Author's Note:
Greetings readers! This is a small note to say that I've just posted 3 Universal Deviations chapters! This includes one for Monty, Mage and Sun all at once! I've had these in the backlog to post for awhile, so I would appreciate it if you took time to read them! Thank you for reading, and NINJA-GO!
In the sewers of Ninjago City, the Destiny's Shadow zoomed through the complex network of large pipes and drainage. At the front of the vehicle stood Sun, standing firm with his sword in both hands lowered to line up perfectly with the center of his body. Bandages poked up from under his robes, but otherwise he stood as a knightly symbol on the front of his carriage.
Behind him sat two of his team, Kai and Jay. The two, rather than in their ninja suits, were instead in blue overalls with a large logo of a B and G entwined on the chest. Both were polishing their weapons, sitting across from each other as they did. Behind them stood two of their newest allies: Monty, a ghost they knew little about aside from his desire for guns and capes, and a young boy that had finally recovered from his downing in the previous two battles and was far too eager to get back into the fight. Driving the Shadow was Lloyd, who had discovered the controls to be, oddly enough, identical to the model that he'd received as a present a long while ago.
"Onwards!" Sun declared, "We will arrive at the dropoff point for our mission shortly!"
"Good," Monty yawned, waving his hand back to show his cape had now changed to a deep crimson cape that was designed like a massive V to flare out behind his legs, "Mage, repeat the plan to us."
"Huh?" Mage perked up, "Why me?"
"Because you're the youngest one here," Kai spoke up, "We need to know we can trust a kid to go in and do what needs to be done."
"Alright," Mage nodded his head, "We're on our way to the Nindroid Production Facility. Our goal is to get Jay inside so he can set the 'main production line' to destroy Nindroids so we can gain easier access to the main palace. To do that… let's see, I'm going to go with Sun using my powers to sneak up into Borg's main office so we can get him focused on us. Then, you'll go with Kai and Jay once we cause a distraction by pretending to have captured them to sneak in to the main line and shut them down. If all goes well, the entire plant will be disabled."
"Your goal isn't to defeat Borg," Monty pointed out, "We have no idea what might happen when we get in there. What do you do if you get overwhelmed?"
"Sun and I will fight our way until we get to you and help you complete your part of the mission!" Mage chirped, "Easy plan!"
"Good," Monty nodded to a sword propped up against the side of the Shadow, "Now take that."
Mage looked over to see the sword Aevum, the parting gift from his former mentor Acronix, still on the Shadow from where Monty had placed it. Mage looked over to Monty, then he lowered his eyes.
"I swore that I wouldn't use my time matrix while I was here," Mage raised his hand to show the Time Matrix appear over it, "And, that sword can't even be drawn unless you're using forward. It's… it's not right for me to do it."
"I couldn't care less," Monty stated bluntly, "Take it. If it's between your morals and saving your life, break whatever dumb rule you have. Sun needs you at full strength. That sword will slow down anyone you hit with it. If you won't use it, at least take it so Lloyd feels better."
Mage nodded his head to that, gently strapping Aevum to his back, even if he looked downcast doing it.
"I'd feel a lot better if I wasn't just the getaway driver!" Lloyd replied curtly from the cockpit of the Shadow, "I can help you guys!"
"You can pilot this thing, and we need Sun," Monty turned back forward, "Don't answer comms to anyone. We've already shown that it won't work."
"I'm starting to miss when I was the team leader," Lloyd muttered.
"When you're a full master thief like me, then you can make the plans," Monty shot back.
"But how am I supposed to be a master if I'm never allowed to make the plans?" Lloyd groaned.
"At least you're a master of following plans," Monty looked to Sun, "How much further?"
"Another minute at most!" Sun narrowed his eyes, "We cannot make our way up from the bottom like before, the Emperor would be expecting that. We must exit onto the streets and work our way from there. We will surprise him by boldly striking at one of his Hands! Once we finish, we will help the others with their own mission. With our two pronged attack, all will go as we wish!"
"Yeah, that's what you said the last time," Kai grunted, "None of our plans ever work."
"We can't even get time to fully bond to our own weapons because of it!" Jay added, "Couldn't we have waited more than two days for this mission?"
"Time waits for no man!" Sun declared, "And justice will only move forward by our hands."
"Great, another useless quote," Kai growled, sharpening the blade on his tonfa, "Just what I wanted to hear right now."
"Hey!" Mage frowned, "Sun's just trying to raise your guy's spirits! Be nice to him!"
"I don't think a child should be weighing in on adult matters," Kai threw back to Mage.
"He's a child that knows every element you can think of," Monty replied directly, "And he survived a direct hit from the Emperor. Unless you can do that, you might want to back down."
Mage looked down to his body. Thanks to a split second reaction and being rather used to people throwing elemental beams at him, Mage had thrown up a beam of his own to counter it. A good bit of the beam still struck him and, combined with the impact with the wall, had knocked him out cold. It'd only taken him the day after to recover from it all, and he was ready to fight.
"Stop!" Sun shouted, "We have arrived!"
Lloyd pulled the brake on the Shadow, causing them to top at a massive four way junction. A large ladder extended down from the middle of the room, leading up to a manhole cover up top. Sun dismounted the Shadow, followed swiftly by Kai and Jay. Mage looked back to Lloyd and smiled at him, while Monty slowly raised up in the air with wind until he had come to hover up above by the manhole. He drew the SoS so he could slowly phase his head and upper body through the street until he could see above them. By the time the other four had gotten ready to climb, Monty floated back down so he could nod his head.
Swiftly, the four of them climbed, firstly Sun and then Mage. When Sun got to the top, he inhaled and pushed the cover up from the street, gently letting the dark light of the city filter in. Monty floated up first, holding the SoS up to test if there were anyone that would spot them. Sun slowly crawled up, then helped pull the others up. Once they had emerged, Sun quickly refitted the cover so they could dart away from the street to the nearest storefront and out from the open.
The strike team was currently in the middle of a large shopping district, though the lack of people made that hard to tell at first. With both the dark skies and the barrier raised, most citizens were hidden indoors until whatever anger befell the Emperor passed. Looking down one side of the street put the large tower grounds in sight, while the other showed a massive building. The building was half made of glass, and half made of black and purple materials. The entire facility was designed so the solid half looked like the side of a Nindroid head, with a massive red targeting eye plastered as the 'O' in a large sign that read 'BORG INDUSTRIES' proudly to all that walked by. The building was perhaps fifty stories tall, and covered a massive span of area. With the massive number of cars outside, it looked like a massive manufacturing plant.
"At least we know where we're going," Monty groaned, "Doesn't really try to hide now, does he?"
"Why wouldn't he?" Kai turned to Monty with an angry glare, "He has an army he can call at a push of a button."
"Mage," Sun looked over to the boy, "You said you had a way to get us closer?"
"Yeah!" Mage rubbed his hands together, causing them to spark up with light, "One sec!"
Slowly, Mage let out the element of light, his eyes glowing a soft yellow. Slowly, the group would see their bodies start to shimmer, then camouflage to the surroundings. It was as if a sheen had been applied to their bodies, one that adjusted to fit the environment. The group couldn't fully see each other, so long as they stood still. When it was over, one of Mage's eyes remained yellow to signify he was using the element.
"My dad and I figured this one out," Mage declared proudly, "Light distortion! I bend the light rays to act like the ones around your bodies. It's really hard to keep up when you're moving around a lot… but I have practice with this! This should get us into the facility."
"Good," Monty nodded, "Once we destroy his army, we'll have no issues dealing with reinforcements if we try to take on the Emperor."
The group began to walk their way down the shopping district and down to a street one block away from the facility. As they did, the amount of security cameras and clearly booby trapped tile pavements became painfully obvious. A gust of wind caused a can to blow away from a trash can. When it landed on a tile, suddenly the tiles above it rose up to reveal massive nindroid rifles on sticks that fired brutally on the can. When they retreated, the can was no more. Nindroids, similarly, patrolled the area. Large groups of seven paced up and down the roads. Each time they came near, the group hid and waited for them to pass before moving on.
"Why don't we just Mage here do this the entire time?" Jay whispered as they neared the end of the block, "Saves us having to intentionally go fight Borg!"
"Because Mage can't keep it up for that long," Monty shot back, "He isn't some battery. Go learn your own elemental powers if that's what you like."
"Why is he even hiding you?!" Kai shot back to Monty, "You're a ghost!"
"Because turning invisible takes more effort than it looks," Monty growled.
"Friends!" Sun hissed to them, "Now is a time to be unified! We must use our resources wisely. Our plan will allow us entry, no matter what may happen. Let us get inside before we condemn each other to whatever fate will befall us."
Kai and Jay grumbled heavily. Mage was already starting to sweat having to maintain this element on all five of them, but it was a relatively simple enough element to concentrate on in the back of his mind. Instead, Mage made his way up to where he thought Sun was, gently tapping him.
"What is it, my friend?" Sun asked. The group came up from the end of the block to the next, filled with even more Nindroids and traps.
"Kai and Jay…. they, don't seem to be nice to you," Mage pointed out, "What's up with that? Aren't you guys, like… a team?"
"We are, but we were not brought together under the same banner," Sun sighed as they continued to creep past the Nindroid patrols, "They were brought together by the Spirit Smoke. They retrieved their Golden Weapons… and then the Emperor came. With how much of an interest this Emperor has shown in me, it has led them to feel alienated from me. We may ride into battle together, but their cause is not my own. I seek justice… they seek revenge."
"Revenge?" Mage asked curiously.
"Revenge for a home taken from them," Sun replied plainly, "It is not a goal I can discount, but it is one that I will not fall into. When justice is tainted by a selfish desire, no good can come of it. My ideology has often clashed with their own."
"Oh…" Mage frowned, feeling his mood fall, "You need to work as a team to succeed, though!"
"Let us save our troubles for later," Sun told Mage, "I appreciate your candor, but there is a place for these discussions. Now is a trime for us to begin the plan as seen."
The group had rounded a corner, coming face to face with a massive wall that looked to be made of compressed lades, saws, spikes, metal strips, and a massive amount of Nindroid parts. It extended completely around the entire facility, with several turrets mounted on it. The only entrance seemed to be a gate with a multitude of scanners for those employees that worked there. Nindroids were stationed at almost every ten feet along the wall, and each with a line of sight on each other. The group waited at the edge of a corner of the street, looking across to the gate.
"Monty," Sun spoke quietly, "You are up."
Monty nodded, slowly inhaling before giving a long exhale. As he did, all five of them began to life up in the air using the power of wind. Monty's control over the element was precise and focused, meaning not so much as a draft was present to any of the Nindroids. Mage's element of light kept them hidden as Monty slowly began to levitate them in the air. Slowly, they rose up until their feet were mere inches away from the blades the wall so cleanly displayed. When they cleared it, Monty gently began to lower them down.
At this point, the group couldn't speak. According to Sun, Borg had sound monitors over the facility that would pick up on any sounds not made by Nindroids. Triggering those would be an instant alarm. Thus, when Monty set them down, it was with the ultimate precision. Monty shifted them so Mage and Sun were on one side, and while he was with the others across from them. Once they were landed, a silent agreement was raised between them that now was the time for stealth.
It was time for the first step of the plan. Since the facility was completely automatic in production, there was no way for them to enter on that side to infiltrate it. Borg, as it seemed, was smart enough to phase out as much human interaction in his buildings as possible. A station was set up for employees that worked there to show their badges at a terminal to enter the building, which just so happened to have four Nindroids stationed there to ensure that those that checked in weren't hiding anything. Mage and Sun slowly made their way up to a small distance away from the terminal, pressing their bodies up against the glass. Monty led Kai and Jay until they were standing behind one of the cars nearest to the terminal.
Kai and Jay both reached up and clipped on stolen Borg employee badges. Mage slowly reached out and strained himself to focus on maintaining light and form. Slowly, Kai and Jay's faces shifted to match that of the badges they wore. The element of light dropped from them, allowing them both to stand up with their badges in hand. The outfits they'd arrived in were Borg employee uniforms, specifically mechanics. They both hide their weapons inside of their outfits. As the two approached the terminal, a Nindroid stepped forward, raising his rifle up to stop them.
"Halt!" The robot droned out, ."Present your badges for scanning."
The instant the robot raised his hand out for Kai and Jay to present their badges, Monty struck. In an instant, he phased into the back of the robot from behind, causing the robot to freeze for a few seconds. Both ninja looked to each other as the Nindroid jerked a small bit, trying to fight back with its programming. Mage held his breath as he waited for Monty to finish the possession.
"Badges!" The Nindroid barked in the same tone. Slowly, Kai and Jay handed them over. The Nindroid held them up to his eye and scanned them. At the same time, the other eye ran facial diagnostics on the two. With Mage's power over form, the system came up positive. The Nindroid handed them back, allowing for Jay and Kai to pass.
"Halt!" The Nindroid barked. Both Kai and Jay froze. For a brief moment, Mage held his breath, terrified that his power had somehow gone awry. The Nindroid slowly hefted up a large case with the Borg Industries logo on the side.
"It states here on your job assignment that you are heading to the main production center," The Nindroid handed the case to Jay, "Take this." Mage felt a sigh of relief as he saw the Nindroid blink twice to Jay. Inside the box was the SoS, allowing for Monty to have it in case things went south. Jay took it with a nervous nod and stepped past the terminal into the building. The Nindroid followed them, as standard protocol was to have a Nindroid escort at all times.
Sun reached out and tapped Mage on the shoulder. Mage, realizing what that meant, moved up to the glass wall and opened his hands. Sun had given him a strange set of gloves that felt like gravel on the outside. He had to awkwardly strain his hands to fit in them, given his fingers. When he pressed them to the building, it caused them to adhere firmly to it. Mage had insisted gravity would be faster, but Sun had declared it was best for them to save their strength, especially since Mage still had to keep him and Sun disguised.
Slowly, Sun and Mage climbed up together. They were forced to go slowly so their noises wouldn't trip the noise sensors. The only indication that Mage had of where Sun was came from where he was directing his power to give him a location. They ascended the glass wall, able to get a look inside to the rooms they climbed. Most of them were filled with desks, chairs and weird flashing devices Mage didn't understand. Very rarely did Mage see another person inside. Even if he did, they all looked funny to him!
Borg's office was at the top, meaning they had to climb all of those stories to get there. Mage found himself holding in hard gasps, straining to get in air so he didn't alert anyone. The climb was almost straight up and he was having to hide them too! His only saving grace was that his dad had trained him using sheer cliffs before, so he had some experience. Still, by story ten, Mage wanted to drop down.
Finally, though, the two of them reached the top. Mage was stopped by feeling Sun stop. The glass had started to curve inwards, likely to match the Nindroid head design on the other side of the building. The top few floors seemed all merged into one large space, a space which Mage saw a large desk that overlooked the city outside of it placed at the edge of the glass. Inside of that desk was none other than Cyrus Borg himself, Mage froze upon seeing him, worried as to what they had just stumbled into.
Sun, however, didn't seem to care. Mage felt Sun raising up his arm, and from it his sword of light extended. Mage was unable to adjust the light around them for it, causing the sword to shine directly onto the glass. With five large swipes, Sun cut a star into the glass, then swung his body backwards to ram his foot into the glass with. The entire glass shattered inward, causing Mage to lose focus as Sun's arm reached out and grabbed his own. The two of them went soaring into the middle of Borg's room, the broken glass shimmering around them.
When the two of them landed, they were behind Borg's desk. Sun raised his arms up to point a handat Borg, with his sword raised his over his head mirroring it. Mage looked around frantically to get his bearings, then quickly raised up his fists in a fighting stance.
The room the two stood in was a mixture of an office and laboratory. The desk faced towards the window, but a large disc underneath revealed it did swivel around. Past a certain point in the room, large pop up walls with notes, schematics and blueprints were everywhere, with tables in front of them piled up with scraps on scraps of parts. The floor was designed in a grid, lighting up in random places with light blue and purple. The walls had inventions of all sorts hung up and displayed like trophies, none of which Mage had the slightest idea of what they did.
"Oh my stars!" The desk rotated around to allow Borg to lean forward on his elbows at the two intruders, "Sun! And… friend! Why, I didn't expect for you to break in like this! How did you manage to get past the security drones?"
"I had help," Sun smirked, "I challenge you, Borg! I challenge you to a two-on-two duel!"
"A duel? Oh, heavens, what sort of duel are you referring to?" Borg looked around, "Why, I only see one of me!"
"I, think he means that weird costume you put on! The shiny one!" Mage spoke up, "Cause like, you act like two different people!"
"Oh… now, do I? Oh, my apologies, I'm getting on in my years, it seems I can't always remember what side of myself I'm showing to the public!" Borg gave a dark grin, "Perhaps we should make that divide a bit more obvious!"
Borg darted his hand forward to hit a button that flipped up from his desk. Sun leapt into the air to cleave the desk in half, but it was too late. Borg's chair lifted him up to his feet, then a slot opened up in the floor. Robotic arms rapidly raised up to piece together the armor plating that made up General Cryptor onto his body. First his legs were covered in metal, then the plating was put on, followed by his chest. Sun swung his sword again, but Borg raised up a half-outfitted right arm to catch the blade. Once his left arm was finished, he reached up to grip Sun by the neck and throw him backwards for Mage to catch. Once all but his head was outfitted, Borg casually reached down to press a button on his forearm to cause a helmet to rise up into place that completed the visage that was the Nindroid General Cryptor.
"It seems I have two lousy intruders for me to take care of," Crytpor raised an arm up, a Nindroid rifle dropping from the ceiling into his hand, "Let's change up the stage for this, shall we?"
Suddenly, the entire room began to change. Aside from the now broken desk, all that the two had seen initially faded from view. Once they were gone, holographic light projectors were revealed to be the culprits. A metallic wall slowly lowered over the glass the two had entered from, sealing the room shut. The door on the other side of the room slid into the wall and was covered in smooth panels. Once the room was completely sealed, the grid pattern of the floor extended to the ceiling.
"Fools!" Cryptor laughed, "Did you honestly think I wasn't expecting some sort of break in? I had suspected it be all of your friends, but I suppose this was within my calculations! If the data I collected on that boy is anything, he's worth more than the sum of your whole team multiplied by the inverse of Planck's Constant!"
"Wait, who's Planck?" Mage blinked, "And, uh, inverting what?"
"Forget it, Mage!" Sun spun his blade, "Now is the time for us to demonstrate our power to this inventor!"
Sun nodded to Mage, who focused the element of earth into his body to enhance his strength. The two rushed forward together, right towards where Cryptor stood. The Nindroid General didn't make any attempts to move. The two swung blade and fist together, ready to strike him.
Suddenly, Cryptor was gone. The two stopped themselves just in time to avoid one of the pieces of grid having turned into a large hole in the floor. Sun heard something opening up from behind them, and turned to see Cryptor jetting his way up from another opening in the floor, rifle raised. He fired at Mage's exposed back. Sun sliced the bolt head on with the flat of his blade, causing it to reflect perfectly back to Cryptor. He raised up his left arm to show that purple energy arm-mounted shield to dispel the blast.
"I had thought about using this room to use holograms to confuse you," Cryptor spoke calmly as he hovered in the air, "But then I remembered… I own an army. So I will instead let them deal with you for me!"
All at once, each panel on the grid dropped into the floor, then rose back up to show a Nindroid, rifle raised up and pointed at Sun and Mage. The two warriors put their backs together as they were soon completely surrounded by them. Both rifles and eye-lasers charged up, ready to fire on them. Cryptor, under his hood, was grinning madly as Borg.
"Now then!" Cryptor laughed, "Show me what you can do! Fill my servers with all the data I need to defeat you!"
"Mage!" Sun shouted. Mage was already on it. Mage shut his eyes, then opened them gunmetal. He reached out in all directions, using the power of metal to grab hold of the Nindroids and push them back. All around them, the robots were sent sliding backwards, waving their arms for balance as they did.
Just as Cryptor felt his own jets failing to stabilize him, he sent out a command to all the Nindroids in the room. Instantly, the sound of metal magnetizing to the floor was heard. This, however, was just what Mage could work with. His eyes blinked from gunmetal to blue, just in time for him to rub his hands together and send out lightning in all directions. With the robots now magnetized to the floor, they were unable to dodge as Mage electrocuted them. Cryptor had magnetized to the wall, and the current was traveling up through the floor to him. He managed to leap off the wall just in time, but by then Sun was already racing around the room with his light ribbon trailing in the air.
Cryptor tried to fire his rifle at Mage, but the shot missed as Mage jumped backwards. By then, it was too late to stop Sun. Sun had wound his way through almost all the Nindroids and completed a trail that looped around the room. He raised his sword out and shouted out, "RELEASE!" He struck the ground with his sword, causing the light ribbon to rapidly explode all around the room. Bits of Nindroid went flying everywhere as the army was effectively shredded apart. When the light cleared, only one Nindroid was left standing that fell over from its circuits being fried.
"Do not underestimate us, Cryptor!" Sun pointed his sword up in the air, "You may hide from us behind your army of scraps, but they can be cleared away as easy as one brushes aside a clutter from the tables!"
"Why you little!" Cryptor shouted angrily, "You went right through my army! Do you know how much it takes to make those things?! What am I supposed to do now?!"
Cryptor hit another button, causing the panels in the floor to drop away and sweep the parts back. Panels tried to drop Sun and Mage down as well, but Mage activated gravity and raised them up until the panels came back up. New Nindroids rose up from the floor, but these now had two different aspects. One was that they carried large black shields that were built onto their arms in place of a wrist, and the other was large tanks on their backs that glowed blue.
"...Other than use the entire Nindroid Production line that sits right behind us to endlessly funnel you to your doom!" Cryptor laughed, "You should have been more careful, little boys. I now have all the data I need to defeat you! These new models are built to perfectly counter your previous strategy!"
"You underestimate us, Cryptor!" Sun looked back to Mage. The boy nodded and reached out with metal again. This time, however, the Nindroids didn't slide back. Mage blinked and tried again, making Cryptor laugh.
"I adjusted my lines to alter the Nindroid's main alloy to lack a magnetic pole when inside an electromagnetic disturbance," Cryptor stated smugly, "Your little tricks won't work on them!"
Sun, undaunted, swung his sword to cleave a ribbon right in front of a Nindroid. When the energy released in an explosion a moment later, Sun expected the Nindroid to explode, but instead he heard a rifle charging up at him. When Sun dodged, he saw that the large shield had absorbed the impact and actually flared outt at the impact before all closing back up into its original size.
"Your explosions are ones I have studied for a rather long time, Sun!" Cryptor explained, "I admit it was a rather challenging problem, but these new shields are meant to perfectly distribute the force of impact throughout the Nindroid's body! By reinforcing the Nindroid skeleton, your ability now is as useless as a paper sword!"
Mage decided to try to see if what Cryptor said was then fully true. He spun around to one Nindroid and blasted him with lightning. The electricity went through the shield and up his body, and for a moment he looked ready to fritz out. Then the tanks on his back glowed as the current grounded out inside him and actually charged up the containers. A strange noise came from the Nindroid as his red eye glowed. Mage, not knowing what it meant but knowing something coming from the metal guys wasn't good, hit the ground as a crackling laser the side of his head burst from the Nindroid. It hit the panel behind Mage and incinerated it completely, leaving Mage to look back in shock.
"Redirecting a current into a rechargeable cell is simple once you have a control sample," Cryptor finished, "Go on, continue to fight. Just know that the longer that you do, the more data I have to make my units stronger."
Sun and Mage backed up to one another. The panels on the floor suddenly began to rapidly fall away, forcing them closer and closer together until the two were on a single panel, surrounded by a pit of darkness. The panels on the edges containing the Nindroids suddenly rose up in the air, not only putting the two in a barrel but also unable to escape. Cryptor landed beside one of the Nindroids and aimed his rifle down at them.
"Let's see how you escape this one!" Cryptor grinned, "Fire!"
"Mage!" Sun suddenly shouted, "Electrify the floor!"
Just as the Nindroids charged up an eye laser, Mage struck the floor with pure lightning. Sun's gamble paid off, as the systems in the floor that controlled the panels went on the fritz. The panels that had raised up for the Nindroids dropped, causing many of their shots to arc off wildly. Sun grabbed Mage and jumped into the air to avoid the others. As those that were still standing tried to adjust their aim, some panels dropped and caused them to fall directly down into the darkness. Mage raised a shield of fire in front of them on instinct, blocking those bolts that still came. By the time they landed, some panels of the large gap had risen back up, letting them both leap across the room until they had dove into a corner for safety.
Cryptor rapidly worked to regain control of the entire room's systems. In that time, Sun used the comotion to charge up his blade. Rather than try to use his ability outright, he instead just ran back and sliced the blue canisters on the back of one Nindroid, storing his ability inside the tanks as he did. He grabbed the Nindroid and shoved him as far as he could into another, then released the ability. The tanks rapidly sparked and then exploded, charring the floor and making Sun have to hunker down.
"Hhmph," Cryptor finally managed to get back control of the panels to orient the floor once again, "Such a basic distraction method. You will find that I won't let your pathetic tricks work a second time."
"Wait, but we just used the same attacks again, just in different ways!" Mage blinked, "Isn't that, using the same trick a second time?"
"A trick is only a trick when used in a certain way, otherwise it's just an attack!" Cryptor spat.
"You seem rather flustered, Cryptor!" Sun laughed, "Perhaps we should take this battle to another time?"
Cryptor growled, hitting another button. This time, the Nindroids lowered down into the floor, and in their place rose only twenty new ones. The only difference this time was that the shield was now smaller, and the blue tanks had a cover over them.
"The longer we fight, the more time I have for my computers to perfect their design," Cryptor taunted them, "Fight them and see what happens!"
"Be ready, Mage!" Sun raised up his blade, "For as long as I can swing my sword, I will fight!"
"Hey, I just realized something," Mage turned to Sun, "My metal teacher, Karlof, he said that he has to melt the metal to reforge it. Doesn't that mean we can cut through them if we heat ourselves up?"
"It does indeed," Sun frowned, "But my sword, while I can charge it with light to make it burn, will never be able to-"
Mage reached over, his eyes red, and gripped Sun's blade. In an instant, the blade was consumed by flames. Sun's eyes widened as Mage poured concentrated fire element into the blade. When the flames subsided, Sun now had a sword that was red hot and smoldering, making the air around it shimmer and dance. Mage pulled his hand back to meet Sun's stunned gaze.
"How… how did you know that would work and not cleave off your hand?" Sun gasped.
"Because the others have a power like yours and when they used it on me, I felt better!" Mage chirped, "And even if it didn't work," He showed his hand was completely metal, winking with a gunmetal eye, "I made sure I wasn't going to lose it!"
"The others said you struggle with stamina," Sun frowned, "How much longer can you fight?"
"As long as we need to!" Mage declared, his own arms burning to that same level of red-hot, "Let's do this!"
"How are we supposed to sneak around a Nindroid production facility if that kid's weird power isn't on our faces?!" Kai spat as he and Jay rushed through the glowing hallways with their heads down.
"The same way you've gotten through everything," Monty, through the Nindroid he possessed, spat, "By keeping your heads down and moving forward! You're only cleared for another thirty minutes!"
Monty spoke out loud to convince the other Nindroids that were walking down the hall that he was indeed escorting them. Every thirty or so seconds, he was fielding status updates to the main Nindroid network about his current situation. The Nindroids were constantly trying to check up on him, making maintaining his cover difficult. This was on top of accessing the building layout without rousing the network's suspicion by going through several request forms that were filed instantly due to it being all done on computer. Even then, he'd only looked at the map for a good five seconds before its access was revoked, since Nindroids didn't need five seconds to look, only one to download.
"Are we almost there?!" Jay hissed out, "My feet are starting to hurt!" Thankfully Jay at least got the memo about them speaking to fool the audio sensors.
"The more you organics complain, the longer it will take to arrive," Monty droned out, "Keep moving, and take a right at this next hallway."
Jay and Kai obeyed, Jay carrying the case supposedly for 'tools' that contained the SoS should things go badly. Monty was starting to wish that sword would phase through walls with him, but it was useful in ways that far outweighed that little flaw. Still, it was something he had to manage, and made it a source of stress along with the constant checkups with the Nindroid body.
"Go through those doors and scan your badags, then we will enter the main facility. You will have exactly twenty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to complete your task," Monty told the two of them.
The three indeed came to a large set of metal doors that had the large Borg Industries logo on it. Once Kai and Jay scanned their badges, the doors opened up around the symbol, sliding away to allow them to step into the room. Monty followed them. As the door shut behind them, the three were treated to the sight of pure unfiltered Borg innovation.
For almost all ten stories up, a complex web of assembly lines, power cores, robotic arms and tubes delivering parts to said arms were woven around the place. The sound of the machines was almost deafening, forcing Kai and Jay to actually have to reach up and cover their ears until they adjusted. The entire bottom floor was almost completely barren, with little more than a few computer screens at terminals. Ladders, however, extended up pillars that would allow them to climb up the floors and to small disc-like platforms that looked like massive conical electricity conduits that made up the power cores. There had to be almost a hundred of them in the room, each one powering the section of machinery around them.
"Woah…" Jay gasped as he looked around, "This place is… huge!"
"Yeah, huge with future enemies," Kai growled, "Where are we going?"
Monty thought of saying something, then realized if this body was recording what he said, it could give everything away. Instead, he looked down to the two of them and then picked a random ladder and pointed to it. Jay looked up and gulped at the height, then slowly began to climb with the case in tow. Kai went up behind him. Monty, rather than doing so, activated the Nindroid jets and began to hover alongside them.
"Get moving!" Monty snapped at them. In truth, it was his way of warning them they were on a time limit. He could only field so much of the system before he would get found out as a rogue unit.
"Alright, alright!" Jay barked back, "Just calm down, we're almost there!" Jay looked down for a moment and gripped the ladder, "R-Really high up and almost there."
The three climbed almost three stories up before they reached one of the power cores. Now that they were up close, it was easy to see that each core was actually connected to the one above it by a large electrical crackling beam. This was true for some in the horizontal direction, though all built in random directions so they didn't strike the production lines. This close, Jay could see half-finished Nindroids being outfitted with screws for their arms. Hundreds of them were going in every direction, some of them going up to special areas where they were offloaded. The amount of enemies in this room should they be caught was overwhelming.
"Can you do it?" Kai asked as Jay leaned into the core and removed a panel.
"Yeah," Jay hissed, "If I reroute the power of each of these stations down to the other one and feed it back in a loop, I can trigger this whole core network to go boom!"
"Get to your work, organic!" Monty spat. He spoke loud enough to overwhelm any audio sensors as to what Jay just said.
Quickly, Jay got to work. Monty hovered there in the air by the circular platform, looking out over the massive and seemingly endless production of Nindroids. Where the parts were even sourced from, he had no idea. It was all one massive army, and that was on top of the Stone Army he'd seen guarding the palace. This Emperor clearly knew what he was doing. Just this massive amount of Nindroids would be enough to keep a population in check.
"Oh no," Jay looked down at the system, "No, no no no!"
"What's the issue here?" Monty's Nindroid asked, "You have ceased your assigned job!"
"The, uhm, repairs, they require a certain, uhm, trigger, in order to, fix the system," Jay tried to phrase it in a non suspicious way, "The, uhm, system needs something to, cause it to, jump start! And, chain together all of things that, this whole production facility needs to run, eheh?"
"Wait, what?" Kai asked, "What's the problem?"
Jay snapped his head to Kai and fiercely whispered, "The system is completely locked, I've set the wiring to work but I can't reroute the flow! I need something to come in here and give it some sort of trigger to set it off, and if we're the ones that do it we're going to go kaboom!"
"Oh…." Kai thought for a minute, "Hey, Monty, can you maybe-MHMH!"
Jay clamped his hand around Kai's mouth, but it was too late. The sensors on Monty's Nindroid immediately went off as a non-registered name in the database was spoken. Instantly, the Nindroid began to do a complete system shutdown, a measure Monty could do nothing to prevent. Quickly, he was forced to abandon the body just to avoid it as it crashed down the many assembly lines, conveyor belts and whatnot.
"Sword!" Monty spat, his ghost form now visible. Jay quickly fumbled the case open. Once it was, Monty's wind sucked the SoS out from the case and into his hand. He spun it twice, then he drew a pistol in the other hand. With those in tow, he backed up so Jay could draw his hidden glave and Kai his tonfa. Quickly, an army of Nindroids surrounded them, rising up with their jets, some of them completed and many others half-finished from the line, all of them aiming rifles or their eyes directly at them. Monty waited, then saw his reflection in the SoS.
"Great," Monty growled, "I have to deal with this stuff again."
Mage let out a loud shout, driving his glowing hot arm through a Nindroid's chest. The action caused the robot to reach down with its hands as its body began to violently spark, readying a self-destruct sequence. Mage, seeing something was off, raised one foot up and slammed it into the ground. He strained to call upon the element of earth, using his other hand in a palm strike to send the Nindroid flying backwards into another. The two of them exploded, making Mage cover his head up.
"Do not let up!" Sun's red-hot sword was cleaving through the metal of the Nindroids like butter, even if the residual heat felt like it was melting his hands, "Borg will run out of them at some point!"
"If you truly think that, you are welcome to keep wasting your time," Cryptor laughed, "In fact, perhaps I should join the battle now, don't you think?"
A cable shot out of Cryptor's right arm, firing out to wind around Mage and seal his arms to his sides. Mage looked down in pure shock, just before Cryptor raised one foot up to send him spinning in the air. Mage was yanked up from the ground, shouting as he tried to form some element in order to counter it. A few paltry bursts of lightning aimed at Cryptor were all he managed before Cryptor had panels rise out from the wall, just to smack Mage against with his swings. After Mage had gotten one too many strikes to the face, Cryptor opened his left hand and the metal rapidly began to reform itself into a massive fist charged with purple energy. The cable retracted, dragging the boy directly into a robotic fueled strike. The burst sent Mage soaring through the air, landing near Sun in a crumple.
"Mage!" Sun shouted, ready to go and help him even as he danced between attacks. To his shock, Mage actually leapt up to his feet, only a small trickle of blood coming from his forehead to show any sort of injury on him.
"I don't know what that was, but that was unfair!" Mage pointed up at Cryptor, "I don't like that weird suit you're wearing!"
"And I don't like that you have some sort of strange growths on your hands, but it seems that we can't get what we both want now, can we?" Cryptor growled, "As for your little trick!"
More Nindroids rose up from the floor, all now sporting larger bodies due to thicker plating. When Sun tried to cut them apart, his sword wasn't able to make it all the way through. He was forced to withdraw and hide behind a raised up panel to avoid fire. Mage raced forward and struck one with a fist fueled with earth, but this time the Nindroid's body seemed to split apart like their shield-arms, absorbing the blow and forcing him to hide with Sun. To avoid the panel from lowering, Mage reached out with metal to hold the piece up as it was blasted with lasers.
"This siege will not cease anytime soon!" Sun shook his head, "We must come up with a plan to stop them from endlessly rebuilding themselves before we exhaust everything!"
"Y-Yeah…" Mage showed that, along with blood, his body was dripping with sweat, "I'm almost at my limit here!"
Sun tried to peer over the side of their cover, only to be met with lasers. He hefted his sword's blade up overhead and began to fire concentrated beams of light from the blade. None of them managed to strike their targets. Sun crouched back down as Cryptor hovered in the air, watching them struggle to his utter amusement.
"I-I know one element that'll work on Cryptor but not the others!" Mage's eyes turned violet, "B-But I need time to prepare it! W-We need some sort of distraction!"
"Is that not what we are, my friend?" Sun chuckled bitterly, "What do you need? Tell me and I will give it."
"I-I need a minute! Just a minute!" Mage declared, "Just, buy me a minute and I promise, I can stop this!"
Sun looked to Mage, who gave him a determined, if weak, smile. Seeing the boy's fire, Sun found a smile filling his own lips again. He focused hard, then his sword began to trace ribbon in the air again. He leapt up on top of their cover, raising his blade up and charging it with light.
"Come and get me!" Sun shouted, "If you truly are superior to man, then prove it!"
Sun soon was running. The Nindroids were firing at him at all angles, but Sun refused to stop. He leapt from the cover and began to leap from head to head of the Nindroids, spinning his body in the air. It was at times like these he wished he had Nya's ability, as his reflexes were getting weaker as time went on. He was throwing his body in and out of the attacks of the Nindroids, leaping to and fro within them. If he could keep their targeting computers on him, they wouldn't have the foresight to go and attack the prone Mage!
"How cute," Cryptor chuckled, "A last ditch attempt to use your now worthless power! Machinery is far superior to the flesh, Sun! I only regret that I am an imperfect fusion of it myself. The Emperor has granted me the power, the tools, the resources to do as I must! I am one of the Emperor's most powerful hands! He has given me all I need, and now it is time for you to feel that yourself! Starting with your little friend here!"
Sun saw that Cryptor had turned his left hand into a cannon that was powering up in Mage's direction. Mage had his hands to his head, his eyes sparking violet as he worked. Cryptor was fully ready to take the boy out while he could.
Suddenly, Sun's sword came flying straight for Cryptor. It lodged into his cannon arm, the ribbon of light still trailed with it. Sun reached his hand up and closed his fist, causing the ribbon to explode. All around the room, the ribbon burst and staggered the Nindroids, but their shields absorbed the impact. Cryptor, having no such enhancements, had his entire armor on his left arm completely blown apart. The sword's blade vanished and the hilt went flying in the air in the aftermath. Sun quickly raced over to catch it, jumping into the air and rolling on the ground to do so. He stopped on one knee and held his blade out, even as three Nindroids surrounded him and aimed their weapons at him.
"Gyyaaahhh!" Cryptor's voice went on the fritz for a few moments, "Why… why you… ahaha…. No, this is perfect1 It's even more data, more information! I've almost completely perfected the design already, by the time this fight is over, the emperor will never need to fear you! You have lost, Sun! You have already lost!" Cryptor threw his head back in an evil laugh, all while more and more Nindroids came around to surround Sun threateningly.
"I-I have bought you all the time I could, Mage," Sun closed his eyes, "Whatever you have planned, do so now!"
Suddenly, Mage's eyes flared open, looking straight at Cryptor. Cryptor's massive laughter cut off as he looked down at Mage, confusion evident in his frozen posture. Mage continued to stare at him, even as other Nindroids came up to surround Mage. Cryptor continued to remain frozen, then he laughed, "H-Haha! Fool! What did you think that you would-"
Suddenly, Cryptor's body went numb. The general went flying right for the ground, crashing into it with a massive crunch. Sun stared at Mage in complete shock. The Nindroids in the room froze as well as their orders from the commander suddenly cut out.
"M-Mage?" Sun gasped, "Mage, what did you do?"
"M-My body!" Cryptor shouted, "W-Why can't I move my body?! What did you do to me, you brat?!"
"Y-You like to talk about how great these metal guys are, but you're still a person, meaning you still need your body!" Mage grinned, "The Mind Tribe has this neat little trick they use where if you blast someone's mind hard enough, it'll disconnect them from their limbs! Right now, your mind and body aren't connected!"
"W-What?" Sun gulped, "H-Have you killed him, Mage?!"
"What, no!" Mage shouted back, "It's just to make it so he can't call for anymore Nindroids!"
"W-Whatever this trickery is, it won't matter," Cryptor chuckled, "Soon, my Nindroids will send signals to have even more flood this room. All I need to do is wait for them to arrive, and then!"
The entire building rocked. A series of massive explosions all went off one after the other, each one nearly deafening Mage and Sun. The two covered their ears as the building rocked with each one. The Nindroids' eyes began to spark and they doubled over in turn. The explosions kept coming, each one making the room rock more. The panels that covered the window fell away, revealing the glass once more. All around the room, panels broke and fell down into the abyss below as each explosion felt like it was ready to rip them from the building itself.
Both Mage and Sun felt an elation in their chests. Monty and the others had succeeded in their job! The two nodded to each other, then spun around on one foot and both went racing right for the window. Each time the building rocked, it nearly threw them off their feet. More Nindroids fell over in the chaos, their systems going haywire as the central building network collapsed.
"W-What have you done?!" Cryptor shouted. One burst knocked the mask off, causing Borg's face to be seen underneath.
Sun stopped beside Borg, smirking at him, "It seems you will need to ask for more from the Emperor now! Your Hand has been crippled, Borg!"
Borg tried to lash out at Sun, but his body wasn't moving. Sun and Mage went running straight for the broken window, then leapt through it into the air. For a few moments, the two drifted in the open air, gravity begging to take hold of them. Borg was able to just barely see them in the reflection of a small shard of glass on his desk.
With a rumbling of jets, the Destiny's Shadow shot up from the sky to catch Mage and Sun. Borg let out a roar of anger as Lloyd piloted the ship straight up and over the top of the building. Once the two had stopped rolling over the deck, they used the railing to stand up and look down. All across the other side of the building, plumes of smoke and flame were breaking out. Several chunks of wall had already fallen away, and from the way Nindroids on the ground were jerking around, it looked like their network was compromised as well.
"Where is Monty?!" Lloyd shouted.
From a recently broken out hole on perhaps the fifth story, a large burst of wind filled the air. Seeing that as his target, Lloyd directed the Shadow straight down towards the area. Sun and Mage held on as they rapidly descended, the wind rustling past them. More explosions tore apart the walls of the building, forcing Lloyd to swerve back and forth to avoid them. Just as they reached the hole, Monty leapt out of the wall, wind around his body to soar him backwards away form the window with SoS in one hand and pistol in the other firing away. Kai and Jay were forced to jump out as well just before a large burst inside of the hole charred them. The Shadow swooped down and caught all three of them -the SoS namely for Monty- and quickly took off.
"I thought the plan was to shut down the facility, not blow it up!" Lloyd shouted as they quickly soared away.
"I-It was!" Jay shouted, "I wanted to just shut it down but, then Kai here got our cover blown and I needed something to set off the system! If I had time I could have just-"
"The Nindroids fired at us and we used them to turn the computers into a bomb!" Kai shouted out, "Monty's plan!"
"Yeah," Monty sat up, "He won't be making anymore Nindroids anytime soon. Now let's get out of here before what's left of them come after us!"
Lloyd nodded his head in agreement, sending the Shadow speeding away from the destroyed facility. As they fled to safety, the first leg of their mission was done. The first step to defeating the Emperor had been put into motion.