Harpuia stood still as two technicians slowly sprayed him with the polymer coating. When they were finished, it was thick and uncomfortable… particularly when combined with the plastic facemask they had him don to protect his face. Harpuia had the feeling that if it was uncomfortable now, it was going to be excruciating after a few hours. Reploids did not sweat like humans, but the artificial skin and musculature was not supposed to be covered by an impermeable membrane at all times, either.

Despite the discomfort, though, this was the best thing they had. The nanite gel would not penetrate plastics, so it was hoped that this would provide enough coverage to keep them uninfected. Harpuia had decided they could delay searching the tunnel no longer. They at least had something, now, and the possible presence of the creatures in Neo Arcadia's old, extensive sewer system was a potential dagger at their throat.

Harpuia, Zero, Muffy and Sylph began the reconnaissance. Many of the sewer tunnels were quite small, and a larger team would have been a liability. Zero was looking acutely uncomfortable, his hair braided and pinned beneath his helmet to avoid being a weak point in the polymer coating. Muffy's hair was also up, but it was so fine that she hardly noticed, and Sylph had simply cut hers off. When there was leisure time, she would have the techs replace it.

"Gods, this place stinks," Sylph muttered, her voice oddly muffled by the plastic facemask. She was carrying a very large halogen light, illuminating the way for them. It showed nothing worth remembering… ugly stone, dingy water, and a considerable spider and rat population. The last, at least, shied away from the light.

"Smells like my poppa's shoes," Muffy agreed, making Harpuia wonder about her human family. "Or a really big fart. Or a dead whale. Or-"

"Muffy, please," Harpuia said tiredly, as Zero choked on a laugh. Muffy let that thought trail off, but immediately latched onto another one.

"I am a one-eyed one-toed blind purple people eater… and I eat hamburgers… made of people… only left-handed west coast immigrant bag pipe technicians… Harpuia, where are the mets?"

"Huh?" Harpuia had been on the brink of tuning her out, but that question captured his attention. "Hm… I don't know." That was a little odd. The sewers were maintained by hordes of mets. Yet they had seen none, and the sewer was looking distinctly worse for wear.

"Slime chow," Sylph muttered, and they winced, but didn't disagree. She was probably right.

"I wonder how intelligent the disease is," Zero finally said, after several minutes of walking. "It must think, at least a bit, to have stayed hidden down here."

"I suspect its more cunning than smart," Harpuia said quietly. "It doesn't use tools at all." They had discovered, from analysis, that the fortifications in New Las Verda had been blown up by the gel getting some of its infected Reploids inside, then deliberately overloading their generators, using them as crude explosives. Effective, but it had never managed the trick again. "I think it's perhaps as smart as a house cat, or perhaps a monkey, but not much more."

"Monkey's are plenty clever," Sylph said uneasily. Muffy suddenly giggled.

"Monkey barrel, it's a barrel of laughs! Connect the dots and win the prize. Tee hee, what a prize… the booby prize…" Harpuia twitched uncomfortably, frowning at that.

"There's light ahead," Sylph suddenly said, and switched off her light so they could see it more clearly. Harpuia's eyes narrowed, and Zero frowned. The light ahead was not the warmth of daylight, or the harshness of fluorescents. It was much dimmer, and an odd greenish color.

"I wonder," Muffy said dreamily. "Fungi can glow in the dark you know. Does alien slime stuff?"

"Perhaps in a high enough concentration," Harpuia said grimly. The creatures they had seen so far had shown no sign of it, but if there was a lot of it ahead, maybe it would behave differently. "Let's find out." Zero nodded and walked beside Harpuia, Muffy and Sylph bringing up the rear.

When they reached the source of the glow, Harpuia stared, only vaguely understanding what he was looking at. The huge, amphitheatre-like chamber below them was familiar from the quick studies he had done before they had entered the sewers. Neo Arcadia was quite old, built on the ruins of earlier cities, and the brief history of the underground he had managed to dredge up had mentioned a vast underground rail network that had once connected the city. He was looking at one of the rail depots, or what was left of it. But what inhabiting it now was not a train.

"My god, it's formed an amoeba." Sylph gasped out, as they stared at the sea of undifferentiated tissue beneath them. It was possible, if you looked closely, to see patches of weed and metal… but most of it was simply the gel, undulating slowly and giving off the weird light.

"It seems when enough of it is in one place, it doesn't need an intact neural network," Zero said, and Harpuia quietly marveled at how calm he sounded. Surely this had to be a first, even for him.

"The Blob!" Muffy gasped. "It's back from the Arctic and it's going to eat us all…!" Harpuia opened his mouth to rebuke her, then hesitated. That old movie was too similar to this situation for comfort.

"How do we kill it?" Sylph asked, taking the practical approach. Harpuia and Zero exchanged a glance. This was not some invention of Weil's, which might be expected to have a weak point. This was more like… a communal organism. Could it be killed at all with simple force? Or would they just waste themselves slashing uselessly at it? And it did seem at least partially intelligent, so how would it respond to that? That last thought gave Harpuia chills. There were so many people in the city above them…

"Teleport back to HQ, before it notices us," Harpuia ordered, and all three of his companions nodded. Four flashes of light, and the blob was alone again. It had never noticed their arrival, and did not notice their departure.

"Harpuia!" Leviathan was waiting for him in the telepad room, a wide grin on her face. The grim expressions on their faces didn't deter her in the least. "We've found a cure! The computer files we found had a counteragent, and we're synthesizing it right now!"

"Excellent timing. But forgive me, Fairy, there's something I need to see to." Harpuia went to the nearest view screen, and quickly placed an outbound call. A familiar, human face filled the screen… a young woman with very short black hair, in a conservatively cut dress suit. "I need to speak to the Governor, please." The woman hesitated a long moment, staring at him.

"…General Harpuia?" She said uncertainly. "Is that you?" Harpuia blinked, suddenly realizing that between the dark blue polymer coating and the plastic facemask, it would be very difficult to tell.

"Yes, it is. Could you please get him right away? It's important." Certain of his identity now, the receptionist nodded and put him on hold. Harpuia always hated that, but it didn't take more than a minute or two for the Governor's face to appear in the screen.

"Harpuia? How may I help you?" Eggleston asked, sounding both curious and concerned. His concern only increased as he took in the strange plastic coating Harpuia was wearing.

"How quickly can you get the city evacuated?" Harpuia asked, and Eggleston's eyes narrowed as he considered the question

"Four hours, at a minimum… and things never go smoothly, so it will be longer than that. Why?"

"We've found a concentration of the alien gel beneath the city," Harpuia said, and Eggleston's expression became alarmed. "It seems to have reached a critical mass by infecting the bodies of the Reploids Master X had retired to conserve energy, and has combined them into a large amoeboid form. We now have a cure, so we're going to move to eliminate it as soon as the city is clear." Leviathan's eyes went round as she heard what the gel had become, but she nodded, confident in the cure they had found.

"I see," Eggleston said, then paused a moment, thinking. "The evacuation could be speeded up with the help of some of your people, to give the police extra authority. If nothing else, their presence will lend emphasis to the seriousness of the situation." Harpuia nodded.

"We'll give you any support you need, Governor." He wanted to get the civilians away from trouble as quickly as he could. Eggleston smiled thinly.

"In that case, here are the evacuation plans… Councilor Drosden is in charge of implementing them. You'll have to liaise with her." Harpuia nodded expressionlessly. On a personal level, he strongly disliked Drosden. She was quite egalitarian with her attitudes about Reploids, but completely contemptuous of the military and its culture. That attitude had put them at odds more than once, sometimes bitterly, but Harpuia had to admit she was efficient and would know where to put his troops. Dealing with her just wouldn't be pleasant. "I'll contact her immediately and instruct her to begin the evacuation."

"Thank you, Governor." Once the connection was terminated, Harpuia turned to Leviathan. "What cure have you found?" She immediately brightened as she thought about their discovery.

"It was so simple! In the past, they used fossil fuels and petrochemicals far more extensively than we did now," Leviathan explained. "And sometimes there were spills. To clean it up, when that happened, they engineered a bacteria that would devour anything petrochemical based. It would multiply rapidly until the petrochemicals were all gone, then die off itself. And the gel is petrochemical based." Harpuia's eyes narrowed, and Leviathan nodded with a grin. "The bonding agent that holds the nanites and alien DNA together will be eaten right up by the bacteria! With that gone, they become harmless! We've already synthesized it and tested it on that Resistance soldier, and it works!" Harpuia froze for a moment at that.

"Stray. Is he…" Even as he voiced the question, Harpuia knew it was a ridiculous hope. Leviathan's expression sobered.

"No… I'm sorry, Sage, but when the higher functions are gone, they're gone. Ciel's already terminated what was left." Everyone winced, and Zero started out to return to the laboratory. Harpuia let him go… Ciel would need him, and it would be hours before they could begin fighting the blob in any case.

"How much can you synthesize in four hours?" That was the critical part. Leviathan frowned.

"I'm not sure… let me go check." Harpuia shook his head.

"Make as much as you can." However much that was… it would have to be enough.

"I must have missed a class," Fathom, a tiny female from the Meikai, complained halfheartedly to her companion.

"Huh?" He replied indistinctly, owing to the fact he was eating a chocolate bar a small child had given him. He was perhaps twice her size, with dark green armor accented with gold. He was called Quill, and his name suited his hair, which was very thick, bushy and spiky, much like the quills of a porcupine. "'bout what?"

"This!" Fathom's gesture took in most of the near surroundings.

The place they were in was considered one of the most beautiful in the city, perhaps the country. It was the glorious grounds of the University of Neo Arcadia, where students went to pursue higher learning and academics went to pursue their research. The grounds were lovely, filled with cherry and apple trees that thrived in Neo Arcadia's mild winters and hot summers. The buildings were equally beautiful, made of white stone that dated back to the founding of Neo Arcadia. Additions had been built and renovations done, but mostly, their glory had stayed intact.

Right now, the police were attempting to evacuate the hallowed halls of learning, and it was going poorly. The problem wasn't with the students. Mostly from outside of Neo Arcadia itself… local students lived at home, not the dorms… they had very little to hold them here and had evacuated with alacrity. The academics were the problem. Passionately wedded to their subjects, they wanted to take everything along, ignoring the fact that it couldn't be moved with two carts and a trolley. Archaeologists were about the worst, with the biologists as a close second, and the librarians coming in as a distant third. From where they were standing, they could see a tiny old human archaeologist who was managing to bully a Reploid police officer into pushing her dolly of ancient items. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so discouraging.

"I don't think there are classes for this sort of thing," Quill said, managing to swallow the last of the chocolate bar and thinking kind thoughts about the child who had given it to him. Kids could be really sweet, in his opinion. "You sort of have to wing it."

"Bleh," Fathom shook her head, scowling. "But it's all so… so messy! Why don't people understand how critical the situation is? It shouldn't be this disorganized." Quill regarded her with mild concern. Her light blue and pink armor was spotless, despite the circumstances. But that was Fathom, always ready for inspection.

He had known Fathom almost from the day she had been made, and knew her character quite well. A rather anal personality type, she liked to have all her ducks in order, neatly arranged by size and color. Which wasn't in itself a bad thing, but Fathom lacked mental flexibility and had a great deal of trouble coping with messy situations she could do nothing about. When she could enforce her own will on it, she did well… like in combat… but not otherwise.

Their task was simple, though, as long as they obeyed orders. They were there to be a presence and do whatever the police asked. So far, that had been limited to helping herd a bunch of kids from the campus daycare, the ones whose parents had been beyond contacting. Hence the chocolate bar.

Still, the evacuation was more than half over. Except for the malingering archaeologists, most of the buildings around here were evacuated, and if they could just-

A hair-raising scream cut through the general commotion, making them both start. It was a sound of stark terror, and they both searched, trying to locate the source. Quill felt like vomiting, when he did.

A huge tendril of gleaming greenish/white stuff had flowed out of a sewer grate, so quietly it had gone unnoticed until it had seized a Reploid woman, a female archaeologist. And it wasn't just infecting her, it was crushing her. Her screams were of agony, now, and he could hear the sound of bending and snapping metal from across the grass.

"DIE!" Fathom launched herself at the gel, a well-honed killing machine. Quill swore and followed in her path.

"Fathom, dammit, your sword won't-" Quill's protest died as she slashed the tendril of gel, severing it. The ends were seared, the gel shriveling to a yellow color, and for a moment he thought it would work. But then the dead tissue was simply expelled, and the stuff flowed back together. Fathom shrieked in frustrated rage, and kept slashing as Quill emptied his weapon into it… an acid based weapon. If anything, his acid shots had an even better effect than Fathom's sword. The police and archaeologists fled, and Quill could only hope they would reach safety.

"Ahhhh!" Fathom screamed as a thin tendril of the gel hit her in the chest with fantastic force. Gel flowed over her, and no matter how much she tried to slash, there was always more. Quill actually fired a shot on her, trying to take the gel off her no matter how much it would damage her. But it didn't do enough and he was just readying another shot when a much larger tendril hit him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him into the air… then bashing him against the side of the Institute building, head first.

When the super solution of nanites and alien DNA began to dissolve his body, unconsciousness proved to be a blessing.

"Harpuia, it's everywhere!" Muffy gasped, as they both sprayed the largest concentration of the gel. It flinched away from them, and bits of it sloughed off where their solution touched the monster. Harpuia smiled grimly… he was too agile for it, in the air, and if anything Muffy was even better. The Rekku were earning their paychecks today, spraying the stuff from the air, then darting away as it tried to retaliate.

And the solution was working. It was probably silly to attribute emotions to such a thing, but the gel seemed confused and in pain. The bacterial solution they were spraying seemed to be as brutally infectious as the gel itself, and as they watched pockets of yellow opened up all along the goo they had sprayed. The gel tried to rid itself of the infection by shedding them, but it couldn't seem to really do it… the sores just reappeared, as the bacteria kept seeking new fuel for its relentless growth.

But Muffy was right, too. There was just so damn much of it that it might take hours for the solution to reach every part of it, even with all the Rekku spraying it from the air. Harpuia's lips tightened as he went in for another pass, thinking about the Meikai and the Jin'en. Their casualty rates were much uglier than his unit, since most of them could not fly. Harpuia remembered Fefnir's torrent of swearing when the first tendrils appeared, and he found out how strong they were. Most of all, Harpuia regretted that the evacuation hadn't been finished when the monster had struck. It had probably sensed all the toothsome Reploids it had been snacking on… Harpuia was sure it had to have been feeding… going out of reach, and had decided to act. The only blessing of the situation was that it seemed to be interested only in feeding, and was going almost exclusively for Reploids. The humans were escaping fairly well… although that made Harpuia wonder why it had killed so many humans in New Las Verda. Had it not been able to tell them apart then? Had it done it simply for the fun of it?

Maybe I should stop considering the motives of gel and just concentrate, he chided himself as he narrowly dodged a seeking tendril.

"Water bombs, bombs of water, soak you through!" Muffy caroled as she sprayed the tendril that had tried to hit him. "Wee, it's a gas! Aw, I'm out, be right back!" She abandoned him with stunning swiftness, but Harpuia didn't mind. That was according to his orders, and she would be back as soon as she had a full tank of the bacteria.

But to Harpuia's surprise, someone else appeared before Muffy could return.

"I hope you're qualified to use that!" He called to Zero, who was handling a jet pack with what looked like fairly high skill. The red terror flashed him a hand signal that made Harpuia choke, then smile. "And you need to stop hanging out with Fefnir!" That sort of gesture was the last thing he would have expected from Zero.

I learned that from Alouette, actually, Zero's calm voice came over his communicator. Let's keep working on this stuff. It may already be dying, but there's more that can be done.

"Yes, indeed." They both dove at the ooze to empty their canisters. The more bacteria in the ooze, the faster it would dissolve.

Neither one was expecting what happened a moment later.

There was a tremendous explosion, and gel seemed to fly everywhere. It immediately turned brown and inert, but a sliver of pain seemed to run down Harpuia's body like a chord struck painfully high. He doused himself with a bit of the bacteria solution, to be certain the gel that had coated him was dead, then looked at the scene below him.

Weil? Harpuia's eyes darted to the much, much larger figure… which seemed to be charging something. Omega? For a moment, he felt nothing but blankness. What were they doing here?

Then Omega released the energy he had charged, and Harpuia felt a wave of crashing pain. It was as if every part of his body had been hit with a tuning fork, vibrating painfully. But the gel reacted even more violently, shattering like dropped glass. Harpuia drifted down, unable to hold his course, and saw Zero was having even worse problems with his jetpack. For a moment, it almost looked like he would go into a window, but then he managed to steady himself.

The sonics, Harpuia thought through his haze of pain. The sonics Ciel and Leviathan tried to use against it… but they couldn't without damaging US as well. He's made a cannon out of it and armored Omega against it, somehow. But why? With Weil, the old adage, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' just didn't hold water. If he was destroying the gel, he was doing it for his own purposes.

Harpuia's assessment was immediately proved correct, as Weil turned towards something and began to speak. It wasn't hard to hear him… the man had a wonderfully loud, sonorous voice, perfect for public speaking.

"Citizens of Neo Arcadia! Today, I have saved you from-" Harpuia didn't listen any farther, suddenly seized with a rarely felt rage. He had saved them? With a cannon at the end that does as much damage to THEM as to the gel? How dare he? How DARE he? Worse came a moment later, as Weil smoothly began to tell the audience that he was the only one truly competent to rule Neo Arcadia.

Harpuia looked around for the transmission point, and finally spotted it. A little robotic platform that was probably relaying the whole thing up to a satellite. And not so far away was Muffy, wearing a new tank of bacterial solution and looking confused. She had come in after Weil's use of the sonic cannon. Harpuia smiled grimly, and activated his com.

"Muffy, I have a dangerous task for you," he said softly. Even from fifty feet away, he could see her face brighten.

Command me, Lord! Harpuia let that bizarre note slide. He'd probably accidentally picked the wording from a movie she'd seen.

"Get onto that platform and yank it over so it faces me. Hold it, no matter what happens," he instructed her, and she nodded, blazing over in a swift, smooth move. She landed on it with a loud smacking sound, sitting on it with her legs spread out and the camera between them, and jerked it over with a wide grin.

"NO!" Harpuia shouted, staring into the camera. He knew his voice was raw, tired from all the work he had been doing, the orders he had been giving. But he hoped passion would make up for delivery, and stared at the camera, then looked at Weil in disgust. "We are the ones, not you, who have created the bacteria that can end this plague! We are the ones who have been defending all of Neo Arcadia against it! How dare you try to claim our victory? How dare you try to say that we are not fit to rule ourselves? You disgust me! At his worst, Master X at least believed in something greater than himself, while you only believe in your own power! Get out of here, Weil-" Muffy screamed as she was blasted from the platform, and Harpuia concluded his speech anyway, uncertain if he was being seen. "Neo Arcadia banished you once for your crimes against humanity, and we banish you again!"

"I do not recognize your authority to do any such thing," Weil called back to him. "But if that is how you wish it… Omega, destroy them!" The huge Reploid moved with sinuous grace, and Harpuia barely dodged as its sword whistled by. Zero dropped to the ground, shedding the jet pack which had been such a help against the gel. It would only be a hindrance for him against Omega.

He's gotten much, much better, Harpuia realized as the combat progressed. Omega was holding Zero to a standstill, and still managing to fend off his attacks. Harpuia's eyes narrowed and he kept trying to press his attacks home. Eventually, something would have to give.

It did, but not the way he had hoped. Omega let loose with the sonic cannon again, at much lower power but focused on Zero. The red warrior reeled, then was smashed through a wall with one well-placed blow. Omega suddenly turned his full attention on Harpuia, and fired a new cannon, unused until now. Harpuia easily avoided the first shot… and then the cold, tactical mind saw what he had missed, a second cannon beneath the first. A new beam of energy shot out at him, but he was still dodging the first shot and there was simply no time to react.

But it wasn't a normal shot. Instead of burning pain, Harpuia felt cold paralyzation. The flow of energy held him as gently as a mother holding her baby… but rendered him as helpless as a baby, and that was unbearable. Harpuia struggled to find some way, any way out as Weil laughed and his swords dropped from his hands.

"So, the hero of Neo Arcadia," Weil said mockingly, amused by the anger in Harpuia's eyes. "General Harpuia, 3rd Council member… very impressive. Or not. You think you can do better than me?" Harpuia grit his teeth as the energy suddenly changed, and pain flashed through his body. Pain, accompanied by a tingling sensation… Harpuia realized that he was being charged with energy. His body was trying to absorb it, convert it, but that was a hopeless task. When too much of it finally hit his fusion generator…

He means to show everyone my death, Harpuia realized, and smiled, but it was more of a grimace. This will do wonders for morale. But there was nothing he could do but brace himself against the pain, and present a cool, brave face to the world. That, he could do, and did, fixing Weil with a cold, disdainful gaze.

Neither one of them noticed the one person who wasn't incapacitated in some way. Muffy cautiously crawled closer to Harpuia, and picked up one of his blades.

"SLICE YOU LIKE A CUCUMBER!" That war cry was too jarring, too surreal for Weil to do anything but stare. That moment of shock was his undoing, as Muffy slammed Harpuia's sword into Omega's cannon, the one that was holding him still. It exploded, throwing her away like a piece of fluff. Harpuia was released, and dropped to the ground with a jarring thud. Zero was pulling himself out of the shattered building, his expression cold and set to take on Weil and Omega again.

But then… they teleported away.

"What the…?" Harpuia was faintly disbelieving. Even without the cannon Omega had used on him, Weil's creature was still fresh where he and Zero had been combating gel for hours… then Harpuia realized why the lunatic had beat a retreat, as several members of his unit swooped down on their position, and Fefnir jogged up. He was looking grim, but relief filled his face as he saw them.

"Harp! You okay!" Harpuia gave him a vague wave, looking around… then jogging over to Muffy's side. Zero was already there, saying something softly to the valiant aerial warrior. He looked up, spotting the expression on Harpuia's face at the damage she had taken… and smiled.

"She's going to make it," he said reassuringly, and Harpuia stared at him, then nodded. He knelt down beside Muffy, taking her hand as she managed a wan smile.

"Harpuia?" Her voice was soft and fragile. "I want… a cucumber salad." Zero's soft laugh surprised Harpuia more than the request. He had never heard Zero laugh before. Harpuia shook his head with a small smile.

"I'm sure that can be arranged, Muffy." He slid his arms under her. "Let's get you back to HQ for repairs."