Insert The Best of Both Worlds Here (part 5 of 5)

The lights returned to a normal level, and Adrian could see that all of the other agents had fallen to the floor with dazed looks on their faces.

"Tey have been drawn into muy fanteseey world, Liebrian, your sixth sense 'as saved ou, but fortunately, I 'av something else for you!"

Adrian scarcely had time to react as a small rocket burst through the wall and hit the ground in front of him. Adrian picked up the unconscious forms of Drake and Doug and hurled them to safety. Time seemed to move in slow motion as the rocket's casing flew apart due to the explosion inside it expanding.

"Librarian Art 7: Mystery Vanish!" He yelled, throwing a smoke pellet to the ground.

The wall the missile came through suddenly collapsed as Osiris strode into the room; the ballistic missile launcher on his right arm was still smoking. Its computer brain immediately began processing its surroundings.
Ballistic missile count: two remaining...

Target has disappeared, engaging stealth camouflage and thermal/motion track.

Target has been found in the rafters, firing grapple.

Adrian was astonished that this THING could spot him without even looking. It simply raised its left arm and the whole hand shot off at the wrist to grab Adrian around the neck. Osiris gave the cable connecting his hand to the rest of his arm a mighty tug, and Adrian was suddenly flying through the air towards Chevila.

Adrian crashed through the windshield and out the back window of the pickup, receiving numerous cuts from the broken glass.

"I seem to have underestimated you..." Adrian coughed, getting up, and drawing Hoshikuzu to sever the cable that connected the hand around his throat to the arm it belonged to.

Osiris walked towards the pick-up truck, his computer brain whirring.

Target has entered engineering section, retracting grapple cable, disengaging stealth camouflage...

Recalling hand...

The hand around Arian's throat suddenly let go and began to crawl back to its owner.

"Isn't Bluetooth a wonderful thing?" came a voice from Adrian's right. He turned in time to see Sirahc and Hpotsirc approaching from another one of the engineering section's walkways. Sirahc appeared to be carrying a macbook with her, which was prompting her to enter a command.

"This program I wrote for Deraj is wonderful. I just type in whatever I want the Osiris unit to do, and it's added to his list of objectives. Watch!" Sirahc began to type. "K-I-L-L A-D-R-I-A-N!" Osiris picked up his hand and reconnected it with a fluid-like motion, and then without a pause he lifted Chevila without the slightest show of effort and hurled it at the Librarian.

Tools, spare parts and gadgets shot out of the bed like shrapnel as Chevila followed its drunken flight course through the air.

Adrian leapt to the side as the truck slammed into the ground beside him, landing on its side and skidding.
Adrain twisted around just in time to block a strike from Hpotsirc.

"Librarian Art 2: A Thousand Words in an Instant!" Adrian yelled, vanishing into a flurry of sword strokes. Hpotsirc managed to block some of the strikes, but the sheer volume of the attack made it impossible to block even a significant fraction of them.

"You'll pay for that!" Hpotsirc said, nursing numerous wounds where Adrian's attack had penetrated his armour.

Adrian noticed a thick metal cable next to Hpotsirc that was probably used for maintenance; Adrian quickly scooped it up and tied it into a loop. Hpotsirc lunged at him, Adrian sidestepped and slipped the loop over him, and he let it slide to the ankles before yanking it tight.

"Woah!" Hpotsirc yelled, as he toppled over.

"I don't have time for you; you're just a secondary concern," Adrian said, lifting Hpotsirc over his head and flinging him over the rail.

Hpotsirc's whole life flashed before his eyes as he fell towards the bottom of the engineering section; that is, before the maintenance cable went taut. He called out in pain as the force of the sudden stop pulled one of his ankles out of its socket, but at least he was alive.

Adrian had only a few seconds to mentally celebrate his victory before he was instantly hit in the back by a volley of burning napalm.

"There goes another trench coat..." He said, whipping the burning garment off. Instead of simply casting it aside, he ran Hoshikuzu through it. A significant amount of Napalm smeared off the trench coat and onto the blade. Crystal gleamed as the light from the fire reflected off of it.

Adrian waved his flaming sword at Osiris as he cast the burning trench coat over the edge of the walkway.

"Ready for round two?"

-

"Where are we?" Asked Aster, walking through rows and rows of work benches.

"This is the main lab of the Library's Science Hall," Charis answered, "But how did we get here?"

"You're not!" Came a booming voice.

Ben winced, "I know that voice, please no..."

"Hello Ben!" Shouted Fred, the Great Persona of Crack, "And goodbye!" He said, pointing at the group. His moustache configured itself into a wicked zigzag as a tidal wave of potatoes surged forth towards them.

"My coffee makers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Ben shouted, extending his arm.

Coffee met potatoes in a brilliant collision, but in the end the potatoes won out and forced the coffee back. The agents were instantly swept under by a wave of soggy potatoes.

"Why is Fred trying to kill us?" Ben said, poking his head out of the pile.

"E's not!" Came a purring voice, "I em pulling emajes from Jared's 'ead, if you wish to save 'im, ou must defeat them. Good luck!"

"For a second there, I thought maybe Fred was the kind to hold a grudge!" Tyler said, surfacing by Ben.

"How do you know Fred?" Ben asked.

"I beat him in an eating contest once..." Tyler responded.

"Seriously?"

"How do you think he got to be 800 pounds?"

"Duck!" Cristoph shouted, popping out and dragging Ben and Tyler back into the potatoes as blue energy bolts tore across the sky.

"What was that?" Aster asked, as the agents dug their way out the other side of the potato mound.

"That would be Chevila from the time she canonized into a transformer," Chloe promptly answered, drawing her sword.

Chloe's statement was confirmed as the group heard the sound of shifting metal and burning rubber.

"I'll take care of this!" Aster proclaimed as the truck came in sight. She placed her hand on the ground and covered it with a layer of ice. As Chevila's tires lost their grip and the truck began to lose control, Doug took aim with his RPG and fired a shot into the truck's undercarriage. The grenade ignited the gas tank and Chevila was blown into the air as a piece of flaming wreckage.

"Incoming mortar fire!" Kyle shouted. The agents took cover once again in the mashed potatoes as the incoming explosive harmlessly burst outside of its effective range.

"Fire at will!" came the voice of a now life-sized General Idea. The super-sized LPGB raised their rifles and began firing bursts of ammunition into the potatoes, but Aster quickly summoned a barrier of ice to absorb the shots.

"Eat Big Lipped Alligator Moment!" Charis yelled, pulling out the BLAM contraption and firing.

The Large Plastic Green Beret suddenly found themselves by the pool of a giant Barbie Dreamhouse, where they immediately began dancing and partying with all of the Barbies occupying the vicinity.

"That is wrong on soooo many levels..." Drake said, averting his stare.

"It was the only thing I had that was sure to stop them," Charis said, holstering the BLAM.

"The BLAM only lasts a few moments, Ben, get ready to nuke them!" Tyler said, watching with sick fascination as General Idea and Ken got into a drunken brawl over Barbie.

The scene faded away and the LPGB once again drew their weapons, only to be blown away by several of Ben's nukes.

"Aren't we forgetting someone?" Doug said, as he began reloading his RPG, only to realize he had used up all of his grenades.

"Yes indeed!" Came Fred's booming voice. The agents turned to look back at him.

The Persona's moustache turned into the shape of a frown as he crossed his arms. "Stop staring at my enormous man-boobs! My eyes are up here!" He said, before charging at the group, causing the entire floor to shake with every step.

"All in favour of a scene transition?" Tyler asked, activating the device.

-

Five Uber Stus lunged at Adrian; one sweep of his blazing sword took care of them.

"Napalm is truly dangerous stuff, you know, you shouldn't use it if you don't want it to be used against you too!" Adrian said as the Stus faded away into nothing.

Osiris stood perfectly still, with his camera eyes taking in every tiny detail about his opponent with perfect clarity.

Napalm levels: 47% and falling

Society Agent Adrian does not appear to be weakening, use of mini-gun recommended.

Mini-gun failure: Mini-gun has been removed as of version 2.0, engage stealth camouflage...

Adrian went tense as Osiris faded from sight. With all of the smoke filling the walkways, Osiris was effectively invisible. He didn't know what to do, until he spotted Chevila.

"Let's hope this thing still runs!" He said, ramming into it and pushing it back onto its wheels.

Adrian glanced around nervously as he opened the door and turned the key in the ignition, but the truck did start with a weak grumble.

"How do you turn on the headlights for this thing? Oh yeah." Adrian said, clapping. Chevila's sole remaining headlight came on with a weak flutter. Adrian flipped it to its brightest setting and began to burnout, weaving the truck in a tight circle. The headlight's beam traced its way along the far wall of the engineering section as he spun the truck around, until it came to a point where the light couldn't seem to make it all the way to the wall. Fixing itself on something much closer instead, the light was wavy and rippled, as if it were being bent around an object.

"There you are!" Adrian smirked as he put on the truck's parking brake. "Boot to the head!"

Adrian vanished from the driver's seat right as Osiris' finger gun blew away what little was left of the windshield of the truck. Appearing right above the shimmering mass of light, "SCHWOOSH-FWUMP!" Adrian's boot made contact, and Osiris jolted suddenly back into the visible spectrum, with an enormous boot print across his distorted face.

Adrian swung his blazing sword next, and it cut clean through Osiris' mechanical arm as if it were made of paper. The flaming blade ignited Osiris' store of napalm causing a fire to begin burning inside its body. Flames ran freely from the wound like blood.

Osiris' head swam with a flood of data. Adrian's attack had obviously caused damage to one of its primary circuits.

I AM ERROR, I AM ERROR

CRITICAL DAMAGE TO CENTRAL PROCESSING NODE, REROUTE COMMAND CIRCUITRY
REROUTE IN PROGRESS, PLEASE WAIT...

DAMAGE REPORT: BALLISTIC MISSILE MALFUNCTION, MISSLE SPARKING HAS COMMENCED

STEALTH CAMOUFLAGE OFFLINE

FINGER GUN, OFFLINE

NAPALM LAUNCER, PARTIALLY FUNCTIONAL

PARTICLE CANNON, LOW POWER ONLY

REROUTE FAILURE, CIRCUIT OVERLOAD, PREPARING AUTO-DESTRUCT

MISSILE SHUTDOWN FAILED, COMMENCING FIRING!

"So, you don't like head shots, do you?" Adrian asked rhetorically as Osiris lurched about chaotically.

Osiris flailed its arm spastically as two missiles launched and made their way towards Adrian.

"Librarian Art 6: Shield of Silence" Adrian said, causing both missiles to explode harmlessly against his invisible barrier.

AUTO-DESTRUCT CANCELED HAS BEEN CANCELED

WARNING: ALIEN PROGRAM PRESENT, UNABLE TO BLOCK ACCESS TO CONTROL SUBROUTINES. PREPARING ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM.

"Mxbrtexblydisbrgth!" Osiris stuttered, through failing overloaded speakers.

"I didn't quite catch that." Adrian said, raising his sword for a killing strike.

"I said, you smell like death! As one who has experienced it, I would know." Neb's voice said, as his particle cannon activated and fired.

Adrian was blown back. The particle cannon had taken him completely by surprise, and he skidded to a halt on his back, wounded and bleeding twenty feet away.

"Remember the Alamo!" came a voice as Captain Crunch leapt down from the rafters and landed in Osiris' hair.

"Get out of there!" Osiris commanded, once again in Neb's voice as it tried to get its damaged joints to respond.

Captain Crunch pulled out his knife and slashed away several locks of hair. Underneath, there was a tiny layer of metal labelled "EXTERNAL MEMORY ACCESS: DO NOT REMOVE" in all red letters.

"This looks important!" Crunch said, placing a LPGB-sized C4 charge and jumping off. Halfway to the ground he pulled his parachute cord, and a miniature parachute sprung from his pack as he descended to the ground.

"I've got you now!" Osiris said, rounding on the little man.

"No, I've got you!" Crunch said, pulling out his detonator and pressing the button.

A little burst of flame shot out from the back of Osiris' head; the figure lurched, twisted, and fell to the floor in a puddle of burning napalm.

"Woah, it's gonna take them quite a while to stitch that guy up!" Crunch commented as he landed on the ground a safe distance away.

-

"Come out, little people! Fred just wants to play a game with you!" The simulated Fred shouted, as he waddled around the lab.

"That's supposed to make us want to come down?" Tyler asked, as he and the other agents manoeuvred around the rafters Aster had flown them up into.

Doug sat opposite of Tyler, aiming a sniper rifle.

"Don't bother, Doug, you're just going to make him angry," Ben warned.

"We'll see about that!"

Doug pulled the trigger. The bullet flew from the sniper, spinning towards Fred, and hit him in the backside where it sank into one of his many folds of fat, never to be seen again.

Fred spun around and looked in the direction the bullet came from, starting to point and chant.

"Run!" Ben said, sprinting from rafter to rafter.

"Why?" Doug asked.

"Fred taught me to control and use everything I know! That means he can do it too! But far better!" Ben yelled, grabbing a chain and using it to swing across the gap, before hurling it back to Charis.

Doug shouldered the rifle and sprang after the rest of the agents, but not before hearing the distinctive shout:

"MY nukes mess with YOU!" Fred shouted. A giant coconut appeared in the midst of the group in the rafters, with the symbol for radiation hazard painted on it.

The coconut nuke exploded, forcing the metal beams of the rafters outward, some of them even beginning to fall. The agents were splattered with coconut milk and thrown from the beams, falling too.

Doug managed to use his left hand to grab one of the beams as he fell, and with his right hand he un-holstered his sniper rifle and grabbed it by the barrel; Chloe managed to grab hold of it as she fell; Tyler and Ben each managed to grab onto one of her legs. Aster managed to catch Charis; Drake, Cristoph and Kyle didn't need catching because they had managed to stay on the beams despite the explosion.

"Charis, BLAM this guy, we need something to distract him while me, Cristoph and Kyle pull Doug and the rest up!" Drake yelled.

"No can do, BLAMs can't be used more than once!" Charis yelled, as Aster flew to one side to avoid being hit by a falling stack of mashed potatoes.

"Hey, Cristoph, I have an idea! Get down here and get my copyright darts!" Doug shouted. "Hurry, I'm slipping!"

The whole beam shifted and Doug struggled to keep a grip on both the agents and the beam.

Cristoph leapt off of the beam, twisting around to let Kyle grab onto his feet, while he reached into Doug's holster and pulled out his gun. He began loading the darts.

"What do you want me to do with this, Lord Doug?" Cristoph asked.

"Shoot Fred!"

"Lord Doug, I am not trained in the use of firearms!"

"Toss it up to Drake then!"

Cristoph tossed the gun; Drake caught it, took aim and fired.

The dart struck Fred in the stomach causing the false persona to look at it quizzically.

"What's this?" He asked before vanishing in a puff of smoke. The copyright dart clattered to the ground.

At the same time, the beam gave way.

"This is it," Ben thought, "Even the fast step can't save me from falling."

"This is gonna hurt!" Doug yelled, figuring the fall might not kill him, but it would probably break every bone in his body.

SPLAT! The agents landed in a pile of mashed potatoes.

"I don't know whether to be thankful or disgusted," Kyle said, digging himself out of the potatoes.

"Goofph!" Tyler shouted through a mouthful of the coffee-soaked side dish.

"What happened?" Aster asked, lowering Charis to the ground.

"That wasn't the real Fred," Doug explained. "He's Jared's thoughts twisted by a Sue, so by copyrighting him I untwisted him. He ceased to exist the second he was copyrighted."

"Well, now that's taken care of, let's go find Jared!" Chloe shouted, wiping potato matter off of herself.

"I'm already here!" Jared announced. All of the agents turned to face him.

-

"Sir Adrian! Are you alright?" Captain Crunch asked as ran up to Adrian.

"I'm fine, really," Adrian said, standing up. There was a nasty burn on his chest where the particle beam had torn through his chest; he would need to visit the infirmary when they returned to the Library.

Adrian picked up his sword. The napalm had begun to burn down, but on the whole the sword was still very much alight along the length of its blade.

Sirahc took off running. Adrian briefly considered pursuit, but capturing Sirahc was not why he was there; he was on a rescue mission. Anything beyond rescuing the Sue Storm-affected agents was a secondary objective.

Adrian turned back towards Deraj's lab, and Captain Crunch scarcely had time to grab onto his tail as he ran by.

"Wait a minute here! I don't run as fast as you do!"

As Adrian sprinted off, Captain Crunch adjusted his grip just in time to see a group of Uber Stus carrying fire extinguishers try and put out the fire that was the mechanical corpse of Osiris.

-

"NO! NO! NO!" Cassandra shouted, as the room lit up in a flash. "You can't have beaten my fantasy!"

"It's over Cassandra, give it up!" Jared shouted, waking up and completely pulling off the restraints that held him to the table.

Cassandra's hands began to glow.

"Don't try it!" Adrian yelled, hurling his flaming sword into the room. The blade caught the sleeve of the Sue's shirt and pinned her to the wall. It was pure Sueishness that kept her shirt from burning.

Kyle ran over to the Sue and prohibited her, but to his surprise she began sobbing.

"I suppose you're quite pleased with yourself!" She hissed venomously, in what was obviously an American accent.

Jared's jaw dropped. "Come again?" He asked, not sure he had heard the Sue correctly.

"You heard me!" Cassandra shrieked, again with the same accent.

"Cassandra! Your accent!" Chloe couldn't help but shout.

"I admit it!" She shouted, beginning to sob again. "I'm not actually French! I just adopted that accent to make myself sound more 'ulluring!" She tried to say the last word of her sentence with the usual accent, but failed miserably, which caused further fits of sobbing.

"Uh, is not being French the worst thing in the world? I don't see why you're so upset." Aster asked. Cassandra just wailed more loudly.

"I don't want to live anymore!" Cassandra shouted, elbowing Kyle in the groin and turning around to face the Sue Storm machine. She reached out, grabbed the power meter, and twisted it to a setting labelled: "Up To Eleven".

Sparks began flying from the machine, parts started flying off in random bursts, and the whole ship started shaking.

"What have you done?" Deraj said, limping into the room just as several alarms started going off.

"The whole ship's going down! We need to get out of here!" Adrian shouted, grabbing Cassandra and running back into the engineering section.

"Stop! You'll pay for what you've done!" Deraj shouted, struggling to limp after the fleeing agents. Jared felt a bullet whiz past his head and sparks burst along the wall as Deraj desperately tried to stop the agents from escaping.

"Ah, faithful Chevila, still running after all you've been through." Jared said affectionately, brushing glass off of his seat as he got in the cab.

"To be quite honest, I'm surprised this truck is this intact!" Chloe said, hopping in through the passenger door.

"Hurry up back there!" Jared yelled out the window as the other agents struggled to catch up.

"Easy for you to say, you aren't trying to handle a suicidal formerly-French Sue!" Drake yelled, stopping Cassandra from once again hurling herself over the edge of the walkway. "Seriously, all this fuss over an accent..."

Eventually, once all of the agents and the prohibited Sue had gotten into the truck, Jared shifted into drive and fired up the plothole generator. The next thing the agents knew, they were back at the Library...

-

"Well, Chloe, it looks like I'm out four windows, several coats of paint, numerous dents and impacts, 24 LPGB soldiers and one Boomhammer. But at least I got the Sue; would you still count this mission as a success?" Jared asked, surveying his truck.

"Well, everything you lost can be replaced, but I'm not sure what you mean by saying YOU got the Sue. All you did was get captured and hallucinate actually going on missions and doing work," Chloe joked. "Speaking of which, have you recovered from whatever Cassandra did to you?"

Jared frowned. "In all honesty, no. I keep having flashback of memories that aren't mine. Some of them might even be Cassandra's, to be honest; it's awfully hard to distinguish memory from reality sometimes."

Chloe rubbed Jared on the back. "Well, we're all here for you. We'll help in whatever way we can. I'll tell you what, I'll get started working on Chevila. You go get some rest. You hear?"

"Seriously?" Jared asked, looking up. "You'd do that?"

"Yes, I would. Jared, I'm your partner. If you can't rely I me then what good am I?"

"Thanks Chloe, I appreciate that. First I'll go put in my shift in monitor duty, and then I'll go lie down for a few hours. I owe you one."

Jared got up and left, but Chloe noticed that he seemed to be slightly willy-nilly; he kept zig-zagging pointlessly as he walked down the science hall. He was also whistling the tune of some song that seemed too heavy to match his usual motif of country classics. Chloe was worried about him.

-

Jared was having a hard time keeping focused at the monitor station and Dave was muttering in his pockets about looking for a mint. Jared was about to ask if he could have one before he was cut off by a beeping from the monitor, and the realization that he actually hated mints.

"Which fandom?" Tash asked.

"Hard to tell, the fan base is kind of small..." Dave added.

"Let me try," Jared said, humming the Canadian national anthem as he began typing on the keyboard. Dave and Tash exchanged looks; Jared was acting strange, even for Jared.

"What the hell is Bonekickers?" Jared asked, suddenly blushing over the fact he had just sworn casually, something he always avoided.

The conversation about the fandom went on for a minute or two as Dave described the fandom.

"Looks like we get some action after all!" Jared said, despite the fact he really didn't feel like going on a mission at the moment.

"If the main characters are Archaeologists, then they'll notice disturbances caused by earth magic, and you won't be able to get close enough to use the Boomhammer without losing a limb." Tash said. Jared didn't bother reminding her that he was short one Boomhammer at the moment.

-

Jared tried helping monitor the mission as best as he could, but he kept losing focus. Tash eventually relieved him of duty and sent him away.

"I need a vacation," Jared admitted at last, before going off to fetch his suitcase.

"Are you going somewhere?" Chloe asked, walking into Jared's room and catching him in the act of packing.

"I'm leaving the society, not permanently. But long enough..." Jared said, throwing his Klingon dictionary into the suitcase.

"Where are you going?" Chloe asked.

"The Star Trek fandom, planet Vulcan specifically. If anybody can help speed up my recovery, it's them. Plus they have some excellent scientific equipment I'd love to play around with. Maybe I'll even construct a model II Boomhammer while I'm there."

"Well, one thing's for sure; if you're going, I'm going!"

"Chloe, you don't have to do that..."

"Jared, you can barely think straight, you don't speak the language, and I doubt you'll be able to survive on your own cooking ability. You'll be dead in a week if I don't come along. I'm not sure if you've even thought this through; Tash told me how you were acting in the monitor room..."

"That's precisely why I'm leaving. I'm in no condition to go on any missions and I'll just be getting in the way if I stay here."

"Very well, get your bags; we leave as soon as we're packed."

-

"Admiral, you aren't seriously leaving us..." General Idea asked.

"Yes, General, but it's just for a little bit. Do you promise me you'll behave while I'm gone."

Idea looked confused. "When have we ever misbehaved?" He asked, making Chloe snort.

"And another thing," Jared continued. "No leaving the lab!"

"But General, Nazi and Communist forces are at work in the Library, surely we must be allowed to..."

"You have your orders, General!"

"I... ah...very well, sir..." General Idea saluted Jared, and Jared saluted the General in return. He then turned around and made his way to the door, pulling a switch on the wall on his way out.

For the first time since he'd joined the Society, the lights in Jared's lab when out one by one. The rows of lights all shut off until the room was perfectly black and still. Jared turned and cast another look into the room.

"Having second thoughts?" Chloe asked.

"No. This is the right thing to do, but I'll still miss it. Now come on, we have some goodbyes we have to say..."

Jared walked back in the commons, where he was bombarded by balloons and confetti. Word had gotten around that he was leaving, so everybody had organized a combination going away/get well soon party in his and Chloe's honour.

"What's all this?" Jared shouted in surprise.

"It's just a little gift for our favourite redneck," Karissa said, tossing Jared a box that contained Johnny Cash's complete discography. He just about cried.

Jared was having quite a time at the party, except for the music they were playing. Nobody present at the party liked country music, so they hadn't been able to provide any on such short notice, but Jared noticed that there was a guitar in the corner.

"Go ahead!" Chloe said. "You know you want to."

"Alright," Jared said, picking up the guitar and walking up to the stage. Chloe herself unplugged the speakers.

"I'd like to thank you all for doing this for me; I want you all to know that I will be back. I just need some time away to collect myself. If you need to contact me, I will have my communicator. Now before I go I'd like to play you all a song; I've gotten many requests, but screw you all, I'm going to play anyway."

And with that, Jared struck a few chords on the guitar and began to sing:

"I knew the stakes were high right from the start.
When she dealt the cards, I dealt my heart.
Now I just found a game that I can't play,
And this is where the cowboy rides away. "



The PCMSPS spacecraft performed an emergency landing on the planet Norian in order to begin engine repairs, and deep within the engine rooms Deraj and Retsa were in the middle of a discussion.

"That Sue trashed your Sue Storm device. Your experiment was a failure, Deraj..."

"Not so, Retsa, we found out it worked didn't it? Now the real fun begins..."

"What are you planning on doing now?"

"Cassandra only destroyed the prototype. The real Sue Storm device is currently in the planning stages..."

"When will it be ready?"

"Soon, Retsa, soon."

Insert The Best of Both Worlds Here (part 4 of 5)

Captain Crunch woke up inside a mound of the unconscious bodies of his fellow LPGB members. As an officer, his computer brain could override the automatic shutdown command if it deemed the situation was urgent enough, and apparently it had, although he didn't know why. Crunch blinked and looked around his surroundings, though of course this was merely for effect, as his plastic eyes were for aesthetic purposes only. His "vision" was actually generated by a tiny sonar beacon in his computer brain, that could fire off sonic bursts and time how long it took them to return, this effectively allowed him to see the room he was in as an objective 3D map. This helped him coordinate his battalion's manoeuvres and make sneak attacks all but impossible. It's range was limited however, and with no other LPGB soldiers active to widen his spectrum it was impossible to snyc images and get a detailed map of the room, but in the present situation it was better than nothing.

Crunch noticed that the room he was in looked suspiciously like a storage locker. Besides the inactive troops under his command, there was also a cache of weaponry placed in a neat pile. Unlike the soldiers themselves, these were not made of plastic, they were fully functional authentic weapons of war, built on a small enough scale that Crunch and his fellow troops could wield them effectively. Crunch helped himself to a standard issue rifle and six grenades, he briefly considered packing an RPG, but he realized the weapon was far too large and unwieldy to make it practical. He didn't even know where he was yet. He began walking to the other end of the cabinet, passing a guitar pick, a set of car keys, an iPod and some loose change. He instantly realized what all these items had in common – these were the objects in Admiral Jared's pockets. He had been captured by the enemy, and it was up to one solider behind enemy lines to save him. Crunch picked up a couple C4 charges and smiled. He almost felt sorry for them...

-

"Is he plugged in?"

"Yep, Sue Storm has begun penetrating his mind. Once it reaches the area that controls his imagination we'll be ready to begin."

"Explain dis tu mee agin."

"Okay Cassandra. You see, Sue's have a set amount of power over a fandom, the amount of power depends on the Sue..."

"Yis, I understand dis, What does et 'ave to do with this?"

"Be patient. Sue Storm is a device that fires bursts of Sue energy all over the fandom. This makes a fandom more susceptible to manipulation. The effect is that the device can make even level one Sues strong enough to warp a fandom almost irreversibly."

"So what does that 'ave to do with Jared?"

"We are going to use him as our test subject. His imagination is the perfect medium to try to warp...that is if you are willing."

"E tried tu keel my seester, for that, I shall ennjoy breaking es mind very much."

-

Back on the planet Aether, a group of agents sat around trying to contemplate their next move. There was little they could do however, seeing as they were trapped in the fandom, unable to return to the Library and unable to pursue the PCMSPS, and every agent there had to use every ounce of self control to keep from screaming in frustration.

"So, do we have a plan here?" Tyler asked.

"Well, Chloe and Doug are working on fixing up Chevila, but I don't know what good it will do. Even if they get that clunker in working condition it's not like we have enough gasoline to get anywhere near that lockout antenna," Drake said.

"Whatever you do, don't say that to Chloe, she seems pretty upset. If she didn't have something to work on I think she might have a breakdown," Ben said, nodding grimly.

"Why don't I just fly ahead and take care of the antenna myself?" Aster asked.

"Out of the question!" yelled Doug as he slid out from beneath the truck. "This place is dangerous, and we have no idea what traps Deraj might have planted around that tower, and as long as I'm in charge here, I say we either go together, or not at all."

"What good does that do for Jared?" Chloe shouted, slamming Chevila's hood down a little rougher than necessary.

"Look, there's nothing we can do for him right now. I'm sure the others are doing the best they can to find him, just try to stay calm," Doug said as he stood up.

"Easy for you to say!" She yelled as she rounded on him, "What is he to you! Just a guy who put a hole in your wall? Would you even care if Deraj tortured him to death!" Chloe began to step towards Doug.

Doug stood his ground. He knew Chloe didn't mean the things she was saying, and by saying anything he would only make the situation worse, so he just stood there and looked into Chloe eyes, unblinking.

"Answer me!" Chloe said as drew the sword she had taken from Eohlc.

Even Doug was surprised about what happened next. Chloe leapt at him, fully intending to run him through with her blade. Doug barely had time to draw and raise his own sword to counter.

Chloe sidestepped and lunged again. Once again Doug blocked and leapt back. Chloe charged after him and executed a jumping slash. Doug easily dodged this move, and once again fell back a few feet. Had they been seriously fighting Doug would almost have instantly taken Chloe down. The other agents didn't even know how to react to the situation. They just stared at the duo as horrified expressions crawled across their faces.

Doug took a step back and backed into one of the rock walls that formed Aether's landscape. Chloe lunged at him again, this time however Doug made no attempt to block and Chloe's blade sank into his shoulder with a dull hiss.

For a moment or two, nobody of them said anything. Doug was first to break the silence.

"Feeling better?"

Chloe let go of her sword and stepped back, "I'm sorry..." she muttered before sitting down on the ground and sobbing.

Doug pulled the sword out of his shoulder and dropped it on the ground next to Chloe. Then without saying a word he walked back over to Chevila and resumed the work that would restore it to functionality.

-

"Charis, what's your status?" Tash said over her communicator.

"I believe this large scale plothole generator does indeed have enough power to get us into the fandom. The problem is that Jared never designed this thing with two way travel in mind. I don't think it will be able to get us back. We'll have to destroy the lock-out before we can return..."

"Alright, I'll get a team ready."

"Tash, have you managed to track down Jared?"

"Yes and no. So far we've determined that Deraj's plothole crossed only time, not space. Meaning he's still in the Metroid fandom, the only question is where and when."

"Alright, keep me updated..."

-

Tash closed her communicator and looked around the room.

"Anything?" She asked Rhia, the agent on monitor duty.

"Negative, but I'm not giving up yet." Rhia said without looking away from the monitor which was cycling through footage of the metroid fandom looking for non-canon influence. She had just cycled through the NES and Gameboy releases, the footage was now showing the third game of the series, Super Metroid.

Tash left the room and began calling agents into the briefing room to form a rescue team. Five minutes later she was standing in front of Adrian, Kyle, and Cristoph, who began to gather their gear, ready to leave at a moment's notice.

-

Jared woke up in some sort of workshop, he was surrounded by strange machines and glowing lights, and it was impossible to guess their purposes just by looking at them. Jared didn't want to stick around and find out so, so he got up and sprinted towards the door. To his surprise it opened, it was not under guard of key.

"Oh Jared, where are you goeeng en such a 'urry?" Came a familiar voice.

Instinctively Jared reached for his Boomhammer, only to find out it wasn't there.

"Sandstorm!" He shouted, thrusting his hand towards the voice. He was expecting the floor to fly out from underneath him, followed by a powerful burst of sand, instead of the feeble wobbling he got instead.

"Your Earth majeek is gone little one, you 'ave no 'ope of esceeping..."

Cassandra suddenly appeared behind Jared and covered his eyes.

"Guess 'oo," She said, and suddenly all of Jared's worries and fears melted away, he felt a gentle breeze sweep through the air.

Cassandra pulled her hands away, at first Jared was blinded by the sudden light he was now seeing, but once the his eyes got used to it he noticed that he was on top of a building. A school by the looks of it.

He turned around and faced Cassandra, the first thing he noticed about her was that her hair was now green. The second thing he noticed was that her hands were now glowing.

Cassandra reached into her pocket and pulled at a hexagonal piece of metal.

"Ben's told me about those things, I think it's called a Kakugane..." Jared whispered to himself, "Obviously, she plans on using it on me, and I don't have anything I can fight with, wait... where did this banjo come from?"

Jared only briefly had time to briefly question the existence of the instrument that had materialized in his hand before a bow materialized in Cassandra's hands, she began to fire...

-

"What are you trying to do here exactly?" Eolhc asked, nursing her newly relocated arm as she and the other PCMSPS agents sat around a table watched the scene play out.

"Psychological experimentation," Deraj said, "I'm trying to break down his sense of identity by making him play out missions his friends went on in his head. If I succeed, we can shape him into someone who can be useful to us. If not we can always terminate him, it makes no difference to me."

"Alright, but was does this have to do with Sue Storm?" Relyt asked from across the room. "I thought it was designed to be used on fandoms, not people?"

"You don't understand..." Deraj began to say, "Sue Storm is a device that can draw creative energy from the Hall of the Persona, and then convert it directly into Sue Energy. In essence it can turn any characterization of any writer into pure Sueishness."

"Explain..." Relyt prompted.

"Fandoms themselves are created by writers. If suddenly the writers in charge are writing meaningless drivel due to the lack of creative energy, the fandoms begin to weaken. It gradually becomes less set in its ways and becomes more susceptible to manipulation. Eventually it gets to the point where even the weakest Sue finds it easy to bind characters to her whim."

"So what does this have to do with Jared?"

"I have placed that dim witted foil agent of mine in a catatonic state in the other room, and wired the Sue Storm machine directly into his imagination. Cassandra is in there with him, using Sue Storm as a threshold into his mind. If Sue Storm works, she'll be able to make Jared's mind construct any scene she wishes it to in our simulation. Now quiet, let's see how this plays out."

-

"Okay!" Doug said slamming Chevila's hood down. "She's done. I even made a few improvements Jared better thank me for when I rescue him. Now let's go take down that antenna."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Shirley said, "That truck doesn't have a drop of gas in it's tank, and unless your patient enough to wait for all of us to die and break down into fossil fuel ourselves, that truck ain't going anywhere."

"The stick has a point," Tyler said.

"Actually, she has many, and believe me I would know," Ben said before Shirley lunged at him.

Doug thought for a minute. He wasn't sure what they could accomplish with a truck that couldn't move.

"What if we went back into the mine and tried to harness that stuff the pirates were extracting?" Drake added.

"That's not a good idea..." Ben said as he grappled with his violent muse, "That 'stuff' is phazon, and it's extremely radioactive and unstable, it would kill us if we got near any without proper gear, and even if we did I don't think Chevila's equipped to run off of it. Besides, I'd hate to see what happened if that truck went into hyper mode..."

Suddenly a loud bang filled the air as a plothole tore across the sky, Cristoph, Kyle, Adrian and Charis suddenly passed through and began to fall, Aster quickly caught them in a sudden updraft, and they all settled gently to the ground. Charis looked sick.

"Uhooohhhhh, I don't think that thing was designed with humans in mind..." She said, holding her stomach and setting down a red container.

"Gas!" Doug shouted triumphantly.

"We noticed your predicament on the monitors. Charis found a couple of containers in Jared's lab. We thought that you might need it." Adrian said.

"Well, let's fill her up and hit the rode," Doug said. As he grabbed the can of gas and walked over to the side of the truck, he noticed the gas can's nozzle didn't quite fit the tank opening, but luckily Jared had a funnel in the back. He began to slowly empty the can into the truck.

"Alright!" Adrian yelled, "Everybody in the back of the truck. We move out as soon as Doug finishes refueling!"

All of the agents got in the back except for Chloe, who got into the cab on the passenger side. Adrian got in and took the wheel.

"I hope we aren't too late..." Ben said as he opened up his flask of firebrand whiskey.

"We will not be too late," Aster said, "Jared-kun can take care of himself. We can't underestimate him."

-

Jared let loose a rapid set of chords on Banjahamut. An almost invisible burst of sonic energy flew from the end of the banjo into the incoming arrows, and there was a loud boom that distorted the air around as the burst exploded and scattered the arrows.

"You don't have to do this, Cassandibella!" Jared called out as gunpowder wings burst from the back of the Sue as she took to the sky.

"You can come with me back to the Society, you wouldn't the only Sue we've taken in!" Jared said, dodging a fresh volley of arrows.

"You me Two-Step 'ula?" Cassandra said, lowering the bow.

"Yes, well we call him Fred now..."

"Forgeet eet, I couldn't betray my own kind!" Cassandra yelled, igniting part of her wings. The flames tore through the sky at Jared, surrounding him with flames. Jared quickly began to play the chorus of duelling banjos, releasing another blast of sonic energy which pushed the flames back.

Jared kept firing burst after burst of sonic energy at Cassandra. She tried to avoid the bursts until one of them finally collided with one of her wings. The sonic burst blew apart the gun powder and Cassandra began to fall, somehow managing to scream and swear simultaneously. Cassandra immediately recovered and began to ready herself, only to find out that her Valkarie skirt had been driven into the roof from the force of her fall. Her eyes widened in shock as Jared casually started to point at her.

"Don't mess with nukes!" He shouted. Earth waves tore through the ground, upon impact the ground released a massive explosion, accompanied by a massive mushroom cloud of dirt. The dirt shockwave continued and knocked Jared down...

Suddenly a hail of arrows shot through the smoke. Jared barely had time to roll out of the way before he would have been skewered.

"Looks like I underestimated the Silver Skin." Jared mumbled,

"Quite, I em impressed by det weapon, what do you call et?"

"Banjahamut."

Cassandra's face assumed an expression of confusion. "Why, det doesn't mean anything..."

"You're saying this to the guy who named his truck "Chevila" you know?" Jared said, suddenly, he realized something was wrong, he shouldn't be having this fight, and he shouldn't be using a sonic powered super banjo either. "What it going on here?" Jared said, suddenly short of breath...

-

"We're losing, Cassandra, get your simulation back under your control!" Deraj's voice shouted over the intercom.

"I em trying, es mind es very strange tu me..." Cassandra complained, shifting her hands so that they covered more of Jared's temples, Jared himself was strapped down to a table, completely unconscious, wires and gadgets were connected at almost regular intervals along his forehead...

Unknown to anybody in the room, a tiny plastic man was working his way through the rafters, trying to think of a way to separate the Sue and the Admiral. His mind began to sort through the seemingly useless clutter in the room, searching for anything the little man could get his hands on, until eventually it discovered a lab coat by the wall. Captain Crunch quickly noticed a set of car keys lying in it's pocket.

"Perfect..." he said to himself.

-

Jared was slammed into the metal railing alongside the school's roof

"Ah! My ribs!" He shouted, clutching at his side.

Cassandra began to walk towards Jared. Just as she entered striking distance however she heard Jared give a painful shout of "-Computers!"

A somewhat floodgate looking rock burst out of the ground and tore through the roof.

"What es dis?" Cassandra shouted as the rock broke open and unleashed a literal mudslide. Jared searched the sea for his opponent, but he just couldn't see her. The flood began to recede, and to Jared's surprise he noticed that the landscape had become a stone maze of some kind.

Something isn't right, Jared thought to himself as he swished his tail...wait a minute...

-

Jared adjusted his flannel trench coat and proceeded deeper into the maze, but he was constantly interrupted by dead ends, turns and switch back, loops and narrow passageways. But this didn't matter. Jared was determined to catch up to the one responsible, and save Chloe, despite the fact it was obviously a trap. It didn't matter to him that all of his Little Plastic Green Beret had turned on him, forcing him to flee his lab. Fortunately he had managed to sabotage their trucks and helicopters before they could move out and chase him...

Something crunched behind him.

Instantly he brought his hammer up in a psedo-defensive position. Unfortunately whoever had made the sound simply grabbed the hammer, spun Jared around and kicked him in the gut, ending with a fancy flourish and a leap back.

"Aha-aha-aha! How do you like that, Techie?" Came a mocking voice, "I look forward to dancing on your grave!" Said Two-Step Hula, dressed in a ridiculous outfit Jared could only call ninja dancewear.

"Not on my watch!" Jared said, swinging his hammer at the Stu. Two-Step simply broke into a fast step not unlike Ben's, and the hammer swing went wide.

"You're in my way. I don't have time for this! Technician Specialist Art #1: A Thousand Classic Country Songs In An Instant!"

Jared flickered out of existence as the air around Two-Step was suddenly filled with the music of George Strait, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, accompanied by relentless hammer swings.

"Is that truly the best you can do?" Two-Step taunted as he danced around the hammer swings.

Two-Step suddenly threw his form onto the ground in a breakdance, as he began to spin one of his feet shot up and hit Jared on the nose.

"OW!" Jared said, scooting back and trying to staunch the blood flow.

"Your attack is useless! And so are you!" Two-Step shouted, beginning a victory dance.

"This fandom's energies are so wild and chaotic that my 'fifth sense' is next to useless here, which means I cannot use my Technician Arts to their full extent." Jared muttered.

-

Adrian pulled up alongside a giant antenna, once there he stopped the truck and killed the engine, all of the agents got out.

"So this is it then..." Chloe said, "We take this thing out, we can go after Jared."

"Yes, and more importantly, gain access to the PCMSES headquarters," came a voice.

The group quickly turned in their heads towards a black haired, shirtless man wearing bear skin shorts. More frightening than his attire however was the fact that over one of his shoulders was a largest longsword any of them had ever seen, easily half as long as the man was tall if not more.

"Oh, pardon me for not introducing myself!" Said the man, running a hand over the top of his head. "I am the thunder that comes in the night, I am the terror that strikes fear into the hearts of monsters, I am the master mariner that sailed with Posiden himself! I am Giddius, The Great Personae of Epic Poetry."

"Why would one of the beings in charge of recycling the Multiverse's creative energy be interested in rescuing an average techie from the hands of an evil organization?" Adrian prompted.

"Quite honestly, we're not. I'm more interested in what is going on aboard that ship. Someone there is corrupting the creative energy, and that is something we Personae cannot tolerate!"

And with that, the Personae let out a thunderous battle cry, he lifted his mighty sword and with one swing he levelled the entire antenna array. It toppled forward with a thunderous boom.

"Onward my comrades! Let us go with are heads held high! For tonight we might find ourselves washed up in the river stix!

And with that, Giddius snapped his fingers and the group simply vanished.

-

"Do you think I care about losing my fifth sense?" Jared shouted, lifting up Hoshihammer, Two-Step screamed as the hammer made contact with his arm, making a fleshy crunching sound as it was broken.

Two-Step suddenly broke into a fast step once again as he began flipping away, soon disappearing down a trail.

Two-Step flipped around a corner, only to run right into Jared.

"If you plan on escaping using a dance move, you probably shouldn't wear taps, this canyon has excellent acoustics." Jared said, "By the way, you forgot this." At this Jared whipped out a copy of Elite Beat Agent for the Nintendo DS and flung it at the ridiculous Stu, the case landed a devastating blow to the Stu's head, dropping him like a rock.

"I'll give you choice. You can die from the shock of getting wounded by a joke item, or you can tell me where Chloe is and I'll leave you with what's left of your dignity."

Two-Step chewed his lip for a few seconds, "Alright. Go back to the crossroads and follow the widest path. It'll lead you to the girl." He slid his remaining hand into his shirt. "But don't think you'll get away unscathed!" He whipped out a remote control and pressed a button. Instantly, the walls around them started to hum, there was a sudden burst of light.

-

"Pass the popcorn!" Ekard said, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

"No, I don't want to share!" Deraj said, jerking the popcorn back.

"Grow up you two!" Retsa said, blasting Deraj out of his seat and grabbing the popcorn for herself.

Before Deraj could even hit the ground however, the whole ship lurched to one side, followed by an alarm siren.

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" Shouted a random Uber Stu as he burst into the room, just before he was blown to pieces by a rocket propelled grenade.

"Nice shot Doug!" Tyler shouted as he leaped over the halfling and rolled into the room, "Lucy, I'm home!" He called out to Relyt as he began blasting the agents with random bursts of magic.

"NO! They'll ruin everything!" Deraj shouted, reaching into his holster for his revolver.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Kyle said, popping out of and air duct while forming his omni-weapon into a battle axe.

Deraj immediately let go of the revolver and grabbed his flashbar, he turned around just in time to block a fatal strike from Kyle, releasing a brilliant flash that happened to blind everybody in the room.

"Realitium might be a great material, but it just can't hold up to something that's a force of nature!" Deraj said, "Now, if you don't mind, I really need to kill you, subduc-" Resta quickly slapped her hand over Deraj's mouth before he could finish the earth spell.

"We're in outer space you fool! If you start blowing holes in the floor than pretty soon we'll be blown into space!" She shouted.

Doug took aim with his shotgun, making sure that Retsa was in his line of sight. Retsa was taking for granted the fact that every agent in the vicinity had been temporarily blinded, partially due to the fact Deraj hadn't bothered to inform her Doug had managed to steal one of his protective visors, which he had taken the precaution of putting on before storming into the room, thus, she was completely taken by surprise when Doug pulled the trigger.

"I'm hit!" She yelled, as a round of ammunition sunk into her backside, she was sent rolling over the floor from the impact of the shot. She barely managed to create a rock shield in time to block Doug's second shot.

"You'll pay for that!" She swore, before brushing the ammunition off of her kevlar vest, which she had secretly put on as part of her preparation in case the ACMSES actually did somehow manage to get aboard.

"Deadly impact!" Kyle cried, recovering his sight as he leapt at Relyt, the force of the impact sent the foil agent toppling over backward, he was unconscious before he even hit the ground. Unfortunately this also sent Kyle flying back with the recoil, fortunately he was able to land on his feet.

"Hey no fair! I wanted to do that!" Tyler shouted.

"Sorry, I was here first!" Kyle said, ducking underneath a blow from Ekard.

"Burn imperfectionists!" Retsa screamed, summoning a massive fireball.

Doug frantically began to reload his RPG, hoping to cause the blast to detonate before it could reach the trio of agents. Fortunately, he didn't have to...

"To those of you who would challenge the gods! I say thee nay!" Came a booming voice. Giddius suddenly burst through a hole in the ceiling and landed in the midst of the group and swatted Retsa's fireball aside with a swing of his sword.

"Back ye villains, I smite thee! Thou shant live to see the light of another day!" He shouted as he swung his long sword a second time, completely separating the upper and lower bodies of three different Uber Stus.

"Is this guy for real?" Kyle asked.

"He's a Personae, they're all at least a little bit kookey..." Tyler said, picking up the forgotten bucket of popcorn.

"Wasn't he was supposed to be with Adrian's group?" Doug said, "Not that I'm complaining mind you."

Giddius never once stopped his onslaught. He swung his mighty sword in a powerful sweep that actually managed to blow Ekard's armor right off of him. He then proceed to charge after Eohlc, who had secretly been battling Cristoph in the shadows in a contest those that were participating in the main battle hadn't even been able to tell was going on. Giddius managed to take her out in one punch, straight through her Spartan shield which shattered into countless pieces, leaving only Retsa and Deraj left. To Giddius' surprise, they were both grinning.

"We were expecting the Personae to get involved at some point, although I must admit I'm surprised it happened so soon. Fortunately we have prepared for this." Retsa said.

"I have no interest in the plans of the wicked! Make your peace, for my next blow will be your..."

Deraj suddenly drew his revolver and flipped a switch on it's side. There was a brief hum of energy as the entire gun began to glow a violent shade a purple. Before Giddius could react Deraj brought the gun to aim and fired. The bullet impacted Giddius in the chest before bursting apart into tiny fragments.

"Do you honestly think your mortal weapons can inflict harm on the mightiest of the Personae? I defy you to ararrrrrggghhhh!"

Giddius suddenly dropped his sword, which proceeded to vanish into dust, as he clapped his hand to his bullet would. Purple lines began to spread all throughout Giddius' body from the bullet wound.

"What did you do to him!" Doug shouted as he resumed reloading his RPG.

"The Personae are beings of creative energy. After I designed a way of corrupting that energy for use on fandoms, Retsa here developed a way to weaponize it for use against the Personae themselves. Giddius here is now experiencing a violent transformation of his entire body mass becoming Stu energy. Should he survive, he will make a fine Stu, someone our organization will deem worthy to protect."

Giddius made one final scream as he opened a plothole. Everyone gazed in horror as he leapt drunkenly into it, the hole sealed itself with a pop.

"A pity, I was hoping he'd stick around and make himself useful..." Deraj said to himself, pocketing his revolver.

"You bastard!" Kyle shouted, as he Tyler and Doug charged at the agents.

-

Adrian, Chloe, Ben, Aster and Drake continued fighting their way through the massive army of Uber Stus guarding the engine room in that were trying to stop their attempt at disabling the vessel. Although given the fact that their 'fighting' consisted in running over any Stu that got in there way with Chevila's off-roading tires there wasn't much actual action going on.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Shouted Ben, leaning out the window and pointing. The warhead Ben had summoned blew apart a thick metal door that had been blocking their path, giving Chloe the chance to hit the gas and accelerate into the main engineering section of the ship.

"Anyone know where that freaky hero guy went who was riding in the back with Aster, Charis and Adrian?" Drake asked as he bounced in the middle seat.

"I heard him say he was needed elsewhere, and then he just vanished." Adrian said, swinging his sword like a golf club at any Uber Stu that managed to avoid being smashed against the front of the truck.

"Do you think you could slow down a bit? I'm not feeling so good back here..." Charis shouted over the engine noise, still nauseas from her experience with Jared's plothole generator.

"We've got company!" Adrian shouted, noticing an approaching car, "but I can't quite make out the driver..."
"This is Captain Crunch of the LPGB calling Chevila with critical strategic information, please respond!" Came Crunch's voice over the radio.

Chloe was about to call back on the radio before she noticed the truck itself was responding, the radio suddenly flipped over revealing a computer read out, text began to scroll across the screen as Crunch began broadcasting his command codes.

Captain Crunch identified, requesting rendezvous...

input: Y/N...

"I can see the dashboard of the other car! It's got one of Jared's toy army men on it!" Adrian shouted,
"Haven't we dealt with those enough today?" Charis added.

Chloe reached over to Chevila's console and pressed the acceptance key, she was startled by the message she got in reply.

Rendezvous in progress, engaging brakes...

Everybody in the truck lurched forward as Chevila's tires locked, Aster was actually ejected from the back with a startled "Kyaa!", Fortunately her ability to fly enabled her to avoid slamming into the metal walkway. The truck swiftly skidded to a halt as Captain Crunch's stolen car pulled up alongside it.

The windshield on the car suddenly burst outward as Crunch detonated the C4 charges he had placed around it's perimeter.

"It was rather stupid of the enemy to use the same command frequency for his car as the Admiral's. It was relatively easy to take control, thank goodness I found all of you!" The tiny soilder stated as he saluted the agents.

"I know where the Admiral is being kept, you must come quickly!"

-

When the lights faded, Jared found himself in a giant stadium, surrounded by arena bleachers. Jared looked around and noticed Deraj slouched against some arena bleachers. Eolhc was standing right next to him, enjoying a massive bucket of popcorn. Osiris was standing in the middle of the arena, standing perfectly still, not even making a sound.

"Ah Jared, I'm glad you made it!" Deraj yelled," Welcome to the first test of Osiris version 2.0 beta!"

-

Deraj and Retsa battled the agents fiercely, managing to hold their own. No one there even noticed that Deraj's simulation was still being displayed on the computer monitor, up until the point a stray grenade from Doug's RPG made viewing the simulation impossible.

-

"Weapons online!" Droned Osiris in it's monotone computerized voice.

"Wow, it talks now," Jared gasped. "Just token techno babble, but it's an improvement over the silent, cyborg zombie of two chapters ago."

Osiris' right shoulder suddenly popped open and disassembled itself, reshaping into a particle cannon.

"Wardrobe Change!" Jared yelled as various car parts appeared, forming Jared's equivalent of Drake's armor, the helmet managed to take the shape of the cab of a pickup, it's appearance was quite ridiculous. Osiris fired his particle cannon, the crimson beam tore through the sky as Jared tried to leap out of it's path. The beam his the ground in the exact spot Jared had been standing and exploded. The force of the massive explosion sent Jared flying quite unexpectedly, causing him to almost get rolled off the edge of the arena into the electrified pit below.

Osiris leapt through the air and landed beside Jared, motor servers in his left arm whined as he threw a devastatingly powerful punch. Jared rolled away at the last second, and the punch wound up smashing the ground, not his head.

Jared summed his Boomspear with a burst of noise and swung it at Osiris, who merely caught it in his scarred left hand. Then using his brand new fully mechanical right hand he picked Jared up and flung him across the arena. Jared quickly leapt to his feet and pulled out two miniature Sherman tanks bearing the LPGB insignia, both began launching rockets at the cyborg.

Osiris began to walk towards Jared, ignoring the shells bouncing off of his armour as if they didn't exist, Jared quickly used up his supply of shells, and had to toss the tanks aside. Jared pulled out an miniature Cobra helicopter and began firing it's supply of anti-tank missiles. Osiris responded by transforming his mechanical hand from its new form back to its original napalm launcher, which he then used to spray a steady stream of flames to consume the missiles. Jared had to roll to avoid getting doused in the burning petroleum jelly.

Jared began to draw Earth magic from his surroundings and prepared to sling it at his foe. Osiris responded by activating his stealth camouflage. Jared tried in vain to track the movements of his near-invisible foe, but the smoke from the burning napalm made it impossible. Jared suddenly felt a cold mechanical hand grasp his neck.

"Looks like you and Sirahc worked out all the bugs..." Eolhc said.

"Theoretically yes, but keep in mind this is just a simulation. I mean, me and you aren't even real! We're just figments of my foil agent's delusional mind..."

Jared thrust his Boomspear at Osiris, who caught it with his human hand, Jared quickly switched which hand was holding the weapon and managed to cut a wicked slash in Osiris' face. Osiris computer brain whirred.

"Warning, damage to cranial region detected. Risk of damage to Computer-Brain-Barrier is possible. Increase distance between target immediately..."

Osiris dropped Jared and immediately raised his human hand towards him. Jared barley managed to duck in time as a high-calibre bullet was launched from his middle finger, only to blast a tiny hole in the wall behind him.

Jared thrust his hand forward and called on his earth magic, hoping he could score a hit, fortunately it did and sent Osiris flying, the sudden impact caused Osiris' circuits to briefly overload, giving Jared time for a breather. He sat down, put a hand to his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in the Library...

-

"Muffins..." Tyler said as he flew across the room, propelled by one of Retsa's rocks, he was slammed into a wall and slummed to the ground, for the second time that day he was unconscious.

"Tyler's down!" Doug called to Kyle, launching another rocket propelled grenade, only to have it detonated prematurely by one of Retsa's fireballs.

"I know!" Was the only reply Kyle could manage to muster as he slammed his omni-weapon warhammer down on the spot Deraj had been seconds before.

"Tut tut! Retsa isn't going to like you smashing up her ship, you better stop or she's going to get nasty!" Deraj snarked, slamming his flashbar into Kyle's jaw. Kyle turned his head and spat out blood before lunging at Deraj again.

Doug toppled the thick metal table that held the popcorn over to generate some form of cover, but every time he stuck his head up he'd immediately have to duck down to avoid getting struck by a combination of rock shards and fire.

"Mind if I join you?" Deraj asked, flipping over the table and landing beside Doug as one of Kyle's aurora grenades impacted the heavy metal object.

"Thanks, now if you don't mind..." Before Doug could react Deraj reached back and slammed his flashbar across his eyes, hard enough to shatter the protective visor he was wearing.

Doug drew his dagger and swung blindly towards the place where Deraj had been a moment earlier. The blade hit the table with a dull metallic clang, missing its intended mark.

"I'm beginning to really dislike this guy..." Doug said, before he was aware of his body being lifted into the air.
"My jacket!" Deraj yelled, flinging Doug out of the garment and over the table.

Doug tightened his grip on the RPG as he was flung into the air. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was turn an attack into a counter attack.

"Yippe Kiayeah!" Doug cried, aiming his RPG at where his memory told him Retsa was. It wouldn't be an exact shot without the use of his sight, but that was the beauty of grenades – you don't need to be precise to get a hit. He pulled the trigger.

"Gah!" Retsa's voice rewarded him as she was knocked unconscious by the explosion.

Doug landed quite gracefully, despite his temporary blindness. As he did so he could hear Kyle and Deraj's battle reach its climax.

I have you now!" came Kyle's voice.

"You pathetic worm! Give me back my Flashbar!" Deraj yelled.

"Whatever you say!"

"Gah, my knee! Why I oughta!"

There was the sound of a gunshot, for a second Doug feared the worse. But his vision suddenly refocused and he could see Deraj lying on the ground. As he drew his revolver Kyle had activated his accelerator and managed to grab Deraj by the wrist. Deraj panicked and pulled the trigger, which had the result of firing a bullet into his own leg. Deraj quickly began pleading with the agents.

"I surrender! I'll tell you everything! Just don't destroy my work!"

Doug grabbed Deraj by the collar and threw him against the wall. "Where's Jared!"

"That way!" Deraj said, pointing towards a metal door.

Doug threw Deraj aside and he and Kyle raced for the door.

"What'd I miss?" Tyler asked, getting back up,

"Not much, just a fight to the death and a Personea going crazy..." Doug replied.

"Well, if it was only that..."

Kyle, Tyler and Doug's combined effort managed to unhinge the door almost instantly, at about the same time Chevila crashed through the opposite wall.

Adrian grabbed his sword and leapt across the room to join Doug and Kyle, the rest of the agents quickly spilled out of the truck and followed suite, effectively surrounding Cassandra, who just stood there, pouring Sue energy into Jared's temples. Cassandra's eyes darted around the room.

"You!" shouted Chloe. "I thought Aster and I killed you!"

"'Ou wish, I ejecteed from my suit and eesceeped. Unfortunately for you, you shall never come close tu det agin. Good bye!" Cassandra quickly let go of Jared and reached for the computer server behind her. Before any of the agents could stop her she had reached for the power knob on the outer casing and twisted it up to overload.

"Good bi." Cassandra said flatly, as the room was filled with a brilliant flash.

Insert The Best of Both Worlds Here (part 3 of 5)

Doug took aim at the missile and fired. The bullet ricochet off the missile's casing and knocked it go off course where it exploded harmlessly several feet away.

"Five to two aren't the best odds Jared, we need to retreat!" Doug yelled as he and Jared whipped out their Plothole Generators.

"Not so fast!" Deraj shouted as he pressed a button on his wristwatch. The antenna attached to the Great Temple suddenly began to emit a reddish glow and both the Agent's plothole generators shorted out.

"C'mon, this trick again?" Jared objected.

Deraj shrugged. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it,"

"Alright," Jared shrugged. "Well if you've got the situation here under control, I'm just going to go now."

He and Doug took off running, dodging knives, magic blasts, fireballs and earth waves.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Jared and he stopped running.

"What are you doing?" Yelled Doug, swatting down a knife with his sword and shooting down another missile with his pistol.

"No man gets left behind!" Jared yelled, scooping up the immobile forms of Crunch and the LPGB before taking off running again.

With the sheer amount of weaponry being directed at them, the duo couldn't hope to to avoid it forver. Doug took a knife and a weak fireball in the back while Jared was tripped up by an earth blast.

Doug got back up and pulled the knife out of his back. Deraj's jacket had actually kept most of the attack from actually coming into contact with him. No wonder biker's like leather, it was not only cool, but great if you ever found yourself sliding across the pavement at 50 MPH. Doug thought as he pocketed the knife.

"Eolhc! I wanted that jacket back intact!" Deraj yelled.

"Hey, not my problem!" Eolhc responded.

"Don't let them get away!" Yelled Retsa, shooting a hail of rock shards at Doug.

Jared coughed up some dirt. "E-e-epicenter!" He managed to stutter as he hit the ground and Retsa's rock shards were suddenly swallowed by a massive wave of sand. Retsa summoned a massive firestorm to counter the wave, turning the sand into glass. Relyt and Ekard immidiatly began to attempt to break their way through the barrier.

"Save your breath fools!" Shouted Retsa.

"What! But they're getting away!" Objected Relyt.

"That path leads to the Agon Wastes, more specifically into the Space Pirates metroid hatchery." Retsa explained. "If we cut through Dark Aether we'll beat them there, and once we release the metroids they'll make quick work of Doug, and Jared will have no choice but to surrender."

Deraj turned to Retsa, "And how do you plan on getting us through Dark Aether without turning us all extra crispy?" He asked.

"Interrupt me again and I'll throw you into the Ing hive. I wonder what would kill you first, the atmosphere or the Ing?"

Retsa growldd and began to lay out her plan to the rest of the agents.

-

Tyler hopped to his feet and looked around. They were alone in the forgotten mine, and Osiris was gone, which was all the better.

"Well, shall we continue?" He asked as Ben, Drake and Shirley got up and dusted themselves off.

"We can't here, that's for sure, Osiris' liberal use of explosives has made the mine unstable. If we don't leave we risk the whole place caving in." Drake muttered.

"Well, let's go this direction, that's the elevator Relyt, Ekard and Eolhc came down in. Maybe we can see where they came from." Ben suggested.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Shouted Shirley, and with that the group called the elevator.

-

"Where are we going?" Asked Aster as she charged after Chloe.

"We have to find a light portal, it's a dimensional anomaly that can be used to cross from Dark to Light Aether. I've downloaded both Aether's Atlases and I believe I've found a location where we can cross over in Dark Agon Wastes into the Space Pirate mine."

Chloe suddenly stopped running and raised a hand to her helmet.

"Hang on, I'm getting a message from Jared's team, I'll put them on speaker."

"Chloe, Aster, what is your condition?" Came Doug's voice.

"We're fine, we ran into Cassandra, but I don't think we're going to be seeing much of her anymore." Chloe said. "But more importantly, I believe someone has set a trap in this fandom by making us think there were more Sues then there actually were."

Jared voice came out of her suits speakers in reply, "You're right, it was our PCMSPS counterparts. We need to regroup, what's your position?"

"We are currently en route to the Space Pirates Research Station."

"Good, so are we, over and out."

-

Jared closed his communicator and leaned against the wall, looking tired.

"Are you all right?" Doug asked.

"Yeah, just give me a minute," replied Jared.

"What's wrong?"

"That last burst of earth magic took alot out of me. Normally I'm able to recharge fairly quickly, but Aether is a dead planet, and I haven't been on soil since The Dresden Files, I'm on my last wind. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep using earth magic,"

Jared took a deep breath and shouldered the Boomhammer. "Well let's keep going, we don't want to the PCMSPS to catch up to us."

-

Charis stood in a corner of the science hall storage locker with Pete, both were looking at a massive ray gun-like device mounted on two iron legs that looked like it was about to fall apart.

"So what's this thing again?" Asked Pete.

"This is Jared's large scale Plothole Generator, he built it to get rid of the tribbles, but I believe it could possibly hold the key to breaking through the magnetic fields that has stopped our regular plothole generators from working. There's just one problem."

"What's that?" Pete asked.

"Jared began to dismantle this thing after he got rid of the tribbles, and Jared's method of writing blueprints is so unusual that I have no clue how to read them, I think they may be written in 'Lego'. We'll have to improvise when we try to reconstruct this thing."

Pete frowned, looking at the techie. "Hey, are you alright? You seem on edge."

"Well, ever since this morning, dealing with Jared's gadgets has become a dangerous task. If Tash hadn't asked me to develop a counter-magnet, I wouldn't even be considering it..."

-

Chloe and Aster entered the area known as the Dark Agon wastes, tracking the location of a dimensional anomaly that they could use to cross over to Light Aether, when Chloe's hostility radar suddenly lit up dead ahead.

A white bubble suddenly appeared and swelled, it retracted almost immediately, depositing the 5 PCMSPS agents. As soon as they entered the area a Luminoth Light Shield appeared around them, pushing back the harmful atmosphere.

"Designing a portable light crystal on the spot, no wonder you're the leader." Deraj acknowledged.

"Just remember, you'll die if you go outside five feet around me." Retsa said, keeping a tight grip on the Light Crystal.

Deraj was suddenly hit by a mass of dark energy, and was instantly encased in a purple cocoon of fluid like matter.

"Drat, I was hoping to hit the light crystal." Chloe muttered from her vantage point, "If I had, the Dark energy would have shut it down.

Relyt and Ekard immediately began to charge after Chloe and Aster, only to have Eohlc grab them by their necks.

"What part of 'don't go more than five feet from Retsa or you'll die' did you not understand?" She snarled.

Deraj broke out of his cocoon, breathing heavily. The last blast had inflicted more damage to his missile trooper armor, he wouldn't be able to take too many more hits, especially considering the amount of bullet holes Doug had already left.

"Aster, we have the advantage! We can fight in Dark Aether, they can't!" Chloe said as she dodged one of Deraj's missiles.

Retsa began hurling fireball at her counterpart, who dodged them with ease.

Aster flew towards the agents. Chloe did her best to follow using all of her Power Suits movement systems, using her Screw Attack to cross large gaps in the landscape and Space Jumping across the short ones, but despite her best efforts she quickly fell behind the fae.

"You know, in the manga version of this game, some of the troopers from the Tyr survived, they would have wiped these guys out long ago." Aster complainded as she launched ice shards at the group, they were quickly knocked aside by a hail of projectiles fired by the foil agents.

"We do not have time for this!" Yelled Retsa as she flung a fireball at Aster, the fae nimbly flew around it.

"I agree. Seeing as we both have earth powers, I propose that we combine them in order to bring this engagement to a speedy conclusion." Deraj prompted.

"For once Deraj, you're right. Follow my lead," Retsa commanded.

Deraj deactivated his Missle Trooper suit, Toyotanya briefly appeared in the groups midst before vanishing into a plothole.

Deraj closed his eyes, took a deep breath and began to draw Dark Aether's blackened planetary energy from his surroundings. When he opened them again he cupped his hands together and turned to Retsa.

"Meteor!" He shouted, interlocking his palms and releasing his stored earth magic at the leader of the group. The magic billowed around Retsa as she drew it around her, augmenting it with her own powers, then she sent the burst of energy into Dark Aether's bleeding red sky.

Chloe was only seconds away from a more effective firing range when a giant flaming rock fell from the heavens and smashed the ground in front of her. The shock-wave knocked her off of her feet and sent her flying back. Similar rocks were falling all around her, each with enough force to completely destroy her shielding within a couple of hits. Some of the meteors were even exploding as they hit the ground.

"Think they've had enough?" Deraj asked jokingly as he watched Aster frantically try and freeze and shatter meteors before they could hit her.

"No, but we don't have time to deal with them. Let us continue on our way." Resta ordered as they turned towards the Light Portal that would take them to Aether's Agon wastes. Retsa forced the portal open with a burst of light. She grinned and gave the struggling duo one last look before her group stepped through the portal, sealing it inside a tomb of rock behind them.

-

"Don't mess with nukes!"

"Storm Punch!"

"I don't call my moves!"

The Agents attacks collided with a grey colored door, all three bouncing off ineffectively. The door was equipped with a blast shield, impervious to even the heaviest of weapon fire.

"Now what do we do?" Asked Drake.

"I suppose we'll just have to go back to the Library and re-enter the fandom at another location, unless there's a way to get that shield off." said Tyler.

"I believe I can help you," came a female voice from the shadows. The group of Agents jumped.

"Who are you?" Ben asked.

A striking blond woman in a blue jumpsuit stepped out of the shadows. "My name is Samus Aran," she said, "That door will only open once all pirate resitance has been neatralized."

"But we already have! Do you see any pirate forces in this area?" Ben asked.

A sharp cry sounded from above, followed by an intense crash as several cracks spread across the ceiling.

"There is exactly one..." Samus replied as she drew her emergency pistol.

Another cry sounded as the ceiling collapsed, allowing Meta Ridley enter the area.

Samus charged her pistol and fired into Meta Ridley's face, Ridley reeled back, more in surprise than pain. Samus flipped the barrel of the weapon down and extended the plasma whip. She leapt at the creatures leg and slashed at it's knee. Ridley cried in pain and swung it's tail at Samus but she dodged and dove behind some rocks.

"Don't just stand there gawking! Cover me!" Samus shouted at the three agents.

Tyler began to fire magic blasts at the cybernetically enhanced dragon, the blasts only served to enrage it, causing it to refocus his attention on Tyler.

"Slicing Gale!" Drake yelled as he fired his boomerangs into Ridley's face, they burst harmlessly on contact.

"Aim for the chest you fools! It's the only place his armor is vulnerable!" Samus yelled as she flipped onto Ridley's back and swung her plasma whip into his mouth, the whip wrapped around it's tongue, smoke began to pour out of the mouth as Ridley hissed in pain and rose onto his hind legs.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Called Ben, pointing at Ridley's chest. The nuke impacted and exploded, shattering the chest piece.

Tyler leapt at the beast and slammed weapon into his chest, Ridley screamed as yellowish fluid burst from a wound.

"Isn't this the same way we beat the last resurrected cyborg freak?" Tyler asked as he wiped the yellow fluid off his shirt.

"Not quite, unless this guy is allergic to caffine I doubt Ben's coffee attack will work on this guys, but I have an idea. Tyler, do you feel up to trying that move we've been practicing?"

Tyler dodged an awkward blast of energy that burst out of Ridley's mouth around Samus' whip.

"What? You mean the..."

"Most certainly!"

"Let's do it!" Tyler said, turning around and heading for the wall behind Drake.

"Do I even want to know?" Ben asked as he leapt over a sweep of Ridley's tail.

"That depends, are you a fan of either baseball or classic X-men? Because you're about to witness a..." Tyler dramatically paused his sentence as he used his axle staff to pole vault himself to the far wall, he followed this with a magical energy charged leap over to where Drake was standing, he landed nimbly on one of Drake's glowing fists.

"Fastball special!" Tyler and Drake shouted simultaneously.

"Storm Punch!" Drake finished as he flung Tyler at Ridley for all he was worth. Tyler slammed into Ridley's chest staff first, followed by his shoulder, the chest piece let out a massive crack and split open upon impact. Tyler reached into his pouch, pulled out a grenade and dropped it into the crook of the opening and bounced off. The grenade detonated and created a massive explosion. Ridley gave an injured shout and took to the air, violently swinging his head to one side. Samus was thrown off and slammed hard into a wall. It would have only been a glancing hit had her armor been activated. She briefly regretted ejecting out of it to escape from Cassandra as she lost consciousness.

-

"Okay, so let's just do a quick recap. We can't run, we can't escape, and we can't fight with a reasonable chance of victory. You got any thoughts on the matter?" Jared asked as he and Doug wandered around the metroid hatchery.

"Well, if military history has taught me anything, when your back is to the wall and the odds are against you, the best thing you can do is set a trap..."

-

A glowing beam of energy fired out of a crater, latching onto it's edge. The Grapple Beam began to retract, dragging a very battered looking Chloe behind it. Her left arm dangled uselessly off to her side, obviously broken and she could barley see through her Suit's cracked visor. She needed to find Aster. If the Ing attacked her in her current condition she'd be easy pickings.

Aster herself had gotten off fairly easily, suffering only a few minor cuts and bruses from the attack. She emerged from her ice filled crater in time to see Chloe stumbling towards her. Aster immediately flew over to help.

"Chloe-chan! Are you all right?" the fae asked.

Chloe turned her head to face Aster, the Suit's joints creaking precariously as she did so. "My arm is broken, and I can't see through this damaged helmet piece. We need to cross over so I can take it off." she said grimly.

"That's is going to be difficult, Retsa sealed the portal inside a a tomb of rock."

Chloe sighed. "We'll just have to unseal it again. Point my Arm Cannon in the right direction for me, let's see if a Super Missle can release it."

Aster grabbed Chloe's right arm and turned until it was facing Retsa's tomb.

Chloe fired a Super Missle, impacting the rock pile and demolishing it. Inside the Light anomaly pulsated rhythmically as it blurred the dimensional gap between the two Aether's. Chloe switched her Arm Cannon to Light Beam mode and forced the portal open. Chloe and Aster stepped through.

-

Sparks flew across the room as Charis connected a pair of wires that obviously weren't meant to be connected.

"OUCH! I'll have this thing up and running if it's the last thing I do!" Charis shouted defiantly.

-

"Are you guys all right?" Chloe asked as she and Aster stepped through the portal.

"As well off as can be expected, what about you?" Jared asked.

In response Chloe deactivated her Power Suit and collapsed against the wall. Chevila, now in it's truck form, materialized next to her, the windshield was completely cracked and nearly impossible to see through.

"Chloe! What happened to you?" Jared asked as he rushed over to her.

"Retsa and Deraj. We need to get her back to the Library." Aster answered.

"No, I can still fight." Chloe insisted. "Just cut me a piece of one of Chevila's seat belts so I can fashion a sling."

"You're in no condition to fight, we're getting you out of here." Jared objected.

"We can't, the fandom's on lockdown. How'd you get out of this last time Jared?" Doug asked.

Jared stood up and looked at him, "I blew up the machine creating the lockdown and Plotholed into your lab. Unfortunately those lock out antenna are to far away for anything we use on them to be effective," he said grimly.

A door suddenly opened at the far side of the hatchery. Doug immidiatly aimed his pistol at it.

"Easy there, it's us!" Ben said, startled.

"Well, the gangs all here, so what do we do now?" Asked Drake.

Jared and Doug exchanged looks.

"We were planning on laying a trap, and now that we're all here we can engage them on more even terms, so if you'll all listen up I'll fill you in on the plan..."

-

"Is this it?" Asked Relyt as he stared at a door.

"Yes, the ACMSES agents are on the other side. Our job is to capture one of them, preferably Jared, does everybody know the plan?" Deraj asked.

"I don't." answered a random Uber Stu, Deraj answered by shooting him.

"We can afford no mistakes." He said as he reloaded his revolver.

"You really shouldn't shoot those, it's a waste of resources." Eolhc said.

"Don't worry, I have plenty of ammunition," Deraj said smugly. "Shall we go in?"

-

The doors to the hatchery opened and the PCMSPS entered.

"Alright people, here they come," Doug hissed into his communicator from his vantage point.

"Ah!" Relyt shouted as a metroid lunged towards him from inside it's cage.

"Don't wet yourself pansy, these metroids can't escape their cells," Retsa said coldly.

"Hey, come take a look at this!" Ekard shouted, "Jared must've left his hunk of junk parked over here."

Jared winced from his hiding spot. Jow dare they insult his truck, only his friends had the right to do that! He briefly considered jumping out of the shadows and giving Ekard a lesson in manners involving the Boomhammer before getting his temper back under control.

Deraj strolled over to inspect the truck.

"Ah, Chevila, such a quaint vehicle, the cannonization device must have failed when Chloe crossed over. Unfortnately for them, Aether doesn't have a vehicle friendly terrain. They must have left it behind. Jared shouldn't have been so careless about his truck, something might happen to it on such a dangerous planet..."

Jared knew what was going to happen next, he grimaced as Deraj drew his flashbar and smashed it into one Chevila's headlights. He felt his grip on the Boomhammer tighten.

"Yeah, a warp hound might decide to sharpen his claws on it!" Ekard said as he summoned his spear and used it to create a deep cut across the passenger side.

"This is not happening the way it's supposed to," Ben whispered to Tyler as they lay beneath a canvas in the back of Chevila.

"Yeah, who knew the evil organiztion would approve senseless destruction," Tyler answered sarcastically.

Retsa jointed in, hurling rocks all over the pickup, causing numerous dents.

This was not going according to plan, thought Doug. They were supposed to ignore the truck and follow the trail leading away from it into our pitfall, then Ben and Tyler would jump out and hit them from behind. The only thing that could make this go even more badly is if...

"I'll teach you not to mess with my truck! Boomhammer!" Came Jared's voice

"Of course," Doug murmured as he drew his weapon.

Ekard's vision was suddenly filled with stars as Jared's hammer came into contact with his helmet. Jared followed up the strike with a devestating a swing of the hammer that threw Ekard's legs out from underneath him. By the time Jared had finished and run off, he was only vaguely aware of the sound of an engine starting as Jared slid between his legs and hopped into Chevila's cab.

"Stop him!" Shouted Deraj as he summoned his missile trooper armor raised his missle launcher.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Shouted Ben as he sprung out of Chevila's bed.

"Oh crap!" Was all Deraj managed to say as the warhead impacted him.

"Chevila, don't fail me now!" Jared shouted as he put the truck in drive and hit the gas, Tyler and Ben both fell over from the force of the sudden acceleration.

"You won't get away!" Retsa shouted as she launched a massive fireball at the truck.

"Uh Jared, I think you should have yielded the right of way back there." Tyler muttered as he watched the approaching fireball.

"Where I come from, the vehicle with the biggest tires gets the right of way. I was simply following the rules of the road." Jared hastily replied as he pushed the pedal to the floor.

The trio passed under the rock pass Chloe, and Aster were hiding on. Once they pulled away it became apparent that they had some new passengers, courtesy of Aster's powers of flight.

"Do I always have to pull your pants out of the fire?" Chloe asked as she adjusted her makeshift sling fashioned from Chevila's passenger side seat belt. "Encahnto!"

A handfull of rubix cubes suddenly appeared in Chloe's hand. She brought her good arm back and flung the cubes at the fireballs, they exploded on contact and snuffed out the flame.

"Nice save," Tyler remarked, "But we have other problems."

Sure enough Deraj had apparently shaken off his initial encounter with one of Ben's nukes. Once he had regained his senses he had de-cannonized his car, which he, Retsa, Relyt, Eohlc and Ekard were now pursuing Chevila in.

"Gi gi gi, I just love a good hot pursuit!" Jared shouted.

"Duck!" Shouted Ben as Resta leaned out the window of the passenger door and began to launch bursts of fire and rock.

"Kyaa!" Aster yelled, firing blasts of ice and wind to counter the barrage.

"Hang on!"Jared said as he drifted around a tank of metroids.

-

"Well, so much for a well laid trap," Doug said as he and Drake ran after to two rapidly fading vehicles. "Now how am I supposed to catch up with them?"

That's when the Metroid tanks started breaking.

-

"They're gaining on us!" Ben shouted.

"I'm doing the best I can, Chevila was never built for speed, or power, or anything else for that matter!" Jared yelled in reply.

"Incoming!" Yelled Aster as she summond a wall of ice around the agents in the bed of the truck, a solid ball of earth impacted it a second later, sending rocks flying in every direction but towards the agents, including through the floor of the bed and into the undercarriage.

Jared looked at his dash just in time to see his gas gauge begin to dwindle.

"Dang it, that last blast hit my gas tank! I'm leaking fuel! I'm going to circle around and regroup with Doug and Drake, hang on!"

The agents in the bed scarcely had time to grab onto the sides of the truck before Jared cranked the wheel sharply to the right, the entire truck went up on two wheels as it swung around another Metroid tank. Jared winced as it leveled out with a bang.

"That can't be good on the suspension..."

-

"Die you freakin' flying parasite!" Doug shouted as he sliced a metroid in half, "There's no end to these things!"

Drake nodded grimly as he blasted a Metroid that had tried to dive at him.

"Then we can't stop either, keep fighting!"

Doug pulled out his pistol and began firing at a Metroid that was trying to flank him. The bullets made the thing shriek and flail, but didn't manage to dissuade it. He had to empty his entire clip before it finally died.

"Drake, cover me, I've got to reload!" Doug shouted before leaping behind a shattered Metroid tank.

"Slicing Gale!" Drake yelled, launching his boomerangs at a random Metroid. The Metroid dodged however and lunged at Drake. The surprised Agent couldn't react in time to evade the attack and the creature managed to latch onto his helmet. A cold numbness began to spread trough Drake's body as the Metroid began to drain his life force.

"C-C-Cold," he studdered, "Can't... breathe."

The metroid suddenly shrieked and died as Doug's sword was shoved through it's body.

"Thanks," Drake muttered, trying to ignore the Metroid goop-covered sword that was slightly penetrating his helmet.

"You can thank me later, those things are still coming!"

The empty Metroid tank behind Doug suddenly shattered as Chevila crashed through it.

"Did you miss us?" Jared shouted as the truck rolled to a stop.

"Jared, get us out of here!" Doug said as he and Drake jumped in the back.

Jared noticed the swarm of Metroids converging on truck.

"You'll get no argument from me!" Jared said as he hit the gas, the truck gave a sputter and died.

"Oh mierda!" Jared shouted, breaking into Spanish for emphasis, "I'm out of gas!"

A Metroid suddenly shot forward and slammed into Chevila's windshield. The glass cracked even more on impact. "All hands, this is the captain! Proceed to emergency escape pods!" Jared shouted as he threw his door open.

Chloe reached into the bed of the truck and grabbed Chevila's tire tool. It was along ways away from a blade, but it was going to have to work.

"We have to wrap this up quickly!" Tyler shouted, "Those PCMSPS agents are right behind us!"

A Metroid lunged at Tyler. Tyler ducked and the thing latched onto Doug.

"Gah, get this thing off of me!" He shouted.

"Let go of Doug-chan!" Aster shouted before she froze the metroid, Shirley lunged at it and smashed it in her jaws.

"Aster, keep freezing them! Metroids can't stand the ice!" Jared hollered.

"Don't mess with nukes!" Ben shouted, his attack was easily dodged by the agile Metroids however.

Aster took to the skies and began blasting Metroids, it wasn't long before the other Agents managed to destroy the frozen creatures.

"Well, that takes care of the Metroids, but what about the PCMSPS?" Drake asked.

Jared looked around, "They should have been here by now, did we lose them?"

"We're right here!" Retsa said as she flew into the clearing and began launching rocks.

Jared lifted his Boomhammer and swung it like a baseball bat. The rock it came into contact with shattered with a weak sounding "BOOM".

Great, now my hammer is starting to get fatigued, Jared thought to himself.

Aster shot into the sky after Retsa and swung her Moon Staff hard into her gut. Retsa made an indignant woofing sound and went down, although before she even hit the ground she was starting to recover. Doug and Ben ran to intercept her.

"So we meet again Tyler..." Relyt said as he rounded on Tyler and Drake.

"Are you ready to meet your superiors?" Ekard asked.

"Storm punch!"

"Hiyahh!"

Drake and Tyler lunged at their foes, both parried their blows and countered, Drake winced as Ekard's Drought Punch connected, Tyler simply made a comical prop noise as he was hit in the shoulder.

"So you're Chloe?" Eohlc asked as she drew two short swords. "Funny, I thought you'd be taller, are you ready to find out which of us is truely better?"

Chloe laughed, "How do you expect to find out which one of us is better if we aren't fighting on even terms? I'm fighting with a tire tool and a broken arm for crying out loud!"

Eolhc raised one eyebrow. "True, to beat you now would be an empty victory, so how about this..." Eohlc threw one of her swords at Chloe, who nimbly caught it in her good arm.

"As for your arm, I suppose we'll have to make do with this," Eohlc sheathed her sword and raised her right hand to her left shoulder. Chloe tried not to gasp at the fleshy sound of Eolhc dislocating her own arm.

"There, is that satisfactory?" Eohlc asked, wincing as she drew her sword and lunged.

Jared's hood slid across Chevila right as Deraj's flashbar came down, the blow missed and wound up putting a fresh dent in the side panel.

"Oh c'mon, I just painted that!" Jared objected as he lept off the other side of the truck.

Deraj did not reply, instead he just drew his revolver and fired, the bullet whizzed by Jared's ear as he dove beneath the truck.

"What's wrong? Aren't you going to try and hit me with your earth magic?" He said as he grabbed Jared by the ankle and dragged him out. Jared gracelessly flipped over and pulled some miniature mortar shells out of his pocket. Deraj was caught off guard when Jared threw them into his face. They stung a good deal and made Deraj let go of Jared's leg.

"Courtesy of the Little Plastic Green Beret!" Jared said as hit Deraj in the ankle with his Boomhammer.
Deraj winced as he stumbled back.

"So the dog still has some bite left after all. A pity. I was hoping this would be easy..."

Jared stood up and gripped his hammer, he was fairly sure he could take Deraj in a fair fight, but this fight was far from fair. His Earth magic was all but gone, and his Boomhammer was quickly burning through it's reserve of sonic energy, he needed to finish this fast or not at all.

Jared lunged at Deraj and attempted to land a right hook to his face but Deraj caught the blow and swung his leg out to meet Jared's. The less coordinated agent stumbled and fell.

"Fissure!"

One word was all it was, but it was enough to send Jared flying through the air, he landed with a thud.

"UUuggghhhh, cheap shot, that was a cheap shot..." Jared managed to moan as he struggled to his feet.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Deraj said as he began walking towards his counterpart.

Jared's mind began swimming, he needed to end this now, but he couldn't manage to string together a coherent thought, let alone a plan. He looked around and saw all of the agents struggling to fight their own individual battles, there was nobody to help him.

Jared gulped. He was going to have to throw everything he had at this guy. No plan, just power against power. He closed his eyes as he began to draw on his last remaining store of earth magic.

"C'mon now, you're done, just give up, you cannot win," Deraj taunted, loading his revolver.

Jared lifted the Boomhammer. He had tried using it against his foe, and it hadn't worked. He had tried using Earth magic, and it hadn't worked, but he hadn't tried both at the same time.

"Validus pango, attero meus hostilis! Pangea!" Jared shouted as he lifted the hammer above his head and slammed it into the ground.

Deraj's eyes widened as a shockwave tore through the ground heading right towards him, trailing a cloud of dust.

"Any chance that we could talk this out?" He asked right before he was hit by the combination earth, sound attack.

There was a mighty sonic boom that silenced those who heard it. Everybody looked to where Deraj had been, only to see a dust cloud rising ominously. Jared dropped his exhausted hammer, it faded away into nothing as the very energies that held it together were used up.

For a moment that seemed like an eternity, Jared just stood there, saying nothing. Everyone just watched him.

Except for one.

"You missed." Deraj hissed through a mouthful of cracked and broken teeth as he poped out of the ground behind Jared and pistol whipped him in the back of the head. Jared noiselessly feel to the ground, already unconscious. Deraj flung him over his shoulder and picked up a pair of car keys. Toytanya pulled up from around the corner and opened it's doors. Deraj quickly threw Jared in the backseat, got in and drove into a Plothole.

"Stop him!" Chloe shouted rushing after them, but it was too late. The Plothole had already closed.

"Package secure! We're done here. Everybody return to base!" Resta shouted as she opened up a Plothole.

The ACMSES briefly tried to attack the retreating agents. Only to be avoided and ignored as they disappeared into Plotholes.

"He's gone," Chloe cried, "They have him..."