Sprinting after the fleeing forms of IAmBatman and Aldin, Truth struggled to breathe through the choking fumes of the factory; clouds of noxious gas drifted to and fro from hulking machines running every which way and towering over them, creating winding alleyways draped in shadow illuminated only by the flickering light of the roaring factory fire. The sound of clanking metal feet on the polished stone floor slowly faded as the trio opened a gap between them and the merciless machines, and as the sound died away completely, Truth slowed his pace. Closing his eyes as he coughed against the swirling clouds of smoke, when he opened them, the shadowed forms of IAmBatman and Aldin were gone, disappeared into the gas clouds. Quickening his pace, Truth neared the corner of an alleyway, and made to turn just as a powerful hand gripped him by the shoulder and wrenched him sideways into a side alley, another hand covering his mouth.

Truth struggled a moment, then noticed Aldin’s glowing blue eyes peering out of the darkness, and stopped. The hand withdrew from his mouth, and Aldin nodded towards the way Truth had been heading. Peering around the corner of the alleyway, Truth saw the hulking form of another Deathwalker patrolling the wide-open gap in the machinery that he’d been about to step into. Truth tightened his grip on his silver sword, and made to step out before the thing, but stopped short as two more brutes clanked noisily, and yet somehow terrifyingly deliberately out of the darkness; swallowing slowly, Truth withdrew to the hollow with the other two. Whispering low, he spoke. “What now?” Aldin shrugged his shoulders. IAmBatman frowned, looked at the massive gun at his side, and leaning it against the plate-metal wall began to rummage through a small leather pouch at his side, one of many. In seconds, he brought out a handful of fine black powder; sneaking along the wall, he opened his hand and blew the dust into the expanse where the bots were standing, and as it floated down, he closed his eyes and murmured a complex incantation. Listening closely, Truth could have sworn it was capped by a string of curses.

As the spell, as it likely was, escaped IAmBatman’s lips, his eyes rolled back in his head momentarily, and shuddering, he slipped down the wall. As Truth moved to catch him, Aldin nudged his shoulder and pointed at the dust, which had begun to form itself into the shape of a man, or something like one. It was hooded and cloaked, with lanky limbs that moved jerkily and glowing red eyes. Turning to the Deathwalkers, it began to spout words in a high-pitched screech, speaking at a rapid rate and apparently with no purpose whatsoever. “Ay boyz! Newb here, awesome right? If Kaemon Awa attks Charos witta norml attk, does he get Counter Stryk? I think yepyep, but my boi sez I’m cheating on ‘im. As-flippin-if, amIright?” The bots turned to each other, as if confused, but soon overcame their hesitation, and gatling guns whirring into readiness, they turned to the creature, eyes glowing sharply. The figure did an exaggerated double-take, and screeching once more, “Oh hellz no! Ima handsome basterd, u cant ban me!!!!” he pranced into the darkness, away from Truth and the others, limbs flailing about for all the world like some sick, otherworldly puppet.

The bots pursued him, and Truth, bewildered, turned back to IAmBatman, who’d recovered from his faint by now. Truth raised an eyebrow and moved to speak, but the man cut him off with a sweeping gesture and grimacing, mumbled “You do not want to know.”

Nodding slowly, Truth asked, “Right. You want our help destroying this place; what do we do?”

Aldin whispered to the pair of them now. “Don’t scenarios like this often have some main reactor that can be destroyed and bring the whole thing down at once?” IAmBatman nodded vigorously.

“Yes, for all intents and purposes in your average plot-line but that won’t stop it here; not entirely anyway. This is only one of many factories that have sprung up, and one of the smaller ones at that. If you want that invasion stopped, we’ll need to bring the entire bot operation down. Maybe Utgar with it. And we’ll need help doing it.”

Truth frowned. “Help? Like that thing you just-” IAmBatman cut him off again.

“No, no no. Not like that. But I know of a man fighting up in the north who might be able to help us out. Cheerful, eerily so, but you could say he’s got some skill with an axe, and no small amount of courage; there are others, but we’ll get them later. Right now, we need to tank this place and get out of here.”

Truth and Aldin exchanged glances, then nodded to IAmBatman. “All right then,” said Aldin, “so what’s the plan?”




“This is without a doubt the single-most moronic plan I’ve ever participated in; you sound like a noob just proposing it! A blind fool who can’t tell one end of the dice tower from the other.”

IAmBatman rolled his eyes at Aldin’s protests and responded sarcastically, “No need to be so cavalier about things. Trust me, it’ll work. After this, we’re getting out of here and getting help.” Truth shuddered at the thought. If this was a small factory, he didn’t want to think about the others, which were innumerable by IAmBatman’s accounts. “Right,” said IAmBatman, turning to Truth and tightening his grip on the large firearm at his hip, “you sure you can handle this?” Truth nodded, and holding out his hand, took the gun from the large man. A mischievous gleam passed through the man’s beetle black eyes in the gloom, if only for a second. “Just get the timing right.”

Truth settled the butt of the gun against his shoulder, and after a moment of adjustment, had his eye pressed against the oversized scope. Through it, he could pick out every detail in the floor of the factory below, right down to the shape of the holes in the grate which hovered a mere ten feet above a river of blazingly hot molten metal which passed out of the reactor core after entering as scrap. Bots scuttled about the entire structure, making it seem nothing more than a large upright metal cylinder beneath a living carpet of swarming metal creatures. Walkways radiated from the thing in all directions in a haphazard non-pattern that added only to the chaos below as the various machines went about their business. IAmBatman tapped Truth on the shoulder, and Truth withdrew the scope from his eye. “You ready?” Another nod, and Truth pressed his eye back against the scope as IAmBatman launched himself over the side of catwalk, and down onto one of the lower walkways leading to the reactor. Right into the center of the bots.

As his boots hit the metal with a hollow clang, the bots stopped what they were doing, and gazed at him with piercing red eyes, a massive horde before an unarmed man. Truth swallowed again; one man against an army. One of the larger bots, it looked like a Deathwalker 8000, stepped forward, guns trained on IAmBatman, and enunciated clearly in the silence, “Surrender, human; resistance will result in extermination.” IAmBatman shifted his feet on the grate, and replied in a booming voice.

“I don’t think there’s any need for that! What makes you think I’ll come quietly?” The machine repeated itself in the face of his brazen outburst.

“Surrender, human; resistance will result in extermination.” IAmBatman waves his hand as though pawing at bothersome insects.

“Yes, yes, you’ve said that already. I can feel the tension rising; feel’s like rising action.” The Deathwalker stepped forward again, and raised an arm bristling with weaponry, training it on IAmBatman. It raised the volume of its voice, and repeated itself.

“Surrender, human; resistance will-” IAmBatman didn’t wait for the rest of its response, raising his voice above the machine.

“Yes, yes, I know. Extermination. Now, if you wouldn’t mind pointing that elsewhere; let’s not lose our heads here.” IAmBatman tensed as though expecting something, then loosened, cocked his ear, and turned back to the spot where Truth and Aldin were nestled in the shadowed catwalk. IAmBatman spread his arms as though outraged, and shouted up at them, “I said, let’s not lose our heads!” Truth smiled slightly, and tightened his finger on the trigger. “You know, you really have no sense for the dramatic effect! It’s shameful, downright lazy, and furthermore-” The sound of a gunshot roared, echoing off the catwalks, and IAmBatman threw himself to the ground. A bolt of yellow light streaked over his head and caught the Deathwalker square in its optics center, or for those less educated in robotics, its head.

Immediately, the bots stirred themselves, converging on IAmBatman, who by now had scrambled to his feet. He evaded the snatching grips of several smaller machines, and vaulting over another, larger one, sprinted through the melee, dodging this way and that, sliding between the legs of a Deathwalker 7000, which chose that moment to detonate its onboard plastic explosives. The booming noise rang in Truth’s ears, but as he searched the black oil smoke, he saw the figure of IAmBatman still making for the reactor, apparently unharmed. Truth looked questioningly at Aldin, who merely shrugged and said, “The rule of Deathwalkers: anything that can go wrong, will inevitably go wrong.” Peering back through the scope, Truth saw that IAmBatman had almost made it to the reactor, and more importantly, the shining red button on the control panel at its base.

“He’s going to make it, isn’t he,” Truth asked Aldin. The black-cloaked man nodded.

“Yep.”


“And this whole place is going to blow up around us, isn’t it?” By now IAmBatman had broken free of the crowd of bots, and was taking the last steps to the reactor.

“Most likely.”

Truth growled and braced himself against the catwalk handrail as IAmBatman flipped the clear plastic switch on the control panel and smashed his hand down on the bright red button. “Gods, I hate predictable story lines.”

Truth, Aldin, and IAmBatman must escape the factory before it falls, taking both them and the bots with it. The problem with dodging burning wreckage and sharp metal debris, with a host of angry bots behind you seeking your premature death, is that plans for escape have a tendency to rapidly get difficult to execute in such an environment.
Note: It is preferred that the admins not get split up. At least not yet. :twisted: