Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Hahahahaha..." Twelve's hand went to his face as he chuckled it up in all too stereotypical style, "You have no idea how correct you are. Here I have you restrained physically and with a hallucinogenic fever. You saw the city on the way in here, you know what we're capable of, and here I am no more than a nasty flu. I said it already, if I could turn you into a half-perfect half-demon killing machine I would have already. But you're going to have to face the facts."

The restraining tendrils tightened more, inched inwards to gain a more complete grip. Stryphe could feel one cold slithering appendage make it's way around his neck.

"There's a reason Joseph sent you, and it has nothing to do with your abilities." The viral core was staring the demon down, looming in the distance, "Your failure would leave no mark. Not to the company as you have no connection... But also you can't make this problem any worse. No, I can't use you as my weapon, you're immune. Between the prolonged exposure to my and the other's presence, all I can do is make you..."

The tendril around Stryphe's neck tightened to the point short sharp breaths were all capable.

"Uncomfortable."

--- --- ---

"The plan is simple" Agent, the fellow covered in either clothing or facialy concealing gauze, "Myself and Mr. Black will be infiltrating the tower. Firstly to retrieve the missing agent, then to complete his objective, and finally... There is a failsafe built into the tower that very well could destroy the viral core. We will be aiming to activate this failsafe, as without the core the creatures will quickly fall to the ADF."

"You crews up here will be making things easier on Mr. Black and myself. We need you to pound the city with as much distraction as you possibly can. Keeping in mind you should use only incinerary or laser based weaponry. We can't risk raising a cloud of dust and spores that will spread across Gaia. This is one of the reasons we haven't taken the "nuclear" approach to this problem."

"Is this even a battleship?" Joseph whispered to someone at random.

"If there are no further questions, we will begin the mission as soon as possible"

--- --- ---

"So, Stryphe." The viral had gone back to sitting in his organic throne, "You have to have realized by now that this is Joseph's fault, correct? Without his continued research in this city I never would have been able to break into a lab full of such... wonderful... Samples and specimens."

"It's unfortunate they were trying to breed the weapon out of the virus... We do destruction quite well don't you think?"

"No," answered White with no sign of hesitation. Throughout the Agent's presentation he had stood at the control center and watched, listening to whatever information was given on the enemy that they were about to face. Going into this, they knew little other than that there was some type of infection spreading throughout the city that could take the form of or control larger objects. Thanks to this presentation they now had a more approximate idea of what they were getting into... and what they had to prepare in the time that it would take them to arrive at Agrippina.

"In much the same way that the viewscreen is not a map. The Paradigm wasn't designed to be a battleship, it's design is too inefficient for something like that."

The President stepped to the side, inputting commands into the controls for the viewing screen which changed the image to a schematic of the ship. Dozens of highlighted areas sprang up from the display, showing the status and payload of various armaments equipped upon the ship; both offensive and defensive.

"As long as the ammunition holds out this ship should be roughly on par with a naval warship, a small air field, or a battalion of heavy armor. However, our supply of incendiary weapons is limited to just these..."

The display shifted, showing the ship's payload of ground-combat flamethrowers, thermite warheads, and high-heat explosive rockets. The latter might not be appropriate for the situation because of the tendency for rockets to explode rather than burn, but as long as the fallout was kept within the city limits it should not have been an issue.

"As far as laser based weaponry there is not much aside from point defense. Beyond a certain range the effect won't be sufficient to penetrate properly. We would need to bring the ship in above the city to use them."

Orders were given, and several members of the crew began making calls throughout the ship to various sections; both preparing the ship to go into combat and preparing the appropriate weaponry. Explosive warheads needed to be exchanged out of the rockets for heat weapons, the ground troops would need to be armed, and they would need to prepare for the delivery of Agent and Black to the city.

"Gentlemen, I should hope that you have no objections to launching a pre-emptive strike from outside of the city."

"It's already being fitted. We had no intention of bringing the ship in close enough to extract you anyways. You will be supplied with a means into and a means out of the city but beyond that you are on your own."

The President replied with a flat and unsympathetic tone to Agent's request. The truth of the matter was that this had always been the plan: delivery into the city while remaining as undetected as possible and an escape that was equally as reckless, dangerous, and completely void of support from the ship. There would be a great deal of luck involved if they managed to survive long enough to worry about extraction anyways... best to not complicate things more than they had to be.

"I promise that it won't be a comfortable ride."

"So do we know where we're going yet?" James barged in through the deck doors catching only the tail end of the conversation. He was still wearing his coat, but underneath it he had on some odd-looking apparatus that hadn't been properly fitted yet. Obviously, two steps behind him were a pair of researchers begging him to slow down so that they could do the required fitting.

"You know, the important s**t. Where we're probably going to find the b*****d and where the nasties are probably going to come spilling out of if we ******** this up."

"Excited?" The sound of the variants voice bordered on sexual, "Oh, you don't know the half of it."

From the roof there was a shift and a satchel dipped from ceiling, and just dangled there as Twelve spoke. Then with the sound tendons cutting followed by a fleshy thud the sack fell to the ground next to Twelve. There was a gleam it those dead eyes and a fanged grin. His right arm exploded through the lab coat's sleeve into a swarm of tendrils, each one setting to work piercing and wriggling into the fleshy sack.

Within moments the sack burst as Twelve pulled his new appeandge to the side of his body. It was like a viral canon, veins pulsing up the barrell and chitin like spines stabilizing it. The whole thing was all too deformed looking.

"Still." Twelve spoke between breaths, "I can't beleive you haven't gotten it yet."

The cannon was pointed at Stryphe, and soon three long spines were shot forward in rapid succession. Move or be impaled.

--- --- ---

"As professional as always Mr. Black." Agent spoke dryly of the man that just burst into the room, "But I have explained the important s**t to the crew already. Though what we will encounter is much different than what they will."

The bandaged man walked to where James was and kept a careful eye incase Mr. White pointed them somewhere.

"I can explain as we walk." The bandages shifted where a mouth would be, into what vaugley was a smile. Seems Agent had as little regard to the people tailing James as the man did himself.


"So. Mr. White." Somehow, someway, Joseph conjured up somewhat of a businesslike demeanour, "When you're ready to move your troops, I'll move mine. They're likely not as highly trained as yours, but they've been fighting the virus exclusively for the past little bit. So between them and my robots they should give your fellows enough of a boon not just to get in the way."

T-T-TUNK!

The spines punched into the wall behind the half-demon, sailing over his head as he crouched low, emerald green ether trails dissipating in his wake, his left side screaming the entire time.

C-CRACK

Their was a sharp, percussive blast like bottled thunder as the Lancer sprung from his coils, the demonic energy lighting up like a storm cloud around his eyes in that split second. Growling through his teeth, the half-demon sailed horizontally through the air, torquing his body counterclockwise and adding a barrel-roll effect to the sideways leap in a rare display of his agility.

In those final moments before he'd land, facing the ground, Stryphe spread out his hands and feet as if to land on all fours, his limbs reaching for all the crazy momentum and control they could- but it was more than the hole in his left side would stand. Instead of catching himself, the half-demons left arm and leg gave out on him once they met the floor. In panic, he'd let out a cry of "********" before rolling onto his left shoulder and scrambling backwards, kicking away at the viral carpeting with his boots to get his back to the wall.

They had the whole room between them now, plus one other thing: the halberd in the half-demons right hand, butt end pressed against the floor to help the lancer to his feet. As his back slid up the wall, his frantic panting became slower, confident but slightly... shaky? The green flame in his eyes was gone now, leaving only solemnity and a fierceness that was ready for anything.

And was that fear?