TheSoviet

((I was also under the impression that the attacks were absorbed by the plants. Also, Chameleon, how are you surviving all this gas?))

Pestilence looked around. There was nobody left!

Muttering in his strange, unknown way, the Chem Commando stepped out into the hallway...

And right in front of Cynic, who seemed to be in desperate need of some Gatorade. The Acidic Assailant ((I'm running out of alliterations)) looked up to find himself face-to-face with a winged female.

Rolling his neck in a terrifyingly loud manner that could be heard even through the thick helmet he wore on top of his hermetically sealed collar, Pestilence extended one arm to the girl in as menacing a manner as he could muster ((Just kidding, looks like I have more)) and tilted his head to one side. Being around six-foot-ten in the sickly green Exoskeleton Armor, covered in hoses and jury-rigged wiring that gave him his limited superhuman strength, this was actually considerably menacing.

In his fist, Pestilence held a firm grip on what was apparently a grenade of an unfamiliar make.

The pin was already gone. Pestilence let the pressure of his grip slowly relax. He was still breathing heavily through his mask from the last fight, the advanced, hand-woven and stuffed filter quietly accenting his slow inhaling and exhaling. As Pestilence almost gingerly let the pressure on the grenade go completely slack, a thick cloud of colorless cyanogen chloride enveloped the hallway in a deadly spray. A highly toxic blood agent, contact could immediately cause loss of consciousness, convulsions, paralysis, and death.

All that could be heard was the hissing gas and Pestilence's easy breathing. Under his helm, he smiled.

((Oh hey whats going on in this thread?))

((Well I mean if you absolutely have to notice him that's well and good but you can't just turn him to melting slag the second I try something now can you?))

Bookworm Spider Longfang?

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately for Malta, as soon as said Bane Spider even made a threatening gesture in the direction of the med-porter, he was bombarded with a hail of plasma fire, quickly melting his armor and himself to slag before the robots continued to fend off the opposing force.

[/ QUOTE ]

((Whoops stealth doesnt work that way and neither do secret plans.))

((Well now.))

The few Zombified Malta were quickly shot down by their former comrades, the Operatives feeling no remorse. The OpOfficer continued to rest calmly behind his cover as concentrated fire crashed around him.

"Bullets don't work that way." He quietly muttered to himself as a shot skipped off the floor next to him with a fwping!

"Engage Psychological Operations." He quietly ordered.

One of the Arachnos Bane Spider Scouts suddenly stopped firing at the Arachnos and took cover. He slowly faded from sight as his armor took him under the veil of stealth.

Another medbay suddenly exploded.

Pestilence turned quickly away from Nataan and Prodder's supposed doublekill to face Target and the newcomer. How she was still smiling as concentrated Ammonia snaked through her veins was really beyond the Chem Commando, but he figured that this was an opportunity not to pass up.

With the half-empty canister of Saxitoxin set to a concentrated jet, Pestilence took advantage of what he assumed would be a distracted Target Lad and whoever this inept newcomer was and let loose the remainder of his stock at them in a gout of death that sprayed forth like the sickly breath of a beast from their most intense nightmares.

((To be fair, Pestilence has been firing off some rather large-scale room-filling attacks.))

((...Meanwhile the grenade is killing you already!))

((? I don't follow. He's shooting at you as you lunge upward. But it's too late to edit, so I'll concede that he was just shooting spines off his back if the grenade still comes into play.))

Prodder's attempt on Nataan's life would be cut tragically short by Pestilence rapidly drawing his sidearm, a Colt M1911A1 Officer's ACP with an extended and double-stacked 11+1 magazine.

As soon as the tips of Prodder's spines surfaced, they were suddenly shot to pieces by the sudden barrage of surprisingly accurate one-handed fire that Pestilence was pumping out. In addition to this, the Chemfiend pulled the pin on an advanced Decay Grenade and kicked it Prodder's way, the biological agent quickly attempting to feast on the Scrapper.

Nataan was strangely unaffected for reason's he'd know - The case of the charge was slick and pulsating, and a small spray of precipitation followed the kicked munition.

This was NOT a grenade that Pestilence could make himself!

The Arbiter had just finished his taunt when there was a rather sudden concussive force.

His mediporter began screeching in a rather high pitch, indicating attempts to lock on to a new revival tube. The Arbiter wouldn't have to turn around to realize what the Malta Operatives had just done to his medical equipment.

---

Curtis raised one eyebrow.

Turning to Simmons, the Gunslinger merely shrugged.

And then a flash of light took him along with Essex away...a pod with an Assault Bot landing in his place.

((You fired off a lot of attacks though. This is placed at the end of it.))

As Target Lad went through his massive chain of attacks, Pestilence thought it a rather opportune moment to spray a blast of Acid at him just as his last arrows left his bow.

((...I don't know how else to elaborate that at the state of exhaustion I'm in.))

((D'oh...))

Pestilence swung himself backwards with an angry growl, landing on his back but successfully sliding away from Prodder's onslaught. Now in a rather weak position to keep fighting, the Specialist reached into his tactical belt and began arming grenades filled with Mustard Gas in an attempt to cover himself long enough to scramble back to a fighting position.

Unhooking the grenades and simply letting them spray on the ground next to him, Pestilence surprisingly gracefully rolled backwards, smoothly transitioning to a standing position. Re-aiming his sprayer at Prodder, he once again tightened the nozzle to the strength somewhere around 300psi for a good, fire hose-like jet, and fired off another spray of Saxitoxin to take out the incessant scrapper.

((Incorrect. The only corrosives Pestilence has fired have either been a jet-stream or clouded locally on impact. The other agents wouldn't be doing anything.))

Target's arrow sliced through Pestilence's hose like a bolt of lightning.

But it didn't change anything.

Made from an advanced self-sealing material (Much like self-sealing Jet fuel tanks, bullets through these hoses could be rather catastrophic to the user.) In fact, the arrow only seemed to serve to anger Pestilence. Adding to his frustration were the two spines that cracked in half on contact with the plate of armor in his chest and the third which rather securely locked itself in his suit just above the chemical seal.

Muffled rage apparent, Pestilence again reached behind him and produced another canister, this one labeled TZ in large letters. The savvy among those present would realize that this was Saxitoxin, a cyanotoxin that could cause death in mere minutes. Those affected would immediately realize they were becoming paralyzed, and they'd need to leave.

Fast.

If Sheldon's drop-ship had ANY sort of intelligence gathering capabilities, it would rapidly note that there was a rather large tesla-coil like object pointed up at the ship, swarming with Operatives. It would also notice that this massive coil was about to release an EMP lance strong enough to turn Tokyo pitch black in his ship's direction.

There were, unfortunately, at least a dozen Surface to Air Missile sites around it in all directions, and they were prepared to fire the very second Sheldon's shields went down.

---

The high altitude scan would reveal a rather depressing fact.

The Dronetillery wasn't being shot. It was coming out of teleport over a mile in the air. A teleport whose origin point was shown to be on the surface of Venus. Of course, there weren't any Malta on Venus (supposedly) so it was clear that the Malta were being very clever about making their inbound teleports untraceable.

And there were, at the second of the reading, over one hundred more teleports coming into the area at that moment.

Curtis grinned as the beacon got a lock on his location.

This was literally the last moment to stop him.

Pestilence shook the chemical sprayer above his head in a sort of celebratory dance at his assault before zeroing back in on Pokin' Prodder. Swapping out canisters with a cachunk, Pestilence narrowed the nozzle forward, effectively turning the chemical sprayer into a Chemical Jet Cutter which was capable of literally sawing through kevlar body armor. This alone would have been terrifying, but the fact that the new barrel Pestilence had just equipped himself with was Chloropicrin, a horrific, oily liquid that was easily capable of, upon inhalation, causing vomiting, bronchitis, and even fatal lung injuries. As Pestilence fired a jet of the stuff at a wicked 2000psi at Pokin Prodder, he swept the stream slowly around, causing a huge eruption of gasses at the impact point against the back wall of the room.

Cackling manically, Pestilence fired until the canister was completely dry before switching his armament to Trifluoromethanesulfonic acid, which was around 1,000 times as strong as pure Sulfuric acid, and loosening the nozzle on his sprayer, hosing the fine mist across the entire room.

Curtis sneered at the wound he had been given. "Yew call that ah blow? Ah'll damn well show yas a-"

Curtis suddenly stopped halfway through his rhetoric and snapped backwards at an incredible speed, Small Toy's laser grazing his shoulder. Which should have been completely impossible. Not missing a beat, Curtis began blasting away at the sniper with his offhand pistol while trying to cover himself against everyone who was closing with the other hand. Teleporting backwards until he was right on top of Essex, Curtis re-holstered both revolvers and threw a wide spread of flashbangs into the air around him, blinding light enveloping the area.

If anyone could possibly stop him at this point, Curtis was now ducked low over Essex, waiting for his Base's central computer to get his exact location to extract him through teleport.

---

At the Arachnos base, Operators and Knives weren't the only thing that Arachnos had to worry about before firing on those who were pushed back. As the force bubble moved the bodies of a pair of Malta Engineers, their completed Field Turrets were suddenly revealed. The onboard computers on both guns began spraying fire from the dual miniguns mounted on each respective turret, hosing the men and machines down.

Drechi stared the man before him down.

"You've been at this...how long?"

The man held up seven fingers.

"And you think you are worthy enough to act in my capacity as a chemical and biological warfare specialist in support of a fellow Scorpion."

A grim nod.

"I see here that they say you're one of the best. But you have a psychotic streak a mile wide." Drechi frowned. "Your friendly casualties are abysmal. Is that what got you kicked out of your old job?"

The man winced visibly, a rasping breath his only answer.

"Well. It looks like you haven't killed any of your fellow...What were they, Horsemen? Not yet, anyway. And your track record with them is certainly impressive, to say the least. And I suppose I can't worry about it with Nataan, since your pitiful human diseases and chemicals could never harm one of us. Do take these. Use them if you must. I am sending ahead to let them know you'll be in attendance while I negotiate my next contract, which I assure you is rather larger than anything you'll ever do."

The man was silent.

"Be ready for insertion in one hour."

---

Suddenly, a ceiling tile fell to the floor.

"Hrhrhrhrhrhrh." A gleeful yet muted exclamation could scarcely be heard before the Chemical Charge attached to the tile exploded in a massive gout of choking death, filling the room with concentrated Ammonia.

A blur of green could be seen falling to the ground following the blast. Nataan and the others who could ever hope to see through the cloud of Ammonia would clearly see a man in a large and bulky NBC suit. Turning to Nataan, he pumped his fist in earnest in an attempt to identify himself as a fellow operator. Following up on his 'statement,' the incomprehensible mercenary known only as Pestilence turned a chemical sprayer towards Pokin' Prodder and Cynic. Tightening the nozzle to a crushing stream of 1500psi, he fired a spray of Halogens that immediately combusted upon contact with the ammonia, turning the area he was facing into an explosive nightmare.

"Ye should know this drill al'reddy, snake." Curtis sneered as he disappeared in a flash of light. Immediately coming out of it facing the other direction, more of a doge than anything, Curtis began to bump-fire his revolvers, once again while reloading, at the Alien as he backed up towards Essex.

---

The Frozen robot Randy tossed kicked up a [censored]-storm of debris as robots were torn apart, sparks flying side by side with now freed limbs. But more kept falling down, as if it were some sort of endless artillery barrage.

"!" One Assault Bot seemed to say as it wheeled around, zooming in on Large Toy before unleashing a maelstrom of plasma and heavy-microwave laserfire, trying to assist Curtis in his endeavor to snag Essex.

---

"Kineticist!" One Operator warned of the Arbiter before being shot to death by Jake's bots.

"[censored] this!" The OpOfficer yelled as he and several other men volleyed flashbangs over their cover.

"I need Knives, NOW!"

The first thing that Large Toy and Block bot would notice was that Seekers and Photon grenades, in fact, ALL energy weapons, didn't do anything to the robots besides piss them off.

They also happened to activate a certain few protocols.

]activate
]
]power_overwhelming
]
]New_lock
]
]all_hostile
]
]Engage_Overload

Without warning, the Robots began another hellish spree of laser blasts and plasma cannon barrages. They weren't just ineffective - they were making them stronger.

Randall would find his electrified attacks were similarly disheartening in nature, as the Assault Bot he punched suddenly grappled for him and began leeching his power at an incredible rate.

---

Of course, the Operations Officer leading the attack was behind cover, along with his men. He wouldn't just be firing at the 'bots from the middle of the room. The Plasma bolts lanced at and around him and he crouched low behind the Arachnos equipment he was hiding behind, which quickly began to shatter and explode.

"He's nuts! Get the Mastermind and the Arbiter! Now!"

The Operatives hit by the Arbiter's sudden strike remained calm and collected as they scrambled back to cohesion. "Utilize Biofeedback weapons!" One yelled to another, and the Arbiter would suddenly have quite the sinking feeling as blue beams snaked around the room, striking several of his minions. Two bolts shimmered towards him quickly. How could he use his force to stop them?