Khellendrosiic

Lord Recluse: "I are edumacated!"

Lord Recluse: *staring at piece of paper in his hand*

Black Scorpion: "Whatzzat, boss?"

Lord Recluse: "It's.....it's my report card from third grade..."

Black Scorpion: ".....so?"

Lord Recluse: "Take an assault force and raze [CENSORED] to the ground."

Black Scorpion: "Not that I don't wanna... But why?"

Lord Recluse: "NO ONE MUST KNOW I FAILED MATH IN THE THIRD GRADE EVER AGAIN!"

Random Wolf Spider: *snerk*

Lord Recluse: "...[censored]."

[ QUOTE ]
The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable.

[/ QUOTE ]

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!

The energy shields that Toy had deployed to his bots a short time ago saved Large Toy's life yet again, the rounds that Curtis fired hammering into the partially transparent bubble and falling harmlessly to the floor. It had also helped that the protector bot had hit the ground and that Curtis was still mostly blinded. The vast majority of the bullets that would have hit instead impacted against the wall or floor. From the floor, Large Toy aimed up at Curtis and fired a stunning photon grenade right into his face.

Toy Bot smoothly kicked the taser away just before the engineer could jab him with it. Four legs meant he always had one to spare for kicking something. But then, instead of pivoting down and opening fire on the Malta operative the battle drone began scuttling off to one side to take cover behind a sizeable chunk of rock. It looked as though it was trying to put the rock between it and Solid Shot.

Mini Bot was blown clear up into the air and hit the ceiling with a loud clang and crunch. It's shields taking most of the blow, Mini Bot's bright red armor was still badly stained with scarring and one arm was crushed from its impact with the ceiling. Landing in the crater left by the assault bot's detonation, the battle drone spat a few ruby bolts at the remaining enemy drone and then bounded over to take cover with Toy Bot.

"Get down!" shouted Solid Shot over the team link as he and Combat Toy reached Small Toy's corpse. The assault bot grabbed the startled Gunslinger and hurled him back at the center of the corridor.

The number of rounds being fired at the pair penetrated armor and ricocheted off shields as Solid jumped on top of Combat Toy's shoulders and rode the larger bot as he spun toward the Malta.

"Last chance to duck!" Solid shouted once more over the team link as he saw Cory and Ryat in the line of fire.

In the middle of his speech, Solid's body exploded with a nimbus of energy that normally heralded his use of a standard build up technique; though this time the energy didn't immidiately fade away and instead seeped down into Combat Toy as well. A damaging aura of electricity began emanating from the pair, reaching almost all of the way back toward the breach in its strength. Solid Shot and Combat Toy were about to perform a trick they had accidently discovered during the time Solid, Toy, and Cher'tak worked together in the Rikti War Zone that they called the Double Trouble. It involved Solid overcharging his Rikti-made electric chargers even more than he normally did and spreading that charge to Combat Toy through the normally hidden bits of exposed wiring just barely accessible if Solid shoved his feet under CT's missile racks. What resulted was a drastic power up for both participants as some energy from Combat Toy's more powerful generator leeched up into Solid at the same time as Solid's overcharge spread to Combat Toy. Toy Dispenser was still working out the physics of it himself.

"You guys are going to love this!" shouted Solid as he flicked the full auto switch on his rifle.

"Eat missiles!" shouted Combat Toy as it crouched and fired it's missiles, now temporarily wreathed in an electric field that increased their speed and damage. At the same time he fired his plasma cannons, which fired beams even wider and hotter than normal.

"Eat lead!" Solid roared at the same time as CT and his assault rifle joined him, chattering out all fifty of its rounds within seconds.

The entirety of the corridor was filled with death for a couple of seconds and only those hiding behind something or prone on the ground would escape injury. Hopefully Cory and Ryat had taken Solid's advice and skedaddled.

-----------------------------

Cher'tak hefted his bladerifle and started running off in the direction Randall had indicated, sparing no time to worry about the alien named Acid or Toy Dispenser. Cher'tak knew Toy knew what he was doing and he also trusted the smaller android knew her business as well as Cher'tak knew his.

Toy, able to do nothing but lie on the ground and monitor the situation from afar, sighed and reviewed the condition and positions of everyone on his team.

"Hey Grey," Toy said outloud after a moment. "Where did that kid go? The other mastermind type."

"Explain to me again why we're living here instead of there?" whined Mini Bot as the drone looked up from the TV where news of the Paragon City Snowball War was just finishing up.

"Magic," answered Toy Dispenser as he quickly slid from his seat and started walking away hurridly.

"But-!"

"Magic!" Toy shouted as he fled, Mini Bot chasing after him and waving its arms in the air.

Silence reigned in the LMOUSVEV base for a few seconds, broken only by the echoes of Mini Bot's high pitched voice carrying on a one sided conversation with Toy.

"Explain to me why he's a high-ranking villain again," muttered Atomic Firecracker, one of the lower ranked members of the mercenary group.

"Magic," replied Combat Toy as it dropped a heavy hand on the five foot tall corruptor's head and then walked off.

OOC: Randomness, lol?

The animation is horrible, I've seen clips of it.

Dragonlance = roxxorz.

Dragonlance movie = suxxorz.

Toy Dispenser accidently paralleled the other mastermind as well, managing to land perfectly fine before suddenly toppling forward with a groan of overstressed metal. Or maybe he was actually groaning.

"I'm gonna feel this one in the morning," muttered the android as he lay face down on the ground, limbs splayed out as though all control had been lost.

"Don't worry about me," he said, speaking directly to Grey's team link. "I'll be up and about in a minute or so and I'll grab Acid then. Solid, your friends, and my bots need your help more than I or he does at this point."

Cher'tak, in the meantime, had indeed managed to jump clear of the dropship when Delta 5 had picked it up. He had been prepared to turn and finish the titan off himself when it suddenly toppled and he need to dodge the same falling hunk of metal he had just escaped from. He did so and then leaped back on top of it to finish the damn machine off. When Delta 5 managed to gather enough strength to turn over and blast Acid, Cher'tak was right there, stabbing his bladerifle into where the brain should be and firing multiple times.

"This time: Stay down," said the Warmaster disgustidly as he yanked his bladerifle out and looked over at Grey. "Query: Location, status: Other allies?"

--------------------------------

Block Bot's head snapped back, one side of it completely blasted off by Curtis' slug. Thick electric arcs coursed up and down its body, blowing out several parts and sending the dark blue protector bot tumbling to the ground. Large Toy was luckier though, the actual bullet was deflected away by its shield but the electric arcs still connected, shorting out several systems. Their back-ups activated cleanly, but it had been a close shave. Ducking down to one knee, the proc bot twisted around and hit Combat Toy with a wave of nanites, repairing the majority of the damage the big bot had taken from the first barrage. Two seeker drones also sprang forth from Large Toy's back and zipped directly for Curtis' face.

Mini Bot's head snapped back, just barely dodging the clumsy blow from the prone assault bot. Rolling across the machine's back, the battle drone reached around and shoved one fist deep into the other robot's guts through the open back panel. Rapid firing that arm's wrist laser, Mini Bot also grabbed a handfull of cords and yanked them out, hoping to disable something vital before the bot could get up and into the fight.

Toy Bot recoiled as several bullets passed right by it, the sheer surprise at finding something clinging to the ceiling protecting it from the first volley. But that surprise wasn't about to hold out, especially since Toy Bot fired at two different Gunslingers, each arm-gun aiming independantly of the other, while he jumped onto the head of an unlucky soldier who had teleported in right beneath the drone.

Small Toy was shot cleanly through the head and went slack, but not before it had fired at one of the two enemy battle drones just now getting into the fight.

"Combat Toy! Double Trouble!" shouted Solid Shot as he rolled from cover into the fight, blasting at Curtis with a wall of buckshot and then dashing at the Gunslinger standing atop Small Toy.

Eye strip flashing brighter for a moment, the assault bot took half a moment to twist and fire both plasma cannons at the unengaged drone before running after Solid. One Gunslinger was unlucky enough to get in the assault bot's way and recieved a fist to the face that knocked him into the wall.

"Nobody come into the hall for a sec!" Solid said into the team link as he and Combat Toy barreled down on the lone Gunslinger.

Just what the hell were they thinking?

------------------------

"Not that [censored] again..." Toy muttered to himself in despair.

Exclamation: Anger: Inefficient: Cardboard box! Disguise tactic: Works: Effectively, well: Solid Snake. Current emotion-state: Disgusted: Robbed, cheated.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I feel the need to remind him that we're all playing a game about super powered people clad in tights.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Doesn't matter as long as its on the forums!

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What range are you looking for in a word count?

[/ QUOTE ]

.....

Eh heh heh.

Eh heh heh heh heh heh...

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

*roots through forum*

Mechanical Storm
So I Heard You Like Demons
Frakkin' Super Speeders
Heroic Victory
What the Future Holds

Got a couple more I could post if you want em. Hm... Rooting through this stuff has made me realize that there's one story I really need to finish and a couple characters I really need to write something about.

Ghoul: Damn right.

Archlich: It would be about time.

*reads some of the thread*

*blinks*

*wipes eyes, looks closer*

*blinks*

*mutters something about blocks of text*

[ QUOTE ]
Humanity will never be an advanced civilization so long as rain showers can delay a rocket launch.

[/ QUOTE ]

This made me lol.

*finishes writing the post, hits Continue*

"Well this was unexpected," said Large Toy during the brief second that the group of bots and the Malta Group operatives had stared at one another in shock.

Then the Gunslinger started cursing and each bot noticed the IFF tag on him. He was a Gunslinger known as Curtis, one of the more powerful members of the Malta Group. As such, it would be really stupid for them to sit around and wait to get shot. So they moved.

Without any further words - For who needs to talk when the game gets serious? - the drones sprung into action. Toy Bot leaped into the air, twisting around in midair to land feet-first on the ceiling. Digging in, the drone started scuttling forward and blasting at Curtis for the half second the Gunslinger was still there.

Mini Bot ran full-tilt at the Engineer, missiles launched by Combat Toy streaking over its head to blow the non-functioning assault bot the Maltan was cowering behind off its feet and onto the soldier. Not bothering to fire its weapons, Mini Bot instead powered up both buzzsaws and went right for the throat, literally.

Small Toy, already cloaked when the teleport had occured, simply faded back, trying to get far enough away to cover the rest of the crew. Unlike Toy Bot and Mini Bot, Small Toy hadn't backed far enough away to not be hit when Curtis teleported amidst the larger drones and opened fire in every which direction. Several bullets hit the sniper drone, forcing it to go prone to avoid any more damage.

Combat Toy, being the largest and the most dangerous, took the lion's share of hits. But since it was also the first drone to get double bubbled by the protector bots it took less damage than nay of the others would have. Eye strip lighting up all at once in silent anger, the assault bot snikked out its wrist sword and made a wide slash at the gunslinger. Both protector bots, holes in their upper chests, ducked and fired at the same time in a very choreographed motion.

The drones were more than capable of fighting without Toy Dispenser on hand but they tended to concentrate solely on the fight. That single mindedness would probably come back to bite them pretty soon.

------------------------

"WE GOT AN AV!" Solid shouted over the team link as he nimbly avoided the drone's explosion and witnessed Curtis' teleport attack through the hole in the wall. "Maltan Gunslinger just up the way! I'm moving to engage! Could use some back-up."

This last bit was directed at Cory but Solid didn't stick around to see if he was heeded, instead blasting off toward the hole that Curtis was almost framed in, the massive bulk of Combat Toy looming up over him from behind. Not willing to risk the shot, Solid swung wide and moved to take cover behind the remaining wall. He'd wait for the gunslinger to teleport again before attacking.

------------------------

Cher'tak was blown back by the plasma bolt burst, flying about ten feet until he slammed into the twisted wreckage of the dropship. Briefly stunned, Cher'tak was more occupied with pulling himself out of the tangle of metal than in watching Acid swing the titan around like a rag doll.

Toy, on the other hand, had little to do but watch and wasn't quite sure that he was seeing what he was seeing. Here was Acid, human-sized and human-strengthed Acid, flinging two or three tons of the most advanced example of human technology about with a freaking grapple beam like in that one video Solid Shot had shown him a few weeks ago. It was called Haloid, he remembered, loading it up in one corner of his vision and fast forwarding to the part where Samus was flinging the SPARTAN around through buildings exactly like Acid was doing... now...

Oh [censored]... thought Toy as he made the connection between Acid's response to his comment about Metroid and the Khelari's sudden supercharged state.

"Damn it, Acid!" Toy shouted as the electricity coursing over his body started speeding up and growing thicker, radiating out from his body at ever increasing distances. "If you tell me you got the inspiration for this from a [censored] Wii game...!"

Furious, Toy continued to charge energy in a fashion reminiscent of a popular children's anime (though he would punch you if you mentioned the similarity to him) and aimed both hands at the titan Grey was trying to hug to death.

"I hope you're grounded," Toy muttered to the tanker as his body reached the limit, unable to handle any more of the strange, arcane energy that he was generating.

What followed was something akin to several red lightning bolts hitting a lightning rod at the same time for the length of three seconds. The beam seemed to twist and curve about in midair as if it were alive but stayed perfectly connected between Toy and the titan. The mastermind had only used this attack once before in a dual with a future Lord Recluse. Both villains had been at the end of their ropes by that point and this blast had not only disentigrated the majority of Recluse's body but knocked Toy out for the majority of three days. It had been a miracle that he had managed to stumble back to the exit portal, prize in hand, alive and still in time as though only hours had passed.

Before he had passed out, Toy had calculated the power released to be akin to one or two 'Nova' class detonations that high powered blasters were so fond of using. The estimated back lash was also proportionatly higher but if Toy's hunch was right, he'd rather be out of it for a few minutes than what could happen to Acid.

OOC: *wonders how this is going to work out*

Balsk smirked back at the werehuman, the same side of his mouth quirking up to reveal his teeth.

"You'd be surprised," Balsk said enigmatically as he finally took his hand off the hilt of his sword and rubbed at his neck. "But yeah, I'm coming along. It'd take a living god to keep me away from something this interesting."

"Restrain your enthusiasm," Archlich said as he suddenly stopped, blue runes bursting into life all around him. "You may just get your wish."

Ahead, one of the ubiqutous pillars was splitting apart into what looked like a surrealist's attempt at an artificial human, all jagged lines merging uncomfortably with shapes almost too smooth to be real.

"~~~-!@~--!%@~" spoke the construct in a booming tongue that no one had a hope of understanding.

"Holy [censored]," Balsk muttered as he whipped out his sword. "I couldn't understand that..."

"!~~~~@#!~&*~~!" said the guardian once more, it's tone unchanged.

It's intent became obvious as it slammed a beachball sized fist down where Archlich had been standing. The lich, anticipating this, had teleported atop a shattered pillar behind the guardian and loosed a flurry of magical bolts at the guardian's back.

"Why defend what is not there?" Archlich shouted triumphantly, his eyes flaring once more.

EDIT: Edited cause I realized no non-English characters are showing up.

"Safety: Assured: NBC attack," answered Cher'tak over the team link as he dove to one side, avoiding a couple of missiles but taking direct hits from a couple others.

Bits of blood red armor fell to the ground as Cher'tak picked himself up, revealing undamaged slick looking grey metal underneath. The grey armor almost seemed to shiver a bit at being exposed to the open air and it was obvious that those missile strikes had punched fairly deep. Not that this fact would deter the Warmaster from his duty.

Indeed, Cher'tak seemed to take Delta 5's attack on Toy as a personnal affront. The Rikti knew Toy was a formidible combatant even without his attendant robots but for the Maltan titan to ignore a Rikti Warmaster in favor of a minion-less mastermind? Unacceptable.

"Ignore me: Your peril!" Cher'tak shouted angrily as scooped up his fallen bladerifle and moved to flank the titan again, firing on the run at the machine's legs in an attempt to hit something vital and slow it down.

While Cher'tak was running and gunning, Toy Dispenser was frantically swerving and diving. Out of the half dozen or so missiles fired at the mastermind only one hit, though that one tore a hefty chunk of armor off Toy's chest, revealing the layer of artificial muscles under his upper chest. Nanites were repairing the damage but they'd need time and a lack of more damage to worry about.

Thankfully Toy's evasive pattern combined with Acid's shields caused the grapple line to harmlessly deflect from its target and whiz off into open air until it was retracted. Toy blasted the titan with a bolt of arcane lightning in return but did no significant damage.

----------------------------------

Solid materialized next to Cory just as the first drone started firing, peppering the blaster with laser pulses that seared bits of armor up and down his left side. Unfortunately the impact force generated from the solid light did indeed throw off his aim. But being unable to place a bullet where it needed to go didn't phase the droid, he just needed to flick a switch to load an LRM round, set it to a proximity fuse, and fire it using about the same calculation.

If all went well, the LRM would either hit the drone and kill it or explode right around the drone and knock it off course into the ceiling, floor, or walls. Either way, Solid would charge forward and slug a few more rounds at the [censored] in order to make sure it was dead. He could leave the other drone to Cory.

-----------------------------

Balsk rolled his eyes at Rosie's childish tease but continued to stay on his guard as the group moved through the pillars. He trusted this undead about as far as he could have thrown a red dragon.

"Do not insult my intelligence," Archlich replied curtly to both Rosie and Thermoplast as he kept moving, looking over his shoulder briefly. "It is not random happenstance that brought you and two of your cohorts to this place so recently after I had opened it. Either some other being capable of tracking portals across dimensional boundries informed you of what I was doing or 'Lady' Grey and her pet army did. Take multiple guesses if you need too, the first three don't count.

"Sarcasm and my increasing irritation aside, this pocket dimension remains the last bastion of godhood in Rikti space. If there are to be any records that the gods or their worshippers had saved then they shall reside here in that monolith. That monolith is the equivilent of the Hall of Olympus for these gods and they likely died there, surrounded by as much of their fading wealth and power as they could accumulate."

Archlich had turned to face the distant monolith about halfway through his speech and turned back to glance at the others now.

"Gods can be all too human, can't they?" asked the mage, the blue flames of his eyes flaring brighter than usual.

"Not going to be enough room for all of us," Toy said to Vanessa as he compared the size of the sled to how many people and bots there were. "But I think I can take care of that."

"Do we have too?" whined Mini Bot as Toy looked back and snapped his fingers at his bots.

"Yes, you do," answered the mastermind as the other five bots did an about face and started running off out to the tundra.

"Maaaaan...." muttered Mini Bot as it kicked the snow in annoyance and then bounded off after the others.

"They'll meet up with us later," said Toy as he stepped onto the hoversled and stood near the front.

"And how the hell will they manage that?" asked Solid as he stepped on as well.

"Name, rank, and serial number is all you'll get," replied Toy Dispenser with an audible grin.

Solid huffed and crossed his arms.

OOC: So Solid was never teleported then?

OOC: *rubs hands together*

BIC: "Mother [censored]!" Solid shouted as he brought both arms up in front of his face, his enlargened forearms blocking the few bullets that bounced back at him and weren't blocked by the timely intervention of Acid's shield.

High enough up in the air, Solid hadn't needed to worry about the energy wave, though Cher'tak certainly had. The Warmaster had taken one look at the oncoming wave of energy, knew he couldn't leap above it in time, and instead slammed the blade of his bladerifle into the ground. Gripping the hilt with both hands, Cher'tak was able to weather the energy wave as it crashed over and past him though he still took quite a bit of damage.

Smoking slightly from the elbow and knee joints, Cher'tak yanked his bladerifle back up out of the ground and shot a glance at the charging Randall. Nodding in agreement, the Rikti dashed to one side, seeking to catch Delta 5 in a triangle between him, Randall, and Acid. As he ran, Cher'tak snapped off a couple of shots at the currently immobile titan.

Solid, meanwhile, wasn't going to stick around and play with the massive hunk of metal and weaponry that was the Malta Titan. His targets, the drones, were currently speeding away like nobody's business and only Ineffable and Cortland stood between them and whatever their objective was. Also, as it was, he was too far away too catch up and hit the drones with anything that could slow them down.

Boosting up another few dozen meters to stay out of direct engagement range of the titan, Solid whipped his rifle up to his normal eye and synced it up with his targetting eye. Computations of wind speed, distance, and target velocity were running through Solid's head when he was suddenly yanked through space to a spot right next to Cortland and a hell of a lot closer to the drone.

The sudden change of location threw his calculations off but he was quick to adapt, the shorter distance would ease things greatly.

Aiming for the less-armored location right between the legs where a human's groin would be and was clearly exposed given the drone's pose, Solid waited for the last second and then fired a single specialty AP shell designed to detonate almost as soon as it punched through something. Given the general construction of these types of drones, the shell should explode some where near the main spine and cripple the annoying minion for good.

"Someone's trying to pull a Samus, isn't he?" said Toy as he came flying up from over the edge and witnessed Acid dodge the titan. "And I think this is going to take more than just you, Acid."

One hand casting forcefields on the three other combatants and the second hand snapping off well-aimed pulse rifle shots at the titan, Toy went into full support mode. Basically he zipped back and forth in a complicated evasive pattern above the battlefield while providing shielding to his allies and the occasional well aimed laser bolt or electrical blast to the fight. He couldn't do much else until his bots caught up and considering that they were only equipped with jet thrusters when Toy expected to make high-altitude drops they lacked the flight capability to make it to the battlefield in a timely fashion.

--------------------------

"It is best that she remain trapped beyond the veil," Archlich said to the small trailing group. "While I worship her for the power that she is I know full well that she would extinguish humanity given the chance. I... do not agree with those views."

Archlich had come to a statue that looked a lot like a human caught in the advanced stages of the drug the Lost used. A melding between human and Rikti, this god looked to have been created sometime during this dimension's forced evolution. The god looked to be fairly minor, having been in existence for only a short time before the purge of all religion and thus garnered only a small following of scientists and researchers if the glyphs at the base of the statue were true.

"I do not know why you were called here," Archlich said to Rosie though he still refrained from looking at her. "Perhaps those 'high-and-mighty' heroes believed I would do something foolish. Something like trying to scavenge what remains of the power the gods of this dimension had before they fell into ruin."

Pausing, Archlich spread open his arms and looked out toward the rest of the cavern and the mysterious carved pillars that filled it beyond sight. Beings like Rosie and Archlich, creatures of magic, could feel the sluggish energy of the place, long abandoned and weak, but there and able to be tapped by someone with the knowledge: Knowledge that someone like Archlich would certainly have.

Even Balsk and Thermoplast could get an inkling of this same feeling now that Archlich had brought it to their attention. Balsk due to his magical abilities and training and Thermoplast due to the experience gained while among the SPC. The draconian got a little nervous at hearing this proclamation and one hand inched toward the sword hanging at his side.

"Yes the 'heroes' would think that, wouldn't they?" said Archlich rhetorically as he lowered his arms and turned to face the trio. "But they see only the evil that beings such as I might accomplish and overlook the good that we do. For how much do we truly know about the vanishing of the gods of this dimension? Sure we know that they were all killed by a starvation of worship but we don't know why or for what purpose the Rikti were driven to do so! We don't know the means or the person that orchastrated this mass deicide!

"Yes we were told that the Rikti united as one to annihilate all god worshippers and we know that the gods died from lack of worship, but just look at how many holes are in that story! Just think about it: How hard it would be to kill an entire worlds worth of gods! Gods that knew what was coming!"

"Not going to get any answers from here, Bones," said Balsk as he nodded toward the statue of the scientist god. "Not even from that bugger. He lasted longer than the others somehow, but we're still here a hundred years too late to talk to him. How do ya plan to learn stuff with no evidence remaining?"

"I must at least try," hissed the mage as he spun around and stalked off down the path, aiming for what appeared to be a monolith of some sort of the distance.

OOC: Your guys were in the room? Oops. Oh well.

BIC: "Wow, what a rip off of HK-47 you are," remarked ARC as he smoothly ducked the plasma blast and then rolled to the side, his superspeed letting him stay one step ahead. "And crossfire, [censored]."

Now, ARC wasn't worried much about the assault bot at the moment. While it was annoying that it had blocked his attack and hadn't exploded yet, the jump bot knew it was just a matter of time before the residual charge built up inside the machine and burnt it out from the inside. You see, ARC had built up such an incredible amount of energy that it was almost physically impossible to get harmlessly dispose all of it. In fact, ARC's current power output was down 25% because of the damage he had suffered from channeling that much power. The assault bot's problem, however, would be a bit more subtle.

Through ways that the scientists who made ARC didn't really understand themselves, the smallest bit of energy that got into the system of a living or mechanical target from his attack would create something of an echo of itself in the system as it raced back and forth through various pathways. This echo would in turn strengthen the original charge, making it produce a more powerful echo which made the charge stronger and so on and so forth. It also seemed impossible to ground. The only way to not die from this attack was to, effectively, not get hit.

And the assault bot had certainly been hit.

So that little bit of alien electric charge was circulating through the machine's body, gradually building up power and beginning to overload systems one by one. Robots usually started acting really jerky near the end and could hardly percieve their environment as sensors shut down or burnt out from overload.

But ARC couldn't really fight any more at his level of power and decided to turn tail and run like hell.

...in a moment.

"Hey! Stop ignoring me!" came an irritated shout from the hole in the wall moments before ARC came leaping back into the room, flames still spewing from his feet.

"There's a reason we're called jump bots, you know," said the android as it dashed forward and decapitated two lower ranking Bane Spiders before they could blink. "And it's not cause we kick [censored] at basketball."

Flicking a middle finger at the hologram of Black Scorpion and then giving it the boot for good measure, ARC channeled all of its energy and that of anything around it into its fists. Every color in the room aside from the brilliant neon blue of ARC's fists seemed to become pale and washed out as the charging finished and the jump bot looked down at Cry.

"Rock a good-bye, baby," ARC said as he brought both fists down on the child, the pent up power within them capable of reducing a fare sized apartment building to rubble.

"Gonnafeelthisinthemorning," ARC said to himself miliseconds before contact.

OOC: Thanks Grey.

<_< And Ineffable is getting shot at if he does the bear hug thing, fyi. In real life there is always friendly fire.

OOC: >_> Damn it Soviet, stop using my real name. I like anonymity and people don't recognize me as that name.

BIC: "Hey! No fair!" shouted the jump bot as it was hurled through the air. "I am totally alive as long as you ignore the metal bits and the lack of blood and gore!"

Hitting the ground and skidding a couple of feet on both hands and feet, the jump bot bounced off the wall and tumbled forward, hopping back to its feet in a quick motion.

"What the hell man? I am totally supposed to be faster than thought and cut people before they even know I cut em! Do you know how cool that stuff is?" whined the jump bot, speaking so quickly that the words almost stumbled over one another getting out of its vocoder.

A yellow glow suffused the jump bot's feet and the android's arms started randomly darting back and forth, leaving behind little afterimages. The same two swords appeared again, generating out from its wrists and arching over the back of both hands. The blades extended a good two feet past each hand.

"The fury of ARC shall not be denied!" shouted the jump bot with a sudden fake Japanese accent and a clash of music from a pair of stereos built into each shoulder plate. "Blinding Electric Slash of the Dancing Hurricane! WUAH!"

Dashing forward at Cry, ARC expertly (and with the assistance of its superspeed) swerved past the three heroes and got up right next to the baby. The jump bot then started spinning around in wild gyrations that looked a lot like break dancing. Except break dancing usually didn't include flashing electric blades that lashed out at everything around it.

A second after the Sky Raider team made mince meat out of the windows a three foot long oblong container came sailing into the room from where it had deployed off the Sky Skiff. Unfolding as soon as it hit the ground, the container revealed itself to be a Sky Raider assault jump bot.

"Hell to the yeah to the [censored] stealth system!" announced the jump bot as twin electric blades projected from each wrist. "Can't see what can't be unseen! Hoo yah, baby cakes!"

Crouching low, the aqua blue colored jump bot aimed at Cry's holder and then dashed forward in a superspeeded blur. The bot took a classic anime samurai action pose as he blurred into existence several feet beyond the woman and then waited dramatically for her to explode into blood and gore like what usually happened.

Cher'tak's response to the unexpected assault and crippling of the dropship was a lengthy sequence of mental curses fit to boil someone's brain out. Thankfully the dropship had landed more or less on its belly, crushing the dorsal guns but keeping everything else from being knocked around too much. Not that it mattered much with the engines disabled, the dropship certainly wasn't going anywhere and enough emergency power remained for only a few minutes of operation.

"Emotion-state: Rage," growled Cher'tak as he made his way to an emergency escape hatch in the side of the ship and unlocked it. The door ground open slowly, too slowly for Cher'tak's taste, and he gave it a savage kick that sent the door flying out into the tower.

"Enemy: Foolish desire: [censored] kicking: Freely given," said Cher'tak as he jumped out of the dropship and shouldered his bladerifle. "Ally Acid: Support arrived. Human phrase: Appropriate: ..."

There was a clicking sound from Cher'tak's helmet and suddenly the Warmaster was speaking with the voice of Samual L. Jackson.

"I'm tired of these CENSORED titans on my CENSORED planet!" shouted Cher'tak as he opened fire.

While Cher'tak was busting his way out of the dropship, Solid had been hot on the heels of the two drones. He had ceased fire after his first shot in order to load up a magazine of AP rounds instead of his standard non-lethal variety. Sliding the magazine in just as he came out of the tunnel right behind the drones, the lens of Solid's targetting eye widened as he saw the titan come down and blow the hell out of the dropship.

Hitting the metaphorical afterburners, Solid just barely managed to slide under the falling dropship after the drones and then use his overload ability. Illegal Rikti technology in his forearms flared brightly, casting harmless but pretty arcs of electricity every which way as he supercharged the rifle in his hands.

Pulling up into an attack posture, Solid gave up his chance at keeping up with the drones in order to blaze away with a pumped up full auto attack. Electrically charged bullets acted as their own blue glowing tracer rounds, blasting at both drones in the most powerful attack Solid could pull out of his hat. The impressive dodges the drones had pulled off earlier would be for naught as Solid didn't really have to be accurate with this attack. If you were in front of him, you got hit. Period.

Needless to say Solid Shot enjoyed using this technique immensely.

Solid's trigger finger had twitched when Drechi started his short rant. It was a good thing that his assault rifle had been in several pieces by that point or he might have pulled it out and done something a little more stupid than what Ryatt had done. As it was, he hastily snapped his rifle back together in a few seconds and was in the process of reattatching it to the magnetized plates under his cape when the train came to a stop.

"And here I was about to ask if we were here yet," said Solid as he got up and jumped off the train right after Nessie's bots.

"Like we even need a soul," said Mini Bot from where it had squeezed its way to Prickle and Spindle. "We kick enough [censored] without it."

Toy Dispenser decided he'd wait till everyone else got off before him. Drechi's obvious hatred had ticked the mastermind off more than he would like to admit, a reaction that he apparently shared with Solid and Ryatt. It wasn't every day that a robot, inherently free of racial boundries, got flat out told that someone hated him and all his kind.

He needed a few extra seconds to cool down and would exit right before Build if the other metahuman pointedly waited for Toy to get out first.

"Someone has an inferiority complex," said Solid out loud as he snapped the magazine back into his rifle. "And not knowing how you work is preferrable to definitively knowing that you're merely a simulacrum of a quirky human personality compiled by a hyperactive genius script kiddy from Korea bought for twenty bucks on E-bay."

"Heh," was the entirety of Toy's comment as he leaned back in his seat and tilted his head up a bit to look at the ceiling.

Drechi, with the paranoia and senses only a highly trained fighter could gain, could tell that despite looking in almost the opposite direction Toy was glaring right at him.