Hours before Gauron's deliveries were dealt with successfully or otherwise and soon after the meeting between the leaders had been made, other events were taking place.
"What do you mean you're not letting me go!" Urd snapped angrily into Athena's face. "Or Belldandy? Skuld is our sister!"
The white-haired Goddess showed more than a few signs that she had been in the battle, including some freshly healed scars that hadn't faded it.
If they continued fading. Urd was half-Demon, after all, and though she'd never shown signs of a desire to ruin her "perfect" skin in the past, some Demons were strangely attracted to "artful" scars.
The Goddess shook her head and decided it must have been some sort of upbringing, since the Demons born in Asgard didn't show as much of that.
"You're needed," Athena said. "This project of the Ainur's feels like something necessary. I am very disturbed by the fallout coming out of Russia. It should have been contained with the missiles."
"Perhaps at least I could go," Belldandy suggested hopefully.
"Again, you are necessary here, Belldandy," Athena said. "Healthy healers are still necessary. And I think she should be prepared to help Mara as well."
"So, we're just supposed to trust Skuld's safety to a bunch of strangers?" Urd demanded angrily. "Granted, they're strangers with a good rep, but they're still not us."
"Not entirely," Athena said with a knowing smile, she glanced toward the side. "Miss Fujimi and your husband, are also not being allowed to go, but they have managed to do us a bit of a favor."
Belldandy turned to look and see Chihiro there, looking just as dissatisfied as Urd and Belldandy did. She was leaning against the door frame as Keiichi came in ahead of a somewhat altered looking Banpei.
"Banpei?" Urd said. "You're sending that robot into a war-zone to find Skuld? No offense, Banpei, you're good and all, but you stand out a little bit and you'll run out of power in a....wait a minute."
"We've worked on polishing Skuld's energy producing systems," Keiichi said going up to Belldandy and giving Athena a look that said he also wished he was going. "We made a lot more efficient. He'll be able to last a bit longer now and he'll be able to put more energy into his actions now."
His arms were on Belldandy's as he looked back toward the robot and Chihiro there.
"And we added some other stuff too," Chihiro said. "Burrowed somewhat from what Testarossa had us put into the Sciroccos."
"There's something else besides," another voice said as two figures stepped into the doorway.
*********************
Shepard and his company immediately ducked for cover as they arrived in Tokyo and found themselves within sound of a battle of some kind.
"The hell?" he demanded, glancing toward the sound from behind cover and catching flashes of blue mana in the distance.
"I believe we were briefed that the Gods in control of Tokyo had take to fighting each other," Teyla noted quietly.
"I guess so," Ronan said shrugging the situation aside. "So, where's the fun?"
"There's an underground entrance with a handful of guards," Teyla said. "They'll be hard to sneak up on given that they're just as worried about the fighting going on as we were. However, they've managed to hide the presence of either chi or mana."
"With a bunch of crazy, would be evil-overlords rampaging around on top of them?" Ronan asked. "How surprising is that."
"Yeah, our beacon is coming from in there too," Lorne said.
"All right then," Shepard said, looking toward Lorne and the other soldiers. "Let's go then."
Breaking cover, Shepard and his team darted across the street in small numbers, ones and twos, scattering about the identified location.
Someone was scene and a blast of automatic fire stenciled its way through the late afternoon.
"Damn it," Shepard said over the radio. "I was hoping that would go easier. So the little girl with the dizzy blast...6-3-4 right."
"I think you were the one that warned to keep experimenting down to a minimum, Major," Lorne responded. "We have flashbangs."
Shepard turned to Teyla as bullets splanged against his cover for no better reason than to let him know that Kolya's thugs knew where he was.
"I finally get superpowers and I have to be reasonable and say 'don't use them until you know how'," he said, rolling his eyes.
Teyla smirked briefly and nodded at him.
"Well this is why you have a trained psychic on hand, isn't it?" Teyla asked as she ran through a sequence of numbers. "I am ready."
"Everybody, flashbang on three, Teyla guides them in," he summarized. "And then Ronan leads the way. One, two..."
The guards watched inexplicably as half a dozen flashbangs shifted unerringly into the mouth of their exit. One of them reached down to try and grab for one of the items, when all six erupted into a blast of sound and light.
After that they were inside.
This, of course, was what was supposed to happen and everybody realized it.
***********************
Skuld laughed in triumph as she finished the third of the little robots and wiped at her forehead. She'd had to take a few shortcuts for the programming, but they only really had two functions right now: help her make more of them and incapacitate any threats, preferably non-lethally.
She could hear the efforts being made to tear into her force field and knew that it was going to come down pretty soon, so she turned back to the six-legged thing that bore a passing resemblance to one of her greatest nuisances.
And she switched it on.
"All right," she said, standing up. "Everybody list..."
Skuld stopped as she turned around behind her and saw that there were a lot more of the six-legged robots than the two she'd already made plus the one she'd just finished. She counted about thirty in easy view, and there were holes in the wall that implied some had left the area.
"Uhhh...." she said nervously as she watched the things progressively tearing apart the room she was in. "You're not supposed to make so many of yourself..."
They didn't respond, which was hardly surprising given how she hadn't had time to really give them a true AI like Banpei's.
"Hey! Stop that!" Skuld shouted releasing a small burst of mana directed one of the robots and causing it to fall apart almost instantly.
The remaining members of the swarm turned about to regard Skuld.
"Incapacitate threat?" Skuld asked.
Her mind cast backwards to something Chihiro had said.
"All the brilliance of Einstein and Tesla combined, and the forethought of a monkey."
*********************
"It looks like the shock generated by whatever she did is lessening," one of the guards said. "These psychics we brought with..."
And Skuld burst out of the supposedly electro-sealed door and started running pell mell for the exit.
Kolya was about to order someone to stop her in a casual tone when the small swarm of insect like robots swarmed out of the room after her.
"Go! Go!" Kolya shouted, firing at the little mechanical monsters and unwittingly marking himself as a threat.
He had a minor thought, a bit later than would have been useful, as corollary to one of the "Evil Overlord Lists" he'd heard while on Earth.
When locking someone in the storeroom, make sure it's not MacGyver. Make damn sure it's not a mad scientist.
He wasn't sure who MacGyver was but figured it was a folk hero of some sort. But it was the second part that seemed to apply now.
********************
Simmons and the rest of Amalgam's assault unit came in behind Shepard's. They had a pair of exorcists with them to shape a gate, but such were still human and could do things as swiftly as the Ainur now could.
It was also a rather noisy affair, speaking in terms of power use.
So, as Simmons, Maybourne and their unit slipped into the pre-breached location after Shepard's unit, their arrival was noted by several Gods within the area.
******************
Skuld turned a corner, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized it seemed to be a long empty corridor.
"Okay..." Skuld said. "I screwed up a little bit. This can still be dealt with."
The Goddess of the Future blew a strand of pink hair out of her face and leaned against a wall. She was out of that room now and out where she had better access to Yggdrasil and other things.
Reaching out her hand, her long handled red hammer was just there. It wasn't called the Mjolnir Mk 2 for no reason, after all. Reaching out with the next hand she found herself a handful of Skuld bombs.
"All right, Now" she said with initial confidence before slumping again. "Now this still isn't going to help me much against insane, reproducing spider-bots."
"Hey, you're the prisoner!" someone shouted behind her. "What are you doing out..."
And he blinked as a handful of knobby things flew out toward him. He blinked for a moment, wondering what the things were supposed to be. And then they burst into loud smoke in his face, knocking him backward.
A spray of bullets lashed out high over her head causing her to duck underneath even as she lashed out with her hammer and slammed it into the man's head so that he collapsed unconscious to the floor. Taking a breath, she retracted the hammer's handle to it's traveling size and tried to choose a direction to go.
The mechanical clicking sound caused her to freeze for a moment before a hole started opening up.
Skuld's eyes widened nervously as she started to runaway and then turned around to grab the legs of the soldier that had just tried to shoot her and started lugging him back with her.
"Let's use the robots from that old movie, nothing could go wrong with that," Skuld said to herself. "And let's make them help make more, easy."
Hearing voices and steps coming down from one direction, she immediately took the man with her and turned down another hallway, watching the first of the runaway robots starting to come into the hall with her.
She stumbled into a wide chamber. Until she tripped over a wire and the sound of small explosions tore through the small room. A wide sheet of metal jury-rigged into portcullis slammed downward heavily slicing into and through the legs of the man she was trying to save.
Behind her the same tripwire triggered a similar jury-rigged trap there sealing her into the little room.
The man she'd been dragging woke up screaming and moved to a sitting up position, only to be shot through the head by a bullet just moments after a little red dot appeared on his back.
Staying exactly where she'd fallen, Skuld immediately looked around the room for similar red dots and sweated nervously as she easily found another twenty in easy view with moving her head at all.
"Oh...no," she whispered.
**********************
"What the hell are these things?" Shepard asked, firing into the handful of little robots in the hallway ahead of him. "Where were those gunshots?"
"Over here, Shepard," Ronan said, pointing toward what was very clearly an only recently placed obstacle.
Especially given the severed legs.
He glanced over toward Teyla who nodded.
"There's someone behind there, extremely terrified..." she blinked suddenly, ignoring the way Ronan smirked and gestured to the severed legs at her comment of someone extremely terrified. "I think it is the girl we're here to save."
"Hey, who's in there?" Ronan shouted banging on the door.
"Don't hit the door!" a girl's voice obscured by the thickness of the door. "There are laser pointers everywhere in here!"
"Booby traps, great," Shepard said. "At least we don't have a rising tide or something."
The sound of more gunfire was heard then.
"Umm, Major," Lorne said, glancing around a corner. "You know those little robots you blew up?"
"Yeah?" Shepard asked.
"Well, there's more of them," Lorne said. "A lot more."
Next to him another of the marines was firing into the approaching mass of robots. Turning around the corner to look, Shepard swallowed. Especially as further down the hallway he saw a mercenary, probably one of Kolya's disappear under a small wave of the things.
"Okay, someone get me Tom Selleck on the line," Shepard demanded.
Behind him, Teyla and Ronan were examining the door.
"I'm sorry!" Skuld's voice whined from inside her trap.
Shepard took a steadying breath and thought about the "basic" use of just sending a burst of raw chi down the hallway, tearing through the first ranks of the advancing robots. It wasn't exactly the most tireless thing he could think of.
Experiments and experience between the Invasion day and this morning's and early afternoon's attack on Kyushu said that chi was best used to enhance already existing abilities. Shields and blasts were less efficient.
"Okay, so more Bruce Willis, less X-Men until later," he muttered. "How's the door coming."
"There's charges here," Ronan said. "If we go in after her, something goes boom and probably triggers a handful of traps inside."
"We've got company coming," Teyla shouted. "More people behind us, and I think I felt Kolya further in."
"Everything just keeps getting better," Shepard said as he nodded toward Lorne and both turned about the corner to fire into the mass.
Strangely enough each of the bullets struck a different robot in the best possible spot and not a bullet was wasted.
"Scratch Bruce Willis, Major," Lorne said. "Looks like we're somewhere between Christopher Bale and John Woo."
*********************
Kolya cursed to himself as the radio on his belt started cackling, one of his traps had been triggered. He was listening in on the banter with Shepard and Miss Wodendottir as it happened.
He'd wanted to do this in the location he had prepared specially for this confrontation. Spent weeks on it, months even, even before Gauron made his offer. It was perfect, clean, sterile and had been lined with every ward, circle, trap and security feature he could think of and afford to steal or purchase.
It had been the perfect trap to, if not kill Shepard, at the very least destroy his confidence and trust in himself.
Instead he was in an underground complex that was either subway or sewer, he bet the former due to the lack of water in most places. He was in the middle of occupied territory that had just turned into an out and out war-zone of competing barbarians with superpowers. His traps had been built over a week with what he'd had on hand.
And now his jury-rigged lair was filled with an unknown number of rather aggressive spider-things.
Still, he couldn't let it show that things were going a little bit unexpected.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said casually. "I see you've found my erstwhile guest. Now, I had originally intended someone else to be in there, but she'll do."
"Kolya!" Shepard shouted, and the man smiled as he imagined the man looking for the intercom. "This isn't like you. You've never taken uninvolved civilians hostage before like this."
"I can assure you, Major Shepard," he said. "That I was probably the best option she had. So I'm sorry it's her in there, but she's the one that didn't stay in her nice safe cell for the whole thing."
He heard a clattering sound and didn't bother to look as one of his shoulders fired on the appearing mechanical bug.
"Now if only Amalgam's people are just as predictable," he commented.
Blinking he watched as his exorcists started cautiously running past some of the mechanical bugs and noted the robots weren't bothering them.
"Something you did to hide yourself?" he asked.
"They don't attack you if you don't attack them," one of the mystics said.
"Then why did they attack the girl?" he asked.
"Teenaged temper tantrum?" someone wondered with a shrug.
"All right, make sure you two at least don't threaten them until you can find a way to turn them all off," Kolya instructed the psychics.
***********************
Simmons and Mayborne, at the head of their team, looked at the solid metal sheet or slab that had apparently fallen to cover the direct path in the last few minutes and then he glanced through one of the open hallways.
"Looks like we're going in alternate directions," he said idly. "Mayborne, that way."
"It might be better if I stay with you sir," the short, pudgy man said in an idle tone.
"I'm sure you would feel better," Simmons said. "Head that way anyway."
"As you wish, sir," the man said, clearly disappointed.
Mayborne moved his unit further down the hall cautiously, eyes looking for any sign of traps or tricks. Amalgam's soldiers were in front of him, doing their normal thing. And something caught his eye.
"Hey, don't forget to check those corners," he said. "Don't want to face some sort of demonic spider or something."
"Right," the soldier said, taking a tight turn around a piece of debris and tripping the wire there.
A moment later, Mayborne was leaping back as make shift barriers fell into place around his assigned unit and the sound of gunshots and explosions sounded within.
"Sorry guys," he said, tapping on the walls for the people inside. "You're not the only group that uses sleeper agents."
He took up his radio and started switching frequencies.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said into the radio. "This call is just to tell you that you've got a little less company than you did a minute ago."
"Who is this?" Shepard asked.
"I think O'Neil may have mentioned me a couple of times, Mayborne," he said.
There was silence and gunfire for a moment.
"Aren't you an Amalgam spy or something?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, well, Amalgam planted me in Socrates," he said heading back to the place he'd left off from Simmons. "And then O'Neil and I came to agreement."
"Uh huh," Shepard said. "Look we're a little busy, can we talk about this later?"
"Yeah, I've got your back, Shepard," Mayborne said. "Simmons won't even know what..."
He paused as he looked up the hallway toward where the exit was.
"Ah hell," he muttered.
He unleashed a hail of bullet fire at the Gods coming down the hallway and dived aside.
The first God that appeared around the corner was amused when a small round metal object landed at his feet and raised his mana shield. Then the raw concussive force of the grenade pushed into that shield and slammed the God up into the ceiling, stunning him.
And then Mayborne was spraying into the darkness with his submachine gun as he dived into another hallway.
The gauntlet had converted the little amount of chi he was able to produce and then amplified the resultant pishogue, but it was still a tool made during the Doublet System and designed mostly to stun an opponent.
Turning a corner, he was surprised and dismayed to find a hallway full of robotic spiders eating away at the surroundings and apparently blithely unaware of him.
"Demonic spiders," he said, shaking his head. "Simmons had to come this way and given the lack of dead bodies..."
Returning to his quick pace, Mayborne passed through the small hordes of machines untouched. And then behind him, one of the Gods came around the corner tossing fire and melting several of the robots.
Instantly the place was alive with shuffling, clacking, swarming mechanical spiders charging away toward the newest threat. The first God and those behind him blinked incredulously as they tiny mechanical things swarmed toward them.
Mayborne took use of the distraction to send a handful of bullets into the body and head of the foremost God, distracted as the man was, then he vanished around q corner.
He was very careful not to step on any of the many, many robotic spiders moving past him.
************************
"A deadfall room," Simmons said, shaking his head. "This must have been a hurriedly put together set up. Kolya's usually not so shoddy as this."
"He doesn't usually use quite so many mechanical traps either," a soldier noted. "Or whatever those robots are supposed to be."
"No, his modus operandi is usually highly trained soldiers," Simmons said as they carefully made their way through the choke point containing the deadfalls.
A clacking noise called his attention to a small robotic spider he'd failed to notice before.
Just as it started tearing apart the trigger of the door traps
Simmons jumped for cover just in time as thick slabs of metal debris closed him inside with his men and laser-sights flared to life just long enough in some cases for several of his soldiers to pass through some of the triggers.
Shots and twangs ran out along with the screams of his soldiers, leaving him more or less untouched with an uncertain number of traps still waiting to be triggered.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"Ahhh," an intercom in Kolya's voice said. "Simmons. I had hoped you'd show up personally. Apparently the hospitality of my house was not complete if you're not as enjoying it as thoroughly as your soldiers probably are."
Gunfire sounded in the background of Kolya's intercom.
"Kolya," Simmons said. "You didn't actually expect such a ridiculous trap to work, did you?"
"Not against Major Shepard, no," Kolya said. "And I was right. Now you, I expected to get a little deeper. Granted, that particular welcome mat has probably been eaten by now. So this is about perfection. Feel free to wait in there until the timer counts down."
There was a pause for a moment.
"Ah, didn't I tell you about that? Major Shepard, better get the girl out of there quickly," Kolya said. "And Good bye, Simmons."
Simmons wanted to hit something but couldn't move for fear of triggering a trap or even the final explosive.
Which was when the space bulged out and a segment of it opened out into a blank space beyond in which sat what could only be Leonard Testarossa.
Above them somewhere, sparks showered and the sound of gunfire carried by the intercom died away.
"Now, we can talk privately," Leonard said, shadows still covering his face where he sat. "I think, Mr. Simmons that you have a reason to live."
"And what would you know that would help me do that?" Simmons asked.
"Well, I finally found my own way," he noted. "I sure know something you don't."
*******************
"Teyla? You're the power expert, what's up?" Shepard asked.
"I've borrowed Satomi's electrical sense," she said. "And I'm working on shorting them out."
"Lorne?" Shepard asked.
"Similar problems on the door," the captain said. "The electrokinesis helps, but there's a lot of redundancy here."
"Well, hurry," Shepard said, bullets spanged off the wall next to him. "Dr. Luther's Murder-Bots aren't around at the moment, but Kolya's people just found us."
Two marines took position across the hall in another alcove, one of them aiming an assault rifle down at the mercenaries, the closest they had to a squad support weapon at the moment.
Well, then there was Ronan.
A burst of energy left his gun and cut through the crate hiding one of Kolya's men, throwing the man behind it back easily. And then he was behind the cover again.
"That was...bigger than normal," one of the marines noted.
"Well, he said, use the chi to enhance what I already have," and he shrugged.
Inside, Skuld sweated nervously as one by one, red dots vanished, and some she was sure were vanishing where she couldn't see them. Then one of the dots vanished and...
...she shrieked as several metallic spangs ricocheted around the room inside with her. She raised a mana shield, and it caught most of the impacts, raising a series of welts and bruises over her and allowing a distraction that let the last bullet through and into her shoulder.
"Turning that one off triggered a trap!" Skuld shouted. "Watch it!"
"Oh yes," Kolya's voice said over the intercom. "I forgot to mention that."
"Damn it, Kolya, just lot her out of this!" Shepard said. "This is between you and me."
"I do agree," the man on the other end said. "Unfortunately, this is not my prepared lair where I can safely turn traps on and off in case of a mistake. I have nothing against the girl, but she is hardly helpless...witness our mutual problem."
Gunfire sounded in the intercom.
"Damn that guy," Shepard said bitterly. "I'm going to kill him this time. Any ideas?"
"None that don't risk the girl," Teyla said.
A skittering sound attracted several eyes and a mechanical spider lowering itself down to one of the marines was blasted away. Further down, amongst Kolya's men, one of them shouted in pain.
"It stabbed something into my neck!" before a thump and long silence followed by renewed gunfire pointed away from the Socrates people.
"Hey, Goddess," Shepard said. "Did you give these things needles, like to inject acid into a person or something."
"Umm, it was supposed to be non-lethal somethings," Skuld said.
"Great," the Major said. "When we get back, I'm telling whoever's responsible for you that you're not allowed to watch 80s movies anymore."
********************
"As I know it, the process to make someone Ainur takes hours," Simmons said. "I do not think I have hours."
"I can take you out right now and we can get started," Leonard said.
"I think not," Simmons said, frowning as he looked around for someway to move.
"Oh well," Leonard said. "I'm afraid you'll have to present a rather more flawed demonstration then."
"What are you talking about?"
Leonard stepped out of the non-space and the patches on his cheeks and forehead weren't so much discolorations as they were places where something had been removed and empty nothingness has revealed.
Simmons opened his mouth to remind Leonard of the traps which did not go off and then a needle was sticking into his arm and something flushing in.
"A last little gift from Legion," Leonard said with a smile. "Unfortunately the only sample, we'll have to see what it does, won't we?"
***********************
"Ice!" Skuld shouted. "Look, one of the Yons! Ummm...Niichi I think. She shoots ice right or cold right?"
"What good is that going to do us?" Lorne asked.
"Ice becomes water," Teyla said. "And she moves through water."
"Do it! Quickly," Shepard said. "We've got Amalgam and Kolya and spider monsters and..."
"God!" one of the marines shouted and blistering wave of bullets and energy was suddenly sent down the corridor toward the identified threat.
A blue shield of Mana caught the majority of them before blasts of chi-enforced energy cracked a hole in the shield and hot lead poured in, slamming into the more or less bullet proof hide of the God.
At which point, Ronan rushed down the hall and slammed his fist into its head before drawing forth his sword with his other hand and slamming down.
The chi slammed down into mana which hardened resolutely against the charge, and failed to react quickly enough as the blade slid down and then slammed up underneath the directed shield through the thin layer of mana about the rest of the body.
A blast of wind filled the corridor then and Ronan was shoved back.
"More of them, great," Shepard said.
******************
"We have heretics and blasphemers down below," a tall, violent looking God dressed in a disturbing sort of leather said. "Let's see what they're here for before we start fighting about sabotage and more."
The small horde of human cultists and their Godly masters nodded as they started moving down into the hidden area in force.
"We shall bring death to the..." the God stopped as things started going to hell.
All around, vines with sharp thorns quick grew over everything in view, completely enveloping several Mantles and stabbing into and through them until each was nothing but an immobile scaffold for quick growing rose vines. Even the sudden pain and screams of the pilots within were muffled.
Three of the Mantles started to turn around and raise their enhanced mana shield too late to do anything but slow down the slashes from the sword that cut through them.
And the remainder shuddered as bursts of white, chi-enhanced explosions slammed into them in a massive missile barrage that left none of the vehicles visible in an operating manner as two figures strode calmly out of the dust to join the third who was standing up from where she landed.
One of the figures was an amusing looking robot with a staff that marched awkwardly ahead of the regal form of a Goddess with long dark hair and in his wake roses were still growing as they reached out for the fleeing humans.
"Hello, Xipe Totec," the woman in front said, leaning on her sword. "Lady Peorth would like a word with you or so."
"Thank you, Lind," the named Goddess said as she came up level with the Valkyrie. "Banpei, please see to Skuld's safety below, we shall deal with these."
Xipe Totec and the thirty or so Gods still with him, mostly category threes he noticed, exchanged looks and glanced toward where the vehicles that were supposed to even the odds against category ones had been destroyed before they could get started. Grimacing their teeth, they charged forward.
Banpei walked past them, unmolested as rose bushes rose up to intercept attacks made on him and the Gods were forced to let him pass down to the underground region.
Xipe Totec darted around Lind where her sword was swinging and battering through the defenses of the other rebel Gods easily and he made a leap to attack the woman that had apparently presumed to take up Kami-sama's ridiculous philosophy.
The vines stopped him within two yards of Peorth and started to tighten.
"God of Flaying, right? I saw some of your work in Asgard," she said with what was supposed to be casual distaste. "Goddess of the Moment. And this is the Moment where what goes around comes around."
The vines started stripping off flesh layer by layer.
***************************
Mayborne dodged aside, chuckling as another swarm of spiders covered one of his opponents, and rolled into the next hallway.
He barely stopped in front of another trap and tucked himself into a corner before the God pursuing him came barreling into sight and chasing down the hallway, pursued by the spiders.
This time, the trap wasn't anything so simple as a sealed room. Mayborne was more than glad for his extremely thick cover as the foot thick steel he'd ducked behind was bent inward by the force of the two claymores that exploded on either side of the God.
Stepping out, Mayborne shook his head at the body that remained, impressed that there even was a body.
Then one of the hands started to move and groan came up.
Stepping forward, Mayborne put his weapon to the God's head and fired.
"Ahh, Mayborne," a voice said behind him.
He whirled to see Simmons there with a somewhat manic look on his face, veins bulging just under the skin along the hair line and the edge of the face.
"Simmons, what the hell happened to you?" he wondered.
"I've been given something glorious!" he shouted. "Glorious! Full and total power!"
He laughed in a thoroughly cliche manner and twisted about with a self-satisfied smile.
"And my if it isn't, wonderful," he said chortling.
Rolling his eyes, Mayborne lifted his submachine gun and fired.
The bullets seemed to rip around the laughing Simmons and into a bunch of robotic spiders nearby. Much to Mayborne's horror.
"What the hell?" he wondered looking Simmons.
"Now," Simmons said, suddenly turning serious as he leaned over and wrapped an arm around Mayborne's shoulders. "I think it's time for you to run now."
The spiders turned to look at Mayborne who fired more bullets at them and Simmons, ineffectual as that now seemed to be, until he was pushed back into another hallway.
"Now, let's see, how to play with the space-time continuum so that nobody can leave," Simmons said. "And then we'll have fun."
The power he was given was already tearing him apart physically though he couldn't feel it, and his mind was already turning further and further away form logical routes.
******************
Skuld laughed victoriously as the water formed in the air and rained down over her forming a puddle on the ground around her. Then it was just a matter of activating her power and...
...and popping up in the hallway outside out of another puddle of water shaking in shock and pain as the dimensional barrier bounced her back.
"The hell?!" Shepard shouted. "Is she..."
"She's fine," Teyla said, at Skuld's unconscious side. "This is what happened to people that were trying to teleport when the wall came down a week ago."
"Oh that's wonderful," Shepard said. "That means we're stuck here."
"I think now's the time to get moving from this location," Lorne said. "Charge on a timmer, you know."
Shepard nodded and scooped up Skuld.
"Let's go!" he called.
The marines gave them cover as they moved away from the trapped room, Ronan and Teyla ahead to watch for more traps and enemies. Behind them Kolya's men pushed forward as well, as much to get away from the mechanical spiders as anything else.
*************
Banpei walked slowly through the underground area, digital display noting movement and making analysis as moved along. His sensors registered several other robots and garnered from their intercommunications that Skuld was among the lists of several targets they had.
An electromagnetic discharge wiped out everyone within twenty yards of him and forced him to stop for twenty seconds before starting again.
Turning the next corner found himself facing a figure that he recognized as a God on the rebel list. It looked at him in confusion for a moment before his staff came up and slammed into the God's chin and then twisted around to slam into his belly. This was finished up by a salvo of close range rockets which blasted the God into unconsciousness.
Banpei walked onward.
Several haphazardly armed and uniformed humans behind the God stared in shock and then fired out at Banpei, not understand as the crystals storing chi energy now installed into him rose a shield against the bullets. And a gas grenade or four launched out into the mass of the humans forcing them to cough and choke as he walked through them, laying about with his staff.
More spiders. They still hadn't recognized him as a threat since the EMP had erased memories before they could be transmitted. And another large number were put out of commission forcing Banpei to wait another twenty seconds to reboot.
Kolya's troops didn't even wait as the robot turned a corner to look at them with red eyes and a smiling face. However, the bullets were equally ineffective.
The exorcists with Kolya unleashed blasts of raw chi which forced Banpei to hold back a moment. And then he retaliated with a mass salvo of gas grenades and plodded onward as the soldiers retreated. A face was recognized from the lot as the one responsible for kidnapping Skuld and Banpei pushed forward silently and resolutely, it's face still smiling.
Sensors found traps as the soldiers ahead of it tried to lead him through into a pair of explosives. Banpei was mostly armed with what was intended to be non-lethal weaponry, though it had already made some settings changes when it helped take the Mantles outside. Right now, it was assessing that these, the people who had kidnapped Skuld, were willing to use lethal force.
So despite the preference it's creator had, he retaliated in kind.
The robot twisted it's head about quizzically and again unleashed a salvo of rockets which also triggered the traps that the soldiers had been trying to lead it to.
The claymores obliterated that section of hallway. Waiting briefly allowed Banpei to register the sound of Kolya's voice on the other side of the devastation and immediately it set about finding a plodding way to find the man.
Turning another corner he found another man fighting spiders. The man did not register on the list of faces for the rescue party, and Banpei reacted accordingly.
Mayborne cursed briefly as a large metal stick nearly took off his head and he rolled away from the strange robot that had slashed out with the stick.
It was just standing there, stick hold out stiffly, all the robot spiders around them suddenly still and silent. The Amalgam double? Socrates triple? The prolific traitor backed up cautiously wondering what the robot was doing.
And then twenty seconds passed and two gas canisters were launched in his direction.
**************
"Okay, anybody else think we're not going to get anywhere given the number of explosions that have probably completely changed the lay out of this place?" Shepard asked.
Far back behind them, at what had been the room Skuld was trapped in, another explosion sounded.
"It's a distinct possibility," Teyla said.
"So, are there any people straight above us?" Shepard asked.
"Umm, what are you thinking?" Lorne asked.
"I think we have enough power here to blow a hole in the ceiling and get out of here," Shepard said. "It'll attract some attention, but I think we're already there."
"Oh, I think it's a wonderful idea," a voice said.
Every turned toward Simmons, noted he was visibly showing signs of chi-use and immediately started firing. The bullets passed around him again and the weapons were put aside as Teyla and Ronan charged forward, melee weapons in hand.
"You don't seriously think that will...!" Simmons stopped as Teyla's stick slammed into his gut.
This was followed by a kick from Ronan that sent the newly empowered human flying backwards with a look of shock. The sword in Ronan's hand barely sliced through a hastily raised shield and cut a thin line across Simmons' face, followed by another blow from a chi-reinforced stick in Teyla's hand that slammmed his head downward in time to meet Ronan's knee.
Flying back again, Simmons was stumbling back ward and trying to stand, forgetting that he had all sorts of powers, as Lorne leaped past Teyla and Ronan to grab the man's arm and start laying a knife to his throat.
And at that point there was a brilliant white flash and all three of the other Ainur vanished from view.
"That's not right, the big burly guy is supposed to go down easy to prove I'm a danger," Simmons said in a slurred tone as he stood up and looked over at a shell shocked Shepard who'd just put down Skuld and then stopped as his teammates vanished.
"What the hell did you do to them?" Shepard demanded.
"Oh I just moved them outside," Simmons said, gathering himself. "They're not playing by the rules see. This isn't supposed to be a battle of fisticuffs and power versus power, it's supposed to be me with overwhelming power to destroy you all!!"
One of the marines charged forward then gun firing, and this time the bullets simply turned back on him and tore the man apart.
"Like that," Simmons said with a chortle.
Fuming with anger, Shepard gathered every bit of chi he could and lashed outward with it, cutting a swath through the ceiling that collapsed into a way out.
"No, no, you're not supposed to have power to," Simmons said. "You're supposed to outwit me! Or at least try."
"Get the girl outside!" Shepard shouted to the marines as he moved to face the insane and empowered Simmons.
Agreeing quickly, one of the marines took up the unconscious as the others moved for the exit.
Simmons tried to reach out and do something but immediately felt himself denied as Shepard was in his face and unleashing with raw anger to fuel a directed blast at the man.
***************
The three Ainur blinked as they appeared in the middle of a battle field. Two Gods they recognized from briefings as higher ups in Asgard were fighting a battle against a number of Gods which was alternately dwindling or growing based on the willingness of the individuals to come into range.
"What the hell?" Lorne asked
"Ah," Peorth said. "I could appreciate the reinforcements, someone put up a dimensional wall which is going to make it hard to get out. Think you can hold while I break it?"
Ronan stepped forward to grab a God by the throat lift him up and slam him down into the ground and then shrugged.
"Seems like something that could be done," he said.
A moment later, a chi blast ripped of the ground behind them.
****************
Simmons was trying to figure out why he was winning, the concept that the majority of his perceived power was just that: perceived. Didn't seem to occur to him, probably it couldn't any longer.
He finally had that huge reality warping power he'd envied in these lesser minds and all he could think to do with it was chortle and some sort of foolish mind games....
...which didn't work nearly as well when one's opponent was almost as strong and had been using the powers for a good month or two longer.
That Mayborne ran by again, firing against something. He turned and, at the last moment saw Simmons and then he was teleported, straight up.
************
Mayborne looked around and found himself about fifty feet up in the air and about to head downward.
"What the hell?" he shouted as he cartwheeled toward the ground, trying to right himself enough to take the fall correctly.
Slamming down he felt both legs cracking painfully.
And then he noticed he was in the middle of a battle.
"Oh this is turning into a lovely mission," he muttered painfully as he ripped a series of bullets into the back of a God focused on the swordswoman in front of him.
***************
Simmons was a trained fighter, he should have been able at least able to stand up to Shepard, but found himself unable to recall exactly what to do as the Air Force soldier slammed punch after chi-enforce punch into him, most of which he only barely deflected or avoided by doing something weird.
Getting rid of Mayborne had given him a temporary boost of confidence however and he smiled as he let himself blast outward with raw power, forcing Shepard back through the disintegrating hall and leaving him clear in a massive crater.
Panting he stood up straight, trying to appear nonchalant and dignified when a strange sound caused him to look at an odd looking little metal man with a wide hat and simple, red-eyed smiley face. The sound he heard, he realized was that of some sort of pylon that had anchored the robot to the ground against the push.
"What are you some sort of android?" Simmons asked.
Banpei didn't answer that questions and instead simply smashing his stick up between the madman's legs, blasting what appeared to be rockets at the end of the strike for extra force.
Simmons gave a high pitched squeal and went flying through the air to land near where Shepard was already standing up.
"I think you just ran out of luck," Shepard said, reaching down to grab him angrily. "If you had any to begin with."
"This isn't what Leonard promised," he muttered before vanishing in a curious bending of space and falling back into something of a non-space.
Shepard cursed angrily and then looked over toward the odd robot, which waved at him strangely. Confused as to how to respond, he waved back.
"Umm are you here for Skuld?" Shepard asked in a sudden burst of inspiration.
The robot nodded.
"Well, she was with the rest of my people," he said. "And they should be on the..."
He looked up to the massive lack of a roof above them.
"...somewhere else above ground."
***************
Simmons appeared in another room and shook his head, exhausted and his short burst of power already dwindling.
There were a horde of strange, funny looking metal spiders around him and as a test, he reached out with what remained of his ability to destroy one.
There was some reason he wasn't supposed to do that, but he forgot what it was just at the moment.
And he was still confused when the spiders swarmed over him to get rid of the threat.
*************
The marines with Skuld reacted immediately when the first of them died to a gun shot, but the next three gunshots killed three more men. Only the remaining two marines managed accurate return fire, but the target was already behind cover by then.
Then that massive blast of chi sent them reeling off their feet and their enemy was on them before they could recover, knife slicing through their throats.
Kolya checked to make sure they were all dead and then snapped up the unconscious Skuld. If he could get away with her, then he could set this up again at the proper location and then he'd be able to finally pay Shepard back for his humiliations.
He paused on seeing the open battle going towards what had been the entrance of the underground death trap. Grimacing he started to turn about to the other direction, when he felt the barrel of something cold and metal behind his head.
"I feel like asking, Kolya," Shepard said behind him. "Did you see the sunrise?"
"What are you..."
And then gunshot carried through the air, swallowed in the sounds of battle.
"Tom Selleck, you wouldn't understand," Shepard said as he bent down to check Skuld.
The robot came up behind him and seemed worried despite the lack of a real expression.
"All right," Shepard said. "Think you could carry her?"
The robot nodded.
"Then let's..."
First one robot spider and then several appeared and Shepard grimaced.
Until they all stopped moving suddenly as did Banpei, for twenty seconds.
"Hey all right," Shepard said. "That'll work."
They worked their way down to the battle going on and moving toward the center. He arched an eyebrow at the Goddesses and then his team.
"Well, the dimensional wall fell apart," one of the Goddesses, he recognized her from reports as Peorth, making her THE big gun at Asgard. "Without much effort too."
Officially at least.
He'd heard about Peorth. He'd seen Mara and Belldandy.
Two of those were visibly doing a lot more than the third.
"Okay," Shepard said. "Explanations on that later. For now we have a rather large group of robot spider things that keep building more of themselves. Think anybody can do an EMP that covers maybe....five miles?"
Peorth grimaced.
"Get Skuld out of here, Banpei as well. It won't be selective," she said. "Then yes. I think I can do that if you can continue to buy me time."
"Got it," Shepard said. "Teyla...take the bot and the kid home..."
"What about me?" a pained voice called out.
"And the Mayborne," Shepard sighed.
*****************
Power went out all over Tokyo, up to and including some of the machines piloted by the Gods given the amount of power that Peorth put into it.
And then the rescue teams were completely gone.