Critical Faliure

[Shalltear Bloodfallen]

[color="#8B0000"][i]"So this is the Collective?"[/i][/color] Lazaruz thought for himself, slightly creeped out by how those things were acting in almost perfect unison.
His first thought when the men and women, obviously being collective, appeared on the other levels had been to attack,
however, the way they spoke suggested a unified inteligence, fitting the name, and could probably swarm the place in minutes if trouble arose, supposed that they hadn´t already called for more.

He watched as one of the others walked up to the kid standing in the door and tried to get him to move.
[color="#8B0000"]"I don´t think it´s wise to get close to those things"[/color] He spoke, clearly doing his best to remain calm.
These things were a threat that needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.

Another circle of red letters appeared around Lazaruz´ right hand and reshaped themselves to unintelligible words that
circled around his hand, ready to fulfill their purpose as soon as the energy they were made of was allowed to escape.
With this, he was ready incase those things would try anything fishy.

[Dwarven King]

DK picked himself up from the rubble. He then looked at Grey and said "You should be lucky the careless guy moved the rubble. Otherwise I would have had to dig myself out and knock your brains out for trying to strike a deal like that!" with anger laced in his voice.

DK turned away from Grey and took a deep breath. He needed to calm down so he could think straight. Then he looked up and noticed the boy standing in the doorway talking to gray. He then looked up and saw other people crowding around the hole.

"Well, it looks like we found the collective." he said. "But luckily for you lot, I'm a brilliant strategist! I'll get us through that door!"

He brought his hand up to his chin and started scratching it while pondering the situation as one of the others tried being nice to the boy. DK tilted his head while looking at the boy and taunting him, then turned and looked at the whole room. His face was squished together showing that he was thinking quite hard.

"Well, I got nothing. Anybody else have any ideas in case the fool that caused the explosion makes them mad?" he asked.

(OOC: There, I changed it. >.>)

[GreyCat]

"It's what I do," Grey grinned and shrugged, though he was still focused on the white clad people lining the two damaged levels above them. He counted fourteen; four on the left side directly above them, six on the right, three and one on the level above. Fifteen in all, counting the boy at the door. And Vicky was on the surface. Maybe she could be of help.

The boy ignored DK's taunts and walked over to Kris. "Such interesting abilities. Yet I do not know you. You would be of such value to us." He reach up and touched Kris's face. His fingers glowed faintly with blue light and strange coding ran down his sleeve to the his hand. There was a flash, the sound like a breaker blowing and the boy reeled back. He looked up at Kris with a mix of curiosity and fear. "I cannot probe you. I cannot learn of you." His remarks were repeated in the numerous voices of those gathered above. Then dawning realization. "You are one of them. You all are. One of his." The boy backed away and raised his hand. This time, a glow wasn't so faint. In fact, it looked down right ominous. To Grey at least. "You are not of the Collective. You will join us or be destroyed."

[Dwarven King]

"Oh great, ye went and made them mad! Good going Kris! At this rate, we will be safer than a babe in it's mother's arms!" DK yelled with sarcasm.

Suddenly, DK's eyes lit up as he thought of a brilliant idea. "I say we throw Grey at them so he can distract them while we escape! Don't worry, he has eight lives left. He will be fine. All in favor?" DK looks around and sees no hands go up.

"Well you lot are no fun!" DK mumbled. "Any other ideas?"

[The Warden]

Broken moaned as he picked himself up. Being smashed under a rock twice is usually grounds for death, thank god for computer land. With ahead shake, he cleared his thoughts, maybe he was hallucinating, but there was a creepy little boy in the room feeling up one of the other people. [i]'Join the collective?'[/i] Broken thought, regarding his hands.

If you could see it, he would have grinned. 'I'll sign up, so long as the others are allowed free passage out of this room and away from your prying eyes' he stated.

[Reinforce]

Asmodeus had stayed with his dark wings wrapped around his body as the rubble exploded outwards, before finally picking himself off the floor and stretching the wings out to return the curculation to them. "Whoever you are kid, you should go away before someone here accidently hits you with exploding rubble." with that, Asmodeus looked meaningfully at Kris as he said it. "Who are the collective anyway, are they like some sort of group that controlls peoples minds or something."

As the rubble had blasted away, it had revealed a metal plate over a hole in the floor, a quick piece of alchemy that Judas had managed to whip up to protect himself. "Damn rubble, I was wondering when I was going to be able to get out of that protection, especially if people couldn't see me underneath the metal plate and the rubble so thanks Kris, even if the others don't think so I am grateful to you for removing this rubble."

[Justice Master]

He watched some of the others as they tried to not get into a fight with the group blocking them. Xel didn't use the same philosophy as them. To him, ones who defied his group's desires were the enemy. Of course, that was to an extent. Nevertheless, he didn't hesitate to scan through the groups files. Protected. Dammit. Over looking that failure, Xel proceeded to look through the files of the area that surrounded the enemy. Corrupted, or in his case, unhackable. Amazingly, though, it seemed as if some of the files were just incomplete. These events all added up to what it seemed fate wanted him to do, go head on with an attack. He leaped onto the remaining wall, running across it, before diving straght at the boy.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Vicky dropped down in front of the Collective boy, taking off her hood to reveal a face with red designs tattooed onto it, but what was most disturbing was the fact that her eyes, instead of having whites like a normal human being, were black. [color=#800080]"Sorry, but these humans are mine. Not yours."[/color] She then grinned. [color=#800080]"However, I have to thank you for supplying me with so much ammunition."[/color] She used her abilities to pick up the rock that was pinning Broken down and threw it at the boy and some members of the Collective like a giant bowling ball, and they were the pins.

Itsu nodded, holding him tightly. [color=#FF0000]"I'm fine. Thank you."[/color]

[Magnet Soldier]

Kris jumped, shocked by the hand that was touching his face. It was cold, lifeless, and made him think of Zombies. These creatures were Human once, but it was hard to imagine. Kris shivered and dropped down to the floor, sweat dripping from his face and his breathing hard. "Who....who are..." He stopped as he heard the word 'Collective'. "Now I get it." Kris muttered, standing up again, before walking to his left a few steps, coming in the way of both the giant rock and Xel. [i]"Stop."[/i] He uttered, again with an Amplified voice that Echoed around the room. "These people are Humans. Or atleast, they were. I cannot allow you to kill them." Kris said, his voice no longer amplified. However, his muscles ran out just as the rock plummeted towards him, making him incredibly vulnerable. Of course, though, the Journal has to interfere. Out of nowhere, the Journal appeared in front of Kris, blocking the rock, allowing Kris time to turn and block Xel's attack. However, Kris simply stared at the book with his eyes wide open. When he blinked, though, the book was gone. And the Boulder was seemingly paused infront of his face. "What the...."

((Now the Book Plays the Hero.))

[Dwarven King]

DK looked over at Kris and the floating boulder. He stared for a few seconds, then started scratching his head.

"Did ye book do that?" he asked in complete shock. "If it did, I wanna know how! And then I wanna know why the bloody thing won't just poof us out of here!"

DK glared at where the book was. "I hate magical things. It's like they enjoy messing with ye!" he exclaimed.

(OOC: Your book annoys me and entertains me all at once, lol)

[Shalltear Bloodfallen]

Lazaruz couldn´t do much else than stare as a book, appearing out of basicaly nowhere and completely on its own, managed to stop the boulder that Vicky had sent towards Kris and the boy from the Collective.

[color="#8B0000"]"They may have been humans some time ago"[/color]
The string of red letters, guided by his right hand, changed from a perfect circle to a string that went from the roof to the floor.
As their power was released, the traditional burst changed into a sickle shape that perfectly split the boulder, howering in front of Kris, in half, and not affecting the human and boy behind it.
[color="#8B0000"]"But right now they are our enemy and will likely swarm the place if we don´t get out of here quick"[/color]
He turned his around and with a minor jerk, sent away another bunch of letters, these ones connected as a circle, up through the hole in the roof and towards the Collective members standing around the edges on the levels above.

A circular release would hit all of the collective members but it would cost in power due to the lack of focus.

[GreyCat]

Grey was really annoyed. And not just from DK's suggestion. These guys all had impressive abilities. Gravity, alchemy, exploding letters, weird books. He, Xel and DK were the only really normal ones in the group. Well, he was half normal at least. Speaking of which. The Collective were knocked back by the force of Lazuruz's move, though the boy on their level intercept it with some blue energy blast. But taking the advantage Lazaruz's move created, Grey swarmed up the hole; using the rugged sides as foot and hand holes. Reaching the level with only one Collective, he kicked the guy down into the hole. He landed hard and didn't move. Huh, falls could hurt them. Good to know.

"I see your answer," the boy stated. He raised his hand again and the blue light gathered once more, backing towards the door and away for the group. The Collective that didn't get too stunned from the attack followed suit. "Because you are resisting, we will be force to use force to integrate your minds into the Collective. Our forms are incidental, no more than effects of the source of our coding. We are no more human that you are. No, Excepting the one you expressed willingness to join us, you will be destroyed, your data and coding absorbed and put to use for the cause of our Master." The reason the boy backed away was made clear. It was not fear, just making room. Burst of blue fireballs shot from the hands of the collective down into the hole, heedless of their companion Grey knocked into the mix.

[Dwarven King]

"Blue fire balls!" exclaimed DK. "Gah! I hate magic and anything resembling magic!"

DK looked up at Grey and hollered "Stay right there and start catching!" DK then looked at the guy trying to give himself up for the greater good. "No use in ye sacrificing yourself when they are coming for us anyway!" he yelled at him. He then turned back to the others and said "Ye you can either sit here and do whatever, and you get get up there with cat boy! Looks like he is at the safest place!"

DK then too off as fast as he could and started climbing up to the floor he was at.

[Reinforce]

"Damn, time for some more instant alchemy then." Reaching down, Judas cast his power into the rocks and, without using any pentagon, pulled up a large metal shield to deflect the fireballs. "Those of you avatars who want some protection can come over here, and shelter behind the shield with me, those who can fight and defend at the same time, try to fight these collective and their blue fireballs off."

Realising that the fireballs were only flying around the floor on the bottom floor, Asmodeus stretched out his wings and flew up into the air, to get away from them. He was content to hover there though, as he didn't have any sort of attack he could use and didn't care for the safety of the other avatars.

[The Warden]

Broken made a small impressed noise. Naturally fire is to be avoided, so he made the effort to dash at the boy, he seemed to be the loud mouth of the Collective, so, why not give him something to cry about. The sigils on his hands glew once more as he approached the boy and slowed himself by sliding, until he was right in front of the Breacon, but still moving. 'Heart Shock' he cried, pressing his hands up to the boy's chest. Boy, this was going to hurt, I mean, hurt a frickin lot.

[GreyCat]

The Beacon blasted Broken with a blue fire ball directly to the chest, the same as Broken was trying to do, but there was no avoiding the shock Broken had in store for him. The pulse coursed through him, through every code and data fragment in his being. Then, when he thought it was over, it got worse. Something snapped. And he was alone. Alone in darkness. Alone in nothingness. Lost. Those few seconds, milliseconds, microseconds were hell. His fingers brushed Broken and reflex made him try to probe. Normally, it would not have worked, but the shock acted a link to the avatar, and the Beacon meet a rush of images, feelings, emotions that only made his purgatory that much worse. Then he he slipped into the blessed nothingness of unconsciousness.

The Beacon fell. An expression of pure horror frozen on his face, even more disheartening that the blankness he showed before. He toppled over Broken like a rag doll. The Collective at the edges of the hole froze. Hands still held upright to fire the blue balls at them, but there was no sign of life within them. With the Beacon, their modem in the Collective's hive mind if you will, to the main collective down, their minds were blank. And they would be until he regain consciousness or another link was provided. Grey looked up from we he ducked for cover. "Well, that was different. They are just... standing there." He hung down from the edge and nudged the closest immobile form. It toppled over like a mannequin. That'd work. "Can we get moving, or would you rather wait here to how long it takes for them to reboot?"

[Dwarven King]

DK stopped half way through his climb and stared at the Collective. They were all just....standing there. It was like someone killed the brain. [i]Weird.[/i] he thought to himself. Then he continued to climb up to where Grey was at.

"Can we get moving, or would you rather wait here to how long it takes for them to reboot?" yelled Grey.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I'm coming!" DK yelled back as he finally made it to where Grey was at.

[The Warden]

Broken felt the agonizing touch of fire, he was not having much of a good day. 'Ooowww' he groaned, his chest was already tender from getting crushed, and now that. But, thankfully it seemed that his plan worked, the strange child toppeled onto him and was completely out of it, like the other Collective. Shoving the kid off, he stumbled to the nearest bit of rubble and tried climbing. 'Get moving' he ordered, casting a look back to the kid. 'He should be out of it for a short while, enough time for us to escape. But not enough time if you waste it.' He continued to climb at a slow pace.

[Reinforce]

Asmodeus flew over to the ledge Broken, Grey and DK were climing towards, "I'm coming, anything to get away from those collective." he said as he landed and waited for them to reach the top.

Judas saw that the threat had been neutralised so, before trying to reach the top, he grabbed the two items he had transmuted earlier and, quickly drawing two transmutation circles, changed them into a sword and a retractable grappling crossbow. Now running towards the rock pile, he sheathed the sword and fired the crossbow up into the roof on that ledge, before letting it sprind out securely, retract and pull him up as it did. Once up, he flicked another switch in the crossbow and had the grappling hook on the end release its hold on the roof to let him land on the ground just past the ledge.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Vicky had assisted them by throwing rocks at the heads of the Collective members, and had a ring of torso-sized boulders floating around her to use as emergency ammunition. She saw that Itsu and Spartan apparently had no way out, so she pulled them towards her, then pushed them up and out of the hole, having them land safely up at the top. She then pushed herself up to join them, and fired a few of her boulders at the Collective members at the top, aiming for their heads. [color=#800080]"Anyone need some help?"[/color] She called down to those climbing up.

Itsu had clung to Spartan as they traveled up, and now that they had gently landed on their feet at the top of the hole, she asked him. [color=#FF0000]"Umm...can I...?"[/color]

[Magnet Soldier]

Kris blinked as Broken moved past him, watching him attack the boy through the corner of his eye. He watched the boy fall, in slow motion, but knew that the kid was not dead. Something made him think that. He reached down for his pouch, making sure the Journal was still there. For all he knew, the Book had been there all along. "Lets get going." Kris said, quietly, before running towards the nearest wall, jumping and climbing up to the same floor as Grey and D.K. "We're fine down here!" Kris called up to Vicky. "We should split up. Look for one of those Terminal things. Your group can go search outside, we'll search on this floor!" He called, before pulling out his Journal. "Communication." Was the word he wrote down, and out popped - to his delight - a pair of Walkie Talkies. "Here!" Kris shouted, throwing one of them up. "Call us on that if you find anything." He said, placing his own in a pocket on his Jeans.

[The Warden]

Broken managed to get to the third floor, before collapsing. He felt at the burn on his chest, making slight hurt noises as he felt it over. 'Whatever these Collective use, it's not very pleasant' he commented. Trying to keep his breathing in check, his chest rose and dropped slowly, but his heart was still beating fast. 'I'd say, we'd have about five minutes before they reboot themselves, from what I reckon. It could be longer, or shorter. But, five is the best we got' he added, although certain parts of his speech may have been muted by panting.

[GreyCat]

"So we are splitting up?" Grey asked lazily, but with some interest. He really had no idea what they were to do next, but the suggestion to find a terminal was good. That way, he could chew out the guy at the other end of the screen. Really, a virus, a rock fall then the Collective? Whoever was running this thing must have a mean streak. Either that or he was a jerk. Grey did a quick head count. Twelve avatars, so six per group? He didn't make any suggestions, but he hoped a couple of the hard hitters were heading into the facility. So far, Dk with his axe (yet to be used) and broken with his killer touch of death. He guessed he would tag along with them. If anything, he would use DK as a shield to buy Broken some time to use that death touch.

[Dwarven King]

"Eh, I still think splitting up is a bad idea. But if that's what you want, then so be it!" DK said. He turned to Grey and Kris. "I assume you two are with me? Good! I'll lead. Kris, you should bring up the rear. Mostly because I want the book away from me! First it disappears, and now it spawns two walkie talkies! Seems unpredictable to me, and I don't wanna be near it when it decides to spawn a hungry beast!" He exclaimed as he turned to everyone else. "So who else is coming with us?" he asked as he spawned his Axe and held it out in front of him ready to use. "I'm ready to go!"

[Spartan919]

Spartan looked at Vicky for a moment. "I was perfectly capable of jumping out of there," he said. "There was no need for you to expend yourself on my part, or this lady's." At this, he nodded to the girl who clung to him. "But...you did it anyway, so...Thank you." Then, he turned his attention to Itsu. "Can you...? What?" He stared at her, and felt the heat raise on his cheeks; again, he was glad that the visor was polarized and his face was hidden. He could feel her gripping him tightly, but he was hardly holding her anymore, really just supporting her weight so she wasn't holding her entire body up. [i]Not that she's heavy at all.[/i]