"'Fraid not." Jake stated clearly, knocking the Nemesis staff away with a force bolt and ordered his minions to unleash their full force on him. Shots of plasma, incindiary missiles, lasers, and proton grenades headed straight for Nemesis, and considering his already poor condition, it should do quite a bit of damage.
--Portal Corp Courtyard--
Unai Kemen suddenly muttered a monosyllabic drone of stunned confusion.
"Duuuuuuuuuuuh...."
"What is it?" Wallace's voice suddenly barked, "What happened?"
"The screen just went dark..."
"WHAT!?"
"We're trying audio now, sir..." one of the techs shouted over the hub-bub.
A piercing shriek issued form the speakers. The techs covered their ears (one guy fainted), and Unai, struggling with having to open one ear to the noise, turned the volume down.
"Mr. Kemen..." Wallace said through the communicator after a few seconds (just as Kemen's hearing restored itself), "You do realize computer information doesn't translate well, right?"
"Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" Kemen shouted as he tossed the communicator aside, "Why does everything keep going wrong!?"
"To Hell with this," Sheldon's voice issued from the communicator, muffled do to the upside down position of the machine, "I'm coming over there. Dammit, Matt..."
----------
--Inside the Portal Control: the City--
The Fool's expression changed to one of worry. Not for himself, but for something else...
The circumstances.
"I'd love to assist you," the android replied to the bizarre render, "I assume it's because I'm the first autonomous android who jacked into this thing. You were probably expecting Mark IV, Citadel, or (God forbid) Luminary... Or maybe some other well-known android to come along and offer assistance. The problem is, my hardware schematic is so whacked and paranoid, you probably would only last... Well, you would probably last infinitely, but it would be a constant struggle..."
He rubbed his chin, pondering the situation.
"Also, I'm assuming you need to take my body and move it somewhere... Somewhere where you're going to do stuff with it (stuff involving blasting people, I suppose). The problem is, once the body registers that the USB jack is being pulled, it yanks me from the digital environment... Such an ungraceful logoff is usually pretty bad for the system, probably causing an emergency reboot, which sure as Hell isn't a pleasant feeling for me, and I bet it would be nearly fatal to you (this hardware needs some getting used to, I know)."
He sat and stared at the bar of chocolate.
"What the Hell was this supposed to do?"
When the Idiosyncrasy made an irritated noise, the Fool returned to the point at hand.
"I suppose I could escort you... Maybe share the data, but... I'm not sure how much more hard drive space I've got. More than enough for me, but I don't think it'd be nearly enough for both of us in there... I suppose I could shut down for a while, maybe if I'm compressed and not using RAM, it'll help."
He shrugged.
"It's the best I can do. Otherwise, the body might try to self-destruct. Not to mention the fact that, if it didn't, my nearly one hundred brothers (and sisters? I'm not sure...) would probably try to disassemble you once they realized you'd (as far as they're concerned) murdered me."
----------
--The Jade Moon--
Randall felt the punch. It hurt, but it didn't really do anything to stop him. However, before he could reach out for where he thought the Dark Watcher was, there was a bright explosion and it was gone.
Blinking, Randall looked around, his vision cleared. Nemesis, Dark Watcher... Damn, that was bad.
"Nice," he grunted, "Now... YOU!"
With the shout, Randall started charging for the remains of the Dark Watcher Impostor. He was probably one tackle away from being torn in half...
----------
--Peregrine Island: The Bay Area--
Cold...
This was definitely cold.
Cory looked up at the bullet that had stopped so very short from his head. That was distressing.
He didn't know why the Malta Group was trying to kill him, he'd tried being polite, but they certainly weren't willing to be friendly.
*THUNK-THUNK*
He could feel it... Something heavy had been placed on the ice that encased and protected him. Probing with his mind, he determined it was something... Nasty... That was the sensation he got from it.
----
The roar got louder. The TacOps Agents looked down the street to see a bright white light headed their way.
Mad Matt McGinty revved the engine harder, and a terrifying roar echoed off the buildings, rattling windows all the way down the street toward the operatives. As he closed to a half-block distance, he pulled the Jump Booster lever.
In the air, the bike quieted. It seemed to pause in mid-air. Had any of the Malta Group operatives dared to look, it would have seemed like the monstrous machine was eclipsing the moon. Then Matt gave a warcry and his bike roared to match.
The light shone down on two unfortunate operatives moments before the heavy weight of the vehicle landed on them. The soldiers were pinned under the demonic machine, in fact, it seemed to get heavier as it laid upon them. It even issued a low growl, like a panther threatening a rival.
Matt dropped onto a window ledge, his katana out and raking across the wall to neatly slice through the ropes.
"Thank you, my friend," he heard in the back of his mind.
"I already told you, Cor, I don't like it when you do that..." Matt thought back, "Just let me cut a few more down, and we can work on getting you out of there..."
Hopping from the ledge, he hit the ground, rolled, hopped over another TacOps trooper, and kicked the man in the spine. Taking a stance, he held his blade up and over his head in a defensive pose. Glaring darkly at each of the troopers, he started walking toward the nearest one.
----
"One trick left" Cory thought, and focused on a bright symbol in the back of his mind.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"Combined fire for the [censored] win!" Solid Shot shouted after his vision depolarized and he saw Jake's bots open fire on a critically wounded Nemesis. Seeing that the evil mastermind was going for his weapon, Solid quickly pulled back a slide, armed his grenade launcher, and then fired both it and his shotgun at the same time for a double whammy. Hopefully the two attacks plus Jake's force bolt would keep Nemesis off his feet long enough for the others to take him out.
Another rune flared out of existence on Archlich's armor with a pinkish tinged light, clearing his head and allowing him to escape from the dizzying effects of channeling such a huge amount of magic in one instant and the senses dulling effect of the howling twilight spell. Normally he still wouldn't be able to do a thing except pull back and slowly recover his strength, but thanks to the time he had spent preparing himself, Archlich still retained a resevoir of power that he could draw upon for a few spells.
"If such pathetic creatures as you could kill me, I would have been dead long ago," Archlich rasped as he teleported once more, escaping the confines of the Dark Watcher's spell and relocating himself next to Toy Dispenser.
"Good job, Archie," said Toy as he nodded at the lich while ordering his bots to follow Jake's lead and open fire on Nemesis. Judging from the way Randall Grey fought, the tanker could finish off the automaton on his own.
But just in case....
"Sah'Teece, C'Kelkah, Lk'Onik," Toy said over the radio, easily finding their individual systems and locking in on them. "If you're in the position to do so, give Grey some help. We want to be sure that the Dark Watcher automaton goes down for good."
**********************************************
Meanwhile, Cher'tak was fighting for his life against a small regiment of Nemesis Automatons and Jaegers. Rounds clattered off his armor and oversized bayonnets gouged bright lines across it as he drew back one hand and slammed it into the face of one automaton. The fire energies that his gauntlet was now emitting burned hot enough to melt the face of the android, disorienting it long enough for Cher'tak's other fist to come around and punch a hole through its chest.
"Query: Status: Penny Arcade," Cher'tak said as he switched to the channel that he knew Penny's radio was on. "Assistance: Appreciated, Desired. Summoning Androids: Possible: Nemesis Forces: Distracted."
Cher'tak broke off as a Jaeger hit him behind the knee with a wildly swinging mace. The Rikti went down on his uninjured knee, grabbed the Jaeger around the middle, and pitched it at the automatons gathered in front of him. The flailing hunter killer knocked several machines off their feet and absorbed the fire of many others until it exploded, further covering Cher'tak until he could get back to his feet and resume the fight.
*********************************************
After checking with Toy Dispenser and receiving the go ahead, Small Toy continued onward in its quest to find this illusive figure.
It sped up slightly, knowing that the sooner the target was found, the more warning its master and his allies would have and the better prepared they would become.
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.
Danica watched as Grey charged the nearly gone Dark Watcher. He was likely to finish the automaton. No use getting in his way.
Instead she turned to Nemesis. "Alright then. Let's see if Burning was right about this." The martial artist ran forward, leaping at the last moment. Her foot kicked up off his arm, allowing her to reach the arch-villain's head as she continued a flip. Either this should remove his head from it's weakened supports, like Burning had knocked off after a large blast of fire, or her arms were about to get really sore.
Thelth and Straum looked over at the Watcher. Obviously, they decided Grey would need the assistance. The mage cast a quick spell, firing a burst of icicle shards. The jagged pieces were headed for Grey's back, but before they touched, they disappeared with a pop, reappearing in front of the large man to hit the automaton just before he reached it. At the very least, this should startle the construct.
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 ]
Meanwhile, Cher'tak was fighting for his life against a small regiment of Nemesis Automatons and Jaegers. Rounds clattered off his armor and oversized bayonnets gouged bright lines across it as he drew back one hand and slammed it into the face of one automaton. The fire energies that his gauntlet was now emitting burned hot enough to melt the face of the android, disorienting it long enough for Cher'tak's other fist to come around and punch a hole through its chest.
"Query: Status: Penny Arcade," Cher'tak said as he switched to the channel that he knew Penny's radio was on. "Assistance: Appreciated, Desired. Summoning Androids: Possible: Nemesis Forces: Distracted."
Cher'tak broke off as a Jaeger hit him behind the knee with a wildly swinging mace. The Rikti went down on his uninjured knee, grabbed the Jaeger around the middle, and pitched it at the automatons gathered in front of him. The flailing hunter killer knocked several machines off their feet and absorbed the fire of many others until it exploded, further covering Cher'tak until he could get back to his feet and resume the fight.
[/ QUOTE ]
The radio in her ear suddenly came alive, and Penny Arcade came back to herself when she heard it's words. The force of the impact had been stunning, and she wasn't sure how long she had been out here. Now, she looked up to see where she was.
She was facing a bunch of nemesis robots, but, like Penny herself, they were having to reorient themselves. They were definitely outside, and the stars glittered with a deadly kind of icy beauty. She saw no other lights... but then, she had the impression she was very high up, perhaps on a roof of some sort.
Penny had invested a great deal in stealth gear, and it paid off now. By the time that the Nemesis forces managed to orient themselves, she had turned completely invisible. The hole directly under her feet had more or less sealed itself as the wall had wedged itself firmly against it: but farther down the roof she could see other jets. Unlike many of the Nemesis robots, she still had a firm foothold: her magnetic boots had not failed her.
"I'm here," she called back, "I'm all right. It looks like he's trying to vent the atmosphere - I am going to put a stop to it. The gang will help you out with the Nemesis robots." And, so saying, she began clanking her way down the building - or would have, but her boots made no noise. In the vacuum, all was eerie silence.
As she had hoped, when she got to the first jet of air, it was coming from an actual vent, and not from a hole blown in the wall. That made sense - logically, it would be far easier for Nemesis to trip the vents, and use a bomb as a back-up, so that while the heroes were occupied with one, the other would vent the atmosphere anyway.
But most oxygen-dependant races put manual overrides on vents that lead to vacuum, and the Rikti seemed to be no exception. Penny Arcade was more familiar with Rikti technology than most, having spent some significant time on a Rikti mothership, back on Earth, setting bombs. It took a moment to work past a protective panel and then a small force-field, but in short order a small crank handle had been revealed, and she took this and turned it.
This was not as easy as it looked. Atmosphere was leaking with the force of a jet, and though the crank had been designed in case of a power outage, it had still been designed with a Rikti in mind, not a human. Penny was coated from head to foot in the breakthrough substance Mercurite, which made her all but indestructible, but it did not give her any additional strength, and so she struggled with the crank, tugging with her teeth gritted.
In spite of all of this, in a minute or two, the vent had been closed, and after taking a moment to latch it so it could not be reopened, Penny trooped off to the next one.
+++++
Inside the building
+++++
"The Gang," consisting of five of Penny Arcade's six robots, had paused noticibly when she had been blasted out of the building, waiting for further orders.
Now, they clanked up to Cher'tak and acted as reinforcements. Hardy pointed a small squarish transponder at the wounded Rikti: from it issued a greenish mist, meant to stimulate healing. It worked well enough on the Rikti back on earth, when the occasion demanded, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn't here also. After issuing the healing spray, Hardy also took the time to project a force-field bubble around the Cher'tak.
Buster and the three assault 'bots clustered around, Buster providing fire in every direction, and the assault 'bots acting as his backup. While they weren't as effective as usual, without Penny immediately present, they still provided an impressive amount of firepower. They were attempting to clear a space by sheer force... and it was more than possible that they might have the brute damage needed to succeed.
+++++
Back at Lady Gray
+++++
Laurel had been covered in so many layers of force-fields that it was almost impossible for the 'bot to fire back at any of its attackers. Instead it stood there, simply transmitting the details of the battle, resolutely holding onto the force field generator.
++++++
+++++++
OOC I am moving this weekend, so posting may be sporadic for a couple of days.
"No." the shape in the shroud retorted with nonchalance that bordered on a chilled spine. Though it couldn't be said for certain which of the Fool's remarks, offers, or inquiries the thing now responded to, the tone hinted at a good chance that it may well have been be all of them, "Measures will be taken."
The sentinels stepped out from behind the figure, moving towards the Fool.
"Do not resist," the figure stated in a tone of respectful appeal, "and all will be done very soon. Oh...and thank you."
With that, the cloak dropped to the ground, crumbling first to dust, then to nothing but thin air, and revealing the veiled man to not be a man at all. In the dark form's stead now hovered dozen or more small craft that bore close resemblance to the large, bi-fanned aircraft of the villain in the movie 'The Incredibles'.
They weren't nearly as big, however, only the size of a human head or so, and their lift rings certainly didn't seem to contain any propellers, nor require air to keep them aloft.
There the extent of detail abruptly terminated, the sentry duo grasping the Fool by his arms with surprising speed and dexterity, locking him down with unbelievable strictness. Unless they blundered for a moment, there would be no escape from their vise-like grip, this the Fool realized immediately.
Without another word, the small flock of aircraft departed, zipping down the I/O path like a swarm of very angry hornets in pursuit of the most unfortunate being in existence.
The sentinels moved now as well, dragging the Fool with them whether he liked it or not, heading back from whence they came: the structure that stretched ostensibly endless into the bright abyss above and below.
They cared not for any protest, denying due response, and maintained their grip perfectly, not allowing the Fool even the slightest opportunity of flight. Still, they moved with speed and intent, stepping into an alcove the Fool could've sworn hadn't been there only a moment ago. Then again, that was almost certainly normal here - the shifting structures had proved that time enough.
Behind the three, a plate shot from the floor and into the alcove's ceiling, sealing off the little space. Not a split second later, one of the sentries reached for the symbol of an isosceles triangle on the wall directly ahead, assumedly to transmit information to whatever program this niche represented.
But the instant said sentry touched the upward-oriented geometric shape, his grip on the Fool loosened ever so slightly - an opportunity...!
--------------------
Ryat66 arose with a start, the android's countenance coming to life once more as the sentient machine stood to survey its surroundings in perfect silence.
"Glad you're back." Unai Kemen breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, things were looking up again, "We were starting to get worried when we lost the feed there. So, find any...say, are you okay?"
Ryat66, or more specifically whatever inhabited his body now, gave no reply, simply staring at the man with a cold, blank faceplate.
Despite the exressionless visage, he seemed to smile.
A moment later, the android lurched from the platform, the USB cord he'd used to jack into the laptop disintegrating in thin air. Only a faint cloud of smoke now hovered where it had once been, and this dissipated rapidly.
Against all logic and sense, defying all preparation that had been done to prevent just such an occurrence, the Fool somehow did not return to his body. His mind had delved much too deeply into the workings of the supercomputer. Indeed, technically he wasn't even in said computer anymore, but an eternity away.
Eternity, however, wasn't what the interloper needed. Ryat66's body bounded over to the portal, sprinting up the ramp as fast as the android's feet would allow...
Then slumped together right then and there, not a half a mater from the gateway.
With that, the spook seemed over and done with, the mysterious intruder having departed the body once more. To an observer, it seemed the defenses had succeeded, eliminating the intruder in the body of Ryat66. However, a keen witness would possibly note the small cloud of barely visible smoke that rose from the android's head, then floated into the active portal on what seemed no more than a passing breeze.
Only the wind had blown the other way - and Ryat66's body now weighed approximately 557 atomic mass units less than before...
--------------------
"Off with his head" probably wasn't the right thing to say, but with the sudden decapitation of the brassen madman, more than one of his assailants likely mused it in their own heads. The arch-villain crashed to the floor like a ton of bricks, the steam-tech armorsuit's boilers vaporizing any trace soon afterward.
The counterfeit Dark Watcher, however, was once more far from finished. Though it wasn't quite sure why everyone assumed it on its last legs (maybe they'd all missed the regeneration performed on behalf of Archlich), but it definitely intended to make use of the current underestimation.
"Om mani padme hum." the automaton repeated the mantra once more, vanishing in a blot of darkness before Grey could get a hold of it again, popping back into the room between Solid Shot and the Lady Grey.
Not giving either of them the time of day, the machine lashed out with all the power of the hero it had been modeled after, unleashing a massive detonation of mire into the area. Lady Grey had attempted to do the same, but the automaton had been faster, blasting the head of Vanguard away and into a wall. Her Dark Servant didn't even stand a chance, the overwhelming power of the blackstar shredding it to naught despite its inherent resilience to strikes of darkness.
Then a crackle came over Toy's radio, "Possessive declaration: backs: your."
The blast of a Rikti weapon slammed into the fake Dark Watcher's side, C'Kelkah on her feet again with renewed vigor. The plasmatic energy bolt didn't seem to have done critical harm due to the mitigating shadows swirling about the impostor, but at least the force had slammed the automaton to the floor.
In a corner, Toy could already see Lk'Onik revitalizing several Vanguard operatives, the Psi-Scout knowing well he wouldn't be much help against a machine that didn't even have a mind. Still, he did what he could to help.
Sah'Teece, however, was nowhere in sight...
--------------------
The kicked TacOp recovered quickly, Malta's grueling training regiment and cutting-edge equipment giving their operatives a fair amount of hardiness against the super-powered. Still, the TacOps duo knew they needed their cell's support to take down such a highly rated threat, calling in some manner of code on their radios. Then the two opened up with their high-tech assault rifles, seeking to pump Matt McGinty full of lead.
On the roof, the sniper swore again, damning it all to hell. He tore his fancy suit in twain, a TacOps Commander peeling out of the pudgy disguise in mere moments, dropping the rifle to the roof as well. It was no longer needed.
By now, the Sapper's weapon had fully charged, the man letting loose on the motorcycle with the bio-feedback device capable of draining just about anything of its energies. The TacCom didn't hesitate to jump in, whipping out his own ultra-modern rifle and peppering the bike with ammunition that could take down even heroes who called themselves tankers...
--------------------
Nemesis automatons weren't known to stay down long, and in short order the first few Cher'tak had incapacitated already came for him again, the insulted Jaeger lurching forward like a headcrab to do the Warmaster in.
It ended its moment of Half-Life homage in a brilliant explosion.
Beside Cher'tak, the armored foot of Sah'Teece ground its sole into the floor, the athlete turned soldier carrying his terrifying gunaxe with skill. The blade had sliced neatly through the offending machine, going so far as to slam it back a safe distance with the force of impact.
"Never again." the Chief Soldier gave a nod to his comrade Warmaster with his weapon in a defensive position, stepping in front of Cher'tak to provide a shield for his fellow defender of Rikti civilization, "Take all the time you need."
Now taking fire himself, Sah'Teeche returned it with a vengeance, beginning the task of blasting apart Nemesis' creations...
--------------------
Small Toy would likely be quite surprised by a sudden echo from the passage ahead and to the left. It knew that sound anywhere: a mechanism had engaged and now performed its function.
Speeding round the corner would yield the sight of yet another quick motion, the tip of a tentacle (or something to that nature) slipping speedily away beyond the heavy gates of an already rapidly closing blast door...
--------------------
With battle still raging about the impromptu Vanguard ops center, it stood to reason that the likelihood of anyone currently keeping an eye on the portal in the adjacent chamber practically sat at nil. In the doubtful event that anyone did pay it mind, however, the chance of someone actually spotting a small cloud of dark vapor emerging from the gateway was extremely remote.
Its importance, however, was not. Now it was here. Now it needed a host. A host who knew what needed to be known A host like...C'Kelkah.
Lining up another shot at the Dark Watcher Automaton, the Rikti scientist never even noticed a vapor trail pass into the leg of her suit, nor did she ever suspect the sudden idea in her head to not be her own.
It wasn't even foreign - merely there, where instants before had been but a blank. She simply knew now. Knew what to do.
So she set about it.
Leaping from her position near the portal chamber, C'Kelkah bridged the distance to the still-sealed blast door of the main chamber with skillful swiftness. Upon arrival, her fingers seemed to act of their own free will, manipulating the keys of the gate's panel with incredible speed.
A mental impulse entered the small network of a certain Rikti quartet.
[Emergency measures engaged. Backup atmospheric containment now in effect.]
The vents Penny had been hurdling to close sealed firm once more, all at once and with not a malfunction in sight. At the same time, a film that closely resembled the static of a television screen flashed across the gaping hole in the first corridor Delta team had entered. Almost instantly, the harsh winds ceased, carried debris falling back to the floor as the energetic barrier terminally stabilized, growing fully transparent as the process completed...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Jake pumped his un-broken arm in a short moment of victory before scanning the area for the Dark Watcher automaton. His eyes quickly skimmed across the room, finally resting on the entrance to the chamber Lady Grey resided in. "Alright then, one down, one to go." He ordered his minions to charge their fire and focus on Dark Watcher as he watched from a safe distance.
--Portal Control(?): The Cyberbia--
There was a pretty nasty tug when the USB cord disappeared, but the Fool had been securely held. Ryat66 felt a quick surge of panic, but immediately tried to calm himself.
"I need Strength here..."
He doubted they got the Tarot reference.
As soon as the opportunity presented itself, the Fool's arm snaked out of the security program's hand, went to his hip, and a dagger seemed to materialize there.
"I'd feel remorse for this," he stated, then stabbed the blade into the arm of the other security program, freeing his other arm, "But you guys don't have feelings."
When the "uninjured" one made to reach for him, the Fool placed the tip of the blade at his throat.
"Stop. State your purpose and intent."
---------
--Jade Moon--
Randall's eyes went wide when he saw Lady Grey smack against the wall.
"Ah, crap..." he grumbled, "I'm gonna get blamed for that..."
Hefting a still-moving Jaeger from the ground, he aimed a pitch for the impostor.
"May as well not waste the moment, though..."
---------
--Portal Corp Courtyard--
As Kemen and his crew stared in irritated awe at the android that had just been helping them, a green glowing blur landed nearby. Sheldon Wallace, bedecked in a blue and white trench coat and body armor, tapped a few buttons on his wristpad and his speed started to decelerate.
"There," he intoned as his breathing returned to a normal pace, "Now, where is my... Dammit, what did that idiot do?"
He approached the machine, paying little heed to the portal or the techs that tried to ask him what he thought he was doing. Pulling out a device that looked like a communicator, or more complex, he hooked it into Ryat66's head and started working.
"Dammit, no... no... no... Oh, this is disheartening."
He turned to Unai Kemen.
"What did you see it do?"
When the security chief explained what happened (earning an inquisitive quirk of Sheldon's eyebrow when he described the "smiling face"), Sheldon frowned.
"Now I need to get in there... And my hacking skills are slim to nil..."
----------
--Peregrine Island: Bay Area--
The motorcycle, awash in the bizarre blue-white light of the sapper rifle, rumbled a little, then shut down. The operatives beneath it pushed it over, and found their legs were still pinned. Still, they had their assault rifles...
Matt grinned and the katana dropped to swing behind his back. Ducking down, he charged forward, moving surprisingly fast for anybody. He didn't seem to have that tell-tale trail that followed most super-speed heroes, but still, he was somehow RIGHT THERE!
"Remember your training..." Cory's voice issued in the back of his mind.
"No..." he got to the nearest agent, who stared at him with wide-eyed surprise, "[dung]!"
The katana snaked around and slashed across the agents' torsos. They fell back, but were largely unharmed. Their harnesses, however, were not. There was a clattering sound, and their spare ammunition and grenades hit the deck, not that the two operatives really had the time to deal with that.
Matt kicked one, then slashed at the other. Screaming, Mattock swung his blade at the nearest agents again, hacking at their rifles, arms and legs. Behind them, the block of ice protecting Cory Simmons was cracking on its own.
Matt was running out of time...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
The automaton realized its chance without delay, picking up on Jake's orders. If he could command his machines about, his personal force field wasn't up any longer; this was a fact.
And there was no such thing as 'safe distance' when fighting someone who could transport to a new location merely by an act of will.
The impostor went missing in a patch of darkness, the thrown Jaeger striking nothing but air (hopefully not Solid Shot), and not a moment later that same fall of shadows swirled about Jake, the counterfeit Dark Watcher reappearing right in front of him. If his robots now fired, not only would they most likely strike their creator, but the distance between henchmen and mastermind also made them very ineffective bodyguards at this point.
"Die." the automaton quarred with its metallic tone, swinging a shadow-wrapped fist at Jake's torso that could take out an armored vehicle...
--------------------
The Fool assumed too much. Representation of a concept only went so far. Even as the 'stabbed' sentry program stared quizzically at its severed arm (while this hadn't been the intent of the strike, the arm had vaporized from the impact site downward as a result of the man not exactly being a man), the other sentinel continued right into the dagger's blade, the representation's head vanishing in a burst of chaotic particulates as the dagger passed through its throat.
The headless body, however, was most certainly mobile on its own, the sentry's arms seeking to lock the Fool down again before...
Too late.
The wall that had arisen earlier now dropped once more, returning the cramped chamber to its former state of small alcove in the side of a structure.
But what a structure!
Thunder cracked in chaotic staccato, lightning whipping across the dark skies in a virtual continuum of motion. Not three seconds went by between each whip of an electric bolt overhead. The place looked as if the key itself had broken, torrential rain flooding down from above and continuing on into the abyss below, a sea of clouds even darker than those that blotted out the heavens.
And all about floated or stood (then again, there might well have been a combination of the two; it was hard to tell) the strange structures that resembled satellite dishes of every size, created apparently for the sole purpose of catching the striking bolts of power.
The sentinel programs seemed to consider this quite normal, the one attempting to lock the Fool down again still very much intent on doing so while the other marveled at the disappearance of his arm. The upward-oriented isosceles triangle on the far wall now lost its slight luminescence, leaving no more doubt that the alcove had really been an elevator of some sort, the building it was a part of nothing more than the representation of a data relocation program.
Now the shape of the supercomputer's exterior self-image also made sense - logically, the wall the Fool had originally been confronted with should have taken the form of a sphere, not a cylinder. Seeing this new realm clearly above the 'city', however, explained the cylinder perfectly. The supercomputer wasn't just a singular entity. There sat others atop and below it.
But if something that thought of itself as this nightmarish realm of thunder and lightning sat above...
Then what lurked below...?
--------------------
The duo of TacOps assaulted by Mad Matt didn't even seem to be fighting back. If the hero had been aware enough to notice, they were attempting to scramble away from their severed harnesses as quickly as possible.
Indeed they did, if in a different manner than they'd planned, their mediporters engaging automatically as their high-tech armor detected their survival compromised by the relentless assault of the scrapper's blade.
The reason, however, seemed a mystery. Why had they tried so hard to run away from their own munitions?
If thought about for a moment, the answer would be obvious - those things were rigged to detonate in just such a scenario, a timer having started the moment the harnesses had been cut. Malta had adopted this strategy from the US military's black ops units, and it made placing a large amount of explosives timed to go off all at once extremely simple. The original intent, however, had been to blast in or out of armored-up locations like bunkers, not to go off on the street.
In either case, Matt now had all of four seconds remaining before the muntions blasted a large chunk from the building here, not to mention the good chance of said detonation spattering everyone it caught into a very nasty smear on the pavement.
The TacCom, Sapper, and duo of TacOps still on the roof, however, busied themselves trying to shove the bike off the pinned operatives. The four of them should be able to do it, right...?
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Feride opened the door and stepped inside. It had been busy night, and she needed rest. As she flopped onto the sofa, Gabriel came in from the kitchen with a glass of milk in hand.
Can I stay with you a while? he asked.
She opened her arms. Sure thing.
They lay together for only a moment before the phone rang. Feride sighed.
Come on, up you get. As he got up and headed toward the stairs, she leaned over the arm of the couch to pick up the house phone. She was greeted by a ring tone.
The phone rang again before it stopped. Just as she went to investigate, Gabriel came back in. Auntie Mel! Auntie Mel! he cried. Its for you. He held out the secure phone in his eight-year-old hand.
Feride winced at the name and took the phone. Her accent switched to strong Jersey. Yeah?
This is Feride Edain?
Yeah. Zell? The accent died a bit.
Not quite. There was a short pause. Auntie Mel, eh? Ill have to remember that one the next time Im in Paragon. And your adorable little nephew
Feride glared at the phone. Zell, she acknowledged.
Very good, she said. The sly smirk was audible on the line, all the way from the Rogue Isles. If you listen to what I have to say, I might feel inclined to leave your pathetic family alone.
----------
That had been 30 minutes ago. Now, Feride flew over Peregrine Island toward Portal Corp, suppressing a yawn as she went. It transformed into a sigh, not her first since leaving the house.
She did not like the idea of Vanguard organizing something this big or serious. Feride liked Lady Grey in the few times they met and had nothing but the deepest respect for Dark Watcher. But she often got the impression that there was more to the Vanguard than just fighting the Rikti. She worked with them against the aliens, but it was often a wary alliance.
Even still, something about Mistress message set off a warning signal. Not about the Vanguard, but about the Rikti. It sounded as though she had left something out, but perhaps she just lacked all the information. With the glee in her voice? Fat chance. She's evil, Bradford, remember? Either way, something big was going down, and Feride needed to be a part of this.
It had to be really big if Mistress was deigning to contact the goody-goodies for help.
And if the situation really was as dire as Feride thought, then perhaps it was worth ignoring the evil label for long enough to ensure there continued to be circumstances when it mattered. That meant acting on Mistress hunch, which she had already done. It would also entail working with Vanguard, who she was positive would be on the other side of the portal.
That was the only thing she was really sure of about this whole whirlwind. Despite the many threats sprinkled throughout, Feride could sum up the whole warning in one sentence: The Rikti world was under attack from someone on Earth.
She suppressed a groan as she hit the ground at Portal Corp. That was another group she would have to endure on this little trip.
Set up near the far building, an outdoor portal cast an indigo glow across the courtyard, far outshining the lighting attached to the buildings. The contrast between the darkness and the mild golden sheen of the permanent lights gave the area an extremely eerie quality, adding to an already-foreboding situation.
Huddled near the portal were several people, mostly recognizable as Portal Corp employees. One of them looked familiar as the security chief, but they had never talked, and Feride did not know his name. However, considering the general lack of Vanguard standing around, it was likely that he was in charge of the area for the time being. However, three years of pounding the pavement in the City had taught her better than to assume.
Feride placed the Cabal hat on her head, checked her mirrored glasses, and headed toward the group. Yo, dudes, she called. Several heads turned her direction. Whom I talkin to bout gettin on this big-bad mission?
((The characters of Mistress Zell and Lady Zell, whos only mentioned, belong to Z, on the Champion Servers. Unfortunately used without permission.))
Champion: Feride Edain, Level 50 Vigilante Blaster; Quicksilver Cure, Level 33 Controller; Silent Gemini, Level 44 Tanker; Aisa Moirai, Level 19 Villain Dominator
Virtue: Aurora's Blaze, Level 50 Peacebringer; Atrytone, Level 50 Tanker
--Peregrine Island: Bay Area--
Mad Matt leaped for the wall, oblivious to the fact that the TacOps harnesses he'd severed were about to go boom. He had a whole other plan on his mind.
When the bombs went, he was a little happy when the bits of shrapnel that went in his direction wound up sticking in the wall next to him. He didn't really notice the "ping" sound that indicated some had hit his Undead Slaying Axe slung over his back.
The ice block suddenly exploded, launching the claymores into the distance, discharging their contents into the air. Cory Simmons, his robes in tatters around him, his head and shoulders bedecked in horns, and his back with two demonic wings, stood in the center of the smoldering hole.
"Ow!" Matt brushed the chunks of ice off his shoulder, "What the Hell, man!?"
"My apologies," Cory rasped as he placed something in his mouth and gripped a couple blue gems, "B-uht ah ahd to b-he sss-urtain."
Matt shook his head when a large object passed him on its way off the roof. Landing on its side on the street, he noticed it was his bike.
"AH! You sons of [dogs]!" he shouted up at them, "I gotta hammer those dents out, now! Do you have any idea how long that takes with faux-dragonscale?"
Gripping the next ledge, he started hoisting himself up.
---------
--Portal Control: The Cyberbia--
"Wow," the Fool gasped as he beheld the bizarre scape, then noticed the hand reaching for him, "Hey, get off!"
He swatted at the body's groping hands with the flat of his blade, "Look, you've got me here, my body's obviously gone, and since I'm not going anywhere, you've got no reason to be trying to restrain me anymore. Keep it up, and I'll cut you in plenty worse ways."
He took stock of the headless body again.
"Oh yeah... That's pretty nasty. Well, why don't you just regrow it? I mean, you are a digital reproduction..."
----------
--The Jade Moon--
Not much to add here... Randall did his thing, now the Impostor's teleporting all over the place. Unless....
Randall roared and punched in the top of another Jaeger. Picking up it's wreckage, he hurled it at the Impostor as well.
"We'll back you into a corner, somehow!" he shouted.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"Either that or we'll catch it by surprise." Said a very dry voice from no particular direction.
Ineffable.
Of course, the imposter automaton had more than enough perception to view its surroundings, and Ineffable was but a brute, not a stalker. While his concealment skills were exceptional, he could not hide from anybody with the proper gear.
Then again, that hardly mattered, because he landed on top of the automaton by falling on it after disolving a hole in the ceiling.
Ineffable was either very very lucky or just had good timing, because he was falling onto the imposter the moment he came out of his teleport. He would not be able to do so again before the leather-wearing monster had crashed into him.
Which Ineffable did.
The brute landed heavilly right on top of the automaton, seeking to drive it straight into the ground. Failing that, simple contact with any portion of the villain's body was extremely hazardous. It was like skinny-dipping into a lava pool. It didn't matter how reinforced the imposter's armor was, nor how thick it was, it disolved just as fast as everything else the villain touched.
"Oh [censored]!" Was all the time Jake had to shout out as the automaton decided to target him. Instinctively realizing that he hadn't the time to activate his forcefield, he simply did what he could to brace himself, hoping the shot wouldn't be fatal.
[ QUOTE ]
Then again, that hardly mattered, because he landed on top of the automaton by falling on it after disolving a hole in the ceiling.
Ineffable was either very very lucky or just had good timing, because he was falling onto the imposter the moment he came out of his teleport. He would not be able to do so again before the leather-wearing monster had crashed into him
[/ QUOTE ]
"Holy..." Jake muttered, not being dumbstruck enough at his luck to not get away from the threat ASAP. "Thanks, dude, I owe you one." He shouted as he jumped back and observed his minions open fire.
"HOOOOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-!!!!!" Solid screamed as he cartwheeled through the air, propelled by the Dark Watcher's nova attack.
The android slammed into the wall with a loud clang and then fell to the ground with a clatter. There was a Solid Shot sized dent in the wall now and the blaster's left arm had been partially crushed in the collision. His gun had also been knocked away, so the poor bot was practically defenseless.
"[censored] god damned pice of [censored] god damnit [censored]," Solid muttered as he rolled to his feet, cursing both the Dark Watcher and his own forgetfullness to bring some nanite 'inspirations' with him on this trip.
Staggering slightly, Solid sidled his way toward the fallen body of Nemesis. There were too many people clustered around the Dark Watcher for him to jump in and punch things so he might as well make sure that Nemesis was down and out. He couldn't think of a better way to do that then to stick his hand into the neck socket and start yanking stuff out.
"Ah hell," Toy said as the Dark Watcher teleported next to Jake and almost punched the poor kid's chest to smithereens. It was a good thing that Ineffable showed up when he did or Toy would have had to use the revitalizing nanites he had on him and he would prefer to save those for a more serious situation.
"Frakking teleporters," Combat Toy muttered as it moved forward, grabbing Jake by the shoulders and pulling him back out of the line of fire. Interposing itself between the kid mastermind and the automaton, Combat Toy snikked out its heavy combat blade and waited for the Dark Watcher to make a move. He couldn't shoot because Ineffable was right there, but he could certainly stab in an oppertunity presented itself.
"Hold still already!" Block Bot shouted at Solid as the protector bot scurried around the melee, trying to get Solid within range of its nanite beam.
"This is so much more fun than shooting big trees," Mini Bot chirped happily as it ducked down and fired a pair of laser bursts between Combat Toy's legs.
Toy Bot started climbing up the wall, its four legs digging into the alien metal as easily as it did anything else. The heavily modified battle drone started moving upward toward the ceiling, ready to fire its twin retrofitted Rikti blasters whenever the Dark Watcher presented itself.
***********************************************
"My: Thanks," Cher'tak said as he sighed with relief, directing his transmission both at Sah'Teece and Penny. "Last stands: Always annoying, troublesome."
Getting to his feet, Cher'tak rolled his head, provoking several cracks from his neck, and re-ignited his spiked gauntlets. Pure energy crackled from the trio of spikes on each hand and hissed as bits of it flaked away and hit the ground.
Focusing once more on the fight, Cher'tak stepped up next to the diplomat and punched his fist into a Jaeger that was rushing the little line of defenders. With the other Rikti and Penny's bots laying down a tremendous volume of fire, Cher'tak would be able to handle the few Nemesis automatons that managed to break through and rush them.
**********************************************
Unwilling to except defeat and fail Toy Dispenser, Small Toy sped up and tried to somersault under the closing trap door. The sound masking device wouldn't be able to cover up all that noise, but hopefully coming out from under the far end of the door rather than the center would give Small Toy's target enough pause to allow the little drone to take stock of the situation and hide itself.
If Small Toy had ever really put some thought into religion, it probably would have been praying as it dove under the closing door.
**********************************************
"Slow down," hissed Archlich as he clenched one fist tightly, a bolt of ice shooting from that hand, through Jake, and into the Dark Watcher. The numbing blast would act as a monkey wrench in the automaton's gears, hopefully giving Grey or Ineffable enough time to tear the thing apart.
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.
Feride was given the impression of being wholly ignored. Not only did the portal mechanism fill the area with quite a ruckus, but also everyone had something altogether different on his or her mind right about now.
The only person not actively engaged in a heated argument about something superbly technical and/or mathematical was a man clad in body armor and a trench coat of blue and white hues - and even he seemed close to a nervous breakdown right about now - Sheldon Wallace...
--------------------
"No." the TacCom already expecting Mad Matt grinned savagely, his own rifle - as well as the Sapper's weapon and the ones wielded by a certain TacOp duo - aimed squarely for the scrapper as the man hoisted himself over the ledge. The four didn't hesitate a moment.
They opened fire.
Sadly, that wasn't all.
So did the pair of Hercules Titans that had joined them on the roof while the scuffle had taken place on the street below. The covers of rocket pods sprang open with rapid clacks, then let roar a swarm of incendiary missiles...
--------------------
The sentinels trying to grapple with the Fool released him from one moment to another. Ryat66 had found their weakness: logic.
And currently, his logic was undeniable.
The sentries vanished in a cloud of particulates, leaving nothing but thin air (well, actually rain-filled air, but that didn't really change the situation), and the Fool alone with his thoughts...
--------------------
Ineffable assumed too much. He may have been able to survive in a vacuum, but that didn't change the fact that breaching the top level of a mostly underground facility would cause a jet of air to burst forth, the resulting impulse flinging things it contacted for respectable distances.
Of course, Ineffable simply dissolved said jet away as he dropped (air was only matter, after all), which allowed him to enter through the ceiling, but blatant force did not depart so easily. It still slowed his descent a great deal.
The counterfeit Dark Watcher merely chuckled as he heard the voice from above, seeing the villain falling towards it in slow motion. Though the distraction had foiled its attack, there was still more than enough time to get out of the way, not to mention wind up a counterstrike.
All too easy.
A horrid gnash echoed through the chamber.
With a dreadful, nerve-wrecking gargle, the automaton melted away into oblivion under the impact of Ineffable, its voice groaning and retching to frequencies at times painful to the human ear.
Within moments, there wasn't anything left; not even the sharp, frigid icicle that had burst from its chest a second or two before, completely jamming up the works.
A split second later, a transparent security field re-sealed the hole Ineffable had created. The jet of air ceased to be, and around the same time, the last forces of Nemesis' machines ended their mechanical existence by hands both human and Rikti - and of course the ballistics and bolts a few robotic henchmen, thrown in just for good measure.
"What a mess." the Lady Grey let out a sigh, watching her forces pick themselves back up a little bit at a time. A few had already torn open some equipment crates and helped out in the battle, and most of the information systems were still running, but all in all the place had been utterly laid waste to.
"Okay, from the top!" the woman ordered almost immediately afterward, having regained her composure remarkably fast, "One: everyone report in to your team leader and take a tally of your equipment. I don't want to find out that jerk stole anything later on. If you're injured, report to a medical station. Two: I want a team out and moving. Check for more traps. I don't believe there will be any, but obviously we haven't been careful enough so far. I want every sighting of anything unexpected to be treated as a full-scale emergency. Three: get this here..."
The Vanguard operatives didn't hesitate a moment, though some still wobbled about a bit while carrying out the orders. Several who'd been at ground zero reported to the aforementioned medical stations while others began the task of cleaning up the remains of Nemesis and his automatons. Rifling through the pieces would, as always, not yield any spoils or information - their boilers had blown, taking every vital component (and most of the superstructures) with them...
--------------------
Small Toy's gamble didn't pay off. Its lens-filled head slammed into the gate with a loud, metallic crash. The blast door had won this round.
However, that didn't go to say the fight was over. Perhaps Small Toy or one of the other mechanoids in its group had seen the key code the Rikti had entered into the very first blast door - or at least tried to before Ineffable had wrecked the thing. Interestingly enough, the villain seemed to have played right into Nemesis' hands with that one.
Be that as it may, a robotic memory was more often than not photographic in nature. And even if Small Toy had no clue of the key code, there sat a whole team of super-powered Vanguard members still itching to wreck stuff from a fight that had ended not a moment ago...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Jake heaved a sigh of relief as the Dark Watcher automaton let out a horrifying scream and shut down for good. He scratched the back of his head out of habit and listened to further instructions from Lady Grey.
[ QUOTE ]
If you're injured, report to a medical station.
[/ QUOTE ]
"That's my cue..." He muttered, walking forward to a station and calmly addressing what appeared to be someone who knew what he was doing. "Hey, my arm sort of broke, so, if you could just set the thing and hand me a sling, I'd be happy to move along." He emphasized his point by pointing to his arm's rather obvious limpness, hoping that it wouldn't take too long to fix.
"No need." Ineffable materialized by Jake's shoulder. "I can aid others..."
He pointed a finger at Jake's broken arm, and a stream of green glowing energy shot from it, enveloping Jake's arm. All the pain in it seemed to fade away, and Jake regained movement of his arm.
"I learned that to help people who I accidentally touched when not paying attention." Ineffable explained casually. "And now I am going to go explore a little."
The brute vanished into thin air.
"... Kay..." He said, a little dumbstruck at his explanation and clear impatience for a response. Rolling his shoulder a bit to make sure his arm was alright, he glanced over his minions and determined that they were all in working condition, ready for battle at a moment's notice. "Yeah..." He muttered, walking toward and opening. "I think I'll take a page from Eff's book and do a little scouting." Jake ordered his minions into a defensive follow stance and walked down what appeared to be an empty corridor, making sure he was far out of sight and sound before he turned to his true purpose for getting away from the group.
Jake pulled out a small tape recorder, completely with head phones and tape. He eagerly slipped on the headphones and hit play on the recorder, anxious to know why he was dragged to the Rikti Homeworld.
He quickly got his answer, and a malicious grin played across his lips.
It was impossible to hear what was being said through the headphones. There was absolutely no frequency that could be picked up, traced, or otherwise noticed. There was but a small EM field that the tape recorder gave off.
All in all, this information was for Jake's ears only.
And he intended to keep it that way.
"Recluse, you're putting a lot on my shoulders, but if this works, the pay-off is going to be enormous..."
"Really?" Asked an invisible voice. "How enormous would that be?"
Ineffable was suddenly right in front of Jake, and his thumb was a centimeter away from his nose.
"Boo." He said in his dry voice. "You should really be a bit more careful. You may be able to see through stealth, but I think you lack the insight to prevent instantaneous transportation."
He took the thumb away. "If you're this sloppy for the rest of this task force, I may just even need to steal your job from right from under your nose..."
Jake remained strangely calm as Ineffable suddenly appeared in front of his face, threatening him and holding his superiority over his head, teasing him like you would a cat with yarn.
If there was one thing that he had learned in the Isles, it was that psycology was half the battle. If you showed yourself to be afraid or threatened, the enemy would grow more confident with the assumption that they have power over you.
Jake applied this knowledge to the current situation, and nonchalantly answered Ineffable as best he could.
"Oh, just large enough to get me to a rather high rank in the organization." He said, his bots charging their weaponry at the Stalker Brute due to his aggressive nature. Jake calmly and nonverbally ordered them to keep their weapons charged, but not to fire until he gave a signal.
"You're right, though. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in obtaining my orders, and there isn't a way that I know of to detect teleportation... Well, maybe, I could work with Naylor to detect a dimmensional increase in energy..."He stated, trailing off and going into thought for a second or two before visibly shaking the thought out of his head. "Another time perhaps..." He muttered. Jake then pulled out the recorder and seperated it from its tape. Jake held it up high above his head and allowed a single battle drone to shoot several holes into the tape, making sure to destroy the actual reel so that the recording couldn't somehow be recovered.
"But you seem like a reasonable guy." He continued, walking forward and back in a fashion that would eventually form a rut in the floor. "I don't really see a reason for you to go and snitch on me, at least, no reason that wouldn't benefit you.... You are a villain, yes?"
"Which leads me to this question. Why does any of my business concern you in the first place? Don't tell me you were ordered to keep an eye on me." He said this in a fashion that his wording would contradict. Instead of saying it sharply and with reprimend, he said it with pure curiosity in his voice, hoping the tone would soften up Eff's opinion of him.
Edit: (Diov, somehow, I knew you would be the one to get me into this situation... 
)
[ QUOTE ]
"You're right, though. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in obtaining my orders, and there isn't a way that I know of to detect teleportation... Well, maybe, I could work with Naylor to detect a dimmensional increase in energy..."He stated, trailing off and going into thought for a second or two before visibly shaking the thought out of his head. "Another time perhaps..." He muttered.
[/ QUOTE ]
"I am warning you. Do exert more caution in the future." Ineffable said sternly.
[ QUOTE ]
"But you seem like a reasonable guy." He continued, walking forward and back in a fashion that would eventually form a rut in the floor. "I don't really see a reason for you to go and snitch on me, at least, no reason that wouldn't benefit you.... You are a villain, yes?"
[/ QUOTE ]
"Oh, rest assured, unless you specifically slip up again, nobody is going to hear about this."
[ QUOTE ]
"Which leads me to this question. Why does any of my business concern you in the first place? Don't tell me you were ordered to keep an eye on me." He said this in a fashion that his wording would contradict. Instead of saying it sharply and with reprimend, he said it with pure curiosity in his voice, hoping the tone would soften up Eff's opinion of him.
[/ QUOTE ]
"I do not know exactly what you are implying." Ineffable said curtly. "I am here to merely get a few years slashed off my sentence. It is my duty as somebody working to restore their freedom to keep an eye on everyone and everything. Fresh villains being one of them."
His eyes narrowed. "BUT. Onto business. I said I would not reveal this matter to anyone. That is correct. However, in return...I need you to do me a little favor."
Ineffable reached into his jacket and pulled out a white file-folder.
"This file here contains rather...Explosive...Information in the wrong hands. Or the right hands, for that matter. I already know you'll probably look at its contents once I have left, so feel perfectly free to do so. My specific request though, that I am making...When I give you the signal, and you will know when that hapens, don't ask how...I want you to give that folder, and its contents, to either Randel Grey or to Lady Grey. They will know what to make of it. And hopefully, they may even get it to the right people before it's too late."
Ineffable handed the folder to Jake.
"I will be watching." The brute said.
He vanished.
Danica had seen her use was at an end in that fight. Though she was loathe to admit it, if she couldn't get in close, there weren't many things she could do.
Except watch.
Thelth and Straum hadn't acted much during that fight either. Odd, because the mage definitely would have come in handy. As for the teleporter, who knows what else was up his sleeve. "Maybe I'm just paranoid," she muttered.
Except I'm never wrong.
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
"Fair enough..." Jake muttered as he accepted the folder, fully assuming that Eff was still watching from somewhere. He decided to take advantage of this moment of [semi]seclusion to peek at the contents of the folder as Ineffable had predicted, making sure to absorb the information fully before placing it into his trenchcoat.
--Peregrine Island: The Bay Area--
The smoke cleared and there was a smoldering hole where Matt McGinty used to be clinging to the side of the wall. Cory frowned up at the Malta Agents, then bit down hard on the object he had in his teeth. There was an audible snap as the light-purple (almost pink) medication broke open and Simmons then squeezed something in his fist that glowed blue briefly before turning into a bright orange-and-yellow fire blast that he promptly hurled at the Sapper.
The Malta Agents probably figured he was doomed and taken their sweet time in dealing with him, toying with him and what-not. However, they would have had to discount the sound of somebody running very fast up a flight of stairs moments prior to the roof door smashing open and a blur rushing forward and past one of the Hercules Titans with a yell.
Stopping there, to stand in the middle of agents and robots, stood Mad Matt McGinty. Covered in soot and dust, gripping his sword tightly, and his face pulled back in a crazy, soundless roar of anger, he made his attack.
At the Sapper who was now on fire. A quick slash across the Sapper Gun's operative singularity housing, and Matt jumped and spin-kicked the energy draining [jerk] over the side of the roof.
Turning back to face the Malta Agents, he nodded to the Hercules Titan he'd passed. There was a hissing sound. One of the hoses that helped operate the right arm had been cut.
"Time to rock and roll, [punks]!"
--------
--The Cyberbia--
The Fool started wandering. He didn't know where it was he had to get to, but standing still wasn't going to get him anywhere.
"Perhaps if I can find out what's inside these buildings, I can determine where I've been sent to... Maybe work out a way to get back to my body or even figure out how to regain portal control..."
-----------
--Jade Moon--
Randall put his hand to his mouth and a loud, shrill whistle issued forth. Sitting down on a previously moving Jaeger (it stopped with what would have been a sickening crunch if it had been alive), he bellowed out for a role-call on all the meta-types under his leadership.
"Come on, come on! We don't have all day."
----------
--Portal Corp Courtyard--
Sheldon Wallace turned to the young lady who had called for attention, and pointed Unai Kemen in her direction.
"I suppose that's yet another individual yanked from the comfort of her home for this mad quest."
"It's not so mad for those who wish to keep that comfort," Kemen replied acidly, "And I've read up on you, Wallace. I know all about you and your little toys."
"Yet you agreed so readily to have one hook up to a sensitive machine? It is difficult to understand the decisions one makes when under stress."
"Put a sock in it," Kemen shouted as he walked away, "And get that damn thing away from the portal!"
Sheldon attempted to lift his android.
'On a positive note, I'm not thinking of ways to butcher him," he thought to himself, "perhaps I'm not nearly as bad as I worried..."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
The murk all about seemed to literally swallow up the force of Grey's footstomp, absorbing its potency and preventing it from ever reaching the bogus Dark Watcher. If one didn't know better, one may have said the strike had been deflected.
The automaton didn't utter any vocal response, instead slamming its fists toward the tanker in an attempt to break through his stone armors like a cannon blasting through a castle wall.
Nemesis came on the rebound as well, chuckling with delight as he forced Binro into a stalemate. Of course, he wasn't quite satisfied with that.
"Yes." he brazenly rose to the tanker's challenge, ramming one of his massive feet into the alien's gut with greater force than an industrial-grade hydraulic piston. With both hands on his mace, Binro couldn't have possibly defended himself against the low blow; the tanker's back crashed to the floor.
"I do." the brassen madman went on with his reply in a tone most mocking, his staff's gear now hovering not a dozen centimeters from Binro's exposed head, "Goodbye."
A blinding flash washed over the tanker, but instead of the expected force bolt sending the hero's brains flying in all directions, it was Nemesis who did the flying - straight into the wall. A second crash from the other end of the room signified the Dark Watcher Automaton had met with the same fate.
"Was that really necessary?" the arch-villain complained, shoving his arms against the wall that had so courteously stopped him. He pried himself loose like a sentient crowbar, leaving the hemispherical impression his shield had made (as well as a few parts of his frontal armor) behind in the material.
The result was truly garish, the decrepit, beaten form of Nemesis barely recognizable as such. Most of the maniac's face had gone missing, welded to the wall by the arcane blast. Standing slumped somewhat to the side, the arch-villain resembled an automaton undergoing assembly more than anything else.
"Allow me to repay you in kind." Nemesis growled with broken tone, throwing his arm forward at the undead mage.
And realizing his staff had gone missing.
"Some days it does not pay to get out of bed." he complained, instead going for the staff that Binro had let drop in his defense.
At the other end of the room, the counterfeit Dark Watcher looked much the same - broken and battered, pieces of his armored frame shredded away, exposing the gear-filled mechanisms underneath. Combined with a number of large flaps of fake skin hanging from the impostor, the automaton had assumed a truly nightmarish form.
"You'll FILE CORRUPTED: REPRISAL_MONETARY_REFERENCE.TXT!" the impostor spat in a quarring tone, its voice like that of grinding metal fragments. Clearly, the thing was on its last legs, "I'm going to make sure you don't rise again, lich. Om mani padme hum..."
Gathering nether energies about itself, the automaton cast its sights on Archlich, catching the undead sorcerer in a grasp of twilight, and used the mage's on vitality and concentration to mend a great deal of its damages. The sudden regeneration of metal and dark cloth alike had an almost ghastly nature to it.
Following this, the counterfeit hero repeated it's model's mantra once more, encasing Archlich in a howl of twilight from which there was no escape. The shadows licked hungrily at his very deepest energies, slowing him greatly and even attempting to overwhelm his senses with their disorienting nature...
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The sentry didn't give counter. He didn't even seem to understand. Indeed, he did not - the man was, after all, only an illusion, a mere representation of a programmed warder. As such, he didn't need to know more than what to keep out and what to let in.
"Your speed will be increased." he only stated abruptly, and before the Fool even knew it, the section of I/O stream beneath his feet took off like a rocket, barreling down the tunnel at blinding speed, its passenger securely in tow. The sentry didn't even seem to notice. The action was part of another program already, which meant he could return to executing his primary function.
Like telling the monitoring attempt to hit the road. That data transfer was certainly not authorized, and if it persisted in its endeavors to enter, the sentry would take the same action as he'd taken many a time now. The observer effort would end up like every other attempt to pry into the current workings of the supercomputer.
Deleted.
The Fool, however, was no longer to be concerned with that. The I/O path stopped dead just as instantly as it had accelerated, though of course he didn't go flying off the thing. This wasn't the 'real' world, in spite of everything.
The Fool's destination could be described as an intersection in one of the strangest sectors of a city anyone had ever seen. The I/O path had become more solid, gained semi-transparent side barriers, and split off here in three more directions, each quickly lost to the depths of the place.
At first glance.
Upon closer inspection, the Fool could easily tell the things that looked like buildings weren't buildings at all. Not only did none have a base (they floated freely in the air, often, but not always, connected to one another by some other constructions), but the things also seemed to be in continuous motion. The myriad of lights and symbols of their surfaces never stayed the same, ever shifting, ever changing, and even their size and shape wasn't exact - it seemed that every single one continuously added or subtracted from its volume, growing larger, smaller, wider, or taller depending on whatever appeared to be needed at the time.
And while the I/O path certainly looked more solid now, somewhat plated metallically (though large sections of the thing were still transparent), up ahead the Fool could see other data paths, more often than not stacked on top of one another, incredible amounts of quantum information flowing along a breakneck speeds on thin membranes of nearly invisible blue.
This place wasn't a place at all. It was an entity, a being - the self-image of the supercomputer.
"You are Ryat66." a grim voice called without warning, its tone low, yet polite. Alarm still tagged along the words, however. That had been a statement, not a question.
The Fool needed not look long. He quickly found its source in a dark, heavily veiled figure that made its way toward him from one of the more out-of-place 'buildings' (this one seemed to stretch on infinitely in the vertical; if it had ends, they'd been lost to the white haze above and below), its long robe dragging on the plates of the unreal path.
Two sentry programs accompanied the unknown function, their stoic faces not seeming to notice the figure looked any different than either of them.
"I require the use of your body." the idiosyncrasy told the Fool, "I am not at liberty to explain myself. Know, however, that lives depend on speed, and that your body will provide this speed."
The underlying meaning of the unknown function's speech stood clear as day - it wasn't asking for the Fool's permission; it was merely informing him what it intended to do...
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"Aw, hell!" the sniper swore as his round stopped not a centimeter from Simmons' head, the thick block of ice he'd manifested preventing his demise, "Damn metas don't never give no breaks!"
The TacOps lurching down the building's side, however, intended to turn Cory's little trick around. Fast as they could, the two assembled Claymores aimed squarely at the blaster, rigged with motion detectors that would detonate the directional mines the moment his icy safe house vanished once more...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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