Jake had just re-entered a crouching run as the Mayhem soldier's body slammed into his, throwing his face, among other things, into the asphalt. Despite being completely dazed and ignoring a throbbing pain in his head, Jake managed to use the soldier's momentum to throw him off, in the process only barely dodging the next soldier's mace.
Jake was not what you'd call a fighter. Aside from a Green belt he had earned in Tae Kwon Doe when he was eleven, there was absolutely nothing he could do in a fight.
Which was why he was classified as a mastermind.
Whilst still rolling across the ground, Jake let all six of his teleporting devices roll out as well as switching to a thermal vision mode, letting loose the full force of his squad, the Battle Drones spewing out hundreds of lasers per second into the both of them, the Protector Bots throwing Proton Grenades at them at an alarming rate, and the Assault Bot sending hot plasma at the both of them.
To put it frankly, unless the soldiers had some incredible armor, they'd be dead within a few seconds.
[ QUOTE ]
Steve sighed. "Panzerfrau..." He chucked a rock, watching as it sailed through her, making the image shimmer, then restabilize. "And it's just a hologram."
[/ QUOTE ]
Thule had spent every moment in Steve's shadows since he had stepped of the Tram. Cloaking decides came in handy most of the time, and this was one of them.
With metahuman percision Thule drew his modified Dragunov SVD Rifle. The modifications were his business only. There was no need for a scope, Thule's eyes could see double what most scopes could see if he were to concentrate only on his vision and ignore everything else.
He took aim. Needing no room for error, he checked his aim several times.
He placed a single 7.62x54R bullet into the chamber.
Safety was taken off, deep breaths taken, finger a millisecond away from Steve's death.
He pulled the trigger after five minutes of watching. He didn't move once in that time frame.
The 7.62x54R round flew though the air, cutting it. It impacted just as Steve muttered his last words.
((*Wonders how Thule got away from Sybil* <.<
)
Hotaka raised an eyebrow in the shadow of his hat. So that's why he hadn't noticed her. True enough, holograms made neither sound nor smell. Even the energies used to produce them were generally too little to sense amongst any light.
Luckily, the woman seemed very willing to help them out. Had Ryuu been in her place, he would've bluffed and told Steve that he knew where the weapon was and that there were already men on their way to destroy it - he was only there to make sure he didn't interfere.
This would've caused the hero to bolt for it, and so long as a convincing effort was made to stop him, and lead Hotaka right to the weapon.
However, it seemed he'd overestimated the Masters of Mayhem. Now all Steve had to do was send someone else to retrieve the weapon, and unless the Masters had every resistance fighter currently in the area under constant surveillance (bordering on the impossible considering a good few of them had very sophisticated means of stealthy movement), Panzerfrau's attempt to get to the weapon had just been crushed by her own words.
A click rang out and into Hotaka's ear. Make that a series of them.
Who was breathing so heavily around here? Holograms certainly didn't, and the only one who'd been with Steve until now was...
Oh bother. I despise backstabbers.
Hotaka's left hand shot into Thule's line of sight as he heard the pull of a trigger, not waiting for the echo of the discharge. The round's 830 m/s amazingly stood no chance to close the distance to Steve's body before the wayward hand snapped closed around it, robbing it of virtually all kinetic energy.
"Ouch." the overly tall martial artist muttered with a disinterested tone, arm still outstretched and extended for a moment. After that moment, however, Ryuu made sure to give the round ample velocity for distance, just in case someone around here did as he would have and placed a backup explosive with a timer into the shell, "Yeah, definitely hate backstabbers. Master Power, we should go before he fires another round..."
--------------------
"Oh, you've a telepad keyed to there." Baalial remarked with satisfaction, having expected that he'd have to facilitate the transport himself, "Well in that case, by all means. The wilds are perfectly acceptable. Now then, where'd Toy get to? The undead Balthazar can handle, but we'll need a tactical coordinator if we're to fight the troops I expect Blightlord will call if he can't take us out with his own..."
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Panzerfrau pouted at the stopped bullet. "Vell... It seems I haff to do everythink around here. Goodbye, mein friends." An odd, almost metallic laugh sounded as she faded away.
Steve took one bewildered glance at the sniper shot, then another at where the hologram faded away. "Yeah, moving would be good. Follow me."
He ran off behind one of the larger piles of rubble, even as the sounds of an abnormally large flier began whirring overhead. Several loud clanks of metal falling from the sky indicated Panzerfrau's own robotic minions had been dropped. Clicks and whirrs sounded as they unfolded, arm cannons prepping to fire at the first visible target.
---------------------
The soldiers didn't last long, but they knew it wasn't in vain as two ground troops cornered Jake on either side, one bearing a cape to signify his rank.
One rushed in from each side as the others covered them with mace blasts directed straight for Jake.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
"Ah, damn..." He muttered, quickly throwing up a personal forcefield around himself. He had to sit down, his head was throbbing and he felt just a tad dizzy, however, he realized that immobilization meant death.
Jake had but a few moments to recover before a barrage of mace blasts shorted out his forcefield and left him out in the open. Obviously, he wasn't going to sit around to get blasted, so, smirking, he gave a vocal command to focus fire on the higher ranked soldier.
Nothing happened.
Jake bit his lip as he rolled out of the way at the last second and spared a glance at his minions, seeing that all of them were encased in detention fields.
Dammit! Guess they finally implemented my forcefield tech. Crap. I'm screwed.
The soldiers had him surrounded now, there wasn't a place he could run to, and he certainly couldn't fight, not with the pain in his head getting worse every second. The only thing he could possibly do was surrender himself.
But he knew how that would turn out. That first guy was aiming to kill, there was no way these guys were under seperate orders.
He figuratively pulled out his hair and came to a realization.
I'm going to die here...
---------------------
Roughly twenty five yards to the west and five stories above this conflict crouched a man in his late, late twenties. Perhaps his early thirties, although he appeared to be slightly older than that. Dressed in a black power suit, it was obvious he hadn't been simply taking a stroll when he came across this little skirmish. Indeed, he had actually been trailing Jake for quite some time.
He had watched the fight with intrigue, applauding intelligent manuevers by Jake and scorning those made by the Mayhem soldiers until, at last, Jake was in a fatal position.
Time to step in, I suppose... He thought, lifting his arm and firing a stream of plasma at the upper ranked soldier's head, piercing the armor and pretty much incinerating the inside of his skull.
Within a matter of thirty seconds, most of the other soldiers had suffered the same fate, only two of them even realizing what was going on before being taken down.
((Gah! I'm not done! Nuuu!
>.> Actually, I'm being forced off right now. Other part of the post to come later.))
Edit: The man hopped down, slightly peeved that his presence was forced to have been revealed, while Jake was both relieved and cautious.
Well, perhaps cautious isn't the right word...
"Stay the Hell away!" He shouted as loud as he possibly could, using his bots' new-found freedom to his advantage and quickly ordering them all to take aim at the newcomer.
The man wasn't phased, continuing to walk forward, and even when Jake opened fire, he continued to walk, the clearing smoke revealing a shimmering bubble around him.
"W-... Who the Hell are you?" Jake asked, still shaken from his near death experience.
"Well, most people call me Wirespike, but you can call me Jake..."
((Getting tired of waiting for Mutant Illusion. Sorry man, but Kip and Psych are heading out.))
Kipland was following Baker's lead. Kip would dart forward super fast, then dart back and let him (and possibly their latest companion) know what the forces and fighting looked like.
"Look, man," Kip finally got a hold of his old friend, "I only care if there's Resistance troops out there. They need help, and I've done what I could, but we can obviously see it's not enough. Maybe now... There's a wind of change in the air. You find Resistance, we're gonna hop in there and bust some Mayhem troops up! Capiche?"
"Capiche," Psycho13 replied before zipping around another corner.
Kip stared at the hunk of hair in his hand with a wide eye. Shaking his fingers, he let the hairs just fall away.
"That guy has GOT to learn to be more careful..."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Obsidian quickly let his arrows fly, the explosions knocking away the lesser soldiers, but the Heavy Assault guy kept coming.
Windsong stepped in front and held her arms high, screaming with enough force to crack the glass shield on the man's helmet. He staggered for a moment as pieces scraped his eyes, but the injections that made him such a brute helped him push past the pain.
He fired a quick bolt of energy that would have caught Windsong right in the gut if Arrow hadn't thrown her out of the way, taking the blow himself. He staggered back, gripping his stomach.
"You didn't have to do that," she said as she stole energies from the now slowly charging Assault soldier and used them to heal Arrow. "Listen, there's something I should tell you."
Arrow got back up, grimacing as he began to set a time bomb for the slowed attacker. "Is this really a good time?"
"As good as any. I used to know you, before you died here."
Arrow looked up. "What?" He tossed the time bomb in front of the Heavy Assault soldier, who tried to turn around. Unfortunately, moving as he was, this action took quite some time. Arrow grabbed Windsong and ran with her out of the blast range.
"We... We were..." She held up a hand, a hand with a ring. The explosion made the metal shine brightly in the darkness.
Arrow took a moment to digest all of this. "You mean you were... are... my-"
"Yes."
For once, the archer found himself at a loss for words. It was almost impossible. Almost. There was this one girl he had been thinking of asking out, but it didn't seem like it would ever work. And now that he thought about it, that girl and Windsong looked pretty familiar.
Before he could continue this runaway thought train, Windsong closed the distance, locking Arrow in a kiss.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
((Last posted edited for completion. ^_^))
((*Twilight walks in to see Mutant doing homework then playing bioshock* ....*SLAP* "YOU FOOL GREY WAS WAITING!" "Oh........crap."))
"Ah, reckless endangerment. A signal to be off then."
Twilight let the shadows envelop him and his nearby companions and floated by Kip.
"Hm you should feel proud, that man brutally executed at least 3 squadrons of mayhem soldiers in a fit of rage over the supposed loss of you and his companions." Too him something along those lines was the most serious form of flattery, must explain why he didn't have many partners.
At that moment Twlight noticed a disturbing presence in the air around them. He tapped Kipland on the shoulder. "Oh, and not to spoil your fun...but if you value your life you should hold very still." He directed Kip's attention to the mayhem flyer flying close to the ground, not much more than 25 yards to their right. "I'll leave the decision as to whether or not we take this opportunity of surprise up to you." He paused for a moment and thought. "Say...When was Psycho coming back again? Now would not exactlybe a good moment."
Soul Striker wandered aimlessly, not sure what he should look
for. He had just finished repairing his shoulder piece by scavenging the pieces of broken power equipment and buildings, it didn't totally match his color design, but it would do for functionality. Mental note, talk to Sybil about using their equipment...
As he continued to walk about, he heard a cry,
Jake:"Stay the Hell away!"
This made Soul Striker jump. I could have sworn I heard that voice before...could it be...Jake? I've never heard HIM lose his cool. I guess he should have apologized. Still, he's got some cool bots, and they would make excellent shields. Plus, I might get bored if I have no one to argue with...
With one giant leap, Soul Striker soared through the air, as he landed upon a rooftop. Looking around, he saw Jake and all his bots looking towards one man.
What the? He yelled about one guy? What a wussy!
Soul Striker jumped off the rooftop, and landed several yards behind the man approaching Jake.
Jake:"W-... Who the Hell are you?"
Wirespike: "Well, most people call me Wirespike, but you can call me Jake..."
Hm. They have the same name? That's interesting. Now, I should wait for just the right moment to save the little punk...
With his cloaking field still on, Soul Striker slowly inched his way towards Wirespike.
Kip snarled at the flyer, but crouched into the shadows. If it dropped a bomb, he'd still have a few moments to leap up and over it, land on top, worm his way inside to...
Psycho13 came running around the corner.
"I found a bunch of Resistance soldiers holed up in... in..."
He looked up at the flyer and his jaw dropped slightly. As it's guns locked on the super-speeding scrapper, Kip cursed and leaped impossibly high into the air.
Kicking off the nearby wall, the small scrapper vaulted himself onto the back of the offending machine.
"Psych! I was doing fine without you around, buddy! Now you had to go and make me care..."
Psycho13 had his own problems, however, as he was busy darting back and forth across the street to avoid incoming ammunition.
"Hey! I-WOAH!-don't know-HAI!-what to tell you.-YIKES!-I'm sorr-AAAAAAOW! THAT WAS MY ARM! YOU [something mean]!-I'm sorry..."
Kip caught a hold of one of the guns and started using his laser eye on it.
"That's okay, man. All's forgiven."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Hotaka couldn't help but smirk at the unusually large Flyer, quickly following Steve and hoping the aircraft would do so as well. He couldn't fight the thing openly right now, it would have to come lower for that, but if the targets it had been tasked with pursuing suddenly vanished in the alleys between burnt-out warehouses, there was no logical reason not to do so.
"Please do tell me you're not rushing off to it anyway." he remarked to Power as they darted away, "Unless it's in a badly secured spot, you'd be playing right into her hands..."
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Jake's goggles allowed him to see through Soul's stealth quite easily, making him feel a little more comfortable about his current situation. And with comfort comes a level head.
Jake was quickly recovering from his near-death scare, gaining his wits back quite speedily. Calming himself down and slowing his breathing rate, he took his first analytical look at the man. His power armor was something that he himself had been pondering about. Its weaponry used the same tech as his Assault Bot, in that it took in air, super heated it, and shot out plasma, however, this suit managed to shoot it in a beam rather than just a blast.
Next was the man's face, which was completely exposed due to his lack of a helmet. His hair was a dark brown, nearly a black, and he had allowed it to grow rather long, but most notable was what he was wearing over his eyes.
A single pair of blast goggles.
Jake was bright enough to piece together what was going on and who this man was. Taking a deep final breath, he slowly let the air out of his lungs and chuckled, pushing himself up and ordering the bots to cease their fire.
"I get it." He said, giving Soul a subtle sign to stop his advance. "I know who you are. What I don't get is why you're following me. Wouldn't our meeting create a sort of time paradox?"
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Wirespike replied, smirking and adjusting his arms' positions. "But if I hadn't stepped in, you wouldn't be here, and that's a paradox in and of itself. So, it's sort of a no brainer as to which paradox you'd prefer."
Jake chuckled. "Suppose so..."
"Oh, one more thing..." Wirespike added. "Tell your friend to turn off his stealth and count me as a friendly, kay?"
Soul Striker stopped moving when Jake gave a signal, though not before stumbling back a bit in surprise. What the? He could see me? Hmph, mental note again, work on improving stealth suit capabilities.
As he heard the conversation go on, he took note of a few things as well. Wha? Time paradox...hm, could Jake have met...himself? I don't entirely understasnd, but in the world we live in, I suppose anything is possible.
Soul Striker had continued pondering the time and space continuum, until he heard,
Wirespike: "Oh, one more thing...Tell your friend to turn off his stealth and count me as a friendly, kay?"
Soul Striker instantly turned off his stealth, causing him to re materialize to the naked eye. He then stomped his foot, shouting "That's not fair! How could you possibly see me? I was behind you!"
Soul then turned towards Jake, "And you, how did you even see me in the first place? This suit, I spent months designing this thing, I've been able to sneak past the Bane Spiders of Arachnos, what on Earth do you have that they don't?!"
Soul Striker was fuming, he had never met someone who had been able to see through any of his designs before he came to the future. First the robots that punctured my armor, next people who can see through my stealth, this truly is a different era.
After a few moments, another idea came to his head. Still, with this new technology, surely that means stealth technology has improved, and armor capabilities as well? Perhaps my suit can be redesigned to be more current. When I go back home, I'll be so far ahead of the curve! These thoughts put a smile on his hidden face.
"Well, as you so tactly put it," Jake said, adjusting his goggles with his right hand. "I spent months working on these, and I'm fairly certain Bane spiders don't have something like this."
"And that stealth may conceal your location visually" Wirespike added, "But armor isn't exactly the most silent thing you could wear. I heard you as soon as you took that first step."
Jake smirked. "Anyway, were you tailing me? I don't really see how else you could've come so quickly."
Soul Striker's smile faded as Jake and Wirespike responded.
Jake:"Well, as you so tactly put it, I spent months working on these, and I'm fairly certain Bane spiders don't have something like this."
Wirespike:And that stealth may conceal your location visually, But armor isn't exactly the most silent thing you could wear. I heard you as soon as you took that first step."
Of course, sound! I need to work on padding my boots, and set up some sound dampeners for the suit....I'm going to be overloaded with work! Soul Striker grasped his helmet in despair, but stopped when he heard Jake.
Jake: "Anyway, were you tailing me? I don't really see how else you could've come so quickly."
Soul Striker chuckled, "Tailing you? Not exactly. It was more of the fact I heard a feminine scream." Soul Striker laughed again, and in a mocking tone he quoted Jake, "Get the hell away from me!" He then reverted back to his normal voice, "And so, I tracked down the noise, and leaped to the roof tops to get a better view only to find you, cornered by you. It was quite a let down y'know."
Soul Striker looked around at the unconcious or dead mayhem bodies, and said now, with a hint of urgency, "Look, is it a good idea for us to hang around here much longer? Mayhem soldiers could come back at any minute if those guys who ambushed you reported their location before attacking."
Steve skidded to a halt. "Of course not..." In reality, the thought that this was exactly what Frau was trying to draw out of him had slipped his mind. Still, it needed to be examined and made secure. He was already getting messages about the plan from Sybil.
It also didn't help that Panzerfrau's robots had just entered firing distance and began to let loose a barrage of laser bursts.
----------------
Arrow broke from the kiss first, startled. "We need to talk about this, I-"
She held a finger to his lips, silencing him. "Later. For now..." She gestured towards a flier overhead that was dropping off another batch of troops. Windsong leapt off the rooftop to the streets below. Arrow nodded and followed.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
Jake's face took on a fusion of supressed anger and forced dignity as he heard Soul's response, crossing his arms and making a quarter turn to the right. "Yeah... well..." He started to say, trailing off.
[ QUOTE ]
Soul Striker looked around at the unconcious or dead mayhem bodies, and said now, with a hint of urgency, "Look, is it a good idea for us to hang around here much longer? Mayhem soldiers could come back at any minute if those guys who ambushed you reported their location before attacking."
[/ QUOTE ]
"Um... yeah! Sounds good. That's probably the case, so we should get moving." Jake quickly unsummoned his minions and impatiently waited for his comrades to hurry up.
------------
Wirespike chuckled at duel of words between himself and Soul Striker, reducing it to a smirk when he saw Jake was genuinely insulted. "Anyway, we should probably-" He was cut off by Soul Striker stating his idea first, pointing out the obvious with brilliant observation. "Yeah, pretty much what he said." He finished, folding his arms across his chest and looking to Soul Striker to indicate that he was ready.
Thule wasn't sure why the man was still standing. Maybe it was a hologram? No. His eyes could tell the difference between a soild figure and a hologram. Perhaps there was a force field being projected from the hologram somehow?
Thule took a breif moment to reconfigured his teleportation field. He wasn't sure if this would work or not, as it could simply blow him up if he wasn't 200% sure of it. Though, if he were to explode, the explosion would be caught in the internal force field and contained - there was no side effects, other than not being teleportable.
He tested it on a brick near by. It worked somewhat, instead of teleportating the target it shoved them into the warp space with no exit point, according to his trackers. This wouldn't work, it had to teleport the target.
A minute of tweaking later, a few more bricks into the warp space, and a near core overload later...
Thule kept a heat lock on Steve the entire time. The heat lock could and would be used as a targeting mark. He tried to teleport twice. It missed twice, only grabbing at the air around it. Third time was the charm, Steve looked like he had vanished from Thule's heat lock.
If he landed where Thule had hoped he would, then he would only have a few seconds to live before his head was hacked off.
"Very well." Hotaka answered Steve, jabbing the fingers of his left hand into the wall of the charred warehouse they now passed. The already weakened structure gave way, the blazing wall toppling without much protest, catching the laser fire of the pursuing mechanoids.
"Weak spot." the martial artist smiled menacingly, though if Power had the time to examine the strike, he would've noticed Hotaka had struck no such thing, "Go on then, I'll keep them busy. Just don't let them find you, otherwise I'm going to be very upset for doing all this work for nothing."
Leaving the hero to go, Ryuu faced about and examined the situation. It wouldn't be long before the robots got over the toppled, burning wall (or simply blasted it out of the way), but it would still buy him a few seconds to take everything in.
He already knew about the oversized Flyer in the sky, as well as at least three battle drones. Now then, what else came there...?
--------------------
Thule had a problem. Well, technically two. The first was that tracking someone's body heat in an area full of brightly burning warehouses was somewhat...difficult, to say the least.
The second was the Jounin that leaped from the shadows behind him - and this quite literally; Thule was absolutely sure there hadnt been anyone there to detect an instant earlier - who tried to carve the sniper apart as he prepared to execute his second tried grab on Power.
Busy executing the attempt, even if he interrupted at this very moment, Thule stood little to no chance of countering the strike of dual katanas from this close a range, not to mention behind...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Soul Striker looked to both Jake and Wirespike, making sure they were both ready to go. Confidently, he spoke yet again, "Well, let's get going then." Looking towards Jake he said, "Now my dear princess, would you like me to carry you?" Soul Striker chuckled, Man, I'm so funny. He then continued, "Well, I guess not. Never the less, maybe Jake, we should do this the right way. Since I'm feeling so generous, I'll give you a present. "
He then extended his left arm, and a small hole appeared in the palm of his glove, and a beam emerged, bathing Jake in a light, and then he "disappeared". He then repeated the same procedure on Wirespike. Finally, Soul Striker himselfdisappeared. "Shall we go then?" he said nonchalantly. Soul Striker then began to leap to the nearest roof top, to the naked eye, the only thing visible would be the small "pixie" trail that his piston boots leave behind.
((Eh... Que? How do I respond to that? >.>)
((And voila!))
As Soul Striker went through the air, he began to adjust his visor. While he fiddled with it, he accidentally turned on the "seeker" mode, similar to Jake's goggles, this feature was designed to see cloaked opponents. When he finally fixed his visor though to match up properly with his eyes, he found himself landing right atop of what appeared to be a Mayhem Sniper, dressed in all black, in an armor that looked near identical to Soul Striker's design though, the only difference was the color, and the fact that the helmet of this soldier was covering the entire face, rather then Soul Striker's hi-tech helmet and reaper. Soul Striker was so entranced by the design, he actually forgot to try and get out of the way.
Ah CRAP.
While Soul was unable to have much control over his higher jumps, the sniper on the ground seemed to be rather fit, as he quickly jumped back, and hit Soul Striker in the face ( who was still a few feet above the air) with the butt of his rifle while . The strength of the blow sent Soul Striker to his back, leaving him in a daze.
The Sniper put his foot on Soul Strikers chestplate, pointing the rifle's barrel in Soul's face. "Don't move, or I'll blow your brains out, his designs are all I have left, and you won't take it from me." said the sniper in a gruff voice.
Gah...his designs...wha? That guy's voice sounds familliar....Wait a second...
Soul had a sudden revelation, and asked excitedly, "Pops...is that you?" The Sniper didn't say anything, although his hand began to move towards the trigger of the rifle.
"I'd suggest you take the gun away from the kid." Wirespike said, phasing into the visual spectrum right behind the assailant with his arm outstretched, the exit barrel for the plasma not two inches from the man's head. "Otherwise, well, things may get..." He chuckled. "Messy."
-----------
Jake stood atop an adjacent building, his bots already fully summoned and taking their aim at what he identified as a hostile. He realized that what he was doing was most probably unnecessary, but you had to be prepared for every scenario.
[ QUOTE ]
A pair of stealth soldiers watched [u]Krazy[u] from an abandoned rooftop. One quickly leapt off, aiming to fall on top of the Resistance fighter while the other aimed his mace for a killing blow.
[/ QUOTE ]
((O.o Buh?))