Knocking on Hephaestus' Door

A lonely portal in the middle of the Hades Isle network flickered from red to blue as a grey-hooded figure flicked its fingers over it to activate it. The figure stepped backwards and took out a blank white smiling mask from its robe, and put it on, waiting for whoever would step through the portal.

The figure looked around the area, which was a long tunnel running through what looked like the middle of an active volcano. Streams of magma flowed through the tunnel and down the walls and dripped down from the ceiling, but the figure didn't seem bothered at all, except to tug at its mask every few minutes or so. The only unnatural thing about the tunnel was a single strip of metal flooring and ceiling panels through its middle towards the portal, untouched by the magma.
{Puppy.GMO and Jaguar.GMO Active}

Trent made his way through the portal shortly after it had been activated with his new tiny puppy nipping at this heels. Trent was wearing an active GMO, one that gave him a new found head piece and a much more heat effective outfit than his normal, hyper-thermal, gear. The leather shoes wouldn't do too well here, but the amount of exposed skin made it worth it as the heat from the area was rather intense. In his hands Trent gripped two obsidian blades and locked eyes with the mask before him. Mark was sure that both parties would be a bit shocked by the double headgear, but if Trent was he didn't show it. Trent stared awkwardly at the masked figure, wondering how he managed the heat in a full robe. Sasha pushed himself forwards, between Trent's legs, and leaned his large head back to get a better few. Curse this short size!

Mark broke the silence that Trent and created and said, "We are the ones who responded to your request. What seems to be the deal." On a small piece of paper, Mark started to draw the face of the mask, both as reference, and to keep a memory of it. Unlike Trent he couldn't simply remember.
The first thing Trent saw upon his entrance was that the masked figure didn't seem to be interested in him, but rather the puppy at his feet. The figure lifted a gloved hand to its mask, and Trent swore he heard a snicker escape. The hand then gestured a "wait" command to Trent, and reached into the robe to pull out a red-tinted visor. Throwing it at the knife fighter, a robotic filtered voice said, "Put that on and follow me. I got another one waiting inside and I don't like leaving her alone for too long. Try not to get caught by anything on the way in, please."

The figure then turned on its heel and walked quickly down the metal lane, not bothering to wait for Trent. The knife fighter would find, upon donning the visor that was provided, that it created a lime-green outline around him, Sasha, and the robed stranger. Other than that, it was also not really red once he looked through it, as it shifted to a transparent display upon equipping it.
Trent and the other figured watched as Sasha the puppy started to tip backwards from the weight of his own head. In an effort to keep his balance he shifted his weight to the right, only to further his own demise and tip over fully. Another small whimper escaped the puppy Sasha. He hated this a good bit when the audience he desired wasn't around. Trent had to cover his mouth too, his was rather attached to the vicious Sasha but this one was cute. Down to business time though as Trent was handed a visor, which he put on after instruction to do so. The red faded away quickly and showed the world as it was, creating a very hard-to-miss outline around the robe. Trent looked down to Sasha, expecting the same result from the visor, a green outline around his puppy. It did.

Trent moved after the figure just as quickly and kept his thoughts on the device and the mission to himself. He didn't bother with questions, knowing he would be filled in on what they wanted him to know one way or another. The rest he would be on his own in discovering regardless. Trent caught up to the figure quickly, and so did Sasha, who moved surprisingly fast for a tiny puppy. Guess some of the power of the big dog was still there after all.
For a few moments, the silence was unbroken save for an occasional gurgle from a nearby lava flow while they walked through the tunnel. The heat was sweltering for Trent, even with his thermally-adjusted attire, while the figure in front of him didn't seem to have any trouble with it. However, after a little bit, the figure halted suddenly in its tracks, and turned to look towards the sides of the tunnel, as if looking for something.

At that instant, a resounding crash was heard from behind them, and the figure twisted around, unsheathing two crackling yellow knives from inside its robe. Three strange blobs covered in lava had crashed in from the ceiling behind them, the molten rock around them warping around in strange ways while Trent looked on. Metallic bug-like features like creeping green legs and straight wings burst forth from the lava blobs, and a mechanical screech emanated from one of their newly-revealed steel maws.

"Tsk!" clicked the figure, throwing one of its knives at a lava-encrusted insectoid contraption. The electrically-charged weapon crackled as it pierced the thing's carapace, and before Trent knew it, the figure had turned to flee. They were slightly taken by surprise from the immediate counter, but recovered quickly, and started to crawl swiftly towards him!

-- ENEMIES --
Kryptron A: 170 HP [Status: Red / Lava / Stunned (2 Move Away)]
Kryptron B: 250 HP [Status: Red / Lava / Pursuing (1 Move Away)]
Kryptron C: 250 HP [Status: Red / Lava / Pursuing (1 Move Away)]

-- ALLIES --
Trent.EXE: 190 HP [Status: Green / Metal / FloatShoes]
Sasha.SP: 50 HP [Status: Green / Normal]

Robed Figure: &!lt;# [Status: Green / Metal / Fleeing (2 Move Away) / Equip: ElecKnife]

-- TERRAIN --
15% Metal
70% Lava
15% Normal

[Note: Tunnel is sloping downwards 20 degrees, lava flow follows.]

-- BATTLE 01, READY? START!! --
"How can he be OK with the heat?" Mark asked loudly. "It must be boiling under all those robes. Unless he is just robes! That would be a very strange design." Mark went back to his business around the apartment, taking up to cleaning more, waiting on them to arrive at the final meeting location. Trent and Sasha followed behind, Sasha panting heavily from the nearby lava.

Suddenly the crash was heard Trent and Sasha both ducked low and pulled up weapons or showed teeth. This time though Sasha was far too adorable to be seen as any form of a danger, the puppy teeth poking through just enough. The growl emitted sounded more like a stuffed animal than the dog that he used to be. As both realized the surprise attack the robed figure withdrew a knife, something that Trent could take appreciation too. Mark darted back to the PET as the sound echoed through his empty apartment.

The next thing that Trent picked up on was the red outlines around the blobs themselves. That was something new, clearly showing a distinction between a hostile and friendly targets. He would have to pay very close attention to this, it was a useful tool. His mind began to try and understand what the reason he has this was, it was clear which targets were hostile and which were friendly. There must be something else going on with this thing. Either way Trent turned his focus to the matter at hand.

"Those are some bulky viruses. Not to mention they are also on fire. Sasha should probably stay back, just for now, until we get to the heart of the issue. These things, I feel, are more like a bump in the road," Mark said while flipping through the chip collection on one of the PET's panels.

Trent agreed. He signaled to Sasha to stay back and use his collar, with the puppy struggled with at first, but did manage to get a cube out of it to grant the barrier to the tiny puppy. Sasha backed off and lowered his weight, letting his eyes dart around the first to watch for any form of attack. While the dog took cover Trent requested three chips. One of them Mark fully expected, the others though were a bit of a shock. "Mistconvergence? Really?" It made sense in one way but Mark never expected Trent to use melee chips over his much more favored swords.

Trent didn't answer and merely took the chip data given. He dropped low and moved in quickly. He was used to the ever changing tide of battle and kept his sense aware as he move in for the attack. He uploaded the first of the mistconvergence chips on his right hand, while routing the aquaknife to his left. As the chip activated water surrounded his fist, which trailed off of the forward movement on his punch. He aimed it right for the center mass of the first insect and the quickly ducked and rolled to his right to avoid getting hit by the bug on his left. No doubt it would be trying to start something after that shot.

Wanting to drop the nearby target, Trent kept up and slid his knife upwards in a slashing motion at the underside of the insect he had just attacked. Moving to his feet from the ground he waited a moment before re engaging the other bug with the water knife leading the charge. A strong downwards blow meant to pierce the carapace on the head is how the started the fight with the second bug. He kept his weight going and the dove and rolled to the left of the bug, then summoning the second mistconvergence chip. With a strong pull his right fist was back at his side before delivering a strong uppercut to underside of the bug. Trent pulled himself away from the fight slightly and held his black and blue water knife out front for a guard.

Mark watched silently from the side.

Summary
Sasha
1) Protection Collar -40 HP barrier- to self
2) Prepare Dodge

Trent
*Free Action: Fast Warrior: Movement towards Krypton B
1) Mistconvergence1 chip to Kryptron B -100 + Aqua + Impact
2) Dodge
3) AquaKnife to Kryptron B -60 + Slashing + Aqua-
4) AquaKnife to Kryptron C -60 + Slashing + Aqua-
*Free Action: Swordplay: Dodge
5) Mistconvergence1 tp Kryptron C -100 + Impact + Aqua-
With Mark's advice, Trent engaged the strange adversaries, starting off with a MistConv punch towards one of them. However, with the damage that came to it, he felt something odd at the tips of his knuckles, like they just brushed the edge of a fire. Odd, as the aquatic nature of the battlechip should have protected him from the lava.

As he continued to attack his enemies, they lashed out at him with several vicious slashes and bites, each dodged with his agile movements. Even his knife was starting to feel a bit warm, though, and when he landed a solid uppercut to finish off his offenses for the moment, he noticed a strange red coating that started to spread outwards from his fist, stopping at half his forearm. The coating didn't really feel like much, but his visor said otherwise; it flashed an angry red for a moment before replacing the green outline around his body with an orange one.

Behind him, Sasha activated his defenses, and waited, while the robed figure had stopped in its tracks, staring back at Trent's battle. "What the hell are you doing?! Come on!!" the robotic voice yelled.

-- ENEMIES --
Kryptron A: 170 HP [Status: Red / Lava / Pursuing (1 Move Away)]
Kryptron B: 50 HP [Status: Red / Normal / Attacking (Melee Range)]
Kryptron C: 30 HP [Status: Red / Normal / Attacking (Melee Range)]

-- ALLIES --
Trent.EXE: 190 HP [Status: Orange / Metal / FloatShoes / AquaKnife 4/6]
Sasha.SP: 50 HP [Status: Green / Normal / 40 HP Barrier]

Robed Figure: &!lt;# [Status: Green / Metal / 2 Moves Away / ElecKnife 6/6]

-- TERRAIN --
15% Metal
60% Lava
25% Normal

[Note: Tunnel is sloping downwards 20 degrees, lava flow follows.]
Trent quickly back off and disengage his attack after seeing the change in his own aura from his offense. Mark was rather shocked by the change as well, I guess that would explain why the group actually needed help. There couldn't be many changes of color between orange and red, and if the red aura alone is what is causing this change the fighter could be in serious trouble. Sasha's first instinct was to run out to Trent's side, seeing his fast and unusual shift in body language, but a fast order from him sent the puppy chasing and nipping on the edges of the robed figure before him.

"I am fighting is what I am doing!" Trent answered to the figure. He moved off after them as well. He kept his feet light and actions erratic in case of a counter attack. Trent wasn't sure if a ranged attack would be a safe bet or not, and keep moving instead. He thought about the thrown knife by the figure, and decided to copy the action, chucking the knife by the blade at the foremost bug. Trent kept his feet going, chasing after the tail of the robes.

"A little warning would have been nice!" Mark shouted out. He switched to a private line, "I don't trust him. He asks for our help and fails to correctly provide us with information to prevent this. Keep an eye on him and make sure Sasha never loses sight. I want him and anyone else we are directly involved with tracked and recorded." Mark moved away and gather the correct supplies for him to do the same thing. He changed the display that he had from the standard used for Trent's battles, a bird's eye view, to a more free roaming view, expanding the holographic panels outwards to give a wider angle. All three were on close alert.

Trent had a chip in mind to finish them all off, but he was unsure if it would further the change in appearance of his aura. "Would a ranged attack be safe to use?" Trent asked while moving up on the figure more. He readied the metagel chip, keeping it on standby. If this chip was clear to use he would unleash the watery blobs on the pursuing viruses, hoping to delete and/or slow their advance for a clean escape. Trent tried to keep his mind off his aura for the time being, keeping a focus for escape and deletion instead.

Summary
Sasha
1) Chase Robed Figure
2) Follow Robed Figure

Trent
*Free Action: Fast Warrior: Move away from the Kryptron
1) Dodge
2) Movement After Robed Figure
3) Throw AquaKnife at Kryptron B -60 + Aqua + Slashing-
4) Ask Question and keep moving after them
5) If able to safely use Metagel1 chip, then do so. Metagel to Each Kryptron -90 + Aqua + Slow-
{Bump}
A little angry hiss came from behind the smiling mask as they fled the scene, leaving the scuttling robotic enemies behind. Trent's AquaKnife landed perfectly on one of them, disabling it but not deleting it, as a virus would have been by that time. The robed figure gestured with its head in the affirmative towards the enemies as Trent asked if he could use a ranged attack, and threw its remaining ElecKnife at the weakest one. It fell down, but resisted deletion as well.

The MetaGel thus fell, and disabled the last of their enemies. As there was no junk data left from the battle, the usual reward packets one would expect never came. For a while, the running continued until the figure stopped to catch its breath, resting up against a wall that wasn't covered in lava. "I think... we lost 'em... for a... little bit..." the breathless voice behind the mask said. Another knife left the figure's robe, this time uncharged with any elemental energy, and the figure stabbed it into the wall for support, which surprisingly parted easily. After a few seconds, the mask turned towards Trent.

"I told you... to follow me. That was all. I'll... fight along, if it comes to that... But right now..." the voice said, swallowing at the end. A gloved finger reached out towards the warm red coating on Trent's hand, which had stopped spreading up his arm, but retracted back with hesitation. The outline around his body that he saw had dimmed down to a less bright orange-yellow as well. "... Don't move... that hand too much... I'll fix that later. Use your other han--" the voice continued, before a startling explosion from where they came from racked the silence.

The dim light emanated from the lava coming from upstream faded as a wall of rocks blocked its flow, and near darkness enveloped the area. The robed figure sighed mechanically, and a "shank" noise was heard from its knife being pulled from the wall. An eerie blue light appeared from the knife, illuminating the immediate area. "... I knew I shouldn't have left her alone..." the voice said. At the same time, Trent saw the green outline of a humanoid figure through the walls, thanks to his visor, running towards them through what he assumed to be a side tunnel.

The knife's blue illumination was pointed towards the outline, confirming that the robed figure also saw it coming. After waiting for a little while, a false holographic wall near them disappeared into thin air, and the green outline stepped out into clear view. Fuzzy feline ears popped out of short, dirty blonde hair, while a piercing pair of orange eyes on a white-furred female face stared at the knife fighter. Below that was a nondescript grey robe, from which the barrel of a replica of the famous SK-49 Sharoan assault rifle peeked out.

"I'm sorry about that, didn't mean to be so loud!" she said, bowing down her head to Trent and the robed figure. "Honestly, I thought I told you to wear your mask," the robed figure said, crossing its arms in exasperation. "Anyway, this is our help, please try not to blow 'em up." The girl beamed and turned back to Trent, and bowed even more than she did earlier. "We've got a few more of those up ahead, so we'll either need to crash through them or take a detour back here through some, uh, rough terrain."

"Don't care for either of 'em. Ask him how he feels about it," the masked one said, delegating the decision to their hired help with a small wave of its hand.
Trent and Mark were both very disappointed that the spare data wasn't dropped after reducing the health to nothing. Trent was upset for the simple fact that the more of them they failed to be able to kill, the more they would come back later and he would have to deal with them again. Mark was happy from a lack of money, which he verbally expressed, but Trent feared he would soon understand the real danger of the issue. Trent followed closely and the little puppy Sasha did as well, nipping at the trailing robes of the figure. When a break was around Trent had a pressing question to ask. "Why didn't they get deleted?"

Mark had a few of his own and blurted them out, without waiting for a response to Trent's question. "What was wrong with those things and what is wrong with Trent's hand? Will those things be on our trail now? Are they just going to follow us? Is there any way to kill them fully?"

Trent looked down at his hand when the figure addressed it, the orange glow slowly receding. He had easily taken care of the viruses, the problem here wasn't his battle skill, but rather the unrelenting nature of these strange viruses and the aura around him. His attention quickly changed back to the figure as his visor showed another green outline, and a fake wall vanished. A small cat like girl popped her head out, and the puppy Sasha was quick to attack. With a natural feud between dog and cat he sprang forwards, yipping rather than barking, and never able to hold his ground for long, since his own balance often pushed him to new footing.

Mark chuckled at Sasha and Trent simply stared, unsure how the girl would react or if he should stop him. After a short moment he whistled softly, calling the small dog back over. Before leaving, tiny Sasha had one last growl left, almost as an 'I'll be watching you'.

"Neither option really sounds good." Mark said when the girl spoke. "How many more do you think are up ahead? Trent can't disable to terribly many without using some closer combat attacks it seems. Maybe the better bet would be the rough terrain?"

"Let's hit the terrain. Dodging the bulk of those things sounds best. Objections?" Trent said.

"How rough of terrain are we talking here?"
The catgirl's slitted pupils contracted slightly as the little puppy nipped around her robes, but she maintained a small smile, and even laughed a little, before the puppy retreated. "Um, wow, okay, that's a lot of questions. I'll be happy to answer a few once we get going, hee hee. I don't particularly like fighting them anyway. We can do that in our turf!" she said, taking out some huge goggles from her cloak and putting them on, causing them to light up with a bright orange glow. She then went back down the dark tunnel where she came from. The masked one stretched out its limbs, and gestured for Trent to follow, while it covered the rear.

"Soooooo, okay. Those things, I made them. Splicing some random viral signatures, one thing leads to another, and I somehow got them to resist deletion-at-zero commands with a duplication key file. Remote linki--" she rambled, before being interrupted by a filtered robotic cough from behind Trent. "A-Ah, sorry, almost went off on my own there. A-Anyway, they'll reassemble themselves after like, half an hour or something. Also, there's nothing wrong with your hand. Right now, anyway. With enough infected data, though, it'll disintegrate, or worse, try to reject its host program fatally, which means you get... deleted? I'm not sure. We'll get to the main recovery module soon, so I can remove the infection. As for how many are left--"

Another interruption came from behind Trent, this time with some fingers being flicked. "... Wait, hold on. If you blew them all up... Where'd you get the explosives from? I thought our cache was blocked off," it said, slowing down in its tracks. The catgirl sheepishly scratched her short hair, and replied, "Well... I was about to get to that..." just before a draft indicated that they had stepped out from the tunnel into a large space.

The tunnel made a 90-degree turn up into a roughly cylindrical shape, with sharp rocks jutting out randomly from the walls, looking like they would make good footholds. From the meagre lighting, some of them had barely visible cracks, though, so maybe not. Halfway up the tunnel, a dangling rope hung from a tiny opening way up in the middle of the ceiling, probably something like 40-50 feet up from the floor, with the rope's end singed off. Near the rope, a small access hatch built into the wall seemed to have been blasted open and was letting out huge, intimidating electrical sparks that traveled about the walls. The sparks provided a welcome second light source besides the catgirl's goggles, but besides that, they didn't look too great.

"Y-Yeah... sorry. Umm, I'm not sure how you'll get up there. Our cloaks are resistant to a lot of things, so that electric thingy isn't a problem for us, and we're good at climbing and stuff. So um, if you wanna go back, we can still do that."
Trent listened carefully as the cat girl explained everything. To him the whole situation sounded very interesting. Throwing random parts of viruses together for the sake of science this was something that spiked his curiosity. Mark was not as amused, as he instinctively compared the actions to those of the real world, where such action would be deemed highly immoral. Mark could see the practical uses for such an endeavor, but the idea still made his skin crawl. He could just picture random animals all sewed together with various body parts for each limb, the idea was much more gruesome than the myths had written them out to be.

All focus shifted to Trent's hand as she addressed the issue. The aura around his hand was the same steady color as Trent examined it. Being deleted wasn't was made Trent stop wanting to use the hand, it was the thought of losing his hand that made him cringe. Mark couldn't stand to think of what would happen if his prize fighter, who had just impressed so well, was deleted from a non fight event. "Let's just be extra careful with that hand," Mark chimed.

Soon the pathway narrowed out and reopened into the large room. Trent took a careful look around trying to see if the room was clear and noticed the dangling rope long before it was mentioned. The wall before him, in itself, posed no thread or problem for the strong fighter, but the dangerous arcs of energy did. Trent looked down at his tiny puppy Sasha, who was trying to peer upwards at the size of the whole wall. Mark and Trent were both thinking the same thing. How was Sasha going to manage to get up there? Trent kept staring a moment longer before bending down to pet the puppy. Sasha jumped at first, slightly startled by how abruptly Trent had appeared beside him. Trent gave the dog a few scratches and pets before sending him out of the net.

"It will be easier without Sasha in the net right now," Mark said. "I will summon him back to you once the terrain is more in line with his physical abilities. Now, how are you going o get up that wall? Let me dig through the chips, see what I can manage. We have to have a barrier or a shield type chip somewhere in here." The sound of shifting chips would be heard over the private line to Trent as Mark searched. Trent knew nothing would come up. The guard could work if it wasn't so cumbersome; no way to climb a wall holding that. There would be no protection chips to aid him.

A confident gasp was made as Mark pulled up the guard, but placed it back realizing the same thing that Trent already knew. As Mark searched, Trent talked.

"Let's keep going. Up the wall. I will be fine. You two go up first." Trent kept his sentences short and simple. Finally Mark had an idea.

"Got it. I have got it. We have a rageclaw here, that will help out a good bit, and we also have something a little less...conventional that could work. The gigasarm1 chip. It's a bit odd but if you charged it and smashed into the ground, the force should send you skyward, giving you a helpful advantage. Then the rageclaw will provide a secure grip and faster scaling, should you be hit. Its a good thing this GMO is active, your metal knives from before would have caused and issue, but those obsidian ones won't. I don't like the idea much, but it will have to do. Once you are up there we can use the fastgauge chip, maybe that will help with awareness of the lighting."

Trent accepted the chips and wait for them to start. He uploaded the gigasarm on his good hand and got closer to the wall. He lowered himself down to one knee and pulled his fist back. He started to charge the chip before smashing his hand down deep into the earth, hopefully sending him skywards. If it worked correctly, and he didn't leave a big hole in the ground, he would upload his rageclaw chip and grab on to the wall at the apex of his jump.

Summary
1) Jackout Sasha
2) Proclaim going forwards with this and not being scared of the big lighting wall
2) Gigasarm Charge
3) Smash ground with Gigasarm to Microburst upwards
4) If it works upload Rageclaw to grab the wall and start climbing
5) Profit
[Note: I swear I'll be faster in future, <=3 days. Stuff occupying me is over.]

The feline Navi's cloak whipped about through the back for a few moments as Sasha was petted and sent away into the ether, and her face perked up slightly. "Cute," she commented, giggling slightly. The masked one just sighed exasperatedly. However, the girl's giggling stopped when Trent extracted his GigasArm battlechip into his arm, and manifested it into the titular golem's fist. Both of them stepped back slightly, with the girl trying to hide her obvious interest.

"That is seriously not..." the robotic voice chimed out, but Trent wasn't having any of it, charging the chip quickly, and smashing the ground. The shock of the force sent Trent flying, and his two companions struggled to keep their cloaks on from the sudden gale that ensued. At the peak of his jump, Trent just barely managed to a rocky projection from the wall, which thankfully bore his weight with the one hand. The rock, however, was pretty isolated from others, with the nearest outcropping about 4 feet or so to his right, as well as below his position. From seeing some of the sparks end their journey beneath his feet, however, it might not be worth the risk.

Suddenly, he heard a mechanical shriek from above him, and lo and behold, one of the things he'd met earlier had begun to climb down the piece of rope that was dangling a little bit of distance from his position. With his other hand out of capacity for the moment, it wasn't looking for Trent! ... That is, before a bolt of sapphire light flashed before his eyes, immediately landing a headshot on the insectoid robot. The red outline around the robot dimmed and it fell to the ground.

Down on the floor, the girl's rifle's barrel smoked from its shot, pointed vertically upwards at its now-falling target. With the two cloaked figures stepping out of the way, the robot's inactive carapace landed with a crash, and the girl flashed a satisfied grin. "Gotcha covered!" she yelled. The masked one kicked at the pieces of the kill idly.
Trent breathed a heavy sigh of relief as the strange virus creature was shot down from beside him. He had other things to worry about at this point in time though, such as the lighting arching around him constantly and the lack of nearby foot holds for him to grab onto. Trent was stranded, very high up, on a sheer wall, near open sparks of high voltage. Not the best condition at the present time.

"Maybe this wasn't the best idea," Mark said, repeating the words of the masked Navi. "Ok let me think let me think." Mark repeated while his navi dangled from the wall. Trent was searching left and right, trying to get a bit of swing to his body to see if the nearest grip was just close enough. It wasn't. He was going to need something else. His grip inside the large claw tightened as he secured his grip and brought his other hand up to assist with the weight. "Give me a knife." Trent said. "Elecknife."

Mark quickly caught on to the objective. It was a good first start to finish climbing the wall, make sure that the sparks near him had a better source to latch unto than himself. Much like a lightning rod. Mark quickly sent over the chip data, allowing Trent to pull his free hand down and grip the handle. Before he fully uploaded the data from the elecknife into the blade, he started to swing his body to get as much distance between him and his current position as possible. On the top of an arch on the final big swing he ripped the knife out and slammed it into the cliff wall. He let go of the hilt quickly and let his body slow back down from the swings as he thought about his next move.

"Here use this." Mark slotted in a chip that, at first, seemed like a dangerous choice. But upon closer inspection, should be save enough with the knife nearby. Trent sent the mistconvergence to his other hand, which was a bit of an issue since that was the hand he shouldn't be using, and got another swing going, this time in the direction of the nearest foothold. He swung upwards and struck the sheer wall hard, trying to leave an open sore on the facade. Once his body slowed back down he reached over to where the newly formed hole would be and threw out a hand to grasp the new grip. He carefully checked the ability of the hole before letting go with his rageclaw. If he was happy with it he would climb towards the nearest grip then upwards towards the rope, using the rageclaw itself to secure new holds in the rock wall.

Summary
1) Use elecknife as a lighting rob away from the nearest hold.
2) Mistconvergence the wall to make a new hole.
3) Climb to the nearest hold using mistconvergence hole and rageclaw.
4) Use Rageclaw to climb towards the rope.
{Bumpo}
Mark and Trent had a stroke of genius as the operator transferred the ElecKnife to the Navi; the knife was quickly stuck into the wall. An impressive pillar of light arced from the knife out towards the middle of the room. Following up, the MistConvergence formed a new hole for him to hold onto, if only temporarily, and allowed him to swing up to a nearby hold. Several impressive feats of strength later, he was easily within reach of the rope, and a short way from the top. "I'm so bored. He's taking forever, I'm going up," a robotic voice echoed out. After that, Trent heard some clanks and beeps from far under him (he was a fair way up the shaft by then), and some actuator noises started to get closer to him.

The walls thumped loudly with every second, and suddenly, the rope swung before him; the robed figure had appeared before him, climbing up the rope like a monkey on a sugar rush. If he looked up a few seconds later, he'd barely see the mask peeking out of the opening, yelling out, "All clear!" The one at the very bottom responded with an affirmative "OK!" and kept her watch, making sure her rifle was ready to be fired at any intrusion.
Trent held his position as the noises started to fill the area, and the rope drop down. Once the masked figure had scurried past him quickly he narrowed his eyes at the figure. Mark had filled Trent in on the small comment about his speed, but Trent kept his opinions to himself. Once the rope was free he reached for it and pulled his body fully up on the platform. He stretched his arms out and rotated his wrists several times. Even someone as strong as him had some issues with that climb. The first boost helped the most for sure.

"I am going to send Sasha back in once it is confirmed the area is clear and that we don't have to do anymore crazy climbs like that," Mark said. "We don't want to keep un-summoning the poor guy."

Trent turned to look at the girl at the bottom before processing the scene behind him fully. At first glance it seems safe enough, so it watched as she climbed before turning to see what exactly was behind him.
At first, the view was rather dark, but some lights flickered in Trent's eyes, forcing him to adjust his eyesight to see this surroundings. The circular room they came into was rather cramped, and they had just come out of a hatch on the floor near the wall. Everything appeared to be made of a dull metal, and there was a nearly silent hum that seemed like it was coming from everywhere at once. The room was almost barren, with one large sliding metal door on the opposite end of the room. It would've been difficult to tell what the room was for, if it wasn't for a gigantic mechanical contraption in the middle that ran from the middle of the floor into the ceiling, along with red cross signs everywhere.

"Well, aren't you in luck, she just happened to lead us through a medbay hatch," the masked one chuckled, walking over to the middle of the room and pulling up a floating holoscreen. Some taps on the screen later, a green beam of light swept the room from top to bottom, and Trent's injured hand began to glow. The invisible visor he had put on earlier showed the orange glow on his arm slowly pulse back and forth between red and green, eventually settling back to green.

"And there we g--" the masked one started, before the inaudible hum from earlier turned into a loud set of klaxons blaring. At that moment, two feline ears popped up from the hatch near Trent. "Did I miss anything?" she yelled over the klaxons, which stopped shortly after. The masked one absentmindedly laid their hand on the door, which slid open in response, exposing three bugbots. They were similar to the ones Trent saw before, except they appeared to have extraneous parts from other bots haphazardly attached to them, and looked a lot more durable.

Of course, they also had that red glow from before, but suddenly, the machine in the middle of the room went into action, sweeping the room, including the bugbots. Trent saw his visor change the robots' glowing designation from red to green. This seemed to click with something for Trent's two companions, as the feline yelled, "Fire at will!"

-- ENEMIES --
KryptronEX A: 450 HP [Status: Green / Metal]
KryptronEX B: 450 HP [Status: Green / Metal]
KryptronEX C: 450 HP [Status: Green / Metal]

-- ALLIES --
Trent.EXE: 190 HP [Status: Green / Metal / FloatShoes]

Robed Figure: &!lt;# [Status: Green / Metal]
Feline Gunner: 300 HP [Status: Green / Metal]

-- TERRAIN --
100% Metal
Trent inspected his hand as the medbay finished scanning over it. He carefully flexed each finger, further checking that it was properly working. Everything seemed to be in order overall. Mark looked around the medbay, taking his best guesses on what the various machines would do. All attention snapped to the feline however, as he ears popped up and she talked about hearing something. Trent went into alert himself, checking the hatch they had just came from. It looked clear, but he didn't check because trusted her hearing, just that he was very cautious. Once the door slid open and the bots exposed, Trent dropped down and drew out a set of blades.

"Ah crap. Those ones have the red aura too, Trent." Mark said just as the medbay scanned and healed the bugs of their red aura. "Oh. Well that's interesting. It seems the medbay will heal the red aura of anything, even viral data. Hm."

Trent let a smile cross his face with glee as the green shone from around the viruses.

'Fire at will!'

You didn't have to tell Trent twice. The first thing, however, that Trent wished to do was bring back Sasha. The sheer volume of bugfrags that the dog could gain was too tempting for Trent to just pass up. "Bring Sasha back in."

Mark pressed a few buttons on the holo screen, switching between the few options for Sasha. When the GMO option came up, Mark selected the option, 'Temporary.' "There he should be good to go. Sending in now." Mark pressed the go button and beside Trent the bright white beacon that was the Sasha summon slammed into the ground beside the warrior. Left behind from the light was a tiny puppy of a dog, much to small for the huge light it was summoned from. Trent rolled his eyes that the gmo was still active.

"Lets get to work on these things. Sending in the metagel, if these guys do get their auras back, we want them at least somewhat slowed for your escape. Other than that, I will send in a selection for you." Mark slotted in several sword chips for Trent, including the machine sword.

Trent looked to Sasha, and the dog looked back, as they prepared to start the assault. Trent issued a whistle to Sasha, sending the dog bolting forwards, as fast as his little puppy legs could carry him. Trent brought up the metagel data, which caused three large blobs of gloop to summon above the heads of the bugs and drop down quickly. Hopefully the resulting splatter would slow them enough. Trent then pulled out a choice blade and followed his puppy into the fight. The moonblade started to form over and reshape the current knife he had. As Sasha neared the front lines first, Trent let out another whistle. Sasha jumped through the air and as he did so his GMO was stripped away, with the little puppy growing into a very large white dog mid jump. He landed with a much heavier thud, and spread his front legs out wide. With a lowered head and exposed teeth, the dog lowered his ears and raised his haunches. Barks and growls could be heard as the dog tried to back down to intimidate the viruses.

Trent flew right over the dog and used his moonblade to spin on the viruses. After doing so both backed out from the fight, and repositioned to the right of the group. Both noticed from the loud metal clangs the terrain style below them, and Trent pulled out his elecknife to use the room to full advantage. The other blade Trent had in his right hand started to spark to arch. He switched the blade to reverse grip and dove back into the fight from a new angle. He slid up beside the closest bug and brought a blade up and back down hammer style, trying to viciously pierce the side of the bug before pulling his back foot up to kick it away. He took advantage of the opening and rolled backwards himself, retreating back to the safety of numbers and stood near Sasha.

Summary
Trent
1) Summon Sasha

Sasha
1) Movement to position for Sig attack

Trent
2) Meta gel to Bug A, B, C, (90 + Slow x 3 Targets + Aqua)

Sasha
2) Dread Howl to Bug A, B, C (Stun + Nova 2)

Trent
*Free Action: Fast Warrior: Movement Action to position for moonblade
3) Moonblade to Bug A, B, C (90 + Slashing + Spin Attack)
4) Elecknife to Bug C (60 + Elec + Slashing)(x2 Terrain Damage)
*Free Action: Swordsplay: Dodge
5) Combat Tactic - Disengage to Bug C (70 Damage + Slashing + Knockback + Dodge)