New Beginning 23: One for the Record Books

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Daramos's insane laughter pulled Billy's attention back to him, and away from whatever frightful thing was happening above. "Poetic. And what of you, deal maker? Which would you prefer: union with your master?" Billy raised his hand into the air and behind him ManGrave did the same, it's giant boney fist directly over the madman. "Or the peace I offer? Either way, what would you like your tombstone to say?"

-------

With nothing else to do, and the man not looking like he'd be coming out of that forcefield anytime soon, Vaultboys Shadow chased zombies.

It wasn't as though you could catch every single one in a trap like that. The outliers, the ones that never made it out of the city proper, the ones that had been a little to fast or to slow, were still making their way inside.

He marveled at his own fitness. Literally none of the memories he had indicated that movement would be this quick, fluid, or last for this long without stopping for a 15 minute break. As he ran, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in the strange city of Kethencia he wondered why his other half was so down on superpowers. Well, that wasn't exactly true. He knew why, intimately, because it was in his memory. But since he was also a new being he'd formed the opinion that all that nasty business, while being sad and heinous, didn't have anything to do with him. After all, it was hard to be weighed down with regret when you hadn't actually done anything TO regret.

Seeing his chance, the Shadow leaped from the rooftop down in front of a group of zombies that was making its was down the street, he hand pulsing with life energy. "Line up and take your medicine, guys." He said, extending his hand forward only for the zombies to, not only phase through his hand, but run right through him as though he weren't there. He turned around and watched them trudge down the street. "Huh?" He said, before taking off after them.

"Come on guys, what's with the cold shoulder?" He said, catching up and trying to stick his hand through the creature again and getting the same result. "I'm just trying to help. Remember all those good times we had? Remember when I told you to dig holes? Those are actually pretty useful now, seeing as you're the undead. It's like a built your houses for you."

After several more attempts and several more failures he stopped running and watched them charge away around a corner. "This is no good. I've got to find a robot that's still a robot and get him to tell me whats going on." He closed his eyes and tried to think like an evil overlord. If he were attacking this place where would he send his command units. Where would the action be?

Then he remembered the big house with all the big stompy robots surrounding it. That would be a good place to start. He found the direction quickly, big stompy robots serving as great landmarks, and headed there.

[Marvelous Miscreant]

A jagged spire Quartz erupted from the ground in front of Marv, fractions before the beam reached him. The laser collided with the faceted quartz surface and refracted inside the giant crystal, firing out it dozens of directions, creating a beautiful display of lights.

Seizing the opportunity, Marv leaped over the quartz, his arms reaching out for the annoying little bot. He landed with a tremendous impact, catching the small bot's face with the palm of  right hand, smothering the laser's source with a now obsidian arm. Shouting angrily, Marv slammed the unfortunate Gir backwards into the ground, denting the floor with the force before grasping both Gir's arms and pulling with all his might. The metal appendages where ripped from the bot's body and thrown to the sides. Leaning down, Marv roared like a beast in the small bot's face before kicking the armless, but still functioning Gir across the floor.

Satisfied, but still overflowing with righteous anger Marv's attention turned to the window. On the skyline he could see the Kethencian College of Magic, it's silhouette illuminated by fire and amber smoke. Even from the red haze in his mind Marv knew he had to protect the college, amongst the chaos the college could be taken advantage of.

Marv struck out with his fist and the window shattered outwards. With a angry grunt, Marv jumped out the window and began making his way to the college. As he stalked up the hill towards the college, quartz spike exploded from the ground all around him, impaling any unfortunate robot grunts who got near and destroyed the landscape around him.

Marv was pissed and nothing was going to stand in his way.

There was someone on the roof. He could see them. For a brief moment of confusion, Marv hesitated. Who was it? He didn't recognize them, but they were clearly powerful. He could feel it in the air. Then his fury closed back in seizing his mind. Quartz grew under him forming a massive pillar that pushed him into the air, towards the roof. Towards the mysterious being.

Wulf: ( I figured Gir isn't all that important right now and the more people in one place the easier it is to narrate.)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The Shadow made his way up the steps and into the grand mansion. Looking around, he noticed....the robot from Invader Zim? Really? He stepped up to the crippled robot, shrugged, and bopped it on the head. Instantly he felt himself connect the little thing, his presence filling the tiny robots head. He leaned down to look it in the eye.

"I'm not even going to ask how you're real. Good god, how do your legs work? They're not even attached. You know what, never mind, not important. What is important is the zombies. Specifically, say hypothetically, why wouldn't someone be able to touch the zombies? Can you ,like, back hack or something to get me that information?"

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Celadon's Penultimate wrote

At the sight of Kiku's advance, Treble rotated her weapon yet faster. Now, it moved so fast that it acted as effective as any forcefield. It wouldn't hold up very long--she would eventually have to attack--but for now, razor-sharp defense was good enough.

Bass, on the other hand, wouldn't be afforded the chance to get steady footing at first; Artemisia had managed to get too close, and Bass wasn't exactly the one who prided herself on quickness. To her fortune, though, she had ways of making up for that deficit. The mace collided with her frame with speed and power that sent her back a few yards, but her makers had given Bass quite a nifty feature to make up where she lacked with speed.

It even seemed that perhaps the strike was to her advantage. Pulling herself from the rut her landing had left, she reached forth her hand, and her battlepole glowed the same color that surrounded her. As Mjolnir to the hand of Thor, the powerful weapon raised up and flew to Bass's hand. She stood, and reared the battlepole's attached ball-and-chain overhead once with a mighty yell, before bringing it down with a hypercharged psychomagnetic pulse.

In the midst of the ensuing combat, the strange storm cloud drew yet nearer. Edelweiss's ki blast struck into it, and at first it stopped. After a brief pause, though, a noticeable change can be seen. Not only does it resume its slow, steady pace...it's grown to twice the size it was before.

As Bass swings the ball-and-chain at Artemisia, the maid suddenly jumps backward as Suzue swings her sword, crying out, "God-Slaying Arts: Heavens' Downfall!"

A storm of energy in the form of blades flies from the arc of the swing towards Bass, wide enough to barely miss Artemisia and the fight between Treble and Kiku as well as high and long enough to be seen from at least a mile away.

As she moves towards Treble, Kiku's form suddenly blurs before splitting apart and striking from three separate directions with a bident.

Wulf: These guys are all still using ki. Artemisia's using their high-speed movement technique, Celerity; Kiku's using the clone-body-type technique, Disperse; and Suzue's using a long-range ki firing attack, Tempest, while gathering as little as she can from the environment, despite the fact that she has large amounts of ki herself. And yes, these are actual god-slaying techniques (In terms of Eastern mythology god-slaying, not Western, unless Norse) as far as her people are concerned and there is a very good reason as to why Suzue can use them

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Huh. Well, now that I know that, what exactly are you going to DO to me." Nano asked. "I mean, I know I said I'd stay here and not go out there and get shot by robot haters, which in and of itself would be pointless, seeing how I can absorb, and control metal and technology into my body or just straight up take control of machinery, but what are going to do with me now that I said I'd join you? Are you going to make me a cybernetic slave? Or worse, dissect me to see what makes me tick?!" Nano continued, crouching down and throwing his hands behind his head in some sort of fetal position.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Dissect him? See what makes him tick? The lot of them exchanged glances, and tried their best not to offend him, by laughing in his face. Neither would succeed. Jimmy wiped a tear from his eye, and as his colleagues continued guffawing, giggling and chucklesnorting, he decided to put Nano's worries to rest.

"Well, if you hadn't heard", he started, "we're already pretty knowledgeable in human biology."

Dexter added, "And you aren't Technari, or even alien, so any tech you've got is Earthling; we're most likely already privy to knowledge of its makeup."

"All we've got to do is look in the right places." Susan volunteered.

Mary piped up, "The Technari haven't even touched the Earth's internet."

"The most likely reason being," Daria said, "it's far too full of subjective opinion, easily falsified theories and data, and other general bullcrap, for Prime or her henchbots to consider it a valuable source of intel, let alone a weapon against us."

So, that was settled. Seeing as how he was neither Technari, nor any other alien threat, nor even a general supervillain threat, there was no call for scrapping, enslavement, dissection, probing or any of the other usual anti-robotic protocol. Though, that was not to say that other requirements weren't to be made of their new ally. It hadn't slipped past of the geniuses' perceptions that he'd mentioned, off-hand, his capacity for (and proficiency in) the use of technopathic interface. And if there was anything they could use at the moment, it was the ability to fight fire with fire.

As Professor Utonium chuckled again at Nano's comment, he gestured for his allies to follow him. Down the hall to the left, up the northern corridor, off to the right, they found themselves at the door of Utonium's office. The geniuses gasped--never before had they been granted access within (despite all of their best technological attempts).

And yet, when the lot of them entered, it seemed so mundane, like the office of a low-paid college professor. That is, until Utonium closed the door behind him, and pushed the button on the wall. With that, the veil of normalcy fell away, and his personal laboratory was revealed for the immense warehouse of scientific experiment and discovery. Of course, Dexter was quick enough to point out, it was no match to his own gigantic secret la-bor-a-tory, but it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

With that, the Professor led the group down the side of his lab, toward a single closed briefcase, on a small podium at the back.

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

"Woah. What's that professor?" Nano said, looking at the object in front of him.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

The Professor approached the briefcase, and as he laid his hand across the broad, sheer metal surface, smiled, "Well, this would be where you come in."

A red line of light scanned down the briefcase, across the imprint of his hand, and beeped.

Greetings, Professor Utonium.

"Greetings, Puck."

The latches on the briefcase came undone, and there was a strange mechanical whirring on the inside. Two guns popped out on either side of the briefcase, and each folded out to a plasma cannon with eight barrels.

Professor Utonium hurried to put his hands up, smiling a sheepish grin, "Oh, yes, right. Puck, have you met my colleagues? Meet Dexter, Mary, Susan, Jimmy, Edd, Velma, Daria and Nigel. We've even got a new ally, goes by Nano! No need to blast any of their faces off. I repeat: no face blasting!"

More mechanical whirring, and the guns retracted back into the briefcase. The Professor let out an exasperated sigh of relief, before turning back to the lot of his colleagues and attempting to regain composure.

"So, Professor...?" Velma blinked, straightening her glasses, "The briefcase?"

"Oh, um, yes, right, the briefcase." He grabs it up, and turns around to reveal the contents within, "Well, as it turns out, Doctors Pym and Richards, some old college buddies of mine, found some rather beneficial technological discoveries, within the course of their fights against Doctor Doom's Doombots and Ultron's robotic forces. What you see before you are not enough to take down the entirety of the Technari invasion--not by a longshot--but with each cyber-stabilizer, we should be able to reclaim Iron Man's suits, The Vision, The Red Tornado and various other hijacked cybernetic heroes, for the side of good again. In fact, I wouldn't put it past a few of the the villains, like Ultron or Vexus, to be grateful, and turn to our side against the Technari--even if the alliance is guaranteed to be temporary. Whoever we can rally up, will be prime assets."

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

Nano looked at the Cyber Stabilizers and made the realization of the century. He looked at his hands. On the surface, he just saw his Caucasian skin coating muscle and bone, but the longer he looked, he saw silver little specs flowing through tubes in his body. The nanocytes. It all made perfect sense now.

 "That's why I'm here, isn't it. You think that I can subdue these people by controlling them with my own nanocytes, like any other piece of tech, right? Or at least, fight for control long enough for you to attach the Cyber Stabilizers to them and free them from the Technari." Nano said.

 "Precisely!" The Professor said with a smile.

 "Now hang on just a second. How can we be sure that 'Nano' as this guy calls himself, can actually handle controlling a fully automated piece of machinery." Nigel said. "It's not that I don't believe him, but I just want to be sure that he can actually perform a task such as this."

 "That is a good point. We should be completely sure about something like this, before we head back out there. Because if he can't, then we're a good as dead." Susan Test responded.

 "You bring up an excellent point. Very well, if you really think we should test Nano. Then we will." Professor Utonium said. He walked back over to his desk and pressed a few more buttons.

 The room began to shake. Everyone began looking around. Professor Utonium just smiled. Suddenly, a massive Robot, somewhere around 20 feet tall and 10 feet wide, loaded with all sorts of weaponry stood before the group. Professor Utonium pushed a few more buttons on his desk. Nano and the robot were whisked away to what looked like a stark empty room, with nothing but a few lights inside of it. A large Jumbo-Tron screen lowered in to the empty room. Professor Utonium's head appeared on the screen.

 "Alright Nano, this is the most heavily armed robot at my disposal. I designed it to protect my house, and my little girls, from any sort of danger, despite them always talking about how they can handle anything that's thrown at them." He said. "This robot will simulate just the kind of raw power we're going up against. Defense Droid. Online!"

 With the word "Online" the robot began to boot up. The weapon system's went online, and the robot began moving about. Nano gulped nervously.

 "Defense Droid. Kill the perpetrator." The Professor Said, The rest of the geniuses gasped.

 "Did he just say"

 "Kill?" The Test sisters said, finishing each other's sentence.

 "You all wanted to test him. Now he's being tested." The Professor stated calmly.

 "DEFENSE DROID: TARGET ACQUIRED" the robot said. The robot lifted up a large hand that turned in to a buzzsaw. "OBJECTIVE: KILL PERPETRATOR" It said, lunging towards Nano.

 Nano formed jets in his feet and flew up in the air to dodge the saw.

 "Alright Defense Dork, let's see how you like LASERS" Nano said, forming the laser hands he had in Space while fighting the cluster of robots. The lasers fired at the robot, shattering it to pieces.

 "HA!" Nano laughed. "How do you like THEM apples!" he said, doing a victory lap in the air around the pile of scrap. Nano should not have celebrated so soon. Because just as quickly as he had destroyed it, the robot rebuilt itself.

 "Oh shi-" Nano couldn't even finish the curse word before the large Defense Droid backhanded him into a wall.

  "OW OW OW!!!" Nano yelled. He looked at his wrist, a distal radius fracture, according to the scans his brain just did on the injury. It didn't matter though, just as soon as he broke it, to the amazement (and disgust) of the group of Geniuses, his wrist slowly moved back in to place, and became the hilt of a plasma sword. Nano slashed at the robot's limbs furiously, however the limbs just flew back and attached themselves to the rest of the robot.

 "Man! How am I supposed to destroy this thing!" Nano thought to himself. Then he realized it. The point wasn't to destroy the robot at all. That's not what The Professor wanted to prove to the rest of the group. Nano flew up above the robot's head, and landed on top of it. He changed his hand back in to a regular hand, and looked at the Robot's head. He was standing on it's massive shoulders.

 "I hope this works!" Nano said. He watched his hands become black with blue circuitry patterns as he placed them on to the robot. The circuity patter climbed up his arms and crawled on to his face, covering it completely until his eyes were completely an electric blue color.


  Nano was floating in what seemed to be total darkness. He looked around until he found what seemed to be a grey pillar on a platform. He flew over to this platform and stood on it. Inside the grey pillar, he saw a bunch of green specks float through it. At a closer inspection, the specks spelled out the words "Kill" and "Destroy". Nano looked at his hands and placed them on the pillar again. Suddenly, the dark room lit up, and the green specks turned a brilliant electric blue. Nano closed his eyes and opened them again, he was still standing on the robot's shoulders, except now. The robot had something of a new paint job. Instead of the sleek grey color that it was, the Defense Droid was now a midnight black color. The visor that was red, was now a deep blue color.

 "DEFENSE DROID: NEW OBJECTIVE. PROTECT NANO, AKA THE COOLEST, RADDEST, AWESOMEST, MOST DEAD SEXY PERSON TO EVER LIVE." The robot shouted. Lowering Nano on the ground and then drawing it's weapons.

 The geniuses were stunned.

 "Leapin' Leptons!" Jimmy exclaimed. "He actually did it! He over-rid the Professor's code like it was NOTHING."

 "Dexter, get your jaw off the floor." Edd said.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

A smile crossed Mary's face, and she adjusted her glasses, "Hm. A technopath. Very nicely handled, Nano."

"Indeed. Not often we get those around here." Susan shared her sister's smile, adjusting her glasses in turn.

In all, it seemed the Geniuses concurred. Not much else remained to be seen, about this new Nano fellow. It was about time all those going out into battle should suit up, and everyone else get back to work. With that, Jimmy put a hand on Nano's shoulder. They headed back to the room where Nano first found himself, and Dexter, Jimmy, Nigel and the Test twins each headed to one of a whole host of other doors that lined the walls at every side.

Daria motioned to Nano. He would want to follow she, Velma, Edd and Professor Utonium straight to the back door. Through it, another immense room. Velma put a hand in front of him, so as not to step forward too far. Nano would get a look down, and the floor beyond Velma's hand was opening up, to a gigantic platform beneath.

As it arose, it was not long before four figures became visible. Dexter's short QUICK mech stood at the forefront, with Nigel in a taller, wider ROUGH mech his right, Jimmy in a shorter, sturdier TOUGH mech to his left, and at the back of them, the Test Sisters standing at either side of a blond-haired boy within a stocky, barrel chested OFF-DEF mech. The sisters appeared to chat with the boy, and when they were done, pressed down on their wristwatches and popped up again at Nano's side.

"So, we're ready?" Velma asks.

The twins respond in unison, "Yup! Ready and raring to go!"

"Then let's start, shall we?" Daria interjects, "Nano, if you wouldn't mind, we'll need you to fly up to that platform, near the top of the complex. We've got to go back into the next room, where we can watch your takeoff, safely away from the effects of the blast radius."

[Philote]

[@Wulf: Guardian]

Eumolpus' power was familiar to the Guardian and there was a solution to it that was quicker and more efficient than evoking a Mythpower against it. Hypnos' avatar fades from around the guardian who raises both of his index fingers and strikes both of his ears, breaking both of his marble eardrums.

Letting the incoming sound waves break against his body unheard, the Guardian calls up a more offensive Mythpower. The avatar of Themis wraps around the Guardian and the marble being sets down an almighty decree on the vessel: "Cease and Desist!"

@Wulf: I think this is funny . This might be one case where one of my characters has more training with Mythpowers than your character.

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[@Marv: Zauber]

"Asoka, you have my warding now! This plan isn't working though, the wards won't hold much longer. I think I know what to do, keep him busy for as long as you can!"

Zauber turns and begins to make his way up to the protection wing of the school where he used to live.

(I'm not sure where Billy is in relation to Zauber's position at the moment)

[The Mediocre Gatsby]

Nano looked around at all of the mechs. He fitted himself with his Space Travel suit. The helmet formed over his head and the visor lit up with a trajectory path and his vitals. It was almost like those Augmented Reality glasses that would let you surf the internet, while still seeing what was in front of you. As the black metalic suit began to form over his clothes and body, he thought about the last time he was in space. How he had nearly died.

 "Snap out of it Nano, you're not going to die again. You can control them, free them, and make them fight on your side! You can do this!" he thought to himself. Nano flew up to the platform and awaited the countdown.

 "You are about to fly in to the middle of the battlefield. Prepare yourselves as such. Remember, once Nano has connected to the person you're trying to free, attach the cyber stablizer on to them. That should rid their systems of any and all technari control. Do you all copy?" said Professor Utonium.

"Affirmative." Nano said.

"Good. Now, initiating launch sequence."

 Nano took a deep breath. This was it, it was down to a couple of geniuses in robot suits, and a guy who could connect with machines to take down an alien armada.

"3....2....1.... IGNITION"

 Nano launched first, being lighter and more aerodynamic he was quickly able to achieve liftoff and begin breaking through the different layers of the atmosphere. Nano took a quick look behind him and saw the other mechs not too far behind. He felt the air get thinner and thinner as he accelerated towards the cosmos. He felt his body naturally switch from the need of oxygen to no need and fueled by the chemical reactions going on in his body.

 He finally reached sub orbit and was greeted by a familiar face.

 "Well, well. Looks like you CAN do that trick with your whole body. Tell me, did you learn who's on what side?" X-J9 laughed manically.
 
 "Yeah, I did. I learned a few other things too." Nano said, taking a cyber stablizer and attaching it to the back of X-J9's neck.

 "Hey! What the heck did you just do?!"

 "I'm showing you what I learned." Nano said, grabbing the robot girl's arm. The blue circuitry pattern adorned both his and X-J9's body as Nano went in to X-J9's mind. However, it was vastly different from the Defense Droid's mind.

 Inside X-J9's mind, instead of being dark with a single grey pillar inside. Nano saw the robot girl chained up against the wall. The walls were a dark red color, and on the platform next to the pillar, was what looked like a bug type creature. It looked at nano and snarled.

 "I didn't know that a HUMAN could get to here!  You shall make a valueable asset to the Technari forces!" it hissed.

 "PLEASE! HELP ME!" X-J9 said. Nano looked at her and nodded. He turned his right arm into a plasma blade and hacked through the bug creature. It cried out and disintegrated. He made his way over to the panel and put both hands on it. He began to think of a command. What were red little specks in the pillar began turning blue. Instead of saying "Serve the Queen. Fight for Technari", the bits spelled out "Free Will". Nano took his hands off the pillar as the room began to turn white. Nano blinked and found himself in space once again. X-J9 was floating, she looked down at her hands and up at Nano.

 "You did it.... I'm free!" X-J9 said.

 "Yup. Now, do me a favor. Do what you can to give me some cover. My team thinks that if we can free enough heroes and villains from the technari, that we may have a chance. But I figure, why not try hitting the Commander, and everyone else will fall... right?"

 "Well, it's a Hive Mind.  So I'd imagine so." X-J9. said.

 "Good. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?"

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Phi: It was meant to be that way. Titannus is a bumbler, who happens to have really great endorsement. He was only spared destruction by Motherboard Prime because part of his cybernetic makeup allowed him to perceive, access and dominate the Microverse, a capability which Prime hadn't acquired at the time (He's basically their Thanos, and they have no superheroes to defend them). He gave her access to their tech, and in exchange, was allowed to remain within her ranks.

Cease and Desist!

Cease and Desist!

Cease and Desist!

Already the words echoed through the strange, sterile space of Haven, but the reverberation was yet more powerful in Titannus' mind. Each syllable struck his body, permeated his skin, seized his nerves, berated his brain. The command processed at its full power, the Microverse's Titan is so still that he finds himself unable to do little more than blink or utter a breath.

Master Titannus. Master Titannus, have you got a counter-command?

To Titannus' (dubious) fortune, this MythPower had no effect on the computer. Still, the computer had been given directive never to act outside of Titannus' command, unless absolutely necessary.

Master Titannus? A counter-command?

"Uh...cou-counter-command?" Some dreary semblance of normal brain function returned to the cyborg's mind, "Uh, yes. I believe we've been given the command to leave. Let's head home, shall we?"

The ship was still for a second. Without warning, it would come alive again, with harsh mechanical humming, the whirring of electronic function...before being surrounded in an aura, and vanishing into what seemed like thin air, from Havenspace.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Nano would have the answer to that question soon enough. Electronic communication passed between the two of them for a short time, only to be interrupted, in short time, by a purring, staticky voice belonging to neither the robot girl, nor the half-android.

"AH! XJ-9, there you are!" Vexus, "I've been looking for you! South Korea has been subverted! Backspace had the next wave of enemies lined up for the nation of Russia, China, India, North Korea and Japan! I've already gathered Smytus and Krakus, and you're the only one missing. Did you turn your com off--? Waitaminute."

Menace passed over the face of the Cluster Queen, and she narrowed her eyes, growing suspicious at the sight of Nano. Inspecting the figure with contempt, she extended her mind out to the two of them. Her eyes went wide.

"A HUMAN?!" came the exclamation across the electronic feed, "So they've reclaimed you from Prime's ranks, have they? Oh, just you wait, XJ-9. You and your human friend will soon regret not bowing before the might of the Technari."

REPORT: XJ-9 HAS DEFECTED FROM THE RANKS OF THE TECHNARI. REPEAT. THE UNIT KNOWN AS XJ-9 HAS DEFECTED FROM THE RANKS OF THE TECHNARI. SHE STANDS BEFORE ME, IN LEAGUE WITH A HUMAN. AWAITING DIRECTIVE FOR DISPOSAL.

No other bot would be distracted from their assault against the enemy. The only reply would come from a voice, dark and deep, slick like velvet, and insidious, thick with malevolent mischief.



"Jenny?" came the reply, "Jenny...with a human boy? Well, isn't that the story of her life...You know what, V? No need to act on them. I wouldn't have a Queen soil her hands with such dirty work. Now, if the three of you wait right there, I'll be over in two shakes of a lifeless human corpse. Okay? All right, then. Backspace out."

[Zaleramancer]

The Technari walked into a hallway that branched into many separate halls, which did likewise- a budding fractal layout of halls that extended into as many spatial dimensions as were readily accessible. This huge, but finite, labyrinth of shifting halls absorbed the initial assault without much trouble. Some halls collapsed into one dimensional dots while others filled with superheated plasma, others contained stranger horrors- things dredged from the deepest vaults and most forbidden places.

But it was far from in vain. This was a war of attrition- of resources. The Technari were legion, and could easily replace anything lost in the deathly maze. The besieged would slowly run out of resources and power over time.

And with each little death, they learned a little more about how this maze worked. They drained a little bit more power.

Eventually, a safe path would be found.

Then it would be a simple matter of moving their blue-winged queen into a easy checkmate.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"What, are you more busted up then you look?" Shadow Vaultboy said when the little robot gave him no answer. He stood up, pointing his finger down at Gir. "Hold still little guy, doctor's gonna make it all better. Transmechanazation!"

Lightning leaped out of his outstretched finger and into Gir, arching to the busted pieces of scrap left in the room. These were pulled, as though by magnets, to Gir. In the matter of a few moments he was back in one piece. Shadow Vaultboy thanked his lucky stars that something hadn't gone wrong. He had distinct memories of times when using this power had produced things that weren't exactly what normal Vaultboy had wanted. He leaned back down to eye level with Gir, drummed a little staccato of beats on his empty little head for good measure, and asked again. "Why would someone be unable to touch any zombies? Can you get me any information about that?"

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

What was here was deleted. It would be more convenient for me if it didn't happen.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Drifting slow and silent, the Dreadnought's advance down the hall was stoic, deliberate with purpose. Flashing blue eyes blinked--a beauty to the unwary passerby, but within the Dreadnought's mind, calculations were fast underway.

Traces of plutonium? 5%- Tolerable
...
Traces of uranium? 6%- Tolerable
...
Traces of radiation? Tolerable.
...
Traces of dark matter? Tolerable.
...
Traces of gravitational anomalies? Tolerable.
...
Traces of temporal anomalies? Negligible.
...
Traces of psychic energy? Anti-psychic barriers at above-baseline 70% capacity, making the psychic power tolerable.
...
Traces of magic? Anti-magic shields at baseline 85% capacity, making the magic also tolerable.

From there, the list only went on, each eye-blink yielding new analysis. The Zaleramancer had been stockpiling wards and barriers and defenses and offenses for some time now. Years. As reality benders went, a millisecond was more than enough time, and the Zaleramancer and his cohorts had been at this game for years. Perhaps it was best to set reaction to microseconds.

Confirmed: Reaction Time Set to Microseconds.

She looked to either side of the corridor--another group of bots snapped up into hungry mouths masquerading as doors, dimensional vortexes, nuclear-bomb-laden kill-bunkers, metal-eating nanocytes, deceptively-plain-looking warp antimatter chambers. The lot of them had outlived their usefulness, it seemed. She moved on without a word of malice or spite.

Nearing the end of the hall, the walls seemed to shift. It was a subtle shift, to be sure, but a shift nonetheless. To a lesser mind's perceptions, it was perhaps intended to seem as though the hallway was getting gradually smaller. The Dreadnought took the ruse into mind right away, however, and also the subtle vibration beneath her. An automatic reflext control switched on, and the Dreadnought was attuned to the vibration, twitch for twitch.

By the time the hallway collapsed in on itself, not unlike the hateful constricting jaws of a Venus' flytrap, the Dreadnought had already made its way down the remainder of the hall. With just a quick jaunt through what seemed like far too small a hole to fit through, at the end of the hall--courtesy of the gravi-dimensional size compaction matrix within her mainframe--it was all to easy to escape what should have been her doom.

Banking soft left down the next corridor, the Dreadnought drifted yet further along.

[The Narrator]

*That machine really messed with my mind it's still hard for me to focus...* Narrator thought to himself. 

*I gotta get it together before the others come to wherever we are.*

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, instantly he was in a dystopia setting. Broken buildings, fog, and a sepia light illuminated the landscape. 

*I have to fix my mindscape and find Areson and Logic. And since it appears I'm alone, I'll have to take my time.  And despite time moving faster here, I'll still need to rush.*

He placed his hands in front of him and made a sweeping motion, a broom appeared in his hands.  Slight color began to return to the area, but it was moving at an extremely slow pace. 

The Narrator placed the broom down when he seen a glimmer under a pile of rubble. 

"I wonder what that is....."

He began to move the rocks and found an encyclopedia.  He opened it up and the pages began to flip rapidly. The book glowed and Logic appeared. 

"Glad you found me kid, but it took you way longer than it should."

"You can't just be happy can you..."

"Of course not, you're wasting time when you could have taken out any of these people with little effort.  And you're depending on Areson to be the savior"

"Where is he?"

"He's somewhere among the rubble. I can help but you gotta do this pretty much have to find him on your own. You know that."

Narrator sighed. 

"But I think you have other things to worry about." Logic continued  "Areson let The Warners loose but you've imprisoned a couple of others here in this mental prison. There are no longer any shackles in place or any snares set up, so they are potentially running free."

"Welp, that's just dandy!" Narrator exclaimed. "Looks like I need to kick this into high gear..."

He closed his eyes again, the image of a vacuum flickered in and out until it appeared and stayed

He began to vacuum, while Logic tried to unsepia the light sources. 

--

[The Narrator]

*several mental hours later*

"Kid, I can sense that the others back in the real world realize that you're with the Nerd and they're on the way.  You're a sitting duck...."

"Well I still haven't found any trace of Areson, yet..."

"You aren't focused. You have to clear your mind. That's why all of this junk is here.  I'll start you off."  Logic turned away from Narrator.  "It's like we used to do.  Artificial amateurs, aren't at all amazing analytically, I assault, animate things broken barriers bounded by the bomb beat buildings are broken, basically I'm bombarding...."

Narrator continued, "Casually create catastrophes, casualties canceling cats got their canopies collapsing detonate a dime of dank daily doin dough demonstrations, Don Dada on the down low

Eatin other editors with each and every energetic epileptic episode, elevated etiquette furious fat fabulous fantastic flurries of funk felt feeding the fanatics gift got great global goods gone glorious gettin godly in his game with the goriest...."he stopped when he was hit by a keyblade which fell from the sky. 

"Ow!  What am I supposed to do with this?"  He picked it up a light shone from his heart. The illumination took shape and Areson was returned. 

"You see Derek, you never lost me because I was here all along, all you had to do was click your boots three times and...."

"We have no time for this, go back to reality...." Logic snapped, shaking Narrator. 

He awoke from his meditation with a shudder. Sheldon still beside him, he place two fingers over the Nerds temple and focused. He felt the chaos of Areson wrecking Sheldon's mind and a stream of blood escaped both Narrator and Sheldon nose. 

"Stop shaking me you fool!" Sheldon screamed awaking free of the hallucination. "My head...what happened?"

"Looks, it's a long story, I need you to make a machine that can undo the hallucinogenic effects of this gas in the air. Lite and Shade can use their magicks to restore nature. And work fast. I'll effect time around you to allow you to move in a faster pace than us."

"Not like I'll need it.  I'm sure I can easy solve this...."

"Gloat later!" Narrator raised his hand and Sheldon was sent to his lab.

A loud screech interrupted his temporary solstice. Songstress held a note meant to stun Narrator as a boulder was sent flying into him from Shade. 

The end seemed once again nigh for the Narrator. 

 

--