The Lords of Sol

Drone currently in high elliptical orbit.
Time to reach Aktley?
Approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes at standard re-entry velocity.
Is it possible to get there in under 1 and a half hours?
Yes.
Elaborate.
The defence laser can be used to superheat the exhaust gases.
How will this affect re-entry?
Ablative heat shielding will suffer an estimated 77% critical failure.
That's far too great a risk. Some of the drone components are from the crashed saucer in Antarctica. They're essentially irreplaceable.
Components based on xeno-alloys are immune to temperatures up to 8000 Kelvins.
I'm aware! But if the drone disintegrates the components will be lost somewhere over the Pacific. They may as well be destroyed!
The man ran some possibilities through his mind, massaging his forehead to help speed their progress.
Hmm...
Computer. When the drone is fully activated, set a course for Aktley at maximum safe speed.
Give me direct optic feed and be prepared for manual override.
Acknowledged.
He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. An image of wheeling stars filled his vision. His body seemed to melt away, becoming a squat cylinder. He could feel the various bands of radiation against his metallic skin.
With a bright blue dagger of ionised exhaust gases extending behind him he raced onwards into the planet's atmosphere.

 

Maximus sat quietly in the back of the H9 on his helmet, reviewing data on the next destination. He also found of interest some data regarding a T-virus that had been intercepted from the others open comms links as well as the confirmed data from Blinky's fur sample he'd sent off before leaving. Most distrurbing, the Bear had remained silent about his condition....

He keyed some info into his PDA and then shut the device off. He took in his surroundings, but refrained from taking any pictures or video footage of the interior of the H9. To do so would be rude to his host. Hopefully our task will become apparent soon..., he grumbled to himself.

 

Grossenshwaum drifted in and out of consciousness, and then a voice came from his heart, of all places.
Hmm? Wolfsbane? Ah, your chakra. Well, you perchance caught some mechanical virus...yeah, it sounds pretty weird. The machines sent out with those weird tentacle-heads disperse a cloud of these nano-machines whenever they're destroyed. You must have inhaled some at a certain point, or absorbed them from contact with someone else already infected...through a cut, or something. The only thing capable of neutralyzing it, that I know of, is the T-virus. I've currently got my case of machines nearly cleared up, but I...uh... Grossenschwaum fell silent for a minute...I'll have to get back to you later, my head is swimming.
The Dogmen had him enclosed in the brig of Das Sturmgeist, in a specially reinforced cell.
His lifesigns were constantly monitored, and any dip in blood pressure or heart rate was met with adrenaline.
A Dogman equipped with an anti-material sniper rifle had his sights on Grossenschwaum's head, will commands to pull the trigger should his master die.
Hey, Ein...I think I'm just about done here.
Sir, with all due respect, no you're not.
The brainwave monitor spiked.
How is this happening? It's as if he has four or five simultaneous consciousnesses waking up in his mind!
His lifesigns wavered suddenly, and then flatlined.
The Dogman with the rifle took the safety off of his gun and pulled the trigger.


The bullet never hit. As it was streaking toward Grossenschwaum, he woke back up, the new energies sparking his movement destroying the life-sign support and monitors. He caught the bullet mere inches from his face.
Uh...Sir, it's an explosive round.
Nice touch. Catch!
Ein was so shocked, he complied with the order before reason came back to him. Catching the bullet in his mouth, he wet himself and knew he wasn't going back to his quarters in one piece.
Fortunately, Grossenschwaum was able to move so quickly that he "appeared" in front of Ein, retrieving the bullet and shoving it into the wall, blocked by his palm.
Then he braced his hand against the wall with his weight, allowing it to explode. It took his hand, but he wasn't really that disappointed.
Watch this...
As the dogmen watched, his hand grew back.
Alright. As you can see, I'm different, yet the same. Run a diagnostic, let's see what else I can do. Ein! Clean up your mess!

 

The H9 landed an Aktley Island near the shore, and Maximus jumped out.
After checking that the coast was clear, he started surveying the water line until he noticed something small and shiny, an UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) a little ways away. He went over to it and recovered some items from a sealed compartment, including another Gausian rifle and a pistol with special ammunition loaded with explosive rounds, just in case.....
He put the pistol in a concealed shoulder holster and readied himself for the unknown.

Screw it then, if I dont know what the hells going on here or what I'm supposed to stop, maybe I'll just engage in a little Black Earth mentality and destroy everything! Violence solves any problem.

With his mission statement declared, he started strapping a variety of gernades onto a chest belt, and extra ammo clips into clip-holders on his belt. He also gently placed a small black box with a skull and bones painted on it into his backpack.

He wondered if he should radio in for reinforments before moving in....

 

Wolfsbane, who'd arrived at Aktley island quite a bit before the others, since his street-light flew with the speed of a smaller jet. He waved and mooed to the arriving Lords and SHARKs, and then quickly joined with the group. Something was wrong with this island, he could feel it in the air. He pulled a few shurikens and kunais from his jacket pockets, and stood prepared to face whatever would come out of the dark...

 

Maximus walked up next to Wolfsbane and readied his weapon, surveying the surroundings for any sight of hostility. Something wasn't right, things were to quiet, the air felt colder that usual.

Thats when he seen it, something moving in the darkness before them, coming towards them. One of the SHARKs turned a spotlight on it, and four gruesome looking monsters appeared out of the darkness, running towards them, along with what appeared to be a handful of zombies?

The dwarf let loose with his gausian rifle and blew the arm off one of the monstrous creatures, but it kept coming, completely unfazed about loosing a limb! He started firing into the emerging crowd of creatures, bits and pieces and gore flying everywhere, yet they kept advancing!

 

As the drone fell through the atmosphere it scanned the area of Aktley with every sensor it possessed. The island was a small lump of rock, little soil, sickly vegetation and almost no animal life, not even invertebrates, which was very odd indeed. One of the esoteric devices liberated from the Antarctic saucer chirped into life. Well shielded, deep below the surface was a pinpoint of blinding light. At least it appeared as a blinding light to the Professor's currently augmented senses. It was the kind of signature that would be generated by a bank of supercomputers, beyond high tech.
Oh well, here goes nothing.
He dipped a metaphorical finger into the datasphere. The encryption was...staggering. It would take centuries to crack and even then he'd have to get lucky. There was something about the pattern of it. Loops and dead ends. Cul de sacs of perverted logic. He'd seen something like this before...somewhere...
Of course! Lord Vorak's hacked database!
There had been one heavily encrypted file, moreso than the others, and it seemed to contain nothing but gibberish.
Computer. Transmit file VorakQuery1 to the Aktley datasphere.
The tangle of knots vanished and the database gave up it's secrets.
Oh bother...
He started to scan for the H9 with increased urgency.
Finally the H9 came within direct sensor range. Unfortunately they were running in silent mode and all the Professor's hails went unheard. It was no use, they'd land before he could get there. It would probably be too late to do anything about the virus. They'd just touched down.
Far too late...

 

Blinky stepped off the chopper to see the fire start raining out of the SHARKs guns. Maximus and Wolf were firing too, but it was to little avail. These creatures called to him in some perverted way, but then again, he was running in silent mode. That thought struck him as funny for some reason.

Blinky didn't even move for his gun, instead raking his hand in front of him, five icy shards sweeping out from his finger nails and decapitating five zombies in front of him. The entire right flank slowed with the coldness of a gust of breath he sent at them, and as the zombies began to falter a bit, Blinky assumed the stance his sensei had taught him so long ago.

These creature's weren't nemesi, they were easy to 'kill'. Many of them would probably fall over and die right now from all the shells fired at and through them, except that they had some momentum. The T-Virus wasn't kind to brain function, and it could lower a creature to the point where, given the option of killing or dying, its obsession with killing could keep it alive, at least until it stopped or somehow lost momentum. Blinky felt more than obliged to accomodate any momentum-full zombie that entered his reach.

Throwing out a claw, one dropped to the ground and died with furrows in its chest, and another took down two more as Blinky kicked it backwards.

Stop them from moving, the shots will catch up with them. Switch to the .45 caliber bullets when you can, they'll slow down more.

The throbbing in Blinky's head was growing more into the background, and he moved with surprising ease. The slow burst of energy was more disturbing to hm than fatigue would have been, it meant that either the virus was having almost no effect, or that it was working more rapidly than he felt comfortable with. Blinky dismissed the thoughts as he hooked his claws into a zombie and hurled it at the other creatures.

 

So, I've heard that one of you has found a way to track the mechanical virus back to its source. Is that true?
Grossenschwaum waited for a response.
Well? What's wrong, do you need another sample? I still have it in my body, it's just been rendered useless.
Still nothing, then...
Yes, we have. We're just...scared. Of you.
You should be! I am your master, I am He who tells you when you are allowed to breathe. Just tell me how you've found the source.
Well, Sir, after running the diagnostics test on your body, we've found the virus has its own serial number and product I.D. We've found that, and also that you're technically a vampire. That's why we're scared.
How am I a vampire? I'm not even dead!
Well, that's why you're "technically" a vampire. You're still immune to radiation, but it no longer sustains you. Take a look at your hands.
Grossenschwaum looked at his hands, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Then he looked closer at what he thought was a dusting of sand in his palm. This "sand" turned out to be microscopic teeth, much like the denticles found on shark skin; However, these teeth were hollow, and could actually siphon fluids directly to Grossenschwaum's veins, as well as inject an anticoagulant and a mild neurotoxin to the victim (for paralysis).
Did you see them? We first noticed them on your new hand. They seem to grow larger after you regenerate. We also measured your strength...it's increased by a factor of ten. Your speed is insane, Sir. We've hypothesized that your brain is capable of short bursts of incalculable processing speeds now. They last for four seconds, but it seems to you like four minutes. During this time, you are able to move and react so quickly, that the only way to keep track of you is either with a thermal imaging system (to monitor your heat signature), or a high speed camera set to 3000 frames per second. We're scared because you might not act vampiric now, but the more you get hurt and consequently heal (and the more you use your powers), your need to feed will become greater, and eventually you will run purely on instinct. We don't know who would be willing to block your way, or who is even capable of doing such a thing. In short, be careful. If you get hurt too much...
That's quite disturbing...but where are these machines being produced?
Aktley Island, and...Damnit! Who spilled coffee on the central CPU? Whatever. Aktley Island seems to be the main source. Well get everything else up and running, but right now, I think we should send you to the island very soon. It would appear that three others are there...Wolfsbane, Blinky, and Maximus. You'll have company.
Good. Alright, ready the wormhole. I'll not risk all of you coming with me.
A shudder went through Das Sturmgeist, and a portal appeared in front of Grossenschwaum. He stepped through and saw all three lords, with a group of armed men, fending off a large...very large, group of zombies.
Hey, guys. Need a hand?
With that, Grossenschwaum "activated" his new-found processing speed, and set to pounding the dead back into the ground.

 

Maximus had just thrown a concussion grenade into the midst of the zombies to slow them down when some 'thing' appeared from nowhere and started attacking the zombies. A second earlier and it would have caught the grenade in the side of the head.

No time to worry about new arrivals, the enemy of my enemy is my friend... He started shooting some zombies off to Grossen's left side, and then noticed something much larger moving increadibly fast out of the darkness, heading straight for the lizard thing at frightening speeds. He took careful aim and fired three shots at its torso, blasting its arm and part of its torso away, but it kept approaching!? He fired three more shots at it, and fired off a gernade from the launcher for good measure. The combined shots caused the beast to explode in a gooey mess only a few feet away from grossen.

Looking over at Wolfsbane, Looks like the majority of the creatures in the welcoming party are done for, lets finish off the rest and then try and find out where they came from, and what they're protecting....

He then took aim at a few more zombies and fired away.

 

Blinky threw another zombie back as Ariel fired two rounds past his shoulder to crash into the chest of a zombie. Blinky elbowed the creature in the mouth and it dropped in a heap. Blinky ha started to notice the first stratification in these zombies, a difference in ability between what seemed like two classes of monster. Some of the zombies were roughly 5 foot, 4 inches, with longer claws and slightly unnatural dexterity for creatures with an ever-dissolving frontal lobe. Then moved fluidly, but a few shots to the chest or head usually dropped them, and Blinky could hurl the 120 or so pound monsters at each other with relative ease. More difficult to kill were the slower zombies, roughly six feet tall and strapped with muscles, these thick-skinned boots shrugged off a lot of gunfire before falling down. He'ld have to take suggestions for reference names after the fight. Blinky still didn't have trouble dispatching them, but he knew these were the expendable troops. Creatures far more dangerous lurked below.

All he could think about were the lessons his old master had taught him, and that strange creeping blackness they fought. A chill went through Blinky's spine as he looked towards where he knew the entrance to the underground would be, behind the slowly thinning mob of 'undead.'

Behind him he felt a portal shimmer into existance, and Gross stepped through, eagerly joining them in the zombie bloodbath.

 

Ugh...I don't know what I hate more, zombies or zombie guts...thanks, though, Maximus!
Slowing down after his four second hyper-jaunt, he was able to see much further into the horde of the dead. The zombies began looking less and less...dead. They were indeed dead, but their bodies seemed in better condition,; more like an emergency room reject.
The zombies seemed to have their own tactics. The unreasonably agile would come first, and slow down their prey. The slower, more powerful zombies would come in to finish the job. Both types were numerous, and it seemed there was no end to their attack.
Suddenly, the crowd of zombies slowed down and seeme to spread apart, letting something big come through. This new monster was approximately eight feet tall, and looked as though it weighed 450-500 pounds. Its enormous hands seemed to sprout tentacles, and its face made it look like it lost a fight with a lawn mower.
Wearing a very large black leather trenchcoat...massive boots...SHIT!
The Nemesis. It ran through the other zombies, mowing them down like buffalos on the head of a steam engine. It stopped thirty feet in front of Gross, picked up one of the smaller zombies, and threw it, claws first in his direction.
After having used his initial four seconds, Gross was too tired to attempt such speeds for a while. He instead braced himself and prepared to pound the zombie into a fine mist.
However, it's what the Nemesis wanted. Through the cloud of zombie, It appeared and gave a wicked kick to Grossenschwaum's stomach, sending him back 15 feet and leaving a sizeable hole. The hole healed very quickly, but it left a small "emptiness".
Shrugging it off, Gross jumped to his feet and tackled the Nemesis to the ground, while being slowly surrounded by the remaining zombies.

 

Deciding to let the big guy handle the Nemisis, he started shooting the supporting zombies around Grossen, to help even the score. At a few points, he tried to take a shot at the Nemesis, but he couldn't get a clear shot, and Grossen probably wouldn't like to be on the recieving end of friendly fire.

He pulled out a pair of shades from his pocket and put them on, illuminating the night in ultraviolet light. Now he could clearly see what was moving about in the darkness and continued to provide support fire on the remaining zombies.

Time to get serious. He ran back to the UUV and climbed inside and after a few minutes, the UUV transformed into a robotic creature with Maximus inside controlling it. The machine was six feet tall and looked like a mechanized space suit. The right arm was a modular weapon, capable of changing to suit its needs, its current function was a gausian vulcan machine gun. The left arm was used more for manipulating things, and resembled a standard arm with a powerful looking 'hand' at the end, which was composed of three multi-jointed grippers.

The suit was self-contained with a seperate air and water supply, allowing him to avoid any contaminates. The armor would also protect him from any radioactivity which might be radiating from Grossen or other sources.

After performing a quick systems check, he thudded up to the front line and opened fire on a group of lost looking zombies with the vulcan. A quick, noisy burst of munitions shredded them in a messy display, cutting some in half while causing others to explode. Scanning the beach, only a handful of zombies and the Nemesis remained between them and the entrance.

 

Wolfsbane, having been trained in every known form of martial arts, including the, by men, forgotten art of nin-jutsu, had no trouble at all with dispersing the slow zombies wich came in his way as he spun and jumped about in the battlefield. Throwing shurikens and kunais had quickly been proven unsuccessful, the creatures being almost immune to pain, so he'd started to use his bigger weapons instead.
He cut his way through the ranks of the undead with his old, trusty wakisashis, given to him by mater Kvitten himself, and barely noticed Grossen join the fight in the turmoil.

What he did notice, though, was the Nemesis. No way he'd leave Grossen to fight that beast alone. It was way too risky. And, besides, something wasn't quite right with Grossen; Wolfsbane felt huge disturbances in his chakral waves.

With a high jump and a swift kick to the Nemesis head, he intercepted the fight between the two hulks. This could prove to be dangerous even to him.

 

Grossenchwaum saw Wolfsbane's hoof split the air in front of his face, landing a solid hit on the Nemesis's skull. It left a huge gash, but the monster didn't even flinch. Its focus remained with Gross, and it spared no time in wrapping a single tentacle around his throat.
Hrk...*cough*...Nice grip!...(untintelligible gargling)
Grossenschwaum blacked out, and fell limp in the Nemesis's grasp.
Suddenly, he woke up, with an apparent "fire" in his eyes.
He gripped the tentacle in his right hand, and it withered to nothing, releasing it's powerful coil.
The Nemesis jumped back.
Gargh! Hrrn...RAAGH!
It rushed head first at Gross, simultaneously ejecting numerous other tentacles from its body. Gross rushed right back at him, and appeared to blur as he did so.
Hungry...!
With both hands out-stretched, Gross grappled the monster to the ground, and at the same time began to siphon fluids from its body.
The Nemesis began to shrivel, and violent spasms wracked through its shattered form.
Realizing that there was nothing left, Grossenschwaum ripped the thing in half, and woke up.
He was met with some vacant stares, and a general aura of fear permeated the air.
Trying to ignore the awkward silence, he resigned himself to grinding the dead into hamburger.
The door to the base slowly came into view, and the onslaught of zombies slowed.
So, uh...who killed the Nemesis?

 

You did.

Blinky looked hard at Gross before nodding and bisecting the last zombies skull. Rubbing his temple, he walked to the large, steel door.

Everyone alright? The fun's not over yet, in fact it only gets better when we get inside. Those were the rookies...

Blinky thought hard, a difficult task with the beating red pulsations in his brain. The door's design was made to be exactly the opposite of condusive to thinking. Millions of images in spaces far too small for a human artist to have designed them, only four had anything to do with the mission at hand.

What is our nature?
Ice, cold and unyielding.

Blinky tapped one of the runes on the bottom

What is ice?
The unifier, the order that persists in chaos. Ice melts, heats, boils, and evaporates, but in the end, condensces, cools, and returns to the eternal way.

Blinky tapped two more symbols.

What is the eternal way?

Blinky stopped. Somehow through the haze, he had seen a lie. The voice in his head hesitated, then spoke.

Cthulhu

Blinky tapped the final sign, and his eyes glazed over with a cold anger.

Son of a bitch...

 

Maximus scanned the area and detected no further 'life' signs in the area, and thudded forward, a small puff of steam billowing out the back from the micro-steam engine that powered the armor. He joined the others near the massive steel doors. They looked like they must be a few feet thick judging from the reinforced frames that held them firmly mounted in solid rock. He did not recognize the designer, nor the small glyphs which decorated its surface. How odd.

He used the camera mounted on the right side of the helmet to zoom in and display the images present, loading them into the onboard computer for further analysis. He didn't recognize them, but for some reason they seemed familiar. Perhaps something he'd seen earlier?

The Bear was muttering something, but he couldn't make it out. When he activated the bionic ear to hear what he was saying, all he picked up was,
Son of a bitch...

That didn't sound good.

 

The drone's phasing field shimmered into life as it touched down silently in the jungle. As long as he remained in silent mode he was effectively undetectable. Normal matter and radiation would pass directly through him, unaware of his presence. Unfortunately this meant he was limited to quantum sensors which did not rely on standard radiations to function. The biggest drawback of these specialised sensors was limited bandwidth and a range of only a few metres. Standard movement was also impossible as the drone was outside of the effects of gravity or air density.
The invisible tin can sat there as zombies rushed past, and indeed through, it. The Lords were already engaged in battle when the drone had landed. He waited patiently as the Lords danced amidst the carnage they wrought. Blinky was the first to come within range of the bioscanners. The creature lumbered with less agility than normal and shrugged off damage which he should not have been able to. The scan results flashed across the world to the Professor. What he saw worried him greatly. The T virus had damaged Blinky's genetic code before the C (Cthulhu) virus set to work. The result was slightly different from the computer projections but was equally disturbing.
Something flashed past. The limited quantum sensors struggled to resolve it in time but the Professor was just able to extrapolate the data he required from the scan. It was Gross. Hmm...The C virus had been introduced to his body via nanonic technology, presumably to by-pass his body's unusual defences. The nanobots were all inactive and the C virus had been eradicated by something else. An advanced version of the T virus by the looks of it. But no, there was more to it than that...
Interesting, very interesting.
Maximus lumbered past in a mechsuit of some kind. Ah, this made scanning much more efficient. The drone hooked into the mechsuit's internal sensor array and extracted what information it needed. Slight adaptation had been required due to his non-human genetics but that hadn't stopped the virus. Infection was total, yet the virus was now dormant.
Strange. This wasn't mentioned in the files.
Next Wolfsbane flew into sensor range, delivering a hoofed blow to a Nemesis (Mark IV). His bio-readings were indecipherable. He was charged with a non-Newtonian energy and his species was completely unknown. The C virus seemed to be present but it was impossible to tell without a biopsy...or perhaps an autopsy. Time would tell.
The Lords started to enter the archway which lead into the rock face. He came to a decision and de-activated the phased cloaking field.

 

How...all I remember is seeing that thing's corpse in front of myself, and all of you were just looking at me.
What's going on, here? Blinky, how did you get anything out of these images?
Grossenschwaum stood, amazed.
His appearance had become more animalistic in nature; his normally upright posture was slightly edged forward, as if he was perpetually ready to pounce. His fingers took on a much more dagger-like appearance, and what once were hollow denticles seemed like tiny mouths.
His eyes, while focused, were very dilated, and very sensitive to light now.
Those creatures we faced earlier...they were a little tougher than I expected. There are supposed to be stronger ones below? Somehow I'm not surprised. I worked for Umbrella as an independant genetecist for a few years. You don't suppose they've got crocodiles down there, do you? Heh.
Those bio-weapons aren't all I need to worry about...if what Blinky said about me is true, I might already be losing control.
Wolfsbane, you seem unsteady! Don't tell me you, of all things, are tired.

 

Blinky turned back to Ariel and hesitated for a moment. Half struggling with a momentary bit of nervousness, half trying to think past the cloud in his mind, his eyes focused a bit more on her.

Get back in the chopper sweetheart. Take the boys, and get out of here. You're training isn't nearly complete enough for this, and there's no sense to you dying in a wet cave fighting things you aren't ready to kill.

Ariel's mouth dropped, and she looked away. The SHARKs started retreating to the copter, Martinson tossing his rifle to Gross, as if he needed it. They quickly saluted the group of Lords before climbing into the helicopter.

Ariel walked closer to Blinky, and leaned up on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on his cheek, handing him her gun in the meantime.

I want my gun back sir.
I'll drop it off personally.

Ariel backed away and climbed in the H9, which cloaked and sped away.

I hope.

Alright gentlemen, and Maximus. And our friend with the fancy camcorder, indicating the currently decloaking sensory drone. You've all come here, presumably for the same reason. Now is the time to pussy out. I don't know if I can handle what's in that cave alone, I don't know if we could collectively handle what's in that cave, and there is a good possibility that we all might be killed on this particular mission. I don't even know if I'll be able to keep my fucking head on straight by the time we get down to where the fun starts happening.

What I do know, is that I'm going to try, and if any of you want to help, I'ld be proud to fuck up some of these quasi-dead assholes with you. So let's go.

With that, Blinky turned and started to head down the stairs of the compound that led down to an ancient place he wished he wouldn't remember.