Factory Mission

Imp was horrified as a loud buzzing sound blasted through the star system. His breath catching in his throat as the machine voiced it's decision in a cold indifferent voice. "Oh hell, my boss is dead..." Imp said quietly, "He's been written out..."

"For the love of the abyss Imp, authorized means 'allowed entry', not killed by an author." Void shouted back to the illiterate tub of lard, "Just keep searching."

As Void neared the planet, he noticed that it was a Net police officer. There goes my theory... Void ponders as he studies the figure on top of the planet, If it's the netpolice, they couldn't be draining them, unless it's combat memories.

Giving a glace at the door, It could have something to do with that little 'netwar' that happened a while ago, the one where we killed dimension man's main squeeze. Void let himself have a quick chuckle as he remembered the post asking for information about him and kitsune. A quick wave of doubt went through his mind as he remembered the fox like navi, I wonder what happened to him, we got split up and I haven't heard from him.

Giving a glance towards the door in the earth, Void was about to enter for a better look when he saw that the officer was holding something. Giving a quick glance towards the navi's face, Void looked closer at the hand, as well as the sleeping officer, trying to see if he was a 'higher program' than most of the grunts in the force. Focusing on what it was holding might be a clue to this bizarre place.

As he looked at the object, Void couldn't help but have a nagging thought...

Wouldn't be a kick in the balls if they were trying to bring back someone from NP memories? I hope it isn't someone I permanently deleted...

that would screw up my body count...

Splitman looked at the body, then looked at Imp and Void, then looked back at the body again. "Alright guys, enough freaking out. We need to continue with or schedule ASAP or we won't be meeting our deadlines. Times-a-wasting, come on" He yelled at them, arms waving forward in a vain attempt to heard him up the stairs/earth/out the door.

"We can discuss the metaphysical and/or practical ramifications of his being there later" He added, before continuing out the door himself

"You know it is an interesting point" Chad added, unfortunately inquisitively. "There is a great deal to wonder about, with how they managed to keep the corpse, the body of data intact. How they -" "Shutup, already" Split interrupted. Whatever had come out to make Chad so talkative today was not at all welcome. His shuffled his feet forward a bit while contemplating more peaceful days, when his master would just shutup and trade chips while he went out to bomb hospitals or the like.

Void discovers a piece of cloth in the officer's hand. He automatically obtains it, for no apparent reason.

Upon closer inspection, the cloth seems to fade in and out of existence. Hmmm...

Going through earth, Split finds stairs... and a wide open door at the top of them, swinging to and fro... Hmmmm

Void GET: Spooky Cloth.???

"Aw, you're just jealous of Void's authorization cause it lets him write good ideas.", Imp said in a smug tone. The annoyingly stupid grin was knocked off of his face when Void hit him in the back of the head.

"Again, that word means I was allowed to approach the planets, NOT that I'm allowed to be a author." Void gave a look at Imp as the small creature rubbed the back of it's head. "Anyways, thanks chad for the point of interest."

"Here, you can have this." Void said, tossing the cloth as Imp, "I was hoping it'd be a dossier or something with actual info, but it's just a stupid piece of trick cloth."

Catching it, Imp chuckled at the novelty of it. "This thing is pretty neat, I could probably make a little banana with it.", he said as he tried to loop the cloth around his horns that were hidden by the illusion.

Void looked up the stairs to the swaying door, "I know you think I'm paranoid and crazy, but I don't think that's the next floor; and even if it was I don't think we are going to like what we fi---"

"NINJA WARRIOR OF THE ABYSS, IMP! POWERED BY THE GHOST BANDANA OF FLICKERING INVISIBLENESS-NESS, AN ITEM TRAPPED BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND THE NEX---" Imp roared in a battle cry, flushed with his success in putting the cloth around his head. However, the ninja warrior was cut off by a sudden blow to the head from a much greater warrior, the severely pissed off shadow person. "Do you want to get us killed? just go up the stairs..."

Splitman looked back at Void then at the door again. This entire situation was making him to far too many double takes for comfort. "Look... Fix.. Gear.. whatever, we are going up through..." He looked at his ally talking to himself and was acutely reminded of the futility of reason.

"Lets just go..." He muttered to himself, walking as quickly as reasonable up the stairs. Each step seemed to take an eternity too long while his ally drove away endlessly at his sanity. Each word like a tiny little microchasm of that most hated of beings.. Mental.. His mind began to drift away at the thought and memory of his plans to murder that abomination... Beneath his disguise Split's eyes began to fade into red and the door finally was within reach.. The faster he got done with this... the faster the insanity would stop...

One last double take... god damn why did he always get the insane teammates. At least half of him wasn't deranged...

On the seventh floor, they find two assembly lines, and a bunch of passed out NetPolice navis.

The one nearest to them seems to be a bit conscious, indicated by his groaning.

Well, shall we find out what happened here? Or shall we proceed to the eight floor?

"Wow, talk about sleeping on the job..." Imp muttered as the entered the door.

"I think that the planets below have something to do this, if the they were making or repairing a navi and it went wrong it might be attacking people." Void muttered, looking at the piles of unconscious navi's, "and yet they tried to kill us when we tried to save that fire ball guy when he was corrupted. Somehow everyone else is always the evil ones..."

"Hey boss, this guy's online, although I don't know how much longer." Imp called back as he stood over one of the NP officers.

Void walked over to the navi and crouched down, "What did this?" He asked simply, he didn't care about this officer or any others, they'd all die when the bombs went off, and there is no way he could carry them to safety...

Splitman wandered about the location with a sort of haphazard zeal, as though he wanted to do something productive here but was desperately lost in.. something...

"So.. think we can... take... the stuff from this section of the line..?" He half-asked half-mumbled to his comrade from a distance. "Just grab some and go" His friendly disembodied voice responded "This place is creepy as hell, and there is probably someone plotting your murder on the next floor"

Splitman took the words into consideration, his eyes flickering sporadicly between blue and red before finally settling on a pale-blue. "Take your time over there.." he shouted across the room "Can't... uh.. can't be too careful with these things" Meanwhile he settled himself with investigating this portion of the assembly line and shoving the choicest pieces into his magically predetermined bag for holding.

Split gathered more stuff as Void questioned the conscious Netpolice worker.

"C-couldn't s-see... t-too quick. W-was it a g-ghost?" the worker replied, before drifting off to la-la land.

If you looked up the stairs, there seemed to be pieces of cloth fading in-and-out of sight scattered up. Someone had done a messy job.

Splitman stopped gathering things...... Damnitdamnitdamnitdamnitdamnit.... There was no way out of this, was there? A few possibilities came to mind but nothing that would help in in the long run, nothing that could help he kill Mental. Just pathetically running like a pansy. "Lets just get this over with" Splitman sighed, before casually walking up the stairs towards his goal.

A ghost, huh?

"A ghost..." Imp said blankly as the officer drifted off, "that's a great description buddy... thanks..."

As Void with the now depressed imp headed towards the stairs, Damian spoke up, <I've been thinking, you may be right. If the navi is transparent like a ghost, and shedding these bits of cloth everywhere... Maybe it's fragmenting... or something> trailing off at the end, the netOP was embarrassed to have an idea that simply restated the obvious.

"Hmmm... if this is true, then whatever the weapon being produced here could of been made from the navi's code..." Void muttered out loud, "A rather morbid thought."

As they continued to the next floor, Void couldn't help but chuckle, "I wonder what the public would say about this..."

Split and Void continue onto the eight floor, where they see a big red X next to a column. That must be where the bomb should be placed.

However, they are not alone. Two figures seem to be standing in front of the target column. One was wearing a very tattered cloak, so they couldn't see who or what it was, but the other the two instantly recognized, by the wholly black figure, and leather hat and trenchcoat.

It was Smoke.

How he got here faster than them was a mystery. Was there an elevator or something that they missed?

Smoke and the cloak guy seemed to muttering about something. Hmmm... do you want to listen to them a little?

Splitman looked at them, a dumbfounded look upon his face. He probably should have seen this coming. He wasn't sure exactly what this was, but, yeah, definitely should have seen it coming. His arm clicked into position, ready to fire whatever it was that Chad might load. He kept it at his side, but was going out guns blazing at the first sign of trouble.
"Fakes, illusions, almost certainly memories of something that once was. This whole mission better not be blown" He said to his ally before checking out the last bomb to make sure it wasn't fading in and out of existence like a frat boy on a Friday night. "So we are left with a dilemma. I am going to wait to see what is going on, but if you have any bright ideas, now is the time for them"

Damnit, if this whole thing was for naught someone would have hell to pay.

"Oh for the love of the abyss..." Void said, turning his head towards, "You gotta chill out. I know you are getting worked up, but you're starting to sound paranoid to me... and that's saying something..."

Void pointed towards the 2 navis, "This was probably a 3 prong attack. The first was the guy who lead us here and collected the final product. The second was probably here to see how the data for the weapons was created. We were here to A) lay the bombs and B) be tested to see how quickly we could get the job done. If we failed, we'd be concidered rouge navi's than with the mafia, and we'd obviously not be cut out for this... 'field of work'..."

"The navi also seems to be based on a ghost or wrath, which explains what the net navi on the last floor said." Imp said from a slightly further point than the other Void and Split, "The real question is did we fail because ghost boy had to go down and wipe out all the navis?"

Void chuckled, "Persionally though, I agree with you." Void said as his 'soul pin' dagger formed in his hand, "We go out ready to fight and if there is no threat we just say the pile of bodies had us worried." After a slight pause to ready himself, he calmly walked out and headed towards his ally.

"Sorry for the hold up, first time and all that."

"...and most importantly..." Smoke said to the ghost guy before noticing Void and Splitman. "We'll continue this discussion later. HEY guys! Not bad, not bad! We thought some of the guys on two floors would've been a bit troublesome so we took the liberty of... helping you," Smoke greeted. The ghost figure nodded behind him.

"Well now, let's blow this place up and get out of here, shall we? This is Wraith, that's not his real name, but details. Let's go gentlemen," Smoke continued hurriedly gesturing to the red X.

Void gave a knowing glance back at split, eyes flattening into a...

"TOLD YOU SO!" Imp shouted at Split, disrupting the subtly of the moment and earning a smack in the back of the head from Void. Disarming the sig attack, Void said to wrath, "You gave us a scare, and trust me. From one ghost based design to another, that means something..."

Giving a glance back at Split while rubbing his head, Imp muttered, "Come on, plant the bomb and let's blow this pop stand."

Splitman looked back and fourth at the groups hesitantly. This whole thing was weird... it made every quanta of his existence scream out that it was a trap. Traps aren't this obvious though, right? They have a purpose...
"Sure, I'll finish up here, but how long is it till the bomb goes off...? I don't exactly like the order of events you presented." Splitman said, while walking at a slow pace towards the final location.

He could feel Chad watching on in silence in the back of his head. That was weird too... if this ended up not being a trap he would be more confused than ever before. He took out the bomb to place it on the spot, awaiting Smoke's answer.

"The bomb will explode in 60 minutes once you press this detonator," Smoke said, pulling out a detonator and handing it to Split.

Split LOSE: BombAlpha, BombBeta, BombGamma. GET: Detonator.

"So, we'll escort you guys out. Since you know, someone might've noticed our little mishap. The express elevator's over here. Come on, Wraith," Smoke said, leading the way to... an elevator. How did they not notice that?

Alright, time to scram and blow this place up.

Split took the detonator. The whole thing was a bit... easy...

He didn't have a problem with easy, it just never seemed to turn out that way in practice. "Well then, care to come along?" He asked his comrade. He looked around for the way out, the express elevator better not have been as obvious as he was beginning to think it was.
On the way out he took a moment and realized them being here was pointless overall "Why is it we were necessary for this job anyway? I mean no offense, but it would seem you two could do it just fine on your own...." He asked the clearly superior duo.

"It's simple enough," Void said as he followed Split on to the elevator, "they were just testing us, we were never really needed. Rather, they wanted to see if we could do it when we WERE needed."

Stepping onto the elevator, he put his back up against the wall. never hurt to be too careful, really.