SUITS ch.1: Hostage Crisis
 

Date: May 21, 2054
Location: New York Police Department Headquarters

The NYPD HQ. It's a nicer place than what it used to be. Mostly a conglomeration of glass, lights, and chrome, but nice none the less.

Ever since the end of World War III in the year 2036, and the signing of the Global Peace Pact, there has been little or no international conflict. Not enough to warrent having an army. With so much technology and funds at their disposal, but with no external threats to worry about, the government began to focus more on internal threats.

The crime rate has reduced drastically. With all the new punishments and enforcements in use, it simply doesn't pay to commit crimes anymore. The only ones who commit crimes are those that can afford to. Which makes the police force's work both easier and harder. Now that they no longer need to worry about hunting down the small fry, the police can focus on the bigger fish in the crime world. However, that means that the bigger fish get bigger teeth. And lately, the big fish have turned into sharks.

There's a new toy on the playground, and the local mafias are the children that use it to break the old toys. They're called SUITS, and they're very deadly. So far, there has yet to be found an efficient and not deadly way of taking them down. Until now, hopefully.


A short distance away, a police flight car comes zooming in. It bips off the skyline zoning highways, and slowly hovers down to a stop in front of the NYPD HQ. As the flight car finally drops to the ground with a slight thud, two armed guards come running out of the HQ, grab the man sitting in the back, and quickly drag him inside.

Within a few minutes, the man is placed in an interrogation room, and is left with two people. The man dragged from the car isn't that old, but for some strange reason, his hair is pure white. His green eyes seem to dart around everywhere, and he constantly wrings his hands. One of the men, dressed in a business suit and wearing sunglasses, leans forward across the table.

"Are you Dr. Niko?"

The man looked up, and gave a smile that seemed TOO big.

"Why yes, I am. And seeing as how you're a cop, I assume you're familiar with my work. My SUITS. My beautiful SUITS. The perfect balance of science and warfare. And shiny, too! Yes, don't forget the shinyness. It's the best feature of my SUITS. The shiny metal, reflecting the image of your dying opponent back at him. They watch themselves bleed, and die. Yes, the shiny..."

The two police officers looked at eachother with strange looks, then went back to the doctor.

"Yes, it's about your SUITS. We've been having trouble with them. No matter what we throw at them, it takes an almost entire platoon to take down two of them. We need to know any weaknesses they might have."

The doctor looked insulted.

"Weaknesses! My SUITS have no weaknesses! They're perfect. Yes, perfect. No weaknesses, no flaws, no imperfections. They're the best. No, there's no way those trinkets that you call guns could stop them. No, you would need something better than guns. Something else..."

The police officer looked directly at the doctor.

"Something else? A new weapon?"

The doctor frowned.

"A new weapon! Of course not! I just told you that normal weapons won't stand up against my creations. Wait, I did say that, right? Yes, yes I did. Normal weapons are crap. They won't work. No, not at all, no. Haven't you heard the saying, 'Fight fire with fire'? I assume you would. Stupid saying, really. Why fight fire with more fire? Wouldn't that make the fire bigger? The blazes, burning things. Burning houses, trees. Fire, hot fire, burning... Wait, what was I saying? Oh, right. If you want to fight my SUITS, what you'll need are SUITS of your own. I can make them. Yes, just need a lab. A nice lab. With big, shiny tools."

The cop gave an untrusting look.

"You'd be so willing to help us destroy your creations?"

"Of course. Those crime people, I made them SUITS. But not as many as they have. No, they ruined my SUITS. They made copies of them, many copies. They ruined them. Turned them into cookie-cutter mimicries of the originals. Each SUITS I make is unique and special, a tribute to my genius. By making copies, they cheapen the value of each SUITS. It disgusts me. Of course, I won't do it for free. And I'll want protection. Some of the people I made SUITS for won't be very happy."

The policeman raised an eyebrow. He really wasn't expecting such a sane request as that from a man like this. Dr. Niko gave out a small chuckle.

"Surprised? I'm crazy, not stupid."

Date: November 7, 2054
Location: N/A

Thomas stood on a hill, looking into the distance at an old warehouse. It was nothing special. If you were driving along for a ride, you wouldn't even look twice at the bland building. Thomas, however, was very interested in it.

Thomas was in his suit, Beowulf. He looked like he was in a big suit of armor right now. A cylinder placed in the visor near his left eye was currently shifting back and forth, getting wider and thinner at varying intervals. Inside the suit, Thomas was getting information from the cylinder that was very crucial.

The Tactical Gauge was set to Night Vision right now, and it was currently scanning the building. The daughter of a very important politician was being held in that warehouse. A local kingpin figured that it would be nice to have a politician under his thumb in an upcoming vote for a bill to pass. So, he's using the politician's daughter to make sure that he votes the right way. The SSF was called in to make sure that the daughter was returned before the vote.

His scan was complete. Other than learning who was inside, he didn't learn much more new info. He had already shown up earlier today, and had scanned it. He found that there was a weak spot in the west wall. Leon had placed several detonators at that spot. Inside the building, there were three SUITS on the ground floor, several Armored Mercs, and quite a few thugs. All they needed was Thomas's signal, and the explosives would go off and they would head inside.

He looked up. He saw a strange jet plane flying in the sky, and an angel-like SUITS was hovering high in the air. The other SUITS were positioned a specific points.

Inside his SUITS, Thomas activated a screen in his visor. When it popped up, the face of a very old man appeared.

"Samuel, it's Thomas. We're heading in. Communication with the technicians will be cut once we're inside."

The old man gruffed a bit.

"Fine, do what you want. But try to bring the SUITS back in one piece. I don't want to replace that arm again."

The screen disappeared. As the face left, a voice could be heard.

<Should we make our assault now, Thomas?>

"Yes. Let's go. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can head back."

Thomas raised his 'hand', which was really the guantleted arm of his SUITS, and raised two fingers. He then quickly dropped the arm.

An explosion could be heard as Leon saw the signal, and detonated the explosives. A large hole was left in the wall, big enough for the SUITS to go in.

(Minutes before...)

"I'll go for the daughter, Thomas. Working my way in from the top."

Saying so, Damien engaged the Predator's cloak as he loped over the compound's grassy lawns and leaped gracefully to the roof of the building. Only a rippling of the moon marked his presence as he landed almost soundlessly on the tiled roof. There was a sound of sliding metal, and then a glowing orange dot spot appeared in the tiles, the center hollowed out as though someone had jammed a spike through.

This hollow surrounded by glowing oranged began moving, forming an orange-limned trench in the surface of the roof. As the circle finished inscribing itself, the cut-out section wobbled, then floated through the air and was gently deposited beside the newly made hole.

Damien jumped in, and from behind his left shoulder, a faint whirring could be heard as his plasmacaster deployed. His cloak still engaged, the Predator was low on the ground, and Damien activated his neuro-commlink to Thomas.

"Should we make our assault now, Thomas?"

<Yes. Let's go. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can head back.>

A few seconds later, a dull boom reverberated through the mansion as the explosives went off. As his auditory amplifiers picked up the first cries of panic, Damien grinned, and pushed off from the ground.

Time to hunt.

At the explsion, Phalnax burst out of it's cover. It's rollers in place and it's jets angled, Phalnax was the first SUIT to move on the breach. On it's arm was it's large body shield, and thrust out by the shield was his spear.

"So why are you going first?" a voice asked.

"Abagale, we both know that Phalnax's shield will be able to shrug off most of the incoming fire. We go in, take the incoming fire, and punch the breach first, shaking up the guys inside."

"I know," Abagale said over the comm. "It doesn't mean I have to like it. I'm cutting communcations so you can focus on the mission. Take care of him, Phal."

I will try. the suit AI answered.

When the radio went dead, Ben readjusted his shield.

Slowly at first, return fire emerged from the warehouse.

"This is Phalnax." Ben said after turning on his neuro-comm. "The goons are returning fire. Small arms mostly. No visual of the enemy SUITs yet. Stay in the crease and I'll deflect most of the fire."

After turning off his link, Ben said "Phal, any indication on whether or not the objective is on the ground floor?"

That's a negative. You are weapons free on the ground floor.

"Copy that." Ben switched the neuro-comm back on. "This is Phalnax, returning fire."

In his vision, Phal did all the necessary calculation. Brackets appeared the places that the return fire was coming from. Lowering the shield ever-so-slightly, Ben brought his shoulder-mounted mini-guns into play. Ben guided the tracer rounds into the brackets.

It's wasn't into too late he saw the flash and the smoke trail coming at him. He barely had time to raise his shield. Phalnax shook as the rocket-propelled grenade struck the shiedl, and denoated. The SUIT's visual system darkened long enough to prevent the sudden flash of light from blinding Ben.

"RPGs! Incoming RPGs! I'm going evasive!" Ben said over the neuro-comm, as the skidded out of the way of a second RPG. "I can't tell if that that came from a SUIT or from a merc."

This was both a bad thing and a good thing. The bad was that he was no longer taking fire for the entire squad.

The good thing was that it opened the field of fire for the rest of the squad.

(ooc: you can skip the monthes ago if you don't want my back story.)
Monthes Ago...
Sebastian sat slouching back in the cold steel chair of an interrogation room. His cuffs glowed softly under the blinding light above him. Sitting there for over an hour, he had already grown bored of moving his cuffs forward and back to reflect the light differently. He was starting to miss his cell, at least he had a tv in there.

The door slid open as a man clearly dressed as investigator walked in, Sebastian had seen enough of them by now to identify them on sight. Information he could of used a little over a year ago. The investigator flipped open a manilla folder as he approached, Very old school Sebastian thought, All the tech we have today and the cops stick to the classics. The investigator threw down a few files including a picture Sebastian had grown tired of, nothing like continually seeing the picture taken by the cops as they wreck your hardware and arrest you for falsifying documents over and over again.

"You were hacking Treasury Files, why?" The investigator questioned.

"I was already prosecuted for this, you won. I'm in prison, what do you want with me now."

"You hacked the NYPD website to link to nothing but pornography, why?"

"Because it was there." Sebastian sounded confused as he responded.

"Is that why you do what you do, because you can?"

"No, I hacked the treasury because my friend needed a loan and he promised to pay them back over time. I hacked you morons because you gave me a ticket for parking in an hour zone for fifteen minutes." Sebastian huffed.

"So what your saying is you didn't do anything unprovoked."

"Whats this all about?"

"We want to offer you a job, you'll get a chance to use your unique skills outside of prison, and maybe just repay your debt to society." The investigator sounded like he had all the cards, Sebastian was pretty sure he did.

"So, what do you need?" Sebastian asked.

Now

Sebastian sat with his mouth agape, letting the liquid oxygen flow in and out, his hand slowly drifting the controls to the right keeping a high circle over the building. He watched the conversation over the com, as it updated on his screen. It was finally time to move, he banked downward flying straight towards the opening, that appeared to be widened by a sudden explosion. Fledge was screaming through the air, flying straight down towards the building. It was moving far to fast to shift in time to just enter the building.

*Helper Fledge appears* "Sebastian Roberts you appear to be entering a building with no possible escape path. Would you like some help designing a flight plan?"

Sebastian slowly reached up to the screen tapping the 'no', he typed a quick phrase into the computer and sent it to the Phalanx. "Coming in quick behind you, don't dodge left."

Sebastian pulled back on the throttle dropping it down so far Fledge just glided through the air. Sebastian didn't even feel the shift in G, the liquid oxygen was always so still, so calm. It belied the situation greatly. Almost there, just need a little more drag. I'll need a few more angles as well. Several cameras activated and tapped into Sebastian's mind as he flew ever closer to the building.

Sebastian inverted the controls as he had done many times before, forcing Fledge's conversion. The legs kicked out of the jets shape as it moved through the opening. The grinding feet screeched as Fledge slid across the floor. Sebastian watched as one of his feet slid right through a few of the thugs, the enormous bladed foot tearing them asunder as he went. Drawing his swords and forcing them outward he threw a few dozen thugs into the wind.

Coming to a complete stop he took gauge of where he was, nearly dead center in the group of thugs as they all moved in to replace those missing and take up arms against him. Sebastian wondered as he swung his swords again, Maybe I should have accepted Fledge's help.

Beowulf's two fingers pointed upwards. "Thats it. Ziltal, dee one and two."

The explosion took out a big enough chunk for a large SUITS to go in or out. "Ready dex and sin, prep pulsa. We're going in." Leon could feel the buzz on his arms, and heard the click in front of his chest. For a second, there was a slight hum as Ziltal's stealth activated.

<Leon, avoid the smoke. Our chances of being noticed rise from 3% to 65% if you go through it.> Ziltal spoke up. They dashed in and hugged the wall.

"Thomas, I'll begin running anti-security now. Don't be alarmed if the lights go out." "Engage eletrical sensors." The visual screen lit up with green wires; active power currents. Some faint blobs were also glowing deeper with in the compound. They've got SUITS in there. Better be careful. Looking around, Leon mapped each security camera, motion sensor, light, and alarm. "Lets get cracking." The pair dashed along the wall, ripping out every glowing box they could see.

Angel swooped downwards and arcs into the hole in the ware house, his plasma sword and shield out. He makes a circle, taking people in the proximity down. He comes to a stop as he sees a large SUITS with a gigantic gun-arm pointed at him.

"I have spotted a SUITS, I think I can hold it off, but may need back-up" Gordon says into his intercom.

A bolt of electricity flashes out of the gun-arm of the large SUITS and Gordon avoids it just barely. He gracefully flies in a half circle around the large SUITS and shoots 3 fireballs on his way around. The SUITS dodges the first 2 but gets hit by the third one, and is sent backwards against a wall. He quickly gets up, and takes out a big axe manipulator.

"Congratulations," the unknown SUITS says "You have succeeded in pissing me off."

An odd buzzing sound was heard inside the compound as the weapons of several thugs fell to pieces. They soon saw the reason as Striker landed at their feet. In its right hand it held one of its most effective weapon. A thin and flewible wire that could cut clean through most metal. "I found some low level thugs on the first floor. They wont be doing any more damage so feel free to pick them up."

Stunned the criminals stood as the machine sliced open an elevator shaft and began accending upwards. Soon he heard a call for back-up from Gordon. "This is Rick making my way to Angel to provide assistance. Will signal if additional reinforcments are needed." He cut the comm and headed to his ally.

Thanks to his SUITS speed he was there in mere moments. He took his whip and wrapped it around the mechs gun pulling it off to the side. Unfortunately for Rick his whip isn't affective against such an armored SUITS, fortunately though he had the leverage to make moving that weapon very hard. "Get him now, I'll keep him tied up."

Angel flies straight towards the tied up SUITS and his sword clangs against the SUITS armor. This, combined with him being held back from Striker's whip, knocked the large machine over.
"Beat him down!" He yells over to his teammate, as he begins to thrash repeatedly at the
large SUITS.

"This is Jack, I'm going in after Damien. Gonna secure the target if Damien meets more hostility."

With that, Jack jumped through the hole in the roof, avoiding the fight involving one of the enemy SUITS. No doubt there would be a lot of guards as he got further along, but right now Damien was doing his job nicely, sneaking through here before he got caught by the large SUITS that was there. However, he didn't want to be marked as a target by him and Predator, so he had to at least remind him he was coming.

"Damien, this is Jack, I'll be at your position in maybe a minute or two. If you distract the guards, I'll nab the target and get out of here."

OOC: Mine are armored merchs not SUITS.

Lee watches as two of the large armored mechs positioned by the front door turn and begin to concentrate their gun fire at the group advancing toward the explosives hole. The thugs begin to run toward the action. Lee flips a switch and the wheels on his feet deploy.

"Shall we target the core?" Griff asked in his usual eager way.

"No I think we should play with them a little. I'm thinking 150 MPH, Aim for the shoulder."

"You never do what I want." Griff says in a mimicry of Lees own normal whiny self.

Lee just laughs a little and shakes his head. He was feeling good today, He wanted to enjoy it a little. He braces his SUITS for the rocket force and deploys his spear. Setting it in his arms like a lance he turns the throttle up to 150 and launches off at the mechs. Just as fast he pulls down the throttle, it takes him a matter of moments to reach the two firing mechs. His spear penetrates straight through the flimsy joint armor on the mechs large gun arm. Lee retracts the wheels and grinds to a halt turning as he dose.

He leaves behind him two deep trenches where his feet dug into the ground. He spins his spear around in a show off sort of way before The two mechs are able to turn their gun fire on him. Lee smiles a little and a message comes over the com from Griff.

"Can we take them apart now?" He inquires.

"All in due time." Lee replies.

The mechs open fire on Lee right as he hits the thrusters again. This time the boost propels him into the air and he dose a sort of twisting leap over the two mechs. He hurls his spear down at the one already missing an arm and it just manages to penetrate into the shoulder armor. Without thinking he boosts again, just enough to send himself falling on top of the mech below him. He lands expertly on top of the mechs shoulder, using his weight and momentum to drive the spear in deep. Smoke begins to come out of the gaping hole.

"Danger, thrust up." Griff warns, right as Lee sees the problem. A Thug in the window with an RPG. He Boost off the shoulder, pulling the spear and a bit of mechanics out with it. The mech begins to burn up, a situation not helped any when the RPG slams into the mechs shoulder, where Lee had been a moment before.

"Locking onto human target, Shall I execute?" Griff asked.

"Yes." Lee replied as he dropped down thorough the air. His right shoulder mounted machine gun fired. The man had taken cover behind the wall, but it was no good against the bullets he was using. They went straight through and the count of registered threats on his display went down by one. Lee boosted a little, enough to cushion his fall, He had a lot of work ahead of him and wanted to save on strain where he could. He faces the mech he had destroyed, it was on fire now. The pilot was trying to bail out but his gear was jammed with some metal. It had come out with the spear and gotten lodged in their. Lee felt a little sorry for the man. "What a way to go." He commented as he though he heard Griff snicker.

The pilots comrade had no such problems with the issue however. As he took aim at Lee and Griff, Obviously intending to fire through his comrades burning tomb. "No honor among thieves I guess." was all he had time to comment on before the man began to open fire.

Damien was padding through the hallways, taking care to stay out of the path of the gangsters running around in there. Just then he heard a familair voice on his intercom.

<Damien, this is Jack, I'll be at your position in maybe a minute or two. If you distract the guards, I'll nab the target and get out of here.>

He grinned to himself.

Distract them eh?

"I copy that. Distraction begins... now."

A wide-eyed, panting gangster ran out in front of Damien. Suddenly, he was lifted into the air by an invisible hand, and he dropped his rifle, reaching for his throat. Around him, his fellows turned to look at the sight of one of their comrades struggling in mid-air.

There was a faint shimmering, and suddenly Damien stood before them, a single gauntleted hand holding his victim up by the neck. Damien snapped his free hand out to one side, and his long wristblades sprang from their housings on his wrist, then with three quick cuts, he sheared the struggling man in two.

Out came his double glaive, the blades igniting in incandescent plasma, and he leapt into their midst as the first gangster started firing.

"Did we get them all, Ziltal? I can't see any more stationary electronics." Leon asked.

<Affirmative. Full scan shows only mobiles.> A bright flash lit up the screen.

"What was that?"

<Its a lightning based weapon. On an enemy SUITS. Shut down electronics visor?>

"Do it. Also, that lightning gun... How big is it?"

<Small enough for Alexis to modify to fit my right arm, if thats what you're getting at.>

"Activate claws right before I land. Keep stealth on until then."

<Gladly.>

Ziltal danced across the compound rafters until he was just above the unknown SUITS. He dropped from the sky, and bounced right on the back of the SUITS, plasma claws blazing. "Sorry guys, just don't hit me or the gun. We can improve our arsenel if I can dismantle it." "And as for you, take this!"

Ziltal's feet latched on the back with left arm at the shoulder. The right claw kept striking at the elbow joint until the right gauntlet fell loose, dangling only by strings. "And here's a parting gift for you. Ziltal, ar sin." The explosive was released into the left hand, and Leon attached it to the unknown SUITS back.

<Might I remind you that isn't remote detonate. It will go off when either a spark, gun fire, or pressure ignites it. Get our gun and get away from there.> Leon ripped the right gauntlet off, said over the intercom, "Gordon, hit the back of the SUITS when you want to see some fireworks. Just keep good distance when you do." and started dashing out to find a place to store the gun.

OOC: jeeze guys, wait for me.

Another voice, strangely young and sing-songish, came crackling over the communications through the SUITS within the building.
“…she’ll be coming ‘round the mountain, she’ll be coming…” the voice was lost when Slipstream, charging in at an alarming, wreckless speed, screamed into a SUITS that had crept up behind Gordon’s Angel SUITS. Suddenly, Slipstream anchored down her front legs, effectively using momentum to carry her back legs and, subsequently, her tail, whipping around at a catastrophic speed.

The bulging stinger slammed straight into the legs and abdomen of the ready-to-pounce enemy SUITS, sending it cannoning into the other side of the wall. The SUITS slid down the cracked plaster, static in its wake. Then, shaking off the stunned appearance, it looked for its assailant, who had mysteriously, miraculously disappeared from the ground.

Fortunately, it was equipped with an extra set of eyes that looked up, and spotted the spider-scorpion-like SUITS just as it scuttled onto the ceiling and let loose a barrage of paper thin bullets. It brought up a shield manipulator and the diamond-shaped bullets bounced harmlessly off, before returning fire, forcing Slipstream to perform a set of both death and gravity-defying stunts in order to avoid the deadly bullets. Its armor wasn’t too bad, but it couldn’t afford being dented.

“Sorry I’m a bit late in coming. Slipstream and I had a… misunderstanding,” Eileen said in the com that linked all SUITS together. The SUITS charged and pounced again. With an audible ‘EEP’ Eileen forced herself to flip forward, curled into a small ball, and rolled underneath the attack. The SUITS, equipped with a set of thrusters, turned in midair and sent a sweep of hot fire through the air just as Slipstream activated both shields and crouched low, hiding from the heavy fire. There was laughter from the enemy SUITS.

“You’re just a prissy young girl. Give up, and I won’t be so hard on you,” the SUITS said. Eileen didn’t reply. Instead, she split the shield and sent another volley of slicing bullets towards the opponent who dodged with ease.

But in that dodge, Slipstream was up and racing forward again. Eileen allowed herself to streak past the SUITS, and, before it could react, leapt onto the vertical wall and propelled herself onto the back of the enemy SUITS.
“Claws!” she commanded, and it was done. The retractable claws, stored in each individual finger, slammed into the back of the SUITS, effectively digging and finding a grip in the opponent’s armor, despite there being none. Her four legs slammed into the limbs of the enemy SUITS, and the extra set of limbs over her shoulders slammed down on the helmet, it’s razor-edges making deep dents into the armoured head. The tail was poised to strike.

The enemy SUITS reacted by spinning violently around, trying to shake Eileen off. Eileen grimaced as her plan went wrong and she found herself slammed into the ground, the full weight of the other SUITS crushing her own.
<Sarcastic comment initiated: He’s certainly got a crush on you. End comment>
“Shutup and help me.”
<Reply: Will do. End reply.> Briefly, Eileen thought, Goddamnit, I really should ask Marcus to reformat how Slipstream speaks.
Slipstream responded and Eileen felt a surge of power as she flung the SUITS off her, slamming it into the wall again. Her own SUITS slightly dented, she nevertheless rolled to an upright position without much trouble and lurched forward at breakneck speed, using the trick she used before and swinging around at the last moment, tail like a huge mallet.

It struck again, but only dented the armor of the opponent some more.
“GODDAMNIT!” she wasn’t happy. She swung again and again, serving only to dent and stun the opponent but not doing any real damage.
<Thought: You’re not hitting the right places. Try going for the head. End thought>
Eileen complied, and felt a satisfying crunch of metal plating and hardware as she connected with the headpiece. In that moment, Eileen felt a flicker of confusion, as a thought suddenly began lurking at the back of her head. She didn’t bother waiting for it to surface. Instead, she discharged a round of her specialised, cutting bullets into the SUITS and watched it penetrate the chest armor with ease, making vital cracks into the protective armor.
“Finally,” she activated her right manipulator and cracked it into the enemy’s head.
It wasn’t a killing blow, but it did serve to shut down the SUITS and send the operator of the SUITS into unconsciousness.

<Warning: two mercs are heading your way. Two o’clock. End warning>
“Did I ever tell you I’m the worst at direction?”
<Reply: no. End reply>
“Well, next time just bring it up on the visor. I don’t know where two o’clock is,” Eileen gritted her teeth and leapt upwards to get away from an increasingly concentrated gunfire heading her way.

Thomas was sprinting toward the warehouse from his position. It was taking him a bit. Thought the SUITS was relatively fast, it was still pretty big, and he had been a good distance away. A voice chimed up as Thomas ran.

"Perhaps the thrusters would be useful now, Thomas?"

Thomas gave a small grin. He knew when his SUITS was trying to be sarcastic.

"Fine, whatever. Activate thrusters, forward motion. Height is not a necessity."

The pack on Beowulf's back began to flare up, and with a great force, Thomas was jetted forward. His pack was normally meant to allow him to jump to great heights, not for quick distance running. But, improvisation was what field fights were all about.

As Beowulf got very close to the warehouse, the pack fizzled out and deactivated. Sadly, Beowulf was large, and as Thomas learned in his basic Pyshics class, 'Velocity+Mass = Force', and Force equalled Momentum, which Thomas currently had lots of.

When the pack turned off, Thomas kept going at a pretty quick speed. He went through the hole in the wall, and saw the two armored mercs that were firing upon Slipstream. Thomas knew that she wasn't good with directions, and wouldn't be able to see them in time. Then, Thomas decided to use his momentum to his advantage. He reached to his side, and pulled out one of his plasma manipulators. When he activated it, the plasma shot out, and took the form of a large axe. As he moved quickly by, he held his axe out, so that the blade would be at neck level with the mercs. With a surprisingly satisfying swishing sound, Thomas passed by, and his axe seperated the merc's heads from their bodies.

Thomas kept moving, and he connected with the wall on the opposite side of the room. He hit the wall, and then went through the wall, creating yet another hole in the cheap warehouse. When he finally stopped, Thomas looked around.

"Beowulf, report damage."

"Along with the common scratches and dents, the functionality of the right leg component will be slowed due to the crushing of some wires. All in all, not bad for crashing into a wall. Of course, damage would have decreased by 24.53621% if you had chosen to use my shield when we struck the wall."

Thomas snorted.

"Like it matters. We've got to give Samuel SOMETHING to do when we're not out here."

Thomas turned on his neuro-communicator, and began to talk to Rick.

"Rick, take Striker and head upstairs to meet with Damien and Jack. They're going for the target. Watch their backs, we don't know what's guarding the hostage. The rest of us will stay down here to hold off any other distractions. I can only assume that our party has been found out, and we'll most likely be met with their reinforcements."

Thomas then switched to communicator to Damien's com.

"Damien, I'm sending Rick up with you guys. Try not to kill him on accident when he shows up. Readings say that the hostage is up there somewhere, but we can't get an exact location. Look around, and keep quiet. We don't know what they have guarding her. See what you can see, then report back before you engage."

Thomas turned off the communicator.

Eileen activated her left manipulator, detached it and allowed her extra set of 'arms' to grip it in a way that the concentrated fire from the mercs were deflected off her back as she scuttled expertly across the ceiling. She reached the hole newly created by the heavily armoured Beowulf and clambered out, forcing Beowulf to crouch behind his shield as the mercs tried to follow Eileen up and out.

"Clinging with ease on the wall of the building, Slipstream waved a casual hand towards Beowulf before pointing to her own intercom, indicating that he should turn it on.
"I got a good idea for us to try out on these two mercs, but it requires both of us," she said as soon as she was confirmed that Thomas had switched on the intercom.
"Can you use your shield, run to one side of them, while I run to the other side, then slam our shields together? It'll make one helluva sandwich, if you get what I mean."

Suddenly, the volley of violent firing increased, and it was evident that another merc had joined the two in harrassing the two SUITS.

"Make that a sandwich with three types of filling," Eileen added.

OOC: EDIT: umm... Raiden, isn't it "Velocity*mass=force", not Velocity+mass?

(OOC: Which reveals why I got a 'C' in Physics...)

Beowulf held his ground with his plasma manipulator shield in place. He looked up at Slipstream, and turned on his intercom when he heard her message.

<"I got a good idea for us to try out on these two mercs, but it requires both of us. Can you use your shield, run to one side of them, while I run to the other side, then slam our shields together? It'll make one helluva sandwich, if you get what I mean.">

Thomas nodded Beowulf's head, and then turned his comm off.

With a little force, Beowulf stood from his crouching position. The SUITS had been right, he could feel that the right leg wasn't nearly as quick as it had been before. But, he managed. He deflected blasts with his shield, and quickly got to one side. He turned his comm back on.

"Alright, Eileen. Let's do it. I can't hold this position for very long."

(ooc: That, and mass * velocity != force. force = mass * acceleration. mass * velocity = momentum, though, so if you just cut out the word "force" you could bluff your amazing physics ability past any of us)

<Why did you just dig a hole?>

"I couldn't find a place to hide this. So here it goes." After gently setting the gun in place, Leon prepped for a real fight. "Engage evasive: sub demolitions program. Continue until enemies are eliminated. Activate thermal scanner. Highlight allies, and set auto-targeting to anti-friendly-fire. Ready?"

<I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Just get in there.> Ziltal commented, and the screen lit up with red and green figures. Leon bounced back in the building, stealth activated again. Every 10 seconds, an airborn shiny silver demon appeared to launch an explosive at a merc or SUITS, and then quickly disappeared again. Ziltal cackled while Leon laughed maniacally. "And they removed me from S.W.A.T. because they thought I was too dangerous! Hahahahaha!"

Lee had just enough time to leap to the side as the mech opened fire, He rolled as best he could hearing the loud pounding of metal as one of his wings took a quick volley of bullets.

"Wing strength down 12%." Griff informed him.

"Thanks for that." Lee replied a touch sarcastically but still in a good humor. He managed to regain his feet and began circling around the Mech. It apparently had a 360 swivel on its hips. As the shots ripped the ground apart where Lees feet had been he threw his spear at the hulking metal war machine. The spear bounced off harmlessly.

"Force insufficient." Griff informed him of yet another useless piece of information.

"We have been over this, things like that need to be said BEFORE I throw our weapon." With that Lee lowers his wheels and ignites his booster moving quickly around the mech and jetting off a little distance to retrieve his spear. Thats when he got a clever idea. He maneuvered himself near the building and jumped up to the second story window. Grabbing a hold he quickly swung inside. He Found the RPG that had been launched at him earlier and checked the floor. Sure enough their was another round, half loaded into it.

Lee managed to get it loaded and was moving down the hall just as the wall became swiss cheese. He picked up his pace to stay ahead of the fire coming from the mech. He leapt out of the second window and landed expertly onto the ground. When the mech pilot noticed him off to the side he turned to open fire on him yet again. "How many bullets dose this guy have?" Lee asked in an exhausted sort of voice."

"2,354....recounting....recounting..." The computer responded as the mech began to open fire. Lee boosted high into the air, performing the same practiced acrobatic move. This time instead of throwing his spear and landing on it however he launched his RPG. The RPG flew straight to its target and detonated it. His target however was not the mech firring on him, but his Allys mech lying at his feet. The mech exploded like a gigantic shrapnel grenade. The explosion knocked the mech flat on its face while the array of shrapnel on its back cause the rotation gear to lock. It was stuck their. "2,253 bullets remaining. Target immobilized, 20% shrapnel damage to left arm, 15% explosive damage to left leg. All systems still functioning within acceptable parameters. Shall we detonate the enemy?"

Lee thought about it for a moment and then decided against it. He wasn't hear to kill, he had a civilian to rescue. "No, we have a mission to carry out." He moved quickly over to the hole in the wall, gunning down a few thugs that got in his way. He entered quickly hoping it would be cleared out by now.

"That's alright. You don't need to. On the mark... MARK," Slipstream got into position with surprising ease, and the Mercs looked about with confusion at the speed at which they went into position.

But they did not stay confused for long as Slipstream's two shield manipulators activated and locked together, then heard her shout 'MARK'

At that point, Slipstream dug both its pairs of legs in, and Eileen's torso bent to the ground, its two extra claws jutting from her shoulders also digging in, just as Beowulf charged forward. The coiling burst of power in all legs anchored on the ground was sufficient enough to counter Beowulf's sudden and powerful charge... well, according to Slipstream's accurate statistical sensors, that is.

The resultant collision could only be explained in the most gory fashion ever: The three mercs, caught between two walls, were unable to get out of their way fast enough. Their heavy armor stood no chance against two speeding walls coming in like they were intending to squash a rusted car in the Junk yard. The crash from both sides sent the three mercs cannoning and twisting painfully together, before the reinforced armour began to bend and warp under the sudden pressure, pushing into the merc's bodies uncomfortably - heck, that's an understatement - so that many breaking, cracking pieces of their heavy armor began to penetrate their precious skins and shatter bone and squash organs.
A merc's horrified cry was cut off abruptly with a fountain of blood as the merc's neck armor became twisted metal. The other two writhed in agony as best as they could, but the combined forces - still applied by both sides as Slipstream (now struggling a bit from Beowulf's strength and endurance) and Beowulf continued to force their shields together - of both sides soon ended their attempts.

Pretty shortly later, Slipstream was looking at their masterpiece: Twisted metal and flesh of three mercs, with various limbs still intact, stuck to their plasmus shields, and slowly incinerating - dripping - away from the surfaces.

"What do you want to call this move? The Jaffa Maker?" she joked to hide her disgust at the mess they made.

((OOC: Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that so far two SUITS have been taken down...and the one left is the one that Bosolai ticked off.))

Dang it, Leon! Ben thought to himself, Why didn't you just take the thing down instead of stealing it's weapon? You can salvage later, you dolt!

<Would you like me to relay that last comment to Ziltal?> Phalnax asked helpfully.

"Only if this guy kills me." Ben muttered.

The SUITS that Leon had damaged was in a decidely bad mood after it had it's toy taken away from it, and it had decided to throw it tanturm at the nearest enemy.

Which happened to be Phalnax.

<Leon said that there is an explosive device on the back.>

"That doesn't do me much good if I can see it's back, now does it?" Ben snarled.

The enemy SUITS, even though it only had one arm, was coming on like a wrecking ball. Ben caught it with his spear, but the enemy SUITS pilot had lost it, and was in some sort of rage.

Suddenly, Ben cursed.

<What? What is it?>

"I just recognized the suit type. It's a Berserker."

<That would explain it. The SUITS has altered it's pilot to the point where he has entered a state of berserker bloodlust. He will fight until destroyed or until all foe are killed.>

The enemy SUITS brought around it's large plasma sword. Ben blocked it with his shield.

"Deploy rollers and activate boosters on my mark." Ben said.

<Copy.>

Swing his shield, Ben knocked the enemies arm and sword out o the way, and brought his spear around to front.

"Now!" Ben yelled.

Ben felt himself get pushed back at the suddenly burst of speed. The spear was aimed perfectly, and cut deep into the enemy SUITS.

"Realign boosters to give me some height." Ben said.

On command, Phalnax was airborn, the spear cutting a deep gash into the SUITS armor from chest to head. Ben brought up his grenade launcher.

<Wait! I think we're still ins->

The grenade launcher fired, and hit it's mark.

Along with Leon's demo pack. The blast was strong enough to knock Phalnax out of the air.

<...ide the blast radius.> Phalnax finished dully.

"Damage?"

<Damage to right arm: Grenade launcher disabled. Damage to torso: Medium damage to armor, shockwave caused light internal damage. Damage to legs: Boosters disabled. Overall peformance lost: 34%>

"Yeah, but that was the last SUITS, right?" Ben asked.

Fledges blades stopped there furious spin through the crowd of mercenaries as the final group fell. It stood up straight as Sebastian surveyed the damage they had done.

Lets see here, Sebastian thought, They already took care of the fun part, all of the suits are already down, which means they left me to do cleanup work again. I knew as I worked my way through those mercs no one else was helping. His eyes drifted over the view of the merc's Thomas and Eileen had demolished, Others may have helped too much. Eh, I knew this job wouldn't be filled with glory all the time, but they could share now and again. That was when another camera activated showing a Mech approaching him from behind with what appeared to be a poorly made axe.

*Helper Fledge appears* "I have formulated a battle tactic against the Mech, would you like to discuss it further?"

Sebastian quickly tapped the 'No thanks' option on the display as he rotated Fledge to face his opponent. It lifted its axe back and rapidly flung it forwards towards Fledges chest. Fledge crossed his swords and caught the Axe, it took all of the power Fledge had to keep the axe from splitting him open.

*Helper Fledge appears*"This mech has nearly double of our possible force output, would you like to see my tactic suggestion?"

Sebastian again quickly hit the 'No, thanks' option as he pushed the axe backward, he quickly swung his left sword into the axe to keep the other mech on the defensive, rotating his wrist he brought the sword back around the other way catching axe again. His right sword followed quickly, forcing the mech back as he tried to find a moment to bring his axe down into Fledge. The mech kept pacing itself backwards as it used its axe to easily block Fledge's onslaught.

*Helper Fledge appears*"Your attack appears to be falling short of victory, would you like to see my tactic now?"

FINE!, Sebastian angrily hit the 'Ok' option on the touchpad screen as it activated in a flash of light. Explaining the tactic quickly by downloading the information directly into his brain, Sebastian always swore up and down to Gus it hurt like hell. But really it just pissed him off to have the ship itself pilot itself better then he could. He crossed his swords in defense once again catching the Axe, but this time Fledge activated his boosters. The sudden explosion of force launched the mech backwards off his footing.

The mech surprised at the sudden shot backwards slammed its left foot back to stop itself, landing in a conveniently placed hole. There was a sudden explosion of energy as the Lightning Gun exploded under his weight. The discharge of energy rippled across the mech as it demolished his leg, the pilot must have been completely thrown off by this. After all he didn't even make a move to block Fledges incoming sword. The sound of the pilots pod being pierced was a high piercing squeal.

The mech fell to the ground slowly as it slid off of the edge of the sword. Sebastian would have breathed a sigh of relief had it not been for the fact he was in liquid oxygen and totally relaxed as it was. He typed a message and sent it over the com to the others.

"My condolences on your new toy Leon."

Inside his SUITS Rick smiled. "Ok time to end this." He straightened his arm and locked it in place leaping high into the air and driving his hand straight inside where his ally had weakened. He gave his arm a twist and a rather loud squish was heard.
<Squish? SUITS dont go squish.>

"...crap I hit the pilot. I only ment to immobilize him you know how much they hate casualties." He pulls out his blood soaked arm and relaxed it. After giving it a few flicks to get most of it off he turned to his comrade. "Well doubt he will be much more trouble. Commander this is Rick, one hostile SUITS has been...neutralized. Requesting new orders"

Things stopped moving. There weren't any more enemies showing up on any scanners that weren't being finished off by someone else. But suddenly, a red and blue flash lit up the thermal sensor. "Crap, what was that?"

<An explosion. Doesn't register as ally weaponry.>

"Does that mean I get to play counter-demolitions again?"

<My condolences on your new toy Leon.> Sebastian chimed in.

<98% chance and uncoincidentally my guess is no, but rather our recent salvage just exploded due to Sebastian using it as an impromptu weapon.>

"Dammit." Leon sighed, then over the intercom, "No worries. Ziltal got the basic schematics down, so Alexis can make a better one for me. At least it went out with a bang! Haha!" "Ziltal, can you open a com with Alexis? I want to check up with her one last time before we do anything dangerous. Oh, and relay the data on that gun."

<You mean you're letting her check up on you. A month and a half away from marriage and she's already the ball and chain.>

"Shut up and open the com link."

<Hahaha. Here ya go.>

"Hello? Oh! Leon! What took so long? Its about time you rescued that girl." Alexis said condecendingly.

"We arrived 5 minutes ago, and we just took out the first wave."

"Oh, then what did you call for?"

"Just thanking you again for this stealth unit. Its a real help. That, and we found a new toy. A lightning gun. I'm having Ziltal send you the schematics as we speak."

"You could've just brought it to me. I'd fix it up and modify it for you."

"Um... Thats the thing..." Leon sighed again.

"You broke it already, didn't you?"

"When was the last time I ever brought you something intact?"

"Good point. Well, honey, its downloaded now. I'm gonna start working on it. Good luck in there, and don't do anything stupid. Stick to demolitions and anti-security. Ziltal is designed to survive fire, corrosion, electricity, and explosions, NOT plasma and AP bullets!"

"Don't worry, babe. I'll see you tonight."

"Byebyes!"

<Channel closed. I think I know who wears the pants in that relationship.>

"Tell me that again when you're modified to allow for procreation."

<I'd rather not be a builder, thank you very much.>

"Shut up and activate stealth and mass negator."

<Stealth activated. Mass negator charging.... Mas negator activated.>

"Room secure. Should a group of us break off to take the security room? A brief electroanalysis can map it for us."

Jack was quickly running through the halls, following as best he could where Damien had gone. He knew he was close, but he wasn't quite sure how long it was until he had to go up on the cieling or the wall to remain hidden. Then he got a message from Damien, on that made him very happy.

<I copy that. Distraction starts... now.>

Then he heard some screams and gunshots. He always loved it when he knew he could sneak past people quickly because they were too distracted. Moving in the direction of the noises of the unsuing fight, Jack quickly went into a sprint, jumping at a wall and then rebounding up to the ceiling, clinging there once he made it. He made sure that the camoflauge coating was activated, and before he knew it, he was blening in with the cieling. Crawling along the cieling in a way that almost made him look like a gecko, Jack made his way over the heads of everyone in the firefight. Damien could probably pick him out from the rest because of his experience, but the thugs were too busy being scared to notice him.

"I can't believe they can't see you. You're not even trying!" Cham chimed in as Jack made his way past Damien and closer to the hostage.

"Hey, as long as I don't let go and you keep quiet, we're set," Jack responded quietly as he squirmed his way along the ceiling. When he was far enough away, Jack dropped to the ground, landing like a cat and making only a small clink that made Jack grimmace. He hated making noise, but that was the disadvantage of wearing a giant metal piece of armor.

Jack hoped whatever Damien was doing would be enough, because noise other than his own was exactly what he needed. However, right now he had to think of another way into the room other than the front door. Then he saw it, a vent high up on the cieling. Smirking, he jumped up and activated the manipulator on his left arm and got to work. The small plasma blade quickly cut out the screws holding the vent in, and Jack made sure to catch it and lower it to the ground quietly. Lifting himself up into the cramped opening, Jack made sure he was quiet as he went through the metal passage. Then he heard something that gave him everything he needed to find the target.

"Damn it, what the hell is going on out there?" a voice asked angrily in the direction to Jack's right.

"Judging by the explosions, I'd say THE POLICE ARE HERE YOU FUCKING MORON!" another voice spat. They were obviously the guards, because he could hear a young girl wimpering after the second on yelled. Jack couldn't help but hold back a smile. Now he just needed to know how many of them there were.

"You DUMBASS! How many times do I have to fucking tell you, DON'T GO OUT THERE! We already sent three guys to help, and now it's just you, me, and the damn girl." The second guard was probably pissed because he couldn't have more guards with him and they were obviously being beaten badly. However, Jack didn't care, because now he knew there were only two guards to get rid of.

Crawling along until he could hear the noise right below him, Jack looked through the grate that was making the noise. He couldn't see much of the room, but it was mostly empty, and the guards, who happened to be mercs, were right below him, along with the target. It would be so easy to level his rifle and take out both of the guards, but with where he was, he could hit the girl. He wouldn't take that risk.

Activating his cutter again, Jack quietly cut open the vent while the two argued. With her spot on the floor and being forced to look up to see the guards, the target could easily see what Jack was doing. Barely holding back a smile, she watched as the vent was pulled up and into the vent. It was a reckless move, but at this point, Jack really didn't need to worry about being spotted, as long as he could get the target out without having too much resistance. Now was the time to do something stupid, and that's exactly what he was about to do.

"You sure this is the right thing to do?" Cham asked. The SUITS knew everything Jack knew about stealth, and most likely more, so it knew this was the dumbest thing Jack was about to do in his career.

Jack didn't respond as he dropped right on top of the first guard, stabbing down on him with his plasma manipulator, killing him with the rest of his downward momentum. The other he took care of rather easily, just taking out his rifle and letting a three-round burst blow large holes in the armor and then following through into his flesh. He saw the target looking at him in horror as he straightened out to secure his rifle on his shoulder, then went back down on four legs.

"Sorry about the mess, ma'am, but I'm here to get you out. I'm with the SSF, so don't say a thing and grab on to my back," he told her quietly. With half of the objective completed, Jack had to make sure there was a clear path as he was going out.

"Everyone, this is Jack again, I've secured the target. Clear a path to the hole in the roof and I can be out of here as fast as Cham can take me." With the target clinging to him grudgingly and a clear path for at least the first few seconds, Jack started sprinting through the halls, the sounds of him coming through sounding like a dog running through a house. He relly hoped he didn't have to stop to kill anyone, because the girl was obviously scared enough from him just killing her guards.

Beowulf turned to Rick and his Striker. He turned his comm on.

"Rick? Why aren't you upstairs yet? I sent you up there a few minutes ago. We'll hold them off down he-OOOF!"

When Thomas was distracted with Rick, a large pincer-like claw had shot through the hole in the wall, grabbed Beowulf, and dragged him outside. The large claw belonged to a mech, and a pretty big one at that.

Thomas tried to reach for his plasma manipulators, but before he could reach them, his arms were grabbed by even more claws. They were popping out of the mech's back.

Suddenly, Thomas's arms began to hurt. The claws that were holding them were beginning to pull his arms, attempting to rip them from the main body. And if Beowulf's arms go, then so does Thomas's. He could hear the mech pilot's voice.

"Hehehe, this is fun. Kind of like when you rip the legs off of spiders, huh?"

"What would you like to do, Thomas? It's up to you, really. My arms can be reattached later. I'm not so sure about yours, though. I guess it's not very fun to be an organic, huh?"

"Shut up, Beowulf. Hurry up and activate the chest mini-guns."

Within a moment, two flaps on Beowulf's chest opened up, and two miniguns popped out. There was a loud click, and the voice of the mech pilot again.

"Oh, shit-"

The area around them was filled with the sound of the twin miniguns shooting several hundred rounds of ammo into the face plate of the enemy mech. After a few minutes of this, the clicks of empty Plasmus cartridges could be heard. The claws loosened, and the mech dropped to the ground. Thomas turned on his comm.

"Everybody! We need to grab the daughter and get out NOW! Reinforcements are coming, and they're not something we want to put an unprotected girl in the middle of."

Lee began to move down the halls going about 10 mph. Banking off walls whenever he came to corners. He found a closed door and slowed to a stop.

"Griff, give me an infrared scan and a vocal audio search. I want to know who's on the other side of this door." A moment later his screen altered color and the outline of several warm bodies came up in the room. As well as small amounts of voices. Mostly coughing and mumbling.

"I estimate 4 humans lightly armed, and 1 with a higher density, likely armor, as well as what appears to be a large caliber rifle." Griff informed him.

"Oh isn't that fun. Well I could keep moving or go in, kick some ass, and ask some questions."

"I have a plan of attack." Griff commented,

"Of course you do Griff, lets see it." Lee said as schematics of an attack plan came up on his screen. his shoulder guns would fire out the hinges while he boosted through the door. The door flying inward would block most bullets and likely take out most of his enemies. "Alright lets do it." Lee moved to the back wall and braced himself to rush the door. The guns fired out the hinges expertly and he thrusted through the door. The door blew inward and knocked over two thugs. Lee wasted no time and extended his spear. Making a quick swing around the room with his spear. The bladed end of his spear sliced open the remaining thugs, scratching off the armor of the one wearing armor. Ending the swing around with a thrust down he speared through the door and the thug underneath it. He looked at the only man still standing.

The Man looked scared to death to say the least. He shakily raised his rifle. Lee responded by letting the shoulder machine guns lock onto the mans head. "Now why don't you lower that, maybe I'll let you stay alive." He said, into his external come. The man dropped his gun after hearing the announcement coming from the SUITS. Griff walked up and grabbed the man by the throat. He had obviously stolen the armor and weapon from another man. He tightened his hold a little and let his talons dig into the back of his neck, a slight amount of blood trickling down. "Now tell me, where is that girl we are supposed to rescue." He said as Griff displayed a variety of information extracting techniques in the corners of Lees screen.

Just then a voice came over his com

Lee smiled. Happy he wouldn't have to torture this man. "Well you lucked out, Mission accomplished. I'm going to knock you out now, I recommend running away when you wake up." With that Lee slams his other fist into the mans head, knocking him unconscious. "Copy that" Lee replied over the com. "I'll move to secure the outside." With that Lee moved back down the way he came more quickly then when he arrived. Moving out the door he saw the bloodied corpses of the men he had massacred. Locating the hole in the ceiling that had been referred too. He boosted up to the roof and watched around it making sure no threats came to block the path.

Then another message came over his com

"Copy that comander, should I run interfearence. Slow them down a bit? Griff wants more action?"

Beowulf's neurocom was turned on.

<"Copy that comander, should I run interferance? Slow them down a bit? Griff wants more action.">

"Yes, Lee. Keep the heat off of Jack and Cham. If they have the daughter, we don't want anything to happen to them."

Thomas turned his neurocommunicator off, and looked out into the distance. His tactical gauge began to change length and width again as it scanned. A large number of dots appeared in his vision, each given a distance and size number.

"We've got company."

"Shall I Initiate an aerial assault tactic?" Griff inquired as they listened to the order come through.

"Of course Griff." Lee activated the computer control maneuvering and then activated computer control guns. "Go." He ordered and his SUITS leapt into the air boosting at high speed toward the advancing enemies. Lee pulled out his spear as he glided toward the enemies. He spotted the commander on the ground. Griff flew toward what could only be described as impending death. "Well shit," Lee said over the com. "I'm going to need at least two more out here. Rick, Sebastian, Care to join me? Ben Why don't you go ahead and make sure their exit gets some cover. We may need your Shields to protect the girl." With that he came within firing range. Bullets from multiple targets shot out at him. Grif compensated and swerved in an erratic pattern, locking on and firring at thugs with automatic rifles. As the bullets tore threw them their blood sprayed out creating a red mist. "Griff give me back control I want to get that Large suits attention. That seems like the biggest threat." With that he regained control and flew straight toward the Large suit. With all the attention on him not, bullets began to find their marks. Most of them bounced harmlessly off the armor, but a few penetrated.

"Danger, taking excessive fire. Initiate ground attack procedures." Griff suggested.

Lee landed and began to jet along the ground, Using his spear to cut down thugs and Mercenaries as he came to them. He made it to the suit, and it was bigger then he thought. "Wow," He said over the com "This big fuckers got two chain guns, a drill arm, a saw arm and two sword manipulators."

"Should be fun." Griff said. Lee smiled and nodded as he made his first attack against the Imitation SUITS.

Rick acknowledged the message and thought it best to just follow orders. The thrusters on his machine activated and he quickly sped to the corridors they were taking the girl through. First he had some mercs to take care of and their mech. "Unlucky for you I am in a hurry." Unlike how he normally attacks he was less delicate. Not only did he slice the guns with his wire but also fingers, arms, and skulls.

Quickly moving under the mechs fire he drove his hand into the bipedal tanks legs and twisted its drive shaft toppling the giant. Quickly he jumped up and thrusted his arm into the weapon ripping out its engine core. The core spurted out fluid like the still beating heart of a slain warrior. He activated his comm. "This way is clear"

<We've got company.>

Leon turned to face the SUITS in the distance.

<Daaaaaamn....>

"You said it."

<If you go face-to-face with SUITS, you won't last. I recommend Operation: Minefield.>

"Got it." Leon acknowledged, then said to his team, "I'll be rigging this place with explosives. Just get the fug out of here, and the enemy SUITS will think they're under attack. They'll move much more slowly. Enjoy!"

Ziltal laughed maniacally as he stealthfully placed mines along their tracks.

Jack plodded through the hallways, not even caring that he stuck out like a sore thumb anymore. He knew for sure the closest group of thugs and mercs were taken care of by Damien, and Rick had cleared up near the hole while Lee had cleared the hole in the roof. Perfect, everything was clear.

Then he heard something over the communicator he didn't like.

<We've got company.> This was bad. Very bad. Cham was made for sneaking, not all out fighting. He had to get somewhere and hide before he got too caught up in fighting and the girl was more of a target.

"Shit... Cham, get ready to take a few bullets. It really isn't gonna be pretty once we get out there, so look through Thomas' information on the place and find a good hiding spot."

"Right, well, at least we did the sneaky stuff right. As for good hiding spots... there's a bunch of 18-wheelers that got stuck here when the mafia invaded for the target. Go around the other side of the building and you can probably hide yourself and the girl there quite easily."

"Good, now get ready to hit on of those trailers, cuz we're jumping."

"Again? I hate it when you do this..."

With a grudging feeling from both pilot and SUITS, they ran past Damien, telling him he could pull back, and then up to Rick, and straight out the hole in the roof. Running up to the edge of the warehouse, Jack told the girl on his back to calm down and hang on, but flinging himself over the edge of the building couldn't make her contain a scream. Putting all four claws into the side of the building to slow his fall, he let go after about three seconds, then fell straight into one of the trailers of the 18-wheelers. Landing on his back and holding the target above him, he landed on his back and made a huge hole in the top and going straight into a large pile of cardboard and packing peanuts and other items.

"God damn it, that hurt. Cham, how're you holding up?"

"All of the claws are slightly worn down, nothing too bad. However, both legs are damaged and could prove troublesome if you really have to move. I predict you'll be about 45% slower than normal while running. Also, the back is highly damaged. I can't say how much it'll hurt when you move, but I can say that Ben is gonna have a hell of a time yelling at you."

"Are you all right?" the girl asked as she got up and out of what was almost a hole in the whole trailer.

"Yeah, just get in one of the other trailers, I'll follow you there soon enough just let me get-- OW! Jesus Christ!" Cham was right when he said it would hurt. He really made one hell of a dent in Cham if it hurt that much. Sure it hurt from the fall, but it felt like someone was sticking a cinder block between his back and Cham's outer shell now that he was getting up.

"Are you su--" the girl asked, but was interrupted.

"I'm fine, just go before they get here." Jack got up and pushed her out of the trailer. He was on two feet now, holding his rifle and scanning the back of the building for any thugs or mercs that might be there. There was one, but Jack quickly shot him in the chest, making the thug go down quickly as a large hole was made by his high calibur rifle. When he saw that the girl had gone inside one of the trailers, Jack made sure he stuck close to it, looking back and forth to make sure there were still no thugs or mercs around.

"Someone get to the back of the building. I've got the target in a trailer for an 18-wheeler and I don't know how many stragglers might come back here."

"Someone get to the back of the building. I've got the target in a trailer for an 18-wheeler and I don't know how many stragglers might come back here." Gordon heres over the intercomm

"I'll be there in a flash" Gordon replies, taking flight and zooming to the back of the building.

He spots a group of 12 mercs sneaking around into the back, going for the girl in the trailer. He fires off a fireball and the explosion takes out the back 3. He soars up a bit and then swoops down, slicing through 5 of the mercs. He takes out his shield and protects himself from the bullets as he arcs around and slices the remaining mercs.

"Took down a group of mercs going for the target, there may be more, so we may want to be on the look out" he says to Chameleon as he hovers towards him.

<Everybody! We need to grab the daughter and get out NOW! Reinforcements are coming, and they're not something we want to put an unprotected girl in the middle of.>

Damien looked up from the ruins of his most recent victim, his wristblades retracting into their sheath. He looked around, then called up the floor plan of the building on his retinal HUD. The closest route to the top was right... here.

The plasmacaster disengaged itself from its housing, then pointed straight up and fired a blast of explosive energy into the ceiling. Damien flipped out of the way before it could land on him, then engaged his cloak and was up and through the hole before any of the confused mercenaries on top noticed him.

They never even heard the sound of his plasma glaive hissing to life before they were cut to pieces in three sweeping strikes.

The ceiling exploded again, and Damien jumped up, to the roof. Outside, he switched to SQUID visual mode. The outlines of the inbound enemy SUITS highlighted themselves on his field of vision, and his plasmacaster began vibrating gently as its containment fields and plasma drivers pushed themselves into high gear.

<Someone get to the back of the building. I've got the target in a trailer for an 18-wheeler and I don't know how many stragglers might come back here.>

Damien turned, and locked onto Jack's SUITS below him. Hopping up to the top of the smokestack for a better view, he crouched, gargoyle-like, as he scanned the area for any hostiles.

"I'll provide fire support, Jack. Try and get her out - it's not safe for anyone there."

A SUITS approached them at high speed. Damien fired the plasmacaster, its brilliant blue projectile blazing an actinic trail as it punched through the lip of the roof, the garage's roof, and into the enemy SUITS. It hit the ground hard, but began getting up again immediately, its left shoulder a smoking mass.

Damn, I missed.

"Jack! One inbound SUITS! Prepare yourself!"

"Aw, SHIT!" Jack yelled as he readied himself for the incoming SUITS. Crouching down, he lowered his rifle and waited for the SUITS to come around the corner. When it came, it was greeted with three shots to its right leg, but Jack and Cham also recieved about five rounds from a machine gun as many others whizzed by him, each one not piercing his armor, but pushing him back a good two or three feet.

"Gordon, get the girl out of here! Damien can probably help me, now mo--" Jack was interrupted as the enemy SUITS ran up and slammed him exrra hard into the wall of the warehouse. While not as bad as the fall off the building, he could really feel that hit. When it reached for a plama manipulator, Jack too his split second of timea and let a three-round burst go straight into the SUITS's head. Getting knocked over from such a close range hit, but somehow still staying in one piece, Jack could hear the pilot screaming in pain. He may not have finished off the armor, but the pilot seriously got hit hard. With a little bit of time given to him, Jack squirmed away, his right arm feeling like it was made of rubber.

"Jack, be careful. One more hit like that and you might not be able to move that right arm for a while," Cham informed him. Despite Cham's slightly uncaring mood most of the time, now he was getting serious, most likely because Jack was letting the SUITS get so damaged.

"Don't worry, Cham. Just get ready to get hit a few more times until Damien gets here." Meanwhile, the enemy SUITS was struggling to get up, but Jack had a plan. With a weakened faceplate, it would be easy prey to one of Damien's plasmacaster shots.

"Damien, aim for the faceplate, it's already weak enough as it is." Jack watched as the SUITS got up, rubbing its face, and levelled its machine gun at him. He hoped Damien would be quick about this.

As the enemy SUITS was about to fire at Cham, most likely eliminating the chameleon SUITS far beyond any hope of repair, it was smacked hard in the faceplate by a flying object, and lurched over to the ground.

It gave a few more deaththroes, and then quit moving. A large plasma mace could be seen on the faceplate, it's spikes imbedded into the metal. Beowulf walked from where he had thrown his mace, stepped on the inactive SUITS metal body, and forcefully pulled his mace from the machine. Beowulf turned to Cham, and seemingly smiled in a way only a faceless machine could. Thomas turned his neurocommunicator on.

"Close, huh? You might want to be more careful, Jack. You of all people should know that Cham can't be in such close combat. If the SUITS didn't kill you, you know that Ben will."

Then, a loud beeping sound was heard in the cockpit. Thomas activated the long-range communicator, and a small screen appeared in his viewing visor. What showed up was the face of Jake Rillnor, the official head of the SSF.

"Attention, Beowulf. Repeat, Attention Beowulf. Thomas, do you copy?"

"Yes, sir. I'm opening the neurocommunicators. You'll be speaking to the group in a moment."

Thomas activated the view screen link, and all the SUITS could see Jake Rillnor in their screens. When everyone had been linked, Jake gave his message.

<"Attention, SSF. We currently have a Flight Tank heading in your direction. It will pick up the daughter, and also give you all a lift back to HQ. Just protect the package until it arrives. It will be there very shortly. End Transmission.">

"Gordon, get the girl out of here! Damien can probably help me, now mo--"

"Alright" Gordon replies, taking flight. He goes into the trailer of the 18 wheeler, and bursts out with the girl in his arms.

He flies a good hundred or so yards away from the battle and sets the girl down.

"We should be safe here? What's your name little girl?"

"M-millie" she says in a scared voice.

"Well Millie, don't you worry, you'll be fine."

Just then the Flight Tank hovers near them. "Here's your ride, Millie. These men will protect you."

Millie get's helped into the Flight Tank, and it begins to hover away.

"Mission accomplished. Do you guys need any backup or should I escort the Tank?" Gordon asks his team over the intercom

Thomas watched as the tank hovered away, and his heart sank.

<"GORDON! That tank was supposed to pick us up!">

Just then, a Plasmus blast was shot by his head, missing it by inches. He turned, and saw a large troop of SUITS heading for them. They were still a distance away, but they were within firing range. Thomas quickly opened his communicator to the group.

<"ATTENTION! CHANGE OF PLANS! Everyone leave the grounds, and head for the tank! I mean now! We're outnumbered, and most of us are pretty damaged. So run, like hell, NOW! Fast people and flyers, grab the damaged SUITS!">

Beowulf reached over, and grabbed Cham by the back. He then slung the crippled lizard-like SUITS over his shoulder.

"Come on, Jack. You're with me."

Beowulf began to sprint as fast as he could in the direction of the tank.

"I'm moving I'm mo-SHIT!" A red light blipped off in her visor as she disengaged from her opponent in a tangled mass of limbs and abdomen.

<Damage report: ranged weapon disabled. Preparing to discharge wasted plasmus. End report.>
"You do that," Eileen said as she fixated her shield on her back again and curled her now-empty, damaged tail underneath for further protection. She crouched low as extra heavy fire sprayed itself around her.
"Slipstream, give a functions report."
<Overall damage report: right foreleg suffered heavy pressure. FUnctioning at 88% its max. Life support damaged. Functioning 55% max->
Crap, Eileen thought as she inched forward, still under heavy fire.
Slipstream's life support system was connected to the abdomen of the actual SUITS. That would mean that during some time in her first encounter with an enemy SUITS, she had damaged more than she expected to.
<-Ranged weapon disabled. Fuel gauge reads half. End report.>
"Not bad, not too bad," she muttered under her breath as she risked a sudden burst of speed and catapulted herself outside. She flipped on her intercom
"Guys, I'm under heavy fire here, I've only got half my fuel tank full, and..." she read her distance graph and profanity escaped her lips, "I'm on the other side of where you are. My ranged weapon is disabled. If I get hit--oh shit."
Part of the plasmus shield had chipped, and a plasmus bullet bit deep into the left arm of her SUITS. It took a good chunk off, and revealled her body-hugging suit underneath. That bit of muscle deflated almost comically as the biological alteration deactivated, and her left arm was useless, hanging limply by her side.
"Oops," she said as she began to run like hell, "Somebody pick me up!"
A flash of inspiration caught her and she activated her other shield, before sticking it rather roughly - but securely - into the end of her damaged tail. Then, waving it behind her, she managed to deflect most gunfire aimed at the part where her manipulater couldn't shield, relying solely on the SUITS' own eyes to calculate and deflect bullets.

OOC: WOOPS! Didn't catch that... sorrrrry. Also I don't really know which ones are too damaged to run... damnit Rhiya, posted right before me :confused: , I'll edit my post to pick you up.

BIC: <"SHIT. I'll try to catch up with it and tell them to wait up">

Gordon flies as fast as he can towards the tank, picking up Slipstream on the way. He catches up with the tank. Just as he starts to lower himself he is hit from behind and gets launched forward from the tank, and also knocks Slipstream out of his hands. After momentum stops taking its toll on him he turns around to see SUITS with similar build as him, just bigger...

"Oh sh--" is all he manages to get out before the flying SUITS nails him with an explosive rocket.

Angel spins upside down until it makes impact with the dirt.

"Major damage. Suggesting retreat" Angel says as it manages to get to its feet.

"Can't do that" Gordon says to the suit "We need to protect the Tank until the others get here. Just pray they get here soon..."

He launches up into the air, and makes impact with the winged enemy SUITS.

"Thomas, I thought you knew I've got the whole compound rigged. I planted explosives at every critical point prior to this mission, as per clearance with Chief Rillnor. On your mark, this place will come crashing down and take out anyone in it. Everyone, I urge you to get out of here as soon as possible. The sooner everyone is out, the sooner the explosives can detonate and the safer we'll be. Leon said over the intercom.

"Ziltal, calculate and download to me the fastest route to Eileen. Charge and prep the mass negator to envelope Slipstream."

<Route calculated. Download complete. Charging at 20%.>

Ziltal bounded across the warehouse floor. <30%.> He jumped, and kicked an enemy mech, causing him to fall on his back and right into a mine. <50%> Using the explosion, he flipped backwards and landed right in front of Slipstream. <60%>

"Don't worry, I'll get ya out of here." Leon grabbed Slipstream and pulled. "HNGGGH! Damn your heavy!"

<Keep your pants on. 80%. 90%. Mass negator active.> It sounded like a million people all saying "Fop!" at the same time. <Recalculating approximate center of mass for mobility. Also to mention, energy levels prior to most recent mass negator use were at 70% average. They are now approximately 57% and dropping at a rate of .2087498% every second.>

"Here we go..." He continued. This time, Slipstream came up a lot easier. "Everyone, head outside A.S.A.P." He repeated before dashing out with Eileen. "Ziltal, are bombs three through twenty five ready?"

<Affirmative.>

OOC: wow I didn't know slipstream was so damaged it was in two chunks.

Hearing the order to retreat called over the com he looks up from the battle he had been having with the large SUITS. He had suffered major damage to his left arm, but the damage to the other suit was far worse, Two of his 4 arms lay on the ground and both his guns had over heated. The corpses of Mercs and thugs lay scattered around their feat. "Sorry big boy but I gotta go. I'm sure we'll play again some time." With that Lee turns sharply and powers up his boosters, They shoot him off in the direction of the tank. He quickly reaches a speed of 795 MPH.

Unfortunately for all the enemies around him, a sonic boom was created, All the enemies in his wake were thrown back and killed. A wide path was swathed through his foes. He passed one SUITS on his way out and saw it thrown away, it was not destroyed however. Lee was careful not to pass too close to any of his allies.

The loud sound could be heard by all, Lee slowed down as he got closer to the transport. Thankfully his fuel light chose this point to turn on. He had just enough force to leap up to the top of it and climb inside before his suit turned down to emergency power. "Wooo boys, That sure was a fun one." Lee commented to the girl next to him. "Don't worry, you won't be being bothered anymore." Lee leaned back and relaxed, trusting that his team could make it on their own.

OOC: edit: she's not in two chunks. Part of her left arm armor is missing, and her ranged weapon has been smashed out. Apart from that, she's only pretty much dented...

Eileen, despite the beginning numbness settling into her dead-weight arm and the increasing amount of danger about her, couldn't resist a whooping "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" as she was lifted clear off the ground. She replaced the shield on her tail with the larger shield held in her extra arms, and whipped it down so that it would prevent any more attacks from below, before tucking her flexible legs - all four of them - beneath her abdomen, taking on the appearance of a large, black, oddly shaped bomb instead of a sleek spider-like SUITS.

<Comment initiated: Just in the nick of time, eh? End comment>
"Oh shutup, Slipstream. Nobody asked you to make a quip," Eileen retorted, before giving a thumbs up in gratitude to Ziltal who was giving them the lift with her good arm, "Spank ye kindly, Leon," under her half-open visor, she grinned.

<The shield is starting to fail, Ben.>

"Really?! I hadn't noticed!" Ben snarled angrily. His shield, once a solid, near-unbreakable thing, now was starting to look like swiss-cheese.

Phalnax wasn't in much better shape. With it's boosters disabled, it had to limp away on foot, and Phalnax was not designed for speed.

<I'm picking up heat signatures on your left-rear...looks like three humans and a mech.>

Ben sighed. "'I much prefer a dragon.'"

<What?> Phal asked in a question tone.

"Sorry. Old movie line, The 13th Warrior." Ben answerd. "Old habit to quote movie lines. I don't suppose there's any chance you can get the grenade launcher back online, can you?"

<Negative. The barrell was damaged. You try to fire it now, and the grenade will go off on your right arm. Abagale would not be happy with that. I wouldn't be particuarly fond of it, myself.>.

"Right. Switch my vision to thermal, would you? The mini-guns still work, right?" Ben asked, turning himself to face the attack.

<Yes. However, I don't they they'll have the punch to take down the mech. You'll have to do that close in...which I wouldn't suggest, with the state your armor is in.>

"We'll do what we can. We can-"

<Wait...the men and the mech are moving off....HOLY CRAP! Two enemy SUITS inbound on our position! They're fresh!>

"Frag!" Ben yelled. "So much for that plan. Which way is the tank?"

<I'll put a marker on your H.U.D. for you. I don't think we can outrun them, Ben.>

"Well, we definately can't take them in a stand-up fight. I'll put the shield on the back, that should provide us some protection. Can you get anything out of the boosters?"

<Well...I could give you a small boost. But chances are that after that, the boosters will blow-out. And I know for a fact Abagale hates having to replace the boosters.>

Phalnax turned and ran toward the tank...at a slow pace. The SUITS, fresh and shiny, with boosters, were gaining ground rapidly.

"She'll hate it more if her brother-in-law and her favorite AI don't come back. Deploy rollers and do it!"

For a brief second, Phalnax's speed increase.

Ben flinched as the promised explosion happened.

"Phal! Damage?!"

<Heavy structral damge to the legs, speed decreased 68%. The sheild got blown clean off. The boosters have been completely destroyed. Internal damage, fire-control lost. Response time down 37%. However, the boost worked. The SUITS are no longer gaining on us. However, that will only last as long as momentum is with us.>

"Right." Ben flipped on his neuro-comm. "This is Phalnax. It would be lovely if someone could give me lift."

Rick continued to the transport. "Man this is bad, we are losing SUITS too fast for my taste. We had better get out of here soon, looks like their elites are arriving." Just then he saw another SUITS heading for their transport. "This should be quick." He lunged at the target only to have it vanish before his eyes. Milliseconds later he was blindsided be the very SUITS he was attacking. "What? how did he manage that?" Before he knew what had happened his face was smashed into a wall. Attempting to counter he whipped his wire only to have the enemy dodge it with easy. Rick was finally able to block the SUITS punch but was then hit with a kick. "He is actually faster then me. I am a master at highspeed combat but he is outmatching me in pure speed. This isn't good."

Just then the SUITS dropped its arms. "Where is the girl?"
"Kiss my a..." He was cut off as Strikers arm was bent behind its back.
"Wrong answer."
Rick turned on the comm system. "Guys...we have an elite here. He is even faster then me...aaaa, get the girl out now." A sound of crunching metal echoed as the elite pilot began slowly twisting off his arm.

Thomas and Beowulf managed to reach the retreating tank, and dumped Cham into it. He was about to link up and exit his SUITS, when he get a few emergency calls.

<"This is Phalnax. It would be lovely if someone could give me lift.">

<"Guys...we have an elite here. He is even faster then me...aaaa, get the girl out now.">

Beowulf jumped out from the tank, and landed with a thud on the ground.

Ben and Phalnax were steadily making their way to the tank, but were being hounded by several SUITS. His tactical gauge managed to point out Rick and Striker, who were currently getting their asses handed back to them by a speedy Elite SUITS. He then noticed that Damien was still near the warehouse. Leon hadn't yet destroyed the warehouse, but he would do it soon enough. Thomas turned his communicator on.

<Attention. Any SUITS with the ability to still move, and to move fast, assist Jack and Striker. He's taking on an elite, and it's not ending well. I'll head over and assist Phalanx. If you're heavily damaged, don't leave the tank. You'll be more trouble than it's worth. Just try and attack from long range, if you can."

With that, Beowulf began to sprint towards Phalnax as fast as he could. While he ran, he activated his plasma shield, and held it up. He managed to block several shots, and even deflected some back at the shooters. When he got in range of Phalanx, he crouched down behind the gladiator-like SUITS. He checked to see if he still had his rollers out. He did, which was good.

"Beowulf, activate the back thrusters."

"But I thought they were only meant for jumping, not sprinting..." the SUITS said in a mocking way.

"Just shut up and do it."

The pack flared to life, and as Beowulf began to move forward, he grabbed Phalanx, and they both began to move. Beowulf was supplying the speed, and Phalanx was the vehicle, the rollers quickly running along the ground toward the tank.

As Jack and Cham were flopped helplessly into the tank, Jack began to hear the emergency calls coming in from everyone. While not good for them, this was good for him. There was a reason he had a sniper rifle, and now was a good time to take advantage of that.

"Cham, zoom in on the SUITS holding Rick and Striker. I'm gonna try and at least distract it." Jack told his own SUITS as he went down on one knee and aimed for the Elite SUITS holding Rick.

"Right, locking on... Target locked. Fire away."

With everything ready, Jack pulled the trigger, the auto-locking from Cham helping to ensure the bullet went cleanly into its target. With a quick and lound whoosh, the high calibur bullet went straight past Rick's head and right into where the eye of the enemy pilot would be with a loud clank. With such a sudden shot, the SUITS pilot let go of Rick's arm in surprise as he and his machine stumbled back a little. Jack kept shooting the enemy to keep it distracted so Rick could get away.

"Rick, go NOW. I don't think I can keep something that fast occupied forever."

He nods and quickly gets out of the way. "Look I doubt even both of us can take this thing. We had better lead it away from the transport." Noticing an overhanging structure Rick used Strikers whip and cut it up thus it fell on the enemy SUITS. The SUITS jumped back avoiding the debris. "Ok lets move quick before it gets back up."

"Sorry Eileen, looks like I've still got some work to do. Ziltal, is there enough power to charge the mass negator to help Striker outrun the elite?"

<Negative. There is barely enough power to keep it on us. That, and it would have little effect. We would slow him down if anything.>

Leon started running back into the building and got back in the rafters where he wouldn't be spotted. "Can we one-shot the elite?"

<Not without taking out our allies.>

"And what if we protect them from the blast?"

<I don't like where this is going. If we act to contain the blast, we will suffice heavy damage. We're currently operating at 97% efficiency. We would drop to 65% in the best case scenario.>

"Arm the explosives." Leon ran across the rafters to above the speeding elite. "Does he know that we're here?"

<No. I advise you don't go with this course of action.>

Leon was in mid fall. "Too late." He timed it just right. Plasma claws were blazing. "Guess what mother fugger?"

"Get the hell off me!" The enemy SUITS yelled back at him, trying to pull him off.

"That won't work." He said, then over the neuro-com. "Guys, I've got him preoccupied. Run!"

"Oh no you don't." The elite tried smacking him into walls, then just chased after the others.

Ziltal ripped out a small chunk of the chestpiece. "Ar dex, sin, and pulsa." As Leon said each, the explosives came out. He placed the center piece in the chest, then grabbed on tight. "Causalties are my specialty" Leon started to cackle, then detonated the explosives.

The elite was pushed backwards in the ground, while Ziltal was sent flying backwards. Leon blacked out, and Ziltal landed on his chest. <Power levels: 13%. Outer layer: 87% destroyed. Second layer: 54% destroyed. Third layer: 24% damaged. Inner layer: Fully operational with 3% damage. Mass negator: Offline. Stealth: Offline. Leon? Are you even awake? *sigh* Initiating SOS protocol.> Over the neurocom, everyone heard Ziltal. <Leon is unconsious. Auto-updating HUD position. Requesting transport. Transferring demolitions commands to Beowulf. Demolitions activate on mark: dee three through twenty five.>

Striker slowly stood up. He also saw the elite getting up. "How can he still be alive after that." He then noticed the elite going to the pieces of his and the others SUITS and absorbing them. Healing itself. Rick quickly grabbed Zital. "BOSS NUKE IT NOW!" he then ran with Jack out of the warehouse

Thomas watched the warehouse with his tactical gauge. After dropping Phalanx off near the tank, he had turned back to keep tabs on the others. He watched as Ziltal had jumped off the building, and landed on the elite. He then saw Leon attach an explosive to the elite.

"You dumb sone of a..."

The bomb went off, and Ziltal was sent flying into the wall of the warehouse. According to Thomas's tactical gauge, Leon's life signs leveled out drastically lower. He was unconscious. He recieved the SOS from Ziltal, and watched as Striker moved in to grab him. Then, he heard Rick's message, yelled out over the communicator.

<"BOSS NUKE IT NOW!">

In a hurry, Thomas first checked to find the location of all their SUITS, and then found the data for the blast radius of the explosives. Everyone that mattered to them were outside of it.

"Beowulf, access the remote link to the explosives."

"Accessing...accessing...link found. Link opened. Please enter demolitions command."

"Dee three through twenty five."

A small timer appeared in Thomas's visor, and it ticked down.

"Hold on to your hats and check your asses, it's gonna be hot in Three...Two...One...SEE YOU IN HELL, MOTHAFUCKA'S!"

The next second seemed to stretch for an hour. An explosive in the center of the building went off, blowing a pillar of fire straight upwards. The fire then seemed to be sucked down as three more explosives went off, triggering a shockwave that sent ash and earth flying in all directions. As the shockwave ripped into the oncoming SUITS and mechs, the limbs of the machines seemed to be ripped from the torsos, and they began to explode on their own.

When finished, the warehouse was simply a large crater. Thomas gave out a sigh of relief. He turned on his neurocommunicator.

"Good job, SSF. You did good. Let's head home."

With the mission over, Jack was quick to detatch from Cham. A compartment large enough for Jack to squeeze out opened up on the back of the SUITS, and Jack slowly got up, groaning in pain as he did so. He seriously had to get his back checked out when he got back, because it was killing him. Getting out of Cham completely, Jack walked over to one of the side seats in the tank and slumped down into it. With another groan, he stretched his back, but a disgusting crack emanated through the vehicle, and anyone in it made a grossed out face, including Jack.

"I'm asking Ben to install some sort of cable on you, Cham. I swear, if I ever do that again, shut yourself down."

"You got it, Boss," Cham replied jokingly over a speaker. "Oh yeah, Jack. You might want to ask for more weapons, because I'm feeling really defenseless after that mission."

"Don't worry about it. Ben'll gladly give you somthing new... If he doesn't kill me first and leave you without an owner, that is..."

Much later...

Eileen drove her covered, hovering flat-top carrier with the usual recklessness she had in her damaged SUITS. Cackling and veering wildly around, she barely missed a corner and a scientist in traditional white lab coating fell over his own feet in order to get out of her way.

Her left hand resting casually on the steering wheel, she held a paper bag with "Donut King" written on one side. Then, just as she saw Marcus' open lab door, she cut the power to the hovering carrier and cruised to a delicate halt, one of its sharp corners jutting precariously between Marcus' trembling legs.

"Goddamnit, Eileen! Young and reckless... Makes me wonder why they ever let such a youngling into the workforce," Marcus shouted at the top of his voice.
"I brought you some munchies," Eileen ignored Marcus' protestation at her skill. She got off the covered, bulky flat-top and slapped the paper bag into Marcus' chest, but not before she extracted a jam-filled donut for herself.

Nibbling it carefully, she ripped the cover off the top of the flat-top to reveal what was underneath. Marcus dropped the paper bag, and she heard his jaw click as it attempted to hit the ground.
The next thing he managed from his mouth was a mix between a gargle and a choke, but could only be depicted as, "...!!!"

"Yeah, it's in a bad shape, but you shoulda seen the other guys'. Besides that, while you're working out how to fix it, you could also add a few extras for me."

"...OH MY GAWD! HOW THE HELL DID YOU MANAGE THAT?!" Marcus finally said as he took a look at the left arm of the SUITS. Melted shield and wires exposed the inside of Slipstream.
Marcus took out a bear claw and crammed half of it in his mouth, chewing furiously.
"Nememin'..." a gulp, then clearer words, "Nevermind. I'm glad you're in one piece. I'll get onto it right away."

"Nifty!" Eileen gave Marcus a quick hug, before turning more serious. "The shield manipulators you installed saved my life. I have a few ideas I want you to try out on Slipstream."

"Sure sure, whatever," Marcus replied absent-mindedly as he clocked in some commands to a horrifically large computer. It extended a pair of gigantic arms with pinces on its sides, picked up Slipstream, and delicately placed it onto a large work-bench. A lazer scanner ran itself over the damaged SUITS, and the computer screen scrolled down with a further damage report.

Eileen barely ducked underneath the half-eaten bear claw as Marcus - in a fit of shock - chucked it at her. He pointed at the screen, looking at Eileen accusingly.

"Life support damaged?! Working at 55% efficiency! How did you do that?"
"Now, y'see, that has a funny story behind it. A SUITS tried to erm... crush me under its weight, and I guess I wasn't careful enough and damaged the abdomen of Slipstream while I was trying to throw it off."
"Let me guess. You tried that stunt trick where you threw yourself onto his back, and he had a jet pack?" Marcus shook his head, "You should've known what would be the initial outcome. HOLY SHIT. YOU CHIPPED A PLASMUS SHIELD?!"
"Uh yeah. About that. It was near the end. I had to fix the shield to my back 'cause I was under heavy fire. Dunno what happened there, but that was what caused a chunk of arm to be missing. But enough about giving me damage report I already know about, it’s time for you to hear some of my improvements I want on it.”
Marcus nodded absently as he tapped in a few commands. The computer immediately set to work with those massive electronic arms, working on the dents and creases and giving a more detailed examination at more damaged areas.

“I want you to install a shield over Slipstream’s abdomen. Kinda in the shape of a beetle’s shell. I know I might be asking a bit more than usual, but I need it’s biological alterations to improve a bit more. Kinda make my spine a bit more flexible, y’know? So that I can curl up into a ball more easily.”
“Hold on with that thought, Eileen. I can help with the installation of a shield, but the biological alteration I’ll need a few weeks. Maybe when times aren’t so rough I’ll install it. The shield I can do.”
“Cool. Also, I want the stinger at the end of the tail to open up in a claw. Just those kind of –” she moved her right hand and opened and closed it in a dilapidated fashion, “- but used for crushing more than holding things. Oh, and maybe have the ranged weapon migrate into the middle of the claw, y’know? And have a shield manipulator installed just below the base of the stinger.”
“…That’s a lot of improvements, Eileen. I might be able to work on the claw-ranged-shield thingy, but right now I can only install the two shields. Oh, and nice work with the helmet piece. There doesn’t seem to be a single dent on it,” he pointed at the curved metal bit that folded out into her headpiece.
Eileen smiled, before that other idea settled in, “oh yeah! You know the two extra limbs you gave me that protrude over the shoulder? Can you give them some form of claws with an opposable thumb? It’ll be a helluva lot easier grabbing and attacking with that.”
“Can do. I was thinking that myself. I’ve even got a blueprint of that. Also, I think it would be a good idea if I installed some sort of prototype anti-grav device, y’know? Make it lighter and easier to move around a bit. Oh, that and maybe a light coating of camoflage paint… the one that Jack’s SUITS Chameleon has.”
“Good thoughts. Can ya do all that by tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? The shields and paint maybe, but I have to scrounge around for that anti-grav equipment and make that claw thingy you want. I’m trying to explain this to you as simply as possible, minus all the jargon we scientists use,” he said when Eileen opened her mouth to tease him.
“Nevermind. So, tomorrow you’ll get it all done?”
Marcus sighed.
“Yes, tomorrow, providing you fork me some cash from your own wallet for overtime,” Marcus grinned and dodged Eileen’s playful cuff.

After getting his arm healed Rick went back to the SUITS. "So how is she?" Maria calmly looked at him with a strange mix of insult and pride. "I cant believe you did this to my baby. Even worse you got beat in the very area you and this machine should be best in. I mean how could you lose."
"There was something different about that one. I think the old man held out on us. That thing was better then anything we had. Three of us could barely knock it down. What if there are others like that?"
She shrugged and went back to work. "Then talk to the chief not me."
"Yea guess your right" Rick then headed to see Thomas

Lee walked into the Garage still inside his Griff. He saw Alan standing their waiting for him with the fuel line in hand. Lee smiled and walked up to him. Powering down the suit and climbing out Lee smiled at his technician.

"I assumed you were out of fuel yet again." Alan remarked.

As Lee's feet hit the floor his smile vanished. The happiness he felt in the suit slowly left his body. "Yeah...arn't I always?" He mumbles looking more depressed by the second.

"Looks like you almost lost Griff's arm." Looking Lee over he continued. "your arm looks a little beat up as well." Lee just stared off into space, a slow trickle of blood comming from a mostly clotted gash. "Well your back to your cheerful self I see. Go ahead and see the doc. I'll fix up the mess you've left me with. I'll see about adding in a sheild to your arm. You may loose some spe-" Lee interupted him quickly.

"The speed stays. Make any adjustments you want, but nothing that impedes the speed. You wanna be useful give me some explosives. Griff likes it when things explode." With that Lee walks off the blood down to his finger tips now, dripping a path out the door.

"Well then Griff, I guess its just you and me for awhile." Alan says to the now quiet suit.

As Samuel was looking over the damage report that the computer gave off for Beowulf's condition, Thomas was sitting on the couch in the repair room, watching the news. He was out of his cyber suit, and was wearing a leather jacket and baggy jeans. His shaggy blonde hair was getting in his way, and he kept brush it out from his sight. It was the night after the fight, and the news should be covering it.

A 20-something year old woman was giving the news. The background behind her depicted a large room of important politicians sitting in booths, large wires and tubes connected to their brains. Where normal debates used to take hours or days, nowadays they take only moments through super fast connected databases. The picture zoomed in on one person.

"A bill was passed today to restrict access to certain trade routes and zones in international air space. The deciding vote was made by Arthur Hanson, and with a majority vote, the bill will be in effect within the next 24 hours. In other news, reports of missing persons is on the rise again, and officials-"

The TV was turned off, and Thomas turned to the man with the remote. It was Jake Rillnor. Thomas sat in to the cushion of the couch.

"What, no story today? No headline? We took some heavy damage out there, and we don't get any brownie points?"

Jake smiled a bit.

"Of course not. This is a political matter. If it was known that the police had managed to save Arthur Hanson's daughter, cynics would believe that he voted in our favor simply because we helped him. This way, it's much better. Besides, you have enough publicity as it is. Last night was, what, your 8th mission? Enough people know your presence. Hell, I'm willing to bet that over a thousand young boys have a poster of Beowulf hanging from his wall. And probably the same number of girls with a poster of the pilot."

Thomas gave out a chuckle. Then, he lurched forward as a heavy object hit his head.

"OW! God damn...Samuel, what the hell is your problem?"

The old man glared at Thomas. At least, he assumed that he had glared. With his large goggles on, his eyes were magnified 10x, making it look like he was glaring at everyone.

"My problem, you crazy pissant, is what you keep doing to Beowulf. Look at these damages! Right leg is down to 54%! Thruster pack is at 73% efficiency! Both arm components are down to 12%?! How the hell did you manage to do that?"

"A mech was pulling me apart. There was nothing I could do."

"Easy for you to say. YOU'RE not the one taking all this damage."

"Now don't you get involved with this."

Rick knocked on the door to get Thomas' attention. "Hey think there is something you should know. As you are no doubt aware I ran into an elite SUITS. This thing was well beyond any of ours. Seems to be able to absorb other SUITS and repair itself. Now its a safe bet that one is dead but there maybe others of that level."

"Guh?" Leon tried opening his eyes. Everything was still blurry.

"Oh, you're finally up. About time." A familiar voice said.

"Ow..." He was slapped in the face. "OWW!!!!"

His vision cleared up. It was Alexis. "What the hell did I tell you about not doing anything dangerous? You detonated three explosions at point-blank!"

"Ziltal is designed to face point-blank explosions and come away unscathed. I don't know what happened." He looked over at the huge chunk taken out of Ziltal.

"One explosion at a time. ONE AT A TIME! How could you be so stupid?" Alexis went back to repairing Ziltal's gyros. She was still pissed. "I swear to god, we already paid for the cathedral. I'm getting married on Christmas Eve with or without you."

"Sorry! But if I didn't, Rick and Jack would have probably died. I promise I won't do anything stupid again before our wedding?"

"Before? And what about after? Or lemme guess, you'll show up to the wedding with bombs strapped around your chest so you can look back when you're dead and say it was a 'blast'? And look at poor Ziltal. I don't expect you to bring him back in perfect condition, or even with as little as a scratch here and there. But wrecking his two outer layers and almost destroying the thirdmost... How stupid can you be? Don't answer that." She was finally cooling down. "Just get some rest. I'm going to reinforce your armor. Again, avoid bullets. And I can't stress this enough: DON'T DETONATE AT POINT-BLANK!"

"Sorry babe. I'll make sure to be more careful." Leon was grabbing his head. It hurt like hell.

"Is that all you've got to say for yourself?"

"I feel like I chugged a couple kegs then got hit by a truck..."

"Get back to sleep, honey. I'll wake you when dinner gets here."

Lee walked the halls of the station slowly, a small trail of blood following him. He entered the infirmary and sat down on a stool and waited for the nurse to notice him.

"Oh my," She exclaimed as she saw Lees blood covered arm. "You do need to be more careful Lee. It seems like every time you walk in with blood coming from one place or another."

Lee just grunted in response and stared off into space as the nurse lead him over to a sink. She began to gently wash his arm and the large gash on it. She kept talking about how reckless he was all the while. It annoyed Lee a little but he really didn't feel like responding. She warned him before applying the peroxide onto his arm. It burned to be sure, but Lee didn't even flinch. The nurse gave her a worried look and then guided him over to the surgery area.

"I'm going to stitch you up now and bandage it, you be careful with it though, It could break open again." She warned him, continuing her chatter this time talking about a new movie she had seen with a gentleman she had met. He just sat and listened with half his mind, nodding or grunting where appropriate. She didn't bother applying a numbing agent to the wound as she worked, they had been through this enough times for her to know he didn't need it. When she was finished she wrapped his arm in clean cloth and sent him on his way, urging him again to be careful. Lee simply waved and walked toward the parking lot. He got in his car. An old beat up NT model. Getting inside he started it up. It purred in what would be a pleasing fashion to anyone but Lee. He had gotten it worked on, all the internal parts were new. Just the body was a POS. The only reason he had even bothered getting new parts was because the car didn't go fast enough. Driving off down the highway he headed for his usual restaurant, a little 24 spot in what would normally be described as a truck stop. No trucks stopped here anymore however. Just lowlifes and gear heads. No one would mess with him in their anymore though. They were all a little creeped out by him.

“Hey, you finish the reparations and whatnot, ok? I’m off now,” she said as she patted his back and turned to walk out.
Marcus looked up from his work, saying, “Oh! I revved up your old hoverbike for you. Give it a go. It can hit an altitude of more than 50 metres now.”
“Oooo! Yipee!” with a small bob of glee, Eileen streaked off, pausing only to check her baggy clothing did not have any telltale signs of jam donut plastered on it.

It was more of a hovering scooter, actually, thought Eileen as she pressed her finger into the DNA identifier that activated the battered bike. It hummed to life, and she put on her helmet. The link from the helmet to the bike showed a simple fuel gauge and a traffic scanner, to aid her in case she manages to get into heavy air traffic.
With a sigh, she strapped on some other safety equipment, including a safety belt in case she was unseated from her bike, then got on, marvelling at how smoothly it ran now.

Reading her fuel gauge at almost full power, she grinned as she pressed in the command to open the secure police parking lot’s roll-up door. She flicked her throttle to maximum and gunned out there like a bullet, spiralling up into the air to join the other dull traffic in the sky, sometimes dipping low or high as she wove in and out of the general flow of expensive cars and other vehicles.

“Woo yeah!” she almost shrieked with glee as her bike hummed smoothly underneath her. Marcus sure did a good job, she thought as she was momentarily displaced upside down when a bus shot by her in the opposite direction, the force of the displaced air causing her bike to spin almost uncontrollably. After righting herself, she saw her turn-off and slipped quietly out, parking her rather battered vehicle in front of a rather large apartment, from which emanated the sweet aroma of cooking food, and the sounds of an open television – with its high-pitched electron whine and it’s lower voices – drifted out the open door.

“Mu-uum! I’m home!”

“It’s about time!” Eileen’s mother came out, speaking in mandarin tagalog. Eileen locked her bike and magnetised her safety equipment, so that it stuck securely to the side of the deactivated hoverbike. “Come in come in. Have you eaten yet?”
“Only a donut,” Eileen replied back in the same tagalog, the only word distinguishable in English the word ‘donut’.
“Huh,” was all her mum said before going in.
“Mm! What did you make? Sweet Egg and Tomato?” Eileen did a bee-line for the food. She doled out a generous scoop from their ancient rice cooker and grabbed a pair of chopsticks, before digging into the delicious food that was set before her.
“Hey! Take smaller bites! It almost looks like the police department starve you agents,” her mother protested, shaking her head.
“Mu-uum, I’m growing,” Eileen replied in English, “besides that, I wanna take a trip to Leon’s place to see how he is. Saved my life, he did,” she added. Her mother shook her head.
“I told you I didn’t want you to accept this kind of career at such a young age,” she said disapprovingly, “fine, fine. I can’t really control you now, and besides that, you bring back most of our money. Finish your food and get on your way,” she said, mock-crossly. Eileen grinned and wolfed down her meal, before hugging and kissing her mother on both cheeks and racing out again with an “I love you!” thrown over her shoulder.

Eileen was pretty much on her way again. She found a florist whose flowers she particularly liked and paid for a bunch of fresh pink and deep purple chrysanthemums, before arriving at Leon’s doorstep. She parked her bike carefully and knocked on the door, waiting for somebody to open it. She smelled food, and smiled with a friendly fashion when Alexis opened the door.
“Hiya Al! I’m Eileen, one of Leon’s workmates,” Eileen stuck out her hand in traditional hand-shaking fashion, “I just wanted to drop by to see how Leon’s doing. He saved my hide back there on the field,” she added in case Alexis was suspicious as to her motives.

Abagale turned towards her brother-in-law and gave hima baleful look. "I hate replacing boosters."

<I told him that.> Phal said helpfully.

Ben, trying not to let the woman intimidate him, shrugged, took a sip out of his coffee mug, and set it back down on the toolbench he was sitting on. "Well, as Phal knows perfectly well," Ben said, glaring at the SUITS, "we didn't have much of a choice. It was either we wreck the boosters by getting another burst of speed, and have you hate us for having to replace them, or it get overrun by two fresh SUITS, undamaged and with full payload, and make you hate us by dying."

<Actually,> the AI said, <My program is backed up on the stations computers, so even if the SUITS gets destroyed, I'm technically not dead.>

"Fine." Ben said. "Make her hate me by getting killed."

Abagale growled as she turned back to Phalnax. "At the very least you could of brought back the shield. It's going to take hours to make a new one."

"It probably would of taken longer to repair the old one." Ben said.
<Looked exactly like swiss cheese...only it was metal instead of cheese.>

"Besides," Ben continued, "now you can do that thing you wanted to try. You know, mount a plasmus manipulator on the shield to give it another layer of protection."

Abagale didn't answer. Ben could tell by her look that she was avoiding talking about something.

"What's wrong?" Ben asked.

"It's Michael." Abagale said. "He's trying to talk me into leaving. He's convinced the Mafia or the Triad or some other group is going to wipe out the SSF, and that I'll be killed when it happens."

Ben shook his head. Michael's been paranoid ever since we were kids. he thought to himself. He tried to talk me out of joining the police force for the same reason.

"You mentioned, of course," Ben said, "that you never actually go out into the field, that you stay here at NYPD headquaters...one of the most secure structures on the face of th Earth. Heck, for all intents and purposes, NYPD HQ probably is the most secure place on Earth, with standing armies reduced and such."

"I know, and yes, I've told him that. And, on some level, he understands that, as well. The thing is he's been talking alot recently about wanting to start a family..."

"Ah!" Ben said, raising his hands. "I draw the line at personal conflicts, even if it is my brother and my sister-in-law."

Abagale nodded, and looked back at Phalnax. She still didn't look very happy.

Ben sighed. "Fine, Abby, I'll break my own rule and ask you. How do you feel about starting a family?"

Abagale shook her head. "I don't know. I've always wanted kids, but I love my work here, and I can't do both."

Ben nodded. "Well, that's something that you and Michael are going to have to work out. And I don't know if it will really help, but while I like having you here, and I know for a fact that Phalnax absolutely loves you..."

<Like the Mother I never had....or something like that> the SUITS AI said.

"...But it's your life. You're going to have to choose what you want to do with it. Me and Phal can get by if you want go have a family, but we'll be just as happy to see you hang around and keep us in line."

Abagale smiled, and walked over and gave her brother-in-law a hug. "Thanks, Ben."

<Ahem.> Phal said after a few moments. <I hate to break up a touching family moment, but I am sitting over here with bits and pieces missing.>

Abagale smiled. "Fine, you big baby."

Ben sild off the table. "I'm going to find some breakfast and get some shut-eye. Don't let Phal whine at you too much."

<I don't whine too much. My calculations show I whine in proper portions.>

Thomas turned to Jake Rillnor.

"Jack is right. There was some weird suit out there. Beowulf had no data on this model."

"Which doesn't bode well, since I'm supposed to be updated with the latest information in every aspect of every subject, enemy SUITS included. Maybe Dr. Niko made different SUITS without telling us? Though he may technically be my father, I wouldn't trust that man very far."

Jake turned to Beowulf.

"Keep in mind, you're not programmed to trust. In fact, you're not programmed to have personal opinions. Just remember, we're still looking into how you do that."

Jake turned back to Thomas.

"It's an interesting model, sure. Certainly different technology than what we can produce right now. Next time I have clearance to speak to him, I'll bring it up. For now, just rest and get repairs. You never know when you'll need to go on another mission."

Jake turned, and left the room. Thomas looked over at Samuel.

"I'm going to head home. You want be to bring you anything tomorrow?"

Samuel looked up from his work. His goggles jutted out from his face, magnifying his eyes. His arms were elbow deep in Beowulf's chest compartment, trying to relink some of the crushed wires.

"Coffee beans. I'm almost out of coffee beans."

"And bring me the latest A/V feed by Crystial Clarkson. She's my favorite actress, you know."

Thomas gave out a small chuckle, then left the room. He headed down to the garage, and found his vehicle. It was a sleek design, made for two people to ride in. He hopped in, and zoomed out of the garage. He tilted the front up, and blasted off to the Skyline Highway.

"I am so glad my SUITS only care is fighting." He said shaking his head and went back to his own machine. Maria was hard at work. "Good your here. I need some help with the interface. Get in."
"Pushy as always." He got in and hooked up to Striker. "So Striker, what was your take on that thing?"
<We had our proverbial butts handed to us. I just couldn't keep up.>
Maria over heard them talking though her own neral outlet. "Only three reasons it could have completely outmatched all of you. It turned off the safeties but by the sounds of it then it should have overloaded after a few minutes. Also possible it went weaponless to increase its abilities but shouldn't have increased its speed that much, plus it also had enhanced strength and endurance. Only other alternative is that it was able to absorb extra mass without having to deal with the increased weight. We have seen examples of SUITS able to negate energy fields. In anycase its a superior weapon. If only a handful attacked us, we wouldn't stand a chance."
"How reassuring." He simpley melted into his seat and began working on his controls.

Alexis was suspisious of the flowers, but she yelled at Leon countless times about being jealous, so to avoid being hypocritical she ignored it. "Oh, hi. I'm sure we've met. Come on in." As Eileen came in, she closed the door behind her, and led her to the living room. "We were just going over Ziltal's video logs."

Leon paused the recording and got up. "Hey Eileen! Good to see you. I went over those reports, and Alexis and I just can't figure out how that SUITS survived the blast. Ziltal's view isn't too much help." He pressed play on the remote, and the TV showed ZIltal's logs.

~The face of the elite seemed to almost be grinning. Leon's voice chimed in, "Casualties are my specialty! Hahahah-" and the explosion went off. The armor of the SUITS was being ripped off, for what he could see. The explosion even hit the person's skin, but just barely.~ Leon put it on fast forward through the part where he was face down. He put it back on play as it showed him being picked up. ~The SUITS was standing again, with holes here and there. It managed to walk around, and seemed to fix itself using debris as spare parts.~ The video logs shut off.

"It just doesn't make any sense. That blast should've taken out the SUITS without leaving as much as a trace of a skeletal system. Its as if it has only strengths, no weaknesses." Alexis said, sighing afterward.

"So what brings you here?" Leon asked Eileen.

Damien pushed opent he door to Thomas' office and immediately followed it with a bout of vicious cursing as he rubbed his forehead from where it had hit the threshold.

"Stupid frigging doors..."

He glanced over to his boss.

"Sorry I didn't knock, but I heard about the elite SUITS you were fighting last night. Didn't actually engage it, much to my regret, but I'd like to know more. So if we see itt he enxt time, we can kill it."

Eileen was rubbing her chin, and seemed to wake from deep thought.
“Huh? Oh. I just thought I’d drop by to see how you’re going, since you saved me an’ all… I brought flowers… Kinda like a chinese tradition, maybe a bit of European as well, since you all seem to bring flowers for the unfortunate. NOT that I mean you’re unfortunate an’ all…” she added sheepishly as she handed the chrysanthemums to Alexis. DAMNIT, I get so nervous when I’m not supposed to!

“You look like you’ve recovered a bit. And with that super SUITS beating the uh, crap out of you without even lifting a finger… I think I may have an idea as to why it survived the blast,” Eileen added, still pondering, “It seems like the thing is more organic than any other SUITS we’ve encountered so far. What it seems to do – where it started picking up stuff and patchworking it up to repair itself – is that it’s using some sort of… materials manipulator to refit and refine the junk to its liking, then just simply… reattach the modified piece of scrap and linking itself back together again.
“I’m also guessing that you guys would already know that to survive such an impressive blast at point blank range – courtesy of Leon – its armour would have to be extremely dense and heat-proof. But I believe recently there have been experimentation on making super-dense, yet light-weight materials, so the SUITS could have been coated with such materials, and when the blast hit, it just… kinda took it off like an outer shell, looking like it was the actual armour, and exposing bits and pieces of the inside where it could be repaired easily. Show that last bit, where it’s repairing itself… yeah. It looks like it’s got some sort of molecular reshaper of some sort… Umm, do we even have those sorts of things in stock, or are they new in the market?” Eileen suddenly wondered, watching the rerun of the SUITS picking up various bits and pieces and… ‘welding’ it back onto itself.

Her phone-comm suddenly vibrated in her right baggy pocket. She plucked it out with some difficulty – mostly because her white scarf was in the way – and put it in her ear, the mic sticking out stiffly at the side of her head.
“Sorry guys,” she said as she walked a little away from them, “This is Cliff hanger, Eileen Dover.”
“Hey ‘Leenie,” Marcus’ voice cut into her ear.
“Marcie!” Eileen used a very feminine term of his name. Marcus ignored it, surprisingly.
“I’ve got some odd footage here in Slipstream. Where’re you?”
“At Leon’s place.”
“Oh that’s fantastic. This concerns him. Very much.”
“Is this to do with the SUITS surviving something it shouldn’t have?”
“Uh, yes. Yes it is. Is Alexis wondering about it too?”
“We are stumped. Slipstream probably had a more accurate view as to what happened.”
“You think you could invite them over to my lab for a little chitchat?”
“I dunno. Leon looks pretty knocked up, though he’d probably deny it,” Eileen added as Leon opened his mouth, “I’ll tell them,” she put a hand to the mic and turned to the others. “My techie wants us to all rendezvous at his lab some time soon. It’s to do with the uh, ‘healing’ SUITS. I think he’s come up with something. You think you can make it today?” she asked.

OOC: If Leon agrees, she’ll just say they’ll be there in a jiffy and then hang up. Then they can whiz over there via the many transport systems we all have ^_^

Not too far off a bizaar SUITS stood on a near-by roof. It had, among other things, seveal crab claw like arms petruding from its back and a large energy canon like arm. "Hmm lets see lets see. Sadly I couldn't get a GPS tracker but I did manage to piece together their routines. Now I just wait for the criteria to be met, then I will have them within my grasp once more."

"Oh, sure thi-" Leon was cut off.

"Leon, you still need to rest. I'll go and bring back a copy." Alexis said hastily.

"Its only minor burns and bruises, and I can drive with broken bones." Leon was somewhat confused.

"You've also got a minor cuncussions, and I don't want you moving much till you've recovered. Just... sit and design new toys for Ziltal. Work with him for designing that wave disruptor you wanted." Alexis said, grabbing her purse. "Just relax! I'll inform you of everything. Ellie, we should be going, shouldn't we?" Alexis led her outside and headed to her brilliant blue '42 Zephyr Windrunner. "I'll follow you. Don't worry, this old heap can keep up."

OOC: tell me if i've screwed up somewhere

Eileen gave a sympathetic glance towards Leon before she let herself out after Alexis.

They were quickly on their way, with Eileen pausing by another donut shop to get some 'munchies'.

~

"What have you got?" Eileen said as she and Alexis strode purposefully into his lab. Marcus looked up, a pair of comical, impossibly magnified glasses perched precariously on his nose. He blinked at them with those abnormally sized eyes, before whipping them off. In an amusing fashion, he then hung the oversized goggles by its strap onto one of his spike-punked hair. It clung there securely, swinging like a dilapidated pendulum. He rubbed his slightly oil and soot-stained hands and walked over to the repairing Slipstream. The computer was currently fastening a new stinger onto the damaged tail, and Eileen noticed with satisfaction that there was an extra compartment installed on it. Most likely a plasma manipulator in the shape of a shield. Marcus works VERY fast.

“Ah, Eileen. And you must be Alexis. Pleased to meet the maintenance woman behind Ziltal,” he picked up the head-piece, which had been temporarily removed and linked to the computer.

<Greetings, Eileen. Greetings Alexis.> the metallic voice grated softly into the room.

“Hey! You fixed that glitch with the voice.”

“Yeah, I got a bit annoyed myself. But enough of that,” Marcus rubbed his hands together, “it’s amazing how Eileen can wreck everything else BUT the helmet of the SUITS. So not surprisingly, the footage I got – courtesy of Eileen’s own steady head – is clear of interference or damage.”
Marcus moved to a keyboard with too many keys and punched in a few numbers.
<Accessing previous mission data.> Slipstream confirmed, before throwing a picture up onto the screen. It was stunningly clear and well-focused, as well as extremely steady. Eileen rubbed the back of her neck thoughtfully.
“I never knew I had such a steady head,” she grinned as the strip of animation began to play.

It depicted a moment before Ziltal redeployed itself back to tackle the larger SUITS, then played a blow-by-blow scene of the initial deployment of explosives, during the explosion – the graphics was intense, a brilliant flare that was immediately dimmed by the SUITS’ reaction to too-bright light – and right after. They watched as the enemy SUITS, suffering heavy damage from the point-blank range explosion, staggered back a bit before putting a robotic arm out onto the ground. It touched a piece of shredded shield shrapnel, and… the shrapnel seemed to writhe and shrink, then reshape itself, bathed in a sudden, yet extremely faint glow of blue lights that emanated from what looked like three holes in each finger.

Marcus paused it there.
“You see that there? Did you know that Slipstream was the only one with that view out of every other SUITS combating that enemy SUITS? I asked every other techie out there who had their SUITS in on the mission and none of them recalled seeing something like this.”

<My data is not corrupted, but I lack necessary equipment to catalogue and define what my sensors picked up.>

“When I checked in the basic Police category of weapons and other specialized equipment, there was no output result that matched the properties of that blue light. Also, the funny thing is, Slipstream was the only SUITS that was in the RIGHT position to see it. Any other angle, and the light would’ve been lost because of the special way the enemy SUITS’ gloves are modified. See those curved pieces on the fingers?” Marcus attempted to zoom in as close as possible, and they all did see the funny groove on either side of each finger, “they act like mufflers to the light, absorbing it before it gets any further. I have yet to figure out what the HELL the SUITS is made of, because as far as I’ve been informed – and we techies get informed pretty quickly on what’s hot and what’s not in the SUITS market area these days – we haven’t cooked out anything dense enough yet light enough to withstand point-blank range explosives. Powerful ones at that, too. Ziltal was specially designed – thanks to the marvellous work of Alexis – to minimise damage should such a situation arise. But you see before,” at this, Marcus rewound to the moment before detonation, “you see there?” he pointed, “It’s clearly not even worried about being hit by what… three of Ziltal’s more powerful explosives? Hell, it IGNORES Ziltal.”

“So what do you think the blue light is?” Eileen asked.

“What do I think? Judging by what it can do to the piece of scrap metal, it’s something akin to plasma manipulators, only on a far, FAR more advanced degree,” Marcus paused, frowning.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Eileen was frowning too.

“Only if your thoughts involve fish.” A dodge as Eileen’s light punch grazed his shoulder. “I think I do. This has got to be something the crime bosses cooked up in their own advanced little labs. What it does, taken from this SUITS’ example, is that it allows a molecular reconstruction of an object to some certain degree. OUR technology certainly haven’t advanced to a degree where we touch on legendary Alchemy.”

“A materials manipulator…” Eileen’s voice trailed off a bit, before becoming stronger again, “Slipstream, I need your opinion.”

<I do not give opinions.>
“Shutup and give me one.”

Slipstream paused for a moment, before replying, almost reluctantly.
<Logistically, such a manipulator would not exist. It takes a good deal of work and energy put in together to create machines like us. It would require greater energy and work to reshape materials at such short notice. Therefore, it would seem to me that some sort of energy field is at work, warping the metal to suit its desires. My best guess is a mix between EM field and GM field, although a SUITS operating below 55% efficiency shouldn’t be able to activate such a field and hide it from other SUITS sensors. Besides that, I only saw it for a split moment before the flight tank changed positions, and I lost visual to the uncategorized equipment. At risk of quoting human, I am at a lost as to what I witnessed, but as I had previously stated, I was poorly equipped, and had suffered damage. Alexis, do you have any idea as to what it may be now?>

"Jack, could you come over here for a second," Ben grated out angrily. Cham obviously wasn't the most damaged of the SUITS brought back, but Jack usually brought Cham the least damaged. Jack was careful not to get too close, because he knew his brother would lash out at him in some way.

"Uh... Bro, you know I didn't mean to-- GAH!" Jack was cut off as his brother punched him in the face, right under the eye. While this wasn't the worst Jack had ever recieved, it was surprising to see his brother be the one dishing out the pain. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!"

"I think you know," Ben replied calmly, shaking his fist a little from the punch. "Jumping off of a building. Engaging an enemy SUITS when you know you could just sneak around and surprise it. Acting like a moron. Bringing Cham back in shambles. You don't normally do this! What the hell came over you!"

"Ya know, I think you're being a little too hard on him Ben. Jack DID have to extract the target, so he didn't have much of a choice," Cham stated matter of factly.

"Yeah, Ben, you're overreacting. I know this is the worst I've brought Cham back, but you should see what happened to everyone else! They got ripped apart!" Jack rubbed his eye. He knew he was gonna get a black eye from this, he just knew it.

"I don't give a damn what happened to them, that's the concern of their own technicians. I only care about Cham, and right now I have to revamp the legs, make sure the back isn't jutting into your own, practically reattach the right shoulder, work out the dings you got from the bullets, and I pretty much have to repaint all of him after that freefall you took."

"So... it's not too much to ask if you install some more things in me then?" Cham asked innocently.

"Actually, I'd be more than willing to install some things in you if it keeps Mr. Moron over there from bringing you back like this again."

"Hey! You know I won't do it again!"

"I'm not taking any chances," Ben said smoothly as he looked at a list of things Jack and Cham had thought up on a computer moniter that was linked to Cham. "Besides, with these ideas, I could make you some stuff that could make your sneaking job easier as well. I can guarantee you'll like it."

"Really... Well, you get to workon that stuff. I'm gonna get something to eat. I swear, they never let me get anything around here," Jack mumbled as he walked off, still rubbing his eye.

"Let me guess: You'll kill him in his sleep?" Cham asked Ben as Jack walked out of the room.

"You guess right, my artificial friend. Now let's get to work on you."

As Lee pulled into the lot he saw the usual assortment of Goons and thugs outside. Someone had a large truck today, most likly a weapons deal. It wasn't Lees job to interfere with small stuff so he didn't bother checking the plates. Lee parked and turned off his engine. He grabbed a small black bag and climbed out of his car. He pressed a button on the keys and activated its security device and then walked inside. When he entered he knew something weird had happened in his absense. Their were too many people here. Not so much as anyone else would find it odd, but Lee tended to notice things like this. One group didn't seem to fit in. Their cloathing was too nice, and their guns conceled around their bodies were too good. The Thugs that usually hung around here carried automatics and moddified armor peircing hand guns. Along with the occasional high explosive. This group was to neat, to clean. They looked like professionals.

Lee descerned all this with just a glance. He simply walked over to his usual seat and sat down. The waitress walked up to him and asked him for an order. She knew what he would order, he ordered the same thing every time. Her mind looked elsewhere today however. Which made sense to Lee sense she had gotten pregnent. She had probably just noticed herself. It was the slight shift in the way she was walking that gave her away. She had probably been sweet talked by some Moterhead that had been passing through. Oh well, not his problum. Lee ordered his usual combination of black and red. Which was his way of asking for a burger. She moved off right as he felt someone aproach him from behind.

The smell on his cloathing, and the fact he bothered aproaching Lee, gave him away as one of the new comers. Lee turned around and met his eyes with a dead sort of stare. The man hessitated for a moment before asking if he could sit down next to him. "Do what ever you want." Lee said in a sad voice. As he turned back to the counter. The man sat down next to him and began to study Lee closley.

(Meanwhile, in the hangar...)

Predator lay in repose on the angled support frame, its access plates opened so it looked as though it was a gutted shell. The room it lay in was fairly large, with power cables running from wall sockets into the frame. Beside it was a tall rack, about one and a half meters tall, with all sorts of power tools dangling from it, their leads going to the same power socket in the wall. A worktable was on the other side of Predator, its surface strewn with papers, tools, a pistol, and for some unfathomable reason, a dolphin plushie.

The door flew open with a boot from the figure in coveralls, whose face was obscured by the mountainous stack of fast food from the Family Feedbag down the street. The SUITS' "eyes" lit up, and the targeting laser shifted into the visible spectrum, resting lightly on the bags of food.

Ah, Miss Rebecca Chalmers. Would you care to take your mind off food for a moment and attend to me?

The figure set the bags on a nearby table, careless as to how it was already covered in tools, and turned to the SUITS. The face revealed was that of a young woman, shiny with a slight perspiration. She unzipped the front of her coveralls and slipped out of the sleeves, exposing a well-toned torso covered only by a black sports bra.

"You know, you're a real hangar queen, Predator."

I should be. However, you will relish your task today - I have not been significantly damaged.

Rebecca's eyes widened in disbelief as she digested what Predator had to say, then walked up to the SUITS. After a brief procedure, she looked up again.

"By God, you're right. No hull breaches, and most of this damage was done by low-caliber rounds and bashing through woodwork. What happened? Did Damien kill them all without alerting them? You've got to teach him how to do this more often..."

Actually, he did not participate much in battle. He dispatched several flunkies, but apparently it was the other SUITS which took a beating from their confrontation with some sort of... 'elite'.

"I'm surprised he didn't jump in and try to rip its head off, like he likes to do."

I was surprised myself. But I am only a coordination AI and it is not my place to instruct the pilot, only to enforce his decision-making.

"It certainly seems like an improvement." She giggled. "More off days for me!"


I do not think so. he seemed... distracted during the mission. Now he is indulging in the human emotion known as... 'depression', I take it?

"Him? Depressed? Why?"

You understand Damien is proud, vengeful, and eager to engage in CQC, do you not?

"Yes, I do..."

So you must understand that for him to have weathered the encounter with barely a scratch would be far worse than to have been terminated in the midst of a pitched battle. It is compounded when others did battle in his place, and even more so when he did not get the chance to demonstrate his unarmed combat techniques. It is irrational and foolish, but you humans do as you humans are.

Rebecca shuddered. What Damien did to people belonged on horror movies.

"So what are you trying to say?"

Refit me. The usefulness of the plasmacaster has come to an end. We are to expect higher-intensity combat in future and the weapon will not suffice. Something to attack multiple targets at once with a disabling effect is preferred.

"Don't know if I've got anything good... wait. You know those upgrade schematics I downlaoded and never used? I just thought of something perfect..."

Excellent. Do so, then.

"...but only after I finish my Ten-Pound Terror."

It was impossible for Predator to cluck in disapproval, yet somehow his mechanical voice carried a ringing note of derision.

Your appetite will be the death of you, woman...

(OOC: Very good, guys. New chapter up in a bit. This actually works very well with my plans... And also, the pilots and their SUITS are the equivalent of celebrities. They aren't a secret, and people know just how powerful they are.)

Thomas arrived at the apartment that he lived in. It wasn't much. But it was home. He never invited anyone from the SSF over. He never had a reason. He might have been a little embarassed, too. As he walked to his door, his key in hand, he noticed two little boys playing in the hall. They had little action figures, and seemed to be having a great time.

"Predator would win. Look at this weapon! And he can turn invisible. He woud definitally win."

"No! Beowulf would win! He's big, and he's got a big sword, and he's really smart! That's what my older brother said."

"Yeah, while my older sister says that Predator could kill anything. And his pilot is a cyborg! He's part machine!"

"Well, Beowulf's pilot lives here in this building!"

"No he doesn't!"

"Yes he does!"

Thomas decided to head into his apartment before he was dragged into their fight.

Before he went to bed, he stuck a holo-disk into a constant feed. He was downloading the A/V feed that Beowulf wanted. He then jumped into his anti-grav hover bed. He closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

OOC: I'm posting this here because it happens before the next morning and it isn't very important, just me having fun.

"Your Darryl Lee Banh correct?" The man asked him finally.

Lee looked at the man with his usual downtrodden expression. "Why would you want Darryl Banh?" Being careful not to let his voice fluctuate at hearing his full name.

The man studied him for a moment then muttered something about 'not being able to be him.' He then said "I have a letter for him. I was told you knew where to get ahold of him." Lee nodded to this so the man continued, handing over a small envelope. "This is from someone that want him dead. Thats all I can say." The man then got up and motioned for his Friends at their table to leave. As they got up and left the usual crowd looked very nervously at Lee.

Lee reached over and into his bag, causing a couple of people to shift. He pulled a small knife out and used it to open the letter. He pulled out a picture of the large mech he had battled. It looked a little better then when he had left it. On the back it had written one phrase. 'We will battle again.' Lee put the picture back into the envelope and placed both back inside his bag. He sat their and ate his food. Thinking over what this sort of thing would mean. For all he knew that man could have been the pilot. Yet how did they get his full name? It wasn't put on any merchandise. It wasn't even listed on most of the communications. Lee reached into his bag and pulled out one of the things hidden inside, a rather unique looking Uzi. He put the strap on the handle around his wrist and continued eating his food. He wasn't ready to die quite yet.