The Day Of 1,000 Styles

[legomaestro]

You have a lot of banter experience points coryn haha, maybe i need to up that skill as well by watching more bakemonogatari.

Just realized i was calling them edenite life forms instead of hosts so that's a big fail on my part. Awesome lock down is awesome, does it use shielding to keep everything inside? Or something as drastic and absolute as dimensional manipulation?

I know where to go next I think. stay tuned

[legomaestro]

Style 39 – Charlie Foxtrot II

And of course, the elevator started up for Lego the human just as he accepted 3.0’s assistance.   
     Blackmail, he thought: Definately blackmail.
     In the end it was of no consequence. Lego understood on some level that 3.0's scientific mind had no time for petty villainous mind games. Whatever favor he wanted would possibly be unethical, but at the very least would not threaten The City, and right now that was more than good enough. He doubted The Data Core had a simple configuration anyways. The worst 3.0 could do was be willfully negligent, and the raider’s weren’t so weak as to need the help of a doppleganger like him. After all, there was his other - feral and violent - half and more importantly, Musick with that team. At least her abilities could be depended upon in terms of natural destructive power. Now that he thought about it, he had his moderator powers to depend on in a pinch. He had never considered using them in actual battle, but he may have to.
     The elevator moved down towards the floor level that held the datacore. Geographically it seemed that it was placed at the very centre of MR City. The elevators not only descended vertically but curved as well. Except they didn't curve...
     Manipulation of time and space tunnels huh.  Lego thought. Damn Coryn... I am impressed.
     The elevator buttons flashed one after the other until finally it indicated that the destination had been reached. Lego the human (Okay, let's just call him Legoh) sighed and stepped out of the elevator into a whole different scene. The whole hospital look was gone. Now he was in the future.
     This terminal had the same schemes, same proportions of the hallways and lighting, but all the walls were holographic screens, and instead of white light there was a purple blue...
     Looming next to him silently was  a cute artificial intelligence dressed in blue flowing clothing ala Cortana from the Haloverse. Her skin-tight clothing was lined with seemingly random design, but Lego recognized it for what it was: Base code. Having once been painfully inscribed with it during his Moderater Inauguration, he couldn't forget. It was the playdough of MR Tan, and the consituent building block of The City and the internets.
     The walls  glowed and pulsed with vessels of electric light. Legoh found himself feeling like Jonah in an electric whale. It was inside the maw of this electric beast that Legoh walked, and all the while the ghostly A.I looked at him with the innocent curiosity of a child, clearly waiting for interaction.
     Coryn 3.0 was always talking in his ear.
     “Ignore her for now. Administrator Coryn activated a hard lock down just now, and you can use her to deactivate it, but we'll take advantage of that so that you don't recieve any unwelcome guests. It's basically a home run with no defenders for you that way.
     Listen... Right now in leiu of the lock down the corridor space has been distorted. You'll also take advantage of that. The distance to the actual core is usually 1 mile, but with the lockdown it's 500..."
     Legoh could almost hear 3.0 smile, "With me though, it'll be 30 feet.  Just follow my instructions and you'll get there in the shortest way possible. Just follow a little of my steps correctly and you won’t have to walk here forever."
     “Sure. What is it you wanted me to take a look at anyways? And why don’t you just come down here?"
     “I am being not-negligent as per our deal. I'll keep an eye out on everyone while you do what I want. Besides, I have all the perspectives I want from here. A control room is called a control room for a reason... Okay, now take two steps to the right. Turn 45 degrees and walk ahead for three steps and then turn back to 0 degrees and keep your bearing. You’ll be where I want you to be sure enough, and oh, keep your sword ready.”
     Legoh followed the steps simple enough. He was ironically not too good at mathematics, but countless of battles had him knowing these simple things. A case of practical knowledge trumping science.
     Coryn 3.0 smiled at the progress. This was going well. He was currently the ideal reporter: not in any danger at all but with all the real time data he needed. So long as these conditions were kept he had no need to risk his own body. He needed to only concentrate on collecting information. He was not skimming on his deal though, he kept an eye out on the other life signs in the compound. However he failed to mention that he couldn't actually command his coryn bots to do anything more than survive, because in all honesty the situation was bad. Nothing that Legoh needed to know...
     
Everlastin was awake, glaring at the back of the metal man that was Coryn 3.0.
     I can’t believe I’ve failed Coryn like this. I had one job... She slumped.
     If only I retained my skills from that world…She said, thinking of that terribly wintry wasteland where she was beyond powerful...
     But there was nothing that her regret would give her. There would be no rescue, there would be no cute young girl carrying a white-hilted red katana with silver white hair flowing like a river and a trenchcoat standing next to her-
     Wait what?
     The girl fitting this description looked serious for a moment, but then broke into a bright smile.
     “Yo.” She made a cute peace sign and posed, before two silver slashes flashed out and everlasting was instantly freed from her ropes and gags.
     “What’s this?”  Coryn 3.0 said, finally detecting the young intruder. Coryn 3.0 turned around, "YOU?"
     “Me!” The girl beamed brightly as she jumped forwards and slashed her blade, carving a silver moon in the space between them. Ordinarily that would've been the end of 3.0's story, but he brought his hand up in time to defend. The offending sword bit through his alloy and severed some metallictendons. Sparks flew and oil spilt.
     3.0 was all calm and collected, “Tsuioka Loli. I thought you were AWOL.”
      “Ehehehe! Once a raider, always a raider!”
     “What do you want?”
     “You seem to be doing something bad so I’ll stop you!”
     Coryn 3.0 Jumped backwards, flexing his wounded arm. It slowly repaired itself.
     “If you want to help, then stop attacking me! I’m helping out everyone by doing this. Go help out Coryn or the others! Stop bothering me!.”
     “Eh?” She stopped attacking for a moment and looked thoughtful, “Brother Coryn needs my help?”
     “Let me show you their locations. I'm serious, normally you'd be a nuisance but you may be of help. You too everlastin.” Coryn Bot 3.0 showed up his hands in a symbol of surrender and headed over to his computer screen.
     “What’s that?” Tsukioka said with a curious smile and a finger to her lips. Everlastin stretched as she pouted.
     "Thats-" But 3.0 stopped in his reply.
     Coryn Bot 3.0, if he had a heart, felt it thumping. If he could feel excitement then he was excited.
     Legomaestro The Human stood infront of him.
     He stood in front of  Alpha.

On the other side things were bad. They were completely overwhelmed. Musick had defeated the worm monster nanite host but finally the multitude confronted them. Standing at the last gate they had burst through. One look confirmed why the 'battle' had become silent. They had all joined one side. They had all become Hosts.
     Panting and bleeding badly, Musick and the others faced off against the horde.
     “Well, looks like we finally get to have that epic last death scene.” Nair said in an uncharacteristically sad voice.
     “Don’t say that, I still have a lot of things I want to do.”  Paipis said.
     “Is this the part where a Deus Ex Machina saves us?”
     The Coryn bot hosts were black obsidian humanoid forms, each with glowing eyes and mouths that had the habit of breaking into evil white smiles.
     “You got that right.”
     A green alien cat with long red hair stood next to the elevator. He had the elevator doo opened.
     “Lego?” Musick asked as she looked.
     “Me?” Lego the cat asked.
     “Yes, me. Now get inside.” This strange looking Legomaestro said. He seemed to be drunk.
      “Or I can kick your asses inside.”
     They all obliged, running into the elevator. But the questions didn't stop as they tumbled into the safety of the elevator.
     “Who the hell…”
     “What the-“
     This Legomaestro walked forwards, “Apparently you guys die here, so I travelled through time. Took me 347 years to learn that trick.”
     “How the hell is this happening?”
     “Say ‘this is madness.’” The catman said in a slur.
     “It IS madness.”
     He grinned.
     The elevator closed on the rescued raiders as the cat man jumped into the fray, wielding a white katana.
     “Madness? THIS IS MR!”
     Just as a note: This time traveller lost his left hand in the first barrage, but the rest of the fight went okay. It was epic.

In the elevator, the others just looked at eacother. None of them were telepathic, but they all agreed to just not talk about what happened. They had better things to do than that, like survive whatever was coming for them.

They emerged on The Precipice Floor.

More hosts awaited them. Laser claws drawn, Swords held, guitars procured, masks worn and fists prepped, they fought and ran, heading for not the datacore, but somewhere equally important to this whole fiasco.

[Coryn]

hmmm....


I don't know what you're planning with the big group. so I think i'll leave them alone for now.

Though Legoh.


Him, him I can play with.

[legomaestro]

Haha, the big group was going to get killed off hussie style, but i thought that maybe something to explain kaijin's appearance was warranted.

I'll admit though i chickened out on attempting the whole Coryn Kaijin situation haha. Got scared.

[Coryn]

Hehe. Well I think you wont have to worry too much longer. I've got plans.

[legomaestro]

I'll just put it out there that while DOTS is great i'm waiting for Beta more

[Coryn]

Oh yes, it's in the mix too. bout 3/4ths of the way done.

[Coryn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32eywT-bQhQ

Legoh stood at the opening of the largest cavern he had ever seen. The holographic hallway had ended behind him, but an even more impressive sight lay before. What looked like a pipeline wide enough to encompass a skyscraper punched through the far end of the cavern, and an equally large pillar cut across it perpendicularly. The entire monolith was made of black metal, but pulsing lines of blue light ran across it, splitting up into a lattice like pattern as it rose towards the surface. High on the center column however, Legoh could see why he was there. A portion had been cracked open, and in the rupture he could see a broken body, floating before the crack with arms outstretched like an ascending god.

"So this is the data core...and that must be Alpha."

3.0's voice cut through the static on Legoh's radio, though it was much fainter than it had been before.

"This is the limit of radio range. Too much interference from the core after this point. Remember what I told you."

"Yeah yeah. Just keep up your end of the deal."

Legoh stepped forward and he lost all signal from his earpiece. The cavern was filled with metal shacks, and inside Legoh could see that everyone last one of them contained recharging stations. He quickly realized that he had entered the main corynbot camp.

Continuing forwards the shacks began to thin out, before eventually stopping all together, revealing a semicircle of nothingness that had formed around the core. The only thing that stood before him was a small metal disc which lay flat against the ground. Believing he knew its purpose, Legoh stepped atop it, and he was soon proven right, as the disc rose up from the ground and flew him up to Alpha's position.

As the first of the corynbots came into view Legoh started to make out the images carved around Alpha's resting place. If he was interpreting them correctly, they depicted the fights that Alpha had partaken in while the Mortal Combat arena had still stood. A few images came before and after these however, and Legoh could only assume that they were telling the story of Alpha's creation and eventual destruction, giving rise to the corynbot 2.0's themselves.

Finally the platform came to a halt, and Legoh stared into the eyes of the Alpha. A faint blue light shown through them, but Legoh could not tell if they came from Alpha himself, or if it was simply reflected light from the core. Nevertheless, Legoh had a job to do, and he wasn't going to disappoint. He looked down at the notes he had taken on his hand, and began the interview.

"Hello there....Alpha."

There was no response.

"No idea if you can hear me, or if you know, if you're even alive anymore. But uh...couple questions for you."

The silence continued.

"What do you think about this whole: corynbot religion thing? Do you enjoy being a false idol? Is it amusing to you that the 2.0's have no idea what you actually are?"

Legoh was starting to feel silly, and was only able to continue because he knew there wasn't anyone around who could witness him.

"What is your favorite color? Favorite food? Any book recommendations? How 'bout them crazy tans huh?....This is pointless..."

Legoh turned to head out of the cavern, but he was stopped as the sound of spinning mechanics reached his ears. Spinning on his heel he realized that Alpha was not dead, Alpha was most certainly alive. His lips moved in a jagged fashion, and Legoh could see small pistons moving under his torn synthetic skin.

"Attempting repair...repair failure... Attempting repair...repair failure... Where...am I?... Where...am I?... Father....Father...find me....find me..."

Legoh wasn't sure what to do, in fact he was frozen on the spot. He was equal parts terrified and deeply saddened. But more than anything, he was unsure. Alpha continued on however, paying Legoh no heed.

"Neural functions...critical...Combat functions...offline...Data collection...offline...Optics....offline..."

Legoh opened his mouth just slightly, not sure what to say.

"I..."

"Running voice recognition program...voice identified as...Legomaestro....Raider Lego...request:...find...father...Request:...find father..."

Legoh started to take a step back in apprehension, but thought better of it, and reached out to put his hand on Alpha's shoulder. His coat was ragged, barely hanging onto his body, but it still reminded Legoh of times long past, he had after all, seen a sight much like this many times.

"You mean Coryn?"

"Affirmative..."

"Alright. I'll go get him, you hold tight."

"Request....acknowledged..."

Legoh released Alpha's shoulder and he felt as the platform started its descent back down to the cavern floor. It touched down shortly and Legoh took a wide stride towards the exit. He winced, but refrained up opening up his eyes for a while after. There was no reason that he should be getting emotional over a robot, he wouldn't let himself.

"Damn that guy!"


After what seemed like a lifetime, Legoh finally reached the hallway once more. The holographic girl still floated beside him, smiling without a shred of empathy. Legoh waited patiently for 3.0 to come back online, he had learned patience in his life, and he used every last ounce of it.

"Ah, I see you've made it back into radio range, how was the-"

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"

"Pardon?"

"You know what I'm talking about! Alpha! What was with Alpha?! I thought he was supposed to be dead!"

3.0 sighed though he had no lungs to do so, but Legoh understood his meaning well enough.

"It's the reason I'm down here in the first place Lego. I needed the interview before you fixed the data-core. There might not be another chance after this."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sure you've already realized it by now. All of your adventures with the Director's machine, jamming the button on that remote so many times. It, like everything in the city, is connected to the core. Normally there aren't any issues, but something about the machine has caused it to interact with Alpha's damaged program. You want things to run smoothly, then you've got to remove Alpha."

Legoh punched the wall, forcing several of the holograms to flicker and die.

"So what then? We pull out Alpha and then what? The machine get's fixed but what happens to Alpha?!"

"I don't know. That's why I came. I don't even think the Director knows what will happen. We're in uncharted waters here."

Legoh clenched his teeth, but slowly let out the tension as he realized that he still had a mission to complete.

"You said I can shut down the lock down from here?"

"According to the schematics I download: Yes. Just use the interface."

Looking up into the eyes of the holographic girl, Legoh began to speak."

"Who are you?"

Her response was un-fittingly perky, and it hurt Legoh's ears to hear it.

"My name is 027-Jacqueline! One of the 63 V.I. interfaces installed by Director Sken to monitor the MR Science Division!"

"I want to deactivated the hard lock-down."

"I'm sorry, but the parameters are incomplete!"

"What parameters?"

"In the event of hard lock-down, it is assumed that a worse case scenario has taken place. To end the lock-down, a certain number of parameters must be met. Parameter 1: All sentient beings with Raider ID tags must be confined to the data-core. Parameter 2: The end of the lock-down must be initiated by Director Sken himself. Or in the event of his death, the next highest ranking Science Division member is automatically promoted to Director, and becomes responsible for ending the lock-down."

"Alright then."

Legoh started back down the hallway and reversed the path he took to get to the core.

"You get all that?"

3.0 chimed back in without hesitation.

"Affirmative. I'll direct you towards the Director, he's the closet one to your right now technically speaking. I'm not sure what the others are up to, but you'll be heading there second."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frqYK1EZ3O0


Three-hundred miles above Legoh and eight feet to the right, Coryn/Kaijin stumbled through the halls of the darkened division. Kaijin's vision had grown blurred, and the scratching him his brain was beginning to drive him mad. It was now abundantly clear that it was only a matter of time before he lost control for good.

"God I hate you..."

"Shouldn't have hijacked my body then."

"Just die already."

"Been there done that. Didn't care for that. Oh look someone's coming."

"What?!"

Kaijin could still hear at least, and indeed he picked up the sound of footsteps coming his way.

"Nii-san? Is that you?!"

Coryn smiled, and did his best to straighten up.

"Yeah...It's me. Don't get too close though. I've got a megalomaniac in my brain who's itching to find a new body to take over."

Tsuki stopped and put her hand against her sword's hilt.

"Some things never change huh?"

"Oh you know me. New hair color?"

"Felt like doing something different."

"I like it. Suits you."

Coryn's voice changed, becoming deeper and more gravely.

"WOULD YOU TWO PLEASE STOP BANTERING!"

Tsuki eyed Coryn and drew her blade.

"Get out of my brother."

"Oh if you insist!

Coryn's body rose into the air, and a viscous black fluid oozed out of his orifices. As it poured out it started to stretch out into long tendrils, and soon formed a cylindrical weave all around his body. Kaijin's disjointed voice filled the hall as the last of the black liquid sorrow found its way to freedom.

"I'll be back for you Sken."

It split in two and shot through the air like a snake, making its way for a pair of air vents on each side of the corridor. Coryn regained his senses quickly however, and started to form a pair of force bubbles around each of the black tendrils. He managed to capture all of the one on his left, but a foot long section of the right snake make it into the vents. Not letting his efforts go to waste however, Coryn quickly slammed the two bubbles together. They combined into one, and soon were forced down into tiny infinitesimal point. There was a small pop as the bubble disappeared, and Tuski was positive that whatever was inside was now long gone.

"Did you kill it?"

"Him, and I'm afraid not. Only a little bit got away, but it'll be enough. We'll see him again soon enough I'm afraid."

Taking in a deep breath, Coryn exhaled like he was breathing air for the first time in his life.

"So, I have to ask, why are you here, and how did you get through the lock-down?"

"I got a distress call from some of the old sensors I had stashed away in here. I got in just before he place locked down. Met up with a metal dude who looked a lot like you then he sent me on my way here."

Coryn bit his lip.

"Damn, 3.0 is here too? Things are getting messier and messier. Have you seen my assistant running around anywhere?"

"Everlastin? Yeah, she went after the others."

"Is Lego with them?"

"Half of him is."

"It'll have to be good enough."

"You plannin' somethin'?"

"Just trying to get us out of here in one piece. Do you remember which way the rest of the party was heading?"

"Think so. Follow me."


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I feel like we've both got so many plans, that it'd be a shame if we'd try to interfere with each other. [/list]

[legomaestro]

Ehehehe, oh dude, the datacore is a fantastic place. Sure did enjoy the nice long read. I must return in kind.

Nice music choices as always.

I think I know where to go from here, or at least I hope so.

EDIT

For some reason I only read that last part just now. You've got any plans in particular concerning the second group that everlastin is going after? I was going to use them to stumble upon where Kaijin came from exactly. I'm okay with leaving it up to you though, since there's definitely a narrative here that would indeed be a shame to disrupt.

[Coryn]

No no. I figure you should take that bit since you're the one who started them heading off like that.


Just leave me with Alpha's narrative and the lock down resolution. I just wanted to set that up since I have plans for the next arc. so by all means, go crazy with the host situation.

[legomaestro]

Ah yes. Well it's not going to be anything too big, but it's just an image that I need to get down. Next story arc huh, that'll be something to look forward to.

[Jack Melancholy]

Man. I forgot about this thing. That last bit, Coryn, with the music links. Chills like someone opened the window during winter.

[Coryn]

I do what I can.

[legomaestro]

Style 41 - Charlie Foxtrot III

The hallways were endless as usual. The only indication of crisis were the red security lamps set in corners between the roof and the walls. They flashed and span silently. Almost every section of the facility seemed to have been sealed off by heavy duty blast doors. Someone or something was looking out for them, because as soon as the troupe of raiders approached them they hissed open, letting them through before shutting again. It seemed to be working, they hadn’t met any Corynbot-hosts in a while.
     They hadn’t had the smoothest of exits from the elevator back to these levels. A hoard of the Coryn-hosts had greeted them, but after that, nothing.
     Musick led the charge down the hallways. Whatever led them seemed to know that they wanted to reach the datacore. In the brief moments they got a chance to look at the local map on holographic screens it showed they were headed in the right direction, from the looks of things there’d be there in the next few minutes, and everyone was running at a good clip.
     Legoc felt bitterness in his mouth. Paipis noticed,
     “What’s wrong, Lego?”
     “Nothing. It’s nothing.” He flexed his laser claws out of habit and closed his eyes again.
     “…”
     “Who do you think is the strongest of the raiders?”  Legoc asked. It was not clear if his frown was one of concentration on the run or over the question.
     “That’s –”
     “Of course!” Nair draped both his heavy arms over Paipis and Lego’s necks, dragging them along,
     “It’s me, Man-Tiki! Who else would it be? I mean look at these guns gentlemen.”  He ran and flexed each of his muscles. They bulged furiously.
     “What do you think ey? Impressive no? Don’t be falling for me now I don’t swing that way! Hahaha! Now pick up the pace, Musick is leaving us in the dust!”
     “… Yeah.” Legoc ran forwards, lost in his own thoughts.
     They arrived at a four way intersection. It wasn’t anything remarkable, but the person standing there was definitely of interest.
     She looked a bit like Musick, dressed up in a black ninja outfit, but it was more of a black hoodie. She had a long katana strapped on her back. Her long black hair was tied in a ponytail. It was reminiscent of the glossy tail of a horse, especially the way it bounced at the lightest movement.
     “Everlastin?” Musick skid to a halt as Everlastin waved at them,
     “What are you doing here? What’s happening?”
     Everlastin nodded, “You must follow me if you want to reach the datacore. All of us are needed to fix it.”
     “Where’s Coryn?” Musick asked,
     “Where’s me.” Legoc asked.
     Everlastin nodded, “Earlier a strange girl went to meet up with Coryn. I think it’s his sister, she is strong. He will be fine. The other Lego wants to activate the datacore, but the lockdown is still on so we have to switch it off and together.”
     “Fine by us. Lead the way.” Legoc said, stepping forwards.
     “Wait. How are those doors open?” Paipis pointed northwards.
     They had come upon the intersection from the west. The northwards corridor stretched on for a little while, but it was clear that the numerous blast doors that normally lined the corridor were open along this path.
     “That’s not where you came from right?” Paipis asked.
     “No, I came from that way.” She pointed south.
     “That’s directly opposite.” Musick said, “Is it the hosts?” Musick’s hand hovered over her blade.
     Legoc shook his head, “It can’t be. We’d know if they were here.”
     “We’ve got to take a look at this. If even the lockdown hasn’t blocked whatever this is off then we have a problem.”
     “I have a feeling it has something to do with the hosts as well. How did they come here?” Musick asked.
     “Someone called Kaijin appeared and…” Everlastin shrugged, “I do not know more than this.”
     “Kaijin.” Legoc and Musick breathed.
     Legoc looked down the hallway, and then immediately began running, his trench coat trailing behind him,
     “What are you doing? Wait up!” Paipis shouted.
     “He definitely came from this way then! Look at the signs. Pandora Section? That can’t be good a good section of the lab to be open right? Especially during a lockdown! And didn’t you question how exactly a future version of myself appeared?”
     “Well I thought it was just part of the randomness.”
     “No, that’s too many coincidences.  We’re not exactly remote-tripping now are we?”
     The others shared a glance, a curt nod and followed suit. Everlastin kept up with them and silently nodded.
     The road along the Pandora section was uneventful, but the pressure was on. With every opened doorway and emergency light that didn’t blink they knew that something was wrong in this section of the division. It was like somehow, inexplicably, and EMP had shorted out the systems here. Legoc and Musick were pretty sure that the lab was made of hardier stuff than to suffer at the hands of an EMP, but they couldn’t deny the result.
     Was this by Kaijin in his escape? Or did whoever facilitate that cause this to happen. Either way it was a problem.
     Some of the lights didn’t even work properly in some sections, so they were periodically plunged into stretches of darkness. The lot of them always tensed up in these areas, and actually developed the habit of jumping across entire lengths of dark rooms just to be safe.
     Their stamina was running low, but this was all in a day’s work for a raider yet, and things were urgent. They didn’t want to screw up and get ambushed.
     “What does this section even have? There’s no doors at-” Nair’s thoughtful comments ceased when he… they all saw what was before them. There was no need to read the sign or ask any more. They had arrived.
     
They stepped out from the confined square corridor to an open world. Or at least it seemed like it.
     They were in a cavernous room. It was like a gigantic vertical tunnel, and they had walked into the side of it. This fact could only be discerned by the countless lights that dotted the entire inner surface of the ‘tunnel’.  Judging from the abject darkness and the way some of them were barely visible, the scale was astounding.
     “Those are also entrances? Why do all of them lead out to nothing?”
     “There’s some walking space on ours, I don’t think those ones have this.” Nair pointed. The walking space didn’t immediately terminate. A fairly large semicircle of transparent glass allowed them to walk out a fair distance, perhaps thirty strides or so before plunging into oblivion.
     “Look.” Paipis pointed. Of course, the lights were everywhere. They had been taken in by the sight to not do such a simple thing.
     It was easy to see that it was a sort of enclave, and tucked in there was a glowing rotating set of rings, seeming to contain a flashing nebula within it.
     “Portals, you think?” Nair said.
     “Mm. They look like stargates.”  Musick nodded.
     “Wait.” Legoc said, stroking his chin.  The dimensions of the cylinder were familiar in a way. Legoc made some estimates…
     “This is the center of MR City isn’t it? Or at least directly under the center. It must go straight up to MR Tower.” They all looked up into the darkness that was dotted with a myriad of lights. It looked like a galaxy.
     “You may be right. Not sure if the tower is this large, but it seems right somehow. Everlastin?”
     Everlastin shook her head, “I am new at this place so I cannot say for sure, but maybe.”
     “What is this place?” Nair breathe
     “Pandora.” A voice said as it flickered into space.  He seemed solid, but floating in space like that put doubts to that. It was a handsome man in a suit, and he had a monocle and long oily hair that reached around his shoulders. “Thank goodness, some personnel… Welcome to Pandora, raiders. My name is Hephaestus.  I am an A.I. I need your help.” He flashed a card at them, containing the I.D. The raiders were convinced.
     “Hephaestus?” Legoc asked
     “Pandora?” Musick asked.
     They looked around. This place was big.
     “What’s here? What is this place?”
     “This is Pandora section, it’s an intertemporaldimensional portal archive.”
     “What?”
     “I don’t have time to explain, you need to stop him!”
     “Stop who?”
     Hephaestus looked flustered, “Someone’s been opening the vaults! The portals!.” He gestured to one of the lights. That’s how the division has been compromised; I couldn’t warn anyone or stop it. Whoever it is has mastered the systems of the lab somehow, I’m afraid someone has fooled us all along that they were Director Coryn!”
     “Now that’s nice. Where is he? How do we close the vaults?”
     “It is perfect that there are many of you. Please hop onto the Gravlevs, I shall proceed to ferry you to each of the vaults for manual closure. So long as we work fast and you keep at ready I am sure there is no big risk.”
     Five gravitational lifts floated down the edge. The Gravlev’s were little more than dishes of energy and yet they seemed to be able to float. Legoc guessed that they were made of Coryn’s bubble shield technology.
     The five of them clambered onto the levitation gear and were spread out.
     The AI Followed them without a problem. He changed into a series of blue will-o-wisps that led the raiders along as they floated over the vast darkness.
     “Oh boy.” Nair said, but he slapped his face and kept his knees bent, ready for action and steeling himself at the daunting height as he was ferried over the chasm.
     Paipis barely had space to share with Burgundy, such that he was perched on its shoulder.
     Musick and Everlastin shared the same Gravlev, standing very still, standing back to back and looking very calm and collected.
     “How many vaults have been open?” Legoc asked, looking around over the blackness. His cat hearing could pick out the alarms from other levels beyond the walls of this chasm, but he couldn’t hear anything else apart from that. The portals were silent in their endless rotations.
     “So far, three have been opened. One manifested that person you know as Kaijin. He broke his way out of here easily! But that’s not the problem, whoever is opening portals is going to work on the lower ones. He’s still here! He’s gone to the Dark Section.”
     “Dark Section?”  The raiders asked their separate versions of Hephaestus.
     “Exactly as it sounds. It’s not intentional actually, but MR City is built on a soft spot for portals, perhaps that’s why spam ninjas periodically come here.  This place keeps a lid on that at least, it’s a buffer, a check.  As new dimensions open up a vault is made to seal the rip and the portal is then catalogued. One can wish to explore the bottled up worlds, but otherwise it’s smarter to just lock them up to isolate the city from potential destruction.”
     “If it’s that important why are we flying around in piece? How did Kaijin escape so easily? Sure, there’s lots of them but I’d think Coryn would be able to stop that.”
     “You can’t reach any of the places without a Gravlev firstly. But even if you fly the area is normally netted with lasers that aim to cut down any intruders. That among other things keeps a lid on Pandora.”
     “What lasers?” Everlastin asked.
     Hephaestus waved his hands around, “That’s the problem! Whoever did this sabotaged even that, and that should be impossible!”
     “Do you think it could be a 4kids agent?” Musick said.
     “Could be.” Legoc said.

“Here you are, raider Nairbons, raider Paipis. This is the vault.” The Hephaestus will-o-wisp guiding those two announced.
     Nair and Paipis were deposited on one of the enclaves and walked up to the portal.
     There was a squat box just before the portal.  A control panel.
     “Just press the button and you’re finished. Please be careful at any time something could come from that portal.”
     “I’ll do the honors.” Nair said as he stepped forwards and reached for the panel…
     “Waaait!”
     Nair and Paipis looked around in surprise as the long haired future Lego flew over and landed on the platform.
     “Cheers!”
     Saluting with his two fingers and giving a wink, he jumped into the portal and is never seen in this story again.
     “Huh. So that’s where he came from.” Nair said as he pressed the button and closed the portal.
     There was a loud crack, and then with a hiss and some blaring alarm, the intersecting rings decreased in size, compressing to little more than the size of a head. They still rotated with undisturbed urgency.
     However the sealing was not complete. Two semi-spheres slid out of the ground and cocooned the portal in an egg.
     Now it was.
     “Why doesn’t this happen to all of them? Seems like the best thing to do if the system is compromised.” Nair asked.
     “Same reason there are no lasers I imagine.” Paipis said.
     “At the very least, every portal in The Dark section is already sealed like this by default, so that is a bonus. Those portals tend to leak more than these regular ones.”
     “How is it going for the others?” Paipis asked their will-o-wisp.
     “Famously.” Hephaestus said.

“No no no just NO.” Both Everlastin and Musick screamed in unison.
     It wasn’t going that well. Tentacles. Tentacles were lashing out from the portal. Musick and Everlastin felt their skins crawl and immediately hacked  them to so many pieces of meat, before pressing the button and sealing the portal.  They turned as it was finally cocooned in its black egg.
     “We’re fine!” They both shouted before any questions were asked. By mutual agreement they refused to talk about this incident.

Legoc headed to the dark section.
     “They’re done? One of those was Kaijin’s portal wasn’t it?”
     “Yes. They’re done. They’ll be joining you shortly. You can focus on the intruder”
     “Why can’t you scan him? What’s happening?”
     “He’s jamming everything. He’s using all sorts of deceptive techniques to stay out of sight and out of mind. Every time I actively approach him I get blocked away.”
     Legoc clenched his fists and sprouted his laser claws, “Then he’s probably not that strong. People who are strong don’t need to sneak around or use mind tricks. What does he want anyways, releasing dimensional beings on the MR Science division?”
     “Probably the destruction of the city.”
     “No… You send something like C-Kret  if you want to destroy the city. I mean look at our world, we don’t need cloak and dagger when we can walk on air and incinerate buildings. We can take almost anything on”
     “Perhaps you are overthinking things? And underestimating them as well?”
     The underestimating remark annoyed Lego.
     “Maybe.  Whatever.”
     “Yes. We have arrived. He’s over there I can sense him.”
     Lego’s eyesight had already adjusted to most of the darkness, but not fully. He waited with baited breath for the figure to finally appear…
     And when he did he did look around from tinkering with a sealed up egg of one of the portals.
     The man turned and looked at Lego, “Ah, you have found me, well this is a problem.”
He was dressed up in a sort of ceremonial straightjacket and his face was wreathed in bandages, and spoke in a low voice.
     “Ah, I have been found out. Did one of the breakouts leave a path directly to this place? How foolish of me.”
     “You’re 4 kids.”
     “Please, I am an agent of 4Licencising Corp, please keep up to date with any new developments that occur on our side, it’s downright embarrassing that you do not know what is happening around you. For instance I know that you are Legomaestro the cat, and your human counterpart is somewhere trying to access the data core. These past few days have been really great, what with all of you embarking on wacky adventures.”
     The intruder patted the black shell next to him, “It gave me time to engineer a personality and walk right into here. There are many advantages to people thinking high of you.”
Legoc’s laser claws hummed into life. He stepped off the gravlev and slowly walked forwards, his intentions clear,
     “Haven’t actually killed a 4kids agent before. This will be very satisfying.”
     “Now now, you and what army?”
     The surrounding darkness lit up with dual beads of numerous eyes as covert operatives activated their night vision. The others were the eyes of spam bots. They seemed to be the dinosaur kind, like the ones Lego had faced with Coryn on a severe Christmas attack just recently. They were everywhere
     “We are the 1st through to 4th Choruses of Fraud. I am 1st Chorus Commander Herbie. And these Antata-Heno spam bots have come to an agreement with us. You can call me H.”
     “I can call you dead is what it is. You don’t have nearly enough to take me.” Legoc raised his claws, his eyes looking left and right as the numerous faces in the dark floated around. They seemed to have each procured Gravlevs as well, judging from the way they floated in space.
     “Well, even if that were true, all I need to do is make you waste time and then…” Herbie patted the metal egg, “It’s time for business. I wonder if I’ll stumble upon the dimension holding Cthulu, from what I have heard there’s one like that somewhere in this hole.”
     Legoc moved just as others did. He jumped up in the air. Two 4kids agents bisected the area he had just been, passing each other in a coordinated pincer attack.
     Legoc was above them, and then he crossed his hands over himself as he bent backwards in a slow flop.
     He landed, coiling and twisting like a gypsy top. Red lines traced the air. Intricate red patterns  traced the space around him, and five soldiers were down.
     Lego slowly got to his feet from a crouch and held up his laser claws,
     “You better hack fast then. I know I will.”
     Herbie looked over at Lego. They both exchanged a single glance and then he stepped back and started working at the console. His fingers seeming to blur with speed all over it as he accessed the panel.
     “We’ve got company!” Nair said as a couple of spam dinosaurs awkwardly floating on Gravlevs attacked him at the upper levels. Paipis changed into his rocker form, revving a heard chord on his guitar as a brawl began. Music and Everlastin were already holding off some spam ninjas and 4Kids agents.
     The raiders were swarmed. At a glance it looked like it was collectively the four of them against a hundred.
     “This is going to be a close one! We’ve got to help Lego down there soon!”
     “And don’t forget get to the datacore… “
     But there was no time to think about that, they had to fight and stop anything from happening.
     The battle raged on for the longest time, all the raiders pulled out their greatest tricks. Nair and Paipis worked well. Paipis hit them with long range audio attacks, and Nair brutalized them. Digital pixels and agents fell all over the place.
     Music and Everlastin’s ninja techniques were for the lack of a better term brutal. It truly took a lot of skill to be this fast, to not be seen at all for that matter. The carnage they dealt was unreasonable for an entity known as a ‘ninja’. The title of a raider was not lost on them. Everlastin was particularly blood-thirsty, going for kill shots and taking off heads and cleaving limbs.
     Legoc kept up the pace alone on his platform. A feral fury had befallen him and all he could see was the red of his claws and the red of fury. He sensed them around him, he saw them appear in his vision, but none stayed there for long because he was endlessly cleaving and cutting and hacking them to pieces. He didn’t bother blocking some of the attacks, and had two good wounds on both his legs, one from a censor blade and the other a bit blade.
     Attacks that would’ve normally not landed had he been in his optimum form. This fact only served to infuriate him more and he increased the intensity of his attack, slowly but surely approaching Herbie at the console.
     Herbie gave a call of joy,
     “Yes! I got it! You have lost!”
     Lego cleaved two spam ninjas down, ducked under a censor blade and flash-stepped next to Herbie, stabbing him in the gut and twisting his blade. There was an unpleasant shearing sound and a waft of black smoke rose from between them. Lego looked into his eyes and grinned.
Herbie grabbed at Lego’s hand, “D-damn, that’s a bit… permanent... Herbie…” He crumpled to the ground.
     “?” Lego frowned and pulled the blade away.
     Lego looked at the egg. It was beginning to hatch open, revealing a sickly green portal.
     “Hephaestus! What do I do to close this?”
     “Just press the red button.”
     Legomaestro the cat pressed the red button.
     “Isn’t that a bit too simple?” He wondered.
     “I just love this moment. The moment you break out of the hypnosis. What was that about being a sneaky coward again” Hephaestus said happily as he clapped his hands, “I am no A.I. Hephaestus is my name, but Azazel-san calls me Herbie.” The man tipped his hat, and like magic Legoc realized that him and everyone else had been fooled. He slowly dug into his pocket and wrapped a bandage around his eyes. He dug into his pocket and began playing with a deck of cards.
     “Ah, that was tiresome, hypnotizing all of you at once was something else.  I needed to add some cannon fodder to at least make the illusion real. So funny to see you jumping around like that for spam bots though.”
     The army of defeated 4 kids agents wasn’t so defeated after all, but they were significantly less than anticipated. All dressed in white, they floated behind Hephaestus, crouched in reverence and silent. Their masks were painted with concentric circles of black and white.

Elsewhere, Nair and Paipis realized that they had been fighting each other all along. They became aware of big bruises on their faces and bodies, and both winced in pain and looked around in bewilderment.
     “What?” Everlastin blinked. Musick had a sword at her throat but now pulled it back. The only thing their skill had truly helped them with was the fact that they didn’t give each other any deep wounds in their hypnosis.
     Legoc’s eyes widened as despair and shock rocked him,
     “What’s happening?”
     And finally he heard her.
     “You shouldn’t have done that… no… “ A said female voice said. This was an artificial intelligence. She looked purple and was made of code. Legoc immediately knew that this was the true artificial intelligence of Pandora.
     “Damnit all!” He rushed forwards to slice at Hephaestus. Hephaestus smiled and tugged at his blind fold. Legoc desperately closed his eyes and in that opening Hephaestus planted a foot in Lego’s gut. Lego fell down coughing,
     “This… Is your loss. You have released something from the dark archives, you want to know which dimension this is? Or rather what will come out? I don’t intend to find out. I’m sure it’s something nasty though. And that’s all I need.”
     He seemed to vanish in the air along with the others, laughing all the while. His voice echoed away into nothing. He was gone.
     And behind Legoc the dark egg opened, and a small fist sized greenish portal made of spinning intersecting rings revealed itself. It span for a while but then with two progressive enlargements doubled its size.
     Legoc looked at it, reached for control panel.
     Too late.
     A red digital flame lit up immediately from the portal, and countless tendrils of it splashed outwards like a gushing sick fountain, everything it touched sparkled and was dissolved almost instantly.
     “Damnit!” Legoc tried to lunge for the control panel but that was wholly melted away, and the portal doubled in size, sending out the malevolent energy in all directions.
     His footing destroyed, he fell downwards. This saved him from getting immediately engulfed. He still held his hand out as the portal spewed red in earnest.
     And he fell away into the darkness.
     Dammit dammit dammit....

“Can you hear me now?” A timid voice asked.
     Legoc opened his eyes.  His back ached. He had been rescued by a Gravlev.
Eventually when he did gain consciousness the A.I was watching over him.
     “Hello… My name is Alessa.”
     “What’s your designation number?”
     “Um…”
     “I said what’s your designation number!”
     “It-it’s 33-Alessa! S-sorry” She trembled as she put hands to her face, “I tried to talk to you but you wouldn’t listen… I’m so sorry I couldn’t do anything. He tricked me too and stopped me from being able to do anything… I was forced to let you through or you’d all be seriously hurt” Even as she did this the Gravlev lifted him to the higher levels, back to whence he had come.
     Legoc only felt disgusted with himself as he got to his feet, “Yeah, sure. It’s no problem. How do I close them.”
     “At this point it’s too much. Too much of the system is compromised, and in the end the only way to fix all that is…”
     “The datacore.”
     “Yes. Please, there is nothing more you can do here, you must – Aaah!”
     A tendril raked a bit of her code off her left shoulder. The A.I, if possible, slumped, seeming to succumb to gravity as she crumpled on the Gravlev for a while.”
     “Hey! Are you okay?” Lego held up his laser claws, ready to fend off any attacks,
     “No don’t! It’s a virus, there’s nothing you can do!”
     Legoc remembered, “I have mod powers… Hold on…”
     They had floated a fair way above The Dark Section. Right now it seemed like the walls of the entire place were crawling with the hungry red tendrils. As of now it looked like a forest fire. A red smokeless one.
     But he had to focus on the immediate danger. He held up a hand towards the tendrils and formed a black box immediately in the vicinity. He crushed his fist and that section of space vanished with a loud whooshing sound. This wasn’t Nano machine manipulation, it was moderation.
     “!”
     Smack! He was sent flying, stabbed through the shoulder.
     Intense pain racked throughout his body, pain he wasn’t used to feeling out of the battle field.
     “Damnit… it’s not enough after all.” He needed his other half back.
     “Lego!” Musick called out. There were three successive sounds of wind, and the immediately assaulting tendrils vanished.
     Lego was deposited on the platform from whence they had started from. The hallway looked mockingly innocent.
 
“Lego!” Musick walked over as she landed. Everlastin was close on her heels. Nair was holding up his hands, having just used his moderator abilities as well. Paipis was on the side.
     “Wow, that’s pretty useful. We should’ve used that more often.”
     “Help him up, we’ve got to get out of here, whatever that is isn’t stopping.” Musick looked around.
     “But shouldn’t we nip it in the bud before it gets worse?” Nair asked.
     Alessa spoke up, seeming to sweat with pain. Her wound was not regenerating, and indeed was getting black at the edges,
     “N-no… do not risk it. Other dark archives may be compromised and it would compound the problem irreparably. I can help, but only if you reboot Pandora’s systems completely. When that is done there is nothing I cannot handle.” She smiled bravely at that last statement.
     “I’ll stay here.” Musick said, “Nair, you take the others and go, I’ll help stop the flow of the virus.”
     “I’ll stay too, I’m a member of Science Division!” Everlastin said.
     “No, you go. How will they find the Datacore fast enough? You need to help by resolving this situation as fast as possible.” Musick said. She looked at Alessa, “I won’t get myself in trouble. I have enough juice to help you out a lot. Just tell me what to do.”
     “Y-yes. Your locking abilities would certainly be useful. I am in your care.” Alessa bowed her head as she got to her feet.
     Nair nodded. “Okay then let’s go! Up you go Lego it’s just a flesh wound!” He tried to help him up but Lego shoved the hand away.
     Lego got to his feet, grabbing his shoulder, “Right. Let’s go.”
     Everlastin ran past him, a dark blur as she headed back to the seemingly endless hallways of the science division. They followed.
     “You okay there?” Paipis whispered. Legoc grit his teeth,
     “It’s fine, just go on don’t worry about me.”
     But all was not fine. What if things didn’t turn out so neatly? He had messed up badly.

Everlastin led them to the elevator and jabbed a button even as the others bundled in. This was the same one Legoh had gotten on. Coryn 3.0s voice came on the comms,
     “What other hell has been unleashed on us now? Is Pandora really compromised? Such a misfortunate repeat of mythology.”
     Nair spoke, “Yeah we need to flip the switch back on in the security there. Musick and the Alessa girl are holding the fort there for now but it doesn’t look good.”
     “Huh. Funny how I didn’t notice any of that. It didn’t show up on my monitors.” Coryn 3.0 responded, “Okay, you’ve got the fast track down to the datacore. E.T.A 20 seconds, and… about five minutes before the flood gates of whatever that red stuff is burst through. Sounds fun.”
     “Sounds fun.” The raiders all replied, in their own voices of tiredness.

[Coryn]

Man, quite the read there. could use a good edit, but I managed to get through it well enough.


Leaving Hannah behind though, you are making my job difficult. But I think I have an idea.


Look forward to the finale.