Behind the Lines IC: Once upon a midnight dreary...

Exo sighed, deciding that the local bird population had been tourmented by flying grease rings enough for the moment. "Its not, the average person is recorded at least 48 times a day, and high risk people like us, more so. But not so much by our enemies, more so by our 'fans' and there are only two kinds of those, the ones that want to see if they can out smart you and the ones that swarm you with paparatzi. And its generally the later that kills the most." It said glumly, almost hopeing for one of the first kind of fan was listing in on their conversation so it had something to do. It needed something to do otherwise...

Xo'Kam's escape pod fizzled and burnt down through the surface of Icarus, landing on an island. The escape pod made a loud *SLAM!* when it hit the ground, which made birds in the nearby area take flight, and small animals scamper away.

Then, at the door of the pod, came a kick from the inside. Another bash and the door came flying off into the jungle. Xo'Kam jumped out, amazingly not sweaty inside his armor despite the heat increase as he plummeted down to Icarus, his armor's AC kept him cooled down.

The Black Ops alertly looked around himself, checking for any signs of hostile life.

None.

"Losses, exact number unknown. Escape pod brutally damaged, attacker also unknown. Blast, intel very lacking...." He noted. "Not good."

Later.....

After Xo'kam had explored a good bit of the surrounding area of the jungle and set up a perimeter outlined via sticks pushed somewhat into the ground, he decided to go out further. The Black Ops walked a distance until the faint sound of....chatter, and a crude music could be heard.

A town, perhaps? Maybe, but would it be hostile? Xo'kam's mind pondered these things as they went round in his head.

He kept going further towards the chatter and noises, until after perring through a brush actually saw a crude town of sorts. Their were strange inhabitants in it, most of them looked like thugs.

But of course, nothing he couldn't deal with. The Black Ops decided to walk out of the brush, and just plainly stroll around this town. Hopefully this would be a lot more inconspicuous than sneaking around. Xo'Kam didn't notice any of the looks the villagers gave him, he was used to being looked at nastily, and ignoring it, too.

Then the soldier spotted a sort of tavern, or pub.

"Possibly a good spot to get information, best chance of finding a way out of here, at the time." He noted to himself.

Capricorn, a planet in the Lone star system

"Archer actual, this is Archer 4-2 moving to target. over!"

Be quiet now. Crawl.... crawl.... crawl.... stop. What the heck was that?

"Roger that Archer 4-2. good hunting. over!"

ok. be quiet now... something's coming.... stay still....

A team of two New Jabban snipers crawled through the purple mud of planet Capricorn in full camouflage suits. They were in a section of woods that had been burned recently from a nearby volcano (capricorn is littered with volcanic activity). The sound came again, this time a good bit louder.

"Archer actual, this is Archer 4-2. Is there any volcanic activity in our region. over". A few moments of silence, then;

"Archer 4-2, this is Archer actual. There is no volcanic activity in your area. The scans are all clear. Maybe a tectonic shift or something? over."

imbeciles

"Roger that, Archer Actual. over and out".

the two continued their crawl through the woods when it came again, but worse. A horrible moaning sound reverberated between the trees, causing several to collapse into piles of ashes. The ground shook titanically.

oh s***

"Move!" One of the snipers rose and shoved his partner out of the way of a falling tree.

"screw it! Abort the mission! I'm not getting fried by magma!"

Then it came again. The ground moved so fast that the two were thrown high into the air. The trees all came down, smashing into each other and crumbling. The ground began to liquefy into a soupy purple mess from the quakes.

"Archer actual, this is Archer 4-2! Get us out of here!"

No response.

oh no...

"Archer Actual, this is Archer 4-2! We need evac stat!"

nothing.

"God d*****! We gotta get out of here Archey!" The two snipers ran for their lives, trying to stay up, avoid the trees, and not get sucked into the liquefying ground, which was difficult.

They eventually got out of the forest when it happened. Everything stopped. the shaking, the liquefying ground, the falling trees; everything came to a standstill.

Then CRRRRRRAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKK! The planet's crust broke in front of the sniper's eyes. They screamed as the they watched the ground disintegrate beneath their feet. The two ran as fast as they could, but to no avail. The ground itself fell to pieces and devoured them, burying their bodies in magma; unmarked graves. The crust exploded. chunks of rock flew into the atmosphere, taking satellites out of orbit. The entire western side of Capricorn exploded in magma and flying rock. A ball of silver metal broke through the lava, floating out into space. Without it's iron core, the planet's atmosphere dissolved and everything flew off planet. The crust (or what was left of it) collapsed in on itself. Nothing remained of the planet with the exception of the core, which floated through space like a ship, eventually traveling towards a fleet of Seytanbalik ships, which Kral Maxxus was commanding at the time. The magna ray turned off, and the core of the planet stopped a few hundred feet from the flagship, it's surface now cool from the freezing cold of space.

"Excellent!" the kral said. "the weapon is working!"

---

Myre got a call on his T-phone.
"Go for Myre," he said, picking it up. A series of yeah's, and uh-hu's and everything froze.
"Holy S***! I'm on my way sir!" Myre closed the phone, his face drained of all emotion.

"Exo, we've been relocated. You will not believe this!"

Vise frowned, not really aware of what was happening. He, however, was able to make an educated guess that it was serious. "Do you need help, or something? What's wrong?"

"Something big went boom I recon... something we didn't think would go boom." Exo said woefully disinterested, if something went boom, they were called in to investigate the crime scene and every time, no fail, the whole plan behind it all revealed itself to be nothing more than someone testing some super weapon, or blowing up some big important thing, all to start a war, or win one. Nothing more, no one ever went after the spies, the agents... it was totally unfair.

Xo'Kam stepped into the bar, keeping his hand near his deactivated energy sword incase trouble decided to strike. He observed the crowd, some of them were alike to the aliens out on the streets but some were different. Then he noticed a group of three aliens sitting together, one of them looked urgent. But Xo'Kam recognized one of the aliens. It was a Xikarian.

"Two unknown lifeforms, and one Xikarian. Hmm, perhaps on a mission? Perhaps...." He thought to himself.

Exo noticed that a Jorro'kil dressed in black ops armor had stopped and was staring at them, fingering a energy sward, deactivated at the moment. Normally, mental red flags would be waving with neon print that read "Danger! Stay 6 feet away at all times, more, if he has a gun." but this one looked like he had just crawled out of the jungle, and generally, Jorro'kil go in groups, especially that rank, so that meant he was probably a escapee or fugitive, possibly crashed here. So, he probably wasn't here to assassinate anyone, more, get back to where ever he came from.

The Black Ops, still closely holding his hand near his sword, approached the table with Exo, Myre, and Vise.

"Your group, quite an unexpected one in a place like this. Mind if I join?" Xo'Kam asked.

Myre glanced behind him to see a Jorro'kil soldier walk up and start to talk to them.
"eh, sure why not? Not like we're trying to save the world here or something!" he laughed and ordered the new guy a Crema, motioning to a bar stool to his right.
"so what brings a JL soldier around here?" Myre asked, ordering another Crema. "The JL aren't exactly liked in SeytanBalik territory, you know." he laughed a bit after he said this, as the rum in the Crema was getting to him.

Exo, who had somehow gotten ahold of the wi-fi key for the surrounding aria was obsessively blocking and unblocking people who tried to connect with the main grid, waiting till they started doing something important and then kicking them off the grid and deleting their progress. It was starting to get a bit fidgety, it needed something to do... now... when after 4 seconds no one opened anything important on the wi-fi, it drummed its fingers on the table and leaned back in its chair, as if observing the iPad from farther away would change the fact that no one was doing anything important. When the Jorro'kil sat down at their table, and Myre, ordered him his usual greeting drink, a Crema, and asked him about why he was here, completely oblivious to the fact that he was covered, head to toe in enough evidence of the fact that he had just emerged from the jungle, alone, to alert an half blind cod fish to where he had been and what he had been doing, it practically yelled, "Myre, you half blind cod fish! even normal people like you should be able to figure that out! He just came out of a jungle, a dense one, one that people don't normally go to, now why? you might be wondering with your simple brain, because if you had looked at how he holds his had near his sward, he's no on a mission, he's stranded, because if he was on a mission, he would have other Jorro'kil near him of the same rank, and as you know, this aria is not friendly towards them, and the fact that he is out in public verifies that he is not a refugee or part of an invading task force or anything! He was stranded here, how? an escape pod. 'Well Exo, how the h*ll do you know that?!' because thats the only way he would be here alone, in town in a pub, with is weapons. That, and a Jorro'kil ship was just wiped off the map not 4 hours ago. And by the way, theres a fly on the rim of your cup." Exo finished its rant, sitting back down in its chair and visibly deflating.

"He your friend?" Xo'Kam said to Myre. "And, yes, I suppose who would be right." The Jorro'kil admitted.

"Unknown attackers. it was a surprise assualt and my ship wasn't ready for it. Far as I know I'm the only one who made it off the ship before it....went down."

One of the waiters came by their table and set down two Cremas.

"Hmm, this doesn't have alcohol in it, does it? I'm eh, what you could call alergic to it. Far as I know all Jorro'kil are." Said Xo'Kam.

"And, these "Seytanbalik" of yours, never heard of them. They seem weak though, low priority targets, individually, I would say."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Heads all around the bar turned to look at the screaming frog thing. The bartender dropped the glass that she was cleaning, and went to brush up the broken glass.

All of a sudden, The wifi on Exo's iPad turned off. The device's screen began to change colors, and steam rise from it. Every electronic device in the cafe turned off. People began to panic, some jumping up from Their tables and leaving.

Then the fly exploded.

Myre went flying into the wall, knocking over a table and whacking his head on a chair leg. The bar counter shattered, sending marble fragments flying. The open air enterence to the cafe's inside was barred off by a group of twenty armed SeytanBalik. Behind them came a tall olive-colored Raitlen wearing a labcoat and holding a gun towards Exo.

"next time, make a harder firewall to crack Exo!" the Raitlen laughed.

Exo was knocked backward in its chair, toppling over so that is was flat on its back, it looked up at the tall figure, and what some might call a psychotic grin spread across its face as it retorted; "What if it was ment to be cracked, oh smart one?" it then did its mock thoughtful face, raising its hand and makeing a small pointing gesture towards Raiteln and concluded "Although... you probably already thought of that. Nice touch with the fly, by the way."

The Raitlen walked over to where Exo laid, two SeytanBalik guards on his left and right sides, their guns pointed at Exo's head. Not that Dr. Krius Yolan didn't know that Exo was regenerative, but it would still cause his adversary some pain in case he attacked. Krius reached for his pocket and pulled out what looked like a handgun with a satellite dish hooked to the front. He aimed it at the bartender and pulled the trigger. The dish lit up and a yellow laser hit the bartender. She screamed as her skin dried into leather and her blood clotted. Every bit of moisture was sucked out of her, leaving nothing but leather on bones.
"Don't try anything or that will be you!" Krius said, pointing the thing at Exo. "Your regenerative powers don't regenerate moisture, now do they?" The doctor laughed and began to pace in circles around the fallen Exo.
"So," he said, pointing his weapon at the unconscious Myre "How about you hand over that encryption code that you've been using to track the Core and I won't turn your buddy over there into a pair of leather boots!"

"Oh, come now, you know the only way your ever gonna get the code is if I tell you it. And, if you kill him, you can torture me all you wan't and I'll never talk. Thats the advantage to being insane, you don't have sympathy." Exo said, managing a cheesy grin, and was even able to say it a kind of sing-song voice that was extremely irritating. "But, if your so smart as to track me down, then you probably already knew that." It stated, its grin evaporating and its voce now dead pan and had lost its taunting edge entirely, before it switched instantly back to the overly animated sing-song voice "The o-only way, your eeeever gonna get the cccode, is if I wwwant to giiive to toooooo you!"

"That can be arranged!" Krius laughed and motioned to one of the guards, who fired their weapon at Exo. The dart hit it in the head and injected five ounces of Azulan spider venom into Exo's blood stream. Krius pulled a vial out of his pocket that contained more azulan spider venom; the antidote.

"You have, I'd say... a minute until you die. Give me the code, and I'll give you the antidote!" Krius laughed.

"Nope, I have the code, its in my head, and my head only, you kill me, you kill the code." It stated calmly, gluons it was fun to dangle metaphorical carrots over peoples heads... it thought, as the venom took hold, slowly paralyzing its body, eventually it knew it would shut down all neurological functions, effectively killing it. "You know, I've used this same venom in a Schrödinger's cat experiment a few months ago... nearly died from it..." it muttered, Krius's face now swimming in front of its eyes, as black started to creep into its vision, but it refused to say anything, even if it could save its life, the last thing it wanted was anyone knowing what the code was.

Krius dangled the antidote over Exo's face, waving it back and forth like a pendulum.

"Tick tock Exo!" he said, "you're time is running out!" He then motioned to the two guards, who grabbed Myre and began to drag his body off. Three more guards came and replaced them.

Xo'Kam had instinctively jumped from the table when the explosion occurred, and he was propelled behind the bar. Glasses and bottles of drink smashed and fell all over him, but his armor protected him.


The Jorro'kil could hear a continuing conversation from behind the bar. Obviously one that was meant to be intimidating, but from what he could tell the one they called "Exo" was keeping cool.

The Black Ops tried to activate his energy sword, but it sparked and fizzled when he tried to use it.

"Great, weapon currently useless, enemy numbers most likely overwhelming, course of action quite narrowed." He thought to himself.

Vise got up. A shard of glass had cut him, but he had seen, and had, worse injuries. He simply stared at the cause of the disturbence. He silently growled. He didn't really understand what was going on, but he felt that he had to help somehow. Vise considered taking his micromusket from his backpack. His mind suddenly jumped from fighting to Exo.

"You have, I'd say... a minute until you die. Give me the code, and I'll give you the antidote!"

It seemed as if it was up to him. He didn't know what to do, though. Create a distracton, perhaps? His mind whirled.

Exo looked at the antidote, in all honesty, it was slightly tempting, but the fact that Krius had bothered to get ahold of the expensive substance, EMP the building all for a code which may or may not exist, ment that the code was worth more to him than its life ever would. But, it thought, its vision going dark, giving it less than 10 seacond to answer, if it died, he would never get the code, and it was willing to bet its life that he would give it the antidote at the last possible seacond so as not to loose the information it had.

Vise took action. He pulled out his micromusket, which worked, because it ran on limited gunpowder reserves. It was rather primitive, but it was as accurate as heck. "Give Exo the antidote, now!" Vise honestly didn't care if he was captured, or even killed, at this point. He opened fire at Krius.

Krius got hit in the shoulder. he cried out in pain and went to grab the wound, dropping the antidote into Exo's hands. He collapsed to the floor, and yelled for the guards to attack. All twenty guards rushed the cafe.

Xo'Kam decided now was a good time to fight, so he jumped up ontop of the bar counter, and allowed the Seytanbalik guards to spot him. One of them moved to take him, but he jumped down first next to it, spun around and grabbed the guard's neck with his arm. Xo'Kam squeezed, and next thing he knew the Seytanbalik's neck was broken, and it was dead.

"Now for the others." He thought.

(kinda tempted to force the equally deadly anti-venom down Krius's gullet, but then they'd both be dead, resulting in a reichenbach falls scenario, and, knowing how much i like paradoxes, after effect.)
Exo grabbed the vial, hastily uncorking it before the venom could completely paralyze its arms and poured the whole thing into its mouth. Gag, it tasted horrible...

Its arm floped limply to the ground, the vial shattering, as the effect of both the venom and anti venom canceling eachother out took place, temporarily knocking Exo out cold.