OOC: I've actually been meaning to post this, I just got busy over the break. Anyways... meet: M4... 2.0!

The light turned blue, a rush of data was washed over the young droid's mind, he screamed in shock, in horror, in pain, in so many emotions that one was no clear victor. His body started to shake, his head tossing from side to side, internal sensors and alarms going off in every sector of his frame.

And then darkness. Everything turned to black.

"You are ready young one. Enter the light and see your new form."

The spotlight returned to the center of the room, however not showing anything. There was a light footstep, then another one, then a third one as a robed foot entered the light. After another two steps, an entire figure was in the light, robed as the others were around him. He paused in the center, the head bowed down.

A hand stuck out of the side, reached around to the opposite shoulder, then, tossing off the cloak, was a huminoid figure covered in a black body suit, with very little equipment on him. There were two pistols on either hip complete with silencers, one of them with a scope for mid range sniping, two wrist holders with throwing daggers, a single combat knife over the left side of his chest, and a retractable metal bo staff attached to his belt. His face was also black, the other other feature a round optical lens that matched the one on his former frame. "You may call me M4. I am ready for whatever you wish of me."

Primus put down a window. "We have broken our interdiction. Our intelligence has located a terrorist cell related to the recent attack on us. You're with me. We've created a decoy copy of your old programing to work with Crow, in giving any prying eyes that you and me are still in eden. The cloaked blank faced shadow who M4 had known as Crow leapt over the table. In the field address me as Kagemusha."

Azrael saw the retreating soldiers and popped out of the train long enough to unload Betsy on them. A few fell down, but one went prone, and started shooting back at Azrael. Betsy was out of ammo.

Not wasting any time, Azrael pulled his Browning and shot the man three times.

"Sir, do we pursue?" was the clear voice of Jax across the com channel. Azrael didn't want. He stayed inside the train but worked his way down.

OOC: Reserving this post for the weekend. Just to let you know I'm still here,

M4 nodded, "Kagemusha. Your name has been stored for future reference. Since we are using codenames, I shall be Nanashi. When will we move out?"

Jason replied to Jax's radio call. "Negative. Do not pursue. They're falling back to their command vehicle, and I've already got the Phantom waiting for them. We can just clean up the guys still here."

"We leave now." Kagemusha laid his hand on Nanashi's shoulder and looked up. Their data rocketed skyward and was broadcast along the network deeply encoded in the restablishing connection. The data transmission dropped them in a european forrest at night.

"It's a 20 mile hike to the target, we better get moving." Kage musha took off like a shot. He ran at cheetah like speeds through the forrest of Cyber France.

Nanashi nodded and bolted right behind him, meeting his speeds with his new found programming. "This... this power is amazing. I've never felt like this..."

Azrael was in the shadows of the train, with just the muzzle of Betsy and one eye visible. This was the end of the line, though he could see the regrouped soldiers. There were very few. Very, very few. Wolf would be mad about this decision, but Azrael decided to go ahead with it anyways.

He switched Betsy over to full auto. The thing about .50 caliber bullets was that they were the most powerful bullets in the world. Snipers could use a 2$ bullet to take a 3-million$ plane out of action for months. The only thing that stopped them was to have a massively thick block of dense cover in between you and the shooter.

It so happened that the command vehicle didn't have this massively thick armor. When Azrael opened fire on full auto, and swept his fire back and forth, bodies didn't even slow down his bullets, and he kept sweeping and reloading in record time.

OOC: This is taking too long time for summarization

BIC: In a matter of only 10 minutes the remaining enemy troopers were cleaned up. Jason wasn't very happy with Azrael breaking orders and taking out the command vehicle, but whatever. They had the data at least.

Jason was still having trouble walking, so he was put onto the Phantom in a stretcher just to make sure the nanites healed him right. Kaitlin held his hand the entire way back.

He didn't feel that for the whole trip because he had to do a Cyber World jack-in debriefing mid-flight...apparently Stoyanoivch wasn't happy with the after-action report.

"So, you blew everything up as per-usual? No prisoners? No way to interrogate anybody?" Alex sneered.

"Good God man, we have the data we came for, it at least tells us who was commanding them!" Jason shouted back. "I got hit by a goddamn humvee and you're telling me this isn't good enough! And on top of that...someone knew what was up. Nobody fires missiles at a cloaked jet."

"Well, given what your nanites are supposed to do that should be child's play."

"Alex...shut up."

General Wesson broke up the impending fight. "General MacKenzie, you did fine work despite what the intelligenasia demands. I know you're a bit mad about being ambushed, and there is a chance of a leak in the chain of command; we'll look into it and of course you're free to do so as well."

"I will..." Jason said. "Any other leads you need me to investigate? I may be out of RW action for a bit though."

"Well, we do have something. Check your desk when you get back." Wesson said.

"Very well" Jason said as he logged out.

Jax was looking at Azrael with horror in his eyes. Azrael didn't notice, and calmly put Betsy back into her box, then began to take off some of the heavier equipment, especially the com, and pack it away. Jax was cradling his Sniper Rifle, which was a bit banged up, but he was still looking at Azrael. At long last, Azrael noticed.

"You...you killed them. You just gunned them down, tore them apart."

"Of course. They posed a direct threat to us."

"They were retreating! And you never told them to put the guns down, or to surrender! You just opened fire!"

Azrael rose and walked over to Jax and glared down on him.

"Of course not. That would have given away my position. This isn't peacekeeping Jax. This isn't police work. In this line of work, you kill or risk you and your team dying. I've spared better men before, and it's come back to bite me in the ass. Now you need to stop wearing diapers and accept that you're in the big leagues now."

There was a clacking heard. Azrael looked down and saw that Jax had placed the sniper rifle right were Azrael's heart was. Then Jax pulled the action, loading the chamber. To say it was tense was an understatement. Finally, Azrael scoffed and went back to his seat. Jax began to field strip and clean his rifle, after double checking that the safety was ON.

"Miss anything while i was away?" Jason said as he returned to RW

"Not much...Jax and Neil seemed to have a bit of a...conflict of interest regarding the way Neil handled the last series of soldiers." Kaitlin said.

"Yeah...I'm not too thrilled either with what he did...but frankly I'm not too thrilled with being slammed into with a 5 ton truck either."

OOC: Another Co-op post with MC.

BIC: In the light of the cyber world dojo, Jade stood breathing heavily. Monk hadn’t been kidding about beginning training again. She had gone for an hour and a half sparring with Monk, but all she seemed to come out of it with was a sheen of sweat all over her body and some bruises. Monk crossed his arms, closing his eyes and taking one deep breath. "I admit you are getting better... but you fight as if your mind is in two different places at once... Is something the matter?" Jade sat down for a minute panting. Monk had insisted that she didn't use her nanites, and Jade was getting tired. "I was...trying to think...of how to beat you..." He walked around her, "Trying to think of how to beat me? No... You shouldn't think of how to beat me, you should just feel how to defeat me." He took a few steps before continuing, "There is something else on your mind however..." Jade looked at the ground, finding something very interesting there. "The mission, it was too easy." Monk stopped, and nodded slowly, "Yes... I am inclined to agree with you."

"Why would they just let us take her like that?"

"They didn't just let us take her... we had to fight to get her. It's not like there was no bloodshed..."

"It just seemed to me that the opposition was rather...pathetic really."

"We are no longer dealing with Mastermind and his forces. They were merely mercs working for money..."

“Then why would the government send us in?"

"She was an important informant that needed to be saved." Jade shrugged, "maybe I'm thinking too much into this. I just have one of those feelings that something wasn't right. Maybe I'm spending too much time with you."

"Too much time with me? Is this a bad thing?" Jade smiled, "never."

"Good... then shall we continue with our spar?" Jade smirked and stood up. "You mean shall we continue with you beating me up?"

"No... You just need to focus on our battle...”


"You honestly think I can beat you, with no nanites, if I just focus?"

"I won't continue to... beat you up... as you put it."

"If you say so." Jade readied herself with a stance. Monk stopped once more, turned to face her, and nodded. Jade took a breath and ran at Monk with a flurry of tae kwon doe punches mixed with some Washin Ryuu kicks. Monk didn't even open his eyes and moved his body to avoid blows, brought his arms up to block some as well. Jade centered her focus to try and get a punch in. She twisted and threw an elbow. Monk had to open his eyes, dash quickly to the side and grab her wrist and elbow and kissed her gently on the cheek. "There we go... that's the Jade I know..." Jade quickly dropped to the ground, her arm remaining in his grasp and tried a leg sweep. "And what Jade would that be?"

He jumped up to avoid her leg, fell back to the ground on his knees around her, and pinned the arm he had originally on the ground above her head. "The Jade I love..." Jade managed to get into a crouch and used Monk's shoulder as leverage to flip over and land behind Monk, her arm now pinning him to her. "Really, tell me more of this Jade, she sounds interesting." He grinned and nuzzled against her, "Hm... she's a lot like the way your acting now..." with one arm, he brought her back over his body, freed himself from her grasp, then quickly stood back up, "... still thinks she can beat me."

Jade gets into another stance. "And do you think she can beat you?" He shrugged, "I think she has the best chance." With another deep centering breath, Jade launches herself again at her husband, feet and fists flying. Monk brought his hands back up, catching her fists in his hands, then blocking her kicks with his legs. "Good, Jade... now I remember why I married you..." Jade brought her knee up to catch Monk in the stomach. "And why pray tell did you marry me?" He took the blow, not moving from it. "Because... that hurt..." Jade stepped back in complete shock. "I hit you?" He nodded with a grin on his face. "How did I do that? Did you let me hit you? He shrugged, "The world may never know..." Jade smiled, "did I hurt you?"

"A bit. Nothing I can't handle..." Jade walked up to Monk, pulling him to her. "Well maybe I can make it up to you."

"I'm not sure... it may leave a lot of emotional scarring..."

"The brave and courageous Monk, finally hit by his wife."

"That could constitute as domestic violence..."

"After all the beatings and bruising I got, you might be the one going to jail."

"But you don't seem to complain..." Jade rested her head against his shoulder. "Why would I complain when I have this excellent masseuse to get rid of said bruises?"

"Wait a minute... how did all the attention get shifted to you? I'm the one in emotional distress right now..." Jade shrugged. "Why would you like a massage my poor bruised husband?" Monk lowered his head. "M... maybe..."

"Just maybe?" He stayed silent for a few minutes, then nodded slowly, "No... I do want one..."

"Well since you asked so nicely, I would be more than happy to give you one. "The smile on Monk could not have been brighter as his head lifted up.

OOC: Terrible way to leave off my post, but whatever...this mission is all but done so it's time to move on. Really wish Zeph hadn't vanished off the face of the earth though...

BIC: After being checked out by the doctors at Fort Dalek, Jason went to his office. Sure enough, just as General Wesson had said, there was a folder full of papers on the desk waiting for him.

Let's see what they've got for us this time...hope it isn't another fuckup like the last mission. he said as he carefully sat down. The lower half of his body still ached from the injury sustained from the humvee.

I've been out of action too long... he thought with some minor frustration.

He took a look at the papers. Apparently the CIA and the NSA had been keeping tabs on a man named Simon Lestrade. Lestrade used to work for Animsoft, and was one of the chief programmers of...

Holy fuck, this guy helped program Mastermind...

He read on. Apparently Lestrade had managed to escape Animsoft's HQ when it was destroyed by hiding in the basement. The Army rescued him during the cleanup sweep. He was soon out of a job though, once Mastermind became a viable threat in 2021. However, since he was the Assistant Chief Programmer for mastermind though, he had enough skill to vanish into the Private Sector. Known as "Dishonerable1" in the Cyber World, he spent almost his whole life jacked in. Rich as all hell, and that money was spent on two things. Drugs, and women.

If you've got it, flaunt it i guess...

The net result was that Cyber Force would need to investigate him, andd only to obtain if this was typical Mastermind, or if there was no way he could really be back.

And how are we going to get him to talk...? he thought as he flipped to the last page, then his eyes widened They can NOT be serious

Kagemusha stopped at the edge of the forrest. Beyond was a hill and a french chateau. The chateau was fortified, but that wasn't that unusual. There appeared to be nothing overly unusual about the old style house.

Kagemusha started to climb one of the trees. He gestured for Nanashi to follow.

A knock suddenly came on Wolf's door. After opening it a bit to see who was on the other side, Wolf saw a man standing there. He was wearing a long leather jacket that went down to his ankles, a pair of sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat that kept most of his face in shadow. The man had both of his hands hidden in the pockets of his coat. The man smiled when he saw Wolf's face.

"'Allo. You are ze man named Wolf, yes?"

Reaching a hand out of his coat pocket, he pushed the door wider. Any that saw would tell that his hand was covered in a strange glove. When he talked, it was apparent that he had an accident. His I's were pronounced like E's.

"Zuch a strange name, Wolf. You use it to associate yourself with that lone wolf, yes? Ah, a powerful name, a strong name. Well, I zuppose my name would be Thomas. I 'ave been ordered by my zuperiors to come 'elp your group with my....abilities."

Thomas's eyes scanned the room, and rested on Kaitlin. He whispered to Wolf under his breath.

"Zuch a beautiful woman. She'z yours, yes? If not, then I would 'ave to remedy that problem."

Nanashi nodded and traveled up the tree behind his partner. Upon reaching the top, he leaned in closer and whispered, "What's the plan?"

"We ob serve the base until dusk. Apply your chameleon routine, and see if you can access their connection. Kagemusha's form blurred and disappeared leaving only a slight outline of his body.

"I'm in."

New thread, go there.