The Game: Beyond the End IC

Mark turned abruptly away from Glycius and jumped back a few feet out of the way of weaponized tin can's fire ring, pocketing his laser grenade, even though it was physically impossible to deactivate the timecrystal version once the pin had been pulled and the vacuum chamber inside contaminated with the warm and reactant filled air outside, he overheard Zalphar telling him to see if the tin can could be payed a commission of new weaponry to take care of some Azulian diplomats later on. With his new orders, Mark took a step forward, standing about 3 feet away from the wall of fire now encompassing the tincan of death.

"So, Tinny weapon eater man, ma' boss would like ta ask if ya take commissions payed 'n new spangled weapons 'n such. 'e says he's got somethn' called a Unavurse Destroyn' bomb. Want's ta know if that'd be enough to acquire yer services some time in tha foreseeable future."

The bolt rifle bolts hit Erebos' head and knocked him over as Crysalis' and Tresi's attacks hit him. He flew across the room, smashing through the other Wedges and their games and finally impacting the wall.....Then he got back up. His torso was somewhat dented and his head looked as though someone had hit it with a sledgehammer a few times. Orange energy arced over his head and body as the dents and cave-ins popped back out to their original shape.
He was angry now. The three troopers and Amherst were the first to feel his wrath as he caused the metal in their suits to melt as he had done with Azol's pistol, covering them in molten metal.
A shock wave of high density air raced away from him towards his attackers at the speed of sound. He also let several bolt rifle shots off from his open palm toward Crysalis and Tresi.
"I might be interested. Perhaps you would be willing to assist me against these others so that I can talk to you undisturbed" he responded to Mark.

Zal-Tek nodded. "To be honest I didn't really know where I was going." He shrugged, "I don't usually need to specify. I've never ended up anywhere other than on a planet before." He watched Kydi for a moment, then decided he might as well elaborate. "I don't think you're quite getting how I teleported..."

Without moving from his seated position, and with no particular effects, he vanished. He reappeared beside Kydi, standing. He had wanted to appear behind Thray, but he wasn't stupid. "See?" he gave a knowing smirk, "magic."

"Don't think so b*tch!" Azol yelled as the heat sensors on his suit went off. As the suits began to melt a sensor activated its climate control, returning the suit to homeostasis temperature. The suits were slightly damaged, but none of the soldiers were injured. Azol and Crusader Gamma approached Erebos from two sides, chattering away with automatic bolt fire aimed towards his head and torso. before they could do any serious damage, however, the shockwave lifted both of them off of their feet and sent them flying. Azol skidded across the ground, rolling to his feet and grabbing his gun to fight back while Gamma crashed into the wall. The concussion insulation in his suit protected him from serious damage, but he was still slightly dazed. Crusader Beta, being a more adventurous fellow, ran in the way of Erebos' bolts. The mass inversion technology activated and the bolt projectiled went sailing back at the shockwave. The combined forces caused the bolts to fall to the ground, their momentum being canceled out. Beta crashed to the ground and felt the rattling of his suit as the shockwave careened over him. Crusader Delta rolled onto his back and, using his tacpad, sent a message to the Starsmasher. The shockwave didn't reach him.

"Bishop Alpha, this is Crusader Delta. We are currently engaging the robot classified as Combatant Talos. The combatant seems to be relatively receptive to bolt fire. Once we neutralize Combatant Talos we will engage Anomalous Object Zeta. Over!" There was no response.

---

"Glad to hear that Crusader Delta. keep up the good work. Over!" Forchenz replied. Suddenly the power on the Starsmasher turned off, plunging the deck into total darkness. The engines stopped, and only the life support systems stayed active. The auxiliary power failed and a loud "bang!" could be heard as the backup generators exploded. Within ten seconds three flashlights turned on and crew members began to scuttle around the deck like insects, trying to find the problem. Suddenly, every screen in the ship lit up bright red. In the middle of each screen appeared a 3D cartoon wolf head, and it began to sing over the speakers:

"In touch with the ground I'm on the hunt I'm after you Smell like I sound, I'm lost in a crowd And I'm hungry like the wolf!"

Spoiler:

"It's the damned Wolf!" General Forchenz cried out, standing up and pointing at the bridge's main screen "I knew this was a trap!" Down in Teh Black Market, the music began to play in Delta's ear.

"The Starsmasher has been compromised!" Delta yelled into the comms "Bishop Alpha, this is Crusader Delta! Are you okay? Over!" No response. Delta rolled his eyes and flipped over onto his belly, sniper rifle in hand. He lined the crosshairs up an inch or two above Erebos' right eye (to account for the distance) and fired. The heavy bolt was about seven times stronger than a normal bolt. Hopefully that would be enough to put this combatant down.

Zal-Tek chuckled, "Thank you," he said with a somewhat more genuine smile, "but please, don't call me mister."  He hardly thought of himself as a mister, he was likely too childish for that.  At least most of the time.

He was pretty sure at this point that he wasn't in any immediate danger, and was ready to stop trying so hard to take in every detail of the room.  There was very little noticeable change in his demeanor, though his pupilless gaze didn't wander quite as much.  He was still curious, of course, but it was no longer a matter of survival.  So they were in the middle of space, no planets nearby?  That could be... Boring.  Especially if they didn't land any time soon.  Yes, he decided, this whole trip was probably going to be boring.

The bolts that Tresi redirected missed Erebos as he dived out of the way of the Lumien soldier's shots with speed only a machine could've accomplished. Then his vision went black. However, this wasn't as much of a problem for him as Tresi might've thought. He felt the air impacting him, working like SONAR to tell him if the others in the area moved or not.
As he was doing this, he created a sphere of flames around himself, made of intense blue flames that would boil away metal and incinerate anything else that dared approach. He also lanced out with his energy, letting loose orange lightning that crackled across the room in every direction, causing any technology it touched to immediately shut down, courtesy of technopathic side effects. The combination of the flames and energy was enough to hit the tendrils and cancel them out.
He thundered out to Tresi, "So this is how it is? Cowering from me with darkness....why don't you show yourself, unless you are too cowardly..."

Planet Endus, The Destroyed Realm

It was a dreary day on the exceptionally cold planet of Endus. The Lord sat, slouched on the partially comfortable throne. He was satisfied with what had happened with the prisoners. There had been an exceedingly gruesome death of the final one, which made him wish that he could get the last prisoners in his ship. He wanted the whereabouts of the final prisoner. He called with his voice that could startle any of the inhabitants of Endus. "Pike," he called.

The advisor jolted slightly as she heard the usual derogatory term she was called. She turned around with false cheerfulness spread on her face. "What is it, my lord?" She hoped to God that it wasn't another request for a "show". She couldn't take those anymore.

Lord Hatred spoke, "What happened to those Silvings? Can we destroy them? I want to kill that little silver princess." He had a maniacal smile on his face. He didn't want anyone to go unpunished for causing his first death.

The advisor was obviously nervous. She didn't want to disappoint him, but at the same time, the silvings were protected by the Major of Fear's contract, thus disabling the Destroyer's rights of killing any of their kind. She mumbled something that Lord Hatred couldn't quite understand.

The Lord yelled, "Speak up, pike!"

The advisor looked up at him with fear in her eyes. She spoke quickly, "I'm sorry, my lord, but the Major of Fear's contract forbids any Destroyer from harming the Silving Empire." The little blue girl expected something from him, something that would ultimately kill her, but that wasn't the case. The Lord was feeling generous.

Lord Hatred frowned, "What about that little frog man? Exo, was it?" He mispronounced Exo's name. He remembered Exo, and he hated him. "Why don't we kill him? He is wanted anyway, at least by the RDC..." He smiled a fanged grin. "Yes, why don't we kill the frog man. It should be simple." He chuckled, "Perhaps we turn him into a show, no?"

The advisor's heart sunk when she hear the word, "show."

Spoiler:

Everything went black, leaving the Crusaders in the dark. "Activate thermal vision." Azol said. They all simultaneously activated their thermal vision and saw a massive white orb glowing where Erebos stood. This thing was getting out of hand, and apparently General Forchanz was too busy partying like it was 1989 to give assistance.

"Hey guys I got an idea." Crusader Delta said, lining up for another shot "I bet I could wire that virus to infect this thing! Let me grab my tacpad and play with it a little." Delta fired his heavy bolt rifle and then went to his tacpad.

"Did anyone here bring a pyrotech upgrade pack?" Azol yelled, seeing the white heat flare.

"I did." Beta replied, running across the room. As he ran, Beta's wrist armor began to transform until a nozzle formed just above his hand. He got about ten feet from Erebos' wall of flame and fired a stream of chemicals similar to the ones in a fire extinguisher.

"He's activating his technopathy!" Delta yelled through the comms, detecting an energy bloom "Get out of the way!" Azol and Gamma rolled out of the way of the electric storm, dodging arcs of lightning by mere inches. Beta, however, was not so lucky. One of the arcs of energy struck him in the chest. He screamed and arched upwards as he was electrocuted by Erebos' blast. The electricity fried his suit's circuits, and he fell to the ground dead, his suit steaming.

"Son of a b*tch!" Azol cried, diving for cover behind one of the landing pods "Beta!"

"We can't go and get him now." Gamma said over the comms as he dove behind another pod "His life signs are all at zero. He's dead Alpha."

"Sh*t!" Delta yelled "I'll try to install a patch to our suits to nerf the electricity but it's gonna take a while because I have to do it manually. Just don't die." Delta ran for cover and dove behind a wall of rubble from Azol's entrance about seventy yards from Erebos. Azol and Gamma fired at Erebos' head from behind cover but doubted that the bullets would be able to break through the wall of flames without melting. Azol rolled a laser grenade to the edge of the flame, hoping that Erebos wouldn't see it and would get caught off guard.

Delta's shot streaked toward Erebos, but as it neared Erebos it was hit by one of the many energy arcs due to the increased density near their source, and exploded harmlessly about 5 feet away.
As this happened a large explosion happened from inside Erebos as Tresi' spatial effect took place. A large omnidirectional orange energy wave radiated out from where he stood, followed by intense white flames as the air was displaced from around him, over pressuring the rest of the room and leaving a cold spot on the floor.....Erebos' form was gone.

On a ghostly plane, an orange figure appeared, shaped like Erebos' physical form. Erebos looked over Te Black Market with disgust, his vision resting on Tresi and Azol. You will pay he thought. He then floated over away over to the battle arena area to begin work on rebuilding his body.

Sardonne

The Wolfe of Sardonne was sipping at his wine, waiting for the Harbinger representative to begin to speak, when a guard clad in black armor walked across the room and whispered something in his ear. Wolf nodded a moment, and then his eyes filled with hatred. He gripped his drink so tightly that the glass cracked, and slowly rose, trying to maintain a pleasant face despite the pure rage now bubbling up in his stomach.

"If you would excuse me for just a moment, monsieurs." he said to Vanos and Saro before following the guard up the steps.

A few moments later, Wolf exited a clear acrylic elevator that took him to one of the secret areas of Sardonne: the execution room. The room was about fifty feet long and had inverted gravity so that the windows jutted out into the vacuum of space. The night sky behind the glass was alive with thousands of constellations and globular clusters. The seafoam green-and-scarlet light of the nearby Stingray Nebula filled much of the night sky, and if one looked very very closely, they could see the  grey rings of Gomez's Hamburger not far away. The Wolf picked this section to be the execution room because he figured that if this were to be the last thing the ones being executed ever saw, then he should make it beautiful: a small consolation for death.

Flaeron awoke with a snap to the sound of guns being loaded. His arms were held fast to the wall with energy chains and in front of him ten members of Wolf's security team were setting up machine guns. Agatha was strung up on his left, and Exo on his right, who, as usual, appeared to be completely dead. Wolf entered the room and Flaeron spat at him. The projectile acid hit a hand rail across the room from the chained-up prisoners and burned a hole in it.

"Well well well." Wolf said, walking to the end of his balcony at the top of the room. "So these are my enemies. I expected you to be more threatening."

"We are much more threatening than we appear." Flaeron said, looking over at Exo. He slowly began to twist his hands in his chains. If he was able to draw blood, he'd be out of this situation quickly.

"Oh yes, I know that that thing is." Wolf continued "It's an Acirian, the Unjust God. The Enigma battled with the Old Acirian empire millions of years ago in a war that destroyed an entire universe. The legends say that the Acirians were unstoppable deities who could regenerate from even the most terrible mortal wounds, but as you can see, my people were flawed. Your friend Exo was far too easy to kill with a simple blast of electricity. It amuses me, actually. I wasn't even trying to kill him!" All ten machine guns were set up and primed to fire. Flaeron continued twisting his hands until finally his tough hide broke and red blood dripped down the steel cuffs on his hands. The acid quickly began to dissolve the cuffs.

"So then why did you chain me next to a corpse?" Flaeron asked.

"For insurance." Wolf said "Enigma are a very superstitious race, and though I doubt Exo has any tricks up his sleeves, I'd rather waste the money putting a few railgun slugs in him and flushing him into space than have him somehow return from the grave."

"So you're afraid." Flaeron quipped.

"No. I'm cautious."

"Which is fear in itself."

"Wrong. Caution is taken to promote safety, not fear."

"Well then," Flaeron said, nodding to one of the guards on the balcony. Suddenly, all ten of the executioners received a text message on their tac pads. They all looked down, and Flaeron busted through his chains. "How about I give you something to be afraid of?"

Spoiler:

Before anyone could react, Flaeron had made his way to the line of machine guns. He jumped eight feet in the air, rolling himself into a ball and bringing his tail down on the first executioner's helmet. The executioners didn't have mass inversion armor because a prisoner could never fight back. Flaeron's cleaver-like tail blade split the guard's head clean in two, and they fell to the ground dead. All nine of the soldiers converged on Flaeron, grabbing for their sidearms. He rolled out of the way of a singularity gun blast and rolled behind the guard who fired it, killing him via cleaver blade to the spinal cord. The singularity struck an Enigma who was before standing behind Flaeron poised with a knife. There was an explosion of yellow light and a sucking sound, and the executioner collapsed, the entire right side of his torso gone. Flaeron made quick work of the rest of the executioners in that row; they had murdered innocents for so long that they no longer were skilled fighters, and so fell like dominoes to Flaeron's blade. Once one of them managed to stab his left shoulder, but the flimsy steel blade snapped clean in half on collision with Flaeron's hide. He grabbed two singularity guns and, one in each hand, systematically murdered the remaining executioners. He turned to look up at Wolf's balcony to see one of the private body guards at the top tackle Wolf and push him over the safety rail. Wolf grabbed to latch onto the rail, but the spot where he grabbed was the spot where Flaeron had spat. He had planned this to the last detail. Wolf hit the ground and wrestled with the guard for several moments as Flaeron ran over and released Agatha and Exo. The other private body guard ran to get backup, but Flaeron shot him in the back with a singularity gun before he could get to the intercom, tearing out the guard's lungs and making it physiologically impossible for him to call for help. The guard punched Wolf in the face, smashing his head against the ground and drawing black blood. Wolf's nose was now broken, as were several of his teeth and two of his left ribs from the impact with the ground. The guard stood up and placed one foot on Wolf's chest. He removed his helmet and, lo and behold, there stood Agent Myre. He smiled deviously at Exo, and then looked down at Wolf, who seemed to be half-conscious and laying in a pool of black blood that was slowly leaking from a large gash in his back.

"Hello Wolf." Myre said, smiling "I'm Agent Myre of the Desbinian Office of Criminal Investigations. You are under arrest for black market smuggling within the Lumien Empire, ratconteering, holding prisoners for indefinite periods of time without a trial, seventeen counts of galactic space piracy, oh, and you defaulted on your taxes."

"But...I don't pay taxes to the Lumiens..." Wolf said almost childishly.

"I know, but if I add that to your sentence it extends your sentence from five hundred years to indefinite." Myre then looked up at Flaeron "Nice work." Flaeron nodded and then turned around to Agatha.

"Do we have anything on the Agatha?" he asked Myre.

"Not that we have definite evidence of. Plus she helped us, so I won't shoot her." Myre winked almost seductively at Agatha, causing him to temporarily close his left eye. Before his eye opened back up, Wolf's fist collided with it full speed. Myre stumbled backwards and fell on his back. He spun and reached for a singularity gun but was too late. Wolf grabbed it when it was an inch from his hand and pointed it at Flaeron, who conveniently had his back turned. Wolf rose to his feet, his injuries obviously faked, and fired. Flaeron turned at the last second, but he was too late. The singularity caught him in the right side of his back. His eyes opened wide as pain coursed through his body. His back exploded in orange light as the singularity opened up and sucked every vital organ on the right side of his body into a black hole. The singularity closed, and Flaeron fell to the ground, dead.

---

Teh Black Market

"Booyah!" Delta yelled as Erebos exploded. "We beat him." Gamma cheered over the comms as well, but Azol wasn't nearly as satisfied. He ran towards Beta and grabbed him by the chest armor, shaking him. The two were extremely good friends, and Beta had died trying to save Azol.

"Get a medic over here!" Azol yelled "Come on buddy. Stay with me!" Delta ran over to Azol and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"He's dead Azol." he said "His lifesigns zeroed." Delta tried to send a message up to the Starsmasher, but it was still disabled. Now it was time for Azol to take his anger out on Wedge, the reason he was here and indirectly the reason that Beta died. Azol rose to his feet and grabbed his rifle.

"Where's the f*cking beaver?" he asked, walking towards Tresi.

Azol stared over at the restrained Wedge with a look of pure hatred burning on his face like an uncontrollable wildfire. He set his gun to nonlethal three-round burst; this would change it from a railgun-like device to a pure electric rifle with enough power to take down a stuffed beaver. Delta slung his sniper rifle onto his back and drew his bolt rifle from where it hung at his hip.

"135 degree approach." Azol said through the comms. He made a series of hand gestures with his left arm to reinforce the order and they spread out. Delta, Gamma, and Azol approached Wedge from three angles. Azol crouched and walked past Valom, coming within twenty feet of Wedge.

"Or we could shoot the motherf*cker." Azol replied "If I can stun it we can teleport it back to Garthedus and you can get your nerds to dissect it."

"Crusader Gamma in position." Azol heard over the comms, quickly followed by "Crusader Delta in position."

"Alright." Azol said, turning to Valom. He had met the Garthedus team that was assembled here before and vaguely recalled their names, though he couldn't remember when they had met before "Your call doc. You guys know more about this thing than we do. Do we engage or not?"


Drifting through Deep Space towards Neutral Station Delta

Spoiler:

A fleet of ten white ships drifted aimlessly through the cosmos. In reality, they were actually traveling quite fast, moving in a mass warp bubble at twice the speed of light towards aimless space. The ships were quite curious vessels, as they emitted very little heat for the size of their fleet, but seemed to be seeped in electrical energy. The ships were each about 2,000 feet wide and 500 feet long at their centers, and were boomerang-shaped. They had no windows, no engines, and seemingly no form of propulsion. The ships didn't even have wires in them, as they seemed to function through a wireless energy field. They glided through space gracefully in their mass warp bubble without leaving an emissions trail. All that they ships seemed to emit was a radio signal that broadcasted for millions of miles around them:

"Help us. Help us."

The message appeared on all radio frequencies, whether they be AM or FM. They seemed to translate into every language, and always broadcasted in the same volume. Machines couldn't hear it. Only biological creatures could, as if the message was being broadcasted into their heads. The ships passed by several space vessels and were approaching Neutral Station Delta. They detected Lumien technology, but there were others as well, and the people onboard were getting restless.

On Neutral Station Delta, a Lumien scientist, Dr.Gunnar, detected a blip on the radar. Something was approaching. Many somethings. Gunnar was about to say something when the radio began to broadcast the message.

"Help us. Help us." Gunnar recognized the quiet, peaceful voice of the Greys, tweaked with a tinge of hysteria and fear. He had remembered the Zalon-6 incident, and he was sadly aware that he had helped create the weapon that destroyed the planet. The Greys had been target by the Lumiens as a clear and present danger to the Lumien people, and so the Consul of War (as many Lumiens called the Consul of External Affairs) had them obliterated by the newest Lumien weapon: the Agreshkhan Bomb. Gunnar sighed, and realized that if he notified the Lumiens, the fleet would be destroyed. Gunnar didn't want to be responsible for anymore lives lost, which is why he had himself moved to Neutral Station Delta. Here, he couldn't be responsible for killing innocent lives, and could assist the Garthedan Alliance keep peace in the galaxy. He sighed, and sent a radio message to Doctor Valom, the only person he felt comfortable talking to about this.

"Doctor Valom, this is Doctor Gunnar from Neutral Station Delta. Our radar has picked up multiple ships heading at Warp 2 towards the Station. They're broadcasting an SOS message. I know you're kinda busy, but I think that they're Grey Skeleton Ships. Do you want me to direct them to the station?" Gunnar was sure that Valom would bite his head off for bothering him while going after Wedge, but if it meant saving the lives of thousands of innocent people, then Gunnar would piss off whoever he had to.

In the center of the fleet of Skeleton Ships, there was one ship slightly larger than the rest. This ship had the same shape, but was 500 feet wider and longer. Standing at the command of the bridge in this ship was Shakoth Og Zlann, the leader of the Greys. The bridge was circular and was the exact same white color as the exterior of the ship with the exception of the ceiling, which was a projection of the night sky outside. In the center of the room was a large white sphere sitting on a five-foot-tall pillar. The sphere glowed white with electricity and was hot to the touch. Shakoth stood in front of this energy sphere, directing the ship with his mind. Several other Greys sat at white chairs around the circumference of the bridge. They were the officers, and each tapped into the electromagnetic grid of the ship and each regulated a different function of the ship. Shakoth's eyes were closed and his hands were six inches from either side of the sphere. A tendril of white electricity connected the palms of his hands to the sphere. He used the mass power of all 11,000 Greys to listen in on all of the comms activity in nearby space. He heard Gunnar's message mid-send to Teh Black Market, and his heart leapt. Maybe they'd finally find a new home so they could stop running. He kept the message private in his mind, however, something very difficult to do when the you were part of a species with such an open mind. He focused on driving the ship, and felt the hum of the negative energy converter under his feet and the subtle movements of the ship through the quantum foam and towards their new home. Halfway out of the dark. he thought.

"So, this plot you and Agatha are planning on Azulu, I'd like to know, do you seriously expect me to just let you sabotage the largest drug smuggling operation this side of the Gomez Hamburger?" Zalphar asked now starting to get irritated by Exo's persistent passive aggressive insults concerning its importance in the grand scheme of things.

Exo laughed at that, finding Zalphar's indigence to be almost funnier than the phrasing of its would-be threat. "No, I don't especially since you supply the majority of the 'seasonings' to that Hamburger's populace. However, unless you're planning on starting a murder spree using frozen White Castle Sliders, I don't think we'll have much of a problem."

Zalphar glared daggers at Exo and muttered darkly; "I could you know."

Exo scoffed at that, sarcastically quipping back with mock enthusiasm "Really? That would be spectacular. Would next Wednesday be convenient?"

Zalphar opened its mouth to respond, but was cut off by Exo who cringed as it spoke, "Well, I think one of the Enigma guards may have just kicked me in the ribs... Ouch... That was actually a pretty powerful kick... Which... Apparently just triggered my body to restart itself. Wonderful. Anyway Zalphar, this has been fun, we'll have to do it again sometime. Laterz." Exo did a mock salute before seeming to fade out of existence.

Zalphar rolled its eyes, looking despondently at the spot where Exo had been moments before. If that's how it wanted to play things, they were about to get a lot more interesting on the criminal front, and Exo was going to find itself gob-smack right in the middle of a veritable sea of deep doo-doo.

---
Sardonne

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"Oh yes, I know that that thing is." Wolf continued "It's an Acirian, the Unjust God. The Enigma battled with the Old Acirian empire millions of years ago in a war that destroyed an entire universe. The legends say that the Acirians were unstoppable deities who could regenerate from even the most terrible mortal wounds, but as you can see, my people were flawed. Your friend Exo was far too easy to kill with a simple blast of electricity. It amuses me, actually. I wasn't even trying to kill him!"

Ha! God. That's what these dumb squids think I am. Oh dear. This is just perfect. Unjust God. Has a nice ring to it actually. Exo, The Unjust God of the Multiverse. The behind-the-scenes editor and chief of all deviously devised plans. Yes, I think I'll keep that title. It's a good deal more flattering that 'The Frog' 'Undying Pest' 'The Annoying One' 'Scientific Psychic' 'Invincible Troll' 'Trickster' 'Green Abomination' 'Meat Shield' 'Freakazoid' and 'Know-it-all Bullet Proof Smartass.'

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"So then why did you chain me next to a corpse?"

Because I'm really bad at staying dead. Actually, Its probably the aria I'm the most unskilled in, staying dead.

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"For insurance." Wolf said "Enigma are a very superstitious race, and though I doubt Exo has any tricks up his sleeves, I'd rather waste the money putting a few railgun slugs in him and flushing him into space than have him somehow return from the grave."

Pff, like that will kill The Unjust God Exo. Won't be fun, but it won't be permanently lethal either. Although, The Unjust God may have to make sure that doesn't happen as soon as its body stops being about as useful as a paralytics. Agatha and Flaeron can't survive being turned to Swiss cheese and then being thrown out into the vacuum of space.

Great, this whole God thing is starting to make be refer to myself in 3rd person. I can feel the insanity setting in already. Whoop-de-doo.

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"So you're afraid." Flaeron quipped.

"No. I'm cautious."

"Which is fear in itself."

"Wrong. Caution is taken to promote safety, not fear."

Oh, that's clever... really clever Flaeron. Who do you have Agent Myre disguised as now? someone in the firing squad? No, not enough armor, wouldn't justify the invisibility shields he'd need incase this situation spirals down the toilet bowl. Guard then. That's brilliant, Wolf is pompous enough he wouldn't check his own masquerade that disguises themselves as others for others disguising themselves as his masquerade. That's as stupid as trusting spies to not spy on you just because they're supposedly 'on your side'. On your side of the paycheck maybe, but that only guarantees so much safety, and only as long as you're paying them. After that, its dirt on you to the highest bidder.

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"Well then," Flaeron said, nodding to one of the guards on the balcony. Suddenly, all ten of the executioners received a text message on their tac pads. They all looked down, and Flaeron busted through his chains. "How about I give you something to be afraid of?"

Exo willed its nervous system to restart faster, with only two people free to attack a small battalion of Enigma that just had to call in reinforcements, they'd need all the help they could get, and having an apparently dead Unjust God coming back to life and attacking the very superstitious Enigma while spewing doom and gloom bullsh*t prophecies about their impending demise could only help, especially since it would stand a good chance of scaring the general Enigma populace sh*tless and throw Wolf's control over them to the most enthusiastic religious zealot.

Slowly, as Flaeron began systematically murderizing the Enigma executioners, feeling returned to Exo's arms and legs, along with that extremely unpleasant tingly sensation you get when you try to move a foot you've been sitting on for a long time, which was basically circulation returning to that oxygen deprived appendage. However, it didn't dare let on that it was anything other than a stone cold corpse that had been strung up next to two living people in front of a now mostly dead firing squad for insurance, otherwise one of the remaining executioners, or maybe one of the body guards, might decide to blow a hole in it with a singularity gun while it was still immobilized by the energy chains, in which case it would be useful to no one for about 15 minutes as whatever section they chose to blow off grew back. However, it didn't have to wait long, because shortly after the sound of someone being pushed off a balcony and used as a impact cushion alerted Exo to the fact that it's theory involving who Myre was disguised as was correct, Flaeron ran over and released it and Agatha from the problematic energy chains, resulting in Exo, who had been previously supported by its restraints, falling flat on its face, its arms still too numb to do anything too break its fall. Agatha, on the other hand, immediately went into action, removing two thin, white plastic knives that the Enigma had failed to remove because of their non-metal composition and the fact that they were stuffed inside the lining of her skirt. She looked around the room, waiting for a target to present itself, but for the moment, the situation seemed to be contained, so she relaxed a little, but imperceptibly so, as she was still prepared to send one or both of the plastic throwing knives hurtling in the direction of the next attacker to present itself.

The 4th Maxx wrote:

"Hello Wolf." Myre said, smiling "I'm Agent Myre of the Desbinian Office of Criminal Investigations. You are under arrest for black market smuggling within the Lumien Empire, ratconteering, holding prisoners for indefinite periods of time without a trial, seventeen counts of galactic space piracy, oh, and you defaulted on your taxes."

"But...I don't pay taxes to the Lumiens..." Wolf said almost childishly.

When Exo heard that, it knew something was wrong, because while Wolf had just been thrown off a balcony, there was no way he, being an Enigma, would have the energy to play the innocent card on the only thing that wasn't true or of any comparative consequence, and not have enough energy to shape shift into something else and regenerate from his injuries. Which, shouldn't be as extensive as they were. In other words, the scenario screamed TRAP, but Myre was currently too busy trying to be a the badass cop to see it.

With some effort, Exo pushed itself to its feet, using the wall behind it as a support as it was still discombobulated from being dead and having no circulation for an extended period of time. It attempted to yell at Myre to stop being stupid and pay more attention to Wolf because he was faking the severity of his injuries, but all it managed to get out was severely slurred and apparently barely audible because it did nothing to change Myre's behavior, and only made things worse by causing Flaeron to turn away from Wolf and look at it because it probably appeared to be deliriously muttering nonsensical gibberish.

"I's a trap, you m'ron, 'e's fakng' 'is injuries, st'p pla'ng the bad c'p a'd st'rt pa'ng att'nt'on Agn't M're."

Flaeron looked confused for a second, then realization dawned and he started to turn to face Wolf again but that was all the time it took Wolf to sucker punch Myre, steal his singularity gun and punch a hole in Flaeron's right side, killing him instantly. Agatha reacted first, throwing both knives at Wolf's now exposed upper body, both of which hit. However, before Agatha could see what her blade-work had accomplished, she pressed a button on the watch strapped to her left arm and vanished in a shower of blue sparks not dissimilar to those that occurred when she was hit by the taser gun blast.

Exo took advantage of her disappearance by waving one hand in the air in a almost drunken manor and muttering something to the effect of 'I, the mighty Unjust God Exo hereby banish my faithful servants from this realm until the Enigma threat is removed and their safety can be guaranteed.' However, what came out was so slurred that it sounded like it was ecstatically muttering in another language. Which served its purposes just fine, if not better than if it had said it coherently.

Now it just had to hope that Myre would activate his Lumien battle armor and mysteriously vanish as well, otherwise its deity act would go down the drain along with the best escape plan currently at their disposal.

----

Mark looked at Erebos for a seconds, thinking about his request for help, and waiting for Zalphar to inform him of what to say. Then, as the first of the attacks against Erebos hit, Zalphar responded and Mark stated in perfect monotone "My employer says if you survive this it'll think about it. If not you will be deemed unsuitable for the task." With that, Mark turned on heel and started off, not looking back or so much as batting an eye when Erebos seemed to explode a few minutes later.

He was currently awaiting further orders from on high and would likely wander around Teh Black Market aimlessly until he received them, completely unaware of any form of the impending doom that was occurring in multiple places at the same time around him.

Erebos saw the chains form a cage around him. He glared at Tresi, as if to say "F**** off!" He raised one of his hands in Tresi's direction, and the other toward Amherst and his squad....
To anyone without the ability to see ghosts, fire seemed to come from nowhere, spawning from the air around Tresi and racing inward, as if the air itself was angry and her and throwing fire just to kill her.
From beneath her, a large spike of ice materialized, shooting up in an attempt to impale her.

Zal-Tek raised an eyebrow at Thray's statement.  So there were places that were not only dangerous, but well-known for being so.  He knew where he wanted to go, now.  But of course, it was unlikely Thray would take him there, since he had just said he wouldn't.  He shrugged.  "I don't have anywhere in particular I want to be," he said, then gave a mischievous look at the pair, "just somewhere interesting."

Wolf stumbled back and cried out as one throwing knife stuck in his ribcage and the other in his right shoulder. Wolf was about to shoot Agatha when she vanished in a cloud of sparks. Wolf's torso began to ripple. The knives fell out of his torso and clattered to the ground as he healed himself. The elevator doors opened and twenty guards filed into the room, armed and dangerous.

"Well that wasn't very nice!" he said, brushing off his sweater "Wait, weren't you just dead?" Wolf said to Exo. Myre ran over to Flaeron and grabbed him by the shoulders. He was dead; the was no way he could have survived that. Myre reached towards Flaeron's eyes, and closed them. "Ak Akrontis Pex" he said, which in Drakish meant "rest in peace". Myre slowly rose to his feet and stared at Wolf. Suddenly, every emotion drained from his face, and was replaced by pure, unfiltered rage. As the guards raised their weapons, Myre began to speak.

"You killed him." Myre began, barely suppressing his rage "Well, that makes things...simple. Because now there is no force in this universe that will stop me! You just made the worst mistake of your life, Wolf, because I will not stop, I will not rest until you and your entire enterprise comes tumbling down. I will burn everything you love, everyone you love, and when I'm done, maybe, just maybe, after you fall to your knees and beg for death, I will give it to you. Be afraid, Wolf." Myre said, putting on his black helmet. The helmet digitized and lowered his voice, making him sound menacing.

"Be very, very afraid." Myre vanished into thin air, and the guards opened fire.

"Find him!" Wolf yelled "Search everywhere! Lock down the asteroid! I want every square inch of this place searched!" Wolf said this because, for the first time in a very long while, he was afraid.

As the guards opened fire, Exo found itself in a rather sticky situation. It needed to sell its Unjust Godliness to the entire Enigma populace to whip them into a panic, but it couldn’t really do that if it got shot down not 5 minutes after being reanimated. It needed to look like a martyr, because martyrs get remembered, especially the ones of the ‘return from the grave’ variety, and in order to be martyr, it needed something to be martyred for and right now, it had jack squat. Sure, it was helping over turn the tyrannical rule of Wolf over other Enigma and the races they came into contact with, but the problem was that the Enigma were perfectly fine with that. They had a god complex and no problem mass murdering other races so long as they got paid in some form or other for doing so.

No, wait. This was perfect. It just had to ramp up the god act, make it look like being turned to Swiss cheese is a voluntary choice, and the best way to do that would be to make it obvious that it could have escaped if it wanted to. And it had the means to do so hidden within this very room. It just needed to regain control of its speech pattern so it could tell them prophetically what it need them to do.

However, as it was in the middle of planning its next move out in its head and standing there like a discombobulated idiot, one of the rounds being fired by the Enigma Guards hit Exo in the stomach and sent it sprawling, thankfully face down, so it would be impossible to tell where exactly the guard hit, and thus whether he should keep shooting. Thick cornsyrup like blood slowly stained the aria around the injury dark blue, and conveniently made a nice little puddle on the ground under its torso.

“CENSORED.” Exo hissed, resisting the urge to roll on its side and double over in pain. If it stayed still, there was a high chance that the Enigma guards would focus on trying to find Myre and Agatha by firing the rounds into empty air, especially since Wolf was pressuring them to do so, giving it time to heal at least partially, before attempting to jump the balcony to get to the intercom. It could just steal one of the guards’ helmets and use that, but jumping the balcony after already having died, come back to life and been shot immediately afterwards would look a lot more impressive, and that was currently what it would need in order for its plan to work.

Thankfully, it only had to stay still for a relatively short amount of time, as a few seconds later, Agatha rematerialized on the opposite side of the room underneath the balcony in another shower of sparks and yelled at the top of her lungs “All those who seek to commit murder will be shot down from within their own ranks for their crimes against The Unjust God Exo.”

This served to draw almost every guard in the room’s fire, but before anything could hit, she vanished in another shower of sparks, the wall behind where she had been standing seconds before now peppered with bullet holes. Several of the Guards advanced in a line towards the spot where Agatha had been seconds previously, while the rest fired continuously to the left and right of the advancing line, making escape impossible. However, what this formation made possible was Exo jumping the balcony to get to the intercom, but only if it timed it exactly right.

As soon as the advancing line was 10 feet from the balcony, and the firing squad 15, Exo pushed itself to its feet, grimacing as the movement sent a nauseating wave of vertigo through its body, causing it to stumble sideways slightly as its body attempted to shut itself down for repairs and Exo had to fight against it. 3 seconds lost, 5 more feet of ground to cover without the element of surprise.

Exo regained its balance and immediately started running towards the advancing line as fast as physically possible. It got to about 7 feet behind the firing squad before they realized it was there and opened fire in its direction. Exo dodged to the left before jumping into the air just as the line reached the balcony, landing one of the guards inversion shield helmets, using the combined force of the inversion rebound and its jumping power enabled by its double jointed legs to launch it the remaining 14 feet in the air where it grabbed onto the railing and pulled itself up and over, only taking two more shots while doing so, one to the shoulder and the other to its right arm just above the elbow.

Exo landed in a heap on the other side of the balcony, smacking into the wall by the elevator because of its momentum. This time though, it knew it was imperative that it get back on its feet immediately, to give the impression that it was less hurt than it really was, versus the opposite. With this in mind, it forced itself to its feet, teetering slightly on its heels as it did so, and having to flail its undamaged arm behind it to compensate for the imbalance. It stood there, looking down at the guards, who for some reason were hesitant in painting the wall behind it with its insides. It used this hesitation, not to take one step back into the safety of the bullet proof acrylic of the elevator behind it, but to yell as loudly as it could; “For every one of my servants lives you take, seven fold will be taken from yours!”

Then, not two seconds later, there was the sound of a gunshot and one of the guards in the advancing line dropped dead with a now liquefied brain, apparently shot from someone standing directly behind him where they could fire a bullet at close range right in the unprotected spot at the base of the guard’s head where his helmet and body armor both failed to cover. Then, a few seconds later it happened again, a few feet down the line. Then again, and again and again, until there was exactly seven body guards apparently killed from someone within their own ranks.

A completely crazed expression crossed Exo’s face and reached back and slammed its fist down in the intercom button, making sure its message would be broadcast to all of Wolf’s forces.

“ATTENTION ENIGMA OF SARDONNE!” Exo shouted over the sound of guns being loaded one the floor below it. “I AM THE UNJUST GOD, EXO. MY SERVANTS HAVE INFORMED ME OF YOUR MORAL DECLINE AND HAVE PLEADED WITH ME TO WIPE THIS MOST UNFORTUNATE BLEMISH FORMALLY KNOWN AS ‘THE ENIGMA’ FROM THE ENTIRETY OF THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM. HOWEVER, I WILL ONLY COMMIT GENOCIDE TO RESOLVE GENOCIDE IF I AM KILLED THREE TIMES EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY BY THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM, THE WOLF OF SARDONNE. IF THIS HAPPENS, I WILL TAKE MY TRUE FORM AND AVENGE SEVEN FOLD ALL THOSE UNJUSTLY KILLED BY WOLF, HIS COHORTS AND THE ENIGMA AS FORCED RECOMPENSE FOR THEIR CRIMES.”

Erebos felt his energy run out. As he faded away, yelled "Curse you, you vile slime, you worthless b****!" and he disappeared.......