, a lot of people were worried she preferred ladies.

Apparently, the fact that she even showed an interest in somebody was a relief to the Vindicators, but they were, of course, suspicious. Kip was a little bothered with Swan and Ms. Liberty's probing (they, for good reasons, badgered him until his eyes flared red and he was shouting with entirely a different voice to leave him alone; which Swan explained was actually his soul shouting), and Infernal's dark mood was a little worrisome, but Luminary was happy for her friend. The female android's attitude was infectious. Kip had to get out of there.

He was still unsure about the whole situation. He knew he wouldn't feel better about any of it until he was able to fill the blank space in his recent memory. So, he asked around his contacts for information on Crey facilities that weren't so "up-and-up," and Agent Wild let him know about a facility housing some of the same chemicals and materials as the last place.

"Dammit!" Kip shouted as a flash signaled another paparazzi as he walked through Skyway City, "Come here!"

He charged after the guy as he bolted into the bushes. Unfortunately for the celebrity leech, Kip was the faster. Or, rather, his eye beams were. A glancing blow caught the camera in the photographer's outstretched hand, melting the plastic and ruining the circuitry.

"With any luck," Kip muttered, "The hard drive got toasted."

He said it to Ms. Liberty before. He didn't like celebrity. It hindered him. It bothered him. On top of that, the paparazzi that hounded him risked life and limb that he had to protect if any of the villainous elements caught a hold of them.

"How do the celebrities deal with this crap?" Kip muttered as he went back to his original path, "And how the Hell do those guys keep finding me? I'm able to clear a few city blocks with a single bound..."

"Hey there, Kip-bird," a familiar voice laughed behind him, "What's it like as the latest flavor of the month?"

"Bitter," Kip replied to Psycho13, "And don't call me Kip-bird. I'll kick out your teeth. Good luck growing those back."

"Hey," the other scrapper zipped in front of the aggravated one with a grin on his face and his arms spread open, "Come on, man! Cheer up! The sun is shining!"

"So, this is manic?"

"I'm not that kind of lunatic," Baker replied.

Psycho13 was dressed different from the last time Kip had seen him. Last time, the knife-wielding maniacal hero was seen publicly, he had just got done wiping out the last of Bobcat's crew (with some help from the Freakshow goons already fighting them) and even fighting Mynx's evil double from Praetorian Earth. He didn't win, and the police drones got lots of footage of his tan hoodie getting torn to shreds by Bobcat moments before Mynx showed up to finish the job.

Psycho13 was then seen bursting out of a nearby hospital, whooping and cheering as he hopped on a Praetorian Heavy and rode it like a bucking bronco while other heroes cut him down. He was wearing his war kilt then.

Today, it was a T-shirt and torn jeans. He looked almost like anybody on the street, save the war paint on his face.

"Out of money for costumes?" Kip asked with a smirk.

"No, the Icon boys and girls are busy patching my hoodie back together. It'll cost me a pretty penny, since they're charging me for doing something they loathe, but I would rather wear my own outfit instead of whatever ridiculous abomination they came up with."

"Good philosophy."

"So," Levi grinned, "Where's your girlfriend?"

"She's busy with her super group," Kip growled, "And don't give me any of that 'you admit it' crap. This whole thing reeks to High Hell, and I gotta get to the bottom of it."

"Any leads?"

"Crey."

Baker's face scrunched to one side as he winced.

"Oh yeah, you don't know they're an evil corporation yet..."

"Of course they're an evil corporation!" Psycho13 boisterously yelled, "They're rich! I haven't yet seen the mega corp that's been able to get to its position without doing some truly evil things. Have you?"

"No," Kip admitted, "But these guys are quite a bit different. Super-villain different."

"Cool."

"So, I'm gonna go thrash a few facilities of their's, see if I can rustle up any information."

Levi pursed his lips to one side as Kip started to leave. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed Kip's shoulder.

"Hey! Need a sidekick for the day? I got nothing better to do!"

Kip glared at the other for a short while. He knew Baker back in high school. The guy was a bit of a lunatic back then, too. His very presence sent chills down a lot of people's spines.

"Sure," he replied against every fiber of his common sense screaming for the opposite.

-----

"Know what's wrong with the youth of today? Wandering lost, it's true what they say," Psycho13 chanted as he bobbed and wove through the ranks of Crey Security the two of them were dealing with; he punctuated his sentences with knife stabs and slashes, "And who is to blame? Teevee and magazines that have you believe every day is Halloween!"

He cut equipment, arms, legs, tendons... Anything to make the security guards and suited agents drop to the ground faster and not want to get back up.

"What is that?" Kip asked as he kicked a Power Tank into the wall.

"Buck Sixtyfive," the other scrapper replied, "Talkin' Jonkey Blues, Four Six Three. Numbers are actually numbers."

"Excuse me," the Power Tank groaned as he pulled himself from the wall, "I think you guys should be a little more focused on-"

Kip kicked him back into the wall, "Shut up! We're busy here!"

The tank fell down from his dent and groaned. He didn't get back up. sycho13 tagged him, and he was about to find himself teleported to the Zig instead of a nearby hospital.

"Man, this job rocks," he chuckled as they moved on, "Slicin', stabbin', jabbin', blowing things up!"

"We haven't blown anything up," Kip shook his head at his sidekick disapprovingly, "And it'll be difficult for us to do that."

"Yeah, maybe..."

"Psych, hang on a sec..."

Kip looked his friend over. Psycho13 was regenerating his damage from the last fight, and it enabled the more experienced scrapper to notice something.

"That scar on your arm, man... Where did you get that?"

"Oh this?"

Baker hefted his arm and looked at it. It looked almost like the scarring found on the Vahzilok zombies, only still alive and not a mark of where one corpse piece was grafted to another. It msut have been a really nasty cut...

"Oh yeah, it was bad," Levi said nonchalantly, "My older brother freaked when he did this to me. He thought our dad was gonna beat the ever-living be-Jebus outta him... He just took me to the hospital to get me stitched up. Heh, he joked that they might have to amputate when I asked if they'd need to give me a shot."

"Did you freak when they did?"

"Oddly enough, no..." Levi shrugged as he turned to continue down the hall, "Somehow, I equated to having my arm torn halfway through as much worse."

"So... Why did it leave a scar when those wounds you just got from pistols, knives, and whatever else those security guards were using against you are disappearing without a trace?"

Baker grinned.

"A common misconception about regeneration is that it doesn't leave scars, or that it repairs your body to pristine condition... Well, maybe that's true for some people, but for most, it leaves you as you were the moment you got it. Me? I didn't get this stuff until the Committee gave it to me to survive their torture. By then, enough of life's damage had been done to mark me."

"So?" Kip arched an eyebrow, "You've got a scar because you had the scar?"

"Right."

"How common is that?"

"Most forms of acquired regeneration work like that. Something about how the damage has already been done and the body NEVER fixes the scarring. Scars only really fade if something causes them to, like sunburns or treatment (cosmetic or otherwise). Left alone, they remain. What's odd about mine is that it seemed to grow in proportion to my body. I got this thing when I was like, ten!"

"I see..."

"Ope!" Psycho13 suddenly shouted, "We's gots company!"

"Halt!" an agent shouted at them, "Intruders! Intruders!"

"Isn't that ironic for an Infiltrator to say?" a security guard asked moments before getting tackled by Psycho13.

"Yee-ha!"

-----

The Paragon Protector in the last chamber of the facility was similar in style to Bull-Thistle. He wasn't plant-based, but he did have spines and regeneration.

Which really sucked when he "MOGged" on them.

"I keep stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and he won't go down!" Psycho13 shouted before getting impaled and thrown across the room, "AUGH-NN! Sonova... That really hurts!"

"Don't I know it," Kip shouted back to him, "Pull yourself off the wall and get down here to help me! Come on! Be a sidekick!"

"[Frig] you!" Psycho13 shouted as he pushed himself off the wall to fall on the ground, "How do you do this every day?"

"I have a rhythm," Durj grunted as he caught a fist to the gut, "Normally... I also have my soul protecting me..."

"That's odd..."

"It's complicated."

"Well..." Psycho13 pulled the spikes out of himself and approached the maddened, ravening Protector, "Here goes... Now I'm here for all to see... Every-THING torn out of me! Too late to drown in all my doubt... Too much to LATE to sort things out!"

As he continued to sing song lyrics, he continued to move and fight. Bobbing and dancing to music only he could hear (he'd found the old apparatus Draven had cooked up to remotely put Psycho13 into "kill mode," and now used it for his own personal MP3 player), he cut, slashed, stabbed, strifed and tormented the Protector.

"Cut! I'm never gonna get a-WAY! If I never make this CHANGE! CUT THE WAY and [FRIG] all the human WASTE! CUT! They're never gonna take a-WAY! The vision that I por-TRAY! NO TIME TO WASTE! I CUT ALL THAT'S IN MY WAY!"

With each shouted word, he drove his blades into the cookie-cutter quasi-hero. Finally, Kipland jumped over his head and smashed his knee through the visor on the Protector's helmet, crushing the cadaver's nose and crumpling him.

"Whoah..."

"Dude," Kip breathed as he made for the computer, "You gotta let me borrow some of your music... You sound like you really live through that stuff..."

"It gives me a Quickening," Psycho13 replied as he knelt by the prone form, "You know? That chill in your spine you get charged? It's just... URGH! You feel like you gotta do something, break something, ANYTHING!"

"I know the feeling..." Kip replied glumly, "Just... Don't feel that way every time you get it, okay? It'll really suck when you finally kiss a girl and you still react like that."

Psycho13 didn't respond. He'd never had the opportunity. Rather than think about it, though, he turned to the body.

"Hey, this guy isn't breathing..."

"They don't," Kip replied from the computer, "At least, not after they're beaten. I think it's a security measure Crey installs in 'em. A killswitch upon defeat. Since there's no record of them as a normal person, nobody really asks any questions. Of course, nobody ever knows the real reason for a Crey Sweeper Team to go rushing into a building like a hero does... In a little while, they'll be here to burn the evidence to Hell, and I need to hurry before this data gets corrupted..."

Baker wasn't satisfied with the answer, however. As his friend continued to study the information at the terminal, he pulled the helmet off the body. The head was all gray, the face... Perfectly neutral.

"What the? How?"

"They're clones," Kip said without looking back, "Not exact copies... More like recombined DNA fed into corpses and shocked back into life. The body winds up gaining some of the abilities of the heroes... And Crey puts it through a rigorous loyalty training, or brainwashing, class. I haven't yet seen one that has been able to shake it."

"Crazy..."

"You don't know the half of it, and I don't think you want to... Alright... Here's some data on that last facility I raided before my blackout... Project Invader? Who's the invader? Am I the invader?"

"I think the first mistake people make when considering what the enemy is doing is they think the target's them," Baker commented, "I thought you were better than that."

"Yeah," Kip replied, "But it doesn't add up. I mean... I know I'm me... It's... It's a little hard to clone me."

"You got that right," he soul rasped in the back of his head.

"So? Who's the invader?"

"Maybe I'll find out more at this other facility..." Kip replied, "I'll have to try tomorrow. What'll you be up to?"

"Interviewing our next client," Psycho13 shrugged, "Some guy who wants to try to raid the Rogue Isles to get his son back. I don't know if we can handle it, what with the dropship lacking its main guns..."

"You guys will find a way," Kip tapped Psycho13 with his datapad, "Come on, we'll thrash the Sweeper Team when they arrive. It'll be fun!"

"Cool!"

((I know we're all in about the same area.

This is like that old comic's bit, where the players on the T-ball league team he coached would all just scramble as one mass for the ball.))

((Oh wow... Lt. Briggs is going to be mortified at the chaos surrounding her. Don't worry, there's a waiter nearby to provide her with plenty of refreshment as she watches.

He looks a lot like DJ Zero...))

--Portal Corp Courtyard--

"My apologies for my rudeness," Sheldon explained to Feride, "I was, and am, a little concerned for my friend... Ryat66, please, explain the situation to the security chief while I put you back together again."

"Right-o," the android warbled, then the light in his visor turned to Kemen, "Al-righty, boss... From how I'm interpreting this, there is an outside force invading the system. I'm not sure as to the why or how, as their technology seems to be far more alien than mine or yours... However group involved doesn't seem to be wanting to disrupt the activities... I don't think they expected whatever errors they've caused to have happened. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any inclination to stop or correct the problem. they're timeline seems to be different than ours, so immediate problems don't necessarily concern them."

The light blinked a little.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kemen, sir... But I was under the impression that the Rikti were the enemy. The avatar I ran into in there said we should be helping them, though. What's going on?"

"Never you mind that," Sheldon replied, "Just... Know this, the Rikti situation is a lot more complicated than just Us versus Them. Alright?"

"Okay. So, Shel, who's the pretty lady?"

--Actual Pocket D--

Sadly for the demented little corrupter(?), Breaker wasn't too far away from Energon X (a little farther from the door and to the blaster's right), so he had avoided the gasses utilized to cover the escape. Seeing all of this insanity, Power Breaker suddenly shouted over the insane throng.

"ENOUGH!"

An electric burst erupted from his spikes, sending cages out to any and all Pocket D patrons near the focal point, which was Poe. This wasn't necessarily the intended result, Breaker jsut wanted to stop Poe. Still, with any luck, (and a whole lot more accuracy), Breaker would imprison a number of people in some really stinging electric cages, hopefully detaining them from furthering their assaults.

"Come here," he shouted, throwing an arm out to catch the guy in case he missed, "What was that you said about teleporting me into a minefield? Don't you run away from me! Don't run! DON'T RUN!"

An arc of electricity coursed through his arm, running down the circuitry channels embedded in his flesh, and hovered at his fingertips. If Poe continued to resist detainment, the electricity would be released, further damaging the poor [jerk].

----------

--Virtual Pocket D--

Kip let loose a victorious whoop as he noticed the scene seemingly falling apart. He didn't know what was keeping him here, and he didn't know what he'd find when it all crashed, but he wasn't about to let up now.

"[Frig] you, Zero!" he shouted as he took a chair and smashed it repeatedly against the bottles of booze behind the bar, "I! Hate! This! Place! I! Hate! This! Bar! Every time! I come here! Stupid crap! Like THIS! Keeps happening! To me!"

With his last exclamation, the chair splintered, and Kip didn't hesitate, immediately leaping over the bar and kicking a table over, breaking off two of its legs, and smashing everything within reach as he stormed about the room.

"Try and stop me!"

((Well, something I remembered from an earlier RP got me to calm down. It also makes sense... Zero does have a tendency to simply step back and let the players do their thing. So, that's probably what he's doing here.))

Martin's eyes narrowed and he glanced around darkly.

"I've played that game already. Suffice it to say, I wasn't cut out for it, but there wasn't anybody else. Well, there was someone... But I haven't spoken to her in a while. A long while."

He turned and started scrabbling toward Bladewing again. There were maybe one or two piles left in the way. He didn't want to leap, he didn't want to wind up in the middle of another Clockwork swarm.

"We better get going... Lord knows what other surprises are waiting for us in this wasteland."

((The idea isn't to simply get rid of an annoyance. This isn't the first time Poe has done stuff like this. I would think anybody would want to know why somebody's constantly being disruptive in their house.

And yes, a Detention Field is malicious. If it can miss, it's an attack.

You know what? Fine, run with it. Let's see where this goes.

I gotta get away from working with Zero, anyway. I gotta stop God-moding. I can't see how you can do this pathologically, Diov. It gives me a headache trying to figure out how to fudge somebody's tactics, especially when they're God-moding themselves...))

((I disagree. In case it isn't said enough, DJ Zero is in COMPLETE CONTROL of his dimension. He would not allow somebody to utilize malicious magics against him, regardless of duration.))

"We sure seem like it, though," Martin replied gruffly, "And I haven't seen anybody in this pack of lemmings that has proven otherwise... Myself included. Well..."

He looked Ghoul over again.

"Maybe you. You've been fairly even-keeled (doesn't necessarily mean you're level headed), and you tend to act properly to the given situation. Heh, maybe I should be following your lead."

"Well, don't help me or anything..." Martin grumbled as he picked himself out of the dent he just made, "I'm perfectly fine with bruised ribs and the like... Cripes... You nearly gave me a frickin' heart attack!"

He dropped to the ground and started making his way for Karl and Bladewing. However, he was not stupid. Just a little unlucky.

It was because of this lack of luck that he was scanning the nearby wreckage and the horizon for any signs of an ambush...

--Actual Pocket D--

When Poe rematierialized, he found himself face-to-face with DJ Zero. On top of that, he was, much to his dismay, perfectly fine. Anybody who wanted to take a shot at the villain was free to do so, except for the teensy-tiny problem of all of their hostile (even remotely hostile) powers not working. There was also the fact that another shimmering barrier had been erected between them and the rest of the club.

"Remember, Poe, I am the god here. I said I wanted to talk to you, and now we're going to talk. I simply won't let you walk away. Okay?"

Smiling warmly, he hovered in mid-air as if he were sitting in a chair. He was reclined and a drink appeared in his hand. It smelled faintly of cranberries. After he took a sip, he regarded Poe.

"Would you like a drink? Just say what you want and it'll be here... No poisons, though. I don't care if you enjoy a nice strichnyne mixed into your sparkling water, I'm not risking you keeling over in my club and having to deal with your boss. He's unpleasant, even if he is a professional."

He waved the Arbiter back to his position at the Villain-side entrance before returning to the matter at hand.

"First of all, you really need to learn how to relax. Yes, yes, I know, you get bored. We all get bored. However, there's a whole wide world out there for you to amuse yourself with... In fact... There's a whole universe, as I understand you are more than well aware..."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Don't worry about them, they can't get to you, hurt you, or whatever. I'd say they can't see or hear us, but, well... I've never been that good a liar. Now... Tell me... Why is it every time you come here, you have to try to give me a headache? There are plenty of other things you could be doing, why must you bring havoc on my establishment?"

Martin rolled his eyes as everybody took off, willy-nilly without waiting for a solid plan of action. He sighed and headed back for the hole, the Vahzilok in the cavern immediately forgotten.

"First chance I get, I'm barkin'," he grumbled as he picked a northwest direction, "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. Ope! I passed 'em..."

And with that, he crashed into a wall, smashing old mortar and stones to the ground as he planted himself there.

--Virtual Pocket D--

"What the Hell?"

"Implies that we may be locked in something, and this is a lucid digital hallucination."

"Thank you, Mr. Science," Kip muttered, "Fine..."

He got up, picked up the chair and hurled it at the DJ Zero facsimile. He then turned to the nearest table and threw it across the room at the bar.

Be a virus? Fine. He'll break the system.

----------

--Actual Pocket D--

"Oh... Fiddlesticks," DJ Zero muttered as Power Breaker bounded across the dance floor for the elevator, then, into the microphone: "Well... I may as well bring them back up here... Arbiter Douglas? Please bring me the individual in contention when the elevator returns."

Power Breaker approached and the Arbiter standing guard at the door shook his head.

"Move along, folks," Douglas barked, "I got this..."

"What if he gasses you?" Breaker asked, "I mean, it is his thing, you know..."

"It wouldn't be the first time..." the Arbiter sighed, but the air around his head was starting to shimmer, "But, sometimes, working for the DJ has some pretty cool perks."

----------

--Actual Pocket D: Villain-side Elevator--

The elevator lurched suddenly. It seemed to be going in the opposite direction. A metal panel slid over the buttons and a cheerful tune came over the internal speaker.

Suddenly, a shimmering wall appeared between the two combatants. It was flexible, and almost rubbery, but there was no pushing through it. No fighting either. It seemed to get harder to push with the more kinetic energy applied to it. A female voice issued from the speaker above them.

"Greetings, patrons. DJ Zero would like to thank you personally, Poe, for bringing your own unique brand of entertainment to the club. Mr. Energon X, not to worry, we shall assist you in your endeavor to have your companion returned to you. Please refrain from attempting to fight, escape or kill yourselves, as DJ Zero is quite in control of the situation, and will resort to drastic, vulgar measures to settle this matter. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride."