This Ain't No Donkey Kong

Lan, we are in position, we need orders now.

Lia's voice rang throughout Lan's silvery helmet and around the tiny cockpit of her R-13 Vanquish. "Roger, ONA. From here on out, RAVEN's space fleet is hereby under command of General Akesson. Light 'em up but watch your fire."

Lan's eyes scanned around the mass of controls in front of her and flipped a switch. Her communications channel switched to, instead of the whole Entente, to just The Revenant and the pilots in her squadron of fighter-bombers and GDI Kantola transports. The cavern-dark hangar was suddenly alive with the sound and lights of engines. The huge door in front of all of them began to open, revealing a sliver of outer space. "Listen up. I'm sure you read the plan. But I'll go over it one more time. On my mark, fly full speed at the planet. enter the atmosphere at a 35° angle, and fly due south at 180. Transports, land on Xychus Central. Squad, provide cover fire for as long as possible. Stay strong and good luck." By now the door was almost completely open, showing a massive number of brilliantly golden ships around Sigma.

"Mark!"

Engines screeched for a split second, right before the sound was lost in the vast emptiness of space. The squad flew smoothly toward the planet. Within moments, purplish energy started bursting out of some Evoknight ships. The presence of the Entente was known. As if on cue, Akesson's voice echoed through her helmet again. Two small words with one big meaning.

"Shot Over!"

Lan frowned. Using the huge gauss cannon was good, but it only had eight shots. "Shot out." She replied, following standard military protocol. A shell bigger than most frigates spat out of the Revenant and blitzed past the squadron.

"Splash, over?" Akesson responded. Lan waited. The shell slammed into an Evoknight battleship and detonated in it's center. A shockwave blew the ship apart from the inside out, barraging several other ships with shrapnel. Lan smirked. "Splash, out. Now fire for effect."

She watched as fire exploded everywhere between all the factions. Ships were ripped to shreds on both sides. Lan and her squadron ducked and swerved the giant blasts of energy, getting ever closer to the planet. "Akesson to Aviv, Evo's have launched strikecraft and drones, copy?" Lan tapped a button that blinked an acknowledgement light on the general's display. She squinted through transparent carbon cockpit, searching for the Evoknights. She hated their strikecraft, shaped so oddly and painted to blend in with space. She spotted light glinting off their metallic hulls. "Do not stop to engage. Just get the transports to the planet!" Lan flipped more switches, and her weapons armed. If anyone was stupid enough to charge her nose-to-nose, they would be flayed.

Several squadrons of other superiority fighters had been trailing Lan's, but now they sped up and furiously engaged the Evoknights. She played out spectacular evasive maneuvers, keeping up with the transports perfectly.
Kenji hit his head on the side of the transport. Goddammit. This thing... the Katoladolastupidthing was certainly not built for comfort. And to make it worse, Lan had put the other two humans, Alice and Game, in a different transport. Despite his protests, she had made him go in a different one while Alice and Game could have a lovely conversation with each other. The hell was wrong with that bitch?

He could hear chatter everywhere by absorbing all the radio waves. Some screams cut abruptly short were so common, he was scared for his life. God, this chunky thing was not gonna make it. He would be blasted out into space with all these poker-faced soldiers and suffocate. He could do a lot of things, but he couldn't breathe in space. Kenji looked at some of the soldiers to his left. They all had dark looks and were clutching rifles of various sizes like it was their lifeline.

He just sat there and frowned. None of them looked like the talkative kinda guy.
The roaring of engines returned as Lan burst through Sigma's atmosphere and nearly slammed into the ground. Mental note; don't afterburner into a planet in a Vanquish. As she increased altitude back up to her squadmates, she repeated their directions. "Fly due south at 180." The world rushed past as the momentum carried everyone to their destination. But, a problem quickly started to arise. The squadron flew like lightning over and past Xychus City. The momentum quickly died, but not fast enough. Soon Lan found herself over Tamaran City, south of Xychus. Like a slap in the face, she remembered the fleet would detonate the whole city soon. "Turn the hell around ASAP!" There were only three transports, and they had all survived up till now. It would be a shame to lose them because of a miscalculation.
Kenji was nearly hurled out of his seat as the Kantola turned sharply to the left. "I'd like to keep my lunch in my stomach..." he murmured. So far he hadn't heard anyone else talk other than the pilot. The angst of coming to Sigma had passed. Now the transport was just a jostling room of boredom.

Several minutes passed. An intercom beeped and the pilot spoke. "We are within five minutes of Xychus. Prepare to drop." There was a sudden roaring as nearby explosions rocked the transport. Kenji leaned over to look out the pilot's window as gasped. Xychus looked nothing like it had before he had been kidnapped. It had been the crown's jewel, and now it was a dusty, torn apart bunch of ruins. The plane rocked violently again and Kenji was forced back into his seat. A sudden sharp tapping echoed along the cabin, coming from below. The pilot called back. "Fire hitting from below! Small triple-A. Nothing big. FETs, get ready!"

Kenji wondered what those were. But some specific soldiers stood up and walked to the back of the plane. A door creaked and suddenly opened. Good god, they're going to jump out, he thought. They had to be insane to do that. Insane, or really, really good. Probably insane.

The pilot looked back and motioned. A trooper started to nod, then froze in horror. He lifted his finger to point out the pilot's window and screamed silently. Kenji looked, alarmed. Everyone did. Time seemed to slow down. A second transport was in view with one engine spewing flames like a flamethrower. The whole transport was spinning violently out of control.

Then it careened straight into Kenji's transport.

For several seconds to the planes became lodged together like some screwed up flaming ballet scene. Then the two ripped apart in six pieces and plummeted two kilometers to the ground below.
Lan winced as there was a horrid screeching sound behind her. She had heard that sound often. Metal scraping against metal, then shearing apart. She looked behind her. Some Evoknight fighters had come from above and unleashed a flurry of lasers on her squadron. Evo sons of bitches. Then she realized that not just one, but two transports were missing. Fuck.

Lan slammed on her airbrakes, and bright yellow lasers streaked in front of her. The Evoknight strikecraft that had fired them overshot her and flew between two buildings. She gunned her Vanquish forward. She'd teach him a lesson: Don't miss.

She flipped her plane and sped after the Evoknight. The squadron had broken apart now, flying every which way. She centered the crosshairs on her target and fired. Orangeish trails of bullets flashed out and blew the Evo to smitheerns. Then, seeing activity below, she carpet-bombed the street into a rugged wasteland.

After the surprise attack was dealt with, the squad reformed. There were just four fighters left and one transport. Lan took a deep breath. She should've seen those shitbags coming. She tapped her radio. "How many VIPs are left?" The reply was scratchy, like the last transport was already damaged. "Two. Frasier and Ryder." Lan was relieved. They really didn't need Kenji anyway. And the other transport was just full of soldiers.

Xychus Central loomed ahead of them, just a few miles away. She glared as an Evoknight Vrray transport flew up to the structure and began to drop off troops. "Those fucking idiots!" Lan used the last of her afterburner and aimed the nose of her plane right at the Evoknight vehicle. She flipped a switch, and every bomb and missile in her plane immediately armed. The Vrray grew larger and larger. Right before her plane was sacrificed as a kamikaze, she ejected from the plane and was hurled straight upward. An ear-splitting explosion deafened her as all the ammunition detonated. The two crafts, and consequently the Evos, were nearly disintegrated.

Lan flipped in the air, getting split-second views of the firestorm below. The jet's momentum carried the burning mess off the entire building and down to the street below. She braced herself for a hard landing and slammed into UWUC Central's tough roof, broke through it, and onto the floor below. She coughed up a bunch of dust, then looked up to see the last transport land safely on the roof.

You could say that Game enjoyed the ride, and for that observation you get a piece of candy. Flight, any kind really as long as it involved crusiing through the ether. This was en enjoyable experience, despite the desperation in the flight patterns of this craft, it seemed no pilot could match his 'smooth' flying skills. But then again, he doubted any pilot could talk to a spaceship. "Are you new at this?" Game asked the pilot with a frown, as his head bobbed from side to side. He didn't get a reply, and he wasn't expecting one. These soldier types were the same as the ones in movies, boring and unresponsive. Redshirts all of them. Except for him, he was made for this, his mind was primed and ready a weapon to be used. He didn't remember a main character ever dying until at the very least the finale, and even then it wasn't for real, they were just brought back to life or something. Besides, he didn't have time to worry about dying, he'd survive anything they threw at him anyway.

His attention was focused on the cube in his hand, he stared at it, manipulating the wires that snipped at the air and each other like pit vipers. Metal folded together sheathing the intertwined wires and nestling them in a perfect cage. This was to be the signal jammer, it would work, as long as he stayed with in a five meter radius of it, otherwise his mental control would lessen and it would stop working, allowing thousands of blocked Evo signals to come flooding in at once. The result? Failure. A game over. Restart? Yes. After a break. He wiped sweat from his brow and the sticky oil on his soldiers uniform. He had studied the Evo's unique way of sending signals n passing, it wasn't extremely complicated, but it was definitely not as simple as radio waves. He didn't know what they called it, but it was fast that worked almost like brain waves. Were the ships bioweapons? No... If they were he wouldn't be able to stop them, maybe they were a mix, that was a possibility. Maybe they were Gamewaves.

He chuckled at his own joke, but his laugh deteriorated into a choked hiccup as his transport jerked around a little. The whine of the engine died down into a whimper, they were landing, landing was bad. He knew that outside of this place was a warzone. He wished that flying through space again was possiblity, things were so simple there. No one wanted to kill anyone in space. Game hopped to his feet, stumbling at the wavering space craft as it slowly began to settle. He could totally land easier than this, the pilots skills were as unnatural as computers. Maybe this guy was half computer, he could probably hack him to move correctly. Game looked around, slightly mystified by his sense of dizziness, it felt like blood was rushing to his head, but he shook himself and forced his hand out in front of him, with an audible click the pod bay doors burst open, and Game sprinted out, his heavy boots slamming against the metal before they hit the roof. He stumbled forward, rolling off of his feet and over the ground before bouncing back on his toes and posing with what he thought was an epic form.

He relayed a discussion with in his mind, a heavy bass voice of echoed in his thoughts, Game, your mission is to hack the failsafe EMP and activate it, giving the Entente an opening to strike. You have thirty minutes to do this task or your mission is failed. said... Uh... Commander Plantoon! A great name. Uhh! He hated timed missions, it meant that he didn't have time to slack off and collect all of the bonuses, but then again he liked a challenge. "Yes sir, right away sir!" he pantomimed a salute to the sky, and trudged back and forth in a very army-like strut. Get to work soldier! screamed Commander Plantoon. Now where was that minimap so he could find this failsafe EMP thing.

Being a pilot and not steering the ship was not a good experience for Alice. Sitting there, gripping her gun, while the ship was juggled back and forth just added to it. The only time it seemed like turbulance was when she pulled out any crazy stunts. But she was used to the Legacy, which was one-of-a-kind. As soon as the doors opened, she was out. Her eyes swept the vacany, looking for an immediate hostiles. She scrunched up her nose because of the earplugs that were lodged in her ears. A warzone is not friendly to sensitive ears. Another thing a warzone isn't friendly to? A teenage human boy seemingly goofing out. You'd expect Lan to ninja appear and pistol whip him. Huh, and you'd think someone wouldn't be acting like this. Well. . .sadly, you can see quite a few people doing that.

OOC: Sorry about taking so long, my friend from New York came down to visit and I've lacked a bit of muse, showing in that short post >-<

Lan coughed up a bunch of dust and waved it away, just before backflipping up through the building and back on top of UWUC Central's roof. She looked briefly at Game, then looked away. What a dork.

The transport's engines screamed above her like monsters. She looked at the ship, dawdling in the air after dropping off one soldier and the human. Then it finally touched down for good. She motioned to everyone on board. "Ev-" She started, then stopped as Alice zipped out of the plane. "...vreybody, load up and spread out. We storm the building on my mark and no sooner." The soldiers all nodded and began to file out, fully armored and looking like robots. One of them grabbed a large shotgun out of a box and tossed it at Lan. She caught it lightly in her arms. At least one knew what she liked.

Suddenly the surrounding noises began to fluctuate. She frowned as she watched the transport. It hadn't changed. No, some new noise had appeared. She looked upward and to her left and immediately spotted a black C-shaped craft slicing through the air toward them. "Ah fuck..." Only a few soldiers had made it out of the transport.

Suddenly the pilot of the transport yelled his lungs out. "Slick, two o'clock high! Abort!" The five soldiers already out broke into a run, getting as far away from their transport as possible. The nine inside sat back down. But one was caught right on the door, unable to decide if he should run back to his seat or run off the door. "Shit, shit, shit!" He kept saying, going into a slight panic. Lan just kept frowning. These guys were supposed to be the best of the best. They were supposed to be able to make simple decisions.

She sprinted toward the craft just as the soldier turned and tried to get back to his seat. She grabbed the soldier by his backpack and literally threw him out of the transport and face-first onto the concrete roof. Then she planted her foot on the frame of the craft and pushed as hard as she could. It slid off the roof, flared up its engines, and blasted away from the building.

But the Evoknight fighter didn't change direction. Instead it kept hurtling toward Lan, intent on killing her. She simply held her ground and waited for the right moment. At this close range, she noticed the purplish aura that identified the use of a Hagar Device. The soldier tried to scramble up and run once more, but Lan held onto him firmly. "What the fuck are you doing?" He asked, sounding hysterical.

The Evoknight jet leveled it's nose out unleashed a torrent of bright blue energy at Lan. The plasma sent searing pain through her body, but the actual projectiles struck the roof on both sides of Lan. She was just too small a target for the lasers to hit. More dust exploded out in every direction, and the Evo flew roared overheard and away. But Lan and the soldier were basically unharmed.

The smoke quickly cleared from small bursts of wind. Lan stood in the exact same place she had been over a minute ago. But now she was able so see melted concrete-and-steel slop around her, as if trying to make a Lan sandwich. The soldier was completely silent, but also alive. She threw him across the scorched foundation, then turned back to face the jet.

It had already turned around and was coming back again. This time, it probably wouldn't make the same stupid mistake. But it didn't matter. She took a small metallic box out of her pocket. The simple device had nothing but a bright red button on it. She pressed it, and the Evoknight aircraft disappeared in a cloud of flame and smoke.

She pocketed the detonator and brushed off the event like it was nothing. She stepped over the melted crap and quickly evaluated her "squad". They had come with 39 soldiers and 3 humans. Now she had 6 soldiers and 2 humans. No matter. She much preferred small teams over large ones.

She motioned toward the hole in the roof. "In. We're not waiting on the others. And no elevators." She dropped down into the hole she had crashed through not five minutes ago, shotgun at the ready.

OOC: If I could eat fail, I'd be fatter than a pro sumo. :I

"Come on, come on. Where's the button to skip the cut scenes? Seriously, I hate it when the developers add these supposedly bad-ass soldiers into the game. Everyone knows they can't die during the games." Game muttered to himself. He whirled around in circles, staring at nothing, but wishing this stupid first person shooter game was a little more realistic. Everyone around him had like, no good graphics. He looked at the simple soldier that had been the center of the dramatic cut scene. "Okay, so mission start right? Let's go! Rápida! Rápida!" Game bounded through the whole into quick steps, but his foot caught on the edge of the hole, sending him on a head first dive into the abyss. He twisted in midair before slamming against a pile of shale, and slid down the jagged surface before he slumped on the ground. Ow... he thought mentally. Fall damage? Really?

For a few seconds he lay motionless, waiting for the pain to subside, but it didn't appear to be going anywhere. God... This game sucks! He pulled himself to his feet, shuffling forward with a depressed scowl on his face. Next chance he got, he was ditching this stupid Campaign to go play some online multiplayer. Anything better than this eternal suffering on what these game developers considered a story mode. "Look at this one." he muttered to himself, always to himself. "Thinking she's in charge. I knew I should have read the game reviews before buying this. The characters are so annoying." Game pushed past Lan, looking around at the bleak room, that looked almost like a storage room. He stared at the metal cubes around him, and forced a palm towards a cluster of them. He wondered how big the gauge for his powers, he felt the tug and rumble in his gut as he took command of the previously motionless objects and raised them into the air. "Ah-ha... What to destroy first...?"

Lan couldn't help but listen to Game's constant chatter. Was he retarded? Sometimes she wished she didn't have superhearing...

She followed the bumbling idiot into the first room. It was dark, but seemed clear of hostiles. Seemed. She was about to tell the human to stay behind her, but after a split second, decided against it. That wasn't the best way to hammer the command into his mind.

She watched the faint glimmer move around the room; the telltale sign of a cloaked something. Most likely, only she could see it. And Alice. But Alice was...lacking.

She looked away, keeping the glimmer in the very corner of her eye, and slowly grabbed a piece of debris. It was a rusty iron pole, most likely broken loose from her hard landing. The Evoknight crept up behind Game. It's slightly glimmering arm raised up, ready to slash the human in half. At the last second, Lan spun the iron pole and threw it right by Game, spearing the Evoknight in the head and continuing all the way through. It was killed instantly, and slowly fell backwards and banged loudly on the floor. Then she spun around on one heel, planted a foot on another invisible being's chest, and hurled him into a wall. She jumped backwards for more space, then ran at the Evoknight. She leaped into the air and dragonkicked it, slamming one foot into its chest followed by another in the face. It was pushed right through the wall. There wasn't another room to catch it. Instead the Evoknight tumbled to it's death, onto UWUC Central's plaza below.

"This is why I'm in the lead, Agamemnon." She said sharply. "Stay behind me and watch yourself. If you do one more stupid thing, saving Sigma could become impossible..." She smacked a floating box out of her way and nodded towards a staircase. "Down." She commanded. "We aren't going to use the elevators. That's what they expect us to do." She sprinting towards the stairway. It spiraled down endlessly. Lan jumped into the wall, planting her feet on it, then rebounded down the stairway to a different wall. Total ninja time, brah. She continued to do this several times, occasionally stopping to defuse tripwire mines. About ten floors down she stopped and waited for the other non-ninjas to catch up.

Alice was the last one to jump down the hole becuase she was watching and listening to the pick up of war sounds. There was a large ground battle going on but she had to stick with her group. She kind of wondered how she didn't realize there was enemies down below but Game's constant game lingo was distracting. Lan went on ahead down the stairs by bouncing off the walls. Maybe the whole ninja thought earlier wasn't that far off. She waited for the others to start their descent before leaping down herself, taking flights at a time. She stopped next to the Teroare and scratched her arm. "I know they're expecting us to take the elevator but I can't shake the fact there's nothing here except for mines. They don't just leave an path completely unguarded."

OOC: *prods dying muse* D:

Lan tensed as Alice landed next to her. She turned and glanced at the wall, not surprised to see faint imprints of Alice's shoemarks on them. They were on the floor, too. Good thing this was a reinforced structure. "Don't do that..." Lan muttered. "And all the intelligent Evoknight leaders, presuming they exist, are on the frontlines. It's like playing chess. Get past the defenses and it's a walk in the park." As the others caught up, Lan leaped down another three staircases and abruptly stopped next to a door. "Heartbeat." She said, putting the shotgun on her back. It magnetically clicked into place. Then she took one of her unique AY-69 pistols and pointed it at the wall. A few small adjustments to her aim, and she fired. The bullet burst out of the small barrel and blew a fist-sized hole in the wall before slamming into an Evoknight's head, taking it right off the alien's shoulders.

She quickly reloaded. This was going a bit easier than planned. But of course, thinking that would somehow make things a lot worse. And really soon. She twitched as someone called her name, as if on cue. "Aviv, an UWUC lieutenant is asking for a sitrep." Lan sighed and turned to the soldier. He was a bit smaller than average, and looked really bulky carrying some failsafe communications equipment and a counter-electronics-countermeasure device. "You're the com specialist, you deal with it!" She growled. She didn't have time for stupid UWUC officers.

The soldier shook his head. "He specifically asked for you..." Lan stared at him with her her signature frown. "Tell him I'm unavailable."

The soldier clenched his fists. "But he needs the damn sitrep!"

"Then give him a damn sitrep!" She retorted.

The soldier sighed and began to speak into his radio. He chatted for nearly two minutes straight and would have gone on longer if Lan hadn't motioned for him to hurry up. The soldier spoke faster. "Right, level forty four. FO18 out..." He put the radio up and nodded. "Thermals report that almost all the Evoknights have concentrated themselves on the lowest seven floors. We're pretty much alone until we get down there."

Lan pocketed her pistol. "Thanks for giving him your whole life story." She muttered, as if ignoring his report. Fourteen stories packed with Evos? Well, she could easily knock out some levels by herself with minimal work. But after that, she would need human help with the rising number of Evos. But she might as well use the redshirts for now anyway. "Let's go. Kill all Evos. Once we get down to floor seven, hand signals only. Evoknights have pretty good hearing..."

Lacking any space to sprint, Lan jumped up on the staircase's railing, slid down to gain speed, and began bouncing off the walls like some lethal pinball. She quickly ricocheted to the seventh floor and stopped by the dull grey door leading into the room. She quietly waited for the soldiers to keep up, who were jumping down the stairs as stealthily as possible. Which wasn't very stealthy at all. But when they came closer to Lan, they started to walk as if they were treading on supahthin ice.

By now, Lan simply assumed she was in charge and knew these soldiers would do anything she told them to. She motioned for the com specialist to watch the lower staircase while the other three set up a breaching formation; one just left of the door, one to the right, and one parallel to the door. The last two soldiers just stood back. Lan listened for Evoknight heartbeats. There were a lot of them. For once, UWUC had gotten something right. She placed on explosive charge on the door and positioned herself behind the soldier on the left. Then she raised her left hand, other hand occupied holding a Caesi Push Knife, and held up index, middle, and little fingers with the ring finger being held down by her thumb. The soldiers nodded, understanding the 'seven seconds' motion. She quickly reached into a pocket and took our her second push knife. The Evos wouldn't stand a chance.

Everything became quiet as the seconds ticked away. Out of nowhere, someone murmured, "Does anyone else think this is totally FUBAR?"

There wasn't any time to answer. The door imploded into the room, and Lan instantly launched herself through the debris. While bullets and lasers started to shred the Evos closer to the door, Lan rebounded to the back of the room.

The Evos had been facing the wrong way. Total morons. Lan careened straight into an Evoknight with her foot, sending it tumbling into the wall with a satisfying crack. Her bladed fists slashed through the surrounding aliens before they could react, splashing thick maroon blood into the air, soon disintegrating into nothing.

Don't take the elevator, huh...? That's just the kind of commands game developers put in just to keep Easter Eggs secret. Game waited until the crazy woman was finished bounding down the stairs and the others began to follow her. He stared at them with a fleeting smirk, before he turned to the elevator. He snapped a finger in its direction and instantly the metal crunched with a fist shaped hole being pounded in to it. Game slid his hand across the air and the elevators opened up with loud squeaks and pops. With ease, he slid one of the levitating crates into the elevator shaft and held it in mid air. Game stepped onto the makeshift platform with a snide look on his face. "Goin' down." he said as he shut the elevator doors and dropped.

The sensation of vomiting and the rush of air rising all around him was lost on Game, magnetically, the soles of his feet were locked onto the top of the crate. A great jarring crash shook Game from literally the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. "Ooo... So cooooool." he moaned, pressing his hand against the elevator door, wondering what he had crashed into. He didn't worry about it much, it was probably just an invisible wall. BOOM! The door blasted apart into millions of different metal fragments, embedding themselves across the room, on a half destroyed wooden table. Game frowned, looking at the literal half room. He stared across the conference table that was seared almost in half by some choppy laser. At the end of the table was an enormous drop off, where the floor just disappeared. A blue sky polka dotted with explosions and flying lasers that zipped and zapped, turning a once peaceful tapestry into a blazing skyline.

The room was scorched, once exuberantly furnished, it now looked more like a burnt piece of charcoal.

Alice followed closely behind the Teroare. Where was some action when you needed some? Okay so she didn’t need action but she was getting bored. She stared at the ground, restraining herself from rushing ahead. That solider was being horribly slow with that sitrep. Time seemed to have kicked the bucket it was that slow. But finally they were off! She charged after Lan, occasionally falling behind her or pulling ahead. It was only when she stopped that the human also did. The Evoknight’s heartbeats were strong. Finally! Some real excitement! As soon as the explosion was clear she dashed inside. Quick as lightning—sorta—her fist and feet killed Evoknight after Evoknight. It wasn’t long until all of them in the room were dead. “Uh, Lan,” she muttered with her head tilted to the side, “you hear the elevator, too, right?” And with a certain skunk boy not accounted for that didn’t help the theory.

OOC: YAY FOR MUSELESSNESS! 8D

Lan jumped as the elevator slammed harshly into the floor. Game could be no better example as to why she hated humans. Alice and Chester were alright. But all the other humans she had met post-Earth were incredibly annoying.

She led the team through the remaining floors. Losses were inevitable. Slowly but surely, life slipped away from the team. Lan continued her massacre of everything before her, twirling blades faster than the average eye could follow. When they had finally cleared the second level, only three soldiers were left standing; Sergeant Mayfield, the one announcing his opinion of the whole thing being 'FUBAR', a RAVEN employee named Captain Riga, and the comm specialist, Corporal Asalee. The others were all dead, being killed almost instantly by the Evoknight's powerful weapons. Lan herself hadn't been hit once, had hardly dodged multiple shots. Her left shoulder was burned, and her kneecaps and elbows were bloody from their impacts on the Evoknight armor. But she ignored the pain, keeping an emotionless face, as she jumped the whole flight of stairs to the first floor.

Surprisingly enough, there was nothing. It was deadly quiet. She stood in the dusty room expectantly, slowly moving her eyes across the room. No, nothing was stealthed. In fact, the room was nearly spotless. Just two doors, one across from the other, neatly closed. She already knew which one to go through, but she crept up on the other one anyway, opening it silently. Nothing but a storage closet. An empty storage closet.

She turned away, dissatisfied. By now the rest of them was down the stairs. Asalee waited on the bottom step while the other two waited by the last door. Lan approached the door, wearing her signature frown. This was it. The final leg.

Her ears picked up an abrupt yes quiet whirring noise behind her, but she was too focused on the task at hand and planning the best entrance that she ignored it. Big mistake. Without any warning, a bolt of energy slammed into the back of her knee, impulsively making her lose her balance. She bit back any noise her body wanted to make. Howling in pain would only make her look weak and pathetic. Fulminant pain erupted through her body. Now she knew how the now-deceased soldiers felt. Her eye twitched from the pain, and she was partially aware of machinegun fire blasting from her allies. Quickly she regained her footing and looked at the supply closet. A small heap of gold metal lied on the floor, riddled with holes.

"It popped out of the ground..." Captain Riga muttered. "I didn't notice it until it was too late." Lan just shrugged, ignoring the blood swelling out of her leg. Dammit, she should've closed the fucking closet. "Move out! Let's finish this shit..." At that, she pounded the other door inward with her foot, breaking the hinges and making it swing inward.

In a split second, she analyzed what lay before her. It was a large room, fairly empty except for nondescript boxes containing who knows what, and a bunch of small pipes just large enough for a mouse to crawl through stretched along the walls. An energy barrier on the opposite side of the room splashed bright blue sheens along the corridor. Yes, that's why Game was brought. Not even Lan could deactivate it without bringing the whole power grid down. And the whole point was to use the grid to fire the EMPs.

But three aliens stood in her way. Only one was an Evoknight. The other two looked like strange experiments. One was at least nine feet tall, a huge thing built like a tank with biceps bigger than Lan's whole arm. The other was some sort of large insect, except it had catlike eyes, no antennae, and only two legs and feet. But it clearly had wings and an exoskeleton. What the hell is that?

The second of analyzing was quickly gone. Riga ducked and rolled into the room, leveled her machinegun at the huge muscular beast, and opened fire. The bullets pinged harmlessly off it's tough skin like paper. Maybe skin was a misnomer. The gigantic monster charged, moving at amazing speed for something it's size. Lan evaded instinctively, but Riga wasn't near fast enough. The monster's fist slammed into the RAVEN operative, killing her instantly as her body was pummeled straight through the wall. It continued to charge into the other room.

Lan let it slip from her mind. Alice and Agamemnon could deal with it.

Now, she had to concentrate on the insect thing, which had already zipped across the room. She realized now that it's 'hands' were four scythe-like claws, like some freakish thing out of a horror movie. Was a regular room full of guns too much to ask for? Apparently being sliced 'n diced was more entertaining than being shot.

Lan reached a draw a pistol, but even her reflexes weren't fast enough. It quickly occured to her that there was no way this thing was natural. The claws flew at her in a blurred motion. She leaped back, just barely evading the claws as they grazed her right side. She whipped out a Trail Point knife with her left hand and quickly slashed at the bug, but it simply blocked with its claws.

... *skips to the end* :I

Lan stood cornered against a wall, showing the insect a deathly glare. It had already sliced a deep gash in her stomach, and had slashed open her left shoulder. Her 081 tattoo was clearly visible now on her arm now, but that was just a minor annoyance compared to the damn insect. It had landed more attacks than than she had. And that just wasn't supposed to happen.

The bug thing stood several feet away, panting slightly. It's tired. Wait, bugs pant? She stepped into a running stance, and the bug mimicked her. After a second of tensing, Lan charged the insect, wielding nothing but determination. Great line right there...

A half second before meeting the insect head-on, Lan twisted and evaded around it, dove forward, and somersaulted over the inevitable back-kick the insect attempted. She bounced on one foot closer and closer to the array of pipelines on the opposite wall. The insect followed her, its claws spearing the air around her.

The insect made some sort of strange roaring sound. It must be angry. After all, it is kind of humiliating to miss so many times in a row right in front of what she assumed was the bug's boss. It's motionless, useless, lazy boss. Impossibly, the insect started clawing faster than ever. One swipe grazed Lan's cheek just enough to cut it open. She ignored the slight stab of pain. It was now or never. With the insect's arms still repositioning from the reckless attack, Lan lashed out full power with her foot in a circular motion, slamming it dead center into its midsection. She spun on one heel, foot still stabbed into the insect's thorax, and let momentum carry her around and pounded the bug into the pipelines. The light ceramic material broke on the heavy impact, but much to her disappointment, no random lethal gases leaked out. The pipes were empty.

Lan thrust her fist into the paralyzed insect's throat before grabbing it and throwing it to the ground. Then she proceeded to grab a broken pipeline and tear the rest of it off the wall, leaving her with a nice six foot pole. The insect made a final attack by leaping up, but it's head was bashed in before it could make another move. Lan was pulling all the stops here now, and as the insect backed up from the recoil, Lan threw the pipeline and speared the insect through the head.

It was still standing after several seconds, but it was dead. Clearly dead. Lan heard movement behind it. Finally, the Evoknight proved to have a brain and to have basic motor skills. She backed up, getting a view of the last enemy, still standing between her and the shield. The gold alien was floating in the air with some sort of hardly visible energy radiating from its boots.

Ultimate battle?

No.

As the dead insect fell, Lan sprinted forward once more, grabbed the pipeline still lodged in it's skull with both hands, spun like a tornado, and flung the insect at tremendous speeds into the Evoknight. It was taken by surprise as it was knocked backward and into the energy barrier. Lan watched, satisfied, as the Evoknight's and insect's atoms were blown apart.

With the battle finally over, she shuddered and limped over to a wall. She leaned on it for support with one hand and covered the deep slash in her stomach with the other. She always got caught up in the moment of battle, and always forgot how much she was bleeding. Splotches of red blood dotted the room, along with a few pools of yellowish insect blood.

She spat blood out of her mouth and waited for Agamemnon. That human needed to hurry up.

Game looked out over the edge of the UWUC Building and frowned. Was it natural too feel vertigo in a video game? He shuck the feeling away, he despite the obvious danger of performing this, he knew he had done it before. Many times actually, and reassured himself with the fact that this was what the game wanted him to do, and should he die, he'd just respawn at the last checkpoint. He eased the busted elevator doors toward him and flattened them into a single even piece. He folded the square one last time into a thick rectangle and and brought it down in front of him. It was just about the size of a surfboard, but he didn't really remember what surfboards looked like, or what they were used for. He leaped onto the plank of metal, and shot into the air. Free falling while literally being glued to a flightless sheet, a helpless to physics and its mistress gravity.

Game felt strangely resemblant of that logo for one of his favorite game designing companies, a troll, or ogre, or some other disgusting looking creature, his surprised face rippling like waves, as he stared at one of their awesome video games playing. Truth be told, Game really did resemble that creature, minus the green skin and sloppy black hairstyle. Game flew straight down with the purpose of an arrow about to pierce its target. Sadly, that target was a square of asphalt that was twenty stories below him... Nineteen stories... Eighteen... Without a physics major, he knew at this speed he could die from the G-forces, didn't matter, video games were the least realistic thing in the world. The ground ran at him with the ferocity of a grandmother's kiss. The free fall graphics were nice, but now he was in the danger zone, with his heart nearly flying out of his chest and carrying his spine with it.

The tip of the craft leveled out and nearly snapped in half as it reacted from the contradicting forces of magnetism employed on it to bring it to a stand still. The board slid through the air, screaming with the pain of being torn apart by gravity and magnetism. Game readied himself for a collision that never came. The board slammed into imaginary ground, four feet above the crater filled concrete. Game didn't feel his heart flutter, he heard it roar like a caged beast, thumping faster than a pair of bongos. "Again..." he whimpered with a smirk, dismounting his impromptu Ichzer. "Must go again..." He let the board fall, no longer needing it. He looked turned and stared at the impressive doorway that was half-collapsed, the lobby of the UWUC. One more floor to go, at least, that's what he remembered someone saying, it didn't matter who, they had an aggressive voice so that made them someone to listen to.

Looks like it was stairway time.

[Skippin' Time, Yeah!]

A friggin' miniboss!? Or just an evolved mook? What ever it was, Game didn't like seeing it waiting in front of him, like it had anticipated his arrival. Video game bosses were so creepy. The game developers had really gone to town fixing this thing up to look like a real monster, it was almost a shame to destroy it. But it was in his way, and trying to run past it looked suicidal. It roared at him, not really a feral roar, more like the mutated cry of three voices coming from one throat. Bone-chilling. Who knew this action game doubled as a horror? "Right backatcha, now come on, I got a device to activate!" He always hated the pre-mortem banter, if he could think of a badass one liner, he would scream it at this thing, but a taunt was just as good. It charged at him and Game didn't even flinch, he fixed his eyes on the creature, and magnetized his feet to the floor, something told him that things were about to get a little crazy in this cramped hallway.

Magnetism was a funny thing, and all it needed was a pole to work from. It took Game's powers to shift the pole from Sigma's natural one, to this abomination's hulking bottom. It was a rather big target. Even if you had the eyes of a hawk, you wouldn't have been able to see what happened to the creature, though it wasn't like you would want to in the first place. The end result was just as disgusting. Coated from head to toe in monster jelly would never, ever, ever have been Game's plan for this particular escapade, neither warping the narrow hall way into a jagged pathway that looked like a tootsie roll wrapper. Game was glad he hadn't thought of a one liner, or he would have probably choked on the monster's guts. "Awesome..." Oh right, he had a mission to carry on, and the clock was ticking. Game sprinted over the hurdled of the twisted hall, and slipped into the basement.

It resembled something Game had saw on Varsia in the monsters pit, chunks of half-eaten and still rotting meat, what looked like alien toejam splattered across the wall like it had been shot from a sprinkler, he would definitely need a bath by the end of this, or at least a new change of clothes. He limped towards the machine, his boots squelching with each step, monster juice was in his socks. His half-closed eyes scanned the room, even though he could clearly see the jungle of powerlines, and bulking generators that flanked his prize. It all was glowing a bright blue, and gave Game the sensation of utter calm, like he had finally reached Heaven. If Heaven was this, Game was better content living in hell. Walking with a purpose now, and ignoring the sensation of goo crawling down his back, he stepped up to the forcefield and blinked, instantly it was off.

"Here's lookin' at you control panel!" he said with a cheeky grin on his face. He didn't even have to raise his finger as he entered the machine, flipping the cyber switch, and completing his mission. He stood there waiting for the ticker tape to fall, or some ribbon to be handed to him, or even a little trumpeting. But there was nothing. He stared at the machine with his smile faltering. "Mission One Complete?"

Lan spat blood as she watched the generators jump to life. They made some sort of screeching noise, building up electrical energy. Then the walls pulsed blue as the energy burst through the walls to various projectors, which in theory would send the energy to receptors and so on and so forth. UWUC Central's electricity instantly failed, plunging everything into darkness.

"Ah shit!" She heard someone say, most likely one of the two remaining soldiers. "Turn NODs on..."

Lan fumbled around in her pocket. She didn't carry those bulky and often fragile night-vision equipment. Instead, she flipped open a tiny case and put some night-vision contacts into her eyes. It stung for a few seconds as she tried to focus on her surroundings, but the contacts quickly lit everything up perfectly.

A plopping noise snapped her attention back to the pipes running along the corridor's walls. Several sections were missing due to the recent fight, and now, a dark, thick, silvery liquid flowed smoothly out of them, pooling around on the floor. Now she understood why they were there. That was definitely coolant meant for the generators which, without it, would melt from the excess energy. It was extremely toxic, too, and she could see vapors floating out of the pipes as well.

Lan frowned, stretching her injured leg. Pain shot through her and more blood oozed out of the wound, but at least it wasn't seizing up. "Agamemnon, get over here!" She ordered, joining the soldiers in the other room once more. She didn't know if he had some sort of night-vision power, because last time she checked their legal documents, he couldn't control magnetism, either.

The ground abruptly started shaking. It was hardly noticeable at first, but then it grew more violent, lasting for about a whole minute. Lan furrowed her brow. That wasn't some form of weapon striking the ground and shaking it, that was a real earthquake. Or Sigmaquake. Looks like the planet was finally tearing itself apart. The massive EMP must have disrupted the magnetic balance between the poles. It wouldn't be too long now until...

She pushed the thought away and reluctantly waited on the human.

Game looked at Lan with a stunned stare. He felt a tick in his mind, almost a realization, of something that had eluded him for quite a while. It was a whir, a strange whirring similar to the clicking of gears, in his mind. It felt like he had just dug it out from mounds and mounds of trash. What with all of the pressure from back to back fights and action, he had almost forgotten about Robovant, and by extension Nessa. He could feel the connection between him and his manifestation strengthen. He was near. He looked at Lan, a blank and calm expression on his face. His mouth hung open for a second before he tightened his jaw. He had got his next mission. "Sorry, Ms. Whatever-your-name-is, but I got other orders." Game turned away from Lan and what was left of their little party. He broke into a run after his first two steps, he cleared the hallway that was swimming in monster goop, and levitated out of the basement. "My friends need me." he said, oddly enough to no one.

Since Alice had disappeared, or died, Game was free to go on his own escapades without needing to save her.

OOC: Cut short. AWAY TO ANOTHER THREAD!