Two against Two billion.

Ren nodded and sighed "those moments when you know something but don't udnerstand it." he said softly then nodded. walking over he rested a hand on Vance's sholder "vance, just one thing, we've been through hell and back again, we've done stupid things, got drunk, and probably more together. and if we live through this, we're going to live for god know's how much longer. but considering that this is a foe that could wipe planets off the map, we may not. I just want to make it clear" he paused and took a breath "not only has it been a honour, privilage and one hell of a good time fighting and standing beside you, but your like a brother to me." he smiled. looking as if he was about to say something, he shook his head and hugged Vance, his skin shifting to metal to protect himself from the spikes "lets kick some ass." he said and stood back.

once down in the hold Ren scooped up a rifle and slipped it in to his APD, the ship was already at cruising speed, about to enter orbit over the planet. he was just preping the final things.

Vance hugged back, a small smile on his face. "You need to lay off the war movies man. You really do." As they made their way down to the bottom of the ship, where they would dropping from, Vance's Skylark teams came forward with grim faces. "Sir. Charybdis is gone. Simply gone." One of the Skylarks pushed through, gun ready. "My family was on that planet! Goddamnit Sir, I want a shot at this thing!" He cocked his gun, putting in a grenade into the launcher. Vance shook his head, looking at Ren.

"Listen, I can't let you guys come down with us. I need you up here. I want all the strikecraft on standby. If we go out, bomb this planet until it breaks apart." The soldier looked forlorn, but nodded. The entire Skylark team saluted, and went to their ships, preparing to move back to the Valkyrie. "Vance to Lieutenant Kukora. Prepare the Valkyrie for battle. I want all space-born squadrons deployed, and whatever is left of our fleet on standby. Try and get the Korsul Armada and the Li Sector Remnants to back us." He mumbled, "We'll need all the ships we can get." Vance nodded, following Ren down to the drop bay. He shook his head with disapproval at the rifle Kuro grabbed. "Remember that gift I told you about?" He flicked his wrist, pulling a pressure gun out of thin air. "This thing is amazing. Has an accurate range of about 200 yards. Like a shotgun with no ammo." He chuckled, picking up a large quantity of energized knives, replacing his katana variant for a scythe made of plasma, and two fully automatic, high-calibur pistols.

As Ren prepared the final few things, Vance sat, trying to decode the message in his brain. He knew alot of codes, since most of his previous missions required it, but this one was a mystery. It seemed almost song based, but these things didn't know what music was, did they? So many questions, and still no answers. This was infuriating.

Kuro laughed softly and smiled "you know I'm more of a Rom-com sort of person" he said and smiled. Looking up he put his hand no the Skylark's sholder "My home just got oblitorated to," he smiled "remember, next time we fight them in the void, each shot is a soul avenged, I'll kill one of the bastards for you" he squeezed the skylarks sholder "There's cyclone missiles in the armory, if we're not back in half a day, fire them, it'll turn thhe planet in to a ball of fire within seconds." he said and turned away.

nodding softly he holstered his own pistol and sighed "this isn't good. whatas up with you? you look like you've got a carstanium anal slug crawling up your leg" he said and punched Vance's sholder "C'mon relax, we'll make it" he said closeing his eyes he lent against the wall "Selina, armour." he said, his trenchcoat sliding out the wall and slipping on to him. "thankyou, prep the drops" he said and walked to the edge of the hanger "C'mon lets rock." he said his Hud's slotting down and he looked at Vance "ready?" he asked his hair turning to metal to form a helmet.

Vance snapped out of his reverie, shaking his head and standing up. "I'm trying to decode this........" Rubbing his head, he flicked some more morophine into his mouth. "It's giving me a headache." He sighed, watching as the fur on his hands morphed into thick gloves. Soon, he was covered in thick, baggy clothes, and he even had on an attached helmet. He looked like a biohazard tech, the ones that worked on the central Furium planets. "Let's do this. I'll be seeing you on the ground Ren." He flashed a loose salute, grabbed something, and made his way to one of the drops. "I'm going down my way." With that, he opened up, and launched himself towards the planet. The speed he gained only increased as he was pulled forward by gravity. The second he burst through the atmosphere, things got hot. Vance turned into a ball of fire, roaring down towards the ground. A few hundred kilometers away from impact, he spread his arms, positioned his feet at the ground, and prepared for what was going to be an explosive landing. And it was. Hit hit the ground, causing debris to fly in all directions, compressing the soil, making a large crater for his weight. When he stood up, smoke rising from his body, he put his hand up to catch a knife. Then, all he had to do was wait for Ren, who seemed to be taking his sweet ass time.

Kuro flicked himself out the drop bay, his wings folding half way out, acting to stabalize him, the front edge of his body shifting to metal to protect himself from the intence heat, flicking his body slightly he shaved the edge of a cloud, leaving a dragon shaped hole behind him, laughing softly he flicked his wings out, pulling up and stopping, he stalled, folded his wings and droped neetly beside vance, leaving a very small crater, "save whatever your trying to decode and concentrate," he said softly, looking round, the amount of sand seemed endless cocking his head he took a moment to think "east, i think" he said, picking a direction and starting to walk. "what I'm worried about is if it can learn, then we might encounter even nastier stuff as this goes on." he said softly drawing his handgun and checking the load.

Vance nodded, saving the beats and melodies. It all seemed less foggy, and much more ominous. The sands stretched endlessly in front of him, and with nervous looks around at Ren's comment, he pulled out his TK560, pulling the action back and loading a HEAP (High Explosive Armor Piercing) grenade into the launcher tube. Whatever they would encounter would be in for a hell of a ride. With a nod, he started heading east. "Ren, stay close behind me." He growled, crouching low, sidestepping here and there. A quite noticeable bulge appeared in the ground, and started heading towards them.

"Don't like the looks of that." He roared, pulling the trigger and holding it down, the heavy rounds pounding into the ground ferociously. An inhuman scream echoed throughout the flat surface of the land. The bulge disappeared, but Vance was antsy. That couldn't be it, and where there was one, there was bound to be more.

Ren nodded, he was walking slowly jumping back and forth. "that didn't look.....Heads up!" he pointed to the ridge, a low flying creature appeared it had six hanging plates, each conected by green lightning, it observed them with green and red eyes and had two three clawed hands, rearing up its plates opend and dozens of the little scarab creatures swarmed forwards. "aaaha fuck, I hate bugs" Ren commented then pulled a small flamethrougher out his APD and flamed them, nothing much happend. "well screw me sideways with a broom handle." he commented then uncanistered the Promithium and hurled it forwards, putting a bullet from his handgun through it resulting in a huge orb of fire. "I'm going to take care of the spawner bastard" he said running sidways

Vance shuddered as the scarab creatures swarmed out. The flamethrower did nothing, nor did the explosion from the can. "Well...... shit, when in doubt, blow shit up." He leveled his rifle again, smiling deviously. "Little bugs, meet Mr.HEAP." There was a small whoop sound as the grenade fled from the tube. Scarabs flew everywhere in bits and pieces, and anything still left moving was punctured by the .45 Auto's. If it didn't kill them, it definately slowed them down.

But they kept coming. That thing was spawning them as fast as Vance took them out. "Ren, hurry up and take this this this thing out!" He ducked as one jumped at his head, slashing it in half with his knife. Noticing how many more there were, he launched a multitude of deadly sharp knives into the air. The came down, whistling, each pinning a Scarab to the ground. In a flash, he'd put a new clip in his rifle, and reloaded the grenade chamber. "Ren, make your move! It's getting a little crowded.

((sory for short, going to add more))

Kuro nodded "give me a second" he said jumping up, his Katana appearing in hand, dropping down he landed on the things back, the blade severing its head from body, it gave a sudder, then all the scarab's glow died and they crashed to teh ground. "well thatas intresting."

Kuro stood slowly and smiled "ok, assumeing there are dozen's of these fuckers, how meany grenades do you have?" he asked looking over the ridge and sighing. "or should I call a orbital bomb?" he asked, pointing to the plato that the were on the edge of, there were thousends of craturs small, but bigger than the scarabs, they used green lightning to erret huge pillars of black stone, they worked in teams of three. "because I don't like what they are building."

The second the spawner died, Vance smiled, stashing his gun, going around and crushing the scarabs underneath his heels. Seems the bugs weren't made out of regen metal. Ren called his attention to the current situation, and Vance did a mental calculation, lifting his hand and bringing all the knives back to him. "Honestly, not nearly enough. We'd have to kill all those spawner things to even have a chance of having enough explosives." The porcupine followed his friends finger, looking over the ridge, and suddenly, the code came back unbidden. Vance's brow furrowed, and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Wait, don't you have that arm cannon thing? Why not just fire that down there. Either that, or we glass the beach. Or we could just move on." He tapped his chin, thinking hard, forcing the code out of his mind.

"If we destroy the planetary AI, everything controlled by that system will shut down." He shrugged, his HUD flipping down over his eye, providing him with extended sight in that eye. They were definately building something. But what was it? A gun? A weapon? Maybe a beacon of some sort. He really didn't like it. "Your call Ren. We bomb the beach, they'll know for sure we're here. As of yet, I think the Spawner happened across us by chance."

RE: Two against Two billion.

Ren nodded and sighed, "well...." he pulled his coat off, the metal streaming down his arm, his skin and flesh sloughing away in huge ribbons, a grizzly site, made no better by the bloodied silver and brass metal being exposed, tossing the coat to Vance he dropped to one knee, several blades ripping through his arm, the skin on his hand falling off like a glove. the metal shifted and unfolded, almost trippling in size eventually settling down, a orb of black light growing at the tip. "lets say hi." he said a small tornado forming at the back as air was sucked in, converted in to energy then fed in to the orb.

there was a pause and drawing his handgun Ren fired one shot, this punched a hole in one of the builders, all of the others swarmed to it, Kuro took his chance, there was a huge flash, a roar like a demon set loose, a rushing of wind, a dull 'crump' and the light faded, all that was left of the creatures and there building was a huge flat sheet of glass, Kuro glanced at his arm and stood slowly, the charge was building again he fired again, this was much smaller, simply a high impact shot that detonated whatever seemd to be the glass, within seconds even the glass had been blown back to sand. Kuro's arm slowly shifted back to normal, his flesh rapidly closeing over the metalic surface. "Can I have my coat back?"


((looks like this:


))

RE: Two against Two billion.

Vance caught the coat, holding it high above his head like a flag. It fluttered in the wind, and after the transformation, the unnatural breeze caused by the arm cannon. When it fired, the force tore through the air, and hit Vance like a pile of bricks. They were the deadly duo. But Ren had bigger guns. After the second shot, Vance tossed the dragon hybrid his coat. "Well, that was very interesting. Although, I have a feeling that we'll have to do it again." He sighed, unstrapping the scythe from his back and pulling up a protective hood. A ripple traveled down his body, turning the clothes black, his hands turning boney and white. Every now and then the scythe would crackle with energy, that only added to the aura of fear and death that hung around him. "Well, thought it was time for a costume change. Let's go. There's something farther east. I can sense it." He grinned, leading the way. The porcupine's face was hidden by the hood, but every now and then, the flash of blood red eyes could be seen. His AI had decided to visit.

(Apologies for the wait eddie, and any readers)

RE: Two against Two billion.

((No problem, but where was the 'selling it on ebay' joke?))

Kuro nodded and pulled the coat on flexing his arm lightly "long time since I've done that" he commented and closed his eyes the metal slid out along his wings, ruining the flesh and turning them in to huge fins of blades, they shimmered in the light a small amount of energy sparking over the surface, each blade edge turning the light as if it were the facet of some huge gem. "I really wish I knew what they were.....well fuck me sideways" he said, "those rune's we saw from space were the same as were on the green crystal in space that hit your ship, there making a huge energy capacitor if i'm not mistaken, a weapon like that could wipe out all life on the galaxy, that would mean they cold turn the galaxy in to a..............well that's just dandy. bright and dandy." he held his middle finger up to the sky "god, Zeus, flying spaghetti monster. whoever's up there, fuck you. sirously, fuck you." after this he looked at vance "that ship, is a way of towing galaxies, they strip them of life, turn each planet in to a crystal, then tow them, useing the energy to fuel the ship to wipe out even more planets."

RE: Two against Two billion.

(Ebay?)

Vance raised his eyebrows, nodding. "Well, that's just great." He sighed, studying the runes closely. He could only focus for a second before a searing pain stabbed him in the head. "Agh! What the fuck?" He spun, scythe ready for an attack, but nothing was there. Only the code. It sounded harmonic, yet, deadly somehow. "Ren, I got a bad feeling. A really bad feeling." He shook his head, and suddenly, it hit him. The meaning behind the codes. They were giving........... some kind of coordinates. The morpher stood ramrod straight now. "I figured out the code they're using! It's an old format used by early tech. This........" He stopped, tilting his head. His face was still hidden by the hood. "That means this thing isn't alien.......... You remember that one self aware AI pod the military sent out a few decades ago? Either this is it, or someone got a hold of it. The codes are the same." He shook his head, fighting his second personality. "Listen Ren, this thing learns. The longer we stay out here, the stronger they get. Luckily, I think the learned data stays on the planet, and gets implanted when the world gets crystalized."

RE: Two against Two billion.

Kuro nodded and smiled, "we best not act the same for to long then" he said and started sprinting, energy sparking round his body, humming to himself he ran over the plane he'd just oblitorated, the sand sinking under his feet and plumes of smoke comeing up. "so you were saying, they are akin to learner tech? the stuff that picks up as it goes along? so either some meglomaniac has got hold of it, or it's gone bat shit, just typical, just frikcing typical" he said jumping up and his wings hauling him up the near vertical side of the pltau, he continued humming and then stopped "well, I think the learnt something" he said pointing to a small squad of humanoid metal skeletons they had the same eye's as the spiders, but held guns similar to the turrets on the huge ship, just much, much smaller. "well smeg" Ren commented drawing his handgun and squeezing the trigger once.

RE: Two against Two billion.

Vance raised an eyebrow as Ren took off. With a smirk, two large wings, ancient, torn, and black sprouted from his shoulder blades. With that, he shot after his friend, scythe crackling every now and then as it sliced through the air. When he caught up, they were in front of a near vertical cliff-face. "Yeah, this is learner tech. Better hurry before this thing squashes us." He shot up again after the dragon, his large ancient wings almost double Ren's. When he landed, the wings shrunk back into his shoulders. "Hm.... well, that's not a very good sign, now is it? Let me handle this. Been dieing for a good fight." He crouched like a runner, and was off, leaving the cloak, a large cloud of dust, and the sound barrier behind. He stopped just in front of the humanoid tech. The shifter was bony, decript, but bespoke an ancient power. "Well, you're a bunch 'a ugly little fuckers aren't you?" His eyes were a dangeous red, fitting inside the sunken eye sockets. "Heheh, don't worry. Jimmy's here now." He smiled, jumping as they fired, the rounds smashing into the ground. The scythe slashed, decapitating the first two. When he landed, he was in the form of a Jack Rabbit, loose fitting street fighter clothes fluttering as he jumped. The scythe acted as a post, allowing him to kick and cut with powerful legs and wickedly hooked claws. The last one stand readied it's weapons, but never got a chance. The arms were sliced to ribbons. Vance had a sadistic smile on his face, watching as eight long, deadly sharpd claws formed. The scythe dropped, and when it hit the ground, the shifter became a blur. The feet were literally sliced to ribbons, the calves and thighs following, the stomach, the chest, and eventually the head. When the dust settled, Vance arose, his eyes back to their normal color. "Torch 'em, blow 'em up. I don't want them coming back."

RE: Two against Two billion.

Ren shook his head "I bloody wish I was my cousin sometimes" he said and raised his hand slamming it in to the ground he closed his eyes and his arm went silver, there was a almost silent 'thud' noise and the entire plane kicked up a small amount of dust for as far as the eye could see, it was as if under the ground, all along the world a large amount of dymanite had just been set off. standing back up Kuro rolled his sholders and ran forwards, his entire form flickered, he disapeared, then reapared beside Vance, the ground between where he had been standing, and where he now stood was a ruin, torn asunder, magma boiling up and spars of rock at unnatural angles, the result of a on-planet micro FTL drive being used. "I don't think they will, only the biggest things are self regenerative, however..." he grabbed a chest plate in his left hand and bright white flames licked round his arm and the chest plat, letting it drip to the floor in a pile of slag. "these things are still mecanical, I just hope we don't encounter anything that's alive. that would just be" he shook his head and started walking, the air around him shimmering with light-time distortion as his FTL drive kept ticking over, he obviously hadn't powered it down incase anything went horiblly wrong.

((His FTL (faster than light) drive consists of a partical acelerator and a matter transformer, it creates a singularity infront of him, causing him to be dragged in a exponential rate of exeleration towards it, while using the partical acelerator to fire Higgs boson latices in to it, hurling it away from Ren, causing him to move yet faster and further forward, the only downside of this is that anyone in the way gets turned in to a marble sized lump of matter and all ground between his start and finish point is ruined byond anything else in existance. oh and when left running it distorts time-space in random ways, he can use this in conjunction with his arc reactor (that plasma lightning thing in his coat) to fire bolts of probability, think badguy getting turned in to rubber duck style weapon that dosn't always go acording to plan. put in laymans terms its a infinite improbability drive, turned weapon.))

RE: Two against Two billion.

(score one for scientific gibberish, although any weapon that can turn a badguy into a rubber duck is a good gun in my book! And can he turn while useing the FTL drive?)

Vance chuckled, his eyes bloodred as he examined the field. "Anything living wouldn't be so for long, now would it?" With that, he flapped his great wings, once, twice, rocketting into the air. For a few short seconds he surveyed the area below him, finding a target in the woods. His form flickered briefly, and soon, carbon fiber copies sprouted from him, swooping down upon the hapless mech. The tearing of metal could be heard, but Vance paid no heed, instead moving forward in the sky, eye scanning the land. Nothing moved, or so much as chirped. It was an odd, eerie silence. "Ren, what now eh? It can't be that easy!" An evil smirk crossed his lips, his scythe spinning haphazardly behind his back like a helicopter blade.

RE: Two against Two billion.

((not really he'll stop, pivot then fire again, that is the one downside))

Ren nodded softly and closed his eyes "it comes." he stated softly, his FTL drive roared up to speed, the air around him rippled further and further, being torn up byond all understanable physical law, a fly drifted in to the edge of the malestorm a small lave got hurled out the other side quickly decomposing in to a small spot of dirt, the sand was whipped up and turned to shards of glass. the ground shook and Ren smiled jumping backwards landing lightly he flexed his arms and the chaotic area around him seemed to be drawn towards his cufs turning them in to rings of silver blue light, all of a sudden a huge four legged walker erupted from the ground, it looked like some sort of mutant spider with its abodmen being a larger version of the crystal they had seen earlier, clearly powering it, all along is legs and sholders were turrets and the smaller creathurs, "yeah, thats one of the regen ones." he said as one of the scarabs hurtled at him one of his cuffs discharged at it and it crashed in to his chest, shattering in to suger, the second one was hit and froze in mid air, stepping to the side it acelerated in to a blur then stopped again where he had stood, flicking his blade out it passed through the scarab, it then acelerated again, well the front half did, fireing again the bolt hit a third scarab heading towards Vance, turning in to a large fridge. "well shit." the fridge was moveing at the same speed as the scarab, quite bloody fast.

RE: Two against Two billion.


(yeah I know its a necron from warhammer 40k but its the closest looking thing I could find, it dosn't have the back spikes or the symbols, and the claws are huge cannons, and its legs are covered in 'scales' that are the scarabs, and its pitch black, its eyes are red. oh and its got four legs)

RE: Two against Two billion.

The shifter went wide-eyed as the first scarab disintegrated, the second froze in time, and the third turned into a fridge...... that was hurtling towards him. He growled, slicing the refridgerator into 4 pieces, and in a flash, kicked them towards the huge monster. "Thanks for that." he said icily, studying the monster, eyes pinpointing the turrets. "Well than, this oughta be fun." He tilted forward, and took off towards the beast, his scythe ready in one hand, his TK560 in the other, except somehow, it seemed different. Deadlier somehow. It became apparent when he fired, the bullets litterally exploding when they hit. "That's it Ren, they know we're here. I'm calling in an air strike if we can't do too much damage to it." He kept the fire up, taking out the turrets and any creatures that attempted to jump off.

Then, he thought of something. "What would happen if I attacked the crystal?"

RE: Two against Two billion.

Ren nodded and smiled "it would go of like a nuke, I'd survive, just." he said darting round his entire body seeming to disapear from time and space for a few seconds, then reapearing in which several scarabs would just die, some in entertaining and stupid ways such as getting turned in to a pencil sharpener, the others getting torn apart bit by bit. pausing for a few secons Ren drew his handgun and put around in the sensory relay on the spider. "well atleast it can-eeek!" he jumped as a bolt of green energy struck the ground next to him "ok it can still see." he said jumping up and then flipping over backwards, raining bolts of probability down, landing on a small pile of suger, "well smeg." he said then jumping up and sidways he swung one elbow round and crunched in to one of the armour panels leaving a small dent "well dammit do we have any demo charges?" he asked absent mindedly.