Dennis's eyes widened as he suddenly faded from view, sparing the one soldier a painful experience to the head. As of now, he was still barely tied to the physical realm, waiting for a convienent moment to become yet again corporeal.
-----
Dusan wasn't in such a convienent position, however. He, being toward the back of the group, only had about half a second more of reaction time before the bullets made contact with his fleshy vessel, however, didn't have the convienance of cover.
But surely there was a way out, wasn't there?
Dusan saw none. He simply dove to the floor and hoped for the best, expecting them to fire levelly in a horizontal line.
Klaus was about to spin about and strike the tanker for hitting him, but that's of course when the door exploded. He felt his feet leaving the comfort of the floor and was now dangling by his collar.
He wiggled free of the larger man's grip. Normally this would have been impossible, but thanks to the bullet that had just hit the tanker's leg Klaus was able to break free.
Gunfire filled the corridor. With very little cover to work with Klaus decided to make his own. Liquid nitrogen sprayed out of his gloves and immediately began to freeze solid. He carefully built up his own little wall of thick ice, making sure it covered him and only him. The problem of course was that the variety of bullets hitting his wall were quickly chipping away at it. He had to constantly keep strengthening it with more ice.
((Okay, okay! Geez people, quit poking me! 
))
"Comme ci, comme ca." General Schwarzherz replied with a gesture of balancing scales with his hands, "Yes, no, and an inkling, but nothing concrete. Now then, who might you be?"
"He's an elite VC, Sir." came a slow, heavy-handed tone with a thick down-yonder accent from the Commando currently sauntering into the corridor from deeper in the building. Rifle clasped lazily to his back, Sergeant Buckman's calm demeanor hung a mask upon his true nature.
Schwarzherz responded with a sigh of exasperation, placing a hand into the gap of his hood to assumedly massage his temples from the sheer lunacy thrown his way, "Dare I ask just how you came to that conclusion?"
"That's an easy one, Sir." Buckman gave a nod, extending an inverted hand toward Darkvapor, "Any goop that runs is a VC. Any goop that doesn't run is a well-disciplined VC..."
--------------------
Had the Watcher been in a position to do so right now, he would've gladly rammed his head into the nearest solid object a few times. This 'task force' sported about all the coordination of a gaggle of dune runners!
Then again, Dr. Dark wasn't exactly helping much. Two 'Brighid Moreiras'? Great. As if there hadn't been enough confusion running rampant already.
Okay, okay...this was not a problem. All this situation required was a little bit of tweaking and the nudging of people in the right direction. First, however, the Watcher would need to scope out the 'locations' of the city rep.
So that's precisely what he did. He took a look at the location placed fifty meters below the intersection where the team had encountered Karl, and then a peek at the one placed inside the Council base's cells. Technically, however, he wasn't looking for Moreira - more just taking a view of the general area out of interest. After all, there had to be a reason for two signals to be planted, right...?
--------------------
"Allow me." the Sword Colonel gave a nod to Martin as she finally caught up with the group, "My brother may be the real tankmage, but I'm not bad at it either."
"This suit can take it." she stated with a fist to her chest plate, then stepped into the hail of gunfire, the force of all these sudden impacts almost splaying the Colonel onto her back in under a second as the cacophony of ricocheting shells blared through the narrow cavern.
With a grunt, she leaned forward and dug her heels into the hardened dirt and rock, charting a somewhat meandering course one step at a time. The scene resembled someone forcing her way through the pressure stream of a fire hose - except with more noise, of course. It was just lucky the Council goons seemed to prefer small arms fire.
"Hey." she gave a curt nod to Klaus as she passed the man one step at a time, "How ya doin'? Once I...get in there...freeze the ceiling...okay?"
The idea had a very specific point to it. Hopefully, the scientist would realize which, as the Colonel's slow progress didn't much allow for conversation.
It took her almost thirty seconds to stomp her way through the entryway, but once she was through, all hell broke loose. More than likely, the Council soldiers would come with heavier weapons upon seeing her - let's face it, with a 'wall of bullets' blocking their view, there wasn't any way they could have laid eyes on the Sword operative before she entered the room - so now it all rode on someone from the task force getting the lead out before a Council goon got smart and pulled a grenade...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
And then Dax was assaulted with a Storm Kick from one of the Archons behind him, and with an Eagles Claw technique from the other, with a third Archon dashing forth to bring a stunning cobra strike into play, with another three charging to back them up.
Something was seriously wrong here, ARCHONS? Since when had Boomtown cells, even the biggest ones, had Archons in them?
Dusan's hopes were dashed. The Council fire filled every inch of space. Including the space along the floor. An endless torret of fire whizzed through the space he occupied.
And that's when the bad thing happened. The Zeniths finally got high enough to start firing their rockets. There wern't as many as there were soldiers, but their rockets would still provide ample explosive power to the already deadly hail. Normally, the Rockets would have also been ripped to shreds.
"HOLD!" Somebody shouted.
The torrent of bullets stopped to give way to the torrent of rockets.
"FIRE!"
And the wall of bullets returned, right behind the rockets.
The Zenith Hoverbots had superb A.I. They could calculate and predict within microseconds, an to them 'time' was all one very long single moment. They could measure time with their built in interior clocks, but aside from that, 'time' was not a defined thing for them. A microsecond after the wave of bullets had passed the colonel, they targetted all available threats and via cordination, unleashed a torrent of rockets.
The Vanguard Colonel, being the foremost threat, now had no less then twenty rockets heading for her, with a fresh wave of bullets right behind those.
Bad news for Klaus, additionally. He had five rockets heading for his ice wall. It could probably take a few of them, seeing as he could regenerate ice fast enough to stop that many bullets, but could it truly stop that much force?
"How long until we receive more supplies and reinforcements?" Shouted an Archon near the back who had arrived not a day ago.
"Twenty Minutes!" Shouted an Adjuntant. "The Center promised another group via mass teleport soon!"
"Well go to the mass teleport chamber and make sure everything goes smoothly! We'll hold the fort here, but just in case..."
The Adjuntant nodded and ran.
-----
"Well." Said the Ascendant Archon as Salvatore opened the final door. "Somebody has some dirty secrets."
"This dirty secret may just save our necks." Salvatore said as he entered the code for the security field. "Not even the center knows we have these...Was a complete stroke of luck."
"Where did you obtain them?" The Archon mused.
"Two weeks ago, we found this hero sap by the name of Cohen. One of the higher level heroes. He mopped most of the patrol, but when he started scavenging their bodies for salvage...One of the troopers who had been playing dead stuck a grenade down his throat. And as luck would have it..."
Salvatore pulled an item of extreme interest out of the field.
"His medi-port failed."
"And he had H-Boosters on him...That's more than luck..." The Ascendant murmered. "That's a miracle."
"Amen to that." Salvatore said.
-----
The Watcher found nothing when he looked at the intersection where they had found Karl.
When he looked at the Council Cells...
Brighid Moreiras read as being in cell No. 5, loud and clear. The Watcher couldn't SEE her, but he could definately sense that she was in that particular cell.
Which was odd, because there were no guards in the room, and all the security locks for each cell for disengaged...
-----
Archon Auswitch swore as his foot caught on a jagged rod in the air vent.
Somebody was going to pay for all this...!
((Pssst - that doesn't work. 
))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Darkvapor raised an eyebrow beneath his own hood as Buckman arrived.
"My name is Lord Darkvapor." he said curtly, adding a little bow to the end. Really he prefered this method of introducing himself over the time consuming process of listing off his various accolades.
His dark eyes darted left and right, taking a careful look at each of Schwarez's men. He decided that at this point combat would be decidedly unwise and so he redoubled his efforts at diplomacy.
"If you don't mind my asking, just what is it you are doing here?" Darkvapor looked around, trying to look somehow interested in the facility. In reality he was scanning for more defenses while trying to by himself some credibility with the gun toting soldiers.
--------------------
Klaus's eyebrow raised an inch. The Sword Colonel was actually crazed enough to charge right into a storm of bullets.
When she gave him the order to freeze the ceiling he opened his mouth as if trying to protest, then promptly shut it. He had no idea what she was planning quite frankly, but at this point that didn't matter. He raised both hands up towards the sky.
In the process he ceased reinforcing his ice wall, which was still being pelted by bullets. As he heard the familiar cracking of ice he began the process of freezing the ceiling.
In the process the room temperature dropped. At first it was subtle temperature change, but by now the Council troops could feel the effects.
The Sword Colonel was still drawing much of their fire, but some of the troopers were still firing at the wall.
Suddenly there was a loud crack as an explosive round shattered a corner of the wall.
"Zis is vy I hate leaving mein laboratory!" he bellowed as ice chunks went flying.
The ceiling was now frozen. Anything hanging down from it had just become a stalagtite. Klaus smiled at the quality of his craftsmanship.
((Oh what the hell? It takes me forever to actually write the post and Diov shatters it in two.
And Devious, which part in partucalar were you complaining about? ))
((Diov already caught it. Wall of bullets + rockets = well, not what was described. ))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
((crazy busy right now- will probably not be able to post until Monday))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
*Crunch* *Crunch* *Thunk*
What the HELL? Dax thought as he felt the three blows rain into him. When Dax had to release his energy field earlier he had to decrease his density to maintain his size, so as the blows hit they sank into his crystaline structure until the hit the harder center.
Dax stumbled forward out from the cover the hut and turned to the three archons. "Oh it's you flip kick dudes. . . . .any of you gotta light?" Dax asked as the density of his chest increased then exploded outward in a cone of crystals.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
((Ahhh. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn't have caught Diov on that. I suppose it would depend on your idea of wall of bullets.))
Klaus' eyes threatened to bulge out of his eye sockets.
Many...many explatives exploded out of him, but none could really capture just how bad off he was.
Instincts kicked in. He returned his ice ray gauntlets to to wall.
That wouldn't do much good, because the explosive force of a Zenith hoverbot's rocket would rip the ice apart too quickly for him to regenerate it.
The first volley of missiles was headed for the Sword Colonel. As such she was the one with the most need for protection. Klaus pointed his right gauntlet at the ground beneath the incoming swarm of missiles intended for her.
A solid wall of ice arose. The wall hit the first several missiles, causing a massive chain reaction.
That wasn't all. Klaus also froze the backsides of the missiles that got through his new ice wall, damaging their engines.
Klaus did much the same with the missiles destined for his own personal ice wall. Hopefully he could buy the task force team some time. Really he didn't even understand why he was helping these meddlesome heroes, but at this point it didn't matter.
Martin snatched Klaus from behind and yanked him away from the blast radius of the rockets. Despite his freezing their thrusters, the weapons were still armed, so when they hit, they were likely to explode.
"Down, you fool!" he shouted as he wrenched the mad scientist away, "Ugh... My leg...."
He really was hurt, but it was a dull pain, not the fiery kind from the last time he'd been shot. glancing at it, his leg was once again filled with that dark shadow from before. How odd...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Dusan! Dennis thought frantically as he saw the horribly bad position his buddy was in. He immediately abandoned his hopes for attack, and suddenly rematerialized in front of Dusan, appearing just in time to take the fire for his friend. Dusan, expecting a wave of hurt, was taken by surprise when he heard the familiar sound of bullets making contact with something, but the painful part of that experience being amiss. As he looked up, he simply saw Dennis shooting daggers at him with his eyes, telling him to roll off to the side before the force of the bullets forced him back to the afterlife. Nodding, he quickly rolled to the side just in time to watch as Dennis faded from view, presumably back to the afterlife, awaiting until Dusan had the energy to summon him back to the physical plane.
"Thanks bud." He said. "I owe you one."
The Sword Colonel had just enough time to utter a colorful expression before her face hit the dirt, the force of the bullets she'd been straining against suddenly gone. Needless to say, she was quite thankful for the sealed helmet at this point.
This also caused most of the unguided rockets to rush straight over her and into Klaus' ice wall, but that wasn't really of consequence any way one chose to twist the situation. The small-caliber munitions just didn't have enough punch to breach impervium, and considering the Colonel already lay in the ground at this point, the impacts on her back certainly weren't going to make her move anywhere except a few centimeters further down.
Her profuse swearing drowned in the renewed chatter of gunfire, but it would've taken a blind man to not see just how ticked the woman really was as she wrenched herself up on all fours, slowly but surely regaining her footing in the bullet storm, dragging her rifle along with her right hand as she crawled forward.
This wasn't going according to plan. Apparently, the Council soldiers weren't quite desperate enough yet. Whatever the reason, this fight had to stop quickly, and not just one way or another - there was considerable doubt the members of the task force could be convinced it would be a better idea to just turn around. No, they wouldn't accept anything but victory here, this was almost certain.
However, just who did the defeating around here wouldn't be so important as long as they won. And this lead to a very neat idea.
The Sword Colonel let the force of the bullet wall push her back a bit, then dug her heels in and brought her rifle to a sufficient angle to obtain a high trajectory. Juicing the output to affect stronger minds than usual with a tweak, she quickly lobbed a psi-bomb right into the middle of a large group of Council, the unleashed mental energies shredding at all opposing minds in a large area of effect.
Almost immediately, solider turned on soldier all about the affected zone, smashing rifle and pistol butts into one another's heads or going at it with bare fists as a massive wave of confusion ensued. Some of the weaker minds had been stunned outright, but most of them just had no idea who the enemy was anymore, attacking anything and everything in sight.
Sadly, the robots in that area of course stood unaffected, but they quickly got some problems of their own as the soldiers about them proceeded to take them apart in respectably violent fashions.
The effect would last for about a minute or so, but considering the soldiers had been so tightly clustered, this still meant more than half of the room had been temporarily removed from any coherent fighting - partly by the mental bomb, partly because no one in his right mind would keep shooting at someone else when his neighbor suddenly tried to beat the tar out of him...
--------------------
The Watcher couldn't help but smirk as he saw the 'empty' cell. An invisible Brighid Moreira? How amusing. So that's why the Council didn't even know she was here. They were nothing but abused pawns duped into serving a plot most trite.
Still, the members of the task force doubtlessly had at least a few means of observing the unseen. Once someone got down here, they'd be sure to make use of one. Still, that left the matter of actually getting them here.
Nope, no go on any of those ideas. It looked like the Watcher would have to lead them down personally...
--------------------
"How droll," General Schwarzherz remarked tiredly, wiggling the fingers of a hand about in a bored fashion, "another 'Lord'. Not to be picky, but whatever happened to all the Masters, Counts, Emperors, Overlords, and all some such? Is this generation really so monotonous? You can't tell me I'm that old already."
"And as a matter of fact, I do mind you asking." the dark officer went on, going right back to the point, "My clients have requested utmost confidentility, so unless you've business with them, I'm afraid I must remain silent on this matter. Do pardon my rudeness, but I can't be expected to uphold gallantry all the time if I wish to reach my goal."
The men in Council uniforms gave their agreement in the form of a nod here and there, and unless Darkvapor had the capability of seeing around the next few corners, there wasn't much of a chance his scans would reveal the first obstacle in their way - well, aside from a few more heavy blast doors before that; make that the first lethal obstacle - which just happened to be an array of radar-guided rocket launchers...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Dusan took a few moments to regain his head, observing the situation, which honestly wasn't much considering the wall of bullets obstructed his view. Closing his eyes, he attempted to detect the souls of those deemed friendly, hostile, and Klaus. He mentally charted the locations of his allies and foes, and took note of the overly-hostile nature he detected in the Council. He focused again, and attempted to see through one of the Council's eyes so that he could get a better perspective on the situation.
((gahhh I come back froma weekend away and you guys advance a page and a half!!!..oh well on with the gore!))
Bladewing waited for the break between the bullet and rocket barrages, then when the rockets were just being fired he moved.
Sprinting so fast time seemed to stand still, Bladewing appeared in the middle of the Archon group harrasing Dax.
"Duck!!!"
With the warning shouted Bladewing began to spin like a top, sword held out, dicing council left and right.
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
Klaus shouted several obsenities as the tanker lifted him off the ground.
Squirming like a rabid animal he ripped himself free, landing on both feet just before the hero got injured yet again.
"Vat is it vith zu idiots?" Klaus shrieked over the din of gunfire.
Suddenly his gloves glowed bright blue.
Stretching both arms out Klaus unleashed the incredbile power of his suit upon the Council.
Shooting over his destroyed ice wall Klaus quickly encased almost all the soldiers on his side of the room in solid ice. This pretty much incapacitated them.
Even Zenith Hoverbots got caught up in his destructive assault.
Bullets and missiles alike froze. In fact, just about everything in front of him was bound to end up frozen. He was firing blindly, and despite that he was doing an incredible job tearing the place up.
----------------
Darkvapor grinned. "I have many titles, but the majority of the people on this world find it easier just call me by Lord Darkvapor or just Darkvapor. However my power is far more than that of a simple Lord. More like emperor...."
"Oh I understand perfectly why you can't tell me, but know this: a task force of heroes and villains working in league with Vanguard has formed in the area, and I dare say there's a good chance your employer is somehow related to their mission. Now I normally don't meddle in the affairs of organizations like the Council, but I think there may be a way we could help each other in this."
Darkvapor had realized he couldn't see past the blast doors, but that didn't bother him much. If things went the way he was planning, chances were he wouldn't need to stay in this room too much longer.
((Special Note: Martin Sanders is a Dark/Dark Scrapper))
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Energon X had been thrown against the wall hard enough to be briefly stunned when Martin saved him from the Council ambush. He shook his head to clear it as he regained his senses, and glanced around.
The wall-o'-bullets was faltering slightly- Bladewing in the middle of the Council was having roughly the same effect as a fox in a henhouse, and even one blaster pulling out all the stops was chaos incarnate, as Klaus turned that entire section of the underground base into a winter wonderland.
E-X made an amused noise. One blaster going full out was chaos incarnate. Two doing the same was a distillation of the End of the World.
He scrambled to his feet, but remained crouched in a passable approximation of a sprinter's start position. A lull in the firing, thanks to the mayhem reigning in the room, and he was blurred, then gone.
"Fire in the hole!" he yelled, decloaking in the heart of the still-fighting Council... and already glowing blue. This should be far enough away from everyone to keep them clear of the worst of the blast.
A brief twinkle.
A gentle noise, soft as a falling souffle.
A blaze of blue like an exploding star, and a roar like the breaking of worlds.
NOVA.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Dax shifted as Bladewing's sword swung through his body toward the archons. At the same time he heard E-X shout "I really hate boomers" Dax thought as he summoned all of his considerable mass of microscopic crystals from the air and formed them into a wall around the side of the scrapper that was facing the direction the explosion was coming from.
"Friggin shrapnel. Friggin boomer not likin using his fist, going kablooey in the middle of a group with two fisticuffs in the middle, doing just fine on their own. Friggin boomer trying to prove how strong he is in the dumbest way. I swear if I gotta pull any more shrapnel outa me because of him, we're gonna have words" Dax thought angrily.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
((Oy!.. E-X knows how to hit where he's needed. Check my post- he deliberately stayed clear of where the brawlers were taking out the Council one at a time. You might be having a rain of unconscious Council landing around you, but you were never in any danger of getting blown up))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
The Council never knew what hit them. The sudden concentration of that much firepower caught them completely by surprise and blew them away.
The room had three exits on the opposite wall the Council had been guarding, with handy labeled arrows marking where they led.
Mass Teleport Bay
Main Office
Cells
((I know Dax wasn't in any danger, but Dax didn't. Sorry for any unintentional confusion))
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Dusan shook his head and dared to look into the now quiet room, taking note of the three exits the Council seemed to have been guarding.
"Call me crazy," He started, beginning to walk into the room, "But I think we should take the one labeled 'Cells'"
Dax smiled. His crystaline structure dissipated and flowed along the cooridors. He flowed past Martin and the others into the room, he continued to flow past the Council soldiers till the majority of the soldiers were infront of him still blasting away at the group of metas.
He began to become humanoid behind one of the firing huts. He noticed one of the soldiers were crouched at the opposite end of the building firing around the corner at the now locked down metas. He silently walked up behind the soldier, stooped down, and said, "Hey bud, gotta light?" right before he sank a crystal into "bud's" back.
"Now the fun starts." Dax said as he began firing crystals at the soldier's backs from the cover of the hut.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad