"Why did I let him work on the RoboHobo project?"
Pedro sat helplessly in the oversized bindle-net, arms crossed as he grumbled about his current situation. Being captured was hardly any fun for anybody, and doubly so for someone who had gone to great links to defend himself from this sort of violation as POS had. Either Doug Doukhobor was smarter than anyone had given him credit or Pedro O'Sullivan was seriously slipping. Fo' reals, yo.
A few minutes passed before Pedro felt the momentum of their trip slow to a halt, before suddenly shifting as the bindle carrying him whipped through the air and opened, hurling him through the air into a polished chrome wall. The wind knocked out of him, Pedro took a moment to regain his senses as he slid down to the floor.
"Mr. O'Sullivan, welcome," Doug Doukhobor greeted his prisoner, a self-satisfied smirk plastered on his face, "and might I say, 'Checkmate'. Not bad, huh? Oh, right, hang on a sec..."
Pressing a button sequence on the control panel next to him, Doug activated a security field around Pedro, a forcefield sizzling to life between them combined with an antigravity device that held the prisoner motionless in the air.
"Much better. I have to say, I'm actually surprised this worked," Doukhobor continued, "The whole plan hinged on your willingly helping the other NPFers, to which I was highly skeptical. Still, my people on the inside assured me that you'd fall for it and, what do you know, you did. Still, it couldn't have happend without my--"
"Cram it, Doug."
"Buh, wha...?" the would-be mastermind stammered, his villainous monologue so rudely interruped by his captive audience.
"You didn't supply anything," Pedro sighed as he floated, "Everything you have is stolen one way or another from POS Industries. From
me. Equipment, designs, resources, manpower, covert operatives that are apparently still under my employ... Hell, I even bought up a controlling share of your stock about an hour ago.
I own you, you stupid fucking
pissant!"
"Not for long, stringbean," Doug growled, growing ever more enraged at this constant stream of verbal abuse, "I've got you right where I want you, and with this machine, I will..."
Before he could continue, a squeal of alarms erupted as the facility around them shook mildly, once again interrupting Doug's attempt at valuable exposition. The sound of gunfire grow closer and closer, louder and louder as the last of Doukhobor's robotroopers fought to repel the intruder before suddenly growing quiet. A few seconds passed before the door opened and in walked the man who had singlehandedly stormed his way into the villain's inner midst.
Santa Claus.
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Teddy bear still in her grasp, the green crystalline entity known as Anima reached the floor of the Kurosen Tower below along with the rest of the NPFers as the two teams had finally regrouped in one spot after what seemed like ages.
A pendent around the plush toy's neck suddenly glowed and surrounded it in an aura of light as Anima set it upon the ground, transforming the Bear back into its natural form, where it let out a loud roar and began sniffing about through the wreckage of the chamber around it.
Anima remained in her avian form, flying toward the nearest familiar face from her telepathic link with Pedro's own thoughts: Rei. The android had limped her way forward, ignoring the zany hijinks of the others behind her for a moment as she moved nearer to the Kurosen itself.
Reaching out in front of her, Rei placed both hands on the relic and closed her eyes. The golden glow of the Kurosen enveloped her, connecting to her main power cell and recharging it and briefly
supercharging it for a moment, sending her internal repair nanites on overdrive. Her power output rose exponentially, the energy swirling about the android's body as she "healed", before exploding harmlessly in a quick flash and coming to an end.
"OOOKEEEEEDOOOOKEEEEEE," Rei called out to the others, feeling better than ever as the Kurosen relic decended into a more secured holding area until the appropriate repairs to the facility could be completed, "Here's the situation: The Kurosen power plant has been disabled and NPF City is running on emergency power. Everything should be mostly operational, though the mods' and admins' powers have been altogether comprimised. Limited thread manipulation is possible, but bannings require too much energy and even one could collapse the power grid for the whole forum.
"Pedro's been kidnapped, a vengeance-driven duplicate Santa is on the loose, and there's a mad scientist out there that's spent all day trying to kill each and every one of us, tried to destroy the very heart of our forums, and needs to be brought to justice. I'm putting the tournament on hold temporarily so that we can go in there and put an end to this before something
really goes wrong..."
A hyperlink portal opened before the group as Anima came to a rest in Rei's hand, returning to her shard form as the android placed Anima in her pocket before continuing her exposition.
"Your submitted tournament items will be transferred back to you at O'Sullivan Tower, where we're going to resupply before storming Doukhobor Labs," she explained as she walked into the portal, "I'm going and you don't have to come with if you don't want, but I'd appreciate the help. I have a bad feeling about what Doug's got planned..."