AN: With Xander on the run through LEP headquarters, I've decided to have some fun with this part and deal with the fireworks of Nicole's plan of escape. And I am working up something funny involving the D-Board when I get to the point where they can build one, it gave me an idea for a short side story that could be interesting.

big-bad-kyubi- Thanks, it means a lot

Kat Hawkins- Well, here goes more

Destiny's Dragon- Thanks!

Root was yelling about how this situation was all Foaly's fault, a second human had found the People. It didn't matter to old beetroot that he had no control of the situation, nor that it was something far more advanced than they were, heck artificial intelligence was something was out of his league in the first place, it was one of the few problems that just didn't make any sense, and this one went through Haven's defenses like they didn't even exist.

Holly was watching the video of the encounter on the surface with shock, this guy fought in a way that portrayed extreme ability, the Neutrino 2002's the team had been armed with didn't even hurt him, and that blade seemed to absorb the energy and just move faster. Heck, even with Butler it had been due to surprise that he had won, this guy just demolished them all with ease.

Trouble Kelp, the only member of his team that was up to walking, was just sitting in the corner. D'arvit, once was bad enough, but to have a mudman capable of pulling this sort of stunt was something he had never expected, nor could his mind even begin to comprehend that sort of power.

. Holly turned and stepped back to take a seat on a chair, and that's when everything went wrong. Screens exploded and devices went haywire.

"What the hell!" Root screamed as he dove for cover amidst the conflagration.

Xander charged through the halls, the cloaking field off, Nicole had given him instructions to wait until the sparks died down before turning her back on, or putting the battery packs into the Neutrino pistols or rifle he had commandeered from the armory on his way to a set of vending machines he had unplugged before setting everything off.

A smile crossed his lips before shattering the glass panel over the front of the machine with a kick, the steel tips of his boots easily breaking the cover. He stocked up on what sounded good from them and slipped off again after plugging the machine back in.

He was enjoying this, it was much cooler than the one in Goldeneye.

The flickering died out and Julius Root crawled out from under a table.

"What the hell was that?"

"I'm guessing that was an EMP," the centaur answered, as he glanced around at all of the ruined hardware around him.

"How did it happen?"

"I don't know..."

"Short, Kelp, check in on our guest," the LEP commander roared at the two elves.

Both dashed out, hoping to avoid the second conflagration of the evening when Mt. St. Beetroot detonated into a tirade at Foaly.

The two elves found the door open and the holding room empty.

"D'arvit," Trouble muttered.

"Root's not gonna like this one bit," Holly answered in kind.

"Tell me about it."

Xander climbed onto the roof though the cooling vents and activated Nicole.

"Okay Nicole, I followed your instructions, now what?"

"Arm the wings, I've tapped into them and modified their programming, they should work well enough, we don't need the millennial plus battery life, so I managed to give you the lift you need, but the life tops off around eight hundred years per battery, given time though I could convert them over to my type of power supply for a nearly infinite power supply."

"Could be helpful, but they'd only help me in my human form, Sonic's spikes wouldn't let it attach."

"Well, keep the headset on, I won't be able to put enough attention towards you to project a hologram, so that should help us keep this going, follow the map to the target marked, I'll keep you cloaked as I start working on that shuttle, apparently it's a diplomatic one and it appears to have resisted the EMP somehow."

"We'll figure that out later, for now lets just get their, you get to prep it for us and get us a way out."

With that the human took to the air.

"What do you mean by he's not there?" Root raged at the two elves, "He was locked up, restrained!"

"Well, he's not in the room and well..." Trouble answered.

"Well, the EMP could have done it," Foaly responded, "We don't know much about how it triggered then unless we messed up in shutting that AI down."

"Hey, it had a simple on/off switch on it!"

"Well, then the guy got loose and set this off, choose your scenario, both of them are bad."

Another officer dashed in, completely out of breath, "Sir, we've got a major problem; a shuttle is taking off without clearance."

"Huh?"

"Root, I just found the origin of the EMP, it started in the armory."

"Oh this cannot be happening."

"Good work," Xander said as he slipped into the hatch of the shuttle as it headed upwards, depositing his sack of goodies in the copilot's seat as Nicole tapped even deeper into the system.

"Let's try the place on the surface, it seems like that would be the best place to start now, any further information on that place?"

"Well, for starters the kid has a file with nearly every law enforcement agency in the world."

"Oh boy, we're screwed."

"Not as much as usual, with the technology that we have obtained we can create a crude devise similar to the D-Board, but I can't control the destination, and it would take a long time to recharge."

"Well, lets get to work, tell me how to do it."