Hold on and - wait, um, just don't squirm! Glaedr hooked his claws onto the Tech's mechanical arm and slowly flew down the cliffside.

You know, this isn't really as hard as I thought!

"Enemies!" A Gremlin sniper took a pot shot at them. The shot skittered off a wall, loosing sparks.

Oh are you fudging serious?! Glaedr shot a quill. Boom. Another sniper fired. Glaedr quickly accelerated his speed. The ground had a sort of wall like rock formation that would provide cover against the annoying shooter.

Reaching the ground, Glaedr nudged Alec, who mumbled something incoherent. Turning towards the Tech, he waited for him to use the Spark.

The Black Kat replied, "Knight, can you carry Nights to the hospital? She has fainted and all the injuries is making her lose tons of blood. We are near the hospital but I can't get her up and my Carnavons are dying a little bit after I spawn them because of this random energy and they are weak as well."

Luna nodded. "I'm not the strongest of knights, but I'll do my best." She knelt, put an arm around the Guardian - Nights - and began to straighten, struggling to support Nights' weight.

Half bent over, she headed towards the hospital.

The Striker and the tech must still be out there... I should've stayed to help.

((OOC: Elite Mew's prospective again))

The knight started to carry Nights towards the Hospital and I summoned another Carnavon who helped for about 5 seconds before collapsing. We make it to the hospital and the doctors and nurses seem shocked at the bad condition Nights was in...

((OOC2: Not much again...))

Telepathic connections. That's what keeps a knight and a Sprite together. They could read each other's very thoughts, feelings, and know their condition. Some could even discern each other's location.

Which is why Glaedr knew the Spark wasn't doing much. It gave Alec an energy boost, but the Striker couldn't utilize it without any consciousness. At least he'd live. Probably.

A shot skittered off the rock formation, bouncing around for an unnecessarily long time.

I think it worked a little... Glaedr felt hopeless. Consider it this way. Alec had several cracked ribs, internal bleeding, concussions, shattered arms and legs, and was being affected by the radiation. The Spark had mended some of the injury, which would be enough if he could get to a hospital within an hour. Too bad Glaedr could only carry one person at a time. Glaedr rapidly explained Alec's medical situation to the Technician.

Vincent pondered silently to himself. He then came to a final conclusion.

"Ok, Sprite guy, take Alec up as safe as you can, back to the Base Hospital. Hopefully that spark should work enough to keep him stable until they hook him up. I'll just stay here and hold out against whatever comes this way".

Vincent said so in a re-assuring manner, hoping to hide the fact of how screwed he may be with him on his lonesome.

"Besides, I'm sure someone will come down and rescue me or something. Now, hurry it up or Alec'll end up a goner".

He clutched his Gun and saluted the Sprite.

Most of the Gremlins, sure enough, shifted their fire to her. A few bullets grazed her, but her tiny shield managed to block more. A few Gremlins dropped to the ground, as the fire on both sides increased.

Still, I'm outnumbered....

Glaedr sank his claws into Alec's Vog Cub armor and slowly lifted the Striker upwards. A few bullets whizzed at them.

No. Screw you Gremlins. SHADOW CLOAK!

The Sprite and the knight (geez, I sound like Dr, Seuss) became slightly ethereal as they somewhat...well...faded from existence slightly. Just enough for the shots to harmlessly pass through their bodies. It really wasn't that hard to levitate the Striker. Sure, it was pretty strenuous, but not as much as the Maskeraith had expected. After all, Glaedr WAS a very high level Sprite.

His other, more computer like senses informed him that the radiation was fading. It seemed to be like a shock wave after an asteroid bombards a planet.

Reaching the top, Glaedr felt exhausted. Seeing a female Knight, he sent a mental though.

Could you get this person to a hospital? Sorry about the gruff tone, he's just ABOUT TO DIE!

Glaedr shot a volley of quills and exploded them in midair, spreading a layer of smoke, effectively concealing them from the Gremlin snipers.

Go on!

Alec drowsily rubbed his eyes. "Five for minutes, mum..." he muttered. "Isn't today National Snipe Day which means no school?"

Glaedr smiled - or gave the Maskeraith equivalent of one anyways - as the thoroughly scared woman dashed away towards the camp.

Now, Mr. Gremlin Snipers, meet Mr. Kablooie.

Glaedr darted back down towards the Tech, spraying solid poison. Holy crumbs, a Chroma Whelp!

Stay still! There's a Beast on your shoulder!

Glaedr took aim...

Only to realize the Whelp was not attacking. He stopped just in time from embedding the Whelp with a quill.

Oops. My bad.
_____

Meanwhile, Hava was taking a nap while Stug continued to research. A Void Wolver in a cage suddenly materialized next to a table of equipment. Stug flew over and nudged Hava.

"Whuh...huh?"

New specimen.

Hava leapt up and darted towards the caged Beast, who was snarling with anger.

Test 1: Reaction Speeds.

Hava carefully took a cotton bundle and tossed it into the cage with a quick, deft movement. Immediately, shreds of fabric exploded outwards, leaving only a very angry Wolver.

Test 2: Analysis on a Microscopic Level.

Hava went to the computer dashboard and punched a command. The cage was filled with a yellow, cheery light as calculations appeared on the screen monitor:

VITAL SIGNS: NORMAL.
INJURIES: SUPERFICIAL.
ANALYZING SKIN COMPOSITION.

The screen showed what appeared to be corrupted matter on the screen. Zooming in, Hava saw what appeared to be a bunch of miniature robotic like organisms in one shape, like a school of fish.

Astonishing...

Here was the secret of their immunity to stun. The ones you destroyed were replaced by brand new ones much faster than human regeneration. But if they were robots, that would mean Technicians would have to come into play here. Then again, was The Swarm organic or artificial?

Hava shrugged and relayed the info. It wasn't his right to decide.

But if they were robots, could they be hacked?

Vincent viewed the 2 floating off under a cloak, noticing a lack of shots hitting anywhere near them. Looking over at his Whelp, who just turned its head looking quite confused at the whole situation, he sighed at his only way out rising to the next level. In the absence of anyone else around, he tried to come up with a name for his new companion.

"So...Ive been thinking. You need a name, since I cant keep calling you...well nothing. So how would you feel about Moe?"

The whelp looked into Vincent's eyes, and stuck its tongue directly toward the Tech's nose. Vincent took this one action as the only clear confirmation of any questions asked. Looking around the area with Moe perched on his shoulder, he heard the approaching footsteps of something coming. And more than one by the sounds of it.

"Ah crap, I thought the Gremlins wouldn't have found me-" looks over to Moe who was starting to nuzzle up to Vincent's neck and curl to sleep "-us. found us so soon".

He saw the sprite fast approaching, but it didnt look like it'd get to him, and cloak fast enough. Doubting any better judgement, he made a choice to try and find a place to hide or run to.

He located a nearby path, and took off with a quick pace. While hurrying, he scooped up Moe and placed him into his bag. The delightful squee of discovering more crumbs seemed to outweigh any danger fast approaching and the shock of being picked up. Hopefully any incoming help knew how to track things.

((OOC: Back to Nights on this post))

I start to wake and see I was in a hospital bed. I see tons of Doctors and Nurses checking up on me but most of them went to the new knight that came in who was Alec. I tried to move but I felt a sharp pain and a nurse said "Try not to move, you are in bad condition, it's just a miracle your still alive. I see all the cuts I had where wrapped in Bandages and I also noticed my Radiant Silvermail was missing... I said "Where did my armor go?" The Nurse said "Don't worry, we are clearing it up and fixing the cuts but your purring cap is odd, it still seems to be in brand new condition." I noticed 2 IV bags full of blood and a pulse machine that I was connected to. Elite Mew then came over and said "At least your safe Nights."

Sprinting in the direction of the edge, Luna received another message-

Mr. Tech and his new Chroma friend exited stage left. At least it wasn't also stage right.

She couldn't see the Maskeraith, so she assumed he must be cloaked. She nodded, in case he could see, and tried to increase her pace.

---

For the third time that day, she reached the edge. Far below, running left, as the Maskeraith had said, was the tech. Luna turned and ran along the edge, barely keeping pace with him (Argh, I've been doing... Guardian's... work... today... WAITREALLY?) and hoping she'd find something.

Vincent continued his pace, keeping his eyes in front of him, working his way up the twisting path ways. The soft padded sound of feet hitting grass began to disipate as metal plates began to show up underneath his feet. Eventually, after making his way up the path, he came to a large, roofed complex. It looked very old, dusty, and abandoned. Vincent looked into his satchel for Moe, who was rustling around, shuffling out crumbs from between various blueprints. Rolling his eyes, he took the decision to step into the Compound. The Fear of the unknown was a lot less scary than the fear of knowing a Gremlin Hunting squad was approaching. He thought to himself, while slowing down his pace.

"I wonder if people can track on metal..."

Vincent's sparse thoughts caused him to look around his current area for anything to use as "breadcrumbs". Spying an old comm unit stacked infront of some dusty crates, he began to tweak the frequency.

"Frequency set....to...Channel Alpha...032...Which should be".

A low hum eminated from his helmet, which turned to less frequent beeps, the further he got from the communication mast.

"Hopefully, unless the Gremlins have Knight Helmets, only our forces can home in on this beeping and find this place".

Vincent nodded at the mast, and turned his back, running deeper into the compound. The slight resonating sound of opening carapaces could be heard echoing from vents near the entrance. While mandibles of shadow could be heard chittering up in the darkness...

Vincent kept up his pace, as he swiftly moved through the hall of the compound. Various cages and equipment were left strewn around the floor of multiple rooms he had passed. He stopped walking as he heard a feint growl from his Satchel. He opened the bag to see Moe standing on edge, darting his head around the place. Vincent readied his shotgun at the hallway behind him, as a slow buzz began to eminate from the darkness.

"Moe...what's coming?"

The whelp just looked in the direction Vincent's gun was aiming at, still sitting in the satchel. Out of the gloom, a swarm of Scarabs bustled toward him. Vincent fired off a couple of shells into the mass, taking out a good number of them. But a moment later, and twice as many filled the gaps. Vincent fired off 3 more shots, as he began to run further up the hall way. Catching his eye was a Force-Barrier. Somehow this place's generator was still working, and powering the field. Quickening his pace, he sprinted through the barrier, hearing the thud of scarabs impacting the shield. Out of breath, Vincent hunched over, breathing heavily.

"That will...keep them out...for a while..."

Realising that they would find a way through eventually, Vincent sat down to take a breather, but remained on high alert. At least he knew the reason why this place was abandoned. Hopefully anyone who came his way would have more experience in dealing with these monsters...

((OOC: This will be from Elite Mew's prospective))

I see Nights who looked fine now but couldn't move. I leave the room and looked over the barrier to catch my breath and started to chow on a book. I see the trooper from before looking over the edge at someone else. I went over the barrier to see if she needed help. I kept chowing on the book in my mouth and see the knight going onto an old elevator which seemed to speed up fast. It went so fast, she started to fall from the old lift. I swallowed the book and rushed down to try and save her. I reached the ground first and activated the curse barrier to prevent enemies to attack us unless they were cursed.

As Vincent took a breather, the scarabs left in search of something. A few minutes later (as the Technician investigated the elevator) , the force field began to flicker. They must have cut the power supply! Dozens more leapt out of holes in the ground and walls, and they all charged at Vincent and Moe.

Meanwhile, scarabs continued to surround Luna, stopping just outside of the curse shield. As dozens arrived and circled the duo, it was obvious that they would try to wait them out.

And deep in the compound, far deeper than where the heroes were, a solitary Swarm Seed emerged, corrupting the Scarabs in the heart of the old area.
_____

Glaedr, meanwhile, was looking at Alec, wondering when they could leave. The doctor had said that he would be unable to leave for at least 22 hours (miraculously and somehow expectantly not being in a coma due to the rule of plot :D) , since there were no more fast-healing items. They were reserved for the people in critical condition. Instead, Alec was hooked up to a Guardian Shield (which was also healing 437 people at the same time, so restoring was taking some time) The Maskeraith cloaked and hovered towards the battlefield, in search of a Health Capsule or 2...hundred. Since Gremlins were still in the vicinity, knights could not retrieve the capsules. But a cloaked Sprite sure as hell could.

A tell-tale flash of red and white embedded in the muddy ground caught his eye, and he pulled it out, wiping it on a small patch of grass. Flying back and forth, he soon had a dozen of these capsules, all sealed and protected. Only problem was how to get them back.

Hmmm...

Glaedr had a flash of inspiration. His eyes gleamed with delight as he systematically and deliberately fired a quill into the ground at an angle carefully calculated. Boom. The Health Capsules soared through the air, landing right on Alec's cot in the hospital.

Woo! 1-0 suckers! Or make that 12-0.

The Striker chuckled as he surveyed the area around him. Capsules had shattered mirrors, knocked over instruments, and had hit his nurse three times in the left ear. He promptly snatched one up and injected it, feeling the medicine rush through his veins. His broken left arm knit itself together. His internal bleeding clotted. His brain was purged of all woozy effects from the radiation. His nurse was ticked off.

"What in Vog's name-" Alec jumped up, grabbed his items, and dashed out the window, leaving the hospital staff dumbfounded. Jogging to the mess hall, he tossed the chef quite a few golden crowns, buying a Shadow Star and a bowl of corn chowder, still steaming hot, the potato scent thick in the air...

2.1 seconds later, he was finished, and tossed Glaedr the Star. The famished Sprite greedily gobbled it up, restoring his energy levels. Sure, Alec had a bunch in his pocket, but they were reserved for when they were deep in some adventure, not in camp where you could buy a dozen easily.

Thanks Glaedr. I feel like a new man.

But you're old...

Alec sighed.

So, where to? Alec felt restless. He had been in a hospital for Vog knows how long.

Well, that Tech was being chased by a ton of Gremlins last time I saw him. He DID save you, after all...

True dat. Might as well work off that debt. Besides, we need Techs. Otherwise, we'll all become corrupted, like a computer virus.

Alec dashed in the direction Glaedr had seen the Tech go off too. West, to where the Emberlight Gremlins called the Forlia Hills. A decrepit place, they said. Almost all Gremlins had a strong aversion to going within a mile of it. They say that the hill contained at least 10000 Scarabs, who overwhelmed a Compound there. That Compound had hundreds of Darkfang Gremlins and dozens of Mendors there when they were overcome. If The Swarm needed new troops...

Alec reached a place that looked similar to an elevator terminal. There was no elevator there. Alec peered into the inky darkness, and saw an elevator coming back up and hitting him in the face. He rubbed the bruise and glared at the rickety contraption. It must have been programmed to default at here. But why would it have been down there? He saw a newly formed hole in the elevator amidst rusty, ruined paper-thin walls. It was in the shape of a human.

Someone was here recently. Probably fell. Might as well...

Alec went on and pushed the button. Glaedr hooked his claws onto the Striker to prevent him from sharing a similar fate of the previous occupant. It didn't work. They fell anyways, off the ridiculously slanted elevator. At least the Sprite managed to lessen the force of the impact.

Alec coughed and looked around, seeing the knight who Glaedr said had carried him to the hospital. Then he saw Scarabs. A LOT of Scarabs.

"So..." Alec muttered. "This is...an awkward place to meet..."

Moe yelped as he saw the wave of Scarabs began to flood into the room. Vincent hit a breaker in the back panel, to route all the force fields back into fruition. The Red light dimmed to no lights at all, as a force-barrier activated in the doorway. Reaching over, and opening fire at a desperate rate, the few scarabs that had made it into the room were soon taken care of. Vincent dug into his pockets, and fed Moe a few more crumbs. He placed down his shotgun, and saw that even though there was no way in to the room, there sure as heck wasn't a way out.

"Ah...I could get the Elevator working, if I took down the rest of the Power from this compound. That would de-activate the barriers though, letting the room flood full of-"

Vincent eyed the relentless swarm of Scarabs circling around the floor, not letting any sign of escape present itself. Sighing once more to himself about how he was basically trapped, he sat himself on the dormant elevator platform, while scratching the whelp's head, who made comforting purring sounds. Just enough to lift some of the weight of the situation of the Tech's shoulders.

Alec gazed around the room they were in. It was too dark to see a damn thing besides the Scarabs and that Carnavon. Fortunately, Glaedr and Alec had made a plan for that ever since they got lost in the Wildwoods. Dark spooky place.

Alrighty, Glaedr, NOW!

Glaedr fired three quills into the air, sparkling green. Alec whipped out his Valiance and blasted apart all three. The result was that the chemical poison spread across the room, pulsing green. The Striker could suddenly see the entire room (relatively) clearly.

The room was rusted, stained with brown marks. A ripped apart assembly line on the left gave proof to the savagery of these critters now surrounding them. An enormous metal bar was wedged vertically into the ground, and it seemed to be the only place in the room that the Scarabs couldn't jump up to. Everything else was covered in Scarabs; chairs? Check. Floor? Check. Assembly Line? What part of everything else do you NOT understand?

There were two doors in this room; one was covered in Scarabs. The other one was closed, and a lever at its side was flicked in the OFF position. But when Alec shot the switch, nothing happened. Must have been loss of power.

Alec nudged the person next to him. "Hey, I never actually knew your name. Anyways. This shield thingy the Kat made can't last forever. So when it fades, we'll be wearing Scarab coats if we can't get out. Do you see that bar? It should be stable enough to support our weight. When this shield thing fades, we have to jump onto the top of that bar if we can hope to survive. Got it?"

Alec shot the bar a few times, chipping the steel and providing handgrips. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it would suffice to let them climb up to the top, where they could last for some time

A Scarab lunged at them, bouncing off the shield. A second later, hundreds of them were jumping at them, every single one ricocheting off. It stopped after a few seconds, but it sealed in Alec's mind that these things were deadly.

Another group of Scarabs scratched angrily at the barrier, trying to shatter it. They had to get onto that bar. Only problem was it was 15 feet away. Sure, Alec could make that, no sweat, but his companion here...

"Elite Mew!" Alec yelled over the clicky noise of the Scarabs. "We're going onto the pole. You can cease with the shield!" He grabbed the woman's arm and dashed onto the pole. He dashed upwards onto the top, wincing from the searing pain in his arm.

Ow. My arm. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Did I mention the word ow?

At least I still have some of those capsules you gave me, Glaedr.

Alec checked his inventory. There were only six left of the eleven he took. The rest were absorbed into some random pocket dimension because you could only take three of an item (the other three were technically the woman's. Loopholes!) . He handed one to the woman, who seemed to have a slightly painful back, injecting one into his arm. The pain in his now not dislocated arm faded, and he sighed in relief. Looking down, he saw a ton of Scarabs. Looking at himself, he saw a ton of ammunition for his gun.

"Welp, I'm probably going to be late for dinner again," he grumbled as he rained blue death upon the beetles.

A small bolt rolled across the floor, and a bemused whelp jumped onto it, and started to roll it around seeming overjoyed with the metal object. Moe began to lick it, when he looked up at his owner who had facepalmed himself. Leaving the object, he stepped over to his master. Vincent just looked down at the whelp, who now was tilting his head with his tongue sticking out, and tried to explain to him the basics of the command.

"Moe...Fetch wasn't that. You could use your tongue. Now, let's try again".

Vincent tossed a nut across the floor. As it clinked across the floor, Moe began to shake his rear end, getting his belly down to the floor. As it had done before, it rushed after the metallic object, and started to bat it across the floor. Vincent sighed, where-upon a nut was placed by his foot, and an expectant looking whelp was sitting near by it. Vincent smiled to himself briefly, and flicked a crumb the Kleptolisk's way, who caught it mid air with his tongue.

"Oh, naturally. You fetch food flawlessly"...

"Elite Mew!" shouted the Striker. "We're going onto the pole. You can cease with the shield!" He grabbed Luna's arm and made his way to the top of the pole, as she did her best to follow. She collapsed at the top, where the Striker handed her a pill, which she consumed quickly.

The Striker muttered, "Welp, I'm probably going to be late for dinner again," and fired at the Scarabs that had collected around the pole. She did the same, quickly switching between weapons, and throwing in a Deadly Shard bomb for effect.

Vincent looked out at the swarm that seemed to be fighting amongst itself. With quite a puzzled expression on his face, he saw an opportunity beginning to develop. Moe was on his toes, growling at the commotin happening outside the barrier. Vincent meanwhile had gotten down to his back, and accessed the back panel once again, readying the switch in power from the Decaying Generator all to the Elevator.

"Connect slot A into Slot B..."

Vincent almost hit his head on the elevator support, as he heard Gunshots echo off in the distance, and then the echo of a door breaking even farther in depths yet to be explored. Quickening his pace to connect the fuses, a shard bomb detenation made him quicken his work even more, suprisingly with next to no mistakes.

"Slot C, Slot E to Slot G, Slot H is for Cable 2 and Cable 3 splits into Slot H and Port B..."

Moe began to growl less as swarm-infected scarabs flew past the door. Instead he began to whimper and hurried over to Vincent, and nuzzled into him for security.

I constantly attack the door and it started to make so much noise, anyone in the Compound could hear it. I started to calm down and sicked up some swarm particles which just sunk into the ground... I ignore that and see the door was nearly broken and I launched both Leviathan blade charges at the door which made it break apart. I see 2 knights hanging on to a pole save themselves from the scarabs and a Black Kat... I see them shooting gun shots and dropping bombs. I decided to help and started to launch charged shots at the scarabs clearing them up... I said "Scarabs, it's time for you to die and you will be next Black Kat!"

"Don't kill that Kat (Dr. Seuss like rhymes...)! She/he/it/xe's on our side!" Alec yelled down at the random knight who had burst in through the door in a dramatic fashion. He shot a charged blast at a Scarab, incinerating it. Unfortunately, Glaedr had also sprayed quills at the same time. The result was a deafening roar that spread throughout the whole damn compound. Luckily, it appeared that the chemical reaction had produced merely sound and not explosive kablooie, so the knight down there and the two up here were fine.

Vincent was busy working around wires, when this time he did hit his head as he rose to the sudden burst of noise from elsewhere in the compound. The scarabs all suddenly shifted their continuous movement and fighting in front of the door, through into vents and smaller hallways, leaving the current hallway Vincent was in, lifeless once more.

"At this point, I dont care what that was, but it means I can route all power into this elevator. Moe-".

The whelp, recognising its name more often now, sat up from being curled near to Vincent and listened intently.

"If you see anything come through that door, yelp very loudly. Got that?"

Vincent found himself with a sticky & slimy tongue fastened onto his face a few seconds later. Obviously the command had gone through, as he saw Moe trot into the middle of the room, and place himself sitting down, intently looking toward the door. Vincent rolled his eyes at his adorable companion, and began to make the final adjustments for the re-route. Crossing his fingers, he pulls the breaker.

"I hope this works..."

The barrier by the door flickers out, as the Elevator begins to flash Green, as it begins its restart processes. Vincent gets up from his laid down position and checks the screen on the Elevator. He takes some mental notes down in his head, and starts to think out loud,

"Judging from how many fields I saw were up as a reference to how much power the Generator was supplying, in terms of what I could work with on redistributing the charge into the Elevator's power supply, it should take 3 mins for this to power fully".

Not being one for chances with his life on the line, Vincent begins to inspect the structual intergrity of the elevator, using scrap from around the room to reinforce the gates, and oil from the far corners to ease up the gears.

Fatia kept playing with the Drakon as she sat looking more like a child then an adult. It was about this time the BioTech found his sister who was currently in a contest with the little fire breather to see who could stand more heat. And the Drakon was winning. "Well at least your not hurting anyone. Come on sis, we need to get back to the lab. At least there I can keep an eye on you and work on the artifact...I am not sure but I think I might have found a way to open it...with out us all finding ourselfs on the end of a massive release of energy." Reaching down Disatima took his sisters hand and picked her up. She just slouched up and walked beside him, he was kinda hoping to hear what was going on it the clock works because if he had any hope of opening the artifact he was going to need some one to give him some infromation on what was going on down there. Because of how the Artifact reacted to the Clockworks. It was as if it acted like a map at some points, but he could only guess at this point.