Breathing a sigh of relief, Randall turned to the rest of the crew.
"Alright, back to where we started! Let's move!"
He started bolting past them, his feet hissing as he crossed the heated floor, heading for the explosions that sounded from the battle between Lady Grey and whatever her assailants were. Rounding the corner, he grunted.
"Sonova... Dark Watcher! What the Hell are you doing?"
"It's an impostor..." one of the injured Vanguard troops hissed at him.
"Oh... Well then," Randall started marching toward the automaton's back, "I guess I can get back to doing what I'm good at, then."
He reached forward to grab the Dark Watcher impostor by the shoulders and lift him into the air. From there, the intent was to loft it into the ceiling and hammer into it with a knockout blow, but one thing at a time...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Jake had basically been doing what he was good at up until the WarHorse had decided to throw a little radioactivity their way, which, Jake, being a biological lifeform and all, wasn't all that thrilled with.
Damn! He thought, immediately getting his bots to drop what they were doing immediately and get in front of him in a semi circle formation, with his Assault Bot directly in front of him, his Proctector Bots to his sides, and his Battle Drones filling the gaps.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he emerged relatively unharmed from the radiation blast, observing the damage to his minions in the upperhand corner of his goggle's UI. He grumbled as he dismissed all three fo his destroyed Battle Drones and replaced them with brand new ones, seeming only slightly peeved that he had to resummon at all.
Finding that he himself was relatively OK, he decided to check on Penny, opening up a comm link and just about to speak when Ineffable pulled out a device and triggered what was obviously a bomb. Penny received a rather loud obscenity rather than a concerned question. Jake threw up his Personal Forcefield and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable.
The inevitable didn't come.
Instead, a newcomer seemed to have teleported the object away, giving Jake free reign to put down his ultimate defense and relax for a small moment.
Read miniscule.
It was then that his attention was turned to the room in which Lady Grey resided which revealed an automaton Dark Watcher and the Arch-king of Automatons himself.
"Oh you're kidding me..." He muttered.
"Penny!" He shouted into his comm link, "Go for Nemesis, these readings I'm getting are telling me that either Nemesis can alter my goggles at will, or this is the real thing. We may not get another chance like this."
With that, his minions opened fire like a dam bursting, releasing a tidal wave of plasma, lasers, grenades and explosions, if nothing else, dazing the Brass King.
Randall had been the first and only one to notice, but otherwise, no one seemed to care. And he was right; a few people had gone missing. Namely, a hero and a shady assassin he had met earlier.
----------------------------------
Five minutes earlier
----------------------------------
Night skipped behind Randall as he was about to continue down the hallway. Her unusual peppiness kept her a little
Distracted
Though, it was not like she cared. She was at the back of the group, And without any of her team staring at her, she decided to have a momentary contest to see how fast she could spin.
The extra five pounds, as Jenny put it, what making Night dizzy a bit more quickly, and she began giggling from making herself stumble around the empty area.
Lady Grey was eyeing her nervously from the portal room door at that point. After all, Grey had been the one to issue Night and her team fresh orders to help stop a reformation of the Rikti Portal to their home world. And from the brief moments she had met Night, she was never like THIS.
It was somewhat scary, seeing a young 21 year old girl dancing like a five year old at Christmas time. Actually, it scared her a lot. Was she drunk?
Hikaru stepped up from behind, just as Night had stopped and tried to regain her balance. He reached out a hand, and tapped her on the shoulder.
She was suddenly so startled; she literally super jumped to the ceiling of the Rikti Warehouse. Aye-EEE-! She screamed, her yell cut short when she covered her mouth; which, when she hit the ceiling, was replaced with the covering of her head.
Ooooowww
She said to herself after landing on her butt.
Shouldnt you act more of your age
? The assassin asked in his low, emotionless voice.
Yeah, I guess I should
She giggled while picking herself up from the floor. It was silent, as Night looked over the dark figure for a moment. After almost five seconds, she shrugged, reached out her hand and giggled.
Hi! Im Night! Whats your na-
She suddenly dropped silent as Hikaru turned toward the room of the portal.
Oh
Kay
She said to herself while shrugging.
Follow me. Hikaru looked over his shoulder and commanded, just as Night was about to turn to pursue the others. She slightly shrugged and did as she was told, following the assassin to wherever his destination may lie.
The room was slightly breezy as oxygen was exchanged through both sides of the portal, making the room a bit cold. Night followed Hikaru to the east wall, behind a couple of alien boxes. Night continued to eye everything around the room, but this time, it was somewhat of an act.
She remained cautious of her surroundings, making sure the assassin was not leading her in to a trap. Something gave her a bad feeling about this man, and not just because her mother used to tell her to stay away from strangers and clown looking women with unusually evil looking masks. Something
Something was off.
The man turned around, looking sternly at Night. Night instantly became serious. She returned the glance, carefully waiting for anything.
Why did I have to follow you? Night asked silently, keeping her eyes fixed on the possibly opponent. She was finally beginning to sound normal.
Testing... He replied.
Hmm? She responded, giving a puzzled glance.
I need you to keep an eye on the kid
I believe his name is Jake.
What for
?
Hikaru did not respond.
Im sorry, but I cannot do what you suggest if I do not know why...
Hikaru continued staring off in to space, listening
He could hear the sound of battle
He could hear the firing of lasers, the thumping as people hit the alien made walls. And as such, he still did not respond.
Ex-
Excuse me, are you even listening? Night asked, a bit louder then probably should have been.
Hikaru returned his attention the young heroin.
Danger...
What? She asked puzzled.
Be careful.
And what is that supposed to mean? But before she could finish, Hikaru had vanished. She hadnt even blinked and he vanished. While she wasnt sure where he went, all she did know, was he could move very quickly. All she could see was a slight haze just as he left. And she wondered
Just how fast was he moving?
[ QUOTE ]
Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Chertak roared, his translator breaking off in a loud crackle
[/ QUOTE ]
She grabbed her head as if she had just heard the most awful sound in her life
Which, it kind of was.
She had just been a rouge transmission of Chertaks battle cry. Her black tiara, with a picture of a yellow falcon on the front housed a transmitter chip implanted directed in to her brain. While it wasnt as technologically advanced as most of those gadget themed heroes or villains had, it was enough to also act as a natural pair of IR goggles, useful for finding hidden foes.
[ QUOTE ]
*Static*
cant beat
*Static*
-ysical mean
[/ QUOTE ]
Someones communicator was sending rouge signals. She couldnt quite pinpoint them, but she could tell something nearby was happening. The room she was in was obviously alright. Where could these people be?
[ QUOTE ]
*Static*
-opefully short the thi-
-urry!
[/ QUOTE ]
Now Nights head was hurting
This was one of the difficulties of relying on some companys invention.
[ QUOTE ]
*Static* We have radios, remember?
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats better
It sounded like a young girl. And she sounded familiar.
[ QUOTE ]
*Static* Ride em, cowgirl,
[/ QUOTE ]
Then again, maybe not
[ QUOTE ]
*Static*
Help me punch through this thing, willya?
*Static*
And hurry, willya? *Minor static* I would like to have it down before its friends get here.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds of gunfire could be heard in the background, which is what worried her. After that, everything seemed peaceful again.
She jumped out from behind the set of Rikti boxes and supplies. That recent encounter made her want to ask the Lady Grey what had happened. She began making her way over before suddenly having to grab her head in minor pain.
[ QUOTE ]
Cover! *Static*
[/ QUOTE ]
It had begun again. This time, the feed was a bit less clunked up, and the weapons fire in the background was much louder and clearer.
[ QUOTE ]
Willie Petes!
[/ QUOTE ]
What the
Night thought. She could have sworn that was an old TV show, or something. She also noticed the gunfire was going hand and hand with muffled fire nearby.
Night glanced instantly to Lady Grey, just as she had begun ordering others to send in Bravo team and the HVASs. By now, Night was insanely confused.
Dark Watcher jumped in to the scene, instantly ordering the soldiers to attach some sort of device to the HVASs.
[ QUOTE ]
"
-o, armored guy..." *Static* "Argh... *Static*
-orgot your name... Still! Let's put thi-
*Static*
-tween a rock and a hard place!"
[/ QUOTE ]
That was Randell! Delta was in trouble?
[ QUOTE ]
*Static*
-y pleasu-
[/ QUOTE ]
The voice could be heard faintly in the distance. What the heck was going on?
Night turned just in time to see Dark Watcher punch the Lady Grey in the gut. She was so surprised just by looking at it, she couldnt respond.
Suddenly, the HVASs instantly dissolved before her eyes. What jolted her back in to reality was seeing Nemesis. Night just seeing the man put her on edge. She jumped in to the shadows, gathering the darkness around her, and disappearing in to the obsidian.
The world before her became negative black/white. The only color in the world was an unusual multicolored glow of organic beings within the room. And that Nemesis wasnt one of them.
[ QUOTE ]
-eed a little breathing roo-
*Static*
-ervation: Accurate. However: Further
*Minor static*
Observatio-
*Static*
[/ QUOTE ]
It was silent for a moment
The static continued to loop.
[ QUOTE ]
-againg self. Outcome: Destructi-
*Static*
-ear crippling.
[/ QUOTE ]
The only other sounds she could hear was more static, and the echoing sound of an explosion in between the static and muffled in the distance.
Fighting had already begun in front her. A new hero began firing at the Fake Nemesis, along with an arcane skeletal figure right beside him, beginning to glow in blue runes. It seemed Randall was alright, as he had just entered the room. Also, Jake and Penny had their robots open fire on the Nemesis.
But what had just happened? What is with the evil Dark Watcher? And who was that man Night was just talking to? More importantly, was he coming back to help?
-------------------------
OOC: Im back! My new job has had me away for the week. In fact, the job pretty much requires me to sleep at my desk. (Not kidding.) In other words, you may only see me post on the weekends.
For those of you who met me in game
I miss yall. 
The sniper's eyes gawked in disbelief behind his government glasses, seeming to have trouble grasping the concept of the ice-plugged weapon. For a few moments, the man remained silent, thoughts nearly tripping over themselves as his mind raced.
He cursed himself an idiot for letting his aim sidetrack when the meta had surprised him. Now that? He had to get the laser microphone lined up again, but if he took aim at the car once more, the guy was sure to take note. Hopefully, he at least hadn't become aware of the micro-sized recorder on the rifle. Good freakin' grief, where the hell was that tactical ops team when you actually needed them for something?! Probably standing around somewhere senselessly punching their fists into their hands again!
"Erm...of course." the sniper finally reacted, apparently having overcome his surprise. By now, Cory might have noticed the somewhat unusual plumpness of the man's frame. It wasn't much, but generally Crey kept their employees fit and athletic. The sniper rested just a bit across the line there, "Crey Biotech is always happy to aid the heroes of Paragon."
Having calmed down again, the man nonchalantly lowered his rifle, pointing the muzzle aside and down. Doing so allowed him to bring it into its former position by aiming out the corner of his eye, and then re-align the laser to the car. Such a feat already required a good amount of skill - even more so when trying to disguise that it was happening with casual conversation.
"I am here simply to render assistance to this PPD unit if necessary." the sniper continued, his tone never hinting that he could currently be doing anything but talking to Simmons, "Their efforts have succeeded in removing the undesirables in the area, and Crey wishes to ensure their mission remains a success."
As the man continued to laud his company's alignment with the law though, there seemed to pass a flit of motion in the darkness of the roof. Cory couldn't be sure what it had been, but if he had a keen eye he'd be certain something had just moved there...
--------------------
Ryat66 quickly found himself confronted with the same problem the software engineers and computer science team in the actual supercomputer chamber had been tripped up by.
The diagnostic program.
While it ran, the nasty little thing denied absolutely all access to the inner workings of the machine. All attempts to shut it down so far had failed - it was neither accepting override codes nor giving in to emergency system access requests.
The android would have to get very creative if he wanted to get around this thing...
--------------------
"No, everything is bloody not alright!" the Lady Grey roared with rage as she unleashed a swath of tenebrous tentacles at the Dark Watcher, the dark tendrils winding about the man's body with frightening speed, "That maniac built a copy of Wilcox! Get him!"
"No, wait!" shouted the mysterious man in black not a moment later, breaking free of the tentacles' hold with a strenuous grunt. He threw an accusing finger in the woman's direction, "That is the automaton, and it is not the only one! It is trying to deceive you!"
This looked bad. Very bad. The Vanguard personnel lay unconscious for the most part, the sabotage tech having slapped them heavily when it had fried the equipment they wore. C'Kelkah had been sprawled into a corner at the rear of the room, the steam-driven madman standing in the doorway to the arrival room having bested her with his staff when she'd tried an assault.
Sah'Teece's legs jutted from underneath the frame of a fallen HVAS, the Rikti half-buried under the massive machine. However, he still moved, struggling in a very awkward manner to get out from the mechanoid that pinned him to the floor. His armor could withstand the weight, but with the dizzying effects of Cher'tak's outburst still lingering in his mind, he stood no hope of freedom alone.
In short, it was now the word of Lady Grey against that of the Dark Watcher. For all anyone knew, the operative that had spoken to Grey could be an automaton just as well. Nemesis didn't even chuckle, silently observing with what could only be imagined as the smuggest of smiles.
In truth, however, concern had gripped him. The Warhorse hadn't lasted nearly as long as he'd expected, meaning he no longer had a distraction keeping the heroes away. Apparently, the super-powered team had found a way to disable its force bubble, then dispatched of the machine. That certainly wasn't good. Now he could only hope they'd fall for the Dark Watcher Automaton's extremely convincing act.
"It has been toying with us!" the dark man continued to accuse the Lady Grey, referring to her as an object to underscore his argument, "It was all one big trap. It redirected the portal from the very beginning, sending you here instead of where planned. It even sent me away beforehand. Only upon my return to the compound did we discover the real Lady Grey had been abducted from her helicopter en route to Peregrine."
"You damn, filthy liar!" the woman roared in outrage, calling upon an amorphous, living shadow to aid her - a creature most nowadays called a Dark Servant, "I'm going to break you into so many parts they'll have to pick up the pieces with tweezers! And you're next, 'Lord' Nemesis, mark my words!"
The Prussian Prince of Automatons said nothing at all, attempting to further the confusion. Folding his arms, the armored maniac simply stood there without so much as batti...eh?
A nearly visible question mark appeared above Nemesis' head as the fireball struck home with its dull thud, causing the mechanical arch-villain to whirl about. The attack had obviously surprised him, the brassen madman beholding the new arrivals with genuine astonishment.
"Reinforcements?!" he bellowed in exasperation, for a moment not believing his eyes, "Why was I not informed of this?"
"Looks like your informants aren't as reliable as you thought." the Lady Grey chuckled diabolically.
"My thoughts exactly." growled the Dark Watcher, raising his fists, "You slipped up, and this time will be your last."
"We shall see." Nemesis growled with his hollow, mechanical tone, raising a personal force field as the main assault commenced...
--------------------
Sector Epsilon
The Jade Moon
This wasn't good at all. The timing had been completely thrown off. More attention should have come to this matter earlier. Why did so many things have to happen at once?!
Okay, that hadn't been too helpful. First he had to calm down. A few things had gone wrong, but that was to be expected. Not only that, but that's what contingencies were for. An inflexible plan wasn't a plan at all, right? All that it needed were a few minor changes, a tweak here and there, and-wait, what was that?
Footsteps...and robotic ones?
Oh no, they were here already! Time to move...!
--------------------
Small Toy's path seemed to lead directly into a labyrinth of devastation. Passages led every which way, though if the form of this sector was anything to go by, the facility had some manner of circular shape going for it.
The lifts leading below the surface had been either sealed or damaged beyond the capability of being used safely, so at least for now only the uppermost level of the station seemed accessible. Then again, it was doubtful Small Toy would've found anything down there anyway. Someone had babbled something about a great deal of automation, and it just didn't make sense that the Rikti security teams hadn't pooled their resources at once to drive out the intruders.
By the bodies and debris lining the corridors, not to mention the simply breathtaking amount of general battle damage, it seemed they certainly had - and given Nemesis a run for his money.
Still, it all looked that same. The battle was over, no doubt about it. The only things that moved now were the flames of a few localized fires, and tho-wait, what was that?
Something had moved down that corridor...!
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Two minutes ago
Ineffable had blinked as the explosion had begun to wash over him and was then redirected to the corner harmlessly.
"So much for that..." He muttered, shortly before vanishing into thin air.
-----
Ineffable faded into view.
He raised an eyebrow slightly as he watched all hell break loose.
This could have been the perfect opprotunity to knock Lady Grey on her [censored] and teach her exactly why most people thought she had a 'Pretty Little Head.' Her personal history may have lauded over how intensely powerful and ancient and infinitely wise she was, but really, she was all bark and no bite.
Then again, he doubted anybody would actually believe him if he actually stated he had thought she was an automaton. Things never worked out that well when that route was taken.
Attacking the automaton was fine, as far as he was concerned. It might have had a very cleverly set-up exterior, but Ineffable did not take to identifying people by their outward appearance. It seemed Grey had it handled though. While Ineffable doubted he could do much damage to the imposter alone, the same also replied in reverse.
Attacking Nemesis himself was out of the question, especially with that personal force field. Ineffable completely wrecked every bit of matter he touched, when not concentrating, but force fields always gave him trouble because they kept regenerating themselves continually with pulsing waves. As long as Nemesis was wrapped up in that, Ineffable couldn't touch him.
The leather-wearing villain matched the fight musingly for a while, then vanished into thin air once more.
-----
Want me to check it out, or should I simply cover you?" A voice echoed very quietly near small toy.
Ineffable gave a tiny invisible wave to the bot.
How had he gone from the battle further off to this spot so quickly?
"Ah crap, this is just the kind of thing Nemesis tailor makes to make my job horrible," sighed Solid as his gun shifted from Lady Grey to the Dark Watcher and back again. The nearly opaque barrier around Nemesis announced that he had a personnal force field up, which meant he was functionally invincible, though Nemesis couldn't do anything to them either.
"Damn it damn it damn it," Solid muttered to himself as he moved laterally along the wall while Toy and his functioning bots opened fire on the Dark Watcher.
"Keep your shots just short of lethal!" Toy shouted as he pulled the trigger on his pulse rifle, punching a nearly solid laser beam into the man's gut. "If we're wrong, there'll be hell to pay if we kill one of these people!"
"Damn it!" Solid cursed as he decided to risk a gamble.
Charging through the line of fire, and taking a couple of laser hits for his trouble, Solid tackled Lady Grey and tucked and rolled her behind one of the downed HVAS's.
"Sorry ma'am," Solid said as he held her down. "I figured keeping you out of the way is a good idea if you're the real deal. And if you're the automaton, then you'll probably attack me right now while I'm horribly exposed and unable to protect myself. Let's not abuse that trust, eh?"
While Toy was trying to bracket the Dark Watcher in order to keep him from dodging or teleporting to an area that wasn't under attack and Solid was busy being a good hero, Cher'tak had rushed over to C'Kelkah. The Warmaster knelt down next to the unconscious scientist and hurridly pulled an ampuole from a slot in his belt. Administering the drug to a special dispenser near C'Kelkah's neck would wake the other Rikti up in a matter of moments and apply a rejuvenating mixture of chemicals to bring her back to fighting condition. She would need a lot of sleep after this, but it would function as well as it always had.
*************************************************
"You will be silent and allow me to perform my duties without interference," Small Toy hissed back at Ineffable as it activated its sound muffling system. The device redirected any sound that Small Toy made into its own interior. The revibrating echoes would make detection by sound somewhat more difficult, but the drone's other sensors would make up for that loss. The increased stealth would also be a great boon.
Not wasting a moment wondering how Ineffable was able to teleport to its location when Toy's sensors had shown him near the Warhorse and out of line of sight with Small Toy's location or indeed how the villain would have been able to sneak up on a drone so well equipped with sensors as Small Toy was. The drone quickly dashed forward, trusting in its stealth systems to keep it undectable by its prey.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"Coward," said Straum as Nemesis wrapped himself in his little bubble. The mage turned toward the fight between... Lady Grey and Dark Watcher? Odd...
The accusations that one was an automaton half-solved the question, only leaving who was telling the truth.
It was Thelth who thought of a potential solution. He turned to the HVAS on top of Sah'Teece, holding out a hand. With a faint pop, it disappeared, coming back into existence between the dueling Vanguard. He walked towards the Rikti and knelt. "I don't suppose you can explain?"
Danica watched everything with silent calculation. One can normally tell the difference between human and automaton if they just watch for a moment. Any minute now, one of them should give a betraying sign.
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 simply smirked as Nemesis put up his barrier. "Oh no you don't, you don't seem to know I practically wrote the book on these suckers." Throwing his gloved hand up in the general direction of Nemesis, a green glow suddenly emitted from it, and at the same time, the opaqueness of Nemesis's shield seemed to fade more and more until it finally became nonexistant.
"I've canceled out his PFF, ((Pronounced Pee Eff Eff)) now's the time to attack!"
His bots, if they could've felt emotion, were obvious displeased with his blocking of their first onslaught, and intended to make up for it with a second wave...
Ryat66 "blinked" when he saw the diagnostic program denying his service. And yet, it didn't seem to be making any progress, nor was it inhibiting the system from running.
"I have a bad feeling about what I have to do," he muttered, "Matt, if Sheldon calls looking for me, tell him it's your fault!"
"Got it," the scrapper barked back.
Ryat66's head suddenly buzzed and the body slumped into a meditative pose. Inside the android's mind, and the firmware of the terminal, was another story.
----------
--3-D representation of the Internal Workings of the Portal Command and Control Console--
The Fool. He looked himself over. His clothes were haphazard, asymmetric, and ill-fitting. His body, however, was fit. He didn't necessarily need to check, but he did, anyway. His hair was disheveled and unkempt.
Definitely the Fool.
Before the Fool was a digital interpretation of the programs running within the Portal's Command and Control software. Also, there were the obstacles that stood in his way, and the way of everybody who had attempted to muscle through the diagnostic program's stubborn errors.
"Muscling won't work," the Fool muttered to himself in the high-toned voice of Ryat66 (minus the tinny echo), "That's why I need to work through it here... Where I can be clever, and work a different kind of technical wizardry..."
He searched his pockets...
"A dagger... A small spade... Matches... A hatchet... A length of rope, nearly twenty feet... And a bar of chocolate. Not nearly as much as if I were just Source Code. Source Code operates without boundaries, in fact defines its environment..."
He looked up at his...
"My environment defined itself. I only defined me... And I have very few tools for this, but I have to try. If I can even chip the armor of this beast holding the IT guys at bay, it may provide them the thread they need to unravel this wool..."
Gathering his equipment, the Fool set off for the representation of the Diagnostic Program.
----------
--Jade Moon--
Randall, his granite armor deflecting the stray laser blasts of Toy Dispenser and crew's laser fire, caught the Dark Watcher Impostor by the shoulders.
"Knock knock!" he growled as he tapped the android on the head.
The taps were not, by any stretch of the imagination, soft.
The loud, metallic clang confirmed that the hissed words of the Vanguard soldier he'd heard earlier were something of the truth.
"Damnation," he muttered as the head turned toward him, "You're gonna be a tough fight, then."
----------
--Peregrine Island, Bay Area--
"You can stop kissing my [butt], now," Cory narrowed his eyes at the sniper, "I don't take well to being deceived..."
With a flick of his left wrist, a fireball was launched from his hand into the center of the building. The intent wasn't so much to injure what had moved there, but to reveal it.
Muttering to himself, he cast the Endowment of the Eagle's Eye, a moderate perception enhancing enchantment. He so disliked having to waste the energy, but it was necessary at times like this...
In case the sniper wound up getting some nasty, "itchy" reactions, Cory had a rather potent, short range fire attack spell at the ready, balled up as it was, in his right hand.
"I dislike being forced to intimidate, but if you will not be forthcoming with information, I will be forced to cease my pleasantries."
A pair of horns sprouted from his forehead.
"I don't believe you wish to see just how unpleasant I can be!"
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
[ QUOTE ]
"My thoughts exactly." growled the Dark Watcher, raising his fists, "You slipped up, and this time will be your last."
"We shall see." Nemesis growled with his hollow, mechanical tone, raising a personal force field as the main assault commenced...
[/ QUOTE ]
Penny Arcade shook her head as most of the shots from her 'bots bounced off of Nemesis force shields. It was lucky for them, and unlucky for Nemesis, that they had taken the horse down so quickly, and that reinforcements had arrived. She was pleased at the brief surprise on his face, even though she frowned as another volley bounced off the field in the same manner as the first. She had fought various copies of Nemesis before, and knew that she would get through the shielding eventually, it was just a matter of time -
Wait.
She paused as she suddenly realized that Nemesis plan, as currently revealed by their earlier-than-expected arrival, had a flaw in it. A huge, gaping flaw. A flaw so large that it was obvious, red-neon-blinking-sign obvious. Her eyes slid to Nemesis. Somehow she couldn't believe that Nemesis, who built precise plans and plots with intricate and loving care, would ever have overlooked something so -
The implications of the thought hit her with such force that she nearly staggered, as a stone seemed to drop somewhere in the region of her stomach. She was cold all over.
"Jake!" She called over the radio. "Take care of Nemesis!"
And without another word, she turned and pelted around the corner, back the way they had come, towards the spot where the horse had been. Her 'bots went with her, double-time, like Penny herself. Only two things failed to go: her personal force-field generator followed as far as the hallway, then stopped, its field seeming to shield nothing, covering a point between the room and the hallway. It provided a second barrier, guarding the rear approach - but to what point? There was nothing there. It was madness.
As if to underscore this, one of her two assault bots marched up to the force field generator, which normally floated free, and grasped its tail securely with its servos. It, too, stayed in place, giving a mechanical impression of a child holding a balloon, while Penny and the rest of her group raced past it.
Even Penny's outfit was changing: the silver melted away to reveal a full set of Vanguard armor, and a pair of mechanical wings. They couldn't possibly have fit under the little silver minidress, but there they were. Every inch of her body was covered, as if she expected at any moment to be in a great battle - but there was nothing visible.
At least, not from Lady Gray's side of the battle.
Rounding a corner, Penny Arcade saw what she had both expected, and dreaded, to see.
The floor had cooled after the battle with the horse. Even the radiation, which had an intense but very short half-life, had dropped to safe levels. But now, on the cracked wall beyond where it had entered, the one which the Rikti had said was the outer wall, there was a large, square box. Using her top magnification gave her a glimpse of its face:
00:06
00:05
00:04
00:03 ...
Penny had just enough time to stop in her tracks, and activate the magnetics in her boots, sticking her firmly to the wall, and her 'bots firmly to the floor. Without even time to curse, she shouted over the radio,
JAKE! TAKE COVER N -
Her words turned into a howl of pain as a sonic vibration cut through her ears: and the howl was drowned out in an earthshattering roar as the Nemesis bomb exploded. Everything made of glass shattered instantly. Anything not securely set into place toppled. The ceiling all but wrenched itself apart as large sections of the walls and floor collapsed.
And in the thick outer wall, only partially obscured by the dense smoke, there was a hairline crack. Instantly it spiderwebbed out into countless numbers of cracks. The smoke began to dissipate, sucked into the cracks, and vanishing.
There was the briefest of pauses, in which some part of Penny's mind, the part not frozen in horror, had to admire the brilliance and simplicity of Nemesis plan. He wasn't going to win the battle with Lady Gray... but of course, he had anticipated that he wouldn't. The Dark Watcher, and the Nemesis automatons planted in the Vanguard forces, were a distraction, meant to occupy his true victims for a few brief moments.
There was something graceful about the outer wall, about the way in which it exploded into the vacuum, the way in which the shards of wreckage glittered in the starlight. There was something graceful as well about Nemesis plans, horrifying though they were, they were as cold and simple and efficient as the vacuum outside. Nemesis automatons, after all, didn't need oxygen... only biological beings required that.
She had expected the force of the explosive decompression to be astounding, and so it was, but its actual fury passed anything she had imagined. Everything not bolted down flew out of the hole with the force of the escaping atmosphere. Several items, which she had briefly hoped were large enough to get wedged against the gap, thus closing it, merely bounced at odd angles, knocking more pieces out of the wall, and making the hole even larger. Only one blast door had come down, some distance ahead of her, but she was concerned with any blast doors which come into play between herself and the group. Why weren't the blast doors - oh, of course, Nemesis would have sabotaged -
A burst of laser fire caught her attention.
Penny Arcade, herself, was in no particular distress. Though it couldn't be denied that she was at an odd angle, her magnetic boots were keeping her stuck to the wall in the middle of what felt like rapids. The black Vanguard suit produced its own, self-contained atmosphere, so she had no worries about working in a vacuum. In the violence of the explosive decompression, however, she couldn't see or hear a thing. Even her own bots were merely dark shapes in the howling maelstrom, though she knew that they were anchored securely by their own magnetic feet. It was the flash of the laser that had caught her attention. Were there more shapes in the dust and smoke and chaos as the room emptied itself into the void?
She couldn't tell, but her 'bots seemed to think so. Buster's laser fire was now joined by the rest of the team, and logically, Nemesis reinforcements should be on their way, to ensure that no heroes would somehow survive the sudden lack of atmosphere. A chill took her as she realized that she hadn't thought to ask for backup, a serious oversight.
But it was too late now. Her bots had been set not to shoot at organic life-forms, so it was definitely Nemesis that was coming. Return fire began whizzing around her ears, taking pock marks out of the wall, the debris instantly caught and sucked into the vacuum.
HULL BREACH! She shouted into the radio, not sure if anyone would be able to hear her over the unbelievable noise. Nemesis reinforcements are on their way, we're going to get caught in the crossfire if we don't watch it!
Rather clumsily, she moved her bots into place and returned fire. If she didn't hold the line here, the group would be caught between two groups of Nemesis as the trap closed.
+++++
Back at Lady Gray
+++++
Laurel held on to the force field generator resolutely as the shockwave of the bomb shattered through the room. The atmosphere on the other side of the field suddenly burst from its boundaries, as the explosive decompression took hold.
But the force field kept it back: it was solid enough to maintain atmosphere within the room where the heroes were battling for Lady Gray. Had the force field generator not been placed in the gap, the results of the bomb would have been very different indeed.
Nemesis, however, knew that too. The duplicate Nemesis turned his head to look at Laurel, and suddenly the lone bot was taking a lot of fire. Most of it bounced off the field. But Penny Arcade's force field, like Nemesis' own field, could be overloaded, and once that happened, Lady Gray's room would be subjected to the same explosive decompression as the hallway. The 'bot coldly calculated its chances for survival as minimal as it returned fire...
Jake was at first confused by Penny's sudden departure, however, pieced much of it together when the exlosion happened, overwhelming some of his bots internal balancing systems and forcing them to crash to the floor, at least one of them on his arm.
Gritting his teeth to fight back the pain, Jake quickly put up a Personal Forcefield strength shield up around the individual bot maintaining the atmosphere in this room. If anything, that was the top priority. Otherwise, pretty much everyone in that room was utterly screwed.
After that, his minions having already recovered from their fall, he ordered them to continue their onslaught on the undefended Nemesis while he checked the damage to his arm. He winced as he realized his forearm was broken, making a mental note to ask for a sling as soon as the situation allowed.
Randall was engaging Dark Watcher, Solid Shot had tackled Lady Gray, and Penny had run back down the corridor and sealed it with a forcefield. Binro could hear the faint sound of explosive decompression from somewhere on the other side. He was familiar with that sound; heck, he'd stood in the midst of it a few times.
As the other human's robots fired on Nemesis, Binro flew at him from behind. He pulled the large axe from his back and raising it high overhead, he brought the weapon down onto the mechanical villain's head with a resounding 'THOOM'.
The Lady Grey's eyes glared at Solid Shot with a veritable inferno of rage, the head of Vanguard utterly beside herself. Not only had Nemesis the gall to make a mockery of all this yet again, but he'd also copied Devon - and his was a good name she would absolutely not let him tarnish!
Solid Shot was likely very surprised as such a dainty-looking hand wrapped about his throat with the vise-like grip of steel, the Lady Grey hefting herself up off the floor and taking the robot with her.
"Do that again and you're fired." she told him with icy tone and narrowed eyes, setting Solid's feet gently back upon the floor.
The implications of her statement seemed clear enough. Without the others right there, the impostor could have taken both of them down while they'd been defenseless on the floor. Thankfully, Toy Dispenser's entourage had kept the Dark Watcher Automaton busy for the time Randall Grey had needed to get over to him. Its cover blown wide open by the resounding metallic echo of its skull, the automaton now shifted priority to full offense.
"Om mani padme hum." the machine uttered the familiar Buddhist mantra, vanishing in a flash of darkness and reappearing behind the unwelcome stone hero, "How right you are."
With Grey more than likely in utter incredulity at what happened next, the automaton actually lifted a rooted tanker in granite armor high off the floor and hurled the man at Toy and his robots like an oversized bowling ball.
Nemesis didnt idle about either, groaning with disappointment as Jake managed to be rid of his protective field. Not wasting any time, the brassen madman lobbed a bomb of force at the young man and his mechanoids, intending to send them flying in all directions in addition to inflicting heavy casualties upon them. It would strike in short order.
But of course, plans ran within plans here, and it couldn't be said of Nemesis that he didn't plan ahead.
Even as C'Kelkah arose once more, burning with desire to take on Nemesis and knock his block off, she already tried to inform everyone of the happenings. But Murphy's Law had gotten the better of her, the translator of her suit sputtering only unintelligible gibberish. Nemesis had damaged the device with his earlier strike.
"Quick...bomb...!" the weakened Sah'Teece managed to get out as if by some miracle, still out of breath from being nearly crushed by the HVAS. Fortunately, a certain someone had already thought things through and reacted accordingly.
"You little pests!" Nemesis bellowed angrily at the robots that maintained the force field, beginning to strike at them. Right about know, the lobbed force bomb would be finding its mark at or near Jake as well, "I demand you release that at once!"
Suddenly, the long-headed alien stopped said strikes in their tracks, having managed to get around the madman and bury his axe deep inside the literal thick skull of the brassen maniac.
"What?! Where...?!" Nemesis twirled about cantankerously, seeking to strike at Binro instead, which resulted in a rather comical scene, the hero's axe having wedged itself into his armor. Whether he had managed to hang on to his own weapon or not was another matter.
Be what may, it was clear the arch-villain wasn't finished just yet. A larger field of force expanded from his suit of war now; though this bubble of dispersion stood less firm than the smaller, more energetic field had done earlier. Still, Nemesis gambled upon the presence of at least some defenses as he reinvigorated his assault on those preventing the room's decompression...
--------------------
Small Toy's dash led it right into another battleground, the lifeless bodies of Rikti Gunmen sprawled against floor and walls along with amalgamated pieces of Nemesis machinery. The source of noticed motion, however, was no longer present.
Whatever had moved there a moment ago seemed to have vanished into thin air. There wasn't even an infrared after-image for Small Toy's thermals to track.
The thing had left a clue, however - one of the fallen Rikti soldiers in that corridor wasn't there anymore. All that remained was the suit of armor, the chest plating of the hermetically sealed suit wrenched open in a manner most gruesome. There wasn't any blood on the sliced-open alloys, though the fluid did stain several holes that Nemesis chain gun rounds had caused, but the long-gouged claw marks upon the armor suggested the fate of the Gunman hadn't been pleasant.
If Small Toy had the means to inspect the left-behind suit, he would quickly notice its spatial displacer still had a full charge. Apparently, this Gunman had attempted to warp away from his attacker when he'd been gotten the better of. In addition, the armor's interior lining still carried a thermal signature, meaning its occupant had been alive - and not just a little while ago; readings suggested a few seconds at most. Nemesis' forces hadn't succeeded in felling this one with the others, this stood as fact.
But if he'd survived the Nemesis attack, then what had happened to him?
The corridor branched in two here, with more passages (some secured with doors, others not) leading away to who-knew-where along the way. Still, if it played back a memory log, Small Toy would find the motion had slipped away to the left - down that corridor.
A resounding sound of thunder, however, may have made this all moot. Along with the sudden appearance of wind, the noise was most decidedly not a harbinger of good news...
--------------------
White.
The Fool's environment was white.
All about, stretching infinitely into every direction, blank white expanse dominated - the very personification of available space.
The Fool himself, however, stood upon something solid: a transparent ribbon of blue, light as the sky yet just a bit darker. A road of some sort, representing an input/output path, and one such respectably wide. Perhaps twenty meters or so. The thing seemed to have a pulse, streaks of what appeared to be energy rolling back and forth along its route like perfectly flat waves. The Fool didn't even take notice as they passed beneath his feet at speed.
Ahead lay their (and obviously his) destination: a wall that spanned eternity. Hued in the same bright blue as the path, the thing seemed composed of an uncountable number of parts. They looked like monitors of sorts, displaying symbols of unidentifiable origin, ever shifting, and ever changing.
If the Fool knew anything about computer code, right about now would be the time he'd realize these were qubits. The supercomputer was actually a quantum computer. And here stood its representation - a wall of qubits.
No, not quite. A slight curvature could be observed. It wasn't a wall, but instead a gargantuan cylinder that went on both above and below the path further than he could see. Yet right here, right in front of him, the path led into the infinite tower, a tunnel clearly visible.
And under guard.
A checkpoint stood to block the path, complete with holobanner demanding identification in its slowly side-scrolling text. In front of this, in turn, what appeared to be a zone security chief had been stationed - obviously the verification program. Backed by a duo of sentry turrets mounted upon the tunnel's ceiling, which likely represented defense programs, the Fool could easily see the supercomputer's protections had no desire to be messed with.
Not that he had a chance at first.
Before he even knew it, a night-black Ferrari roared right past him and through the checkpoint, passing effortlessly and unheeded through the barrier.
This was the image that presented itself.
Or, at least, this was how the Fool saw it...
--------------------
The light of Cory's fireball chased all darkness from the roof for a moment. In a blaze of orange, a strategically positioned group of men flared into view in a glimpse, the fiery illumination glinting off their high-tech night vision goggles. Even in the orange light, which created the illusion of black uniforms, Simmons had no trouble seeing them for what they were.
Malta Operatives.
For an instant, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Cory now beheld a group of five men specially trained and equipped to take down people like him. The TacOps' rifles already sat aimed squarely at him, and the Sapper's devilish weapon by slowly its blue luminescence. It was still charging up, having been deactivated until now, but it wouldn't take long for the hideous thing to become operational.
"Wax im!" the 'Crey sniper' yelled as he ducked low and rolled to the side, the TacOps team opening up on Cory with a vicious assault.
Two of the operatives flung web grenades toward Simmons, hoping to send the hovering man crashing to the ground, and the other two let the lead fly, seeking to turn him into Swiss cheese with their highly advanced munitions. Thankfully, the Sapper didn't seem capable of firing just yet, his weapon still building up a charge...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
As Dark Watcher threw Grey, Danica raced up behind him, flying forward with a powerful side-kick aimed for his head.
Straum ran to Thelth's side, nodding to the other man, then holding his arms up. Thelth teleported a pile of rubble above the fight, which was quickly blasted apart by a lightning strike from Straum, and the now jagged pieces were sent hurtling toward Nemesis from a conjured strong wind.
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
[ QUOTE ]
Nemesis didnt idle about either, groaning with disappointment as Jake managed to be rid of his protective field. Not wasting any time, the brassen madman lobbed a bomb of force at the young man and his mechanoids, intending to send them flying in all directions in addition to inflicting heavy casualties upon them. It would strike in short order.
But of course, plans ran within plans here, and it couldn't be said of Nemesis that he didn't plan ahead.
Even as C'Kelkah arose once more, burning with desire to take on Nemesis and knock his block off, she already tried to inform everyone of the happenings. But Murphy's Law had gotten the better of her, the translator of her suit sputtering only unintelligible gibberish. Nemesis had damaged the device with his earlier strike.
"Quick...bomb...!" the weakened Sah'Teece managed to get out as if by some miracle, still out of breath from being nearly crushed by the HVAS. Fortunately, a certain someone had already thought things through and reacted accordingly.
"You little pests!" Nemesis bellowed angrily at the robots that maintained the force field, beginning to strike at them. Right about know, the lobbed force bomb would be finding its mark at or near Jake as well, "I demand you release that at once!"
[/ QUOTE ]
"Oh, you did not just say that," Penny muttered to herself.
The words had come to her courtesy of Laurel's built-in microphone, and her own visor. It was impossible to hear, and so she had switched from audio to visual mode. Communication was now displayed in text so that she could keep track of what was going on. Anything that Laurel heard, Penny saw.
The readings from the force field generator which Laurel held were worrisome. While it was true that the 'bot had certain repair capabilities, and was able to release small swarms of nanites to keep the projector up and running, it had still taken so much fire that it should have been rendered inoperable. Since the projector had not yet blown itself to smithereens, and didn't look likely to do so immediately, Penny could only deduce that someone (likely Jake) had supplemented the field with one or more fields of his own.
Good as it was, she knew better than to think that it was a permanent fix. There was no way to tell what sort of fight was going on back at Nemesis, and if Nemesis punctured the force field, she didn't like to think of the possible consequences. She needed to patch the hole somehow, and the sooner, the better.
But her immediate concern was the Nemesis attack in her area. She could see them now, and there were more than she had expected. There was no doubt that Nemesis wanted to catch the heroes in a cross-fire between two groups of automatons. The gale winds created by the continuing explosive decompression didn't seem to bother them: like Penny's bots, their feet seemed to be magnetized. This slowed them down to a walk as they clanked up the corridor, but it didn't stop them.
Still, gale-force winds were gale-force winds, and Penny used them to considerable advantage. She set trip-mines, which she normally laid on the floor in hidden places - but now she let them go, where the wind caught them, whirling them like frisbees into the chests of the oncoming horde, scattering them like tenpins. They were firing back, but seemed to be missing badly, shots splashing the wall above and below her, many of them completely bypassing her team of bots.
She let the Gang fire away as she worked on one of the trip mines. She and her support team - the live ones who worked in the Penny Arcade project, not the bots - had discussed different ways in which the mines could be utilized, but this was something she hadn't tried before. After a moment of working with the guts of the mine, she snapped its little maintenance panel closed, activated it, and tossed it at the Nemesis automatons, just as a new volley from them splashed the wall all around her.
A number of things happened all at the same time.
The mine exploded, not in flame and smoke, but into a ball of electricity, arcing from automaton to automaton. As Penny had hoped, a huge swath of them suddenly seemed to float - she had succeeded in disrupting the magnetic field which kept them stuck to the floor. Their superior weight kept them suspended for a moment, and they shot furiously at her as they activated their rocket boots, but it was no good, for the force of the wind took them, and swirled them back out of the gap, into the vacuum on the other side.
It was a phyrric victory.
No sooner had the winds taken them, then her section of wall made a horrible noise, the sound of tearing metal, and sagged alarmingly sideways. Too late she realized Nemesis plan - prevented from firing directly at her, they had instead concentrated such fire at the wall that it had given way -
Then there was a creak and groan and a final enormous cloud of dust, and the room was corkscrewing around her. She had a bare moment to stretch out her mechanical wings in a vain attempt to steer, and it was hard to tell whether it did more harm than good, as she saw the black hole rushing at her and tried to steer towards its center. There was another instant of complete confusion, where she could see nothing, and threw up her arms over her head, expecting to be crushed against the wall -
There was a CLANG that went through her very bones and teeth - and then nothing.
She raised her head and looked around. It was dark, and perhaps there was such an enormous quantity of dust that she couldn't see a thing. The light attached to her helmet didn't seem to help much in the thick dust. The wind, however, had stopped.
She looked down at her feet, and saw that they were still stuck to the wall. The wall itself had remained more-or-less in one piece, and had jammed itself against the hole. It wasn't a perfect fit, and she could still see the whiteness of air leaking around some of the edges, but with luck it might buy more time than they otherwise would have had.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that she was on the outside of the hole. Somewhere in the dark and dust were a bunch of Nemesis automatons, who would presumably be picking themselves up to return the battle. She couldn't hear them. It was vacuum, of course, and eerily silent. At that moment, her uppermost thoughts weren't of the automatons, or her own bots, or even of Lady Gray and the previous atmosphere inside - she turned around as best she could, looking here and there, to see what lay beyond the little corridor, if she was on the surface of the Jade moon, and if so, what it might look like.
"[censored], woman," said Solid, astonishment in his voice as Lady Grey set him down. "If you let more people know who could do that, I don't think I'd have worried about you in the first place."
Shrugging, pulling his rifle up to the crook of his arm in the same movement, Solid flicked a little switch to it's third setting and performed a diagnostic to make sure he had AP rounds loaded.
"And this is where the fun really starts," Solid said to Lady Grey as thick arcs of lightning shots from his arms into his gun. "Cause when the blaster hits his overload, you know this [censored] is ON!"
Solid pulled the trigger hard and held it as a stream of glowing blue, electrified bullets burst out of his rifle and started shredding the hell out of Nemesis and the fake Dark Watcher.
Your translator is damaged, said Cher'tak to C'Kelkah as he briefly accessed her mental network. See if you can grab Sah'Teece and Lk'Onik and coordinate with them. I am going to engage the Nemesis reinforcements.
Before C'Kelkah could respond, the Warmaster handed her his bladerifle and dashed out of the room, giving Penny's assault bot an approving nod as he went. As soon as he exited the buffer provided by the force field and entered into the airlessness of the compromised zone, his suit automatically engaged magnetic clamps on the soles of his boots to keep him anchored to the floor. They also released their hold according to how quickly he was moving, so Cher'tak was able to jog faster than many others would have been able too. This made him slightly more vulnerable while moving, but Cher'tak appreciated the mobility more.
The Rikti soon came up on the corner and saw with dismay that a huge chunk of the outer wall had been blown away by Nemesis weapons. Since he couldn't see the human girl, he assumed she had been blasted out onto the moon. Hopefully she would be fine, but as the first Nemesis automaton rounded the corner Cher'tak put her from his mind and focused on the fight. Flexing his hands in a certain way, Cher'tak activated the real reason why his armor was so customized. Three thick spikes shot out of the knuckles of each hand as Cher'tak clenched his hands into fists and began crackling with blue energy.
"Statement: Violent Expulsion: Nemesis Future," Cher'tak said, not sure if the automatons would hear him in such a thin atmosphere but not really caring either.
His first punch knocked the lead automation up into the air while his second punch sent it rocketing out onto the moon.
"Human Idiom: Bring it."
*********************************************
"I hate it when an enemy outflanks me," Toy muttered to himself as he slowly backed up toward the exit and Penny's shield generator. His dispersion field merged with the generator's and strengthened it, making sure that the air wouldn't be leaving this room any time soon. Then he saw the fake Dark Watcher hurl Grey at him and it was all he could do to blast the tanker with the most powerful force bolt he could conjure up. Since Grey wasn't rooted to the ground at the moment it was only his mass, significant though it was, that would keep the force bolt from affecting him. But since Toy had knocked over things ranging from Devouring Earth boulders to Malta Zeus Titans, the unsupported tanker didn't stand a chance.
The force bolt hit Grey head on, changing his fall path to land on a destroyed HVAS. The tumble probably would have hurt, but Toy was sure that Grey could take it. He had stood toe-to-toe with that damned Warhorse, after all.
"I think someone needs a little forcible dismantling," Toy said to the Dark Watcher as he ordered his bots to attack while he secretly activated his force bubble in case the automaton tried to teleport next to him.
Meanwhile, Archlich was still standing by the portal with an ever increasing number of runes swirling around him. No two rune was exactly alike, but there was a disturbing similarity about them and looking at them for too long would probably give you a headache. As it was, Archlich was biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
He sensed that time would come momentarily.
***********************************************
After inspecting the oddly destroyed suit of armor, Small Toy deep scanned the edges of the claw marks, attempting to pick up some shred of DNA and then compare it to the extensive list of known species it had in several compressed files. Since Toy often did most of his work out in the field, he had modifed Small Toy to be the most effective hunter and tracker he could so that he could continue to pursue a clue instead of retiring to his base to analyze and lose the trail.
The battle drone warmed up the particle beam rifle that replaced its right arm and extended the ghostslayer dagger in its left hand. As Small Toy moved cautiously after the target, the drone tried to keep an eye, ear, and nose out for anything.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
The sudden wrenching motion of the mechanical villain's head forced Binro to lose his grip on the handle of his axe. He flew to the side a little ways, landing on his feet in a crouch. His axe now buried in Nemesis' head, the Knight reached for his primary weapon; the heavy mace on his belt that seemed to be almost humming with anticipation.
He also pulled the Nemesis staff from his belt, sending a blast of energy from it at the villain, who was now protected by another forcefield. Binro wasn't sure if Nemesis would be immune to his own weapons or not, so he followed quickly on the heels of the blast. His mace almost glowed white as he slammed it into the forcefield.
--Jade Moon--
Getting tossed around like a ragdoll was really starting to bother Randall. It wasn't so much that his heavyweight armor was being ignored (indeed, if the enemy was strong enough to accomplish it, so be it), it was that he was starting to realize he was out of his element.
"Time to kick it up a notch," he growled as he pushed himself off the floor.
On his feet, he altered his armor, switching to a blend of energy deflecting crystals, rock, and magma armor as well as his rooting. He would have stuck to the Granite, but he wasn't trying to outlast anymore.
It was time to outhurt.
The Celts called it Battle Frenzy. The Romans called it the Berserker Rage. Randy didn't call it anything, he just saw red while his irises turned white.
In this red, the one thing he saw with perfect clarity was the Dark Watcher Impostor.
There was no way to adequately describe the sound that issued from Randall Grey's mouth. It was a roar, to be sure, but unlike anything on Earth, maybe even the cosmos. Hearing it sent chills through people's spines.
With a few quick strides, Randall closed the distance between himself and the Impostor. His fist slammed into the machine's chest, and he was quick to throw another fist for the face. This was followed with an uppercut.
Ducking low, he swatted the Impostor's knee with a back-fist and planted his shoulder into the android's belly. Standing, he hoisted it up and tried to slam him back into the ground with a power-slam that was the envy of American professional football players.
He knew it was by no means over. In fact, the Impostor definitely was able to weather such assaults easily. Nemesis put much more effort into the automatons than his standard corps.
But it was a start, and Randall had plenty more fight left in him.
----------
--Inside the Portal Control: Before the Wall--
Ryat66/The Fool pondered his situation.
A dark black car? Expensive looking. Money... Massive amounts of money. It pointed to a number of individuals, Crey and Nemesis top on that list.
Obviously, it had something to do with this problem.
"First thing's first, though," the Fool muttered and approached the security guard.
The automated security actually aimed at him. He whistled a chipper tune. This did little to abate the defenses, but it did help his nerves.
"Me, an A.I., with nerves!" he chuckled as he reached the security guard, "Hello, sir!"
"Hello." was the crisp reply.
No emotion. At least, none that the Fool could tell.
"Fine day, today, am I right?"
"A great day."
The Fool blinked. Normally, banter provided one with answers, but this program was not reacting very well at all. It was all cold and sterile, so devoid of emotion, of a soul...
Of course, it was a program to fulfill a very mundane purpose.
On, Off, Go Here, Go There. Of course it would be prim and proper, cold steel, professional.
It was time to try the basic steps.
"Sir," the Fool gestured and his hero identification marking him as Ryat66, android blaster in the employ of Portal Corporation, flickered into existence in mid-air and floated over to the guard, "Mutual friends of ours are trying desperately to gain access to the facility. There's something wrong with it and it needs to be repaired, but every time they try to log in, they get turned away by the current working crew. Now, our higher-ups mean no disrespect to the employees here, but they feel that time is of the utmost importance, and the stall they keep running into with the current engineers is threatening lives."
The identification winked out of existence as soon as the guard was done examining it. He wouldn't need to look at it again. He was a program, just like the Fool. He had better than an idytic memory, he had a computer memory.
"I was hoping that with your support, we could get another crew in there to get a more hands-on examination, and possibly correct problems as we find them. Maybe relieve some of the stress the current crew is under as they undertake this important endeavor all by themselves. As you can see, my identification checks out that we work for the same company. Surely, you can understand the importance of this request."
Licking his lips, the Fool waited for the Guard's reaction. It actually seemed to be considering the request.
--------
--Portal Corp Courtyard: Next to the Rikti Portal--
Sheldon Wallace was mad. Very mad. Portal Corp technicians could clearly hear him yelling at Matt from the communicator lying in the grass. Unfortunately, Matt was nowhere nearby. He had to leave Sheldon to talk to the Portal Corp techs so they could patch into Ryat66 and figure out what was going on.
"Matt! MAAAAAAAAAHT!" Sheldon shouted, "You get the [expletive] back here and answer me!"
"Sorry, Shel," Matt revved up his motorcycle's engine, his eyes wide with shock, his face set in something akin to panic, yet off slightly, "I got work to do!"
With his motorcycle making a hideous, thunderous roar, he sped off toward the south.
----------
--Peregrine Island, Bay Area--
Cory was mildly surprised. Not necessarily shocked, but he was hoping things weren't quite this bad.
The Malta Group.
The air around him shuddered and some of the bullets fired deviated from their course. A few others impacted into his ice armor. But it still hurt. A lot.
Before the grenades reached him, Cory dropped, filling his lungs with air. As the ledge of the roof came to his chest, he let loose a gout of fiery breath, flooding the rooftop with flames.
Unfortunately, grenades don't work on contact. They work on meticulously timed fuses. The web grenades exploded overhead, and Cortland felt the weight upon him. This was fine. He had a plan in mind already. It largely involved hitting the ground, first.
Once there, he muttered a cancelling enchantment and cut out his attempts at flight. He let the webbing hold him for the moment. There was no need to fight it, he wasn't going to be going anywhere anyway, and he'd need the energy. However...
Placing his palm on the ground, Cory muttered another spell. The concrete instantly frosted, then a patch of ice sprouted from it. It was slick, slippery, and just what the doctor ordered for dealing with overwhelming odds.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"Ah, crap..." Jake muttered as the Proton Volley loomed ever closer to him, not caring much for his desire to live. Doing what he did best in these situations, he threw up a Personal Forcefield and bore through it, trusting that his shield would hold up to the blast.
((Force Bomb, not Proton Volley. 
))
"If I let more people know I could do that," the Lady Grey replied with a smart-alecky smirk, "it just wouldn't be as much fun."
Joining Danica and Solid Shot in their assault of the impostor, the head of Vanguard and her shadowy underling unleashed throbs of mire at the automaton, the woman's taking the form of a howling skull while the servant's call morphed into another assembly of shadowy tentacles.
Disappointment soon followed nevertheless, the counterfeit Dark Watcher vanishing from its spot once more to escape both these strikes as well as the ones from Toy Dispenser's entourage. Bullets, mire, and Danica's leg alike found nothing but thin air.
The impostor reappeared beside the robotic mastermind - and right in the path of his secretly assembled force bubble. Rammed away by the suddenly present repelling energies, the automaton found itself in what could very probably have been considered the worst spot in the multiverse at present.
In front of a very ticked Randall Grey.
What followed was certainly not for the faint of heart.
But the impostor certainly wasn't out of tricks yet. Though its hat had chosen to flee and its sunglasses lay crushed upon the floor, not to mention several sections of false skin having popped open to reveal now-heavily-dented metal underneath, the automaton had a good amount of fight left in it as well.
A pit of numbing darkness exploded upon the floor under the tanker's feet, leeching him of speed like he'd been suddenly stuck into a deep patch of tar. Even worse, the snaking shadows began to degrade his armors at a steady pace.
Then Grey's world sunk behind a veil of night. The dire gloom now filled the air too, circling about like a dreadful cocoon with the tanker as its focus, seeking to rob him of the certainty of his strikes, as well as stealing away a quantity of their power.
But things weren't over yet. A third fall of shadows descended, this time centering on the automaton as it sprang back to its feet. Instead of weakening the hero, however, these swaths of darkness seemed to strengthen his opponent instead, capable of absorbing a good many strikes, especially those of Toy's pulse lasers.
Of course, this all took time - and though it wasn't very long, the impostor still had to wait a few moments before coming at Grey directly, the hydraulic force of a cold, unrelenting machine in its fists.
Nemesis seemed to have even less luck than his creation, Solid Shot's empowered rounds crashing through his field of dispersion and racking his armor. Thankfully, his steam tech didn't much depend on electricity; otherwise the attack might have shorted his suit out completely.
The jagged pieces of rubble, however, failed at the barrier of energy, as did the strike of Binro's Nemesis staff.
"Pickpocket!" the brassen madman cried at the charging hero, raising his own staff to guard, "How dare you steal from your Lord Nemesis?!"
The empowered mace crashed through his shield with a vengeance, catching the arch-villain's staff in counter. The weapons locked dead for a moment, and all seemed to stand still. Then Nemesis redoubled his efforts and pushed back, trying to strike at Binro's exposed head with the lethally grinding gear of his staff...
--------------------
Small Toy didn't even find a shred of a molecule that shouldn't have been there. The Rikti DNA from blood and normal skin residue on and in the suit of armor didn't contain any trace of the attacker. The drone even found human DNA residue at the bullet impact sites, marks of the Nemesis soldiers who'd loaded the rounds into their weapons (amazing considering what a bullet went through when fired), but the claw marks remained a mystery for now.
Indeed, there seemed to be more pressing concerns. The wind in the corridor had picked up, and not just by a little bit. Somewhere a ways back, this facility was in the undoubtedly unwelcome process of venting atmosphere...
--------------------
"Your request had been rejected." the I/O path's sentry replied to the Fool, voice monotonous and devoid of emotion, "We are sorry, but crucial maintenance is currently being performed. No foreign entities are permitted entry at this time."
As if appearing for nothing other than the sole reason of blatant contradiction, yet another black Ferrari raced past the both of them and through the holobanner, utterly unheeded by the barrier. A moment later, yet one more roared from the tunnel and away on the I/O stream, vanishing into the distant oblivion of white in mere seconds.
Ryat66 knew seeker programs when he saw them. He'd known what the cars represented the moment he'd spied the first. But if they could access the supercomputer without any trouble at all, what made them so different? The sentry had stated that no foreign entities were being admitted - a rather formidable puzzle.
"One moment." the sentry program told the Fool not a few moments after the entering seeker had faded from view, the representing man raising a hand to his earpiece, "Ryat66...confirmed. Please proceed, you are now expected..."
--------------------
The TacOps let out grunts of anger and pain as the flames washed over them. Only their advanced uniforms prevented them from simply being set alight and burning to their deaths.
Now they were really ticked.
"Frag out!" Cory heard someone shout from the roof, followed by a quartet of fragmentation grenades plummeting towards him not a second later. The Malta didn't seem interested in following him, preferring to try and carpet bomb Simmons to death.
On the roof itself, however, the plan was much different. The TacOps weren't relying on their explosives to do the hero in. Instead, two of them clacked what looked like harpoons into their rifles, then blasted those deep into the structure of the roof. Grappling lines at the ready, the other two quickly tied off and prepared to rappel down the side of the building for a close encounter.
Meanwhile, the sniper swore and grumbled something unintelligible, then took aim over the edge of the roof with his long-barreled rifle. Strangely enough, the laser that now wandered over Cory's body seemed off-center with the weapon, but that didn't look like it would stop the man from putting a round through Simmons' head...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
[ QUOTE ]
The empowered mace crashed through his shield with a vengeance, catching the arch-villain's staff in counter. The weapons locked dead for a moment, and all seemed to stand still. Then Nemesis redoubled his efforts and pushed back, trying to strike at Binro's exposed head with the lethally grinding gear of his staff...
[/ QUOTE ]
Binro dropped his staff to the side, grabbing the handle of his mace with both hands and straining back against the villain's weapon. The gears of the staff were so close his face was buffeted by the energy coming from it, as though a slight breeze was washing over his head.
The Omega-Knight's own weapon flared with power as well as he fought to hold the staff in place. Cybernetically and spiritually enhanced muscles strained against the steam-powered marvel, but though Binro kept the gears at bay, he was making no headway in pushing it back toward its wielder.
"You seek to finish me, villain?" he shouted at Nemesis over the dull roar of the competing energies. "I have stood against the molten fire of a planetary core. Do you think your technology can finish what the universe itself could not?"
Truthfully Binro did not feel anywhere near as confident as he sounded. But if he could keep Nemesis focused on him; keep his weapon locked with his own. Perhaps the others would manage to cast the deciding blow.
The time was now.
With Nemesis wholly occupied in the kind of testosterone contest that Archlich figured he would have grown out of already and the Dark Watcher focusing on the brutish stone man, Archlich was free to start the sequence of events that would lead to both of their defeats.
With a dull clap of air that could barely be heard over the whine of laser fire and the roar of otherworldly energies being released, Archlich teleported to an equidistant location between Nemesis and the Dark Watcher. Several runes on his armor glowed bright red as he drained them of their stored power and added it to his own might temporarily. The runes circling his form gradually shifted to a blood red color, as did his eyes, as he began the short incantation.
"Onros kadavan jer'ta neranna ka!" shouted the mage as he swept out his arms, his cape flapping madly in an unseen or felt breeze.
But then such theatrics were rendered naught as every single rune discharged its power into the air at once. The effect was not unlike a tactical nuclear bomb (or similarily large explosive) as the bluish, red-tinged shockwave of energy rippled outward from the lich and engulfed the various combatants.
The various heroes, villains, and Vanguard would find themselves completely untouched as the spell washed over them, though their hair would likely be left standing on end and their sinuses stuffed up. So too was the terrain itself uneffected, the blast wave rolling over the floor and passing through the ceiling as though it wasn't there, leaving all untouched except for its targets.
And for Nemesis and his goon, well, their bad day probably just got even worse.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"Damn, man..." Jake muttered as the blast washed over him, seeming completely oblivious to his existance. "I've really gotta take up some of this arcane stuff sometime..." He smirked peeked around his Assault Bot, checking to see the damage before he decided to relax.
(My bad Devious. >.>
--Jade Moon--
Blind. He'd been this way before. There was a simple solution.
Randall lifted his massive, root-wrapped foot into the air, pulling hard against the tenebrous tendrils of tangible darkness (even snapping some). His foot came crashing down, sending a tremor vibrating through the floor.
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--Inside the Portal Control: Before the Wall--
At first, the Fool was worried. Then, when the guard changed his mind, he grew concerned.
"Oh dear..." he muttered to himself, "Looks like somebody... What the Hell was that!?"
It could have been described as a chill, but he'd never felt cold or in his life. He had a really bad feeling that somebody was watching him.
"Man, that was weird..." he breathed out a slightly panicked sigh, "I hate doing this stuff. Life is so much better when lived out there..."
He gestured to the wild white yonder, back beyond the exit of the I/O port, referencing the outside world. Life seemed easier out there, less chaotic...
"I much prefer a world where the laws are already defined... Even if they're constantly being tweaked, day-by-day by science and magic."
He made his way past the guard. Whatever was waiting for him, he hoped it was forthcoming with answers. Seeing those seeker programs was really disheartening.
Especially with how quickly they were going.
"Just what the Hell is going on here?"
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--Peregrine Island: Portal Corp Courtyard--
"Um, yeah," Unai Kemen muttered into McGinty's discarded communicator, "We've got the monitor working, but my techs are telling me it'll take a while before we start getting any information..."
"Alright, Mr. Kemen," Sheldon Wallace's voice issued in response, "Now... Since the whole process is already started, I'm going to have to request that you try to send a message to Ryat66's consciousness... Tell him to finish up and get the Hell out of there, now!"
"Why?"
The screen started flickering to life in a stuttered slideshow of images that made little sense to the average viewer.
"It looks like he's actually making some progress."
There was an audible growling on the other end.
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--Peregrine Island: Bay Area--
Cortland Simmons knew the "frag 'im" phrase from his boss's son and numerous video games his friends often played. He knew what followed for the other poor chap was best left described as "gory."
Muttering to himself one last time, the ice crystals surrounding his body started to intensify. He sat down in a meditative pose, and suddenly he was buried in ice. Magicians had tried the trick in the past, but it took real magical talent to effectively pull of a hibernation.
Simmons was surprised he had it...
As the Malta troopers closed with their ice cube, there was a faint noise in the background... Like an animal roar overlaid on a motorcycle...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
[ QUOTE ]
"Majority Missing: Wall, Floor. Pure Luck: Outer Wall: Intact," reported the Rikti. "Advise: Waiting: Floor: Cooling."
[/ QUOTE ]
"It wasn't all luck," Penny Arcade looked as fresh and crisp as if she had just stepped into the room, though she dusted herself off carefully. The glittery-silver substance seemed to be completely pristine, undamaged in any way. "The force shielding helped," she nodded towards the debris of her force field generator.
Punching several buttons on her metallic gloves, her fallen robots shimmered eerily, then seemed to suddenly collapse to dust, which itself vanished after a moment. She waited for some seconds, then punched another code, and a new set of bots dropped down in front of her, exactly as they had in the Vanguard headquarters. "So," she said, as she checked and upgraded her team, "What's next, boss?" This question was asked in the general direction of Toy and Randall.