Paradigm_Shift

It is all a Nemesis Plot. I knew it from the start, but now that Nemesis is actually here we know that this is a Nemesis Plot to make us think this is a Nemesis Plot to lure us into thinking that this thread is only a single Nemesis Plot when, in fact, it is several! And it being several Nemesis Plots is also a Nemesis Plot!

>.>

<.<

Sorry.

I'll shut up now.

There was a flash and pop of a generic incoming teleport within the Two Six building, and A Malta gunslinger materialized. Well, except that he wasn't a gunslinger. The duster hat was present, but the traditional gangster cloth around the face had been replaced with smooth metalic metal. He wore a trenchcoat instead of a military vest, with a bare cybernetic chest displayed beneath. The final accessory was an odd back-pack like device he wore, which bore some semblance to the port-packs used by the Sky Raiders, only it lacked the four balancing rods and torso clamps. His attire was a passive grey, the metalics of his body alternating between black and white.

"Would anyone 'ere happen to be called Mustard? Name is Egregore Device, checking in for security supplimentation."

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the horde BB is describing remind me of the Ing from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

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Have no idea what you're talking about. Never heard of it.

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Creatures made of dark energy or something to that effect. Possible tie-in with a quasi-sentient bio-hazard form of organic crystal called phazon. They feed on life force to make themselves stronger, and are capable of limited shape-shifting. The really powerful ones can merge with objects, like modern weaponry or armor, phase shift, and teleport.

The horde doesn't remind me too much of the ing though. The ing never travel in groups larger than three, generally, and there simply aren't that many of them. Also, they are severely weakened/injured by atmosphers that can sustain what we consider to be life. They can only live on barren worlds, preferably without atmospheres.

.......

>.>

<.<

Yea. I'm done. *Runs away*

Explosive Runes.

Must know what the Horde is. Is dying from trying to look into the future.

Good thing the stock market just went belly-up. I want my last check to BOUNCE without having to worry about reprecussions. ^.^

Also, I have to wonder just how the Clockwork King attended Hope's graduation. Did he march up in his brain-in-jar suit or has he had some new suit worked up for him?

Also, what does Hope LOOK like? I've been reading through the whole thing imagining something akin to a Cannon Duke.

OOC

Fah.

BIC:

Masquerade only had the twelve senses mentioned previously, and as he was touching a wall, his sense of duty and law was completely overwhelmed. It was a very solid surface, and a wall, obeying a strict set of laws that most laws obeyed and never deviating from these laws unless forced to.

So the walls were walls. Figured. Masquerade didn't really take note of the vanished Sage, and instead teleported away. He did not appear in any of the other rooms or the previous room he had visited via his last teleport.

Approval of everything expect for...

HOPE? What kind of sick person names their kid HOPE?

*Reads*

Huh. That's wierd. I swear I saw Sister Psych's name in there.

*Rereads*

Aha! I knew it! Wait. Was she in the SAME ROOM?!?!?

*Rerereads*

What.

*Rererereads*

Errrrrrrr........What?

With Crestfallen gone, Recycler-33 stood still for a while wondering how the hero had jumped out of the Tiberium Gel-it was much too sticky to allow much movement or any form of jumping. He shrugged, put that conundrum aside for later, and focused on the one hero remaining: Mr. Invincible.

In addition to having Doomtastic on his tail, he found the two Enlightened warriors charging him with their Tiberium crystal swords.

***

OOC:

In the interest of time, I'm going to accelerate the fight versus Valkyrie to its inevitable conclusion.

BIC:

Valkyrie hadn't stood a chance. She had lost the very moment she set foot in the building. She was one of the most powerful heroes in Paragon City-She had successfully taken entire groups of villains like the ones she currently fought and WON handily. These villains were just like many she had defeated in the past-But there were differences. They were ignoring her suit's modulation system, which prevented her from yielding to any attack, be it to knock her down or hold her still, by injecting purple-colored triangular shaped nanites into her body and regulating it accordingly. And then, of course, her nanites could also bolster her suit's toughness by directly fusing with it to engage Glory made, a proverbial and literal moment of glory for Valkyrie in which she was borderline invincible for a short period of time. The villains were ignoring-negating perhaps-her suit's Glory mode.

It was as they didn't exist! She could have coped with losing access to Glory mode, but the negation of her purple triangular nanites sealed her fate and put the nails in her coffin.

Being thrown around like a rag doll by the immense variety of attacks coming from all directions from so many foes, Valkyrie could only respond on occasion with sluggish attacks. She fell, and her medi-porter kicked in before any of Dr. Mechan's zealous drones could eliminate her for good.

Mechanomorphic rested against the nearby wall, saving his recording of the fight for study, before tearing off his arm and using it to build a new one from a tool kit he pulled from hammer space.

Nightshade was still unconcious behind the fallen chasis of a drone, the medic having just finished patching him up.

The problem with Crestfallen's life-draining attacks was that he was trying to drain lifeforce from undead targets. It may have had some merit had they been traditional zombies, but apparently technologically reanimated corpses were the rage these days.

Exposure to his ring of dark energy did do damage to them, however-That was the whole point of using negative energy. Most ot the attack was absorbed in its entirety by the darkest night of vaporized Tiberium and the first Enlightened. The other five minions were out of range.

Recycler-33 in the meantime, was trying to figure out how to get rid of this pest. Having fought several heroes before, he knew trying the fear switch wouldn't work on negative energy users. If only the hero would just go away-Ad there the Recycler found his answer.

A chasm erupted in space and time, a black hole of shifting energies that formed right on top of the advancing hero and began shifting him into an alternate dimension. All of the minions retreated, leaving Crestfallen stranded in the middle of a patch of Tiberium gel, a storm of vaporized Tiberium swarming around him, and a black hole about to swallow him up and spit him back out where the sun didn't shine.

***

Valkyrie was surprised, and slightly scared-A simple robotic minion being able to knock her back, even when her armor was in Glory mode, was unthinkable. The uneasiness did not last however, as she quickly dismissed the whole thing as a fluke and got up, pointed her sword at Breaker, and sent a focused beam of her spear's *which she never used* nanites to deconstruct him.

Said first minion dived and attempted to disembowl Crestfallen as he charged forward with his Tiberium blade, and even mid-way through his charge Crestfallen would realize that moving had suddenly become much harder due to the ground turning into Tiberium gel, courtesy of Recycler-33. While the solution was harmless due to the amount it had been diluted, it became incredibly sticky, and just as hard to traverse as quicksand while trace radiation also started poking microscopic holes in Crestfallen's body, resulting in lowered resistance, making him more receptive to incoming attacks.

That wasn't all though. With a little wave of his hand, Recycler-33 had a full storm of vaporized Tiberium going, which then started to swirl around Crestfallen as though it were sentient. Although it was too dilute to harm him, as was the gel, the specialized radiation from vaporized Tiberium was adapt at weakening the density of any material, making it slightly lighter, and in Crestfallen's case, weakening his blows. The green mist was also incredibly hard to see through, like the darkest night ever.

The dark servant proved to not be as dilute. The sentient mass of vaporized Tiberium charged Crestfallen, trying to expose him to its body and drastically reduce his combat effectiveness while at the same time converting his mass into more Tiberium upon contact.

And then, of course, there were the rest of Recycler-33s minions, who were all happy to show Crestfallen WHY exactly masterminds were renowned as one-man armies. The three Awakened zombies projectile-spat Tiberium-based toxins at him, the remaining Enlightened zombie conjuring a dark blast of vaporized Tiberium and launching it at him. The cultist did something a little different. He tried to siphon life away from Crestfallen but directly converting part of his mass into Tiberium from afar, ripping said mass out and then implanting the converted mass into itself in order to heal its own ailments.

***

Valkyrie wasn’t a member of the Vindicators and Positron’s sidekick for nothing. She was an absolute nightmare in combat, and villains having fought her before would be well wary of her habit of getting back up after being defeated, seemingly invincible and untouchable for a brief period of time.

The attacks launched at her simply splashed off or had no effect on her amazing armor and its accompanying nano-bots. She kicked Mechanomorphic in the gut, sending him into the wall while she turned to engage the new horde of enemies. She charged Breaker, sword drawn and glowing with a hellish amount of firepower. From the scene about, she had already ruined two masterminds’ days almost effortlessly, and the look on her face showed she expected a repeat performance…

***

Dr. Mechan now stood over the device, neatly removed from the floor and on a plate to prevent the innards from spilling out. Now all he needs to do is transport it back to one of the trucks outside without it getting damaged by collateral damage.

Masquerade teleported back into the same room as Sage and began the second part of his test. He started to probe the walls with his limited mental abilities.

OOC:

The table doesn't actually extend too far below the floor, just a bit where it has its power source. Really, it was just fused to the floor for some contrived form of convenience.

Mainly mine.

BIC:

One of the Enlightened-A reanimated corpse with a blade of crystal Tiberium and more obvious cybernetics than its lesser Awakened counterpart-saw Crestfallen on his way down and covered his landing site, prepared to strike down the newcomer if it needed to. He was not identified as a friendly.

“Identify.” The Enlightened said in a monotone mechanical voice as the hero landed, which drew the attention of Recycler-33 and the rest of his small army, who were now looking at him expectantly.

***

The warbots rounded the corner to see Mechanomorphic trying to keep Valkyrie from eviscerating him with his cybernetic right arm-and to his credit, he was doing well. Just not well enough, he was obviously out of his league. All his drones lay in pieces, they had all obviously detonated at random intervals. Nightshade was unconscious, and his combat medic had apparently dragged him behind the chassis of a mostly intact exploded drone to try and stem the flood of purple blood coming from the stump of what HAD been his right arm. The rest of his men were lying around with various sword-related injuries.

“Getting back up after we kill you ain’t fair.” He groaned through gritted teeth as Valkyrie’s blade ate into his metal arm. “Could REALLY use some more gun bout now…”

***

The schematics for the building indicated the device was directly attached to a small power source directly underneath the floor, which could short out the system should it be removed without warning. However, logic held that one could simply turn the system off first before trying to remove it. Said instructions for manipulating the controls of the TMS were not listed, however. Where were the pencil-neck scientist hostages when you NEEDED them?

Of course, being the educated sort, Dr. Mechan could probably just burrow into the table for some quick rewiring to figure out the controls.

OOC:

TMS is used to map time, past, present, future. Past and present are easy, but due to the intense amount of energy you need, it can only plot ten seconds into the future. As a mapping system, it remotely scans an area and pin-points all areas of chronological interest. It's primary use is as 'advanced surveilance,' although it can also, by complete coincidence, be used to piece together a time loop.

And how does Dr. Mechan know about the ring? Recycler-33 hasn't told him yet.

OOC:

No table legs, the table is more of a cube fully built into the ground.

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he tried to teleport [u]across the room[u]

[/ QUOTE ]he then started to probe the walls with mental probes to test them and their reactions.

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Recycler-33 scowled as Doomtastic hugged him, and once contact ceased, he started dusting off his suit as if something filthy were covering it. Something then occured to him.

"Wait a second. Who's watching the door if we're out in the middle of the street and everyone else is inside...?"

***

Mechanomorphic and Nightshade reached the fork in the hallway the group had originally split at, only to run into an irrate Valkyrie and an entire squad of Longbow.

"Oh, that's just not FAIR. We don't have enough gun for this crap." Mechanomorphic pouted, stomping a foot against the ground almost childishly. "Parlay?"

"Sure." Valkyrie said. "How does, 'Drop weapons, deactivate drones, hands up, against the wall,' sound?"

A ball of adaptive acid smacked into her face. "REJECTED!" Nightshade howled triumphantly, the palm-nozzle of his suit still foaming with green chemicals. "KILL THEM ALL!" And that's when both sides opened fire...

***

Checking back in with Dr. Mechan's group, all opposition had been cleared. Now all one needed to do was find the device in question-It would probably be difficult, as their employers hadn't been very specific about what to grab. And none of them had been given coordinates for the base yet, in case one had been a Longbow spy. Tagging and teleporting equipment wasn't an option, they would have to drag whatever the trio was looking for with them. And the longer they stayed to haul everything out, the more they risked an army of heroes crushing them all like a tidal wave.

Or then again, they could have just read the labels. Right in the center of the alcove in the left wall was a square table with a projector surface, with the words "Temporal Mapping System" printed neatly on one side and a few controls on the other. The only problem was that the table had been built directly into the ground.

That was a big 'only.' If they weren't careful, they could destroy the device while trying to remove it.

OOC:

I pronounce this thread to be DEAD.

Like, 'well done' dead. 'Extra crispy' dead. 'Ashes' dead.

'GONE' dead, even.

Recycler-33 rolled his eyes as Doomtastic went and got her [censored] kicked by an Officer. On the downside, that meant HE had to deal with Longbow himself now in addition to everything else. On the upside, that was one less person to pay-

Grahn came out of nowhere and dumped Doomtastic's bleeding body in front of him, saying something about her needing help. And now that the Recycler was right next to her, it did become a matter of pure convenience to resurrect her.

His newly created dark servant, composed entirely of diluted vaporized Tiberium, backed away casually from her body so as not to expose her to harmful wiffs of its body. That, and to give Recycler-33 room to work. The mastermind's power was the ability to manipulate Tiberium in all its forms-Mostly vaporized, Tiberium in its weakest state. So he targeted his dark servant, and started siphoning trace amounts of Tiberium from its mass.

Radiation, in small doses, is actually good for the body, as are certain poisons. The same held true to Tiberium, which when processed correctly, could be used to increase a person's healing rate or even synthesize flesh and bone in order to get them back up.

Recycler-33 forced the green mist down Doomtastic's throat. From within her, it began to stitch up her wounds at an astounding rate and supplied a dose of pure oxygen to her brain along with a shot of adrenalin to her heart. It would get her up and running in no time at all...

“I can handle myself.” He said to Grahn while he worked. “Take care of the hero, he’s the only one of these people that can give me any real trouble.”

***

The Longbow Mechs were weaker than their larger counterpart, and began falling one by one, which is when the remaining cloaked Spec-Ops in the room panicked. No less than ten decloaked suddenly.

They were all throwing EMP grenades at the drones.

Masquerade stayed where he was, observing his surroundings for a moment, and arrived at two conclusions. He was either in somebody's head or a different plane entirely, possibly a pocket dimension. He suspected the latter. Seeing as there wasn't much else to do, he started to perform a series of simple test.

First, he tried to teleport across the room. If he could teleport, he could escape. Following the success or failure of this experiment, he then started to probe the walls with mental probes to test them and their reactions.

The two Enlightened undead warriors both conjured small, dark blasts of diluted vaporized Tiberium to blast away the debris being thrown their way. They advanced to block Mr. Invincible's assault when suddenly Grahn leapt into the fray.

They blinked.

Recycler-33 finally reached they, eyebrow raised slightly. He took the opprotunity to reinforce his three henchmen with three more, emaciated cadavers with only the barest hints of augmentation emerged from the truck-the Awakened. Recycler-33 then brought his hands together and started gathering a cloud of vaporized Tiberium so he could create a quasi-sentient dark servant to help him in battle.

***

Cataphracts were notoriously famous for being the weakest and the strongest possible foe at the exact same time. They were incredibly dangerous if they got the jump on you, and otherwise they could get the crap beaten out of them by a child with some suger. It didn't stand a chance-the force bolt smacked it against the wall, and it keeled over. It was then set on fire, exploded, and torn apart in a matter of moments. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Which is why Longbow, in a rare bout of cleverness, had made a smaller mass-produced version of the cataphract, the Longbow Mech. No less than six suddenly emerged from the darkness of the blast door. The first aimed at D. Mechan with its tiny, but still potent, hyper-cannon. Two launched air bombs at the mass of hencchmen, another launched a very powerful canister of tear-gas at the General and his men, with the last blasting at him with its twin arm-cannons.

There is Psych hospital-while there's no evidence it is an asylum, its praetorian counterpart IS one.

Masquerade finally noticed Sage, who was apparently in the same place as he was. He, of course, did not see the world as others saw it. He saw it catagorized into twelve different sections:

Truth, Fanaticism, Reason, Deception, Grace, Darkness, Law, Anarchy, Duty, Instinct, Purity and Artifice. Sage registered as nothing but darkness. This was an individual Masquerade could trust to be more forthcoming than Six, at the very least.

"What just happened?" He asked Sage.

"I have the hero." Recycler-33 said confidently. He made a clenching movement with his hand, and green vapor poured from it, dissapating into the air.

The back door for the truck Recycler-33 had arrived in suddenly swung open, and Mr. Invincible suddenly found himself blocked by the thralls of the mastermind. Three emaciated corpses with bits of metal sticking out of their limbs, two tall and thicker members of the dead with alien and unearthly black armor and blades of both metal and green energies, backed by a tall and looming figure in a simple cloak.

Unknown to Mr. Invincible, these were the Awakened, the Enlightened, and a Cultist respectively. Corpses ressurected and augmented with technology of unknown origin to serve Recycler-33s purposes. The mastermind himself started making way over as well to help them out in the inevitable conflict. Which left Doomtastic to deal with Longbow, and coincidentally enough, Valkyrie could be seen aproaching with the latest arriving troops...

***

"Probably." Nightshade's voice came over the comm channel. "We're on our way to reinforce your position now, the device was not in our section of the building. Tag anything important before it can be damaged and then terminate all hostiles."

And the 'probably' turned into a 'yes.' The command to open the door had apparently ben very short, and Dr. Mechan's drones, while able to react instantly, found their long-range weapons to be less instantaeous. The Spec-Ops fell, finger trailing against the last button as the blast door opened. A cataphract stepped from the darkness, and suddenly the drones found an air bomb heading their way, and Dr. Mechan was looking down the wrong end of the machine's massive back-hyper blast cannon.