Captain Crunch looked out of the cockpit of his helicopter.
"Private Property, set a collision course accelerate to ramming speed!"
"But Captain, you can ram at any speed!"
"Are you refusing to carry out my order?"
"No sir, I was just pointing out that your order is too vague to make any sort of compliance possible."
"Dammit private, I want men who can thrive on vague objectives! Just point the craft at Deraj and floor it! Is that clear enough for you?"
The tiny helicopter surged forward at top speed, which was only about as fast as double a normal persons walking speed.
Captain Crunch turned to face Private Industry.
"Private, does Deraj notice our approach?"
"Negative, he seems to preoccupied with Civilian Doug. Hold on... he appears to be aiming some kind of revolver at him."
"What? Increase speed!"
"Sir, I'm not the one piloting, you need to speak to Private Property!"
Captain Crunch turned to the pilot.
"Private, increase speed!"
"But sir, we're already at the top speed this chopper can go!"
"What? I thought I told you I wanted ramming speed!"
Deraj drew his revolver and took aim at Doug's head.
"I Believe your time is up, monsieur Douglas..." He pulled the pulled the trigger, and at that moment however the LPGB's Apache slammed into the side of Deraj's head. The Elimination Society agent stumbled and the gun's only bullet ricocheted harmlessly against some rocks. The LPGB helicopter was not designed with ramming in mind and promptly began to fall, crash landing on the rocks beside Doug.
"You'll pay for ruining my dramatic head shot!" Deraj bellowed as he stomped on the top of the tiny chopper. The craft burst into tiny fragments, scattering its plastic crew.
Jared's vision began to come back to him. At first he could only see motion but now he began to make out the blurry outlines of Deraj and Doug. Doug appeared to be struggling to attack his foe but was unable to escape from the hard, desolate ground surrounding him.
"Uh Jared, can you lend me a hand here?" Doug whispered to Jared while Deraj was distracted by Captain Crunch's forces surrounding him, dropping them like flies with a sequence of well aimed stomps.
"Well, I'd never be able to dig you out in a timely fashion, although I suppose I could probably blast you out with earth magic..."
"Well, what are you waiting for? my legs are going numb."
"Geyser!" Jared shouted. The ground beneath Doug suddenly burst outward and he was flung into the air. Doug nimbly twisted in mid-flight and aimed his pistol at Deraj. Unfortunately for him, the gun was jammed with tightly packed dirt and was rendered useless. Doug swore and flung the useless weapon aside. Instead he opted for doing things the old fashion way and simply landed on top of Deraj's back.
"Hey! What are you doing? Get off me!" The mad scientist yelled.
"I bet you wont be so cocky without this thing!" Doug yelled as he yanked Deraj's visor free with a triumphant shout.
"Boomhammer!" Jared shouted as he swung his weapon, but Deraj ducked and Jared wound up hitting Doug on the top of the head.
Doug was thrown of Deraj and bounced several feet before coming to a stop.
"Are you trying to give me a headache?" He yelled at Jared.
"Sorry, my vision hasn't completely cleared yet," Jared replied.
"Nor do I intend on letting it happen!" Deraj yelled, stretching his hand. "Quake!" He screamed.
Jared had never been on the receiving end of earth magic before, but he soon found out that it wasn't pleasant. The pure concussive force threw him into the air, tiny rocks made cuts on his skin and the larger ones hit him with enough force to raise welts and bruises.
Jared slammed into a rock and gasped as the wind was knocked out of him, he desperately trying to inhale as Deraj charged after him.
-
Aster had not really thought her moves through very thoroughly. Apparently she was unaware of the fact Cassandra's suit had a gravity booster that allowed her to move normally through the water, unfortunately Aster did not have such a perk, and her movement was severely hindered. You could actually see her mouth take the shape of "KYAA" as she was struck by one of Cassandra's force fields.
Chloe ran up behind the Mary Sue and delivered a crushing blow to the back of her head with her left fist, unfortunately causing no harm to the Sue.
"'Ow rude," Cassandra remarked as she turned around and blasted Chloe with a Super Missile. The resulting explosion threw Chloe several yards away and slammed her into the wall.
"WARNING: CANNONIZER FUNCTIONALITY AT 84%, GRAPPLE BEAM AND POWER BOMBS HAVE BEEN TAKEN OFFLINE TO COMPENSATE" Said a voice in Chloe's helmet over the sound of her own ears ringing.
Chloe decided to try her Arm Cannon again. She pulled back the lever she had tried last time but instead of releasing it all the way she simply held onto it. To her satisfaction a dark mass began to build up at the end of her Arm Cannon. Chloe took aimed and fired, Cassandra had not been expecting her to recover so fast and was taken completely off guard. Dark energy solidified all around her, trapping her inside of a fluid-like purple cocoon.
Aster was not one who liked to be tricked. Once she had recovered she began to prepare to counterattack, strong winds instantly blew down from the heavens in a powerful downdraft, swirling the toxic water of the Torvus Bog. Aster kept the wind blowing until it began to form a whirlpool around Cassandra, who was struggling to break free from her prison. The whirlpool swept her up and began to spin her around in the water, then Aster froze it, further trapping the Sue in a solid block of ice made from the poisonous water.
"So how are we going to prohibit her now?" Chloe shouted at Aster before she realized the fae would not be able to hear her through the liquid.
Incoming transmission, warned her suit. At first Chloe thought someone from the Library was contacting her before she realized the warning was coming from the suit itself, not from her communicator.
"Why that's eesy, you won't." Purred Cassandra's voice over her suit's speakers.
WARNING: Phazon spike detected in target, Cassandra has entered Hypermode. Was the next message her suit received.
"What?" Said Chloe, "But Hypermode wasn't introduced until the third game, surely she can't have access to weaponry that hasn't been invented yet!" She objected to no one in particular.
Cassandra's makeshift prison shattered and the now-glowing Sue emanating rainbow energy swirls lowered herself to the floor of the bog.
"Yes, I can," was the only response she gave.
-
Shirley's claws came into contact with Eolhc's blade with a metallic clang as the Protection agent blocked the Cliche Stick's strike.
Shirley prepared to strike again only to discover Eolhc had vanished.
"Hey, no fair hiding in the shadows!" Shirley protested.
Ben looked around warily, holding Bahamut at the ready until a knife flew out from one of the shadows and severed one of the guitar's strings. The string snapped violently and recoiled into one of Ben's fingers, nearly causing him to drop the weapon entirely but for the strap around his neck.
"Ouch! You have no appreciation for music lady!"
While Ben was being used for target practice, Tyler and Drake were busy fighting their respective counterparts/ Drake grabbed Relyt by the leg and hurled him into Ekard, following up with a Storm Punch to the face and knocking the two Protection Society agents off balance.
"Way to go Drake! If we keep this up we might still have time to raid that cookie stash I saw Adrian hide in the British Literature section." Tyler said as he blasted Relyt with a magic bolt.
"You saw him hide it? Sounds like a decoy to me." Drake replied as he blocked a blow from Ekard and followed up with a punch to his gut.
Something doesn't feel right, it's never this easy.He thought to himself as one of Elohc's knives bounced harmlessly off of his armor.
-
A lone figure began to make his way through the Space Pirates mine leaving a trail of corpses lying in his wake. His skin and clothes shimmered and rippled as light reflected around him. It would take a person with very keen eyesight to distinguish him from the surrounding rock. His computer brain whirred as it began to process his surroundings.
Distance to destination: 20 yards and closing.
Pirate resistance: Non-existent. All Space Pirates have been eliminated.
Destination in sight. Engagement zone is behind this wall.
Receiving orders from command: Begin placing charges. Disengage stealth mode and engage targets at will.
-
Elohc was muttering to herself. What was taking the Osiris unit so long? She wasn't liking fighting with kid gloves on. She'd much rather take Ben and the others head-on then attack from the shadows, but unlike her partner, she viewed orders as more than just suggestions. So she would just have to wait...
She jumped out of the shadows directly behind Ben, punched him in the back of the neck and made a shallow cut across his left shoulder. Tyler turned and prepared to fire a magic bolt, but Eolhc just threw a knife at him. Fortunately for Tyler it had been thrown so that the handle, not the blade struck him between the eyes. When Tyler's vision came back into focus she was gone again.
"I hate fighting these stealthy wannabe ninja types, if only Cristoph were here, he'd show her a thing or two." he muttered.
"It's impolite to mutter you know." Relyt said as he struck Tyler on the back of the head.
-
Somewhere in the Twilight fandom...
Fred began to tear up in joy. Vampires that sparkle? If that wasn't crack then Fred didn't know what was. He could almost feel himself grow fatter the longer he remained in the fandom.
Larry, Fred's emotive mustache, perked into a U shape.
He turned to this series' protagonist, Edward Cullens, who was gazing in shock at the 800 pound man's frightening form.
"Stay sparkly!" Fred yelled as he extended is arm, "Wonder crack powers, activate!"
A plothole suddenly opened above the Twipires head, dumping a massive pile of mashed potatoes on him, and buring completely. Fred then opened a new plothole and began to depart, "Oh quit looking at me like that Larry!"
A lonesome Mary-Sue watched the scene play out from a park bench.
"Well...That was something you don't see everyday..." Willowe muttered to herself as the mashed potatoes began to dissolve.
-
"Tremor!" Jared managed to cough, Deraj was struck by an earth wave and tumbled forward.
Doug ran up behind Deraj and swung his blade, Deraj dodged at the last second but not without having his jacket get stuck on Doug's blade and pulled off.
"Hey! Give that back!" He barked.
"Hey, this is just my size." Doug said as he tried on the jacket.
"I didn't want to do this, but you two leave me no choice!" Deraj bellowed.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a remote control and began pressing buttons. Doug and Jared instantly became aware of a loud engine noise and were forced to leap out of the way as a Toyota Camry appeared out of a plothole.
The car barreled towards Deraj. Inside, many computer systems on the dashboard were calculating speed an trajectory. Once the speedometer hit 141.62 KPH (88 MPH in metric) a switch labeled 'Canonizer' automatically flipped itself into the on position at the exact time it hit Deraj.
Parts of the car began to fly apart and encircle Deraj, forming armor that to Jared looked like Galactic Federation Marine armor.
"Down!" Jared yelled to Doug. "He's become a Missile Trooper!"
Jared and Doug dove behind a cluster of rocks as Deraj began to fire missiles at them, Doug turned to Jared.
"You have any idea's for beating this guy?" He asked.
"As a matter of fact..." Jared whipped out his Communicator.
"Jared calling Charis, I repeat: Jared calling Charis, anybody there?"
There was a sound of things falling off of shelves and a squeak of surprise from the other end.
"You startled me. Where are you? It sounds like your in a war zone!" Came Charis' voice as another missile collided with the boulder Jared and Doug were using for shelter.
"Well, that's a song that ain't so very far from wrong Charis. Can you do me a favor? I need you to run over to my lab and grab a couple of the toy helicopters sitting on the shelves, tell General Idea the password is 'It's a family tradition.'"
"Alright, I'll get right on it. Charis out."
Captain Crunch turned to Jared. "Pardon me sir, but wasn't that last weeks password?"
-
Phazon energy bursts flew past Chloe as she evaded Cassandra's attacks. Cassandra appeared to be laughing, but it was impossible to know for sure without opening up a com-link, which was something Chloe was not very eager to do.
"Encanto!" She yelled, attempting to summon her shield. It seemed to fizzle into existence for a brief period of time before being dissolved.
Normally Hypermode only lasted so long, but as a Sue, Chloe doubted Cassandra had any such restrictions.
Aster repeatedly tried to freeze Cassandra, but the Sue's Phazon aura kept shattering the ice before it could form in a significant amount. Cassandra gave her a look out of the corner of her eye, attempting to non-verbally convey to Aster that she should wait her turn. This only served to enrage the fae, she began to charge her lunar beams when she was suddenly trapped in a green bubble.
"That ought to 'old 'er" Cassandra said to herself smugly. she turned to Chloe, she had still had one last trick she wanted to pull.
Chloe attempted to leap out of the way of where she assumed Cassandra's next shot would hit only to collide with a green barrier. She quickly tried to move in the other direction with the same result.
"Oh dear, I appear to be boxed in..." Was all she could say before the Phazon Missile struck...
Her visor display was reduced to static and warning noises began to fill her helmet.
WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE TO THE CANNONIZER, LIGHT SUIT HAS FAILED. ACTIVATING DARK SUIT.
NO! Chloe thought, the Dark suit isn't designed to handle toxic water, I'll be dead in seconds!
When her display came back into focus, she could see quite clearly the speed her now red and brown colored Power Suit was losing energy as the shields rapidly depleted her reserves in order to keep the water out.
ENERGY LOW flickered across her visor screen, she was just about to lose hope when suddenly there was no water around her. She appeared to be inside a miniature tornado that held the water back as it lifted her up. The air still ate away at her shielding, but at not nearly the same rate as it was while she was underwater. The vortex set her down inside of the Luminoth Light Crystal's dark-repressing field. The energy from the crystal slowly began to sink into Chloe's armor, repairing damaged systems and restoring energy/ Chloe turned to see Aster standing next to her.
"Cassandra's shielding appears to be hard-light based. I can dispel light, naturally her bubble couldn't hold me. Can you fight?"
Chloe coughed. "Most of Chevila's weapons are offline, and I don't have the energy to take very many hits, I'll be killed if I stray too far from this Light Crystal, I think you're on your own."
A grapple beam shot between the two and latched onto the edge of the bridge as Cassandra dragged herself up.
"You two are like dey cockroaches, you just won't die!" she screamed.
-
Karrissa was walking through the commons when her communicator rang.
"Jared calling Karrissa, I repeat: Jared calling Karrissa, please respond."
Karrisa opened her communicator and put it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Uh, this is awkward... I sent your sister to go get some supplies out of my lab, but I seem to have neglected to give her the correct password...She's probably fine, but you might want to go check on her. Jared out."
Karrissa wondered what the harm could be in entering a wrong password.
Then she remembered the nature of some of Jared's experiments.
Karrisa made her way to the science hall, she opened the door to Jared's lab and was greeted by a scene of utter chaos.
"Karrisa! Help me!" Screamed Charis as helicopters trailing grapples circled her body, binding her legs together. She fell to the floor with a thunk.
"Get her men! Show her what we do to people who try to steal our equipment." Shouted General Idea.
"I'm telling you! Jared ASKED me to send him some helicopters! I wasn't trying to steal them." Charis objected as ground troops began to drag more cables across her body and secure her to the floor.
"A likely story! You didn't even know the correct password! Most likely you're a Communist spy! When will you Reds learn not to mess with us!"
General Idea was suddenly picked up by an invisible force. "What in tarnation!" He yelled as Karrisa materialized out of nowhere with her hand wrapped around his body.
"Bloody hell! She's brought the whole damn KGB down on us..."
-
"Disenchanto!" Came a voice. The same instant it reached Drake's ears a vaguely Spartan-esc shield was slammed into the side of his head, followed by a Drought Punch from Ekard.
Drake was severly disoriented from the two-pronged assault, he was having a hard time keeping his balance.
"That's it, I've had it!" he yelled. "Ben, Nuke the room!"
Before Ben could reply, he was hit in the back by the blunt side of Eolhc's shield. He turned around and prepared to strike, only to predictably have no target.
"Are you sure?" he asked quizzingly.
"Do it!" replied Tyler, parrying a blow from Relyt.
"Alright, everybody get close!"
The three Society Agents and the one Cliche stick got a close as possible to each other.
Elohc knew now her strike force was in danger, and orders or no orders she was going to have to kill Ben. She drew a knife and took aim for Ben's throat as he was judging where the best place to drop the bomb would be. She was just about to throw when her wrist computer gave her an alert.
"Finally, our work here is done..." She muttered. "Everybody! Resta has ordered us to return to base! We're done here, vamos." She yelled, as she and her fellow agents whipped out their plothole generators, just as Ben was summoning a nuke.
"Don't mess with nukes!" Cried Ben, five fingers extended. Five nukes all landed at various points in the room, exploding and causing serious damage to all the pirate equipment.
The entire chamber started to rumble and dust and stones descended from the ceiling. Everyone had to adjust their footing to remain upright for several seconds before the rumbling ceased.
"Did we win?" Ben asked as the smoke settled.
"Anybody else smell napalm?" Drake asked.
"Not right now, but I love to smell of it in the mornings." Tyler replied, nimbly stepping aside as Shirley tried to take a bite out of his leg. Shirley was about to lunge again when the wall behind the group exploded, blowing them all back.
Ben coughed through the dust that hung everywhere in the air.
"I've gotta hand it to you," He said as he picked up Bahamut and got back to his feet. "You sure know how to make an entrance."
The figure standing in the hole in the wall remained silent and still.
Ben adjusted his glasses where they'd been knocked askew from the blast and squinted.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Just then, a gentle breeze blew through the hole that had been blasted in the wall, stirring the airborne dust and blowing it away.
All color drained from Ben's face and his eyes widened in fear. The breath left his lungs in a rush as if he'd been punched.
"N...Neb?" Ben's voice quavered.
"Negative." Came a flat mechanical voice. "Unit Designation: Osiris. The one you knew as Neb no longer occupies this vessel. You have been brought here so that I may be tested in combat."
Neb, or more accurately his body, was still dressed in his leather outfit, but now it was in tatters. He still wore his broken glasses as well, but in place of an eye a camera lens stared out at them from where his glasses had been broken. The arm the Ben had torn off had been replaced by a sophisticated napalm launcher, and there was a mini-gun mounted on his shoulder. The first thing that Ben noticed, however, was that this thing's mouth had been sewn shut, instead relying on the speaker box mounted on his collar which was covered in dials and receivers to communicate verbally.
Osiris' computer brain whirred as he analyzed the look of horror on the foursomes faces, calculating his next move.
Targets identified: ACMSES agents Ben, Tyler and Drake. Analyzing defenses...
Defenses: Inadequate, can easily be overpowered with heavy weapons fire.
Recommended Strategy: Use maximum firepower at maximum speed.
Napalm ignition chamber is fueling...
Ballistic Missile Launcher status: Three rockets ready to fire, beginning pre-launch sequence.
The thought had taken about a second from start to finish.
When the second was over, Osiris turned his head to face Drake.
Target: Drake Dragonsoul. Targets threat level is highest at close range, eliminate from a distance.
Osiris' mini-gun began to spin. Drake barely had time to solidify his cape before he was hit by a hail of bullets.
Tyler charged at Osiris, whirling his axle staff. Without even turning to face him Osiris just reached out and grabbed Tyler around the neck, in the same motion he turned to face Ben and launched Tyler as a makeshift projectile at him.
"MMMMUUUFFFFINNNNNSSSS!" Came Tyler's voice as Ben broke into a Fast-Step to avoid him, Tyler rocketed by him and slammed into a wall.
"Are you alright?" Ben gasped as he collapsed to his knees, panting from the effort of the Fast-Step.
"Look at all the pretty stars and birdies..."
"C'mon, pull it together Tyler!" Ben yelled. Tlyer just slumped backwards, his eyes closed. "No good, he's out cold!"
"Ben! Get this guy off of me!" Yelled Drake from behind his cape.
Osiris noticed that bullets were proving ineffective against Drake.
"Don't mess with nukes!" Ben wheezed, pushing his exhausted lungs father than he would've liked.
Osiris suddenly refocused his attention.
Incoming projectile, high explosive yield.
Predicted blast radius: 15 feet, initiating defense pattern delta.
Osiris raised his right arm towards the rapidly closing nuke and fired a burst of napalm.
Fire consumed the room.
-
A bit of the rock Jared and Doug were pinned down behind broke off and soared across the temple grounds.
"You two might as well come out! I have an unlimited supply of missiles. You're just delaying the inevitable" Deraj called.
"What part of that sentence would make us want to come out? Jared yelled, wishing he had Chevila with him.
"Dang it, what's taking Charis so long? This rock won't hold much longer."
-
General Idea was trapped in one of Jared's workshop vices, all of his subordinates froze in fear.
"Let her go right now!" Karrisa screamed.
General Idea turned his head to face Karrisa.
"Name: Idea, Rank: General, serial number: 0000" The tiny plastic man replied. Karrisa stared at Idea with a confused look on her face.
"What are you talking about?" She asked.
"Under the Geneva Convention, captured soldiers are required to give no more information than their name, rank and serial number to their captors." Crunch replied before going silent.
"What's going on in here? I can hear you all the way in my office." Adrian asked as he stepped into Jared's lab.
"Adrian! Help!" Called Charis from her position on the floor.
"These guys again? I'm going to have to have a talk with Jared, these guys are causing way too much trouble," The "ibrarian remarked before punching a large red button on the wall. The plastic army men fell lifeless to the floor.
"What happened? They all just died..." Karrissa asked.
"No, I just hit the emergency 'Stand Down' button I made Jared install after his army men attacked me..."
"Come again?" Asked Charis.
"I was ambushed by a battalion of these guys on one of my rounds. They came out of the ventilation and informed me that they were going to liberate the Library's supply of chocolate. I must say it was one of the most unusual battles I've ever been in. They retreated after I wiped out half their ranks, Jared assured me it was an accident and sometimes they slip out of his control. I told him to either dismantle them or to design a fail safe, he obviously chose the latter." Adrian remarked as he turned to leave.
-
Captain Crunch and the rest of his men dropped where they stood.
Jared snatched his plastic form off the ground. "Crunch! Speak to me!" The tiny naval officer said nothing.
"What happened?" Asked Doug while he was working on repairing his pistol.
"Someone must have pressed the shutdown button. I can't turn them back on until I get back to my lab..."
Karrisa suddenly appeared behind the two carrying two toy Blackhawk helicopters. Jared was about to ask what took so long until he noticed the look on her face, instead he just began apologizing profusely.
"You owe me big mister!" Was all Karrisa said as she handed Jared the helicopters and stepped back through the plothole. Jared made a mental note to do something nice for Karrisa and Charis in the near future.
"So what's the plan here?" Doug asked.
Jared pulled the grapples on the helicopters out and tied them together. "You ever see 'The Empire Strikes Back?'" He asked as he handed Doug a remote control.
-
Chloe gasped as Cassandra's grapple beam attached to her neck, Cassandra gave the beam a sharp tug and pulled Chloe out of the Light Crystals energy radius.
"Aster, Help!" Chloe gasped as her suit's already low energy began to deplete even more as she came into contact with Dark Aether's atmosphere.
A pillar of ice shot up from the ground between Chloe and Cassandra, severing the grapple beam. Chloe leapt back towards the Light Crystal.
"KYAA!" Aster suddenly appeared behind the Sue and slammed her Moon Staff into the Sues lower back.
Cassandra gasped as a shard of ice pierced her armor and and was driven into her flesh.
Aster retracted her staff as Cassandra's gasp of pain turned into a scream as Dark Aether's corrosive air began to eat away at her flesh through the breach in her armor.
Cassandra briefly glowed green as she summoned a force field around herself in order to create a bubble of clean air. Aster just dispelled it.
"Eat this, Frenchy!" Yelled Chloe as she released a blast from her arm cannon she had been charging.
Chloe hadn't expected the blow to contain so much power. Cassandra was blown clean off of the bridge. The two agents heard a splash and ran over to the side of the bridge. They looked just in time to see Cassandra's arm cannon sink into the murky waters.
"Well, that's one more Sue we won't have to worry about." Remarked Chloe. There was a flash of light as the Suit's Cannonizer recharged from being near the Light Crystal and brought the Light Suit back online.
"Should we go join the others?" Chloe asked right as her Communicator started ringing.
"Chloe, this is Tash. Cassandra is gone, but the monitors are still registering high levels of Sueish activity in your area."
"How is that possible?" Chloe asked.
"How am I supposed to know? You're the techie."
Chloe sighed, "Alright, I'll have a look around."
-
The room lay in ruins.
Pirate crates were turned over and shattered and anything that would catch had been set ablaze. The only thing that was seemingly unaffected was Osiris, who was once again stalking towards the group.
"Oh my aching hair..." Drake muttered, getting up and shaking his head. He began to stand up from where he had been blown off of his feet, his eyes widened when he saw Osiris was still moving.
"Oh c'mon, how many times do you have to die before you stay down?" He objected.
Osiris didn't answer. Instead he just lifted a fallen rock with his still mostly-human hand and rolled it at Drake like an enourmous bowling ball.
"Que Indiana Jones music!" Drake shouted as he began to sprint to keep ahead of the rock when it suddenly exploded into harmless fragments.
Osiris turned to face Ben, who still had his finger pointed at where the rock had been.
There was a gash on Ben's right temple where his head had been hit. Ben lowered his hand and raised Bahamut. The guitar was partially melted. Ben looked down at the instrument in his hands.
I could try to unleash Death Metal Bahamut now, but I'm not sure if it's taken enough damage yet. Plus, even if it has, there's no guarantee it'll be able to take Neb-Osiris down again. If it doesn't I'll be nearly defenseless... but if I don't-
"Do it!" Shouted Shirley, reading his mind. "And make sure you kill him for good this time!"
Ben gritted his teeth. Apparently his choice had been made for him.
Ben took the strap off from around his neck and held Bahamut up towards Osiris. His eyebrow furrowed, black shadows began to leak from his eyes and his voice distorted.
Strike with the fury of a wounded god... Bahamut!
The fire around Ben was instantly snuffed as shadows fused with raw power blasted outwards, hiding him from view. Ben could feel the guitar twisting and morphing in his hands. Curves became edges and he felt the fretboard strech and grow longer under his left hand. A second skin slid over the guitar's surface as silver was replaced with black and swoosh marks inverted from black to a glowing white.
There was no exchange of words between the two this time as Ben parted the shadows with a screaming guitar solo, for Osiris had already said all that he had deemed nessacary, and Ben was too frightened to say anything even the slightest bit cocky.
A concussive blast burst forth from Death Metal Bahamut and slammed into Osiris' minigun. There was a sound of sheering metal as the gun tore free from the rivets holding it in place.
Osiris raised his napalm launcher in a jerky motion indicating shoulder damage from the hit, the motion was proceeded by a blast of napalm. Ben hammered a chord on Death Metal Bahamut as drops of sweat built on his forehead. The concussive blast and the napalm collided in midair and exploded, knocking Ben back.
Ben wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he prepared to fire again. This time the blast hit Osiris in the chest with a loud metallic crash. The cyborg slid back and stumbled, but did not fall. The blast had torn off the front of his ratty leather jacket, exposing reinforced metal plating that had been severly dented and cracked from the last blast.
"Aim for his head!" Shouted Drake as he ran back towards the battle. Ben's hand arced downward again, but before he could manage to string a note off the guitar flickered back to it's standerd form.
"No!" Ben shouted, feeling sick. Apparently Bahamut hadn't sustained enough damage to warrant a longer transformation.
"Storm Punch!" Shouted Drake, leaping at the cyborg. Osiris just turned and caught him by the neck. Drake gasped as Osiris raised his napalm launcher and fired a thin spray all over the agent. It quickly ignited, covering Drake with flames. Osiris flung him aside and turned to face Ben.
"Gah! I'm on fire!" Shouted Drake, deactivating his armor to avoid being burned.
Osiris raised his left hand towards Ben, the middle finger collapsed as he prepared to fire on Ben...
"Hi Neb! Did you miss me?" Shouted Tyler as leaped on Osiris' back and slammed his staff into his face. Osiris' eye cameras cracked and began to lose their focus.
"I am not the agent Neb. My designation is Osiris." The cyborg stated flatly, not in the least concerned by the loss of his vision as he tried to throw Tyler off.
"Tyler! I thought you were down!" Shouted Drake.
"I got better!" The paddle-wielding agent answered as he leapt forward and blasted Osiris' damaged armor. The metal plate shattered, revealing a series of instruments wired into thin layers of copper plating beneath.
Osiris tried to backhand Tyler but the blow just passed through Tyler's hair as the agent ducked.
Tyler trusted his staff into Osiris' middle torso, releasing a burst of black fluid that smelled vaguely of formaldehyde into Tyler's face.
"Yuck! Even I think that's gross!" Tyler yelled as he stumbled back, gagging.
"My coffeemakers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Shouted Ben, releasing a torrent of coffee at the cyborg.
The coffee had a far greater effect than Ben expected. The thing was blown over and knocked onto the ground, sparks began to crawl across it's body as it began to jerk violently and gibberish crackled from it's neck speaker. After several seconds, Neb's body settled it turned to look at Ben.
Ben could only stare in horrified fascination as a cold smile crawled across Osiris lips, which was quite creepy considering it's mouth was sewn shut.
The speaker around Osiris neck crackled for a second, before the voice of Neb came though one last time.
"Death... is only the beginning."
Then Osiris went still.
-
Aster sat on the ground looking bored while Chloe examined the Luminoth light crystal. Suddenly, Chloe shot up, a worried expression on her face.
"It appears someone has embedded a micro antenna into the crystal, it looks like it's designed to emit false Sue readings! This whole mission has been a decoy! The other agents are falling into a trap. We have to go!" Chloe shouted as she began to run, dragging Aster along by her shoulder.
"Wait... what?"
-
Deraj fired one last missile at Jared and Doug's makeshift shelter and the rock shattered into millions of pieces.
Deraj glanced at Doug. "Tell you what. I don't need you, hand over the techie and I'll let you walk away."
Doug didn't answer, he just raised his repaired pistol and fired, the bullet knocked Deraj off of his feet as it embedded itself into his armor.
"Fair enough! We shall do this the old fashioned way!" He said as he stood up, then Doug shot him down again.
"Would you stop doing that? It's rather annoying?" He complained, so Doug shot him once again.
"Feel free to stand back up, I have plenty of ammo." Doug said.
"That won't be necessary." Replied Deraj. "Quake!"
Doug was blown through the air and slammed into a rock wall. Deraj drew his revolver, loaded a bullet and fired at the downed halfling, Doug let out a brief shout as the bullet entered his shoulder.
"Boomhammer!" Jared yelled, charging at Deraj. Deraj turned towards the charging agent and fired a missile at the hammer. Hammer and missile collided, blowing Jared back and flinging him next to Doug.
"Now?" Asked Doug.
"Now!" Shouter Jared as he whipped out a remote control.
The two helicopters flew in behind Deraj and began to fly circles around him.
"What?" Deraj was tempted to ignore them, when he noticed the cord tying them together. He suddenly found his limbs were tangled up. The lines went taunt and Deraj tumbled over.
"Your under arrest on behalf of the ACMSES." Jared called to his counterpart.
Deraj sighed. "You're going to force me to play my trump card Jared, I don't think you want to do that."
"We'll take our chances!" Said Doug, wondering what they would do with a non-Stu prisoner.
Deraj grimaced, he had been bluffing. Osiris was busy battling in the Agon Wastes and Cassandra was still on the surface of Dark Aether. Deraj began to struggle against the cords binding him in a mad effort to break free.
Doug noticed something out of the corner of his eye and had just enough time to push Jared to the ground when several knives flew out of a plothole.
"Deraj, sometimes I think your as incompetent as your counterpart. Letting yourself get captured by helicopters carrying bailing twine? You're just as bad as Repiv." Eolhc said as she and 4 other members of the PCMSPS came through the plothole. Eolhc drew a short sword from her belt and slashed the bonds that bound Deraj.
"Move people!" Retsa shouted to Ekard and Relyt as they stumbled out of the plothole.
"Seriously! You order us to let ourselves get beat up for an entire fight, call us back, and then order use right back into the field?" Ekard objected.
"Dude, shut up," replied Relyt as he drew his weapon.
"Doug... I'm afraid we've just been one upped," Jared said solomly
Retsa smirked. "You might want to double check your calculations... I beleive you've just been four or five upped," lhe leader of the PCMSPS said as an army of Uber Stus began to pour into the fandom behind them.
"And so it begins..." Deraj said as he pointed his missle launcher at Doug and fired.
-
"So... What now?" Asked Tyler, staring at Osiris prone form.
"We could take it back to one of the labs... maybe they could run some tests." Drake suggested. Nobody was standing too close to the body out of a combination of fear and disgust.
"We should destroy it now, it's already been ressurected once." added Shirley.
Before the debate could continue to play out the group was interrupted by the sudden appearance of yet another plothole. Something flew out of the plothole and bounced to the feet of the group.
It was a grenade.
"You know, I'm really starting to hate these things." Drake grumbled.
The weapon went off with a sonic blast, incapacitating the group.
Sirahc out of the plothole and stepped over the prone agents as she walked over to where Osiris lay.
"Oh Deraj, I told you this model wouldn't stand up to the tests..." She pulled out a pocket clipboard and began to make notes, "When we build version 2.0 we're defiantly going to need to make it waterproof to prevent future short circuiting." She muttered to herself. "The minigun it too heavy and cumbersome, so that's just going to have to go... the napalm launcher isn't functional enough to warrent replacing a hand, that will have to be redesigned too... and another thing..."
"Private Property, set a collision course accelerate to ramming speed!"
"But Captain, you can ram at any speed!"
"Are you refusing to carry out my order?"
"No sir, I was just pointing out that your order is too vague to make any sort of compliance possible."
"Dammit private, I want men who can thrive on vague objectives! Just point the craft at Deraj and floor it! Is that clear enough for you?"
The tiny helicopter surged forward at top speed, which was only about as fast as double a normal persons walking speed.
Captain Crunch turned to face Private Industry.
"Private, does Deraj notice our approach?"
"Negative, he seems to preoccupied with Civilian Doug. Hold on... he appears to be aiming some kind of revolver at him."
"What? Increase speed!"
"Sir, I'm not the one piloting, you need to speak to Private Property!"
Captain Crunch turned to the pilot.
"Private, increase speed!"
"But sir, we're already at the top speed this chopper can go!"
"What? I thought I told you I wanted ramming speed!"
Deraj drew his revolver and took aim at Doug's head.
"I Believe your time is up, monsieur Douglas..." He pulled the pulled the trigger, and at that moment however the LPGB's Apache slammed into the side of Deraj's head. The Elimination Society agent stumbled and the gun's only bullet ricocheted harmlessly against some rocks. The LPGB helicopter was not designed with ramming in mind and promptly began to fall, crash landing on the rocks beside Doug.
"You'll pay for ruining my dramatic head shot!" Deraj bellowed as he stomped on the top of the tiny chopper. The craft burst into tiny fragments, scattering its plastic crew.
Jared's vision began to come back to him. At first he could only see motion but now he began to make out the blurry outlines of Deraj and Doug. Doug appeared to be struggling to attack his foe but was unable to escape from the hard, desolate ground surrounding him.
"Uh Jared, can you lend me a hand here?" Doug whispered to Jared while Deraj was distracted by Captain Crunch's forces surrounding him, dropping them like flies with a sequence of well aimed stomps.
"Well, I'd never be able to dig you out in a timely fashion, although I suppose I could probably blast you out with earth magic..."
"Well, what are you waiting for? my legs are going numb."
"Geyser!" Jared shouted. The ground beneath Doug suddenly burst outward and he was flung into the air. Doug nimbly twisted in mid-flight and aimed his pistol at Deraj. Unfortunately for him, the gun was jammed with tightly packed dirt and was rendered useless. Doug swore and flung the useless weapon aside. Instead he opted for doing things the old fashion way and simply landed on top of Deraj's back.
"Hey! What are you doing? Get off me!" The mad scientist yelled.
"I bet you wont be so cocky without this thing!" Doug yelled as he yanked Deraj's visor free with a triumphant shout.
"Boomhammer!" Jared shouted as he swung his weapon, but Deraj ducked and Jared wound up hitting Doug on the top of the head.
Doug was thrown of Deraj and bounced several feet before coming to a stop.
"Are you trying to give me a headache?" He yelled at Jared.
"Sorry, my vision hasn't completely cleared yet," Jared replied.
"Nor do I intend on letting it happen!" Deraj yelled, stretching his hand. "Quake!" He screamed.
Jared had never been on the receiving end of earth magic before, but he soon found out that it wasn't pleasant. The pure concussive force threw him into the air, tiny rocks made cuts on his skin and the larger ones hit him with enough force to raise welts and bruises.
Jared slammed into a rock and gasped as the wind was knocked out of him, he desperately trying to inhale as Deraj charged after him.
-
Aster had not really thought her moves through very thoroughly. Apparently she was unaware of the fact Cassandra's suit had a gravity booster that allowed her to move normally through the water, unfortunately Aster did not have such a perk, and her movement was severely hindered. You could actually see her mouth take the shape of "KYAA" as she was struck by one of Cassandra's force fields.
Chloe ran up behind the Mary Sue and delivered a crushing blow to the back of her head with her left fist, unfortunately causing no harm to the Sue.
"'Ow rude," Cassandra remarked as she turned around and blasted Chloe with a Super Missile. The resulting explosion threw Chloe several yards away and slammed her into the wall.
"WARNING: CANNONIZER FUNCTIONALITY AT 84%, GRAPPLE BEAM AND POWER BOMBS HAVE BEEN TAKEN OFFLINE TO COMPENSATE" Said a voice in Chloe's helmet over the sound of her own ears ringing.
Chloe decided to try her Arm Cannon again. She pulled back the lever she had tried last time but instead of releasing it all the way she simply held onto it. To her satisfaction a dark mass began to build up at the end of her Arm Cannon. Chloe took aimed and fired, Cassandra had not been expecting her to recover so fast and was taken completely off guard. Dark energy solidified all around her, trapping her inside of a fluid-like purple cocoon.
Aster was not one who liked to be tricked. Once she had recovered she began to prepare to counterattack, strong winds instantly blew down from the heavens in a powerful downdraft, swirling the toxic water of the Torvus Bog. Aster kept the wind blowing until it began to form a whirlpool around Cassandra, who was struggling to break free from her prison. The whirlpool swept her up and began to spin her around in the water, then Aster froze it, further trapping the Sue in a solid block of ice made from the poisonous water.
"So how are we going to prohibit her now?" Chloe shouted at Aster before she realized the fae would not be able to hear her through the liquid.
Incoming transmission, warned her suit. At first Chloe thought someone from the Library was contacting her before she realized the warning was coming from the suit itself, not from her communicator.
"Why that's eesy, you won't." Purred Cassandra's voice over her suit's speakers.
WARNING: Phazon spike detected in target, Cassandra has entered Hypermode. Was the next message her suit received.
"What?" Said Chloe, "But Hypermode wasn't introduced until the third game, surely she can't have access to weaponry that hasn't been invented yet!" She objected to no one in particular.
Cassandra's makeshift prison shattered and the now-glowing Sue emanating rainbow energy swirls lowered herself to the floor of the bog.
"Yes, I can," was the only response she gave.
-
Shirley's claws came into contact with Eolhc's blade with a metallic clang as the Protection agent blocked the Cliche Stick's strike.
Shirley prepared to strike again only to discover Eolhc had vanished.
"Hey, no fair hiding in the shadows!" Shirley protested.
Ben looked around warily, holding Bahamut at the ready until a knife flew out from one of the shadows and severed one of the guitar's strings. The string snapped violently and recoiled into one of Ben's fingers, nearly causing him to drop the weapon entirely but for the strap around his neck.
"Ouch! You have no appreciation for music lady!"
While Ben was being used for target practice, Tyler and Drake were busy fighting their respective counterparts/ Drake grabbed Relyt by the leg and hurled him into Ekard, following up with a Storm Punch to the face and knocking the two Protection Society agents off balance.
"Way to go Drake! If we keep this up we might still have time to raid that cookie stash I saw Adrian hide in the British Literature section." Tyler said as he blasted Relyt with a magic bolt.
"You saw him hide it? Sounds like a decoy to me." Drake replied as he blocked a blow from Ekard and followed up with a punch to his gut.
Something doesn't feel right, it's never this easy.He thought to himself as one of Elohc's knives bounced harmlessly off of his armor.
-
A lone figure began to make his way through the Space Pirates mine leaving a trail of corpses lying in his wake. His skin and clothes shimmered and rippled as light reflected around him. It would take a person with very keen eyesight to distinguish him from the surrounding rock. His computer brain whirred as it began to process his surroundings.
Distance to destination: 20 yards and closing.
Pirate resistance: Non-existent. All Space Pirates have been eliminated.
Destination in sight. Engagement zone is behind this wall.
Receiving orders from command: Begin placing charges. Disengage stealth mode and engage targets at will.
-
Elohc was muttering to herself. What was taking the Osiris unit so long? She wasn't liking fighting with kid gloves on. She'd much rather take Ben and the others head-on then attack from the shadows, but unlike her partner, she viewed orders as more than just suggestions. So she would just have to wait...
She jumped out of the shadows directly behind Ben, punched him in the back of the neck and made a shallow cut across his left shoulder. Tyler turned and prepared to fire a magic bolt, but Eolhc just threw a knife at him. Fortunately for Tyler it had been thrown so that the handle, not the blade struck him between the eyes. When Tyler's vision came back into focus she was gone again.
"I hate fighting these stealthy wannabe ninja types, if only Cristoph were here, he'd show her a thing or two." he muttered.
"It's impolite to mutter you know." Relyt said as he struck Tyler on the back of the head.
-
Somewhere in the Twilight fandom...
Fred began to tear up in joy. Vampires that sparkle? If that wasn't crack then Fred didn't know what was. He could almost feel himself grow fatter the longer he remained in the fandom.
Larry, Fred's emotive mustache, perked into a U shape.
He turned to this series' protagonist, Edward Cullens, who was gazing in shock at the 800 pound man's frightening form.
"Stay sparkly!" Fred yelled as he extended is arm, "Wonder crack powers, activate!"
A plothole suddenly opened above the Twipires head, dumping a massive pile of mashed potatoes on him, and buring completely. Fred then opened a new plothole and began to depart, "Oh quit looking at me like that Larry!"
A lonesome Mary-Sue watched the scene play out from a park bench.
"Well...That was something you don't see everyday..." Willowe muttered to herself as the mashed potatoes began to dissolve.
-
"Tremor!" Jared managed to cough, Deraj was struck by an earth wave and tumbled forward.
Doug ran up behind Deraj and swung his blade, Deraj dodged at the last second but not without having his jacket get stuck on Doug's blade and pulled off.
"Hey! Give that back!" He barked.
"Hey, this is just my size." Doug said as he tried on the jacket.
"I didn't want to do this, but you two leave me no choice!" Deraj bellowed.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a remote control and began pressing buttons. Doug and Jared instantly became aware of a loud engine noise and were forced to leap out of the way as a Toyota Camry appeared out of a plothole.
The car barreled towards Deraj. Inside, many computer systems on the dashboard were calculating speed an trajectory. Once the speedometer hit 141.62 KPH (88 MPH in metric) a switch labeled 'Canonizer' automatically flipped itself into the on position at the exact time it hit Deraj.
Parts of the car began to fly apart and encircle Deraj, forming armor that to Jared looked like Galactic Federation Marine armor.
"Down!" Jared yelled to Doug. "He's become a Missile Trooper!"
Jared and Doug dove behind a cluster of rocks as Deraj began to fire missiles at them, Doug turned to Jared.
"You have any idea's for beating this guy?" He asked.
"As a matter of fact..." Jared whipped out his Communicator.
"Jared calling Charis, I repeat: Jared calling Charis, anybody there?"
There was a sound of things falling off of shelves and a squeak of surprise from the other end.
"You startled me. Where are you? It sounds like your in a war zone!" Came Charis' voice as another missile collided with the boulder Jared and Doug were using for shelter.
"Well, that's a song that ain't so very far from wrong Charis. Can you do me a favor? I need you to run over to my lab and grab a couple of the toy helicopters sitting on the shelves, tell General Idea the password is 'It's a family tradition.'"
"Alright, I'll get right on it. Charis out."
Captain Crunch turned to Jared. "Pardon me sir, but wasn't that last weeks password?"
-
Phazon energy bursts flew past Chloe as she evaded Cassandra's attacks. Cassandra appeared to be laughing, but it was impossible to know for sure without opening up a com-link, which was something Chloe was not very eager to do.
"Encanto!" She yelled, attempting to summon her shield. It seemed to fizzle into existence for a brief period of time before being dissolved.
Normally Hypermode only lasted so long, but as a Sue, Chloe doubted Cassandra had any such restrictions.
Aster repeatedly tried to freeze Cassandra, but the Sue's Phazon aura kept shattering the ice before it could form in a significant amount. Cassandra gave her a look out of the corner of her eye, attempting to non-verbally convey to Aster that she should wait her turn. This only served to enrage the fae, she began to charge her lunar beams when she was suddenly trapped in a green bubble.
"That ought to 'old 'er" Cassandra said to herself smugly. she turned to Chloe, she had still had one last trick she wanted to pull.
Chloe attempted to leap out of the way of where she assumed Cassandra's next shot would hit only to collide with a green barrier. She quickly tried to move in the other direction with the same result.
"Oh dear, I appear to be boxed in..." Was all she could say before the Phazon Missile struck...
Her visor display was reduced to static and warning noises began to fill her helmet.
WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE TO THE CANNONIZER, LIGHT SUIT HAS FAILED. ACTIVATING DARK SUIT.
NO! Chloe thought, the Dark suit isn't designed to handle toxic water, I'll be dead in seconds!
When her display came back into focus, she could see quite clearly the speed her now red and brown colored Power Suit was losing energy as the shields rapidly depleted her reserves in order to keep the water out.
ENERGY LOW flickered across her visor screen, she was just about to lose hope when suddenly there was no water around her. She appeared to be inside a miniature tornado that held the water back as it lifted her up. The air still ate away at her shielding, but at not nearly the same rate as it was while she was underwater. The vortex set her down inside of the Luminoth Light Crystal's dark-repressing field. The energy from the crystal slowly began to sink into Chloe's armor, repairing damaged systems and restoring energy/ Chloe turned to see Aster standing next to her.
"Cassandra's shielding appears to be hard-light based. I can dispel light, naturally her bubble couldn't hold me. Can you fight?"
Chloe coughed. "Most of Chevila's weapons are offline, and I don't have the energy to take very many hits, I'll be killed if I stray too far from this Light Crystal, I think you're on your own."
A grapple beam shot between the two and latched onto the edge of the bridge as Cassandra dragged herself up.
"You two are like dey cockroaches, you just won't die!" she screamed.
-
Karrissa was walking through the commons when her communicator rang.
"Jared calling Karrissa, I repeat: Jared calling Karrissa, please respond."
Karrisa opened her communicator and put it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Uh, this is awkward... I sent your sister to go get some supplies out of my lab, but I seem to have neglected to give her the correct password...She's probably fine, but you might want to go check on her. Jared out."
Karrissa wondered what the harm could be in entering a wrong password.
Then she remembered the nature of some of Jared's experiments.
Karrisa made her way to the science hall, she opened the door to Jared's lab and was greeted by a scene of utter chaos.
"Karrisa! Help me!" Screamed Charis as helicopters trailing grapples circled her body, binding her legs together. She fell to the floor with a thunk.
"Get her men! Show her what we do to people who try to steal our equipment." Shouted General Idea.
"I'm telling you! Jared ASKED me to send him some helicopters! I wasn't trying to steal them." Charis objected as ground troops began to drag more cables across her body and secure her to the floor.
"A likely story! You didn't even know the correct password! Most likely you're a Communist spy! When will you Reds learn not to mess with us!"
General Idea was suddenly picked up by an invisible force. "What in tarnation!" He yelled as Karrisa materialized out of nowhere with her hand wrapped around his body.
"Bloody hell! She's brought the whole damn KGB down on us..."
-
"Disenchanto!" Came a voice. The same instant it reached Drake's ears a vaguely Spartan-esc shield was slammed into the side of his head, followed by a Drought Punch from Ekard.
Drake was severly disoriented from the two-pronged assault, he was having a hard time keeping his balance.
"That's it, I've had it!" he yelled. "Ben, Nuke the room!"
Before Ben could reply, he was hit in the back by the blunt side of Eolhc's shield. He turned around and prepared to strike, only to predictably have no target.
"Are you sure?" he asked quizzingly.
"Do it!" replied Tyler, parrying a blow from Relyt.
"Alright, everybody get close!"
The three Society Agents and the one Cliche stick got a close as possible to each other.
Elohc knew now her strike force was in danger, and orders or no orders she was going to have to kill Ben. She drew a knife and took aim for Ben's throat as he was judging where the best place to drop the bomb would be. She was just about to throw when her wrist computer gave her an alert.
"Finally, our work here is done..." She muttered. "Everybody! Resta has ordered us to return to base! We're done here, vamos." She yelled, as she and her fellow agents whipped out their plothole generators, just as Ben was summoning a nuke.
"Don't mess with nukes!" Cried Ben, five fingers extended. Five nukes all landed at various points in the room, exploding and causing serious damage to all the pirate equipment.
The entire chamber started to rumble and dust and stones descended from the ceiling. Everyone had to adjust their footing to remain upright for several seconds before the rumbling ceased.
"Did we win?" Ben asked as the smoke settled.
"Anybody else smell napalm?" Drake asked.
"Not right now, but I love to smell of it in the mornings." Tyler replied, nimbly stepping aside as Shirley tried to take a bite out of his leg. Shirley was about to lunge again when the wall behind the group exploded, blowing them all back.
Ben coughed through the dust that hung everywhere in the air.
"I've gotta hand it to you," He said as he picked up Bahamut and got back to his feet. "You sure know how to make an entrance."
The figure standing in the hole in the wall remained silent and still.
Ben adjusted his glasses where they'd been knocked askew from the blast and squinted.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Just then, a gentle breeze blew through the hole that had been blasted in the wall, stirring the airborne dust and blowing it away.
All color drained from Ben's face and his eyes widened in fear. The breath left his lungs in a rush as if he'd been punched.
"N...Neb?" Ben's voice quavered.
"Negative." Came a flat mechanical voice. "Unit Designation: Osiris. The one you knew as Neb no longer occupies this vessel. You have been brought here so that I may be tested in combat."
Neb, or more accurately his body, was still dressed in his leather outfit, but now it was in tatters. He still wore his broken glasses as well, but in place of an eye a camera lens stared out at them from where his glasses had been broken. The arm the Ben had torn off had been replaced by a sophisticated napalm launcher, and there was a mini-gun mounted on his shoulder. The first thing that Ben noticed, however, was that this thing's mouth had been sewn shut, instead relying on the speaker box mounted on his collar which was covered in dials and receivers to communicate verbally.
Osiris' computer brain whirred as he analyzed the look of horror on the foursomes faces, calculating his next move.
Targets identified: ACMSES agents Ben, Tyler and Drake. Analyzing defenses...
Defenses: Inadequate, can easily be overpowered with heavy weapons fire.
Recommended Strategy: Use maximum firepower at maximum speed.
Napalm ignition chamber is fueling...
Ballistic Missile Launcher status: Three rockets ready to fire, beginning pre-launch sequence.
The thought had taken about a second from start to finish.
When the second was over, Osiris turned his head to face Drake.
Target: Drake Dragonsoul. Targets threat level is highest at close range, eliminate from a distance.
Osiris' mini-gun began to spin. Drake barely had time to solidify his cape before he was hit by a hail of bullets.
Tyler charged at Osiris, whirling his axle staff. Without even turning to face him Osiris just reached out and grabbed Tyler around the neck, in the same motion he turned to face Ben and launched Tyler as a makeshift projectile at him.
"MMMMUUUFFFFINNNNNSSSS!" Came Tyler's voice as Ben broke into a Fast-Step to avoid him, Tyler rocketed by him and slammed into a wall.
"Are you alright?" Ben gasped as he collapsed to his knees, panting from the effort of the Fast-Step.
"Look at all the pretty stars and birdies..."
"C'mon, pull it together Tyler!" Ben yelled. Tlyer just slumped backwards, his eyes closed. "No good, he's out cold!"
"Ben! Get this guy off of me!" Yelled Drake from behind his cape.
Osiris noticed that bullets were proving ineffective against Drake.
"Don't mess with nukes!" Ben wheezed, pushing his exhausted lungs father than he would've liked.
Osiris suddenly refocused his attention.
Incoming projectile, high explosive yield.
Predicted blast radius: 15 feet, initiating defense pattern delta.
Osiris raised his right arm towards the rapidly closing nuke and fired a burst of napalm.
Fire consumed the room.
-
A bit of the rock Jared and Doug were pinned down behind broke off and soared across the temple grounds.
"You two might as well come out! I have an unlimited supply of missiles. You're just delaying the inevitable" Deraj called.
"What part of that sentence would make us want to come out? Jared yelled, wishing he had Chevila with him.
"Dang it, what's taking Charis so long? This rock won't hold much longer."
-
General Idea was trapped in one of Jared's workshop vices, all of his subordinates froze in fear.
"Let her go right now!" Karrisa screamed.
General Idea turned his head to face Karrisa.
"Name: Idea, Rank: General, serial number: 0000" The tiny plastic man replied. Karrisa stared at Idea with a confused look on her face.
"What are you talking about?" She asked.
"Under the Geneva Convention, captured soldiers are required to give no more information than their name, rank and serial number to their captors." Crunch replied before going silent.
"What's going on in here? I can hear you all the way in my office." Adrian asked as he stepped into Jared's lab.
"Adrian! Help!" Called Charis from her position on the floor.
"These guys again? I'm going to have to have a talk with Jared, these guys are causing way too much trouble," The "ibrarian remarked before punching a large red button on the wall. The plastic army men fell lifeless to the floor.
"What happened? They all just died..." Karrissa asked.
"No, I just hit the emergency 'Stand Down' button I made Jared install after his army men attacked me..."
"Come again?" Asked Charis.
"I was ambushed by a battalion of these guys on one of my rounds. They came out of the ventilation and informed me that they were going to liberate the Library's supply of chocolate. I must say it was one of the most unusual battles I've ever been in. They retreated after I wiped out half their ranks, Jared assured me it was an accident and sometimes they slip out of his control. I told him to either dismantle them or to design a fail safe, he obviously chose the latter." Adrian remarked as he turned to leave.
-
Captain Crunch and the rest of his men dropped where they stood.
Jared snatched his plastic form off the ground. "Crunch! Speak to me!" The tiny naval officer said nothing.
"What happened?" Asked Doug while he was working on repairing his pistol.
"Someone must have pressed the shutdown button. I can't turn them back on until I get back to my lab..."
Karrisa suddenly appeared behind the two carrying two toy Blackhawk helicopters. Jared was about to ask what took so long until he noticed the look on her face, instead he just began apologizing profusely.
"You owe me big mister!" Was all Karrisa said as she handed Jared the helicopters and stepped back through the plothole. Jared made a mental note to do something nice for Karrisa and Charis in the near future.
"So what's the plan here?" Doug asked.
Jared pulled the grapples on the helicopters out and tied them together. "You ever see 'The Empire Strikes Back?'" He asked as he handed Doug a remote control.
-
Chloe gasped as Cassandra's grapple beam attached to her neck, Cassandra gave the beam a sharp tug and pulled Chloe out of the Light Crystals energy radius.
"Aster, Help!" Chloe gasped as her suit's already low energy began to deplete even more as she came into contact with Dark Aether's atmosphere.
A pillar of ice shot up from the ground between Chloe and Cassandra, severing the grapple beam. Chloe leapt back towards the Light Crystal.
"KYAA!" Aster suddenly appeared behind the Sue and slammed her Moon Staff into the Sues lower back.
Cassandra gasped as a shard of ice pierced her armor and and was driven into her flesh.
Aster retracted her staff as Cassandra's gasp of pain turned into a scream as Dark Aether's corrosive air began to eat away at her flesh through the breach in her armor.
Cassandra briefly glowed green as she summoned a force field around herself in order to create a bubble of clean air. Aster just dispelled it.
"Eat this, Frenchy!" Yelled Chloe as she released a blast from her arm cannon she had been charging.
Chloe hadn't expected the blow to contain so much power. Cassandra was blown clean off of the bridge. The two agents heard a splash and ran over to the side of the bridge. They looked just in time to see Cassandra's arm cannon sink into the murky waters.
"Well, that's one more Sue we won't have to worry about." Remarked Chloe. There was a flash of light as the Suit's Cannonizer recharged from being near the Light Crystal and brought the Light Suit back online.
"Should we go join the others?" Chloe asked right as her Communicator started ringing.
"Chloe, this is Tash. Cassandra is gone, but the monitors are still registering high levels of Sueish activity in your area."
"How is that possible?" Chloe asked.
"How am I supposed to know? You're the techie."
Chloe sighed, "Alright, I'll have a look around."
-
The room lay in ruins.
Pirate crates were turned over and shattered and anything that would catch had been set ablaze. The only thing that was seemingly unaffected was Osiris, who was once again stalking towards the group.
"Oh my aching hair..." Drake muttered, getting up and shaking his head. He began to stand up from where he had been blown off of his feet, his eyes widened when he saw Osiris was still moving.
"Oh c'mon, how many times do you have to die before you stay down?" He objected.
Osiris didn't answer. Instead he just lifted a fallen rock with his still mostly-human hand and rolled it at Drake like an enourmous bowling ball.
"Que Indiana Jones music!" Drake shouted as he began to sprint to keep ahead of the rock when it suddenly exploded into harmless fragments.
Osiris turned to face Ben, who still had his finger pointed at where the rock had been.
There was a gash on Ben's right temple where his head had been hit. Ben lowered his hand and raised Bahamut. The guitar was partially melted. Ben looked down at the instrument in his hands.
I could try to unleash Death Metal Bahamut now, but I'm not sure if it's taken enough damage yet. Plus, even if it has, there's no guarantee it'll be able to take Neb-Osiris down again. If it doesn't I'll be nearly defenseless... but if I don't-
"Do it!" Shouted Shirley, reading his mind. "And make sure you kill him for good this time!"
Ben gritted his teeth. Apparently his choice had been made for him.
Ben took the strap off from around his neck and held Bahamut up towards Osiris. His eyebrow furrowed, black shadows began to leak from his eyes and his voice distorted.
Strike with the fury of a wounded god... Bahamut!
The fire around Ben was instantly snuffed as shadows fused with raw power blasted outwards, hiding him from view. Ben could feel the guitar twisting and morphing in his hands. Curves became edges and he felt the fretboard strech and grow longer under his left hand. A second skin slid over the guitar's surface as silver was replaced with black and swoosh marks inverted from black to a glowing white.
There was no exchange of words between the two this time as Ben parted the shadows with a screaming guitar solo, for Osiris had already said all that he had deemed nessacary, and Ben was too frightened to say anything even the slightest bit cocky.
A concussive blast burst forth from Death Metal Bahamut and slammed into Osiris' minigun. There was a sound of sheering metal as the gun tore free from the rivets holding it in place.
Osiris raised his napalm launcher in a jerky motion indicating shoulder damage from the hit, the motion was proceeded by a blast of napalm. Ben hammered a chord on Death Metal Bahamut as drops of sweat built on his forehead. The concussive blast and the napalm collided in midair and exploded, knocking Ben back.
Ben wiped the sweat off of his forehead as he prepared to fire again. This time the blast hit Osiris in the chest with a loud metallic crash. The cyborg slid back and stumbled, but did not fall. The blast had torn off the front of his ratty leather jacket, exposing reinforced metal plating that had been severly dented and cracked from the last blast.
"Aim for his head!" Shouted Drake as he ran back towards the battle. Ben's hand arced downward again, but before he could manage to string a note off the guitar flickered back to it's standerd form.
"No!" Ben shouted, feeling sick. Apparently Bahamut hadn't sustained enough damage to warrant a longer transformation.
"Storm Punch!" Shouted Drake, leaping at the cyborg. Osiris just turned and caught him by the neck. Drake gasped as Osiris raised his napalm launcher and fired a thin spray all over the agent. It quickly ignited, covering Drake with flames. Osiris flung him aside and turned to face Ben.
"Gah! I'm on fire!" Shouted Drake, deactivating his armor to avoid being burned.
Osiris raised his left hand towards Ben, the middle finger collapsed as he prepared to fire on Ben...
"Hi Neb! Did you miss me?" Shouted Tyler as leaped on Osiris' back and slammed his staff into his face. Osiris' eye cameras cracked and began to lose their focus.
"I am not the agent Neb. My designation is Osiris." The cyborg stated flatly, not in the least concerned by the loss of his vision as he tried to throw Tyler off.
"Tyler! I thought you were down!" Shouted Drake.
"I got better!" The paddle-wielding agent answered as he leapt forward and blasted Osiris' damaged armor. The metal plate shattered, revealing a series of instruments wired into thin layers of copper plating beneath.
Osiris tried to backhand Tyler but the blow just passed through Tyler's hair as the agent ducked.
Tyler trusted his staff into Osiris' middle torso, releasing a burst of black fluid that smelled vaguely of formaldehyde into Tyler's face.
"Yuck! Even I think that's gross!" Tyler yelled as he stumbled back, gagging.
"My coffeemakers are not controlled by Hoover Dam computers!" Shouted Ben, releasing a torrent of coffee at the cyborg.
The coffee had a far greater effect than Ben expected. The thing was blown over and knocked onto the ground, sparks began to crawl across it's body as it began to jerk violently and gibberish crackled from it's neck speaker. After several seconds, Neb's body settled it turned to look at Ben.
Ben could only stare in horrified fascination as a cold smile crawled across Osiris lips, which was quite creepy considering it's mouth was sewn shut.
The speaker around Osiris neck crackled for a second, before the voice of Neb came though one last time.
"Death... is only the beginning."
Then Osiris went still.
-
Aster sat on the ground looking bored while Chloe examined the Luminoth light crystal. Suddenly, Chloe shot up, a worried expression on her face.
"It appears someone has embedded a micro antenna into the crystal, it looks like it's designed to emit false Sue readings! This whole mission has been a decoy! The other agents are falling into a trap. We have to go!" Chloe shouted as she began to run, dragging Aster along by her shoulder.
"Wait... what?"
-
Deraj fired one last missile at Jared and Doug's makeshift shelter and the rock shattered into millions of pieces.
Deraj glanced at Doug. "Tell you what. I don't need you, hand over the techie and I'll let you walk away."
Doug didn't answer, he just raised his repaired pistol and fired, the bullet knocked Deraj off of his feet as it embedded itself into his armor.
"Fair enough! We shall do this the old fashioned way!" He said as he stood up, then Doug shot him down again.
"Would you stop doing that? It's rather annoying?" He complained, so Doug shot him once again.
"Feel free to stand back up, I have plenty of ammo." Doug said.
"That won't be necessary." Replied Deraj. "Quake!"
Doug was blown through the air and slammed into a rock wall. Deraj drew his revolver, loaded a bullet and fired at the downed halfling, Doug let out a brief shout as the bullet entered his shoulder.
"Boomhammer!" Jared yelled, charging at Deraj. Deraj turned towards the charging agent and fired a missile at the hammer. Hammer and missile collided, blowing Jared back and flinging him next to Doug.
"Now?" Asked Doug.
"Now!" Shouter Jared as he whipped out a remote control.
The two helicopters flew in behind Deraj and began to fly circles around him.
"What?" Deraj was tempted to ignore them, when he noticed the cord tying them together. He suddenly found his limbs were tangled up. The lines went taunt and Deraj tumbled over.
"Your under arrest on behalf of the ACMSES." Jared called to his counterpart.
Deraj sighed. "You're going to force me to play my trump card Jared, I don't think you want to do that."
"We'll take our chances!" Said Doug, wondering what they would do with a non-Stu prisoner.
Deraj grimaced, he had been bluffing. Osiris was busy battling in the Agon Wastes and Cassandra was still on the surface of Dark Aether. Deraj began to struggle against the cords binding him in a mad effort to break free.
Doug noticed something out of the corner of his eye and had just enough time to push Jared to the ground when several knives flew out of a plothole.
"Deraj, sometimes I think your as incompetent as your counterpart. Letting yourself get captured by helicopters carrying bailing twine? You're just as bad as Repiv." Eolhc said as she and 4 other members of the PCMSPS came through the plothole. Eolhc drew a short sword from her belt and slashed the bonds that bound Deraj.
"Move people!" Retsa shouted to Ekard and Relyt as they stumbled out of the plothole.
"Seriously! You order us to let ourselves get beat up for an entire fight, call us back, and then order use right back into the field?" Ekard objected.
"Dude, shut up," replied Relyt as he drew his weapon.
"Doug... I'm afraid we've just been one upped," Jared said solomly
Retsa smirked. "You might want to double check your calculations... I beleive you've just been four or five upped," lhe leader of the PCMSPS said as an army of Uber Stus began to pour into the fandom behind them.
"And so it begins..." Deraj said as he pointed his missle launcher at Doug and fired.
-
"So... What now?" Asked Tyler, staring at Osiris prone form.
"We could take it back to one of the labs... maybe they could run some tests." Drake suggested. Nobody was standing too close to the body out of a combination of fear and disgust.
"We should destroy it now, it's already been ressurected once." added Shirley.
Before the debate could continue to play out the group was interrupted by the sudden appearance of yet another plothole. Something flew out of the plothole and bounced to the feet of the group.
It was a grenade.
"You know, I'm really starting to hate these things." Drake grumbled.
The weapon went off with a sonic blast, incapacitating the group.
Sirahc out of the plothole and stepped over the prone agents as she walked over to where Osiris lay.
"Oh Deraj, I told you this model wouldn't stand up to the tests..." She pulled out a pocket clipboard and began to make notes, "When we build version 2.0 we're defiantly going to need to make it waterproof to prevent future short circuiting." She muttered to herself. "The minigun it too heavy and cumbersome, so that's just going to have to go... the napalm launcher isn't functional enough to warrent replacing a hand, that will have to be redesigned too... and another thing..."
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