TheSoviet

((RIGHT))

"Goldarnit." Curtis frowned as he once again vanished suddenly in a bright blue light.

---

"This is Thunder Molotov Nine-Oh-Seven."

"We have received go-ahead for Operation Push To Shove."

"I am activating the Assault Code for the Legion in Five. Four. Three. Two."

---

Kip could probably hear the echo of a monotone voice seconds before it happened.

The crates and containers that had been in the base had, for all intents and purposes, been like any other in the various villainous hideouts in Paragon City. Good for blocking yourself off for a quick rest while your foes milled about. The containers certainly appeared average enough.

And then there was a terrifying sound, as if a thousand generators had been activated in perfect sync. One of the freight containers' doors suddenly exploded open, and in rank-and file emerged what looked like a hellish cross between a Hercules Titan and a Mastermind's Assault Bot. Each bot had a plasma cannon for either arm, double shoulder-mounted missile racks, and as if that wasn't heinous enough, a wrist mounted flamethrower. There also seemed to be a rather malevolent glow in their strobing eyes. Out of smaller crates rose minor variants of the same sort, their arms outfitted with what looked to be rigged-on parts from some sort of mass-produced Assault Rifle the Operatives had acquired in bulk.

And there were dozens of them in this room alone.

One of the larger variants turned to face the heroes, and without warning a Heavy Microwave Laser began to fire out from just below its head-mounted optics package, giving the impression of laser eyes. Unlike the hero variant however, this laser swept to-and-fro, trying to slice all of the gathered heroes apart with one gaze.

---

The heroes on Rikti Earth were about to have just as bad a time.

What looked (And felt like) artillery shells began impacting around the heroes in masses almost too numerous to count, cracking open and spilling forth a drove of the same machines that Kip and his team were facing back on earth. The main difference was in the armament of the smaller drones - It looked like their weapons had been acquired on-site. Instead of Auto-Kalashnikovs, these killers sported a Rikti Sword-rifle on either arm, and they didn't hesitate to begin sniping away at them with mechanical precision.

---

The Operator facing down no-less than an Arbiter was either cocky, stupid, or a genius.

"Bull [censored]." He frowned.

"Kill them all. Kill them clean."

The Operatives opened up with silenced sub-machine guns, filling the room with lead. Jake was certainly not left out of the fury, as an Operations Officer zeroed him in and fired off a precise set of bursts from his MP7.

LOL FIVE MINUTES OF INTERNET BETWEEN DISCONNECTS TO POST SOMETHING IRRELEVANT?

Shitoko no this isn't going to be in the game.

And BB you do know that Panzerfrau = Tank Wife.

If that's not intended, it would be Panzerplatten, which is armor.

Curtis' revolver reported with the gunshot.

Curtis looked a bit annoyed that nothing had happened, but he payed it no real mind. He was using a revolver. It may be easy enough to ruin a GLOCK, but Curtis' only problem was that now he'd probably warped the barrel.

"Ever wunner how much data one c'n lose from gettin' yer [censored] wires fried?" Curtis smiled down at the Mastermind, pulling out a grenade-like device. Clicking a small blue button on the side, Toy would immediately notice that it was starting to feel a lot like a nuke had just gone off on top of him as the Electromagnetic Pulse Generator bombarded him incessantly.

Toy could sense it before it happened.

A stream of incomprehensibility, ever-so subtly rippling through him. A light tug on the strands of space.

There was a bright blue light. There was something pressed against him before he heard the sound of the teleport.

"Reckon it's game over, pard." Curtis smiled, pulling the trigger of the .357.

----

There was a low rumble in a far corner of the Arachnos Encampment.

The camp power flickered and was gone.

When the emergency lights came on, they were already in the building.

"This is your one opportunity to stand down, Spiders!" Immortal Cobalt 8-4-8 yelled from behind a Hercules Titan. "I repeat, this is your single chance to lower your arms!"

TWO

THUMBS

UP

((I HAS BEEN SICK, I AM BACK.))

"Jesus!" One of the Skiff pilots growled, shielding his eyes as the explosions rocked his ship. Slowly steadying his powerful but altogether too-light-for-the-big-bangs Skiff, he sent out a radio broadcast to his disoriented Raiders, right as the Skiff hit the building and exploded brilliantly again.

"Fire on that damn target! He must still be in there!" The practically blinded leader yelled, and the Raiders obliged, unwittingly hosing the Arachnos troops with a wide arc of fire.

While it was true that some of the slugs would be stopped by the Raider's advanced plating, after the Pilot had died from the electric shock the other Raiders saw no reason to continue their limited attack.

"Fox two."

The Sky Skiffs fired their Sidewinders as a group, each missile zeroing in on the heat of the Skiff and the Electric Discharge. These missiles would not only follow Target's currently glaring heat, but they'd be there in an instant.

The Raiders may have been falling in droves, but Target must have been out of his mind if he thought that the Sky Skiffs wouldn't have even some protection for their engines. Sky Raider Engineers weren't universally hated for just Force Fields, after all. The Skiffs tracked him in unison, Gauss Cannons locking on to him. There'd be no rolling out of the way of these hyper-accelerated slugs...

"Fu-" One Raider began before his momentum carried him right into the arrow. Unfortunately, besides him and a couple of other raiders, the arrows would definitely not be finding their mark. The Sky Raiders were twisting and maneuvering in no discernible pattern, rolling through the air with a sort of grace about them. A Jump Bot suddenly made its way to the scene from afar, soaring out of the air and firing for effect at Target.

((Bzrk))

"Cape coming down on us, 6 o' clock high!" One Raider radioed to the rest of his crew.

"Defensive positions!"

Target could barely see the ripple of air as a Gauss slug ripped past his face. And then another. And another.

And then they came in droves.

Edit: Shortest intro I have ever made in my entire life. Sky Raiders are really lowest common denominator >_<

Curtis landed and immediately fired a shot at both seeker drones, detonating them brilliantly. Unfortunately, they had been way too close to completely stop, and the Gunslinger was instantly blinded. To add insult to injury, a rather significant amount of buckshot impacted Curtis' back armor. The material was powerful enough to absorb most of the shot, but Curtis was sure as hell that'd be leaving a big bruise.

"TARNATION!" He yelled, teleporting to his left to avoid further attack. Spinning back around without missing a beat, the Gunslinger once again tried to finish off the Protector 'Bots with a full salvo from his Pythons.

---

Toy Bot was definitely hitting the Gunslingers, but their composite mesh armor was absorbing a startling amount of its blasts. As for the soldier it had landed on, he was unfortunate enough to find that it was an engineer.

An engineer with a taser.

The Blackop immediately jammed the weapon up into Toy's workings, trying to fry something.

[ QUOTE ]
I feel the need to remind him that we're all playing a game about super powered men clad in tights.

[/ QUOTE ]

"You're too late!" The Engineer yelled before he was crushed by his own machine.

"You're...too...late..."

---

Curtis turned his head 180 degrees and caught the full spectrum of what was just about to hit him. Right before the attacks all came through, surely having the power to kill him, the Gunslinger jumped into the air and rotated into a back-flip, pistols extended, in what could be called a Bullet Time move for the ages.

Of course, to Curtis, the adrenalin blur really did have everything moving slowly. He watched the sword slice underneath his head as he was midway through the flip. He turned from one side to the other, scoping the sensitive sensor packages on the Protector's 'heads.'

Curtis fired one shot from each pistol right at the two 'bots, each round packing the electromagnetic wallop of an Electric Blaster hopped up on Rage.

At about this time, five Gunslingers came out of teleport in the area and began crisscrossing fire at practically all of the bots.

One Gunslinger, a Boss Class in his own right, landed standing on Small Toy's prone form. He fired a bullet from his .45 right at the 'bots head.

Cry would find that his 'lobotomy' idea wasn't going to work.

"Hah, hah." Frenzk smiled at the infant, face to face. "Chap, why do you keep making these mistakes?"

Cry's psychic energy coursed through the Archon electrically.

Something in his blood sizzled.

Something foreign.

Super Soldier Serum.

"Rest assured, Lieutenant Cry, I will be back to finish you. Except next time...Let us just say that I will do more than single handedly defeat you on the field of battle, kill all your men, and leave you with a little something!" He cackled.

Something Cry never could have expected happened.

Frenzk broke his psychic hold. The Super Soldier Serum coursed through Frenzk's fists, his legs, his eyes. He stared into the husk of a child in front of him and drew back for a huge roundhouse kick.

"Rest assured child, I shall return!" He yelled, and in one motion, Frenzk threw a blinding cloud of acidic dust into Cry's face and kicked with all of his might.

Whenever Cry came back around, the Archon and all of his Robots were gone. No corpses littered the battlefield. There was an Arachnos radio next to the child.

And his transport ship was gone.

---

"We will RUIN him next time men!" Frenzk yelled to the assembled Penumbra and Vortex, who cheered in turn. "Today I go to speak to the mighty Center himself, and with his vision, we will crush our foe and cement ourselves as the greatest power ever conceived!"

(([ QUOTE ]
Each fired simultaneously, the specialized bullets flying at nearly light speed.

[/ QUOTE ]))

((So they were traveling at almost 1,079,252,848.8 km/h? Hmh.))

"Once again you prove a sniveling idiot I see. You send your worthless idiocy in droves at me, and it does what? Kills some of your own men, wrecks some mech men. You stupid, worthless fool." Frenzk was angry. Frenzk had lost his posh demeanor. "I'm sick of your worthless damned games child. I will kill you where you are. You didn't get it. You NEVER got it. Every other Arachnos lieutenant is out for your blood. If you weren't such a freak of nature, you'd be another dead child in this war."

"Me? I am the pinnacle. I am the greatest Archon who ever was and ever will be. You stupid, stupid fool."

At this point Frenzk was practically shouting, but still his composure kept himself standing straight and officiously.

"You're dead."

Frenzk threw a blinding cloud of flash-powder in front of him and a smoke bomb at his feet, and he was gone.

For a moment, everything was still.

And then, right behind Cry, Archon Frenzk came out of hiding with an Assassin's Blow.

((A throwaway wouldn't be trying this hard, I assure you. He's a character.))

"Your fallacy of a tale beside, you'll find that this was easily one of your dumber ideas."

One of the Arachnos soldiers left alive suddenly grabbed his head and began screaming an ear splitting...howl?

Falling to his knees, the Spider's armor tore off of him in chunks as his body rapidly expanded, growing huge fangs, claws, and fur. His eyes turned a bloodshot yellow, his jaw elongated into a snapping maw that could bite a man in half without even trying. Standing back up into a crouched battle stance, the new War Wolf howled. It howled and howled, so loud that even the heroes in their secretive base would have heard that one. Loud enough that children cried, men cowered, and women shrieked.

"I must thank you, young lieutenant." Frenzk casually shrugged, reaching into the top of his armor jacket and pulling out -

A shadow cyst! Pulsing different colors, the crystal had a crack that was almost an exact replica of the Council Emblem on the Archon's chest.

"Honestly? I truly do have to thank you for the amplification. You've made this all the easier." He continued as more Arachnos succumbed.

"Now then, Epsilon team, Wolfpack Foxtrot. Do PLEASE finish this..."

The Mech Men began to concentrate their blasts at Cry as the War-wolves charged in at him, tattered remains of Arachnos armor still dangling at odd angles on their bodies.

"Whatever you say..." Frenzk smiled as he went flying to the ground. Another flash. Another cloud of smoke. And suddenly, Frenzk was behind him, kicking viciously at the energy shield once again.

"Honestly, you see, I'm invincible. Let's face it kiddie, I'm out of your league by a mile. You may as well give it up right here, because I do fear I'll be the only one leaving this alive..."

((Curtis does not lead his own cell, he is effectively Reikoff's hitman, and he can be transferred about for big stuff like this. His 'team' is just more Specialists that were assigned to him. And his personal feelings on the Slinger's methods don't even come into play.))

"Really now chap, I mean honestly?" The Archon asked as he threw a flashbang at his own feet and disappeared.

"You'll just have to try a lot harder than that!" He yelled as he came down from a building behind Cry, flying through the air.

"Holy [censored]." One of the Arachnos gasped, looking up.

"Eagle's Claw."

It was really an incredible sight. Arms held up in an attack stance, leg extended, soaring through the air. From Cry's perspective, the titan of a man was eclipsing the sun as he flew down, like some kind of incredible Krav Maga Angel. He came down like a ton of bricks and as his kick connected with the psychic shield, that's definitely exactly what it sounded like. There was no doubt about it - the shield would have HAD to have felt that kind of kick.

Of course, as Frenzk was showing his absolute martial prowess, all of his Mech Men weren't just standing around gawking. They continued to blast away at the Arachnos troops, and the Spiders would find that the Mechanized monstrosities were every bit as tough as they were, especially the Zenith Warcries.

((OH HAY YOU RRRRRRRRANG?))

"AH'M CALLIN' BULL!" Gunslinger Curtis yelled at the top of his lungs. "RASSIN' FRASSIN' ENEMY CAN'T LEAVE ME ALONE FER TEN MINUTES TO FINISH SUM'N LIKE THIS!?! BAH!" The Gunslinger stamped his foot. "Engineer, get yer city slickin' [censored] on that radio an' GET ME MY TEAM!"

"Aye sir!" The Engineer saluted, ducking behind some cover and beginning his transmission.

"As fer yew li'l runty hunks 'o junk!" Curtis yelled, pointing at Toy's Bots with one of his Colt Python .357 Magnums. "Yer all scrap now!"

He smacked the teleporter on his leg with an audible slap and went hurtling through space-time to appear right in the middle of the robot crew. "Suck on THIS, YA VARMINTS!" He hollered as he began firing bullets from his hips at seemingly all of them at once. Interesting to note was the fact that he just kept shooting and shooting, until one of the 'bots saw what was happening - He was moving his hands so fast while shooting that he was actually reloading a bullet from his waist every time he fired. Humans shouldn't even have that kind of dexterity, but there was evidence enough as the shots rang out...

"Well chappie, if that's really what you want."

Another man strode out of a different building, apparently alone.

"Cheers, Spiders. How're things on this fine day?" The man continued in an impeccably posh accent. "Pardon, I didn't even introduce myself. The name's Frenzk, chaps, but that'd be Archon Frenzk to you."

As one Bane Spider Scout silently got behind the massive Vortex Cor Leonis Archon who was addressing the crowd, Frenzk suddenly stopped. Jumping into the air an almost miraculous height and spinning three-hundred-sixty degrees, the Archon delivered a crushing Storm Kick to the side of the Soldier's head, sending him crashing to the ground. Regaining his composure, he turned back to the audience.

"Now, I believe you know yourself that you're out of line, chaps. This would be our territory. I'm afraid that every last one of you is going to have to die here. Please don't call for backup - It's a rather outlandish idea at this point, now isn't it? What with communications jamming and such. Oh, and do please restrain your terrifyingly annoying psychic power, Lieutenant Cry. You'll find I'm quite the nut to crack! Ah, and speaking of hard shells, allow me to introduce some chaps I met just strolling down the lane earlier."

Suddenly, dozens - literally dozens - of Mech Men uncloaked themselves in a full circle around the Arachnos party.

"Now I'd practically be wasting my breath to let you know that I actually personally built these killers, and indeed did not find them on the street. Ah, but it seems I've done so anyway. Well then, need I continue?"

"Wolfpack Epsilon, do kill them all."

A flurry of energy blasts filled the area as the Mech Men rained hell upon the Arachnos from all directions. A few foolhardy Arachnos soldiers attempted to enter CQC with Archon Frenzk. The Archon immediately used a Dragon's Tail and sent them sprawling.

"A rather brisk exercise, isn't it?" He asked one Bane Spider as he pulled back both fists and punched a hole through his chest.

Drechi and his men filed onto the hovercraft without a word.

The more observant would note that Drechi paused momentarily and shot a glance at Vanessa before getting on.

A nigh muted breath began to hiss in the wreckage of the building. How the Penumbra Sniper had survived was impossible to tell - how he had gone unnoticed more so. Either way, there was definitely a sniper in the ruins, and he was definitely aiming down the scope of his rifle at Cry.

He fired...

Because they're poor, in city of villains. In city of heroes, they do - Faultline, Atlas, both good examples of lower zones with decent longbow/PPD patrols. Even in CoV, most low level zones have coppers. But they're no friends of yours.

Because juicy targets like to chill behind said stronger law enforcement.