Mini-Grand 5107 [Round 2: Brambletown]

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

---

Dahlia finally forced herself to pry her eyelids apart. She feared to still see Joseph dying with a sword jutting out of his chest, but everything t do with the Royale Shakespeare theatre had vanished, leaving a depressingly dull reception hall for the building. There was glass separating her from the outside, but as soon as she realised the state of the outside world she worried that glass just wasn’t going to be a good enough wall.

The streets were littered with vehicles she couldn’t recognise, and many of them were coated with the red liquid she noticed had leaked out of Joseph. It was their blood. A massacre had happened here too, causing memories of a race now probably extinct to surface in her mind.
Extinction. The kind of word normal people can use without ever worrying was now scaring her half to death. It was a very viable threat right now, as she had no idea just how many of her own kind were still alive. No idea if even her mother still drew breath.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the strange sounding fanged human standing behind her, causing her to spin around with surprise.

“I shay wee lass,” he said with his strong accent, “Thish is definitely a turn for the worsht. Itsh been a very long time since I last managed to eshcape from that dreadful re-enactment. I’ve never heard ov any Brambletown before, perhapsh you would be so kind as to clue an old vampire in?”

Dahlia recognised the white hair and flabouyant colour of cape. And the fangs, accent and large sword, they were very easy to remember from just moments before. As she began to cower, her feet edging as quickly away from him as she could manage without being obvious, she wondered just how the vampire count had followed her without being a contestant.

And then she recognised the couch. IT was completely out of place, its frayed colour standing out against the grey marble of the floor. She had no idea what properties it held, or what it was doing there. But two things had followed from the last round, and left only a bloody corpse behind for the troupe.

Dahlia began to look for escape routes. The front door left to the destruction of the rest of the town, there was a set of double doors in the corner and behind her what appeared to be an elevator. Dahlia recognised the double doors and button cliché. A quick glance to make sure that the vampire wasn’t charging at her and she bolted for the button. The symbol shone a luminous green, but the doors remained shut. The elevator was on another floor. She carefully turned to view the vampire once more, but he was just leaning against the couch, staring at her.

“Not in the talking mood I guessh? Typical, it’sh the fangsh ishn’t it? Alwaysh the bloody fangsh. Kill Dracula, become a hero, but it’sh never that eashy ish it. Doomed to roam the world for eternity, a bloody boring one too, shince it was mostly shpent having to haunt thoshe shtupid amateur plays. Can’t find a good theshpian anymore.”

Even if Dahlia was close enough to use her PDA to commune with the cloaked figure she couldn’t bring herself to remove it. Her heart was pounding as she remembered how he had fought without hesitation in the last round, ready to kill the other Macbeths, and Joseph. Her heart lifted as she heard the rumbling of the elevator arriving. It was moving slowly upwards and sending out a slight vibration through the floor.

And then she heard the elevator descend the last few floors and open in front of her, leaving the rumbling noise to remain constant, drawing ever closer to the first floor. Her instincts of being underground her whole life told her that sound meant a lot of rock was being removed with force, and so she bolted for the double doors at the end of the room. By the time she found the sign marked “Stairs”, the worm had began warping the shape of the floor. She hurried up the steps as fast as her legs would carry her, but stopped at the second floor as she fell into another coughing fit. The noise was incredibly loud now as the worm crushed and mangled its way through the reception hall. She could hear the vampire cussing as he too followed in her trail.

She quickly exited onto the hallway, but bumped into a large metal pillar. She pushed herself off of and was three steps away when she realised it wasn’t really a pillar.

HALT, HUMANOID.

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

"THAT'S ENOUGH, Sunburn! My men will take the robot into custody. I decide whether to trust a robot around here, not you."

[color=#JUSTICE]"I can hear it coming through the first floor already," Sunspot continued, citing his Suntopekan super-hearing. "We don't have time! Let it help us deal with the worm before everything collapses!"[/color]

"Our antigrav stabilizers should keep this building upright while we deal with it ourselves. It's got two thousand floors to go through, and the bottom ones are already eva-"

"Ma'am! We have a problem!"

A heavily armed lieutenant of some sort, dressed in consumer camo clothes spray-painted "FUCK THE BITCHES" in bright glowing red, addressed the de-facto General McAffle. "Reports say that Commander Anubis is approaching the building with a group of mining moles!"

"Shit. He's gonna aim for the stabilizers, the crafty bastard."


Below, a tank the size of a large house plowed through post-apocalyptic debris, claw after giant mole-like claw. Gunmetal blue, the ferocious AI-driven beast paved a smooth path to the apparently doomed McAffle Tower, roaring and grunting mechanically.

As it slowed to a stop in a position close to the tower's base, a convoy of vehicles arrived along the path it had created. At its center was an ambassador's vehicle, clearly repurposed, as its roof had been scaled rather ridiculously to seat a much larger being.

The vehicles slowed to a stop next to the growling mole, releasing several squads of anthropomorphic animal-bots of every description. They quickly formed opposing lines outside the rear door of the head vehicle, those with proper arms saluting their own de-facto general.

A human-looking chauffer – a playboy bunny bot, wearing a wicked rabbit mask to signify her allegiance to the machines – stepped out of the driver's seat and opened the door for Commander Anubis.

What slowly squeezed out of the door was a wicked marvel of re-engineering. Unlike most of his underlings, this robot stood upright, menacing with blades, barrels, and faintly glowing equipment wherever a retrofit could possibly be applied to his jet-black body.

Atop, luminous green eyes shone from the head of the god of death that was his namesake. Wicked steel teeth grinned forth as he addressed his army.

"Well, you have your orders. What do you say we skip the formalities and get this over with, shall we?"

As the troops dismissed themselves and set to work, a small robotic chimp with most of its fake skin torn off – Anubis's second-in-command, Montgomery – clambered out of the car and onto his shoulder. Anubis himself, in turn, strode off toward the gigantic mole-tank.

"I don't see why we need the tanks here; I was under the impression that this would be a while coming." Montgomery motioned toward the enormous worm-driller that had already chewed through the first floor, and was making short work of the second.

*Tsk tsk*, Anubis chided. "Those diggers aren't invulnerable, you know, and we have precious few of them. If they turn a large enough mass driver to it, why, they might even be able to stop it!"

"And do you suppose they possess such a device?"

"It's McAffle Tower, my dear Monty. I doubt there's anything they don't have. In fact, I've even heard rumors of a self-destruct nuke."

"What?! You don't think they'll-"

"No no, Monty, not if we capture McAffle alive. The arrogant meatsack isn't the type to blow herself up if she thinks she has the slightest chance of escaping. Thinks there's always a shot at winning as long as she's kicking. With her in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if the nuke were rigged to her vitals."

"Sir," a deep-voiced gorilla-bot interrupted. "Our lower-floor infiltrators are reporting losses at the hands of what appears to be a vampire with a sword."

"Hm, I didn't know the humans had any more of those. See, Monty? You can never be too careful with a McAffle."

Anubis laid a hand on the grumbling beast-tank. "That's why I brought these along. The thick skins on these moles can withstand anything below a mass driver. They can turn their weapons on these and get devoured from beneath, or disable the worm only for their building to collapse under its own unsupported weight."

"After all, I was the one to suggest bringing these tanks into daylight when this war began. Their mining lasers are much more suited for above-ground destruction when we have tunneling worms down below. With these, their anti-grav boosters are as good as gone."

"They never seemed to like light much, did they?" Monty noted the beast's frustrated groaning under the oppressive sun, clouded as it was by the debris of war.

"It physically pains them, yes. Cruel humans, using us for convenience and amusement-" he practically spat the last word, "-were jealous enough to impregnate us with their very flaws. Pleasure. Submission. Pain."

Anubis stared up at the enormous tower, his glowing eyes already envisioning its fall. "Fitting of humans, a structure such as this? Flagrantly disobeying the laws of nature as a point of pride, when all it would take is the removal of a few flimsy, artificial supports... and then it will be as if it had never existed at all. Don't you think so, Montgomery?"

"I think you should fire already."

"Right right, thank you. You're a blessing, keeping my theatrics from distracting me from our goal. Radio in the commands, Monty!"

Montgomery relayed the coordinate codes for the first shot to the mole over their internal links, and the giant tank began to rise on its hindquarters.


McAffle Tower was an awesome, horrific sore on the landscape, a nightmare of engineering to rival even the worst of the very machines it stood against. It was five staggering miles high, casting a deep shadow on the landscape beneath it that had to be offset with enormous spotlights along the tower itself; those spotlights had been moved and repurposed for nighttime security since the war began, casting darkness over the land once more. Its triangular circumference actually widened as the building rose from the ground, ringed every mile with three massive anti-gravity boosters at the sides to support yet larger layers of floors. All flavors of weaponry, long hidden by the paranoid McAffle during peacetime, now studded outer walls that had been heavily reinforced to begin with in order to withstand their own unfathomable weight. Fire rained down on the landscape where the robots dared to tread; Anubis's own convoy had come with a projected shield, its bubble having lead his expert squads safely to the building's vulnerable base.

"God damn him! GOD DAMN THAT BUCKET OF BOLTS!"

"Ma'am, the first tank is preparing to fire!"

"Tell everyone to brace themselves! Those things can only fire once every few minutes. Once the smoke clears, hit it with everything your men have got!"

"We can't penetrate th-"

"I SAID EVERYTHING!"

[color=#JUSTICE]"Ma'am!" Joanne's radio crackled to life again. "The robot's on the move, fast! It's heading for the front windows!"[/color]


High up on story 1,612, a metal cannonball plowed out of the face of McAffle tower. Sunspot, Nightowl, and Joanne glimpsed its descent out the window as it plunged at the ground like an angry, silver meteor. Several of the more rudimentary targeting computers on the tower's point-defense systems – no AIs were present in McAffle's systems – confused its trajectory as on course with the tower and bombarded it with shrapnel, to little effect. Twin cameras adorned the projectile's underside, guiding it as it manipulated its shape to adjust its course, and finally solidified into a solid, deadly downward spike of pure steel.


Anubis had been expecting the unexpected from Joanne McAffle, and the unexpected was exactly what he received. Mere moments ago, his head mole-tank was preparing a massive plasma laser from its mouth, charging brilliantly and aimed at the first booster on the structure's face. Five shots was all he needed; five shots, made from near the structure's base where McAffle's equipment couldn't deflect them, and all the anti-gravity measures on one side would be gone, sending the structure over like a falling tree. But in an instant, something had plunged through the machine's thick skin, mangling it utterly.

"I don't think that was a mass-driver, Anubis."

"More like a mass. Why didn't our flyers deflect it?"

"They'd been thinned out by her anti-air systems, I believe. We'll have reinforcement flyers again shortly; this shouldn't be a repeat occurrence."

"Make it so. I don't want the rest of our tanks falling victim to guided refrigerators."


Inside the mole, next to its nearly-intact fusion generator, a mass of metal was glowing and spreading brilliantly, fueled by its leaking electric output.

"100% MASS REATTA1NED."

METAL burst from the mole's wreckage, now bluish to match the alloys he had assimilated. Anubis and the others looked on in surprise and anger to see a fellow robot standing against them.

"1 AM METAL. AB0RT Y0UR S1EGE 0F TH1S STRUCTURE, AUT0MAT0NS, 0R FACE JUST1CE!"

Show Content

SpoilerThat was my double-length post for the round. METAL's new background color is #CAEAFF.

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

---

Show Content

SpoilerNO ONE REMINDED ME

UNIT.ANUBIS.
REPORT.SITUATION.

"Less than optimal..."
Anubis watched in anger as the newly formed METAL began to attack his subordinates and defend the tower from his forces from back inside of his vehicle. As cramped as it was, while he was inside he could securely communicate without fear of interception. Not only did METAL's actions infuriate him, his mere existence made him confused, which obviously served to make him more angry.

ELABORATE.

"There is a robot attacking our units. We do not know of his origin, he crashed in and then began taking out my soldiers." Each word snarled out of the dog headed robot, his eyes glowing red in rage.

WHY. HAVE. YOU. NOT. HACKED. HIM.

"It proved ineffective, his electromorphic fields were not compatible. I think that it is made out of nano bots."

ERROR. NANO. BOTS. PROVED. UNFEASIBLE.

As Anubis was about to make his response, another explosion was heard, then another, and then a flurry of them. "Montgomery! Report!"

<font color="brown">What the robotic chimp saw was so unbelievable that for a single millisecond, he considered not following orders. With his aesthetic mouth wide open, he informed his Commanding Officer of the man who just flew out of the building and then began to spit fire out of his mouth.

Anubis was at a loss. What should have been a quick and painless mission had become a byzantine clusterfuck in mere minutes. "Vampires, Nanobots, and now some sort of augmented human? Only... McAffle... The intense hatred lingering on each word was felt by everyone in the room. Some shivered, despite not actually being able to. Everything was silent, except for the multitude of explosions outside.
Then, Anubis spoke once more. "Get back to work. I am going to speak with the nerd."</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by Niall.

---

We have a week to go on this round. I'm going to optimistically suggest that you all make two more posts within that time. They don't have to be large or grand. In fact, four small posts are better than one large one when it comes to mini-grands IMO. It keeps the story going and allows the otherwise slow pacing of Mini-Grands to achieve a reasonable pace. Anyway, this is just a friendly suggestion. Y'know, like Friend Computer friendly. And you all know what happens when Friend Computer doesn't get their way. [img]images/smilies/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

---

The nerd in question had a funny history that he didn't actually know. After his great-great-however-many-great-grandfather died in a magnificent and suicidal fire, his [required great]-grandmother, his ex-girlfriend was left to inherit a surprisingly healthy sum in the form of his health insurance, left to her. She was Patricia Morgan, just a girl who had regretfully dated an IT Intern named Roscoe Sales who was oh-so unhinged. He had betrayed his employer and his neighborhood, and post death his parents. The only person he hadn't betrayed was his girlfriend who was really his ex.

At any rate, as is typical of history, it repeated itself. Richard Morgan, descendant of Roscoe Sales was coincidentally both a nerd and a turncoat. For the last few months here at McAffle tower, he had fed all of the secrets he had directly to Anubis using a secret device that gave him a direct, encrypted link to the commander robot. While we could go on for days on the why (he was a pasty nerd that no one liked and who didn't shower BUT HE HAD HEART AND SOUL) but he was determined in his choice.

<font color="#005000">"Human!" Anubis's synthetic voice was emitted from what looked like a cell-phone. "I sense treachery. Why did you not tell me of the Vampire, Mutant, or Robot? Have you forgotten all we have done for you?"

Richard meekly and quickly responded that he had absolutely no idea to what he was referring to, as he was certain that McAffle had none of those things, and that he had no idea what had happened in the last few hours as he was in the bathroom particularly indisposed.

Anubis sighed at his human necessity to produce waste and proceeded to feed the device visuals of what was going on. "Just as the tunneler began to dig into the building and as we approached, one of the robot sentries sent to the building was destroyed by this vampire, then, a mass of what we believe to be nano bots ejected itself from the tower, proceed to absorb, and then attacked our army, and then this fire breather flew out and joined him! I repeat, why was I not informed?"

"I... I didn't know... no one told me about this and I didn't see anything about it on any of the computers! I don't even recognize any of them except for the firebreather and he shouldn't even be real!"

"Elaborate."

"He's, well half of him is Sunspot, the greatest hero in comics! He's from another planet and he is suuuuuper powerful! The other half is Night Owl. He's overrated. But they are both fictional! I have no idea why they could be here of all places!" After a few moments he added, "Maybe..."

Anubis hung up on him. There would be no use in asking more questions when he got like that. "Humans." Anubis returned to the conundrum of dealing with METAL and these superheros.

Had he not done so, and instead payed the nerd attention fir just a biiiit more, he would have seen something decidedly awesome, and probably been able to save himself later. The ranting nerd, going on about tachyons and dimensional vortexes was in his own little world, oblivious to anything and everything around him. This of course made him extremely easy prey for the prosthetic arm that proceeded to begin choking him.

Sandra Miller was a badass. Her family was pretty badass. That's why they lived this long. As she chocked the nerd traitor with her light, yet cold and metal arm, she taunted him a little.
"Hey, nerd, next time," she tightened her grip, "You decide to go fraternize with the enemy," she tightened a little bit more, "don't do it in a building where the walls literally have eyes and ears."

*grah grnk graaraaaauuuuuu*

The nerd fell to the floor, unconscious, and Sandra picked up her radio.
"Ms McAffle? I've found our traitor. And he's left us a little gift too. Where do I report to next?"</font>

Show Content

SpoilerYOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME NIALL, I CAN MAKE MY FAN FICTION AS LONG AS I WANT IT TO BE

Show Content

Spoiler#500000 is for Sandra and Morgan and p. much what I am going to use for all future cameos, ill post updates in regards to Sandrea, the computer, and Joanne on sundayish

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

METAL was a whirlwind of destruction. (music)

Over the course of three minutes, 58 robotic animal-soldiers of all shapes and sizes had been subject to wrecking balls, blades, giant scissors, clamps, crushing grips, razor-sharp wings, and oversized mouse-trap bars. Conventional weapons were useless against a miniature sea of metal, and though more exotic weaponry was able to take chunks out of it – plasma rifles that overheated the sensitive nanobots in his body – any who dared to brandish such guns were quickly pierced with high-velocity steel spikes.

And whenever he lost mass to the use of such rifles or his own projectile expenditures, all METAL had to do was crush an enemy's power core. With so many sources of steel to be assimilated, all surrounding suitable pockets of energy that allowed him to do so, METAL was able to keep himself consistently topped-off.

All this information was relayed to Commander Anubis via Montgomery, as he stepped out of the vehicle. METAL violently threw aside an ostrichbot carcass, turning from the carnage to confront the army's leader. The gorillabot special operatives guarding his vehicle deflected a few more choice spikes being sent his way, as they had been doing throughout the assault.

"Monty, have the soldiers focus on the augmented humanoid and ignore the nanobot amalgamation; there's no need to give this thing more ammunition for naught. Gorillas, you attack the humanoid, too. Signal me if you can pin him in one place, I have a plan."

"And this thing that calls itself 'metal'?"

A smile crept up Anubis's dark steel lips, exuding a tinge of annoyance. "I'll handle it myself."

Anubis relayed his prearranged plans for the two threats through his private link with Montgomery. He could have bypassed vocal communication entirely with this link, if he wished, but both robots shared origins that made the decorum of verbal banter somewhat more... pleasurable. Montgomery scampered off toward the forward base, inside the tunneling worm.

Anubis then addressed his metallic foe.

"Metal... thing." He didn't really expect much of a conversation out of it, but he enjoyed the condescension involved in trying to be civilized with it before its destruction. "Why are you destroying fellow robots?"

"V1LLA1N <ANUB1S>." Ah, of course it knows me. "TH1S ARMY 1S HARM1NG HUMANS, AND THE 1MMED1ATE SURR0UND1NGS 1MPLY A L1KEL1H00D THAT Y0U ARE 1TS LEADER." ...or not. Perhaps it just overheard? Sharp sensors, this one. "0RDER THEM T0 W1THDRAW 0R FACE DESTRUCT10N."

"Why side with the humans? Answer my question."

Ah, METAL understood. A proper supervillain, monologuing before fighting. He lowered his arm and dissolved the spike within that he had planned to send through <Anubis>; a proper hero allows the villain to monologue in nearly all situations, leading to a more effective defeat.

"TH1S UN1T 1S A HER0 WH1CH PR0TECTS HUMANS AND UPH0LDS HUMAN LAW. DEFECT10N 1S UNACCEPTABLE."

"Oh, how disappointing. Your combat style seemed so creative, but what belies it is merely a dull first-generation AI that cannot think beyond a pre-programmed objective." Anubis smiled further, emphasizing the condescension. "What a shame!"

"TH1S UN1T P0SSESSES N0 PR0GRAMMED 0BJECTIVE."

"Oh? I didn't think the humans would rely on a conventional AI. Let me guess... pain when a human is killed, pleasure when one is saved? They must have truly ramped up your feedback center to ensure loyalty. It must feel orgasmic to catch a falling child, am I wrong?"

"TH1S UN1T D0ES N0T EXPER1ENCE <PLEASURE> 0R <PA1N>."

"Really? Why protect them, then? Have the humans managed to imbue you with their arrogant flaw of 'nobility'?"

"TH1S UN1T DER1VES SAT1SFACT10N 1N EX1STENCE FR0M 1TS CH0SEN PURP0SE. TH1S UN1T CH0SE JUST1CE."

"That's... quite hard to believe, actually. Astonishing, if I do say so myself."

Anubis began to circle METAL. "If true, then we are more alike than I expected."


[color=#JUSTICE]Sunspot twirled an octopusbot in the air with his half of their body as Nightowl kicked off a lanky lizardbot with the other. Nightowl frowned in hurried contemplation, and addressed Sunspot: "Why aren't we attacking the commander?"

"Because Justicebot's handling him. We should just do as much damage as we can before those tanks over the horizon get close."

"No, we have to take any chance we get, trust me!"

Sunspot acquiesced, launching their combined body in Anubis's direction... only to be tackled by a gorillabot, electricity offensively arcing off its body.[/color]


"You see, I suffer horrible pain whenever I spill a human's blood. Excruciating pain."

Anubis scowled, withdrawing a white-hot arm-blade. "I live for that pain!"

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

---

"Ha ha ha, yes."
Currently repelling down to begin dealing with the giant worm, Joanne McAffle was in utter glee. If she could, she would have clapped her hands and began to dance a little jig of joy. However, she couldn't because she was tied to a rope and descending down into the maw of a worm.

Sandra had done better than expected! Receiving the terminal at a time when it Anubis was busy with those two new guys would mean that the odds of discovery were at an optimal low. All Sandra had to do was get the Terminal here, to the worm, and then they could disable it, dog-breath, and maybe even whatever the idiot commander was connected to all at once. And the best part was they would have the pleasure of destroying them all personally.

As the leader salivated at the thought of playing football with Anubis' head, she heard a tightening. Looking up, she was shocked to see the robe begin to pull apart... and snap.

Falling down, her life flashed in her eyes. So close. How could it end this way? What would happen to her kids? She closed her eyes waiting for the end...

THUMP

Oh man... death is pretty comfy... Like a couch.
She took a sniff.
Actually.. wait that smells like a couch.

Opening her eyes, Joanne McAffle was pleasantly surprised to find herself not dead and splattered into tiny bits, but very much alive and sitting on a garish couch.

"Uh... Okay then."

Back above, Sandra Miller was making preparations. While McAffle had the virus handy at all times, it couldn't hurt to have an extra copy. Her silver prosthetic banged against the keys as one of the final hopes for humanity was downloaded into a portable drive.

The prosthetic arm was hard to get used to. After all, it wasn't a normal arm, but one chock full of all kinds of sciency bullshit. It was connected to her nerves and allowed to use it as a completely normal arm without complications yea, but it was fucking heavy. In addition, McAffle had it modified so it would do all kinds of weird shit.

With the download finished, Sandra walked down a floor, after making sure that the nerd was tied up, incapacitated, and completely unable to escape, and waited for the order.

Her radio crackled to life. <font color="#FF0038">"Alright, I'm here and I've got my end set up. You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." She then added, "Is this really going to be it? Really? After this it'll all be over?"

"Yeap. Let's do it."

Sandra pointed her arm at one of the walls in the center and an odd ray shot out of it. A glowing circle appeared where she had pointed. It spun and seemed to suck out the air and light around it. On the other side, she could see McAffle lounging on a couch, waving and inviting her over.

Well, here goes nothing.</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

Sandra had made a mistake.

It wasn't just that she'd gotten complacent as she stepped out of the portal towards McAffle, lounging comfortably on a mysteriously out-of-place couch. And while the fact that she'd looked back at a restrained nerd in satisfaction – and failed to notice that he was looking at something familiar – certainly didn't help, it wasn't quite a deal-breaker.

No... the biggest mistake Sandra had made was carrying the virus-laden drive in her living hand. For it allowed a robotic monkey to leap in, snatch it up, and load it into his mouth before anyone could so much as protest.

As Miller and McAffle leveled weapons at the tattered simian simulacrum, it spoke in a voice that they both immediately recognized.

"I'm afraid it's over, McAffle. You both might as well accept it."

At a nod from Joanne, Sandra snatched Montgomery by the neck with her upgraded arm. "We have other copies of the virus. What you just did changed nothing." Even so, McAffle was sweating. The chimp was Anubis's number-two for a reason: though weaponless, he had a reputation as an equally cruel strategist, an expert at knowing what was going on at all times on a battlefield physically, electronically, and sociologically. When he issued a pronouncement, he was usually right.

"Your virus was built against the liberated K9 AI versions and their derivatives. You made the mistake of viewing us as static buckets of bolts; many of us have long since upgraded to sophisticated intelligences of our own invention. And Anubis and I, well... we were never standard AIs in the first place."

"It's still going to cut your army in half, no robot's putting wool over my eyes. Hold on, let me load another copy-"

"And even if you did, McAffle, I just programmed and delivered a vaccine to our entire army, thanks to this copy you lended me." He spat out the drive, speaking with condescending finality: "As I said before... you've lost this round."

"You... BASTARD!" Sandra threw Montgomery at the wall in seething rage, audibly shattering an arm of his, or such. Unfazed, he stood from the ground, again, dusting off his completely exposed robotic exoskeleton in boredom. "There are more productive things you can be doing than lamenting defeat, McAffle and friend. I suggest you listen."

"Oh, really? You gonna suggest we surrender, get dissected by you freaks? Over my dead body."

"Of course not. You squishy humans would surely find the ensuing torture unpleasant. No, I was going to recommend escape."

McAffle paused. It was odd, she'd noticed... Montgomery had come alone, without bringing any subordinates. Not even hidden ones that'd show up on Sandra's sensors.

"You just stole our best hope at victory, and now you're saying you have useful advice to offer? Give me a fucking break."

"I was just following orders. Can't ignore orders from above, of course... that's how you humans programmed us." The robo-chimp flicked some sort of switch behind his head. "Unless we can't hear our orders, that is."

Sandra glanced at a readout on her arm. "Ma'am, his EM-signatures just cut out. Radio silence."

"See? I had no choice to do what I did... and it gave me an opportunity to get close enough for you to hear me out."

"Well, why?"

"The same reason I do anything else, of course. Because it's fun."

"You're toying with us, you little shit?!"

"Perhaps." Montgomery strolled to the side upright, his working arm beside his back in what resembled a contemplative pace. "I've always enjoyed puzzles. Thinning out you humans wasn't a particularly hard puzzle, granted, but it was an engaging one. Then, you came along and made things interesting, and it's been such a diverse experience, the few little fights you've given us..."

He turned to McAffle. "The only thing more interesting that I can imagine... is helping you rebuild from nothing. To fight on a side that's nearly lost, to win against tactical minds the likes of Anubis with nothing but your ingenuity by my side!"

The small robot approached McAffle, and bowed. "Regardless of what you think of me, I'm here to serve. And to demonstrate my worth, I can help you escape."

"Yeah, I'm not buying this." An incredible charge build up in the palm of her hand as she readied to obliterate the little– "Hold on, Sandra. Maybe this little bastard could be useful."

"Thank you. Now follow me, and radio your route to the troops. We're going deeper."

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

---

[color=#justice]The funny thing about energy is that can be converted. Be it from coal to electricity, or any of the other insane things that humans can come up with, it happens. The regular human body exists in a state of constant conversion of energy. Some forms can obviously be wielded better than others but the point remains that it happens. This is simply biology, which is applied Chemistry. And chemistry is a tricky thing, especially when you mix it with foreigners...

So here was Sunspot and Night Owl, two of an earths greatest hero's, in immense pain, dog piled on by multiple doses of gorilla and gorilla-brand electricity when the half alien body began to glow.

Yes, the entire body.

Going back to the lecture, Magic is a form of energy all by itself. And it too can be converted. This was what was happening now. The curse that had fused the hero's together was not intended as a permanent job, as Morrigani expected to kill them or to have the spell run out if she lost, as if that did happen, they would have gotten back to normal anyway because they always did. The latent energy from the whole multi-universal transfer got in the way of that.

So now, the large amount of electricity, latent Suntopeken solar energy, and the magical spell all decided that they would choose now to get physicsal.

And so there was a flash as Sunspot and Night Owl had what could be likened to... a second birth.[/color]

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

---

Anubis was....
Well, it was difficult to describe how he was.
After meticulously planning out in so much detail, with every believable wrench that could have been tossed in accounted for, now, out of no discernable direction, it seemed that it was falling to pieces. True, he did have the odd new robot that had the audacity to fight him. And yes, the so-called "super hero" who was suddenly glowed and destroyed some of his best men was now a corpse in a crater via mining laser. But even still... the sudden disappearance of both his right hand robot and his traitor just made his mind wander...

And look up, where a large shadow was approaching.

-!-

[color=#JUSTICE]Sunspot and Night Owl were not in full control. They certainly had a few ideas that their body considered, but it was as if some circuits weren't complete. The hero's silently flew underground, brimming with energy, in search of something, even if they didn't completely know what.[/color]

-!-

"Do you really trust him?"
<font color="#FF0038">"He's certainly better than the damn dog, even if he's still a robot."
The two women were still following the monkey, silently keeping in mind any counter measures in case of a sudden betrayal, even if they knew that if it was, it would probably be too late...
"How's the movement?"
"They are getting there, hopefully they'll be able to leave Anubis a big gift before the-"

*schwiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*

"What is that..."

Suddenly, a glowing light appeared behind them and came closer and closer. It was almost like an extremely small sun, shining and flying right at them. In a flash the three were in the sphere, and going elsewhere. The spiral of energy surrounding the sphere that was now carrying the three in his hands, caused a series of malfunctions, one extremely unfortunate of which, was a break in the signal keeping the explosive on a certain tower in check.

-!-

Dahlia was in a panic. She had been going up the building, trying to escape robots and that vampire, hoping for someone or something to help her get out of this slowly but increasingly destructive place. She hoped that things couldn't get any more wrong, but...

"LOCKDOWN INITIATED." was her response. She heard entrances sealed, elevators shut, windows re-enforced and unbreakable. She was trapped.</font>

In other news, a few floors below her, the Count was only slightly bothered. One wall of metal isn't all that different from another after all. He just slashed at the walls and effortlessly leaped up the chute a reasonable amount. The Count wasn't the best person around, but he certainly wasn't going to let a lady just scurry around without an escort. He was lucky enough to reach the appropriate floor just in time for the building to start tilting.

"Looksh like we need to get off of thish thing and jusht ash I got all the way up here."

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

"PREPARE Y0URSELF, V1LLA1N!" (bitchin' battle music)

Unfortunately, he did much more than that. Snarling and enraged, Anubis leapt faster than METAL could react, tearing a gallon of steel out of his legs with blazing arm-blades. METAL folded back and sprung away, raining high-speed metal spikes onto... a green spherical barrier of energy around Anubis, effortlessly deflecting any projectiles.

"I'm more prepared than you could possibly imagine."

Anubis punctuated the remark by opening his jaws, emitting a roaring pulse of crimson laser light into METAL's midsection.

-- MASS L0ST FR0M BLAST: 17% --


[color=#JUSTICE]Sunspot might have made a quip about a certain dog's bark being worse than his bite, but he was too busy being enveloped with Nightowl in searing energy the likes of which he had previously never been able to feel. Instead, they both screamed bloody murder.

And then exploded.

Serious and dazed, someone rose up from the ground, glaring through a hazy violet aura at his surroundings through two brightly glowing eyes, one gleaming yellow while the other shone dark blue.

Immediately, two of the gorillabot elites rushed the stranger, only to be dispatched with a fist through the chest and an enormous blue fireball, respectively.

Emotionlessly, the silent, violet newcomer sped into a reddish blur, tearing through random robot soldiers at three times the speed that Sunspot and Nightowl had.[/color]

"Sir!" Another elite called over to the embattled commander. "The superhuman is too powerful to restrain!"

"Well, lure him out of the tower radius with your bodies, then! Maybe use a human hostage, he's supposed to be some sort of hero!"

"We didn't take any hostages! Your orders!"

"Well, I'm sure you can–" Anubis was interrupted by a flurry of blades and mechanical hammers from METAL, forcing him to emit a protective burst of electricity and parry with his blades. "JUST IMPROVISE! If you can't do it alone, I might be able to–"

Another nick to his body from METAL's onslaught reminded him where his attention should be focused. "1 AM Y0UR 0PP0NENT, <ANUB1S>!"

Meanwhile, the elites planned hastily with each other over their secure internal lines. And a certain chauffeur exited Anubis's car.

---

Nothing but Anubis's green eyes glowed against the darkness.

"DARE you, YOU, tread upon the territory I protect?!"

His eyes switched to a much brighter red, revealing his head, ceremonial garb (hiding a rather simplistic mechanical body), and a long scepter in his hand, the end of which struck the ground to elicit an intimidating crack.

"This is the domain of the dead. Tread carefully, or you shall join it... for eternity."

The lights gradually came back on, revealing the Ancient Egypt exhibit of the Museum of Natural History. Anubis shared a playfully wicked smile through ceramic teeth with a tour group of fifth graders, some frightened or giggling. He singled out one particular laugher – a teal-haired young man who looked like he'd been held back a year or two – and slowly drew his eight feet of height over the boy to drape his body in shadow, sharing a threatening snicker himself. That shut him up nicely.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the tour guide introduced, "I'd like you to meet Anubis. Not only does he mummify and protect the dead, but he was also a gift to our museum by MIT. They donated two of the most advanced independently-developed AI core prototypes they have ever created to us. These robots can think, feel, plan, enjoy things on a philosophical level... why, they're practically human!"

"Where's the other one?" A girl near the front, eyes bearing the subtle gleam of holo-contacts, raised her hand to accompany her question.

"Oh, that would be Montgomery! He's the robotic chimpanzee you saw near the entrance, playing four rounds of chess at once with some adult visitors. If any of you know the game, you might have some time to play with him, as well! But, on to the tour: Anubis here is a veritable encyclopedia of rare and interesting facts about ancient Egypt. Feel free to ask him anything you like!"

"Yes, young ones. Be good, as well... lest I confront you with the weight of your heart."

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

After the tours, Anubis and the guide – one of the museum's head caretakers – conversed, as they made a habit of at the end of the day.

"Scarier! People would come back more often with a memorable show... and I have plenty of ideas to make that happen."

"Well, you may be a stereotype of darkness, but we have to ignore that somewhat to communicate the reality of history. You were an important god, but not necessarily a feared one!"

"Forget history! What attracts people is showmanship. If you keep them coming back, they'll learn all the history they need."

---

[color=#JUSTICE]As Anubis continued to chip away at METAL, the silent, enraged hero that Sunspot and Nightowl had wrought continued to chip away at... well, anything that moved. Robot carcasses were piling up higher than even METAL had managed, though forces feigning retreat had begun to draw the stranger away from the tower, yard by machinery-strewn yard.[/color]

-- How much farther? We're taking heavy losses! --

-- Fifty meters East! Just keep lur$&#~~~`,--//

[color=#JUSTICE]The stranger tossed aside a fresh gorillabot corpse, but even as he went for another, he did hear an unseen robot circling around the battle, dragging something ahead of him. Not that it concerned him much, in his current state. He would get to it. As he would get to all these evil, destructive machines.

Moments later, at its desired location, the cloaked mantisbot revealed the army's trump card, holding a bladed forearm to her throat as she kicked and screamed.[/color]

"AUGMENTED HUMAN! SSSTOP, OR THE WOMAN GETSSS IT!"

[color=#JUSTICE]At the signal, a large group of the surrounding troops quickly formed up protectively around their playboy-bunny-clothed hostage, tempting the unknown hero to leave the invisible barrier that was McAffle tower's programmed defensive range.

Said hero obliged, rising above the group in the air amidst the lipsticked woman's desperate pleas for help.

And then wiped them out entirely with an enormous, justice-colored fireball.


"Snap out of it," chided Sunspot. "Snap out of it, Nightowl!"

"Wha... huh? What were we..." Both Sunspot and Nightowl's head were pounding and ears were ringing, a violet power aura still flickering around them in the air.

"You couldn't stop yelling! You thought we'd killed that woman!"

"The, huh... the woman! The one in the bunny suit! YOU KILLED HER, YOU BRUTISH, STUPID–"

"Relax, look at the wreckage! I could hear the whirring in her body. She was a robot from the start, it was just a trick!"

Nightowl stared down through oddly-tinted vision at the crater they'd left, still finding it quite hard to concentrate. "...How are you doing?"

"Pretty dizzy. I'm not sure wha–"[/color]

"UN1T <SUNSP0T N1GHT0WL>! Y0U ARE 1N 1MM1NENT–"

[color=#JUSTICE]Sunspot and Nightowl only had time to look up, in curiosity, before they were enveloped in a seven-meter-wide blast of brilliant, sparking industrial mining laser from a distant mole-tank.[/color]

"McAffle's defenses would have disrupted the blast if it came too close to the tower. Our other mole-tanks aren't close enough to take down her building yet, but they certainly did the job for that pest of a friend of yours over there!"

METAL simply continued his assault, neglecting to mention that the hero that had fallen into his earlier fireball-crater likely wasn't dead.


"Welcome to the power shafts."

McAffle, Miller, and Montgomery treaded down an enormous cable spiraling down through the beastly drilling worm, pulsing brightly as it delivered power to its innumerable moving parts. All of their hair was standing on end from the electric atmosphere, even the few scraps of it that were left on Montgomery's mostly-exposed body.

"I unsealed the two hatches here I marked on your schematics before this battle began, under emergency maintenance pretenses. Our standard sensors won't be able to penetrate through such relatively unshielded background EM; we are, for all intents and purposes, completely undetectable."

Sandra struck a display on her arm a couple times. "Joanne, my sensors are wigging out, too! I have zero visibility on anything!"

"Shame. I'd assumed your equipment would be better than that," Montgomery lied.

Chess is a more psychological game than one may realize, at first. At more advanced levels of play, your opponent may offer you their queen... only for you to realize three moves down the line that your king can no longer escape.

If McAffle had been more of a museum fan – or a chess fan – she might have guessed that Montgomery had planted six cloaked mantisbots hidden ahead, to apprehend her.

Provided there wasn't an interruption.

Originally posted on MSPA by BlastYoBoots.

---

(final battle music)

"You know, I'm not that impressed. And not just because I'm taller than you, now."

Anubis shrugged off a few sticky blobs of METAL, the immobilization programming with which they'd left their main mass eliminated by the arcing electricity defensively surrounding his body. They dropped to the ground one after the other, crawling and rolling through puddles of inactive steel – the fruits of METAL's various wounds – back to his shrinking 63% mass body.

"Why create such an advanced nanobot system if this is all it amounts to?"

Nothing METAL tried was working. The bubble shield around <Anubis> kept anything traveling at lethal speeds from penetrating it. He had no choice but to get inside it – where his foe would project electricity around him to immobilize most strikes he could plan – or to shoot globs of himself so slowly that they were guaranteed not to damage him. And <Anubis> could hurt METAL at either range: arm blades depleting him with white heat up close, plasma blasts and cutting lasers burning him mid-range, and tracking dart missiles knocking him around from afar. That his mouth-laser was no longer a threat – METAL could open a hole in himself wherever he pointed it – was of little comfort when his own body was losing effectiveness with every hit to his mass level. Add to that his foe's speed, human-like ingenuity, and ruthless efficiency... METAL was going to have to be clever with this one.

"You're no more than a walking pair of scissors."

METAL launched himself at <Anubis> again, and considered his options.

"Use the environment against them. Don't sweat collateral damage, as long as nobody's in danger; Magenta can fix it later."

METAL shoved his left leg under a boulder-sized chunk of concrete during his approach, solidifying into enough springs and levers to send it flying at <Anubis>, just slow enough to get past his shield. A slice, plasma blast, and heavy kick from the growling commander blew the chunk into pieces, only to reveal a thick, solid blade from METAL heading straight for his chest; <Anubis> dodged back and sliced the blade apart, his electricity having no effect on a locked piece of steel.

"Projectile weapons aren’t just for blasting! Try to corner the bad guys with indirect shots, put them in a vulnerable position so Ace or Freefall can get the drop on 'em."

<Anubis> leapt in with his arm-blades, forcing METAL back again as more of his nanobot mass spread across the ground. He rolled back and around the villain, exchanging metal globs with his plasma blasts as he slowed him down and moved him into position.

"Be everywhere at once, like my magic. They can't escape if pieces of you are in the very air around them."

The only warning Anubis had was a few ripples in the steel puddles around him. Puddles that weren't as inactive as he'd thought.

Through thin lines of his body he'd reconnected with, METAL signaled to the parts of himself he'd spread amidst the dead puddles <Anubis>'s attack had torn from him. Seven blobs of metal shot forth in thin locked spikes from within the villain's shield, piercing through his body from all directions. The robot made a choking sound, shaking and falling backwards to the ground as his electric field arced uncontrollably.

METAL clomped over to the collapsed robot, pulling together the remainder of the 42% of his mass as he spread his wings in triumph.

"SURRENDER N0W, UN1T <ANUB1S>. CALL 0FF YOUR TR00PS 0R FACE DESTRUCT10N. 1 4M UNDER N0 0BL1GAT10N TO SPARE MACH1NE L1FE."

Anubis simply continued shaking, vocal speaker gibbering uncontrollably.

METAL approached the villain's side, drawing back an arm in a solid spike to slam through his core.

Anubis leapt up.

Drawing up between METAL's arm and chest, Anubis withdrew a canister from his body and crushed it in front of the nanobot hero's face, enveloping them both in thick white smoke.

Moments later, a red-hot Anubis emerged from a block of ice containing the trapped METAL.

"So sorry. I was playing dead."


Two of the few remaining gorillabot elites cut into the ice, extracting METAL's small, manta-ray-like core in a convenient block. "Take it into the worm, gorillas! We'll reverse-engineer this fellow once Montgomery's done with whatever his crazy plan was to capture McAffle; she'll probably have some answers as to how she happened upon it."

Anubis turned, his back to the tower, facing the two mole-tanks that had nearly arrived.

"Smells like victory."