{moments ago, just before the heroes arrived}
Bodies littered the broken ground in front of the Harlandia Auction House. Moans came from most while some lay in heaps, blanketed in silence. The majority wore 5th Column uniforms but a spattering of them were green skinned and tusked, evidence of a hard fought battle. One Black uniformed figure remained. He was standing defiantly, facing close to a dozen Trollkin and one overly large man who seemed to have allied with the green menace.
"Just because you haf beaten my squad, it means noth-ing! It is the 5th column's time! You and your mutated, disorganized trash cannot hope to stand against us! Vee vill be triumphant!" the Unteroffizer tiraded in heavily accented english. He shifted into a fighting stance, oblivious to the odds against him.
"Ummm, what does 'vee vill' mean?" Lobe asked, scratching his head. The Trollkin held themselves in check at a signal from their Leader.
The Unteroffizer, caught off guard by the question, relaxed his stance and said in agitation, "Vee vill means vee vill!" As he answered, he realized how easy the lumox had distracted him. And without trying too, as the giant was still scratching his head and wearing a look of stupification on his face. Angered by the antics of the big man the 5th columnist spat, "You are too stupid to understand you...you buffoon!"
Lobe stopped scratching his head and stared hard at the soldier, "Hey! That's not nice. Is buffoon a swear word?" he asked the Trollkin Leader beside him.
"Oh yes Lobe, that it is," The Tollkin, "Mr. Brown", replied seriously. The Trollkin all gazed on expectantly, some cringing in sympathy against their will.
Lobe looked back at the 5th Column Lieutenant, who was a little disconcerted by the reaction to his comment. "Excuse me Mr. 5th. Please do not swear." Lobe asked politely.
The Unteroffizer, coming to the incorrect conclusion that he was being mocked, lost his temper, "How dare you mock me! You are nothing but a degenerate, stupid, piece of offal, that vould be shunned by the garbage in the sewers below us, as beneath it!"
Lobe looked back at the Trollkin leader as the Unteroffizer shook, enraged, in front of him. "What does 'offel' mean?"
"It's a swear word too, Lobe," 'Mr. Brown' answered sadly.
As the 5th Columnist stared in complete bewilderment at the farcical conduct of his enemies Lobe faced him and grabbed him by the shoulder, and arm, and half his chest. "You made me swear! I asked you not to swear. Lobe not like swearing!" The 5th Column Lieutenant suddenly found himself soaring through the air as Lobe launched him in the direction of the remnants of a 30 story building 100 meters away. During the flight he realized that he had been tricked by himself as the reality of Lobe's intelligence sunk in. He made a pact with himself not to overestimate an enemy again and thought about what he would do after surviving the landing in the rubble somewhere along the street. He'd have some serious road rash he figured, maybe even a broken bone or 2, but he'd live to fight another day. As the ground continued to speed past beneath him, concern caused him to look up to check his flight, thinking There's no vay he could throw me that fa-.
The Trollkin stared in awe that grew ever greater with each metre that the Unteroffizer flew through the air, to finally impact as a small dot against the building off in the distance. One Trollkin rubbed the side of his face gratefully.
'Mr. Brown' clapped his hands together in satisfaction, "Good job Lobe. Now we have to go inside and clear out the soldiers that are likely stealing our stuff."
"Oooo! That's not nice, nope. Lobe get rid of them. Yup I will." Lobe trudged off toward the front doors, trailed by the Trollkin.
"Oh, one thing Lobe?" the Trollkin leader paused, "Be careful. There are a lot of delicate things in there that we don't want broken. That's probably why the 5th Column came. To steal our precious family heirlooms."
"Your hierlooms! Oh that is not good, nope. I'll be careful. Yes, I will squeeze them then instead of punching, that's what I'll do, yup." With that he entered the building, followed closely by grinning Trollkin.
Lobe's voice, mixed with yelling and screaming, reaches those on the street through the broken window, "Hey! Your heirlooms have red gems! Cool. Lobe seen more of your heirlooms before." A pause filled with thumps, thuds, then a strangled howl that rises painfully. "Give me Mr. Brown's heirloom and I'll stop squeezing. Don't drop i-" A red light bursts through the shattered window and seeps through ****** in the brickwork of the building's wall.
As the others looked at the vial, the girl quietly slipped into the building. She made her way through the scattered bodies that littered the floor, dipping her hand briefly into a small pool of blood and absent-mindedly tracing a line along the wall as she walked, pausing now and then to take the belts from the fallen soldiers. (She liked belts)
Soon she heard talking ahead, followed by a flash of red energy. Creeping to the doorway she peered around the corner. A huge man was standing in the middle of the ruined room, the remains of something red in his hand. A group of trolls walked up to the smoking monster.
"Oops, sorry Mr. Brown, I broke one of your heirlooms." The giant sounded heartbroken.
"Don't worry Lobe," the head troll replied, "it was only one little one." He suddenly cut off, looking wide-eyed at a corner. "At least THAT didn't get destroyed." He hurried over to an old satchel. Opening it he looked in awe at the mounds of vials that sat packed inside. He closed the satchel and picked it up, turning to his friends. "We're gonna OWN Boomtown with this stuff," he laughed.
The girl suddenly shot from her hiding place, latching onto the troll's back. He turned, trying to dislodge her, but couldn't get a hand on her. Pulling up the bottom of her mask until it rested on her nose, she suddenly pushed forward, sinking her teeth into the troll's ear. Screaming he finally managed to throw her off and she slid across the floor as he held the bloody remains of his ear.
The girl rolled to her feet, her head nodding slightly as she swallowed, blood dripping down her chin. The trolls glared at her.
"Lobe, she's with the soldiers and she's trying to steal our heirlooms. Stop her." The girl didn't wait to see the man-mountain's reaction. Leaping forward on all fours she snatched the satchel from the troll and scurried down the hallway.
"Hey maam, that's not yours. Please give it back," Lobe asked as he ran off after her.
Sly heard his huge friend inside, and looked around at the other heroes.
"Come on!" he shouted, "We've got to help him!! Or... knowing Lobe... make sure that he isn't hurting whoever it is TOO much, even if they deserve it!!"
Sly paused for a second... realizing that would probably go down as one of the worst battle cry's in Paragon's history... shrugging, he teleported up through the broken window...
...Only to appear right in front of the strange mask girl who ran headlong into him...
As Fox was attempting to pick himself up, he felt the floor vibrating and a familiar voice MUCH too close yelling
"Hey maam, that's not yours. Please give it back,"
Sly could only hope this wasn't how it was all going to end... trampled by friend...
Grabbing the man she had crashed into, the girl rolled backward, using her feet to send him flying towards the giant as he rounded the corner.
Lyle listened to the crashes inside and heard the voice of the one called Lobe.
"Terrific," he growled, "if there's one thing worse than someone with super powers, it's someone with super powers who has no idea what they're doing."
Lobe ran through a doorway looking for the girl, only to find himself holding The Sly Fox amidst the falling rubble of the destroyed doorframe. "Oh boy, Mr. Fox! Can you help me? That lady there stole Mr. Brown's bag." he asked as he placed the Fox on the floor.
Sly opened his eyes... which for some reason he had closed... odd that...
Plus he had no idea what had happened that left him flying through the air and now standing in front of Lobe.
But he was nothing if not adaptable.
"Lobe, that little girl is with us, now who is Mr. Brown?"
Shouts behind Lobe caused Sly to try and peer around him to look at who or what was coming... of course, peering around Lobe in a hallway did not prove as easy as it sounded on paper...
As the others made their way into the building, Lyle split off, covering a different hallway from the others to make sure no trolls or 5th column slipped out. As he moved along the hallway carefully, a sound came to his ears. Following it he soon came to a hole where the floor of the building had fallen in.
Dropping carefully to the floor below, he cautiously moved forward, switching on the light on his gun. A glass-like sound made him turn to the left, and his beam fell across the masked girl.
"The nutjob," he sighed, somewhat relieved. His relief, however was short lived. Her back was to him, and she was hunched over something. Noticing the beam of light that surrounded her, she slowly turned towards Lyle. Her hands were thrust into a satchel in front of her, and from the damage to the bag, it looked like she slammed them in pretty hard.
Lyle began to move forward, but stopped as she drew her hands out of the satchel. He caught sight of the remains of glass vials, red liquid seeping out. The same kind of vial that Ivory had shown them, containing the Rage drug. The girls hands and forearms were slashed and bloody, shards of glass sticking out. The orange eyes he had seen earlier began to cloud over red as the drug moved through her blood stream.
"S#!t," Lyle hissed backing up slightly. He didn't know much about the kid's powers, but from what she had done to the Lost monster, he knew they were enough to bash HIS head in. The girl turned towards him slightly, still crouched, her head tilted to the side, watching him.
Suddenly the door to the right burst open and a group of trolls poured into the room. As the girl glanced over at the group, Lyle took advantage of her distraction, dropping a grenade into the chamber and firing it to the left of the girl. The explosion blew her to the right, sending her crashing into the group of trolls.
Lyle turned and ran. He didn't expect the grenade to stop her, but with the Rage in her system, he hoped she'd blindly attack the trolls, giving him time to get some breathing room. He wasn't sure of the exact effects of the drug, but with a name like Rage, he could make an educated guess.
Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he jumped up, grabbing a board and pulling himself back up through the hole. The sound of screaming trolls and wet tearings and snappings let him know that his plan was working pretty well.
Haunt watched the other heroes enter the building, then teleported in, appearing above Sly and Lobe long enough to hear the exchange between the two.
He hovered spent a few moments hovering about, trying to see what Sly was looking at, but gave up in futility soon after, floating down to stand next to the heroes. Eidolon, however, still tried to look past Lobe down the hall.
"Yeah big guy, what's going on in here? Who is this Mr. Brown exactly, and is he in here somewhere..?"
Flame, still with her forcefield active, jumped and crashed through a window on the same floor that Sly had teleported to. She was greeted with an explosion, and a group of trolls. Flame acted quick, if just one of them truely went berserk, her powers would simply be ignored.
She let her forcefield fall so she could attack. She then created a lot of thick, nasty soth and cinders and sent it straight into the lungs of the trolls. It would keep them occupied, at least for a while.
Suddenly she noticed the girl in the group, and importantly: she recognized the effect of rage in her eyes. She knew rage required extreme amounts of oxygen, and perhaps her cinders had minimized the effect, if the girl was on an overdose however, it wouldn't matter if she filled her lunges with water.
Flame recreated the forcefield around her, and hoped for the best.
The girl watched the other woman incapacitating the trolls. At first she was angry, these green men were hers to hurt. But then the tingling at the back of her neck began to subside a little and the red haze that had seeped into the edges of her vision faded a bit.
She was still angry, but didn't mind as much now. After all, people usually ended up getting into her fun, but she had come to learn that they didn't really mean it. They all thought they were helping her. Like she was crazy or something.
As the heroes one by one entered the building, Ivory chuckled to himself and leaned against one of the crumbling columns of cut stone outside the building. With one hand he straightened his tie and with the other he threw his rifle rather carelessly to rest by another column.
He finally spoke to the absence outside as though he were on a phone. "Cynergetic... mission status report... mission complete... I know it was fast... just have the parts in my lab when I get back."
Now all was left was to make sure any of the Rage was destroyed. That could wait till the heroes inside had finished with whatever it was that had caught their attention.
"Hi Mr. Haunt. Umm, Mr. Brown is the man who's house this is, yup. He and his friends," Lobe leaned forward and whispered, "they look kinda funny, with green skin and lots of teeth. They must have had rough childhoods. Poor fellas." Standing erect agin he continued, "locked themselves out and so I helped them get back in, yes I did, through the soldier fellas that were outside. Mr. Brown promised to help me find the nice lady Deth. DO you know where she is? Lobe has been jumping all over looking for her and boy, did I get lost. This city is all broken and stuff. What happened to it anyways. Lobe could help clean it up if someone wants, yup, I am strong and can move lots of stuff. Hey! Mr. Brown has lot's of family her... air... hair.... thingys that look like our statue!" Lobe paused for a breath.
Sly raised a hand before Lobe could continue, then he began speaking just as non-stop as the big man.
"Ok, Lobe, Mr. Brown is a Troll and I doubt very much this is his house. Trolls are funny looking with green skin and lots of teeth, and bad people too. They DID have rough childhoods, but they are far from 'poor fellas.'"
Sly heard noises and shouts of battle in the building at this point, but he couldn't tell if they were coming from behind him or behind Lobe, the way the building was set up... he glanced at Haunt, then decided to press on.
"My guess, Lobe, is they needed a way to break into this house so they told you lots of lies. Mr. Bown lied about Lady Deth too, she is here with me, looking for you. The city was attacked by the Rikti alien thingies, very bad. Not even Big Mr. Brawler could clean it ALL up, so don't worry about trying, Lobe. Now where are these heirloo-"
But Sly's monologue was cut short as his shoulder and arm was struck from behind by buckshot, a Trolkin behind the three heroes with quite a crazed look in it's eye chortled as Fox went down.
Haunt caught Sly's gaze and shrugged, Eidolon still trying to get a glimpse past Lobe down the hall.
"Now where are these heirloo-"
A tug at the edge of Haunt's perception caused him to focus on what Eidolon was viewing. It had caught a glimpse down the hallway, and was looking at at least three Trolls, one of which was laughing in a grunting, growling voice as it brandished a shotgun, still smoking from shooting at Fox.
"Bah! I take it these are your new 'friends', Lobe?" he asked, his annoyance at not noticing them sooner evident. He sprung into action, jumping headlong into the trio of trolls and unleashing a whirlwind of shadow-packed punches. A hard crack to the jaw sent one down, but the buckshot had gotten the chance to take a shot at him. Haunt nearly dodged the shot, but it still managed to catch his shoulder, splintering several of the bony spines protruding from it.
"Damn," he snarled under his breath before turning to the Buckshot, one hand inspecting the extent of the damage on his shoulder.
"Hey! These are my friends. You can't shoot them." Lobe complained in confusion.
One of the Trolls responded with an unflattering series of descriptors, telling Lobe where he could stuff his friends. The same Troll that had a large welt on his face and who had just shot Sly and Haunt.
Lobe's face grew set. He made his way to the Troll before he could reload the shotgun and gripped the barrel. Twisting it upward, Lobe stared him hard in the eyes, "You shot my friends and then swore again. Lobe is not happy, nope." Ripping the useless shotgun out of the Troll's hands, he then grabbed the front of the Troll's shirt and thrust him through the ceiling. Leaving him dangling, with his feet flailing, Lobe looked at the next Troll and asked, "Are you gonna swear too?"
As the sounds of fighting died away below him, Lyle decided to make himself scarce and hook back up with the others. One of them would be able to contain the psycho girl better than he would. Turning he headed down the corridor.
Suddenly, a wall in front of him exploded outwards. A 5th Column robot lurched through the hole, sparks and smoke pouring from the damaged machine.
"That human wrecking ball musta only damaged this one," Lyle swore to himself. Strong enough to level a mountain, but too dumb to make sure enemies stayed down. Lyle hated combinations like that.
The robot lumbered toward him as he brought up his rifle, putting two slugs in the machine. The heavy rounds tore through it's armor, sending it stumbling back, a small explosion ripping away it's right arm. For a moment it stood teetering on it's feet, but then lunged forward, it's arm raised over it's head, ready to strike.
Lyle put another round in it, but the robot's momentum carried it on. Jumping backward, he narrowly missed the machine as it crashed through the rotting floorboards. Lyle tried to move back, but the floor cracked and broke beneath him, and he plunged down along with the robot.
The machine's weight was enough to send it through the last two brittle floors of the building, until it finally hit concrete in a shower of sparks and stopped moving. Lyle fell after it, bouncing off the metal carapace when it landed and rolling painfully onto the concrete.
Blood fell from a small gash in his forehead and he hoped the pain in his side wasn't broken ribs. He pulled himself painfully to his feet, leaning against the remains of the robot, and surveyed his surroundings. The dank walls and pillars made it obvious that he was underground, but what surprised him most were the railroad tracks.
The room was large and long with a concrete platform on either side. Down the middle ran train tracks that disappeared into tunnels at either end of the room.
"Must be their equipment transportation system," he thought, holding his side, "but is it the 5th column's or the Tsoo's." According to Haunt, this building was a storage hideout for the Tsoo, but it looked like the 5th coulmn had moved in.
"I gotta get back up there," he thought, looking up through the hole above him. He moved, but stopped suddenly, wincing at the pain.
"But first," Lyle thought, sliding down to sit against the 'dead' robot, "I think I'm gonna sit down a spell."
Deth entered and saw Lyle fall through the floor. Running to the hole, she looked down and he looked alright. Knowing that the action was up here and the old man was useless down there, she called the forces to her. She knew he would be angry, but she brought him to her as well.
Applying a patch to his wound, it began to heal some of his wounds. She leapt the hole and began to run up the stairs looking for Lobe or the girl.
The girl had slipped away from the fire woman in the thick smoke. Climbing up the wall, she had pushed her way into the space between the ceiling and the floor above. Crouching in the small space she watched as the other heroes moved about beneath her.
The drug was still in her system, and while not as strong as it was (the smoke had lessened the effects), she still wanted something to hurt. She couldn't try and hurt the other heroes, that only got her in trouble and the other heroes would send her back to the Room. The Room was boring and she would have to get out all over again.
No, she had to find more of the green men. She could hurt them without anyone objecting. Crawling through the insulating space with the rats and cockroaches, she made her way through the building, peering out the cracks under her whenever she heard someone there.
Lyle suddenly found himself yanked from the hole and teleported back to the floor above. The cause was quickly apparent when Deth appeared, applying one of the heal patches to his damaged side.
Lyle hated the high-tech patches. The feeling of the drugs and chemicals stitching his tissues back together made his teeth grind. He didn't complain though. The patches had saved his @ss more times than he cared to remember. He pulled himself up, pausing for a moment when he thought he heard something overhead.
"Probably just rats," he thought, and started down the hallway in search of the rest of the group.
Sly tried to get up, but his wounded arm screamed in pain, in a last ditch effort he summoned some minions to help battle the rest of the Trolls already swarming Lobe and Haunt... the he collapsed...
The wrecked area in front of the building was littered with bodies, none of them moving. As Nathan approached he realised he was the only visible living being in the immediate vicinity, which was a weight off of his mind to say the least.
"This must be the place..." Nathan muttered into the small microphone embedded in his armored wrist. "...youre sure theres some heroes in there who need a hand and im the only one in the area?" He asked his contact, speaking into his wrist again. "Ill be damned if im going to run blindly into a building full of things that could tear me apart without a valid reason Tony, I dont like death, been too close too many times..."
"Trust me Nathan" Tony replied calmly. "Theyre in there and from the new information ive gotten theyre hopelessly outnumbered... its an ambush Nathan, you have to at least warn them."
"Fine, im going in." Nathan said, eyeing the doorway in front of him through the haze of his personal force field, as he flicked the speaker panel on his wrist shut, watching it gloss over as it blended back into the dark plastisteel color of his armor.
"I must be out of my mind... I know im not strong enough to take on the things im going to run into in there." He said to himself as he pushed the door open and walked inside, doublechecking his armor's teleportation and sheilding systems for the hundredth time.
Ivory looked up calmly and fished a small canister from his jacket's inner pockets. He pulled the pin at its head and let it fall to the floor where it landed softly and poured impressive amounts of black smoke.
"Up against the building. Sorry I forgot to mention him up there." Ivory was about to speak again when breaking glass and a loud thud inturrupted him.
Ivory kicked away the waste of a smoke grenade and walked over to the body of te 5th Column soldier lying on the ground. Just barely still concious, he looked to be in sever pain.
"Now why would you go and do a thing like that?" Ivory asked inquisitively of the man in the grey and black uniform.
"So... big," the soldier coughed, "big... 'L'.."
The soldier fell unconcious.